Some rules of analytic philosophy Putnam says includes (1), that “being A is being B” is correct only from the meaning of the terms A and B and (2), “being A is being B” must be reductive to be philosophically informative (for instance, being in pain is having a certain behavioral disposition). Hence, philosophers may argue that ‘I am in pain without knowing I am in brain state S shows that pain cannot be brain state S.’ But Putnam argues that this is as hilarious as we cannot know that the stove is hot without knowing that the molecular kinetic energy is high (trying to reduce temperature to molecular kinetic energy – empirical reduction). Putnam argues that all that follows that I can know I am in pain without knowing that I am in brain state S is that the concept of pain is not the same concept as the concept of being in brain state S. Hence, pain maybe a brain state S. Asserting an identity between both is absurd.
So, what ‘is’ pain? Pain is not a brain state (physical-chemical state) but some kind of state entirely. Pain or the state of being in pain is a functional state of a whole organism (p. 199). The entire argument seems to be impossible for me to understand at this stage of my study but it seems to be as follows (according to Putnam):
(1) All organisms capable of feeling pain are Probabilistic Automata.
(2) Every organism capable of feeling pain possesses at least one Description of a certain kind. Being capable of feeling pain is possessing an appropriate kind of Functional Organization.
(3) No organism capable of feeling pain possesses a decomposition into parts which separately possesses Descriptions of the kind referred in (2).
(4) For every Description of the kind referred in (2), there exists a subset of the sensory inputs such that an organism with that Description is in pain when and only when some of its sensory inputs are in that subset.
Putnam then hypothesizes that the Functional Organization must include a “preference function/ordering and something that resembles inductive logic “i.e., the Machine must be able to “learn from experience.” They should also have pain sensors that signal damage to the body and that transmit a special subset of inputs referred to in (4). Putnam argues that pain is a functional state rather than a brain state or a behavioral disposition. It is species independent
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The will to knowledge (1)
The world is vast and opaque.
We intend it as it cries out to us.
Where our voices and thoughts illuminate only one corner of the southern seas.
The depths of which we can never reach.
Silhouettes of which we can only trace thinly with our fingers
and contribute to it an insignificant core.
We give as we take.
There is no one analytic fate.
As we go along, brighter, dimmer, stronger, weaker,..
Our consciousness ebbs and wades.
Swayed and thrust into the depths of knowledge
of reality unfair,
paralysis, paralysis, no, rage.
adumbrations, senses, intention relates.
the object of which, in our Kantian minds we can never reach.
By logic, by faith, by reason by the day,
The conjectures we make, history will take.
We are small but magnificent creatures.
Minds of which undermined constantly by the herd or the masses.
One day into which we will want to soar, out of the silent shadows of the majority
and into Plato's light that warms our pores.
No, into the individual’s rights, or the what makes us humans afterall…
The desperate rush to understand reality
Is to be understood in the disappointment of our current modernity.
Its senselessness, unthinking, immorality.
Its cold, heartless, breeding inequality.
Its refusal to acknowledge man’s finitude.
Its escape from despair and absurdity that leaves the absurd real man in a lunatic lurch.
Truth. Depth and a free and wild imagination.
Humility, love and meaning.
These are estranged values that our present modernity has forgotten about.
Shallowness, depthless simulacrum and idols we take as Gods.
Things we have never thought about but also never want to sought out.
Merry?
Merry Merry. It is all we seek and value as a reason to not-Understanding.
Decimate the knowledge lovers.
Dampen their efforts!
Make them work for money and make them like us un-thinking, un-loving, un-imagining.
The masses… the masses.
They are the nothingness with infinite neutralizing powers that all knowledge-lovers have to encounter and counter.
They are the real counter-sense.
The inevitable horde from which we draw our ideas of normality.
Where is the individual? Where is the human?
There is no human to talk about.
It is the end of metaphysics and the beginning of the history of the masses of which we must write about.
Its sanity we must turn into insanity.
Its logic we must prove syllogistic.
Its dialectic we must prove is nothing.
Its political apathy we must dispel.
Where is the intellectual? Buried in the masses even though they are the only human beings left in this barren desert.
We intend it as it cries out to us.
Where our voices and thoughts illuminate only one corner of the southern seas.
The depths of which we can never reach.
Silhouettes of which we can only trace thinly with our fingers
and contribute to it an insignificant core.
We give as we take.
There is no one analytic fate.
As we go along, brighter, dimmer, stronger, weaker,..
Our consciousness ebbs and wades.
Swayed and thrust into the depths of knowledge
of reality unfair,
paralysis, paralysis, no, rage.
adumbrations, senses, intention relates.
the object of which, in our Kantian minds we can never reach.
By logic, by faith, by reason by the day,
The conjectures we make, history will take.
We are small but magnificent creatures.
Minds of which undermined constantly by the herd or the masses.
One day into which we will want to soar, out of the silent shadows of the majority
and into Plato's light that warms our pores.
No, into the individual’s rights, or the what makes us humans afterall…
The desperate rush to understand reality
Is to be understood in the disappointment of our current modernity.
Its senselessness, unthinking, immorality.
Its cold, heartless, breeding inequality.
Its refusal to acknowledge man’s finitude.
Its escape from despair and absurdity that leaves the absurd real man in a lunatic lurch.
Truth. Depth and a free and wild imagination.
Humility, love and meaning.
These are estranged values that our present modernity has forgotten about.
Shallowness, depthless simulacrum and idols we take as Gods.
Things we have never thought about but also never want to sought out.
Merry?
Merry Merry. It is all we seek and value as a reason to not-Understanding.
Decimate the knowledge lovers.
Dampen their efforts!
Make them work for money and make them like us un-thinking, un-loving, un-imagining.
The masses… the masses.
They are the nothingness with infinite neutralizing powers that all knowledge-lovers have to encounter and counter.
They are the real counter-sense.
The inevitable horde from which we draw our ideas of normality.
Where is the individual? Where is the human?
There is no human to talk about.
It is the end of metaphysics and the beginning of the history of the masses of which we must write about.
Its sanity we must turn into insanity.
Its logic we must prove syllogistic.
Its dialectic we must prove is nothing.
Its political apathy we must dispel.
Where is the intellectual? Buried in the masses even though they are the only human beings left in this barren desert.
Notes and Reflections on: Richard Rorty from “Mind-Body Identity, Privacy, and Categories.”
Rorty does not seem too convinced by Baier’s argument which seems to be that the first person epistemological authority cannot be over-riden. Baier argues that the private subject matter is the kind of thing that cannot be over-ridden. So a sufferer cannot be mistaken to have pain since such a pain is inconceivable (even if there were a brain gadget on our head that notes no cerebral processes on occasions he or she felt a pain). Baier thinks that introspective reports or private subject matters are incommensurable with public subject matters. So Baier think that no matter how good the evidence maybe one can never show to the sufferer that he is mistaken in having had a pain.
The question is, is there a criterion to judge whether a person knows how to use pain in the correct way? Does Jones know how to use the word pain correctly? Rorty says that when we do raise this question, the question, (1) Does he know which sensations are called pains? And (2) Is he a good judge of whether he is in pain or not? Are two ways of asking the same question i.e. “can we fit his pain reports into our scheme for explaining and predicting pains? And/or “shall we disregard his pain reports or not? (p. 134).
Can we be mistaken? Rorty argues that our inability to be mistaken is after all no more than our ability to have such hypothetical statements as “if you admit that I am sincere and that I know the language, you have to accept what I say” accepted by our fellows (p. 135).” Where a clear cut public criterion does exist for knowing the language (Wittgenstein argues that sensation-reports must conform to public criteria or else be disallowed), inability to be mistaken does not entail inability to be over-ridden. Hence, we can still be over-ridden. Others may still think we do not understand pain if we do not produce utterances that conform to the public criterion. But this does not compromise our epistemological authority.
Rorty hence takes a finer and safer line of argument as opposed to Baier who claims that we surely cannot be wrong.
The question is, is there a criterion to judge whether a person knows how to use pain in the correct way? Does Jones know how to use the word pain correctly? Rorty says that when we do raise this question, the question, (1) Does he know which sensations are called pains? And (2) Is he a good judge of whether he is in pain or not? Are two ways of asking the same question i.e. “can we fit his pain reports into our scheme for explaining and predicting pains? And/or “shall we disregard his pain reports or not? (p. 134).
Can we be mistaken? Rorty argues that our inability to be mistaken is after all no more than our ability to have such hypothetical statements as “if you admit that I am sincere and that I know the language, you have to accept what I say” accepted by our fellows (p. 135).” Where a clear cut public criterion does exist for knowing the language (Wittgenstein argues that sensation-reports must conform to public criteria or else be disallowed), inability to be mistaken does not entail inability to be over-ridden. Hence, we can still be over-ridden. Others may still think we do not understand pain if we do not produce utterances that conform to the public criterion. But this does not compromise our epistemological authority.
Rorty hence takes a finer and safer line of argument as opposed to Baier who claims that we surely cannot be wrong.
