Cognitive closure (philosophy)

Problems of inquiry
Cognitive closure (philosophy) Cognitive bias (psychology) Empirical limits in science
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Cognitive closure refers to the possibility that certain problems cannot be explained by the human mind. In philosophy of science some have adopted the position that some problems are forever outstanding, and not because their solutions do not exist, but rather because the solutions cannot be properly conceived. This philosophical position is also sometimes called transcendental naturalism, anti-constructive naturalism, or new mysterianism. It proposes that the human mind is unavoidably biased, or "closed" in some areas of thinking, and so these areas then are forever mysteries. The most prominent defender of the cognitive closure thesis is philosopher Colin McGinn.^[1]

Overview

"It cannot be simply taken for granted that the human reasoning faculty is naturally suited for answering philosophical questions: the questions and their subject matter are one thing; and rational faculty, as a human trait, is another. From the fact that it is the best faculty we have for doing philosophy it does not follow that it is a remotely good or adequate faculty for that purpose."^[2]

Constant perplexity

There are perpetually unsolved problems in philosophy.^[2] In the book Problems of philosophy: the limits of inquiry, Colin McGinn describes the narrative:

"When human minds interact with philosophical problems, especially those of the form 'How is X possible?', they are apt to go into one of four possible states. Either (i) they try to domesticate the object of puzzlement by providing a reductive or explanatory theory of it; or (ii) they declare it irreducible and hence not open to any levelling account; or (iii) they succumb to a magical story or image of what seems so puzzling; or (iv) they simply eliminate the source of trouble for fear of ontological embarrassment. For ease of reference, I call this pattern of responses the DIME shape."^[3]

Cognitive closure is a suggested alternative to this pattern. That there is continued philosophical perplexity in some topics suggests that we may be victim to cognitive weakness or incapacity. Our "organ of reason" is insufficient for philosophical truth.

Consequence

The position is that there are things human beings are simply not able to know—not because we are non-creative, or lack enough time to figure them out, or even because the problems are even hard by some (imaginary) objective standard, but because our minds have limits and weaknesses, and fail us on some principles:

"Just as a dog cannot be expected to solve the problems about space and time and the speed of light that it took a brain like Einstein's to solve, so maybe the human species cannot be expected to understand how the universe contains a mind and matter in combination."^[4]

It is important to note that according to this position things may still behave in a standard scientific (mechanical) way, independent of our lapse in its cognition. This thesis suggests no strange metaphysics and is consistent with scientific investigation, even the idea of Evolutionary Logic.^[2]

Support

John Tyndall

Written in 1871:

"the passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought, and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass, by a process of reasoning, from the one to the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling, we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, "How are these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness?" The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable. Let the consciousness of love, for example, be associated with a right-handed spiral motion of the molecules of the brain, and the consciousness of hate with a left-handed spiral motion. We should then know, when we love, that the motion is in one direction, and, when we hate, that the motion is in the other; but the "Why?" would remain as unanswerable as before."^[5]

Kant and Noumena

As argued in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, human thinking is unavoidably structured by Categories of the understanding:

Quantity – Unity, Plurality, Totality.
Quality – Reality, Negation, Limitation.
Relation – Inherence and Subsistence, Causality and Dependence, Community.
Modality – Possibility or Impossibility, Existence or Non-Existence, Necessity or Contingence.

These are ideas to which there is no escape, thus they pose a limit to thinking. What can be known through the categories is called phenomena and what is outside the categories is called noumena and is unthinkable, separate from the mind. Unfortunately for metaphysicians, this includes "things in themselves".

Wittgenstein and limits of language

Much like Kant, Ludwig Wittgenstein identifies a similar limit, though he articulates it not as a limit to thought, but as a limit to language. This is because a sentence makes sense just insofar as it refers to something meaningful. The limits of what exists in reality then are the same as the limits of sentences:

"in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense."^[6]

Thus, through the philosophical study of language, we can identify the boundaries of philosophical inquiry.

Chomsky

Noam Chomsky argues that the cognitive capabilities of all organisms are limited by biology, e.g. a mouse will not have human grammar. In the same way, certain problems may be beyond our understanding:

"A Martian scientist, with a mind different from ours might regard this problem [of free will] as trivial, and wonder why humans never seem to hit on the obvious way of solving it. This observer might also be amazed at the ability of every human child to acquire language, something that seems to him incomprehensible, requiring divine intervention."^[7]

By subject

According to McGinn, problems which the mind cannot grasp include: the mind-body problem, identity, meaning, free will, and the a priori.

The Mind-Body problem

Main article: New Mysterianism

In his (famous) essay "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" Thomas Nagel mentions the possibility of cognitive closure to the subjective character of experience and the (deep) implications that it has for materialist reductionist science. Owen Flanagan noted in his 1991 book Science of the Mind that some modern thinkers have suggested that consciousness will never be completely explained. Flanagan called them "the new mysterians" after the rock group Question Mark and the Mysterians.^[8] According to McGinn, the solution to the mind-body problem cannot be grasped, despite the fact that the solution is "written in our genes".

Emergent materialism is a similar but different claim that humans are not smart enough to determine "the relationship between mind and matter."

Criticism

Impossibility is an aggressively inductive claim. Critics of New Mysterianism argue that it is arrogant to assume that a problem cannot be solved just because we have not solved it yet. In response New Mysterians will say that it is just as absurd to assume that every problem can be solved. Crucially, New Mysterians would argue that they did not start with any supposition as to the solvability of these questions.

See also

• Inquiry
• Reductionism
• Dialetheism
• Mystical experience
• Uncertainty
• Strong agnosticism is a religious application of a similar position.
• Epistemological nihilism

References

1. ^ Errol E. Harris. Reflections on the Problem of Consciousness. 2006 p. 51
2. ^ ^{a b c} Colin McGinn. Problems in Philosophy: the Limits of Inquiry. 1993. p. 31. – "There is, I believe, a systematic pattern to philosophical disputation, in which the same kinds of unsatisfying alternatives recur;"
3. ^ Colin McGinn. The Problem of Philosophy. http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/consciousness97/papers/ProblemOfPhilosophy.html
4. ^ McGinn, Colin. The Making of a Philosopher, at 182
5. ^ Tyndall, John, Fragments of Science, 1871 (pp. 86-87)
6. ^ Ludwig Wittgenstein. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. s:Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
7. ^ Noam Chomsky. Language and problems of knowledge. 1988 p. 152
8. ^ Flanagan, Owen (1991). The Science of the Mind. MIT Press. p. 313. ISBN 0262560569. 

Other sources

• Blackburn, Simon (19??), Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy, chapter two
• Flanagan, Owen (1991), The Science of the Mind, 2ed MIT Press, Cambridge