Ridling Zaine. Philosophy: Then and Now. A look back at 26 centuries of thought
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Ridling, Philosophy Then and Now: A Look Back at 26 Centuries of Thought
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called mental events. There is thus no need to postulate this special way of
knowing to account for man’s knowledge of any such events.
It is not clear how compelling Ryle’s objections are. It is admitted that
attention can be divided, though it may be contended that it is unusual and
difficult to achieve this division. Others would reply that it is a lot more
common and easier than might be thought, that it occurs whenever a man
takes note of his mental states. And from the fact that he cannot take note at
the same time of very many of his mental states, it hardly follows that he
never does; each could still be introspectable even if it was not actually
introspected on that occasion. As for Ryle’s third objection, it might be that
some states of mind cannot be introspected, but it does not follow that none
can be introspected; they might still be private for all that. Ryle, for instance,
while denying introspection, admits retrospection, a capacity to recall one’s
states just after they occur. It would seem, however, that there is no important
difference between a concurrent “introspection” and a prompt “retrospection.”
One advantage of retrospection is that it would explain an individual’s self-
knowledge of those events that are difficult to explain in terms of
introspection; e.g., extreme panic or fury.
Whether a person introspects or retrospects (the truth appears to be that
sometimes he does the one, sometimes the other), he would still seem to have
a kind of knowledge about his own present and recently past mental states that
he does not have of the mental states of others and that others do not have of
his. It is not possible either to introspect or to retrospect the mental states of
others; the knowledge that a man has of the present and immediately past
mental states of others must be based upon perceptions or inferences from
perceptions, whereas the knowledge that he has of his own present and
immediately past mental states need not be, and usually is not, so based.
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It is possible that the notion of introspection can thus be used to define
the mental. Such a definition would be of the form: a mental event is an inner
event that can be introspected. The difficulty remains, however, of how
“introspected” is to be defined. If it is defined merely as “known without
inference or sense perception,” then it would seem to apply equally to the
knowledge of certain bodily events that no one would want to call mental. An
individual can know without sense perception, for example, that his heart is
beating rapidly or that his fingers are crossed. To rule such cases out, one can
include among the senses the kinesthetic sense that utilizes nerve endings
within the body – those, for instance, that register the conditions of one’s own
muscles. But then it might appear that one must say that sensations are not
mental phenomena, since the awareness of them typically involves such nerve
endings. Such an admission, however, would be fatal for the privileged access
view because sensations are precisely the sort of thing to which a person is
supposed to have privileged access. If, on the other hand, the philosopher
makes it a matter of definition that introspection applies only to the mental,
then he cannot define the mental in terms of introspection. Thus, philosophers
are at the present time faced with serious and unsolved difficulties in using the
notion of introspection to define the mental.
Finally, it is significant here, as it was in the discussion of subjective
experience, that to much of man’s mental life and to many of the exercises of
his mind – e.g., employments of intelligence – he has no special privileged
access; there are, in addition, the unconscious phenomena that are not
introspectable. So introspection cannot be a necessary condition of the mental.
A clue to a more satisfactory criterion of the mental can be found in the
attack on introspection cited above. There the difficulty was noted that there
does not seem to be a way of distinguishing how an individual knows his
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mental state from how he knows such inner physical states as the rapid
beating of his heart. But it may be argued that there does seem to be a
difference between these two ways of knowing: specifically, it is clear how a
person could be shown that he was mistaken in believing that his heart was
beating rapidly; but it is by no means clear what would show a person that he
was mistaken in believing himself to be feeling a particular throbbing,
pounding sensation. For mental events, the subject’s own beliefs are
peculiarly authoritative. This authority only holds, of course, for present
mental events; it is clear that many things could show that a person’s belief
about a past mental event of his was mistaken. It is sometimes claimed that
what distinguishes mental events is their so-called indubitability – the fact that
a belief by the subject that the event is occurring cannot be false or in error.
However, the view that first-person, present-tense reports of mental events are
indubitable has come under serious attack; to make such a report is to classify,
and it is argued that it is always possible to err in classification.
Instead of holding that such beliefs are indubitable, it is often more
modestly maintained merely that such beliefs are “incorrigible,” meaning that
nothing will count as overthrowing (or correcting) such beliefs. A person who
believes that he is experiencing a throbbing sensation may be mistaken; but
there is nothing that will show an observer or him that he is mistaken, nothing
that will entitle either of them to believe that he is mistaken. He may be
experiencing a throbbing sensation even when no part of his body is actually
throbbing, though the explanation for this curious fact might not be known.
