Cartesian theater explained

"Cartesian theater" is a derisive term by philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, made known in his 1991 book Consciousness Explained, to refer pointedly to a defining aspect of what he calls Cartesian materialism, which he considers to be the often unacknowledged remnants of Cartesian dualism in modern materialist theories of the mind.

Dennett's former teacher Gilbert Ryle, in his book The Concept of Mind (1949), had also ridiculed the conception of the mind as a "private theater" or "second theater" in Cartesian dualism.^[1]

Overview

Descartes originally claimed that consciousness requires an immaterial soul, which interacts with the body via the pineal gland of the brain. Dennett says that, when the dualism is removed, what remains of Descartes' original model amounts to imagining a tiny theater in the brain where a homunculus (small person), now physical, performs the task of observing all the sensory data projected on a screen at a particular instant, making the decisions and sending out commands (see Homunculus argument).

The term "Cartesian theater" was brought up in the context of the multiple drafts model that Dennett posits in Consciousness Explained (1991):

See also

• Circular reasoning
• Global workspace theory
• Inside Out
• Münchhausen trilemma
• The Numskulls
• Personal horizon
• Purusha
• Turtles all the way down
• Vertiginous question

Further reading

• Book: Carruthers, Peter . Peter Carruthers (philosopher) . 2000 . Fragmentary consciousness and the Cartesian theatre . Phenomenal Consciousness: A Naturalistic Theory . Cambridge, UK; New York . . 297–324 . 0521781736 . 43287175 . 10.1017/CBO9780511487491.012 .
• Dennett . Daniel C. . 1982 . Styles of mental representation . Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society . 83 . 213--226 . 4545000 . Includes an early use of the term "Cartesian theater".
• Dennett . Daniel C. . Kinsbourne . Marcel . Marcel Kinsbourne . June 1992 . Time and the observer: the where and when of consciousness in the brain . . 15 . 2 . 183–201; commentary and response 201–247 . 10.1017/S0140525X00068229 . Includes open peer commentary and a reply by the authors.
• Dolega . Krzysztof . Dewhurst . Joe . 2015 . Curtain call at the Cartesian theatre . . 22 . 9-10 . 109–128 . Responds to .
• Book: Gobert, R. Darren . 2013 . The Mind-Body Stage: Passion and Interaction in the Cartesian Theatre . Stanford, CA . . 9780804786386 . 830683608 . 10.11126/stanford/9780804786386.001.0001 .
• Book: Gray, Jeffrey Alan . Jeffrey Alan Gray . 2004 . From Cartesian theatre to global workspace . Consciousness: Creeping up on the Hard Problem . Oxford; New York . . 149–170 . 0198520905 . 55970336 . 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198520917.003.0011 .
• Hobson . J. Allan . Allan Hobson . Friston . Karl J. . Karl J. Friston . 2014 . Consciousness, dreams, and inference: the Cartesian theatre revisited . . 21 . 1-2 . 6–32 .
• Hobson . J. Allan . Friston . Karl J. . 2016 . A response to our theatre critics . . 23 . 3-4 . 245–254 . Responds to .
• Lormand . Eric . 1994 . Qualia! (now showing at a theater near you) . . 22 . 1/2 . 127–156 . 43154656 .
• Book: Slezak, Peter . 2023 . Spectator in the Cartesian Theater: Where Theories of Mind Went Wrong Since Descartes . Lanham, MD . . 9781666923759 . 1377716149 .

External links

• Richard Chappell on "The Cartesian Theater"

Notes and References

1. Book: Caston, Victor . 2021 . Aristotle and the Cartesian theatre . Gregoric . Pavel . Fink . Jakob Leth . Encounters with Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind . New York . . 169–220 (footnote 1) . 9780367439132 . 1223014825 . 10.4324/9781003008484-11 . https://ancphil.lsa.umich.edu/-/downloads/faculty/caston/cartesian-theatre.pdf.