Critique of the Psycho-Physical Identity Theory: A Refutation of Scientific Materialism and an Establishment of Mind-Matter Dualism by Means of Philosophy and Scientific Method 9783110815634, 9789027972248

Citation preview

Critique of the Psycho-Physical Identity Theory

New Babylon

Studies in the Social Sciences

14

Mouton . The Hague . Paris

Critique of the Psycho-Physical Identity Theory A refutation of scientific materialism and an establishment of mind-matter dualism by means of philosophy and scientific method

E R I C P. P O L T E N Preface by Sir John Eccles

Mouton . The Hague • Paris

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-93160 © 1973 Mouton & Co Jacket design: Juriaan Schrofer Printed in the Netherlands

There is of course an entrenched materialist orthodoxy, both philosophic and scientific, that rises to defend its dogmas with a self-righteousness scarcely equalled in the ancient days of religious dogmatism. Sir John Eccles, Facing Reality

I had rather believe all the fables of the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind. And therefore God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. Sir Francis Bacon, 'Of Atheism'

It will be a right, decisive, true, and final statement to assert, as we did, that soul is prior to body, body secondary and derivative, soul governing in the real order of things, and body being subject to governance. Plato, Laws

To my parents

Preface

There are two fundamental problems in science and philosophy. One is whether all the sciences including biology and the neurosciences can be reduced to physics. The other is the nature of our conscious experiences, and their relationships to events in our brains. Are they to be identified with these brain events, being merely an aspect of them as given to the 'owner' of the brain? Or have they an independent world of existence, being in correspondence with brain events, or at least some brain events? The program of the radical materialists is to reduce all sciences to physics and to reduce conscious experiences to the science of brain states and hence to physics. Thus everything would be reduced to properties of matter. Their efforts to deny or to ignore conscious experiences have collapsed because of its intrinsic absurdity. Hence materialists, both radical and 'tender-minded', accord conscious experiences a ghostly recognition as appendages or properties of brain states. Essentially the same philosophical doctrine masquerades under a variety of names: epiphenomenalism, parallelism, the double aspect theory, the identity theory or the psycho-physical theory of Feigl, Pepper, Smart and Armstrong and the theory of biperspectivism of Laszlo; but it is more subtle and sophisticated in its most recent forms. The most important exponent is Feigl, who for over forty years has built up the identity theory in such a flexible and appealing manner that it has achieved a wide acceptance not only amongst philosophers, but also amongst neuroscientists. In fact one can say that it has a special appeal to neuroscientists because it gives them assurance that the brain states they are investigating are all that matters in the performance of the brain. They can proceed with their scientific investigations on the brain just as on any other material object without having to be bothered with the possibility

x

Preface

of disturbance by non-material mental states. In fact all scientists are materialists and reductionists methodologically. The difference is that some of us, including myself, have a contrasting philosophy of antireductionism. We do not subscribe to the tremendous extrapolation from our present level of scientific investigation and understanding that is required by philosophical reductionism as expounded for example by identity theorists. This apparent conflict between our scientific methods and our philosophy becomes sharpened for those of us who are scientifically engaged in studying the highest levels of the brain - the human cerebral cortex in conscious subjects, as is for example done by Penfield and by Sperry. Both of these distinguished scientists have developed philosophies in which consciousness is given a dominant role in modifying brain states, which is a dualist-interactionist concept comparable with that developed by Polten. This brief introduction will justify my statement that this book by Eric Polten is on the most important problem confronting man, namely the relationships of his conscious experiences to the events in his brain. It is a problem that I have wrestled with since adolescence. Its challenge motivated me to become a brain scientist, going to Oxford to work under Sherrington. But I also have continued to study the various philosophical solutions of the body-mind problem or brain-mind problem as it should be called. The rest of the body is recognized as being merely ancillary to the brain. I was early attracted by the brain-mind dualism and interactionism of Descartes, though of course updating it and greatly modifying it in the light of modern neuroscience. I was encouraged to discover that leading neuroscientists such as Sherrington, Adrian and Penfield were dualists, but discouraged by the failure of so many philosophers even to understand the brain-mind problem as it could be seen by a neuroscientist. Meanwhile I had discovered that Popper was also a dualist and interactionist, and gradually there was a change in the philosophical climate of opinion from the nadir represented by Ryle's destructive criticism of the 'mind concept' which he completely rejected in his book The Concept of Mind. It is remarkable that in the original version of this manuscript Polten makes very few references to Popper and none to me! The many references to us both occurred after a lucky accident of discovery, though the main text and arguments were not changed. The circumstances are so extraordinary that they are worth recounting. At the request of a philosophical

Preface

xi

friend behind the 'iron curtain' Mr. Polten's father had instructed a bookseller to dispatch to him a number of books, including my book Facing Reality. It so happened that this latter book was mistakenly sent to Mr. Polten's father along with the invoice, so he glanced through it, and discovered to his amazement how close his son and I were in our respective philosophies. This case of mutual recognition required such a lucky chance though we had lived for years as close as Toronto and Buffalo! I was sent the manuscript and we have met on two occasions for long discussions. What enthuses me about this book is that it represents on the positive side a dualism and interactionism very close to the philosophy that I had independently developed. Furthermore, I particularly liked the clear exposition of the three components of the world of conscious experience : outer sense, inner sense and pure ego. This is an important contribution, not so much for its novelty as for its range of development, and it has a good scientific base in modern developments in the brain sciences. We need this clear and imaginative thinking in order to reduce the diversity of conscious experiences to meaningful order. Polten illuminates the concept of pure ego by reintroducing the Kantian word 'apperception.' Pure ego does not perceive itself, the recognition is due to apperception. Of course a theory of dualism entails the problem of interaction. How can mental events and brain states interact? The failure of dualists, including myself, to give any precise explanation of the postulated interaction has led to the denial of dualism. My view is that brain science is at too primitive a level to allow more than speculations that cannot at present be tested adequately. For the same reason there is no satisfactory account of interactionism in this book. Yet the denial of interactionism means the denial of free will, as both Polten and I will agree. We have to learn to live with problems beyond our present understanding, and not impulsively to deny either the existence or the reality of such problems. As I read many philosophical writings I am led to believe that the learned authors must at all costs propose a nice tidy theory. Feigl is an exception in that he dares to live provisionally with 'nomological danglers' as he calls them! I agree with Polten that in criticizing the psycho-physical identity theory he should concentrate on the philosophical arguments and concepts of Feigl, who is its most distinguished advocate. To my knowledge this book embodies the most comprehensive and sustained attack on this important theory. To give point to the criticisms there is a wealth of quotations from Feigl's writings. In this way the reader is kept informed

XII Preface of the points under attack. It is impressive that Polten illustrates and supports his argument from a wide range of distinguished philosophers right back to the pre-Socratics. He thus displays his affiliation with the long stream of philosophers from Aristotle to Kant, Whitehead and Popper. It could be objected that the intensity of critical attack is not in good academic taste. But it has to be recognized that this disputation is deeply motivated. Is not the theme under consideration the most important for man, reaching to his fundamental nature? If Feigl is right, then man is no more than a superior animal, entirely a product of the chance and necessity of evolution. His conscious experiences, even those of the most transcendent creative and artistic character, are nothing but the products of special states of the neural machinery of his brain, itself a product of evolution. If Polten is right, man has in addition a supernatural component, his conscious self that is centered on his pure ego. Thus with his spiritual nature he transcends the evolutionary origin of his body and brain, and in so far could participate in immortality. But at a more mundane level there is in this disputation a fundamental issue for man. Has he free will or is it an illusion? By taking thought can he bring about changes in his brain states? As a neurophysiologist I must insist that, if our belief in our free will is valid, our thoughts must be able actually to effect changes in the activities of the neural machinery in certain special regions of the cerebrum - that is there must be an effective mind-brain action. If Feigl is right, this cannot be true in reality, only in appearance. We may feel that we are bringing about actions in accord with our conscious desires, but these feelings are themselves nothing more than brain states, so free will is reduced to some brain states bringing about other brain states, which is purely a neurophysiological happening explicable completely in materialist terms. We are caught in a deterministic bind. As MacKay reasons, we are right then to think we are freely willing; whereas an external observer can fully account for all actions at a deterministic level. On the contrary, as expounded by Polten, it is of the essence of dualism that mind does effectively act on the neural machinery of the brain in willing, which is precisely the position of the distinguished neurophysiologist, Sperry. Of course it is still recognized by both Polten, Sperry and me that by far the greater part of our actions are determined by neural operations alone. Thus the disputation of this book is vitally concerned in establishing that freedom of action is not an illusion, but

Preface

xiil

that on the contrary we have in varying degrees freedom to choose between genuine alternatives of action and in so far are responsible for our actions. Specially to be commended in this book is the author's clear understanding of the causal theory of perception. There is often amongst philosophers a misunderstanding of the problems presented by perception because they are not cognizant of the neurophysiological events concerned in perception and the vital role that learning plays in all perceptual experiences. Furthermore, there are interesting developments when perception is considered in relation to the concepts of outer sense and inner sense. Every aspect and every detail of the psycho-physical identity theory of Feigl has been subjected to close scrutiny in this book. In section after section Polten claims to have refuted this theory in a whole series of philosophically based arguments. These sections are specially directed at the philosophers concerned, and demand answers. From this challenge and these answers new levels of understanding should arise. I like to think that philosophers will at last realize that they cannot effectively engage on disputation in the field of brain and mind unless they become experts in the brain sciences. I am appalled by the naiveté of concepts and of programs that are suggested, for example the cerebroscope and auto-cerebroscope of Feigl and Pepper. Of course there is always the covering phrase 'in principle', but it is pure fantasy that some instrument could provide a meaningful 'picture' of the events in a brain at the time of some conscious experience. At a conservative estimate, even for the simplest perception, each of tens of millions of neurones would be engaged in patterns of impulse discharges, the whole ensemble having unimaginable complexities in space and time. In our present understanding meaningful activities occur when clusters, probably of tens or hundreds of neurones, are in collusive operation with discharges above or below the noise level of the incessant background discharges. This pattern in space and time is 'written' by sequential synaptic actions of neurone to neurone each stage occupying only about one thousandth of a second. Thus the whole assemblage of neurones engaged in some evolving pattern has a dynamic complexity beyond instrumental display at any time into the foreseeable future. The attempts to correlate electroencephalographic records (the EEG) with moods are necessarily at a crude level because the EEG is merely an averaged record of field potentials generated in some unknown way by millions of neurones. It is time for the cerebroscope and

xiv

Preface

auto-cerebroscope to be relegated forever to the world of science fiction. When Mr. Polten kindly invited me to write this Preface he recognized that I was critical of several sections of his manuscript and invited me to expound these criticisms in my Preface. I think it inappropriate to engage in such criticisms in the Preface. It is sufficient for me to note that for me the positive achievements in this manuscript far outweigh the defects. The book as it stands is a record of the intellectual achievements of Mr. Polten with I gather no significant help from his supposed mentors in the University of Toronto. He has built this conceptual edifice during years of intensive study ranging over the whole history of philosophy. No doubt, as with all conceptual edifices, there will be reconstructions of parts, but it is my belief that it represents a very important contribution in that it so strongly challenges the last tenable philosophical position of the materialist monists. John C. Eccles

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my father, who for long has been involved in all aspects of this publication, right from helping in the composition of the text to the unglorified but very essential routine work. My especial expressions of gratitude also go to Mrs. Norma Turner, who for years has, in her spare time, been my cheerful and efficient yet silent and unrecognized secretary. Notwithstanding his extremely busy schedules, Sir John Eccles spent much time going through the manuscript and made many valuable suggestions. I think I have heeded his advice in all scientific matters, though as he himself will agree, the borderline between science and philosophy is inexact. Sir John is as lofty a character as the breadth and depth of his intellect, and together with Lady Eccles has given me much moral support. Mouton Publishers at The Hague have done all an author could possibly hope for. While over the centuries fashions among persons practicing priestcraft have changed all the way from the black frock to the white coat, the spirit of Holland in aiding those who refuse to bow to mindless dogmatism has remained the same. The book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities Research Council of Canada, using funds provided by the Canada Council.

Table of Contents

PREFACE BY SIR JOHN ECCLES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

IX XV

INTRODUCTION

A. Style and purpose of this book B. The essence of the identity theory C. Outline of the argument of this work

1 10 16

CHAPTER I. ON THE SENSE AND REFERENCE OF 'MENTAL' AND 'PHYSICAL'

23

A. The nature of the distinction between sense and reference in the philosophy of language 1. Towards a mature philosophy of language 2. Some shortcomings ofFrege's theory of meaning B. Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body 1. The problem of perception 2. Feigl's distinctions between mental and physical 3. Some safe criteria for differentiating mind from body

23 23 26 35 35 40 64

CHAPTER II. OBJECTIONS TO THE IDENTITY THEORY ON METHODOLOGICAL GROUNDS

A. The characteristics of and problems surrounding referential or ontological identity 1. Linguistic identity 2. Logical identity 3. Metaphysical identity 4. Empirical identity

77

77 77 79 81 84

xviii

Table of contents

B. The impossibility of proving referential identity by presupposing empiricist epistemology and employing scientific method 1. Privacy and public observability 2. The metaphysical nature of science itself 3. The pragmatic, non-ontological nature of science

96 96 108 130

CHAPTER III. OBJECTIONS TO THE IDENTITY THEORY ON EMPIRICAL GROUNDS

141

A. The chief traits of the mental, largely based on introspective evidence 141 1. The pure ego 141 2. The pure ego, attitudes, and events in the mind 153 B. A comparison between the mental and the physical 164 1. The general empirical dissimilarity 164 2. Replies by identity theorists to objections - Rejoinders 178 3. The animism of matter and physicalism 205 4. The irreducibility of anything but physics to physics 219 CONCLUSIONS AND PROSPECTS

236

A. The methodological impossibility of identification B. The empirical disconfirmation C. The metaphysical implausibility of identity

236 245 248

D. Interactionism

258

SUMMARY

271

BIBLIOGRAPHY

275

AUTHOR INDEX

282

SUBJECT INDEX

287

Introduction

A . STYLE AND PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK

In these introductory remarks, I will first outline and justify the method of the following examination of the psycho-physical identity theory, as well as indicate my chief aims. Secondly, a brief exposition of the main thesis of physicalism will be provided. And thirdly, a preview of my own positive standpoint on the mind-body problem to be developed in this work will be sketched. Those readers who wish an overall orientation regarding the present critique of scientific materialism right from the start are advised to peruse the 'Table of Contents', and could also read the 'Summary' at the end of this book. I will concentrate on - but by no means confine myself to - the essay by Herbert Feigl of monograph dimensions found in the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. II, pp. 370-497, published in 1958. Recently, a separate reprint has appeared, entitled The 'Mental' and the 'Physical': The Essay and a Postscript (1967). In addition to the Essay and the Postscript, other writings of Feigl in this immediate area, as 'Physicalism, Unity of Science and the Foundations of Psychology' (1954) and 'Mind-Body, Not a Pseudoproblem' (1961) will also be extensively drawn on. The reason for my concentration on FeigVs work is that in my opinion his identity theory is the best formulation of materialism which has so far been produced over the ages that materialism has been propounded. Unlike almost all materialists, Feigl is aware of most of the problems - and will stare them in the face. If there are more circumspect and penetrating materialists, where are they? For centuries people have sought to establish materialism by means of science - but almost no one has even attempted to show how. And yet the great part of the 'educated' public already

2

Introduction

equates the mental with the physical as if it were an established fact. Notwithstanding all the difficulties which will be unravelled, there can be no doubt that Feigl's intellectual product is a considerable advance over that of one of the greatest materialists of all time, Thomas Hobbes, whose 'very explicit' statements mean little, and prove even less: The world, (I mean not the earth only, that denominates the lover of it worldly men, but the universe, that is, the whole mass of things that are), is corporeal, that is to say, body; and hath the dimensions of magnitude, namely length, breadth, and depth: also every part of body, is likewise body, and hath the like dimensions; and consequently every part of the universe, is body, and that which is not body, is no part of the Universe: and because the universe is all, that which is no part of it, is nothing; and consequently no where (Leviathan, 672). Formulations of materialism no more sophisticated than such dogmatic statements will not be examined in this book. And before any new materialism is seriously put forward, the present scientific refutation of materialism and proof of mind-body dualism must be answered. In regard to his work on the mind-body problem, Dr. Feigl, Director of the Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science, informs us: I have concerned myself seriously and repeatedly with the problem for about thirty-six years; ... I have studied most of the contributions from thinkers of many lands in modern and recent philosophy of science; and ... this is my fourth published attempt to arrive at an all round satisfactory clarification (Essay, 20). Feigl claims to be representative of, and in some ways to lead, a particular philosophical school and outlook the nature of which we will run across continuously. He seeks 'a solution that is to be satisfactory from the point of view of contemporary science as well as in the light of modern philosophical analysis' {Essay, 20). This does not mean, however, that Feigl is only concerned with the problems which arise within the philosophical presuppositions accepted by him. His aim is 'to provide a solution that is synoptic in that it would render a just, consistent, and coherent account of all relevant aspects and facets of the issue' (Essay, 20). And a 'synoptic' solution is indispensable, the inherent manifoldedness of the mind-body problem having often been noted: 'Western philosophy consists very largely of variations on the theme of body-mind dualism' (Popper, 'Objective Mind', 25). The best of the most recent, as well as the not so recent philosophers

Style and purpose of this book

3

whose views have a 'family resemblance' to Feigl's physicalism will also be examined by me. Although I was still not even alive when Feigl was already well advancing on this problem, I have also made every effort to acquaint myself with empiricist thinkers. And I do not see how it can be held against me from a scientific point of view when I add, that I have sought to master as well philosophers whose methods and conclusions are quite different from those of contemporary analysis. Still, not biographies of certain personalities, but doctrines and arguments are to be discussed here. The quality of the result is the thing that is decisive; the history of its formation only insofar as it sheds light on the product. There is a traditional main dividing line in philosophy, especially in modern philosophy, namely empiricism versus rationalism. Feigl himself draws it frequently, constantly putting forth positivist contentions against what he calls 'metaphysics'. 'Relapsing into ... rationalistic metaphysics ... logical empiricists have consistently opposed' ('Physicalism', 266). The words employed here are less important than the fact that there are indeed two streams throughout the history of thought, accurately enough denominated 'rationalism' and 'empiricism', and I will often refer to them in these terms. Nominalistically-minded readers may object to a procedure which they usually label 'labeling', 'dubbing', or 'name-calling'. Yet all language is universal, including the concepts which point to the infimae species; universality, or at least generality, is part of the very idea of anything scientific. It should not be forgotten that whenever a generic unity is singled out, specific differences are by no means denied or overruled. The difference is only one of breadth of application: the more general a statement, the more particulars are covered, not the less. And by no means only rationalists hold a view such as this. 'Always that knowledge is worthiest,' wrote Bacon, 'which is charged with least multiplicity' (Advancement', 258). And in the words of J. S. Mill: With regard to exceptions in any tolerably well advanced science, there is properly no such thing as an exception. What is thought to be an exception to a principle is always some other and distinct principle cutting into the former ('Definition', 438). Notwithstanding the fact that Feigl himself seeks to overthrow the rationalist stream, on his own account of what he has done, it seems he has undertaken no more than study the contributions from thinkers in 'modern and recent philosophy of science' (Essay, 20). The body of his

4

Introduction

Essay, as well as his seemingly impressive bibliography (of 565 entries), further confirm this self-estimate. It is evident that he restricts himself to recent discussions which already roughly share his outlook, and largely shields himself from even becoming acquainted with any views basically different. 'Quirespiciunt adpauca defacilipronunciat: [they who take only few points into account find it easy to pronounce judgement]' (Bacon, Advancement, 192). Contrarium eadem est sciential The present procedure of ignoring literature which may contain arguments and counterexamples which ought to be considered is of course quite typical of too many contemporary philosophers who share what may be broadly termed an empiricist outlook. In his Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir, Malcolm tells us what is amply corroborated in the writings of Wittgenstein, his teacher and friend: 'Wittgenstein had done no systematic reading in the classics of philosophy' (20). Hans Reichenbach, another leading proponent of the empiricist outlook, in The Rise of Scientific Philosophy insists: Those who work in the new philosophy do not think back; their work would not profit from historical considerations... Like all historical research, it [i.e. the history of philosophy] should be done with scientific methods and psychological and sociological explanations (325). At least Reichenbach follows his own instructions, for he shows almost no knowledge of the 'speculative philosophy' he so speedily dismisses. And in keeping with scientific objectivity, everything is merely historical except the present time, which will stand still forever, and psychological or psychoanalytic explanations apply to anyone but scientific philosophers. And as we will see only too often, not even the idols of the new science are properly read. 'In Bacon,' insists Reichenbach, 'empiricism has found its prophet' (Scientific Philosophy, 84). Yet the main aim of that 'prophet' of empiricism in fact was to have established for ever a true and lawful marriage between the empirical and the rational faculty, the unkind and ill-starred divorce and separation of which has thrown into confusion all the affairs of the human family (Bacon, Instauratio, 435). Similarly, the explicit view of Einstein is quite different from that of his 'disciples' among scientific philosophers, who ignore anything but recent 'science'.

Style and purpose of this book

5

Nearly every great advance in science arises from a crisis in the old theory, through an endeavor to find a way out of the difficulties created. We must examine old ideas, old theories, although they belong to the past, for this is the only way to understand the importance of the new ones and the extent of their validity (Einstein, Physics, 75). I unswervingly refuse to share here the narrow purview endemic to the philosophers under examination, whose professed attitude clashes with the very essence of the scientific method they at the same time wish to give complete sway. As Cicero already insisted, a person who is ignorant of history lives forever in the childhood of man. Even Aristotle maintained: For our study of the soul it is necessary ... to call into council the views of those of our predecessors who have declared any opinion on this subject, in order that we may profit by whatever is sound in their suggestions and avoid their errors (De Anima, 403 b 20-23). I dare say, Aristotle's philosophical perspicacity can well measure up to that of Feigl, Wittgenstein, or Reichenbach, and, excepting Plato, no one of Aristotle's predecessors was as accomplished as Aristotle himself. 'The advance of knowledge consists, mainly, in the modification of earlier knowledge' (Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 28). Frequently therefore I shall allude to distinguished thinkers who hold similar or different positions from the conclusion I am steering to. For, in the words of Bacon, 'to those that seek truth and not magistrality, it cannot but seem a matter of great profit to see before them the several opinions touching the foundations of nature' (Advancement, 266). Moreover, the references to other people's doctrines orient the reader to positions which I cannot, for lack of space, always fully make clear. I am not of the opinion that it detracts from my own efforts if any of my views have already often been foreshadowed. As the ancient proverb has it, Nil novi super terram. At this stage in the philosophy of mind, one should be wary indeed of any propositions which have not at least been adumbrated. But I am frankly appalled at those people who ignore the work of their predecessors and then profess originality, or worse, claim to have refuted or overcome philosophies about which they appear to know almost nothing. Not only do those 'critics' seldom destroy the foregoing structures, but frequently those buildings are still higher than their own. As Sir Karl Popper in the 'Preface to the English Edition, 1958' of his The Logic of Scientific Discovery had the courage to remark:

6

Introduction

If we ignore what other people are thinking, or have thought in the past, then rational discussion must come to an end, though each of us may go on happily talking to himself. Some philosophers have made a virtue of talking to themselves ... No doubt God talks mainly to Himself because He has no-one worth talking to. But philosophers should know that they are no more godlike than other men (16-17). Although for my part I have not overlooked the 'science' which is made so much of, I have not there found the same assurance as a Lenin: The doctrine of introjection is a muddle; it smuggles in idealistic rubbish and is contradictory to natural science, which inflexibly holds that thought is a function of the brain ('Lenin', 232). As for logical empiricism, Feigl assures his readers (or himself): 'There is nothing dogmatic or ritualistic in our movement. It is not a religion' ('Logical Empiricism', 4). Still, Feigl also writes in this same article: One of the greatest logicians of our time (I shall for special reasons leave his name unmentioned) shocked me considerably when in a conversation many years ago he branded the sharp distinction between analytic and synthetic as the metaphysical prejudice in logical empiricism (6). As is well known, this dichotomy forms one of the cornerstones of modern logical empiricism, just as it did already - in a different nomenclature - in the classical empiricism of Hume (6). About the reaction towards those who go further and transgress upon, as Feigl puts it, 'the taboo of the synthetic a priori' ('Logical Empiricism', 8), I for my part have considerable first-hand experience (though I leave my name at the beginning of this book). What Bacon wrote of the philosophy of Aristotle surely no less holds true of his own 'followers': True consent is that which consists in the coincidence of free judgements, after due examination. But far the greater number of those who have assented to the philosophy of Aristotle have addicted themselves thereto from prejudgement and upon the authority of others; so that it is a following and going along together, rather than consent (Novum Organum, 495). Since scientific materialists seek to establish their thesis of psychophysical monism by an appeal to the findings of science, we must take into account what leading scientists are propounding. And unlike most of the physicalist friends, I am not ignoring those scientists who are most directly

Style and purpose of this book

7

concerned with our problem: neurophysiologists. In neurophysiology as in other areas of scientific endeavor, there are few scientists capable of moving in the difficult borderland between science and philosophy, and yet two towering figures have emerged: Sir Charles Sherrington, the founder of modern neurophysiology, and his one-time student Professor Eccles - later Sir John Eccles. (It is a fitting tribute to these men that both of them received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their life-work in neurophysiology.) Already in his Waynflete Lectures delivered at Oxford in 1952 - at the time of the heyday of Ryle's The Concept of Mind and other forms of behaviorism - Eccles stood up and insisted: Cartesian dualism and interactionism... become valid working hypotheses in the attempt to obtain a further scientific insight into the nature of man. This was essentially the theme of Sherrington in his remarkable book Man on his Nature (1951). I am attempting to follow the lead that he gave. To use a popular phraseology (Ryle, 1949), I am arguing that, before we exorcise the 'ghost' from the 'machine', we should at least carefully scrutinize the machine. We may then find where the 'ghost' comes in, or at least how the 'ghost' could come in (Neurophysiological Basis, vi). No serious enquirer into the ultimate nature of man and the universe can fail to take into account such work in the very key area in question. For my part I can however only touch upon some of its highlights; the wealth and detail of neurophysiological findings forbid a full discussion in the present book. One note of explanation for my extensive use of quotations is called for here. As will be encountered only too often in the course of this critical examination, Feigl's views are vague, and as I will attempt to show, not seldom contradictory in their most fundamental aspects. Given this situation, I think it is fairest to let Feigl and other protagonists of physicalism present their case in their own words as far as possible. Mistaken interpretations never lead to refutations, and my verbatim reports of the doctrines of my opponents are designed to assure the reader that their thesis has not been falsified. Then too, I have encountered again and again, that analysts answer their critics by the convenient reply, 'You do not understand me', and leave it at that. Direct quotations will allow any reader to judge for himself whether I treat their thesis accurately, and leave the burden definitely on him to substantiate any charge of misunderstanding. Still, the well-known charge of quoting out of context may still be

8

Introduction

brought against me. But I already freely confess that usually I do not look much beyond the passage cited, for were I to glance much further, something conflicting with the given propositions is often found. If I were asked to attribute something to the opposition only after a well-rounded view was presented, I should frequently be at a loss to say anything about them at all. Similar qualifications hold for the quotations I gather in support of my contentions. When I outline a doctrine of some thinker who in any way aids my argument, I never mean to imply that he does so in all respects; frequently he will be against many of my other propositions. In short, by means of direct quotations I wish to obviate as far as possible the tiresome yet all too frequent disputations about 'what X really said.' With their analytic-synthetic distinction (overlooking the fact that these terms are pitifully vague), analysts have a common frame of reference with which to support any of their arguments (though strangely, if anyone has ever systematically established the claim that even logic is analytic, I would like to see the treatise). Similar methodological frameworks are Aristotle's Organon, Bacon's Novum Organum, Descartes's Discourse on Method, the Essay, Principles, Treatise, and System of Logic of the Classical British Empiricists. Again, comparable things have been produced by Kant with his Critique of Pure Reason, by Fichte and Hegel by their respective Science of Knowledge and Science of Logic. Phenomenologists look to Husserl's Ideas, Marxists above all to Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. There are of course many other works of this kind; I make this list only to illustrate the point that I do not have one myself.The philosophical climate of the time certainly does not make the production of one an easy task. And even if I had a systematic epistemological and methodological work, if the unfamiliarity of the conceptions is a sufficient ground to keep readers from the books of Hegel, how much less time must anyone be willing to spend to familiarize himself with my doctrines. Yet surely, Bacon states an important truth when he says that 'confutations cannot be employed, when the difference is upon first principles and very notions and even upon forms of demonstration' (Novum Organum, 468). And in the words of A. J. Ayer, 'Without a sufficient measure of agreement on the question of truth and the conditions of knowledge, the argument cannot proceed' ('Philosophy', 541). Given the present conditions, I propose to provide something that contemporary analysts call a 'dialectical confrontation' in the main part of this work. Since the notion of 'dialectic' as employed by analysts is hardly

Style and purpose of this book

9

clearer than the 'notorious' one of Hegel, I interpret it in the sense as used by Plato. Socrates continually has his opponents put forth some proposition X, but then from that and other propositions also accepted by his opponents he has them deduce a proposition which contradicts X. Similarly, I accept certain (though not all!) methodological and substantial propositions of the party I contend with, but then from the propositions cited I draw opposite conclusions. Such a mode of refutation is compelling to one's adversaries, since it takes place within their own avowed framework; still - and here I am not joining Socrates in his mock-modesty - not only negative but positive conclusions can be established by means of this procedure. I do not mean to imply that the Platonic way is the only way, or even the best way, of establishing or approximating truth which is, or ought to be, the end of all philosophical discourse; its advantages are largely psychological. It is again difficult to put the reasons better than our 'father of modern science': For were it not better for a man in a fair room to set up one great light, or branching candlesticks of light, than to go about with a small watch candle into every corner? It is the harmony of a philosophy in itself which giveth it light and credence; whereas if it be singled and broken, it will seem more foreign and dissonant (Bacon, Advancement, 184,267). But nonetheless, let me again emphasize the nature and strength of the critical method which I will use, as outlined by another masterly expounder of scientific method: What characterizes the empirical method is its manner ofexposing to falsification, in every conceivable way, the system to be tested. Its aim is not to save the lives of untenable systems but, on the contrary, to select the one which is by comparison the fittest, by exposing them all to the fiercest struggle for survival (Popper, Logic, 42). The main aim of this book is therefore an internal refutation of psychophysical monism, and the positive establishment of dualistic interactionism by means of, or at least not in conflict with, scientific method - all of course only in the light of present-day knowledge. 'Scientific conclusions are and should be about what is known and not about what might be

10

Introduction

known, let alone about what is not known' (Jaki, Brain, 75). And yet what we know to be disparate now can never be proven to be identical in the future.

B . THE ESSENCE OF THE IDENTITY THEORY

I will now proceed to give an exposition of the most basic features of the theory to be criticized, using as much as possible Feigl's own words, and those of other writers. This outline may seem needlessly repetitive. But as will be seen later, I am afraid almost to the point of tediousness, Feigl will shift the main points of his thesis to and fro, rather than admit that any possible criticism is decisive. And I do not see how inductivist empiricists can object if I produce considerable evidence for what I take to be their essential point. It is perhaps not inappropriate to show first how two officially neutral observers interpret the identity theory, and then give textual proof from Feigl that their interpretation seems correct. In his article on the 'MindBody Problem' in the recently published Encyclopedia of Philosophy, J. Shaffer sees it this way: A version of materialism that is much discussed today is the identity theory, recently presented and defended by J. J. C. Smart and H. Feigl, among others. The identity theorist uses the familiar philosophical distinction between significance and reference, or connotation and denotation, to make the claim that mentalistic and physicalistic expressions differ in significance or connotation but will turn out as a matter of empirical fact to refer or denote one and the same thing; namely physical phenomena... Formulated in terms of de facto identity rather than logical identity, this theory survives many of the standard refutations of the older materialisms... It is still too early to say whether this hypothesis is probable, but it is a hypothesis that many scientists take seriously and use to guide their research (339). (For three recent anthologies on the identity theory, see Presley, Identity Theory; O'Connor, Modern Materialism; and Borst, Identity Theory.) V. C. Chappell, editor of the anthology The Philosophy of Mind, puts it this way: It is important to be clear as to what precisely the identity theorist is claiming. He says that sensations, pains for example, are brain processes, and this is the

The essence of the identity theory

11

'are' of strict, numerical identity. But sensations and brain processes are identical as a matter of fact; and not in virtue of the meanings of the terms 'sensation' and 'brain process' ('Introduction', 19). Feigl himself informs us: 'In the development of my own formulation of the identity theory I was stimulated by the work of Schlick and by continued discussions and correspondence with Carnap' ('Physicalism', 255). He then quotes from a letter of Carnap, written in 1933: 'The whole "riddle of the universe" [Schopenhauer's "Weltknoten", i.e., the mind-body problem] seems finally to come to this: one will have to make clear to oneself in an appropriate manner that brain processes are, on the one hand, objects of scientific sentences, and on the other hand causes of the emission of sentences. This, in itself by no means mysterious, situation should then be so formulated that people with emotional (not to use the offensive word "metaphysical") headaches can accept it more easily. As to whether these aches can be completely eliminated is a psychological question, or perhaps a practical task of psychoanalysis' ('Physicalism', 255). At the present time, according to Feigl, the mind-body problem is not to be dissolved or resolved by ordinary language philosophy, and is not a pseudo-problem. Nor is it to be relegated 'to the limbo of speculative metaphysics' (Essay, 3). The identity thesis which I wish to clarify and to defend asserts that the states of direct experience which conscious beings 'live through', and those which we confidently ascribe to some of the higher animals, are identical with certain (presumably configurational) aspects of the neural processes in those organisms (Essay, 79). I provide the following quotations to indicate the sound basis for my claim that Feigl seeks to identify what he calls experiential data, phenomena, sensa, qualia, knowledge by acquaintance, or raw feels, with something else, whatever that something is. (Of course, the difficulty already arises how the synthetic identification hoped for could possibly be with something else, if there is to be a numerical identity; and if it is not with something else, how the proposed referential identification could be contingent.) 'The philosophical or logical crux of the identity thesis' is this: We have stressed that the (empirical!) identification of the mental with the physical consists in regarding what is labeled in knowledge by acquaintance as a

12

Introduction

quale of direct experience as identical with the denotatum of some neurophysiological concept (Essay, 94). Again, Feigl insists: 'The data of experience are the reality which a very narrow class of neurophysiological concepts denotes. I admit this sounds very "metaphysical" ' {Essay, 86). Once more, he says: According to the identity thesis the directly experienced qualia and configurations are the realities-in-themselves that are denoted by the neurophysiological descriptions. The identification of the denotata is therefore empirical (Essay, 90). A 'precise statement of the physicalistic identity theory' runs as follows: It claims that there is a synthetic (basically empirical) relation of systemic identity between the designata of the phenomenal predicates and the designata of certain neurophysiological terms ('Physicalism', 255). The central puzzle of the mind-body problem is the logical nature of the correlation laws connecting raw feel qualities with neurophysiological processes (Essay, 49). If the reader already tires of the repetition, then I have established the point, that the identification claimed is between directly experienced phenomena, or involves at least a phenomenon as one term. We should however not overlook this qualification of Feigl: The raw feels of direct experience as we 'have' them, are empirically identifiable with the referents of... some neurophysiological concepts. As we have pointed out, the word 'mental' in present day psychology covers, however, not only the events and processes of direct experience (i.e., the raw feels), but also the unconscious events and processes, as well as the 'intentional acts' of perception, introspective awareness, expectations, belief, doubt, desire, volition, resolution, etc. (Essay, 78). But notwithstanding this qualification, it is not clear how we could know at all about unconscious events, if we did not have some sort of empirical evidence. Feigl himself says that 'scientifically minded thinkers' hold the belief 'that there is nothing in heaven or on earth (or even beyond both) that could n o t . . . conceivably be confirmed or disconfirmed on the basis of sense perception' ('Physicalism', 239). Yet perhaps Feigl is saying that everything which exists in the world is in principle directly perceivable;

The essence of the identity theory

13

whereas in fact, in scientific practice, we need linking statements from unobserved theoretical entities to directly perceived data. In any event, I will interpret Feigl throughout this critical examination as holding that at least one term of the identification is a given phenomenal datum. (Need we, however, formulate the thesis as liberally as that? For again - and Feigl is not necessarily denying this-what else could be identical with that phenomenal givenness but that very same sensum.) Although alternative interpretations will be considered after we have examined the issues in some detail, I will find no good reason to abandon the above as the main contention of Feigl. There is however a second major formulation of the identity thesis which differs from the above in that theoretical entities are given greater emphasis. The exact epistemological status of phenomenal data in view of illata is not as obvious as in the preceding quotations, although I do as yet not claim that there is a definite contradiction. It seems to me that the general trend of the first formulation is that Feigl seeks to set up what is commonly called an empirical hypothesis (i.e., a hypothesis all entities of which can in principle be directly confirmed); whereas in the second formulation Feigl seeks to set up a theoretical hypothesis (i.e., a hypothesis of which only certain consequents can in fact be directly confirmed). I am, however, most anxious to let the reader formulate his own interpretation, and notwithstanding the cost of tiresome repetition, will again and again bring Feigl's contentions directly before his mind, and exactly as Feigl himself put them on paper. Whether I am right or wrong in my interpretation of Feigl, I do wish to gain clarity on the two-fold nature of scientific method for my own purposes, since my own destructive and constructive theses are also claimed to be scientific. And what higher authority in the contemporary world of empiricism can I approvingly quote than A. J. Ayer's recent 'statement of the conditions which a hypothesis is required to satisfy, in order to be scientific' ('Philosophy', 538): In modern times, two theses have held the field. According to one of them, what is required is that the hypothesis be verifiable: according to the other, that it be falsifiable. They operate very much in the same way, except that the requirement of falsifiability is rather more stringent. They differ in that the principle of verifiability was put forward as a criterion of cognitive meaning, whereas the principle of falsifiability was intended only to draw a line of demarcation: failure to satisfy it was taken to entail not that the sentence in question had no cognitive

14

Introduction

meaning but only that even if it was used to express a significant proposition, that proposition was not scientific... It is noteworthy that both these theses have been modified, in order to bring them into line with current scientific practice... In practice, what is now understood to require of a scientific hypothesis is that it should figure non-trivially in a theory which, taken as a whole, is such that the truth of certain observation statements would count as sufficient reason for rejecting it (538-539). The most capable treatment of induction seems to be still Mill's A System of Logic, and of hypothetico-deductive method Popper's The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Whereas some inductivists or verificationists hold deductivists or falsificationists in disdain, and vice versa, in my view both approaches have their legitimate sphere of operation. But those who insist on the monopoly of one method will still find me in some places refuting the identity theory and establishing dualism using solely their preferred method. In brief, 'for the scientific outlook a concept must be capable of being related to perception, directly or indirectly; it is now clear what is the precise way in which a concept is indirectly related to perception - it is by the mechanism of testability by deduction' (Wisdom, Inference, 44). In the Postscript Feigl emphasized: 'It should be remembered that my entire discussion is predicated upon the scientific acceptability of (physic a l ) physicalism' (160). The crucial terms had been defined in these ways in the Essay: By 'physicali terms' I mean all (empirical) terms whose specification of meaning essentially involves logical (necessary or, more usually, probabilistic) connections with the intersubjective observation language itself... By 'physical' I mean the kind of theoretical concepts (and statements) which are sufficient for the explanation, i.e., the deductive or probabilistic derivation, of the observation statements regarding the inorganic (lifeless) domain of nature (57). If the identity theory is correct, then the scopes of theoretical 'physicali' and 'physicah' terms are the same. I f , however, there is genuine emergence, i.e., logical underivability, in the domains of organic, mental, and/or social phenomena, then the scope of 'physicali' terms is clearly narrower than that of 'physicali' theroretical terms (57). That Feigl's program, evidently one of the reduction of all sciences to physics, is in fact intimately linked to some actual scientific practices (or

The essence of the identity theory

15

hopes, I should say), is indicated by this quotation from Einstein: The general laws on which the structure of theoretical physics is based claim to be valid for any natural phenomenon whatsoever. With them, it ought to be possible to arrive at the description, that is to say, the theory, of every natural process, including life, by means of pure deduction (Science, 3). Einstein, however, has thought through this question even less carefully than Feigl, for only on the next page he also says: 'There is no logical bridge between phenomena and their theoretical principles.' If this is not a patent contradiction, why not? And as a distinguished contemporary biologist sizes up the situation: 'The majority view is... that "mind" is a fourletter word which should not be uttered among well-bred scientists'. 'Reductionism is now the semiofficial creed of the biological establishment' (Dobzhansky, 'Human Evolution', 56, 63). Similarly, in a recent book by science correspondent Nigel Calder, The Mind of Man: From New Haven to New Delhi - a worldwide report on the drama of brain research, the reporter formed 'the proposition that we are now beginning to understand the mind of man in terms of brain mechanisms' (271). And as we are informed by L. R. Graham in Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union, Contemporary Soviet ¡dialectical materialism as a philosophy of science is an effort to explain the world by these principles: All that exists is real; this real world consists of matter-energy; and this matter-energy develops in accordance with universal regularities or laws (24). And even phenomenologists and existentialists are joining Marxist-Leninists, physicalists and plain scientists in a materialism gone hogwild. The Philosophy of the Body: Rejections of Cartesian Dualism is a recent anthology representative of contemporary Continental philosophy. As the title of the book indicates, the very name 'philosophy of mind' is to be extirpated, and its editor S. F. Spicker rounds off his 'Introduction' by exhorting, 'One would hope that the old dualistic notion of mind and matter, soul and body, so prominent in Cartesian philosophy will find no defenders by the end of this century' (20). Feigl ends his Essay by concluding that monism is 1. still very plausible on scientific grounds 2. philosophically defensible in that it involves no logical or epistemological difficulties and paradoxes (116).

16

Introduction

C . OUTLINE OF THE ARGUMENT OF THIS WORK

I will now proceed to provide a synoptic view of the version of psychophysical dualism which will emerge from the destructive argumentation against scientific materialism. A few words of caution may be in order. The reader ought not to expect impeccable coherence of exposition in the course of the development of my own constructive doctrines. I am bound to adjust my organization to the philosophy I contend with, a philosophy which is, as I will attempt to show, inconsistent and incoherent, and on occasion even goes so far as to clash with empirical facts. And it ought not to be expected that I can already lay out in this section in readily understandable form the whole answer to the 'world-knot', or 'riddle of the universe'. If the reader thinks that such limitations make the present section superfluous, he is advised to skip it. Part A of Chapter I deals with the relationship between language and the world. I accept Feigl's adoption of the Fregean distinction between sense and reference. I do however not follow Frege and Feigl in maintaining that two or more senses (differing in quality) can have one and the same referent. Since Feigl already accepts that the concept of mind is meaningful, and that the sense of 'mind' differs from that of 'body', I draw the inference that the mental and the physical must differ referentially, i.e., in reality. The fact that for empiricists in general, senses come from referents, strengthens my inference. Although all philosophy is expressed in language, the problem of mindbody identity, for both Feigl and me, is nonetheless a problem about the nature of the world or reality. In Part B of Chapter I, therefore, 'Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body' are drawn. First, 'The problem of perception' is discussed. It is argued that even a possibly true answer to this problem does not by itself settle the mind-body puzzle, though any position adopted is of course relevant to that puzzle. As Feigl, I adopt a causal theory of perception, yet later draw different ontological conclusions from that theory. Section 2 of Part B, Chapter I has the self-explanatory title 'Feigl's distinctions between mental and physical'. As Feigl, however, does not set out to answer his own (and indeed my) question, few results of value can be expected from his 'analytical study of the meanings of each of these two key terms, ... their various definitions and connotations' (Essay, 20). The problem at hand is one about the nature of referents, not senses or conno-

Outline of the argument of this work

17

tations. Yet what is commendable is Feigl's dismissal of all forms of behaviorism. 'Science' indeed has travelled too far a distance from an anthropomorphic universe to ratomorphic man. I go further however than Feigl in showing that even the 'public' data made so much of by behaviiorists are ultimately private data. In 'Some safe criteria for differentiating mind from body', I engage in the intricate task of providing prima facie evidence for dualism. Since my distinctions deal not with senses apart from referents, but with the world, the full proof for these distinctions can only be an elicitation of the nature of reality as found in this work as a whole. The Kantian distinction between inner and outer sense is adopted, but it is developed in a direction which differs considerably from Kant's explicit intentions. Chapter II, entitled 'Objections to the Identity Theory on Methodological Grounds', has largely disruptive aims, and attempts to demonstrate the very impossibility of establishing a numerical identity by means of 'empirical metaphysics'. But again, such a destructive procedure does have positive aspects, for apart from the limitations inherent in any empirical knowledge claim, scientific method certainly can establish some qualitative and numerical dualities or multiplicities. Ontological identity is not observed, but is an axiom asserting a relationship of everything to itself, and to absolutely nothing else. All knowledge is structural, and scientific research does not and cannot relate referential self-identities; rather it investigates the connections between objects, parts, or aspects which are at least numerically distinct. If we seek to identify empirically, synthetically, or contingently any two things, we are ipso facto precluded from our attempt by the numerical diversity of the entities; yet if there is after all only one thing, we need no scientific experimentation to tell us that it is identical to itself. As for the point that two different descriptions may be 'discovered' to refer to only one entity: In the first place, such a proposition makes a claim about the relationship between language and the world, and does not by itself, even if true, solve the issue of how the professed referential identification of mind and body is to be accomplished. Secondly, it is doubtful that such alleged relationships between sense and reference are amenable to proof by means of the experimental method; and in any event, my own positive philosophy of language undercuts the whole basis for the claim that two different senses can refer to strictly one entity. And should I be wrong in all these assertions, my constructive proof of mind-body dualism

18

Introduction

by itself already destroys the very possibility of establishing a referential identity, and preferences for any philosophy of language therewith become of little significance to the problem at hand. That which is already known to be two in no way whatever can ever be'discovered' to be one. The titles of Section 2 and 3 of Chapter II, Part B, namely 'The metaphysical nature of science itself', and 'The pragmatic, non-ontological nature of science', again speak for themselves. Insofar as science, notwithstanding protestations to the contrary, unavoidably always employs metaphysical presuppositions, scientific method itself is not free from metaphysics, and therefore can never claim to solve the mind-body problem completely apart from metaphysics. But it is nonetheless true, and not contradictory to say, that many procedural rules of science bypass metaphysical concerns. Yet the existence or non-existence of mind is admittedly an ontological problem, a problem about the characteristics of reality. It therefore already seems to follow that neither the metaphysical aspects of science, nor the pragmatic aspects, can competently claim to be able to answer an ontological question by means of purely empirical methods. The linguistic and methodological groundwork having been laid in Chapters I and II, I am enabled to draw more substantial conclusions in Chapter III, where I elicit empirical evidence for mind-body duality. The two-fold nature of empirical evidence already alluded to should be kept in mind. There are direct or indirect empirical confirmations, a distinction alternatively characterized as inductive or hypothetico-deductive methods, or empirical as opposed to theoretical hypotheses. Direct inspection of a datum, and the deduction from an unobserved or unobservable to an observed, are the two main species of empirical methods. It is well known that, whether we speak of direct or indirect confirmation, one counterinstance overthrows the strict validity of a hypothesis (by modus tollendo tollens) - and I provide many such counterinstances to the hypothesis of physicalism. Yet of course, even a great number of probabilistic confirmations do not strictly establish a hypothesis (that would be the fallacy of affirming the consequent). I would appreciate, however, if objectors to my positive thesis of mind-body duality would bring forth specific counterexamples to my differentiations in the same way as I have provided counter-examples to mind-body monism, rather than rest their doubts on trite general assertions, such as the inconclusiveness of all empirical evidence. It may well be the case, that mind-body duality makes up a fundamental demarcation in the universe, which has been uncovered once and for all. In

Outline of the argument of this work 19 any event, until one or more counterinstances have been brought forward against my positive thesis, it stands. Part A of Chapter III sets out to further delineate 'The chief traits of the mental, largely based on introspective evidence'. And what, if anything, engages in the self-observation? It is the innermost core of the mind, entitled the 'pure ego'. In the face of the most celebrated objections to a substantial self apart from the 'flux of ideas,' such as those by Hume and Kant, the actual, and indeed necessary, existence of an apperceived, transparent, indivisible, abiding (eternal, timeless) personal self is vigorously asserted. And an entity with characteristics of this type certainly cannot be physical. The 'pure ego' watches the 'events in the mind' with varying 'attitudes', as Section 2 of Part A makes clear. Sections 1 and 2 of Part B, Chapter III expand upon the above description. The reader is referred back to the causal theory of perception which I share (in its epistemological aspects) with my opponents. Also, the 'events' of the mind are in turn subdivided into the distinction between inner sense and outer sense already alluded to. Now, scientific materialists are committed to hold that all causes and effects have all characteristics of matter. Yet I maintain that the causes of what I distinguish as outer sense are indeed always physical, but the ultimate phenomenal effects - the data which are directly experienced - are mental without exception. I go on to claim that the causes or grounds of what I distinguish as inner sense cannot be exclusively physical, and that the ultimate effects are also mental in nature. The ontological issue is empirically resolved as follows: I adopt the hypothetico-deductive method of my opponents, and agree with physicalists that public or intersubjective perceivability is a necessary property of matter. On the basis of a number of empirical considerations, it is shown that the causes of outer sense are physical, as they lead to phenomenal effects which are public in the sense of being qualitatively similar and thus shared (though numerically private to each perceiver). These effects, however, cannot themselves be physical, as they in turn do not give rise to similar perceptions in different perceivers. For example, material cause Z which is Lake Ontario (as thing in itself, permanent possibility, or illatum) leads to similar effects - public perceptions in human observers A and B. Yet these effects cannot be bodily entities, since the appearances of Lake Ontario in A and B are never found to cause public perceptions in observers C and D. In the case of inner sense, not only the effects but

20

Introduction

also some of the causes or grounds do not meet the test of materiality. For example, the cause of an imagined golden castle in the air can neither be an external physical thing in itself nor solely a brain process, as only the enjoyer A, and never any onlookers B and C, directly experience such phenomenal events. Psycho-physical monists by definition can never identify a cause with the effect of that cause. Psycho-physical monists will never be able to identify causes which lead to dissimilar phenomenal effects, themselves upholding the dictum 'same cause, same effect' as a necessary condition of materialism. Being empiricists, psycho-physical monists are precluded from identifying differing phenomenal data, nor can they ever maintain that their ultimate grounds of verification do not exist. Yet these are exhaustive possibilities of mind-body identification within a causal theory of perception, and I disconfirm each one. The human mind, consequently, is not identical with the central nervous system. The following schematic representation may aid the reader to fix my general position in his mind. To be sure, this diagram is a rough approximation, and nothing indicated therein is to be upheld in the face of anything written which may seem to contradict it.

World of mental entities as things in themselves Pure ego

i

1g 11

I u c j | - §

o

i u

Mental phenomena of inner sense

! • o T 23

Mental phenomena f

outer °sense

World of material entities as things in themselves

a

Outline of the argument of this work 21 In the course of arguments such as the foregoing, both the differing senses and the differing actual referents of mind and body become clearer and clearer. In Section 3, entitled 'The animism of matter and physicalism', I am therefore enabled to show that the very bedrock of physicalism, the science of physics, gives evidence for mental, and not only bodily entities. The reader ought to notice that instead of ignoring scientists, just as my opposition ignores metaphysicians, I have drawn on the most pre-eminent physicists who ever lived to inform us about the state of knowledge in their discipline. Even if all sciences were reduced to physics, materialism would not be proven, for not all entities referred to by physics (such as force or energy) are material in nature. Yet the platitude of chemistry having been reduced to physics notwithstanding, the last section of Chapter III will prove the assertion of its title, 'The irreducibility of anything but physics to physics'. I do of course not deny that there is a bridge from physics to chemistry, and yes, from body to mind, and vice versa. But a bridge never joins two territories which are the same, but always areas which are different. It should not be assumed here that my admittedly vague metaphor is any less clear than the catch-all phrase 'reduction of everything to physics' as employed by physicalists. Let me however decide this issue only after the sense and reference of'reduction' have been brought forth. In the first two sections falling under the 'Conclusions and Prospects,' entitled 'The methodological impossibility' and 'The empirical disconfirmation,' I provide not a summary of my objections to psycho-physical monism, but additions of a general nature. Contexts are almost always too involved to allow accurate summarizations: if the mind-body problem were not in fact as intricate as I claim it is, the many distinguished intellects who have already worked on it would have solved it long ago. In Section 3, 'The metaphysical implausibility', I at last take some leave from working within the philosophical framework of my opponents in arguing against monism. In the final section, entitled 'Interactionism,' I answer perhaps all serious objections which have already been brought forward against my general point of view: dualistic interactionism. In addition, positive reasons for mind acting on body, and body acting on mind, are advanced. And it ought not to be supposed that mind is anything derivative in this relationship. On the contrary, mind precedes matter in perhaps every relevant sense: psychologically, chronologically, epistemologically, logically, nor-

22

Introduction

matively, and ontologically. The latter assertions are however not proven in detail; this book does not take more upon itself than a proof that mind exists, and that mind differs from matter. Yet I do not mean to use the word 'proof' here in a light-hearted sense: I mean conclusively established here and now, in the light of knowledge up to this time. Those who disagree should show exactly where I go wrong, if I go wrong; or point out exactly what is unclear, if something is unclear; instead of charging me with making arrogant claims merely because I state what I see to be true - the goal of all philosophical enquiry.

CHAPTER I

On the Sense and Reference of 'Mental' and 'Physical'

A . THE NATURE OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN SENSE AND REFERENCE IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE

1. Towards a mature philosophy of language 'Any kind of understanding, scientific or not, depends on our language, on the communication of ideas' (Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, 144). Yet there are various competing positions on the nature of language, and which one are we to follow? For surely, 'the truth of the direction must precede severity of observance' (Bacon, Advancement, 279). Instead of giving a proof for a sound position, which would require volumes, I provide the following classification to indicate the chief standpoints and the general direction which should be pursued. To be sure, this outline is rough, and there are qualifications to be made in the case of most representatives which are used as illustrations. Some major philosophers, such as Spinoza, I have been too hesitant about to group at all. I am also aware that some quite different approaches to the philosophy of language, such as the behavioral one, are not amenable to my way of classifying at all (yet may here be ignored). One-factor theory of meaning. This view either holds that words and reality are one and the same, or that words are completely independent of reality, are self-sufficient 'language games'. The attitude of children, savages and the unthinking are instances of the first alternative; the feelings of ordinary language philosophers such as Moore, Wittgenstein II, Ryle, and Austin are indicative of the second. This position does not merit any attention here, and is repudiated by Feigl himself in 'Why Ordinary Lan-

24

On the sense and reference of 'mental' and 'physical'

guage Needs Reforming' (Maxwell and Feigl, 'Ordinary Language'). 'Nor', says Feigl, 'am I convinced that a purely private language is inconceivable' (Essay, 25). No one doubts that there is a certain conventionality in language, but this is just not all there is to it. There is little point in arguing with people who, after some three thousand years of knowledge on this subject, still do not see the difference between a real question and a verbal question. The father of modern science was already well acquainted with 'the first distemper of learning, when men study words and not matter' (Bacon, Advancement, 182). People enmeshed by this view 'make the world the bond-slave of human thought, and human thought the bond-slave of words' (Bacon, Novum Organum, 488). 'Words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding' (Novum Organum, 470). Two-factor theory of meaning. This outlook is usually held by strong empiricists, and has as its main feature two terms which are related in correspondence, namely words and objects. The words are arbitrary symbols, names (hence 'nominalism') or terms (hence 'terminism'). The objects tend to be called by philosophers of language referents, denotations, extensions, nominata, significata, designata. The meaning of a word is the individual object in the world it stands for. The ontology of universals is nominalism. Examples are Ockham, Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, Mill, Wittgenstein I, Quine, Goodman, White. Three-factor theory of meaning. This position tends to be held by weak empiricists. They adopt words as symbols, and referents not unlike the twofactor theorists, but deny that words immediately stand for particular objects. In Bacon's terminology, words are 'symbols of notions', or in Locke's, 'signs for ideas'. These 'ideas', not words, refer to objects. The exact nature of the ideas is often not made clear, but we may say that they are most often concepts, and at times representations, images or 'replica'. They are without exception psychological entities. The 'ideas' are commonly called by philosophers of language meanings, senses, connotations, intensions. The ontology of universals is conceptualism. Representatives are St. Thomas, Bacon, Locke, Kant, Brentano, Meinong, Husserl, Lewis, Carnap, Church, and Feigl, who is 'not a nominalist' (Essay, 72).

The distinction between sense and reference 25 Four-factor theory of meaning. This doctrine is mainly held by rationalists. It adopts all the apparatus of the three-factor theory, but realizes the epistemic weaknesses as well as the strengths of the intermediate psychological entities. It divides intensions into objective and subjective. This view does not deny that, as fas as our human knowledge is concerned, we have intensions which are conventional, inadequate, and changing. From this, however, it does not follow that there cannot be 'real', 'true' meanings which are independent of the human mind, and in fact there are. Our subjective intensions should more and more approximate the objective ones, and in effect with the advancement of the sciences, they do. The ontology of universals is mainly a type of realism. The conceptualist universals are the subjective intensions; the realist universals are the objective ones, the fourth factor. Instances of this view are Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Leibniz, Hegel, perhaps Frege, Russell, and in some ways, Popper. I think that it can safely be concluded, even from this list, that the sophistication of a theory of meaning advances correspondingly to the number of factors enumerated. That those philosophers who are, or ought to be considered, the most penetrating belong to the latter two groups does not seem to be a mere coincidence either. That a four-factor theory is presently downgraded as muddle-headed, when in fact it is the most advanced, one may explain with these words of Russell: Many people have a passionate hatred of abstraction, chiefly, I think, because of its intellectual difficulty; but as they do not wish to give this reason, they invent all sorts of others that sound grand (Scientific Outlook, 85). Plato, of course, pronounced his lack of faith in the intellectual capability of the 'many' at least a few dozen times. 'Generally men taste well knowledges that are drenched in flesh and blood' (Advancement, 285), as Bacon had it. In On Education, Kant went so far as to say that the quickest way to assess someone's intelligence is to measure the degree and count the number of abstract conceptions of that person. Admittedly, such differentiations are anything but flattering to many people. Yet 'modesty and civil respect are fit for civil matters; in contemplations nothing is to be respected but Truth' (Bacon, 'Nature', 152). The alleged 'insolubility' of many metaphysical problems rests to a large part on the failure of the many to realize what already has been achieved. It must be confessed, however, that as far as the matter stands

26

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and 'physical'

now, the exact nature of the three or four factors, and their interrelations, have not been clarified in an exact and complete way by anyone. Since a vast number of considerations of a psychological, epistemic, logical, evaluative, and metaphysical nature are involved, I will not enter the subject matter here, excepting only the few details which are elaborated in the next section. Suffice it to say that I am for the four-factor theory, and that I dismiss the first two positions as demonstrably false. (And it may also be helpful for the reader to know that I consider the third factor to consist of mental phenomena of inner sense, and the fourth factor of mental entities as things in themselves.) I will, however, abstain from employing the four-factor theory as a premise in this book, although a realistic view of universals does not only result in a different metaphysic, but can yield highly pragmatic consequences. Thus, insofar as my arguments depend upon a philosophy of language, the reader must accept at least a three-factor theory in order to agree with my conclusions. 2. Some shortcomings of Frege's theory of meaning Feigl's identity theory employs a specific philosophy of language: Utilizing Frege's distinction between Sinn ('meaning', 'sense', 'intension') and Bedeutung ('referent', 'denotatum', 'extension'), we may say that neurophysiological terms and the corresponding phenomenal terms, though widely differing in sense, and hence in the modes of confirmation of statements containing them, do have identical referents. I take these referents to be the immediately experienced qualities, or their configurations in the various phenomenal fields (Feigl, 'Not a Pseudoproblem', 38). In my view, the most crucial aspect of this theory of meaning, employed by Feigl, is untenable. Let me clarify. As is evident from the foregoing outline, I strongly endorse this main point of Frege, quoting Frege's own words: It is natural, now, to think of there being connected with a sign (name, combination of words, letter), besides that to which the sign refers, which may be called the reference of the sign, also what I should like to call the sense of the sign, wherein the mode of presentation is contained ('Sense and Reference', 57). Nonetheless, I am also of the opinion that Frege's second main point, 'The reference of "evening star" would be the same as that of "morning star",

The distinction between sense and reference 27 but not the sense' ('Sense and Reference', 57), is demonstrably mistaken. Frege's adoption of an intermediate sense between sign and referent has either been repudiated in the recent literature of the philosophy of language, or has not been taken further than where Frege left it. Feigl is an example of the latter case: There are... empirically ascertainable identities as those of Tully and Cicero, of William Thompson and Lord Kelvin, or of the evening star and the morning star. In the examples just given we have (extensional) identities of individuals labeled or uniquely described in two or more ways (Essay, 72). Now, I grant that 'morning star' does not have the same sense as 'evening star'. But, having posited this as a premise, I deny that these two terms with dissimilar intensions refer to the same extension. If 'morning star' would have the same referent as 'evening star', then when I say 'morning star', I would denote the identical thing as when I say 'evening star'. But when I speak of the evening star as referent, I cannot use the intension of the term 'morning star', and then hope that I or anyone else will single out the significatum evening star. It is simply a fact that no one employs language this way - at least when we speak with the degree of precision here exemplified. And there are sound logical reasons for this fundamental fact. For when two expressions have identical reference, then one may be substituted for another, salva veritate. Frege explicitly upholds this principle, and cites Leibniz's often-quoted definition in support of it:'"Eadem sunt, quae sibi mutuo substituipossunt, salva veritate"' ('Sense and Reference', 64). This principle indeed holds true for synonyms, i.e., words identical in sense, for words identical in sense always have identical referents. But it simply does not hold true for 'morning star' and 'evening star', since these terms are admitted to be non-synonymous, i.e., differing in sense, and since we here also observe that the referents in fact singled out are also in fact correspondingly dissimilar, and in the same degree of 'determinateness'. Yet described in this abstract fashion, this empirical fact may not be easy to grasp. I will therefore elaborate to a considerable extent. It also goes without saying that if these questions were not so difficult, unequivocal answers would have been produced long ago by philosophers. Although linguistic problems are of paramount interest to many philosophers today, some readers could merely skim the rest of this section without much loss in continuity: my arguments merely support what already constitutes the received common sense of mankind. The ordinary

28

On the sense and reference of 'mental' and 'physical'

man knows very well that language must somehow conform to reality, that calling something other than it in fact is does not really make it other. Let us this time begin with morning star and evening star as referents. Surely it cannot be denied that these stars differ at least in that they do not appear in the same qualitative condition, time and place. Feigl himself, as we shall see, makes much of spatio-temporal sequence, and such a sequence seems indeed an irremovable aspect of any material object. How, therefore, considering this evidence alone, can anyone properly say that the morning star is numerically identical with the evening star, and that this is empirically ascertainable. Why, the two are observed to have at least some characteristics which are dissimilar. That there are some referential differences here cannot possibly be denied by the opposition. And I of course cannot and do not overrule therewith the possibility that there are still many more similarities; yet the issue is always strict referential identity, i.e., identity without any qualifications whatever. The supposed generic unity is Venus; the specific characteristics of Venus are the morning star and the evening star. A thing cannot be the latter stars at all without being also Venus; but even if Venus always has some specific features as well, they are never being the morning star and being the evening star at the same time and place. 'Morning star' refers to Venus in its specific condition in the morning, and 'evening star' to Venus in the evening. Only the sense of 'Venus' refers to the referent Venus without qualification. To come again to the same conclusion by a different route: 'Venus', 'morning star', and 'evening star' are singular terms; and singular terms always apply only to their unique instantiations. But if two different senses can apply to one and the same object, how does anyone know when two different meanings (senses) apply to different objects, for surely such cases also definitely exist. If they do not always apply to different referents by virtue of differing in sense (as I claim), then, so far as I can see, we have no criterion at all. The only reply I can think of which could be made to my arguments is, that 'morning star' and 'evening star' do refer to the same empirical entity, because they only designate one unchanging substance. But if this were so, then language would always leave out varying features inhering in substances (as is definitely contrary to fact), and thus would make science altogether impossible. Also, as empiricists have always pointed out, a permanent substratum is in no way observed, and, as Locke said, is

The distinction between sense and reference

29

unknown, or, as Hume and Russell insisted, does not exist. As Hume claimed, a thing is a bundle of its qualities, and, as Russell developed the position further, a thing is a sequence of a causal chain, an event. Although Feigl does not clarify his position on the substance problem, he cannot use this escape route, as he seeks to identify empirical referents, while substance is not experienced at all. And even if there is this unobserved unchanging substratum, the fact remains that we still observe that the relations of Venus to its surroundings differ, or that climatic and geological changes occur on it, and senses must be coined to point to these differences. And as in logic, so in reality: the terms and the relations are dissimilar entities making up the world, however much they may be connected. For example, there are always thirty-two chessmen to begin with, which we could call substances or terms. But these chessmen no doubt can be functionally related in billions of ways. Accordingly, even if the senses of 'Venus', 'morning star', and 'evening star' all refer to one and the same unchanging substratum, the varying relations and functions of that substance, which also definitely exist, would be left out. Hence, strictly speaking, 'morning star' could refer to exactly the same entity as 'evening star' only if both denoted that unchanging substratum. Yet then the claimed difference in sense between 'morning star' and 'evening star' would therewith vanish: if this is not an ultimate fact about language, the opposition is challenged to give a counterexample. Surely different senses would be needed to denote the different referential qualities of morning star and evening star, so that even the hypothetical escape route here sketched leads us back to my original position. (Even at the risk of annoying repetition, I remind the reader again that the issue here is strict referential identity, i.e. identity without qualifications of any kind. That there are also various looser notions of referential identity employed by common sense I do not deny. Nor do I deny that there are other philosophical notions of referential identity than complete numerical [and consequently also qualitative] identity; but I am examining here the given notion of identity theorists.) As I consider my linguistic arguments alone as nothing less than a death knell to Feigl's identity theory, I will amplify further (and even if not a death knell, the onus of proof for one of the major premises of physicalism is therewith shifted). The applicability of this general discussion to the particular problem at hand should be constantly kept in mind, and I will refresh the reader's memory by the following apt sum-

30

On the sense and reference of 'mental'

and'physical'

mary by J. A. Shaffer: There exist only the physical phenomena, although there do exist two different ways of talking about such phenomena: physicalistic terminology and, in at least some situations, mentalistic terminology. We have here a dualism of language, but not a dualism of entities, events, or properties {Philosophy of Mind, 44). I will first examine two more examples which are in the same spirit as Frege's stars, then outline more fully the epistemic and ontological implications. It is often claimed in the current literature, that while 'man' does not mean 'featherless biped', they still have the same referent (c/ Feigl, Essay, 72). And we may indeed immediately grant that, as far as we empirically know, if we exclude plucked birds, the number of featherless bipeds is exactly the same as men. Still, Aristotle already showed far more acuteness than recent analysts in seeing through this specious equivalence; featherless biped is a property of man, he insisted. 'Property' is a technical term for Aristotle which means that an attribute is predicated exclusively of a certain subject, and hence can be converted. In modern terminology we could say, to be a man and to be a featherless biped are two different propositions which are connected by a bi-implication, each of which is a necessary and sufficient condition of the other. But neither a subject and predicate, nor two asserted different terms, make up an identical reference. Just as much, therefore, as there are an equal number of heads as living men, the complete extensional meaning of men is not the same as that of human heads. A further standard example is Russell's Scott = author of Waverley. In a similar vein, Feigl insists on the 'empirically ascertainable identity of Shakespeare (or could it be Marlowe?) with the author of Hamlet, or the identity of the author of Hamlet with the author of King Lear' (Essay, 72). Now, surely there is much more to Scott than the one characteristic that he is the author of Waverley, and Shakespeare is the author of thirty-four other plays, and thousands of other facts about his person are found in biographies. The two senses therefore do not designate the same extension, though the extensions may indeed intersect in part, employing settheoretical language. In the perhaps clearer Aristotelian way of speaking, this means that the authorship of Hamlet and King Lear are both specific attributes of Shakespeare which are both equally subsumed under higher

The distinction between sense and reference 31 generic unities of Shakespeare. And surely already common sense holds that if it is ascertained that Shakespeare obtained the authorship of the famous plays by fraud, the full referential identity generally attributed to Shakespeare (especially his genius) would have never existed. We may note in passing that Russell, apparently following J. S. Mill, always denied that proper names have intensional meanings. Already Mill had written: 'Proper names are not connotative: they denote the individuals who are called by them; but they do not indicate or imply any attributes as belonging to those individuals' {Logic, Bk. I, Ch. II, § 5). I do not see that these men have produced any good reason for this exception; the very fact that Russell extensionally equates the attribute author of Waverley with the proper name Scott contradicts his professed view. And in any event, if we only ostensively point to Scott, I could not easily learn that he was also the author of Waverley, let alone that Scott and author of Waverley as referents are exactly identical. Scott has many other attributes than being author of Waverley, hence again, as the sense differs, so does the referent. And as in the case of the stars, 'Sir Walter Scott is Sir Walter Scott' neither means nor refers to the same thing as 'Sir Walter Scott is the author of Waverley. 'Sir Walter Scott is Sir Walter Scott' is an analytic truth, true even if that man had never existed. But 'Sir Walter Scott is the author of Waverley' is a synthetic truth, showing that two sets of entities in the world are conjoined. Now, since in the first case the truth of the assertion is quite independent from the existence of any referent, whereas in the second case the truth depends upon an observed, synthetic condition of the referents, how can it be claimed that the referents are the same? The sense of a word always is a class (as subjective intension), and refers to a class (as objective intension), and the particulars are class members, not class-included. The class inclusion of a particular is usually (though not necessarily) given ostensively. Meanings therefore are universals, and any universal can have no, one, or many instantiations. It is popularly held among analytic philosophers that so-called token-reflexive or indexical terms, such as 'I', 'you', 'here', 'this', 'that', 'today', are counterexamples to a claim of this sort. I answer however that the youness of Socrates and Plato, or the hereness of a chair and table, differ only in number, not quality. It is therewith in no way denied that there are different qualities between Socrates and Plato, but they are not singled out when approaching them with a 'you'. Frequently also among contemporary empiricists one finds the insistence that syncategorematic expressions,

32 On the sense and reference of 'mental' and'physical' such as 'and', 'or', ' i f , have no reference. Yet even if this is so, it in no way disturbs the fact that the senses of words such as 'mind' and 'body' do have referents. And in any event, in my view even syncategorematic expressions have referents, namely relations, structures, or conventions. And the latter entities certainly are also part of the given world, or, in other words, are referents or denotata. And so (to answer the Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations) do psychology, rhetoric, grammar or norms point to facts of some kind in the world. Syntactics and pragmatics - employing Carnapian terms - are therewith made mere subspecies of semantics. I therefore grant Feigl that 'extensional identity, be it logically necessary or empirical, is implied by intensional identity'; yet I deny his claim, 'but not vice versa' (Essay, 72). I deny that The proper explication of identity consists simply in the recognition that one and the same individual (or universal) may be designated by different labels or described by different characterizations (Essay, 72). These labels refer to different properties of that individual, and if there is a substratum or substance besides those characteristics at all, we would need a still further intension to demarcate it. We have already seen that Feigl definitely grants that mind does not mean the same as body, i.e., has a very different sense. A man such as Feigl 'would not for a moment wish to suggest that the doctrines of emergence or interactionism are scientifically meaningless' (Essay, 10). Yet, as I have just shown, different senses never refer to the same referent. Therefore, Feigl's attempt to establish a strict referential, ontological identity, notwithstanding the disparity in sense, is impossible. At best, Feigl could reply that mind is meaningless (he denies this, and he certainly could never prove the meaningless as identical with anything); or he could say, that if his thesis is true, 'mind' has no referent at all. But if this were so, how could he admit in the first place that 'mind' does have sense? Whence does sense come at all for Feigl and other empiricists? I will now proceed to show that for empiricists in general, sense comes from reference, and that there is every indication that Feigl is in the same stream. The conclusion I am steering towards therefore is: since the senses of the 'mental' and 'physical' are admittedly different, so must the referents be, senses being grounded on referents. Throughout this book, of course, the

The distinction between sense and reference

33

basic issue is always whether mind differs from body referentially, ontologically, or 'in reality'. As Medieval empiricists summed up the epistemology of Aristotle (having a cursory knowledge of the actual texts, and not looking at what Aristotle says besides the final paragraphs of the Posterior Analytics): Nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit in sensu. And all the rationalist Leibniz really added to this dictum was excipe: nisi ipse intellectus. Locke saw it thus: These two, I say, viz., external material things as the objects of sensation, and the operation of our own minds within as the objects of reflection, are, to me, the only originals from whence all our ideas take their beginnings (Human Understanding, 60). What is often overlooked is that Locke's tabula rasa has not only been anticipated by the Greeks, but by another illustrious Englishman, Hobbes: 'There is no conception in a man's mind, which hath not at first, totally, or by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense. The rest are derived from that original' (Leviathan, 1). Physicalists cannot object if I remind them of what Hume said: 'All our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which they exactly represent' (Treatise, I, 314). Hume's well-known exception of imagined colors proves the rule, though how the above quotation squares with his views on mathematics is not for me to tell. J. S. Mill summed up the matter thus: There is no knowledge a priori; no truths cognizable by the mind's inward light, and grounded on intuitive evidence. Sensation, and the mind's consciousness of its own acts, are not only the exclusive sources, but the sole materials of our knowledge ('Coleridge', 404). Analysts such as Feigl have never been apt to quarrel with Mill's fundamentals on epistemology, excepting only logic and mathematics, which, they are quick to add, though a priori, are only analytic. What we can gather from these empiricists, therefore, is the inference that if the sense of 'mental' is different from 'physical', then, at least as far as primitive conceptions are concerned, so must the source, i.e., the referent, be correspondingly different. Bacon already made a similar inference : 'Whatever deserves to exist deserves also to be known, for knowledge is the image of existence; and things mean and splendid exist alike'

34

On the sense and reference of 'mental' and 'physical'

(Novum Organum, 530). And in the words of the 'heir to Classical British Empiricism': 'Connotative names do not precede, but follow, the attributes which they connote' (Mill, Logic, Bk. I, Ch. V, § 2). If Feigl disagrees with these empiricists at all, the reasons are not indicated, and he is obliged to explain himself. Even the 'rationalist' Kant maintained: 'There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience' (Critique: Al/Bl), and Kant tended to declare the categories as 'meaningless' apart from the sensuous (though at times he says the opposite). What Feigl himself says is this: Our world, being what it is, can of course be known by description, in any of its parts or aspects, only on the basis of a foothold somewhere in acquaintance. This, it seems to me, is the cornerstone of any empiricist epistemology, old or new (Essay, 66). (Knowledge by acquaintance is the immediately given, which has 'no inferential components': Essay, 36.) Feigl also insists that 'The meaning of scientific statements consists indeed in their truth conditions' (Essay, 28). These truth conditions clearly consist in the 'factual content or reference of a knowledge claim' (Essay, 26), to which a sense is related; hence Feigl accepts a correspondence theory of meaning and truth, as I so accept. 'The meaning of statements (at least in one very important sense of "meaning") is to be identified with their factual reference' ('Physicalism', 248). Feigl also quite explicitly points out: 'I not only admit, but I would stress, that in this transformation [towards physicalism] there is a considerable change in the meaning of the original terms' (Essay, 103). The meaning of scientific terms, consequently, must be adjusted to given reality. Whereas Vienna-style positivism tended to say that the meaning of a statement is its method of verification, Feigl now stresses that After the recovery from radical behaviorism and operationism, we need no longer hesitate to distinguish between evidence and reference-, i.e., between manifestation or symptoms on the one hand, and central states on the other (Essay, 28).

