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The British philosopher Mary Midgley has
used the metaphor of the maps recently in arguing for an approach to
consciousness which is neither reductionist nor dualist. She argues that different sorts of mental phenomena - and aspects of humanity
dependent on our consciousness, such as society - can be described using the
analogy of different maps - political, demographic, climatic, etc - of the
(one) world.
Midgley insists that consciousness, and
indeed society and politics and the like, are
not any less real than the atoms of which they are made, and the maps drawn
of them should not be regarded as inferior. ‘Neither houses nor quarks... are
more real than mental items’
The relation between scientific and
theological descriptions of mental states and religious experience is discussed
by Fraser Watts in God, Humanity and the
Cosmos, Ch.5.
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link | Feedback | Contributed by: Dr. Christopher Southgate
Source: God, Humanity and the Cosmos (T&T Clark, 1999)
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