Darek Barefoot's argument from Mental Causation
Darek Barefoot, in response to some criticisms of my book by Richard Carrier, has developed a version of the argument from mental causation based on two corollaries of naturalism and two corollaries of reason. The corollaries of naturalism must be true if naturalism is true, the two corollaries of reason must be true if there is to be the sort of rational inference we find in the sciences.
The two corollaries of naturalism are:
1) To the extent that changes in natural systems have causes, those causes are potentially available to the senses either directly or by scientific instruments.
2) Every belief accompanies a natural (physical) state, and the properties of a belief are wholly dependent upon and determined by the natural state that it accompanies.
The two corollaries of reason are:
1) Reason includes, although it is not limited to, the acceptance of a belief due to the accurate, conscious perception that true premises logically entail it.
2) A belief may be considered to be held rationally only to the extent that what are consciously perceived by the holder to be the reasons for his accepting the belief are in fact the reasons for his doing so.
It should be noted that the corollaries of reason need not be true of all beliefs. We might believe some things non-inferentially because we perceive the objects in question. Thus, perhaps my belief that my glasses are one the table doesn’t require me to draw any inferences in order to be justified. If I have a hunch that Smith won’t betray my secret if I tell it to him, this may not have to be due to some traceable reasoning process. However, if we deny that there is rational inference of the kind that I have been talking about in this essay, which conforms to the two cited corollaries of reason, then the heart of science is ripped out. If physics is a true source of knowledge about the physical, then some people have to be able to draw precise mathematical inferences.
What lies at the heart of naturalism is the idea that the methods of science, of observation and measurement, can be applied to every type of reality. In the last analysis, everything is at least potentially available to the senses and can be analyzed in scientific terms. If there are features of reality that we can only reach through introspection, which in principle someone could not figure out looking at it from the outside, then something has escaped the nets of naturalistic analysis.
If a broadly materialist world-view is true, then only physical states can have any causal efficacy. If could provide necessary and sufficient conditions for propositional s states by specifying physical states, then we would be able to bring propositional contents into the web of causal interaction in a naturalistic world. However, the trouble is we cannot do that. The following is an adaptation of an argument Barefoot provides against the reconcilability of the corollaries of reason with the corollaries of naturalism.
1) Only the physical properties of representations can generate functional states in computational systems.
2) Propositional contents cannot be identified with the physical properties and their representations.
3) Therefore, propositional contents cannot generate functional states in computational systems.
4) Propositional contents generate some beliefs in some minds.
5) Therefore, some beliefs in minds cannot be identified with, or wholly dependent upon, functional states in computational systems.
I conclude, therefore that the problem of mental causation is still a serious difficulty for materialism, and failure to solve it calls into question the very scientific enterprise which alone provides the foundations for naturalism. We still haven’t got a good naturalistic answer to the question “Even if grounds do exist, what exactly have they got to do with belief as a psychological event.”
posted by Victor Reppert @ 7:23 PM
25 Comments
25 Comments:
What lies at the heart of naturalism is the idea that the methods of science, of observation and measurement, can be applied to every type of reality. In the last analysis, everything is at least potentially available to the senses and can be analyzed in scientific terms.
The myth of the unity of science rears its head.
Of course, one need not accept theism or idealism or metaphysical mental monism in order to reject that myth.
Of course the two corollaries of reason are quite misguided also. I see no reason to accept them.
I'm not denying rational inference, rather your 'model' of what rational inference is. E.g., inference is not an act of perception. And #2 looks like it depends on a correspondence theory of truth.
I would be interested in seeing how you would build a case for them. Or do you simply assume them to be true?
Anon
>>I see no reason to accept them.<<
I take it this means that you consciously contemplate no reason to accept them. This seems to imply that a condition of your
accepting them would be that you did contemplate one
or more reasons to do so, per the first corollary of reason.
>>inference is not an act of perception.<<
I call your attention to your statement above that you "see" no
reason to accept my corollaries. This is a metaphor, to be sure,
but there is some appropriateness to the metaphor, which is why, I
suppose, you employed it. Acts of sensing and acts of understanding are both significantly distinguishable and
significantly comparable.
>>Or do you simply assume them to be true?<<
True in the sense of corresponding to reality?
Some things must be assumed in the course of discourse and thought in order for either to proceed.
I used 'see' deliberately as a metaphor here.
We don't perceive in any literal sense a proposition or an idea.
Yet this statement seems to indicate that literal sense:
"the acceptance of a belief due to the accurate, conscious perception that true premises logically entail it. "
If this statement is meant to be taken metaphorically, would you mind telling me its literal meaning?
You see, many dualists hold to the notion that the mind is an inner mental realm in which mental objects or ideas or images exist and that reasoning occurs through some kind of mental perception of those objects or ideas or images.
