Passcode: 328147

In the Western philosophical tradition, the concept of mind is classically traced to the 17th century French philosopher Rene Descartes. It is interesting that the basic objection of most people to the Cartesian conception of the mind is that Descartes insisted on a mind-body dualism. Most people seem to agree with his concept of mind itself. According to this widespread classical view, the mind is a collection of capacities such as language, vision, consciousness, reasoning, among other things. We will see that this cluster conception of the mind is deeply inconsistent with the basic Cartesian idea that the mind is unique to the species. We will argue for a very different conception of the mind that is more strongly compatible with the Cartesian view without falling into its inconsistencies. In this alternative view, the mind is seen as a simple human-specific system that lies at the core of a vast range of human-specific domains. It is most unlikely that the mind is shared even in part with animals.

Professor Nirmalangshu Mukherji is an eminent philosopher specialising in theory of mind, biolinguistics and cognitive science. Having earned his PhD from the University of Waterloo, he started out aiming to become a philosopher of science, drifted into epistemology, moved on to classical philosophy of language. His research and publications in these areas, including the edited volume of Noam Chomsky’s Delhi lectures, The Architecture of Language, drew him to cognitive science and the re-emerging field of Biolinguistics. Professor Mukherji has successfully applied the tools and methods of Natural Science to the study of cognition, authoring numerous articles and books on the general architecture of the human mind, the generative capacities that underlie cognitive processes, and the nature of musical organization in the mind, arguing that a single computational module, CHL (Computation System/Human Language, in Chomskyan terms) subserves all of them. Besides his more technical and scientific activities, Professor Mukherji maintains a deep interest in the role of philosophy in life in general, and questions of justice and society. Here is focus has consistently highlighted the struggles and resistance movements of tribals, adivasis and minorities against the onslaught of capitalism and neoliberalism. Professor Mukherji retired as Professor of Philosophy from University of Delhi in 2015 and held the position of National Professor of Philosophy at the Indian Council of Philosophical Research from 2015 to 2016.

Passcode: 328147