Reflections on Strawson’s ‘mind self and body’
Maybe the question is about how we derived at the Cartesian split. How can Cartesians hold that the notion of the individual mind or consciousness is perfectly intelligible from the notion of the person? To accept this ‘split,’ Cartesians must hold unswervingly that the dualistic reduction of the analysis of a person is possible – that subjects can be designated either by their mind/consciousness or body. The idea of the individual mind can be derived from the individual person. This is derived usually from a delusionary mental introspective looking in that from this, we can be conscious of our various mental states and contents and hence claim that ‘I’ am… ‘I know… that I am…’ But this is problematic for Strawson quotes Kant on this that there is nothing in the ‘I’ that does not exclude the possibility of a thousand other experiences at that moment when we say ‘I…’ So, ‘I…’ cannot know that I am not experiencing these other thousand experiences perhaps as the psychoanalysts would think, unconsciously. To say that I can, is to say it in a very dogmatic manner that is not explanatory in nature.
Notes on Norman Malcolm’s “Knowledge of Other Minds”
Russell’s analogical reasoning is somewhat posed also by J. S. Mill’s question: “By what evidence do I know or by what considerations am I led to believe, that there exist other sentient creatures; that walking and speaking figures which I see and hear have sensations and thoughts or in other words possess minds?” In other words, these thinkers ask:
Is it possible and/or how do we know that a human figure has thoughts and feelings?” Mill assumes that there is no criterion for determining with certainty how we know. We can perhaps only induce this possible other minds. Mill says this (this quotation is cut short see Rosenthal p 92):
“I conclude that other human beings have feelings like me, because, first, they have bodies like me, which I know, in my own case, to be the antecedent condition of feelings; and because secondly, they exhibit the acts and other outward signs, which in my own case I know by experience to be caused by feelings ... I bring, other human beings, as phenomena under the same generalizations which I know by experience to be the true theory of my own existence (p. 92).”
What such reasonings do is this. They embark on an introspective inspection that goes: 1) ‘I have a pain.’ 2) ‘He has a pain.’3) ‘I understand the meaning of I have pain.’ 4) ‘He has a pain may mean the same thing as when I have a pain.’ 5) I infer from my experience that he has a pain on the basis of the pain that I have assuming that both ‘pains’ are same. This is way of analogical inference occurs even though one does not exactly have a criterion to make such an inference and the maximum result one can get get is a probable establishment of his pain (on the basis of the notion that we have “the same pain”). This sort of argument makes it seem as if we can only understand our ‘pain’ but not that others ‘have pain (what kind of pain etc).’ Based on such a line of argument, ‘My behavior is such and such when I feel giddy so probably when others exhibit the same behavior, they probably feel giddy too.’ This is how we understand others’ giddiness (by reference to our own giddiness).
Malcolm thinks that this recourse is futile because what is the criterion of this same pain? How do we establish (by what criterion) that this pain is the same?
Malcom also considers H. H. Price analogical reasoning:
One’s evidence for the existence of other minds is derived primarily from the understanding of language. Hence, if another body gives forth noises one understands providing new information that indicates that the foreign body uttered the noises animated by a mind like one’s own, I can believe that this body which produce such informative noises come from a mind like my own. This is even if these informative sounds did not emerge from a body like our own.
Malcolm argues that this is still a form of analogical reasoning. Price is saying that 1) I know by introspection that when I produce informative noises, they are products of my spontaneous thought. 2) Hence, if I hear someone producing such informative noises, I can assume that they have a spontaneous thought that is not a product of my own mind but of others. Such an argument argument implies the probability that the kitchen table or oak tree has sensations and thoughts. Malcolm argues that “that an object is a source of intelligible sounds or other signs would not be engouh by itself to establish that it had thoughts or sensations.” We cannot infer from the intelligible sounds that the thing has a mind. Malcolm argues that what does not embody a human form do not and cannot satisfy the criteria for thinking because when we think, we also (as shown in a baby’s behavior growing up) look, point, reach, fetch and so on.
The greatest mistake of the analogy, Malcolm argues is that it assumes that one learns from one’s own case what thinking, feeling, sensation are. Because if we proceed this way, we would end up with the conclusion that we cannot know anything outside our own mind because we can only learn/infer and know from our own minds. For instance: “when I say I am in pain, by pain, I mean a certain inward state. When I say He is in pain, by pain I mean (see) behavior. I cannot attribute pain to others in the same sense that I attribute it to myself.” Afterall, how do we know what the other person’s behavior refers to if we only learn/infer/know from our own minds? We fall to solipsism. The philosopher would always be stuck at trying to transit from his own case to the case of others. The inference bridge I call, makes the philosopher panick.
Malcolm however says that: “ When the philosopher’s thinking is freed of the illusion of the priority of his own case, then he is able to look at the familiar facts and to acknowledge that the circumstances, behavior and utterances of others actually are his criteria for the existence of their mental states.” Banishing this illusion is the first step to understanding that the behavior, utterances etc are not only his evidence of others’ mental states.
Is it possible and/or how do we know that a human figure has thoughts and feelings?” Mill assumes that there is no criterion for determining with certainty how we know. We can perhaps only induce this possible other minds. Mill says this (this quotation is cut short see Rosenthal p 92):
“I conclude that other human beings have feelings like me, because, first, they have bodies like me, which I know, in my own case, to be the antecedent condition of feelings; and because secondly, they exhibit the acts and other outward signs, which in my own case I know by experience to be caused by feelings ... I bring, other human beings, as phenomena under the same generalizations which I know by experience to be the true theory of my own existence (p. 92).”
What such reasonings do is this. They embark on an introspective inspection that goes: 1) ‘I have a pain.’ 2) ‘He has a pain.’3) ‘I understand the meaning of I have pain.’ 4) ‘He has a pain may mean the same thing as when I have a pain.’ 5) I infer from my experience that he has a pain on the basis of the pain that I have assuming that both ‘pains’ are same. This is way of analogical inference occurs even though one does not exactly have a criterion to make such an inference and the maximum result one can get get is a probable establishment of his pain (on the basis of the notion that we have “the same pain”). This sort of argument makes it seem as if we can only understand our ‘pain’ but not that others ‘have pain (what kind of pain etc).’ Based on such a line of argument, ‘My behavior is such and such when I feel giddy so probably when others exhibit the same behavior, they probably feel giddy too.’ This is how we understand others’ giddiness (by reference to our own giddiness).
Malcolm thinks that this recourse is futile because what is the criterion of this same pain? How do we establish (by what criterion) that this pain is the same?
Malcom also considers H. H. Price analogical reasoning:
One’s evidence for the existence of other minds is derived primarily from the understanding of language. Hence, if another body gives forth noises one understands providing new information that indicates that the foreign body uttered the noises animated by a mind like one’s own, I can believe that this body which produce such informative noises come from a mind like my own. This is even if these informative sounds did not emerge from a body like our own.
Malcolm argues that this is still a form of analogical reasoning. Price is saying that 1) I know by introspection that when I produce informative noises, they are products of my spontaneous thought. 2) Hence, if I hear someone producing such informative noises, I can assume that they have a spontaneous thought that is not a product of my own mind but of others. Such an argument argument implies the probability that the kitchen table or oak tree has sensations and thoughts. Malcolm argues that “that an object is a source of intelligible sounds or other signs would not be engouh by itself to establish that it had thoughts or sensations.” We cannot infer from the intelligible sounds that the thing has a mind. Malcolm argues that what does not embody a human form do not and cannot satisfy the criteria for thinking because when we think, we also (as shown in a baby’s behavior growing up) look, point, reach, fetch and so on.
The greatest mistake of the analogy, Malcolm argues is that it assumes that one learns from one’s own case what thinking, feeling, sensation are. Because if we proceed this way, we would end up with the conclusion that we cannot know anything outside our own mind because we can only learn/infer and know from our own minds. For instance: “when I say I am in pain, by pain, I mean a certain inward state. When I say He is in pain, by pain I mean (see) behavior. I cannot attribute pain to others in the same sense that I attribute it to myself.” Afterall, how do we know what the other person’s behavior refers to if we only learn/infer/know from our own minds? We fall to solipsism. The philosopher would always be stuck at trying to transit from his own case to the case of others. The inference bridge I call, makes the philosopher panick.
Malcolm however says that: “ When the philosopher’s thinking is freed of the illusion of the priority of his own case, then he is able to look at the familiar facts and to acknowledge that the circumstances, behavior and utterances of others actually are his criteria for the existence of their mental states.” Banishing this illusion is the first step to understanding that the behavior, utterances etc are not only his evidence of others’ mental states.
Reflections and Notes on Russell’s essay on “Analogy”
It is highly likely that we do not have certain knowledge of other minds, only highly probably knowledge. We do not have direct access to others’ minds. However, we do have some probably knowledge of their minds through postulates which as Russell has constructed goes like this:
“If, whenever we can observe whether A and B are present or absent, we find that every case of B has an A as a causal antecedent, then it is probable that most B’s have A’s as causal antecedents, even in cases where observation does not enable us to know whether A is present or not.”
