Experientialist Philosophy

Philosophy ln The Age Of Cognitive Science

By Mark Johnson and George Lakoff

Why Rethink l'hilmophy'!

Living a human life is a philosophical l'lltkavor. Most of our thoughts. dceisi(HlS. ami acts ill'l' hascd on philosophical assumptions so numerous we cnulcfn't possihly list them all. We r.o around with a host of presuppositions and prejudices abnut what exists. what comlls as knowledge. how minds work. how we should act. what kind of government is hcst. where religion and/or spirituality 11t in our lives. what art is and where and whether it matters, when to believe scientilk claims. and on and on. Such questions, which arise out of our daily concems. form the subject matter of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology. philosophy of mind, ethics. politics. philosophy of religion. aesthetics. philosophy of sl"ience. etc.

Whether we arc aware of it or not. we all have implicit commitments on most of these matters: that is. we have what are called "folk theories." These folk theories arc typkally um:onscious and we usc them automatically and without effort to make sense of everyday life. Philosophical theories are ela-borations of our l'H'I)'d:~y fnl~ lh!'orit~. Tlw doser philo..,ophicaltheorics are to folk tl11:orics. the more '"intuitive'" they seem. The philosopher's traditional _job has been to analy1e the cnnnpts in our folk theories. sharpen those con-cepts. and weave tlll'm together into mnsistl'nt systl'llls of thought that cover

the full gamut of fundamemalqucstions. Our cullure is suffused wilh philosophy. Virtually all of the public

disnmrsc on our most fundamental concems makes implicit use of philosophi-cal concepts. assumptions, and fom1s of discourse. Because of this, our social institutions have been defined through philosophy. If we are to understand the hidden assumptions behind areas like law. politics, science, religion, and psychology. as well as all academic disciplines. we need to know how philoso-phy has affected them, and we need to understand what the conceptual struc-ture of philosophy itself is.

We believe that there is a great deal that is new to be said about these issues. despite the fact that they have heen discussed for more than two thousand years. What is new is cognitive sdence -- the empirical study of the mind. Discoveries in cognitive science l

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2

Some Philosophically lmponant Discoveries In Cognitiv

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front-back). etc. All of these are recurring structures of our bodily interactions in the world. both perceptual and motor. At present, they are arc being modelled in tenns of known types of neural structures in the brain (e.g., topographk maps. center-surround architectures, orientation tuning cells. etc.). Such modelling indicates that image-schematic con-cepts can be characterized neurally. and that their peculiar properties arise from the neural structures peculiar to our brains. lmage-schemas define spatial inference patterns. Conceptual metaphori-cal mappings appear to preserve image-schematic structure, and in so doing. they map spatial inference patterns onto abstract inference pat-terns. It appears that abstract reason thus arises from the interplay of metaphors and image-schemas. Since imagr-sclwmas arc not in the objective world, but arise from pro-perties of our hmins. they do nnt have a purely objective character. But since they dctennined in part hy nur biology and by the world as we expcricnet it. they arc not purely suhjecliv(' either. One of the most philosophically important consequences of what we have discovered about imagc-schemas is that tlwy hoth characterize basic inference pattcms and arc chararttrized hy the nature of our bodies and brains. The idea that infcrcne

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with objects in the world. On the basis of limited experience with members of a category. we must project imaginatively to perfonn a variety of rational operations involving the category. Prototypes arc imaginative structures internal to categories, which allow us to perform such a variety of rational functions -- reasoning by default and reasoning concerning essences. ideal types. salient examples, and endpoints on scales. They also permit the extension of categories from central to noncentr:tl cases. Such prototype ph,nomcrm thercfon require a revision of the traditional philosophical notion of cate~!Ory as defined by a list of necessary and sufficient conditions. Prntotypc phl'nonwna thus go beyond Wittgenstein's nntinn of family resemblances. as well beyond such notions as open-textured concepts and fuzzy categories, none of which have the internal stnrcturc to pcrfonn the variety of functions that proto-types perfom1.

