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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2013-05-13 09:38, Gordon wrote:<br>
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<div><span><font size="3">Thanks for all the input here in
answer to my question! </font></span></div>
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font-style: normal;"><font size="3">If I didn't miss any posts
then </font>noticeably<font size="3"> absent from the list
are the likes of Jerry Fodor and John Searle.</font></div>
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<br>
I can't speak about Fodor (he seems to have gone onto some formalist
track that might make good philosophy papers but doesn't contribute
much to the important questions), but Searle remains a big name. We
might mainly see him here as anti-AI, but he is more primarily a big
name in philosophy of language and mind, where he seems to have made
useful distinctions. Whether they are useful outside philosophy
remains to be seen. <br>
<br>
Conversely, Francis Fukuyama is a good international public
intellectual to whom we should be grateful that he attacked
transhumanism: while his arguments are not very good, it actually
made transhumanism and enhancement a popular topic in academia (and,
since he was aligned with GWB, a lot of people automatically decided
to take the opposite stance from him). <br>
<br>
Michael Sandel might be better at arguing, although his argument
doesn't seem to lead very far. And Leon Kass... well, he made
arguing for transhumanism against him *fun* given his somewhat
pompous style.<br>
<br>
Hmm, maybe the guy formerly known as pope Benedict should be counted
as a pretty heavyweight anti-transhumanist philosopher of import.
His arguments are pretty sharp as long as one buys a pretty
speculative (but reputedly popular) package of assumptions. <br>
<br>
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