Hence again, if a sense is derived from the referent, yet is not the same (for one thing, it often does not represent the denotation adequately), then since Feigl accepts that mind is meaningful, and does not have the same sense as body, the mental cannot be the same as the physical.

The distinction between sense and reference

35

Unless I receive sound rejoinders to my arguments, I regard the identity theory as refuted herewith, as it presupposes a philosophy of language among its major premises which is itself not tenable. And it should be noted that this consequence has been drawn from other premises which seem quite acceptable to scientific empiricists. J. J. C. Smart, whom Feigl calls his 'welcome ally' ('Not a Pseudoproblem', 43), in 'Sensations and Brain Processes' himself concedes: If the meaning of an expression were what the expression named, then of course it would follow from the fact that 'sensation' and 'brain-process' have different meanings that they cannot name one and the same thing (165). Should there however be any flaws in my polemic, it should be noted that from now on I almost entirely talk about referents, extensions, the given, 'the world', and that such enquiries are not entirely dependent upon a specific philosophy of language. I will in what follows seek to refute scientific materialism by putting referent against referent, rather than sense against referent. But of course, we cannot discourse about the world at all without intensions, and I regard my theory of meaning sketched above as true, and will by implication further amplify it. 'Language should not be taken as a particular revealer of the structure of reality, but a theory of reality is meaningful and understandable only if it can be formulated in a language' (Yolton, Metaphysical Analysis, 134).

B . REFERENTIAL CRITERIA FOR DISTINGUISHING MIND FROM BODY

1. The problem of perception The position adopted on the problem of perception is commonly thought to have consequences for almost all phases of philosophical endeavor, and perhaps most immediately in the case of the mind-body puzzle. It is well known that Berkeley thought he had established an ontological immaterialism on the basis of a thorough-going subjective idealism or phenomenalism alone. Unfortunately, terminological difficulties already arise; Berkeley's view of perception is also classified as a realism, if we add that humanly perceived events exist in the mind of God. Still, even the latter nomenclature I do not consider strictly accurate. For the purpose of this work, I will distinguish three main views on the

36

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and'physical'

nature of perception, which are recurrent throughout the history of philosophy, and indicate the terminology I will employ. My classifications again pretend to be no more than approximate, and the examples given are illustrative only, not exhaustive. Yet some order must be brought into all this multiplicity, if we are to converse sensibly at all. The well-known standard arguments seeking to establish particular positions will not be recited here. It ought to be noted, however, that in contradistinction to most expositions so far, I am careful to demarcate the epistemological and ontological aspects of the problem of perception. First, there is direct realism. This is the outlook of common sense, and in such a context is called naive realism. Yet distinguished philosophers have also espoused such a view. Aristotle and Thomists roughly hold that we immediately see the object as it really exists independent of the mind. Yet Descartes already well knew that there is no visual awareness at all if the optic nerve is cut, ant that external perception is therefore impossible without the brain and mind. James, Dewey, and Whitehead say that even if the human mind does add something in perception of external objects, both are after all part of the world, hence we cannot really speak of a 'distortion'. We must end, to use Whitehead's words, the 'bifurcation of nature', which he claimed (not being well read in Greek philosophy) was begun by Descartes, Galileo, and Locke. Similarly, Husserl maintains that the Lebenswelt, the world directly experienced, is the ultimate, unconditioned, absolute reality which cannot be transcended. D. M. Armstrong's Perception and the Physical World is one of the latest representatives of direct realism. In my view, direct realism is untenable, though I will abstain from substantiating my claim here. I do so in this case with few qualms, as direct realists, including even Aristotle and, more often than not, subsequent Aristotelians, have scarcely bothered to examine counter-claims, and have never brought forward serious answers to objections. 'Naive or direct realism... has of course been rendered untenable by modern neurophysiology' (Eccles, Facing Reality, 66). The materialism of U. T. Place falls on this mistaken view of perception alone. Place himself grants: If we assume, for example, that when a subject reports a green after-image he is asserting the occurrence inside himself of an object which is literally green, it is clear that we have on our hands an entity for which there is no place in the world of physics ('Consciousness', 107-108).

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

37

Place seems to operate under the assumption that if one denies direct realism, something irreducibly non-physical remains. Yet characteristically, he gives no better reason for his direct realism than abusing the opposition for committing what he calls the ' "phenomenological fallacy" ' ('Consciousness', 107). This useless slogan begs every question in the book, and while I agree that literally colored phenomenal objects are irreducible to physics, it is by no means as obvious as Place makes it. And even if direct realism were the true view of perception, the historical fact that its adherents have generally leaned towards materialism does not make up a philosophical necessity. Adoption of the position that an object is perceived without mediation does not by itself establish the materiality of that entity. 'To the senses,' as Mill well knew, 'nothing is apparent except the sensations' (Logic, Bk. I, Ch. Ill, § 7). The second main position on perception is phenomenalism. Both phenomenalism and the causal theory of perception shortly to be considered are sometimes called subjective idealism or sense datum theories. To confuse matters more, the basic entities perceived have also been called sensations, sensible species, ideas of sensations, sensa, sensibilia, qualia, phenomena, images, impressions, ideas, percepts, pure experiences, etc. Feigl adds terms like 'knowledge by acquaintance', 'raw feels', and 'living through'. If they are labeled appearances, representations or replica, a causal theory is usually presupposed. I restrict the term 'phenomenalism' to those views which hold that the world consists of sensa, and this is the end to it. In the words of Mach, 'Bodies do not produce sensations, but complexes of sensations (complexes of elements) make up bodies' ('Mach', 179). This view, also propounded by Avenarius, was the object of Lenin's virulent attack in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, now the standard Marxist epistemological bible. We may attribute phenomenalism also to the Russell of the Analysis of Mind, most early logical positivists, as the Carnap of Der logische Aufbau der Welt, Feigl at that time, as well as the Ayer of Language, Truth and Logic. The view implies that any object exists if and only if it is actually perceived by a sentient individual - a position I consider intrinsically most implausible. Surely processes in nature go on without our being aware of them in any way. Historically speaking, the ontology of phenomenalists has tended to be mentalism or neutral monism. I understand neutral monists to hold that since only one entity exists in the world, we cannot characterize it as either psychic or physical, there now being no way to differentiate between

38

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and'physical'

the two. The latter consequence seems to me to rest upon confusion. Of course we have to be able to distinguish between mind and body to decide between competing ontologies. But such possibilities are considered in thought, and we may yet find that all entities known to exist in the universe have the exclusive features of either mind or matter. The mere acceptance of phenomenalism therefore has no immediate implications for the mindbody problem, and Lenin could have saved his breath. In the third place, there is the causal theory of perception. This view is also called representationalism or critical realism, though the latter names tend to be misleading. Albeit there are various versions of the causal theory, in this book I restrict it to the position that while there is indeed an independent, external physical world, which more or less approximates to what we sense, what we do perceive is mind-dependent without exception. (The issue whether brain and mind are identical is not therewith foreclosed.) As Russell puts it with his usual succinctness: This theory has two parts. First, there is the rejection of the view that perception gives direct knowledge of external objects; secondly, there is the assertion that it has external causes as to which something can be inferred from it (Analysis of Matter, 197). Or, to quote Schopenhauer, who clearly reveals the close influence of Kant: 'Body is for the pure knowing subject, an idea like every other idea, an object among objects' ('Schopenhauer', 121). Plato thought the cause of our perceptions is matter; Locke considered the cause to be the minute particles, or 'powers'; Leibniz and Kant the noumena, things in themselves, neither in space nor time; Schopenhauer held will to be the cause; Mill the permanent possibilities. The permanent possibilities were said by Mill to be 'the only reality I acknowledge in matter' (Hamilton's Philosophy, 392). Broad in Scientific Thought and Russell in Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits again considered the cause to be a matter to which we could quite safely attribute the primary qualities, but about which we cannot be certain in regards to other characteristics. My position is closest to Plato, Locke, Broad and Russell, and I am of the opinion that Berkeley's critique of primary qualities can be answered in several ways. Working physicists such as Democritus, Lucretius, Descartes (without his God), Gassendi, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Planck, Schrodinger, Eddington, Heisenberg, perhaps Einstein, seem to maintain a similar view. If there are any modern neurophysiologists who do not espouse the causal

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

39

theory of perception, I do not know about them. As one physicist who is also a distinguished biologist well illustrates the essential contention, If we suppress man, the causes of our sensations remain, but they are in no way identical with the sensations. To draw a parallel: if we suppress the radio receiving sets and leave the transmitting stations, the finest melodies in the world can be broadcast but nobody will be aware of it. We will be surrounded by silent waves without knowing it. A highly complicated instrument, which detects these electromagnetic waves, changes their wave length, and transforms them into sound waves transmitted by air, is required in order to make them heard at the four corners of the earth. The cause is very different from the effect (Lecomte du Noiiy, Human Destiny, 16). We see again that acceptance of the causal theory of perception alone does not settle the mind-body problem, though the position that at least the effects or 'representations' are mental has historically predominated. The causal theory has in fact been upheld by spiritual monists (e.g., Berkeley, who maintains the cause is God); by materialistic monists (e.g., Lenin, who asserts brain events to be a 'reflection' of external material events); and dualists (e.g., Plato, who thinks matter causes sensations, but sensations are mental only). Suffice it to say here that physicalists as Feigl must stand within the periphery of the second version of the causal theory, whereas I will propound the third version. Let me now turn to determine Feigl's views on the problem of perception as exactly as possible. As always, such positions will be further clarified in later parts of this book when contexts are more appropriate; I cannot say everything at once. Feigl's own terminology is not very consistent or enlightening. If one surveys the development of logical empiricism, one notices, according to Feigl, 'the abandonment of reductive phenomenalism and of ultra-operationism in favor of a more constructive "realism" ' ('Logical Empiricism', 34). Freed from the torments of philosophical doubt and from the associated reductive tendencies and fallacies of phenomenalism as well as of radical behaviorism, we can now with a good intellectual conscience embrace a genuinely critical and empirical realism (Feigl, 'Not a Pseudoproblem', 39; cf. Essay, 24). Feigl also speaks of espousing, 'in its basic core,' 'the "double knowledge" theory held by many modern monistic critical realists' {Essay, 79).

40

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and'physical'

Far more useful than the above vague talk I find these assertions of Feigl: A full-fledged scientific account of perception - a causal theory of perception indeed - is needed for sorting out the respective contributions of the stimulus objects, the stimulus context, and of the perceiving organism ('Comment', 564). From my realistic point of view it makes perfectly good sense to explain in terms of physical, psychophysical, and psychophysiological theories how, e.g. a bell by reflecting light, producing sound waves and being a solid, hard body affects our retina, cochlea, and our tactile nerve endings (under specifiable perceptual conditions) and thus produces visual, tactual, and auditory data in our direct experience. This is indeed the 'causal theory of perception' so much maligned by phenomenalists (Essay, 84-85). The neural identity theorist S. Pepper likewise stresses that 'the identity theory is based on a causal theory of perception' ('Identity Theory', 61). I take Pepper's statement as an adequate summary: identity theorists maintain a version of the causal theory of perception, as I do. In the first instance, therefore, the observer will experience a private perceptual world which is an interpretation of specific events in his brain... For example, colours, sounds, smells, heat, and cold as such belong only to the perceptual world of an observer and are merely symbolic of events in the physical world which they are quite unlike (Eccles, Neurophysiological Basis, 280). This theory is a major premise of the present book, and I will begin to part ways with identity theorists only when it comes to eliciting the ontological implications of the causal theory. And my ontological views will in turn support the epistemological aspects of the causal theory of perception - evidence for a commendable circularity in philosophical reasoning. Thus, the present book is professed to be an outline of a solution to the problem of perception as well as the mind-body problem. 2. FeigVs distinctions between mental and physical I will now proceed to examine Feigl's differentiation of mental from physical. It is difficult for me to argue closely, for my own, presumably sounder criteria are not outlined as yet. Nonetheless, the sorting out which follows will prepare the way for and lead towards those criteria, and in part already disrupt the identity theory. The reader may find a mere skimming of

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

41

this section at first reading a favorable course to take. It is certainly no easy matter for a man as Feigl to distinguish the mental from the physical. For, as we have seen, the sense of a word is derived from its reference, and by the nature of Feigl's hypothesis, there is really nothing mental over and above the physical. Not only could Feigl properly not have a truly meaningful conception of mind at all, his actual method of arriving at the distinction between the mental and physical is far from helpful. He writes: It should be clear from the outset that, if a complete solution of these problems is ever going to be achieved, it will arise out of a combination of the results both of scientific research and of philosophical analysis (Essay, 29). The terms 'mental' and 'physical' are precariously ambiguous and vague. Hence a first prerequisite for the clarification and the adequate settlement of the main issues is an analytical study of the meanings of each of these two key terms, and a comparative critical appraisal of the merits and demerits of their various definitions and connotations (Essay, 20). It is however evident to me that only error is bound to result from such an initial 'analytical explication'. For it is not clear how anything can be in any way analyzed, if there is not present already some synthesis; and if this synthesis is not somehow true to the given facts, neither can the analysis be. Yet men of Feigl's persuasion proceed to analyze some inadequate, unrepresentative synthesis, and then on the basis of these supposedly more exact meanings think they can come back to the world and make experiments. But since the meanings then do not properly mirror the world, the facts and states of reality are improperly identified and classified. I can again draw on distinguished empiricists to support my contention. 'It is not to be expected,' wrote Mill, 'that there should be agreement about the definition of anything, until there is agreement about the thing itself' (Logic, Introd., § 1). For 'every attribute is grounded on some fact or phenomenon, either of outward sense or of inward consciousness' (Logic, Bk. I, Ch. V, § 4). Bacon likewise already magnificently uncovered the pseudo-scientific nature of modern 'logical analysis': The primary notions of things which the mind readily and passively imbibes, stores up, and accumulates (and it is from them that all the rest flow) are false, confused, and overhastily abstracted from the facts; nor are the secondary and subsequent notions less arbitrary and inconstant; whence it follows that the entire fabric of human reason which we employ in the inquisition of nature, is

42

On the sense and reference of'mental' and 'physical'

badly put together and built up, and like some magnificent structure without any foundation (Instauratio, 423-424). As will be seen, therefore, my criteria demarcating the mental from the physical are no 'analyses' of hastily abstracted senses or intensions, nor are they adopted as 'primitives': my criteria are senses which are drawn from a careful examination of the nature of referents as they exist in the world. An 'explication' or 'philosophical analysis' of the type Feigl is engaging in is clearly an a priori process, while yet it is a standard doctrine of logical empiricism that by means of the a priori we do not arrive at strictly new truths. Presupposing Feigl's own epistemology, therefore, we must repudiate his further pronounced aim of providing 'a comparative critical appraisal of the merits and demerits of their various definitions and connotations' {Essay, 20). For mistaken views can be analyzed just as much as true ones, whence how can we pronounce judgement on their 'merits and demerits', especially since evaluations for Feigl are non-cognitive. And as positivists themselves insist that no ought can be deduced from an is, we cannot draw on the empirically given alone either. Rightness, truth, propriety are indispensable presuppositions and tools of science, yet are evaluative. If then these are merely emotive, all science is. All these points again illustrate that Feigl is doing bad metaphysics instead of leading us to true science. As at least one great scientist is aware, 'In fact, science is shot through with values - ethics in our efforts to arrive at truth and aesthetics in our conceptual imagination and in the appreciation of hypotheses' (Eccles, Facing Reality, 7). Given the poverty of his methodology it is no wonder that Feigl's differentiation between the mental and the physical is in large part unacceptable. What we may, however, strongly endorse is his rejection of ontological, logical, even methodological behaviorism (cf Essay, 62); though conclusions antithetical to those of Feigl will be drawn by me from those same premises. (Ontological behaviorism denies the existence of raw feels, sentience, phenomena, internal thoughts; logical behaviorism defines mind in external observation terms; methodological behaviorism leaves the existence of internal data open, but claims that they should not be taken as data for science.). Says Feigl: Admittedly, the testimony of direct experience and of introspection is fallible. But to maintain that planning, deliberation, preference, choice, volition, pleas-

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

43

ure, pain, displeasure, love, hatred, attention, vigilance, enthusiasm, grief, indignation, expectations, remembrances, hopes, wishes, etc. are not among the causal factors which determine human behavior, is to fly in the face of the commonest evidence, or else to deviate in a strange and unjustifiable way from the ordinary uses of language (Essay, 22). When William James wrote his Principles of Psychology at the turn of the century, he insisted: Introspective Observation is what we have to rely on first and foremost and always ...Every one agrees that we there discover states of consciousness. So far as I know, the existence of such states has never been doubted by any critic, however sceptical in other respects he may have been (Principles, 121). And indeed, empiricists such as Mill had just said before: 'Whatever is known to us by consciousness, is known beyond possibility of question' (Logic, Introd., § 4). In 1948, Russell had to be more abrupt: While I admit the importance of what has been learned by studying behavior, I cannot accept this view [i.e., behaviorism]. There are - and I am prepared to maintain this dogmatically - many kinds of events that I can observe when they happen to me, but not when they happen to anyone else. I can observe my own pains and pleasures, my perceptions, my desires, my dreams. Analogy leads me to believe that other people have similar experiences, but this is an inference, not an observation (Human Knowledge, 44). Such persons as Watson, Skinner, Ryle and possibly Wittgenstein, who deny the very existence of such introspective evidence, I refuse to contend with. (There is no doubt that a man as Ryle holds that 'Overt intelligent performances are not clues to the workings of minds; they are those workings': Concept of Mind, 58.) Locke's distinction of'ideas of sensation' and 'ideas of reflection' has been followed by such extreme empiricists as Berkeley and Mill. We need not even grant that internal ideas are 'decaying sense', as Hobbes has it, or are 'less vivid,' in the words of Hume. A man during a fever, when dreaming, or under the influence of drugs, can have unusually vivid ideas, quite apart from the fact that there seem to be persons with more powerful natural imaginations than Hobbes and Hume. Even Sellars' hypothesis that mental events be treated as theoretical entities (see Sellars, 'Empiricism') has been shown by him to be inaccurate, since we have non-inferential knowledge of mental events. That empiricists of all people, who profess to come to the given with a more open mind

44

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and 'physical'

than rationalists, are the ones who define away experienced data by behavioristic fiat, is surely a blatant inconsistency, to say the least. Scientists who reject the phenomena of conscious experience from the domain of science suffer from a comparable mental scotoma, for they reject for example all such perceptual experiences as light, color, sound, touch, pain, and all the combinations of these and their recall in memory that give for example the perceptual data of the experiences that I for example have. They would also reject the imagination, the critical thought, the evaluation, and the judgement which are so vitally concerned in conscious activities as one wrestles with scientific problems (Eccles, Facing Reality, 116). It is by no means only Descartes who thought that the 'knowledge which we possess of our mind... precedes that which we have of our body' ('Descartes', 134). I provide the following quotations which insist upon the same thing. Locke and Leibniz saw it this way in the New Essays Concerning Human Understanding: Ph. Each act of sensation gives an equal view of things corporeal and spiritual; for while sight and hearing give me the knowledge that there is some corporeal being without me, I know in a way still more certain that there is within me a spiritual being which sees and hears. Th. [It is very well said and very true that the existence of the spirit is more certain than that of sensible objects (Leibniz, New Essays, 229; cf. 498).] I agree strongly with this view (and I do not see how empiricists can object to my mere drawing attention to the given data). Yet I also approve, as will be later seen in more detail, of an essential aspect of Kant's development of the above line of thought: The reality of the object of our inner sense (the reality of myself and my state) is, [they argue,] immediately evident through consciousness. The former may be merely an illusion; the latter is, on their view, undeniably something real. What they have failed, however, to recognize is that both are in the same position; in neither case can their reality as representation be questioned, and in both cases they belong only to appearance (Critique: A38/B55). There may well be something outside us to which this appearance, which we call matter, corresponds; in its character of appearance it is not, however, outside us, but is only a thought in us (Critique: A 385). I am absolute and unconditional in my claim that inner experience is a

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

45

given datum, a referent making up part of the world, and am therewith in a company I need not be ashamed of. While unyielding on that point, numerous reasons will still be given for the proposition that inner sense is so basic that outer sense is included in it as well. At this point, the following statement of Sir John Eccles may further aid the reader in gaining proper direction: In our ordinary day to day existence we think that we perceive the visual world objectively, as it really exists, in three dimensions, with all its properties of colour, form and texture. According to this attitude of naive realism we regard our conscious experiences as subjective, private and derivative. However, ...the reverse is the case. The primal things are our own conscious experiences. Such perceptual experiences arise because of the coded information that is fed into the brain by our sense organs, there to produce spatio-temporal patterns of activation of our brain-cells, and which we learn throughout life to interpret in order to give a valid picture of the world in which we live (Facing Reality, 50-51; cf. 1-2).

And saying the same thing again, though with different points of emphasis: The transmission from sense organ to cerebral cortex is by a coded pattern of nerve impulses that is quite unlike the original stimulus to that organ, and the spatiotemporal pattern of neuronal activity that is evoked in the cerebral cortex would be again different and would contain synthetic elements deriving from afferent inputs from other sense organs. Yet, as a consequence of these cerebral patterns of activity, I experience perceptions which in my private perceptual world are 'projected' to the external world; it may be to the surface of the body or even within it; or, as with sight, hearing, or smell, to the outside world (Eccles, 'Conscious Experience', 321-322). 'The conclusion is that every observation of the so-called objective world depends in the first instance on an experience which is just as private as the so-called subjective experiences' ('Conscious Experience', 325). And one of the greats of physical science joins this great of life science in maintaining the same view. 'Let us get down to bedrock facts,' insists Max Planck. 'The beginning of every act of knowing, and therefore the starting point of every science, must be our personal experiences.' There are two theorems that form together the cardinal hinge on which the whole structure of physical science turns. These theorems are: (1) There is a real outer world which exists independently of our act of knowing, and, (2) The real outer world is not directly knowable (Science, 67, 82).

46

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and 'physical'

In the light of my own (and indeed Feigl's) rejection of all types of behaviorism, any materialistic consequences which are drawn from behavioristic premises are deemed unacceptable. J. J. C. Smart, for instance, maintains: When I 'report' a pain, I am not really reporting anything (or, if you like, I am reporting in a queer sense of 'reporting'), but am doing a sophisticated sort of wince ('Brain Processes', 160). On this view there are, in a sense, no sensations. A man is a vast arrangement of physical particles, but there are not, over and above this, states of consciousness ('Brain Processes', 162; cf. Feigl's Postscript, 141-142). These claims may point to the condition of Smart's own mental faculty or intellectual honesty, but do not establish any ontology - and the moral, legal, and political implications are certainly abhorrent: if no human being can be really hurt, anything goes. In his A Materialist Theory of the Mind, D. M. Armstrong, like Smait a member of the' "United Front of Sophisticated Australian Materialists"' (Feigl, Postscript, 138), concludes his 'examination of Behaviourism' thus: '(i) We cannot deny the existence of inner mental states, (ii) Outer behaviour is, nevertheless, in some way involved in the concept of mind' (72). In the case of Armstrong, however, I will not, as I do for Feigl, give detailed evidence that some of the most basic premises are unclear. I only add that it was also such a vague and shifting behaviorism which brought Armstrong to his direct realist conclusions in Perception and the Physical World. I therefore do not grant that Armstrong has achieved his aim of showing 'that there are no good philosophical reasons for denying that man is nothing but a material object' (Materialist Theory, 2). The justification of the present procedure is the following: 'It is a rule both of justice and of good sense to grapple not with the absurdest, but with the most reasonable form of a wrong opinion' (Mill, Logic, Bk. VI, Ch. VII, § 1). I will now turn directly to Feigl's actual distinctions between 'mental' and 'physical'. (Feigl often properly puts 'mental' and 'physical' into quotation marks, as he analyses senses; whereas I am concentrating on the extensions, whence my intensions are also drawn.) By 'physical' I mean the type of concepts and laws which suffice in principle for the explanation and prediction of inorganic processes. If emergentism is not required for the phenomena of organic life, 'physical' would mean those concepts

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

47

and laws sufficient for the explanation of inorganic as well as biological phenomena... I shall henceforth designate this concept by 'physical* in contradistinction to 'physicali, which is practically synonymous with 'scientific', i.e., with being an essential part of the coherent and adequate descriptive and explanatory account of the spatio-temporal-causal world (Essay, 10). I do not find this a very enlightening explication, for as will be shown later, the ontological status of the most fundamental entities indicated here, such as illata, deductive calculi, space, time, causality, even phenomena themselves, cannot be established solely by means of empirical science at all. And surely, even if the term 'ontology' tends to be disliked by logical empiricists, the main issue throughout here is whether mind is or exists, and whether it is different from body. Feigl then lists the following distinguishing criteria between 'mental' and 'physical', and these are certainly more useful: Mental

Physical

subjective (private) nonspatial qualitative purposive mnemic holistic emergent intentional

objective (public) spatial quantitative mechanical non-mnemic atomistic compositional 'blind'; nonintentional (Essay, 29)

Subsequently, Feigl proceeds with 'Sorting Out the Various Meanings of "Mental" and "Physical" ' (Essay, 30), therewith bringing along all the weaknesses of the analytic method which we in part already noted. 'The rules of the game, as for all games, precede the analysis and control the performance' (Yolton, Metaphysical Analysis, 19). As I do not think that we can profitably juggle senses alone, but must look to referents, we need not be surprised to find that Feigl's distinctions, while they may indeed differentiate various aspects of the world as a whole, with some exceptions do not differentiate the mental from the physical at all. In what follows I will provide some of the reasons for my acceptances and rejections; but the full justification for my own premises, as well as additional grounds, should be looked for in later sections. As every student of Plato knows, such a gradual unfolding of the truth is an unavoidable concomitant of the 'dialectical confrontation' adopted as the strategy of this book.

48

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and'physical'

Feigl's first two criteria, subjective (private) vs. objective (public), seem most promising. Of course, as always, Feigl's monism appears to require the universal applicability of every proper criterion of the physical to everything. And if a principle is improper, we may always wonder how on Feigl's general epistemology it can be meaningful at all, sense coming from referent, and the only ground for complete impropriety of a principle surely being lack of instantiations in the world. Let Feigl's theory of perception, which I share in its essential aspects, be presupposed and further developed. If we hear a pianist on the stage, we may admit that A does not have B's musical experience (or vice versa), even if their auditory discrimination, musical appreciation, etc., does not differ in any discernible way. They may be said to hear the same sounds, to be both equally impressed or thrilled by them; but common sense as well as scientific reasoning clearly indicates that their experiences are numerically different (Essay, 31). After distinguishing numerical from qualitative identity, Feigl rightly concludes 'that it makes perfectly good sense to speak of the subjectivity or privacy of immediate experience' (Essay, 31). We may overlook that this does not seem to be the view of common sense or the direct realism of philosophers, and only notice how strongly Feigl insists upon this point: 'The other person does not and could not conceivably have the numerically identical experience' (Essay, 68). By '"subjective"' or '"private"' Feigl means 'direct introspective reports' (Essay, 32), and although he is not all that explicit, by ' "objective reality'" (Essay, 32) he appears to mean sense data which are in the process of being caused by an external material world, and are hence 'public', 'intersubjectively confirmable'. Feigl, of course, wishes to overcome this distinction; consequently one does not always know whether what he variously calls 'knowledge by acquaintance', 'immediate experience', 'raw feels', or 'phenomena', are to be only private, or are taken as part of the publicly observable data of science. But as the difference here is crucial, I for my part will refer to the private, subjective world by words such as 'inner sense', 'introspection', the 'mental', and to the objective, public world by words such as 'outer sense', 'extraspection', the 'physical'. (Strictly speaking, in my view, only the causes of outer sense are physical; the ultimate phenomenal effects are also mental.)

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

49

One important inference is to be drawn immediately. We have seen that Feigl thinks that all sensa are numerically private. It hence follows, since 'subjective' sense is so characterized, outer sense must be in inner sense. Feigl himself says: 'I am still convinced that purely phenomenal statements make sense and are the ultimate epistemic basis of the confirmation (or disconfirmation) of our knowledge claims' {Essay, 25). Also, since he has 'no doubt that analogy is the essential criterion for the ascription of sentience' (Essay, 60), then on a causal theory of perception, we do not extraspectively observe even another person's external data, hence they also must be private and in inner sense. To repeat, 'The other person does not and could not conceivably have the numerically identical experience' (Essay, 68). Now, Feigl says that the 'referents' to be identified are 'the immediately experienced qualities, or their configurations in the various phenomenal fields' ('Not a Pseudoproblem,' 38). He then complains: 'Well-intentioned critics have tried to tell me that this is essentially the metaphysics of panpsychism' (38). But This is not panpsychism for the simple reason that nothing in the least like a psyche is ascribed to lifeless matter, and certainly at most something very much less than a psyche is ascribed to plants or lower animals... And even on the human level there is no need whatever for the assumption of a psyche in the traditional sense of a soul that could act upon the brain, let alone be separable from it (39-40). As we will however see only too often again, one cannot be completely precise in one's ascription of views to Feigl for the simple reason that he does not have an exact view. In the case of the above answer to 'well-intentioned critics', for example, Feigl is not even to the point at all. They seem to talk about Feigl's theory of perception, whereas Feigl rejoinds with a general metaphysics which is to be proven in the face o/'immediately experienced qualities'. Feigl uses the over-all ontological conclusion he aims at as a premise to overrule data which in his epistemology are 'ultimate', and which I will prove to be mental in nature. It must further be noted that the difference between 'inner' and 'outer sense', which I will make much of, Feigl himself thinks needs 'only be mentioned in order to be promptly dismissed.' To define 'physical' as the 'outer' aspect (in contradiction to the'inner'mental

50 On the sense and reference of'mental' and 'physical' life) is to use misleading metaphors... Inside the skull is the brain of man, and that is 'physical' in the same well understood sense (Essay, 53). What is this 'well understood sense'? Feigl had just written on the very same page: 'One might suppose that the term "physical"...is much more definite in meaning than the term "mental". Unfortunately, the contrary is the case.' Five pages later he writes: 'We conclude that to say "x is physical" is highly ambiguous.' Feigl therefore will ask us to identify the referent of 'mental', the sense of which is more clear, with the referent of the less exactly determined 'physical', thus advocating the most dubious epistemological undertaking of reducing the better known to the less known. And if anyone tries to delineate the distinction, as I will, then the man who has repudiated ordinary language philosophy fastens on some one customary meaning which he finds convenient. But in fact, 'inner' and 'inside' are not even the same words, let alone that they have the same sense, or can only have one meaning. We may, with qualifications, grant Feigl the rejection of the mind-body dualism as formulated by the Cartesian distinction of res cogitans and res extensa. It is after all a fact that in dreams or sensuous images I see things in spatial relations, although Descartes himself would have classified the latter events as mental. (At the same time, however, all mental events are contradictorily non-spatial for Descartes.) We must indeed, as Feigl insists, pay attention to the 'indispensable distinction between phenomenal space(s) and physical space' (Essay, 40). Both absolute theorists of space (e.g., Newton), and relational theorists (e.g. Russell), have made this distinction. To those who put space into the mind alone, whether on an a posteriori basis (e.g., Berkeley), or on an a priori one (e.g., Kant), we may say that, on their own terms, they cannot know whether space also exists independently of mind, and that they in fact need this presupposition in order to explain the individuated character of the empirically given. (If the noumenon, or thing in itself, as Kant insists, is outside space and time, why do I not see everything there is to see all at once?) And, as will be seen later, while Feigl employs the distinction between phenomenal, subjective versus physical, objective space and time to save the identity theory, I will use this disparity to disconfirm it. What should, however, perhaps be noted now, is this strange twist of Feigl's exposition of his views:

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

51

In opposition to Descartes, I feel tempted to say that it is only the mental, i.e., the phenomenal data, which have (intuitable) spatial extension, whereas physical objects as conceived in physical science have only abstract conceptual (nonintuitable) topological and metrical relationships ('Physicalism', 259). If Feigl is speaking ontologically of physical versus mental space, then, as may already be evident, he has refuted his identity theory, and perhaps his empiricism. If he does not speak of ontology, I do not see of what relevance it is to the mind-body problem, which on his own account is ontological in nature, though it is to be solved by empirical methods. Feigl storms a straw man when he disputes the 'time-honored distinction between the mental and the physical [which] is made in terms of the qualitative and the quantitative' (Essay, 42). He concludes that 'It makes perfectly good sense to speak of mental quantities and of physical qualities' (Essay, 44). This is indeed true; but even if mind and matter both have qualities and quantities, it is not therewith proven that the former two are the same; as I will show, they are different. It may be useful to note in passing the common observation that ancient (Aristotelian) science is qualitative, modern science, inaugurated by Galileo and Descartes, quantitative. Kant's claim that science becomes the more exact the more mathematical it is could be said to still hold, especially if we observe the actual practices of the sciences. Even psychology is becoming highly mathematical, something Kant thought impossible. Scientists such as Einstein insist that the first principles of physics are entirely mathematical, a claim which is reiterated countless times in the writings of Russell. 'Physics,' says Russell, 'gives no information except as to structure' (Human Knowledge, 296). 'A science only deserves its name when it establishes quantitative relations between phenomena'. 'Science is the result of the replacement of all qualitative values - the only ones that are direct and indisputable - by quantitative values, numbers, or symbols expressing ratios. Yellow light becomes a wave length of 0.589[i.' (Lecomte du Noiiy, Knowing and Believing, 5, 141). Yet whether the mental is the physical is undeniably a qualitative question, and we cannot engage in weighing, measuring, or counting to bring forth the answer. What techniques do we therefore have to establish the identity. Instead of entering long argumentation, I quote with unqualified approval Hegel's estimate of this situation: Mechanics is regarded next to mathematics as the science par excellence-, which

52

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and'physical'

leads us to repeat the remark about the coincidence of the materialist with the exclusively mathematical point of view. After all that has been said, we cannot but hold it, in the interest of exact and thorough knowledge, one of the most hurtful prejudices, to seek all distinction and determinateness of objects merely in quantitative considerations. Mind to be sure is more than Nature and the animal is more than the plant: but we know very little of these objects and the distinction between them, if a more and less is enough for us, and if we do not proceed to comprehend them in their peculiar, that is their qualitative character CLogic, 188). As we come to the '"Purposive" versus "Mechanical"' (Essay, 44) distinction, Feigl proceeds in a fashion not too different from before, setting out to attribute purposiveness even to material events. (If this view is consistent at all with his insistence on the exclusive sway of efficient causality, his terms are neither clear nor well chosen: cf Essay, 15, 109, 113; 'Physicalism', 253, 266.) Feigl concludes the section by insisting that 'In short, the phrase "teleological mechanism" in our age of cybernetics is no longer a contradiction in terms' (Essay, 46). If this means that computers can perform the same tasks as humans, the claim is definitely wrong. For 'thinking machines' are designed, built and serviced by men (they do not grow or reproduce themselves), have to be programmed and their output interpreted. The basic rejoinder which is often made in the budding literature on 'Minds and Machines' is the fact that there are self-programming machines, and machines which design others. In the words of Norbert Wiener, 'the father of cybernetics', This question of the programming of programming is most important, both as an indication of some of the problems which the brain has and as a source of a new conception of the possibilities and responsibilities of the machine ('Brain', 109). But it matters not whether a machine can design a machine, which in turn design one, et ad infinitum', the inescapable fact remains that humans still do the initial designing and programming; that the ultimate rules are formulated by man, whereas machines follow them; that men's minds must still interpret and evaluate the final evidence, and this is just the end of the matter. All other arguments for the identification of minds and machines are only worse than the above, so that I will not enter them here in detail.

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

53

Feigl, for instance, wishes to overcome the difference between 'inanimate things and minded persons' by pointing out: 'Modern robots have been constructed which emit information about their "inner" (physical!) states, and they can be made to do things by speaking to them' (Essay, 56). But of course, the 'information' a robot has is similar in nature as the cuts which have been impressed on a record, put there by man; a robot, furthermore, picks up physical sound waves emitted by the speaker, which, vis-a-vis the causal theory of perception, do not mean sound phenomena, the entities a man is ultimately aware of. Descartes already noticed well: 'It is evident that magpies and parrots are able to utter words just like ourselves, and yet they cannot speak as we do, that is, so as to give evidence that they think of what they say' ('Descartes', 128). An imitation and an origination are not the same. Just as much as a photograph is not the same as the object photographed, so a machine, even if it would have the same function as a man's mind, would therefore by no means be the same in all respects. It is clearly impossible that a machine could be constructed which would overtake a person; for if it were to have greater creative force than man, it would never come into existence. And if it still were to come, we would have to judge its capacities; and if we could not so judge, we could not know it is above us. At least, arguments such as the latter are not seldom brought by empirical sceptics against proofs of the existence of God; why suddenly deny such implications after the apotheosis of the machine. Should scientists, notwithstanding all these objections, ever succeed in building a machine which has an equal or higher intellectual capacity than man, then I would take this as a convenient confirmation that mind is not the brain. For when I look at electronic gadgetry, it is of a very different nature than a brain. But since the capacity of a brain and a machine are ex hypothesi identical, then physical events cannot be identified with that capacity at all. Things equal to the same thing must be equal to each other, whereas brain and machine are observed to be partially different. Even if the structure or function of a machine were the same, the content, matter, or stuff would differ. Just as much as magnesium and aluminum are different chemical elements fulfilling the same function in aeroplane construction, so a bodiless mind could fulfill the same function as a material machine. A machine with mind-like capacities does not resolve the mind-body problem, but enlarges it. Can a machine ask a question about a new field

54

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and'physical'

rather than just answer what has been programmed? Can a machine be said to feel or sense, does it have internal, private mental events? And above all, is it aware that it has them? Humans too can almost 'mechanically' (i.e., habitually, unconsciously) work on something, but they also 'understand', think consciously and purposively. What public observation, or worse, what machine itself, could ever decide such questions? The prima facie evidence surely is that human perception ends and human willing begins with mental phenomena; whereas machines are restricted to the physical causal chains which I do not deny are also involved in the interaction between man and the world. And should a machine nonetheless have sentience, this still does not prove that mind and matter are identical: a machine also could have mind. Even though, apart from God, no known creature is as purposive as man, even lowly organized matter could have purpose. Distinguished philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas, Leibniz, Hegel, Whitehead have all maintained a position of this sort. And Leibniz, to say the least, was thoroughly acquainted with the 'mechanical' physics of Descartes and Newton (attributable even to these men only with qualifications), and was a physicist of the first rank himself; still, Leibniz went on for hundreds of pages to show that matter was not only the extended substance of the Cartesians, and often engaged in more painstaking experiments than Newton and his bucket. Concerning this, however, there will be more latter; suffice it to say here that Leibniz thought his entelechies, forces were non-material in character. Material objects such as machines, therefore, do not show the same degree of purposive behavior as man, and consequently the two sets of entities cannot be completely equated; but insofar as machines are teleological, a different entity than matter, namely mind, is needed to describe and explain the given phenomena. Feigl again dismisses all too quickly the mnemic as a unique feature of mind: The storage of information in present-day computing machines clearly shows that the mnemic features, just as the 'purposive-intelligent' features, need not coincide with mentality in the sense of sentience or awareness {Essay, 46). When a computer 'remembers', however, such an event is in basic principle no different from a clock which 'remembers' to strike twelve, a record which 'remembers' what music to produce, or a videotape what pictures; these are physical causes which act on others. Bergson and Russell, how-

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

55

ever, regard the mnemic as a peculiar characteristic of mind, and their case cannot be dismissed as easily as that. If there are physical causes of human memory, they have not been found. What is known however is that all materials in cells change over more quickly than memory lasts. If memory is in any way connected with matter, we must say it is passed onto other particles which are constituents of the brain. But if particles of matter so co-operate in serving some other master than themselves (self-containedness and self-sufficiency appear to be properties of bare matter), one wonders again how one can do without mind. And memory still could only be connected with matter; for if it is identical with matter, nothing could be passed on, since that the same elements of matter remain is contrary to established fact. Because the retention of memories is perhaps an essential condition of significant survival after bodily death, we may note that physiologists certainly have not shown any necessary connection of memory with brain tissue, and it is arguable that it cannot be done in principle. This is not to deny, of course, that many mental functions are dependent on the brain (or are influenced by the brain), and often on a particular locality of that mass of nervous tissue. The latter evidence especially has been employed to prove materialists theses. But the very fact that if a certain part of the brain is destroyed, a part which is still intact tends in time to take over the same function, shows that something other than mere particular brain cells is directing the activities of the brain. And even if it turns out that removal of certain parts of the brain always results in total loss of memory, that would not prove memory to be physical: it could very well be the case that such a serious disturbance in the brain is the cause of total loss of memory, memory itself still being mental in nature. Since I cannot here survey the vast neurophysiological literature on memory, suffice it to say that in my opinion the maturest view is that of Eccles as presented under the heading 'Synaptic Mechanisms Possibly Concerned in Learning and Memory' (Facing Reality, 25): We may summarize this discussion of the structural basis of memory by stating that memory of any particular event is dependent on a specific reorganization of neuronal associations (the engram) in a vast system of neurones widely spread over the cerebral cortex and subcortical ganglia (Facing Reality, 42-43). Long term memory must depend on enduring increase in the synaptic efficacy that has been built up in a specific neuronal pattern, and that is produced by an initial sensory input (Facing Reality, 41).

56

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and'physical'

Should such a view of memory be ascertained as the true one, then memory would not be material in nature; for as is maintained throughout this book, relations, organizations, structures, potentialities, and energies are mental entities. Even the man who knows more about synapses than anyone else in the world would not with assurance assert electricity to be a physical object.* And should I be wrong in my demarcation between the mental and the physical, it should be noted that Eccles merely maintains that 'memory of any particular event is dependent on a specific reorganization of neuronal associations' (my italics); he does not say 'solely dependent' (nor 'identical with'): memory may have other causes than such associations. And even if the neuronal associations were the sufficient cause, no neurophysiologist could ever provide conclusive empirical evidence that there cannot be other sufficient causes of memory. And what causes the 'reorganization of neuronal associations' Eccles speaks of? Even if these 'reorganizations' themselves were material in nature, they could be the effect of mental entities ; and these same mental entities could also have other purely mental effects, which in turn are likewise causes of memories - and on and on. So far no neurophysiologist has claimed to have ascertained a physical basis for memory; and even if he emerges, the foregoing already provides types of problems which we now know cannot be solved solely by appeal to experiments on physical objects. And what else could a materialist believe himself to be ever testing than something physical? It is fair to add that the foregoing inferences drawn from Eccles's writings regarding a possible afterlife are not necessarily shared by Eccles himself. He seems to maintain that all detailed contingent memories would be lost, but not perhaps the central pure ego. In my view, however, since substantial individual memories may well be purely mental in nature, all ordinary memories could in principle be preserved after the causally connected brain dies; and the pure ego (to be explicated in two later sections) is certain to remain, for the pure ego is neither divisible nor in time, and therefore cannot be destroyed. * See especially Eccles's most erudite and path-breaking The Physiology of Synapses. Admittedly, Eccles in that work ascertained that there are chemically as well as electrically transmitting synapses, and there are 'synapses that transmit both chemically and electrically' (261); but even if a chemical process is considered exclusively a material one, we then encounter the difficulties for material memory as outlined in the previous paragraph.

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

57

Once more, Feigl seems to grant 'holistic' as opposed to 'atomistic' features in the universe; but this concession makes the physical world more mental, not mind more physical. Materialists such as Democritus, Epicurus, Hobbes, Laplace all opted for an untrammelled atomism, and if this be abandoned, the inadequacy of materialism is granted. As the old analogy runs, bricks and mortar alone do not make a house, neither does matter in blind motion make up the universe. If I give the parts of a house a push, they fly into all directions, but not into a standing house; the 'aim' of a force is also something. Or, when a man has just died, the matter remains almost exactly the same (at least quantitatively speaking), but the organizing element either breaks down or leaves (thus inducing qualitative changes). And incidentally, we might just as well say that the body decomposes, is disarrayed, because the soul leaves, rather than that the vital principle ends because the body putrefies. And it is of course true that we do not see with our physical eyes any soul depart; but as will be argued throughout here, mental entities (as phenomena) are in inner sense, not directly shared even in quality, and thus private to one person; we could not possibly see them with our external senses, since all outer data are originated by physical causes. Still, what we do very much observe with (more accurately, through) our physical eyes is the vast difference between a growing, living body and a decaying, dead one. To posit an immaterial soul to account for the observed differences would be fully in keeping even with the hypothetico-deductive method. According to Eccles, 'There is general agreement among neuroscientists that every conscious experience - every perception, thought, and memory - has as its material counterpart some specific spatio-temporal activity in the vast neuronal network of the cerebral cortex and subcortical nuclei' (Facing Reality, 4-5). Yet one need not know every last detail of neurophysiological findings to draw the inference that the basis for this 'general agreement among neuroscientists' is not empirical; and even if there is or will be somehow a sound basis for this view, it does not follow that merely because mental events always affect physical events when the mind is tied to the body, that the mind needs a body in order to function in another life. As Eccles himself at least is aware, the 'possibility of a future existence cannot be denied on scientific grounds' (Facing Reality, 84). Feigl also seems to accept the doctrine of emergence as part of physical science. He conveniently insists that 'There is no imperative need for us to enter into details here' (Essay, 47), for clearly elsewhere he is opposed to

58

On the sense and reference of 'mental'

and'physical'

'emergent novelty', 'organic wholeness', 'genuine emergence' (e.g., Essay, 57). In any event (taking the latter alternative first) Darwin's 'scientific', mechanistic scheme of explanation is almost the exact antithesis of true science, quite apart from the fact that, as Bergson and Morgan have pointed out, it fails to explain why there is evolutionary advancement at all. The 'mechanical' Newton, of all people, whose supposed scheme of the world people again and again are seeking to uphold, had already said similarly: Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always and every where, could produce no variety in things. All that diversity of natural things which we find suited to different times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will of a Being necessarily existing (Mathematical Principles, 446). If there are laws of remaining which reigned over the old state of affairs, why should they suddenly break, and the rising be 'accidental', as Darwin holds. Darwin would be hard put to deny that the rising of a fertilized ovum to many other characteristics is not an accident; then why should the whole evolutionary process be? To make again an analogy with artefacts: a computer does not come about by accident, but human intelligence needs to be infused into unorganized matter. And that intelligence, whatever its ultimate ontological nature, is no doubt something extraneous to those bits of matter. All the glorifications of the intricacies of the machine are in effect glorifications for the intricacy of the mind which designed and put it together. Likewise, Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' hypothesis, while mechanical in intent, nonetheless points itself to a striving of nature towards an end, and therewith introduces a teleological concept. Why should the 'fit' survive anyway, or why should anything or anybody survive? And once a breed of amoebas was fitter than other species, why should a still further, and at first presumably less fit, species or genus arise? Darwin employs what are in fact teleological concepts in order to establish the exclusive sway of mechanistic ones - a self-contradiction. Darwin's theory is not only inadequate to explain the coming of new order, it is inadequate to account for the maintenance of that order. For no reason is given why that which is said to have come about by accident suddenly should maintain a lawful course. Why does an occasional change or mutation of genes, should such an accidental variation

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

59

exist at all, suddenly keep the changed structure in invariable succession or constant conjunction? If anything is an inexplicable miracle, then this would be. It is of course well known that 'accident', or 'chance', runs entirely against the scientific spirit, and especially mechanism, with its stress on 'same cause, same effect' lawfulness and predictability. But not untypically, the fundamental principles of my opposition's own 'science' are denied, rather than 'unscientific' teleology admitted. Darwin and his followers use accident to deny the reign of law, and then in turn employ law to keep that which has been changed by accident going. Lawlessness is inveighed to support the rule of law - a more glaring contradiction is difficult to find. (I do here not overlook the insistence of neo-Darwinians that even 'accidents' have preceding efficient causes, namely contiguous changes in the environment; yet the point remains that accidents as thus defined still exclude invariability of sequence between such causes and effects. And should neo-Darwinians backtrack on 'accident' even to the extent of saying that everything in the universe follows an invariable course, they would simply fail to account for the novelty which is the main task of any theory of evolution to explain.) 'Natural selection is... a blind, mechanical, automatic, impersonal process,' an 'ironclad necessity' (Mankind Evolving, 128) writes T. G. Dobzhansky, chief contemporary expounder of Darwin's theory. But allegedly 'chance' 'accidental variation', or 'mutation' keep this 'ironclad necessity' going (or is somehow the result of such necessity?). If anything is a 'blind... process', it is the accepting of such contradictory assertions as picturing a course of nature. 'Darwin... posited natural selection as a process that impels and directs evolutionary changes. Subsequent research has on the whole vindicated his view' (Dobzhansky, Evolutionary Process, 2). But if 'natural selection' is an 'ironclad necessity', and 'directs evolutionary changes', where do the 'accidents' come in? In fact, of course, 'subsequent research' has vindicated nothing of the sort. What would empirically falsify the Darwinian theory? And even if there is not already a formal contradiction, as I claim, then we may still say that the substantive relationship between chance and necessitycan not be ascertained by means of the experimental method; and no scientist need speak from the high horse of science, such conceptual enquiries being within the expertise of philosophers, not scientists. Jacques Monod, who received the Nobel Prize for his work in molecular biology, adopts the same contradictory and incoherent fundamental

60

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and'physical'

principles as Dobzhansky. In Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology, he writes: The basic strategy of science in the analysis of phenomena is the ferreting out of invariants. Every law of physics, for that matter like every mathematical development, specifies some invariant relation; science's fundamental statements are expressed as universal 'conservation principles'. It is readily seen, by whatever example one may wish to choose, that it is in fact impossible to analyze any phenomenon otherwise than in terms of invariants that are conserved through it (100). Chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. Pure chance, absolutely free but blind, at the very root of the stupendous edifice of evolution: this central concept of modern biology is no longer one among other possible or even conceivable hypotheses. It is today the sole conceivable hypothesis, the only one that squares with observed and tested fact. And nothing warrants the supposition - or the hope - that on this score our position is likely ever to be revised (112-113). Yet what is in fact at the very root of this ''sole conceivable hypothesis' is a contradiction: if it is in fact 'impossible to analyze any phenomenon otherwise than in terms of invariants', then there is absolutely no room for 'pure chance, absolutely free': the exclusive sway of invariability contradicts the existence of pure chance alone - or else these terms are employed neither in an ordinary sense, nor in a sense which is made clear. No matter what empirical findings Monod does or may point to, the law of noncontradiction is a mandatory testing stone of science as well as philosophy. Even if chance means ' "absolute coincidence" ' (115), then invariable causal chains are already predetermined to meet; hence coincidences would be non-existent. If 'all the properties of living beings rest on a fundamental mechanism of molecular invariancey (116), whence the newness of structure and organization of growing or evolving living beings? Try to get an evolving organized structure on the billiard table - and here we have after all already an aim supplied by the externally guided cue! Whatever explains evolution, it is not Darwin's theory. The Darwinian theory is arguably even a tautology (and as is well known, a tautology explains nothing). For, in the words of Popper, 'there does not seem to be much difference, if any, between the assertion "those that survive are the fittest" and the tautology "those that survive are those that survive". For we have, I am afraid, no other criterion of fitness than actual survival' (Clouds and Clocks, 23). And even that dean among con-

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body 61 temporary evolutionists, Theodosius Dobzhansky, writes: 'Every living species possesses adaptedness to live in certain environments. This is a tautology, inasmuch as loss of adaptedness means extinction' ('Human Evolution', 51). Yet even should there be no such tautology, if it is the fittest which survive, why are there still thousands upon thousands lower and presumably less fit species abounding upon this earth? And since the evolutionary ascent consists of the movement from the less to the more complex, and presumably fitter species, why have some more complex creatures become extinct, while many less complex have for long survived? Is it not very probable that certain tiny insects will survive longer on earth than man? But if the fittest survive, man cannot be the fittest. But then, what explains the evolutionary process towards man? Certainly not Darwin's theory. And even if Darwin's theory could explain the physical evolution of man, it cannot explain the mental evolution of human beings. In contraposition to Lamarck's view, according to Darwin there is no 'inheritance of acquired characteristics'; and yet culture is very much inherited. Indeed not biologically; but this is just the point: there are other forms of evolution which Darwin's theory has left out, and in fact, presently the storehouse of human knowledge rapidly augments and ascends - while man probably physically degenerates. (It ought to be noted throughout here that I am not questioning that some sort of evolutionary process is a fact; but I am repudiating Darwin's theoretical explanation of that fact.) Emergent evolution is really no better an account of the facts. How could the less complex produce a law for the more complex, except by 'accident'; yet the untenability of the latter hypothesis we have just seen. How could a law order matter, and 'emerge' from it at the same time, i.e., be both master and servant. The 'same cause, same effect' model in no way explains lawful novelty, but such novelty plainly exists. As Aristotle already put it, 'the whole is of necessity prior to the part' (Politico, 1253 a 20), and 'he [the leader] does not depend on the order but it depends on him' (Metaphysica, 1075 a 15-16). How can a fertilized egg grow into a man? Surely it is not the food particles which do the arranging, but a superior force already present. Ancient history? Truth is independent of time; nonetheless, the tone of C. F. von Weizsäcker, an outstanding contemporary physicist, is similar: If laminar [i.e., regular] motion changes somehow in a small detail, it soon turns

62

On the sense and reference of 'mental' and 'physical'

into some form of turbulence [i.e., irregular motion]. But if turbulence changes in some small detail, it turns with overwhelming probability into some other form of turbulence (Nature, 82). The increasingly orderly motions of the particles of the universe, consequently, must come from an extraneous force. And the founder of modern neurophysiology surely only states the obvious when he writes : In its earliest stage the embryo's cells are not notably different one from another. Later a finished muscle-cell and a finished nerve-cell and a finished liver-cell are as far apart in visible structure as in what they do. They become so in spite of being by descent all members of one family (Sherrington, Man, 94). But again, the most important inference is easily overlooked, namely that the greater complexity of the adult human cannot be identical with the organization of the early embryo, and that the simple organization (in rebus) of the embryo cannot by itself or independently generate a vastly more differentiated order. As the external hands of the potter shape clay into a jug, so disembodied laws must impress their order on the embryo. The more complex does not emerge from the less complex; rather the more complex already separately pre-existing (ante rem) influences the course of the simpler organized material world (in rebus). All along, too, I had thought that empiricists, vis-à-vis Hume, deny the existence of substantial laws acting as causal agents altogether. Yet Feigl writes : 'In the explanation of the properties and the behavior of complexes and wholes we always need laws of composition' (Essay, 47). Also, 'The tremendous difference between, e.g., a simple inorganic structure and a human being are... not in the least denied' (Essay, 54). Since the parts or components are material, that which arranges them cannot be descriptive 'constant conjuction', for what brings the latter about; nor can it be 'the gentle forces of association' of the human mind, as these have no power over all of matter. Plato and Aristotle already showed far more insight when they made the laws of the universe eternal and substantial, acting on matter. 'For in all things', so Aristotle reasons, which form a composite whole and which are made up of parts, whether continuous or discrete, a distinction between the ruling and the subject element comes to light. Such a duality exists in living creatures, but not in them only; it originates in the constitution of the universe; even in things which have no life there is a ruling principle (Politico, 1254 a 29-32).

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

63

It is therefore not true, as is often said, that mind evolved from matter, and is reducible to it; on the contrary, there cannot be any evolution without mind already present as a causally efficacious entity. Eccles seems to be heading towards the same view when he writes of the evolutionary process: 'We are in it, but not exclusively of it' (Facing Reality, 100; cf 6, 90). And another leading neurophysiologist writes of the brain in particular: 'Brain organization alters according to the content of the stream of consciousness early in life. The brain is subject to alteration by the teaching that comes to a child and the personal effort that he makes' (Penfield, 'Uncommitted Cortex', 236). We need not worry much about the old line that rationalists cannot explain evolution. As Plato or Hegel would say, the laws are eternal; they only gradually embody themselves, and even that process is for the sake of the end. 'Becoming in general takes place with a view to being in general' (Philebus, 54c), as Plato put it. Or, in the words of Aristotle, 'that which is posterior in the order of generation is prior in the order of substantiality' (Metaphysica, 1077 a 26). Hegel again had similar conceptions: 'the Realm of Pure Thought... shows forth God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation of Nature and of a Finite Spirit' (Science ofLogic, 1,60). 'Reason is purposive activity... The result is the same as the beginning solely because the beginning is purpose' (Phenomenology, 83). In fact, most scientists will consider the laws of the universe eternal as well. Only they cannot explain this on their terms, for the empirical world certainly is in constant flux. It is empiricists who cannot even bring their own professed theses into a coherent framework, not rationalists. Again, empiricists not only fail to explain the evolution of different species, they cannot explain developments within a single species. Reports Sherrington: Our nervous system reaccommodates itself after injury. The injured nerve mends itself and can resuit itself to disabilities. A chain of nerve-centres in linked action has always a 'leader'. That 'leader' lost, the leadership passes automatically to another member of the chain {Man, 174). But Sherrington's' "leader"' cannot possibly be material, for it is precisely those nerve-centres which exercise leadership which are sometimes lost by injury. The real' "leader"' must be something distinct from the material, and then impose its organizing principles on uninjured nerve-centres. Whereas Feigl in the end of his discussion on differences between the

64 On the sense and reference of 'mental' and'physical' 'mental' and 'physical' concludes that 'We have seen that the mnemic, teleological, holistic, and emergent features are not adequate criteria of mentality, because these features characterize even inorganic structures and processes' (Essay, 48), I conclude from all of the foregoing that there is indeed a distinction between mind and body, only that it is more widespread than Feigl surmises. Even the 'intentional' in 'the sense of reference' (the last of Feigl's criteria of mentality: Essay, 50) will later be shown to exist in the inorganic world, although unlike humans, that world in all likelihood is not conscious of this fact. The proper reply therefore to those many naturalists who again and again point to the implausibility that there should be in the universe a completely different ontological substance for humans alone ('the traditional discontinuity views': Carnap, 'Feigl', 884), I have shown and will demonstrate to be this: You are quite right; only an Aristotelian prima materia would be entirely free from mind, and that stuff indeed does not exist at all. As far as Feigl is concerned, he goes on to say that 'The whole issue therefore turns again upon the criterion of subjective experience', 'the (physical) underivability [or derivability] of sentience or raw feels' (Essay, 48; cf. 'Physicalism', 251, Postscript, 152). This is very far from the whole issue; nonetheless, I will restrict myself in this book largely to the one brought up by Feigl. 3. Some safe criteria for differentiating mindfrom body I will now proceed to provide a few criteria for the mind-body distinction which I consider sound. As always, however, I do not think I am the first enquirer who ever pondered these questions, and I seek to learn from and give credit to those predecessors who in my judgement have the best viewpoints, whether for or against my own positions. In what follows I will first survey thinkers who contribute towards my own differentiation between mental and physical on the basis of delineating two main types of experiential processes. After demarcating these two sorts of acts of experience, I will show that there is a corresponding difference in the objects observed. Nonetheless, delimitations are necessary for this outline; the aspects of mind are already difficult to separate in thought, and more so in reality. Epistemologically speaking, we can provide a real as opposed to verbal definition of something only once we know it, and we know it only after the investigation. 'In so far as a natural classification is ground-

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

65

ed on real Kinds,' so Mill supports my viewpoint, 'its groups are certainly not conventional' (Logic, Bk. IV, Ch. VII, § 4). Nonetheless, psychologically speaking it is helpful if we have some idea of what we are talking about from the start. To do justice to these conflicting preferences, I will proceed defining, though the full evidence for my definitions ought to be looked for throughout this work. As one of the very fountainheads of modern science put it, 'first of all it seems desirable to find and explain a definition best fitting natural phenomena. For anyone may invent an arbitrary type of motion and discuss its properties' (Galilei, Dialogues, 160).

As already indicated, I accept a causal theory of perception not really dissimilar in its basic aspects from Feigl's. I now wish to distinguish mind from body within that theory. Plato already in the Philebus had pointed out that while there is indeed a world of matter independent of our minds, all experienced effects from the physical world and knowledge about matter are in the mind only. It is perhaps not until Kant that this is maintained again unequivocally. Everything we know is in the mind for Kant; nonetheless, with his distinction of inner sense and outer sense there is the beginning of a sound delineation between mind and body within the view that we are only directly acquainted with phenomena, which are solely mental. As Kant put it best in the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft: Nature... has two main parts according to the main distinction of our senses: the one contains objects of outer senses, the other the object of inner sense. Therefore, a twofold doctrine of nature is possible, a doctrine of body and a doctrine of soul, the first of which considers extended nature, and the second, thinking nature (467; my translation). In the first Critique, Kant put it this w a y : ' "I", as thinking, am an object of inner sense, and am called "soul". That which is an object of outer sense is called "body" ' (A 342/B 400). Schopenhauer therefore saw the question as Kant when he insisted: 'His body is for the pure knowing subject, an idea like every other idea, an object among objects' ('Schopenhauer', 121). This fundamental insight has been repeated quite a few times. It is perhaps not amiss to provide direct evidence for this, as it is a point of crucial importance, and we often find some useful additions. For J. S.

66

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and 'physical'

Mill, there is indeed an external world, independent of us; it exists apart from our will and individual presence; we find other people grounding their expectations upon the same 'permanent possibilities' as we do. Nonetheless, what we actually perceive are our own private phenomena. 'The permanent possibilities are common to us and our fellow-creatures; the actual sensations are not.' 'Matter, then, may be defined a "permanent possibility" of sensation' (Mill, Hamilton's Philosophy, 370, 371). Now I also consider matter such a 'permanent possibility', though certain additional objective characteristics can be added, notwithstanding the fact that I experience private phenomena only. Still, we must insist that while in all likelihood there is an external world of matter, it is less certain than mind; and if its existence can be claimed at all, it can for Mill only be done on a philosophical, rather than scientific basis. When it was objected to Mill that 'these facts afford no proofs that objects are external to us', Mill gave this proper reply: I never pretended that they do. I am accounting for our conceiving, or representing to ourselves, the permanent possibilities as real objects external to us. I do not believe that the real externality to us of anything, except other minds, is capable of proof {Hamilton's Philosophy, 376). All this already begins to turn physicalism upside down, and is done by a fellow empiricist. I hasten to add, however, that for my part I only agree with Mill that the existence of our own individual minds is more certain than the external physical world; I do not agree that the existence of other minds can be asserted with more assurance than the reality of material objects as permanent possibilities or things in themselves, but rather vice versa. And I agree with Mill on our incapability of providing a 'proof' of an external, physical world only if 'proof' is understood in a strictly deductive sense. The external, physical world will be proven by me by means of the hypothetico-deductive method: the material causes become the antecedents, and the phenomenal effects the consequents; and modus tollendo tollens is then employed under varying circumstances, searching for possible counterexamples to expected observed consequents. There can be little doubt that the formulation and adoption of the hypotheticodeductive method falls into the realm of philosophy, but the application of that method is commonly deemed to be something scientific and empirical, and is employed especially in the most advanced natural science - physics.

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

67

But in any event, I will not draw here an exact referential borderline between science and philosophy, and I think it cannot be drawn: the demarcation is largely one of varying convention. In a similar vein, Brentano singles out the mental in this way: It is a... general characteristic of all mental phenomena that they are perceived only in inner consciousness, while only outer perception is possible for the physical. Hamilton advances this distinguishing attribute ('Brentano', 151). And just as much as I will argue (and for Feigl already have), that outer sense is really a subspecies of inner sense, so Brentano sees the issue as follows: Strictly speaking, so-called outer perception is thus not perception; and mental phenomena can accordingly be designated as the only one of which perception in the strict sense of the word is possible ('Brentano', 151). 'No mental phenomenon is perceived by more than a single individual' ('Brentano', 151). While I agree with philosophers such as Locke, Broad, and Russell that there are primary qualities which inhere in the 'permanent possibilities' or 'things in themselves' (Kant of course denied this proposition), nonetheless it follows from the above account that the primary qualities we actually sense are in the mind only. Even 'objective' space is only experienced as a phenomenon in the mind; this does not mean, however, that the distinction between objective and subjective space, which I have granted before, is now denied. (The perception of objective space is caused by material objects as things in themselves; subjective space is merely 'imagined'.) But we see once more why Descartes cannot be right in maintaining that all res cogitans are unextended. Schlick, deservedly the leader of the Vienna Circle, points to this unquestionable givenness of experience: We know that, in fact, imaginable extension is a characteristic of the subjective qualities; spatiality in this sense, therefore, possesses not an objective but on the contrary, a psychic, subjective existence ('Schlick', 298). This is indeed true, but a not very convenient fact for the physicalist thesis of Schlick. As will be seen, subjective spatiality will indeed be classified as 'psychic', as opposed to 'physical', by me as well. But while some mental events are spatial, some are not so; still, I will maintain that all material entities are spatial. I will now provide my own phenomenal description of the difference

68

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and 'physical'

between inner sense and outer sense in general, then proceed to look at more specific distinguishing attributes. (A perusal of the diagram on page 20 might be useful at this point.) As mentioned previously, I will refer to the private, subjective world by words such as 'inner sense', 'introspection', 'the mental', the world of 'first persons', 'participators', or 'enjoyers', to the objective, public world of sense perception by words such as 'outer sense', 'extraspection', 'the physical', the world of'third persons', 'spectators', or 'onlookers'. This terminology however is adopted in part for psychological reasons, as scientific philosophers have usurped these words to such an extent that a change of meanings tends to leave the reader at a loss. But speaking now of referents, rather than senses, while I grant that as far as perception is concerned, introspection, as opposed to extraspection, is private, not intersubjectively confirmable (except possibly on an extraspective basis, the aim of physicalists), in the Section 'Privacy and public observability' of the next Chapter tables will be turned on empiricists by maintaining that reason, exclusively in inner sense, is more intersubjective than sense perception, even if indeed not experienced by the outer senses at all. In order to avoid confusion, it may also be worth stressing that I am merely following well-established tradition in designating inner sense by the words 'inner sense': introspection in fact goes on quite apart from the sense organs. As we have already seen, 'Words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding' (Bacon, Novum Organum, 470). Words are mere sensible signs for intensions, and the latter are drawn from referents. Inner sense in the narrow meaning refers to those data which are private, mental only, partially in origin and completely so in character. That which is mental is private in the sense that it never causes phenomena experienced by different onlookers. Activity, independence, autonomy, self-activation, complete absence of space and (on occasion) time, or the presence of only 'imagined', 'phenomenal', or 'subjective' space or time are essential features of inner sense. Inner sense in the wider meaning includes outer sense. In the case of inner sense in the narrow meaning, both all the effects and some of the causes or grounds are private; in the case of inner sense in the wider meaning, the effects are also always private and mental, while the causes are always public and physical. The effects of inner and outer sense therefore interlock, while the causes differ. Extraspection has such peculiar features as these: the given is received passively, and is public in

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

69

the sense that qualitatively similar data are impressed upon other persons in similar physical circumstances. If our senses are intact and in a receptive position, extraspection is not within the control of our will; the phenomena seem to be caused by something independent and beyond us. Extraspection is always in time, and in the case of sight and touch, always in space, which appears to be imposed on the perceiver. Inner sense never involves the sense organs during actual experiences, outer sense always does. When we therefore see a brain, including our own (in a mirror), we see it in outer sense; even our bodily feelings have external, physical causes, they involve the sense of touch. Physical sensations as the pain from a decaying organ are just as external; the only difference is that we cannot disconnect the nerve endings from the diseased organ, whereas we can remove our finger from a hot-plate. (With these points I do not mean to deny that there are still purely mental pains and pleasures. I am with men such as Plato, Kant, and Mill in distinguishing the difference in origin, as well as quality, of these sorts of feelings, although it is perhaps of some interest to note that St. Thomas Aquinas and Descartes were of the opinion that all feelings are bodily in origin. The pleasure some people feel when doing logic is for me not physical in origin, and one which Plato called 'pure' in quality.) The reader ought to notice that the present characterizations of the difference between inner and outer sense are heavily universally quantified. Such 'sweeping statements' are of course the most undogmatic possible, since the mere pointing to one counterexample in the world refutes them. If, on the other hand, no counterexamples are brought forth, especially after my demarcations are 'unpacked' in later sections, then the maturity of my general thesis would be demonstrated. As Popper well points out, 'scientific theories are universal statements'; and 'the degree of universality and of precision of a theory increases with its degree of falsifiability'. Moreover, 'the empirical content of a statement increases with its degree of falsifiability: the more a statement forbids, the more it says about the world of experience' (Logic, 59,141,119;c/. 112-113). We could almost say that the external is the a posteriori, the inner the a priori, were it not for the ambiguity of these latter terms. We have already seen that the Classical British Empiricists have granted the existence of inner sense, but have classified it as experience. This, however, is not a complete misnomer if we remember that such men as Berkeley and Hume denied that we had abstract ideas at all. Anything which is non-sensuous

70

On the sense and reference of'mental' and 'physical'

may be deemed a priori, and there are two main kinds. There is the pure a priori, where ideas are non-sensuous in origin, such as mathematics, logic, or metaphysical categories, which are universal and necessary. There is, secondly, the empirical a priori, which consists of conceptualized sense data; the origin is not a priori in this case, but the final product is so in nature. The a priori, thus clarified, is mental without exception. (I introduce the term 'empirical a priori' deliberately, notwithstanding the fact that this usage is new. I estimate that more than half of all objects of consciousness are made up of conceptualized sense data, and in the light of this probable fact, it seems to me astonishing, that perhaps all philosophers so far have concentrated their attention on the pure a priori; and on the a posteriori in the sense of immediate perceptual experience.) Aristotle therefore was not completely off the mark when he said: 'Mind must be related to what is thinkable, as sense is to what is sensible' (Z)e Anima, 429 a 16-17). But even if what is thinkable is indeed always mental ('thought', throughout this book, is so defined as to involve a priori entities only), it is not true that the sensuous is always physical, in outer sense. Dreams, images and after-images are sensuous representations, but they are in inner sense only. They are not in outer sense, for all extraspective phenomena must have the cause immediately present, so as to stimulate the sense organs. And of course, dreams and images, during their occurrence, seldom employ the sense organs; i.e., the sense organs are not the complete causes of dreams, even if dreams have some effect on sense organs. While I thus distinguish a priori from sensuous inner experience, and consider all outer sense as perceptual, a posteriori, I will nonetheless continually claim that we 'experience' a priori phenomena. I am only too painfully aware that all mentalistic vocabulary which has been employed so far is totally inadequate and often only misleading, but I cannot go here far towards remedying the situation. Recent behavioristic attacks have certainly not helped to penetrate this difficult area. Now, the very fact that there are these two types of mental experience already is prima facie indicative of the fact that mind is not the body. While all our experienced data are mental on the causal theory of perception I myself have adopted, those mental events which have material causes are not of the same general nature as those which differ in origin; and since the effects differ, so must the causes: 'same cause, same effect'. (Of course, the word 'cause' may no longer be applicable as an accurate depiction of the ground of inner consciousness, as Chapter II, Part B will

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

71

make more evident. I do not share Kant's view that all objects of inner consciousness are appearances only, having their source in some thing in itself. The frequently attempted distinction between causes and reasons in contemporary philosophical literature points to the same perplexity, which I will, however, not here enter in detail. But in any event, physically caused perceptions found solely in outer sense are observed to be not exactly the same entities as images, after-images, dreams, or concepts, and speaking of causes in the former case does not commit me to do the same in the latter.) 'According to all philosophers, the evidence of consciousness, if only we can obtain it pure, is conclusive. This is an obvious but by no means a mere identical proposition' (Hamilton's Philosophy, 361). It should be noted that with my adumbrated conclusion I am in the company of thorough-going empiricists (here Mill), though, as so frequently, empiricists refute themselves by such statements. Since this proposition itself is not 'identical' (i.e., analytic), nor a posteriori (not overlooking that it refers to the a posteriori), its obviousness strangely even for Mill comes from the synthetic a priori. Let me now outline more specific characteristics of the objects of outer sense. Although some features of inner sense will be indicated as well, I will not provide them here in detail ; other topics have to be touched upon before in order to prevent confusion and gross inaccuracies. In general, however, I may already say that only material objects as things in themselves ever cause outer perceptions ; neither outer sense as ultimate phenomenal effect, nor mind as thing in itself, nor inner sense as phenomenal appearance, ever give rise to public or qualitatively shared perceptions. For only the physical can reflect light, or by its vibrations initiate sound waves, etc. - never the mental. F. H. Bradley starts us off well: As to what matter is we might dispute for an eternity and fail to agree... But by 'matter' we commonly mean a reality extended in three dimensions, which can be moved, and can move, and can cause sensation ('Bradley', 213). C. D. Broad's explanation of 'materiality' is also useful : The fundamental factor involved in it is extension. This, if I am right, carries with it some extensible quality, but not any particular extensible quality. The other characteristics are publicity, persistence, and existential independence of any observing mind {Mind, 633).