XX Conceptual metaphor

Then. is a vast system of thousands of mappings across conceptual domains that pcm1it us to understand more abstmct concepts in terms of more cnncerctc concepts. These mappings preservt imagc-schemas, and therefore allow us to liSt' the logic of physical space as the basis for abstract inference. They also permit ilhstrrt inference by mapping knowledge ahoutcomn~te dnt11ains onto aho;!ract domains. Most traditional philosf'phy saw it-:clf as pw,iding a set of basic, literal

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dcconstnJction. The reason is that conceptual metaphors are not arbitrary and merely historically tontingl'lll. They nrc grounded in our bodies, and in our cvtryday interactions in the physical and social world, and conse-quently many metaphors arc either universal or widespread across cul-tures that me not historically related. This contradicts the deconstruction-ist view of pure arhitrariness and strict historical comingency.

--Frame semantics ancl folk theories Recent empirical studies in lexical semantics hava shown that words do not map directly onto states of affairs in the world, but rather are defined by their roles in idealized models of situations, which are holistic struc-tures called "fmmcs." Words get their meanings by the roles that they play in frames. Semantic 11clds of words arc H group of words defined with respect to diiTt~rcnt roles in a single frame (e.g., "buy," "sell," "goods." "prkc." arc defined relative to a frame characterizing a com-mcrical event in general). A single situation in the world can be framed in different. and often mutually nmtradictory ways. \Vhen frames have stmcturc that l'Xttnds over time. they arc c:tlled "scenarios" or "scripts." And when they rharacterizc how something works in the world. they arc called "folk theories." Frames arc imaginative not only in that they are idealized models hut also hccausc they are defined partly in terms of metaphor. Much of traditional philosophy assumes an objectivist semantics, in which words words get their meaning only hy designating things that exist objectively in the world. Frame semantics. and the study of seman-tic fields that supports it. directly contradicts this objectivist view of the nature of meaning. and thus presents a challenge to all philosophical views based on it.

This body of results. like most other bodies of results in cognitive sci-ence. is controversial. But if they arc even roughly correct, they have striking implications for the answl'rs that we give to the most fundamental philosophi-cal questions --and even for the nature of philosophical inquiry itself.

Experience

What is most striking to us ahout these empirical results about the nature of conceptual structure and human reason is the role played by what we will l'all "experience .. in the broadest sense: experience due to the innate structure nf our bodies and hrains; the experience of physical interactions in our environ-ment; interplrsnnal experience: cultural experience; and so em.

Consider the following question: What kinds of nmcepts are tht>n.' and how do they differ from one another?

This is a basic question that must he answered mkquately by anyone with an interest in what concepts are. This should include philosophers as well as cog-nitive scientists.

In classical philosophical theories the nature of particular concepts is determined wholly by what the concepts arc about. The content of a concept is a list of the properties (the necessary and sufticient conditions) that an entity in the world must have to fall under that concept. Take the concept of a chair. It is ahout real chairs. On the classical view. the structure of the concept of a chair is determined by the real features or real chairs: n1e structure of the con-cept is a list of those features.

Because this view of concepts focuses only on what the concepts are ahnut. it cannot answer the fund

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get a mental image of a general piece of furniture (not a chair. bed or table. but wmcthing nclltral among them). Furniture is superordinate: it is more inclusive than the basic-level category chair. The fact that W

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4

Experientialist Philosophy

Every area of philosophy is affected hy assumptions about the nature of concepts. The empirical discoveries cited above give us a new view of what concepts are -- what kinds there arc and what properties they have. What is new about this view of concepts is the role it gives to our bodily. interpersonal, and cultural experience as well as to certain key imaginative capacities -- the capacities to mctaphorizc. to frame situations, and to form prototypes.

