I think you can have a science of the taste of chicken soup, or the taste of Chateau Latour. My point is only that knowing this science alone will not tell you what chicken soup or Chateau Latour tastes like.
Tim CraneIf I was going to sum up my approach to this whole mind issue, I would say this: the question is often formulated in a very bad way - for example, by posing the question in terms of stuff. It's better to start with the things we do know: for example, that there are people and other thinking creatures, who have mental capacities. Our next step should be to say something about these capacities.
Tim CraneI do not claim to have any developed or sophisticated views in political philosophy, but I think that one of the lessons of the last few hundred years of history is that the greatest threat to human prosperity and well-being is fanaticism and intolerance, even in the name of apparently laudable goals.
Tim CraneProblems come and go over time, and to understand why is a difficult historical task. If one wanted to find the origin of a problem, historical research and close attention to texts is what is needed, not unconstrained speculation about the 'pictures' that philosophers must be in the grip of.
Tim CraneI think we atheists should tolerate the religious not because their views are just as valid as ours, but because experience has shown that we are unlikely to convert them, and so we have to find some way to live in peace with them, even if we find their views false or otherwise objectionable.
Tim CraneThere's that great Irish joke: a man is lost in the countryside, stops a passer-by: 'how do I get to Dublin?'. The passer-by says 'well, I wouldn't start from here'. Rather than starting by talking in the abstract about materialism, dualism, 'material stuff' and things like that in regard to the mind, I would rather start from somewhere else.
Tim Crane