Abstract:
Reductive philosophers of mind tell us that scientific explanations can account for meaning with brain function and human action in terms of cause/effect outputs. Before accepting this, we should consider whether there is something lacking in these mechanistic descriptions. I will argue that there is something essential missing from an atomized depiction of experience, and I will show that there are powerful resources to create a picture that preserves it. I will contend that it is impossible for reductive accounts of self-consciousness to achieve a rich picture of human experience, and I will attempt to offer an alternative view