For instance, we see that thunder causes a lightning. But at times, we may hear thunder without seeing lightning but we still infer upon hearing thunder that somewhere, there is lightning. “If you hear thunder without having seen lightning, you confidently infer that there was lightning because you are convinced that the sort of noise you heard is seldom caused by anything except lightning.” We based our knowledge of other minds through or from a subjective observation that I know that A (thought or feeling) causes B (body act or statement). From this, I know also that whenever B is the act of my body, A is the cause. So when I see someone (not my own) with bodily act B, I still infer that A because of my self-subjective observation/experience that A caused B. We infer from us that was an A that caused B although I cannot observe this A. On this ground, we infer that other people’s bodies are affected by their minds in some similar ways as how my mind affect my body. We understand others based on our self subjective experience and this inference/projectile may often be wrong
Caryn: We understand others based on our self subjective experience and this inference/projectile may often be wrong. If in interaction, I projectile my self (P1) subjective experience X and person (P2) projects subjective experience Y, then there will be a possibility of rupture, discussion, conflict that occurs in this exchange. This occurs especially when P2 and P1 come from different life experiences and spheres and engage in interaction which may produce new experiences. The creation of the new experiences and changes hence always emerge and uncertainty of the soul of one’s subjective experience is hence a permanent resident in the modern subject when one’s analogy or postulate may often fail in interaction.
“If, whenever we can observe whether A and B are present or absent, we find that every case of B has an A as a causal antecedent, then it is probable that most B’s have A’s as causal antecedents, even in cases where observation does not enable us to know whether A is present or not.”
For instance, we see that thunder causes a lightning. But at times, we may hear thunder without seeing lightning but we still infer upon hearing thunder that somewhere, there is lightning. “If you hear thunder without having seen lightning, you confidently infer that there was lightning because you are convinced that the sort of noise you heard is seldom caused by anything except lightning.” We based our knowledge of other minds through or from a subjective observation that I know that A (thought or feeling) causes B (body act or statement). From this, I know also that whenever B is the act of my body, A is the cause. So when I see someone (not my own) with bodily act B, I still infer that A because of my self-subjective observation/experience that A caused B. We infer from us that was an A that caused B although I cannot observe this A. On this ground, we infer that other people’s bodies are affected by their minds in some similar ways as how my mind affect my body. We understand others based on our self subjective experience and this inference/projectile may often be wrong
Caryn: We understand others based on our self subjective experience and this inference/projectile may often be wrong. If in interaction, I projectile my self (P1) subjective experience X and person (P2) projects subjective experience Y, then there will be a possibility of rupture, discussion, conflict that occurs in this exchange. This occurs especially when P2 and P1 come from different life experiences and spheres and engage in interaction which may produce new experiences. The creation of the new experiences and changes hence always emerge and uncertainty of the soul of one’s subjective experience is hence a permanent resident in the modern subject when one’s analogy or postulate may often fail in interaction.
Notes: Revisiting Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding
All human knowledge and/or Ideas according to John Locke, is derived from experience. There is (1) the external sensible objects. We gain perceptions of this sensible objects through our senses that convey them to our mind. There is also, (2) internal operations of our minds furnishing our understanding with perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing and willing. These ideas, the mind can get only when it reflects upon itself. The mind Locke says, in reflection, furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own Operations. It is only from these two sources that we derive all our knowledge a posteriori.
Locke seems to disagree with Descartes’s ‘I think, therefore, I am’ maxim for he says here that “Man thinks always, but is not always conscious of it (S19).” He further says “That a man is always conscious to himself of thinking; I ask, How they know it? Consciousness is the perception of what passes in a Man’s own mind.” The problem seems to be that man cannot know that he is thinking. He may forget what he thinks or he may not be conscious of it. For instance Locke says, “Wake a Man out of a sound sleep, and ask him, What he was that moment thinking on. If he himself be conscious of nothing he then thought on, he must be a notable Diviner of ATHoughts, that can assure him, that he was thinking (S19).” He cannot have experience of his thinking. Locke thinks one cannot know this because this is surely beyond experience. Every man has ideas wholly in himself from experience. From reflection, he can reflect that certain operations exist (thinking, doubting, believing etc). But one cannot hence say that I think.
I or a person is a thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection and that can consider itself as the selfsame thinking thing albeit in different time and place. Based on its present experience or sensations and perceptions, we form our self. But herein lies the Lockean paradox or the paradox that all empiricists would face. If the person or I is a thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection of his present experience then when we transit from one moment T1 to T2, are we still the same self? (if from T1 to T2 we share different experiences, do we consider ourselves as different selves? SelfT1 and SelfT2?)
It seems that for Locke, all experience from which we derive sensations = perception = knowledge. Locke says this: “He can never be in doubt when any Idea is in his Mind, that it is there, and is that Idea it is; and that two distinct Ideas when they are in his Mind are there, and are not one and the same Idea. The same faculty of sensation that garners the intuitions is the same one that categorizes and understands it. This will be hotly criticized By Kant who distinguishes from the faculty of sensibility, understanding (and its apprehension), reason and ideas of reason etc and that our faculty of reason by nature reasons and reasons wrongly in driven to real a maximal highest ideal.
Locke has the notion that qualities in Bodies cause us to have perceptions/Ideas in our minds. This is discernible from Descartesian idealism that e.g. pain, colour or primary qualities in Lockean terms etc. are only in our minds since (whose essence is to think. Well, recall that Descartes thinks that the body cannot think). Locke seems to think that Descartes is mistaken for there exist many external bodies with inherent qualities in them that have the power to produce any Idea in our mind. Locke gives the instance of the snow-ball where the snow-ball has powers to produce ideas in us. The Cartesian skepticism of knowledge of the external world (apart from the mind and its container of ideas), is hence rejected by Locke who claims that in fact, our ideas are produced by powers of objects.
There are two types of qualities. Primary and Secondary. Primary qualities are for instance, Solidity, Extension, Figure and Mobility that no matter how you divide up an object will still retain these qualities. Ideas of primary qualities will carry resemblance with these bodies i.e. that such patterns really do exist in the bodies themselves. Secondary qualities however are colours sounds and tastes. Secondary qualities however have no resemblance at all. They do not themselves like primary qualities exist in bodies themselves. They are powers we denominate to produce sensations in us (Book II Chap VIII S23). Secondary qualities come from their primary qualities. They come “after” a peculiar manner on our senses and produce in us the different ideas of colours sounds smells tastes etc. They are modifications of the primary qualities (p 41).
Locke hence thinks that there are things themselves (primary qualities that are undeniable). Kant seems to be more reserved on this issue.
Locke says the some epistemological error occurs because our senses are not able to perceive any connection or unlikeness in the idea produced in us and the quality of the object producing it, we are apty to imagine that our ideas are resemblances of something in the objects and not the effects of certain Powers. For instance, we often think that
(a) The idea of heat or light received by our eyes or touched from the sun are commonly thought as REAL QUALITIES existing in the sun itself. Hence, i.e. the commonsense notion that the sun emits heat and the colour orange and that these two qualities are inherent in the sun itself.
(b) BUT when we look at the Wax which it melts or blanches upon the heat/sun, we look upon the whiteness and softness produced in the wax NOT as qualities of light and warmth but EFFECTS produced by powers in it.
Locke argues that this contradiction is demolished if we understand that colours sounds etc are merely effects of primary qualities itself. We should not look at it as bare Effect of Power even if we cannot see the clear connections between the primary and secondary qualities or what makes these qualitative changes (Locke surrenders that sometimes, the quality produced e.g. wax melt or e.g. heat conveyed by the sun may nhave no resemblance with the thing which produced it i.e. the sun).
Locke seems to disagree with Descartes’s ‘I think, therefore, I am’ maxim for he says here that “Man thinks always, but is not always conscious of it (S19).” He further says “That a man is always conscious to himself of thinking; I ask, How they know it? Consciousness is the perception of what passes in a Man’s own mind.” The problem seems to be that man cannot know that he is thinking. He may forget what he thinks or he may not be conscious of it. For instance Locke says, “Wake a Man out of a sound sleep, and ask him, What he was that moment thinking on. If he himself be conscious of nothing he then thought on, he must be a notable Diviner of ATHoughts, that can assure him, that he was thinking (S19).” He cannot have experience of his thinking. Locke thinks one cannot know this because this is surely beyond experience. Every man has ideas wholly in himself from experience. From reflection, he can reflect that certain operations exist (thinking, doubting, believing etc). But one cannot hence say that I think.
I or a person is a thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection and that can consider itself as the selfsame thinking thing albeit in different time and place. Based on its present experience or sensations and perceptions, we form our self. But herein lies the Lockean paradox or the paradox that all empiricists would face. If the person or I is a thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection of his present experience then when we transit from one moment T1 to T2, are we still the same self? (if from T1 to T2 we share different experiences, do we consider ourselves as different selves? SelfT1 and SelfT2?)
It seems that for Locke, all experience from which we derive sensations = perception = knowledge. Locke says this: “He can never be in doubt when any Idea is in his Mind, that it is there, and is that Idea it is; and that two distinct Ideas when they are in his Mind are there, and are not one and the same Idea. The same faculty of sensation that garners the intuitions is the same one that categorizes and understands it. This will be hotly criticized By Kant who distinguishes from the faculty of sensibility, understanding (and its apprehension), reason and ideas of reason etc and that our faculty of reason by nature reasons and reasons wrongly in driven to real a maximal highest ideal.
