Beyond Feelings

18 PART ONE The Context
that has challenged the greatest thinkers for millennia—the relationship
between mind and physical matter—was somehow solved when no one
was looking. The problem itself and the individuals who spent their lives
wrestling with it deserve better.
Neuroscience has provided a number of valuable insights into the
cognitive or thinking activities of the brain. It has documented that the
left hemisphere of the brain deals mainly with detailed language processing
and is associated with analysis and logical thinking, that the right
hemisphere deals mainly with sensory images and is associated with intuition
and creative thinking, and that the small bundle of nerves that lies
between the hemispheres—the corpus callosum—integrates the various
functions.
The research that produced these insights showed that the brain is
necessary for thought, but it has not shown that the brain is sufficient for
thought. In fact, many philosophers claim it can never show that. They
argue that the mind and the brain are demonstrably different. Whereas
the brain is a physical entity composed of matter and therefore subject to
decay, the mind is a metaphysical entity. Examine brain cells under the
most powerful microscope and you will never see an idea or concept—
for example, beauty, government, equality, or love—because ideas and
concepts are not material entities and so have no physical dimension.
Where, then, do these nonmaterial things reside? In the nonmaterial
mind. 5
The late American philosopher William Barrett observed that “history
is, fundamentally, the adventure of human consciousness” and “the
fundamental history of humankind is the history of mind.” In his view,
“one of the supreme ironies of modern history” is the fact that science,
which owes its very existence to the human mind, has had the audacity to
deny the reality of the mind. As he put it, “the offspring denies the
parent.” 6
The argument over whether the mind is a reality is not the only issue
about the mind that has been hotly debated over the centuries. One especially
important issue is whether the mind is passive, a blank slate on
which experience writes, as John Locke held, or active, a vehicle by which
we take the initiative and exercise our free will, as G. W. Leibnitz argued.
This book is based on the latter view.
Critical Thinking Defined
Let’s begin by making the important distinction between thinking and
feeling. I feel and I think are sometimes used interchangeably, but that
practice causes confusion. Feeling is a subjective response that reflects
emotion, sentiment, or desire; it generally occurs spontaneously rather