This is a past event
RIISS Beattie Lecture (8 May, 4-5.30pm)
‘Humean Chemistry’
James Beattie advised against extending the language of natural philosophy to the study of mind. For Beattie, such extension makes us prone to “mistake verbal analogies for real ones” and tempts us “to apply the laws of matter to the operations of mind”. By the time Beattie issued this warning in 1770, the conceptual and methodological integration of moral and natural philosophy had been a familiar and popular project with many enlightened Scots – and it was highly characteristic to Beattie’s philosophical arch-adversary: David Hume. In this talk, I will try to convince you that Hume’s account of the mental world is informed by a language that exhibits remarkable convergences with the language that William Cullen speaks when exploring the chemical world. For simple chronological reasons, Cullen could not influence the development of Hume’s thought. But Cullen was much more successful at synthesising existing chemical doctrines than delivering new insights, and it is far from implausible to suggest that their convergences are due to the inspirations that they derived from shared sources. At the same time, Hume’s philosophy could have influenced Cullen’s chemistry, and we have plausible reasons for thinking so. The talk will be divided into four parts. First, I explore their core metaphysical and epistemological commitments and argue that in this respect Cullen’s views on central questions of causation, induction, and scepticism can be aptly seen as Humean. This reflects their shared philosophical disposition that in itself does not show much about affinities in properly chemical respects, but it provides a general philosophical framework for those affinities. The second and third parts of the talk will explore these respects. In the second part, I will aspire to reveal methodological convergences arguing that the Humean analysis of the nature and composition of perceptions fits well with Cullen’s ideas on chemical analysis. In the third part I suggest that the foundational processes of the Humean mind are conceived on a chemical model and are conceptualized accordingly. The Humean model and conceptualization of mental phenomena converge with the view of chemical phenomena that Cullen synthesizes from chemical doctrines available at the time. Finally, I will outline the philosophical significance of conceiving the Humean mind as chemical instead of conceiving it, as is common wisdom, as a mechanical mind.
Venue: Humanity Manse Seminar room and via Teams
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Meeting ID: 344 440 611 974 0
Passcode: vV7eh7av
- Speaker
- Professor Tamás Demeter (Corvinus University of Budapest)
- Venue
- Humanity Manse Seminar Room and Teams