Browsing by Author "Oyelakin R.T."

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    A Critical Exposition Of Quine's Arguments on the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction
    (Nsukka Jornal of the Humanities, 2009) Oyelakin R.T.
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    A Discourse on Qune's Idea of Conventionalism of Language
    (Journal of Theory and Reserch in Education, 2011) Oyelakin R.T.
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    Against Quine's Methodological Infirmity of Ethics
    (Nigerian Journal of the Humanities, 2014) Oyelakin R.T.
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    Being African; Being Human: Questioning the African Humaness
    (Segundo Selo, Brazil, 2020) Oyelakin R.T.
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    Can Scientists Help Philosophers Regarding the Nature of Phenomenal Experience?
    (Forum Philosophicum- International Journal for Philosophy, 2020) Oyelakin R.T.
    In response to Putnam’s computational hypothesis on the question of the nature of the mind, Searle and Churchland argue that the nature of mental states essentially consists of neurophysiological processes in an organic brain. However, this seems to imply that mental states are products of the brain and thus, contra Putnam, that an adequate account of mental states which excludes an implementing organic structure is impossible. To this extent, an attempt is made in the paper to structure a biological-organic program. By this structure, it is identified that mental state is a process of the whole organism which necessarily produces phenomenal experience. However, if phenomenal experience is a product of mental states, which consists in neural firings in the brain, then it appears the problem is reducible to a question of how; i.e. how does the brain do it? In turn, this may direct our attention to neuroscientists. However, the paper argues that even perceptual internalism, which is the theoretical basis of contemporary neuroscience, may not really be of help in this case. It is argued that the experimentation and observation which foreground scientific enquiry may not be able to sufficiently account for the how question without leaving some other questions unanswered. As a result, a seemingly implied otherworldly reality or principle is explored. It is submitted that our natural tendency and apparatus (what else do we have) do not appear to lead us forward. Again, withdrawing back to our natural system, our deficient human nature requires us to tread with caution but hopefully, perhaps, we may eventually make progress in this regard.
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    How Preferential is Professor Makinde's Preferential Choice
    (African Journal of Culture, Philosophy and the Society, 2013) Oyelakin R.T.
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    How Then Can the Nature of These Things Called “Mental States” Be Accounted for?
    (International Journal of Arts and Humanities (IJAH), 2016) Oyelakin R.T.
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    Hybridization of Physical Objects: A case in-between percept and Sense Data Theories of Perception
    (Nigerian Journal of the Humanities, 2013) Oyelakin R.T.
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    Interrogating the Plausibility of Ideological Classification of Nigerian Society
    (Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2016) Oyelakin R.T.
    It is almost a theoretical truism that a society comprises different groups of people held together by common ideas, goals, and social-political and economic principles. These ideas, goals and principles precipitated different ideological groupings depending on the nature and supporting history of such society. Resulting from the differences in ideas, goals and principles in such a society, one ideological group is classified from the other. Consequently, talking about the organization of some Western societies namely, the United Kingdom, there are some diverse but sometimes competing ideological schools. Typically, we have the Conservative, the Liberal and the Radical Left. However, attempts are made to define African politico-economic structures along these foreign ideological classifications. This originates from the view that an ideological classification which originated and is working in some particular Western society must also work in typical African society. Whereas, the latter is not only different in its theoretical framework but also in its historical background. Consequently, this paper seeks to interrogate the justification of such classification of Nigerian society. The paper intends to submit that attempting to classify Nigerian politico-economic structure into these ideological frameworks is not only contradictory to the nature of our society, but also that such classifications are just conceptual acronyms for pseudo classes.
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    Mitigating the Forceof Putnam's Skepticism on the Nature of Mental State
    (Nnamidi Azikwe Journal of Philosophy, 2019) Oyelakin R.T.
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    NATURAL MINDS AND DIVINE TRUTH: RETHINKING THE AUGUSTINIAN1 IDEA OF NECESSARY TRUTH
    (Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies (IJOURELS), 2012) Oyelakin R.T.
