第五场外教讲座：现代英美哲学讨论的三个问题

记者👨🏼‍🍼：沈小倩

2013年1月4日晚七点🔎，外院在励耘楼A102成功举办了第五场外籍教师讲座。主讲人Dr. Matthew Conduct围绕现代英美哲学讨论的三个问题为在场的师生做了精彩的演讲。

第一个问题是关于笛卡尔的两元论：笛卡尔提出“我思故我在”这个命题🐔，他的两元论主张精神和身体是相互独立的实体，前者的本质是思想🤽🏻，而后者的本质是外延🦀。在谈到第二个问题“错觉的论证”时，Dr. Matthew Conduct先引入一个问题：我们是否直接去体验这个世界？随后他展示了许多带错觉效果的图片，指出人们会因为自身经验而产生错觉。最后一个问题是“中文房间”的论证🙆🏼，这个论证的结果是：即使计算机拥有了适当程序𓀕，也不能像人一样进行思考。

哲学知识向来被认为是抽象甚至晦涩的，但这次讲座中🧔🏼‍♀️，每讲完一个问题就会有一个问答环节，这样既能及时答疑解惑，也调动了观众们思考的积极性。

A Lecture: Three Philosophical Problems

By SHEN Xiaoqian

The School of Foreign Languages held the fifth lecture, which was given by Dr. Matthew Conduct at 7 p.m. on January 4th, 2013 in Liyun A102. The topic of the lecture was three philosophical problems in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy.

The first problem was about Cartesian dualism. One of Descartes’ famous saying was “I think therefore I am.” In his dualism theory, mind and body were two fundamentally kinds of substance in the world. The former was thinking substance while the latter was extended substance. Dr. Matthew Conduct began the second problem of illusion with the question - Do we experience the world directly? Then he displayed some pictures that could cause illusion and explained that illusion might be the result of human experience. The last problem was the Chinese Room Argument, whose result was that minds could not be produced by computational approaches alone.

Philosophy was always regarded abstract and even obscure. However, it seemed to be different in Dr. Matthew Conduct’s lecture. There was always a question and answer session following every discussion of the problems, so that the audience could have their confusion solved in time which would also encourage them to brainstorm.