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	Colin McGinn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Colin McGinn (born 1950) is a British philosopher at Rutgers University.
		He is primarily known for promoting the view known as New Mysterianism, which is a view of the Philosophy of mind that states that the human mind is fundamentally incapable of comprehending itself entirely.
		McGinn's answer to the hard problem of consciousness is that humans are ultimately unable to find the answer.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Colin_McGinn (176 words)

	Smith on McGinn
		McGinn begins with an abstract formula for a type of being for whom the pain of others is pleasurable ('the evil who are happy', as Nietzsche described such persons), and the pleasure of others is painful.
		McGinn pairs the ATV with a complementary thesis (developed on the basis of Nabokov's remarks on 'aesthetic bliss' in the Afterword to _Lolita_).
		McGinn's use of the word 'entertainment' seems to play the purely rhetorical role of separating worthy, legitimate depictions of evil and illegitimate ones, as if 'art' and 'entertainment' were mutually exclusive terms, when they clearly are not.
	www.film-philosophy.com /vol6-2002/n20smith (1558 words)

	Colin McGinn - Consciousness and Its Objects - Reviewed by Daniel Stoljar, Australian National University - ...
		McGinn's new book gathers together his essays on consciousness from about the last ten years, as well as a number of other essays written expressly for the purpose.
		McGinn is resolutely opposed to irreducibilty--as his opposition to the dime-shape makes clear--and so AM is not his view.
		McGinn himself seems to suggest RM when he says (p.91) "maybe mental states are reducible to something that does not have the marks of full-blown objectivity".
	ndpr.nd.edu /review.cfm?id=1741 (1818 words)

	Sophie Allen, A Space Oddity: McGinn on Consciosness and Space
		Colin McGinn famously contends that the explanation of consciousness is cognitively closed to us: we lack the requisite cognitive abilities to grasp the essential nature of the mind, at least at this stage of our evolution.
		In opposition to McGinn, it might be argued that the notion of temporality, or of entities falling into some temporal order, requires the notion of simultaneity; that is, what it is for an event to occur, or a property be instantiated at the same time or at different times.
		I have pointed to two difficulties with McGinn's argument, the analogy between conscious properties and unobservable physical properties is still up for grabs, and by insisting on the temporality of consciousness without its spatiality, the position he is defending is threatened with incoherence due to the interdependence of space and time.
	lgxserver.uniba.it /lei/mind/texts/t0000012.htm (3419 words)

	Tracking, Reliabilism, and Possible Worlds (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		McGinn makes a good case that discriminative capacities are significant for the theory of knowledge, but a certain realism about possible worlds shows how the tracking theory might be more basic: capacities imply subjunctive conditionals, and possible worlds might be the truth-makers for these.
		McGinn is plausibly critical of modal realism of the latter sort, with special reference to David Lewis; but the multiverse version of modal realism is motivated by wholly different considerations than Lewis’s, empirical arguments from physics that are untouched by McGinn’s criticisms.
		McGinn attends to the portable statement of the tracking theory, dismissing the references to method in the fuller statement as “some minor refinements.” This neglect is responsible for the polarizing.
	www.ul.ie /~philos/vol8/tracking.html (3694 words)

	"Meat all the Way Down": Colin McGinn's The Mysterious Flame
		McGinn agrees with materialists that it is properties of the brain, and the brain alone, which produce consciousness.
		McGinn's exposition of the mind-brain problem is an intelligent and readable summary of centuries of philosophic debate.
		McGinn rests his conviction that the problem of consciousness cannot be solved in part on his misunderstanding of the nature of scientific inquiry.
	serendip.brynmawr.edu /bb/neuro/neuro02/web1/hhochman.html (1494 words)

