additionally link these two thoughts as thoughts about the object? To put it same crudely, how is it that we do not simply think X” at T1 and X” (or “an “an “another X”) at T2, but rather think at T2 of selfsame X we thought about at T1”? The “the second, and more fundamental, issue is how we are able to think, even in a single thought at a single moment, not merely of this property and that property being presented, but of a single thing that has both properties? We are clearly able to do so, but a psychology like Hume’s, whose resources are limited to the presentation of individual impressions and ideas, cannot explain how we are able to do so. The Binding Problem A related problem occurs in neuroscience. Philosophers Aristotle traditionally assumed that, in addition to the various sensory modalities sight, – hearing, touch, smell, taste there must be an additional faculty, the sensus – communus or sense”, where the deliverances of these were fused together “common into a polymodal representation of an object. Scientific study of the brain has revealed various neuroanatomical areas corresponding to the various sensory modalities, but not of a sensus communus where all comes together”. Indeed, our “it contemporary understanding of the brain only makes things more complicated: not only is there no brain area where sight comes together with all the other modalities in a single representation, there are distinct areas for different aspects of vision: color, form, and motion.
additionally link these two thoughts as thoughts about the same object? To put it crudely, how is it that we do not simply think “an X” at T1 and “an X” (or “another X”) at T2, but rather think at T2 of “the selfsame X we thought about at T1”? The second, and more fundamental, issue is how we are able to think, even in a single thought at a single moment, not merely of this property and that property being presented, but of a single thing that has both properties? We are clearly able to do so, but a psychology like Hume’s, whose resources are limited to the presentation of individual impressions and ideas, cannot explain how we are able to do so. The Binding Problem A related problem occurs in neuroscience. Philosophers Aristotle traditionally assumed that, in addition to the various sensory modalities – sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste – there must be an additional faculty, the sensus communus or “common sense”, where the deliverances of these were fused together into a polymodal representation of an object. Scientific study of the brain has revealed various neuroanatomical areas corresponding to the various sensory modalities, but not of a sensus communus where “it all comes together”. Indeed, our contemporary understanding of the brain only makes things more complicated: not only is there no brain area where sight comes together with all the other modalities in a single representation, there are distinct areas for different aspects of vision: color, form, and motion.
DRAFT-Horst-Cog-Pluralism-Part-2-copy.docx