Future Philosophy

Abstract

Philosophy hangs together by coherence relations tied to scientific evidence. Multilevel materialism in the philosophy of mind fits well bidirectionally with reliable coherentism in epistemology. Understanding the brain as operating with neural mechanisms of parallel constraint satisfaction supports and is supported by the view that knowledge is based on reliable coherence. Both of these views fit with scientific realism as the most plausible approach to metaphysics. There are internally coherent alternatives to my system of social cognitivism, such as religious philosophies that espouse faith and supernaturalism, but these are incompatible with centuries of accumulated evidence. This concluding chapter addresses three important philosophical questions that remain unresolved despite relevant advances in cognitive science: the existence of free will, the nature of mathematical knowledge, and the mental capacities of machines and nonhuman animals.