Locke has the notion that qualities in Bodies cause us to have perceptions/Ideas in our minds. This is discernible from Descartesian idealism that e.g. pain, colour or primary qualities in Lockean terms etc. are only in our minds since (whose essence is to think. Well, recall that Descartes thinks that the body cannot think). Locke seems to think that Descartes is mistaken for there exist many external bodies with inherent qualities in them that have the power to produce any Idea in our mind. Locke gives the instance of the snow-ball where the snow-ball has powers to produce ideas in us. The Cartesian skepticism of knowledge of the external world (apart from the mind and its container of ideas), is hence rejected by Locke who claims that in fact, our ideas are produced by powers of objects.
There are two types of qualities. Primary and Secondary. Primary qualities are for instance, Solidity, Extension, Figure and Mobility that no matter how you divide up an object will still retain these qualities. Ideas of primary qualities will carry resemblance with these bodies i.e. that such patterns really do exist in the bodies themselves. Secondary qualities however are colours sounds and tastes. Secondary qualities however have no resemblance at all. They do not themselves like primary qualities exist in bodies themselves. They are powers we denominate to produce sensations in us (Book II Chap VIII S23). Secondary qualities come from their primary qualities. They come “after” a peculiar manner on our senses and produce in us the different ideas of colours sounds smells tastes etc. They are modifications of the primary qualities (p 41).
Locke hence thinks that there are things themselves (primary qualities that are undeniable). Kant seems to be more reserved on this issue.
Locke says the some epistemological error occurs because our senses are not able to perceive any connection or unlikeness in the idea produced in us and the quality of the object producing it, we are apty to imagine that our ideas are resemblances of something in the objects and not the effects of certain Powers. For instance, we often think that
(a) The idea of heat or light received by our eyes or touched from the sun are commonly thought as REAL QUALITIES existing in the sun itself. Hence, i.e. the commonsense notion that the sun emits heat and the colour orange and that these two qualities are inherent in the sun itself.
(b) BUT when we look at the Wax which it melts or blanches upon the heat/sun, we look upon the whiteness and softness produced in the wax NOT as qualities of light and warmth but EFFECTS produced by powers in it.
Locke argues that this contradiction is demolished if we understand that colours sounds etc are merely effects of primary qualities itself. We should not look at it as bare Effect of Power even if we cannot see the clear connections between the primary and secondary qualities or what makes these qualitative changes (Locke surrenders that sometimes, the quality produced e.g. wax melt or e.g. heat conveyed by the sun may nhave no resemblance with the thing which produced it i.e. the sun).
Notes: On Thomas Reid v. John Locke
Notes: On Thomas Reid v. John Locke
Thomas Reid however, does not seem to agree with Locke that we can easily distinguish simple and complex qualities for Reid (seemingly the empiricist that he is urging us to pay no attention to hypotheses and analogical reasoning) thinks that ambiguity is natural. What Locke calls simple, e.g. fear (this for Locke is a secondary quality. We will come to this in a little bit) is often confounded with danger for instance. Qualities are naturally ambiguous, they come together and are hence often confounded. Operations of the mind are necessarily complex in nature they may contain two or more ingredients that can be disjoint only via thought. More specifically, the two things conjoined by nature is sensation in the mind and quality perceived in the body. The error that philosophers or common man in general make is that sensation taken by itself cannot imply immediately conception or belief in any external object (such as God or a sentient being). This error occurs because when we perceive, perception often implies an immediate conviction and belief of something external different from the mind that perceives and the act of perception. We need to be clear according to Reid that the act of perception (belief and conviction of the external) should not be confounded with our sensation. Reid’s empiricism and skepticism of knowing more than what the senses can give us is best illustrated here: “When I smell a rose, there is in this operation both sensation and perception. The agreeable odour I feel, considered by itself, without relation to any external object, is merely a sensation. It affects the mind in a certain way; and this affection of the mind may be conceived, without a thought of the rose, or any other object. This sensation can be nothing else than it is felt to be. Its very essence consists in being felt; and when it is not felt, it is not (p. 47).”
Locke thinks that we can perceive a resemblance of primary qualities with objects in itself. But this conviction is built on shaky grounds. We may have the sensation of this and that which indicates or “supposes a sentient being, and a certain manner in which that being is affected; but it supposes no more (p. 49).” Kant would later it seems further refine this sort of philosophical thinking that Reid seems to hold things like “the sensation I would hold is in my mind. The mind is the sentient being.”
Also, Reid seems to think that what Locke may call simple are actually a complex of sensations that is not very much whether it is governed by a primary/secondary division but better understood along the lines of animal (sensation)/rational/moral feeling division something that it seems Kant would again later build on.
Thomas Reid however, does not seem to agree with Locke that we can easily distinguish simple and complex qualities for Reid (seemingly the empiricist that he is urging us to pay no attention to hypotheses and analogical reasoning) thinks that ambiguity is natural. What Locke calls simple, e.g. fear (this for Locke is a secondary quality. We will come to this in a little bit) is often confounded with danger for instance. Qualities are naturally ambiguous, they come together and are hence often confounded. Operations of the mind are necessarily complex in nature they may contain two or more ingredients that can be disjoint only via thought. More specifically, the two things conjoined by nature is sensation in the mind and quality perceived in the body. The error that philosophers or common man in general make is that sensation taken by itself cannot imply immediately conception or belief in any external object (such as God or a sentient being). This error occurs because when we perceive, perception often implies an immediate conviction and belief of something external different from the mind that perceives and the act of perception. We need to be clear according to Reid that the act of perception (belief and conviction of the external) should not be confounded with our sensation. Reid’s empiricism and skepticism of knowing more than what the senses can give us is best illustrated here: “When I smell a rose, there is in this operation both sensation and perception. The agreeable odour I feel, considered by itself, without relation to any external object, is merely a sensation. It affects the mind in a certain way; and this affection of the mind may be conceived, without a thought of the rose, or any other object. This sensation can be nothing else than it is felt to be. Its very essence consists in being felt; and when it is not felt, it is not (p. 47).”
Locke thinks that we can perceive a resemblance of primary qualities with objects in itself. But this conviction is built on shaky grounds. We may have the sensation of this and that which indicates or “supposes a sentient being, and a certain manner in which that being is affected; but it supposes no more (p. 49).” Kant would later it seems further refine this sort of philosophical thinking that Reid seems to hold things like “the sensation I would hold is in my mind. The mind is the sentient being.”
Also, Reid seems to think that what Locke may call simple are actually a complex of sensations that is not very much whether it is governed by a primary/secondary division but better understood along the lines of animal (sensation)/rational/moral feeling division something that it seems Kant would again later build on.
Notes and Reflections on Hilary Putnam’s Brain and Behaviour
Notes and Reflections on Hilary Putnam’s Brain and Behaviour
Logical behaviorism (Vienna positivists) treated numbers as if they were logical constructions out of sets (see p. 151). Logical behaviorists believe that there are ‘analytic entailments’ between mind (meaning) statements and behavior statements. For instance, in diagnosing polio, doctors may be apt to say that people who have multiple sclerosis have some or all of symptoms X (analytic truth).
Putnam however seems to disagree with the logical behaviorists. He says that for instance, ‘pain’ is a cluster concept that the word ‘pain’ is controlled by a whole cluster of criteria, all of which can be regarded as synthetic. Hence, there is no one way of understanding what ‘pain means’ except by giving a synonym. Putnam believes that there are a million and one different ways of saying what pain is (p 153). Saying that ‘pain’ is a feeling evinced by saying ‘ouch’ is just one way.’ In the case of polio, it does not follow that disease talk/polio is translatable into some analytic entailment or symptom talk. Some people have all the symptoms but do not have the multiple sclerosis disease. Causes (pains), are not logical constructions of their effects (behavior) (Putnam or see p 153). Hence, coming back to ‘pain,’ ‘pain’ to the dualists or logical behaviourists would be something that manifests some event/condition that cause these responses. So when there is a pain, one would say ‘ouch.’ Putnam argues that this however sheds no light on what pain is (or isn’t) (p. 153). Pain talk is not translatable into response talk. Pain does not cause its whatever effects and pain is hence not equitable to its effect. There is no identity between the cause and its effects. For Putnam, pains are not clusters of responses.
Pain it seems for Putnam, causes of clusters of responses. It is absurd to not be able to ascribe to people a capacity for feeling pain. People have the capacity to feel pain and this causes a cluster of responses even if in Putnam’s constructed science fiction world, people are trained not to evince pain (super Spartans). There are no logical reasons for the existence of unconditioned pain responses in all species that are capable of feeling pain (p. 155). Pains may not have normal causes or normal effects. There may not even be pain reports in X-world. X-world people may super suppress pain and pretend not to know what the phenomenon pain is or refers to.
Putnam uses all his imaginary examples to show that logical behaviourism is false. i.e. (1) that there is a translatable pain talk into behavior talk but also, (2) that pains are responsible for certain behavior/responses. There maybe a world where there are no pain behaviours. From the statement X has a pain, it does not necessarily follow that a behavioral statement must follow. It seems that Putnam is saying that pain is governed by a cluster of synthetic indicators not necessarily an analytic one that they are responsible for certain kinds of behavior.