72

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and 'physical'

We have however already seen that the 'fundamental factor' referred to by Broad is not as simple as thought by him and many others, and will take some effort to unravel. Of course, Aristotle had already rightly insisted that 'every body is tangible, i.e., perceptible by touch' (De Anima, 434 b 11). Galileo and Newton went farther by making the tactile sense the foremost, overruling the general Greek view that it was vision. And certainly everything tactile is in space. But one must be careful even here. We should say a feeling of hotness is in space, that the pain from a cut or intense sexual pleasure has a locality (further qualifications are to follow). Yet we cannot say that the beatific ecstasy of the mystic, when in union with the One, has a place. It is therefore seen again that feelings have a locality only when they are physically caused, or are in outer sense. Intellectual pleasures are in inner sense only, and have no spatial dimensions. We may further grant that anything seen with one's physical eyes is in space; as Berkeley already pointed out, all visionary objects have color and figure, and the only other thing we see is light. Even though the very phenomenal data of vision and touch have spatial dimensions, we cannot say this of auditory, olfactory, and gustatory data. To take hearing, the most developed of these senses: we do seem to be aware that the ringing of a bell originates at the bell-tower, but we cannot say what spatial configurations the actual phenomena of sound have. (I am not here contradicting my general view that we are never directly aware of the causes of outer sense, as I mean to say that we sense the cause - the distant bell-tower - only as phenomenal effect.) We also taste with the tongue and smell with the nose spatial food, but the phenomena themselves, such as a sharp taste or pungent smell, are in time only. Even in the case of bodily pains, we can discriminate the fact that the pain originates, say in a foot, and yet cannot provide a spatial description of the pain itself. Nonetheless, all these sensations do have physical causes, do involve the sense organs, and hence are for me in outer sense. Spatiality therefore is a necessary characteristic of outer sense only in the case of sight and touch. And the above qualifications do not really detract from the proposition that all matter is tangible and therewith in space, for the pleasures and pains we immediately feel certainly are not in external objects, a fact which already points into the direction that they are in the mind only, which is different from body. Also, the supposition that the experienced phenomena sound, taste, and smell are material (and hence spatial) in origin, yet are not themselves (as ultimate effects) in space,

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body

73

shows again that phenomena are in the mind only, and supports my version of the causal theory of perceptions. In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke put a prime contention of the new physics this way : 'These I call original or primary qualities of body, which I think we may observe to produce simple ideas in us, viz., solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number' (85). Now, I think there is nothing which I have said or will say which denies any of these properties or necessary associates to matter insofar as it exists independently of our mind as permanent possibility or thing in itself. But we must insist on what is often overlooked, namely that vis-à-vis the professed causal theory of perception (including that of Locke himself), these criteria are still most inadequate as distinguishing features between the physical world and the mental. It certainly does not follow that anything which has solidity, extension, figure, moves or is at rest, or is numerable, is therefore necessarily material, however plausible this may look at first sight. We must distinguish the material world consisting of things in themselves; the mental world of phenomena in outer sense, which are the effects of material objects ; and the mental world of phenomena in inner sense, for which material objects are not sufficient, and perhaps not necessary causes: to all these three realms, the foregoing criteria may possibly be applied. All these characteristics, insofar as they are immediately experienced, are phenomena only, and therefore solely mental. The spatial extensions we do perceive when opening our eyes are subjective sense data which more or less approximate to objective extensions. Spatial extensions therefore exist both in the mind and with varying degrees of similarity in the permanent possibilities (hence I distinguish, respectively, between subjective and objective space). But not only do they exist in outer phenomena, they exist in inner sense (in the narrow meaning) as well, when we 'imagine' them. When we have sensuous representations, as in dreams, we certainly have experiences which are unquestionably introspective only (at least for the most part), yet which have similar features as outer sense. Nonetheless, this does not mean that the permanent possibilities cannot be distinguished from outer sense, nor outer from inner sense, and there are still types of inner sense which are even more radically different. As the reader peruses these lines, his ideas are in flux, but not in spatial change, i.e. locomotion. For physicalists, all changes are movements in place-, even Aristotle, who more thoroughly distinguished generation, de-

74

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and'physical'

struction, increase, diminution, alteration, and locomotion as types of change, argued that locomotion is involved in each. My trains of concepts, i.e. thoughts, however, do not change in place, only in time, and therefore cannot be material at all. Instead of proving the non-identity of the mental with the physical already in detail, I mention these topics here mainly to indicate that the properties of independently existing matter mentioned are not necessarily material only. But it does follow that if anything does not have these most general characteristics of matter, it cannot be physical. Locke's primary qualities have become so much part of the general conceptual framework that already Kant was able to say: *I can apprehend the concept of body analytically through the characters of extension, impenetrability, figure, etc., all of which are thought in the concept' (Critique: A8/B12). Having already said a considerable amount on spatiality, figure, and position, I will proceed to examine the further characteristic impenetrability and allied candidates. We can safely maintain that, despite the Newtonian view of compact matter now being abandoned (there are vast empty spaces in a 'solid' body), the place of one atom (or at least its ultimate particles) cannot be occupied by another, so that resistance remains a necessary characteristic. Yet in view of radioactive decay, we can no longer hold that matter is indestructible, but energy remains so. All matter has mass; but as Newton himself is not clear what mass is, and more recent physicists haggle over the question, I cannot be asked for a clear and precise definition. Physics textbooks sometimes define mass as the quantity of matter in an object. Yet we are also told of the well-confirmed Einsteinian view that energy also has mass; nonetheless, matter and energy cannot be said to be exactly the same. Heisenberg, for example, says that 'the binding energies of the particles in an atomic nucleus do show up in their masses' (Physics and Philosophy, 118-119). Here mass itself seems to be taken as a force. What is certain is that the mass of a material object remains the same anywhere in the universe, in contradistinction to weight. Matter without exception has inertia; as Newton already pointed out, rest involves inertia as much as motion, though it is by no means clear whether this concomitant attribute of materiality is itself material, and in fact inertia is sometimes seen as equated with mass. Although indeed only when in gravitational fields, matter does have weight. But weight again seems to be a type of force or energy, and these are not themselves obviously material in nature: we know that the forces of gravity are produced

Referential criteria for distinguishing mind from body 75 by masses. Moreover, forces never cause outer phenomena, and thus already fail to meet another criterion of materiality. Again, motion, rest, and velocity are among the most basic concepts of materialistic mechanics, but if these themselves are necessarily physical entities, I would like to see the reason. They may well be in connection with a body, just as much as a soul is in connection with my senses; yet already prima facie they are not the same as the 'stuff' or 'bulk' often thought to be the most fundamental feature of matter. Certainly on a Newtonian view, all matter is in time, for there time is independent of matter and motion. Since I think Newton's position still sounder from an ontological perspective than Einstein's (at least some of the reasons will be provided later), I accept the attribute of temporality for matter. If all is at rest, there is no time for Einstein. Even if this were true, it is one of the most established of observations that matter is in fact in motion, and even on an Einsteinian view, time, while an accompaniment or result of matter in motion, cannot be said to be a material stuff itself. It must already become evident that even the most basic entities treated by physicists, on which physicalists draw, are by no means necessarily material. Even resistance, impenetrability, again as Newton already noticed, seem to be a force. And while we can safely point to the most fundamental characteristic that all matter is extended, we can still very much argue, and in part I already have, with physicist-philosophers such as Descartes who think that the converse, all extended things are material, also holds. And this converse (if of subject and predicate), still is weaker in meaning than what Descartes more precisely maintained, namely that extension is materiality (the 'is' of numerical identity). (For me, extension is a necessary, though not sufficient condition of materiality: some mental entities, such as an imagined golden castle in the air, or fields of force, are also extended.) I will carry these points further later, expecially in the Section 'The animism of matter and physicalism'. It is however necessary to point these features out here, for several of these basic characteristics of 'matter' are only experienced (by analogy) in inner sense in the narrow meaning, our most intimate contact with what appears to be unadulterated mentality. One main line of strategy for refuting the physicalist identity theory empirically is, as should already be evident, an engagement of a phenomenological comparison of inner and outer sense (and since the general characteristics of these two differ, their causes cannot be the same: 'same cause, same effect'). I only remind the reader again how strongly a

76

On the sense and reference of'mental'

and 'physical'

physicalist as Feigl insists that matter is that which is capable of exciting external sensations, and that this is allegedly all that exists between heaven and earth, or beyond. Also, if certain basic attributes employed by physicists can be in our personal inner sense, while others are not at all [found there, then all the more the mental cannot be the physical. There are indeed other widespread characteristics of matter, such as density, magnetic permeability, electric and thermal conductivity, etc., but the above features seem to be the most pervasive; and any differences among genera hold true of all their respective subspecies. I hope the reader will not all too quickly agree that the above issues are already difficult enough. 'The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding' (Bacon, Novum Organum, 463). But if anyone is to be blamed for having created the intricate universe we here deal with, it is surely not I.

CHAPTER II

Objections to the Identity Theory on Methodological Grounds

A . THE CHARACTERISTICS OF AND PROBLEMS SURROUNDING REFERENTIAL OR ONTOLOGICAL IDENTITY

1. Linguistic identity Physicalism professes to prove the identity of mind and body. It is therefore not out of place to distinguish several main senses of identity, and to examine with some thoroughness how, if at all, these crucial senses could be referentially established by means of empirical science. Linguistic identity need not detain us for long. Feigl is already strongly insistent that A most important logical requirement for the analysis of the mind-body problem is the recognition of the synthetic or empirical character of the statements regarding the correlation of psychological to neurophysiological states (Essay, 22). As usual, the sense of 'logical' so constantly employed by logical empiricists is neither clear nor consistent, for the 'logical requirement' is also that'logical identity' is not to be employed. 'For a long time, however, I was tempted to identify, in the sense of logical identity, the mental with the neurophysiological.' But 'the logical necessity of the equivalence ... is here rejected. The equivalence must be construed as logically contingent' {Essay, 23,24). By linguistic identity I mean synonymy. Synonymy in the philosophy of language sketched in Chapter I means identity of sense, while the words or signs are different. (This is the opposite of homonymy, where one and the same word has different intensions.) And, to remind the reader, in my theory of meaning, if there is (qualitative) identity of sense, then there is

78

Objections on methodological grounds

identity of referent (or at least, kind of referent), but non-identity of sense precludes identity of referent. To Quine and White, who constantly wish to undermine an exact concept of synonymy, I answer thus : First of all, I do not accept that there are no intermediate entities between word and object : intensions are indispensable parts of sound communication. Secondly, I have not denied that words or linguistic signs are conventions. I can call a bachelor just as much célibataire or Junggeselle, depending upon which language I speak. I also grant that whether 'bachelor' has the same sense as 'unmarried man' is a convention. More exactly, whether I give these words the same sense can only be determined by arbitrary fiat. But it in no way follows that the senses of 'bachelor' and 'unmarried man' are conventional, for they are derived from the referents, and picture the world at least with some approximation. I draw from the given one sense, and if I decide to use several words to label this one intension, these words are ipso facto precisely synonymous. Differences of this sort are commonly called 'merely verbal', and are the staple 'definitions' found in dictionaries. Still, not untypically, the behaviorist and empiricist Quine begins his Word and Object with the epigram of Miller, 'Ontology recapitulates philology' (viii). And after having argued that logic is, as Quine's oft-reprinted essay is entitled, a 'Truth by Convention', he holds that 'to be is to be a value of the variable'. The obvious nonsense of this slogan Quine on occasion mitigates by insisting that all the value of the variable does is say what there is, not indicate what there really is {cf. Logical Point of View, 103). But this removes ontology from the empirically given to an arbitrary world, and that all people speak within Quine's mathematical logic is empirically disconfirmed. Logic and language, as constructed by humans, can legislate for that language alone: it cannot legislate the world, nor even completely language, if its aim is somehow to reflect the world. There are therefore no great problems in establishing strict synonymy, and even though it is the goal of Feigl to make 'mind' and 'body' synonyms, he does not begin with such an identification. What should be noted here again is that Feigl rejects the method of solving problems about the world by examining words or even senses alone. Unfortunately, as we shall see later, when Feigl is in difficulty, he will repudiate his pronounced methodology, rather than give up his identity theory. Although linguistic identity does not solve the ontological problem regarding reality, it still should be pointed out that its rules cannot be transgressed during any process of solution. (Feigl himself says that 'ex-

Referential or ontological identity

79

tensional identity ... is implied by intensional identity': Essay, 72.) 'Parallelism', 'double aspect theory', 'epiphenomenalism', 'occasionalism', 'correspondence', 'isomorphism' could all by convention be synonymous with 'psycho-physical monism'. But I think I am on very safe ground in saying that it is a fact that none of these terms has synonymous meanings. As argued already considerably, only two or more words which are synonyms can ever refer to the same thing. If therefore Feigl were ever to establish what he calls a 'parallelism', 'correspondence', or 'isomorphism', then he is preventedfrom claiming an ontological identity on any basis whatever by virtue of the meaning of those words. And of course, if there is not in fact a (referential) parallelism, then he can not claim that the identification is empirical, synthetic, and the term 'parallelism' would be inappropriate. But if there is in fact already a (referential) parallelism or isomorphism between mind and body, then even if this unestablished observation is true, we could still never claim an identity, as will be made more clearly evident in the section on 'Empirical identity'. 2. Logical identity The present ideas on logical identity in this age of 'logical analysis' are so confused that a detailed examination and conclusion regarding this question is not possible here. The only consistent phenomenon I do observe is that logical positivists or logical empiricists prefix the world 'logical* (or 'scientific') to any endeavor which they wish to make respectable. They cannot deny me that this explanation is at least 'logically possible', though insofar as the meaning of the frequently used 'logically possible' is clear at all, it is philosophically useless. If we can arbitrarily lay down concepts and therewith determine the nature of the world, then everything can be made both logically possible and impossible. Here we are told that 'logical identity' is an undefinable primitive, there that it is definable by means of implications; here that it is the same as mathematical equivalence, there that it is not; here we are informed that it behaves like linguistic identity, there that it does not; here that identity is intertranslatable into the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle, there that it is not; here it is said that something is true in logic because it is in accordance with the law of non-contradiction, there that logic does not contradict itself when true; here it is stressed that all logic is based on the law of non-contradiction, there that the exclusiveness of the 'laws of

80 Objections on methodological grounds thought' is to be discarded - and on and on. And of course, logic itself, and all the solutions to these questions must be a priori analytic to be 'scientific' - how this is to be done I strongly doubt the glorious God of Leibniz himself knows. As long as even the logical idea of identity is as unclear as all this, it takes some boldness to say, as Feigl does in concluding his Essay, that there are no serious obstacles to empirical identification, for empirical science is no more independent of logic than language. And of course, all these ambiguities exist in addition to the strong possibility of the truth of a totally different view - that the laws of identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle, are not applicable to the actual world at all. It was by no means only Hegel who maintained this in the nineteenth century; at the very present time Marxist philosophers are publishing volumes and holding whole congresses on the law of identity, but logical empiricists can afford to ignore it; they already have the truth. I cannot grapple here with all these complexities either, but they certainly will have to be faced before anyone with complete confidence can identify anything with anything. (To establish a duality, however, is quite another matter.) I will provide here a few illustrations of the difficulties encountered, remaining within the framework of analytic philosophy. Smart's example of a 'necessary' identity is ' "7 is identical with the smallest prime number greater than 5 " ' ('Brain Processes', 163). In the light of what I have said on the theory of meaning, there is certainly no denotational identity here, for the right side of the identity enumerates properties not indicated at the left; at best we could say that there is a necessary conjunction of two different denotata. Furthermore, primeness is a characteristic which mathematicians were not always aware of, and in fact 6 and 7 are not different qua number. Likewise, for a long time mathematicians were unaware that if one subtracts —14 from —7, + 7 is the remainder. What has been distinguished as the signed value of a number is not the same as its absolute value, and an absolute value may have either a negative or a positive sign as its necessary concomitant. Whence, then, the 'necessary' identity? When again, we say 7 + 5 = 12, clearly the signs, symbols are not identical, for on one side there are three symbols, on the other, one. (Even when we say 1 = 1, there are after all two symbols here.) No more can we claim that the senses are identical, as the left side is an operation on two different numbers, a process of addition, whereas the right side is one number, a result. One begins to appreciate why Kant said arithmetic is synthetic a priori. I

Referential or ontological identity

81

do of course not wish to say that there is no kind of identity here at all, but only outline these points as examples of the fact that it is by no means an obvious matter to say what identity consists in. The supposed analyticity of logic and mathematics is based upon a few vague or untenable criteria of analyticity; and true to the 'empirical spirit', the conclusion was certain before anyone has even applied these criteria to all cases. Notwithstanding all these complexities, I must establish some criteria of logical identity in order to refute the identity theory all the more firmly. I think the following are reasonably safe, though complete evaluation of them can only occur after they have been expanded and qualified in later parts of this book. (It ought, however, to be kept in mind throughout that the burden of laying down criteria of identity, or any modes of ascertainment of identity, is not on me: physicalists are seeking to establish an identity, not I, who am seeking to show that a referential identity cannot be ascertained by empirical methods. My own positive position is that the identity of anything with itself is a metaphysical axiom, and that there exists in fact a duality of mind and body.) To begin with, surely x = x; everything is identical with itself, and not another thing. Secondly, x = y if and only if x has every property y has, and.y has every property x has; more simply, x = y if and only if x and y have every property in common. It follows therefore that if I only show one property which is not in common between mind and body, the identity theory is disconfirmed. Thirdly, x = y if and only if everything that may be said about any one thing may be said about the other. This is the salva veritate condition of Leibniz, also called the substitutivity of identity. This means that anything of any nature I truly say about mind as referent must be so sayable about body, and vice versa. Fourthly, either x = y, or x ^ y. The mind either is identical with the body, or it is not; tertium non datur. There are of course other safe logical conditions for identity, such as two things equal to the same thing are equal to each other; or there is the transitivity of identity, i.e., if x — y and y = z, then x = z. But these principles are only seldom needed in an ontological problem such as the thesis of physicalism. 3. Metaphysical identity On identity, Feigl himself has this to say: 'I grant that the word "identity" has only one meaning, and this is the meaning defined by the (properly

82

Objections on methodological grounds

understood) Leibniz principle of identitas indiscernibilium' (Essay, 73; cf. 96). I consider the principle of the identity of indiscernibles a metaphysical principle, and as Feigl does not make sufficiently clear how it is to be 'properly understood', I will turn to the formulation as stated by Leibniz himself. For all the fame of the principle, it is found very rarely in the writings of Leibniz. In the New Essays, Leibniz put it thus: If two individuals were perfectly alike and equal and (in a word) indistinguishable in themselves, there would be no principle of individuation; and I even venture to assert that there would be no individual distinction or different individuals under this condition (239). In 'Identity in Individuals and True Propositions', Leibniz had this to say: I am quite convinced regarding what St. Thomas has taught about intelligences, and what I hold to be true in general, namely, that it is not possible for two individuals to exist completely identical, that is, to differ only numerically (96). For my part, I remain with St. Thomas (and Kant) in maintaining that this principle holds true for concepts only. If a relational or relative view of space and time is rejected (as by me), then the principle falls. But we need not enter the latter issue, and it should be remembered that Leibniz still did not hold a stronger position than that one substance is identical to another if all particular properties are the same. When the ladies in the court of Hanover could not find leaves which were exactly the same, it was not therewith denied that the individual leaves still had many more similarities. According to Leibniz, things do not differ solo numew, nonetheless, one man is still exactly the same as another in many qualitative aspects. If only one property or characteristic among the collection that inhere or make up a substance (Leibniz himself seems both to adopt and reject a substratum underlying the sum of its properties) is different, then there are two substances, not one, even according to Leibniz. If therefore I show that one property of the mental differs from the physical, I have refuted physicalism. Of course, I have produced and will produce many more than one characteristic. Spatio-temporal location clearly is one of those properties, especially as far as the physical is concerned. The same object cannot be at different times and places during the same instant.

Referential or ontological identity

83

Aristotle has already well summed up the strategy for disproving ontological identity: Speaking generally, one ought to be on the look-out for any discrepancy anywhere in any sort of predicate of each term, and in the things of which they are predicated. For all that is predicated of the one should be predicated also of the other, and of whatever the one is a predicate, the other should be a predicate of it as well (Topica, 152 b 25-30). In demolishing a definition it is sufficient to argue against one point only (for if we have overthrown any single point whatsoever, we have demolished the definition) ; whereas in establishing a definition, one is bound to bring people to the view that everything contained in the definition is attributable (Topica, 154 a 33-36). We see therefore how much more decisive a destruction of an identification can be than Feigl's constructive attempts. Then too, since Feigl and other physicalists constantly put faith in 'future scientific research' (Essay, 113114) to establish their identity thesis, I want this to be noted well: We can in principle already disprove any identification now by drawing on the evidence we already do have, however true it may be that further data are now known or will be found, and may their characteristics be as they may be. Even if anyone should ever succeed in establishing mind-body identity, satisfying the criteria above, a question which is still presupposed, and which still follows, is this: what does the identity of any one object consist in, if there is any identity at all? The whole group of problems surrounding subject-predicate, substance-attribute, substratum-property, matterform, permanence and change is opened up here, and if empirical science can decide these issues, I would like to see the instances. It might be said that Hume with his denial of substance and personal identity, or Whitehead and Russell with their repudiation of what they call the AristotelianCartesian insistence upon the predominance of the substratum, are such examples. These philosophers, however, have never seriously come to grips with what they call the 'old, scholastic view', and have only substituted a worse metaphysics. Some of these questions will be discussed by me in appropriate contexts in the course of this book, but an adequate treatment would require at least a heavy volume, which physicalists themselves have not provided either, so far as I know. And though I have not overlooked that for Feigl, 'the modes of ascertainment of identity are for

84 Objections on methodological grounds our purposes the essential consideration' {Essay, 73), it goes without saying that the success of such 'modes of ascertainment is dependent on determining the precise nature of the referential identity which physicalists seek to establish by means of them. But let us nonetheless turn to an examination of concrete instantiations of allegedly already successful processes of'empirical identification'. 4. Empirical identity In a recent article on Feigl's Essay, M. Brodbeck adequately sums up the views of physicalists on empirical identifications: Physicists say that the colors of things are identical with certain wave lengths of light rays, that the hotness of a liquid is identical with the rapid motion of certain molecules, and of course they are right ('Mental and Physical', 40). Now, I do not see how physicalists can be aware of the implications of their own empiricism, or even of what is explicitly written in some major empiricist literature; I shall show that physicists are of course not right. It is important not to overlook that from such an empirical identity view the whole monistic thesis is aimed to be established. Brodbeck goes on: Moreover, it is a reasonable guess, in any and all senses of 'reasonable', that the scientists of the future will tell us that the mental and the physical are also identical, that consciousness is a state of particles in the brain ('Mental and Physical', 40). In the following analysis of this contention, I will first go through the stock examples, then proceed to some more general remarks on the supposedly provable empirical identity. Pitch is said to be identical with the rate of vibration, or the particular frequency of harmonic motion. Now, surely the senses of the two sides of the identity sign are not the same, hence, on my theory of meaning, neither can the referents be. It is of course always a possibility that my theory of meaning is itself false. But I will proceed to show that the two referents must be different, quite apart from linguistic considerations. Such a conclusion, of course, can in turn only enforce the truth of my philosophy of language. A few fundamental facts regarding the production of pitch are these: one physical object strikes another; the motion of molecules moves a gas; through the medium gas molecules move wave patterns, which hit the ear

Referential or ontological identity

85

drums; fluid is moved inside the ear, which excites nerve endings to send electrical discharges, which in turn are sent to the brain. None of these things however are really seen or heard; we hear a phenomenon pitch, which, in my view, is mental only. But whether my latter view is right or wrong (I never wish to beg this question), what still cannot be disputed is that we are able to observe that these data are different; i.e., that pitch is causally correlated with wave frequency (the shorter the wave, the higher the pitch), which in turn is the effect of something else, and that there is no identity. According to Einstein, a wave is 'the motion of something that is not matter, but energy propagated through matter' (Physics, 101). Quite similarly, according to the wave theory of light, sense data color white is correlated to a certain wave length, which is correlated to the motion of something (ether?), an event which is correlated to a certain energy level - yet there is no identity. How could there be such an identity, as we can attempt in great detail to analyze the nature of waves and their medium, yet the color white is unanalyzable. (Part of the cause of whiteness could be analyzed as all the different colors together, but certainly not the sensed phenomenon white.) That there are these intermediate causes cannot be doubted by anyone, and was not even denied by that extreme direct realist, Aristotle. A thing, and the preceding events which bring that thing about, or upon which that thing depends, are quite different entities. Of course, we can predict the qualities of sound or color from the nature of correlated entities - the respective wavelengths - but as we will see later in detail: we can never predict identities. A further example of an empirical identity is 'lightning is a certain kind of electrical discharge due to ionization of clouds of water vapor in the atmosphere' (Smart, 'Brain Processes', 164; cf. Place, 'Consciousness', 105-106). Thus we are told by 'modern physical science', though in ordinary language we are said not to be aware of it. Yet the identity clearly is not observed. After all, what I observe is a flash of light and thunder, and when I look or listen to these phenomena, for all I can actually observe, they might just as well be the thunderbolts of Zeus rather than electrical discharges. If I can, when close to clouds, observe ionized clouds and electricity in any way whatever (we must never confuse the effects of electricity with electricity itself), then certainly I do not see the same as lightning from the ground. Whence, therefore, comes the 'empirical identity'? And quite apart from these decisive referential considerations, it is a fact that, after Benjamin Franklin discovered that lightning is electrical, the mean-

86

Objections on methodological grounds

ing of lightning did change. The advancement of science forever brings with it the subtraction, amendment, deepening, and augmentation of concepts. As Einstein put it, 'Scientific concepts often begin with those used in ordinary language for the affairs of everyday life, but they develop quite differently' (Physics, 13). Language therefore adjusts to our knowledge of the world, and if the senses differ, so do the referents. Again, it is claimed that 'table salt is NaCl' (Feigl, Essay, 71); and the '«' employed here is the 'is' of strict identity. Yet a chemist who in the laboratory establishes that a certain granular substance is NaCl would not therewith know it to be table salt, since the possibility still remains open that the chemical compound NaCl poisons humans. And if he put it on the dinner table, he would still observe the two to be different, unless the untenable proposition is proclaimed, that the consumption of NaCl in human nutrition is nothing. Moreover, as we have seen and as we shall further see, while everything is to be 'logical' among logical empiricists, it is not even completely clear whether, according to them, one can legitimately apply logic to the world (though clearly it is said not to be in the world). But if we can so apply (and certainly logical empiricists in fact do apply), I point out that in mathematical logic identity is commonly characterized as symmetrical, reflexive, and transitive; 'table salt = NaCl', however, clearly does not fulfill these conditions. Once more, in the kinetic theory of heat, heat is said to be 'nothing but the irregular motion of the atoms in a body' (Frisch, Atomic Physics, 8). Yet this is a misconception not even made by the originator of the kinetic theory. Rumford said that heat is 'generated by friction' (Rumford in Einstein, Physics, 43; my italics). Irregular motion or friction is not even the cause of heat, it is a cause of heat; turbulent motion of molecules drains the molecules of energy in the form of heat, and that energy is not the same as the phenomenon heat we feel. We find here constant conjunctions, not an identity. Sometimes we see temperature defined as the mean kinetic energy of molecules (cf. Feigl, Postscript, 150). According to Feigl, 'The macro-concept of temperature designates the same state of matter that is designated by (a disjunction of) micro-descriptions in terms of molecular motions' ('Physicalism', 256). But again, surely it is evident that the energy released, heat, is not the same as those motions, and people have felt burnt long before they debated the kinetic versus caloric theories. If we do not come near an oven, the phenomenon heat does not exist at all, hence certainly is

Referential or ontological identity

87

not any motion of atoms, for the latter presumably do still exist. Suddenly the empiricist friends are making the observed the unobserved - something no rationalist metaphysician ever dared do. And atoms in motion are at best seeable even if not seen, whereas the phenomenon heat is only feelable. And however much one sensation of heat may depend upon molecules in disorderly motion, so does it depend upon a healthy state of the nervous system. (All these observations, of course, lend support to the causal theory of perception I have adopted.) Besides, chemical, electrical, and nuclear energy also can turn into heat, and the former three types of energy are not the same as kinetic energy. And heat can not only be the effect of friction, heat may itself cause the motion of molecules, as the steam engine corroborates. It is well known that all motion of molecules ceases at absolute zero (-273.2°C). Heat therefore is not identical with bits of matter, nor is it even the same as 'kinetic', i.e., pertaining to motion. Thus it is seen that since even these paradigms of allegedly already successful ascertainments of empirical identities are really failures, physicalists have no ground whatever for hoping for a successful empirical identification of mind and body. Furthermore, it ought to be gathered from these examples that the empirical identifications attempted are between referents and referents, not between varying senses and referents. Yet in any event, subsumption of a referent under a sense is a cognitive act ofjudgement not amenable to the experimental method - or at least, physicalists have not shown otherwise. And of course, it hardly needs repeating that the use of two or more qualitatively varying senses as referring to exactly the same entity is a muddled way of thinking. One further illustration will show that empirical identification is in principle impossible, especially if we presuppose an empirical epistemology. Suppose water is identified with H2O. To begin with, completely pure H2O is seldom found even in the laboratory, and the liquid which is commonly called water contains usually numerous minerals, so that the chemical substance is very much more complex. But even if water is restricted to H2O, why should this be exactly identical with the elements of pure water? We find here H2 and O in a peculiar combination, perhaps irreducible to parts. The latter proposition has been argued even by 'analytically-minded' philosophers, such as C. D. Broad. Further, exactly what is oxygen or hydrogen. Oxygen is a gas - (what is a gas?) which is material. Now what is matter - what is a structured collection of atoms? What is the structure?

88 Objections on methodological grounds What are atoms and their parts? What are electrons? etc., etc. Scientific research can in principle go on to infinity on such questions - why abandon the empiricist position on induction when dealing with these crucial issues. 'To conclude upon an enumeration of particulars without instance contradictory is no conclusion, but a conjecture' (Bacon, Advancement, 288). And while many of these questions are empirical, it is just as obvious that some are not. 'Our knowledge of the properties of a kind is never complete' (Mill, Logic, Bk. IV, Ch. VII, § 4). And it must be added that not only has an object indefinite aspects if it is relatively isolated, many properties come only to light once an object interacts with the countless other objects it comes into contact with. For example, that acid turns litmus paper red is a property that is determined only after the interaction of these two substances. The specific nature of even the self-identity of every object to itself, therefore, cannot be empirically fathomed. The fact that we can so go on in our enquiries shows again that we do not deal with self-subsistent referents in science, but always with intensional concepts which more or less approximate denotata. For this reason, empiricists have always rejected the possibility of real as opposed to nominal definitions of the nature of a thing; we cannot get at the total character of an object in view of the problem of induction, nor, as far as they are concerned, is there any discoverable essence. 'No man can rightly and successfully investigate the nature of anything in the thing itself' (Bacon, Instauratio, 433). We may except Husserl, who on empirical grounds sought a science of essence. The fact that he failed indicates again that we indeed cannot find essences on the basis of sensuous evidence. Although I will not here give reasons for the latter assertions, that analysts in general reject Wesensschau is in any event well known. While Aristotle had said that 'there cannot possibly be one definition of two things or two of the same thing' (Topica, 154 a 10-11), even a moderate empiricist such as Locke continually stressed: We know nothing beyond our simple ideas. - Which we are not at all to wonder at, since we, having but some few superficial ideas of things, discovered to us only by the senses from without, or by the mind reflecting on what it experiments in itself within, have no knowledge beyond that, much less of the internal constitution and true nature of things, being destitute of faculties to attain it (Human Understanding, 223).

Referential or ontological identity

89

If, therefore, Feigl's identification is just nominal, then it cannot be attributed to reality; if it is real, then scientific method cannot solve it. But, as said before, with the advancement of empirical knowledge, even with its trial and error and hit and miss approach, senses do more and more adjust to real referents. Mill had similar things to say : 'Since the classifications in any science are continually modified as scientific knowledge advances, the definitions in the sciences are also constantly varying' {Logic, Bk. I, Ch. VIII, § 5). We may therefore say that we do after all get closer and closer to real definitions even with empirical methods, but one can still insist that the real nature of things is never completely grasped. Wittgenstein of course also argued the latter thesis in the Philosophical Investigations. But Feigl (and so I) reject polemics which have the customary use of language as their premise. Empiricists have commonly attributed to the sensuous infinite aspects. 'Particulars are infinite' (Bacon, Advancement, 286). This is an inconsistency, for the infinite cannot at all be observed; but we may agree that on such a basis the aspects are indefinite. Not only, therefore, do we never get at the true nature of any one thing, it is in principle impossible ever to correlate two empirical indefinites in one-one correspondence. Feigl, consequently, could never 'empirically' or 'synthetically' establish the identity of the qualities of inner and outer sense, or empirical data of any other possible kinds. Is a finite extent of matter - or, to simplify the subject, of space - infinitely divisible or not? Philosophers and scientists of an empirical bent such as Newton, Kant, Einstein, Carnap, have always insisted that the continuum problem is insoluble. Since we do therefore not even know, or could not know, on empirical principles whether matter is infinitely divisible or not, we could never engage in an empirical correlation of terms and structures. Or, if Leibniz is right in saying matter is actually infinitely divisible, then two empirical infinites cannot in principle ever be correlated, however successfully Cantor and Russell may do this for a priori infinites. Those who, as Aristotle, say matter is actually finitely divisible, but potentially infinitely, hide their inability to solve the problem behind a cloak of words. And those who said this problem was solved by the mathematical theory of the continuum, such as Russell, leave open the question of the ontological, as opposed to the pragmatic, applicability of mathematical theories to the empirical world. Besides, the actual infinite has been and continues to be rejected by both working mathema-

90

Objections on methodological grounds

ticians as well as some philosophers of mathematics, even as far as pure mathematics is concerned. I will not propose any answer to these issues myself here. But I think it is herewith made evident that they cannot be solved by empirical methods, and that a definitive view is needed before scientific materialists could even engage in their correlations. Still, this much we can already safely say, that it is not possible to establish a precise isomorphism between two sets of empirical data, for that the sensuously given has indefinite aspects we certainly do observe here and now. It should never be forgotten what Feigl himself on occasion grants: 'It makes no sense to talk of correlation, or in any case not the usual sense, if the "correlation" were not that of identity (Essay, 70). This is of course true, but it also follows that we must have two different entities in order ever to make a synthetic, empirical, contingent identification; Feigl is certainly strongly insistent upon the latter nature of 'empirical metaphysics'. (And how else could we ever 'discover' that two different senses refer to an identical thing, than an examination of the referents of the world?) But two empirical entities cannot be one by definition. Either, therefore, the mental and the physical are identical in meaning, a proposition Feigl denies; or it is not possible to empirically and referentially identify them, the proposition he seeks to prove. Feigl himself says 'the modes of ascertainment of identity are for our purpose the essential consideration' (Essay, 73). But after making this concession, if Feigl provides an exact mode of establishing his thesis, apart from pointing to the examples I have already examined, I would like to be shown the passages. As for the notion of 'reducibility': I devote all of Chapter III, Part B, Section 4 to it. What scientific procedure does Feigl propose in order to prove the identities of two things which are ex hypothesi different? (If they are not initially taken as different, then there is no empirical, synthetic proof; the question is begged; everything is identical to itself.) In the standard manuals on scientific methods we find no answer. In such questions I usually turn to J. S. Mill's System of Logic, which I respect as the most thorough and capable treatment of inductive methods. We note that Mill's methods of agreement, difference, joint method of agreement and difference, residues and concomitant variation, which have been improved upon, but are still about the only things ever mentioned by many texts, all, without exception, seek to establish causal interrelationships between different entities. 'In illustrating these methods', Mill reminds us,

Referential or ontological identity

91

it will be necessary to bear in mind the twofold character of inquiries into the laws of phenomena; which may be either inquiries into the cause of a given effect, or into the effects or properties of a given cause {Logic, Bk. Ill, Ch. VIII, §1).

'We shall denote antecedents by the large letters of the alphabet, and the consequents corresponding to them by the small,' Mill says in the same section; cause and effect, therefore, cannot be the same, either numerically or qualitatively. And just as Mill in his System of Logic showed that there is a causal interrelationship between the position of the moon and tides due to concomitant variations (see Bk. Ill, Ch. VIII, §6), so Feigl could show a correlation between mind and the brain, the difference merely being that he has added the difficulty of one unobservable, or something observed in a different way. Then too, Mill already made much of the 'plurality of causes', hence ontologically speaking, the nature and existence of any one cause cannot be so easily ascertained. Moreover, causal relations are not symmetric, reflexive, or equivalences. Scientific method cannot prove an identity once a difference has only been provisionally granted. And again, if there are initially not two things, how can identification ever be synthetic, contingent, empirical, as Feigl so often has it: 'Since all types of identity, except the logical, are established on the basis of empirical evidence, they must therefore be formulated in synthetic statements' (Essay, 74). And once more, what are these synthetic statements to be established by means of empirical science supposed to be about, if not the world or referents? And even if Feigl's view that two varying senses can refer to one and the same referent were granted, what has to be investigated except the nature of referents in order to establish his thesis? If two different senses can be discovered to refer to one referent otherwise than in such a way, Feigl has not shown it. Ascertainments of the relationships between senses and referents (as opposed to referents and referents) do not seem to me to be amenable to be decided by means of the experimental method; and in any event, the crucial premise of Feigl's philosophy of language - that varying senses can refer to numerically the same referent - has already been refuted. The following lines of Mill raise a further problem: Existence, Co-existence, Sequence, Causation, Resemblance: one or other of these is asserted (or denied) in every proposition which is not merely verbal. This fivefold division is an exhaustive classification of matters-of-fact; of all

92

Objections on methodological grounds

things that can be believed, or tendered for belief; of all questions that can be propounded, and all answers that can be returned to them (Logic, Bk. I, Ch. V, §7). It is to be noted here that identity is not included. Resemblance always involves more than one thing, in order that observational comparison be made; the self-identity of any one thing already seems all the more an a priori, metaphysical question. Mill explicitly insists that 'we found that every act of belief implied two Things: ... namely, two Phenomena, in other words, two states of consciousness (Logic, Bk. I, Ch. V, §5). If the empiricist Feigl disagrees with the empiricist Mill regarding the above assertions, the burden is on Feigl to provide the reasons. Clearly, if something is an observed entity, then no hypothesis could disprove its existence; and if it is not some entity observed by someone, then no hypothesis could identify it with an empirical datum. It is of course not to be overlooked that Mill had little sympathy for 'occult causes', i.e., anything else than 'invariability of succession... found by observation.' I premise, then, that when in the course of this inquiry I speak of the cause of any phenomenon, I do not mean a cause which is not itself a phenomenon; I make no research into the ultimate or ontological cause of any thing, ...every... question regarding the nature of 'Things in themselves' (Logic, Bk. Ill, Ch. V, §2).

Yet an essential ingredient of the hypothetico-deductive method, so Feigl might reply, is that there are such unobserved grounds, which are relevant to science. This is of course true, but again, even more indisputably, it is evident that no identity between illata and phenomena can be claimed. Feigl himself grants the obvious: Concepts pertaining to the unobservables are related to, but not identifiable with, the observables which constitute the evidential data for the confirmation of statements about the unobservables (Essay, 28). If we can investigate empirically a correlation of 'raw feels' and neural events, then the identity theory surely is empirically disconfirmed, as there are at least numerically two trains of events. Also, Feigl admits unconscious mental events, but these can never thus be 'identified' at all, even by one and the same person. Everything is what it is, and not another thing; and everything (even change) is identical with itself, neither more nor less.

Referential or ontological identity

93

How then can we ever observe that any one thing is another thing as well, for we then have two numerical things. Nor can we ever compare one and the same thing to itself, because comparison involves two things, which are ex hypothesi not really there in the case of the physicalist thesis. We come here to part of the reason why Aristotle came to the conclusion that the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle cannot strictly be observed in any way. It is no wonder that these and the law of identity have traditionally obtained the name 'laws of thought'. In mathematical logic these are deemed no less a priori, but this characterization does not tell us how to establish an empirical identity, and whether mathematical logic applies is left an empirical question. Hence, even logical identity, besides all the difficulties already observed in that notion, is claimed by physicalists to be secondary to the supposedly empirical one. And all this is done at a time when positivists such as Feigl have given no clear coherent account of what empirical identity consists in, how it is to be ascertained, or whether we can establish it on an empirical basis at all. Insofar however as specific proposals of at least some exactitude have been put forward, I think I have shown them not to be tenable. Even though logical positivists repudiate the view that logic necessarily applies to the empirical world, they of course do not deny that it often does. Hence, if we take the law of identity to apply to the sensuous, then empirical identity is analytic, not synthetic. (Logical empiricists, notwithstanding the concession of application, are also apt to deny vehemently that logic is in reality. What a posteriori evidence they could possibly give to support this synthetic claim is not for me to tell.) If then, the law of identity is something analytic, how could Feigl at the same time maintain so strongly that, as far as the identity theory is concerned, it is 'imperative to preserve the synthetic character of the assertion of this knowledge claim' (Essay, 23). At least Smart understands the logical issue somewhat better when he grants that 'You cannot correlate something with itself' ('Brain Processes', 161). And as usual the 'rationalist' Hegel is much more faithful to (and knowledgeable of) the empirical facts than positivists when he sees the problem thus: The subsistence or substance of anything that exists is its self-identity; for its want of identity, or oneness with itself, would be its dissolution. But self-identity is pure abstraction; and this is just thinking (Phenomenology, 113). And again as so often, 'empiricists' ignore their most hallowed cohorts if

94

Objections on methodological grounds

those cohorts do not make pronouncements which suit their 'empirical' theses. Hume had expressly pointed out: 'T is certain there is no question in philosophy more abstruse than that concerning identity... So far from being able by our senses merely to determine this question, we must have recourse to the most profound metaphysics to give a satisfactory answer to it (Treatise, 1,480). Identity is a relation. Feigl himself insists that iall knowledge is structural, i.e., that it consists in the formulations of relations of one sort or another' (Essay, 83). Yet identity is just the sort of relation which everything in the universe does and must have to itself. Since identity is among the most basic axioms of thought, as well as the nature of the world, it is something which cannot be further analyzed. It cannot be made to follow from any thought, as every thought presupposes it; far less can there be experimentation about identity in the world. I never sense an identity at all. I sense many individual things, but not that they are identical to themselves. Whence, then, the empirical identification? I have certainly never denied that one thing may be invariably conjoined to another, such as an effect to its cause, or some fingerprint which is the sign for some unique thumb; yet the fact always remains: no matter how associated, two entities are never one entity. The physicalistic enterprise is in principle impossible, and on the basis of scientific principles. Yet a non-identity can certainly be shown on scientific principles, and will in fact be shown by me with my proof of mind-body dualism. Since my aim in this work is not a 'victory' over opponents, but the furtherance of truth, I am not at all hesitant to end this section by sketching what appears to me a better mode of establishing referential identity empirically than anything physicalists speak of. That mode, however, is not completely successful either, and even if successful, cannot be applied to the mind-body problem. Yet if it is nonetheless found helpful by physicalists - make the most of it! We have seen that we cannot empirically identify any referent directly observed with itself, nor with any other thing directly inspected. Nor can we identify anything observed with anything unobserved, for anything actually referentially self-identical cannot at the same time be observed and unobserved (by the same verifier). Nor can we scientifically identify unobserved entities totally apart from observed phenomena, for such a procedure is not empirical. Nor does the discovery of one unobserved

Referential or ontological identity

95

cause for one observed phenomenon go beyond the axiomatic assertion of the identity of the cause. When, however, it comes to finding an unobserved cause for several observed phenomena, the case against empirical identification is not as immediately decisive. Suppose we perceive different phenomena A, B, and C, and are searching for unobserved causes. We provisionally designate these causes X, Y, and Z. Could we ever 'discover' that 'in reality', X, Y, and Z refer to exactly the same thing? No, for would they refer to strictly the same cause, then A, B, and C would not be distinguished, as by hypothesis they are. At least some aspects of the 'common' cause X would be different from Y or Z, for else these causes would not direct their efficacy into different paths, as they must, in order to end up with different phenomena. Besides, who stresses the dictum 'same cause, same effect' more than physicalists? More generally, could we observe phenomena A, B, and C, and then in some way referentially 'discover' that they all were associated in any way whatever with exactly the same unobserved entity X? If we take X in isolation, then we know that isolated identity to be axiomatically self-identical. Yet if we relate X to A, B, and C, then the borderlines isolating X are dropped, and since A, B, and C are different entities, then the relations of the unobserved X to these phenomena must vary also, and therefore X now assumes different aspects which vary as its associations vary. Just as much as the referential morning star is not strictly identical with the referential evening star in part because the specific relations of the more isolated generic unity Venus vary, so X changes some referential characteristics when it is brought into different relations with A, B, and C. At this point the reader may complain that a hair-splitting scholastic pedantry on my part is finally exposed. But I remind him that it is physicalists themselves (not I) who have set their thesis as aiming at establishing a strict identity, one without qualifications of any kind. And I have never denied that there are other notions of identity, such as the very loose ones employed for practical purposes in law-courts. But physicalists surely cannot maintain that the animistic world-views which have for so long prevailed are not tenable when confronted with scientific rigor, and then fall back on vague commonsense notions to uphold their own 'scientific' world-view. And the affirmation of anything other than such a strict identity between the mental and the physical surely would already constitute an abandonment of materialistic monism.

96

Objections on methodological grounds

B . THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF PROVING REFERENTIAL IDENTITY BY PRESUPPOSING EMPIRICIST EPISTEMOLOGY AND EMPLOYING SCIENTIFIC METHOD

1. Privacy and public observability We have seen in the preceding sections of this chapter the problems surrounding the ascertainment of what existential identity even is to consist in. The fact that we seldom came to firm conclusions can only constitute a criticism of Feigl, not me (since his aims are constructive, while mine are in this regard chiefly destructive). But I think I am still able to say that enough clarity has been achieved to enable me in this part to proceed in showing that the methods of empirical scientists (more accurately, physicalist philosophers) are quite unhelpful in ever coming even near to establishing the ontological claim of psycho-physical monism. It must be remembered throughout that Feigl entertains the belief 'that there is nothing in the realm of existence which is in principle inaccessible to examination and exploration by the scientific method' ('Physicalism', 265). Let us first note what physicalists have to say on public observability. A. J. Ayer puts it in this fashion: Generally, statements which ostensibly refer to experiences, or to 'mental' states or processes of any kind, whether one's own or anybody else's, must be equivalent to 'physical statements': for it is only in this way that they can be publicly intelligible. This is the thesis of physicalism ('Editor's Introduction', 20; cf. Feigl, 'Physicalism', 265). One already wonders on what basis physicalists can claim that there 'must' be this equivalence, nor is it clear what public intelligibility consists in. As is well known, logical positivists profess that it is the sole task of philosophers to analyze the methods and results of scientists. They can therefore hardly object to my procedure of pointing out what distinguished scientists actually maintain - and as we are used to by now, it is not seldom explicitly the opposite of the 'science' as put forward by physicalists. Von Weizsäcker expressly insists: Physics cannot be expected to give answers to questions that cannot be asked in terms of physics. The physicist, with the means at his command, does not perceive the subjective side of life, soul, sentiment, consciousness. Therefore he cannot hope to explain that side of life in his terms. No conceptual system can produce results containing concepts that are not defined within the system.

The impossibility of proving referential identity

97

The decisive methodological self-limitation of the physicist consists in that he does not even ask, what is the soul. And as long as physics abides by this limitation, obviously it cannot give information about the soul (Nature, 125). Physicalists therefore cannot reduce mind to physics, if physics expressly leaves out mind from its concerns; on the other hand, if physicalists were to remove the methodological self-limitations of physics as insisted upon by von Weizsäcker, the 'reduction' would no longer be one to physics. On either alternative, therefore, Ayer's 'thesis of physicalism' cannot be upheld. In a similar vein as Ayer, Feigl lists as an 'epistemologicar requirement the following: '(a) the need for a criterion of scientific meaningfulness based on intersubjective confirmability.' 'It is generally agreed that scientific knowledge claims must... be intersubjectively communicable' (Essay, 24). We may say that it is part of the methodology of the over-all working hypothesis of modern science that prediction, to the extent that it is possible at all (taking account of the basic quantum indeterminacies), is always in principle possible starting from intersubjectively confirmable statements about initial conditions (Essay, 17). Yet Feigl is merely pronouncing his personal preferences, not the actual procedure of science: 'Natural science is founded on the sharp distinction of the comprehending subject from the object which is comprehended' (von Weizsäcker, Nature, 5). And fellow empiricist Mill speaks with at least as much learned discipline on scientific method as Feigl: Laws of mind and laws of matter are so dissimilar in their nature that it would be contrary to all principles of rational arrangement to mix them up as part of the same study. In all scientific methods, therefore, they are placed apart ('Definition', 415). Physicalists have no monopoly to employ the word 'science' to characterize their enterprise. Yet let us in any event more closely examine scientific method ä la physicalists, and what it leads to. It is still not completely clear what exactly the 'intersubjectively communicable' consists in, nor is the precise epistemological status of the 'working hypothesis of modern science' evident yet. One would expect from one's general knowledge of scientific method that such a hypothesis could later be disconfirmed. Yet, while telling his readers that he establishes the identity theory by 'science', Feigl himself again repudiates essential tenets

98

Objections on methodological grounds

of scientific method, but then in turn professes to have established his thesis by 'science'. According to Feigl: since the aim of the scientific enterprise is generally so conceived as to provide knowledge which is susceptible of inter-subjective test, it is clear that purely private, only subjectively confirmable knowledge claims are to be ruled out, i.e., declared as scientifically meaningless ('Physicalism', 238; cf. Essay, 33). Of course, since the private data, which I have identified with the mental, are declared 'scientifically meaningless' to begin with, then no amendment of scientific hypothesis could ever establish their existence later. Again, if ex hypothesi all connections of the subjective raw feels with the intersubjectively accessible facts are radically severed, then such raw feels are, I would say by definition, excluded from the scope of science (Essay, 18). What is the epistemic basis for this 'definition'? Surely not observation, for I have and will provide good grounds that we do have such private data. (In essence, and very roughly stated, my claim amounts to no more than what is already widely conceded: we know the external world intersubjectively, but have access to the privacy of other minds only by analogy.) How too, is this 'definition' consistent with Feigl's own rejection of ontological, logical and methodological behaviorism which we have already seen? Also, since Feigl constantly stresses that this definition only holds within science, then all we need is this reply: so much the worse for your science ever to establish the identity thesis, which is ontological, a question of existence. In the foregoing, Feigl clearly engages in nominal, as opposed to real definition; I am not therewith overlooking that elsewhere he insists that 'The first thesis [of physicalism], far from being a purely syntactical criterion of meaningfulness, asserts that subjective and intersubjective confirmability coincide in their extensions' ('Physicalism', 265). In fact, these apparently conflicting statements are per se not even contradictory, as in the foregoing Feigl speaks about methodology, yet presently about his referential world-view. What is evident rather is that Feigl commits the most serious logical blunder of beginning with a nominalistic definitional fiat, which is independent of the nature of the world, but then on the basis of such a nominal definition seeks to establish his real definition of psychophysical monism. Purely nominal definitions are non-falsifiable, and therefore, according to the fundamental criterion pronounced by physicalists

The impossibility of proving referential identity

99

themselves, non-scientific. The juxtaposition of the words of H. H. Price (writing on the problem of perception) with those of Feigl may further clarify the logical blunder at hand. 'Since the premises of physiology are among the propositions into whose validity we are inquiring, it is hardly likely that its conclusions will assist us' ('The Given', 110). Yet Feigl's 'empirical, scientific' assumptions commit precisely that petitio principii: 'Only the future devolopment of psychophysiology will decide whether these assumptions are tenable' (Essay, 115). Feigl's 'empirical metaphysics' in fact follows the well-known dictum of Parmenides: 'One cannot know what is not - that is impossible - nor utter it; for it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be' (Parmenides in Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, 64). If we substitute the words 'conventional sense' for Parmenides' 'thought', and 'reference' for Parmenides' 'be[ing]', then physicalists are disciples of Parmenides by the letter. Given such a 'solution' of the matter, we may indeed grant Feigl that 'there is here no longer an unbridgeable gulf, and hence no occasion for metaphysical shudders' (Essay, 81). Yetatbest, epistemology can legislate what we know to exist, not what exists (in and by itself) apart from ourselves. And for an empiricist it is difficult even to legislate or delimit our awareness of existence; for how, solely on inductive or analytic grounds, can he be certain that what one man is unaware of, another is not either; or whether even one and the same person's consciousness will not change. Is the latter not in fact often the case? There can be little doubt that being, existence, or reality is something more fundamental than knowledge of being or existence; and if anything can legislate, it is existence for knowledge, not vice versa. Not only is the above arbitrary definitional fiat incompatible with the disconfirmability of scientific hypotheses, by a curious twist of logic we are told too that 'data as described in... a phenomenal language would provide the "ultimate" testing ground for all intersubjective propositions' (158) in Feigl's Postscript. In our discussion of Feigl on perception we have already seen that Feigl not only concedes, but stresses, that «//phenomenal data are numerically private. Even what I call outer sense is for Feigl also in inner sense, and 'first-person data of direct experience are, in the ultimate epistemological analysis, the confirmation basis of all types of factual knowledge claims' (Essay, 70). One of the most established principles of logic, that no conclusion can be stronger than its weakest premise, is violated here; Feigl cannot legitimately reach his 'objective' world by any

100 Objections on methodological grounds means (if he rests it on the subjective). On Feigl's own account, he cannot resist the conclusion that with all his talk concerning intersubjectivity, he has strictly speaking nothing to show on what to found it on. As Feigl puts it in his own words: 'Direct inspection of the mental states of others is now generally considered a logical impossibility.' 'Raw feels [of other organisms] ... are inferentially attainable but not perceptually accessible' (Essay, 62, 88). I see no other way of escaping this labyrinth but by taking abstract entities, not subjective sense data, as 'ultimate', i.e., becoming the rationalist so much despised by Feigl. I do not wish to overlook the following seeming escape from the dilemma Feigl is in. The 'frame-hypothesis of the present philosophical analysis' is the following: This 'great transformation' is the replacing of most (or all) concepts of the solipsistic (egocentric) perspective as well as the manifest image (still suffused with subjectivistic features) by a completely intersubjective account (Postscript, 155). R. Carnap already had similar ideas in the 1930's. 'In every case, no matter whether the introspective method is applicable or not, the behavioristic method can be applied at any rate' ('Unity of Science', 419). (At present, Carnap is 'in agreement with his formulation [i.e., Feigl's formulation of physicalism] in all major points.' '"Whatever is subjectively confirmable, is also intersubjectively confirmable" ': 'Feigl', 882, 883.) But how can there possibly be such a ' "great transformation"' if Feigl is already now so certain that 'The other person does not and could not conceivably have the numerically identical experience' (Essay, 68). And such experiences are the ultimate epistemic ground for all knowledge claims. As will be seen in the first section of 'Conclusions and Prospects', in certain passages in the Postscript Feigl gives up altogether the existence of inner phenomena, as does Smart. But it must surely be already evident that this can only lead him into still greater difficulties. Other fundamental confusions will be outlined by me in 'Replies by identity theorists to objections - Rejoinders'. What should be noted now are the conclusions regarding substantial existents which Feigl overrules on the basis of a misguided methodology. The possible truth of interactionism is excluded by the test of intersubjective confirmability, as our inner sense is private (cf. Essay, 16). Of immortality, Feigl says that 'If such survival were... not even extremely indirectly or incompletely confirmable by others..., it could not become part of science in the sense in which "science" is commonly understood*

The impossibility of proving referential identity

101

(Essay, 24-25). More generally, The identification of raw feels with neural states... crosses what in metaphysical phraseology is sometimes called an 'ontological barrier'. It connects the 'subjective' with the 'intersubjective'. It identifies the referents of subjective terms with the referents of certain objective terms. But in my view of the matter there is no longer an unbridgeable gulf, and hence no occasion for metaphysical shudders (Essay, 81). 'To recapitulate: if the scientific enterprise is defined as necessarily requiring intersubjective confirmability of knowledge claims, then this follows immediately and quite trivially' (Essay, 33). In order to argue reasonably at all for physicalism, Feigl of course has to insist 'that the terms "subjective" and "private"... are not to be considered as logically incompatible with "objective" or "public" in the sense of "in-principle-intersubjectively confirmable"' (Essay, 32). But I for my part do so define my terms, hence, employing positivist terminology, it is 'logically impossible' that Feigl ever establishes the identity theory by means of scientific method. Of course, unlike many 'empiricists', I do not rest my case on arbitrary nominal definitions. That there are such data which are in fact private is argued throughout this book. 'Our skulls are not empty. But what we find there, in spite of the keen interest it arouses, is truly nothing when held against the life and the emotions of the soul' (Schrodinger, Mind and Matter, 47). Although I cannot say everything at once, especially being faced with the intricacy of the mind-body problem, an overall view of the referential nature of privacy as positively maintained by me may be in place here. Privacy in my contexts essentially means that one and only one human mind has direct or unmediated access to certain data of consciousness. In order to speak with more precision, we must distinguish between the numerical uniqueness of one datum of consciousness, and its possible qualitative similarity to other numerically unique data. Now, the general picture which arises is the following: In the case of data of outer sense, both A and B see roughly the same qualitative table in the room. That is to say, the one table as permanent possibility or (material) thing in itself causes or gives rise to a (mental) phenomenon table experienced by A, and another phenomenon table experienced by B. Thus, there is the one physical table as thing in itself which is never experienced as such, and there are two further tables as outer phenomena which are qualitatively

102

Objections on methodological

grounds

similar to, but numerically distinct between, observers A and B. In the case of experiences of outer sense, therefore, both A and B have direct access to roughly the same qualitative phenomena, and this qualitative similarity makes such data relatively 'public'. But even the data of outer sense are not absolutely or unqualifiedly public, for A and B do not have direct access to each other's table as numerically unique phenomenon. Consequently, even the data of outer sense are in part unshared or private, and this is one reason for maintaining my general proposition that outer sense is in inner sense. In the case of data of inner sense, A and B do not even share direct access to the same qualitative experiential data. For instance, A is not immediately aware that B is dreaming or thinking; in popular language, A 'cannot read B's mind'. A can know the qualities of the data of B's inner consciousness only mediately by observing the data of his own consciousness, or 'by analogy'. (The major reason for this difference between outer and inner sense is that the data of outer sense are always the effects of physical causal processes which are not within each individual will, whereas the phenomenal effects which make up the data of inner sense do not have underlying them such physical processes as sufficient causes, and at least on some occasions of supersensuous cognition, not even as necessary causes.) In short, all data of consciousness without exception are numerically uniquely observed by each human mind, and are in this sense always private. Only in the case of the data of outer sense are the qualities of the objects of consciousness shared among differing human minds. Yet since the numbers are not shared there either, a reason is provided for what can with reasonable safety be asserted as a truth: differing human minds rarely (perhaps never) experience exactly the same phenomenal qualities, at least not those which are sensuous in nature. But to return from this digression to our examination of the doctrines of physicalists. May I point out that even if we do not publicly observe mind, neither do we sense the most important entities of physics. On Feigl's own admission, unaided perception by itself is also quite insufficient for the confirmation of our knowledge regarding radio waves, infrared, ultraviolet, gamma radiation, cosmic rays, the molecular and atomic structure of matter, the motions and other physical and chemical characteristics of stars and galaxies, etc. (Essay, 66-67). But surely, if we do not publicly observe most of the world of physics, why uphold this world against the existence of something which we are directly

The impossibility of proving referential identity

103

acquainted with, our mental phenomena, on the ground that the latter are not intersubjectively confirmable. It might be replied here that the world of physics is still confirmed, because we can infer it from phenomena. Now, this is not what Feigl is saying above, but in any event, I have never denied we perceive human bodies in outer sense, and on such grounds I can just as well infer a mind. As the methodological issue discussed here is of far-reaching impact, the reader ought to sympathize with my effort to examine every important explanation of his view by Feigl. In the following he qualifies: The identification is... restricted to those elements, properties, or relations of the neural processes which (in dualistic parlance) are the 'correlates' of the raw feels. In our monistic account this is tantamount to the identity of the denotata directly labeled by phenomenal terms, with the denotata of neural descriptions. The latter denotata are acquaintancewise unknown to the neurophysiologist, except if he uses the autocerebroscope himself (Essay, 90). We will examine the crucial autocerebroscope experiment later in some detail. But we note on this occasion that, while I hold mental events to be private, only inner, there are good reasons for saying neural events (when physically bared) are in outer sense, objective, publicly perceived. Just above, however, Feigl seems to say the opposite : such complete reversals of basic doctrine on the part of Feigl one encounters unfortunately too often. Besides, an examination by means of an ai/tocerebroscope already etymologically as well as actually means that only one person can perform the experiment on himself This is already a far-reaching concession to the effect that we do have privileged access to our mental events, and that just because outer sense cannot get at these, it by no means follows they do not exist. Not only are Feigl's phenomena numerically private, and his own 'ultimate' basis of all knowledge claims is not itself intersubjectively testable, even outer phenomena are strictly speaking not 'communicable' at all. Feigl himself is aware of the perplexity of the 'ineffable' qualia of direct experience. Poincaré, Eddington, and other brilliant scientist-philosophers have made much of the distinction between the 'inexpressible' and 'uncommunicable' contents and the propositionally expressible and communicable forms or structures of the immediately given. As before, I believe this is a highly suggestive but nonetheless extremely misleading formulation (Postscript, 143 ; c/ Essay, 83).

104

Objections on methodological grounds

Permit me just to observe what actually is the case. Sensuous phenomena such as colors are learned by ostension, but not logic, mathematics, or metaphysics. Pure ostension is not the expressible communicability Feigl seems to insist upon, and before red can be so communicated, it has to be conceptualized. When I say 'red', 'rouge' or 'rot', no one sees any color coming from my lips; yet if he speaks English, French, or German, he will know what I am communicating. Feigl himself rightly points out that we must distinguish acquaintance (the mere having of data, or the capacity for imagining some of them) from knowledge by acquaintance (propositions, e.g., about similarities or dissimilarities, rank-orders, etc., of the qualia of the given) {Essay, 83). Even uncommunicated scientific knowledge is therefore conceptual, and concepts, as we shall see later, are not in space and not sensuously publicly observable in any way. Even as far as immediate perceptual experiences are concerned, Aristotle, Kant, and Husserl rightly repeatedly insisted that we 'interpret' the passively given, that we impose 'noema', 'concepts' or 'images' (which are private). And memory, so Russell stressed most of all, is a conditio sine qua non of all knowledge, and my memories are simply not directly inspectable to the reader. Even when we compare two sensuously given things, that which declares them to be similar or dissimilar is not the raw outer data themselves. And what of mathematics and logic these are sciences par excellence (even though indeed not natural sciences), yet according to analysts themselves, these are not a posteriori. It is rather the case that I can make the most exacting communications in logic and mathematics (as long as the other person co-operates), and these are not observed in outer sense, and hence, according to my criterion, not physical. Feigl already grants what Plato and Aristotle had stressed, that knowledge is conceptual, representational, symbolic; not perceptual, the immediately given (cf. Essay, 65). 'Mere having or living through ("erleben") is not knowledge in any sense' (Essay, 68). (Yet if this is so, how, at least I ask, can Feigl at the same time maintain that the phenomenal is the 'ultimate basis' for all knowledge claims. Since when is 'knowledge' subservient to what 'is not knowledge in any sense'.) Although a nominalist and only at times a hesitant conceptualist, Quine in Chapter II of his Word and Object similarly seems to agree that ostensions are not effable when he speaks of the 'radical indeterminacy of translation'. And although

The impossibility of proving referential identity

105

Feigl may not like the company, it should be pointed out that Hegel has taken these observations already considerably farther. 'Conceptions alone can produce universality in the knowing process. This universality is critically developed and completely finished knowledge'. 'It is not possible at all for us even to express in words any sensuous existence which we "mean" ' (Phenomenology, 128, 152). But the inference Hegel properly drew, though Feigl fails to see, is that these universal conceptions are Geist, i.e., mind or spirit. If, therefore, Feigl were to remove inner sense from the world as he seeks to, the 'science' which he makes so much of would cease to be. Needless to add, Feigl seeks to prove the identity theory by means of that science. Generally, we may say that 'we are theorizing all the time, even when we make the most trivial singular statement' (Popper, Logic, 423); and theories are not passively externally observable, but are in inner sense. And 'all observation is of course in the first instance just as private and restricted, the public character being given by symbolic communications between observers, in particular through the medium of language' (Eccles, Neurophysiological Basis, 263; cf Facing Reality, 53). It is indeed a superficial objection to materialism to say, as is maintained so often, that even materialists need the mind to make any of their knowledge-claims. No lesser man than Berkeley thought it sufficient to show that esse est percipii - even if so, it is still a possibility that mind is the physical brain. (The later Russell, who has a similar theory of perception as Berkeley, in fact argued, as we will see later, that sense data are brain events. Yet with dubious consistency, Russell also maintained the following: 'I define a "mental" event... as one with which someone is acquainted otherwise than by inference: Human Knowledge, 229; cf. 201.) What is shown above however is that only the non-sensuous is really communicable, and while the externally sensuous could be material, not so spaceless concepts. Berkeley therefore did a disservice to the cause of immaterialism by denying the existence of abstract concepts, not a service, as was his opinion. And notwithstanding all his protestations to the charge, the empiricist Berkeley is condemned to solipsism. For before he introduced his 'proof' of God, he had used few propositions more as his premises than that the idea of any self-contained underlying substance is selfcontradictory, as it is and must remain my idea. No more can Berkeley later claim God to be the external cause of my ideas, as the idea of such an independently existing spiritual substratum is no less my idea than a material one.

106

Objections on methodological grounds

We have already seen that logical positivists are not unsympathetic to the view of Berkeley as outlined at the beginning of his Principles and Three Dialogues, namely that all sense data are numerically mine only. Also, we have noted such phenomena to be ineffable. Yet if this is so, then O. Neurath's dictum that'every language as such is inter-subjective' ('Protocol Sentences', 205), can only be indicative of the fact that we ought to concentrate on reason, not sense. All these failures only point to the indispensability of a Platonic Theory of Ideas. I come to the end of this section with words I am hesitant to use myself, but they were written by the scientific analyst Russell in 1948. The consistency of Russell, or the constant lack of it, even under the same cover, is not for me to explain. (I will later provide quotations of Russell which claim the exact opposite.) But this is perhaps the place to relate that logical empiricists as Feigl 'plead that we be permitted the procedure of trial and error' (Postscript, 160). I am starting to catch on - if logical empiricists leave out facts or make contradictory assertions, then their approach is therewith shown 'scientific'; if a 'metaphysician' ever makes an error, the whole enterprise is therewith proven impossible. But to return to the quotation of Russell: 'That nothing can be scientifically known except what is derived from public data' is 'absurd' (Human Knowledge, 45). The 'scientific' method as advocated by physicalists has already been eloquently forewarned against by the man in whom 'empiricism has found its prophet' (Reichenbach, Scientific Philosophy, 84): Another diversity of Methods is according to the subject or matter which is hand-

led-, ...and howsoever contention hath been moved touching an uniformity of method in multiformity of matter, yet we see how that opinion, besides the weakness of it, hath been of ill desert towards learning, as that which taketh the way to reduce learning to certain empty and barren generalities; being but the very husks and shells of sciences, all the kernel being forced out and expulsed with the torture and press of the method (Bacon, Advancement, 306). If all knowledge is ab initio arbitrarily defined (notwithstanding the empirical evidence of inner sense) so 'that purely private, only subjectively confirmable knowledge claims are to be ruled out, i.e., declared as scientifically meaningless' (Feigl, 'Physicalism', 238; cf. Essay, 33), then of course we will never find anything but brain events when we open a skull. But such a method of solving problems has no chance of standing the test of time, no matter how palatable it may be to the majority opinions

The impossibility of proving referential identity

107

today. It is again Bacon, and even before him, the Platonists, who have already adumbrated the true conclusion: And therefore it was most aptly said by one of Plato's school [Philo Judaeus], That the sense of man carrieth a resemblance with the sun, which (as we see) openeth and revealeth all the terrestrial globe; but then again it obscureth and concealeth the stars and celestial globe: so doth the sense discover natural things, but it darkeneth andshutteth up divine (.Advancement, 164).

