MIND IN NATURE: AN ARGUMENT FROM ONTO-GENERATIVE HERMENEUTICS

What is it about?

Chung-ying Cheng urges us to think about the relation between the mind and other organisms when he writes, “I believe that we can construct some plausible framework of such as sort, such that the mind would emerge from organic matter.” The answer might well depend on the “plausible framework.” Maybe that framework is evolutionary biology or better yet, maybe the sciences are but one prong of a binary opposition informed by onto-generative hermeneutics. Accordingly, the demand to creatively weave harmony among contesting forces increases with the distance between terms in a relationship in just the same way that the pressure to live increases with the distance between an organism’s potential and environmental conditions.

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Photo by Adam Chang on Unsplash

Photo by Adam Chang on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Onto-generative hermeneutics is used as a method with which to correct a Kantian bias in models of the mind that purport to prioritize aesthetics.