To Live for Something
by Andreas Saugstad
“How grimly Rogosjin had spoken that morning about ‘losing his faith’ The man must suffer terribly …Rogosjin wasn’t just a passionate soul , he was a warrior… Yes! To believe in something! In someone!” (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot)
Man is a cognitive being. Some thinkers and scientists have denied this fact. Philosopher Paul Churchland claims that everything that exists is the material. In his theory, called eliminative materialism, there is no room for the mental aspect of motivation. Everything, so Churchland thinks, is material and to believe in cognitive states is an illusion that modern science can save us from. In psychology, similar theories have been constructed. Most radical is perhaps B.F. Skinner’s behaviorism.
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