Let me close this section by providing a sketch of my own positive views in regards to the intersubjectivity of knowledge. In the case of our knowledge of the external world, independently existing physical objects give rise to qualitatively similar, but numerically distinct phenomena in observers A, B, C... These phenomena are qualitatively similar because - with some drastic exceptions - all humans are affected by the same material things in themselves, have approximately the same physical constitution, and roughly the same type of mind. Human minds in turn abstract from these 'raw feels' or phenomena, and the qualitatively similar concepts thus resulting explain the intersubjectivity of knowledge in the domain of outer sense. If it be objected that the present scheme does not guarantee the complete qualitative similarity of concepts between different beholders, then I grant the whole objection: exact similarity (i.e., congruence) of either the sensuous raw material of outer sense, or the concepts drawn therefrom, rarely if ever exists between different human minds, and my account explains why this is a fact. In the case of data of inner sense, there is no independent external physical world from which different human observers passively receive qualitatively similar (and in this sense public) impressions; the data of inner sense are not only numerically private, personal, or exclusive, but also qualitatively unshared in the sense that no attentive opening of the sense organs into any direction will ever give rise to qualitatively similar phenomena in different observers. Thus A can see, feel, or smell B's brain (observed in A's outer sense); but through no sense organs can A experience B's dreaming, imagining, or thinking (processes which occur only in B's inner sense, and which do not give rise to public perceptions). Yet, although mental events, unlike independent physical events, never directly cause intersubjective phenomena in different human observers (and are in this sense private, or publicly inaccessible), the fact remains that the qualities of the processes making up the inner senses of different beholders are

108

Objections on methodological grounds

still approximately the same notwithstanding the lack of causal instigation by physical objects as things in themselves. It is again simply a fact that most numerically differing human minds are similar in their qualitative nature. Thus A transfers the qualities of his own immediate data of inner sense by rough analogy to the to him not directly accessible inner data of B. It seems to be a general fact that the more the ideas of inner sense are a priori in nature, the higher the intersubjectivity, i.e., the safer a successful transfer by analogy. For instance, imaginative literature is not as intersubjective a discipline as mathematics. Yet as is well known, even in the case of the latter subject, much shared training is required to make different minds similar in receptivity and constitution: complete intersubjectivity is by no means always a fact. And were intersubjectivity complete in philosophy - well, both the reader and I could stop right here. From an epistemological and methodological standpoint, therefore, my account of privacy and public observability well explains what is true about the hallowed proposition of the intersubjectivity of knowledge and what is false. 2. The metaphysical nature of science itself It may be true that the mind-body problem is 'metaphysical', at least in part. But even if so, there are no good reasons for arbitrarily limiting the problem to the concerns of empirical science, an attempt by physicalists which we noted in the foregoing section. There are no good reasons because, whether scientists are conscious of it or not, natural science itself has an unavoidable and inescapable metaphysical foundation. Were it true that all metaphysical assertions are non-cognitive, then so would all science be. Yet the latter conclusion is not acceptable to scientific philosophers, hence on that ground alone, they cannot consistently claim that there cannot be any truth-claims as answers to questions of metaphysics: antimetaphysics is also metaphysics. And if the metaphysical basis of science is cognitive, we have already good prima facie evidence for saying that the metaphysical basis of non-scientific areas is cognitive as well. Insofar therefore as certain aspects of the mind-body problem may only admit of solution by metaphysical methods, such methods need be no less acceptable than the metaphysics underlying science, and a purely 'empirical' metaphysics is impossible because the foundations of science or empirical method are not and cannot be entirely empirical. Yet just because physi-

The impossibility of proving referential identity

109

calists are to a large part unconscious of the metaphysics actually involved in their enterprise, the identity theory ends up as a case of bad metaphysics. The term 'metaphysics' is itself so vague that at least some clarification is needed in order to discuss these issues profitably. Two prominent empiricists put their main contention as follows. 'Empiricism', writes Russell, 'may be defined as the assertion: "All synthetic knowledge is based on experience" ' (Human Knowledge, 496). 'THE FUNDAMENTAL TENET of modern empiricism', so C. G. Hempel has it similarly, 'is the view that all non-analytic knowledge is based on experience' ('Empiricist Criterion', 108). Any other knowledge claim seems to be 'metaphysical'. Feigl defines 'metaphysics' thus: The two senses in which the term 'metaphysics' covers enterprises that seem objectionable to the logical empiricist are of course (1) transcendent, i.e., in principle untestable, assertions, and (2) the belief in factual truths that could be validated a priori, i.e., in complete independence of the data of observation ('Logical Empiricism', 22). Before I examine these claims, which seem to arise from a certain set epistemological position, let me briefly note that these descriptions of metaphysics are not completely enlightening. For my part, I distinguish five senses of metaphysics, after looking around to practicing metaphysicians and observing what they are actually doing, instead of forcing their views into an arbitrary straightjacket. 'Definitions are dogmas... This is certainly true of the definition of the concept of "science" ' (Popper, Logic, 55) - and, I may add, of 'metaphysics'. Metaphysics roughly means: (1) the science of first principles, e.g., Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Collingwood; (2) the science of being qua being, e.g., Aristotle, St. Thomas, Bergson, Maritain, Heidegger; (3) the nature of reality as a whole, e.g., Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Schelling, Hegel; (4) knowledge of the thing in itself, e.g., Leibniz, Wolff; (5) ultimate generalizations, e.g., Bacon, Whitehead. Lest the reader think that the logical positivist position on metaphysics is really in keeping with the position of prominent scientists - or some distinguished empiricist philosophers, for that matter - let me briefly give some indication that this is very far from the case. In the opinion of Heisenberg, for instance, there is a 'lack of any general criterion as to when a sentence should be considered as meaningless'. 'Natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is a part of the interplay between

110

Objections on methodological grounds

nature and ourselves; it describes nature as exposed to our method of questioning' {Physics and Philosophy, 85,81). Von Weizsäcker is even more emphatic: 'Natural science itself ... is a specific product of the human mind' (Nature, 11). To that statement I would like to add, that since physicalists consider natural science to be the very manifestation of objectivity, the entities composing the 'product of the human mind' can hardly be subjective. Perhaps the most pungent irony is that Francis Bacon already strenuously cautioned his followers against the basic error of repudiating metaphysics or 'first philosophy': After the distribution of particular arts and sciences, men have abandoned universality, or philosophia prima; which cannot but cease and stop all progression. For no perfect discovery can be made upon a flat or level: neither is it possible to discover the more remote and deeper parts of any science, if you stand but upon the level of the same science, and ascend not to a higher science (Advancement, 191; cf. 247). 'I have said that the first step which every specialized branch of science takes consists of a jump into the region of metaphysics' (Science, 138), writes one of the greatest scientists of the twentieth century, Max Planck. The fact is that we cannot relativize everything anymore than we can define and explain everything. There are fundamentals that cannot be defined or explained, because they form the bedrock of all our knowledge. Every definition must necessarily rest on some concept which does not call for definition at all. And it is the same with every form of proof (Science, 195). But let me return to the epistemological contentions of logical empiricists. They do not inductively collect senses of metaphysics, but begin with certain epistemological fiats the justifications of which they seldom seem to bother with. To draw on A. J. Ayer: 'When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hands any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matters of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.' This quotation is taken from David Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. It is an excellent statement of the positivist's position ('Editor's Introduction', 10). Now, if it does not follow from these enunciations that all logical empiricist books should be burned, then I challenge anyone to provide me a

The impossibility of proving referential identity

111

good reason. Nonetheless, even though I think the books of positivists are mainly in error, I do not advocate the burning of them - I leave that to certain Fascist states, which unfortunately are distinguished from countries professing 'Democracy' and 'Freedom' not infrequently in words only. It is by no means inconsistent that those who care for truth greatly, tolerate even outright error; the existence and discussion of certain errors has often aided the establishment of truths all the more quickly. And as pointed out in the 'Introduction' to this book, I do not neglect the writings of positivists, as they loudly urge others to neglect those of rationalists. There is nothing new in my claim implied above that the analyticsynthetic distinction refutes itself. I however still feel called to answer the more sophisticated reformulations. Similar to the line employed by A. J. Ayer in the Second Edition of Language, Truth and Logic (1946), Feigl insists that scientific inductivism and verificationism are a 'rule of procedure', a 'policy' ('Logical Empiricism', 33). But surely all 'imperatives' or 'directives' are non-cognitive in the views of Feigl himself. No more will it help to say they are pragmatically justified, or 'vindicated' instead of 'validated', in the terminology preferred by Feigl. Clearly, exactly what pragmatism is to consist in, and why the very highest premises of a discipline are only to be 'vindicated' rather than 'validated', or why no 'vindication' of metaphysics is possible, are questions which are not publicly observed either, and neither can their answers be. 'Every philosophical theory is metaphysical, in the sense that they are all non-empirical' (Yolton, Metaphysical Analysis, 148). Here in a similar vein as Feigl, Mill insisted: 'Principles of Evidence and Theories of Method are not to be constructed a priori. The laws of our rational faculty, like those of every natural agency, are only learnt by seeing the agent at work' {Logic, Bk. VI, Ch. I, § 1). Well, seeing empiricists as Feigl at work, I would not wish to extract his modes of procedure as the laws of scientific method. Certainly the law of non-contradiction, for one thing, would have to be immediately overthrown. It is only fair to add that Mill elsewhere has better conceptions. 'Logic neither observes, nor invents, nor discovers; but judges' {Logic, Introd., § 5). That inductivism is to be used at all, and when, how, even what it is, cannot be grounded on the a posteriori. 'The principle of induction is itself metaphysical in character' (Popper, Logic, 254). And then there is all this talk by logical empiricists about coming in science only to 'probable' or 'statistical' conclusions - I have never sensed a probability calculus,

112 Objections on methodological grounds and the disagreement between at least four major positions on probability makes one doubtful about just what is so 'analytic', or 'necessary' about these disciplines. Also, insofar as Feigl overrules other philosophical approaches, he is doing metaphysics on his own definition. Clearly, metaphysics in any form cannot be ruled out on inductive grounds; for, as far as a posteriori evidence is concerned, metaphysical systems definitely exist. Nor can metaphysics be overruled on a priori analytic grounds; for the analytic has, according to Feigl's school, no necessary connection with actual things or events. Either then, Feigl can say nothing to opponents as myself, in which case he is not making a serious contribution; or he can adopt metaphysical methods as the synthetic a priori, and then has refuted himself. Of what help is it that Feigl stresses again and again 'the primacy of sense perception for the interpretation and the establishment of intersubjectively meaningful and valid knowledge claims' ('Physicalism', 229), if he does not and can not himself follow this dictum. Logical empiricist epistemology does not undermine metaphysics, but rather scientific philosophy itself. We see this all the more as we now turn to some of the most fundamental scientific proclamations specifically relevant to the mind-body issue. Feigl's Essay clearly concerns itself with the identification of referents, existents, and is hence a problem in ontology. As much as the metaphysics of being qua being has been ridiculed as an empty, or meaningless endeavor, Feigl requires his own definitions. All the issues regarding 'multivocalism' versus 'univocalism' are not touched upon by Feigl, and in any event cannot be decided by the scientific method. But as perhaps all empiricists (usually after vehemently insisting that existence is not a predicate at all), Feigl provides this definition: '"To exist" means simply to be the object of a true, uniquely descriptive statement.. . (on a sensory evidential basis)' (Essay, 111 ;cf. 'Physicalism', 239). But one of Feigl's most fundamental premises cannot exist at all in view of this same premise, as I defy anyone any time to show me what sensory evidence can be shown for this tenet itself. I have never observed existence itself, nor the connecting link (Kant's 'third something') which synthetically joins existence to some sense datum. Feigl at best could reply that his definition is analytic - but the analytic (it is claimed) does not necessarily apply to the world, and the nature of the world is in question here. Also, there is nothing to stop me from analyzing my views on these problems, a procedure which would yield different results, while the justification for my conclusions could hardly be worse.

The impossibility of proving referential identity

113

It is perhaps of some interest to note that Feigl's physicalist definition of existence is quite like the Marxist-Leninist account of matter. Any Marxist text will repeat the definition of Lenin that the sole property of matter is the property of being objective reality, existing outside consciousness, given to us in sensation. Of course, even consciousness is material for Marxists, as for Feigl. Characteristically, however, while Marxists talk much of 'natural science confirming the truth of Dialectical Materialism', this 'truth' likewise cannot be discontinued, as the starting point is a philosophical fiat, outruling counter-evidence. The analytically minded C. D. Broad at least recognized the a priori nature of these questions, although his method for solving them cannot be deemed satisfactory either: 'The notion of Physical Object cannot have been abstracted from the data of sense. It is a Category, and is defined by Postulates' {Mind, 220). We all employ first principles, and if these are to be mere 'postulates', then this claim is unconditioned. But if the claim is unconditioned, absolute, why need we remain with mere 'postulates' at all? As Plato said we must already know what Truth is, in order to say something is true or false, so Descartes pointed out: When I stated that this proposition / think, therefore I am is the first and most certain which presents itself to those who philosophize in orderly fashion, I did not for all that deny that we must first of all know what is knowledge, what is existence, and what is certainty, and that in order to think we must be, and such

like ('Descartes', 133). Leibniz and Hegel of course espouse similar positions. And as Popper puts it, 'the very idea of error - and of fallibility - involves the idea of an objective truth as the standard of which we may fall short' (Conjectures and Refutations, 229). To the well known and presently oft-repeated dictum of Hume, 'Abstract reasonings cannot decide any question of fact or existence' ('Hume', 182), the rationalist therefore replies thus: Fellow searchers for truth, you cannot even decide what constitutes fact or existence without abstract reasoning. How this abstract reasoning then is to be analytic you empiricists must leave God to explain, for you have not even bothered to examine it thoroughly, and you are certainly not friendly towards those rationalists who wish to do so. The ' "physical"' Feigl at times characterizes 'by its spatio-temporalcausal structure' (Essay, 54). But it does not take much to show that the exact nature of space, time and causality can only be determined by the

114

Objections on methodological grounds

metaphysician. I will proceed to examine causality in some detail now, and treat space and time in the next section. But qualifications and additions for all of these are made in more suitable contexts. Ever since Bacon and Descartes allegedly insisted on the complete sway of efficient causality, it has become 'unscientific' to introduce any other type of cause. Yet that man of history was right who said that 'history is a fable agreed upon'. Descartes never denied the mind final causality, nor, as we will see, could he in fact do without final causality for material events. And Bacon explicitly stated: Physic should contemplate that which is inherent in matter and therefore transitory, and Metaphysic that which is abstracted and fixed...; the one part, which is Physic, enquireth and handleth the Material and Efficient Causes; and the other, which is Metaphysic, handleth the Formal and Final Causes (Advancement, 255 \cf. 260). Final causality is often said to be an illegitimate extrapolation from the mind of man to nature. But this very statement is already an admission that at least the human mind experiences final causality. And indeed, I am immediately aware of the given data that I can act consciously, purposively, intentionally, that I can activate the goals I have set myself, and that I can control myself to some extent, and therefore act voluntarily. I cannot directly will to speed up my heart beat (although I can run, drink coffee), but I can raise my arm upon my self-command. And even if there is no teleology in the physical universe, what more conclusive evidence could empiricists ask for than this immediate awareness in the case of mind? If physical events are independent of final causality, then only all the more must the characteristics of mind differ from those of matter. In man, soul becomes conscious of itself, and so gives the law to itself. Yet just because we are conscious of our ends, whereas stones and probably animals are not, it surely is as yet not proven that the latter objects do not have ends, apart from being conscious of them. As Nobel laureate Monod puts the mechanist contention in a work which caused great popular stir, The cornerstone of the scientific method is the postulate that nature is objective. In other words, the systematic denial that 'true' knowledge can be got at by interpreting phenomena in terms of final causes - that is to say, of 'purpose' ... Science as we understand it today ... required the unbending stricture implicit in the postulate of objectivity - ironclad, pure, forever undemonstrable. For it is

The impossibility of proving referential identity

115

obviously impossible to imagine an experiment which could prove the nonexistence anywhere in nature of a purpose, of a pursued end (Chance and Necessity, 21; cf. 3, 9,165,173-180). Monod admits that this 'cornerstone of scientific method' does not rest upon any 'experiment,' and to say that it rests upon a 'postulate' which is 'ironclad' is indicative of the fact that scientism is not prepared to honestly examine its own metaphysical base: 'objective knowledge is the only authentic source of truth' (169),papa locuta est, causa finita. With such ill foundations for his enterprise, it is not surprising that Monod's attempt to prove by means of science that man is nothing but a product of chance genetic mutations after disciplined examination proves to be a bundle of contradictions and confusions. Of course, anything which gives free reign to the lowliest aspects of man is likely to win the acclaim of the many these days - but it does not necessarily advance truth, and certainly not the good or beautiful. Feigl puts the contention of physicalism as follows: 'Animistic or irreducibly teleological explanations are quite clearly excluded - if not as scientifically meaningless, than certainly as superfluous' ('Physicalism', 266; cf. Essay, 108). Even Kant dared to use teleology only as a 'heuristic', 'as if', 'pragmatic' fiction, while at the same time in fact demonstrating in the 'Transcendental Analytic' that efficient causality is just as metaphysical. Perhaps with the exception of our own volitions, we may certainly follow Hume to the effect that we do not externally observe more than constant conjunction. Yet these same people who accept Hume's critique of causality and induction as final, as Hume himself, Mill, Russell, or Feigl, are determinists in the sense of upholding the doctrine 'same cause, same effect', and maintain that all events in the universe are in principle predictable, and could not be otherwise. As is a commonplace, 'scientific method presupposes the immutability of natural processes, or the "principle of the uniformity of nature"' (Popper, Logic, 252). But surely, there can be little doubt that Hume's chief point on causality was precisely that temporally distinct events are only contingently related. Whence then, the 'must', 'could not be otherwise', 'predictability in principle' of determinism? And by the way, it will be remembered that Aristotle on occasion identified formal and final causality, since if everything follows a plan, it ipso facto is led to a certain end. If there is a universal sway of laws (formal causality in Aristotle's world), then it may well be those laws which determine the predictable end or goal. Teleology is not opposed to prediction;

116 Objections on methodological grounds but doubts already arise whether predictability can be explained apart from formal and final causality - precisely the explanatory principles predictability is supposed to replace. Feigl clarifies the position he adopts as follows: By 'physical determinism' I mean, of course, that degree of precise and specific in-principle-predictability that even modern quantum physics would allow as regards the macro-and some of the micro-processes in organisms (Essay, 10). But the universal sway of the latter doctrine, which Feigl takes to be a chief trait of the 'physical', simply could not possibly be observed. 'Determinism', the physicist von Weizsäcker admits, 'is not a matter of experience' (Nature, 12). On the other hand, determinist Russell himself says: 'As an empiricist, I hold that laws of nature should be inferred inductively from particular facts' (Human Knowledge, 188). Similarly, Feigl writes: 'There is, as I see it, no test for causal necessity over and above the tests for regularity' (Essay, 97). But determinism as above explicated is then employed to force the conclusion that if any sensed pattern does not conform to this tenet, we do not as yet know about the given. How could the reign of law, the necessity, universality, and omnipresence of laws be something which is 'inferred' from the empirical? Again and again we are told that Mill's 'solution' to the problem of induction by universal laws of causation is either circular or self-contradictory; still, these scientists then appeal to an argumentum ad ignorantiam in order to uphold a determinism which on their own epistemology they could not possibly establish. And if anything is given as a counterexample to determinism, then they point to a 'disturbing cause', the existence of which they do not know, so that determinism can always be 'supported' by that argumentum ad ignorantiam or ad hoc hypothesis. Sir Karl Popper is again the lonely figure in contemporary philosophy who recognizes the metaphysical nature of some of the most basic tenets of science. 'The laws of nature are no more reducible to observation statements than metaphysical utterances.' 'Every law transcends experience which is merely another way of saying that it is not verifiable'; for every law potentially has an infinite number of instantiations, and such an infinite number is unobservable. The question whether 'the world' is 'ruled by strict laws or not... I regard as metaphysical'; thus also 'the belief in causality is metaphysical.' Nonetheless, 'scientific theories are universal statements' (Logic, 313,424,247, 248, 59).

The impossibility of proving referential identity

117

We have seen already how metaphysics is criticized by philosophers of Feigl's persuasion on the ground of its non-confirmability (as if the proposition, not itself resting on any observation, that the only confirmation basis is empirical, is therewith proven, instead of begged). Yet they ask us to wait patiently until their own pet metaphysical theories, such as the identity theory of mind, is proven by empirical methods, while at the same time they already throw out any counter-evidence as indicating inadequate knowledge. But when it comes to undermining morality, these things look different. If we observe the actual practice of that idol of analysts, we note that Hume's rejection of miracles conflicts with his view of the openness of inductive evidence, and that 'reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions' flies into the face of the observed facts. And after undermining faith in revelation in every possible way, Hume masquerades a sham piety when writing on issues as immortality. In his words, 'Nothing could set in a fuller light the infinite obligations which mankind have to Divine revelation, since we find that no other medium could ascertain this great and important truth' ('Hume', 188). But perhaps Hume is consistent after all - reason certainly is the slave of his passions. Still, I maintain it ought not to be; a causal, historical or genetic account is not the same as a justification. Anyone who prizes consistent thought and intellectual integrity cannot admire this performance. Even the nature and scope of efficient causality is a metaphysical question, and so is whether there is a place for any other type of causality. Leibniz and Hegel are among the few modern philosophers who accepted teleology even for physical events, and this position I strongly endorse, as will be shown in some detail later. But notwithstanding the almost religious taboo of teleology, I do not see why teleology is incompatible even with scientific method. Is not the introduction of any entity of any kind legitimate, as long as it is tied in to the sensuously given? So indeed runs one of the main dicta of scientific method, but in the case of causality, unfounded prejudices prevail. Or rather, one prejudice is pitted against another - Heisenberg, Eddington, Born regard indeterminism in quantum mechanics as ultimate; Planck and Einstein deny this. These physicists therewith only show that their science is simply incapable of settling this problem. The argumentation between the two camps does not reach a very high level either. 'God does not play dice' is Einstein's well known reply to Heisenberg. 'This probability function', so Heisenberg explains his uncertainty

118

Objections on methodological grounds

principle, 'represents a mixture of two things, partly a fact and partly our knowledge of a fact' (Physics and Philosophy, 45). Yet as I have already argued in some detail, the world, or facts, precede and determine our knowledge of facts, and if we cannot get at the facts, we cannot have knowledge; the uncertainty therefore lies in our knowledge, not in the world. Surely the very state of affairs that an act of observation itself always changes subatomic events is a mere practical difficulty, and is a datum of givenness which only points into the deterministic direction that whenever there are such causes, there are such and such effects ('same cause, same effect'). Heisenberg is well aware of the existence of 'ideal experiments' (36) in physics; why not employ them in quantum theory? For reasons I will not enter in detail here, I think quantum theory does not prove the indeterminacy or unpredictability of sub-atomic events; it seems highly probable that all micro- as well as macro-events in nature are strictly determined. In general, I join Max Planck in maintaining that 'I have not been able to find the slightest reason, up to now, which would force us to give up the assumption of a strictly law-governed universe.' The epistemological difficulties which have arisen in the sphere of theoretical physics through the development of the quantum theory seem to be due to the fact that the bodily eye of the measuring physicist has been identified with the spiritual eye of the speculative scientist. As matter of fact, the bodily eye, being part of the physical process of nature itself, is the object rather than the subject of scientific exploration (Science, 100,95). Do these propositions conflict with the contention that - as I will proceed to outline - 1 think man to be free? No, man is precisely something more than physical nature, and an arbitrary course of nature would make human freedom impossible, not support it; if there is no lawful physical universe, the human will cannot rely that his intentions affect his body, or are actualized in the world. Nor does determinism contradict finalism, but rather implies it. Feigl's 'solution' to the free will puzzle is a further illustration of empiricist philosophy achieving its 'success' by unwittingly clinging to certain metaphysical doctrines, while ignoring or repudiating others. Writes Feigl: 'The perennial confusions underlying the freewill perplexity, truly a scandal in philosophy, have been brilliantly exposed by empiricist philosophers' (Essay, 15). This 'solution' consists in the old line, apparently

The impossibility of proving referential identity

119

began by Hobbes, that freedom is not incompatible with determinism, since liberty properly signifies absence of external constraint, and as long as my feelings determine the will, I am thus free, though my actions are predictable. Our law-courts must be making a grave mistake, for children and lunatics are most impelled by their own feelings, yet they are considered the least free. These 'empiricist philosophers' ignore that there is internal as well as external constraint, that if all my actions are dependent upon some prior cause, they cannot be attributed to 'me' at all (since they began before my physical existence), that freedom also means self-determination, that things in addition must be able to be otherwise in order to be free, that there are different types of causality, that reason need not conform to the rule 'same cause, same effect', as feelings indeed do. An action to be free must be conscious, purposive, follow open alternative choices; and it by no means follows, as empiricist philosophers always maintain, that because it could be otherwise it need be arbitrary, or because it is not mechanically caused, it is not caused at all. I think it safe to predict that the vast majority of people will not commit willful suicide, although it is certainly within the power of almost everyone. I also think it safe to predict that the crime rate in the United States in the coming years will again rise more than five times the population increase, and that 'poverty' and 'cultural deprivation', instead of lack of morality, will be assigned as the causal factors; yet I still, and I think consistently, deny deterministic necessity for these events. And surely almost anyone must consider himself on safe ground to predict that some outstanding mathematicians will never make a mistake when they add two plus two; yet there is no necessity in this, notwithstanding the fact that no counterexamples are found. On the contrary, human freedom directly involves a large degree of predictability; a completely 'unpredictable' person is even popularly not considered to be rational, and hence not free. Since feelings, as opposed to reason, are not in my control at all, a person completely determined by his feelings is judged as not free and hence not responsible. As a matter of fact, the great majority of our choices day by day could be predicted with great success without even opening our heads, by anyone who knows us sufficiently well; but it never occurs to us to question our responsibility for them on these grounds (MacKay, 'MacKay', 396). Foreknowledge of an event does not imply its inevitability: it implies that

120

Objections on methodological grounds

an event will in fact occur, not that it will necessarily occur; a person can be free to choose from several alternatives, while in fact always choosing one. Pace Kant, universality and necessity are not equivalent: something can in fact always happen, yet need not necessarily happen: thus some people in fact always smoke after dinner, but are not forced or compelled to smoke - they could do otherwise. Determinism of all human thought and action not only makes morality impossible, it makes Feigl's science impossible. For what scientific objections could he bring to a rationalist as myself, if it were true that all my philosophical views are determined. At best a physicalist could observe that my mental associations (or neural synapses) are different from his, but between the Tightness, truth, validity, propriety of our conflicting claims he could not make a decision. For ex hypothesi my outlooks are as much a result of natural laws as his. Norms are as much in science, and if there is no free will in the sense of could be otherwise, one cannot establish the prescriptive as epistemologically independent of, and still less (as it should be) predominating over, the descriptive ('no ought from an is'). As propagandists well know, the 'laws of association' of Hume and the Mills make up a large part of the human psyche, but if there is no more present than those laws, prejudice cannot be distinguished from science. Hume's Treatise is sheer prejudice on Hume's own account. ' N o connexions among distinct existences are ever discoverable by human understanding. We only feel a connexion or determination of the thought, to pass from one object to another' (Treatise, I, 559). And it should not be forgotten that logical positivists share Hume's view completely on this; only logic and mathematics are excepted, and these are deemed analytic. What I would like to designate as 'the first law of propaganda' has been formulated thus by J. S. Mill: When we have often seen and thought of two things together, and have never in any one instance either seen or thought of them separately, there is by the primary law of association an increasing difficulty, which may in the end become insuperable, of conceiving the two things apart (Logic, Bk. II, Ch. V, §6). Clarence Darrow used to argue that his clients were not responsible for their actions, as they were determined. He however conveniently failed to tell his juries the not very flattering inference that his deterministic views were just as determined, and that the twelve and the judge could not make responsible decisions. Far from being the associationist he is often

The impossibility of proving referential identity

121

made out to be, Locke had this to say about that process: There is scarce a man so free from it but that if he should always, on all occasions argue or do as in some cases he constantly does, would not be thought fitter for Bedlam than civil conversation [Bedlam was the insane asylum of London] (Human Understanding, 315). If every mental, or better, brain event is physiologically determined (the view of physicalists), then, as James put it, 'Scientific theories are organically conditioned just as much as religious emotions are' ('James', 209). Socrates already refuted Protagoras in this fashion in Plato's Theatetus, yet I have never seen this argument answered by anyone. If this is just an oversight of mine, where is the answer to the self-refutation argument to be found? It is certainly a strange paradox, that I, as a rationalist, take into account the given observation of being directly aware that / (i.e., the pure ego, to be explicated later) am in control of my will, and that I do have alternative choices. A physicalist cannot wiggle his liver, but it is very much to be hoped that it is in his power to write certain sentences by moving his fingers, or put down alternative ones by making decisions in his mind (brain, if he prefers). These are given data to be explained, while supposed empiricists explain them away by a metaphysics which is selfrefuting. In the name of 'science', deterministic theories such as Freud's are venerated, when Freud's theories on his own account can largely give us only the effects of his peculiar childhood experiences, buried in his unconscious. 'Freedom of the will is a primary fact of experience, and... the formulation of the problem arising from this experience should be the inverse of its usual statement.' This is not to deny that 'by far the greater part of our behaviour is not controlled by conscious decisions "freely made". There are all levels of control from deliberate decisions, to the semi-automatic with operation of sub-routines of behaviour, to fully automatic routines' (Eccles, Facing Reality, 163 ;cf. 118-120). And the type of freedom here discussed I attribute only to humans. Not only in the case of the free will issue, but in general scientific ones as well, it is a widespread prejudice that only mechanism allows predictability. According to Feigl, 'The opposition against vitalism... stems from a reluctance to admit defeat as regards predictability' {Essay, 17). But as we have already seen, and as we will enter again still later, it is inductive empiricism which cannot explain the strict rule of causal law; nous, logos,

122

Objections on methodological grounds

forms, entelechies, world spirit, all mental entities, have been used to account for the order of the material world, certainly not to deny it. Just as much as one billiard ball does not hit another without getting a push from the cue, which is carefully aimed, so in nature material particles do not get into order by themselves. There certainly is a large scope for predictability in the universe, but monists as Feigl leave this unaccounted for, not dualists. (And all this is done in the face of the chief aim of scientists : 'Scientists are predominately interested in enlarging the scope of predictive explanations': Essay, 17.) A Humean conception of causality rules out even transmission of force, so that no reason whatever is provided why one event should follow another, accepting for the moment the exclusive sway of efficient causality. And as Leibniz well knew, the particular links in a causal chain, and the existence as well as the direction of the whole chain, are distinct entities. What I find again nothing less than appalling is that Newtonian mechanics, that model of all successive determinists, never really maintained that efficient causality is the only existing type. As every sophomore knows, when Napoleon asked Laplace what the position of God was in his mechanical system, Laplace replied, 'Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse.' Laplace, as almost any other mechanist, cannot however have read Newton very carefully, nor have they made additions significant enough to warrant them to differ in fundamentals. Newton himself, in contradistinction to the numerous perversions of Newton, explicitly insists : It is not to be conceived that mere mechanical causes could give birth to so many regular motions ... This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being ... This Being governs all things, not as soul of the world, but as Lord over all. 'We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final causes' (Mathematical Principles, 444,446). Surely even in the science of mechanics, if the general laws of mechanics are not known, we cannot predict the individual events which are covered (and, in order to make them necessary, molded or determined) by those laws. And if there are additional laws covering biological events, then we cannot predict biological events merely by employing laws of mechanics. Everything lawful is in principle predictable, though without knowledge of the laws, cannot in fact be predicted. Notwithstanding the

The impossibility of proving referential identity

123

attribution of Feigl, vitalists do not (or ought not to) claim that biological events are unpredictable, only that we cannot predict such events merely by employing the laws of mechanics, or that we cannot predict peculiar compositional events before we know their laws. How could an empiricist who is also a determinist speak of a 'law' at all? With my eyes I see light and extended color patches, but I do not touch, hear, smell, or taste any laws. Feigl himself points out: 'Russell and Schlick were essentially right in saying that we have merely knowledge by ("structural") description of the "physical world" ' (Postscript, 142). Russell's 'logical constructions out of sensa data' are almost pitifully vague entities - how this can be done at all with a supposedly analytic logic, when the world is asserted to be synthetic, is inexplicable to me. But Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, and Hegel were already clearer when they said we had knowledge of form only. All we can know are certain organizations and relations; raw matter is unknowable. It is materialists who attribute the greatest (better, only) reality to some unknown substance, not idealists. And since Russell's logic is itself a priori, the structures which are said to make up science are in no way sensed, nor even in principle sensible. One certainly cannot blame Kant for maintaining that Only that whose certainty is apodictic can be called science proper; cognition which can contain merely empirical certainty is only improperly called knowledge ... A rational doctrine of nature, then, deserves the name of natural science only if the natural laws that underlie it are cognized a priori and are not mere laws of experience (Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde, 468; my translation). If one looks at what Kant's model, Newton, actually does in Principia Mathematica, and is not misled by the incense Newton allegedly there burns for empiricism, then the following assertion of Kant is not out of place: 'I do claim that in every specific doctrine of nature only so much science proper can be found as there is mathematics in it' (Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde, 470; my translation). Mathematics and logic of course are a priori for logical empiricists as well, and Feigl amplifies what Russell never tired of saying: 'I grant the abstract, unvisualizable character of most physical concepts, classical or modern' ('Comment', 569). This is certainly an improvement over the arch-empiricist Mach's attacks upon Archimedes's a priori laws of the lever. But it is still not a recognition that the latter are not just a priori but synthetic. And in view of the fact that Feigl grants 'the abstract, unvisualizable character of most physical con-

124 Objections on methodological grounds cepts', his aforementioned empiricist dicta are therewith repudiated by himself. The 'unvisualizable' is by definition not 'publicly perceivable'; and since matter (as defined by me, and in the foregoing section evidently by Feigl) is in fact publicly perceivable, Feigl ends up with a strange form of'materialism 'indeed. Mathematics deals with the most general structure of the world; and that a priori mathematics, with its perfect, non-spatial and non-temporal entities, is almost immediately seen to be non-physical. And notwithstanding the fact that physics a la Kant is the anathema of contemporary scientific philosophers, the modern scientists they profess to follow make similar pronouncements. Heisenberg expressly insists that 'the concepts of the general laws must in natural science be defined with complete precision, and this can be achieved only by means of mathematical abstraction' {Physics and Philosophy, 172). And the embarrassing problem for logical empiricists which arises here can be posed thus: if the basic scientific laws are mathematical, how can you claim mathematics to be a priori analytic, since you also view the laws of nature as a posteriori synthetic? In fact, in the words of one of the greatest mathematicians and natural scientists of all time, 'it is the glory of geometry that from those few principles, brought from without, it is able to produce so many things' (Newton, Nature, 10); and the production of 'many things' from 'few principles' is a synthetic process. And there can be no doubt that frequently, 'a mathematical formula... expresses the law of the phenomenon' (Lecomte du Noiiy, Knowing and Believing, 102). In Our Knowledge of the External World, Russell said that all cognitive endeavours are solvable by empirical science, and insofar as the latter cannot treat them, they are not matters of knowledge. 'The logicalanalytical method in philosophy' is 'something perfectly definite, capable of embodiment in maxims, and adequate, in all branches of philosophy, to yield whatever objective scientific knowledge it is possible to obtain' (vii). As if it were true that we could actually obtain the epistemological and ontological status of the external world from sensations or analyses. If we analyze error, we get the bricks or simpler components of error; if we analyze truth, analysis cannot tell us that we begin with truth at all. Let us turn now to a for the thesis of physicalism crucial example of what is established by means of that 'scientific method'. In various publications, right down to his last serious philosophical work, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), Russell insisted that 'A piece of matter, in my opinion, is a set of events' (Human Knowledge, 502-503). On his own ac-

The impossibility of proving referential identity

125

count, Russell was influenced here by Whitehead. And indeed, Whitehead has much to say about 'events' in Science and the Modern World and Process and Reality. Whitehead professed to adapt metaphysics to scientific findings. The relevant 'discoveries' here are Planck's quantum theory and Einstein's theory of relativity. That quantum theory does not establish ontological propositions we have already noted, and similar things will be shown in the next section for relativity theory. The 'cognitive foundation' for these ontological propositions therefore does not exist. As analysts however frequently condemn Whitehead's later works as metaphysical extravaganzas, let me again turn more closely to the more 'sober-minded', 'analytic' Russell. The contention was already expressed in his 'Logical Atomism', and it is the clearest I can find: Bits of matter are not among the bricks out of which the world is built. The bricks are events, and bits of matter are portions of the structure to which we find it convenient to give separate attention (37). We note that if events, whatever they are, are not the same as matter, then we cannot maintain an ontological materialism of any sort, or any kind of monism. Secondly, exactly what are these 'events', and how are they related to matter? I have examined our authors with some thoroughness and have come to the conclusion that I cannot even conceive their view, as they have not worked out the problem themselves. (But if any reader understands the exact nature of events better than I, I would be very grateful if he were to let me in on his insights.) Both Whitehead and Russell think that their notion of 'event' has refuted what they call the AristotelianCartesian idea of substance or substratum. But according to my conceptions, there can be no material event without matter, i.e., a substratum, being in locomotion; nor can there be mental events without some mental 'stuff' or terms, i.e., a spiritual substratum, being related. In The Analysis of Matter Russell has it this way: A piece of matter is a logieal structure composed of events; the causal laws of the events concerned, and the abstract logical properties of their spatio-temporal relations, are more or less known, but their intrinsic character is not known (384). If the reader thinks these assertions are more 'scientific' than the 'metaphysical' conceptions of matter by Aristotle, I would like to know the reasons. Yet not infrequently do we run across the assertion that the

126

Objections on methodological grounds

substratum view has been refuted because 'science' had proven it so. Why should 'their intrinsic character' be not a substratum? Locke for one certainly defined such an 'unknown x' as a substratum. And just as much as Feigl rules out the existence of the mental from a concept of physical which on his own admission is not clear, Russell writes soon after the above quotation: 'I conclude, then, that there is no good ground for excluding percepts from the physical world, but several strong reasons for including them' (384). We have just seen that if events are not the same as matter, then monism is refuted; using the word 'physical world' for both sides of the disparity, and including therein 'percepts', certainly does not solve substantial problems. Is my inability to make heads or tail out of Russell's 'Present View of the World' that 'Matter has had to be replaced by series of events' (Development, 16, 17) based on ignorance of the wonderful revelations of modern science? The formulators of quantum and relativity theory not only do not support Russell's contentions, but at times specifically insist upon the opposite. In the first place, it is well to remember that Planck's hypothesis of light quanta or photons is only one view of the nature of light, the old corpuscular theory revived - and corpuscles are tiny bits of matter. The wave theory of light still accounts for certain phenomena better, and railing against the existence of some 'ether' will not explain how waves can move without some underlying medium. This unfinished explanation of the nature of light is similar to the persisting puzzle about the electron: 'The electron behaves like a particle when moving in an external electric or magnetic field. It behaves like a wave when diffracted by a crystal' (Einstein, Physics, 279). It is upon unsolved scientific perplexities such as these that Russell seeks to establish his scientific metaphysics no wonder that it is incomprehensible. And if waves be deemed what Russell calls events, I find nowhere in Einstein support for the view that there does not have to be some substratum for events; on the contrary, 'Every wave must have a material medium in which it travels' (Physics, 106). And Heisenberg expressly repudiates Russell's whole program: If one wished to express our modern experience in the language of older philosophies, one could consider mass and energy as two different forms of the same 'substance' and thereby keep the idea of substance as indestructible (Physics and Philosophy, 119). Turning now again more specifically to Feigl's identity theory (I do,

The impossibility of proving referential identity

127

however, consider Russell also a phy sicalist, on the basis of explicit evidence to be provided later), I will end this section by showing that a further most fundamental tool of Feigl is metaphysical, and badly so. For Feigl, The scientific evidence for parallelism or isomorphism is ... interpreted as the empirical basis for the identification. The step from parallelism to the identity view is essentially a matter of philosophical interpretation. The principle of parsimony as it is employed in the sciences contributes only one reason in favor of monism. If isomorphism is admitted, the dualistic (parallelistic) position may be retained, but no good grounds can be adduced for such a duplication of realities, or even of 'aspects' of reality (Essay, 94). Yet how can parallelism or isomorphism ever establish a referential identity, since they rule that out by virtue of sense or intension. For as we have seen from my treatment of the problem of the relationship between sense and reference: two senses qualitatively dissimilar cannot ever refer to numerically the same denotatum. More particularly, 'parallelism' and 'isomorphism' differ in sense from 'numerical identity', consequently no correct 'philosophical interpretation' can ever make them refer to anything in the world which is strictly identical rather than parallel or isomorphic. Furthermore, if the 'correspondence is empirically ascertained' (Essay, 104), then even according to scientific method, Ockham's razor cannot overrule observed differences, which are 'ultimate'. The reply could be that disparities are not observed; but my answer will be just as simple they are, as I will further show in considerable detail. And if the differences were not observed or observable, Feigl could never speak of the empirical, synthetic, contingent identification he stresses so often. Why, even in pure mathematics, we often treat of parallel lines or isomorphic structures, but this is no warrant for any identification. If there is a testable, empirical correlation of the nature of parallelism (something I have shown already to be in principle impossible), then still no amount of 'interpretation' could identify them (and that 'interpretation' could not be analytic). But if there is no empirical correlation, then again in no sense whatever is Feigl's thesis an empirical one. He would then have to compete in what he calls 'the limbo of speculative metaphysics' (Essay, 3), which is indeed a 'limbo' from his point of view, as he does not have the epistemological tools to work in the field. In any event, what is Ockham's razor, with which scientists in fact almost legislate the world. If it is used as a constitutive principle of the

128

Objections on methodological grounds

universe, then the limits of science are transgressed into metaphysics; if it is a heuristic device or regulative principle, then it can be put into question by appeal to empirical evidence. And the principle has been already so questioned, and there is every reason to think that it is in fact mistaken. For there are two parts to Ockham's razor, namely (1) frustra fit per plura quod per paucoria potest fieri, and (2) entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. Now, the second part is empirically disconfirmed. If entities are not to be multiplied, why is it a fact that we do find such multiplication in astronomy; why did the whirling fireball of the Kant-Laplace hypothesis ever differentiate; why do we find diffusion in geology into countless types and subformations of rocks, and the same holds for plant and animal life; why, in short, is evolution a fact? Leibniz anticipated nature much better - he approved the first edge of the blade, saying there are a minimum of laws, but rejected the latter entirely, claiming there is a maximum number of entities (compatible with the most economical arrangement). Looking at nature in its entirety, then, there is every reason for saying that mind is different from matter. 'All life in the universe, on a scale large or small, is the evolution of forms of ever greater differentiation, enclosed between the original chaos and the hardening of the end' (von Weizsäcker, Nature, 92). The dogmatic use of Ockham's razor is of course already loaded in favor of physicalism, for no one denies, but everyone emphasizes, that both the form and content of physics are the simplest among the natural sciences. Yet Bacon already well elicited the real foundation for the position of physicalists - simple-minded prejudice: 'The spirit of man, being an equal and uniform substance, doth usually suppose and feign in nature a greater equality and uniformity than is in truth' (Advancement, 296). More particularly, 'Ockham's razor expresses this: entities that cannot be related to perception even indirectly are unnecessary and not to be introduced' (Wisdom, Inference, 44-45). But each person is directly aware of his own mental events, and onlooker B can relate A's mind to A's behavior which B perceives; consequently Ockham's razor is inapplicable to the mind-body problem. Says Feigl: I am finally going to tackle more specifically and pointedly the question: What is the difference that makes a difference between the parallelism and the identity doctrines? The pragmatist-positivist flavor of this question suggests that it concerns empirical testable differences. But I have already admitted that there are no such differences and that there could not be any, as far as conceivable empiri-

The impossibility of proving referential identity

129

cal evidence is concerned. Is the identity thesis then a piece of otiose metaphysics (Essay, 96-97)? Now, I certainly do not see that Feigl has admitted throughout his Essay that there are no testable differences in the case of empirical identification. 'Only a view which relates phenomenal evidence synthetically to statements about physical objects is ultimately tenable' (Essay, 98). But whether this is so or not (perhaps Feigl's assertions are vague enough to escape my interpretation), in Chapter III I will show that there very much are testable differences, and have already made a start at this in Chapter I. The identity theory is not useless or idle metaphysics, it is wrong metaphysics. The last words I here let have Hegel, who was well acquainted with empirical science, while our recent scientific philosophers heap abuse on him rather than attempt to know the first thing about his philosophy. There is a fundamental delusion in all scientific empiricism. It employs the metaphysical categories of matter, force, those of one, many, generality, infinity, & c.; following the clue given by these categories it proceeds to draw conclusions, and in so doing pre-supposes and applies the syllogistic form. And all the while it is unaware that it contains metaphysics - in wielding which, it makes use of those categories and their combinations in a style utterly thoughtless and uncritical. Newton gave physics an express warning to beware of metaphysics, it is true; but, to his honour be it said, he did not by any means obey his own warning. The only mere physicists are the animals: they alone do not think: while man is a thinking being and a born metaphysician. The real question is not whether we shall apply metaphysics, but whether our metaphysics are of the right kind (Logic, 78,183). But just one moment. Almost the same thing was said by the man in whom 'empiricism has found its prophet': The Empirical school of philosophy gives birth to dogmas more deformed and monstrous than the Sophistical or Rational school. For it has its foundations not in the light of common notions [c/. Hegel's categories], (which though it be a faint and superficial light, is yet in a manner universal, and has reference to many things,) but in the narrowness and darkness of a few experiments. To those therefore who are daily busied with these experiments, and have infected their imaginations with them, such a philosophy seems probable and all but certain; to all men else incredible and vain (Bacon, Novum Organum, 482-483).

130

Objections on methodological grounds

3. The pragmatic, non-ontological nature of science Even though science does rest on metaphysical presuppositions in many respects, it is still true to say that other aspects of scientific methodology ignore or are independent of ontological issues. But psycho-physical monism is an ontological issue. I contend therefore that I am refuting the identity theory with two prongs: insofar as empirical science is tied to metaphysics, physicalists cannot establish those metaphysical foundations themselves; insofar as empirical science is preoccupied with pragmatic results, it has little but confusion to add to the ontological problem at hand. In his oft-reprinted essay 'Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology', R. Carnap distinguished 'internal' from 'external' questions, a demarcation which is similar to the one between 'theory' and 'metatheory': We must distinguish two kinds of questions of existence: first, questions of the existence of certain entities of the new kind within the framework-, we call them internal questions-, and second, questions concerning the existence or reality of the system of entities as a whole, called external questions (Carnap, Meaning, 206). Now, according to Carnap, in the case of internal questions, the type of existence of an entity can be answered from the kind of external framework adopted; yet the ontological implications following from the framework itself are 'a matter of a practical decision concerning the structure of our language' (Meaning, 207). It is to be observed here that the seeming certainty of answers to internal questions is usually all that is stressed, and the fact that all such internal answers as to the nature of reality hang upon pragmatic linguistic considerations is almost always overlooked. Yet we have already amply seen - and Feigl admit - that considerations of linguistic convenience cannot solve problems about the nature of the world. Nonetheless, Carnap's description of the 'solution' (better, dissolution) of ontological issues in empirical science (with its concern for 'fruitfulness') is after all largely a true account; and insofar as science has these pragmatic concerns, the expectation that it can solve the mind-body problem is a vain one. It is a fact that among empirical scientists we have naive realists in perception, critical realists, phenomenalists, and causal theorists, and no man is deemed more or less scientific because he espouses any one of these positions. If perception (perhaps more accurately, sensation) is the ultimate and only basis for judgement of ontological characteristics, then

The impossibility of proving referential identity

131

the following opinion of Hume is surely consistent empiricism and correct: 'As to the notion of external existence, when taken for something specially different from our perceptions, we have already shewn its absurdity' (Treatise, I, 479). In a similar vein, some scientists consider theoretical entities or illata fictions invented by themselves, some as conventions, some pragmatic, heuristic, instrumental devices. Still others think illata are more real than the sensuously given. We find logicists, intuitionists, and formalists among working mathematicians, and yet for all that, actual mathematical practice is little influenced by these conflicting epistemological and ontological positions. All these facts surely point into the direction that most ontological issues are not relevant to the concerns of science. But they imply a further important observation: scientific method (apart from its inescapable tie to metaphysics) cannot establish the ontological status of anything. Science is above all a certain methodology, having as its concern primarily prediction and control, and often but not always describability and explainability. As Feigl has it, 'Scientists are predominantly interested in enlarging the scope of predictive explanations' (Essay, 17). And according to Popper, 'Admittedly it is not incorrect to say that science is "... an instrument" whose purpose is "... to predict from immediate or given experiences later experiences, and even as far as possible to control them"' (Logic, 100). 'Explanatory power' is often simply explicated as predictability (or retrodictability), and without predictability, controllability is impossible as well. It seems an ultimate proposition of science that any kind of entity can be introduced in order to explain given phenomena, i.e. predict them. E. P. Wigner, Nobel laureate in physics, well sums up the attitude of the scientist: The statement that it 'exists' means only that: (a) it can be measured, hence uniquely defined, and (b) that its knowledge is useful for understanding past phenomena and in helping to foresee further events. However, Wigner is well aware of 'the perennial question whether we physicists do not go beyond our competence when searching for philosophical truth'; and his answer is, 'I believe that we probably do' (Symmetries and Reflections, 173, 154-155). The real findings of science consist of mere structure of objects, not the ontological nature of those objects themselves, their form as opposed to their content: 'There is ... a structure

132

Objections on methodological grounds

in the events around us, that is, correlations between the events of which we take cognizance. It is this structure, these correlations, which science wishes to discover' (Wigner, 'Invariance Principles', ix). What happens however only too frequently is that while scientists have certain narrow pragmatic concerns, and castigate rationalists for denying the openness and ultimacy of the given, these same 'empiricists' then turn around and legislate the furniture of the world by means of that same pragmatic methodology. At times Feigl himself recognizes, that even if methodological behaviorism is scientifically fruitful, any ontological conclusion that mental entities do not exist is not therewith warranted (Essay, 62). Nonetheless, as we will shortly see, there are occasions when he commits that same paralogism. Perhaps the most far-reaching of this type of error is the doctrine which has received the label 'operationism'. While Einstein's physics is usually taken as the most important instantiation, P. W. Bridgman is frequently pointed to as the philosophical formulator. In The Logic of Modern Physics, Bridgman explains the doctrine of operationism as follows: The concept of length is... fixed when the operations by which length is measured are fixed: that is, the concept of length involves as much as and nothing more than the set of operations by which length is determined. In general, we mean by any concept nothing more than a set of operations; the concept is synonymous with the corresponding set of operations (5). One wonders what 'operation' Bridgman undertook to determine the synonymous meaning, let alone the veracity, of his own most major premise. And yet, Bridgman's account is not an unfaithful rendering of Einstein's method. Physicalists then ask us to believe that the conclusions which are reached by means of that method are a true picture of reality. 'What the operationists have failed to see is that science by itself has no ontology. An ontology can be read out of physical science only when we are equipped with the necessary interpretative principles' (Yolton, Philosophy of Science, 18). 'Science does not even provide an image of the universe' (Lecomte du Noiiy, Knowing and Believing, 142). The meaning of certain expressions, such as 'scientific truth', can only be taken in a very restricted sense, and not literally as the public so often does. There is no 'scientific truth' in the absolute sense. Ad veritatem per scientiam is an absurdity. There are only certain groups of sensations that, in our experience, have always succeeded each other in the same order and that we believe should iden-

The impossibility of proving referential identity

133

tically succeed each other in a limited future. This is the essence of our scientific truth (Lecomte du Noiiy, Road to Reason, 37-38). Einstein presupposes operational definitions and then claims to establish ontological truths. That he in fact draws this blatant non sequitur should be evident in the following quotation: Our physical space as conceived through objects and their motion has three dimensions, and positions are characterized by three numbers. The instant of an event is the fourth number ... Therefore: The world of events forms a four-dimensional continuum (Einstein, Physics, 207). In order to lay bare the fallaciousness of this inference, I will proceed to bring forward the major premises upon which it rests - premises which at best beg the question against the 'absolutist' views of classical mechanics. The following seem to be the most fundamental premises of Einstein: 'In all mechanical experiments, no matter of what type, we have to determine positions of material points at somje definite time... We must have what we call some frame of reference.' 'The whole of classical mechanics hangs in mid-air since we do not know to which frame it refers.' 'Only relative uniform motion can be observed.' 'It is... contrary to common sense to speak about the motion of only one body. Classical mechanics and common sense disagree violently on this point' (Physics, 156, 157, 171, 210). We may forgive Lenin, who in his Philosophical Notebooks held that matter, motion, space and time are absolutely inseparable, because of the Soviet hero's general philosophical innocence. But we cannot forgive Einstein, who professed to be a student and admirer of Newton. We often see Newton referred to on his dictum hypotheses non jingo, but I have never seen the following warnings of Newton quoted, which appear to be of a very different tone. These assertions clearly preclude any ontological claim which relativity theorists might make for the 'true' nature of space and time. And even as far as hypotheses non fingo is concerned, the dictum could be interpreted as an insistence by Newton that we ought to search for a vera causa, not just one of possibly conflicting explanations of events. In his most famous work, Newton writes: 'In philosophical disquisitions, we ought to abstract from our senses, and consider things themselves, distinct from what are only sensible measures of them.' 'Relative

134

Objections on methodological grounds

quantities are not the quantities themselves, whose names they bear, but those sensible measures of them (either accurate or inaccurate), which are commonly used instead of measured quantities themselves.' They 'defile the purity of mathematical and philosophical truths, who confound real quantities themselves with their relations and vulgar measures' (Mathematical Principles, 19, 21, 22). It is upon such a defilement of the measured with the measure that the 'relativity of simultaneity' rests, though the Greeks had already the distinction at hand. As Popper again rightly insists,'measurements presuppose theories. There is no measurement without a theory and no operation which can be satisfactorily described in non-theoretical terms' (Conjectures and Refutations, 62; cf. Popper, Logic, 106). And in the words of the founder of quantum theory, The ideal aim before the mind of the physicist is to understand the external world of reality. But the means which he uses to attain this end are what are known in physical science as measurements, and these give no direct information about external reality. They are only a register or representation of reactions to physical phenomena. As such they contain no explicit information and have to be interpreted (Planck, Science, 84; cf. 92). More particularly, as Wisdom correctly points out, 'length is not the operation (or operations) of measuring, but something to which measuring refers' (Inference, 83). Ontologically speaking, I take Newton's view of space and time still as the true one, though it is by no means easy to prove, and I will not attempt it here. As St. Augustine wrote in the Confessions, everyone knows what time is - until he is asked. I certainly prefer to be in the company of the Saint, than in that of contemporary scientists with their 'scientific proofs'. For that matter, Einstein himself elsewhere cannot do without the idealizations upon which Newtonian space, time, and motion rest. When it suits his particular purposes (and to hell with consistency!), Einstein seems to have no objection to 'an idealized experiment which cannot be carried out in reality but may well be imagined' (Physics, 281). And even as far as 'pure' observations are concerned, 'you are just misleading yourself if you think that observations in themselves have scientific significance' (Eccles, Facing Reality, 143). Let us now briefly look at the picture of the world which allegedly can be established from these premises: 'Time is determined by clocks, space co-ordinates by rods, and the result of their determination may depend on

The impossibility of proving referential identity

135

the behavior of these clocks and rods when in motion' (Physics, 186). This pragmatic point of view is a mere petitio principii against Newton, and the ontological moves are completely unwarranted. For if a rod contracts when accelerated, or a clock slows down when accelerated (because of inertial pressure, i.e., every body resists a change in its motion), this proves no more than that they contract or slow down. The inference that space and time are ontologically interconnected, and relative, is totally illegitimate. A rod may well be deemed a sensible measuring unit of invisible space, and a clock a sensible measuring unit of externally insensible time; yet a measuring unit, and that which is measured, are not the same. Surely classical mechanics began with an idealized co-ordinate system precisely in order to conform more, not less, to the nature of reality. The three 'confirmations' of relativity theory have really nothing to do with the nature of space and time, but rather with the laws of gravitational attraction. For example, the verified fact that light bends in a gravitational field makes it indeed likely that light has mass. But it can hardly even be concluded that all energy has mass, since the exact nature of light is not as yet clear. And to conclude again from observed instances as the behavior of light that Riemannian geometry applies, in no way proves that space itself is Riemannian. I for one certainly wonder how Einstein of all people could say space is curved, without having a straight line in space to relate it to. But if there is a straight line in space, why say space is curved? 'Our world is not Euclidean. The geometrical nature of our world is shaped by masses and their velocities' (Einstein, Physics, 237). But on what ground can it be legitimately implied that masses and their velocities are all there is to the world; they are not even the same as space and time, or whether they are is at least the question. The inference rather which can be made with safety is that Einstein seeks to bypass certain epistemological problems which Newton expressly held he had surmounted, and that even if Einstein's preference for the convenience of mindless observers is the correct one, the ontological conclusions which are drawn from such pragmatic premises are non sequitur. It ought to be always kept in mind that Einstein is the authority on space, time, the nature and application of geometry, etc., to which all scientific philosophers known to me adjust. It is upon such vague and often fallacious pronouncements that the synthetic a priori nature of geometry is allegedly disproven. And not only questions of theoretical philosophy are thus decided, but practical world-views are said to follow - all the 'time-

136

Objections on methodological grounds

machine' fictions already part of the popular picture of the world (and presently, of course, espoused by physicalism). Who has not heard the fairy tale of the space traveller who came back after what were for him a few years, while hundreds of years have passed on earth? Yet I will not pursue the confusion between pragmatic and ontological truths any further in Einstein. We see only again that philosophy must examine the foundations of science, not build upon them as if they were the deliverances of God. And the old tiresome line, that if scientists cannot prove something, nobody can, or any other such 'pseudo-problem' approach, has already been effectively answered by Bacon: And then whatever any art fails to attain, they ever set it down upon the authority of that art itself as impossible of attainment; and how can art be found guilty when it is judge in its own cause? So it is but a device for exempting ignorance from ignominy (Instauratio, 431). Let us now examine the connection between 'predictability' and ontology. One of the most outstanding of contemporary physicists well states the major premise as well as the conclusion. 'The business of prediction is really the central point of physics. A physical theory is judged by its ability to make predictions' (Frisch, Atomic Physics, 68). Yet when it comes to inferring the ontological status of sub-atomic phenomena after fulfilling this chief aim of science, Frisch expressly insists: 'The wave pattern is not a "real" wave; it is a mathematical construction for making predictions about the probable behavior of the nucleus, on the basis of previous observations' (Atomic Physics, 167). Whether Frisch's view here is correct or not, the ability of natural science to draw ontological conclusions from successful predictions is at least already thrown into serious doubt. Feigl sees the relationship between predictability and the identity theory as follows: If we had completely adequate and detailed knowledge of the neural processes in human brains, and the knowledge of one-one, or at least one-many... correlation laws, then a description of a neural state would be completely reliable evidence (or a genuine criterion) for the occurrence of the corresponding mental state (Essay, 63). But even if we had laws of this type, such an account of the relationship is a possible one if occasionalism, the double aspect theory, parallelism or epiphenomenalism are true, but is unsatisfactory for interactionism. For

The impossibility of proving referential identity

137

on the latter view, mind also initiates actions on matter, and these are not predictable from the observation of neural events, but at best re/rodictable. Predictability, even if successfully employed, by no means indicates any identity. In fact, we cannot predict an identity at all. For if any one x will be some other things in the future, at least its temporal position will be different. It should not be forgotten that empiricists such as Hume and (seemingly) Russell have precluded identity completely for this reason. Or, if any two x's will merge, then surely, if they are material, they cannot make up the same atoms as before, hence are not identical. Also, if we correlate any two series of events, they are not identical by virtue of meaning; but if we do not observe two empirical series, we cannot empirically correlate; and if we empirically correlate, we cannot get a numerical identity. Or, if we are more uncertain about the existence of one correlatum than another, then we cannot identify the more known with the less known. Everything which is known is identical to that same thing which we know, and to nothing else. Even if it were true that the object to which a belief refers is identical with the object of knowledge, we could not know it, because we only believe what we believe, and know what we know. Now we know about introspective events, but we do not therefore even know of the existence of the brain; the latter is some other kind of possible knowledge. Everything is identical to itself. But our internal experiences are not observed to be identical with brain movements, and hence, by the axiom of identity, cannot be identical with it. If science is so concerned with predictability, then surely what we constantly observe is not that is predicts identical, but different things. From the position of the moon I can predict the occurrence of tides, but they are far from the same. Or, if there are electrical activity, a magnetic field, and iron filings, and if the latter two are constant, I can predict the state of iron filings from the type of current introduced. But there is no identity; the intermediate magnetic field is not even observed, only its physical effects. Similarly, musical notation and cuts on a record have a certain correspondence to a symphony, but are far from the same. Furthermore, from the rapidity of movement of molecules in water I can predict the mercury reading on a thermometer, but they are not identical. Or, I can indeed predict with reasonable accuracy the color I will experience from knowing the wavelength of light rays, but this establishes no identity, nor proves that color phenomena are themselves physical. Science no doubt attempts to relate different evidential data in a predictive nexus, but never

138 Objections on methodological grounds identities. If predictability warranted Feigl's employment of Ockham's razor, then the world would come nearer and nearer in nature to the sphere of Parmenides. But in that motionless One, there would be nothing to predict, and no science. As far as scientific methodology is concerned, even in its pragmatic aspects it relates numerical diversities, not identities, and there is no ground whatever for identifying mind and body. Predictability is quite compatible with the following view of H. Bergson. 'In our opinion... the brain is no more than a kind of central telephonic exchange: its office is to allow communication, or to delay it' (Matter and Memory, 44). If I am observing a central telephone exchange, I can tell from where to where something is going, yet the telephone center is in no way the message, nor is the message to be confused with the subscriber. Likewise, we need a material conductor for electricity, but electricity is not the conductor itself, nor is electricity itself obviously material. Then why should mind be? In fact, it is the view of Sherrington that Physiology ... has brought us to the brain as a telephone exchange. All the exchange consists of switches. What we wanted really of the brain was the subscribers using the exchange. The subscribers with their thoughts, their desires, their anticipations, their motives, their anxieties, their rejoicings (Man, 222). But the founder of modern neurophysiology knew too much about his field to pretend that he could find the 'subscribers' - and the general method of research has not changed during the last decades, and it is this same method which physicalists seek to give monopolistic sway. Suppose Feigl's hypothesis is true that if we could predict the detailed chemical structure of a perfume manufactured in Paris in the year 1995, and could likewise predict its neuro physiological effects, we could forecast the fragrance of Nuit d'Amour by 'interpolation or (limited) extrapolation' (Essay, 46). The fact remains that that which is interpolated or extrapolated, the fragrance, we must be initially aware of by acquaintance, and phenomena are not the same as neurophysiological events. And if Feigl's hypothesis is ever to be confirmed or disconfirmed, we must again be directly acquainted with Nuit d'Amour. Feigl himself admits: 'Only the person who experiences the mental state can directly verify its occurrence' (Essay, 63). Not only does predictability not at all remove ontological disparity, we cannot deny the ontological disparity if we are ever going to employ the scientific method. All along, Feigl argues that science can solve the ontological problem of

The impossibility of proving referential identity

139

identification. But when his thesis is in serious difficulty, as the non-spatiality of certain mental events, he moves away even from the view that science can pragmatically deal with or prove something about the world. If by 'physical' we do not understand a kind, type, part, or aspect of reality, but rather a method, language, or conceptual system, then there is no room for a dualistic opposition of mental and physical events or processes, let alone substances (Essay, 43). But in the light of what I have said on the problem of meaning, such a language could not even be meaningful within Feigl's own framework. As Feigl himself emphasizes, Thefirstthesis of physicalism or the thesis of the unity of the language of science is essentially the proposal of a criterion of scientific meaningfulness in terms of intersubjective confirmability ('Physicalism', 227). And even the more extreme empiricism of J. S. Mill conceded: Although, according to the opinion here presented, Definitions are properly of names only, and not of things, it does not follow from this that definitions are arbitrary... Although the meaning of every concrete general name resides in the attributes which it connotes, the objects were named before the attributes (Logic, Bk. I, Ch. VIII, §7). Why, fairy tales no less arrange and rearrange terms or concepts, which in fact do have some actual reference. If the concepts of mind and body differ in sense or connotation (a proposition we have seen Feigl affirmatively stress), then so must their referents differ. But even if it were true that Feigl is not interested in the world at all, from this it does not follow that other people cannot be concerned about it, and that other persons find arbitrary language constructions less interesting than Egyptian hieroglyphics. Should a theory be provable as easily as all that, so can it be disproven. If a language can be constructed at will, then I am able to construct one where there is very much 'room for dualistic opposition'. On the other hand, if the statement quoted first in the foregoing paragraph is an admission that science cannot prove the identity theory about reality, then Feigl has already conceded defeat. Still for my part I am concerned about the actual nature of the universe, and I think the empirical evidence the empiricist Feigl at times seeks to brush aside in part disproves the identity theory. It is ironic that scientific opponents of

140 Objections on methodological grounds metaphysians charge them with dealing with the 'unreal', whereas when the going gets tough, 'scientists' leave the world altogether. And I had thought one of the main empiricist contentions was, that method must adapt itself to the given, the a posteriori. Yet what in practice is frequently done is, that reality is either fixed or abandoned on the basis of a method which has no epistemological foundations whatever. As must already be evident, Feigl in the main wishes to stress that the mind-body problem can be solved by science, and that this is the only way. Not uncharacteristically, there are passages where he himself repudiates this approach. I quote a further one here, lest I be charged with crashing open doors. But of course, the door that purely pragmatic science cannot solve this ontological issue is precisely the one I am striving to see open. If intellectually acute and learned men... discuss seriously the problem as to whether robots really have a mental life (involving thoughts and/or feelings), there must be a question here that clearly transcends the obviously scientific and technological issue as to whether robots can be constructed which in their behavior duplicate all essential features (of course, one must ask: which ones, and how completely?) of human behavior (Essay, 56).

In general, however, it is Feigl's view that 'The available scientific evidence points on the whole strongly in the direction of a monistic solution' ('Physicalism', 254). To this 'available scientific evidence' I now turn, and I will argue that some evidence not only 'points... in the direction' of dualism, but actually establishes dualism with as much certainty as can be asked for from empirical science.

CHAPTER III

Objections to the Identity Theory on Empirical Grounds

A . THE CHIEF TRAITS OF THE MENTAL, LARGELY BASED ON INTROSPECTIVE EVIDENCE

1. The pure ego One occasionally finds the words 'pure ego' in the recent literature, although they indicate a position which tends to be quickly rejected rather than clarified and developed. At times it is referred to as the 'old scholastic view', discarded in modern times. But without exception, I am here concerned with truth, which is independent of who said it, and when. I will therefore call to court the most outstanding traditional views to let them present their case. Let us first have a quick look at contemporary outlooks. C. D. Broad is one of the few people who have gone so far as to provide a useful definition of the pure ego. 'By a Pure Ego I understand a particular existent which is of a different kind from any event; it owns various events, but it is not itself an event' {Mind, 558). Broad rejects the existence of the pure ego, as does Ayer. The substantial ego is 'an entirely unobservable entity' and 'not revealed in self-consciousness' (Ayer, Language, 126). Strawson, after examining the ideas of Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein, concludes: 'So, then, the word "I" never refers to this, the pure subject' ('Persons', 136). Feigl's views are somewhat more moderate than these: Phenomenally, there may or may not be a 'central core', the 'I', in all my experiences. We may admit, following Hume and the later empiricists in the Humean tradition, that there is no distinct element, datum, or impression that could properly be regarded as the self. But it is hard to deny that in the directly given

142 Objections on empirical grounds data and in their succession throughout experienced time, there is a certain feature of centralization, coordination, organization, or integration - the reader may choose whichever term seems most suitable (Essay, 93). 'To have an experience, and to be aware of having it, is a distinction which I think cannot be avoided.' It seems that some sort o f ' "scanning" mechanism' might account for this. Again, for the sake of free will, Feigl admits the possibility of a ' "core" deemed centrally our "self"' {Essay, 50, 113, 22). In my view Feigl points into the right direction, although he does not take the case of the central '"core"' further than above. But as the pure ego most fundamentally is what I call 'mind', I consider myself called to present evidence, especially in the light of denials and counterclaims. And once having ascertained the nature of our substantial soul, I can show it to be different from body. As far as neurophysiological evidence is concerned, we already know that 'there is no "centralization upon one pontifical nerve cell". The antithesis must remain that our brain is a democracy of ten thousand million nerve cells, yet it provides us with a unified experience' (Eccles, Facing Reality, 80). It is often said that the mind-body problem is 'not ancient'. This is not entirely accurate, but it must be confessed that the best of the ancients were not too clear on this issue. Aristotle held the soul to be the 'form of the body' and destructible, although there is an immortal part. These assertions are not only vague, they seem to conflict with the most essential doctrines of Aristotelianism. How can that form be destructible, if we are so often also told that both forms and matter are eternal. But again, how can the forms be eternal, if they are in rebus, which change and decay. Yet if the forms are not separable, how can there be an immortal part? I already stop sorting out contradictions here only because I could go so much further. The Medieval tradition basing itself on Aristotle is only worse than this, and if the seventeenth century philosophers could not make sense out of 'substantial forms', I do not blame them. One could heap great praise on Plato's view on the soul, if one interprets him charitably and develops his views further. Plato certainly is a stronger dualist than Aristotle, although the Academy did not think that the human soul is a form. Soul is always extolled over body; the soul is immortal (according to fallacious and unconvincing proofs); but its exact ontological nature I cannot ascertain in the works of Plato, and I doubt whether anyone else can.

The chief traits of the mental

143

As we read in recent behavioristic attacks, it was Descartes who started the 'myth' of the 'ghost in the machine'. According to Descartes, 'my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking thing (or a substance whose whole essence or nature is to think)' ('Descartes', 132). As I understand Descartes, he held that the mind is a process. Although in the case of res externa - recalling the melting wax of the Meditations - Descartes was of the opinion that there is a substratum underlying change, he does not seem to think that there is one in the case of res cogitans. For that reason too he insisted that 'the mind always thinks'. I do not find that he has produced a good reason for this disparity, and for my part I remain with the more 'scholastic view' that there is a mental permanent as well as a process. The contexts of Hume and Kant are however better occasions for providing my reasons. Strongly influenced by Descartes, Locke was of this opinion: 'This may show us wherein personal identity consists: not in the identity of substance, but... in the identity of consciousness' ('Locke', 161). This amounts to the view that personal identity consists in memory. The paradoxical consequence is that if I do not remember an event, I did not exist - and this Locke had to accept. Butler provided a poignant reply: One should really think it self-evident, that consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot constitute, personal identity; any more than knowledge, in any case, can constitute truth, which it presupposes ('Butler', 167). And the following observation of Leibniz must surely be granted. We cannot say 'that personal identity and even the self do not dwell in us and that I am not this ego which has been in the cradle, under pretext that I no more remember anything of all that I then did' {New Essays, 246). Leibniz insisted too that 'it is in the consciousness of self that we perceive substance'; this I accept; but I reject the view which Leibniz had of that substance itself (which is, by the way, only one of several incompatible ones): 'I am of the opinion of those who believe that the soul always thinks, although often its thoughts are too confused and too feeble for it to be able to distinctly remember them' (New Essays, 24). The unconscious events (petites perceptions) made so much of by Leibniz I do not deny, but I still think good grounds can be provided to show that a changeless substratum is needed. The most influential among recent empiricists is this position of Hume:

144 Objections on empirical grounds It must be some one impression, that gives rise to every real idea... For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception ... I never can catch myselfat any time. Mankind... are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement (Treatise, 1,533-534,534). Hume here patently contradicts himself, though, as is often overlooked, in the 1740 'Appendix' he later admitted that he had failed to account for the real simplicity and identity of mind. For Hume already uses the word 'I' to look into himself, and of course he does not find the self in his mental events, as the 'I' which he no less separates out, is over and above the flux which the 'I' watches. In Hume's view, 'The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance' (Treatise, I, 534). This is an apt analogy, though not one serving Hume's purposes. For in a theatre, there is an audience which watches; wherein does the audience of an individual mind exist, if it is not the pure ego? Nor has Hume demonstrated that there is nothing which holds the 'bundle' together by ignoring the problem. Or do so the 'gentle forces' or 'laws' of association? But then the 'forces' or 'laws' would be something over and above 'distinct perceptions' which are all 'distinct existences', and these consequences Hume strongly repudiates. And in any event, as we have already seen before, mind is in fact not only passively associationist, but also actively rational, and at times actively creative. Although Hume's view is quite inexplicable to me on both observational or inferential grounds, empiricists seem to accept it, as they deem it not 'mysterious'. Thus, for James, 'The words I and me signify nothing mysterious and unexampled - they are at bottom only names of emphasis', and Thought is always emphasizing something' (Principles, 200). James's distaste for rationalistic metaphysics is too well known to require comment, but the following statement indicates that his celebratedness as an introspective psychologist is not completely deserved. 'As psychologists, we need not be metaphysical at all. The phenomena are enough, the passing Thought is the only verifiable thinker' (Principles, 223). I simply deny that all we experience is 'passing Thought'; the plain given fact is that I am conscious of other things as well. But before we leave James, let us note what he in all seriousness held that 'Thought' to be. Although James never showed much sympathy with any kind of spiritualism in his Principles of

The chief traits of the mental

145

Psychology, he was later more assertive: 'The "I think" which Kant said must be able to accompany all my objects, is the " I breathe" which actually does accompany them.' 'That entity [i.e., consciousness] is fictitious, while thoughts in the concrete are fully real. But thoughts in the concrete are made of the same stuff as [material] things are' (' "Consciousness" ', 37). Frankly, I doubt the intellectual honesty of James's 'observation'. I deny that I experience the materiality of thought, and claim that I am aware of my pure ego. But before going into detail, let us note how such conflicting claims are to be solved. Hume tells us the following: If any one, upon serious and unprejudic'd reflection, thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I can reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular (Treatise, 1,534). Hume and I then are different in this respect, and I am on safe empirical grounds in upholding my position. J. S. Mill urges us to solve such issues similarly: We can not conceive a line without breadth; we can form no mental picture of such a line: all the lines which we have in our minds are lines possessing breadth. If any one doubts this, we may refer him to his own experience {Logic, Bk. II, Ch.V,§l). I cannot 'imagine' (i.e., sensuously represent in the mind) such a line, but I can ''conceive' it. This is the end to the matter, and those who cannot may be urged to sharpen their wits. I hasten to add however that my insisting on the epistemological priority of the pure ego cannot be a personal idiosyncracy of mine, since there are others who maintain the same viewpoint : Strictly, the observation and fact underlying the non-sensual concept and its 'I' are, we may think, more at first hand and more impugnable than are those underlying the spatial concept and its 'things'. The latter are after all an inference. If either as fact is more unquestionable than the other it should be the unextended 'I' being the more immediately established (Sherrington in Eccles, Neurophysiological Basis, 262; cf. Eccles, Facing Reality, 65). For those, however, who have insufficient powers of self-observation, I will explore the contention at hand more fully. I will first appeal again quite directly to observation, but later argue for the pure ego by means of inferences from premises which cannot easily be repudiated. I am in

146

Objections on empirical grounds

respectable empiricist company when I ask Berkeley for aid: Besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something which knows or perceives them, and exercises diverse operations, as willing, imagining, remembering about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived; for the existence of an idea consists in being perceived (Principles, 113-114). I have nothing to subtract from Berkeley's points here, except that there are unconscious mental events which are unperceived, yet still exist. But there is a considerable amount of addition to be made. We may however note before leaving Berkeley that he said he had a 'notion' rather than 'idea' of the ego; we need therefore not be surprised that Hume did not find the self among ideas. Berkeley's distinction between notion and idea is not too different from that between apperception and perception by Leibniz and Kant. And Hegel never tired of complaining in regards to the 'impatient wish [of empiricists] to have before them as a mental picture that which is in the mind as a thought or notion' (Logic, 7). Empiricists therefore do not put the pure ego into question, but their own epistemology, as exemplified by Hume's dictum, 'It must be some one impression, which gives rise to every real idea' (Treatise, I, 533). On occasions Kant does not speak very differently from the position of neutral monism generally maintained by Hume. Neither experience nor rational inference gives us adequate grounds for deciding whether man has a soul (in the sense of a substance dwelling in him, distinct from the body and capable of thinking independently of it, i.e. a spiritual substance), or whether it is not much rather the case that life may be a property of matter (Metaphysics of Morals, 81). But even on an observational basis, I do not see why Kant's 'transcendental unity of apperception' should be something unsubstantial. All my mental ideas are indeed objects, but objects of some subject. In the case of the pure ego, object and subject merge, and the experience is one of selfillumination and transparence. I am immediately conscious that the pure ego focusses on, 'scans' ideas, pays attention (consciousness) or no attention (unconsciousness), calls up ideas from memory, issues theoretical judgements or puts forth ideas as practical will. In the rest of this section,

The chief traits of the mental

147

as well as the next one, I will 'unpack' some of these contentions. When in these passages I often refer to the Kantian philosophy, no one can claim I am making things easy for myself: it is frequently said that it was Kant who has put an end to rational psychology once and for all. Moses Mendelssohn for this reason gave Kant the oft-repeated title der Alleszermalmer. Comte made an instructive error when he argued that a thinker cannot observe himself, for he then would have to divide himself into two, one who reasons and one who observes the reasoning. But I do insist that we observe ourselves, and hence there must indeed be two different kinds of entities (though not two selves). There is the permanent pure ego, and there are the changing events focussed upon, and already seemingly held together, by the pure ego. Fichte provided another good ground for needing the ego as an explanatory entity. For in his scheme, the ego opposits the non-ego, and thus becomes aware of what it is, and what it is not. In order to know what belongs to me, I must know other things than mine as well; I must know both a self and a not-self. Those therefore who deny awareness of the ego must make themselves and the world identical - solipsism for short. When even analysts such as Russell and Moore have said consciousness is consciousness of, then clearly what we are conscious of is often some train of thoughts. But that which has the consciousness must be something else, i.e., the pure ego. It is the opinion of Russell that 'everything we feel inclined to believe has a "degree of doubtfulness" ' (Human Knowledge, 342).] Consequently, Russell (and Austin) went on to claim that even seeming sense data are open to doubt. For example, after we leave a freshly painted room, or get farther and farther away from a ringing bell, we are at one point often uncertain whether we still experience these olfactory or auditory phenomena or not. Yet surely, if we can doubt the raw givenness of appearances, then there must be something different above them which does the doubting: the pure ego. For that matter, Feigl at one stage grants that' "Knowledge by acquaintance"... is not infallible'. Yet he still insists that 'It remains in any case the ultimate confirmation basis of all knowledge claims' (Essay, 68). But again, surely we can throw doubt upon something only if we have at hand some other proposition more certain than the one doubted. The pure ego therefore must be more 'ultimate' than 'knowledge by acquaintance'.

