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Heidegger and the Philosophy of Mind (review)
- Journal of the History of Philosophy
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 28, Number 3, July 1990
- pp. 466-468
- 10.1353/hph.1990.0063
- Review
- Additional Information
- Purchase/rental options available:
466 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28:3 JULY 1990 tion of "the autonomy of factual discourse" (Tiles's phrase) from the context of inquiry . Correctly understood, Dewey is arguing the necessity of developing some theoretical account of the interrelation of observation and interpretation. Since it is the situation--a transaction between an organism and an environment-that is the subject matter of cognition, Dewey disallows traditional distinctions between subjective and objective qualities. All are equally real features of a situation: e.g., there is not a situation and an agent experiencing doubt, but an agent in a doubtful situation. Dewey's rejection of Lockean classifications of perceptual qualities and his common ascription of qualities to situations appear to have metaphysical implications incompatible with both common sense and Dewey's claim to be a realist. In chapter 6, Tiles studies some early exchanges on this topic, including Lovejoy'swell-known objection to Dewey's analysis of our knowledge of past events, in order to elucidate Dewey's own, sometimes tortured, attempts to distinguish instrumentalism from subjective idealism. Tiles's exposition of Dewey's positions in these chapters is detailed and clear, his defense of them spirited and cogent. The comparisons made with related positions of Aristotle, Benjamin Peirce, Bernard Williams, and Thomas Nagel are instructive. His exposition of some key features of Dewey's theory of value in chapters 7 through 9 is also informative. But here, Tiles's defense arguably misses the mark. In chapter 7, he suggests that the basis of opposition to Dewey's theory of value has been Dewey's violation of the Humean dictum that values are "original existences" unamenable to reason. Tiles directs his defense accordingly. However, an equally fundamental objection to naturalistic value theories is their apparent violation of another Humean dictum, i.e., the underivability of an "ought" from an "is." Tiles's failure to address this issue in his discussion of Dewey's theory of the means-end continuum is disappointing. Tiles's book is nonetheless an illuminating introduction to the philosophy of John Dewey which specialists and nonspecialists alike will find rewarding. JENNIFER WELCHMAN TheJohns Hopkins University Frederick A. Olafson. Heideggerand thePhilosophyofMind. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. Pp. xxi + 294. $23.5o. This is a thoughtful, stimulating, and carefully argued discussion of both the earlier and later periods of Heidegger's philosophical career. It will appeal not only to Heidegger scholars but also to philosophers unfamiliar with his work. It will engage specialists because it tackles Heidegger's ideas head on, trying to make sense of them without sacrificing their radicalness. At the same time, it serves as an effective introduction to Heidegger because Olafson uses traditional philosophical problems such as the nature of mind and the character of time as the starting and reference points for his explications. The book is divided into two parts. Part One examines Heidegger's ideas in the late 192os, concentrating on Being and Time. Olafson first sketches Heidegger's critique of the Cartesian model of human existence and then uses this sketch as a backdrop for an BOOK REVIEWS 467 excellent examination of Heidegger's alternative account of human existence as beingin -the-world. Olafson also discusses the temporality of human activity, how this temporality makes "objective" time possible, and what Heidegger means by "being." Olafson's interpretation is arguably the best general philosophical treatment available in English of those aspects of Being and Time that it examines. One of its few oversights is that it does not sufficiently emphasize the phenomenological nature of Heidegger's enterprise . The reader is not informed that Heidegger's object in much of Being and Time is human beings in their immediate, lived, ongoing existence, and that, for this reason, the persuasiveness of his analysis derives from its capturing structures we are constantly living and have therefore already unthematically experienced. One of Olafson's central conclusions about Heidegger's early thought is that there are three problems or unclarities attending Heidegger's idea that human beings, qua Dosein, are "clearings," or openings of being, in which entities can show themselves, or be. These three problems are: (l) the question whether, if there were suddenly no...