	Book review of Colin McGinn
		McGinn believes that there is nothing "magic" about consciousness: consciousness is a natural phenomenon just like many others (lightning or hurricanes or comets) and, as such, it is a consequence of the way matter is structured and functions (specifically, how the brain works).
		McGinn's fundamental assumption is that the human mind is biased in its cognitive skills.
		McGinn even speculates that knowledge of ourselves is useful to a limit: maybe if we could fully understand ourselves, we would get very depressed and not willing to survive anymore.
	www.thymos.com /mind/mcginn2.html (812 words)

	Amazon.de: English Books: The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Mcginn believes that the Turing test does not provide a necessary condition for determining if a machine is intelligent since a conscious being such as a cat would flunk the Turing test.
		McGinn discusses possibilities of consciousness in machines to illustrate how if mindfulness could exist in a meat matter, it is conceivable that it may also exist in springs, gears, and pulleys to assist us in various tasks.
		If McGinn is correct, and I think he is, it was left in a coffee can at local church social by a pious elderly woman who had trouble with her hearing aids through the whole affair.
	www.amazon.de /exec/obidos/ASIN/0465014232 (2509 words)

	dun1.html (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Colin McGinn wants to show that despite there being a link between phenomenality and content, the apparent intractability of the former does not preclude some progress being made with the latter.
		McGinn challenges the converse 'medium [based] conception' of content, which he believes is conducive to an 'insulation strategy' approach to the content/phenomenology divide.
		McGinn is also optimistic that teleological explanations of content may offer us a bridge towards naturalistic explanations of phenomenal states (though here he fails to note his own concession of the incompleteness of teleological explanation).
	www.arts.uwa.edu.au /PhilosWWW/consciousness/dun1.html (1441 words)

	Colin McGinn: the New Mysterian and cognitive closure.
		Colin McGinn: the New Mysterian and cognitive closure.
		McGinn doesn't exactly mean that human beings are just too stupid; nor is he offering the popular but mistaken argument that the human brain cannot understand itself because containers cannot contain themselves (so that we can never absorb enough data to grasp our own workings).
		McGinn points out that there are really only two ways of getting at consciousness: by directly considering one's own consciousness through introspection, or through investigating the brain as a physical object.
	www.consciousentities.com /mcginn.htm (1202 words)

	Colin McGinn -- Facts, Info, and Encyclopedia article (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Colin McGinn (born 1950) is a (The people of Great Britain) British philosopher at (Click link for more info and facts about Rutgers University) Rutgers University.
		He is primarily known for promoting the view known as (Click link for more info and facts about New Mysterianism) New Mysterianism, which is a view of the (Click link for more info and facts about Philosophy of mind) Philosophy of mind that states that the human mind is fundamentally incapable of comprehending itself entirely.
		McGinn's answer to the (Click link for more info and facts about hard problem of consciousness) hard problem of consciousness is that humans are ultimately unable to find the answer.
	www.absoluteastronomy.com /encyclopedia/c/co/colin_mcginn1.htm (174 words)

	Imaginarium Online, MultiMedia
		McGinn references Chomsky in what is in many ways an ethical verision of the same theory: according to McGinn, humans possess an inborn set of moral principles.
		McGinn is also quite "good" (according to my own subjective apprehension) at explaining the limitations of scientific knowledge, and the tendency of science to overstep its bounds.
		Obviously, McGinn is quite cognizant of the possibility of inner beauty residing in external ugliness and vice versa.
	www.cornerstonemag.com /imaginarium/media/mcguinn.htm (2416 words)

	Review of McGinn, The Problem of Consciousness
		McGinn is quite aware of how outrageous this doctrine will appear to many people, and he takes pains to place his pessimism in the best light.
		For McGinn to have a convincing case for human cognitive closure, he should provide an empirical example of some creature, human or otherwise, who can definitely understand some question, but be definitively incapable of understanding the answer.
		McGinn's philosophical method is to reflect informally on what seems to him to follow from how the issues seem to him.
	ase.tufts.edu /cogstud/papers/mcginn.htm (2171 words)