148 Objections on empirical grounds There must be a pure ego, for if it is not the same ego that observes the multiplicity a, b, c, upholds in recollection and anticipation, compares, connects, deduces, infers, evaluates, then knowledge would be impossible; knowledge, however, is always here premised as a fact. Kant is quite right in maintaining that our awareness otherwise would be 'a rhapsody of representations', 'less than a dream'. The Critique of Pure Reason, however, is mistaken in arguing for the non-substantial, formal, analytic nature of the transcendental unity of apperception. For if the 'I think' merely accompanies my representations, then it would be subservient to the what Kant rightly regards as the substantial stream of consciousness, and would not determine the contents, as it does and must, even according to Kant. If I were not aware of the pure ego, then it would be an unconscious supreme connector which puts each congnitive event into its place. But if an unconscious is related to a conscious, then the result (i.e., the emerging relationship of the terms) cannot be conscious; but knowledge must in principle be able to be brought to consciousness, hence we must be aware of the ego itself. We have here only one instance of the several fundamental contradictions running throughout the Critique of Pure Reason. On the one hand, Kant is always anxious to undermine traditional metaphysics, and consequently he seeks to make the transcendental ego and the categories secondary to sense in epistemological import. On the other hand, he therewith removes the epistemic basis for the supreme legislative function he assigns to these, not overlooking that they are meant to apply only to the world of appearance. But if we disregard this cleavage in his theoretical writings, there is a still stronger turn-about between them and Kant's practical philosophy. Suddenly in Kant's ethical, legal and political works, reason, or the timeless world of noumena, are completely predominant, being free (and are enjoined) to resist the world of sense. The latter actions, I maintain, are indeed observed facts, but are plainly impossible if it were true, as Kant repeats so often in the first Critique, that we know nothing of the thing in itself. It cannot be our duty to impress the ideal upon the world of sense, if we could not possibly know that ideal. Although upholding an inconsistent Kantian epistemology as well, Schopenhauer's view that humans, as opposed to animals, have conceptions independent of time, and that the latter overcome the 'irrational, blind will', is instructive. Already the ancients noted that some animals surpass men in perceptions, but not conceptions. For me, it is primarily the pure ego which is indepen-

The chief traits of the mental

149

dent of time, and it is the source of initiating the theoretical and practical will, insofar as that will is 'rational'. The context of Kant's epistemology is again useful for giving a further reason why we must be aware of the pure ego, which is not in time. Close students of the Critique of Pure Reason will know about a much-disputed and indeed very misleading 'Refutation of Idealism' which was added to the Second Edition. Some of the crucial passages there read: I am conscious of my own existence as determined in time. All determination of time presupposes something permanent in perception. But this permanent cannot be an intuition in me. For all grounds of determination of my existence which are to be met with in me are representations; and as representations themselves require a permanent distinct from them, in relation to which their change, and so my existence in the time wherein they change, may be determined. Thus perception of this permanent is possible only through a thing outside me and not through a representation of a thing outside me (Critique: B 276). Now, it is indeed true that I am aware of phenomenal time inside me, whether this is all there is to phenomenal time, as Kant thinks, or not. And it is also true that I must be aware of something permanent as well; for if one floats along a smoothflowing river, or is in a flying airplane, and has no objects for comparison, one is not conscious of change at all. But clearly, no matter what works of Kant one consults, he never says that one directly perceives the external thing in itself as such, if this is to be the source of permanence. (Feigl, and indeed I, are committed to holding this proposition as well with our causal theory of perception.) Also, it is simply a fact that I am aware of time, but on occasion do not even simultaneously perceive outer representations at all. That is to say, I am often exclusively conscious of data which I have distinguished as objects of inner sense in the narrow meaning, i.e., phenomena without external physical causes. The needed permanent must therefore be the pure ego; and we must directly, and independently of any representation, be conscious of it; otherwise we could not be conscious of time in inner sense, as beyond reasonable doubt we are. Kant's repeated assertions, that 'in inner intuition there is nothing permanent, for the " I " is merely the consciousness of my thought' (Critique: B 413), do therefore not provide a position which is itself tenable, even by Kant himself in view of his other major premises. I add a few further reasons for my view, which I do not consider one of

150

Objections on empirical grounds

insignificance. How often have poets, scientists, and philosophers insisted that knowledge is in eternity, i.e., timelessness. Yet how could this be true if there is nothing over and above the stream of ideas in time, or worse, if that stream is identical with brain events. We have a connection with knowledge outside time precisely because the pure ego is outside time, and only in changeless eternity do we encounter the strict universality and necessity which mathematics is said to have. For suppose it to be true that everything of which we are conscious in the mind changed. It would then follow that, as knowledge is itself concerned with the relating of terms, any relation would itself alter. But even extreme empiricists are on the whole not given to deny that propositions, truth-claims are eternal. Even knowledge of the changing therefore must be anchored in the changeless. Also, when we positively assert something as conditioned, that proposition cannot itself be conditioned ad infinitum, but must be tied to an absolute. Kant almost grants this much when he says that the ' "I think"... cannot itself be accompanied by any further representation' (Critique: B 132). It is not at all true that 'All our knowledge is... finally subject to time, the formal condition of inner sense' (Critique: A 99). If that were so, then everything we know would be in flux. Yet this is impossible, and cannot be consistently maintained by anyone, as was already well shown by Plato and Aristotle in their refutations of Heraclitus and Cratylus. This has been done very competently; nor has it, to my knowledge, ever been answered; consequently, I do not think I have to enter the lengthy argumentation here myself. But I will provide what seems to be the basis for the error. As Aristotle put it: 'The reason why these thinkers held this opinion is that while they were inquiring into the truth of that which is, they thought "that which is" was identical with the sensible world.' 'We must show them and persuade them that there is something whose nature is changeless' (Metaphysica, 1010 a 1-2, 1010 a 34-35). Mathematics and logic, for example, apply to time (among almost any other thing), but are not themselves temporal. That which (in this instance) is applied and (always) that which does the applying, are hence above time; and it is no wonder that empiricists do not sense (through outer sense) that which is not so sensible. It is however only appropriate to point out that Kant on occasions had an inkling of the very same position I am advocating. 'Apperception and its synthetic unity is, indeed, very far from being identical with inner sense' (Critique: B 154). This already comes near to conceding that the ego

The chief traits of the mental

151

is after all substantial. Also, Kant repeatedly insisted, and rightly, that free will involves a timeless springboard. Spinoza's flying arrow is like the 'freedom' of a turnspit, he argued in the Critique of Practical Reason; still, and now unlike what Kant himself says, it then follows that I must be conscious of the pure ego: there can be no freedom without consciousness of the determinator of freedom. And only from a permanent can I deliberate, plan, have self-control and power to influence an external causal chain. If I have no chain to fasten myself on some pole, I cannot be asked to master anything else in flux, just as much as I must be able to clasp a concrete support in order to escape from the 'freedom' of a whirlpool. Those therefore who have professed to break the grip of 'mechanical causation' by insisting on the higher reality of durée, as Bergson, have only left us to a worse fate. The pure ego is the necessary ingredient which changes determination to 5e//"-determination or libertarianism. If we did not have such an 'unmoved mover' (and it must be the core of that which makes up the self!) then we could not master our environment with science and technology, as we undeniably do. Far less would it be possible to give ourselves autonomously the moral law, and act with freedom of choice and responsibility. Both technologist and practical moralist can interfere with natural causal chains only because they themselves (i.e., their pure egos) are not pushed along these inexorable sequences; the pure ego rather impinges its own intentions upon the course of nature, and thus utilizes the laws of nature for its own ends. One may with hesitation grant a determinist such as Hobbes (and therewith, as we saw, his numerous contemporary followers) that as long as the necessary causal sequences are 'mine', I cannot be said to be unfree. Yet surely, since 'my' causal chains were necessarily determined before my birth, Hobbes in the end cannot speak of individual freedom. Were there no such resting place as the pure ego, standing outside the stream of events, yet influencing the stream, then every event would have a prior cause in time, a series which before my birth could hardly be said to be 'mine'. Those who uphold free will need a pure ego, and the meaning and existence of free will has been so notoriously unclear and vexing largely because the meaning and existence of the pure ego has so far been so unclear. Thus human reflex actions, such as a knee-jerk, are unfree because the pure ego is not involved; but conscious thoughts and purposive actions are free because the pure ego directs them. 'Control of act and awareness of act meet' (Sherrington, Man, 211).

152

Objections on empirical grounds

What serious ground has Kant really provided for saying the pure ego cannot in any way be known? Even though he has granted that it is 'indeed, very evident that I cannot know as an object that which I must presuppose in order to know any object,' he keeps insisting that this is not a 'perceived unity' (Critique: A 402). But if these statements show anything, they indicate the inadequacy of Kant's dogmatic empiricism. The pure ego is indeed not perceived, but apperceived. If apperception has no cognitive import, of what use is Kant's 'transcendental method' itself? Kant in fact has given few clarifications concerning this method in addition to giving it an awesome name, but one can say with safety that it is the supreme basis for Kant's own epistemological pronouncements. If therefore these judgements are not cognitive, then nothing is. In the 'Transcendental Deduction', Kant himself seems to adopt the view that one cannot even (consciously) sense something without having thoughts. And for me, the ontological basis for the difference between apperception and perception is that the pure ego is a mental thing in itself, whereas the mental phenomena of inner and outer sense are appearances. For that reason too, subject and object merge in the act of the pure ego's self-observation, while inner and outer data are the pure ego's objects. Though, as far as I know, the contention for the pure ego has never been carried as far even as I do here, there have of course been adumbrations. In addition to Butler, whose view was cited earlier in this section, the following quotations give the best insight into the positions of Leibniz and Hegel. Albeit the meaning of Leibniz is not entirely definite, he appears to have had the same thing in mind as I when he answered Locke thus: It seems that you, sir, hold that this apparent identity could be preserved, if there were no real identity. I should think that that might perhaps be the absolute power of God, but according to the order of things, identity apparent to the person himself who perceives the same, supposes real identity to every proximate transition, accompanied by reflection or perception of the ego, a perception intimate and immediate naturally incapable of deception (New Essays, 246). And Hegel rightly replied to Kant's contentions concerning the transcendental ego in this way: 'We must note that it is not the mere act of our personal self-consciousness, which introduces an absolute unity into the variety of sense. Rather, this identity is itself the absolute' (Logic, 88-89). To these quotations I wish to add what is no doubt the most moving passage about our innermost self, written by Sherrington:

The chief traits of the mental

153

Each working day is a stage dominated for good or ill, in comedy, farce or tragedy, by a dramatis persona, the 'self'. And so it will be until the curtain drops. This self is a unity. The continuity of its presence in time, sometimes hardly broken by sleep, its inalienable 'inferiority' in (sensual) space, its consistency of view-point, the privacy of its experience, combine to give it status as a unique existence. Although multiple aspects characterize it it has self-cohesion. It regards itself as one, others treat it as one. It is addressed as one, by a name to which it answers. The Law and the State schedule it as one. It and they identify it with a body which is considered by it to belong to it integrally. In short, unchallenged and unargued conviction assumes it to be one. The logic of grammar endorses this by a pronoun in the singular. All its diversity is merged in oneness (Nervous System, xiv; cf. Eccles, Facing Reality, 151). And in the words of a great physical scientist, The fact is that there is a point, one single point in the immeasurable world of mind and matter, where science and therefore every causal method of research is inapplicable, not only on practical grounds but also on logical grounds, and will always remain inapplicable. This point is the individual ego. It is a small point in the universal realm of being; but in itself it is a whole world, embracing our emotional life, our will and our thought (Planck, Science, 161). And in the words of one of the greats of twentieth century psychology, Our basis is ego-consciousness, our world the field of light centered upon the focal point of the ego. From that point we look out upon an enigmatic world of obscurity, never knowing to what extent the shadowy forms we see are caused by consciousness, or possess a reality of their own (Jung, Memories, 324). Phenomena of inner sense in the narrow meaning have as their ground the world of mental entities as things in themselves; phenomena of outer sense have as their causes the world of material entities as things in themselves; my elaboration of this schema throughout this book solves Jung's enigma. 2. The pure ego, attitudes, and events in the mind I will now differentiate the chief aspects of the mind as a whole, making my distinctions mainly on the basis of introspective observations. Parts of mind of course are not as self-contained or amenable to isolation as bits of matter, and a survey of mind in its entirety will shed new light on the nature of the pure ego. Only once the basic traits of mind are thus ascer-

154

Objections on empirical grounds

tained can we phenomenologically compare them with the characteristics of the physical. First, in somewhat dogmatic fashion, I propose to outline the three main parts of mind. Then, once the basic terms employed are reasonably clear, I shall proceed to further elucidation. Past contributions of value, however, are not to be ignored, even if one proceeds at haste. Reid considered the mind that perceives, the object perceived, and the operation of perceiving as distinguishable. To Hume he rightly replied, that the person is not the impression, sensation, or idea, but that which has the impression. 'In this sentence, "I see, or perceive the moon", / is the person or mind, the active verb see denotes the operation of that mind, and the moon denotes the object' ('Reid', 113). It is often difficult to ascribe to Meinong positions with certainty, but if I interpret him correctly, he differentiated between act, i.e., awareness, content, what I would call subjective intension, and object. The latter 'object' could mean what I designate 'objective intensions', or in the alternative what is commonly labeled 'referent' or 'denotation'. Feigl himself says that according to Brentano's point of view, the most fundamental difference between the mental and the physical consists in the fact that the mental life consists of acts directed upon objects, no matter whether these objects exist in the world, or are pure concepts, or figments of the imagination (Essay, 50). This is an apt summary, especially since it is often not completely clear whether Brentano is a realist or subjective idealist in perception. As the Aristotle scholar Brentano well knew, the Stagirite similarly insists many times that knowledge is knowledge of. We have even words for these acts now, following Russell, often called 'propositional attitudes': wanting, hoping, seeking, believing, doubting, judging, assenting, dissenting. I do not see how even a purely empirical science is possible without, for example, judging, and the latter process certainly is not publicly (i.e., externally) observed. Locke certainly already well noted that nothing whatever is true or false without some form of assent or dissent. And in order that this be engaged in at all, something must stand above and beyond the given, the sensations. Perceptions are sometimes distinguished from sensations in that judgements have been already superimposed. Thus perceptions can be true or false, but not sensations. Even though there is little doubt that Brentano (along with others) has

The chief traits of the mental

155

pointed to a chief trait of mentality, I nonetheless do not think that Brentano has therewith pointed to the insuperable difference between mind and body as it is often taken to be. 'I still agree,' says Feigl, 'in considering intentional (in Brentano's sense) features as irreducible to a physicalistic description' (Postscript, 150). Yet in fact, intentionality seems to be neither a necessary nor sufficient condition of mentality. Cognitive intentionality is only a part, or aspect, of one class of mental events, conscious ones; unconscious events, so long as they are unconscious, are knowledge of nothing. At the same time, however, in all of nature, the parts have some sort of relationship with each other; one part of the universe is directed towards all the others, though of course mere bits of matter are hardly conscious of such relationships. Before I proceed further, let one common objection be considered. Since Ryle's critique of the 'Cartesian myth', the alleged 'infallibility' of introspective evidence is often strenuously opposed. I grant the objection (with qualifications to follow), but the contention only enforces my case. Fallibility of introspective evidence can only indicate the possibility of error in judgement. But any one entity cannot be true or false; we need to relate at least two terms, and something has to do the connecting. When we imagine a pain, for example, or hold an unpleasant odor in our mind, there are, as we have already seen, certain borderline cases where we are uncertain whether we even appear to experience these phenomena. But this surely only points to the fact that the stream of introspective events and our innermost selves are not the same. We must therefore not only distinguish outer sense from our subject, but inner sense from the pure ego as well. It is the pure ego which is the subject, and inner sense and outer sense the objects. The pure ego at times observes the inner stream, at times not, on occasions inattentively. And into which of these two chief divisions an act of attention falls, inner or outer sense, can only be determined by an act of judgement, initiated by the pure ego itself. There are many subspecies of these acts of judgements, not least for analytic philosophers. For what are logical positivists doing when they are engaging in 'conceptual analysis'? When one clarifies, orders, arranges, analyzes, synthesizes, evaluates, one relates the pure ego to inner sense. Even Ryle is in fact engaging in these processes, notwithstanding that he loudly disclaims the existence of inner sense altogether. In order that error can occur at all, there must be a distinction between subject and object. Introspective evidence therefore can indeed be fallacious, insofar as object

156

Objections on empirical grounds

and subject are separate. But we cannot so separate the pure ego from itself, hence the existence of the pure ego is the most infallible assertion. (Whereas the objects of inner and outer sense are observed by means of the pure ego as subject, the pure ego observes itself through itself, or apperceives.) And in repudiating the general infallibility of introspection, analysts only throw open the door for rationalists, not close it. For I certainly consider such evidence as empirical, but that evidence all by itself cannot substantiate its own truth. We need the pure ego, judgement, and categories, such as existence, appearance, reality, truthfulness, which are not drawn from experience, yet are affixed to the sensuously given. That Descartes was not right in holding the self to be solely a process of thought I have already affirmed, and what precisely the lumen naturale is to which he constantly appeals, Descartes is not in the light himself. But just because J. S. Mill's empiricism is thought to be defective in several respects by analysts, they do not repudiate all of it; then why should certain failures of Descartes refute all rationalism? The complexity of some of these issues, as well as of the nature of mind itself, makes a certain diffuseness of presentation unavoidable. I will therefore provide a brief stop-over summary, before I plunge again into difficult detail. The picture which arises is, that the most fundamental part of mind is a simple, indivisible, changeless, self-transparent pure ego. This ego owns countless events in the mind. The objects of inner sense are indeed in a rapid flux. The pure ego has several ways of focussing upon the events in the mind, and these are called its 'attitudes'. Although all our experiences are phenomenal, and hence mental, as was already pointed out in Chapter I, mental entities are in different degrees my 'own'; inner sense in the narrow meaning supersedes outer sense. M y most basic self is the pure ego. Then comes pure reason, the source of universality and necessity. Not so paradoxically for those who reflect seriously, that same pure reason is also the only instrument of liberty. Next in the hierarchy of the self come conceptualized sense data, then the imagination, then chance associations, still later outer sensations. M y own bodily feelings are really as external as the light from the sun by means of which I see my feet. The only difference is that the nerve endings cannot be disconnected in the same way as eyes can be closed or ears plugged, although anesthetics have overcome even this dissimilarity. The higher element in the mind always can and ought to rule the lower, and it matters not whether we here speak of the theoretical or practical will.

The chief traits of the mental

157

Let me now further elaborate on the nature of the pure ego, and examine its most basic states of being-related to other mental entities. At this stage, however, we begin to distinguish these mental entities from physical ones. The pure ego is apperceived, transparent, abiding, indivisible, whereas matter is perceived, opaque, changing, divisible. Since the pure ego is a thing in itself and is observed through itself, or apperceived, cause and effect are not distinguishable; whereas material objects as things in themselves and ultimate experienced phenomena are very much distinguishable on the basis of causes and effects. The pure ego is unqualifiedly unconditioned, whereas matter is dependent in its behavior on other material events. Clearly not all of the mind is simple, indivisible, absolute, as some people have suggested, but the pure ego definitely is (and consequently can not be destroyed upon the death of the human body). Knowledge itself (said to be unconditioned to time) would be impossible if the pure ego were not in eternity, a fact which again gives those who argue for immortality the strongest of premises. If there were not such a pure ego which is selfilluminating (in contradistinction to the outside light shed upon outer sense and even most of inner sense), there would be an infinite regress, and no knowledge. Those sceptics who reply, 'so much the worse for knowledge', make no less a knowledge claim, only one which refutes itself. The pure ego is the basis for my immateriality, incorruptibility, personality, in short, spirituality. The pure ego is not in space, while all matter is. The pure ego is not only directly apperceived and a necessary condition for knowledge, it has immense explanatory power which often is quite in keeping with the hypothetico-deductive method. Thus, the pure ego is an individual, and is the reason for what Feigl himself grants, that all my experiences are numerically private, whereas matter is said to be 'public', i.e., invariably gives rise to qualitatively similar phenomena. Only insofar as even outer sense is brought into relation with the pure ego does a person experience outer data at all. The pure ego is thus the basis of individuation of minds. It is conscious of both outer and inner sense of one subject, but not of the inner sense in the narrower or wider meaning of other persons, who each have their own pure ego. Thus A never directly observes the same individual inner as well as outer sense contents as B: A directly shares B's outer experiences only in a qualitative, not numerical way, and A knows even the quality of B's inner sense only mediately through his own, i.e. by analogy.

158

Objections on empirical grounds

We may or may not 'pay attention' or 'concentrate' on inner or outer data. For example, if I look at a table, I can focus on its detail, or ignore the detail. Yet this occurrence cannot be explained by an alteration of light, or position, or change of electrical impulses flowing from the retina, for I am supposing that they ex hypothesi do not change, and in fact are not within my will, but hit the retina mechanically or involuntarily. Hence the messages remain constant, while the focus of something - the pure ego - changes. There is now evidence that at any one time we are only conscious of an extremely small fraction of the immense sensory input that is pouring into our brains... In fact, by far the greater part of the activity in the brain, and even in the cerebral cortex, does not reach consciousness at all. However, we have the ability to direct our attention apparently at will to one or another element in the input from our sense organs (Eccles, Facing Reality, 56; cf. 72,161). But not only can the pure ego purposively zoom in on outer phenomena, Leibniz rightly insisted that we hear the ticking of some clock or the crackling of some furnace, yet are often in no way aware or conscious of these events (petites perceptions). Our mind clearly registers these data, but they are not connected with the pure ego and we are not conscious of them. The sense-organs are perhaps better called 'receptors'. They are specifically fitted to pick up, i.e. to 'receive', stimuli which by their means the body can react to. But they do not all of them or at all times by so doing affect 'sense' (Sherrington, Man, 248). Likewise, it is well known that one can think attentively or not, therefore the pure ego can focus or not on its own inner ideas. And just as much as thousands of memory data exist while I am not conscious of them, so the (Freudian) unconscious does; much of memory can be called up at will, or 'recollected', while some of it is 'suppressed', i.e., shut out by the pure ego. If there is no pure ego, then how is it to be explained that we are not aware of everything at once, whether we speak of outer or inner sense? The pure ego explains in what way we analyze (or synthesize). For it is the pure ego which can concentrate only on a few ideas at a time, while the countless other ideas must be 'covertly' in the mind. For example, when we prove a theorem in mathematics, we are not aware of the connecting links all at once, but only one or two at a time. In reasoning, the pure ego calls up from memory and brings in front of itself a few ideas at a

The chief traits of the mental

159

time, and mediately connects ideas which it cannot look at all at once. If any other theory than the positing of a pure ego explains this fundamental fact at all, I am unaware of it. Whatever is true of other living species, there can be little doubt that as far as man is concerned, there are many events which ought to be called mental, yet of which we are not conscious. When J. A. Shaffer therefore starts out his recent book with the statement, 'It is this common feature, consciousness, which may be said to be a central element in the concept of mind' {Philosophy of Mind, 4), he is off to a wrong start. Similarly, J. W. Yolton maintains that 'mental entities depend upon awareness for their existence' (Thinking and Perceiving, 93). It is this confusion between consciousness and mind which makes philosophies such as Spinoza's and Whitehead's - as popularly and perhaps mistakenly interpreted - so repugnant to common sense. It is difficult to believe that a rock has the consciousness which Spinoza and Whitehead are said to claim for it (no matter how low that 'consciousness' may be); but it is not difficult to believe that a rock is subject to mind in the sense it is ruled by law. The latter proposition is entertained by me throughout this work, and I evidently use 'law' here in its prescriptive sense. Moreover, I maintain that a rock is held together by substantial binding energies which are mental in nature. It is important to note that consciousness is only a species of mentality, and very far makes up the whole genus. As the very title of the book indicates, even Sir John Eccles had not definitively escaped this difficulty at the time he edited Brain and Conscious Experience. As Eccles explains himself in Facing Reality: I feel that there is still confusion in the use of such words as mind, mental, mentality, which in some extremely primitive form are even postulated as being a property of inorganic matter! Hence I refrain from using them, and employ instead either 'conscious experience' or 'consciousness' (64). In my opinion, my discussions concerning the distinctions between sense and reference, and my referential demarcations between the mental and the physical which I am empirically substantiating throughout this book, have overcome these confusions and actually solve the real problems. Thus everything we are conscious of is indeed a mental entity; but not all mental entities are necessarily consciously experienced, and in fact the majority are not. Consciousness occurs when the pure ego focuses attention on a mental object.

160

Objections on empirical grounds

Although there can be little doubt that some animals have better senses than men, none have knowledge, science, or morality. (That the 'instinct' possessed by animals is never counted as indicative of morality shows again how inadequate a view the 'emotivism' of logical empiricism is: if instinct is not deemed to be a source of morality among animals, how much less can instinctive feeling be made the basic ground of morality for humans.) Feigl concedes: Descartes was perhaps not completely wrong in restricting mentality to human beings. If 'mind' is understood as the capacity for reflective thought, then indeed we may have reason to deny minds (in this sense!) to animals (and perhaps even to electronic computers!) (Essay, 45). It does seem indeed true that animals are not aware what they are experiencing or doing, cannot conceptualize or think, are irresponsible 'machines', precisely for the reason that they do not have a pure ego. Only man is 'the image of God'. If Humane Societies disagree with my contention, then the difficulty in 'scientifically' deciding the issue whether animals actually are conscious of pain, can only again support my view that all minds are not externally observable. Then too, the complexity at hand can only throw doubt on behaviorism, for no one denies that animals manifest pain behavior. In his 'Introduction' to Lange's The History of Materialism, Russell unabashedly displayed his physicalistic temper: 'Nowadays no one would dream of drawing such a distinction [i.e., Descartes'] between men and animals' (x). Yet I not only do so 'dream', I think there are good reasons for saying the distinction is true. Hence again, if there are already these differences between men and animals, how much more must they hold for plants and rocks. It is the reason too which allows man to master his environment, whereas rocks are influenced by material conditions, and plants and animals adjust to surroundings. Only in man does the soul become conscious of itself, and thus is able to give the law unto itself. (Yet even man's pure ego is not in control of his motor and reflex acts, which are innate and inherited; and in the case of routine, habitual thought or action, the pure ego is no longer fully attentive, and thus such occurrences are not fully free: a man can become 'the slave of his habit'.) The fact that the 'I' is permanent, and the events in its possession change, not only solves the ontological substance-attribute and permanence-change problem (it is the 'I' which holds the bundle together); adoption of the

The chief traits of the mental

161

pure ego could well solve problems of clinical psychology. In the case of split personality, for example, there are two complete sets of character traits which are at times in complete independence of each other. This could be explained by the hypothesis that there are two pure egos connected with one brain, and that events in that brain at times group with one immediate self or ego, at times with the next. Or certain alleged parapsychological phenomena, such as precognition, can be explained thus: While it appears true that material causal chains flow lineally as well as irreversibly and cannot be in the future at the present time, that which is outside time - the pure ego - is so able, and consequently a future event is in principle seeable at the present. And with all the derision which has been heaped on Plato's doctrine of reminiscence, it may as well be true as not, and a better explanation than Plato's myth can be attempted: the pure ego in eternity pre-existed the body in time, and in eternity sees the perfect, necessary, changeless forms. Although so far I have only argued that the subject-object distinction ceases in the case of our awareness of the pure ego, it should be pointed out that there are several most penetrating minds who think this is the case with the highest levels of thought in general. Even Feigl on one occasion speaks of experiences which are '"all there at once".' 'Is it again some sort of scanning mechanism which might account for this' (Essay, 113). (Feigl's 'scanning mechanism' I consider to be accounted for by my pure ego.) Certainly from a purely scientific point of view, the fact that millions of Hindu and Buddhist mystics aspire to union with the One, is a given fact to be explained, not explained away. The following passage of Aristotle, who is sometimes called an 'empiricist' or 'materialist', very strongly influenced Hegel: 'Evidently knowledge and perception and opinion and understanding have always something else as their object, and themselves only by the way.' But 'thought and the object of thought are not different in the case of things that have not matter, the divine thought and its object will be the same, i.e. the thinking will be one with the object of its thought' (Metaphysica 1074 b 35 - 1075 a 4). Plato had already pointed out: 'I should say... that the image, if expressing in every point the entire reality, would no longer be an image' (Cratylus, 432 b). As Fichte put it: 'The character of Reason consists in this, that the acting and the object of acting are one and the same' (Science, 9). In the words of Hegel, the 'innermost self is thought. Thus the mind renders thought its object. In the best meaning of the phrase, it comes to it-

162 Objections on empirical grounds self; for thought is its principle, and its very unadulterated self.' 'Thought ... is absolutely identical with itself' {Logic, 18,168). As I have already foreshadowed in Chapter I, reason (i.e., conceptual thought) is active, has no need for passive support (excepting perhaps the pure ego), is transparent, can be 'grasped' or 'understood'. Outer sense is passive, externally caused, and as Leibniz often pointed out, is 'confused', 'indefinite', cannot be 'understood' or 'penetrated' at all. There are, then, these differences between the two most characteristic elements of inner and outer sense, hence the mental cannot be the physical. The above quotations further clarify the nature of reason, although whether the subjectobject distinction is really transcended or transcendable, apart from the pure ego, I leave an open question. It must be confessed that the above views, which deserve the most serious consideration, have not been thought through in all their ramifications, and as I myself have no settled opinion, I will not burden the reader with my unfinished proposals. But whether only the pure ego, or also divine thought, is self-transparent, it is certain that the material is not so, but rather beyond a complete grasp, or a seeing or comprehension through and through. And it is certain that we are immediately aware of the pure ego as a (mental) thing in itself, whereas we never directly experience material objects as things in themselves, but only mediately through outer phenomena (which are themselves mental). What one can safely endorse is, that the rational or conceptual (which is non-spatial in nature) not only very much exists, but legislates over outer sense, the material. Aristotle repeated what Plato said many times: 'Reason more than anything else is man' (Ethica Nichomachea, 1178 a 7). And St. Augustine correctly observed: 'To few people ... is it permitted to perceive the soul by means of the soul itself, that is, in such a way that the soul sees itself. Moreover, it sees by means of intelligence' ('St. Augustine', 99). What we have already seen Kant as coming near in saying is true, that we cannot even cognitively sense without reason. Sensations without concepts are blind (though I do not grant that all concepts without sensations are empty). As always, Kant's normative writings are much more acceptable to me than his epistemological ones. 'The power to set an end - any end whatsoever - is the characteristic of humanity (as distinguished from animality)' {Metaphysics of Morals, 51). To the 'empty reason' of the first Critique, Kant later attributes the power to overcome almost any obstacle:

The chief traits of the mental

163

Since no one can have an end without himself making the object of choice into an end, it follows that the adoption of any end of action whatsoever is an act of freedom on the agent's part, not an operation of nature (Metaphysics of Morals,

43). But clearly there is no good ground at all for this bifurcation between the theoretical and practical. Berkeley already had a good grasp of the unity: 'A spirit is one simple, undivided, active being: as it perceives ideas, it is called the understanding, and as it produces or otherwise operates about them, it is called the will' ('Berkeley', 97). It is doubtless true that the will is 'mechanically' activated at times, such as in instinctive deeds, or by reflexes, at times by the unconscious, and perhaps by habits. All mental events, processes, acts, states, properties, or attitudes are indeed in the mind, but the 'mechanical' ones are not in direct view and control of the pure ego. But from this it does not follow that in the case of conscious and purposive thought, we are not in such control, and that we there have no choice, could not do otherwise. Insofar as an action is within the reach of our free will at all (the movement of the arm, for example, is, but not our heartbeat), reason can resist any feeling. When many empiricists therefore follow Hobbes in maintaining that will is the last and predominating appetite or passion, they are making an empirical mistake. Reason, so Socrates insisted in the Protagoras, is not to be dragged around like a slave. But quite apart from psychological observations and ethical implications, we have already seen, that if only inclinations set the will in motion, then all science is not distinguishable from prejudice. And if we compare the organization of the mental with the physical, we note the following differences: Early in Principia, Newton points out that all matter resists any intrusion into its prevailing state, and succeeds, so long as a greater force does not overcome it. Also, almost all atoms are never destroyed. As opposed to this kind of self-subsistence, the elements of mind are closely related and organized in a hierarchy of master and servant. Feelings can be totally extinguished, but not bits of matter. Furthermore, even though I think teleological notions apply no less in physics, it remains true that the physical world cannot do otherwise. Plants and animals are not free in this sense either, nor is the spirit God, who cannot escape perfection. Only man has freedom of choice, and this makes his mind dissimilar to anything else. But enough of these difficult propositions - although further evidence will be provided later, a full proof can only be asked for in a treatise on systematic metaphysics.

164

Objections on empirical grounds

B . A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE MENTAL AND THE PHYSICAL

1. The general empirical dissimilarity I have already produced a fair amount of evidence for the distinction between inner and outer sense. And since, as we have already observed, there is a strong difference of access (though cause would be more strictly accurate), the disparate routes of getting there by themselves indicate, that there is a difference in ontological nature of the entities the effects of which are experienced in each sense. Certainly already St. Augustine had some such idea: If, by some sort of remarkable affinity of realities, bodily things are seen with bodily eyes, it must be that the soul by means of which we see these incorporeal things is not a body, nor like a body ('St. Augustine', 97).

In several preceding sections too I have made a start in distinguishing the mental from the physical. The contexts often are so involved that repetition is no simple matter, nor, for most readers, is it desirable at all. (Before commencing the present Part B, the reader may well find it useful to review especially my own preliminary demarcations between mind and body, making up the latter part of 'Some safe criteria for distinguishing mind from body.') But along that road, which was often thorny, some general philosophical foundations were established which allow me now to plunge into a continuous polemic which is intended to establish the non-identity of the mental with the physical. My comparison will mainly be phenomenological in nature, and consist in contrasting phenomena, knowledge by acquaintance, which, as Feigl himself says, is the 'ultimate confirmation basis of all knowledge claims' (Essay, 68). (While I myself do not think knowledge by acquaintance is ultimate, I certainly also uphold the view that disparate appearances are never to be identified.) The twofold nature of empirical verifications outlined in Sections 2 and 3 of the 'Introduction' - induction and hypothetico-deductive method - should be constantly kept in mind. It is clear that Feigl tries to show that the mental can in the end be identified with outer, physical data. 'Private states ... are ... simply central states' (Essay, 32). Even though, as we have seen, outer data are no less numerically private, they still approximate in quality. For example, on the basis of one and the same permanent possibility, A and B see roughly the

A comparison between the mental and the physical

165

same chair. But already in the case of sensuous data originating in particular human bodies, the causal relationship is dissimilar. Feigl himself grants the obvious: 'Dentists do not have the toothaches of their patients' (Essay, 30). That is to say, dentists do not perceive the pain of their patients, but are conscious of their pain only by analogy. If there are suitable mirrors around both dentist and patient see the teeth and all external behavior, but only the patient has the pain. As said previously, even personal feelings have external, physical causes, which are publicly perceivable; but the effects are not the same qualities as those causes. A decaying tooth is not the same as pain; the experience of pain is in inner sense. Yet could this seemingly irrevocable privacy perhaps in principle be overcome by hooking up the nervous system of the doctor to the patient? I do not think that even this would help. For the pain would still be numerically private for the doctor and patient. Secondly, in all likelihood it would be qualitatively dissimilar. For if some of the electrical discharges from the patient's nerve endings are transferred to the doctor, there would then be a qualitative change in pain experienced by the patient. And again, the numerically same electrical charges cannot be in the same persons. And of course, electrical discharges are only part of the causal chain, and are very different from the phenomenon pain. In view of the causal theory of perception which has been adopted, all the sense organs send electrical charges to the brain. Thus in the case of sight, in the retina a delicate purplish pigment absorbs incident light and is bleached by it, giving a light-picture. The photo-chemical effect generates nerve-currents running to the brain. But what happens then? Electrical charges having in themselves not the faintest elements of the visual having, for instance, nothing of 'distance', 'right-side-upness', nor 'vertical', nor 'colour', nor 'brightness', nor 'shadow', nor 'roundness', nor 'squareness', nor 'contour', nor 'transparency', nor 'opacity', nor 'near', nor 'far', nor visual anything - yet conjure up all these. A shower of little electrical leaks conjures up for me, when I look, the landscape; the castle on the height, or, when I look at him, my friend's face, and how distant he is from me they tell me (Sherrington, Man, 113). We already know that we do not directly perceive the ultimate causes, the independent world of noiimena or things in themselves; nor can what we sense be the intermediate causes, the electrical storms in the brain. What we (i.e. our pure egos) perceive rather, is the mental world as appearance. It is a situation only too frequently observed, that while A sees roughly

166 Objections on empirical grounds the same external world as B, and sees or hears the same public sentences, the two people do not 'understand' each other. This occurs not only between languages, but in 'one' language. Men seldom attribute exactly the same meaning to their words, all of which shows that at least a three-factor theory of language is needed, and that subjective intensions are private, mental. If this were not so, the eye or ear doctor, or a speech therapist would be the persons to solve every problem of lack of communication. If the reader therefore complains that he has difficulty following my arguments, I will adopt this as a confirmation that the mental is not the physical; for there can be little doubt that he is capable of observing the imprints on this page, data which are in outer sense, and thus qualitatively shared. And though I do not deny the possibility that some of my own thoughts are unclear, how is the physicalist going to get at my concepts, which are seen only in inner sense, and for which spatial dimensions cannot be given? Feigl himself asserts that knowledge is conceptual, not perceptual, and must be 'intelligible' (Essay, 24). But if so, how can science prove that the mind is the brain, if its own cognitive vehicle, concepts, are not in space, hence not physical; a plainer self-refutation is difficult to find. Also, as we have seen, concepts are in principle not externally observable (while all matter is). The following assertion of Aristotle can hardly be doubted: 'What actual sensation apprehends is individuals, while what knowledge apprehends is universals, and these are in a sense within the soul' (De Anima, 417 b 22-23). Outer sense, furthermore, is not 'intelligible', but in the phrase of Leibniz, a 'confused perception'. Again, outer sense is not communicable until conceptualized; ostension is surely not knowledge. Why the continual stress on perception by Feigl at all - even if it is true that we have no concepts without sensuous experience, neither do we have perception without the pure ego or the categories. Then too, if I do not have the concept of physical or anything else, I cannot identify any sensuously given as anything. Feigl's own unclarity about what the physical consists in is an apt example. Before I go further, I shall elaborate somewhat on the problem of spatiality. Feigl thinks he can escape the objections to physicalism on this count (i.e., that all matter is extended) by differentiating between subjective and objective space. 'The most perplexing difficulty of the mind-body problem can be avoided by distinguishing between phenomenal and physical space' ('Physicalism', 259; cf. Essay, 40-42, 92). But I, who like-

A comparison between the mental and the physical

167

wise accept this demarcation, think I am therewith enabled to refute the identity theory all the more strongly, and on an empirical basis. But if my reasons were obvious, physicalists would have thought of them themselves. The reader ought therefore to forgive a certain prolixity in presentation, and not expect that everything can be said at once with complete exactitude. According to Feigl, there is no conflict and no incompatibility in regard to the 'location' of, e.g., a directly experienced patch of color. It is where we 'see' it in phenomenal space. The systemically identical cerebral process is assigned a place in the abstract 3dimensional manifold of physical space ('Physicalism', 259).

Now I, as Feigl professes to do, am speaking here of empirical identity or non-identity, and do not consider the word 'systemically' overawing; I have not even seen it clearly explicated (cf. 'Physicalism', 255-256). And I find here a three-fold disparity. In the first place, if only phenomenal space is ever directly perceived, a position which is called for in a causal theory, then I immediately perceive that the space around me is larger in extent than my whole body; phenomenal space can therefore not be identical with brain processes, at least as phenomenally perceived. (In any event, however, it is quite safe to say that phenomenal space seen at short distances cannot be greatly disparate from physical space; one hundred yards of phenomenal space must roughly coincide with a specific stretch of physical space of that dimension.) Secondly, I do unyieldingly insist that when I see a color, I do perceive it often hundreds of yards away. It matters not here whether it is true that spatial depth is 'interpreted' or 'projected', or not; the fact remains that I observe patches at a distance. The color therefore cannot be in the brain; for even in the case of projection, any projector, and that which is projected, are manifestly not the same. It is of course one of the many arguments for phenomenal space that different people see the 'same' object in different spatial relations. Berkeley for this reason denied primary qualities a special status altogether. Yet as for space, so for time, Feigl hits the mark better: Experienced durations may seem very long in the case of tiresome waiting, while time packed full with exciting events seems to 'pass quickly'. But the physically measured durations may be exactly the same (Essay, 41).

Newton already made this apt distinction in the case of absolute space

168

Objections on empirical grounds

and time, Russell for relational space and time. If we now however adopt Feigl's hypothesis that the mind is the brain, then since he says that the brain itself is in physical, objective space, we could in no way whatever experience phenomenal space and time. But Feigl grants that we do, hence he must agree in the third place that his hypothesis has been discontinued once more. In this context, a further disparity is to be noted. Mathematics, even if it is to consist of the analytic necessities of logical empiricists, is eternal. But certainly our brain is in time, hence mathematics cannot be completely identified with brain events. This of course also is the reason why we do not observe abstract mathematical entities by outer sense, but only empirical embodiments of mathematical forms. My latter concession should not be overlooked. One understands Mill's error, for three pebbles and one pebble certainly do make four pebbles - a priori mathematics does manifest itself a posteriori, and hence often can be empirically observed. But not always - three heaps of gunpowder and one spark do not make four things. Mathematics therefore, even if observed, is not true because it is observed. 'A mathematical truth is timeless, it does not come into being when we discover it' (Schrodinger, Mind and Matter, 73). The following passage gives further insight into the position of Feigl on the issue of spatiality: Mental states and events in contradiction to physical bodies, so they claim, do not have a location, nor are they characterizable as having shapes or sizes .. .The confusion becomes evident in rhetorical questions asked by dualists, such as 'where is the feeling of motherly love located?' 'how many inches is it long?' 'is it square or pentagonal?' I must confess I have little patience with these silly games. The feeling of motherly love is a universal, an abstract concept, and it makes as little sense to ask about its spatial location as it does in regard to the (physical) concept of temperature. We have here a category mistake of the crudest sort, a confusion between universals and individuals. It makes sense to ask about the location of individual things or events, but it is simply nonsense to ask about the location of a concept (properties or relations in abstracto) (Essay, 39). To begin with, the concept of anything, even a table, is not a sensuous representation, and is not in space. If Berkeley and Hume said they had no abstract ideas, so much the worse for the powers of their intellect. When I say 'table' in ordinary conversation, few people will picture to themselves an 'image' of a table. And if there is this difference between 'universals

A comparison between the mental and the physical

169

and individuals' as mentioned by Feigl, or, equivalently, between intensions and extensions, senses and designata, which I also uphold, then since the physical world only consists of particulars and certain relations, the former mental entities are quite dissimilar from the physical. (Aristotle likewise made matter an individuating agent, and his substances were particulars.) And I do not see how Feigl could possibly deny that all physical things or events are in space, nor does he: I insist that physics deals with happenings in space-time, and that associated with those happenings there are aspects of mass, change and motion ('Comment', 569). Yet Feigl has just also said that 'it is simply nonsense to ask about the location of a concept'. And on his own admission we do have concepts, hence the mental is not the physical, period. Feigl's supposed reply to an objection really proves my point, and I have little patience with much further disputation either. 'It makes sense,' according to Feigl, 'to ask about the location of individual things or events.' And surely the processes of hearing, smelling, tasting are such particular events. Feigl characterizes these as follows: 'Sounds and smells at least in the usual situations of "veridical" perceptions seem to be partly outside, partly inside the phenomenal head.' Yet he also writes: 'I am perhaps not too acute in matters of phenomenological description' (Essay, 40). I agree only with the latter statement. However many parts of the causal chain may be in space (and I have already noted these to be physical and spatial for outer sense), the phenomena of sound, odor, flavor are not spatial, only temporal. So at least I observe, and similar things are said by Brentano and Strawson. Hume for that matter had already said: 'Sounds, and tastes, and smells... appear not to have any existence in extension, and consequently cannot appear to the senses as situated externally to the body' (Treatise, I, 481). My particular causal theory of perception must therefore be true, in view of the spatiality of the physical cause, yet the non-spatiality and hence non-materiality of certain phenomena. (That is to say, in the case of outer experiences, the whole causal chain is or involves the physical; but not all ultimate effects can be physical, since some sensuous phenomena are not in space. My final proposition is, of course, that no phenomenal effects are ever physical.) Even visual and tactual sensations are not passively sensed to be in the same spatial field, but are interpreted as such by habit. The latter point

170

Objections on empirical grounds

was argued by Berkeley, and has since been experientally confirmed by nineteenth-century psychologists. (Chapter XX of James' Principles contains a superb exposition; cf. Eccles, Facing Reality, 48-49.) Yet data which differ in spatial make-up cannot be empirically identical. Which brain is therefore identical with what phenomenon - the brain which is seen, or the brain which is touched? While there is indeed a concept 'motherly love', it is simply false that motherly love cannot also be a particular feeling. And even the particular feeling of motherly love is not confined to a specific location, hence is not material. (What, for example, could be the dimensions of the mystic's beatific ecstasy when contemplating the One?) But those which can be placed in turn disprove the identity theory (I have never denied that on occasions we experience location in conjunction with pain, although I consider the phenomenon pain itself non-spatial). I for one have felt very severe pain in my toe, but this is not where my central nervous system has its place. And already the ancients knew about the phenomenon of the 'phantom limb'. One can have feelings in a leg which has been amputated; the actual feelings, therefore, cannot even exist in the non-central nervous system. The identical material thing cannot exist and not exist at the same time and place. The experienced data consequently cannot be identified with the physical processes, but are different in number and often in quality. Of course, Descartes already explained the illusion of the phantom limb as being caused by the stimulations of nerve endings in the amputated stump. These stimuli in turn reach the brain, which is instrumental in interpreting the nerve stimuli as if they had come, as normally, from the limb. 'This explanation is essentially that accepted at the present day' (Eccles, Facing Reality, 55), and supports the causal theory of perception which I have adopted. 'The direct sensual perception of the phenomenon tells us nothing as to its objective physical nature' (Schrodinger, Mind and Matter, 102). The following passage of St. Augustine well sets the stage as I now investigate, not spatiality in general, but particular experiences which are non-spatial: As already proved by reason, there is no body that does not possess length, width, and height, and if none of these can be in a body without the other two; if, nevertheless, we have granted that the soul can see even a mere line by some sort of interior eye - that is, by the intelligence: this, I think, constitutes an admission that the soul is not bodily; more, that it is superior to body ('St. Augustine', 98).

A comparison between the mental and the physical

171

Kant similarly said that among 'thoughts... is not to be found any relation of place, motion, shape, or other spatial determination' (Critique: A 387). I must emphasize upon the word 'thought', which indicates conceptually; images in inner sense I have admitted to be possibly spatial. At least one notion in inner sense is not in time at all (the pure ego); some ideas in inner sense are in time only (unextended concepts); some also in space (images derived from vision or touch); but if in space, then images are in phenomenal (subjectively mental) space. Perfect geometrical conceptions, such as a point or straight line without breadth, are not of three dimensions. Even the concept of color is not in space, nor is it itself colored. Yet some ideas are neither sensuous in origin, nor have sensuous instantiations. Nothingness, impossibles, or better, unactualized or unactualizable possibles are examples. 'In speaking of perpetual mechanical movement', writes Leibniz, 'we know what we are saying, yet this movement is an impossible thing' (New Essays, 505). But the ideas of these impossibilities must also be something, and since they cannot themselves be physical, they must be mental. Similarly, though Kant rejected the existence of a vacuum, in the 'Transcendental Aesthetic' he rightly argued regarding space that 'we can quite well think it as empty of objects' (Critique: A 24/ B 39). That thought then cannot be (i.e., identical with) some material object. There are also ideas of possibilities which are wider than actual extensions (Leibniz's truths for all possible worlds), as well as ideals and norms which are never realized, or realizable. Counterfactual assertions are again something, yet not the physical. I also profess to have the idea of God as a disembodied spirit, but that very idea of spirituality cannot be material without contradiction. It may or may not be true that thinking has to resemble what it grasps; but it is certain that if thinking itself is a physical process, it must share all characteristics of matter, and cannot posit objects which escape those characteristics. If mind is physical, how can we understand, in any way grasp, the nonphysical, yet Feigl concedes that we do. And though we have already seen Feigl grant that concepts are non-spatial, he is surely, on a physicalistic theory, committed to say that all experiences are in space. And he does in fact say this: 'To put it very strongly, mental events as directly experienced and as phenomenally described are spatial' {Essay, 41). Yet this proposition is patently false for all such events; still, when it suits his purpose, Feigl on occasion repudiates the spatiality even of events in visual outer sense. Notwithstanding his causal theory of perception, he calls it a

172

Objections on empirical grounds

'fallacy' to expect to find in the brain of another person looking at a green tree a little picture of that tree. But pictorial thinking is one thing, and conceptual thinking is quite another ...The concepts of neurophysiology are nonintuitive and must not be confused with their logically irrelevant pictorial connotations (Essay, 88). Yet surely the tree in outer sense is not a concept, and is sensuous, pictorial, in space. Moreover, if concepts cannot be externally observed in any way, then Feigl must give up major premises as t h e s e : ' " T o exist" means simply to be the object of a true, uniquely descriptive statement... (on a sensory evidential basis)' {Essay, 111). Why is it that they insist on the public character of knowledge as a defining (necessary) condition of the scientific enterprise? This insistence of scientifically minded thinkers seems to rest on the belief that there is nothing in heaven or on earth (or even beyond both) that could not possibly be known... on the basis of sense perception ('Physicalism', 239). Whether the tree is pictorial or conceptual, in the light of the above statement, Feigl is committed to say that the tree allegedly identical with a brain state is perceivable through outer sense. Yet it is in fact not so perceivable, while all matter indeed is. Feigl therefore should restrict his major premise to material objects, and recognize that there is another kind of entity which does not meet this test. Yet lest I be charged with misrepresenting Feigl, I have not overlooked that there are passages where he repudiates external publicity. The sort of reasoning that conceives of, and argues for, mental states in other persons is, as I have always admitted, an extreme and degenerate form of analogical reasoning (Postscript, 159; cf. Essay, 62,68). If Feigl has in fact 'no doubt that analogy is the essential criterion for the ascription of sentience' (Essay, 60), then this is already an admission that B cannot perceive A's sensations (which are in A's inner sense); Feigl therewith overthrows the identity theory. Even if the method of analogy were wrong, one can premise all matter to be touchable. But a concept is not in space, and if I touch bits of brain, no one could say I am touching the concept I experience, for I know them to be different. Moreover, Locke characterized matter as impenetrable. And though we know today that a bar of gold is mainly empty space,

A comparison between the mental and the physical

173

whatever the ultimate particles of matter are, it seems safe to premise that two of them cannot occupy the identical location at the same time. But since my concepts are not in space at all, they cannot have a particular place. It is quite obvious that my thoughts do not leave me when my body is in motion. The reason is that that which is not spatially individuated can pervade all space, be omnipresent. The trillions of thoughts therefore could also concentrate in the head of a pin. Any mental entity consequently can not only occupy the same place as another mental entity, it can exist in the same location as a physical particle; hence again, there is a crucial difference in nature between mind and body. With my eyes or fingers I can only see or touch the surface of things. But as we have seen, certain most distinguished philosophers claim that the subject-object distinction ceases in some areas. Spinoza's definition of God or substance is a further example: By substance, I understand that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; in other words, that, the conception of which does not need the conception of another thing from which it must be formed (Ethic, 94). If analysts dismiss these profound insights as metaphysics, they yet still cannot deny that with the eye of the intellect one can penetrate, grasp, see through Spinoza's model, Euclid's geometry. This holds no less true if geometry is a priori analytic, a claim I deny. Euclid's geometry must get its great certainty and intersubjectivity from a certain simplicity in understanding it. I do not find such a simplicity in brain sparks, nor do logical empiricists themselves consider electrical charges as a priori analytic, but as empirical evidence which yields a posteriori synthetic statements. Allegedly there are no logical connections in nature, but the contradictory of that proposition certainly would be a consequence if all a priori entities were brain events. And the greatest agreement or intersubjectivity we find among the intelligible entities of inner sense, and these are never found in outer sense, the physical. Even if direct realism is true (a protasis I deny), images, after-images, and dreams are a fact, and since I am there not in direct contact with an external physical object, these mental pictures (found only in inner sense in the narrow meaning) must be in the brain on a materialist hypothesis, or, more accurately, be bits of brain. But such imagery might be hundreds of feet in extent, while the brain is not of this size; identity of mental and physical events is therefore impossible.

174

Objections on empirical grounds

By 'image' I always mean the sensuous entity I actually see when I am not in contact with the object (not the tiny replica focussed on the retina when directly seeing). Such images are undeniably something, and often extended. Feigl grants: 'A hallucination... is first of all... a datum of direct experience' (Essay, 25). Images differ from concepts in that the former are particular, often colored, extended, etc. That is to say, they have almost all the characteristics of outer sense, except that the outer cause is not activating them. I also claim it is a fact, that when I imagine objects I see them as having the same size as when I immediately perceive them. It should be noted that a score of distinguished writers, such as Plato, Descartes, Hobbes, and Berkeley, have claimed that the only way to distinguish dreaming from waking, if they are at all distinguishable, is the incoherence of dreaming with the most general, the most frequent experiences, not its quality. And even if Austin is right in maintaining qualitative differences between waking and dreaming, that I see things extended in dreams as in waking is undeniable. The empiricist Russell says the same: 'I did really have the dream, and did really have an experience intrinsically indistinguishable from that of seeing a ruined church when awake' (Human Knowledge, 171). And as the empiricist Berkeley puts it: 'In a dream we do oft perceive things as existing at a great distance off, and yet for all that, those things are acknowledged to have their existence only in the mind' (Principles, 132). (All these facts, which are in the general area of the 'argument from illusion', again endorse my rejection of direct realism as a viable theory of perception.) Not only am I arguing therefore that some mental events are not in space at all, while the brain is, but also that some mental events are wider in extension than the brain. I thus reject the Cartesian view that no mental events are spatial (some are), as well as the position Feigl is committed to hold, that all mental processes which are supposedly identical with brain occurrences are spatial (some mental events are not spatial). Mind-brain identity therefore conflicts with the disparity between phenomenal mind events and the spatial phenomenon brain; phenomenal space and time conflict with objective space and time; and any spatial and in some case or cases temporal attributes conflict with the existence of concepts and apperceptions. All these clashes can only be solved if the mind is not the brain. Let me now turn to the problem of empirical identification of the objects of the more abstract sciences with brain events. Of course we already

A comparison between the mental and the physical

175

know that the dividing line between a priori and a posteriori entities is (as presently conceived) a very imprecise one; thus I will not enter here questions such as whether purely mathematical objects (for me, seen only in inner sense) are 'experiences' or not. There is an old debate between phenomenologists and analysts whether 'all colors are extended', or 'the same thing cannot both be blue and red all over', are synthetic a prions or not. Whatever the answer here, we certainly cannot imagine the denial of these things, as much as we cannot imagine a round square. Yet if these are contradictions, I must certainly be able to clearly think or conceive them, or else I could not be confident that they do not exist in 'reality'. Contradictions do exist in the mind, but even analysts do not think them to be in the 'world' (out there), notwithstanding the fact that they cannot consistently make such a distinction, since logic in general is supposedly not in reality at all. But if logic and contradictions do not exist in the 'world', they are surely bound to distinguish the physical from the mental, for logic certainly is something for logical empiricists. Logical empiricists can hardly have any objection to my referring to Russell's logic, which they make so much of. 'A sentence belongs to logic', we are told by Russell, 'if we can be sure that it is true (or that it is false) without having to know the meaning of any of the words except those that indicate structure. That is the reason for the use of variables' (Human Knowledge, 253). Much as Leibniz, Locke, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein I, so, as we have already seen, Feigl distinguishes between the formal and factual sciences. And truth in the formal sciences is non-referential, noncorrespondent. But if everything would be reduced to physical events, then the formal sciences would be thrown out, as they would depend on, or better, be, empirical referents-, yet, 'As is well known, this dichotomy forms one of the cornerstones of modern logical empiricism' (Feigl, 'Logical Empiricism', 6). Also, how could logic be analytic at all, since brain processes are said to yield statements which are empirical, synthetic, contingent. Far from proving monism with his epistemology, Feigl would refute his most fundamental epistemological premise upon which the identity theory professes to establish itself. But not only is the necessary, eternal character of logic thus removed, logic suddenly is very much 'in the world', if mental events are brain events. Moreover, some analysts, as opposed to Russell's platonistic logicism, regard logic as a 'game', a 'convention', or mere 'marks on paper', yet all these views would no less

176 Objections on empirical grounds have to be abandoned; for the physical world is never characterized as a game or convention, and mere marks on paper are contingent, not necessary. The epistemological dichotomy forming 'one of the cornerstones of logical empiricism' itself implies not physicalistic monism, but an ontological bifurcation between mind and matter. Although I have not denied that mathematics may have sensuous instantiations, all branches of the formal sciences certainly are a priori and not spatial; they must then be mental, not physical. Feigl does not succeed in blurring the distinction between the mental and the physical; on the contrary, he leads us to the demonstration that there cannot even be a 'physical' science without mind, physics being highly logical and mathematical. If we take the meritorious Frege-Russell definition of number as a class of a class, then the second class may or may not be a physical aggregate, the first can never be. And if we distinguish a class from a collection, class membership from class inclusion, then if the former kind of class is meant, we nowhere find an empirical instantiation. Or take, for example, Russell's treatment of Cantorian infinity. It is certainly true that we cannot enumerate the infinite (or, for that matter, irrational numbers, incommensurables), but the impossibility of going through it in extension does not mean we cannot grasp it in intension, which in turn designates. Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz had said roughly the same thing when they proclaimed the 'positiveness' of the idea of infinity. And of course, Plato already had maintained that his archetypes, approximately equivalent to what I call objective intensions, are seen with the mind's eye only. If the identity theory is true, then physicalists must follow Mill in maintaining that any man is only capable of 'inferring a particular from particulars. In the same way, also, brutes reason' {Logic, Bk. II, Ch. Ill, § 3). Although empiricists in general always concentrate on the lowest capabilities of man, rather than the highest, logical empiricists do not join Mill quite that far. 'The pan-empiricist position of, e.g., John Stuart Mill,' has been 'effectively and definitively refuted' {Essay, 51). But since Feigl's identity theory implies a return to that position, then he cannot reject my inference that his own physicalism has been refuted. (Certain specious replies to this objection will be treated in the next section.) Again, presupposing pan-empiricism, this observation of Mill is surely true: ' "All men are mortal,"... though it may be general in its language, is no general proposition, but merely that number of singular propositions, written in an abridged character' {Logic, Bk. Ill, Ch. II, § 2). From Mill's proposition

A comparison between the mental and the physical

177

it follows that conceptualism and deductivism must be rejected, as they involve intensional universals. Yet both are needed for the philosophy of language and epistemology with which Feigl seeks to prove the identity. Then Feigl's very premises cannot be physical, empirical, but must be in some other realm, i.e., mind. For the physical is always confined to a particular spatio-temporal location, and is sensible, whereas the universal is outside space and non-sensible. Universality is part of the very idea of a science; yet if knowledge consists of sensible referents, such as brain events, the very possibility of a science is precluded. Should Feigl's conclusion of physicalistic monism therefore be true, then the very scientific premises from which he seeks to establish his conclusion are contradicted. And already prima facie it is evident that since premises and conclusion cannot be concomitantly maintained, it is the conclusion which he has to give up. It should also not be overlooked that not only Kant and Hegel insisted upon the universality and necessity of the a priori, even within the school of formal, symbolic or mathematical logic, modal, doxastic, and deontic logic and counterfactual inference cannot be reduced at all to the indicative logic which is employed by physicalists. Yet because of this dissimilarity in structure, mind cannot only just not be identical with the physical, but not even be parallelistic, double aspect or epiphenomenalistic. And if it does not follow that these non-indicative or non-descriptive relationships are brain events for physicalists, what on earth do scientific materialists maintain they are? As Feigl reminds us, 'Ever since Frege's and Husserl's devastating critiques of psychologism, philosophers should know better than to attempt to reduce normative to factual categories' ('Physicalism', 250). But not only is logic returned to psychologism, if the identity theory is supposed as true, but all prescriptive sciences become descriptive. Yet analysts themselves uphold that there can be no such reduction, hence one side of the dichotomy must be placed into the world of mind, i.e., evaluation and prescription. Let me end this section by examining the climax of the empirical program of mind-body identification. According to Feigl, The most direct confirmation [of the identity theory] conceivable would have to be executed with the help of an autocerebroscope. We may fancy a 'compleat autocerebroscopist' who while introspectively attending to, e.g., his increasing feelings of anger (or love, hatred, embarrassment, exultation, or to the experi-

178 Objections on empirical grounds ence of a tune-as-heard, etc.) would simultaneously be observing a vastly magnified visual 'picture' of his own cerebral nerve currents on a projection screen (Essay, 89).

For my part, I have no objection to any scientific apparatus whatever. Phenomenal data of any kind are certainly helpful for the building of most theories; I find only that the autocerebroscope experiment strongly disconfirms the identity theory. If an au/ocerebroscope experiment is 'The most direct confirmation conceivable', then that confirmation does not meet Feigl's criterion of publicity, as the very name of Feigl's apparatus indicates. The reason of course is, that inner sense is only privately accessible, and that only one (auto-) ego can simultaneously observe inner and outer sense. Since only humans can reliably communicate, this kind of experiment also could never establish the exact nature of the inner sense of animals. Moreover, we could never confirm tactile, auditory, olfactory, or gustatory mental events with an autocerebroscope, as the latter involves vision only. The constant neglect of non-visual and non-tactile data is unfortunate, as the remaining sensations are not in space, while all sight and touch is. Nonetheless, even if we concentrate on visual data, as does Feigl, there is a considerable amount of disconfirming evidence. I do not see how the autocerebroscope could repudiate any of the empirical evidence I have already given, and in the next section this will be further substantiated. 2. Replies by identity theorists to objections - Rejoinders Some of the criticisms I have advanced and will bring forward are already known to identity theorists. Yet I do not think they can handle them, and in this section I will concentrate on giving my reasons. In the search for truth it is most important that a protagonist does not ignore the countercriticisms which have been made by his opponents. And the replies which one ought to deal with foremost should not be the worst, but the best. I am extremely sensitive on matters of intellectual honesty, and if anyone ever claims I have not given the opposition the best hearing, I ask him to give the evidence. It is of course possible that I have overlooked important contentions, but the opposition is then asked to bring them forward. There is to begin with always the possibility that a critic has misrepresented or misunderstood the views of the person or school he is examining. In 'The essence of the identity theory' I have already given a fair amount

A comparison between the mental and the physical

179

of basis for the proposition that at least one term of Feigl's empirical identification is direct phenomenal acquaintance. 'As we have repeatedly pointed out, the crux of the mind-body problem consists in the interpretation of the relation between raw feels and the neural processes' (Essay, 79). And having examined the notion of'identity' in Chapter II, I consider myself now quite justified for saying, that the only other term of that empirical identification could be those very same raw feels. Although the foregoing was and shall remain my main interpretation of Feigl's identity theory, this does not mean that I have ignored that there are places where he makes claims which look quite different. The occasions when Feigl changes the crux of his thesis are usually the ones where serious objections are brought, and the strengths of these are now to be investigated. Since I am raising counter-contentions to the theory of someone else, I am bound to adjust somewhat to that person's claims; I ask the reader therefore to forgive a certain repetitiveness and tediousness, and I wish to inform him that I have designedly somewhat scattered around this discussion, in order to make it not too tiresome. Though I subscribe to the view that philosophy is an enquiry into truth in general, I do not think that truth and pleasure always coincide. Some truths, such as the multi-faced character of the identity theory, are quite unpleasant to hold in contemplation. In this section, I will first investigate what Feigl's theory in fact ultimately maintains, then look at ways of establishing that thesis of physicalism, and lastly examine specific experimental evidence which allegedly leads to, or at least does not conflict with, scientific materialism. The reason for my concentration on Feigl's work is again that his writings contain the most honest, thorough and painstaking discussions; but insofar as other scientific materialists have anything significant to add, their views have been and will be examined. Those who have not faced up to problems in the manner of Feigl indeed more easily escape the knife of criticism, but they do not similarly bleed only because their materialism has never grown to the point of real life. And no man whatever can make true what the universe does not allow to be true. As for the question what exactly the thesis of physicalism maintains, we will consider the possibilities of Feigl making substantial, referential claims, and secondly, non-substantial, or purely verbal maneuvers. Subdivisions of the first alternative are the following: Feigl identifies (1) phenomena with phenomena, illata (or things in themselves) still existing; (2) phenomena with phenomena, illata not existing; (3) phenomena with il-

180

Objections on empirical grounds

lata; (4) illata with illata, phenomena still existing; (5) illata with illata, phenomena not existing. The evidence for interpretation 5 will be discussed in Section 1 of'Conclusions and Prospects', and possibilities 1, 3, and 4 in some detail now. As far as I can gather, there is no evidence that Feigl ever espouses possibility 2 (and this alternative is, in any event, even less tenable than the rest). The above seem to be exhaustive possibilities of substantial identification within the physicalist framework outlined by Feigl. And which possibility or possibilities Feigl and other physicalists actually espouse is less important a question to correctly answer, than the provision of a thorough examination of each such possibility. There appears to be evidence that Feigl is identifying the phenomenal with the phenomenal: Strange as it may sound at first, it is possible that by doing introspective-phenomenological description of immediate experience, we are in effect (though we are hardly ever aware of it) doing also a bit of (very crude, vague, and preliminary) brain physiology (Postscript, 149; cf. Essay, 103).

There are even more explicit passages to this effect: 'The "mental" states or events (in the sense of raw feels) are the referents (the denotata) of the phenomenal terms of the language of introspection, as well as of certain terms of the neurophysiological language' (Essay, 80; cf. 106-107). Stephen C. Pepper, who in his Concept and Quality avowedly shares Feigl's theory, puts the contention similarly: The qualitative neural identity theory, which we espouse, ...gives priority to the qualitative introspective report and regards the physiologist's neural report as largely a conceptual interpretation of the qualitative experience immediately given (101).

In the first place, if phenomena are to be identified with phenomena, then the world of illata is left out completely, which as causes of the phenomenal Feigl strongly insists on, and for which I have added and will add considerable evidence. Feigl continually stresses the distinction between the evident and the evidence, 'evidence and reference' 'datum' and 'descripturri (Essay, 86, 99, 111). Surely these demarcations are exemplifications of the difference between 'knowledge by acquaintance' and 'knowledge by description' (if not, why not?), and the first kind of knowledge is knowledge of phenomena or raw feels, the second kind tends to be knowledge of illata or theoretical entities. The 'indicator' has not been confused

A comparison between the mental and the physical

181

or confounded by me 'with the indicated' {Essay, 87), but at times by Feigl himself. Should Feigl therefore identify phenomena only, his inability to include illata in his picture of the world leaves him with a radical dualism. In the second place, while it is quite true that mere phenomena can also be known in these two ways - for example, I can know a color by acquaintance by sensing it, and by description by conceptually thinking it - the empiricist friends leave me at a loss what they mean by 'conceptual interpretation' of a 'qualitative introspective report' (Pepper, Concept and Quality, 101). For time and again I am told that 'Purely phenomenal assertions require no other evidence than that which is "given".' Such assertions are 'ultimate', 'the least dubitable knowledge claims', ' " i n the last analysis'" (Feigl, Postscript, 149). There cannot in principle be any criteria by reference to which one can change anything (in regards to epistemological status) about anything 'ultimate' by 'interpretation'! It is indeed true that there are these two different ways of knowing, but that proves nothing about the object in the world which is known, and the latter is the question to be decided. Merely because there are two ways of approaching an object (two mental 'attitudes' in my nomenclature), it does not follow that the object itself is different; yet if there are in fact two objects in the world, they cannot at the same time be one. When Feigl in the Postscript nonetheless goes on to explain the fact that we do not 'know' that the mental process is a brain process, he insists that 'This is to be viewed as a case of what Quine calls "referential opacity"' (150). Such a reply is unacceptable because, as everything is identical to itself, a case of knowing cannot be identical with any idea or reference which is not known; for were it so identical, we would know it to begin with, which is contrary to hypothesis. (Two ways of knowing are n o more one than two objects are one.) Also, apart from this logical or epistemic point, the following linguistic and empirical contentions have already been refuted: 'Referential opacity' ...is in some respect analogous to, for example, the case of a housewife who by saying 'the soup is hot now' does not know she is referring to a state of the soup which (in the light of the modern theory of heat) is characterized also by the mean kinetic energy of the molecules that are constituents of the soup {Postscript, 150). Besides, it is not the case that first-hand phenomena are senses, they are

182

Objections on empirical grounds

referents', we have just seen Feigl himself say: 'The "mental" states or events... are the referents (the denotata) of the phenomenal terms of the language' (Essay, 80). The senses, connotations, or intensions are concepts (or at times images); and we observe a referent as what we observe it to be, neither more nor less. Furthermore, there is the strong observed disparity between the brain, which is in outer sense only, and those data which are in inner sense in the narrow meaning. My brain is indeed a material object, as it is passively perceived in a mirror. But I simply do not sense the brain in inner sense, for inner sense is pure mentality alone. And I cannot get at that mentality by means of outer sense; this is the reason why I do not even see imagined sensuous representations in a brain. But let me elaborate upon this crucial contention in the latter part of this section. Having discussed possibility 1, I now turn to possibility 3: is Feigl attempting to identify phenomena with illata? Feigl is quite aware that 'a familiar objection to the identity theory' asks: 'How could directly experienced qualities such as colors, sounds, smells, pains, emotions, or the like, be identical with neural processes whose properties are so fundamentally different?' This is of course an objection of the type I raise. Yet Feigl replies: 'It must be pointed out that according to our epistemological point of view the designata of the concepts of physical science are by and large totally unfamiliar, i.e., unknown by acquaintance' ('Physicalism', 257). It is indeed true that Feigl, in keeping with his causal theory of perception, has distinguished phenomena from their causes, yet that separation has only pushed him into the arms of dualism. He almost says this much in his own words: Speaking 'ontologically' for the moment, the identity theory regards sentience (qualities experienced, and in human beings knowable by acquaintance) and other qualities (unexperienced and knowable only by description) the basic reality (Essay, 107).

