Colin McGinn

Colin McGinn (born March 10, 1950 in Hartlepool , England ) is a British philosopher who has taught at Rutgers University in New Jersey for a long time ; from 2006 to 2013 he was professor of philosophy at the University of Miami . His main areas of work are philosophy of mind and metaphysics .

Philosophy of mind

McGinn's central thesis is that due to our limited cognitive abilities we cannot and fundamentally cannot solve certain problems conclusively. According to him, this is due to the modular structure of our consciousness . McGinn relies in particular on works by Jerry Fodor (for example in The Modularity of Mind ), Thomas Nagels ( The View from Nowhere ), and on Noam Chomsky's views on the human language apparatus. McGinn, Nagel and Fodor were referred to as "New Mysterians" by the philosopher Owen Flanagan because of their skepticism about the possibility of solving the mind-body problem in a purely physicalistic way . According to McGinn, powerful focus modules have developed over the course of evolution to solve certain problems . However, our cognitive tools based on these modules are either in principle unsuitable for solving certain other problems or, at least in principle, of limited effectiveness. According to McGinn, this primarily includes questions of an ontological and epistemological nature and thus especially those problems that are the classic subject of philosophy, i.e. questions about the nature and basis of meaning and meaning, questions about consciousness or the mind- body problem as well as those relating to free will and the self . All of these problems are solvable in principle and without having to refer to higher (ie non- materialistic ) principles - we, as humans, cannot solve them for equally fundamental reasons.

Sexual harassment affair

In early June 2013 it was announced that McGinn would give up his professorship in Miami at the end of the year under pressure from the university administration after allegations of sexual harassment of his research assistant ("research assistant") Monica Ainhorn Morrison. He himself dismisses the allegations. The case was settled in 2016, and those involved pledged not to disclose.

Works

• 1982: The Character of Mind. Oxford University Press, Oxford, ISBN 978-0-192-89159-4 .
• 1983: The Subjective View. Secondary Qualities and Indexical Thoughts. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, ISBN 978-0-198-24695-4 .
• 1989: Wittgenstein on Meaning. Blackwell, Oxford
• 1991: Mental Content. Blackwell, Oxford, ISBN 978-0-631-15681-9 .
• 1991: The Problem of Consciousness. Blackwell, Oxford, ISBN 978-0-631-17698-5 .
• 1992: Moral Literacy or How To Do The Right Thing. Duckworth, London, ISBN 978-0-715-62417-3 .
• 1992: The Space Trap. CreateSpace Independent Publ., ISBN 978-1-493-75625-4 .
• 1993: Problems in Philosophy. The Limits of Inquiry. Blackwell, Oxford, ISBN 978-1-557-86475-8 .
  • 1996: The Limits of Sensible Questioning. Basic problems of philosophy. Klett, Stuttgart ISBN 978-3-608-91088-9 .
• 1997: Minds and Bodies. Philosophers and Their Ideas. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, ISBN 978-0-195-11355-6 .
• 1999: Ethics, Evil and Fiction. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, ISBN 978-0-198-23877-5 .
  • 2001: The good, the bad and the beautiful. About modern ethics. Klett, Stuttgart, ISBN 978-3-608-91968-4 .
• 2000: The Mysterious Flame. Conscious Minds in a Material World. Basic Books, New York, ISBN 978-0-465-01423-1 .
  • How does the spirit get into matter? The riddle of consciousness. Beck, Munich 2001 ISBN 340-6-47217-6 . TB output since 2003 with Piper, Munich ISBN 978-3-492-23653-9 .
• 2000: Logical Properties: Identity, Existence, Predication, Necessity, Truth. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, ISBN 978-0-199-24181-1 .
• 2002: Knowledge and Reality. Selected papers. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, ISBN 978-0-199-25158-2 .
• 2002: The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy. , Harper Collins, ISBN 978-0-060-95760-5 .
• 2004: Mindsight: Image, Dream, Meaning. Harvard Univ. Press. Cambridge, Mass., ISBN 0-674-01560-6 .
  • The Spiritual Eye - From the power of the imagination. Primus, Darmstadt 2007 ISBN 978-3-896-78293-9 .
• 2004: Consciousness and its Objects. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, ISBN 978-0-199-26760-6 .
• 2005: The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact. Pantheon Books, New York, ISBN 0-375-42317-6 .
• 2007: Shakespeare's Philosophy: Discovering the Meaning Behind the Plays. Harper Collins, London, ISBN 978-0-060-85616-8 .
• 2008: Mindfucking. Acumen, Stocksfield, ISBN 978-1-84465-114-6 .
• 2015: Philosophy of Language: The Classics Explained. MIT Press, Cambridge MA. ISBN 978-0-262-02845-5 .

documentary

McGinn can also be seen in the documentary The Atheism Tapes (2004) by Jonathan Miller , in which six well-known personalities are asked about the tension between religion and atheism in about half-hour interviews.

Web links

• Literature by and about Colin McGinn in the catalog of the German National Library
• Essay “Conscious Entities” - Colin McGinn
• A review of McGinn's autobiography

Individual evidence

1. ^ J. Andrew Ross: First-Person Consciousness: Honderich and McGinn Reviewed , p. 6 (PDF; 190 kB), accessed May 30, 2015.
2. ^ Seth Zweifler, Prominent Philosopher to Leave U. of Miami in Wake of Misconduct Allegations . Chronicle of Higher Education, June 4, 2013.
3. ↑ See: Sibylle Anderl The outcry of women philosophers in FAZ blog of June 22, 2013.
4. ↑ Colleen Flaherty, "U Miami Settles Harassment Case Philosophy" , Inside Higher Ed , 18 October 2016th
5. ↑ On the construction-related shortcomings of the mind faz.net p.2 review of The Limits of Sensible Asking.
6. ↑ Morality as a mud pack - faz.net . Review of the good, the bad and the beautiful.
7. ↑ Our brain is much too weak for our brain - faz.net review on How does the spirit get into matter?