You see, I'm in complete agreement with you that as rational beings we have the ability to make rational inferences. Though it usually takes a fair amount of training and practice to employ that ability skillfully.
But that in no way entails the acceptance of the ontological implications I saw in your statement.
I'm hopeful you can clarify this matter.
Anon
>>I used 'see' deliberately as a metaphor here. <<
Does this mean you were deliberately being inaccurate? Or did you yourself know what you meant by this metaphor and expect
the rest of us to know also? I assume you meant "understand" or "comprehend" or "grasp." Of course, these terms too are metaphorical at some level.
In my previous post I used the term "contemplate," which can mean either to look at (sensory) or to think about (non-sensory).
Knowing about or perceiving a logical relation, say, is both like and unlike knowing about an event or state--alike in that they both entail a relation between the knower and that which is known, and unlike in that the second entails a type of physical, circumstantial relation that the first does not. Abstractions are comparable to physical states and objects in that they can be objects of knowledge, and distinguishable from them in that they do not possess sensible properties such as mass, size, etc.
The words "see," "comprehend," and "grasp" are appropriate metaphors. Why they are appropriate must to some extent be intuited. A metaphor is not simply a falsehood, but a revealing comparison. (Note that "revealing" in the preceding sentence is also a metaphor.) If the metaphors are appropriate, there is a reason--or, if you prefer, an ontological implication. That these are metaphors indicates distinction from the physical and sensory. That the metaphors are appropriate implies that what they represent is real, despite being distinct from the physical/sensory.
Now, if you claim that you cannot fathom (another metaphor) why a person would say "I see" for "I understand," and that they must be
embracing (another metaphor) a falsehood by so doing, I happily
admit that I cannot shake you from that opinion.
Unfortunately I don't see an answer here to my question.
I'll repeat it in the hope that you will address it this time.:-)
We don't perceive in any literal sense a proposition or an idea.
Yet this statement seems to indicate that literal sense:
"the acceptance of a belief due to the accurate, conscious perception that true premises logically entail it. "
If this statement is meant to be taken metaphorically, would you mind telling me its literal meaning?
I've never experienced a proposition.
LOL!
Neither have I.
Hi BDK and Anonymous,
Are you both sure you have never experienced a proposition? In comparison to a computer or a dictionary, which only has the words, don't you think that humans experience a sort of 'understanding' or 'grasping' beyond that?
Of course, the current state of the philosophy of mind agrees with you guys. Most people split philosophy of mind into qualia and propositional attitudes, as if there is no intentionality to qualia and no qualitative experience to propositional attitudes. Someday philosophers will look upon this current attitude with great perplexity and incredulity, in my opinion.
I think experiences have intentional content, or aboutness, but it isn't propositionally structured. I look at propositions as abstractions that don't describe experience, but are theoretical constructs that are used one one hand to explain behavior (they are theoretical entities in a psychological theory), and on the other hand abstract theoretical constructs that help explain things like mathematical truth.
The first type of propositions (the relevant type for this discussion) may exist, but I've never experienced one to my knowledge. I think I'm phenomenologically normal, so should be able to see them if they are obvious. Perhaps I haven't had a good guide before.
Note I'm not denying I have a certain feel when I think certain thoughts (e.g., the thought that my pet monkey died yesterday). Usually linguistic and visual images. Are those propositions?
Anon
I credit you with being perceptive enough to answer the question for
yourself. But perhaps there is no such thing as being literally
"perceptive," in which case you are up a creek.
BDK
The phenomenololgical character of logical insights is not at issue in my corollaries of reason. They say that we are aware of reasons for at least some of our beliefs. This hardly seems obscure or tendentious.
Hi BDK,
Thanks for clarifying. Perhaps I can ask: So, when you say that propositions are abstract, you mean that they are something more than the basic language that composes them? Ie, the proposition that the snow is white supervenes on the words 'the snow is white', but it is not the words 'the snow is white'. If so, then this is the beginning of seeing that there is 'something it is like to think that x'. I would argue that computers have only the syntax, not this supervening semantics. Would you grant this much at least? I know I have more work to do before proving that there is 'something it is like to think that x'.
Rino: I'm not sure about computers.
The problem with the claim that there is something it is like to think X is that it will be different for different people. This is one of the reasons propositions are used as theoretical constructs: to account for the (assumed) ability of different people with quite different experiences can be having the same thought. I look at them as the Platonic Forms of intersubjective semantics.
DB:
I didn't understand a lot of your argument so didn't want to comment on it....I was more jostling with what anonymous was saying than your original post. I agree with him or her that I have never perceived a proposition.
They say that we are aware of reasons for at least some of our beliefs. This hardly seems obscure or tendentious.
