James Garvey

Exactly what is McGinn saying when he claims that we cannot solve the mind-body problem? Just what is cognitively closed to us? The text suggests at least four possibilities. I work through each them in some detail, and I come to two principal conclusions. First, by McGinn's own understanding of the mind-body problem, he needs to show that we are cognitively closed to how brains generate consciousness, but he argues for something else, that we are cognitively closed to the brain property in virtue of which the brain is the basis of consciousness. Second, it turns out that McGinn is not entitled to any of the four closure possibilities

Think of some environmentally unfriendly choices – taking the car instead of public transport or driving an SUV, just binning something recyclable, using lots of plastic bags, buying an enormous television, washing clothes in hot water, replacing something when you could make do with last year's model, heating rooms you don't use or leaving the heating high when you could put on another layer of clothing, flying for holidays, wasting food and water, eating a lot of beef, installing a patio heater, maybe even, as some have said lately, owning a dog. Think about your own choices, instances in which you take an action which enlarges your carbon footprint when you might have done otherwise without much trouble. Is there consolation in the thought that it makes no difference what you do?