The only adequate way to approach philosophical problems is therefore through the only tmpirically ad'qllate way to do conceptual analysis. namely, hy focussing on cxpcricnLc in thi!' rich scn"e and on thl'!'l' imaginative capaci-ties. What n.sults is an cxperientialist philosophy.

Experientialist philosophy is ahout making sense of experience. It is nei-thl'r about the seard1 fnr absolute objective tmth nor about deconstructing common beliefs to reveal the impossibility of absolute truth. Both of these opposing conceptions of philosophy must be rejected on empirical grounds, since neither can give an empirically adequate account of the nature of con-cepts. Tite empirical discoveries in cognitive science that we listed above undermine both the conception of philososphy as providing absolute truth and the opposite vit'w that philosophy is dead because it can discover no absolute tmth.

Philosophy is anythinl! hut dead. Philosophy is not about absolute tmth: nor is it about dehunkin~ It is ahout c:-:pt.rienc:e. Our lived experience is real and is the only ;uxess Wt.' havl' to our physic

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Not only is our understanding of humanness changed, but even more strikingly. our understanding of the ter111 "metaphysics" changes drastically. Metaphysics is no longer ahsnlutc truth ~hout the nature of being, nor is it an arhitrary imposition upon an infinitely malleahle rea lily. It is rather a matter of the ontolgy we msrilll' to our experience using om normal cognitive mechan-isms. Part of this ontology is nonmctnphork -- the part that arises from basic-level categories and image-schematic spatial relations. But much of it is meta-phoric. Metaphor allows us to project the ontology of hndily and interpersonal experience onto abstract domains to form the ontology of abstract concepts. As we shall sec, om most fundamental abstract concepts -- states, properties, causes. purposes. events. and actions -- arc metaphorically constructed, as are fundamental ethical and political wnccpts like rights and duties. These are the concepts that define for us what there is -- our ontology -- what counts as an object. a category. an event, a purpose. Therefore most of our actual metaphy-sics is metaphorical in character. And if we want to understand our commit-ments as to what exists. we must know our systems of metaphorical thought in intimate detail.

Where docs this matter? Let us hegin with self-identity. As imaginative animals. we usc our colll:cptual resources to make sensl' of our world and our experience. Through cullllrc. this is dam l'Olltrtively. Our cultures provide us with ready-nwde imaginative resources 0 - tonvrnlinnal categories, prototypes, frarnings. and metaphors 00 that permit us tn platc ourselves in our physical social and interpersonal tnvironmcnts 0 - in short. to lkline omselves. The pos-sibilities for self-dclinition vary 'videly thrnur.hout the world, but they are not arbitrary or mere mallcrs of historical accident. The reason is that our imagina-tive resources arc constrained in very signilkant ways by our bodies and brains. and by our physical and interp~rsonal experience.

Concepts of self-delinition are matters for empirical study. Actual stu-dies are extremely frap.mcntary at present. but they arc sufficient to show that we do not appear to have any single.unificd concept of the self, but rather multi-dimensional and multi-faceted concepts that cohere only in part. As we shall sec below. there arc multiple conceptualizations of the internal self, the social seu. the historical self, the psyd10analytic self. etc. Some of these are provided by a cultural inventory and some arc constn1cturcd person-by-person on the basis of expericru:c. e.g .. early childhood experience. But the very nature of our conceptual systems appears tn ever rnnkr it possible to have a single totally-unilied concept of the selL And if !here is a ~ingle thing that we 'really' arc. wt could never lontcptuali7e it win1! the kind

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everything from making plans to making moral judgements to defining rela-tionships with others. Rccausc wt arc imaginative animals, we cannot escape the multiplicity of self-definitions and the problems that they pose for us. What we can do, positively. is identify the ones we have and see how they are related. what they hide and highlight about us. what difficulties they create, and what possibilities there arc for change. Moreover, it is important to realize that any attempt to reduce us to any single self-definition is hound to fail, and to be unfaithful to our real complexities.

