[Wittrs] Re: merelogical
- From: Glen Sizemore <gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 09:24:16 -0700 (PDT)
--- On Sat, 8/29/09, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Wittrs] Re: merelogical
To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Saturday, August 29, 2009, 5:01 PM
Sean:.. I think it means reification. If not, it is surely a cousin.
GS: The term mereological is often identified with a particular formalism for
the treatment of wholes and parts. However, the term is far older than that,
I'm pretty sure. Even if it is not, discussion of the relation between parts
and wholes has been around for millenia. The term recently surfaced as a
general term in the book by Bennett and Hacker. They spend a GREAT deal of time
talking about the "mereological fallacy" which is the practice of talking about
a part as if it was the whole. In particular talking about the brain, or parts
of the brain in the same terms that one uses to talk about the whole person
(i.e., saying things like the brain decides, or believes, or understands, or
sees, or thinks etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.). They argue that the practice is
widespread in neuroscience and talking that way is literal nonsense and leads
to scientific questions that meaningless. Needless to say, I concur. I have
read only excerpts from the book and
reviews, but it is stuff that Skinnerians have been saying for decades. I
think that the practice leads to a grossly-exaggerated view of how well we
understand the physiology of behavior. If one talks about parts of the brain as
people, it seems like one is making huge progress just to find some area that
appears to be involved in some sort of behavior. This, I think, is what is
responsible for the widespread hoopla over modern imaging studies. But the
problem is that it makes no sense to attempt a constitutive reductionism while
describing the parts in the same terms of that which is to be reduced! The
brain making decisions somehow explains people making decisions? This is
obviously absurd.
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