	Colin McGinn in ZhurnalWiki
		McGinn's name was already in the back of my mind from a review that I saw in the New York Times Sunday book review in 1999.
		It either critiqued one of McGinn's tomes or was written by him; I have entirely forgotten which.
		And I'm still skeptical of McGinn's thesis that the human mind is fundamentally incomprehensible to the human intellect.
	zhurnal.net /ww/zw?ColinMcGinn (1431 words)

	FT January 2003: The Disconsolate Philosopher (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		McGinn’s seems to be a textbook case of looking at the steam whistle and not the engine, as William James memorably put it.
		Consciousness, McGinn is forced to conclude, is such a fundamentally different phenomenon from the neural processes which accompany it that we are led into a baffling cul—de—sac: we need to know more, but the most highly advanced way of studying the human mind is.
		McGinn lives neither in the clouds nor on his knees, preferring instead the flattened and tedious world described by Nietzsche as the effects of sterile rationalism.
	www.firstthings.com /ftissues/ft0301/articles/rose.html (3574 words)

	WWGPro.DE Buchtipps: Moral Literacy: Or How to Do the Right Thing (Colin McGinn) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		McGinn sets the stage with a nice little introduction (Chapter 1) in which he explains how he hopes to supplant dogmatic moral thinking by offering a way of approaching moral questions that lead to reason-based conclusions rather than by mere faith or blind proscription alone.
		McGinn goes on to demonstrate what is, unfortunately for all of us who love their beef, certainly true: the current way in which we harvest animals is morally repugnant (or at the very least we ought to be as humane as we possible can be when harvesting them).
		McGinn's thinking is heavily influenced by virtue ethics, which disappointed me, but I hear that a lot of people go for that sort of thing.
	www.wwgpro.de /books-isbn-0872201961.html (822 words)

	Review Colin Mcginn - Computer Toaster (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		McGinn's thesis is very interesting, and he does a relatively good job of arguing for it, but he could have made a much stronger case for why "supernaturalistic" accounts of consciousness must be ruled out.
		In this little book Colin McGinn seeks to "explain philosophy in an accessible, engaging way." McGinn uses an autobiographical format to accomplish this, and the book is packed with anecdotal good humor to boot.
		McGinn is a first rate philosopher and his foray into ethics is further proof of his talent.
	computertoaster.com /reviews/authorsearch_Colin%20McGinn/mode_books (499 words)

	The Making of a Philosopher Colin McGinn
		McGinn argues that malleability, conductivity are as essential as molecular structure for gold to be gold.
		McGinn argues that other mental states are like perception: pain, tickles, mathematical thoughts, thoughts about color and shape, ethical thoughts.
		McGinn says that existence is what it really appears to be: (236) “a genuine property of objects.
	accweb.itr.maryville.edu /schwartz/course%20freshman%20sem%2002%20making%20philosopher.htm (4430 words)

	The White Bone and Timbuktu Colin McGinn (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Colin McGinn points out that Paul Auster gets literary mileage out of the difference between our sense of smell and the dog's sense of scent.
		Colin McGinn has praised these novels for giving us a dose of the sympathy the animals need from us.
		Colin McGinn is professor of philosophy at Rutgers University and author, most recently, of The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (click here to buy the book).
	slate.msn.com /id/2000087/entry/1003003 (1447 words)

	Called to ask the big questions
		At Oxford, McGinn imbibed a style of "analytic" thought descended from Russell that views problems of knowledge and ethics as rooted in misunderstandings of the underlying logic of concepts and language.
		McGinn has become famous within and beyond the philosophical community for his pessimism regarding the mind's capacity to find its origin in the physiology that sustains it.
		McGinn's skepticism, humor and self-knowledge may be more persuasive than his professional work to anyone curious about the philosophical life.
	www.sfgate.com /cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/05/12/RV240653.DTL (838 words)