The kind of imaginative animals we arc matters not just for questions of srlf-identity. hut also for all of the areas of philosophical inquiry, including dhics. politics. art, rcli;2inn. etc. Consider ethics.

The imaginaliw constructs of' nm roncptualizing the situation at hand, often through metaphor. What we :m pnintmg In arl' the two steps of concep-tllalizatinn. which arl' always neccsliary and typil'ally unconscious. Whatever moral principles we ha\'l' arc usually so va~uc. ahstrm:t. and general that they must he made meaningful in these two ways if tlll'y arc to be applied to con-netc situations.

This is an empirical observation about the nature of moral reasoning. What we discover hy stmlying our conceptual system and how it is applied in moral deliberation is that the two hest known approaches to philosophical eth-ics -- moral absolutism and extreme moral relativism ~- arc both wrong.

Extreme moral relativism is wrong because our capacities to conceptual-ize situations and moral nolions is not unconstrained. not the result of mere

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historical contingtncy. While there is a broad range nf possibilities, but they are constrained hy many things that all people sh:1rc: hndies and brains, basic physical functioning. pattems of interpersonal interaction. and common ima-ginative resources. In short. extreme moral rclativism fails hccause our concep-tual systems arc groumkd in common human c-;twricnn.

Moral absolutism is wrong as well. It presupposes that there is (1) always a single correct way to conceptualize each situation:(~) a single correct way to conceptualize all moral notions: {.1) universally valid rnnral laws that cover all situations; and (4) tlll'sc arc unique prodt~ets of a univ

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The point is that there is no such thing as the single objectively .. correct .. definition for these conn~pts, as many politkaltheories suppose. But neither is it the casC' that these concepts can mean anything at all, since they are constrained by existing ideologies, that is, by metaphors and folk theories that have arisen through the collective experience of a culture.

The positive tontrihution of such an cxpcrientialist analysis is thus nei-ther to debunk such notions as illusory ideals, nor to lind the right answer. but rather to show precisely what is assumed. entailed. highlighted, and hidden by each version of a conttsted concept. ;md precisely how each version is tied to various ideologies. This matters bccm1sc political ideologies and the concepts of democracy and freedom that !low from them define our realities, are the basis for policy derisions. and define how the media will report political events and what political di~coursc will h(' cnnsidend responsihlr..

It is a goal olcxp

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5

Philosophy's Traditional Self-Definition

Western Philosophy was horn in Ancient Circe(.'(.' nut of a response to myths that sou~lll to l'XPI:!in the my~teriP~ of rwtnre in terms of the often capri-cious acts of thl' gods. Greek philosophy ~:mw into hting with the hypothesis that human reason might he able to J.!aiJ insight into the workings of nature, dislcrn an undlrlyin1! order to nature. and thus gain soml' measure of control over external events. Philosophy thus assunH.d a distim:tion between Reason and all the workings of myth~mctaphor. image. symhol, and narrative. Rea-son enabled us to gain an objcctiw knowledge that was unavailable through mythic modes of thought. Myths. metaphors. images. and narratives were seen as obscuring the objective truth.

Now that we know that Reason normally uses metaphors, images, and narratives, we can sec that Wcstcm philosophy-

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into its own nature. no empirical evidence was needed: Sl'Cond. empirical evi-dence, being content. was thought to have no hearing on form.

The resull of this long-standing metaphorical folk theory was that philo-sophy came to regard itself as having privileged. direct access to the nature of Reason. Hence, philosophers came to sec themselves as the ultimate arbiters of rational inquiry. those most capable of judging what is and is not rational in all forms of rational illlJUiry, whether philosophical or empirical.