I would agree that in some sense we are aware of reasons for some of our beliefs. I believe it is chilly outside because it feels chilly, for instance. I believe four is even because it is divisible without remainder by 2, and I agree I am aware, in some sense, that this is the hallmark of even-ness.
But is this perceiving a proposition? For me it is a vague emotion-laden linguistic memory imagery amalgam. I have never experienced a proposition the way I've experienced, say, a sunset.
"But perhaps there is no such thing as being literally
"perceptive," in which case you are up a creek."
There is no such thing as literally perceiving a proposition or idea. But we can literally perceive representations of them
I never said we couldn't or were not allowed to use words like 'see' or 'perceive' in a metaphorical or analogical sense. After all that was the point of my saying that I had used 'see' in a metaphorical sense.
You so far have not answered my question, so I'm beginning to wonder if you can tell the difference.
Or is it, as I speculated, that you buy into the dualist conception of the mind in which it is literally some kind of inner realm full of mental objects and ideas that are interacting with each other in a causal fashion. Sort of like a mystical, ephemeral version of a mechanical device?
Your 'argument from Mental Causation' is full of such question-begging language.
For example you talk about the 'physical' properties of representions. That's quite mistaken for it implies that the real distinction is between the physical and the non-physical.
A representation to be a representation has to have non-representational properties and representational properties. For example, the non-representatinal properties of a painting are the properties of the paint, of the canvas, of the paint strokes, etc. The representational properties of a painting are the shapes, colors and locations of the objects in the painting. So when looking at a painting we can apprehend the representational properties because we can perceive (in a literal sense) the non-representational properties.
Hi BDK,
The problem you raise sounds much like the familiar problem of whether our qualitative experiences are the same? For example, is the 'red' I see when I look at the strawberry the same 'red' you see when you look at the strawberry? For you to say that my understanding of X is different from your understanding of X is like saying my experience of red will be different from your experience of red. How do we know this? If they are different, but we are able to communicate just fine, then why is this a problem for different experiences of propositions?
Hi Anonymous,
Correct me if I misunderstand you, but it seems to me that your suggestion that 'we cannot perceive the actual idea, but only a representation of it' has a decidedly Cartesian/Lockian ring to it? I am surprised to hear you accepting any view which isolates individuals in this way. Ie, for Locke, the fact that everyone has representations of reality, not reality itself, leaves everyone in their own 'dark room'. This paradigm seems at odds with your rejection of an inner realm. However, I've only read a few of your posts, I may have misunderstood you.
The perception of the painting is done with our eyes. I'm not sure how you got the idea that I'm in agreement with Locke here.
The only literal perceptions that occur are with our senses. Any talk of 'perceiving' ideas or propositions is only metaphorical.
If I were to say, "I see the proposition 'The cat is on the mat'" I would be trying to tell you that I see it written down.
By the way, I think the notion that we are only observing representations of things in our minds to be quite misguided. If I see a tree, I am looking at it. If I see a representation of a tree I am looking at a painting or picture of a tree.
Hi Anonymous,
Ok, so our sense experiences are non-representational. But our words are representations. Ie, the sense experience of the cat is the actual cat (direct realism), but the word 'cat' is a representation of the sense experience/actual cat. Is this what you are saying?
If so, then this is not Locke, that is correct.
What do you mean by saying we perceive representations of propositions? Do you mean that i can write down the words 'the cat', and see the words on the page with my eyes, so I am perceiving these words, which are a representation of the actual cat. Is that what you have in mind?
If they are different, but we are able to communicate just fine, then why is this a problem for different experiences of propositions?
I was attacking the claim that the qualitative feel associated with thinking a propositionally structured thought fixes the content of said proposition. This can't be true, given Twin Earth type considerations.
Sure, for token thoughts there is usually a phenomenology that associates it, but it isn't sufficient to fix the propositional content.
This is worse than the red problem, as it is less contentious. We all think people have the same experience of red, even though we can't prove it yet. Nobody thinks experiences fix propositional contents, as there are obvious problems with this.
Anon
>>a representation has to have non-representational properties and representational properties. For example, the non-representatinal properties of a painting are the properties of the paint, of the canvas, of the paint strokes, etc. The representational properties of a painting are the shapes, colors and locations of the objects in the painting.<<
By "objects in the painting" do you mean objects represented by the painting? And are the shapes and colors you refer to the shapes and colors of areas and paint on the canvas or shapes and colors of objects represented by such areas? Are the "locations" the locations of paint strokes relative to other strokes on the canvas, or the relative locations of objects represented? There is room for much confusion here.
In any case, my essay focused on representations of propositions, which take the form of sentences. Neither the types nor tokens of such sentences can unproblematically be identified with the propositions they represent.
