The Research Of McGinn’s Cognitive Closure Thought

Colin McGinn is a very important contemporary philosopher, who is active in the stage of world philosophy. He has research on multiple philosophy, of which the philosophy of mind is most remarkable. When he thought mind-body problems, he puts forward the idea of cognitive closure, also often referred to as new mysticism. McGinn don’t believes that mind-body problems are mysterious, and it is one of the most common phenomenon in nature, but as a result of our cognitive structure, the natural phenomenon is viewed as the mysterious. In other words, cognitive closure contributed to the mystique of mind-body problems. What is the cognitive closure? How is it brought up? What is the relationship between it and related theories in the history of philosophy? How do the contemporary philosophers criticize it? What is the meaning for the contemporary Chinese philosophy by researching it? They are the problems that we will solve in this article.Firstly, we examine the history of the research of mind-body problems, and introduce Colin McGinn’s opinions about the problems. Secondly, we discuss the status of the research of cognitive closure, and the status quo is that the research of the abroad is at full blast, and the research of the domestic is still in the stage of introducing. Thirdly, we investigate the brought-up of the cognitive closure and the relation between it and the related theories in the history of the philosophy; then, we focus on McGinn’s argumentation for the idea of cognitive closure——In "Can we solve the mind-body problem?"(1989),McGinn brought up the idea of cognitive closure, And had carried on the preliminary demonstration, for example, the property P and the theory T and the premise of cognitive closure; in The Mysterious Flame:Conscious Minds in a Material World(1999), McGinn positively explains the idea; in The problem in the philosophy:the limit of the inquiry(1993), McGinn explains the idea in a systematic way, and tries to put the idea to solve the other problem of the philosophy. In the last, we discuss about the argument for McGinn’s idea. The cognitive closure causes many philosophers’the attention. Some people are agreement with McGinn, on the other hand, some people are not. After studying cognitive closure,we have a brief review on McGinn’s idea. In addition to remind everybody, the idea of cognitive closure aimed at the mind-body problem firstly, then McGinn expanded the scope of its application, but we could not deny human wisdom by that, which is the most real significance of the idea of cognitive closure.