11tere is another extremely important consequence of this folk theory: Since Reason can directly perceive its own essence, it follows that Reason can always be made an object of consciousness. That is. Reason must either be conscious, or be accessible to consciousness: it nmnot have mechanisms that arc inaccessible to consciousness. This fits the metaphor that Knowing is See-ing Clearly and thl' assumption that Reason can rdlcrt on its own nature and have correct insight into it. If Reason. or any essential aspect of it, were lllll'

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Because of this, philosophy, in its role as arbiter, is blind to all empirical results from the cognitive sciences that arc inconsistent with its views on rea-son and that challenge its position as arbiter of the entire intellectual world. In particular. philosophers in this tradition have ignored most, if not all, of the results from cognitive sdence that denwnstrnte the fundamental embodiment of mind--those results having to do with hoth the specific content of human nmrcptual systems and the way that Rcasnn ari~es fmrn the peculiarities of the body and bodily l'xprriLru.:c in thr world. Since this hook is about the fonda-menial embodiment of mind and its consequences. it should come as no surprise that philosoplwrs in the arbiter tradition have ignored all the empirical results upon which our subsequent discussion ,..,ill he hased. Indeed, the vari-ous philosophical traditions each lum: dtvcloped specilk justifications for dismissing empirical results that are incompatible with their fundamental assumptions.

The Dismissal-of-Cognition Assumption in Traditional Approaches to Philosophy

'l11e very idea that cognitive science could change our conception of philoso-phy will undoubtedly meet with the following immediate objections from nprcsentativcs or various philosophical traditions:

The Rationali-:t Dimi-;

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sdence (e.g., cognitin science).

The llermerwutical Di~missal

We have a universal interpretive capacity intcrpr(.'livc capadty which allows us, as reasoning hcings. to analyze meaning and to provide understandings of texts. practices. and experience. A distinction is assumed between the natural and human sciences. which makes empirical methodology (as in cognitive sci-ence) irrelevant to the human sciences and hence irrelevant to the task of philo-sophical interpretation.

The Deconstmctivist Dismissal

Deconstruction is a form of analysis which permits delonstructivist philoso-phers to analyze specilk forms of language. discourse. and reasoning. It is assumed that no sdcntifk enterprise could in principle override this form of analysis. since any particular cmpincally-basctl sticntilil" enterprise (such as Cognitive ScienC.:l') would he just one rnnre suhjcct matter to be deconstructed.

What these disparate traditions h:wl' in common is a dismissal of the relevance or empirical studies of the mimi. since they each assume that there is a form of rational annlysis which is correct and sufficient unto itsdf'. They thus regard themselves as immune to any criticism emanating from sources outside their own privileged conception of reason. in particular from empirical investiga-tion.

The Impossihility of Dialogue

Cognitive sl'ienc.:e includes all empirical study of human reason and human concl'ptual systems. It assumes that there is some fact of the matter about the nature of human reason and of human nmceptual systl'lllS that can be studied empirically. Sinn philosophies make use of human cognitive capacities and human l'tmreptual stmcturc. philmophies

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Nothing discovered in cognitive science could contradict or legiti-mately criticize a philosophical analysis of reason, meaning. con-cepts. or language.

Similarly, no cognitive scientist could convince a philosopher in any of the Dismissal-of-Cognition traditions of the proposition:

Empirical results about how people actually reason. form concepts and usc language should be the llasi-; for philosophical analysis and may override assumptions made without empirical support.

The reason why neither could C\'er nlll\'incc the other is that the defining assumptions behind their disciplines arc contradirtnry. Neither could be con-vinced without giving up the \'cry l'n!lnption of the enterprise they are engaged in.

This impasse poses no problem whate\'cr either for a practicing cognitive sdcntist. \VIlO can dismiss philosophy as idle speculation. or for a philosopher in these traditions. who will dismiss l'Ognitivc science as irrelevant to his con-cerns.