I may not have gotten this right but could one of the learning points be (for me) that pains may not be manifested in the ‘normal’ ways. If someone does not manifest certain pain behavior that in our culture counts as pain, it does not necessarily mean that he is not experiencing pain.
Logical behaviorism (Vienna positivists) treated numbers as if they were logical constructions out of sets (see p. 151). Logical behaviorists believe that there are ‘analytic entailments’ between mind (meaning) statements and behavior statements. For instance, in diagnosing polio, doctors may be apt to say that people who have multiple sclerosis have some or all of symptoms X (analytic truth).
Putnam however seems to disagree with the logical behaviorists. He says that for instance, ‘pain’ is a cluster concept that the word ‘pain’ is controlled by a whole cluster of criteria, all of which can be regarded as synthetic. Hence, there is no one way of understanding what ‘pain means’ except by giving a synonym. Putnam believes that there are a million and one different ways of saying what pain is (p 153). Saying that ‘pain’ is a feeling evinced by saying ‘ouch’ is just one way.’ In the case of polio, it does not follow that disease talk/polio is translatable into some analytic entailment or symptom talk. Some people have all the symptoms but do not have the multiple sclerosis disease. Causes (pains), are not logical constructions of their effects (behavior) (Putnam or see p 153). Hence, coming back to ‘pain,’ ‘pain’ to the dualists or logical behaviourists would be something that manifests some event/condition that cause these responses. So when there is a pain, one would say ‘ouch.’ Putnam argues that this however sheds no light on what pain is (or isn’t) (p. 153). Pain talk is not translatable into response talk. Pain does not cause its whatever effects and pain is hence not equitable to its effect. There is no identity between the cause and its effects. For Putnam, pains are not clusters of responses.
Pain it seems for Putnam, causes of clusters of responses. It is absurd to not be able to ascribe to people a capacity for feeling pain. People have the capacity to feel pain and this causes a cluster of responses even if in Putnam’s constructed science fiction world, people are trained not to evince pain (super Spartans). There are no logical reasons for the existence of unconditioned pain responses in all species that are capable of feeling pain (p. 155). Pains may not have normal causes or normal effects. There may not even be pain reports in X-world. X-world people may super suppress pain and pretend not to know what the phenomenon pain is or refers to.
Putnam uses all his imaginary examples to show that logical behaviourism is false. i.e. (1) that there is a translatable pain talk into behavior talk but also, (2) that pains are responsible for certain behavior/responses. There maybe a world where there are no pain behaviours. From the statement X has a pain, it does not necessarily follow that a behavioral statement must follow. It seems that Putnam is saying that pain is governed by a cluster of synthetic indicators not necessarily an analytic one that they are responsible for certain kinds of behavior.
I may not have gotten this right but could one of the learning points be (for me) that pains may not be manifested in the ‘normal’ ways. If someone does not manifest certain pain behavior that in our culture counts as pain, it does not necessarily mean that he is not experiencing pain.
Notes on: P F Strawson’s “Person”
Notes on: P F Strawson’s “Person”
How is it that one can ascribe states of consciousness to others? How is it that one can ascribe to oneself not on the basis of observation, the every same thing that others may have on the basis of observation, a logically adequate reason for ascribing to one?
The proposition all experiences of person P are causally dependent on the state of a single body B is false. All experiences of person P does not mean the same thing as all experiences are contingently dependent on a certain body B. One must be referring to a class of experiences i.e. my experiences of which some are dependent on the body B. There is something logically non-transferable in our general scheme of thought. Our experiences are referred to as ours just as how experiences or states of experiences are identified with some person. “States or experiences, one might say, owe their identity as particulars to the identity of the person whose states or experiences they are (p. 105-6)” and as such, they must be possessed or ascribable.
“It is a necessary condition of one’s ascribing states of consciousness, experiences to oneself in the way one does that one should also ascribe them to others who are not oneself (p. 107).” One can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself only if one can ascribe them to others which is possible only if one can identify other subjects of experience. This is not possible if we can identify them only as subjects of experience or some possessor of states of consciousness (p. 107). This problem is based on a Cartesian mode of understanding others. It seems to be like this if we accept Descartes way of thinking that 1) there is the mind/body. 2) all experiences in the mind stand in a special relation to the body. 3) So this body (call M) is unique holder of its experiences amongst other bodies say X Y Z. Another subject also have this mind/body, special relation of his experiences…unique amongst others... (from p 108).
Strawson thinks that the concept of a pure ego is a concept that cannot exist as a primary form of Pure subject which accompanies all intuitions and perception. The word I does not refer to the pure subject (something apart from the body i.e. that the pure subject precedes the ego – stawson calls this primitiveness of the concept of the person). It also does not mean that the “I” does not refer at all (something it seems that is said by Wittgenstein) but that it refers because I am a person among others. Strawson argues that the concept of a person is logically prior to that of an individual consciousness. One must have the concept of a person before one can start to collate and infer that he has an ‘individual’ consciousness. So Pure consciousness, ego-substance etc. or even it seems, mind prior to the body is illusory (p. 109). The concept of the person Strawson says is not to be analyzed as that of an animated body or of an embodied anima (p. 109) – i.e. the way philosophers Kant, Descartes, Hume etc. conceives of the person but the concept of the person should be understood as the concept of a type of entity such that both predicates ascribing states of consciousness and predicates ascribing corporeal characteristics , physical situation etc. are equally applicable to an individual entity of that type. There is simply no sense in talking about a subject in P-Predicates ( predicates ascribing states of consciousness e.g. is smiling or is happy) and M-Predicates (applied to material bodies e.g. is in the room). What is the criteria of the ascription of P-Predicates? The thing is, to be able to ascribe P-Predicates to something, one must be able to observe the relation or correlation between the thing and P-Predicates and the criteria is namely, “our own (p. 110).” It seems that my interpretation is correct because a few lines after, Strawson writes: “There is no sense in the idea of ascribing states of consciousness to oneself, or at all, unless the ascriber already knows how to ascribe at least some states of consciousness to others. So he cannot (or cannot generally argue) “from his own case” to conclusions about how to do this; for unless he already knows how to do this, he has no conception of his own case or any case (i.e., any subject of experiences) (p. 110).” We need to accept this in order to explain the existence of the conceptual scheme in terms of which the Cartesian question/problem/problem of skepticism/implications of mind-body framework is posed.
The person based on my reading of Strawson seems to be that one is both a self-ascriber and an other- ascriber of such predicates and we must see every other as a self-ascriber. The conceptual schema of the mind/body split seems to have shifted and united in the person who is both a self-ascriber and an other-ascriber with the primary concept of ‘Person’ uniting all perception. “In order to understand this type of concept (both first and third person ascriptive use), one must acknowledge that there is a kind of predicate which is unambiguously and adequately ascribable both on the basis of observation of the subject of predicate and not on this basis – where the ascriber is also the subject.”
How is it that one can ascribe states of consciousness to others? How is it that one can ascribe to oneself not on the basis of observation, the every same thing that others may have on the basis of observation, a logically adequate reason for ascribing to one? How are states of consciousness possible?
This passage is indicative. “What I am suggesting is that it is easier to understand how we can see each other as persons if we think of the fact that we act and act on each other, and act in accordance with a common human nature. To see each other as persons” is a lot of things; but not a lot of separate and unconnected things. The class of P-predicates that I have moved into the center of the picture are not unconnectedly there, detached from others irrelevant to them. On the contrary, they are inextricably bound up with the others, interwoven with them. The topic of the mind does not divide into unconnected subjects (p. 112).”
This passage is indicative: “The point is, once more, that there is no sense in speaking of the individual consciousness just as such, of the individual subject of experience just as such: for there is no way of identifying such pure entities (p. 113).” Hence there is also no point in thinking about the philosophical problems of unity, of identity of particular consciousness of particular subject of perceptions etc (p. 114).
How is it that one can ascribe states of consciousness to others? How is it that one can ascribe to oneself not on the basis of observation, the every same thing that others may have on the basis of observation, a logically adequate reason for ascribing to one?
The proposition all experiences of person P are causally dependent on the state of a single body B is false. All experiences of person P does not mean the same thing as all experiences are contingently dependent on a certain body B. One must be referring to a class of experiences i.e. my experiences of which some are dependent on the body B. There is something logically non-transferable in our general scheme of thought. Our experiences are referred to as ours just as how experiences or states of experiences are identified with some person. “States or experiences, one might say, owe their identity as particulars to the identity of the person whose states or experiences they are (p. 105-6)” and as such, they must be possessed or ascribable.
“It is a necessary condition of one’s ascribing states of consciousness, experiences to oneself in the way one does that one should also ascribe them to others who are not oneself (p. 107).” One can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself only if one can ascribe them to others which is possible only if one can identify other subjects of experience. This is not possible if we can identify them only as subjects of experience or some possessor of states of consciousness (p. 107). This problem is based on a Cartesian mode of understanding others. It seems to be like this if we accept Descartes way of thinking that 1) there is the mind/body. 2) all experiences in the mind stand in a special relation to the body. 3) So this body (call M) is unique holder of its experiences amongst other bodies say X Y Z. Another subject also have this mind/body, special relation of his experiences…unique amongst others... (from p 108).
