Episode 17: Does 'Consciousness' Exist? - Part One

Weird Studies

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel

Society & Culture, Arts, Philosophy

4.8 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2018

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this first part of their discussion of William James' classic essay in radical empiricism, "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?", Phil and JF talk about the various ways we use the slippery C-word in contemporary culture. The episode touches on the political charge of the concept of consciousness, the unholy marriage of materialism and idealism ("Kant is the ultimate hipster"), the role of consciousness in the workings of the weird -- basically, anything but the essay in question. That will come in part two. Header image by Miguel Bolacha, Wikimedia Commons REFERENCES William James, "Does 'Consciousness' Exist?" Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained Daniel Pinchbeck, author and founder of Reality Sandwich Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture Scott Saul, Freedom Is, Freedom Ain't: Jazz and the Making of the Sixties Quentin Meillassoux, After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency Matt Cardin - author and editor, creator of The Teeming Brain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Specter Vision Radio.
0:03.3	Welcome to Weird Studies, an art and philosophy podcast with hosts Phil Ford and J.F. Martell.
0:21.8	For more episodes and to support the podcast, go to Weird Studies.com. On William James's, does consciousness exist?
0:52.9	Consciousness is a strange word. I find that it's a
0:59.0	word that's always bothered me. Like I've never liked the word consciousness. And I always try to find
1:04.5	synonyms or other words to substitute for it. That's one of the reasons why this essay by William James
1:13.8	does consciousness exist is so, was so interesting to me when I first saw the title and then when I
1:18.6	read it, I was pretty much blown away by it, even though it's a very difficult text. And it took
1:23.2	a couple of readings to at least to get an idea of what I think he's talking about. Yeah, I just
1:30.3	found that in this particular podcast, it discussed the idea of consciousness itself in light of
1:36.7	this essay, but also in a wider frame could lead to some weird revelations of some sort. So,
1:43.2	like I said, it's a, it's a, it's a hard essay.
1:47.5	What, how many times did you read it, Phil? I couldn't even tell you because the way I've been
1:52.7	reading is like, I'll read a few paragraphs and then at the point at which my poor brain just gives up.
1:58.2	I just stop. And then I'll start again the next day. And I'll read the same stuff that I read the day before, but it'll be slightly clearer, so I'll read a little bit further. And I've just been doing this iterative process until the essay has slowly started to resolve into some kind of picture in my mind.
2:14.6	Right. Whether or not that's an accurate picture or a picture that was intended
2:19.7	by William James, I'm not sure. But at least I have something to say about this essay. Good.
2:26.3	What's kind of interesting, what makes this a weird essay in a sense, is that in the end,
2:32.2	what he's defending is something like naive realism,
2:35.7	I find.
2:37.0	That what he's defending in the end is an understanding of reality that really kind of parallels
2:43.9	the everyday, naive, unreflective, let's call it, sense of reality that we use in our daily
	...

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