But for someone who cares deeply both about philosophical issues and about l'mpirical results about the nature or mind. this impasse is serious and distress-ing. Both cognitive science and philosophy have subject matters and these sub-ject matters arc interrelated. Philosophy is the field where foundational ques-tions arc taken up about many of the most important areas of human experi-l'lll'c: l'vtorality. Politic-;, RLIi;.rion. Ae~tlwtics. The Self. and the very nature of I' nnw ledge. r-.1orcnver. it is the fidd whNl' the interrclat ions among these sub-ject mallL'r~ is invcsti).!ated. If anything ha.;; twconw cll'ar in thl' history of phi-

lo~nphy. it is that the nature of Rca-;on is t:cntral to an understanding of all these domains and tn the rclation~hip-; amonr! th"!ll.

Cognitive slicncc has many new things to tell us ahnut the nature of Reason. If they are corr

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empirically-informed n:cvaluatinn of philosophy that is w badly needed cannot take plan.

For philosophy to persist with the dismissal-of-cognition assumption is to give itself license to be empirically irresponsible -- to ignore results about cognition that do not tit its assumption-;. \Vhat nmtcmporary philosophy needs is an extraordinary openness -- an openness to empirical results. even results that might undemtine age-old assumptions about the very nature of philosophy itself.

Selective Dismissals: Ignoring Inconvenient Results

Many philosophers do not dismiss rognitive science wholesale. Instead, they engage in subtler forms of dismissal-they ignore those results that are incon-sistl'llt with their a priori assumptions. and stlrct only thOSl' results consistent with what they already lwlicve.

Consider. fnr example. philosophers in tltc cla~skal empiricist tradition. One might think the empirical lwnt of sl!dl philosophers might make them fully open to all empirical results ahout thl' mimi. Such philsophcrs would, indeed, tend to hl' more open to tmpirical results -- hut only to those results that con-form to empiricist philosophy.

TI1e Empirkist Dismissal

Via our senses we receive information about the external world. Concepts are learned on the basis of sense data. via principles of association. All of concep-tual stmcturc is acquired in this way: nothing else can possibly be part of con-ceptual structure. TI1is mlcs out so-called "imaginative" concepts like meta-phorical concepts. Although those prototypes whkh can he learned via statisti-cal correlations or Slllient experiences are acceptable. the "imaginative" proto-types -- like essential prototnws. idtal prototypes. social stereotypes, and radial prototypes -- arl' not. All pht_nnl'lt'n:t that arc "imaginative" in this sense are to he dismissed as not heitl!! .. ernpirkal" in the required narrow sense. that is. as not arising from St'fl

- .~n.

Such a selective dismissal is charm.:teristic of many research programs that have been adopted by philosophers interested in cognitive science. This hook draws on results that we believe will require maximal changes in our con-ception of philosophy: results concerning hasic-lcvel concepts, conceptual metaphor. kinds of prototypes. framing phenomena. and image schemas. It is just these results that arc. not surprisingly. ignored by those philosophers com-mitted to trmlitional forms of philosophical analysis. For them cognitive sci-ence is a new incamation of their old belief systems. We have in mind philoso-phers commilled to the the following programs: Cognitive Science As Strong AI. Formal Sernantks. Generative. Linguistics. and Naturalized Epistemology.

For the most part these arc extensions of very tr:ulitionctl philosophical views, and they make usc of traditi(lflal tools of analytk philosophy -- truth-conditional scmmuics. formal logic. and fom1al syntctx. The assumptions behind such research pro:rams dictate what c.ounts as cognitive science and therefore whidt results from rognitivc science will be considered "relevant." For those philosophers engaged in these enterprises, cognitive science (whose results they sec themselves as paying allcntion to) docs not change the nature of philosophy in any way. Philosophy remains domimmt ctnd impregnable, since it is defining what counts as cognitive science-- not all empirical investi-gations into the nature of the mind and reason. but only those results consistent with prior philosophical commitments.