But just because there is indeed this difference between phenomena and illata, the two realities could never be identified, and Feigl himself says so: 'It is perfectly clear that existential hypotheses (involving theoretical constructs, illata) cannot be logically translated into statements about evidential data' ('Logical Empiricism', 17). 'Concepts pertaining to the unobservables are related to, but not identifiable with, the observables which constitute the evidential data for the confirmation of statements about the

A comparison between the mental and the physical

183

unobservables' (Essay, 28). (It may not always be completely clear here whether Feigl is speaking of identification of senses or referents; but in any event - premising my own theory of meaning - failure to qualitatively identify senses precludes identification of referents.) Yet notwithstanding these quite explicit admissions, there are passages where Feigl does seem to aim at identifying phenomena with illata: We don't have two kinds of evidence for one and the same entity (event, process, etc.). In direct acquaintance we have, we experience the datum (it is not evidenced, it is evident!), and we identify it with a physical process which we posit as an illatum whose existence is asserted on the basis of multifarious data in other evidential domains (Essay, 85-86).

Yet I only remind the reader again that Feigl has admitted that 'the practice of scientific thinking clearly demonstrates that theoretical concepts (hypothetical entities) are never reducible to, or identifiable with, observable data (or logical constructions thereof)' (Essay, 77). And while phenomena and illata can admittedly never be identified, the upholding of that same distinction is nonetheless most essential for Feigl's theory. We note now that Feigl already makes such a further admission, and enter the reasons in more detail in the latter part of this section: If the denotatum of'brain process (of a specified sort)' is thus confused with the appearance of the gray mass of the brain as one perceives it when looking into an opened skull, then it is indeed logically impossible to identify this appearance with the raw feels, e.g., of greenness or of anxiety (Essay, 87).

The following quotation may or may not obviate the difficulty at hand; I give Feigl the benefit of the doubt, and let the reader decide. The identification is therefore restricted to those elements, properties, or relations in the neural processes which (in dualistic parlance) are the 'correlates' of the raw feels. In our monistic account this is tantamount to the identity of the denotata directly labeled by phenomenal terms, with the denotata of neural descriptions. These latter denotata are acquaintancewise unknown to the neurophysiologist, except if he uses the autocerebroscope himself (Essay, 90).

But if one must thus use an aw/ocerebroscope, then we have already an admission that mind, unlike matter, is not publicly experienced. Also, I have already produced considerable evidence that such a phenomenological comparison between inner and outer sense yields radical disparities.

184 Objections on empirical grounds Furthermore, in inner experience we do not get at the illata of outer sense, hence we cannot thus experientially compare outer theoretical entities and outer phenomena. Kant, who professed a similar theory of perception as Feigl, said that both inner and outer phenomena are appearances only, and I have repudiated this view with definiteness only in the case of the pure ego, which is apperceived in inner sense. I do not herewith conveniently forget that Kant also held open the possibility that inner and outer sense have a common, to us unknown root. But even if this possibility should ever turn out to be a factual truth, the bifurcation between noumena and appearances (employing Kantian terminology), or illata and phenomena, is not therewith overcome. Moreover, since it is a given observation that inner and outer phenomena have different characteristics, the respective causes must also correspondingly differ ('same cause, same effect'). But again, the detailed reasons for this assertion will be given in the crucial latter part of this section. It is doubtful altogether that Feigl attempts to identify raw feels with illata as referents. S. F. Barker understands the thesis as I do: 'Feigl tentatively argues for the identification of "raw feels" with neural events: when I am acquainted with a sensation in my mind, he maintains, the sensation is an event in my brain' ('Mind-Body Problem', 395). But if Feigl does seek to identify phenomena with illata, such a position is not tenable even within his own framework. Let me nonetheless again pursue the same escape route which could allow the possible identification of phenomena and illata as I pursued for the possible identification of phenomena and phenomena. According to Feigl, 'acquaintance statements differ only in the type and domain of evidence, but not in regard to their reference, from certain neurophysiological statements' {Essay, 95). The'evidence' Feigl here speaks of I now interpret as the phenomena, the 'reference' as the cause of the phenomena, or illata. And it is once more admitted as true that knowledge by acquaintance is not the same as knowledge by description, and that one and the same object (in the world) can be known in these two ways. There are 'two ways of knowing the same event - one direct, the other indirect' {Essay, 106). Anthony Eden knows Queen Elizabeth II by acquaintance, whereas Feigl only by description; yet it is surely the same person they know (see Essay, 95). But the analogy with the mind-body relationship breaks down completely. For Feigl, just by continually visiting the Queen, can easily get to know by acquaintance what Anthony Eden

A comparison between the mental and the physical

185

so knows; yet dissimilarly, what Feigl knows by description of another person's mental state he cannot get to know by acquaintance, since no mere physical presence with the Queen overcomes the Queen's privileged access to her mind. Thus, the Queen's body and behavior can be known by both acquaintance and description, hence the same physical event can indeed be known in two ways; but anyone except the Queen can know her mind in only one way - by description. Analogies cannot overcome factual differences, but factual differences no doubt can overthrow analogies! Turning now to possible interpretation 4: is Feigl attempting to identify illata with illata, phenomena still existing? The following passage may suggest this: The central questions of the mind-body problem then come to this: are the concepts of introspective psychology - relating to phenomenal data or phenomenal fields - definable on the basis of physicah theoretical terms, and if so, are they also definable on the basis of physicah (theoretical) terms (Essay, 58)? First of all, in view of the empiricist pronouncements displayed during my treatment of the philosophy of language, it is not clear how such theoretical entities which differ from phenomena can meaningfully be discussed at all. Then too, I have quoted Feigl's pronounced identification of existence and the sensible. Even Kant repeatedly said that the thing in itself is and always will remain unknowable, and the destructive part of the Critique of Pure Reason is almost entirely directed against a science of the thing in itself. Suddenly Feigl may be a stronger metaphysician than the man he calls a rationalist and has little use for. And if mind and body are to be identical as theoretical entity, then the phenomena of acquaintance are something different - yet what is to sustain them? There is again no identity, and it is only a matter of words to call phenomena 'mental', the ground of intersubjective sensations 'matter'. It is further one of the most fundamental assumptions of science that like cause produces like effect; why discard what really has never been discontinued (in the case of physical events), now that it is inconvenient? We certainly observe the acquaintances which are internal to be different from the external, hence the cause must be different as well. There is no solid ground whatever for identifying these 'occult causes', as Mill called them. Presupposing scientific method, it is legitimate even to provide different hypotheses to account for the same phenomena. This is certainly a far cry from insisting on one hypothesis for radically different phenomena, as

186

Objections on empirical grounds

Feigl could be doing. It is however clear to a rationalist as myself that, while it is indeed true that several different hypotheses may explain the same given data in empirical science, this is only so because that science does not deal with complete reality at all, but only with approximations, i.e., subjective intensions. In reality only one explanation serves any one set of facts, though we could then no longer call this an hypothesis, as the explanation would no longer be conditioned. (As we saw, this could be the correct interpretation of Newton's hypotheses non Jingo.) I will not prove my assertion here in any way; I only note that it is not inapplicable to the present facts, as it is quite safe to say that the data of givenness in the case of mind and body are far from identical. Even before we turn to the last possible terpretation of identification -where Feigl denies the existence of phenomena altogether- itmust already be evident to the reader that all alternative attempts at substantial identification must lead to failure. Let me now briefly look at a few specious linguistic maneuvers apparently designed to overcome these difficulties in the substantialist thesis. Why not entertain a still different position on the relationship between the phenomenal and physical, in keeping with the 'unity of science'. I think that the mutual exclusiveness of the phenomenal and physical conceptual frames is to be explicated by the logic (semiotic) of the respective categories and not as a formulation of a feature of the world (Postscript, 156-157; cf. Essay, 42).

If this is so, then since Feigl's thoughts are ex hypothesi states of his brain, his brain must be out of this world. I doubt, however, that Feigl will welcome such a consequence. And speaking more seriously, we have already seen often enough that Feigl does wish to make a claim about the world or reality. And as we have also seen often enough, method must adjust to the subject investigated, not the subject to the method. There is yet a further such possibility of what Feigl is talking about: In most of the crucial parts of the present essay I have taken a unitary language to be the ideal medium of epistemological reconstruction. By this I mean the following: Both the phenomenal terms (designating raw feel data) and the illata terms (designating unobservables) occur in the language of commonsense or of science, and they are connected by strands in the nomological net (Essay, 101).

Now, the exact nature and ontological status of the 'nomological net' is

A comparison between the mental and the physical

187

certainly not made clear by Feigl. But it is safe to say that such laws themselves are not observed nor observable in outer sense, hence they cannot be physical. And Feigl makes illata and phenomena 'strands' in the net, hence there is no ontological, numerical identity. I have also already provided, and will further provide, reasons for maintaining that different entities in the universe are covered by different laws, so that neither the terms nor the structure of the mental and physical are identical. That there are however still some lawful connections between mind and body I have never denied, but am anxious to affirm. Should anyone ever say I just misunderstand Feigl, I challenge him to explain to me exactly what Feigl or other physicalists are saying. I am quite capable of comprehending those meanings which seem reasonably clear to Feigl, and I find them a quagmire of contradictions. At least Feigl realizes that 'Consistency in these matters is painfully difficult to achieve' (Postscript, 137). It is high time that it is realized that, at least as far as things stand now, consistency is beyond the reach of physicalists, and that thus a necessary condition of any scientific thesis is not met. I no longer care if the reader takes his pick of what Feigl is saying; I have indicated my own preference right from the beginning, namely that the attempted empirical identification seeks to equate phenomena (with something else, or perhaps with themselves), not overlooking therewith that Feigl has stressed that phenomena can be known in two ways. I have also added and will further show that most of these positions are not compossible; and none of them, for that matter, could ever soundly establish the identity theory. Having examined the substantial and formal theses of identification, let us now look at the means of establishing that identification, and concentrate on 'the most direct confirmation conceivable' {Essay, 89): In no conceivable experimental setup could one 'observe' both a brain state and its so-called mental correlate simultaneously. The parallel correlation would therefore always be a matter of interpretation of the autocerebroscopic data ('Physicalism', 264). If this means that we cannot observe both purely mental data in inner sense and neural data in outer sense, then Feigl's claim is definitely false. The fact is that the identity theory is thus disconfirmable and disconfirmed. I can already now magnify a brain cell of mine to almost any size I wish, yet I do not see concepts or even smells in cells or clusters of cells. Yet if

] 88

Objections on empirical grounds

Feigl means to tell us with these sentences that the effect can never be simultaneous with the cause, then that proposition is true. Even Hume made the proposition a necessary condition of causal sequence, and I have not been convinced by philosophers as Russell that this is not necessarily so. All physical change involves time, so that a cause must always precede its effect. But such a causal relation in the mind-body context is called interactionism, not parallelism; and parallelism is thus again only disconfirmable. While very unlikely to be actually the case, it is not impossible that mental and physical events are simultaneous, so that parallelism is not a matter of 'interpretation1, but open to empirical corroboration. Doubtless the temporal differences between cause and effect in mind-body interaction are very minute, yet why suddenly throw overboard one's faith in scientific gadgetry when it comes to issues as crucial as this. The difference may well one day be measured, so that both interactionism and parallelism can in principle be empirically confirmed or disconfirmed. (I will elaborate upon these contentions in Section 1 of 'Conclusions and Prospects': 'The methodological impossibility of identification.') In any event, why does Feigl say 'The parallel correlation would therefore always be a matter of interpretation of the autocerebroscopic data'? This seems to suggest that the fact of parallelism is interpreted from some data which are not directly observed to be parallel. All along I had thought that an established parallelism is deemed to be the empirical ground from which the move is made to identity. The following passage appears to suggest this: 'The scientific evidence for parallelism or isomorphism is then interpreted as the empirical basis for identification' (Essay, 94). And it is directly after this sentence that the still more crucial 'interpretation' which I have already cited (in 'The metaphysical nature of science itself'), is outlined: The step from parallelism to the identity view is essentially a matter of philosophical interpretation. The principle of parsimony as it is employed by the sciences contributes only one reason in favor of monism. If isomorphism is admitted, the dualistic (parallelistic) position may be retained, but no good grounds can be adduced for such a duplication of realities, or even of 'aspects' of reality. I think however there are excellent grounds for a dualistic position, namely that mind and brain are observed to be different. Why, Feigl himself frequently asserts 'that the identity theory stands or falls with the empiri-

A comparison between the mental and the physical

189

cal evidence, and can therefore never be regarded as justified by purely logical considerations alone' ('Physicalism', 264). If some empirical correlation were not (directly or indirectly) observed, we could never have established an empirical isomorphism in the first place; but if the parallelism is not empirical, one wonders what the justification for the above 'interpretation' (or interpretationj) consists in. Isomorphism precludes identity in any realm by definition. And the principle of parsimony, itself metaphysical, or at best regulative, is employed by Feigl to overrule an observed difference. Nor, as we have seen, is the principle in any way applicable to the world, if it denies a multiplicity of entity content rather than claims economy of arrangement. What Feigl's 'empirical' identification therefore comes to is this: he appeals to a metaphysical principle which on his terms he cannot justify, and which I maintain is demonstrably false, to overrule an empirical disparity which on his account is 'knowledge by acquaintance', and therefore 'ultimate'. If a more glaring contradiction can be found in philosophical literature, what is it? While I am continually appealing to 'observed disparities between inner and outer sense,' it may well be thought that physicalists have successful replies to my claim. Yet I will proceed to give rejoinders to the replies by physicalists to objections, and therewith clarify both the evidence for and the conclusion: psycho-physical dualism. But in order not to get lost in the detail, I will begin with the following synoptic view of my general line of attack. The hypothetico-deductive method tentatively posits certain conditions which are unobserved or unobservable. These hypotheses are disconfirmed or falsified if only one verifiable consequence can be shown to be incompatible with the supposed conditions. A hypothesis is not definitely confirmed if one or even several consequences which can be inferred are repeatedly observed. If however many expected consequences persist to be precisely verified under varied and adverse circumstances, we have achieved as much certainty as is possible for positive claims in the advanced empirical sciences. In the words of Popper, 'Theories are not verifiable, but they can be "corroborated"' (Logic, 251; cf. 33). For both physicalists and me, the unobservables of the causal theory of perception are always causes, the observables always the ultimate effects. But the ontological nature of these unobservables and observables is viewed differently. A causal theory of perception within psycho-physical monism is committed to hold that both the causes and the effects involved

190

Objections on empirical grounds

in the process of perceiving have all the characteristics of material objects which have been outlined. More specifically, the causes are physical events, and the ultimate effects brain states. A causal theory of perception within my version of psycho-physical dualism maintains that the causes of what are distinguished as outer sense are material (at least in part), and in that case only. The ultimate effects - the entities of which we are actually conscious - never have certain necessary features of matter. Thus, while I grant that it is some external material object which causes the phenomenon blue patch when I am actually looking at Lake Ontario, the effect is not material. Moreover, in the case of what I distinguish as inner sense, neither all the causes or grounds, nor any of the effects, can be material. For example, all originating agents of unextended mathematical concepts are not physical, nor are those concepts themselves bodily in nature. What crucial experiments employing the hypothetico-deductive method decide this issue, and why are physicalists compelled to submit assent to my ontology? Psycho-physical monists, as I, premise that all matter is publicly perceivable. Consequently, if the ultimate effects of the perceiving process, the phenomena, were material, then they would have to be publicly observable; in fact, however, they are not. In other words, according to identity theorists, external material object Z (as a door) causes some phenomenal effects which observer A is conscious of. If that phenomenal object were itself material, then it would in turn be a physical cause which would lead to publicly perceived effects in observers B and C. Thus, if both the cause Z and the effect (as well as cause) A would give rise to perceptions in B and C, the identity theory would not fall in the face of my chief objection; if external material object Z is publicly perceivable, but not the phenomenal effects allegedly identical with the brain events of A, my dualistic position will be confirmed for outer sense. But not only will it be shown that the phenomenal effects never meet the test of materiality, in the case of pure mentality alone, inner sense, the causes or grounds, just as much as the effects, do not give rise to public phenomena. Whereas in the case of data of outer sense, one and the same material object as thing in itself gives rise to two qualitatively similar but numerically distinct phenomena in observers A and B, in the case of data of inner sense, which are all mental (and that includes the ultimately experienced phenomenal effects of outer sense), the presence of such data in A does not give rise to anything in B at all, and are in this sense private to A. For example, when B examines the brain of person A who is having a

A comparison between the mental and the physical

191

dream, B indeed observes (in his own mind or brain) the nervous mechanisms which may be somehow correlated with A's dreaming. The fact that B perceives the effect of A's brain events (as illata) indicates that the brain is physical, and the fact that he fails to have access to the content of A's dream is proof that dreams are private and mental only, and cannot be identified with the material brain. (If B wants to know what A's dreaming is like, no mere passive watching of the world apart from him will help: B can only recall his own dreaming, and transfer the quality, in addition to the number, of types of dreaming by analogy from himself to A.) It should be noted that the correlated brain events of A perceived by B cannot have underlying them the same sufficient cause as that which brings about A's dreaming. (I am not denying that some necessary causes of dreaming may be physical.) For were there a common overall physical cause, it follows that B must experience the same effect, i.e., the dream of A. (No one stresses the dictum 'same cause, same effect' more than physicalists.) If B perceives A's dream, physicalism does not fall immediately; if B does not, the psycho-physical identity theory is refuted. Of course, if B perceives A's brain, he could, on that count alone, hardly perceive at the same time a dream allegedly to be identified with A's brain. More accurately - in view of the causal theory of perception - we should say that the thing- in itself which is an aspect of A and causes a representation of a brain in B cannot be identified with either a thing in itself or representation dream which is an aspect of A, since B is not at all aware of such dream phenomena. Knowing the obvious facts, it may already dawn on the reader that something always resists encroachment by the public perceiving process, namely mental occurrences, while material events are indeed always publicly perceivable (i.e., in a qualitative, though not numerical way). But whether the conclusion already dawns on the reader or not, he should note that the proof for my conclusion is set up in such a way that it is readily in turn refutable, though it may well never in fact be refuted: 'a theory is falsifiable if the class of its potential falsifiers is not empty' (Popper, Logic, 86; cf. 112). I therefore meet a most essential requirement of a scientific thesis at least as well as, and probably much better than, the 'scientific' philosophers I criticize. I now turn to prove my assertions in detail, and - true to the true spirit of science-in the face of the best counterclaims: 'the degree of corroboration of a hypothesis depends mainly upon the severity of its tests' (Popper, Logic, 270). To state my position succinctly once more: neither mind

192 Objections on empirical grounds as thing in itself, the (at least partial )ground for the data of inner experience; nor the mental phenomena of inner sense; nor the mental phenomena of outer sense, which are caused by material objects as things in themselves, ever give rise to public or qualitatively shared perceptions in different onlookers; yet material objects as things in themselves always are so capable. For only the physical can emit or reflect light or sound waves, be touched, or causally affect the chemical sense organs of taste and smell - never the mental. And let me again emphasize the advantages of my extensive universal quantifications: The degree of corroboration of a theory which has a higher degree of universality can... be greater than that of a theory which has a lower degree of universality (and therefore a lower degree of falsifiability). In a similar way, theories of a higher degree of precision can be better corroborated than less precise ones (Popper, Logic, 269).

It is a fact that I can imagine or picture to myself some color, or have an after-image of one. It is to be noted that I can do so in a dark room or with my eyes closed, so that, even if direct realism is true for normal outer sense, it cannot be claimed that I see an actual colored object. It is furthermore granted by identity theorists that one finds no color patches when one inspects a bared brain. Still, there are two main lines of reply. The poverty of the first answer indicates the desperateness of the identity theorists' position. Smart's suggestion is as follows. When a person says, 'I see a yellowish-orange afterimage,' he is saying something like this:' There is something going on which is like what is going on when I have my eyes open, am awake, and there is an orange illuminated in good light in front of me, that is, when I really see an orange' ('Brain Processes', 167; cf. 'Materialism', 654).

While I cannot speak for Smart, this is certainly not what / am saying. But how can Smart even make a comparison with what he is usually seeing in the external world, if he is not in fact seeing something when closing his eyes. Furthermore, he himself grants that 'there is something going on,' and since Smart maintains a causal theory of perception, all colors would have to be in the brain or mind, though it does not really follow that they need be in the brain only. Then too, we remember that even such an extreme empiricist as Hume granted that we can imagine colors which we have never seen, and I wonder how Smart would have a man 'translate' the brilliant colors he saw during an LSD trip.

A comparison between the mental and the physical

193

Towards the end of his consideration of this problem, Smart says 'Raw feels, in my view, are colorless for the very same reason that something is colorless' ('Brain Processes', 167). In the 'Symposium: Materialism' he amplifies: On the view I am defending, images and sense data are not constituents of the world, though the processes of having an image or a sense datum are actual processes in the world. The experience of having a green sense datum is not itself green; it is a process occurring in grey matter (653). Smart is to be commended for distinguishing the act and the object-, Brentano of course held the intentional act to be irreducibly mental. But Brentano also, and rightly, insisted that every act is directed towards some object without exception, whether that object is real or fictitious, 'inexistent' in his terminology, to leave open the specific differences. There consequently could not be the process at all of which Smart speaks, if there is no such thing as an image green. In any event, as I have already indicated far back, I have little patience to contend with behaviorists who deny they introspect mental data; they better had their mental faculties or intellectual honesty examined. Even a man as metaphysical and rationalistic as Plato was anxious to 'save the appearances', and the most uncompromising materialist Hobbes spoke of the 'imagery of the brain' (Leviathan, 389). With these points, furthermore, Smart does not even advance the cause of materialism. For it is certainly true that we also have colorless 'raw feels', yet those 'raw feels' could not be material, as there is no matter the color of which (more accurately, caused by which) cannot in principle be sensed. All matter is impenetrable; the impenetrable always reflects light. (Of course, there may be bits of matter so small that they escape in the crests and troughs of a wave, hence the utility of electron microscopes.) One need not join the old debate whether 'all colors involve extension' is a synthetic a priori or an a posteriori to know, that since concepts are not extended, they cannot be colored. Then too, if unperceived matter is not colored in any way (the view of Smart), why, if the human mind is said to be nothing over and above matter, does it sense color at all? Of somewhat more sophistication are the answers of Alexander, Schlick and Feigl, Pepper, and Russell, who have also attempted to answer the same objection. This second line of defense consists essentially of the point that the same thing may be seen differently from different points of view.

194

Objections on empirical grounds

All but the first respondent almost exclusively appeal to the causal theory of perception as the savior of the psycho-physical identity theory. Alexander writes: If the sensory object blue or the image of a table is in some way contained in the apprehension of it, doubtless there is an unbridged chasm between the neural process which clearly has no such 'content' and the mental process which has ('Alexander', 256-257). Since that there is in fact such an image I take to be an undeniable given datum, Alexander himself must grant that his materialism has been refuted. We should however not ignore that Alexander also writes: As the object varies, so does the neural process or the mental process vary. But there is no parallelism of the neural and the mental series of which psychology should take account. They are one. Psychology considers the series from the point of view of the experient or enjoyer; physiology from the point of view of the onlooker, or, if of the experient himself, not in his character of experiencing the mental process but of reflecting on its basis in neural process ('Alexander', 256; cf. Schlick, 'Schlick', 305). But clearly, as in Feigl's autocerebroscope experiment, the identical self can be both 'onlooker' (i.e., extraspector) and 'enjoyer' (i.e., introspector), and if brain processes and raw feels are one and the same thing, the pure ego would have to see them not incompatibly as such. But if the person persists to see two different processes, as he definitely does, how could there possibly be an empirical identification. (That there is some sort of connection between the two processes is of course not denied.) We may even reflect on the 'neural process' when having the 'mental process', as Alexander suggests, but this does not prove that a mental process is a neural one, or that the former has 'its basis in neural process'. We could indeed, for instance (using a charitable example), by extraspection always see the top of a cube, by introspection the bottom half. Yet even in this case, the top cannot be taken as identical with the bottom, and it is also a fact that we do not perceive a connecting link between outer and inner data, hence we cannot say that the two halves are the same contiguous substance. And in the case of non-spatial concepts of inner sense, we could not possibly perceive them with the (physical) eyes or fingers. Furthermore, the fact that those mental events which are extended, as

A comparison between the mental and the physical

195

imagined colors, are not seen by outer sense either, shows again that the mental is not the physical. A further major answer to the problem at hand is exemplified by Schlick, whose 'physicalistic identity theory' is praised by Feigl ('Physicalism',261; cf. Essay, 80). (Feigl also makes a similar explanation as the following of Schlick: see Essay, 87-88,106.) The gravest error which can be made in interpreting the psycho-physical problem, and which, incomprehensibly, is repeatedly being made, is the fact that, unnoticed, the perceptions or images of the brain processes are put in the place of the brain processes with which the mental processes are supposed to be identical. The perceptions are themselves reality experienced, are themselves mental processes, but they belong to another individual, that is to the man who contemplates the brain of thefirstindividual, and they are naturally in no way identical with the experiences of thefirstindividual ('Schlick', 306). Presupposing a causal theory of perception, it is of course true that the sensuous representation is in another person's brain or mind. But if A's brain and mental processes are identical as material permanent possibility or thing in itself, B would have to see the inner representations of A in his (B's) brain, whereas in fact he does not. Put otherwise, A's brain as thing in itself should cause an effect in B's brain whereby A's material brain states are observed as identical with entities such as dream images. But again, dream images are not only not perceived or perceivable to be identical with brain states, dreams are not perceived at all. Nonetheless, when A awakens, he can certainly tell B about a private dream experience which B did not perceive. A's brain as thing in itself is therefore always a material entity, causing representations of brain states in B's outer sense; but B does not observe A's dream because the mental entities of A never cause public representations in B, and consequently A as mental entity cannot be identical with A as physical entity. I therefore do not agree that Schlick removes my objections; on the contrary, the causal theory gives me the tools to establish a difficult yet still compelling point. It should be noted that Feigl himself already deems the causes of dreams as physical ('central states'): Returning to the more usual private experiences, such as headaches, memory images, dreams or the like, it is generally plausible that their introspections may be viewed intersubjectively as processes caused by co-present or immediately preceding central states, sometimes - but not necessarily - issuing in overt verbal responses ('Physicalism', 249-250).

196

Objections on empirical grounds

But surely, if publicly perceivable 'central states' cause dreams, then onlooker B should see the dream as much as enjoyer A. Feigl himself insists that 'If psychological statements are to be intersubjectively confirmable, they must be established on a sensory confirmation basis' ('Physicalism', 251). And on Feigl's own account, 'overt verbal responses' could not be that (indirect, behavioral!) basis, since introspections do 'not necessarily' have such effects. And if what is said here is true, then 'a fuller development of neurophysiology' ('Physicalism', 250) could never help, for we should now experience dreams intersubjectively. (Though there is a remote possibility that the act of observation by B disturbs the physical causal process in A's brain - this being the reason why B does not perceive A's dream - then on that escape route, A should not be aware of the dream as phenomenal effect either; in fact, however, A is so aware at the same time B is observing.) The identity theorist S. Pepper argues similarly as Schlick: The reviewer says 'Feigl doggedly finds nothing incongruous about the idea that we see, feel, smell, and taste the states of our brain' (Philos. Rev., V, LXVIII, No. 3, 395)... The identity theory is based on a causal theory of perception. The criticism assumes (rather confusedly, I fear) a direct realism theory of perception, postulating that the qualities of a perception are not located in the perceiver but somewhere external to the perceiver such as the 'surface' of an environmental object ('Identity Theory', 61; cf. Pepper, Concept and Quality, 107-111, 308-312, Smart, 'Brain Processes', 167). Yet if such a causal theory of perception within materialism is accepted, it is not easy to escape the solipsistic view that all things experienced or known, including 'external objects', are brain states. (We might designate the present implication as 'physicalistic solipsism', since the term 'solipsism' is usually associated with forms of mentalism, especially unmitigated subjective idealism.) Although I also accept a causal theory of perception, I do not think that dualism has similarly unacceptable solipsistic implications. Mind, or more particularly, reason, is omnipresent, as opposed to the spatio-temporal specificity and self-containedness of matter. Supposing then the mind to be the brain, if there are any good reasons why we should not perceive brain events alone, Pepper or Smart has not provided them; certainly linguistic explanations neither add to nor subtract from experiential data. In a causal theory of perception within materialism, even the 'external' world we are aware of must be in the brain; but we are still able to see both our brain and an 'outside' world, which un-

A comparison between the mental and the physical

197

questionably look very different, are located in unlike spatial locations, and the 'outside' world has a spatial extension far larger than the brain. I see no other possible account of these undeniable phenomena except to say, that we see both the brain and the world, and no picture of the world in the central nervous system, because it is something different, i.e. mind, which has all these representations. People are not aware of the brain at all unless the skull is opened since, however intimately mind may be correlated with the brain, one's brain is an external object of the mind like any other. (I am speaking here epistemologically; I do not deny that there is a special ontological connection.) One does not observe the skeleton of Napoleon unless one sees his tomb opened; the brain is a similar object of outer sense. It is mind which more or less is aware of itself, of the brain it knows little if anything. A causal theory of perception within materialism makes all our experienced objects brain states, whereas a direct realism can deny this for external objects (but still not for dreams, images, afterimages, concepts, thoughts, apperceptions); a causal theory refutes the identity theory all the more strongly, does not save it. And certainly, if physicalists were to switch to a direct realist theory of perception to save their Weltanschauung, the psycho-physical identity theory could be even more quickly refuted, drawing on the distinctions I have outlined. For B would without mediation see the surface of A's brain, but never the events of A's inner sense; hence A's brain cannot be identical with A's data of inner sense. And of course, it follows just as immediately from an adoption of the phenomenalist position on perception that, since concepts are non-spatial, all data of consciousness cannot be material. And all other theories of perception are evidently hybrids of these three main ones, so that no theory of perception is compatible with materialism. In order to let the opposition present its case on this crucial issue rather too abundantly than not sufficiently, I will provide one more sample of Pepper: Now imagine the observer seeing in the mirror his neural activity correlated with the sensation red. Shouldn't he see a red quality in the mirror instead of the motions of gray neurons? Of course not. The sensation quality of red is stimulated by the surface of an environmental object selecting for reflection a limited range of electromagnetic vibrations with the wavelengths of approximately .65 [j.; whereas the surface of neurons as environmental objects seen in a mirror reflect a bundle of unselected waves yielding the sensation of a hueless gray. The neuron activity correlated with the introspective quality of gray will be different from that correlated with the quality red ('Identity Theory', 57).

198

Objections on empirical grounds

To begin with, we understand the error which causes Pepper to think the brain is introspected, for he is of the opinion that the mind is the brain. The mental is indeed introspected, but the brain is in fact extraspected; we see it in the mirror. Also, if the neural activity is only 'correlated', not identical with red, identity is already ruled out by nominal definition. But let me concentrate on the actually observed referents. Given a causal theory of perception, the color red is in the mind; if then the brain is the mind, one and the same man would ha\e to see a red spot in his brain. Pepper may well deny this inference, knowing the obvious facts. But he therewith contradicts the strict denotational identity as understood by philosophers, and which alone is interesting to the educated layman. Pepper's open acceptance of this non-identity refutes his theory, and leaves whatever meaning he gives to identity unclear. As if it could seriously be maintained, that that which Pepper does not at all see, is empirically identical with that which someone else (i.e., the autocerebroscopist, comparing inner sense and the external data in the mind) sees to be different. Pepper's experiment again shows that even external sense (i.e, the red spot) is in inner sense, and that we do not even see outer sense when inspecting the brain, for both senses are in the mind, which is private. We do however see the brain in the mirror, because there the cause of experience, the material 'permanent possibility of sensation', affects all onlookers similarly. Only the physical emits (or reflects) light or sound waves which we sense as phenomena in outer sense; inner sense itself, in the narrow and wider meaning, is not physical, hence does not cause sensations in some perceiver, and therefore cannot be seen when we look at a brain. All this is evidence both for the proposition that mind is non-physical, private, and for the causal theory of perception which I (with crucial differences now evident) share with identity theorists. On the causal position, something else, i.e., the mind or brain, sees an 'external' object. As far as the brain in the mirror is concerned, either what is seen is not the external brain itself, but some representation of it, or some other thing sees the brain. But if we do not see the self-subsistent brain at all, we can certainly never identify mind with it; and, taking the second alternative, if some other entity sees the brain, then brain and mind are ipso facto not identical. 'We may be sure' therefore, employing the words of an outstanding physicist, that 'there is no nervous process whose objective description includes the characteristic "yellow colour" or "sweet taste", just as little as the objective description of an electro-magnetic wave includes either of these

A comparison between the mental and the physical

199

characteristics' (Schrodinger, Mind and Matter, 91). And in the words of an outstanding neurophysiologist, 'It must be recognized that colour only appears in the picture as an experience deriving from some specifically coded patterns [of neuronal activity]. There is no colour in the so-called objective world' (Eccles, Facing Reality, 161). Thus B sees no color red in A's brain because the color A experiences is a mental entity; but B does experience a grey color when he looks at A's brain because A's brain is a physical entity which gives rise to (mental) perceptions in B. I feel asked to present a still further statement of a physicalist on this fundamental issue. This time I let Russell argue the case, for whom, 'as a practical maxim of scientific method, materialism may be accepted if it means that the goal of every science is to be merged in physics' ('Materialism', xix; cf. Development, 16). When a physiologist examines a brain, he does not see thoughts; therefore the brain is one thing and the mind which thinks is another. The fallacy in this argument consists in supposing that a man can see matter. Not even the ablest physiologist can perform this feat. His percept when he looks at a brain is an event in his own mind, and has only a causal connection with the brain that he fancies he is seeing (Human Knowledge, 229).

Why does the physiologist see the other brain in his 'mind', as Russell puts it, if brain and mind are ex hypothesi identical. And if the physiologist's brain is material, then he certainly does perceive matter, even if it is his own (welcome solipsism). Furthermore, in the very same work, Russell grants 'that nothing can be scientifically known except what is derived from public data' is a proposition which is 'absurd' {Human Knowledge, 45); but if all is supposedly physical, there must indeed be an external public test for everything. We may certainly concede to Feigl the latter contention, yet the fact that we cannot realize it only proves my thesis, not his. If the subject's brain is in public space, and if this brain gives rise to the subject's private phenomena, then the illata which the physiologist thus passively (or indirectly) sees should be able to cause the same phenomena in the latter's experiental field. If we suppose for the moment that brain events give rise to a subject's dreams, the physiologist should see, perhaps indeed not the matter, but the dreams, since the same permanent possibilities should give rise to the same phenomena. In fact he does not, hence the mind cannot be the brain. And I am arguing charitably here, for if the

200

Objections on empirical grounds

subject's brain gives rise to anything else, the identity theory is already disproven; one cannot, however, present a position very sensibly without granting the basic disparities. If in the case of the illata in public space, mind and brain were identical, then clearly the subject should see identical phenomenal fields for inner and outer sense arise in the mirror ('same cause, same effect'); yet again, he simply does not. The reader should observe here in action what amounts to one of the main forms of my empirical refutation of psycho-physical identity. The basic structure of my argument is simply the following: given the hypothesis of physicalism, B should experience certain observed consequences, but in fact he does not; in short, I am employing the perhaps universally accepted modus tollendo tollens. Surely, 'a statement is empirical if there are (finite) conjunctions of singular empirical statements ("basic statements", or "test statements") which contradict it' (Popper, 'Conjectural Knowledge', 178). 'What makes an existential hypothesis testable, when an instance of it cannot be inspected, is its causal consequences' (Wisdom, 'Mind-Body Problems', 202). Russell's 'ablest physiologist' cannot be very able by bringing in the problem of perception and then employing an argumentum ad ignorantiam. For once let us stop this wriggling around. Russell grants that unperceived matter is in objective space. But thoughts are not in space, hence cannot be identical with any matter. They are conceived, and for that reason cannot be perceived at all (extraspectively, or even introspectively, if we restrict the word 'perception' to sensuous experience). Thoughts could not possibly be material, hence are not perceived by the physiologist, for it is external matter which gives rise to his perceptions. Yet some dreams are indeed in space (though in phenomenal space). If dreams were material, then the physiologist would see them, since matter is publicly perceivable. And what is to prevent me from appealing to some principles of simplicity here (as physicalistic monists do so often): Some mental events could not possibly be physical, hence on that account alone, for economy of arrangement, it is likely that none are. 'A more universal statement can take the place of many less universal ones, and for that reason has often been called "simpler" ' (Popper, Logic, 142). Perhaps the reader is tiring of all the complexities of the autocerebroscope experiment, with its open skulls, mirrors, external and internal colors, etc. Let me therefore forego using all this distinguished scientific apparatus, a procedure which, we are told ad nauseam by physicalists, has not

A comparison between the mental and the physical

201

yet really proven an identity, but should do so 'some time in the future'. Let me propose another experiment. If we shove off the complete works of all rationalists from library shelves, every normal person present would hear a noise. But I am also prepared to swear on whatever anyone holds sacred, that I hear some of the loudest sounds in imagination or during dreams, and that other people close to me could not hear them. Feigl himself grants: If I have the familiar experience of'ringing in my ears' (i.e., that kind of'hearing a sound'), this may well be no perception of a distant bell, but an experience engendered by intradermal events (Postscript, 148). Material molecules in motion, air waves, pounding ear drums, sparking nervous relays of course exist, but undeniably, so does the phenomenon sound. And even if the former material events sometimes cause sound, they do not always, a fact which shows again that there are causes or grounds other than those. Then too, since we possess auditory data just as much without external material events (even the brain itself does not emit noise when we imagine noise), there is again every reason for saying that sense data are in the mind only. (Feigl's 'intradermal events' must be very intricate to produce a full blast of the Ninth Symphony written by the deaf Beethoven, and one must grant him that on his terms he may one day even replace records by hooking up amplifiers to his 'intradermal events.' But even then, I wonder why an 'identity' needs to be amplified.) For my part, I consider it safe to conclude, that mental events, which are private, and material events, which are heard publicly, are not identical. 'There is no sound with all its qualities in the external world. It is entirely our creation as specific patterns of neuronal activity in the brain are transmuted into conscious experience' (Eccles, Facing Reality, 162). Material molecules in motion give rise to public perceptions of sound; but conscious experiences of sound themselves are mental in nature, since they never give rise to public perceptions. Suppose, however, that in hand with 'future findings of neurophysiology' (Postscript, 152), ideas are somehow blown up or magnified, as a film print by a projector, and suppose the idea of a golden castle in the air is established to be as small as the (presently) invisible atom. Would such findings refute my thesis of non-identity? Certainly not, since the image on the screen is also something, and not the same as the film strip. And even if the small atomic castle were the cause, its effect - the pheno-

202

Objections on empirical grounds

menon - is not the same: the golden castle in the air which I can imagine is clearly not of atomic dimensions, and this is an 'ultimate' and irremovable fact of inner experience. Or suppose the idea of a golden castle in the air is somehow 'fused' out of many material atoms, perhaps like a jigsaw puzzle. But not only is it true that the order or arrangement is also something, a golden castle in the air is simply not observable in outer sense, as for the n t h time, matter indeed is. The ideas of inner sense could be a fusion of matter only if those ideas kept the generic characteristics of matter, as much as both the parts and the finally resulting picture of a jigsaw puzzle are equally in outer sense. 'It may be that a causal theory of perception will not in the end prove tenable,' writes Pepper. 'But till that is demonstrated, the neural identity hypothesis cannot profitably be criticized in terms of covert assumptions of a theory it denies' (Concept and Quality, 111). Yet in the foregoing tract, I have not committed what Pepper calls 'the direct perception fallacy' (Concept and Quality, 106), but have given only all the more evidence for a causal theory of perception; yet nonetheless, or more accurately, all the more still more, have refuted the identity theory. (As always, I am speaking of past and present identity theories: about future identity theories not yet existing, I know nothing. But if anyone can pin a philosophical thesis on the faith that in the future psycho-physical dualism will be overcome, others can just as easily outbalance that faith by believing that it will not.) Before terminating this section, let me briefly look at answers by Feigl designed to overcome objections to the said irreducibility of intentionality and norms. The answers consist again of linguistic maneuvers, which are not to be taken as seriously as the foregoing factual assertions about the ontological implications of the causal theory of perception. According to Feigl, it seems fairly obvious that such discourse [discourse involving aboutness, i.e., intentional terms], just like discourse involving oughtness (i.e., normative discourse) is not logically translatable into purely factual statements (Essay, 50).

And what is Feigl's answer to the difficulty? Personally, I therefore consider the problem of intentionality not as part of the psycho-physical but rather as part of the psycho-logical problem, i.e., as part of the relation of psychological to the logical forms of discourse (Essay, 51; cf. 78, 150).

Whatever the bifurcation indicated by those latter phrases means (I

A comparison between the mental and the physical

203

doubt that Feigl himself is clear), it is evident that Feigl withdraws from referential identification whenever he is in serious difficulty, or flies up to some pure world of words, where he can juggle out philosophical solutions at will, or, with Wittgenstein, 'relieve philosophers of their anxiety'. I am hesitant to bore the reader with any more of these rope-dancing acts, exemplary of 'a solution that is synoptic in that it would render a just, consistent, and coherent account of all relevant aspects and facets of the issue' (Essay, 20). I only remind the reader of what Feigl also says elsewhere : A properly reformulated physicalism contributes greatly to our analysis of scientific method. But since both these involve assertions about the world, physicalism cannot and should not claim to settle by logical analysis any issues in the strife of the 'Weltanschauungen' ('Physicalism', 266-267). Surely 'it must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience' (Popper, Logic, 41). For my part, too, I experience the intentionally of certain mental acts, and I refuse to allow this datum to be legislated out of existence. And I have already several times expressed my view that intentionality is at best a characteristic of a part of mental phenomena, and is a distinguishing criterion from the physical only in that we (i.e., our pure egos) are conscious of the referent related to, whereas one body can hardly be conscious of another. And I see no reason why such characteristics cannot be translated into ordinary factual statements: relationships between bits of matter surely exist as much as those bits of matter. While norms are also facts in the sense that they are (conceptually experienced) constituents of the world, they are indeed not the same as empirical or natural facts. And as has been pointed out before, norms are not only found in ethics or law, but in all sciences, and most clearly perhaps in logic and mathematics. Even the 'necessity' of machine-computations (or possible brain-computations) consists of high factual regularity; machines in fact make errors, or break down, and hence violate rules which somehow must stand above the descriptive actions. Yet the following passage of Feigl seems to be an attempt to overcome this needed bifurcation: Of course, if we had the ideal (Utopian) neurophysiological or ultimately microphysical description of the cerebral processes that occur in the behavior, for

204

Objections on empirical grounds

example, of a logic teacher, the precise response would become predictable... on the basis of a purely physical description of all the details of the stimulus input, cerebral transactions, and response output; hence the logical categories would then not be required for a characterization of the stimulus classes (Postscript, 151). As if it were true that, just because a thing in fact turns out right, even conceding this to occur always, we could be sure of that correctness from observing the fact alone. What is it that provides the ideality of the 'ideal (utopian)... description of the cerebral processes' Feigl himself speaks of? The answer can only be, something supersensuous, something not necessarily phenomenally embodied; and since Feigl here considers logic, he could hardly say the norms of Tightness in logic are 'non-cognitive'. If physicalism is the 'ideal', then physicalism could never have room for an ideal, and so refutes itself. That only physicalist philosophies exist is certainly not a fact either. It follows from these points that Feigl must either give up the view that logic and mathematics are necessary, or he must repudiate his claim that all empirical truths are contingent (as necessary logic would be something material, and consequently factual). Feigl, however, accepts neither alternative, hence it is the identity theory which he must give up. J. S. Mill already drew the roughly correct inference, although of course he (mistakenly) espoused the proposition that there are no a priori sciences: There exist no points without magnitude; no lines without breadth, nor perfectly straight; no circles with all their radii exactly equal, nor squares with all their angles perfectly right... To get rid of this difficulty, and at the same time to save the credit of the supposed system of necessary truth, it is customary to say that the points, lines, circles, and squares which are the subject of geometry, exist in our conceptions merely, and are part of our minds; which minds, by working on their own materials, construct an a priori science, the evidence of which is purely mental, and has nothing whatever to do with outward experience (Logic, Bk. II, Ch. V, §1).

Since Feigl does not reject the necessity of geometry, as does Mill, physicalists must grant that a fundamental dualism of ontological entities is needed. I think I have with the remarks in this section given a rejoinder to all significant replies by physicalists. Of course, I have not concentrated all my rebuttals in the present section, as such a procedure would involve annoying repetition of positions to be criticized. Yet there may be one major line of materialist contention I have totally overlooked. A large

A comparison between the mental and the physical

205

number of contemporary Continental European philosophers, both phenomenologists and existentialists, provide a quick solution to the mindbody problem - we experience our essential 'bodiliness'. Why enter the often vexing difficulties I have in part attempted to deal with - we already have the answer right from the beginning. I dread the thought, with the greatest anxiety, that some of these illustrious men ever lose their limbs (or even hair, excrements), their egos would then be cut into many bits and pieces. I do not find these doctrines worthy of detailed examination, just as much as I refuse to argue within ordinary language presuppositions. And I have after all provided sufficient reasons to indicate at least that philosophical issues are not as simple as that. Speaking more generally, there is no arguing with those who deny the minimum requirements of reasonable debate. 'Existence precedes essence': that existentialist dictum (clearly self-contradictory, as it is itself universal and essentialist) makes momentary caprice the final arbiter of truth. Rationality cannot join issue with that which is an explicit repudiation of rationality. Movements of this sort rear their head when creativity among some groups is exhausted; yet unless the world reverts to an all-embracing barbarism, such philosophies shrink by means of their own impotence. I may add, that as long as Marxist philosophy consists of quotationmongering among the prophets, it does not deserve much attention either. More exactly, in that school of philosophy, if one produces any relevant passage from the classical authorities, one has proven one's point. (I am not unaware that I too provide many quotations, but mainly in order to let the reader be the final authority in evaluations, and this surely is a major difference in intention.) When men have once made over their judgements to others' keeping, and (like those senators whom they called Pedarii) have agreed to support some one person's opinion, from that time they make no enlargement of the sciences themselves, but fall to the servile office of embellishing certain individual authors and increasing their retinue (Instauratio, 430). I meant this quotation from Bacon to apply to Marxists, but the reader is free to apply it to philosophers closer to home. 3. The animism of matter and physicalism I will now take my objections right to the bedrock of physicalism. When I

206

Objections on empirical grounds

produced 'Some safe criteria for differentiating mind from body', it became already evident that several properties of the most fundamental entities of physics indicate that by no means all of these are bodily. In this section I examine, among others, some crucial views of several prominent physicists, and take further my contention that even the science of matter cannot do without animistic (i.e. mental) entities. Should any sort of 'reduction' of all sciences to physics therefore ever succeed, then the existence of the mental as an ontological implication could still not be dispensed with (and in any event, as I will show in the next section, such reductions cannot be carried out). I will first show that the fundamental stuff or content of modern physics is two-fold: matter and energy. Energy is mind-like in quality and interacts with matter; energy is at least as basic a substance as matter, and matter may be totally derivative from energy (but even if so, cannot be identified with energy!). Secondly, it will be shown that modern physics has not in fact followed Descartes' avowed intention of stripping matter of all notions of form and teleology, and that notions of this type reappear under different words, such as law, potentiality, or disposition. Lastly, evidence will be provided to the effect that modern physics itself impliedly and at times expressly posits an immaterial God as the ultimate origin of and continuing causal agent in its scheme of the world. (It ought to be kept in mind throughout here that there are several criteria for distinguishing mind from body, and that when I concentrate on one I never mean to imply that some other criterion could not also be applied to the same referent which is discussed.) What is 'The Present View of the World' of a physicalist as Russell? I accept without qualification the view that results from astronomy and geology, from which it would appear that there is no evidence of anything mental except in a tiny fragment of space-time, and that the great processes of nebular and stellar evolution proceed according to laws in which mind plays no part {Development, 16).

Of course, since there allegedly appears to be no evidence of anything mental in the universe except in a most miniscule part, the stage for the ultimate inference by physicalists is already well set: that even living, conscious, or self-conscious beings are no exception. But not only is that inference a non sequitur - gold, for instance, is a much rarer chemical element in the universe than hydrogen, and yet it does not follow that the two are

A comparison between the mental and the physical

207

the same - the premise upon which the inference is grounded does not really represent the findings of contemporary science. As we have seen, and as we will continue to see, our scientific philosophers are as cavalier with their knowledge of physics as with their knowledge of the 'rationalists', 'idealists', and 'metaphysicians' they profess to be criticizing. In the words of one of the foremost physicists of this century, the modern interpretation of atomic events has very little resemblance to genuine materialistic philosophy; in fact, one may say that atomic physics has turned science away from the materialistic trend it had during the nineteenth century (Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, 59). Already prima facie we see that contemporary 'scientific materialists' seem to rest their case on the outdated materialistic physics of the nineteenth century, rather than the animistic of the twentieth. Einstein recounts the history of the separation of the concept of 'field' from nineteenth century materialistic physics thus: Faraday conceived of a new sort of real physical entity, namely the 'field', in addition to the mass-point and its motion...; people gradually got used to the idea of regarding the 'electro-magnetic field' as the final irreducible constituent of physical reality. We have H. Hertz to thank for definitely freeing the conception of the field from all encumbrances derived from the conceptual armory of mechanics, and H. A. Lorentz for freeing it from a material substratum (Science, 36). Now, electro-magnetic fields are not observed, and, it seems safe to say, are not observable by outer sense, and hence fall under my definition of the mental. If Einstein wants to use the sign 'physical' for the same thing, I will not argue about words. What I am concerned about is reality, and the sense and referent of electro-magnetic field differ from matter in this most fundamental aspect. And apart from his use of words, it is well known that Einstein rejected a confounding of the field with a material ether. And he expressly distinguishes field from (material) particles: It needed great scientific imagination to realize that it is not the charges nor the particles but the field in the space between the charges and the partieles which is essentialfor the description of physical phenomena (Physics, 244). We see here already that the 'physical' cannot be explained in any way without the mental, and that modern physics cannot exist without 'great

208

Objections on empirical grounds

scientific imagination'. The fact that a field has a certain spatial spread in no way detracts from its mentality: we know that certain images of inner sense (in the narrow meaning), such as a golden castle in the air, are mental, and yet are spatially individualized. And according to Einstein, 'The electromagnetic field is, for the modern physicist, as real as the chair on which he sits' (Physics, 151). And as Einstein's close collaborator, Leopold Infeld, expressly puts Einstein's ontological position: 'Both the electromagnetic and gravitational theories are dualistic theories. In both of these theories, we have sources of the field (changes, particles) and the field itself (Einstein, 117; my italics). It may be worth adding, that if somebody wants to explain the effect of mind on brain as the effect of something like a field on matter, such a position would stay within my dualist theory. The contemporary working physicist O. R. Frisch sees the facts in the following way: An atom is almost entirely just empty space ...And yet an atom behaves in many ways like a rubber ball. How is that possible?.. .Well, in a certain sense that region is not really empty: it contains a strong electric field. An electric field is not something material but rather a state of electric tension in space (Atomic Physics, 51 ;cf. 13,92).

We obtain here the picture of empty extents of space pervaded by nonmaterial forces, not unlike Newton's absolute space being diffused with gravitational attractions. It will be remembered too that Newton considered his space to be the spiritual eye of God, and the receptacle or container of matter. Providing 'gravity', 'electricity', and 'magnetism' as examples, Nobel Prize holder Frisch also contends: In a solid body the atoms are held together somehow ...It is no use saying they are stuck together by some kind of glue; glue itself consists of atoms, so this explanation does not get us any further. What we need is... some kind of immaterial force {Atomic Physics, 45).

Of course, an Aristotle already knew the same thing well: 'The juxtaposition or mixing does not consist of those things of which it is the juxtaposition or mixing' (Metaphysica, 1043 b 6). And as another distinguished modern physicist informs us, 'the scientific physical body... not only lacks all and every sensual qualities but in addition is riddled with holes; by far the greatest part is empty space' (Schrodinger, Mind and Matter, 41). Empty space, time, or forces cannot be perceived in outer sense, are not

A comparison between the mental and the physical

209

impenetrable, and hence fall under my category of mentality. (Of course, as the minds of other persons, so real or absolute space and time can only be known by analogy with privately experienced phenomenal space and time.) This is not to deny that we externally sense some effects of forces, which can indeed be material. And it is to be noted that Feigl himself grants that 'the "intrinsic nature" of electric currents remains unknown to scientists who have eyesight' (Essay, 65). In other words - employing my terminology - electric currents do not give rise to outer or public perception, and are consequently not material in nature. It is not to be supposed that energy, which (not giving rise to public perceptions) I have characterized as a form of mind, is a substance of peripheral importance in modern physics. Energy is in fact the substance from which all elementary particles, all atoms and therefore all things are made, and energy is that which moves. Energy is a substance, since its total amount does not change, and the elementary particles can actually be made from this substance as is seen in many experiments on the creation of elementary particles. Energy can be changed into motion, into heat, into light and into tension (Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, 63). And not only are there today numerous conversions to matter of the enormous energies generated by accelerators, both contemporary theories of the creation of the universe - the 'big bang' and 'continuous creation' theories - can be deemed to end up pointing to a similar process. Matter was created out of nothing, they say - yet I prefer to call that externally invisible entity a form of energy, or mind, and surely have more than common sense on my side. (The 'animist' Aristotle in fact held that matter always existed, as he would have found a Medieval creatio ex nihilo incredible.) Moreover, the converse process - matter changing into energy - also occurs. For instance, on the sun, constantly matter (in the form of gases) is changing into energy (in the forms of heat, light). One of the specific processes which there occurs is the changing of hydrogen gas to helium gas. The weight of the helium produced is only slightly less than the weight of the hydrogen that is used up. In the process, the extra hydrogen is directly changed into energy. What is the underlying reason for these conversions of energy to matter, and matter to energy? According to the theory of relativity, there is no essential distinction between mass and energy. Energy has mass and mass represents energy. Instead of two conversion laws we have only one, that of mass-energy.

210

Objections on empirical grounds

Yet there is a 'very small rate of exchange between matter and energy' {Physics, 197-198, 198); and not overlooking anything Einstein says here, I repeat that the two cannot be considered as one, or strictly identical. It is becoming already evident that some of the most solid evidence for mind-body interactionism is found right in physics; and even though there need be nothing wrong with a 'radical break' or 'nomological danglers' between an allegedly monistic physics and mind-body dualism in the case of humans, such a fundamental disparity between physics and psychology does not in fact occur. And just as much as I have argued for the supremacy of mind over body for persons, so it appears that energy is ontologically more basic in physics. For example, Einstein's E = mc2 means that whenever a physical system gives out energy, E, it loses the amount m in mass. Since c 2 means the square of the very high speed of light, an immense amount of energy is detached in the event of a small change in mass. That energy is more basic than impenetrable ultimate particles is a high probability (especially since matter most likely did not always exist), even if physicists are conspicuously silent on the question of how, or why, as opposed to that, such vast energies are present in the atom. Since energy is a mental entity, their present method can hardly allow them to fully account for it: 'How do those vast energies inside nuclei originate? We don't really know' (Frisch, Atomic Physics, 59). Yet Leibniz already rightly considered force or energy to be a spirit, which acts on matter. Anyone who has seen the effects of the 'liberation' of the enormous nuclear energy when neutrons are knocked out of atoms, and the protons repel each other ('nuclear fission'), can hardly doubt this. Impenetrability (in the sense that one ultimate particle can never occupy exactly the same location as another such particle) is one of the soundest criteria of materiality, and yet it is evident that there are quite a few entities referred to in physics which do not meet this test. Light is interpenetrable, a fact which throws its possible corpuscular nature into doubt. In a similar vein, shadows, moving pictures, optical illusions, or mirror images do not seem to be material. Whatever a mirror image exactly is, the image I see when I look into a mirror is certainly not the same as my physical body; nor can there be a physical body behind that mirror, as that space might be occupied by a solid stone wall. And to the direct realists in perception who are so convinced that they immediately sense the materiality of what is given: one wonders whether they think the same of mirror images. Yet there can hardly be a doubt that there is at

A comparison between the mental and the physical

211

times no visual difference whatever between a 'real' datum and a mirror image. Space and time are among the most basic entities of physics, yet are they impenetrable by ultimate particles? For those who deny there is a vacuum, such as Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, there is no space independent of matter; yet these thinkers often do not provide clear and adequate reasons for their plenum views; and it is to be noted that, notwithstanding their joint rejection of a vacuum, they still come up with different contentions regarding the real nature of space itself. In my opinion a plenum theory has not explained, and cannot account for, the fact that clusters of matter differ in rarity and density, and why rarity and density change. There is no doubt, for example, that a gas can be compressed. Yet surely, in that process one cannot occupy the same place as another atom, but must occupy a new place in empty space, closer to the other atoms. And when gas expands, where would the atoms and molecules go if every part of space would already be occupied by impenetrable bits of matter? Much more obviously than in the case of space, it is a truth that two different material objects can occupy the same time, so that time certainly is not impenetrable, and hence not material. Writes Smart: Popular theologians sometimes argue against materialism by saying that 'you can't put love in a test tube'. Well you can't put a gravitational field in a test tube (except in some rather strained sense of these words), but there is nothing incompatible with materialism, as I have defined it, in the notion of a gravitational field ('Materialism', 652). Similarly, I have seen it contended that even if concepts have no shape, neither have magnetic fields. Of course, in the first place these premises are false. According to Einstein, 'the lines of force of the gravitational field... are constructed in space, where no matter is present' (Physics, 126). Gravitation is not something material, but spatially surrounds a body with diminishing strength according to Newton's law. Analogous things hold true of magnetic, electrical, or nuclear force. And since gravitation thus surrounds a body, we can after all carry it away in a test tube, if we carry away the body alongside the tube. And yet, this spatial specificity nonetheless does not overrule the spiritual nature of these forces, since some ideas of inner sense in the narrow as well as the wider meaning are also thus individuated. And the fact remains that gravitational and magnetic

212

Objections on empirical grounds

fields are not publicly, externally observed or observable, hence do not qualify for 'materiality' in my sense, or indeed in Feigl's. Of course, one observes the physical effects of gravitational force in the case of the revolutions of the moon, or of magnetic fields in the iron filings experiment. Again therefore, physics alone provides some of the most direct evidence of mind-body interactionism, and by no means disconfirms it. Furthermore, two pieces of matter cannot penetrate each other, or cancel each other out. The force of gravity, however, can penetrate matter, can penetrate another field of gravity, and two fields of gravity (or of magnetic, electric, nuclear forces) can cancel each other out. Matter and force, consequently, are dissimilar in nature. And it is evidently more difficult to understand how mere matter can act on matter, rather than how force or mind can interact with matter! No form of energy - whether we speak of heat, kinetic, mechanical, potential, magnetic, electrical, chemical, or nuclear energy - is identical with matter. Let me concentrate on manifestations of kinetic energy in order to further clarify this difference. Sound is sometimes characterized in physics textbooks as a disturbance which one molecule passes on to another when it collides with it. (We however know that this is only a partial description of the cause of sound: the ultimate effect if suitable observers are present - the phenomenon sound - is something quite different.) Yet the molecules themselves are not therefore that same disturbance. The same holds true of waves in water. Einstein himself insists that The motion of the wave is very different from that of the particles of water ... A cork floating on the wave shows this clearly, for it moves up and down in imitation of the actual motion of the water, instead of being carried along the wave. We have here 'the motion of something which is not matter, but energy propagated through matter' (Physics, 100, 101). (Humeans on causality, please note!) And though the nature of light is not yet decided, the postulation of an 'ether' as a medium for a light wave is a further admission that a wave itself is not something material. Let us briefly look at a recent attempt to legislate such 'ghostly processes' out of existence - and it matters really little whether we refer here to physics or psychology. As is well known, in The Concept of Mind Ryle maintained throughout this book that when we characterise people by mental predicates, we are not making untestable inferences to any ghostly processes occurring in streams of consciousness which we are debarred from visiting; we are

A comparison between the mental and the physical

213

describing the ways in which those people conduct parts of their predominantly public behaviour (51). Still, as the oft-quoted example of the brittleness of glass runs, mind is to be compared to the potentialities, dispositions, 'powers and propensities of which their actions are exercises' (51; cf. 88-89). Aristotle already had the proper answer to this suggestion: 'It is absurd to suppose that purpose is not present because we do not observe the agent deliberating' (Physica, 199 b 26-27). Instead of coming to grips with the actual argument, analysts may reject the Greeks as ancient history. Yet the analyticallyminded C. I. Lewis, apparently talking of inner sense, as opposed to Aristotle's outer observation, wrote the following some twenty years ago: 'No anathema pronounced by any psychologist against such words as "purpose" will exorcise this initiative as a dinstinctive and observable character of certain modes of conscious doing' (Analysis, 6). Quite apart, however, from the fact that all types of behaviorism have already been repudiated, it is interesting to note again, that Ryle by no means has referentially dispensed with mind even within behaviorism, but has only substituted different words. For what exactly is the ontological nature of dispositions'? If Ryle has anywhere treated this question, I have not found the place. (He does say that dispositions are not 'fact-reporting', are not 'deduced from laws'; yet the terms of this clarifier of words are so vague that I will not examine these assertions: see Concept of Mind, 117— 125). We must therefore see what other people have said on this problem, and only note in passing that operationalistic conceptions in the recent literature of the philosophy of science again simply by-pass the ontological issue. For the question there just as much remains what dispositions, events, episodes, or occurrences are when they are not exercised. They can surely not be nothing, for nothing, unlike dispositions, in no way ever manifests itself. A disposition, and the exercise of a disposition, are not the same. And if matter in motion were a disposition, why do dispositions not continually assert themselves? Or if a disposition is two forces cancelling each other out, what is it which brings them again out of balance? It seems already evident that no matter which alternative we adopt, something extraneous is needed. Perhaps the most thorough metaphysical examination of potentialities was made by Aristotle, Leibniz, and Hegel. Aristotle identified potentialities with forms, and the latter in turn with mind; Leibniz similarly thought

214

Objections on empirical grounds

them entelechies, spirits, or what was true of substantial forms in Medieval philosophy; Hegel identified potentiality with what was implicit (an sich) in spirit about to encompass matter. The notion of potentiality, the legitimacy of which Aristotle strongly insisted on, in opposition to the views of the Megarians, shows too that Aristotle must in the end give up his other claim of all forms (except God) being exclusively in rebus. For potentiality is not the same as actual realization by definition; potentiality must consequently be separate and encroach on matter, i.e., act upon it. For example, an acorn is said to be a potential oak tree, and yet surely, the form can be exclusively in rebus at best only in the case of the acorn. The potentiality of the oak tree cannot be an embodied form, but must be an outside force redirecting the shape and organization of the material of the acorn. Additional matter does not organize the form, but outside form arranges matter. And surely no matter is added once a disposition a la Ryle asserts itself, hence how could it be material. Moreover, as we will shortly see, matter never moves itself, and yet dispositions do bring about activity; hence again, dispositions, powers, propensities, or capacities must be other than material. There are then good reasons to consider Ryle's dispositions as something immaterial. Even recent physicists speak much of 'potential energy'. What matter could Ryle say is added or subtracted when potential energy is transformed into kinetic energy during the fall of a body? And if physics already cannot dispense with entities seeable only (by analogy) in inner sense, how much less psychology! 'A word or an image is an entity apart from the disposition we may have to use the word or call up the image. We sometimes think in words or images' (Yolton, Thinking and Perceiving, 97). In the view of physicalists as Smart, 'There does seem to be, so far as science is concerned, nothing in the world but increasingly complex arrangements of physical constituents' ('Brain Processes', 161). Yet throughout this work I have argued and will continue to claim, that even 'arrangements', or structures, organizations, relations are not something physical. Let me refer to some of the distinguished company who has a similar opinion, even whithin the context of physical science. Aristotle not only distinguished form from matter, he made matter yearn for form; 'what desires the form is matter' (Physica, 192 a 21). And matter without form, prima materia, had only a potential existence for the Stagirite. Whitehead saw the problem similarly in Process and Reality, where he speaks of the 'prehensions' of 'corpuscular societies' for 'eternal objects'.

A comparison between the mental and the physical

215

Without entering all the complex evidence and reasonings, let us only note what conclusion Leibniz came to in regards to teleology. Leibniz, I repeat, was well acquainted with the 'new science' of the seventeenth century. 'It is evident... that final cause is not only useful to virtue and to piety in ethics and in natural theology, but that even in physics it serves to find and to discover hidden truths' ('Nature', 141). Of course, since recent physicalists are, unlike Leibniz, more concerned with undermining serious morality than establishing it, they prefer to deny teleology to be active in physics. Whitehead's 'philosophy of organism' nonetheless again seems to introduce final causality into physical occurrences, though, as already stated, I doubt whether Whitehead was himself in the clear of what his 'events' consisted in. And the fact that Russell, on his own account, adopted 'events' from Whitehead, yet is still a mechanist, only again points into the direction that the (allegedly scientific) notion of 'event' is not precise. It is often pointed out by recent scientifically-minded philosophers that it was Descartes who introduced the modern concept of matter, purging the Aristotelian notion of substance as a union of form and matter, actuality and potentiality. Descartes isolated extension, ignoring all else. Extension for him is not an attribute of res extensa, but matter itself. Matter then was said by Descartes to be under merely mechanical laws. But even if so, what exactly are the laws which govern matter? They cannot be material, for each particle of matter is spatio-temporally highly particularized, while laws have universal spread. As Leibniz saw it, primary [matter] is purely passive but not complete, and consequently there must be added to it a soul, or form analogous to the soul, ...that is, a certain effort or primitive power of acting, which is itself the indwelling law imprinted by divine decree ('Nature', 149-150). Democritus and Epicurus at least attempted to account for the different motions of matter by different shapes and sizes (even so, why should varying shapes and sizes act as they do?), but the 'material' laws posited by Descartes or Newton (as popularly interpreted!) cannot be anything but mental. If they then be said not to exist at all, the regularity and repetitiveness of physical behavior is simply not explained. If the 'mechanical' laws of even a Descartes or Newton are anything different from Platonic Forms, the claim does not have obvious reasons. Everyone of course is acquainted with the widespread notion that both

216

Objections on empirical grounds

these men sought to do away with entities of this sort, insisting upon physical contiguity whereby one piece of matter sets the other in motion. But Descartes himself in fact admitted that he could thus not explain the ultimate origin of mechanical motion, and insisted it was not his concern. Newton too conveniently left these questions in the hands of a not very sophisticated idea of God. In Principia Mathematica he warned: The reader is not to imagine, that... I anywhere take upon me to define the kind, or the manner of action, the causes or the physical reasons thereof, or that I attribute forces, in a true and physical sense, to certain centres (which are only mathematical points) (17). But Newton, unlike recent physicalists, had the integrity to confess that, just because he did not deal with such causes in 'natural philosophy', it does not follow that they do not exist at all. Towards the end of his most influential, but often not carefully read work, Newton noted: 'Hitherto we have explained the phaenomena of the heavens and of our sea by the power of gravity, but have not yet assigned the cause of this power' (446). As far as the ontological issue therefore is concerned, Descartes and Newton did not and could not on their own account rule out immaterial causation. Yet characteristically for modern materialistic thinking, Einstein writes: 'The logical completeness of Newton's conceptual system lay in this, that the only things that figure as causes of the acceleration of the masses of a system are these masses themselves' (Science, 32). It does not even seem to occur to some physicists that something is left out. Mill however made this qualification: 'It is... only the origin of the rotation which is mysterious to us: once begun, its continuance is accounted for by the first law of motion' {Logic, Bk. Ill, Ch. V, § 8). And recent physicists (never to be confused with physicalists!) as Heisenberg seem to have no doubt that 'causality can only explain later events by earlier events, but it can never explain the beginning' (Physics and Philosophy, 67). And with dubious consistency in view of the foregoing quotation, Einstein also asserts: 'A body at rest has mass but no kinetic energy, that is, energy of motion. A moving body has both mass and kinetic energy' (Physics, 196). Something must therefore be added (or subtracted) in order to differentiate between a body at rest or in motion. A prime, immaterial mover is no less needed for solely efficiently caused movement, would it exist at all. My reasons are as follows: The extensive infinite cannot be traversed. By 'extensive infinite' I mean an endless

A comparison between the mental and the physical

217

addition of units of finite extent, and oppose it to what I call the 'intensive infinite', which divides a finite extent forever. A finite line may or may not be infinitely divisible (the continuum problem), but that the extensive infinite cannot be traversed is true by definition. Now, since time, and a causal chain of motion progress only one-dimensionally, in one direction, and since it is a given fact that present motion exists, mechanical motion must have had a beginning in time, as a regressus ad infinitum is impossible. If Descartes' vortices are moving since infinity, they could not get to the present, and if Newton's matter before motion was at rest, it would have remained at rest on Newton's own hypothesis; both consequences are contrary to fact (reductio ad impossibile). If therefore physical contiguity is needed for mechanical causation, then the first motion imparted cannot be so contiguous; that which began (at the edge of eternity) mechanical movement must hence be immaterial. (The present is of course only one of the many reasons why God must exist.) We note in passing that the man famed for firmly establishing the KantLaplace nebular theory of the evolution of our planetary system, C. F. von Weizsäcker, comes to a similar conclusion, though the route is not the same. 'We may... state with a high degree of probability: the universe is no older than about five billion years.' The reason is that 'the nebulae are flying away from one another like the blast fragments of a gigantic explosion.' And arguing on the basis of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, von Weizsäcker concludes: 'It follows, not only that there is an end in heat death awaiting the events, but also that events must have had a beginning in time' (Nature, 42,43, 59). It is well known that Einstein still insists on physical contiguity for all motions in physics (now even repudiating Newton's forces acting at a distance): 'It has, of course, been known since the days of the ancient Greeks that in order to describe the movement of a body, a second body is needed to which the movement of the first is referred' (Einstein, Science, 55). However true this may be, the Greeks, unlike Einstein, paid more attention to the fact that this is not all that is needed. Already Plato wrote: 'How can what is set moving by something other than itself ever be the first of the causes of alteration? The thing is an impossibility' (Laws, 894e). Plato, Aristotle, and Leibniz again have characterized living things by the differentia that they contain the source of motion in themselves. Newton indeed seems right when he claimed that every body preserves being in a state of rest, or in a uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled

218

Objections on empirical grounds

to change that state by (outside) forces impressed thereon. Yet contrariwise, a person can, by his own (internal) power, be at rest, start, move, accelerate, decelerate, and stop. If therefore the foregoing reasoning is understood, so will the conclusion, that soul or life is ultimately needed in order even to get a stone moving, or to get a moving stone to rest. As Plato already correctly insisted, 'that which can move itself is infinitely most effective, and all the rest posterior to it' {Laws, 894d). When materialists as the illustrious Hobbes say 'All is Matter and Motion', they imply already that motion itself is not something material. And as anyone will notice, if a bullet hits him when shot from a pistol, or when thrown at him by hand, the matter, bulk or stuff is the same, but the inertia, force is very different. Also, if matter and its actions are the same, why is not all at rest, or why is there such diversity of movement of one and the same piece of matter? Further, that matter and motion are eternal, as proclaimed by contemporary Soviet philosophers (and indeed already in Engels' Dialectic of Nature), has been shown to be an impossibility. (Although to Aristotle one often sees attributed similar cosmological arguments as my own one above, he likewise thought motion to be eternal. It should be noted that the latter philosophers seem to use 'eternity' in the sense of 'infinity of time'; for my own purposes I always mean by this word 'complete absence of time'.) Not only do we need an immaterial primary efficient mover, the direction of movement is not explained either by efficient causality alone. If Galileo and Newton were right against Descartes that straight, not circular motion is 'natural' to matter, then that which makes it natural cannot be discovered from matter itself, but at best from its action or behavior. (These disparities again show that the move from behaviorism to materialism, as it is often made in psychology, is unwarranted even if we grant the behavioristic premises.) What too seems always to be overlooked is, that Descartes himself could not do without final causality, but in fact posited an unsystematic conception of God to do the same task. The body is regarded as a machine which, having been made by the hands of God, is incomparably better arranged, and possesses in itself movements which are much more admirable, than any of those which can be invented by man ('Descartes', 127). The mechanism of Hobbes likewise was not formulated without an extraneous, designing God. And we remember Bacon's insistence on

A comparison between the mental and the physical

219

'both causes [i.e., final and efficient] being true and compatible, the one declaring an intention, the other a consequence only. Neither does this call in question or derogate from divine providence, but highly confirm and exhalt it' (Advancement, 260). The last word in this section I give to the great Newton himself, quoting the final paragraph of Principia Mathematica : And now we might add something concerning a certain most subtle Spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies; by the force and action of which Spirit the particles of bodies mutually attract one another at near distances, and cohere, if contiguous; and electric bodies operate to greater distances, as well repelling as attracting the neighbouring corpuscles; and light is emitted, reflected, refracted, inflected, and heats bodies ; and all sensation is excited, and the members of animal bodies move at the command of the will, namely, by the vibrations of this Spirit, mutually propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves, from the outward organs of sense to the brain, and from the brain into the muscles. But these are things that cannot be explained in few words, nor are we furnished with that sufficiency of experiments which is required to an accurate determination and demonstration of the laws by which this electric and elastic Spirit operates (447). 4. The irreducibility of anything but physics to physics Even if it were true that all sciences are reducible to physics, then in view of the foregoing section, materialism would not be proven: the most pervasive animistic entities are found right in physics itself. But as this section will go on to show, no juggling of words or concepts can overcome the simple truism that if a diversity in the world exists, it exists; there are both terms and relationships in the universe other than those dealt with by physics, and are consequently irreducible to physics. When physicalists as Smart define ' "materialism" ' as 'the theory that there is nothing in the world over and above those entities which are postulated by physics' ('Materialism', 651; cf. Feigl, 'Physicalism', 242), then mere verbal maneuvers aside, the 'entities... postulated by physics' are not exclusively or even primarily material. And it will be remembered that the 'second thesis of physicalism claims that the facts and laws of the natural and the social sciences can all be derived - at least in principle from the theoretical assumptions of physics' (Feigl, 'Physicalism', 227228). Yet such a process is 'in principle' impossible, and ample empirical disconfirmation can also be provided.

