I thought I would post something from a philosophy seminar I'm taking this semester.
In a reading last week, we covered Galen Strawson's Basic Argument:
1. We do what we do, in a given situation, because we are what we are.
2. In order to be ultimately responsible for what we do, we have to be ultimately responsible for what we are — at least in certain crucial mental respects.
3. But we cannot, as the first point avers, be ultimately responsible for what we are, because, simply, we are what we are; we cannot be causa sui.
4. Therefore, we cannot be ultimately responsible for what we do.
Ultimately, I wound up having to capitulate. At least until I find a working solution.
Just thought I'd throw this out there, since I don't think any of my readers philosophize regularly.
Cheers.
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2 comments:
I read this 4 times - I'm still confused. It's 7:08 AM too - that has a lot to do with it. I should read this again after 9 AM.
You have to read Mark Twain's "Man the Machine" (or "man as machine" or something? I read it a while ago) which may not help you if you're trying to disprove the above theorem, but which is totally, if depressingly, great.
It's like a Socratic dialogue format, I think, talking about basically this same thing: how there is no "you" which you have any right to claim credit (or responsibility) for because there is nothing in "you" which "you" have made -even your (illusory)ability to change yourself is not made by you, but only by your surroundings, history, experience, atoms, blah blah blah.
Going to read it again, I think, now that I mention it...... later
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