Strawson thinks that the concept of a pure ego is a concept that cannot exist as a primary form of Pure subject which accompanies all intuitions and perception. The word I does not refer to the pure subject (something apart from the body i.e. that the pure subject precedes the ego – stawson calls this primitiveness of the concept of the person). It also does not mean that the “I” does not refer at all (something it seems that is said by Wittgenstein) but that it refers because I am a person among others. Strawson argues that the concept of a person is logically prior to that of an individual consciousness. One must have the concept of a person before one can start to collate and infer that he has an ‘individual’ consciousness. So Pure consciousness, ego-substance etc. or even it seems, mind prior to the body is illusory (p. 109). The concept of the person Strawson says is not to be analyzed as that of an animated body or of an embodied anima (p. 109) – i.e. the way philosophers Kant, Descartes, Hume etc. conceives of the person but the concept of the person should be understood as the concept of a type of entity such that both predicates ascribing states of consciousness and predicates ascribing corporeal characteristics , physical situation etc. are equally applicable to an individual entity of that type. There is simply no sense in talking about a subject in P-Predicates ( predicates ascribing states of consciousness e.g. is smiling or is happy) and M-Predicates (applied to material bodies e.g. is in the room). What is the criteria of the ascription of P-Predicates? The thing is, to be able to ascribe P-Predicates to something, one must be able to observe the relation or correlation between the thing and P-Predicates and the criteria is namely, “our own (p. 110).” It seems that my interpretation is correct because a few lines after, Strawson writes: “There is no sense in the idea of ascribing states of consciousness to oneself, or at all, unless the ascriber already knows how to ascribe at least some states of consciousness to others. So he cannot (or cannot generally argue) “from his own case” to conclusions about how to do this; for unless he already knows how to do this, he has no conception of his own case or any case (i.e., any subject of experiences) (p. 110).” We need to accept this in order to explain the existence of the conceptual scheme in terms of which the Cartesian question/problem/problem of skepticism/implications of mind-body framework is posed.
The person based on my reading of Strawson seems to be that one is both a self-ascriber and an other- ascriber of such predicates and we must see every other as a self-ascriber. The conceptual schema of the mind/body split seems to have shifted and united in the person who is both a self-ascriber and an other-ascriber with the primary concept of ‘Person’ uniting all perception. “In order to understand this type of concept (both first and third person ascriptive use), one must acknowledge that there is a kind of predicate which is unambiguously and adequately ascribable both on the basis of observation of the subject of predicate and not on this basis – where the ascriber is also the subject.”
How is it that one can ascribe states of consciousness to others? How is it that one can ascribe to oneself not on the basis of observation, the every same thing that others may have on the basis of observation, a logically adequate reason for ascribing to one? How are states of consciousness possible?
This passage is indicative. “What I am suggesting is that it is easier to understand how we can see each other as persons if we think of the fact that we act and act on each other, and act in accordance with a common human nature. To see each other as persons” is a lot of things; but not a lot of separate and unconnected things. The class of P-predicates that I have moved into the center of the picture are not unconnectedly there, detached from others irrelevant to them. On the contrary, they are inextricably bound up with the others, interwoven with them. The topic of the mind does not divide into unconnected subjects (p. 112).”
This passage is indicative: “The point is, once more, that there is no sense in speaking of the individual consciousness just as such, of the individual subject of experience just as such: for there is no way of identifying such pure entities (p. 113).” Hence there is also no point in thinking about the philosophical problems of unity, of identity of particular consciousness of particular subject of perceptions etc (p. 114).
Notes: On Gilbert Ryle’s essay Descartes’s myth
Notes: On Gilbert Ryle’s essay Descartes’s myth
Gilbert Ryle I think does a good job in the filtering and clarification of Descartes’s theory he calls the “official theory” which does a huge logical categorical mistake of disjoining or even conjoining two things (mind and body). For this reason, “She came home in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair” sounds as ridiculous as “she came home either in a flood of tears or else in a sedan chair.” Similarly, it is senseless to conjoin or disjoin the phrase “there occurs mental processes” and “there occurs physical processes.” Gyle maintains that it is perfectly proper to say in one logical tone of voice that there exist minds and that there also exist bodies. These expressions do not indicate two different species of existence. They simply indicate two different sense of what existence means. Existence is not a singular generic term.
What Descartes did was to place a binary between the mind and body within categories of ‘state’ ‘process’ ‘change’ etc. Hence for instance, minds are things, but they are different things from bodies. Mental processes are causes and effects but they are different causes and effects from bodies. It began from the posing of the question of how minds can influence and be influenced by bodies? For instance, how can a mental process such as willing cause spatial movements like our tongue to move? The body is hence casted as an engine governed by an internal engine i.e. the mind that is invisible, inaudible and has no size or weight. Bodies are rigidly governed by mechanical laws in the physical world of a deterministic system but the mental world by non-mechanical causes since it is not governed by any physical laws. The existence of what has physical existence is that it exists in space and time. The body exists in a common public field/space governed by mechanical laws whereas the mental processes/consciousness exists in an insulated field called the mind. The mind can cause the body to act in certain ways and there exist causal mechanisms and laws that facilitate bodies to cause bodies to act in certain ways. Only in the medium of the physical world can the mind of one person make a difference to the mind of the other.
Mental processes such as thinking feeling willing perceiving doubting etc, exists only in the mind. The mental processes established within an insulated capsule or made by Descartes to exist in the mind results in the hypotheses that so long as the mind thinks, the mind exists. He will know and will be conscious of it. The mind is the measure of itself it seems. It is absurd to say that one does not know what one thinks. The person and his mind will always be conscious of his present state and workings of the mind. Consciousness and introspection cannot be confused. If he thinks, he knows and he (the mind), exists. But sense perception can be confused. One is always unsure about what the external world of bodies give to the mind (sense perception). The second problem is that because each mind is an insulated capsule, one can only make problematic inferences to other minds. There is no directness or causal interaction between different minds it. Interaction has to be mediated by bodily behavior which when sensed and perceived always poses a problem or skeptical doubt. Absolute solitude Gyle says is the ineluctable destiny of the soul. All mental thinking intending doubting etc refers to his own occult state of consciousness and there can be no effective use of mental concepts to describe other minds. This absurdity Gyle asserts is a Descartes’ categorical mistake of presenting mental life as if it belongs to one category and bodily ones another for the purpose of explaining how the mind can infer the body and how the body can infer the mind – the logical mould or frame that Descartes uses. To do embark on such an explanation, Descartes had to set up such a binary which in the end gave birth to the problem of freedom of will. For if there are mechanical causes of corporeal movements and mental causes of corporeal movements then what laws govern the mental movements? Are there laws? Should there be laws? A.k.a. freedom of the will problem: “the problem of how to reconcile the hypothesis that minds are to be described in terms drawn from the categories of mechanics with the knowledge that higher grade human conduct is not a piece with the behavior of machines (p. 55).”
Gilbert Ryle I think does a good job in the filtering and clarification of Descartes’s theory he calls the “official theory” which does a huge logical categorical mistake of disjoining or even conjoining two things (mind and body). For this reason, “She came home in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair” sounds as ridiculous as “she came home either in a flood of tears or else in a sedan chair.” Similarly, it is senseless to conjoin or disjoin the phrase “there occurs mental processes” and “there occurs physical processes.” Gyle maintains that it is perfectly proper to say in one logical tone of voice that there exist minds and that there also exist bodies. These expressions do not indicate two different species of existence. They simply indicate two different sense of what existence means. Existence is not a singular generic term.
What Descartes did was to place a binary between the mind and body within categories of ‘state’ ‘process’ ‘change’ etc. Hence for instance, minds are things, but they are different things from bodies. Mental processes are causes and effects but they are different causes and effects from bodies. It began from the posing of the question of how minds can influence and be influenced by bodies? For instance, how can a mental process such as willing cause spatial movements like our tongue to move? The body is hence casted as an engine governed by an internal engine i.e. the mind that is invisible, inaudible and has no size or weight. Bodies are rigidly governed by mechanical laws in the physical world of a deterministic system but the mental world by non-mechanical causes since it is not governed by any physical laws. The existence of what has physical existence is that it exists in space and time. The body exists in a common public field/space governed by mechanical laws whereas the mental processes/consciousness exists in an insulated field called the mind. The mind can cause the body to act in certain ways and there exist causal mechanisms and laws that facilitate bodies to cause bodies to act in certain ways. Only in the medium of the physical world can the mind of one person make a difference to the mind of the other.