Hi BDK,
You said: "Nobody thinks experiences fix propositional contents, as there are obvious problems with this."
Please flesh this out a bit more. What are the obvious problems?
Also, I reject the externalism of mental content for numerous reasons. Could you give me a few reasons why you accept it so I can consider them.
Rino: I gave them above. Twin earth for one. Same experiences, different referents.
Also you have different experiences, same referents (blind person touches a wooden cube, sighted person sees it).
So experiences seems neither sufficient to fix content, and particular types of experiences are not necessary to fix content.
Rino: for externalism twin earth type examples are sufficient.
For those who don't know, imagine you are thinking about your mother.
Now imagine a twin (raised by a different mother) on some other planet (science fiction obviously) in the exact same brain state, having the exact same experience. Who is your twin thinking about? Your mother or his mother? If I just give you the brain state or experience of each, can you tell?
No, so content fixation is not solely fixed (in all cases) by goings-on in the brain or phenomenology of the subject.
Hi BDK,
Problems with twin earth experiments are numerous. Other than fact that it is obviously science fiction, as you mentioned, here are a couple of other problems:
a) For natural kinds, if we try to fix content based on externalism, and we accept evolutionary theory, then it is not clear that natural kinds exist, and if they do, then give it a million years and they will no longer exist.
b) It gives rise to London/Londre type paradoxes. Ie, as a child I hear that 'Londre est jolie', so I am referring to the city London, and it is pretty. However, when I go to London in my teen years I discover it is ugly. So, I am referring to the city London, and it is ugly. So, I simultaneously believe that London is ugly and that London is pretty.
c) It gives rise to most of the problems that mental causation poses for physicalism, since physicalism assumes that the immediate neural causes are sufficient. Putnam, the inventor of both functionalism and externalism, saw that these two theories were incompatible for this reason.
d) It allows a million different words to refer to one and the same thing. Ie, since the content is not in words, but outside of them, the word 'play' and 'kill' could refer to the same thing - presumably if I wanted it to, but that is a longer story. This seems to make words devoid of content, which seems to be a problem.
e) We probably don't have epistemic access to the external world (or, an argument for epistemic access would be needed before we can assume we do), so this puts us in an odd situation of not having access to our own beliefs. To say 'I don't know my own belief' is to misunderstand the nature of a belief.
f) Empty kind terms abound. For example, the word 'western black rhinocerous' now refers to nothing, since it has gone extinct. 'Unicorn' refers to nothing, and it never has. Here are some words that cannot derive their content from the external world. Moreover, if externalism is where content originates, how did words such as unicorn ever come to be, since there were never unicorns to originate the word.
g) mental causation demonstrates that internalism is more powerful than externalism. For example, I believe there is water in the cup in front of me, but there actually is vinegar in the cup in front of me (and I would never try to drink vinegar if I knew the cup was full of vinegar). However, I do move my arms and take a drink from the cup. Here there is a battle. If the content of my belief is external, then my belief 'there is water in front of me' actually means 'there is vinegar in front of me', in which case I should not have taken a drink. However, I did take a drink. That is because the narrow content trumps the wide content. This also touches on the opacity of mental content. Ie, if externalism is true I should be able to have synthetic apriori truths galore. Ie, I should know that there was vinegar in the cup, even though I didn't.
These are just a few problems with externalism. I don't think that one science fiction thought experiment proves externalism true when faced with many problems against it.
Thoughts?
My example was in terms of thinking about an individual, not a natural kind.
If you want to argue that for different types of thoughts (I'm not talking about language here) things are different, then feel free.
The 'science fiction' criticism is silly.We are making conceptual points, stretching conceptual intuitions. Address those. Different people are in similar brain states all the time. Two people thinking about their mother, while in the same brain state, is not a big conceptual stretch. This is philosophy for goodness sake.
The vinegar point is a straw man. No externalist believes that is how content is fixed externally. See Dretske or my link below for more on what we DO think.
The only serious criticisms involve the concern that externalism implies epiphenomenalism. I discussed this extensively here.
Note the epiphenomenalism, and your post in general, doesn't address the specific example: are the two people in the same brain states/same experiences both thinking of the same person or different people? Clearly they are thinking of different people. Does it matter that their behavior is the same?
Internalism doesn't have the resources to deal with these types of cases. Note I think there are probably internal and external aspects of some content fixation. That still wouldn't establish the importance of experiences in fixing content: internal doesn't mean experiential, but external means experience isn't sufficient (my original claim above).
Hope all are well for the holidays.
(I am assuming experiential content is not fixed externally, but certain propositional or otherwise referring contents are: Dretske thinks even conscious contents are fixed externally, and I am not wholly unsympathetic to that, but disagreeing with Dretske on this point just makes it easier to make my point).
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