Something similar happens in the philosophy of cognitive science. which is an updated version of the old philosophy of mind. These philosophers from vari-ous traditions address traditional pltiJo.;ophieal questions with traditional philo-sophical methods. hut they d(l this wilh re!rnme In :wlecti\'c results from the cognitive scienns. Oncl' a~ain. nnl,iyw i~ ch.,,~d :1'1mtt the nature of philo-snphkal analysis and tlw ~arne l'nrt::ptu;d tonb arl' 11'\t'

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For those who want the most empirically responsible treatment of the great issues of human existence that philosophy rnn give tlwm. selective dismissal is just as disastrous as whok-;;1)c dismissal. It distorts cognitive science and phi-losophy both. Selective dismissal distnrrs cor.nitivt ~dcncc in that it implies that nothing in the rognitiw sdcnccs Cflllld ever tell us anything new and essential about reason or ~:onccptual strucwn that was not independently dis-coverable via philosophical annlysis. Selcrtiw Dismissal distorts philosophy,

sint~C it limits philosophical discussion of the great human issues to knowledge about the mind and to conceptual tools that were available before the advent of cognitive science.

The Need for Open Dialogue

If any field of study should engage in outright 01' selective dismissal, it is philosophy. For the most part. philosophy has closed itself off, and it is time for it to open itself up.

The openness we seck is a willingness in the philosophical community to take seriously the full range of empirical results about the nature of reason and nmecptual stmcturc. It is rnoremN a willin!!ness to trare out the conse-quences of these results wlwrcver they may lead. Ami it is a willingness to rethink the philosophkaltradition --in its ntirety if necessary.

We also seck an openness by philosophy to lay itself bare to the tech-niques of analysis that come out or cn

. . '.! .

Such an endeavor is not only possit"lle; it is \"ita!. Philosophy plays such an important role in our culture that it is the greatest importance to reveal the metaphors and folk theories that comprise particular philosophies, so that we can see what they highlight and hide, and so that we can see exactly where their appeal comes from. It is also important as a means of showing that philo-sophical theories cannot get at absolute truth. and that we should not accept age-old philosophical doctrines as having been "proven."

Not only do we need to know more about the philosophical theories that guide our lives. but in addition philosophy needs to know itself a lot better. The philosophical strategy of dismissing tmcomfortable empirical results has led to a situation where there is a form of sdf-relkctinn that philosophy will not tolerate. The cognitive science of philosophy is a reml.'dy for all that.

An empirically-based conceptual analysis of all Westem philosophy is, of course. a joh of Herculean proportions-- a joh of many Iifttimes. What we will undertake in this book is a few caSl' stmlies to show what can he done and why the undertaking is inttrcsting.

Our case studies will inrludc Enlightenment epistemology. ethics, politi-cal theory. and aesthetics. We have chosen these hecause of they are central to so much of the philosophy that has come since then -- partly because of what philosophy has inherited from those traditions. and partly because of the amount of contemporary philosophy that is a reaction to those views.

Other Rationales

Though the co~:.rnitive sdencr> of philnsophy is an important endeavor in its own right. we arc including our case studies for other reasons as well. Our major ~oat is to outlirw a new e~;pl"i(nti:llist philoophy that accords with empirical results in ror-nitive sciePt"t. 1~11! many n':tdtrs will only be willing to entertain new philosophiral vkws if t11~y St'!' that previous philosophical views are not matters of ahsnlute truth. Tl1ns. the cogniti\"l' science of philosophy will allow those who art' interested in philosophy to sec philosophical theories for what they arc --elaborate. s

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philosophers write about, and we cannot but be better off for tuniing the spotlight of cognitive science on

Metaphors for Identity

The Internal Selves

Faculty Psychology Freudian Faculty Psychology The Psychoanalytic Self: The child is father of the man Experiential ego vs Material ego. The Developmental Self The Inmost Self

The Role-Determined Selves

The Family Self The Working Self The Interpersonal Self The Autobiographical Self The Public Self The Legal Self The Economic Self The Political Self

The Material self

The Philosophical Selves

The Mental self (The transcendental ego) The Autonomous Rational Self The Biological Self

The Religious Self

The Soul