Mental processes such as thinking feeling willing perceiving doubting etc, exists only in the mind. The mental processes established within an insulated capsule or made by Descartes to exist in the mind results in the hypotheses that so long as the mind thinks, the mind exists. He will know and will be conscious of it. The mind is the measure of itself it seems. It is absurd to say that one does not know what one thinks. The person and his mind will always be conscious of his present state and workings of the mind. Consciousness and introspection cannot be confused. If he thinks, he knows and he (the mind), exists. But sense perception can be confused. One is always unsure about what the external world of bodies give to the mind (sense perception). The second problem is that because each mind is an insulated capsule, one can only make problematic inferences to other minds. There is no directness or causal interaction between different minds it. Interaction has to be mediated by bodily behavior which when sensed and perceived always poses a problem or skeptical doubt. Absolute solitude Gyle says is the ineluctable destiny of the soul. All mental thinking intending doubting etc refers to his own occult state of consciousness and there can be no effective use of mental concepts to describe other minds. This absurdity Gyle asserts is a Descartes’ categorical mistake of presenting mental life as if it belongs to one category and bodily ones another for the purpose of explaining how the mind can infer the body and how the body can infer the mind – the logical mould or frame that Descartes uses. To do embark on such an explanation, Descartes had to set up such a binary which in the end gave birth to the problem of freedom of will. For if there are mechanical causes of corporeal movements and mental causes of corporeal movements then what laws govern the mental movements? Are there laws? Should there be laws? A.k.a. freedom of the will problem: “the problem of how to reconcile the hypothesis that minds are to be described in terms drawn from the categories of mechanics with the knowledge that higher grade human conduct is not a piece with the behavior of machines (p. 55).”
Notes and reflections on: Sydney Shoemaker from “How is Self Knowledge Possible?”
Notes and reflections on: Sydney Shoemaker from “How is Self Knowledge Possible?”
This paper is to me an eureka moment that gives the impression of dispelling some redundant philosophical concerns. The usual philosophical skepticism is that it is I know P because I see P. But how can I know that P? How can I be sure that P? (there are many reasons why I cannot be sure, philosophically) or I am in pain. But how can I be sure that I am in pain? What justifies that I am in pain? My perception that I am in pain… I observe that I am in pain therefore I am in pain. This may be a coincidence, an accident that statements asserted are true one can’t know for sure unless they are justified and then, the philosophical or epistemological question becomes how can they be justified?
The point Shoemaker is trying to make is that the making of first person psychological statements can be justified simply by the fact that statement is true. Perception is always from a point of view. There is always a contingent relation R such that for any normal person X if we know X stands in relation R to Y, we are normally justified in concluding on this basis of this knowledge that X has beliefs of a certain kind about Y. (For example (as it seems to be the case Shoemaker is trying to make that): It is not that a person is in pain because we observe that he is pain therefore it is justifiable that he is in pain and hence we have some certain degree that he is in pain).
Shoemaker says that for first person psychological states, there is 2 categories. (1) Corrigible. (2) Incorrigible. (1) Corrigible first person psychological states are for instance, memory statements, statements of material objects and states of affairs. (2) Incorrigible first person psychological statements are private experiences or mental events such as pain statements mental images and reports of thoughts. If a person says these (2), it is does not make any sense to say that he is mistaken or false. For example, if I say, I am in pain, it is ridiculous to say that my assertion may not be true, I may not be in pain, I may be deceived by something or I am delusional. A sincere assertion is a logically sufficient condition of its being true and that such a statement has been asserted with apparent sincerity is itself a criteria evidence that it is being true. Corrigible (1) states are those that can be false by reference to some other criteria for truth of statements. So we can make some perceptual statements on states of affairs sincerely and truthfully. For instance, we do think we see a tree out there.
Shoemaker argues that we have direct aceess to facts that are criteria evidence for truth. When one makes statements about oneself, one seems to know their truth in the most direct way. It does not seem that we are making some inductive statements. So if I am saying I have X experience, the truth of this statement is not something that is inferred. We don’t make it based on some inductive indicator on some fact. It is rather, the truth of the whole statement and not just its non personal components. For instance, I see an eucalyptus there on the hill must be based on the criteria of its being there of me that I see an eucalyptus there on the hill and not simply on the criteria for “its being there” therefore there is a eucalyptus on the hill. It is the entire first person statement that is true and that is the criterion of truth.
Being in a position to know something without evidence can be said to consist in having a property, a relational property (standing in R to something) that one might not have had. In giving a justification for a statement of one’s own is not simply claiming that one’s statement is justified, but is trying to show that it must be possible for others to see that it is (or it is not). It is senseless to say I am in pain. I am aware of something called pain. That these 2 positions are dichotomous and different and not together and that one is not in this exact position when one says one is in pain that there are seemingly two separate positions to unify. E.g. I am (entity a), observing a pain (entity b). It is absurd to say that I have a headache but I am not entitled to say I have a headache for I have no evidence that I have a headache. How am I to know? It is nonsense to speak from inductive grounds on the basis of the testimony of others that I am in pain. There is no logical possibility of my being justified in thinking that I am in pain so it is senseless to suppose that there is something other than what is logically independent of my thinking that justifies my thinking that I am in pain and senseless and pointless to ask what this justification is e.g. it is absurd to say I see something because I can see myself seeing something. It is simply that I am seeing something.
The question is then (it seems) is how is it that sincere statements can be true (somewhat by itself or in itself)? How is it that something can be true when sincerely asserted (assuming it is not that the person is acting he is sincerely asserting something) for it is generally the case that when a person claims to see an object of a certain kind, his eyes indeed are open and directed toward an object of that kind. Shoemaker states that facts hold if (1) bodily facts in question are criterion for truth of statements and that (2) these statements are made on the basis of these bodily facts because the speaker observes and has established that these facts hold. Philosophers though have the tendency to think that sincere and confident perceptual and memory statements are generally true contingentlyand not necessarily. So it is only contingently true of me that I generally utter the words “I see a tree” in a confident and assertive manner when my eyes are open and directed to a tree.
Shoemaker argues that this is not an epistemological problem but something that it seems is a basic human capacity (p. 123-124) that humans have the capacity to be trained in the use of language. The result of this training is that human beings will make similar linguistic responses in similar situations. If this capacity and training as part of a human nature were not true, then language would not be possible. What defines the correct response to the training in the use of a word ad what also defines what is to count as the correct use of the word, is the typical response of those to whom the training is given. The uniform effect of a certain kind of training is a tendency to utter certain sounds while exhibiting the behavioural manifestations of pain and not to exhibit them when experiencing e.g. well being and contendeness. Human beings can be taught “new pain behaviour” (Wittgenstein). Hence, another general fact of human nature is that human beings are capable of being trained in the use of language or in the making of sounds and gestures that as a result of their being given a certain training, there will exist in the behaviour correlations (R) that make it possible for uttering of certain sounds by members of a group of human beings to be regarded as the making of first person perceptual and memory statements. If human beings did not have this capacity, they would not be able to make perceptual and memory statements at all, and cannot be said to have beliefs that are expressible in such statements (p. 124). Human beings are taught to utter certain sounds e.g. I see a tree when certain conditions are satisfied e.g. when the speaker’s eyes are open and directed toward a tree, and utter them without establishing that the conditions are satisfied. Hence is is not that a human being makes statements I see a tree because he has established that such conditions that there is a tree is satisfied. It is a natural phenomenon not a epistemological problem. Truth statements are true because we are trained that stating it in such a way, we are taught that it is true. Hence, shoemaker nargues that first person psychological statements cannot be made on the basis of the criterion for their truth. They are a necessary truth and not a contingent one. It is a fact of nature that human beings can be so trained that they are able to make such statements. The result of training is an ability to say certain things under certain conditions without first ascertaining whether those conditions are satisfied. It is the result of training then it seems that we are even able to have and utter first-person psychological statements.
This paper is to me an eureka moment that gives the impression of dispelling some redundant philosophical concerns. The usual philosophical skepticism is that it is I know P because I see P. But how can I know that P? How can I be sure that P? (there are many reasons why I cannot be sure, philosophically) or I am in pain. But how can I be sure that I am in pain? What justifies that I am in pain? My perception that I am in pain… I observe that I am in pain therefore I am in pain. This may be a coincidence, an accident that statements asserted are true one can’t know for sure unless they are justified and then, the philosophical or epistemological question becomes how can they be justified?
The point Shoemaker is trying to make is that the making of first person psychological statements can be justified simply by the fact that statement is true. Perception is always from a point of view. There is always a contingent relation R such that for any normal person X if we know X stands in relation R to Y, we are normally justified in concluding on this basis of this knowledge that X has beliefs of a certain kind about Y. (For example (as it seems to be the case Shoemaker is trying to make that): It is not that a person is in pain because we observe that he is pain therefore it is justifiable that he is in pain and hence we have some certain degree that he is in pain).
Shoemaker says that for first person psychological states, there is 2 categories. (1) Corrigible. (2) Incorrigible. (1) Corrigible first person psychological states are for instance, memory statements, statements of material objects and states of affairs. (2) Incorrigible first person psychological statements are private experiences or mental events such as pain statements mental images and reports of thoughts. If a person says these (2), it is does not make any sense to say that he is mistaken or false. For example, if I say, I am in pain, it is ridiculous to say that my assertion may not be true, I may not be in pain, I may be deceived by something or I am delusional. A sincere assertion is a logically sufficient condition of its being true and that such a statement has been asserted with apparent sincerity is itself a criteria evidence that it is being true. Corrigible (1) states are those that can be false by reference to some other criteria for truth of statements. So we can make some perceptual statements on states of affairs sincerely and truthfully. For instance, we do think we see a tree out there.