It might be objected against the incorrigibility thesis that the same
difficulty that arises for the alleged indubitability of first-person, present-tense
beliefs about mental events also arises for their alleged incorrigibility. For if
misclassification is possible, it would also seem possible to gather evidence
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that someone is misclassifying. If one could confuse a throbbing sensation
with a different but somewhat similar sensation, it is reasonable to believe that
this confusion could be known by others to have occurred. Perhaps the best
that can be said for the incorrigibility thesis is that there is always a strong
presumption that such beliefs are true, though this presumption can sometimes
prove to be unwarranted. But then it is by no means clear that privileged
authority is a unique criterion that distinguishes mental events, for such a
presumption would also hold for many nonmental events as well (e.g., the
belief that one’s heart is beating rapidly). Yet if the degree of presumptive
force is taken into account, it is reasonable to say that it would be
comparatively harder to overthrow beliefs about one’s present mental events;
and perhaps this is all that one needs to give the criterion force.
The Existence and Status of the Mind
The basic metaphysical issues in the philosophy of mind concern
whether the mind exists and, if it does, what kind of existence it has and what
its relation is to the rest of what exists. Materialists hold that only physical
matter (and physical energy) exists. For those who hold, on the other hand,
that the mind exists as an immaterial entity, there are dualistic theories for
which both immaterial minds and material bodies exist, and immaterialistic
theories for which only minds exist but not bodies. There are, finally, the so-
called neutral monist theories for which the fundamental existents in nature
are neither mental nor physical but some neutral stuff out of which both the
mental and the material are formed.
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The Mind as Material
The basic contention of Materialism is that nothing exists but matter and
its purely material properties, so that the concepts that are necessary and
sufficient for describing and explaining matter will be necessary and sufficient
for describing everything that exists. This view can be found in the early
Greek philosophers. Thales of Miletus, who lived some 2,500 years ago (6th
century BCE) and who is generally regarded as the first philosopher in the
Western tradition, is supposed to have held that all things are composed of
water in some form or other; later thinkers added air, fire, and earth to the list
of fundamental elements. The philosopher Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, born
about 500 BCE, introduced a new factor, Nous (Mind), which arranged all
other things in their proper order, started them in motion, and continues to
control them. There is still controversy as to how his concept of Mind is to be
understood, but since he spoke of Mind as being “the finest and purest of all
things” and as occupying space, it is likely that he did not think of it, as some
later thinkers did, as nonmaterial stuff but rather as a very special kind of
material stuff.
It was with the Atomists, Leucippus of Miletus and his disciple
Democritus of Abdera, in the 5th and early 4th centuries BCE, that
Materialism was given its most developed statement. According to them,
nature consists solely of an infinite number of indivisible particles, having
shape, size, and impenetrability, and no further properties, and moving
through an otherwise empty space. The shape, size, location, and movement
of these particles make up literally all of the qualities, relations, and other
features of the natural world. Such phenomena as sensations, images, sense
perceptions, and thought – of particular interest to the philosophy of mind –
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are explicitly held to consist in the various qualities and relations of the
particles.
Contemporary Materialists would, no doubt, wish to incorporate into
their theory the latest findings of the physical sciences – the convertibility of
matter and energy, the wave-particle duality, and the various subatomic
particles and antiparticles with their peculiar properties, including the
conservation of charge, direction of spin, and direction of time – but these
would represent mere changes in detail. In broad outline, the theory would be
the same.
Given the theory of Materialism in such broad outline, however, a
serious question remains concerning the actual account to be given of such
phenomena as sensations, images, perceptions, emotions, memories and
expectations, desires, beliefs, thoughts, imaginings, and intentions. Among the
possible views are those called eliminative Materialism, Behaviorism, and the
central-state theory.
Eliminative Materialism
A philosopher might hold that there are no such things as sensations,
images, perceptions, or emotions and that there never have been such. From
this view, those who have believed in the existence of such things have simply
been mistaken. A person might hold this view, called eliminative Materialism,
on the grounds that all talk of such supposed phenomena is (1) meaningless
verbiage, or (2) part of a set of theories that are outmoded, scientifically
fruitless, and to be discarded, like theories about witches or the Homeric gods.
On either account, it is implied that all such terms should be eliminated from
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the philosopher’s vocabulary. There is a further doctrine, however, to the
effect that all such talk is (3) meaningful but nondescriptive and without truth
value. On this account, the proper function of such language is not to state
facts but might be to prescribe or evaluate.
Among Materialistic views, the alternative to eliminative Materialism is
some kind of reductive Materialism. According to this view, there are indeed
such things as sensations, images, perceptions, and emotions, but they are
only complicated forms of matter in motion. The philosopher may thus
continue to use terms referring to such things (in contrast with eliminative
Materialism), but he should keep in mind that no extra entities or features are
being postulated over and above the physical entities with their physical
features.
