Philosophy seems to me to break down the world, ridding it of its mundane features and delving beneath to tackle the problems, which, although extremely complex and intricate, are those most fundamental at the heart of our existence. From my wider reading, it is evident that some philosophical discussions change and evolve with time, whilst others do not currently, and may never, find themselves satisfied solely with scientific discoveries and theories. It the philosopher’s role to analyse the basis of concepts postulated by different academic perspectives, whilst forming the foundations on which both those subjects and our entire worldly experience can operate. One such example of this is the concept of being human, in particular the moral
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My research into Dawkins’ popular, modern scientific view in ‘The Selfish Gene’ satisfied the problem of individual instances of altruism encountered by Hobbes, due to the distinction between selfishness at a genetic rather than personal level. Dawkins’ proposals present to me a number of philosophical problems. The individual can be considered as ethical, as an evolutionary tendency towards co-operation is as valid as all our other evolutionary characteristics. However, if that which is moral is merely the most evolutionarily stable strategy due to externally determined condition, can this be described as morality at …show more content…
This caused me to reflect upon the mind-body problem which I first became fascinated with whilst at Eton College University Summer School. The popular physicalist view held by those who advocate causal closure of the physical seemed to me insufficient to account of the ‘what it is likeness’ of subjective experience. It also conflicts with other presuppositions of everyday life, such as free will, the abandonment of which would effectively negate concepts of moral responsibility. Similarly, dualism presents to me the problem of the ability of the immaterial mind to affect the physical body. Instead, after reading Noam Chomsky’s ‘The Mysteries of Nature: How Deeply Hidden?’, which suggests our inability to fully comprehend the physical world results in failure to resolve the mind-body problem, I questioned whether the attempts of contemporary analytic philosophy to solve the placement problems arising from a physicalist perspective can ever yield any success. These are questions which I am interested to investigate further at Undergraduate level and
My research into Dawkins’ popular, modern scientific view in ‘The Selfish Gene’ satisfied the problem of individual instances of altruism encountered by Hobbes, due to the distinction between selfishness at a genetic rather than personal level. Dawkins’ proposals present to me a number of philosophical problems. The individual can be considered as ethical, as an evolutionary tendency towards co-operation is as valid as all our other evolutionary characteristics. However, if that which is moral is merely the most evolutionarily stable strategy due to externally determined condition, can this be described as morality at …show more content…
This caused me to reflect upon the mind-body problem which I first became fascinated with whilst at Eton College University Summer School. The popular physicalist view held by those who advocate causal closure of the physical seemed to me insufficient to account of the ‘what it is likeness’ of subjective experience. It also conflicts with other presuppositions of everyday life, such as free will, the abandonment of which would effectively negate concepts of moral responsibility. Similarly, dualism presents to me the problem of the ability of the immaterial mind to affect the physical body. Instead, after reading Noam Chomsky’s ‘The Mysteries of Nature: How Deeply Hidden?’, which suggests our inability to fully comprehend the physical world results in failure to resolve the mind-body problem, I questioned whether the attempts of contemporary analytic philosophy to solve the placement problems arising from a physicalist perspective can ever yield any success. These are questions which I am interested to investigate further at Undergraduate level and