	Amherst College : News & Events : News Releases : Colin McGinn (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		McGinn’s talk, sponsored by the Department of Philosophy at Amherst College and the Forry Fund in Philosophy and Science as part of a series on “Science and the Limits of Explanation,” is free and open to the public.
		Colin McGinn has explored the philosophy of mind, problems of consciousness, and moral philosophy in The Character of Mind (1982), The Problem of Consciousness (1991) and Problems in Philosophy: The Limits of Inquiry (1993), among many other works.
		McGinn, who holds degrees from Oxford and Manchester Universities, has also taught at Oxford and University College, London, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, the University of Bielefeld (Germany), the City University of New York and Princeton University.
	www.amherst.edu /~pubaff/news/news_releases/00/mcginn.html (200 words)

	Harvard University Press/Mindsight
		Colin McGinn is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.
		McGinn shows what the differences are, arguing that imagination is a sui generis mental faculty.
		In the second half of the book McGinn focuses on what he calls cognitive (as opposed to sensory) imagination, and investigates the role of imagination in logical reasoning, belief formation, the understanding of negation and possibility, and the comprehension of meaning.
	www.hup.harvard.edu /catalog/MCGMIN.html (234 words)

	Strawson, Little Gray Cells
		McGinn's central thesis is that the existence of consciousness in a material world is a deep mystery that we will never unravel.
		Consciousness, he says, is an entirely natural phenomenon; it is wholly based or ''rooted'' in the physical brain from which it ''emerges.'' The trouble is that we are incapable of understanding how this can be so, given the senses and the intellect with which evolution has equipped us.
		McGinn agrees with this last point, in fact: with considerable speculative panache, he develops the idea that there must be something deficient in our idea of space, as well as in our idea of matter.
	www.sscnet.ucla.edu /comm/steen/cogweb/Abstracts/Strawson_99.html (1339 words)

	Senior professor leaves top department - The Daily Targum - Page One
		McGinn, a professor at the University since 1990, said his departure has more to do with the warmer climate in Florida than any intellectual perks Miami can offer.
		McGinn said moving from a distinguished department like Rutgers is a downside, but teaching at Miami only part time would have caused too many complications.
		McGinn, currently on leave, will teach an undergraduate course on literature and a proseminar for graduate students at the University in the fall semester.
	www.dailytargum.com /news/2005/04/29/PageOne/Senior.Professor.Leaves.Top.Department-944159.shtml (789 words)

	New Statesman: Proudly ignorant. . - Books - The Making of a Philosopher - book review (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		Colin McGinn was once introduced to the actress Jennifer Aniston at a party.
		McGinn's early underachievement in the classroom may have influenced him in adopting this view.
		McGinn was taken with the dark flip side of Chomsky's discovery of a form of innate knowledge possessed by all human beings -- the possibility of innate ignorance.
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4641_132/ai_103415826 (706 words)

	The End of Thought
		COLIN MCGINN is a clever man--the very clever product of that very clever school of British academic thought known as analytic philosophy.
		McGinn is also the author of several influential books of philosophy, and he has taught at Oxford, UCLA, and, now, at Rutgers.
		Indeed, McGinn's own philosophical journey ends with a whimper, in the conclusion that the human intellect is ill-suited to the task of philosophy--which may well be true: The arid inhumanity of analytic philosophy requires for its fulfillment a league of gods, or angels, or stones--anything but human beings.
	www.weeklystandard.com /Content/Public/articles/000/000/001/424yhrgf.asp (552 words)

	Amazon.ca: Books: The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-08)
		McGinn, who also writes fiction, has a gift for narrative, and the events in his life propel the reader along a clear, concise, and helpful overview of the main topics in today's philosophy departments.
		McGinn tries to come at introducing philosophy in a different way: through his autobiography and through the issues that prompted his interests in philosophy, the ideas he found interesting as a young man studying philosophy, and what he has thought about at particular times in his career as an academic.
		The first story is the one of McGinn's rise to prominence in academia, and the other is the story of major issues in U.S. and U.K. philosophy from the sixties to the present.
	www.amazon.ca /exec/obidos/ASIN/0060197927 (1376 words)

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