Behaviorism
If one asks reductive Materialists what sensations, images, and the like
are, one will find that two alternatives have been proposed. The first is
Behaviorism, the view that all such terms refer to the behavior or movements
of certain bodies, particularly of the higher animals. Thus, the Behaviorist
would claim that to feel pain is to groan, writhe, blanch, moan, and so on, or
at least to be disposed or tend toward such behavior; to desire food is to
engage in eating in the presence of food, in hunting in the absence of food,
and so on, or at least to be disposed or tend toward such behavior; and so also
with all of the states and activities that one thinks of as mental.
Usually, Behaviorism is intended as a logical doctrine to the effect that
the very meanings of the words referring to the mind, its mental states and
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activities, are to be analyzed in behavioral terms, that every mentalistic term is
synonymous in meaning with some behavioral term. It is important to
distinguish this view, logical Behaviorism, from the view of many
psychologists that the most fruitful way to study psychological phenomena is
to study human and animal behavior. Such a view might be called
methodological Behaviorism because it is actually the proposal that the
science of psychology restrict itself to certain methods. It does not entail
logical Behaviorism. Logical Behaviorism might also be distinguished from
the view that psychological and behavioral terms, though not synonymous in
meaning, have, as a matter of fact, the same denotation or reference, a view
that might be called de facto Behaviorism.
Central-State Theory
The second type of reductive Materialism is the central-state theory. In
this view, mental states and activities are identical with states and activities
within the body (hence this theory is sometimes called the identity thesis). In
particular, they are identical with states and activities of the central nervous
system or brain. Thus, to feel pain is for the brain to be in a particular state; to
desire food is for the brain to be in another state.
Distinctions parallel to those for Behaviorism can be made for the
central-state theory. A psychologist might hold that the only useful way of
studying psychological phenomena is to study the central nervous system; this
view might then be called methodological central-statism. A philosopher
might hold that the very terms referring to the mind, its mental states and
activities, are synonymous with neurological terms (or, more plausibly, that
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they should be taken to be synonymous – they obviously are not synonymous
as language now stands). This position, which could be called logical central-
statism, would differ from the eliminative Materialism mentioned above in
that it would retain mentalistic terms rather than eliminate them but would
redefine them neurologically. If this came to pass, such terms might
eventually disappear, a result that eliminative Materialism would strive to
achieve more directly.
The Mind as Immaterial
Plato was the first important figure in the Western tradition explicitly to
defend the doctrine that the mind is an entirely nonmaterial entity – without
such defining material properties as size, shape, or impenetrability – separate
and distinct from the human body and able to exist apart from it. Plato used
the Greek word psyche (traditionally translated as “soul”).
Plato held that the mind (psyche) was in charge of the body and directed
its movements. In his dialogue the Phaedrus, Plato spoke of the mind as
having both appetitive desires and the higher desires and as having, in
addition, a rational capacity to control, direct, and adjudicate between the two.
This rational capacity of mind is the most valuable aspect of man, the part
most worthy to be nurtured and developed, and the aspect of man most likely
to be immortal (much of the dialogue concerning the last hours of Socrates,
the Phaedo, is about these topics).
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Dualism
Plato was a dualist; he believed in the existence of both material entities
and immaterial ones. The most explicit statement of dualism, however, is
found in the writing of René Descartes, who argued that mind and matter are
two separate and distinct sorts of substances, absolutely opposed in their
natures, each capable of existing entirely independently of the other.
The dualist is faced with the question of how, if at all, mind and matter
are related to each other. Most dualists would agree that in rocks, tables, and
other material things, matter exists alone and unrelated to mind; and that at
what is called death (since for Descartes the soul is immortal), immaterial
minds exist unrelated to matter. In the case of a living human being, however,
there are two substances: a mind and a body. Thus, the question arises of how
the relation between them is to be conceived. Any dualistic theory would have
to account for certain obvious facts about human beings. When people’s
bodies are affected in certain ways – when subjected, for example, to bright
lights, loud noises, rises in temperature – people often experience colors,
sounds, or sensations of warmth or of pain. Again, when people experience
certain things, their bodies undergo certain changes – they shut their eyes,
they put their hands to their ears, they perspire, or their faces become pale.
There are various ways that dualists have proposed to account for these
facts. The most straightforward position is interactionism, the view (held by
Descartes) that mind and body are capable of affecting each other causally, so
that what happens in the body can produce effects in the mind and vice versa.
Descartes decided that somewhere within the nerve tissues of the brain was
the place where the interactions occurred and chose the pineal gland as the
precise point because of its central location. (It is now known that the pineal