220

Objections on empirical grounds

I will first look at some attempted clarifications of the crucial notion of 'reducibility' at hand here, then examine to what extent reduction can be accomplished among the sciences, or even within one science. A general picture of the connections between the various sciences will round off the discussion. For Feigl, a science is reducible to physics if it employs 'merely logical relations with the primitives of (inorganic) physics' ('Physicalism', 265; cf. Essay, 8). The vagueness and inutility of these catch-all assertions is already amply apparent. If we employ material implications, of course anything can be 'derived'; or, if we use the 'logic' which is to replace all logics, we need only one established falsehood, and these empiricists can 'deduce' the whole universe, and obtain 'true' results. Moreover, at least one major meaning of the analytic is that it is a part of some whole. Analysis gets to the simple from the more complex. Yet physicalists admit that biology is vastly more complex, so that such an 'analytic deduction' would move from the more simple physics to the more, not less complex. In the literature on the philosophy of science, one is frequently referred to Chapter 10 of E. Nagel's The Structure of Science for the best explication regarding 'The Reduction of Theories'. Frankly, I have not found that discussion all that enlightening. Yet the points I greatly approve of are these: It is an obvious requirement that the axioms, special hypotheses, and experimental laws of the sciences involved in a reduction must be available as explicitly formulated statements, whose various constituent terms have meanings unambiguously fixed by codified rules of usage or by established procedures appropriate to each discipline. To the extent that this elementary requirement is not satisfied, it is hardly possible to decide with assurance whether one science (or branch of science) has in fact been reduced to another. It must be acknowledged, moreover, that in few if any of the various scientific disciplines in active development is this requirement of maximum explicitness fully realized (345). While Nagel's account seems to be an accurate depiction of the degree of clarity which has been achieved by physicalistic reductionists, I will nonetheless make an attempt to at least mitigate these ambiguities. And distinguished working scientists not shackled by the morass of logical empiricist epistemology already employ conceptions clear enough to allow them to come to the conclusion, that chemistry no less than biology or psychology cannot be reduced to physics.

A comparison between the mental and the physical

221

'Reduction' seems to have three main meanings: (1) unification of language, (2) one-one correspondence of terms and structure, (3) derivability of the laws of one discipline from another. Let me examine these notions in that order. In the first place, unification of language is achieved when the definitions of terms in one science can be undertaken by the terms of the science it is reduced to. Prima facie this seems possible only in the case of synonyms biconditionally related. But even if this undertaking should be successful, synonymy or identity in sense merely indicates identity in the quality of the referent, not in the number of the referent: one sense can have more than one, or no instantiations. Since, however, the identity has as its aim to referentially establish numerical as well as qualitative identity of mind and body (and a numerical identity can never be qualitatively dissimilar), such a unification of language between physics and psychology would still not establish their thesis. And in any event, there is every reason for saying that such synonymous equivalences will never be established. One of the most capable of contemporary writers on the philosophy of science already makes such an admission, but then draws up a familiar escape route: It would be very difficult to name even one biological term for which a physicochemical synonym can be specified; and it would be preposterous to saddle mechanism with this construal of its claim. But descriptive definition may also be understood in a less stringent sense, which does not require that the definiens has the same meaning, or intension, as the definiendum, but only that it have the same extension or application. The definiens in this case specifies conditions that, as a matter of fact, are satisfied by all and only those instances to which the definiendum applies. A traditional example is the definition of 'man' by 'featherless biped' (Hempel, Natural Science, 103). I agree with Hempel that 'the definitions in question could hardly be expected to be analytic' (103); but in view of the philosophy of language contended for by me in Part A of Chapter I, I regard the latter escape route as nailed up. Secondly, 'reduction' on occasion is taken in the sense of one-one correspondence or isomorphism. But again, such a sense designates only qualitative identity of structure, and actually contradicts numerical identity of content, there being a parallelism, not identity of referential terms. Physicalists, however, maintain that mind and body are identical in the 'strict', i.e., numerical sense. It must certainly be admitted as a possibility that mind and body have the same structure, organization, or fall under

222

Objections on empirical grounds

the same laws; yet the stuff or content could then still be different. It is well known that many analogies are made in science. For example, Niels Bohr first drew up the analogy between the structure of the solar system and the atom. Yet for all that similarity in structure, no one supposes the two to be identical. And in any event, I have argued and will continue to contend, that both content and structure of mind and body are in fact dissimilar. In the third place, there is 'the thesis asserting that the laws and theoretical principles of biology are derivable from those of physics and chemistry.' But unlike many logical empiricists, Hempel has the honesty to admit the obvious: It is clear that logical deductions from statements couched exclusively in physical and chemical terms will not yield characteristically biological laws, since these have to contain specifically biological terms. To obtain such laws, we will need some additional premisses that express connections between physico-chemical characteristics and biological ones (Natural Science, 104). 'Specifically biological terms' are not derivable from other terms by reason of the rule of mathematical logic that no terms can be in the conclusion which are not in the premises (except in the trivial sense of adding a new disjunct to the conclusion, which cannot change its truth-value). Biological terms (phenomenal as well as theoretical!) rather must be introduced extraneously - a synthetic process - and connected by 'bridge principles' which are material implications and again synthetic. Let me now proceed to look concretely at the relationships between the sciences, and by implication further clarify the theoretical difficulties involved in the notion of'reduction'. Let us first note what Feigl already admits to be true 'within' physics, and it will then soon be apparent why nothing but physics can be reduced to physics. Logical parallels to... irreducibilities are clearly evident even within physics. The 'mechanistic' (Newtonian) premises of explanation arenow viewedasentirelyinsufficient for the explanation of electromagnetic radiation, of the dynamics of intra-molecular and intra-atomic processes, and of the interaction of electromagnetic radiation and the particles of matter ...It is conceivable that homologous emendations may be required for the explanation of the phenomena of life and mind (Essay, 8).

A comparison between the mental and the physical

223

And let us further note that a distinguished physicist concurs with this view: The advance from classical physics to the theory of relativity and the quantum theory was due specifically to the fact that questions were being raised in classical physics that could no longer be answered in classical physics. All in all it can be said that there are over-riding laws governing the formation of the entire [solar] system, while under the laws of mechanics each planet could revolve in its own way and follow a course completely different from all the others (von Weizsäcker, Nature, 129,103). The obvious but often disregarded proposition must be clear: not everything in physics stands under the same laws. Few points are stressed more by physicalists such as Feigl as the implausibility of the laws of mind 'dangling'. But this objection can easily be overcome by pointing out that there are such 'nomological danglers' even within physics. That is simply to say that there is not only one law of physics - there are many different laws found in this field. But I hasten to add that of course there is an orderly connection between different laws of physics. Likewise, the laws of chemistry, biology, and psychology are different from physics, while yet, as I will soon enter in more detail, they are subordinate to the more generic laws of physics. Given such a picture of the facts, either all laws 'dangle', or none do - this issue is merely one of words - what is important is that the transition from physics to chemistry, or from chemistry to biology, and then on to psychology, does not essentially differ from transitions within physics. It is therefore useful to remark that the ultimate Laws of Nature cannot possibly be less numerous than the distinguishable sensations or other feelings of our nature - those, I mean, which are distinguishable from one another in quality, and not merely in quantity or degree (Mill, Logic, Bk. III, Ch. XIV, §2). Hence if various atoms, or ultimately mind and body, have different qualities, as I maintain, then never will it be possible to bring them under strictly identical laws. And while there may be - and are! - generic unities, these can never be the cause of specific differences. Specific differences, as everything else in the universe, are identical to themselves, and to nothing else. And 'continuities' or 'connections' already by definition relate things which are different - or else these words are used in senses which are far from useful. Science, in order to be successful, must indeed elicit unities where they exist - otherwise it is compelled to differentiate.

224

Objections on empirical grounds

We have seen that Feigl himself grants the obvious point, that there are 'tremendous differences between, e.g., a simple inorganic structure and a human being' (Essay, 54). If these organizations are covered by laws, clearly the laws must be different, and such substantial differences cannot be deduced by an allegedly analytic logic. Physicalists however see it the way Russell does: 'The fundamental laws governing living matter are, in all likelihood, the very same that govern the behavior of the hydrogen atom, namely the laws of quantum mechanics' (Human Knowledge, 33). Now, if the laws do the organizing, structuring, relating, forming (what else would they do?), then the above claim is patently false, for how could the observed structures be so widely various. The same holds, if the laws, on a more radically empiricist account, are the structure of material phenomena. Of course, my body is also made up of atoms, and just as much as I do not deny the existence of matter, I do not deny that, insofar as I am inorganic matter, I am covered by the laws of physics. But I am not only covered by these laws, and the effects of organic and psychological laws are observed to be different. In all likelihood the material universe was once one gaseous cloud, but clearly not only the same laws covered it as cover a worm. If that were so, then the gaseous cloud would have remained just that, while in fact it differentiated into countless multiplicities. Even within the science of physics (or is geology already something different?), we observe a crystal to behave dissimilarly from granite. If these minerals and human bodies are covered by the same laws, why do humans grow, move around, and physically disintegrate so much more quickly. Or, take chemistry alone. The whole is certainly not the same as the parts. H2 and O are gases; O is a catalyst for the burning of H2; yet H2O certainly does everything but burn. The parts nonetheless are definitely still in H2O, for one captures them again by electrolysis. No experimentation on hydrogen or oxygen separately, no knowledge of their specific laws, enables anyone to infer deductively that their combination produces water. Specific experimentation on the two combined is clearly needed. Is it not one of the main contentions of empiricism that one cannot deduce facts? Then why 'deduce' them here? The new facts clearly yield synthetic statements, while logic is allegedly analytic. Whatever may be true thereafter, it should not be forgotten that in the case of the initial (p 3 q), i. e., if one mixes two parts of H and one part of O, then one gets water, the consequent is connected with the antecedent by material implication. Similarly, the color of blue vitriol is not a mixture of the colors of sulphuric acid and

A comparison between the mental and the physical

225

copper. Or take physiology or psychology, or call it what you will, as an example. The eye responds in a logarithmic way to brightness. In other words, to produce an arithmetical increase in sensation, a geometrical increase in brightness must be provided. Likewise, eleven outstanding individual soccer players do not necessarily add up to an outstanding team. In intellectual phenomena the difference is crasser still. I would judge Plato to be about three times as intelligent as the average man; yet billions of common minds could not together write one Parmenides. With these points I do not deny, that if in mechanics one adds two (qualitatively) identical forces or masses, one gets exactly twice that amount; or that two equal contrary forces similar in nature acting on a body cancel each other out; or that twice the acceleration covers two times the initial distance. On the contrary, I emphasize both types of phenomena, for it is shown that different laws govern them. The following assertions of Heisenberg are often popularly repeated: 'The nearest neighbor to physics is chemistry. Actually through quantum theory these two sciences have come to a complete union' (Physics and Philosophy, 101). Now it is commonly hoped that this 'union' can be extended to biology and psychology as well. But what is really meant by such a 'union'? It means that the same constituent elements which are referred to in physics are also referred to in chemistry. For example, the one hundred odd chemical elements can further be broken up into the apparatus of atomic physics. But yet for all that, employing the language of mathematical logic, chemistry introduces new terms over and above those of physics, and the connections between the terms of physics and those of chemistry are material implications. Or, using the language of Aristotelian logic, there are indeed generic unities shared by physics and chemistry atoms are found in both. And yet atoms combine into molecules the specific characteristics of which are the concern of chemistry. Now it is true that in biology and psychology there appear terms which, unlike those of chemistry, even when broken up do not yield molecules or atoms. And let me fully join physicalists in asserting the high probability that such generic unities, and connecting links between generic and specific terms, will also be found - and yet, there will be no 'reduction'. Let me again quote Heisenberg, who already concedes this view for the connection between physics and chemistry, and it will then be seen, that his previously quoted alleged 'complete union' between physics and chemistry differs from the following view only by an unfelicitous expression:

226

Objections on empirical grounds

Just as in the case of chemistry, one learns from simple biological experience that the living organisms display a degree of stability which general complicated structures consisting of many different types of molecules could certainly not have on the basis of the physical and chemical laws alone. Therefore, something has to be added to the laws of physics and chemistry before the biological phenomena can be completely understood (Physics and Philosophy, 102-103). Surely likewise: something has to be added to the laws of physics before chemical laws can be completely understood. Who has not heard the platitude, as contended by Russell, that 'it will be a severe blow to the vitalists when protoplasm is manufactured in the laboratory' ('Materialism', xvii). I grant the whole objection; protoplasm will one day be manufactured. But what do the facts mean? 'Manufacturing' means the arranging of material compounds with our minds (which impart formal and final causality) and our tools (which impart efficient causality). The fact that organized force can thus be impressed by us, shows precisely how these are something externally superadded, while in nature causes are acting on matter independent of our designs and acts, such as undertaken by us in art and technology. Since we experience the causes in technology to be external to the material embodiment, then if we can manufacture protoplasm, there is every reason for saying that the (formal or final) causes in nature, the 'covering laws', are separate also. Yet since the reader may well object to such abstruse Platonic metaphysics as being incompatible with the avowed purpose of this book, let me restrict myself to observed differences between biology and the physical sciences. Living things, such as a cat, have definite form, while changing their material substances; whereas physical things, such as a stone, are not individuated by definite shape, are internally less differentiated, and do not change their material particles. Moreover, living things, unlike physical ones, display self-movement, growth, and response to stimuli. Information from the outside world is always somehow absorbed, or 'learned'. Only living things have a requirement for food, which they encroach, or are predatory upon, and only they undergo excretion. Only in living things occur metabolic activities, which are the root of the peculiarities of regeneration and self-stabilization. Again, only among living objects or persons is procreation to be found, and so far at least, only from life can life be reproduced. Should we however ever 'manufacture' life with such

A comparison between the mental and the physical

227

characteristics, then the same design and motion would have to be imparted. But it does not follow that the designs and functions of these possible artificial organisms would be any less 'vitalistic'. We note rather that it is only the most intelligent earthly being that can do such purposive arranging of matter, and there are good reasons for thinking that it is a still greater intelligence which arranges and reigns over the whole universe. If one is careful, then one could preserve all the material particles which make up a human body when he (it?) dies. For my part, I observe a living man, as opposed to the ashes, gases, and heat after cremation, to be very different; while yet the matter remains constant. (Although matter itself can be transformed into energy, no known laws of physics make it a likelihood that this will happen to all matter.) There is, however, nothing inconsistent in contemporary physicalists having their bodies preserved upon death; the physicalists of the future may put them together again, and a Feigl could continue his investigations. But when it comes to a subject as sensitive as this, Feigl's religion prevails: 'If the identity does hold, then survival is indeed logically impossible' (Essay, 105). But matter (or at least energy) cannot be destroyed, hence if this is all there is to a human being, he certainly would survive. Yet of course, at least organization of material parts is required in order to make a man; and if it is true that organization cannot exist independently of concrete arrangements, as Feigl seems to think, then since organization is destroyed upon bodily decomposition, yet not the actual 'stuff', structure cannot be the same thing as material particles. But the compositional I have always identified with the mental, hence there is no identity with the physical. If, moreover, even Feigl cannot claim that specific organization is inextricably connected with particular bits of matter, then just as much as matter or energy are still never extinguished, the organization may separate and remain. Although the later James in his Essays in Radical Empiricism is often far from precise, what I do understand him to argue there is, that there are no two world stuffs, but some arrangements of the one stuff are called matter, other arrangements are the mental. This neutral monist functionalism was further developed by Russell in his Analysis of Mind and by Dewey with his naturalism. But even if neutral monism is true, I observe qualitatively different structures, and qualitative identity of relations as well as of terms is necessary in order even to obtain an isomorphism, let alone a numerical identity. As the pre-Socratics already knew well, were structure nothing, then the universe would be one blob. Yet in fact it is nei-

228

Objections on empirical grounds

ther a blob nor chaos, hence form must be something. And even if the mind were only a function of the brain, with death there is a breakdown in organization, production, action and function, and these are not nothing. We could just as well say that brain needs the mind to keep it from decomposing - if the mind always needs the brain at all. Certainly even a man as Aristotle, who was of the general opinion that soul and body cannot exist apart, did not therefore say they are the same. 'The soul cannot be without a body, while it cannot be a body; it is not a body but something relative to a body' (De Anima, 414 a 20-21). And St. Thomas Aquinas maintained: 'The soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body, but the act of a body' ('St. Thomas', 102). Should it be true that the organization always has to be conjoined to the body, it is still more permanent than the material stuff. The material particles of some human cells, as those in the tracts of the digestive system, change every few weeks, but the organization remains a lifetime (or more). The organization then must at least be something different from matter (though in my view, of course, it is something over and above particles). Even if mind were a property of matter, a complete substance is not to be identified with any one property. And a brain after all does not alone make a substance man in which properties inhere; human beings cannot live without kidneys either. Yet a man cannot for these reasons be said to be the collection of all his parts - many men have survived without any limbs whatever. That the whole is not the sum of its parts is not even maintained in mathematical logic. If I conjoin x, y, z, and make the first two variables true, the last variable false, I obtain one falsehood as a sum, whereas in the parts there were more truths than falsehoods. I wish to emphasize that this is according to their logic, not mine. But I endorse what in more traditional texts is summed up as the fallacy of division and the fallacy of composition - and physicalists are committing it! Physicalists too are gleefully envisaging the day when a human brain is hooked up to a computer; anyone who denies this possibility is 'unscientific'. Having great fear of this devastating stigma, I again grant the whole objection. But I think it far from inconsistent to insist that mind is still different from the body. It is indeed quite well established that light rays and sound waves are transformed into electrical discharges and only thus reach the brain, but the fact that these brain events in turn are seen as 'external' objects I take to be evidence that mind is not the same as the body. An effect is not identical with its cause, especially one which is so

A comparison between the mental and the physical

229

greatly dissimilar from electrical charges. If now a computer produces the same kind of electrical impulses as light rays, then indeed, why should we not see trees passively in external sense without any trees being there at all? Or when our present neurophysiologists apply electrical stimulations, why should we not have certain experiences? The only necessary condition for an observer to see colours, hear sounds, or experience the existence of his own body is that appropriate patterns of neuronal activity shall occur in appropriate regions of his brain, as was first clearly seen by Descartes. It is immaterial whether these events are caused by local stimulation of the cerebral cortex or some part of the afferent nervous pathway, or whether they are, as is usual, generated by afferent impulses discharged by receptor organs (Eccles, Neurophysiological Basis, 280; cf. Facing Reality, 69). But the fact nonetheless always remains that the mental experiences are never the same as the stimulations. The mind no doubt is influenced by physical means even under normal circumstances (something I have never denied for outer sense), why not also by electricity, or by drugs which instigate electricity? But when scientific or moral norms are embodied, this seems already to be as much a basis for saying that mind has power over matter. Take even the ordinary movement of one's arm when writing. This could be done by external electrical stimulation of the proper parts of the brain. But the very fact that these energies have to be externally introduced, while yet the mind can also do it all by itself, under usual circumstances, shows again that mind is something besides or over and above the body. Should therefore physicalists ever completely realize their dream, I will take this as further evidence that the mind is not the body, because of the observed and inferrable dissimilarities; and if or when a mathematician's brain is hooked up to a computer, I will say that this is evidence that the mental can influence the physical, since the mathematician can give the computer instructions just by spaceless a priori thought. And as far as neurophysiological evidence stands now, there are good grounds for saying that a person even experiences a qualitative difference between a movement voluntarily initiated by his own mind (i.e., the pure ego), and one initiated by electrical stimulations externally introduced: Remarkable observations can be made by evoking movements by stimulating the motor areas of the brain in a conscious subject. Though these movements were elicited as normally by messages from the motor cortex, the subject dis-

230

Objections on empirical grounds

tinguishes quite clearly between them and those that he voluntarily initiated. He will say, 'This movement is due to something done to me and not something done by me' (Eccles, Facing Reality, 118). Both Aristotle and Hegel rightly thought that being is one of the emptiest categories. After all, errors, falsehoods, fictions or appearances are not non-existent in the world, and this observation alone is already a good ground for saying that logic and mathematics, even if a priori analytic, must no less be a part or aspect of the universe. Yet all knowledge proceeds by making distinctions, and just because everything exists, we ought to separate different types of existing, and still further sorts of existents. Aristotle attributed being or unity to every entity which exists, and his categories could be taken as outlining the main types of existing. Hegel's fuller list of categories has similar aims, and the positivists' chief whipping boy was even careful to demarcate being, existence, reality, actuality. I have however avoided the latter subtleties, and for our purposes these terms can be taken as synonymous, as often they are. I must insist however on the difference between 'exist', 'existing' and 'existents'. 'Exist' denotes the summa genera; consequently I grant that body and mind exist in the same sense. But already in the genera shortly below the highest, they differentiate. Thus, while all matter without exception has extension, not all mental entities are spatial; hence mind and body are different types of existing. By existents I mean particular substances (whether material or mental). Thus my individual pure ego and its events are very much different from my body. It should be evident from the above scheme that a vast and unsurveyable number of specific differences which are peculiar to only mind or body still exist. In the present work, however, I am concentrating on the highest specific differences, such as spatiality, or, more accurately, kinds of spatiality. The reason is not only the limited scope of this book, but the fact that all the exact properties of matter are not easily ascertained, a difficulty we have already noted. (Nevertheless, of course, uncertainty about many specific properties of mind and matter does not prevent us from peremptorily dealing with those generic differentia which we now know; 'physics has never had to retract a single affirmation based on facts that were well established within accurately defined limits': Lecomte du Noiiy, Knowing and Believing, 37.) Certain additional properties of matter however can be listed with some safety: density, atomic weight, magnetic permeability, modulus of elasticity, viscosity, malleability, specific heat, electrical and

A comparison between the mental and the physical

231

thermal conductivity, melting point. Yet even if it is true that all matter has these properties, it is of course well known that different materials differ in density, atomic weight, etc. The bits of matter in the universe are far from uniform, hence why should there not be another substantial dissimilarity, which consists in being mind-like? And surely, to the thoughts I introspect I cannot attribute any of the above material properties. Who, in any event, is a physicist to overrule my introspection. Brentano for one was of the opinion that psychology is a more certain empirical science than physics, as psychology sees its data more immediately. If Brentano is wrong at all, this issue cannot be settled in the physics laboratory, but must be debated in the philosophical seminar. Let me end this section by providing a sketch of the relationship among the different sciences as a whole. I consider it as implausible as perhaps anybody that some sciences are unconnected to others, or 'dangle'. I rather contend that I am enabled to explain the unity of sciences better than physicalists - while yet I do not fail to account for the co-existing diversities. I grant as quite evident that the laws of physics are the most fundamental laws which cover bodily entities. They are more fundamental in the sense that they are wider in scope, pervasiveness, spread, or in application to the number of individual entities. For example, any physical object stands under the laws of mechanics; fewer stand also under the laws of chemistry, and progressively fewer stand under the laws of biology and psychology. These laws are arranged in a hierarchical order. This means that lower (specific) laws, i.e. those narrower in scope and application, can never contravene higher (generic) laws; while yet each law is complete master within the limitations of its field. Such an ontological order coincides with the temporal, or evolutionary order or sequence. 'Purely' physical phenomena are said to be a few billion years old, whereas man is now estimated to be some fifteen million years on earth. There can be a foundation of a house without a roof, but no roof without a foundation. Foundation and roof are not identical in nature, number, or dependency for existence. Thus the laws peculiar to physics, biology, and psychology are interconnected in an ordered structure, but are nonetheless dissimilar. Physics can do without biology; biology cannot ignore physics, is covered by its laws, but also has laws peculiar to its subjectmatter. (A purely verbal move of including everything which is presently in the 'domain of biology' as 'within the subjectmatter of physics' would never overcome a distinc-

232

Objections on empirical grounds

tion existing in reality.) It is the fact that biology is indeed not independent of physics that always leads the physicalist friends to make the unwarranted move that everything is only dependent on physics. As if, just because a child must have a mother, it can do without a father. The laws of physics are necessary, indispensible and insurmountable in any full account of organic and animated objects; but the laws of physics alone are not sufficient. Let me proceed to speak more concretely. It is evident that mechanics can ignore chemistry. The laws of motion hold for all elements, but the chemical laws of the one hundred odd elements are not the same. I do not therewith overlook that the chemical elements are only varying combinations of the same building stones: protons, neutrons, and electrons. On the contrary, I wish to emphasize this point, for it shows that a peculiar combination is also something, producing the many differing specific qualities which the elements beyond doubt possess. I grant that biological phenomena occur later in time than physical phenomena: this fact is surely only to be expected, in view of the fundamental position of physics. But once more, it does not follow that there is nothing besides the laws of physics. Even all laws of physics have not always been operative, and are thus not fundamental with equal degree. It is, for example, very probable that the solar system has not always been in existence, and that there occurred physical events prior to that existence; yet it was exclusively from the order of the solar system that Newton elicited some of his laws. As for the relationships between the laws of physics and biology: It would have made no difference to the determining of the laws of gravitation if Galileo had thrown small and big rabbits, rather than varying sizes of iron balls, down the Leaning Tower of Pisa. But surely no experimenting with iron balls could have led Galileo to discover all laws covering the respiratory, circulatory, or digestive systems of rabbits. The laws of physics necessarily cover biological objects, but are not sufficient: specifically biological laws must be added. We have by now amply seen that mind pervades the whole universe, and the occasional reference to 'purely' physical events points to no inconsistency, but only to a limitation imposed by present-day language. (It may also be helpful to point out that my proposition that 'mind pervades the whole universe' does not conflict with my other proposition that mind is 'private': from the private nature of mental events it does in no way follow that they are not some part of the world. Publicity and privacy rather

A comparison between the mental and the physical

233

are differentiating criteria between the physical and the mental in the sense that the physical gives rise to public or qualitatively similar perceptions shared among different observers; whereas the mental does not cause perceptions of any kind in different onlookers, and is consequently private to a possible enjoyer, and never immediately disclosable or directly accessible to onlookers - only mediately by analogy. Privacy implies privileged access by a unique observer; and as we know, in the case of human mental events, that observer is the pure ego, which may or may not focus upon its events. And of course, one individual pure ego has no more direct access to the animistic events of physics or biology than to the psychological events of other pure egos.) Now, as far as the concentration of the content, stuff, or substance of mind is concerned, it varies inversely with the physical hierarchy: the farther one moves from physics to psychology, the more mental rather than physical content is present. But of course, all forms or laws are mental in nature, and the nomic hierarchy sketched beforehand is not presently contradicted. The continuity of nature is therefore not broken; rather what physicalists overlook is that already the very word 'continuity' does not mean 'identity' of form or content. Nor does the interactionist thesis I propound at all destroy continuity - almost everything in nature interacts. In all probability only in man does mind become conscious of its own content, and only man can give the law to himself. Man consequently can understand the form of all other objects, and has a free will subvenient to all other higher laws. Put otherwise, man comprehends the higher laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and partially, psychology, and cannot overrule or contravene them, the most part of himself standing under such laws. But within a very narrow field he can step outside these laws, set his own ends, and impinge his own efficient causality. Since by means of science man can predict the outcome of natural causal chains, he can also make decisions on how and when to direct his hands, so that the efficient causality imparted by them leads to the ends man's mind prefers. Is it really contrary to the knowledge or reasonable expectations of science that free (mental) will can act on the (physical) brain? Instead of clinging to dogmatic a priori principles, let the empiricist friends read Sir John Eccles's 'Hypothesis of the Mode of Operation of "Will" on the Cerebral Cortex', and try to refute that hypothesis (see Neurophysiological Basis, 271-279; cf. Facing Reality, 118-129). Can even the whole physical brain alone be understood solely by mechanistic principles? The final

234

Objections on empirical grounds

chapter of a recent neurophysiological work is entitled 'The Cerebellum as a Computer?' (note the question mark), and the authors caution that 'this essay must be regarded as a germinal exploration into the immense problems encountered in the attempt to understand the mode of operation of even a relatively simple and stereotyped part of the higher nervous system' (Eccles et al., Cerebellum, 300). Unlike the many armchair materialist friends, however, Eccles is keenly aware that so far only the lower parts of the central nervous system have been investigated in detailed fashion; and that the extrapolation of possibly successful mechanistic models in the primitive parts to parts already known to be more complex in function is a blatant non sequitur. The attitude of physicalists is the same as that of a schoolboy, who learned the twenty-six letters of the alphabet - and then thought he could understand everything which was written. To repeat: of course some aspects of the human person stand under mechanistic laws, but not all. Returning now to our psycho-physical monists: What bothers me most is that, in the name of empirical scientific evidence, these physicalists fly into the face of it. The rationalist Hegel already similarly observed : It is at any rate a very deep-seated, and perhaps the main, defect of modern researchers into nature, that, even where other and higher categories than those of mere mechanism are in operation, they still stick obstinately to the mechanical laws; although they thus conflict with the testimony of unbiassed perception, and foreclose the gate to an adequate knowledge of nature {Logic, 337 ; my italics). 'Empiricists' therefore base their science on a metaphysics they cannot justify on their own premises, a metaphysics which is hence a quagmire of confusions, and where clear enough, contradictions; they then proceed to repudiate experience which they always consider the ultimate test. 'Rationalists' or 'metaphysicians' take both experience and reason into account, and seek to do justice to both. To cite a well known passage of Hegel once more (i.e. well known to those who know the first thing about him) : To pit this single assertion, that 'in the Absolute all is one,' against the organized whole of determinate and complete knowledge, or of knowledge which at least aims at and demands complete development - to give out its Absolute as the night in which, as we say, all cows are black - that is the very naïveté of emptiness of knowledge (Phenomenology, 79).

A comparison between the mental and the physical

235

Logical empiricists have at least gone beyond the completely undifferentiated Parmenidean One, but not much beyond the Naturphilosophie of Schelling here criticized: they live in a night in which the world is one absolute cow (and holy it is!) - physics. I let Feigl himself have the last word on the foregoing empirical dissimilarities, and there are quite a few more to come: 'It must be emphasized again that the identity theory stands or falls with the empirical evidence, and can therefore never be regarded as justified by purely logical considerations alone' ('Physicalism', 264).

Conclusions and Prospects

A . THE METHODOLOGICAL IMPOSSIBILITY OF IDENTIFICATION

I now come to my concluding remarks. My conclusion will not consist of a summary, but rather of a few additions of a general nature. If the reader has kept with me this far he will have noted that the context of my assertions was often too involved to facilitate an accurate statement of propositions apart from the qualifications provided by that context. The evident intricacy of the mind-body problem surely allows me only all the more to appeal to the maxim that 'the truth is the whole'. I am afraid the somewhat tortuous argumentation is not yet over, though the reader may no longer be surprised if I point to a further major formulation of doctrine by Feigl. I will concentrate on Feigl's 'Postscript after Ten Years', still without claiming that any one quotation necessarily squares with the next, even within those twenty-five pages. As against Smart, who wishes to do away with phenomenal data altogether in a '"finished" scientific conception of the world', Feigl tends to be of the opinion 'that those thinkers who maintain a "category mistake" is involved in mixing phenomenal and physical language are essentially right' (Postscript, 139, 140). Still Feigl presently espouses the following view: I now agree with Smart (and perhaps with Feyerabend) that within the conceptual frame of theoretical natural science genuinely phenomenal (raw feel) terms have no place (Postscript, 141; cf. 145). Where this leaves Feigl's repeated empiricist contentions is not for me to tell. As a rationalist I certainly do think I am bound to explain phenomenal data, and I dogmatically deny that these data do not in fact exist. If it

237

The methodological impossibility of identification

were true that they 'have no place' in the conceptual frame of science, then so much the worse for physicalist 'science' ever solving the mindbody problem. And even as far as the methodology of science is concerned, Feigl writes in that same Postscript: I cannot even begin to 'get a public language going' unless I understand the private (egocentric) language whose predicates (monadic, dyadic, etc.) designate experiental qualities or relations (147). Feigl therefore still admits the numerical privacy of phenomenal data, and evidently implies that without the data which were just asserted to 'have no place' in science, there could be no meaningful intersubjective language. And of course, we have already seen often enough that Feigl himself repudiates all forms of behaviorism; and even if he no longer does so, Smart's ontological inferences from behavioristic premises have already been expressly refuted by me. As a rejoinder to severe difficulties, Feigl employs in the Postscript not only the ordinary language philosophy which he explicitly repudiates, but also rejuvenates the 'pseudo-problem' line, though now appealing to what he calls the 'inappropriacy' of puzzles. After a totally irrelevant analogy (and even if relevant, incapable of constituting a proof), and after having asserted many times in the Essay that phenomenal data are 'ultimate', he now writes out of the blue that 'the question "Where are the experienced subjective qualities in the scientific description of the world?" is...inappropriate' (158). Evidently 'no trick of logic is known to secure a smooth transition from colorless, silent electrical charges to colors, sound, or any of the so-called secondary qualities' (Jaki, Brain, 125). I cease to be challenged to display all these contradictions, which prove, if anything, that Feigl cannot bring the main features of the universe within his materialist framework. (It goes of course without elaboration that 'consistency... can be regarded as the first of the requirements to be satisfied by every theoretical system, be it empirical or non-empirical': Popper, Logic, 91-92.) Already in my 'Introduction' we have seen Einstein admit that 'there is no logical bridge between phenomena and their theoretical principles' (Science, 4). And at least the physicalist Russell is somewhat more consistent: I should concede... that the thoughts of Shakespeare or Bach do not come within the scope of physics. But their thoughts are of no importance to us: their whole

238

Conclusions and prospects

social efficacy depended upon certain black marks which they made on white paper (Analysis of Matter, 392). But the thoughts are decisive for the ontological question here at issue; nor as I will proceed to show, can we do without inner sense to predict certain external behavior. Whatever exactly the sentence is to mean, Feigl had written the following on this problem in the Essay: The neurophysiology of the future (3000 A.D.?) should provide complete deductive derivations of the behavior symptoms of various central states whose correlates are the familiar sensations, perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, desires, volitions, emotions, and sentiments (known by acquaintance and described in phenomenal language) (75). For my part, I do not even grant Feigl the scientific claim which is made after he alludes to the hypothesis of 'the Martian Super-Scientist', who does not have our raw feels. Says Feigl: I maintain that, given enough time and intelligence, the Martian with even a totally different repertory of raw feels would in principle (although much more cumbersomely and slowly) arrive at a complete explanation of the behavior of theearthlings(Postscript, 139,140; cf. 'Physicalism', 257). I do not consider this to be an unreasonable hypothesis as far as pure outer sense is concerned, for the h u m a n organism does seem to respond to outer stimulation, and in view of my causal theory of perception, makes its own peculiar phenomenal fields. It is highly probable that flies, worms, and eagles do not experience the same sense data as men, and yet surely the world 'out there', as thing in itself or permanent possibility, is not therefore different (cf. Essay, 44, 68). Nonetheless, Feigl himself cannot possibly hold this explanation to be 'complete'. He himself grants that logic and mathematics are a priori, non-sensuous in origin and nature, and he certainly has put black mathematical symbols on white paper. The Martian who does not have Feigl's internal data, I maintain, could not possibly predict such behavior, since the causal agent of mathematical writing is non-sensuous in nature. And as far as the ontological issue is concerned, the Martian still needs raw feels, even if with a 'different repertory', in order to establish the existence of outer things. And if the same permanent possibilities would excite different phenomena in a Martian, then humans would still have immediate experiences the nature and existence of which

The methodological impossibility of identification 239 the Martian could not ascertain, as much as we cannot be sure of the exact type of internal consciousness of various animals. It is indeed quite possible that a deaf man be made aware of sound waves by some visible or tactile sound meter, but he could not possibly experience what occurs in the normal person's mind when the latter listens to the playing of a Bach cantata. Let me at last propound the question: what is it that makes physicalists cling to the identity theory in the face of almost any difficulty? I think that I already can say with justice that it is neither empirical observation nor the light of reason. But let me not engage in 'philosophical speculation' about this problem; as throughout my work I will seek to draw on the most immediate and direct evidence. 'Can unitary science be attained?' P. Oppenheim and H. Putnam ask in an article in the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, co-edited by Feigl. We certainly do not wish to maintain that it has been established that this is the case. But it does not follow, as some philosophers seem to think, that a tentative acceptance of the hypothesis that unitary science can be maintained is therewith a mere 'act of faith.' We believe that this hypothesis is credible ('Unity of Science', 8).

In my opinion, however, I have given already evidence, and shall continue to show, that this 'hypothesis' is so unreasonable that it is less, not more, than a legitimate act of faith. According to Feigl, the insistence of scientifically minded thinkers seems to rest on the belief that there is nothing in heaven or on earth (or even beyond both) that could not possibly be known, i.e., there are no assertions about reality which could not conceivably be confirmed or disconfirmed on the basis of sense perception ('Physicalism',

239). Upon this 'belief' rests his claim that 'direct acquaintance with "private" raw feels is describable also in the intersubjective language of science' (Essay, 95). Yet I have refuted the latter proposition in more ways than one; I only note again that while Feigl insists that logical empiricism 'is not a religion' ('Logical Empiricism', 4), he himself cannot strictly claim more than that it rests upon a 'belief.' Once more, Feigl writes:

240

Conclusions and prospects

Physicalists (like myself), in any case, are so impressed with the triumphs of scientific explanation, that they would, if necessary, admit all sorts of revisions in the (physicale [J/C.]) laws of the universe, rather than to abandon the identity view and thus to open the door for typically animistic doctrines ('Physicalism', 264). Well, the Church was so impressed with the philosophy of Aristotle and the astronomy of Ptolemy that it had Galileo repent on his knees. And just as if there were sun spots, there had to be something wrong with the telescope, so if mind is observed to be different from the body, there must be something wrong with our 'interpretation', whatever the latter is supposed to mean for Feigl, who is of the opinion that all a priori processes are analytic. For my part, I am very impressed by Aristotle, but he solved very far from all problems, and the same holds for 'science'. Further, why rely on intellectual means of persuasion alone? Just as much as the Church used its immense economic and political power to suppress new ideas, so billions today are poured into scientific war chests, while a metaphysician can thank few others than God for tolerating his existence and subsistence. Small wonder that the progress of metaphysics leaves much to be desired. Few others surpassed Bacon in crystallizing this recurring phenomenon, and few others than Bacon would have more disdain for those who call themselves his disciples: The human understanding when once it has adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects or despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate (Novum Organum, 472). It would be unfair to overlook that Smart would accuse such a man as myself of supporting fantastic hypotheses. Toward the end of his currently celebrated article he writes: 'There is no conceivable experiment which could decide between materialism and epiphenomenalism' ('Brain Processes', 171-172). Like Feigl, the 'empiricist' Smart seeks to set up his theory in such a way as to outrule disconfirmation. The fact of course is that since we have access to both mind and body, if a constantly recurrent temporal sequence or causal relation is found to move only from body to mind, then epiphenomenalism would be confirmed. Yet if anyone opposes his view,

The methodological impossibility of identification

241

Smart compares him to 'the nineteenth century English naturalist Philip Gosse'. According to Gosse, the earth was created about 4000 B.C. exactly as described in Genesis, with twisted rock strata, 'evidence' of erosion, and so forth, and all sorts of fossils, all in their appropriate strata, just as if the usual evolutionist story had been true. Clearly this theory is in a sense irrefutable: no evidence can possibly tell against it ...The issue between the brain-process theory and epiphenomenalism seems to be of the above sort. 'The principles of parsimony and simplicity seem to me to decide overwhelmingly in favor of the brain-process theory' ('Brain Processes', 172). I agree with Smart that Gosse's thesis is not strictly empirically disconfirmable, but the physicalistic theory is, the analogy being unwarranted. And such disconfirmations need not be confined to the issue between materialism and epiphenomenalism as singled out by Smart. For the numerical and qualitative distinctness of inner and outer sense, which I have by now amply demonstrated, refutes any kind of materialistic monism. And as far as choosing between different kinds of dualistic theories is concerned, we remain again quite within the methodological reach of empirical science. The following suggestion of Mill serves as a general guide: 'When we are in doubt, between two co-existent phenomena, which is cause and which is effect, we rightly deem the question solved if we can ascertain which of them preceded the other' {Logic, Bk. Ill, Ch. V, §7). That which constantly, or better, invariably precedes is the cause, and what invariably follows is the effect of that cause. More particularly - now referring to the autocerebroscope experiment - if certain experimentally induced physical events are invariably followed by certain mentals events, but not vice versa, then as said, epiphenomenalism would be confirmed; if such causal succession runs both ways, then interactionism would be confirmed; if no painstaking application of Mill's Methods yields anything but simultaneous occurrences of mental and physical events, then parallelism, the double aspect theory, and occasionalism would be confirmed. Occasionalism can further be empirically distinguished from parallelism and the double aspect theory in that the latter two would make up two main clusters of occurrences, whereas occasionalism would not. I must caution the reader that in the above scheme of empirical confirmations or disconfirmations I am restricting myself to the autocerebroscope experiment: for reasons of privacy of access, only one person can

242

Conclusions and prospects

empirically compare mental and physical phenomena in a direct and immediate way, and thus ascertain their relationships. Nonetheless, I do not therewith wish to evoke the implication that publicly ascertainable tests would be without utility altogether; they are only less decisive. For instance, suppose A opens B's skull; then on a causal theory of perception, A sees B's brain in his (A's) outer sense. If certain brain events of B are thus seen by A, and if these brain events are observed by A to begin spontaneouly (i.e., after a thorough search, no invariably antecedent other brain events can be found), then the truth of mind acting on body would be confirmed as highly probable. It must be added, however, that if A always finds antecedent brain events for subsequent mental events reported by B, then interactionism could hardly be said to be disproven in favor of epiphenomenalism. For it might be the case that every private mental event in inner sense, even spaceless mathematical thought, continuously has brain events as its effect, and that a brain event which seems to be the cause of a subsequent mental event is really itself the effect of a prior mental event. It may be worth noting that some significant data in this area are already being made available by neurophysiologists. Thus it takes a 'time of at least l/5th of a second for the elaboration of the neuronal substrate of a conscious experience.' This 'is very long indeed', since 'the time for transmission from one nerve cell to another is no longer than l/1000th of a second' (Eccles, Facing Reality, 71; cf. 160-161). Who has not observed his body reacting to stimuli even before he became aware of the perception, and before he could consciously react in some way? The time lag from neuronal event to conscious experience, and from conscious experience to neuronal event, is much longer than motor acts which occur apart from conscious experience. At least prima facie such data already point to the conclusion that causal chains from body to mind and vice versa are of a different nature than mere bodily causal chains, and that interactionism must be true. Returning now to the 'empiricist' Smart, I may add that absence of contradictions is also a necessary, though not sufficient condition of scientific knowledge, and I find more contradictions on fundamentals within the identity theory than among the various Gospels of the New Testament. Materialistic monism, in the end denying the existence of phenomena altogether, has been far more disconfirmed than Ptolemy's astronomy by that of Copernicus. I directly see the sun rise and set every day, and am unaware

The methodological impossibility of identification

243

of any motion of the earth. I of course grant that neither Ptolemy nor Gosse had the truth, but they employed methods which bring us nearer to it than Smart or Feigl. These latter philosophers seriously use phenomena as the ultimate verification basis, but at the same time legislate them out of existence. At least the Church sought to keep theoretical world-views in order to uphold morality, while physicalists destroy the actuality of norms - at a time when the recognition of their objective reality is required more than ever before. How can, e.g., a uniform patch of greenness, a single musical tone, a stinging pain be identified with a complex set of neural events? Here again it is essential to distinguish between the scientific and the philosophical components of the question. Our psychophysiological ignorance is still too great to permit anything more than bold guesses on the scientific side {Essay, 90-91). While already reaping all the 'fruits' of the practical consequences of the conclusion, the faith, in the name of science, is allowed 'bold guesses' to overcome a phenomenal difference which not even the arch-rationalist metaphysician Parmenides denied for appearances. Both philosophically and scientifically, the identity theory must be repudiated - and now. I think I have demonstrated in this book the methodological impossibility of ever proving a physicalistic identity thesis. This 'scientific' methodology is a religion resting on worse cognitive foundations than revealed faith. If these men have no belief in traditional theologies, then a fortiori, the less belief can they have in their own thesis. 'The philosopher must be content to await the progress of science' (Analysis of Matter, 393) is the argumentum ad ignorantiam which we hear from Russell. Yet I am and shall remain uncontented until this group of philosophers of science can show me, by giving rational grounds, that science is competent at all to deal with such questions. And now -1 have no time to wait for the second (or first) coming of the Messiah. I would have some patience with 'the progress of science' if this dictum were not used to do away with given phenomena, which Feigl himself, in the name of empirical philosophy, has repeatedly pronounced as ultimate. The nature of these phenomena is of course the crucial issue. And it is only a commonplace that scientists in fact are hardly even concerned about such ontological questions, let alone that they are capable of solving them. Even a 'theoretical' physicist such as Frisch insists that many theoretical physicists... simply haven't the time to worry about philo-

244

Conclusions and prospects

sophical questions. Their attitude toward quantum theory is a bit like that of a layman toward his radio receiver: as long as it works, he doesn't care what's inside {AtomicPhysics, 69). Thus we see our homely scientists passing the buck to philosophers, and 'philosophers' to scientists. Far more however has knowledge suffered from littleness of spirit and the smallness and slightness of the tasks which human industry has proposed to itself. And what is worst of all, this very littleness of spirit comes with a certain air of arrogance and superiority (Bacon, Novum Organum, 506). In the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza was among the first who questioned the endless inaccuracies in the composition of the Bible. But he never dared to question (in writing) the fundamental authority of revelation itself. Hobbes also interpreted 'Holy Scripture... with due submission' {Leviathan, vi). Similarly, as was typical of writers in the seventeenth century, Descartes never failed to point out: 'Recalling my insignificance, I affirm nothing, but submit all these opinions to the authority of the Catholic Church' ('Descartes', 136). Again, as H. Grotius wrote at the end of the 'Prolegomena' of his incomparable treatise: 'And now if anything has been said by me inconsistent with piety, with good morals, with Holy Writ, with the concord of the Christian Church, or with any aspect of truth, let it be as if unsaid' {Law, 30). We have already seen ample ground for the close analogy between the scientism of positivist epistemology and the priestcraft of the seventeenth century. At this point, therefore, I should perhaps write: I am here only following my humble light of reason, and I submit everything to the authority of the Pontiff (A. J. Ayer?) residing in the Vatican (Oxford). And I may well get the reply: You are indeed in error; you do not understand the first thing about us; your discourse is muddleheaded; you have still not grasped that all a priori truths are analytic; your work is cognitively meaningless; it consists of a series of emotive ejaculations. With us, however, there are no inquisitions (we only try to see to it that you do not get a degree, the lack of which unfortunately makes it most difficult to pursue these enquiries further); there are no confessions or purgations (you are only urged to see a scientific psychiatrist - now also in the best Communist tradition). With Voltaire and the 'Enlightenment', we defend to the death anything you wish to say (as long as you talk sense, which can be found only in our science).

The methodological impossibility of identification 245 We do not regard metaphysics as 'mere speculation' or 'fairy tales'...Metaphysics is not'superstition'; it is possible to believe true and false propositions, but not to believe meaningless sequences of words (Carnap, 'Elimination of Metaphysics', 72). Yet not dwelling in the heights of the men of the seventeenth century, an elevation which enables one to see that truths are established by the mere tie-up to some vested authority, I only affirm again, that I not only do uphold everything I have said, but have quite a few additions to make. B . THE EMPIRICAL DISCONFIRMATION

I am of the opinion that throughout this book I have produced considerable empirical evidence that mind and body are observed to be different. Some of my points are made in rather elaborate contexts, and are difficult and tedious to sum up here. What I do however wish to point out once more is that in his Postscript Feigl again continues to repeat: 'Purely phenomenal assertions require no other evidence than that which is "given"; I would call them "self-evident" if this phrase had not been badly misused in traditional epistemology'. 'Phenomenal descriptions of momentary direct experience do make truth claims;... they are the "ultimate" basis of all our empirical knowledge claims' (149; cf. Pepper, Concept and Quality, 114). If they are thus' "ultimate"', they will not change with future scientific research, but research must already now adjust to them - and 'now' means neither more nor less than now. Within a theory of perception which is the same as Feigl's in its essential aspects, I have, employing Feigl's own criterion of what is the final appeal for knowledge claims, found a strong dissimilarity between mind and body. If the reader disagrees with my view that Feigl himself is obliged to concede defeat, on what grounds does he think so? ...And all other materialisms are less sophisticated than Feigl's, and therefore afortiori, they are finished. And before any new materialism is seriously formulated, the present refutation of materialism and establishment of dualism must be answered. And nobody can make a thesis about the nature of the world really true which the universe does not allow to be true. At this place, however, I may be called to expand on my reasons why I do not consider the passively given as ultimate, while undeniably it has to be accountedfor. Yet if the grounds for this position were not so complex, there would be many more rationalists than there are. It certainly took

246

Conclusions and prospects

Hegel himself the whole Phenomenology of Mind, running into some 800 pages, only to prepare the way for a release from the fetters of the senses. I provide this quotation from Plato's Republic as perhaps the most easily comprehended short summary: And the same things appear bent and straight to those who view them in water and out, or concave and convex, owing to similar errors of vision about colors, and there is obviously every confusion of this sort in our souls... True. And have not measuring and numbering and weighing proved to be most gracious aids to prevent the domination in our soul of the apparently greater or less or more or heavier, and to give the control to that which has reckoned and numbered or even weighed? Certainly. But this surely would be the function of the part of the soul that reasons and calculates. Why, yes, of that. And often when this has measured and declares that certain things are larger or that some are smaller than the others or equal, there is at the same time an appearance of the contrary. Yes. And did we not say that it is impossible for the same thing at one time to hold contradictory opinions about the same thing? And we were right in affirming that. The part of the soul, then, that opines in contradiction of measurement could not be the same with that which conforms to it. Why, no. But, further, that which puts its trust in measurement and reckoning must be the best part of the soul. Surely. Then that which opposes it must belong to the inferior elements of the soul. Necessarily (602 d - 603 b). It is, however, not too unlikely that this brilliantly argued dialogue will be dismissed as rationalist obscurantism. I therefore end with that extreme empiricist, J. S. Mill, who, perhaps not all that surprisingly, having seen empiricist consistency in practice, finally attributes the highest reality to something which is not only not observed, but on his own account, is unobservable. My present sensations are generally of little importance and are, moreover, fugitive; the possibilities, on the contrary, are permanent, which is the character

The empirical disconfirmation

247

that mainly distinguishes our idea of substance or matter from our notion of sensation. The sensations, though the original foundation of the whole, come to be looked upon as a sort of accident depending upon us, and the possibilities as much more real than the actual sensations, nay, as the very realities of which these are only the representations, appearances, or effects (Hamilton's Philosophy, 368, 369). But perhaps even the philosophy of Mill will be dismissed as old hat by now; today we have 'science', and above all, physics. And although I have combated that methodological presupposition in Part B of Chapter II, the quotations which I have provided made it at the same time quite evident, that especially the physics of Einstein has sense perception as its very epistemological foundation. And we also remember from my discussion of quantum mechanics that Einstein rejected the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics on the ground that 'God does not play dice.' An almost shocking contradiction, however, now arises: it is well known that Heisenberg insisted, and indeed still insists, on indeterminacy chiefly on the ground that the process of observation is an irremovable part of the world or reality. Yet Einstein rejected such ultimacy of observation for quantum mechanics, while at the same time making it the very foundation stone of his relativity theory. When confronted by Heisenberg with this contradiction, Einstein himself rejected these empirical foundations of relativity theory as 'nonsense'. The following encounter between Einstein and Heisenberg in 1926 is worth reproducing, for it is cutting, yet really sad evidence, how slender the predilections are upon which scientific philosophers seek to build their 'scientific' view of the world. The conversation is reported by Heisenberg in his autobiography, Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations: 'Since a good theory must be based on directly observable magnitudes [said Heisenberg], I thought it more fitting to restrict myself to these, treating them, as it were, as representatives of the electron orbits.' 'But you don't seriously believe,' Einstein protested, 'that none but observable magnitudes must go into a physical theory?' 'Isn't that precisely what you have done with relativity?' I asked in some surprise. 'After all, you did stress the fact that it is impermissible to speak of absolute time, simply because absolute time cannot be observed; that only clock readings, be it in the moving reference system or the system at rest, are relevant to the determination of time.'

248

Conclusions and prospects

'Possibly I did use this kind of reasoning,' Einstein admitted, 'but it is nonsense all the same. Perhaps I could put it more diplomatically by saying that it may be heuristically useful to keep in mind what one has actually observed. But on principle, it is quite wrong to try founding a theory on observable magnitudes alone. In reality the very opposite happens. It is the theory which decides what we can observe' (63). Unfortunately, Einstein never bothered to correct what he himself clearly recognized to be a mistake. Well, as we have seen Bacon say, 'The human understanding when once it has adopted an opinion... agreeable to itself...' But when our aim is truth, then for me at least, 'tout comprendre, ce «'est pas tout pardonner.'

C . THE METAPHYSICAL IMPLAUSIBILITY OF IDENTITY

Throughout this work I have been arguing against an allegedly scientific empirical identification of mind and body. And all this has been done without employing a positive epistemology of my own; I have at least tried - in keeping with my avowed aim - to work within the epistemology of my opponents, fastening myself onto those aspects which are supportable. Yet the present section serves as a reminder that considerations extraneous to my highly restricted discussions are quite possible and available, and that, employing the words of Lord Chancellor Bacon, strictly speaking 'I cannot be fairly asked to abide by the decisions of a tribunal which is itself on its trial' (Instauratio, 438). And that same 'empiricist' Bacon was as emphatic a supporter of the coherence theory of truth as any: 'the harmony of science, supporting each part the other, is and ought to be the true and brief confutation and suppression of all the smaller sort of objections' (Advancement, 184). Therefore, in this and the next and final section I will become more positive; nonetheless, since I still cannot provide the needed thorough justification of metaphysical principles, the following discussion ought to be, and is, kept brief. Sound common sense will often be found to be my 'metaphysical' appeal. That 'nature does nothing in vain' was already observed by the Greeks, and could be taken as what is true of Ockham's razor. If therefore we look at the rival theories of monism, we can only come to the conclusion that, with the exception of interactionism, they are all intrinsically implausible. This suggestion is quite apart from the fact that materialistic

The metaphysical implausibility of identity

249

monism has by now been disconfirmed, and the fact that by exact observation of temporal sequences, we can empirically decide between competing dualistic theories. And in addition to what has been said in the foregoing section, it may be worth pointing out, that the double aspect and parallel theories have already been refuted in another empirical way. For the perennial paradigm of such theories is the relationship between the concave and convex sides of a semisphere. Yet it seems beyond doubt that the relationship between mind and body, as differentiated by me, is much more disparate than concave and convex sides. For instance, some mental events are not in space at all, while all matter is. Adherents of the double aspect theory and psycho-physical parallelism ask us to believe, that when a man hears a fire alarm, what causes him to jump up is not the physical ringing event of a bell, but solely another mental event in his mind. And that there just 'happens' to be such a succeeding (do they really wish to say 'simultaneous'?) mental event is to be explained by some underlying third thing, such as substance. Yet for my part, I come near to actually experiencing such causal successions: I open my eyes, then see an object, then deliberate about it, then touch it - at least prima facie, mind and body interact in alternating sequences. And from the point of view of scientific methodology, no more than an ad hoc basis exists here for rejecting the postulate that whenever such constant conjunctions are found as in a 'parallel' series, then a causal relationship is implied. Still, on the one hand, such a causal relationship seems to contradict the parallel and double aspect theories by definition. On the other hand, there does seem to be a vague feeling even among such theorists that some kind of interactionist relationship still exists, for why else posit the 'third something' at all? Now speaking more particularly, and from a more metaphysical point of view, we may note that Spinoza's 'Substance', 'God', or 'Nature', underlying his attributes of mind and matter, is really a notion of no higher sophistication than the Atlas of Greek mythology, or the Elephant of Indians being the support of the earth. To posit a third something to bring together what Spinoza did not succeed in fitting on their own, can be expected to, and did, bring the problem only into greater, not lesser, disarray. Strawson's vaunted 'person theory' (see Strawson, Individuals) seems to do no more than simply substitute the word 'person' for Spinoza's Substance. A 'person' is said to be neither body nor mind, but something which has mental and physical attributes, or 'predicates'. We are however not told exactly what such a 'person' is,

250

Conclusions and prospects

exactly what mind and body are, nor how they are related - and their relationship surely only becomes all the more complex if the circuitous intermediary of 'person' is introduced. The fact that a pseudo-solution such as this receives so much attention in the literature is not a happy commentary on contemporary philosophy, and calling such an x 'descriptive metaphysics' does not save it from being bad metaphysics. Appropriate comments such as the following are very difficult to find: It is useless ... to say that the notion of a man, or person, is basic, if by this we mean that it is unanalyzable. There is no problem here except for those who are scientifically interested, and for them there is nothing at all attractive in the prospect of a return to pre-scientific innocence (Kneale, Mind, 41-42). In view of the maximum variety which exists in the universe under the most economical arrangement - what seems true of Ockham's razor and the 'unity of science' postulate - we may say that epiphenomenalism, the double aspect and parallel theories posit useless duplications or nearrepetitions which play no indispensible role in the course of nature. Thus, since an epiphenomenon has ex hypothesi no succeeding effects, it could only be a superfluous appendix to causal relationships. And 'double aspects' and 'parallels' would hardly add to the variety of the universe, nor would an 'unknown third something' add to economy of arrangement. Although in general, Leibniz with his occasionalism did follow his own principle of maximum variety, his deus ex machina to account for the harmony among the monads remains inconsistent with the greatest economy of arrangement. Instead of seriously coming to grips with the difficulty, Leibniz brought in an extraneous God, and then employed argumenta ad ignorantiam to prove his pre-established harmony, as well as to glorify that Supreme Being. Such a procedure is again simply poor metaphysics. Throughout this work I have indicated that there exists a certain fundamental dualism between mind and body, or form and matter. Not only is my claim confirmable by observation, and of direct relevance to the identity theory under examination, but solely by means of this basic disparity of ontological entities can many other philosophical problems be successfully solved - and it matters really little whether these problems be styled 'metaphysical', or 'epistemologicaP, or 'scientific', or what have you. We have seen often enough that empirical science itself cannot do without some super-sensuous, non-physical foundation. Even if the phe-

The metaphysical implausibility of identity

251

nomenally given were 'self-evident', 'ultimate', as Feigl repeatedly styles it, that this is so cannot be said to be grounded on observation. Science itself employs norms as Tightness, propriety, legitimacy, above all truth, and these norms must be cognitive, existent, real, since we cannot judge or evaluate the supposedly more real, outer sense, on the basis of what is less actual and less known. If norms were non-cognitive, so would all science be; yet since logical empiricists do not accept the latter conclusion, they have no good reason for maintaining that moral, legal, political, aesthetic norms are merely emotive. To say that scientific norms are cognitive but moral ones are not, is completely arbitrary; but this confusion seems to be the ultimate ground why logical empiricism is really founded, not on empirical evidence nor analytic consistency, but on what they themselves designate as 'feeling', 'sentiment', 'interest', or 'inclination'. Moreover, since mathematics and logic are after all granted to be a priori by the new empiricists, then when it comes to the ontological issue, it in no ways helps to say they are 'merely analytic', or 'merely in the mind'. If they are in the 'mind', not in the (empirical) 'world', then the two are therewith proven to be disparate existents. And the structures making up logic and mathematics are surely impressed upon the world in applied science, even if applied morality is non-existent. Right, proper, true mathematics must be put into the world, even should mathematics consist only of marks on paper, and mind must therefore be able to act on matter. 'Is' and 'ought' are admitted by the positive friends to be disparate, and since 'ought implies can', and because no science can do without an 'ought' which is not the sensuously given, interactionism must be true. Not only therefore do the necessity, eternity, a priority of mathematics, as opposed to the contingency, temporality, a posteriority of outer sense, make even a parallelism or double aspect theory unworkable, but the fact that mental idealities found in inner sense must be, and are, realized in the world of outer sense, refutes epiphenomenalism, and proves interactionism. We cannot even account for the 'constant conjunction' of certain material parts without soul, or 'scientific hypothesis' of mind, if you will. As Aristotle put it, things in our perceptible world are one in virtue of soul, or of a part of soul, or of something else that is reasonable enough; when these are not present, the thing is a plurality, and splits into parts {Metaphysial, 1077 a 21-22).

What is it that accounts for the cohesion of physical particles in a human

252

Conclusions and prospects

body? Surely not the self-subsistent atoms themselves, for these are continually expelled from the organization altogether. Even the 'function' of a physical object is not physical, yet a material object cannot be understood apart from it. And a function (process, movement) does not explain the direction of the function. Similar things of course have often been argued for the universe as a whole. If an empiricist as Hume in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion rejected the argument from design, no one can say he was very sure of himself. But I do not see why I should pay the most attention to men as Hume, who in the Dialogues, as elsewhere, continually has as his premise 'the feebleness of human understanding.' I have never denied this to be a fact for the vast majority, yet it is totally against Hume's own empirical spirit to disallow the possibility of counter-instances. In passages in the Metaphysica often referred to by Hegel, Aristotle writes: 'Of the first philosophers... most thought the principles which were of the nature of matter were the only principles of all things.' But 'When one man said, then, that reason was present - as in animals, so throughout nature - as the cause of order and of all arrangement, he seemed like a sober man in contrast with the random talk of his predecessors' (Metaphysica, 983 b 7-8, 984 b 15-18). Unfortunately, what Anaxagoras already knew, our recent materialists still do not know. This is especially bothersome, as in the words of Russell, 'The two dogmas that constitute the essence of materialism are: First, the sole reality of matter; secondly, the reign of law' ('Materialism', xii). Yet this 'reign of law' precisely introduces an entity which contradicts 'the sole reality of matter'. As again that most acute of minds, Aristotle, saw it, 'law is order, and good law is good order; but a very great multitude cannot be orderly: to introduce order into the unlimited is the work of a divine power - of such a power as holds together the universe' (Politico, 1326 a 29-31). And 'always the active is superior to the passive factor, the originating force to the matter which it forms' (.De Anima, 430 a 18-20). Ancient history? The only essential difference between Aristotle and the foremost physicist writing on the evolution of the universe in the twentieth century is the superior perspicacity of that man from Macedonia. In the words of von Weizsäcker, 'all stars and star systems have been formed out of diffuse masses of gas.' 'The earliest state of the stars... show chaotic fluctuation,' but later end up, as does the solar system, with 'orderly movement.' 'The path from clouds to rotary figures and on to spheres is a path from disorder to order,

The metaphysical implausibility of identity

253

from chaos to form' (Nature, 81, 87). How else is this process to be explained but by the intrusion of an 'active... originating force,' for, as we have already seen in our discussion of Darwin, 'turbulence .. .turns with overwhelming probability only into some other form of turbulence' (Nature, 82). It may be of interest to note that even colloquial English seems to recognize this much when it designates complete arbitrariness or lawlessness as 'mindless'. In 'The animism of matter and physicalism' I argued for the proposition that forces or energies are mental entities. To avoid confusion, I wish to point out expressly that these are not the same as laws as now discussed; forces are a type of mental content, whereas laws are mental forms. For example, Newton's law of gravitation, that the gravitational force is proportional to the product of the masses of two given (isolated) bodies, and inversely proportional as the square of the distance between them, could be arranged differently, while the total quantity of gravity could remain constant. The law of the inverse proportionality of the square between two bodies, for instance, could change its power, without any change in the total amount of gravity. Laws, therefore, are not the same as forces, energies, or fields. And if the laws would be different, the physical effects would be different. Laws, consequently, are very real; for as we note only in passing, one criterion of reality not seldom advanced by philosophers is precisely such a 'power to act'. And let us also note that von Weizsäcker similarly implies the distinction between energy and form (i.e., law) as here outlined: 'The chaotic original fog we have assumed is very poor in differentiated, lasting forms. But it is rich in energy' (Nature, 91). Let us, before we go on, take notice precisely how the physicalist Russell conceives of 'law'. Unfortunately, he simply is not exact. He often speaks of the 'reign' or 'governance' of law, and even reduces other major notions to law as thus styled. 'In fact the whole conception of "cause" is resolved into that of "law" ' (Russell, Human Knowledge, 316). Other empiricists, however, are somewhat clearer, at least at first sight. Similar to Hume's proposal of law being only 'constant conjunction' or 'invariability of succession', Mill writes: The Law of Causation, the recognition of which is the main pillar of inductive science, is but the familiar truth that invariability of succession is found by observation to obtain between every fact in nature and some other fact which has preceded it, independently of all considerations respecting the ultimate mode of

254

Conclusions and prospects

production of phenomena, and of every other question regarding the nature of 'Things in themselves' {Logic, Bk. Ill, Ch. V, §2). Typically, we are told by Mill that 'The only notion of a cause which the theory of induction requires is such a notion as can be gained from experience' {Logic, Bk. Ill, Ch. V, § 2). From statements such as these, empiricists always draw the inference that nothing else exists but invariable observed successions, that no solution of the 'problem of induction' is possible. Yet Mill himself said no more than that such a claim is independent of questions 'regarding the nature of "Things in themselves"'; it is still the latter basic reality which is the chief ontological issue here. Yet, as we have already seen in our discussion of freedom and determinism, while preaching the 'openness' of inductive evidence, empiricists practice the closedness of counter-evidence to determinism. Suddenly laws are posited as being independent of objects, and reigning over them. Insists Hume: 'We can never free ourselves from the bonds of necessity. We may imagine we feel a liberty within ourselves; but...' {Treatise, II, 189). 'But'? But what? There can be no doubt that Hume's most major premises are that 'ALL the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds,... IMPRESSIONS and IDEAS,' and that 'a// our simple ideas in their first appearance are derived from simple impressionsy {Treatise, I, 311, 314). Such 'bonds of necessity' cannot come from experience, which Hume above all, and especially on the subject of causation, considers as contingent; and since the necessity here referred to is not mathematical, it has no place whatever in Hume's empiricism. The contradiction is no less crass in the empiricism of Mill. Mill's ultimate premise, the 'Law of Universal Causation', asserts the following: ' "it is a law that every event depends on some law" ' {Logic, Bk. Ill, Ch. V, § 2). First they say there are no laws above observed sequences, then they assert that 'every event depends on some law' (my italics). It is upon this contradictory swamp that the 'main pillar of inductive science' sinks. One accomplished practicing scientist (as well as philosopher) at least knows that he does not know: Science establishes what we call laws to express briefly the temporal sequence of phenomena that are often complicated. By these laws we are enabled to predict the future. They are all founded on a principle that we have to admit blindly, the principle of causality, namely, that there is no effect without cause and that the same causes always produce the same effects (Lecomte du Notty, Road to Reason, 41-42; my italics).

The metaphysical implausibility of identity

255

I have indeed noted above that distinguished empiricists such as Mill at times even concede that ontological concerns are left aside with these methods, not dissolved or resolved. Yet inferences much more serious than that can be drawn: the result is that the whole empiricist epistemology and methodology ends up as a failure. For 'The validity of all the Inductive Methods depends on the assumption that every event, or the beginning of every phenomenon, must have some cause, some antecedent, on the existence of which it is invariably and unconditionally consequent' {Logic, Bk. Ill, Ch. XXI, § 1). We note again that such invariability, unconditionality, necessity, or absoluteness, simply cannot be gathered from experience; still, it is upon such rationalistic notions that 'the validity of all the Inductive Methods depends.' Mill was of the opinion that the syllogism, the foundation, as he saw it, of deductive or rationalistic method, was a petitio principii. But now it is rather the foundation of the new inductive science which is clearly seen to be such a petitio principii. Inescapably, therefore, science cannot do without a metaphysical foundation, and empiricism never succeeds in being anti-metaphysical: instead, it always rests on bad metaphysics. What, then, is the nature of 'laws'? One may certainly grant Hume that we only (externally) observe constant conjunction; yet laws can be seen by means of the 'mind's eye' of the rationalist in inner sense, and are immaterial. The fact that lawful connections are indeed not sensuously seen, does not prove that laws are nothing above factual sequences, but is indicative of precisely the point that laws are not physical entities, rather solely mental ones, and that body and soul are not the same. Certainly logical empiricists such as Hempel already grant that a scientific law, as opposed to an accidental generalization, supports counterfactual conditionals. Moreover, 'a statement of universal form may qualify as a law even if it actually has no instances whatever' (Hempel, Natural Science, 57). Now, it is difficult to see that that which is not necessarily embodied or instantiated is material-, and it is equally difficult to see that laws are nothing. Laws then surely must be mental in nature. And now appealing to no more than common sense: I wonder how physicalists would explain where the laws came from when the synthetic fibre industry got under way. Did scientists squeeze the regular behavior of molecules out of matter, or insert the constant conjunctions in the laboratory? Do scientists create a new law when a novel product is made; or, once a physical law exists, does it jump from one individual to the next, and thus divide itself? If suddenly

256

Conclusions and prospects

a world-revolution advocating a 'return to nature' were to succeed, and we were to clothe ourselves only in furs and wool, would the laws governing synthetic fibres cease? If laws are a material stuff, what are their spatial dimensions? Then too, the material world is observed to change, but do laws? We are here only touching upon the many difficulties of monism, and it is evident that scientists in fact themselves presuppose a substantialist dualism to avoid such unworkable consequences. Or how else do they account for 'the postulate of the invariance of natural laws, with respect to both space and time' (Popper, Logic, 253)? It is simply a gross historical misjudgement to think that the 'scientific' way of thinking, as exemplified by physicalism, is 'new', as opposed to the 'old', 'speculative philosophy'. In their reaction to Medieval scholasticism, many men of the seventeenth century were at least aware that they went back to Democritus from Aristotle; whereas by tolerating efficient causality only, the learned scientists of the twentieth century think they are advancing. Even though logical empiricists repudiate historical erudition (totally inconsistent with empiricism as it is), let me produce the following quotation, which indicates that the 'new scientific' view was widely maintained in ancient Greece - and promptly refuted by Plato: For mankind it should have been proof that the stars and their whole procession have intelligence, that they act with unbroken uniformity, because their action carries out a plan resolved on from untold ages; they do not change their purpose confusedly, acting now thus, and again thus, and wandering from one orbit to another. Yet most of us have imagined the very opposite; because they act with uniformity and regularity, we fancy them to have no souls. Hence the mass has followd the leading of fools (Epinomis, 982 d). And Bacon himself was penetrating enough not to be misled by these 'fools', though the 'mass' which in turn followed Bacon - well...: The invention of Forms is of all other parts of knowledge the worthiest to be sought, if it be possible to be found. As for the possibility, they are ill discoverers that think there is no land when they can see nothing but sea (Advancement, 256). If the mental is something physical, then I see no solid ground why we should not identify our human minds with the whole universe, rather than with the brain of 'central state materialists'; for it is precisely again the mental which has often been considered as the cause of individuation and relative ontological independence. Thus, adopting a physicalist point of

The metaphysical implausibility of identity

257

view, we may premise it as well known that the nervous system is intimately related to the glandular system. (How often is it said that the mental must be the physical, since mental events are influenced by glands. But in fact it is far more appropriate to say that fear, as a consequence of mental deliberation and anticipation, activates secretions of adrenalin; rather than to say adrenalin causes fears, such as of punishment in an after-life.) Yet neither the nervous nor glandular systems exist without the circulatory, respiratory, and digestive systems. The latter in turn depend upon air, drink, and food. These depend upon the sun, the useful function of which depends upon an orderly solar system, which has a place in a galaxy, and on and on. As Sherrington sums up this state of facts, a living thing involves dependence on its surround for energy. It is a conception unthinkable apart from its surround. It is so locked into its surround that to extract it thence is to break it in all directions (Sherrington, Man, 74).

