An Embodied Philosophy

Rationality, reason and abstract thought (such as that found in formal logic and various mathematical systems) are typically understood as those characteristics which distinguish us from the rest of the animal kingdom and creation. The locus of self-awareness is this cluster of distinctly human attributes which allow for critical introspective reflection and definition. These faculties also, along with our physical environments and circumstances, supposedly shape and direct our thought processes depending on how effectively they are implimented. But whence these abilities? I've been reading a book, Philosophy in the Flesh, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson that suggests they arise as natural functions of our brains. Here's the first few sentences of the first chapter:

The mind is inherently embodied.
Thought is mostly unconcious.
Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.
These are three major findings of cognitive science. More than two millennia of a priori philosophical speculation about these aspects of reason are over. Because of these discoveries, philosophy can never be the same again.

They have argued, so far (I'm only 40 pages in), that thought/reason is an unconcious metaphorical structuring based on sensorimotor perception. Thought functions the way it does as a result of being embodied in the peculiar way that we are with eyes, ears, arms, legs and suchnot. And not just that we have these various sensing appendages as mere influence, but how they interact with reality actually determines the neurological connections, associations and pathways in our brains which, in turn, give rise to conscious experience of that reality.

For example, if we had only red and blue color cones in our eyes then we would not (could not) see grass as green. The truth of the matter, Lakoff and Johnson argue, is that grass isn't any color at all: "Our experience of color is created by a combination of four factors: wavelengths of reflected light, lighting conditions and two aspects of our bodies: (1) the three kinds of color cones in our retinas, which absorb light of long, medium and short wavelengths, and (2) the complex neural circuitry connected to those cones." They continue on to point out that the wavelengths of light reflected by any given object is not constant; that is to say, an object may be reflecting particular wavelengths of short, medium and long freqencies at one time of the day and reflecting a completely different set of frequencies at another time of the day so there is no consistency in the type of wavelengths being reflected. The only constant is the amount of light being reflected at any given time by any given source(s). Light itself, however, is colorless, "Visible light is elctromagnetic radiation, like radio waves, vibrating within a certain frequency range. It is not the kind of thing that could be colored." Long story short, it turns out that color is "produced" by our particular physiology interacting with the physical world.

So what does all of this mean besides being an elaborate attempt to prove that there's no such thing as colorblindness? Well, for Lakoff and Johnson it means there is a natural (read evolutionary) explanation for our conscious and unconscious thought life. The subtitle for their book is The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought, if that helps give a picture of the direction they are going. They believe the concept of the embodied mind has several important consequences for the activity of philosophy. Since reason is nothing more than a complex neuralogical happening, it cannot be seen as something which distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom; in other words, we are not, they say, "uniquely rational" (emphasis mine). In fact, reason is primarily an unconscious activity. No one thinks about reasoning, we just do it. Of the thousands of things that we do every day only a handful of them are things we consciously reason about. Even individuals engaged within the fields of formal logic, mathematics or those dealing with any sort of abstract formal system are primarily using reason unconsciously. This is because reason is neurally structured via conceptual metaphors (such as container schemas or spatial-relation schemas) and sensorimotor perceptions long before we have any conscious access to it.

None of this is new. Christian theology has been teaching an embodied philosophy since its very beginning (e.g. Jesus' incarnation, Word becoming flesh, etc.). While the above "natural" view is capable of explaining 'whence reason', it is not capable of explaining 'that reason'. The fact that we reason is taken for granted and given no explaination; I think it's kind of an important question. I imagine if you ask either Lakoff or Johnson "why?" they would both promptly reply with "survival" or some variation thereof. But watching the news for an hour is more than enough to do away with such a simple abracadabra. Like learning langauges, reason is something wired into the functionality of the human brain by DNA. With the natural view all animals are rational, it's just that their rationality isn't quite as robust as ours, yet. How does self-awareness come into this picture? I don't know, like I said, I'm only 40 pages into the book and I'm hoping they get around to that part. I expect more prestidigitation, but at least it will be educational. Ultimately I think they are heading in the right direction; an incarnational approach to epistemology would look very similar to this embodied philosophy and I believe that is the way to bring every thought captive to Christ.