Shoemaker argues that we have direct aceess to facts that are criteria evidence for truth. When one makes statements about oneself, one seems to know their truth in the most direct way. It does not seem that we are making some inductive statements. So if I am saying I have X experience, the truth of this statement is not something that is inferred. We don’t make it based on some inductive indicator on some fact. It is rather, the truth of the whole statement and not just its non personal components. For instance, I see an eucalyptus there on the hill must be based on the criteria of its being there of me that I see an eucalyptus there on the hill and not simply on the criteria for “its being there” therefore there is a eucalyptus on the hill. It is the entire first person statement that is true and that is the criterion of truth.
Being in a position to know something without evidence can be said to consist in having a property, a relational property (standing in R to something) that one might not have had. In giving a justification for a statement of one’s own is not simply claiming that one’s statement is justified, but is trying to show that it must be possible for others to see that it is (or it is not). It is senseless to say I am in pain. I am aware of something called pain. That these 2 positions are dichotomous and different and not together and that one is not in this exact position when one says one is in pain that there are seemingly two separate positions to unify. E.g. I am (entity a), observing a pain (entity b). It is absurd to say that I have a headache but I am not entitled to say I have a headache for I have no evidence that I have a headache. How am I to know? It is nonsense to speak from inductive grounds on the basis of the testimony of others that I am in pain. There is no logical possibility of my being justified in thinking that I am in pain so it is senseless to suppose that there is something other than what is logically independent of my thinking that justifies my thinking that I am in pain and senseless and pointless to ask what this justification is e.g. it is absurd to say I see something because I can see myself seeing something. It is simply that I am seeing something.
The question is then (it seems) is how is it that sincere statements can be true (somewhat by itself or in itself)? How is it that something can be true when sincerely asserted (assuming it is not that the person is acting he is sincerely asserting something) for it is generally the case that when a person claims to see an object of a certain kind, his eyes indeed are open and directed toward an object of that kind. Shoemaker states that facts hold if (1) bodily facts in question are criterion for truth of statements and that (2) these statements are made on the basis of these bodily facts because the speaker observes and has established that these facts hold. Philosophers though have the tendency to think that sincere and confident perceptual and memory statements are generally true contingentlyand not necessarily. So it is only contingently true of me that I generally utter the words “I see a tree” in a confident and assertive manner when my eyes are open and directed to a tree.
Shoemaker argues that this is not an epistemological problem but something that it seems is a basic human capacity (p. 123-124) that humans have the capacity to be trained in the use of language. The result of this training is that human beings will make similar linguistic responses in similar situations. If this capacity and training as part of a human nature were not true, then language would not be possible. What defines the correct response to the training in the use of a word ad what also defines what is to count as the correct use of the word, is the typical response of those to whom the training is given. The uniform effect of a certain kind of training is a tendency to utter certain sounds while exhibiting the behavioural manifestations of pain and not to exhibit them when experiencing e.g. well being and contendeness. Human beings can be taught “new pain behaviour” (Wittgenstein). Hence, another general fact of human nature is that human beings are capable of being trained in the use of language or in the making of sounds and gestures that as a result of their being given a certain training, there will exist in the behaviour correlations (R) that make it possible for uttering of certain sounds by members of a group of human beings to be regarded as the making of first person perceptual and memory statements. If human beings did not have this capacity, they would not be able to make perceptual and memory statements at all, and cannot be said to have beliefs that are expressible in such statements (p. 124). Human beings are taught to utter certain sounds e.g. I see a tree when certain conditions are satisfied e.g. when the speaker’s eyes are open and directed toward a tree, and utter them without establishing that the conditions are satisfied. Hence is is not that a human being makes statements I see a tree because he has established that such conditions that there is a tree is satisfied. It is a natural phenomenon not a epistemological problem. Truth statements are true because we are trained that stating it in such a way, we are taught that it is true. Hence, shoemaker nargues that first person psychological statements cannot be made on the basis of the criterion for their truth. They are a necessary truth and not a contingent one. It is a fact of nature that human beings can be so trained that they are able to make such statements. The result of training is an ability to say certain things under certain conditions without first ascertaining whether those conditions are satisfied. It is the result of training then it seems that we are even able to have and utter first-person psychological statements.
Notes: Revisiting Decartes’s theory of mind-body.
Notes: Revisiting Decartes’s theory of mind-body.
In a letter to Elizabeth on 28th June 1643, Descartes wrote that people who do not philosophize do conceive of a certain the union of the body and soul/mind. The metaphysician Descartes however obviously do not think so. The body and the mind are two distinct entities. The attribute or essence of the body is its extension. The modes of this attribute of the body includes shape, motion, position and duration etc.
The attribute or essence of the mind however is its thought or the act of thinking. The modes of thought include (1) perception and the “secondary modes” of perception include sensory perception, imagination, pure understanding and doubt. (2) Volition or will which modes include desire, assertion, denial, doubt etc. Because the essence of the mind is thought, so long as one thinks and have ideas of an apple or tree for instance, one is. Descartes theory sees knowledge and consisting in what we can perceive in our mind (although they may sometimes be prone to errors). One common error is that we think that pain or colour or the tree exists in the object itself out there. But this is quite false. Pain is often in “our minds” because recall, for Descartes, only that in thought or the mind that sensory perception occurs. Pain hence is a mode of thought – the essence of our mind – not body. This is the same for colours. One cannot say that one perceive colours in objects but they appear only as ideas of perception in our minds. This is why Descartes claims that “if I judge that the wax exists from the fact that I see it, clearly this entails that I myself also exist (p 24).” He says this only because it logically follows from the fact that because the essence of thought is thinking whose modes are having those stated in (1) and (2), then so long as one thinks about something, or has a mental state about something, one can infer that one exists, that one is thinking. I think, therefore, I exist.
The body and mind are two separate entities. Recall again the body’s attribute is extension. Extension is divisible. Thought is indivisible. For instance, when you amputate an arm, it is removed from your body but your mind can still have an indivisible idea of the body in its totality with the arm. Also, we can know the body, its extension only by perceiving this extension in our mind. Descartes seem to always think that bodies cause or in his words in the Sixth meditation “produces” these ideas (p 24) in our minds and our knowledge of these ideas of these things lie in the ideas in our minds themselves. There are many “bodies out there” (including ours) that can cause us to have such perceptions of ideas. We get ideas of these other extensions/bodies from our own body that we can never be separated from and from which we feel all our appetites and emotions in; pain and pleasure in. We do not get these ideas from other bodies but our own. Hence we can distinguish other bodies from ours that gives us our ideas and that these ideas are superior to our body.
…simply by knowing that I exist and seeing at the same time that absolutely nothing else belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing, I can infer correctly that my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking thing… I can have a clear and distinct idea of myself insofar as I am simply a thinking, non-extended thing (p. 26).
In a letter to Elizabeth on 28th June 1643, Descartes wrote that people who do not philosophize do conceive of a certain the union of the body and soul/mind. The metaphysician Descartes however obviously do not think so. The body and the mind are two distinct entities. The attribute or essence of the body is its extension. The modes of this attribute of the body includes shape, motion, position and duration etc.
The attribute or essence of the mind however is its thought or the act of thinking. The modes of thought include (1) perception and the “secondary modes” of perception include sensory perception, imagination, pure understanding and doubt. (2) Volition or will which modes include desire, assertion, denial, doubt etc. Because the essence of the mind is thought, so long as one thinks and have ideas of an apple or tree for instance, one is. Descartes theory sees knowledge and consisting in what we can perceive in our mind (although they may sometimes be prone to errors). One common error is that we think that pain or colour or the tree exists in the object itself out there. But this is quite false. Pain is often in “our minds” because recall, for Descartes, only that in thought or the mind that sensory perception occurs. Pain hence is a mode of thought – the essence of our mind – not body. This is the same for colours. One cannot say that one perceive colours in objects but they appear only as ideas of perception in our minds. This is why Descartes claims that “if I judge that the wax exists from the fact that I see it, clearly this entails that I myself also exist (p 24).” He says this only because it logically follows from the fact that because the essence of thought is thinking whose modes are having those stated in (1) and (2), then so long as one thinks about something, or has a mental state about something, one can infer that one exists, that one is thinking. I think, therefore, I exist.
The body and mind are two separate entities. Recall again the body’s attribute is extension. Extension is divisible. Thought is indivisible. For instance, when you amputate an arm, it is removed from your body but your mind can still have an indivisible idea of the body in its totality with the arm. Also, we can know the body, its extension only by perceiving this extension in our mind. Descartes seem to always think that bodies cause or in his words in the Sixth meditation “produces” these ideas (p 24) in our minds and our knowledge of these ideas of these things lie in the ideas in our minds themselves. There are many “bodies out there” (including ours) that can cause us to have such perceptions of ideas. We get ideas of these other extensions/bodies from our own body that we can never be separated from and from which we feel all our appetites and emotions in; pain and pleasure in. We do not get these ideas from other bodies but our own. Hence we can distinguish other bodies from ours that gives us our ideas and that these ideas are superior to our body.
…simply by knowing that I exist and seeing at the same time that absolutely nothing else belongs to my nature or essence except that I am a thinking thing, I can infer correctly that my essence consists solely in the fact that I am a thinking thing… I can have a clear and distinct idea of myself insofar as I am simply a thinking, non-extended thing (p. 26).
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