And Aristotle rightly saw an epistemic situation of this sort as follows: If a man knows that some particular thing is relative, assuming that we call that a relative in the case of which a relation to something is a necessary condition of existence, he knows that also to which it is related (Categoriae, 8 a 37-8 b 2).

But the whole universe is not known, and is by inductive, empirical methods unknowable; hence that the human mind is the brain cannot ever be conclusively established: reductio ad impossibile. Feigl however hopes for the Messiah to come around Anno Domine 3000, as we have seen; though meanwhile he seeks to reap all the practical fruits of the revelatory conclusion he has received, above all the repudiation of serious morality and theology. But in the year 1972 it is evident to me, that a substantial, immaterial, indivisible, eternal pure ego can overcome the aforementioned difficulties far more adequately than anything physicalists have to offer. If law is mind, then mind as archetype does not cease with the break-up of a particular substance. It will be remembered that both Plato and Aristotle already were of the opinion that both matter and form have been existing since all time or eternity. Yet present-day scientists are speaking of the 'big-bang' and 'continuous creation' theories of the origin of the physical universe. But surely, ex nihilo, nihil fit, as the Medievals put it, and no effect can be greater than the cause, as Descartes insisted. Both Aristotelian and mathematical logic hold in a similar vein that no conclusion is stronger than its weakest premise. If these propositions are true,

258

Conclusions and prospects

then mind must have pre-existed, and matter depends upon mind even in its origin. During my discussions in 'The animism of matter and physicalism', I have further given evidence that the mental entity energy is ontologically prior to matter, and that all change depends upon some immaterial primum mobile. But I stop short this discussion only because too many more reasons can be advanced, and because I can completely establish all these claims only in a systematic metaphysics. Yet it may dawn already on the reader from the things I have said, that mind precedes matter not only psychologically, epistemologically, logically, ontologically, and normatively, but chronologically as well. The ruler (mind) and the ruled (matter) are not the same; the ruler precedes in time, and survives, the ruled.

D . INTERACTIONISM

I at last arrive to consider in some detail the kind of mind-body relationship which I myself propound, although evidence leading up to the positive thesis of interactionism has already been provided throughout the present work. And for reasons which no longer need repeating, I will largely restrict myself in this concluding section to removing the major objections to interactionism which have been advanced so far. A dualistic interactionism therefore emerges out of the foregoing destructive critique as the most probable alternative to psycho-physical monism. Let me first turn to some of the empirical evidence which strongly suggests that an interactionist thesis is required. These are the data accumulated by what are called 'psychical research' and 'parapsychology'. Feigl grants that there is 'impressive statistical evidence' (Essay, 115), and concedes that the 'chances of explaining the "facts" away as due to experimental or statistical error, let alone as outright hoax or fraud, seem now rather remote' (Essay, 21). Nonetheless, Feigl also writes: Just what the alleged facts of parapsychology (telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, psychokinesis, etc.) may imply for the mind-body problem is still quite unclear. Here too, it seems to me, any speculation along the lines of interactionism are - to put it mildly - premature, and any theological interpretations amount to jumping to completely unwarranted conclusions (Essay, 21; cf. 'Physicalism', 240).

Interactionism

259

We see here again Feigl's logical empiricism in action. Any facts not confirming, or, more accurately, disconfirming his identity theory are downgraded, and the drawing of the consequences of interactionism is not 'logical analysis', but becomes 'premature' 'speculation'. Feigl theoretically infers, and in practice already employs, all the conclusions of his unproven thesis; but to act similarly if one does not espouse the same possibilities as Feigl amounts to 'jumping to completely unwarranted conclusions'. And the viewpoint of the most outstanding scientists concerned with our problem is again very different from that of some philosophers who claim to draw on them: 'For the scientist there should be no doubt that the problem of interaction of mind and matter is a real problem and not a pseudoproblem arising from the confusions of words' (Eccles, Neurophysiologies Basis, 286). I will not and cannot enter here the debate what the facts of parapsychology are. What I find appropriate however under the circumstances is to quote the relevant views of one of the foremost researchers in this field, J. B. Rhine. (Should it be true that Rhine's experimental findings are not the last word, there still seems to me nothing 'premature' in taking them seriously into account now as a strong possibility.) Even at this stage and according to current definitions (which are the only ones usable), the experimental results of these psi studies present phenomena from human life that require the rejection of the conception of man as a wholly physical system. This is simply to say that the acceptance of the occurrence of nonphysical operations in personal action as an established finding of parapsychology today is necessarily to abandon any view of human nature dependent wholly upon physical principles ('Nature of Man', 77). We are thinking of a determining influence in the universe, hitherto unknown, by means of which a person interacts with the physical world. Psi requires a nonphysical energy to make sense ('Parapsychology Today', 118). The Marxist friends in the Soviet Union are not unnaturally disturbed about reports of such non-physical phenomena. Consequently, in order to test a materialistic explanation of telepathy, subjects in the U.S.S.R. were isolated in radiation-proof insulators (to filter out 'brain waves') - yet the phenomena nonetheless still occurred (cf. Jaki, Brain, 135). I submit that such facts - and it becomes anti-scientific to doubt them as such - can best be explained by the scheme of interactionism as propounded by me. For example, the phenomenon of clairvoyance is not within the explana-

260

Conclusions and prospects

tory reach of materialism, for given the inexorable temporal succession of physical events, future and present could never coincide. Yet a pure ego which is outside time altogether, or in eternity, can very well see a past, present, and future event all at once. As for the data regarding psychical research, which investigates especially the 'empirical evidence of survival after death', C. D. Broad, a philosopher who maintained a life-long interest in this research himself, writes: It is certain that many people, quite as sensible as oneself and far more expert, have personally investigated these matters and have persuaded themselves of the genuineness of these phenomena and of the impossibility of explaining them completely by fraud or mistake (Mind, 550). Such phenomena apparently do not have material causes and hence are confined exclusively to inner sense; my version of the causal theory of perception therefore again appears as superior in explanatory power to that of physicalists. And we note again that, with the possible exception of occasionalism, only interactionism of dualistic theories can explain the independent existence of the soul from the body, either before birth or after death. An epiphenomenalistic human mind would die with the dissolution of the brain; and in the case of parallelism and the double aspect theory, the mind is glued ('God' or 'persons' know how) to physical events, and therefore likewise would die when the brain ceases functioning. At this point I wish to add, that anthropologists have established that the belief in souls is almost universal among primitive peoples. Furthermore, many civilized societies, as Hindus and Buddhists, live primarily for the salvation of the soul in the next life. Similarly did Christians in the West until 'scientific' materialists pushed them out. When it comes to a belief so widespread, cropping up, and often independently of others, among all races and creeds, I do not see what is so 'scientific' or 'empirical' about the proposition that this opinion has no basis whatever in reality. I have always accepted, and never denied, that brain is more intimately connected with mind than other parts of the human body. This is merely an indication, however, that mind acts on the brain, and that the brain relays out electro-chemical messages to other parts of the body (and vice versa). It is in no way shown therewith that all mind is necessarily localized (although, as I have repeatedly emphasized, some mental events are indeed of spatial dimensions). All matter, including the brain, is by its very nature

Interactionism

261

individualized in space. From this proposition, nonetheless, it does not follow that every aspect of mind must also be confined to a specific locality, but rather that a mind must act on a brain in a specific locality. That which is omnipresent - the pure ego - can certainly also act in a particular place; the non-spatial aspects of mind can be both 'everywhere and nowhere', i.e., in all specific places, and therefore confined to none. How often is it said that we need a body to explain perception! Without denying this (for the data of outer sense), I for my part find body only a hindrance when it comes to explaining some conceptions. For, using an argument reminiscent of one Cartesian proof for the existence of God, or von Weizsäcker on 'turbulence', how could the less perfect - the imperfect circle which is matter - cause the perfect circle which I find among my conceptions? On the other hand, it does indeed seem quite certain that we need a body in order to immediately sense (but not necessarily conceive, think) the external physical world - a man with defective eyes has no vision. Yet even as far as these sensuous processes are concerned, we need as much a mind as a body - a dead person likewise senses nothing. Nor does even a living person need a large part of the central nervous system. 'Today the surgeon removes large areas of the cortex of the brain - the cortex is the region where brain and mind meet - from conscious patients without their noticing difference or change' (Sherrington, Man, 208). Thus even if it were true that mind and brain have some identity, mind cannot be identical with all of the physical brain. 'Mental unity in man remains intact after large lesions or surgical destructions of the cerebral hemispheres, even the interpretive areas... for symbolic expression in language being destroyed' (Eccles, Facing Reality, 73). It is also at times contended that the actions of drugs or blows destroy consciousness, hence mind must be the same as the brain. Yet surely, we do not argue either that just because a defective eye impairs vision, vision is a state of the eye. Similarly, a camera does not take any pictures without light being present, but neither the physical objects, nor the light, nor the photographs are therefore the camera itself. We do of course need the message carriers of physical events, as the eyes, nerve cells in proper order, and since these are physical, they can be influenced by other physical things. And since, as we have seen, physical pain arising in our body is in outer sense, it is indeed only to be expected that when certain nerve conductors are 'frozen' by an anesthetic, our minds are oblivious to physical pain. And, needless to repeat, I have never denied that physical things can influence the mind, but

262

Conclusions and prospects

rather have affirmed this for all outer sense strictly so called (while yet the final effects, the phenomena, are private and mental only). But the mind also influences the body in willing, as when our hands work to embody some universal concept or ideal. The philosopher Collingwood has gone so far as to assert that such a practicing will, exerting itself on external objects, is the true origin, and a sound conception, of the notion of causality. Just as much as brain occurrences could hardly be causal agents in the event of some theoretical cognitions, so they would not be such agents in the case of certain practical volitions. Not seldom do men attempt to put perfect ideals, such as justice, into the world through the medium of their hands (not seldom holding swords); yet the idea of justice is itself an unextended concept, while all brain events are spatial. Or an engineer may attempt to embody a perfect circle, or an artist may seek to bring perfect beauty into realization on stone or canvas. Such unembodied ideals, which cannot be brain events, must even be causally efficacious in the case of some common aesthetic responses. Thus an Arab and an Englishman may both see the same fat woman. The Arab is pleased, the Englishman displeased. It is surely not the percept which causes the varying feelings, since both perceive the same corpulent woman. It is rather the varying conceptions of the ideal of beauty in the minds of the two men; and this proposition is no less true if such conceptions are ultimately abstracted from perceptions. And even as far as some ordinary emotional responses are concerned : it is well known that a feeling of great terror may cause people to turn ashen and tremble. And when a mathematics teacher involuntarily blushes after making a silly mistake in a derivation, then again, the ultimate causal agent surely is not physical. How is it that the causal action of mind on body, or body on mind, is to be understood at all? The 'rationalist' Kant is really of the same opinion as Humeans on this question, and those who know Kant's philosophy well, will not think that the following quotation contradicts Kant's view of causality being a synthetic a priori category: We are not in the least able to comprehend how it can be possible that through one existence the existence of another is determined, and for this reason must be guided by experience alone (Critique: A449/B477). As far as empiricists therefore are concerned, they cannot ask me how they are to 'comprehend' mind-body interactionism, but must be satisfied if I establish the fact. 'The aim of science is to foresee, and not, as has often

Interactionism

263

been said, to understand' (Lecomte du Noiiy, Human Destiny, 13). As a rationalist, however, I do want to 'understand' a particular causal connection, i.e., be aware of the for empiricists notorious 'glue' tying up cause and effect. When Hume claimed that 'the union of cause and effect... resolves itself into a customary association of ideas' (Treatise, I, 540), he at best dealt with a part of human psychology, and left open entirely the more important question what causation is in the world apart from human minds. And let me immediately grant the empiricist friends that I do not sense the necessary connection, yet at the same time point out what Leibniz already insisted: 'Force is one of those things which are not to be grasped by the imagination but by the understanding' ('Nature', 143). Employing my terminology, I rather claim to conceive necessary causal connections, and in inner sense only, and I therewith provide another reason why inner sense is disparate from outer sense, and consequently mind from body. (As said before, force is a type of mental content, whereas law a mental form.) Even though Leibniz seems to accept the actuality and knowability of causality in the sense of transmission of force, it is well known that his 'windowless monads' are not in interaction, rather in a pre-established harmony. (I have already said in the 'Introduction' of this book that just because I accept a certain portion of a philosopher's views, I am not to be held responsible for any of the rest.) As Leibniz relates to us, When I began to think about the union of the soul with the body, it was like casting me back into the open sea, for I found no way to explain how the body causes anything to take place in the soul, or vice versa, or how one substance can communicate with another created substance. So far as we can know from his writings, Descartes gave up the struggle over this problem ('Leibniz', 149). Had Leibniz however cast back his glance to his predecessors just as carefully as he, one of the very few, does in the case of almost all problems, he would have found that better things had already been said about the possibility of mind-body interactionism. Plato's views are perhaps as sound as any, when he contended that the archetypes are eternal and omnipresent, and the forms as copies make up the actual structure of particular bodies. The Ideas are causal agents, we are told in the Phaedo. In a similar spirit as Plato's is the view of St. Augustine, in what follows approvingly quoted by St. Thomas Aquinas:

264

Conclusions and prospects

Whoever understands that the nature of the soul is that of a substance and not that of a body, will see that those who maintain the corporeal nature of the soul, are led astray through associating with the soul those things without which they are unable to think of any nature - i.e., imaginary pictures of corporeal things ('St. Thomas', 103). Of course we cannot always visually represent the union of body and mind, for only the body is always spatially particularized. Nonetheless, as Feigl himself grants that knowledge is conceptual, not perceptual, we can conceptualize the sensuously given, uplift it to the realm of reason (more exactly, what I call the empirical a priori), and then relate it to the pure ego, which can only be apperceived or thought. We cannot 'understand' perceptually given data at all, and no more can we imaginatively represent the union of the spatial and non-spatial; we can, however, think such a union. After a lengthy discourse by Gassendi on difficulties surrounding the question ihow the corporeal can have anything in common with the incorporeal, or what relationship may be established between the one and the other,' Descartes replied impatiently: What you say at this point relatively to the union of mind and body is similar to what precedes. At no place do you bring an objection to my arguments; you only set forth the doubts which you think follow from my conclusions, though they arise merely from your wishing to subject to the scrutiny of the imagination matters which, by their own nature, do not fall under it (Descartes, Objections and Replies, 246,262). As far as the spaceless and timeless pure ego, or spaceless events such as pure or empirical a priori concepts are concerned, they are both 'everywhere and nowhere', i.e., in all places at once, and therefore specifically confined to none; such entities can very well be conceived to be related to and interact with spatially individuated matter, there being continuous spatial connection. But I have always emphasized that I do not share the view of Descartes and many writers before and after him, that res cogitans or mental entities themselves never have spatial dimensions: this seriously erroneous oversimplification in characterization has led to unending perplexities. In daydreams or nightmares we are conscious of mental entities in inner sense in the narrow meaning, yet dream images (if analogous to visual and tactile perceptions) are of spatial dimensions. Of course we cannot publicly perceive such mental events in outer sense, and publicly

Interactionism

265

relate them to the brain which is so perceivable. But we (i.e., our pure egos) can juxtapose imagined spatial entities seeable only in inner sense with the brain perceivable in outer sense (as well as imaginable in inner sense), and we are directly aware that the imagined spatial entities are in the same general vicinity as our brain. This does not mean, of course, that imagined entities and the brain are exactly the same size: if the reader dreams of the lips of his beloved, then those lips are smaller than his brain; if he imagines he is being hunted through the streets of his home town or city, the pictures in his mind are larger in extent than the brain which makes up part of the same locality. By means of such comparisons between spatial entities of inner sense and extended entities of outer sense, we can very well, pace Descartes, imagine their union: such imagined mental entities and the brain are always in specific and immediate spatial contiguity. In the case of spaceless mental entities and the brain, therefore, we can conceive their spatial connection; in the case of spatial mental objects and the brain, we can imagine their spatial contiguity; admittedly, in neither case can we perceive contiguity, as we can where only physical objects are involved. We have by now seen enough replies by rationalists to empiricists on the epistemology of the union of mind and body; let me add a few remarks on the ontology of such a union. In the first place, we see that if it is a necessary condition of matter acting on matter that there be spatial contact, then this is no different from mind acting on matter: there is also always a spatial connection. To the time-worn objection that mind-body interactionism would clash with the Law of Conservation of Energy, the reply is very simple: false; nothing is lost, since energy is itself a mental entity. And what would be a mystery is how a spatially confined, relatively self-contained piece of matter can act on another such piece; rather than how force or energy can interpenetrate matter, and thus act on it. Even where there is spatial contiguity, the action of one piece of matter pushing or pulling another involves a transference of a spatial field of force in essence no different from a magnetic bar acting on distant iron filings, or the earth acting on the far away moon by means of its fields of gravitation. My account is again in striking accord with modern science, though of course not the prejudices of physicalists. As Newton with his First Law of Motion, so Einstein insists that 'every change in velocity is due to the action of an external force.' And 'a transference of energy, the motion of a state, is characteristic of all wave phenomena' (Physics, 17, 148). Not-

266

Conclusions and prospects

withstanding Hume's (and contemporary Humeans') anathema to a 'transmission of force', it is surely true that when molecules get excited by heat, they do not transfer material bulk to other molecules, but kinetic and heat energy. Or when Hume pushed his billiard balls, he imparted a force with his cue, and that force must have been transmitted from the first to the subsequent balls. For how else would the second ball start rolling; if nothing is transferred, how does Hume explain that the second ball starts moving, instead of remaining at rest. Insists Heisenberg: Quite generally any kind of energy will, according to the theory of relativity, contribute to the inertia, i.e., to the mass, and the mass belonging to a given amount of energy is just this energy divided by the square of the velocity of light {Physics and Philosophy, 117).

And according to Einstein, energy has mass, and mass in a gravitational field has weight. Hence the transfer of energy from billiard ball to billiard ball - while indeed not observable by outer sense - is even measurable. As has already been alluded to, it is again only interactionism which allows for a separable soul, hence for immortality; Spinoza's sham proof in his Ethic within a double aspect framework only supports my point. (It seems evident that even a man of Spinoza's courage had to mutilate his convictions in order to escape complete persecution.) A separable soul too allows for pre-existence and hence reminiscence; with all the ridicule that has been heaped on Plato's theory of the origin of a priori cognition, we have seen that logical empiricists in no way can explain the fact of a priori necessities within physicalism. The annihilation, which some people suppose to follow upon death, and which entirely destroys this self, is nothing but an extinction of all particular perceptions ; love and hatred, pain and pleasure, thought and sensation. These therefore must be the same with the self; since the one cannot survive the other (Treatise, I, 559).

Thus argued Hume, and so does much of present 'scientific' common sense argue. Yet we have seen that this view does not even come first base in making the essential distinctions which make up mind: the pure ego, attitudes, and events in the mind. We need mind for sensations just as much as a body; I can electrically stimulate a corpse, and with electricity one can get it to move its limbs, but there can be no doubt that a cadaver is not aware of its movements. Also, we need body only for physical

Interactionism

267

pains; we already know now that intellectual pains can be even more devastating. Furthermore, we simply do not require the physical senses even now to introspect inner sense, and a physicalist as Feigl grants that the proper media of the sciences are abstract conceptual structures. From the foregoing epistemological discussions it became also evident that we are quite conscious of a noumenal reality behind the fleeting sense data, whether that reality be reason or matter. The fact that there are so many empiricists in this life can only indicate that reason is dulled when the soul is tied to the body. Upon death it is indeed quite certain, that as we drop our sense organs and brain, we will no longer be the recipients of empirical phenomena caused by physical events. Yet we have seen even Mill assert sensations to be a lesser reality. No longer tied to a body with particular spatio-temporal location, our omnipresent and eternal pure ego can then intellectually see reality in itself, and that includes both the world of mind in itself and the world of matter in itself. No wonder Hindus put so little value on this life, but prepare themselves for the day when they will drop the 'veil of Maya'. I better not carry these 'speculations' any further; I may be reminded at this stage that Indian metaphysics cannot be right, in view of the technological backwardness of that country. Our age has shifted all emphasis to the here and now, and thus brought about a daemonization of man and his world. The phenomenon of dictators and all the misery they have wrought springs from the fact that man has been robbed of transcendence by the shortsightedness of the super-intellectuals (Jung, Memories, 326).

According to Feigl, 'a theory involving genuine emergence would seem to be a much more plausible alternative than dualistic interactionism' {Essay, 114). As Feigl himself constantly appeals to the premises and conclusions of his fellow analysts, I should be permitted to do this a few times as well. In addition to the reasons already provided, I appeal to these authorities: Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Fichte, Hegel, Bergson, Whitehead - to name just a few great metaphysicians - all upheld, and supported by many arguments, that the higher is and must be prior to the lower, and not vice versa. A good place to start would be Book X of Plato's Laws. Plato there thought that 'Our proof that soul, since it is found to be the source of movement, is the first-born of all things is absolutely complete' (896 b).

268

Conclusions and prospects

'Consequently it will be a right, decisive, true, and final statement to assert, as we did, that soul is prior to body, body secondary and derivative, soul governing in the real order of things, and body being subject to governance' (896 c). Again, cosmologists as Plato, Aristotle, Schelling, Hegel, and Whitehead all have considered the universe bipolar, and speaking generally, one pole was matter, the other mind or form. And even if it is true that certain laws embody themselves, or rather, have material effects or copies later in time (as human life is much later than plant life in the evolutionary process), this does not mean that Form does not have ontological priority; nay, there is every reason to say that all laws of the universe as separate, pure mental entities, have no less chronological priority to any material event. Metaphysical nonsense, scientific materialists may reply; but are these not real problems, and what solution does their 'science' offer? What could the experimental and verificationist method offer? Sciences can indeed bypass the problem, but it is of course the aim of physicalists to provide a theory. How do physicalists propose to overcome this bipolarity, with the mental having ascendancy; and of what use would it be to abandon the word 'mind' for one pole? All a Descartes need say is that he clearly and distinctly perceives a difference between the mental and the physical, and claim to have refuted physicalists on this count alone. 'I am able to apprehend one thing apart from another clearly and distinctly in order to be certain that one is different from the other' ('Descartes', 132). And mind, of course, was again the more fundamental reality for Descartes, less doubtful even than the external world. And for the last time, empirical science can establish a duality or multiplicity by either direct inspection or by employing the hypothetico-deductive method; a strict referential identity, however, can never be empirically established. And that which is already known to be two in no way whatever can ever be proven to be one. While for my part, no given sensuous data are to be denied existence, the ultimate basis for truth claims is not sensation but reason. While empirical research is helpful in gaining a true perspective of the world, it can never be the final appeal. Every cognitive endeavor, without exception, presupposes metaphysics; and it is metaphysics which is the most primary discipline, not empirical science. Empirical science alone cannot establish a metaphysics, but metaphysics judges science. While I think that a proof for the identity theory & la Feigl is impossible

Interactionism

269

on linguistic, methodological, and empirical grounds, it would be unfair to overlook that Feigl has made my conclusion impossible as well. As he puts it in his Postscript, 'If future scientific research should lead to the adoption of one or another form of emergentism (or - horribile dictu\ dualistic interactionism)', then new work in 'philosophical analysis' (160) will be needed. But of course, neither 'scientific research' nor the subsequent 'philosophical analysis' could ever find the world of mind, as it is only experienced in inner sense, and hence does not conform to the criterion of scientific inter-subjectivity as conceived by scientific materialists. It seems also evident that 'scientific research' and 'philosophical analysis' only make up altar and priest; the God they serve is this: 'Whether our universe will accommodate the scientific quest for more and more complete physicalistic reduction, will in principle always remain an open question' (Feigl, 'Physicalism', 266). The Almighty always does the right things; heads He wins, tails I lose. Physicalistic metalogic is one-valued; scientism is not disconfirmable. Logical positivists never cease stressing t h a t ' We... allow for the discarding of protocol sentences. A defining condition of a sentence is that it be subject to verification, that is to say, that it may be discarded , (Neurath, 'Protocol Sentences', 204). Similarly, Popper stresses above all - and I care not as what he is classified: 'Statements or systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable, observations' (Conjectures and Refutations, 39). Yet this dictum does not apply to the gospel itself; it is justified by the utterance of the sacred prophets, and the fact that they herd many sheep. Metaphysics is untenable because it is not empirically disconfirmable; scientism is always true because it can never be refuted. Arrogance is one of the worst diseases of scientists and it gives rise to statements of authority and finality which are expressed usually in fields that are completely beyond the scientific competence of the dogmatist. It is important to realize that dogmatism has now become a disease of scientists rather than of theologians (Eccles, Facing Reality, 115).

I hope I have to some extent clarified the major issues and my own standpoint on them; unlike physicalists, however, I cannot make my own conclusions and the reader's necessarily intersubjective. But I dread the day when these high priests of science will force me to agree with their 'objective truths'. And while my fears themselves are mental, they are more for the physical. 'For if we take liberty in the proper sense, for corporal

270

Conclusions and prospects

liberty; that is to say, freedom from chains and prison; it were very absurd for men to clamour as they do, for the liberty they so manifestly enjoy' (Leviathan, 199). Thus an uncompromising materialist and authoritarian as Hobbes was still able to write in the seventeenth century, but our contemporary scientists know better. First they deny that mind exists, then they seek to control it. And objective norms are not real at all, so that they can give complete reign to their momentary whims. 'For certainly Man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature' (Lord Chancellor Bacon, 'Atheism', 46). If however what I say here is true, then there is a world which cannot even be reached by intersubjectively verificationist science, a domain which can only be seen by the mind's eye. It has been shown that the empirical sciences cannot argue this world away, and that in fact their own main processes are carried on in this same realm. The sciences too have often denied objective norms, or the possibility of a rational metaphysics or theology, because the objects dealt with by these disciplines are not externally observed, and therefore deemed 'fictitious'. I grant that they are not data of outer sense; but the most fundamental realities are seen in inner sense. Since positive science is defined as being tied in ultimately to external observability, then there are areas which are out of its reach. But for once let it be conceded that it does not follow that the world of spirit cannot be studied at all - it is high time that methods are developed for this undertaking. For it is already quite certain now, that the kingdom of mind exists, and that it is different from its subject, matter.

Summary

Critique of the Psycho-Physical Identity Theory is an examination of the latest representatives of what is variously called physicalism, psychophysical monism, or scientific materialism, a world-view most thoroughly formulated by Dr. Herbert Feigl. The central aim of physicalists is the establishment of a strict, numerical identity of the mental and the physical throughout the universe by means of scientific method. The present author, on the other hand, has as his aim an internal refutation of psycho-physical monism, restricting himself largely to an employment of the tools developed by the empiricist tradition. I maintain that the physicalist world-view is untenable on linguistic, methodological, and empirical grounds. A constructive thesis also emerges from the destructive critique: an interactionist psycho-physical dualism. I agree with physicalists that at least three factors must be taken into account to do justice to the facts of language, namely words or signs, referents or denotations, and senses or connotations. I however repudiate the Fregean view of physicalists that two qualitatively differing senses can ever refer to numerically the same referent. Thus, while 'morning star' and 'evening star' indeed differ in sense, they do not denote exactly the same referent; morning star and evening star rather add specific differences to the generic unity Venus. And since physicalists grant that 'mind' and 'body' differ in sense, and since for empiricists in general, sense comes from reference, the mental and the physical cannot be the same in given reality. I admit and even insist that some referential dualities or multiplicities can be established by means of scientific method, yet repudiate the general claim of physicalists that a strict identity can be so established. More particularly, once granting the existence of internal, private phenomena,

272

Summary

physicalists can 'overcome' the reality of such experiential data only by arbitrarily restricting the scientific enterprise to an investigation of outer, public phenomena, thus resting their case on a methodology which clashes with the avowed aim of empiricism of taking the data of experience as ultimate. I go on to claim that insofar as even science has an unavoidable metaphysical base, no solution of the mind-body problem could be purely empirical, and the failure of physicalists to think through the metaphysical foundations of their claims makes their thesis an example of bad metaphysics. But insofar as science is restricted to pragmatic, nonontological concerns, such as prediction, a problem about the precise referential character of the universe cannot be solved at all by means of scientific method. After the foregoing linguistic and methodological preliminaries, I confront the substantive thesis of physicalism by means of direct empirical inspection and the hypothetico-deductive method. The central issue is divided into two subdivisions: whether the human mind can be identified with the brain, and whether all sciences can be reduced to physics. The possibility that the science of physics itself gives evidence for mental entities does not even seem to occur to physicalists, but the actuality of such entities in that realm is argued for by me. I agree with physicalists that the causal theory is by far the best explanation of all the facts involved in the problem of perception (and end up asserting it as the only viable one). I however part with physicalists when it comes to eliciting the ontological implications of the causal theory. Psycho-physical monists are committed to hold that both the causes and experienced effects have all the characteristics of matter. I maintain that the causes of what I distinguish as outer sense are indeed always physical (at least in part), but the ultimate phenomenal effects - the data which are directly experienced - are mental without exception. I go on to claim that the causes or grounds of what I distinguish as inner sense cannot be exclusively physical, and that the ultimate effects are also completely mental in nature. For, as physicalists themselves insist, all matter gives rise to public, i.e., qualitatively (though not numerically) shared perceptions, but such an event in fact occurs only in the case of physical things in themselves acting as causal agents for the phenomena of outer sense. The phenomena of both inner and outer sense never cause public perceptions, but are directly accessible only by the observations of the innermost core of an individual human mind, the pure ego. Similarly, some (and possibly all)

Summary

213

causes or grounds of the private phenomena of a person's inner sense, or the world of mental entities in general, never give rise to any passive perceptions shared by different onlookers, the mental never being touchable, reflecting light, or emitting sound waves. Thus onlookers A and B both perceive a numerically distinct yet qualitatively similar blue patch when standing at the shores of Lake Ontario, which as thing in itself causes these phenomena. But should A bare his brain, B would not perceive the phemenon blue patch allegedly identical with a brain event. Nor do the phenomena of inner sense, such as a golden castle in the air imagined by A, or mental entities as things in themselves, such as the fields of force or energy referred to by physicists, ever give rise to public perceptions. And as far as the experiences of one individual are concerned, he directly observes that the phenomena of inner sense and outer sense differ in general nature, and since the effects differ, the causes cannot be the same: 'same cause, same effect'. No kind of mental entity, consequently, can be identified with a physical entity. The following diagram roughly schematizes the general relationship between the mental and the physical as maintained by me: W o r l d o f mental entities as things in themselves Pure ego

|

o

Mental phenomena of inner sense

1¡5

A

Mental phenomena

1 j

°f outer sense

j i T

» g

&

c g

a

« £

W o r l d o f material entities as things in themselves

In view of the presently proven difference between mental and physical entities existing in the realms of psychology as well as physics, no possible reduction of all sciences to physics would establish materialism. And in

274

Summary

fact, they cannot be reduced. For terms already clearly observed to be different in sciences other than physics cannot be deduced from physics, nor can structures of observed greater complexity be brought exclusively under the laws of the less complex. In effect, the very eternal and necessary laws to which the physical world conforms are themselves mental entities. Only man has open alternative choices in a limited sphere, and would free will and cognitive norms not exist, the very science of physics would not exist. I remove all known objections to a dualistic interactionism, and go so far as to upset the old problem by maintaining that matter cannot act on matter apart from non-material entities. More than that, the general picture which I put forward is that mind precedes matter in every relevant way, i.e., psychologically, logically, epistemologically, ontologically, chronologically, and normatively. I contend that old rationalist methods must be rejuvenated, and new techniques developed, in order to take account of the complete general nature of the universe. For contemporary empirical science can only lead us to the doors of the world of mind; it does not have the keys to unlock them.

Bibliography

Only works directly quoted in the course of this book are listed here. There are few philosophers who have nothing whatever to say on the mind-body problem, and full bibliographies already abound. Given the vastness of the material on this subject, I have confined myself largely to the writings of men whom I consider to be the most able minds. I have attempted to draw a large number of quotes from readily available anthologies, in order to facilitate easy checking of references. Alexander, S., 'Samuel Alexander', in Vesey, G.N.A. (ed.), Body and Mind. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1964, pp. 552-557. Aquinas, St. Thomas, 'St. Thomas Aquinas', in Flew, A. (ed.), Body, Mind, and Death. New York: Macmillan, 1964, pp. 101-114. Aristotle, De Anima, The Works of Aristotle Translated into English. Ed. by J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, Vol. III. —, Categoriae, Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed. by R. McKeon. New York: Random House, 1941. —, Ethica Nichomachea, Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed. by R. McKeon. New York: Random House, 1941. —, Metaphysica, Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed. by R. McKeon. New York: Random House, 1941. —, Physica, Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed. by R. McKeon. New York: Random House, 1941. —•, Politico, Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed. by R. McKeon. New York: Random House, 1941. —, Topica, The Works of Aristotle Translated into English. Ed. by J. A. Smith and W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964, Vol. I. Armstrong, D. M., A Materialist Theory of the Mind. London: Routledge, 1968. —, Perception and the Physical World. New York: Humanities Press, 1961. Augustine, St., 'St. Augustine', in Flew, A. (ed.), Body, Mind, and Death. New York: Macmillan, 1964, pp. 94-100. Ayer, A. J., 'Editor's Introduction', in Ayer, A. J. (ed.), Logical Positivism. New York: Free Press, 1966, pp. 3-28. —, Language, Truth and Logic. London: Gollancz, 1946.

276

Bibliography

Ayer, A. J., 'Philosophy and Scientific Method', in Akten des XIV. Internationalen Kongresses für Philosophie. Vienna: Herder, 1968, Vol. 1, pp. 536-542. Bacon, F., The Advancement of Learning, Selected Writings of Francis Bacon. Ed. by H. G. Dick. New York: Modern Library, 1955. —, 'Of Atheism', in Selected Writings of Francis Bacon. Ed. by H. G. Dick. New York : Modern Library, 1955, pp. 44-47. —, Instauralo Magna 1620, Selected Writings of Francis Bacon. Ed. by H. G. Dick. New York: Modern Library, 1955. —, 'Of the Interpretation of Nature', in Selected Writings of Francis Bacon. Ed. by H. G. Dick. New York: Modern Library, 1955, pp. 150-154. —, Novum Organum, Selected Writings of Francis Bacon. Ed. by H. G. Dick. New York: Modern Library, 1955. Barker, S. F., 'Concepts, Theories and the Mind-Body Problem', Philosophical Review, LXVIII (1959), pp. 391-395. Bergson, H., Matter and Memory, Selections from Bergson. Ed. by H. A. Larrabee. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1949. Berkeley, G., 'George Berkeley', in Vesey, G. N. A. (ed.), Body and Mind. London : Allen and Unwin, 1964, pp. 96-99. —, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, A New Theory of Vision and Other Writings. London: Everyman, 1960. Borst, C. V. (ed.), The Mind/Brain Identity Theory. London: Macmillan, 1970. Bradley, F. H., 'F. H. Bradley', in Flew, A. (ed.), Body, Mind, and Death. New York: Macmillan, 1964, pp. 212-220. Brentano, F., 'Franz Brentano', in Vesey, G.N.A. (ed.), Body and Mind. London: Alien and Unwin, 1964, pp. 144-154. Bridgman, P. W., The Logic of Modem Physics. New York: Macmillan, 1927. Broad, C. D., The Mind and Its Place in Nature. Paterson (N.J.): Littlefield, Adams, 1960. Brodbeck, M., 'Mental and Physical: Identity versus Sameness', in Feyerabend, P. K., and Maxwell, G. (eds.), Mind, Matter, and Method. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966, pp. 40-58. Butler, J., 'Joseph Butler', in Flew, A. (ed.), Body, Mind, and Death. New York : Macmillan, 1964, pp. 166-180. Calder, N., The Mind of Man. New York: Viking, 1971. Carnap, R., 'The Elimination of Metaphysics Through Logical Analysis of Language', in Ayer, A. J. (ed.), Logical Positivism. New York : Free Press, 1966, pp. 60-81. —, 'Herbert Feigl on Physicalism', in Schilpp, P. A. (ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap. La Salle (111.): Open Court, 1963, pp. 882-886. •—, 'Logical Foundations of the Unity of Science', in Feigl, H., and Seilars, W. (eds.), Readings in Philosophical Analysis. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1949, pp. 408-423. —, Meaning and Necessity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. Chappell, V. C., 'Introduction', in Chappell, V.C. (ed.), The Philosophy of Mind. Englewood Cliffs (N.J.): Prentice-Hall, 1962, pp. 1-22. Descartes, R., Objections and Replies, Selections. Ed. by R. M. Eaton. New York: Scribner, 1955.

Bibliography

277

Descartes, R., 'René Descartes', in Flew, A. (ed.), Body, Mind, and Death. New York: Macmillan, 1964, pp. 125-143. Dobzhansky, T. G., Genetics and the Evolutionary Process. New York and London : Columbia University Press, 1970. —, Mankind Evolving. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1962. •—, 'The Pattern of Human Evolution', in Roslansky, J. D. (ed.), The Uniqueness of Man. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1969, pp. 41-70. Eccles, J. C. (ed.), Brain and Conscious Experience. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1966. Eccles, J. C., Ito, M., and Szentägothai, J., The Cerebellum as a Neuronal Machine. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1967. Eccles, J. C., 'Conscious Experience and Memory', in Eccles, J. C. (ed.), Brain and Conscious Experience. New York : Springer-Verlag, 1966, pp. 314-344. —, Facing Reality. New York - Heidelberg - Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1970. -—, The Neurophysiological Basis of Mind: The Principles of Neurophysiology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965. —, The Physiology of Synapses. Berlin - Göttingen - Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag,1964. Einstein, A., Essays in Science. New York: Philosophical Library, n.d. Einstein, A., and Infeld, L., The Evolution of Physics. New York : Simon and Schuster 1961. Einstein, A., 'Preface', in Planck, M., Where Is Science Going?. Tr. by J. Murphy. London: Allen and Unwin, 1933, pp. 9-14. Feigl, H., 'Comment: Matter Still Largely Material', in McMullin, E. (ed.), The Concept of Matter. Notre Dame (Ind.): University of Notre Dame Press, 1963, pp. 562569. —, 'Some Major Issues and Developments in the Philosophy of Science of Logical Empiricism', in Feigl, H., and Scriven, M. (ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1964, Vol. I, pp. 3-37. —, 'The "Mental" and the "Physical"', in Feigl, H., Scriven, M., and Maxwell, G. (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958, Vol. II, pp. 370-497. —, The 'Mental' and the ''Physical': The Essay and a Postscript. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1967. —, 'Mind-Body, Not a Pseudoproblem', in Hook, S. (ed.), Dimensions of Mind. New York: Collier Books, 1961, pp. 33^14. —, 'Physicalism, Unity of Science and the Foundations of Psychology', in Schilpp, P.A. (ed.), The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap. La Salle (111.): Open Court, 1963, pp. 227-267. Fichte, J. G., The Science of Rights. Tr. by A. E. Kroeger. London: Trübner, 1889. Frege, G., 'On Sense and Reference', in Frege, G., Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. Ed. by P. Geach and M. Black. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1960, pp. 56-78. Frisch, O. R., Atomic Physics Today. New York: Fawcett, 1965. Galilei, G., Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences. Tr. by H. Crew and A. de Salvio. New York: Dover, 1954. Graham, L. R., Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union. New York : Knopf, 1972. Grotius, H., The Law of War and Peace. Tr. by F. W. Kelsey. Indianapolis : Bobbs-Merrill, 1925.

278

Bibliography

Hegel, G. W. F., The Logic of Hegel. Tr. by W. Wallace. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1963. —, The Phenomenology of Mind. Tr. by J. B. Baillie. London: Allen and Unwin, 1964. —, Science of Logic. Tr. by W. H. Johnston and L. G. Struthers. London : Allen and Unwin, 1961, Vol. I. Heisenberg, W., Physics and Beyond. Tr. by A. J. Pomerans. New York : Harper and Row, 1971. —, Physics and Philosophy. New York: Harper and Row, 1966. Hempel, C. G., 'The Empiricist Criterion of Meaning', in Ayer, A. J. (ed.), Logical Positivism. New York: Free Press, 1966, pp. 108-129. —, Philosophy of Natural Science. Englewood Cliffs (N.J.) : Prentice-Hall, 1966. Hobbes, T., Leviathan, The English Works of Thomas Hobbes. Ed. by Sir W. Molesworth. London: Bohn, 1839, Vol. III. Hume, D., 'David Hume", in Flew, A. (ed.), Body, Mind, and Death. New York: Macmillan, 1964, pp. 181-195. —, A Treatise on Human Nature. Ed. by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose. London : Longmans, Green, 1909, Vols. I and II. Infeld, L., Albert Einstein: His Work and Its Influence on Our World. New York: Scribner, 1956. Jaki, S. L., Brain, Mind and Computers. New York : Herder and Herder, 1969. James, W., 'Does "Consciousness" Exist?', in James W., Essays in Radical Empiricism. New York: Longmans, Green, 1912, pp. 1-38. —, Principles of Psychology, Great Books of the Western World. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1955, Vol. LUI. —, 'William James', in Flew, A. (ed.), Body, Mind, and Death. New York : Macmillan, 1964, pp. 206-211. Jung, C. G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Tr. by R. and C. Winston. New York: Vintage, 1963. Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason. Tr. by N. K. Smith. London: Macmillan, 1963. —, The Doctrine of Virtue: Part II of the Metaphysics of Morals. Tr. by M. J. Gregor. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1964. —, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft, Gesammelte Schriften. Berlin : Reimer, 1903, Vol. IV. Kneale, W., On Having a Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962. Lecomte du Noiiy, P., Human Destiny. New York: David McKay Co., 1947. —, Between Knowing and Believing. Tr. by Mary Lecomte du Noiiy. Paris: Hermann, 1966. —, The Road to Reason. Tr. and ed. by Mary Lecomte du Noiiy. New York : Longmans, Green, 1949. Leibniz, G. W. F., 'Identity in Individuals and True Propositions', in Leibniz, G.W.F., Leibniz: Selections. Ed. by P. P. Wiener. New York: Scribner, 1951, pp. 96-98. —, 'G.W.F. Leibniz', in Flew, A. (ed.), Body, Mind and Death. New York: Macmillan, 1964, pp. 149-153. —, 'On Nature In Itself; or on the Force Residing in Created Things, and Their Actions', in Leibniz, G.W.F., Leibniz: Selections. Ed. by P. P. Wiener. New York : Scribner, 1951, pp. 137-156. —, New Essays Concerning Human Understanding. Tr. by A. G. Langley. New York:

Bibliography

279

Macmillan, 1896. Lenin, V. I., 'V. I. Lenin', in Vesey, G.N.A. (ed.), Body and Mind. London: Allen and Unwin, 1964, pp. 231-235. Lewis, C. I., An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation, La Salle (111.): Open Court, 1962. Locke, J., An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. London: Tegg, 1869. —, 'John Locke', in Flew, A. (ed.), Body, Mind, and Death. New York: Macmillan, 1964, pp. 154-165. Mach, E., 'Ernst Mach', in Vesey, G.N.A. (ed.), Body and Mind. London: Alien and Unwin, 1964, pp. 172-179. MacKay, D. M., 'D. M. MacKay,' in Vesey, G.N.A. (ed.), Body and Mind. London: Alien and Unwin, 1964, pp. 392-402. Malcolm, N., Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir. London: Oxford University Press, 1958. Maxwell, G., and Feigl, H., 'Why Ordinary Language Needs Reforming', Journal of Philosophy, LVIII (1961), pp. 488-498. Mill, J. S., 'Coleridge', in Mill, J. S., Dissertations and Discussions. London: Parker, 1859, Vol. I, pp. 393-466. —, An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, John Stuart Mill's Philosophy of Scientific Method. Ed. by E. Nagel. New York: Hafner, 1963. —, 'On the Definition of Political Economy', in John Stuart Mill's Philosophy of Scientific Method. Ed. by E. Nagel. New York : Hafner, 1963, pp. 405-440. —, A System of Logic. London: Longmans, 1961. Monod, J., Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology. Tr. by A. Wainhouse. New York: Knopf, 1971. Nagel, E., The Structure of Science. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961. Neurath, O., 'Protocol Sentences', in Ayer, A. J. (ed.), Logical Positivism. New York: Free Press, 1966, pp. 199-208. Newton, I., The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. New York: Citadel Press, 1964. —, Newton's Philosophy of Nature. Ed. by H. S. Thayer. New York: Hafner, 1965. O'Connor, J. (ed.), Modern Materialism: Readings on Mind-Body Identity. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969. Oppenheim, P., and Putnam, H., 'Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis', in Feigl, H., Scriven, M., and Maxwell, G. (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958, Vol. II, pp. 3-36. Penfield, W., 'Speech, Perception and the Uncommitted Cortex', in Eccles, J. C. (ed.), Brain and Conscious Experience. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1966, pp. 217-237. Pepper, S., Concept and Quality. LaSalle (111.): Open Court, 1967. —, 'A Neural-Identity Theory of Mind', in Hook, S. (ed.), Dimensions of Mind. New York: Collier Books, 1961, pp. 43-61. Place, U. T., 'Is Consciousness a Brain Process?', in Chappell, V. C. (ed.), The Philosophy of Mind. Englewood Cliffs (N.J.): Prentice Hall, 1962, pp. 101-109. Planck, M., Where Is Science Going?. Tr. by J. Murphy. London: Allen and Unwin, 1933. Plato, Cratylus, The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Ed. by E. Hamilton and H. Cairns. New York: Bollingen, 1964. —, Epinomi, The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Ed. by E. Hamilton and H. Cairns.

280

Bibliography

New York : Bollingen, 1964. Plato, Laws, The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Ed. by E. Hamilton and H. Cairns. New York: Bollingen, 1964. —, Philebus, The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Ed. by E. Hamilton and H. Cairns. New York: Bollingen, 1964. —, Republic, The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Ed. by E. Hamilton and H. Cairns. New York: Bollingen, 1964. Popper, K. R., Of Clouds and Clocks. St. Louis (Missouri): Washington University, 1966. •—, 'Conjectural Knowledge: My Solution of the Problem of Induction', Revue internationale de Philosophie, XCV-XCVI (1971), pp. 167-197. —, Conjectures and Refutations. London: Routledge, 1963. •—, The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York : Science Editions, Inc., 1961. —, 'On the Theory of the Objective Mind', in Akten des XIV. Internationalen Kongresses für Philosophie. Vienna: Herder, 1968, pp. 25-53. Presley, C. F. (ed.), The Identity Theory of Mind. St. Lucia (Queensland): University of Queensland Press, 1967. Price, H. H., 'The Given', in Hirst, R. J. (ed.), Perception and the External World. New York: Macmillan, 1965, pp. 108-115. Quine, W., From a Logical Point of View. New York : Harper, 1963. —, Word and Object. Cambridge (Mass.): M.I.T. Press, 1965. Reichenbach, H., The Rise of Scientific Philosophy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Reid, T., 'Thomas Reid', in Vesey, G.N.A. (ed.), Body and Mind. London: Allen and Unwin, 1964, pp. 113-120. Rhine, J. B., 'On Parapsychology and the Nature of Man', in Hook, S. (ed.), Dimensions of Mind. New York : Collier Books, 1961, pp. 74-78. —, 'The Status and Prospects of Parapsychology Today', in Rhine, J. B., and Associates, Parapsychology: From Duke to FRNM. Durham (N.C.) : Parapsychology Press, 1965. Russell, B., The Analysis of Matter. London: Kegan Paul, 1927. —, Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962. —, 'Introduction: Materialism, Past and Present', in Lange, F. A., The History of Materialism. Tr. by E. C. Thomas. London: Routledge, 1950, pp. v-xix. —, 'Logical Atomism', in Ayer, A. J. (ed.), Logical Positivism. New York: Free Press, 1966, pp. 31-50. —, My Philosophical Development. London: Allen and Unwin, 1959. —, Our Knowledge of the External World. Chicago and London: Open Court, 1929. —, The Scientific Outlook. London : Allen and Unwin, 1931. Ryle, G., The Concept of Mind. London : Hutchinson's University Library, 1949. Schlick, M., 'Moritz Schlick', in Vesey, G.N.A. (ed.), Body and Mind. London: Allen and Unwin, 1964, pp. 297-307. Schopenhauer, A., 'Arthur Schopenhauer', in Vesey, G.N.A. (ed.), Body and Mind. London: Allen and Unwin, 1964, pp. 121-130. Schrödinger, E., Mind and Matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958. Sellars, W., 'Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind', in Feigl, H., and Scriven, M. (eds.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Minneapolis: University of

Bibliography

281

Minnesota Press, 1964, Vol. I, pp. 253-329. Shaffer, J. A., 'Mind-Body Problem', in Edwards, P. (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York : Macmillan and Free Press, 1967, Vol. V, pp. 336-346. —, Philosophy of Mind. Englewood Cliffs (N.J.) : Prentice-Hall, 1968. Sherrington, C. S., The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961. —, Man on his Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951. Smart, J. J. C., 'Sensations and Brain Processes', in Chappell, V. C. (ed.), The Philosophy of Mind. Englewood Cliffs (N.J.): Prentice-Hall, 1962, pp. 160-172. —, 'Symposium: Materialism', The Journal of Philosophy, LX(1963), pp. 651-662. Spicker, S. F., 'Introduction', in Spicker, S. F. (ed.), The Philosophy of the Body: Rejections of Cartesian Dualism. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970, pp. 3-23. Spinoza, B., Ethic, Spinoza: Selections. Ed. by J. Wild. New York: Scribner, 1958. Strawson, P. F., Individuals. London: Methuen, 1959. —, 'Persons', in Chappell, V.C. (ed.), The Philosophy of Mind. Englewood Cliffs, (N.J.) : Prentice-Hall, 1962, pp. 127-146. Weizsäcker, C. F. von, The History of Nature. Tr. by F. D. Wieck. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959. Wiener, N., 'The Brain and the Machine', in Hook, S. (ed.), Dimensions of Mind. New York: Collier Books, 1961, pp. 109-112. Wigner, E. P., 'The Role of Invariance Principles in Natural Philosophy', in Wigner, E. P. (ed.), Proceedings of the International School of Physics 'Enrico Fermi': Dispersion Relations and their Connection with Causality. New York and London: Academic Press, 1964, pp. ix-xvi. —, Symmetries and Reflections. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1967. Wisdom, J. O., Foundations of Inference in Natural Science. London: Methuen, 1952. —, 'Some Main Mind-Body Problems', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, LX (1959-1960), pp. 187-210. Yolton, J. W., Metaphysical Analysis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967. —, The Philosophy of Science of A. S. Eddington. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960. —, Thinking and Perceiving: A Study in the Philosophy of Mind. La Salle (111.): Open Court, 1962.

Author Index

If the author is only mentioned, the page is designated by normal characters; if the author is also quoted, the page is designated by italics. Adrian, E. D., x Alexander, S., 193,194 Anaxagoras, 252 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 24, 36, 54, 69, 82, 109,228,263,264,267 Archimedes, 123 Aristotle, xn, 5, 6, 8,25, 30, 33, 36, 54,61, 62, 63, 64, 70, 72, 73, 83, 85, 88, 89, 93, 104, 109, 115, 123, 125, 142, 150, 154, 161, 162, 166, 169, 208, 211, 213, 214, 215, 217, 228, 230, 240, 251, 252, 256, 257,267,268 Armstrong, D. M., ix, 36,46 Augustine, St., 25,134,162,164,170,263, 267 Austin, J., 23,147,174 Avenarius, R., 37 Ayer, A. J., 8,13, 37, 96,97,110,141, 244 Bacon, F., 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 23, 24, 25, 33, 41, 68, 76, 88, 89, 106, 107, 109, 110, 114, 129, 136, 205, 219, 240, 244, 248, 256,270 Barker, S. F., 184 Bergson, H., 54, 58, 109,138, 151, 267 Berkeley, G., 24, 35, 38, 39,43, 50, 69, 72, 105,106,146,163,167,168,170,174 Bohr, N„ 222

Borst, C. V., 10 Boyle, C., 38 Bradley, F. H„ 71 Brentano, F„ 24, 67, 154, 155, 169, 193, 231 Bridgeman, P. W., 132 Broad, C. D., 38, 67, 71, 72, 87, 113, 141, 260 Brodbeck, M., 84 Butler, J., 143,152 Calder, N„ 15 Cantor, G., 89,176 Carnap, R„ 11, 24, 32, 37, 64, 89, 100, 130,245 Chappell, V. C„ 10 Church, A., 24 Cicero, 5 Collingwood, R. G., 109,262 Copernicus, N., 242 Cratylus, 150 Darrow, C., 120 Darwin, C., 58,59, 60,61,253 Descartes, R., x, 8, 15, 36, 38, 44, 50, 51, 53, 54, 67, 69,75, 83,109,113,114,143, 156, 160, 170, 174, 176, 206, 211, 215, 216, 217, 218, 229, 244, 257, 261, 263,

284

Author index

264,265,267,268 Democritus, 38, 57,215,256 Dewey, J., 36,227 Dobzhansky, T. G., 15,59, 60,61 Eccles, J. C., 7, 36, 40, 42, 44, 45, 55, 56, 57,63,105,121,134,142,145, 153,158, 159, 170, 199, 201, 229, 230, 233, 239, 259,261,269 Eddington, A., 38, 103,117 Einstein, A., 4, 5, 15, 38, 51, 75, 85, 86, 89, 117, 126, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 207, 208, 210, 211, 212, 216, 217, 237, 247, 248,265,266 Engels, F.,218 Epicurus, 57,215 Euclid, 135,173

Gassendi, P., 38,264 Goodman, N., 24 Gosse, P., 241,243 Graham, L. R., 15 Grotius, H., 244 Hamilton, W., 67 Hegel, G. W. F., 8, 9, 25, 51, 54, 63, 80, 93, 105, 109, 113, 117, 123, 129, 146, 152, 161, 177, 213, 214, 230, 234, 252, 267,268 Heidegger, M., 109 Heisenberg, W., 23, 38, 74, 99, 109, 117, 118, 124, 126, 207, 209, 216, 225, 226, 247,266 Hempel, C. G., 109,221,222,255 Heraclitus, 150 Hertz, H„ 207 Hobbes, T., 2, 24, 33, 43, 57, 119, 151, 163,174,193,218,244,270 Hume, D„ 19, 24, 29, 33, 43, 62, 69, 83, 94, 110, 113, 115, 117, 120, 131, 137, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 154, 168, 169, 175, 188,192, 252, 254, 255, 263, 266 Husserl, E., 8,24, 36, 88,104,177

Faraday, M., 207 Feigl, H., ix, xi, xn, xm, 1,2,3, 5,6, 7,10, 11, 12, 13 14, 15, 16, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101-, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 109, 111, 112, 113, 115, 116, 117, 118, Infeld, L., 208 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 136, 138, 139, 140, Jaki, S. L., 10,237,259 141, 142, 147, 149, 154, 155, 157, 160, James, W„ 36,43,121,144,145,170, 227 161, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 171, Jung, C. G., 153,267 172, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, Kant, I., xi, xn, 17, 19, 24, 25, 34, 38, 44, 189, 193, 195, 196, 199, 201, 202, 203, 50, 51,65, 67, 69,71, 74,80,82, 89,104, 204, 209, 212, 219, 220, 222, 223, 224, 109, 112, 115, 120, 123, 124, 128, 141, 227, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 243, 143, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 245, 251, 258, 259, 264, 267, 268, 269, 152, 162, 171, 175, 177, 184, 185, 211, 271 262 Feyerabend, R. K., 236 Kneale, W., 250 Fichte, J. G„ 8,147,161,267 Franklin, B., 85 Lamarck, J. B., 61 Frege, G„ 16,25,26,27,176,177 Lange, F. A., 160 Freud, S., 121,158 Laplace, P. G„ 57, 122,128,217 Frisch, O. R., 86,136,208,210 Laszlo, E., ix Lecomte du Noüy, P., 39, 51, 124, 132, Galilei, G„ 36, 38, 65, 72, 218, 232, 240 133,230,254,263

Author index Leibniz, G. W. F„ 25, 27, 33, 38, 44, 54, 80, 81, 82, 89, 109, 113, 117, 122, 128, 143, 146, 152, 157, 162, 166, 171, 175, 176, 210, 211, 213, 214, 215, 217, 250, 263,267 Lenin, V. I., 6, 8,38, 39,113,133 Lewis, C. I., 24,213 Locke, J., 24, 28,33, 36, 38,44,67, 73, 74, 88,121, 126,143, 152, 154, 172, 175 Lorentz, H. A., 207 Lucretius, 38 Mach, E., 37,123 MacKay, D. M., xn, 119 Malcolm, N., 4 Maritain, J., 109 Marx, K„ 8,15, 37, 80,205,259 Maxwell, G„ 24 Meinong, A., 24,154 Mendelssohn, M., 147 Mill, J. S„ 3, 13, 24, 31, 33, 34, 37, 38, 41, 43, 46, 65, 66, 69, 71, 88, 89, 90,91, 92, 97, 111, 115, 116, 120, 139, 145, 156, 168, 176, 185, 204, 216, 223, 241, 246, 247,253,254,255,267 Miller, J. G., 78 Monod, J., 59,60,114,115 Moore, G. E„ 23,147 Morgan, L., 58 Nagel, E„ 220 Neurath, O., 106,264 Newton, I., 38, 50, 54, 58, 72, 74, 75, 89, 122, 123, 124, 129, 133, 134, 135, 163, 167, 186, 208, 211, 215, 216, 217, 219, 232,253,265 Ockham, W„ 24, 127, 128, 138, 248, 250 O'Connor, J., 10 Oppenheim, P., 239 Parmenides, 99,138,235,243 Penfield, W. x, 63 Pepper, S., ix, xm, 40,180,181, 193,196, 197,198,202,245 Philo Judaeus, 107

285

Place, U. T„ 36, 37, 85 Planck, M., 38, 45, 110, 117, 118, 125, 126,153 Plato, 5, 9, 25, 31, 38, 39, 47, 54, 62, 63, 65, 69, 104, 107, 109, 113, 123, 142, 150, 161, 162, 174, 193, 215, 217, 218, 225, 226, 246, 256, 257, 263, 266, 267, 268 Plotinus, 267 Poincaré, J. H„ 103 Popper, K. R., x, xil, 2, 5, 9, 13, 25, 60, 69, 105, 109, 111, 113, 115, 116, 131, 134, 189, 191, 192, 200, 203, 237, 256, 269 Presley, C. F., 10 Price, H. H., 99 Protagoras, 121 Ptolemy, 240,242, 243 Putnam, H., 239 Quine, W., 24, 78,104,181 Reichenbach, H., 4, 5,106 Reid, T., 154 Rhine, J. B., 259 Riemann, G. F. B., 135 Rumford, B. T., 86 Russell, B., 25, 29, 30, 31, 37, 38, 43, 50, 51, 54, 67, 83, 89, 104, 105, 106, 109, 115, 116, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 137, 147, 154, 160, 168, 174, 175, 176, 188, 193, 199, 200, 206, 215, 224, 226, 227, 237,243,252,253 Ryle, G., 7, 23,43,155, 212,213, 214 Schelling, F. W. J., 109,235,268 Schlick, M., 11, 67, 193,194,195, 196 Schopenhauer, A., 11,38,65,148 Schrödinger, E., 38, 101, 168, 170, 199, 208 Seilars, W„ 43 Shaffer, J. A., 10,30,159 Sherrington, C. S., x, 7, 62, 63, 138, 145, 152,153,158,165,257,261 Skinner, B. F., 43 Smart, J. J. C„ ix, 10, 35, 46, 80, 85, 93,

286

Author

index

100, 192, 193, 196, 211, 214, 219, 236, 237,240,241,242,243 Socrates, 9,31,121,163 Sperry, R. W., x, xn Spicker, S. F., 15 Spinoza, B„ 23, 109, 151, 159, 173, 176, 244,249,266,267 Strawson, P. F., 141,169,249 Watson, J. B.,43 Weizsäcker, C. F., von, 61, 96, 97, HO, 116,128, 217, 223, 252, 253, 261

White, M., 24, 78 Whitehead, A. N., xn, 36, 54, 83, 109, 125, 159, 214, 215, 267, 268 Wiener, N., 52 Wigner, E. P. 131,132 Wisdom, J. O., 14,128,134,200 Wittgenstein, L., 4, 5, 23, 24, 32, 43, 89, 141 175, 203 Wolff, C., 109 Yolton, J. W., 35, 47,111,132,159, 214

Subject Index

Accident. See Chance Aesthetics. See Norms Analogy, 49, 98, 108, 172, 185, 233 Analytic-synthetic distinction, 6, 8, 31, 33, 41, 47, 77, 80-81, 91, 93, 111-113, 123-124, 173, 175, 220-222, 224, 230, 251. See also A priori Animals, 148,160,163,176,239,270 Animism of matter, 21, 54, 62-63, 159, 205-219. See also Energy; Evolution; Gravity; Field; Force; Holism; Impenetrability; Inertia; Inner sense; Laws of nature; Mass; Motion; Outer sense; Rest; Space; Time; Weight Appearances. See Phenomena A posteriori, 69-70, 111, 175. See also A priori Apperception, xi, 143, 146,148,150,152, 156-157,184,264 A priori, 33, 69-70, 108, 111, 113, 123, 168, 175-177, 204, 251, 264, 266. See also Analytic-synthetic distinction; A posteriori; Synthetic a priori Atomism, 47, 57. See also Holism Autocerebroscope, xm, 103,177-178, 183 187-188,194,198,200,241 Behaviorism, 17, 34, 39, 42-46, 70, 98, 100, 132, 160, 193, 213-214, 218, 237 Biperspectivism, ix Causal theory of perception, xm, 16, 19,

38-40, 48-49, 53, 65, 70, 87, 149, 165, 167, 169-171, 189, 191-202, 238, 242, 245, 272. See also Perception, problem of Cause, 47, 70-71, 91-99, 114-121, 157, 164, 188, 216, 229, 241, 249-250, 253255, 257, 262-266, 273; efficient, 114115, 117, 122, 218-219, 226, 233, 256; if same, same effect, 20, 59, 61, 70, 73, 95, 115, 118, 119, 184-185, 191, 200, 254, 273; final (see Teleology); formal, 115, 226. See also Determinism; Free will; Laws of nature Chance, xn, 58-60. See also Determinism Communicable, 103-108,166, 178 Computer. See Machine Conception, 33, 70, 104-106, 148, 155, 161-162, 166, 168, 171-173, 193, 197, 261-266 Consciousness, 112,157-159 Corroboration, 189, 191-192. See also Verification Counterfactuals, 171, 255. See also Laws of nature Definition, 3,41-42, 64-65, 88-89, 98-99, 101,106,109-110,112-113, 139, 221 Determinism, xi-xn, 47, 58-61, 116, 118, 120, 121, 151-152, 254. See also Cause Dialectical materialism, 6, 15, 80, 113, 205,218,259 Direct realism, 36, 46, 173-174, 197, 210.

288

Subject

index

See also Perception, problem of Disposition, 206,213-214. See also Teleology Double aspect theory, ix, 136, 177, 241, 249-251,260 Dualism, x-xi, 2, 7, 17, 21-22, 39, 250, 260, 267, 271. See also Inner sense; Interactionism; Outer sense

233-234, 254, 269-270, 274. See also Determinism Function, 53,252. See also Relation

Effect. See Cause Empiricism, 3, 24, 32-35, 63, 109, 129, 156, 234-235, 245-248, 255, 257, 268. See also Epistemology; Operationism Energy, 21, 56,74,135, 206,209-210,212, 214, 216, 227, 253, 265-266, 273 Engram, 64 Entelechy, 54,122. See also Teleology Epiphenomenalism, ix, 136, 177, 240242,250-251,260 Epistemology, 8-9, 33-34, 36-40, 44, 9799, 107-108, 110-114, 124, 129, 135, 140, 146, 232, 245-248, 255, 262-265, 268. See also Analytic-synthetic distinction; Empiricism; Knowledge; Rationalism Eternity, 19, 56,62-63,150, 157, 161,168, 217-218, 251, 257, 260, 267, 274. See also Time Ethics. See Norms Events, 124-126,215 Evolution, xn, 57-64,231-233,267-268 Existence, 22, 131, 172, 230. See also Ontology Existentialism, 15,205 Explanation, 61, 186. See also Laws of nature Extension. See Space

Holism, 47, 57, 64,224-225, 227-228. See also Atomism; Relation Hypothesis, 13-14, 185-186, 189, 200, 246. See also Hypothetico-deductive method Hypothetico-deductive method, 14, 1819, 57, 66, 92, 157, 164, 189-190, 268, 272. See also Scientific method

Fallability, 164 Falsification, 9, 13-14, 59, 69, 189-192, 269. See also Verification Field, 207-208,211,258 Force, 21, 54, 62, 74-75, 208-212, 253, 263,265-266,273 Form. See Laws of nature Free will, xn-xm, 118-121, 151-152, 163,

God, 53-54, 58, 63, 105, 122, 163, 171, 206, 208, 216-219, 227, 250, 252, 258, 261,270 Gravity, 74,211,216,253,266

Identity, 17, 29, 81, 94, 268; empirical, 84-96; of indiscernibles, 81-82; linguistic, 77-79; logical, 79-81; metaphysical, 81-84 Illatum. See Thing in itself Immortality, xn, 55-57, 100, 117, 227, 260,266-267 Impenetrability, 74-75, 192, 193, 210-211 Induction, 14, 18, 88, 90, 99, 111, 116, 164, 254-255. See also Scientific method Inertia, 74 Infinite, 89,176,217 Inner sense, xi, xrn, 19, 26, 44-45, 49-50, 57, 65, 67-73, 75-76, 99-105 107-108, 152, 155-158, 164, 166, 173, 178, 182184, 187, 194-195, 198, 202, 211, 213214, 238, 241-242, 251, 260, 264-265, 267, 270, 272-273. See also Perception, problem of Intentionality, 47, 64,154-155, 193, 202 Interactionism, x-xi, 7, 21, 100, 136-137, 188, 210, 212, 233, 241-242, 248, 251, 258-271,274, See also Dualism Intersubjectivity. See Publicity Knowledge, 17, 94, 104-105, 118, 148, 150, 157, 166, 245, 257; by acquaint-

Subject index ance, 11, 34, 164, 184-185, 189; by description, 34, 184-185. See also Epistemology Language, philosophy of, 10, 16-18, 2335, 41-42, 48, 68, 77-79, 84, 86, 87-88, 90-91,127, 130,139,181-183, 185-186, 202-204,207,221,271 Laws of nature, 58-59, 62-63, 122-123, 159, 187, 206, 215, 223-226, 231-234, 252-258, 268, 274. See also Cause; Counterfactuals; Nomological danglers ; Reduction; Relation Libertarianism. See Free will Locality. See Space Logic, 33, 79-81, 86, 93, 104, 123, 150, 173, 175-177, 203-204, 224, 228, 230, 251 Machine, 52-55,140,228-229 Mass, 74,135,209,216,266 Mathematics, 33, 47, 80-81, 104, 108, 123, 131, 135, 150, 168, 173, 176, 203204,230,238,251 Meaning, theory of. See Language, philosophy of Measurement, 51, 134-136, 247-248, 266 Mechanism. See Determinism Memory, 47, 54-57, 64, 104, 143, 158 Metaphysics, 18, 99, 108-130, 148, 234, 240, 245, 248-258, 268-270, 272. See Also Epistemology; Ontology Mnemic. See Memory Motion, 73-75,216-218,253 Neutral monism, 37-38,146,227 Nomological danglers, xi, 210, 223, 231. See also Laws of nature Norms, 42, 46, 117, 119, 120, 148, 160, 162-163, 177, 202-204, 229, 243, 251, 257, 262, 270, 274. See also Responsibility Noumenon. See Thing in itself Objectivity. See Publicity Occasionalism, 136, 241, 250, 260 Ockham's razor. See Simplicity

289

Omnipresence, 173, 196, 261, 264, 267. See also Space Ontology, 36-40,46-47, 51,130-140,265. See also Existence; Metaphysics Operationism, 34, 132, 134. See also Empiricism Organization. See Relation Ostensión, 104 Outer sense, xi, xm, 45, 49-50, 65, 67-73, 75, 99-104, 152, 155-158, 164, 166, 173, 178, 182-184, 187, 189, 194-195, 198, 202, 207, 213, 238, 241-242, 251, 260-265, 270, 272-273. See also Perception, problem of Panpsychism, 49 Parallelism, ix, 136, 177, 188, 241, 249251,260 Parapsychology, 161,258-260 Parsimony. See Simplicity Perception, problem of, 12, 35-40, 130131, 148, 149, 154, 165, 172, 194, 197, 245. See also Causal theory of perception; Conception; Direct realism; Inner sense; Outer sense; Phenomena; Phenomenalism ; Thing in itself Permanent possibility. See Thing in itself Person, 157,249-250 Personal identity, 143 Phenomena, 10-12, 37,44,47,64,94,164, 179-187, 190-192, 201-202, 237-239, 242-243, 245-248, 268, 272. See also Perception, problem of Phenomenalism, 37, 39-40, 197 see also Perception, problem of Phenomenology, 15,205 Potentiality, 56, 206, 213-214. See also Teleology Pragmatics, 32 Pragmatism, 18, 111, 130-140, 244, 272 Prediction, 59, 85, 97, 115-116, 118-123, 131,136-138,238 Primary qualities, 38,67, 73 Privacy, 17, 45, 47-50, 57, 64, 96-108, 157, 164-165, 176, 190-191, 198, 201, 232-233, 237, 239, 241-242, 270, 272

290

Subject index

Proper name, 40 Property, 30, 32,227 Publicity, 17, 45, 47-50, 96-108,157, 178, 190-191, 196, 201, 232-233, 237, 242, 264,269-270,272 Pure ego, xi-xu, 19, 56, 141-165, 171, 184, 194, 203, 229-230, 233, 257, 260261,264-266,272-273 Purpose. See Teleology Quality, 47, 51-52 Quantity, 47, 51-52 Quantum mechanics, 117-118, 125-126, 225,244,247 Rationalism, 3, 24-25, 100, 106, 113, 129, 156, 234, 245-248, 262-265, 274. See also Epistemology Raw feels. See Phenomena Reduction, ix-x, xn, 14-15, 21, 97, 199, 219-235,239,273-274. See also Holism; Laws of nature Reference. See Language, philosophy of Relation, 51, 56, 214, 224, 227-228. See also Function; Holism; Laws of nature Relativity, theory of, 125-126, 133-136, 209,247-248,266 Responsibility, xin, 119-120. See also Free will; Norms Rest, 75 Robot. See Machine Scientific method, 13, 18, 66, 106, 164, 189, 268, 272. See also Corroboration; Falsification; Hypothesis; Hypothetico-deductive method; Induction; Norms; Verification Scientism, 6, 110-111, 115, 239-245, 269 Semantics, 32. See also Language, philosophy of Sense. See Language, philosophy of Simplicity, 127-128, 138, 188-189, 200, 241,248,250 Solipsism, 105,147,196,198 Space, 47, 50-51, 67-68, 71-75, 82, 104105, 114, 133-136, 157, 166-174, 176-

178, 196-197, 200, 208-209, 211, 215 230 249, 260-261, 264-266. See also Omnipresence Structure. See Relation Subjectivity. See Privacy Substance. See Substratum Substratum, 28-29, 32, 82-83, 105, 125126,143,146,160,249 Synapse, xin, 55-56 Syncategorematic expressions, 31-32 Synonymy, 27,77-79,221 Syntactics, 32 Synthetic a priori, 6, 112, 124, 135, 175, 193,262. See also A priori Tautology, 60-61 Teleology, 47, 52, 54, 58-59, 63-64, 114117, 122, 163, 206, 213, 215, 218-219, 226,233. See also Behaviorism; Cause; Disposition; Entelechy; Potentiality; Vitalism Theoretical term. See Thing in itself Thing in itself, 19,26, 38,47, 50, 66-67, 71, 73, 92, 101, 105-108, 131, 148-149, 157, 162, 179-187, 191-192, 199-200, 238, 247, 267, 272-273. See also Causal theory of perception Time, 47, 68-69, 74-75, 82, 114, 133-136, 149-150, 167-171, 174, 188, 208-209, 211, 215, 217, 247-248, 267. See also Eternity Timelessness. See Eternity Token-reflexive terms, 40 Truth, 9, 22,34,61,113,132-133, 150,248 Unconscious, 12,158,163 Universality, 3, 24-26, 70, 104-105, 116, 165,168,177,192, 255-256 Values. See Norms Verification, 13-14, 34, 111, 269. See also Corroboration; Falsification Vitalism, 121-123,227. See also Teleology Weight, 74,264