    Abstract St Augustine of Hippo and the other fellow Augustinians, such as St Bonaventure, argued that the human mind lacks the cognitive capacity to attain the necessary, certain, and the immutable truth. This necessary, certain, and the immutable truth, they argued, can only come through divine illumination whose source is God. For this reason, many people have recourse to religious places in search of this immutable and necessary truth about nature and human beings. This paper argued that discourse about truths reduces to discourse about language truth. If it is true that language and meaning are natural and originate form human cognitive faculty, then statements about the idea of divine truth, divine illumination, necessity, and even every statement that purports to express or implies the existence of God, are all, as a matter of necessity, natural issues and are going to be product of man’s cognitive powers. No truth of these statements can therefore be beyond the natural. The paper then concluded that, seriously speaking, presumptuously what the Augustinians are looking for might be termed human idols which are invariably inherent in human cognitive faculty.
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    Normic Statment and Normic Network: Scriven's Alternative Explanation for Historical Phenomena
    (IUB Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 2011) Oyelakin R.T.
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    Phenomenal Consciousness: An Alternative Healing Method for Mental Illnesses
    (The Journal of Pan African Studies, 2010-09) Oyelakin R.T.
    The paper researches the debates between physicalists such as Paul and Patricia Churchland and the anti-physicalists such as Frank Jackson, about the possibility of the complete empirical explanation and reduction of the nature and property of subjective consciousness. The paper argues that phenomenal consciousness cannot be explained or reduced by physicalist which raises the issue of the need for psycho-mental experts and/-or psychiatrics to enhance their expertise with an understanding of the nature and characteristics of phenomenal consciousness as an alternative healing method for psycho mental illnesses in Africa, and in Nigeria particularly.
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    Putnam, Searle and Boden on Mental Cognition versus Machine Cognition: The Journey back to the Beginning
    (LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 2019) Oyelakin R.T.
    The main question of this paper is to account for the nature of mental states. Putnam’s hypothesis opines that the nature of mental states is analogous to the nature of machine states. Searle challenges Putnam’s hypothesis in the Chinese room experiment. The experiment shows that it is indeed possible to satisfy Putnam’s requirements for having a particular mental state without having the mental states in question. The question which is being pressed in this paper is whether, in view of Boden’s position, what actually constitutes meaning of codes and symbols, or whether codes and symbols, have independent meanings different from the transferred ones?. This is to examine whether Searle’s arguments still maintains its plausibility against Putnam’s computational hypothesis of the mind. The paper concludes that from Boden’s view, Searle’s justification for his challenge only raises the original question; the question concerning the nature of mental states.
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    Questionable but Unquestioned Beliefs:A Call for a Critical Examination of Yoruba Culture
    (Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya (PAK), 2011) Oyelakin R.T.
    The fundamental belief in destiny in Yoruba culture is explained within the tradition that for every individual person who comes to aye (earth), there is a package of destiny containing the totality of all that such person will be. However, the content of this destiny is not known to any person except Orunmila, one of the deities. Therefore, it is believed that a person dies if and when he/she has exhausted the content of his/her ori (package of destiny). Included also in the Yoruba belief system is that a youthful death is a sorrowful death. This is predicated on the premise that a young man could not have completed the content of his earthly mission. His death is therefore sorrowful, and he could therefore not be admitted into Orun(“heaven”) to join the league of the ancestors. This is the explanation for the belief in reincarnation, and, more specifically, the belief in akudaaya or abarameji(reincarnated persons).
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    QUINE’S TAXONOMY, CHOMSKY’S MENTALISM: A DISCOURSE ON THEORIES OF LANGUAGE LEARNING AND IMPLICATION ON YORUBA LANGUAGE
    (The African Symposium: An online journal of the African Educational Research Network, 2011) Oyelakin R.T.
    W. V. Quine’s taxonomic and N. Chomsky’s mentalistic theories of language are the two main rival theories of language learning. Quine argues essentially that what determines how a particular language is learned and the meaning of words is external stimulation. This may be verbal or non-verbal. He therefore recasts meaning in terms of stimulation. The stimulus meaning of a sentence for an individual sums up his disposition to assent to or dissent from the sentence in response to present stimulation. Opposing to this view is Chomsky’s mentalistic theory which maintains that the subject matter of language learning, properly so called, does not consist in the systematic structure of the disposition towards stimulation, but it is a mental activity which consists in the mental capacity to discover, study and understand the nature of mental realities of language. The paper argues that neither of these theories, taken independently, can provide an adequate explanation of language learning. Argument is then made for holistic theory of language learning. This is to the fact that language learning can only be adequate when it combines the two theories otherwise inadequate. This, essentially, is the suggested remedy to the deficient teaching and/ or learning of Yoruba language.
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