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Beyond the Mind-Body Problem Paper delivered at The Mind as a Scientific Object: An Interdisciplinary
Conference. York University, Toronto, October 25-27 1996. An alternative
version of this material is appearing as "Monism, Dualism, Pluralism"
in Mind and Language. Wilfred Sellars once famously described philosophy as "the attempt to say how things, in the most general sense of the term, hang together, in the most general sense of the term." (Sellars, 1962). In the spirit of that suggestion, we can think of philosophy of mind as the attempt to say how minds hang together-how things fit to form minds, and how minds fit with other things. It can hardly be disputed that there are these kinds of fit; in that respect at least, the world is a coherent place. The philosophical challenge is to understand and elucidate that nature of the fit, such as it is. The mind-body debate in contemporary Anglo-American analytic philosophy is one among many discourses addressing this challenge. The mind-body debate reduces the general problem of fit to a very specific question: what is the ontological relationship between mental entities, on the one hand, and physical entities, on the other? It has developed a range of candidate answers to this question. These are the official "isms" familiar to any student of the debate: Cartesian dualism, central state materialism, functionalism, and so forth. A great deal of effort within the debate is taken up with detailed argument over the merits of these various positions as solutions to the problem of how mental and physical entities relate. In this paper, I will argue that the classical mind-body debate is propped
up by four deep assumptions. These assumptions are false, and for this
reason the orthodox mind-body debate cannot hope to solve its central problem.
The falsity of the assumptions entails dissolution of the classical problem
and a pluralist orientation concerning the relationship between the mental
and the physical. I will briefly describe this pluralism, and some implications
for the relationship between mind and science. Consider the various standard positions available within the contemporary
debate. Consider those positions solely insofar as they purport to specify
the ontological relationship of such mental entities as they deem to actually
exist, on one hand, to the physical entities, on the other. These positions
fall rather conveniently onto the following table:
Table 1. Generic positions in the contemporary mind-body debate. Rows correspond to the basic kinds of metaphysical relation mental entities might bear to physical entities. Columns correspond to "generic" positions on the mind-body relationship. Thus, baseline physicalism is the generic stance that mental entities are identical with, reducible to, realized by, supervenient upon and in causal interaction with physical entities. The official "isms" of the de bate are either generic positions or more specific positions obtained by adding further detail. For example, anomalous monism is a form of non-reductive physicalism which supplements that basic position with various theses such as (i) that the identity is token rather than type, (ii) that the entities in question are events, and (iii) that there are no psychophysical laws. The four assumptions pervading the debate can now be read off the form of the table. The first is implicit in the fact that the table has only five main rows. The assumption is that the relations of identity, reduction, realization, supervenience and causation are collectively adequate for a metaphysical account of the mind-body relationship. No other metaphysical relation enters into the debate, and it is assumed that this does not hamper the discussion. Indeed, the question of the collective adequacy of these five relations never even arises. The second assumption is implicit in the fact that a generic position is specified by placing ticks or crosses in appropriate boxes. A tick indicates that a given relation obtains between mental entities; a cross, that it does not obtain. The assumption is that a given relation obtains between all mental entities or between none of them; that, in other words, the mental is relationally homogeneous with respect to the physical. One or another of the generic positions is true for all mental entities. The third assumption is closely related. Mental entities are taken to be relationally homogeneous because they are also taken to be ontologically homogeneous. That is to say, mental entities are assumed to all belong to a single ontological kind for the purposes of understanding their relationship to the physical. They are taken to be all essentially modifications of mental substance, or all essentially causal role-players, or all essentially "first person," etc.. This explains why a single account of the ontological relationship is taken to be sufficient for all mental entities. Note that the claim here is not that the debate recognizes no ontological differences among mental entities whatsoever. Indeed it does. However, such differences as it does recognize generally make no difference to how mental entities of these various sorts relate to the physical. The fourth assumption is also implicit in the fact that the table specifies
generic positions by means of ticks and crosses in relevant squares. To
place a tick in a square of the table is to indicate that any given mental
entity stands in that relation to the physical. The assumption is that
mental entities are ontological simples, as far as the mind-body
problem is concerned. When describing how mental entities relate to the
physical, we don't have to "look inside" those entities; we can
just specify the relations that the mental entity as a whole bears
to the physical. We don't have to first articulate the internal
ontological structure of mental entities, and then ask how the various
ontological components relate to the physical. Mental entities might have
internal ontological structure, but that structure is of no direct relevance
for the mind-body problem. The claim is that these four assumptions pervade the debate. They are largely responsible for its basic structure. The fact that the official isms are the standard reference points indicates that the assumptions are widely shared. Subscribing to all four assumptions makes it inevitable that the standard positions will be considered plausible accounts of the mind-body relationship. It is not being claimed that all actual participants in the contemporary debate make all these assumptions in naive and unqualified form. Indeed, it is easy to think of exceptions. For example, in a famous paper Frank Jackson argued that qualia cannot be subsumed within a broadly physicalist approach to the ontology of mind. Unlike other aspects of mind, qualia are epiphenomenal. Implicit in this position was the claim that there is no single solution to the mind-body problem. Qualia deserve one account, other aspects of mind deserve another. This amounts to rejection of the ontological and relational homogeneity assumptions. The existence of such counterexamples does not disprove the generalization
that the assumptions are widely shared in the debate. If anything, they
illustrate the extent to which the generalization is valid. Jackson's case
is interesting precisely because it goes against the grain. Jackson himself
only reluctantly conceded that qualia were exceptions to the general truth
of physicalism. Critics of Jackson's position were overwhelmingly those
who believed that no such exception need be made-that, in other words,
the ontological and relational homogeneity assumptions can be maintained. Why should we believe that all four assumptions are false? The argument
proceeds as follows. At least one kind of mental entity, namely beliefs,
are ontologically complex in a way that is relevant to their relationship
to the physical. Therefore, the simplicity assumption is false. Describing
the fit between beliefs and the physical requires reference to the metaphysical
relation of institution; therefore, the assumption of sufficiency of the
five standard relations suffice is false. At least some mental entities
are relevantly dissimilar to beliefs; therefore the two homogeneity assumptions
are false. What are beliefs? Within the classic mind-body debate, there are basically three kinds of answer. The first, given by dualists and idealists, is that beliefs are states ("modifications") of some inherently non-physical mental substance. The second kind of answer, given in various ways by physicalists, is that beliefs are states of the body, and the brain in particular. Both these answers usually maintain that beliefs are representations (capable of) causing the believer to behave in certain ways. The third kind of answer, given by behaviorists, is that beliefs are not inner representational/causal states of any kind. Rather, they are dispositions to behaviour. These answers are examples of what Arthur Collins has called "constitutive analyses." They are attempts to specify what beliefs are, in the sense of providing an account of the ontological nature of beliefs. Collins has advanced a powerful argument purporting to demonstrate that all constitutive analyses are misguided.[1] Beliefs are not things standing in need of any kind of ontological description. If this is right, every position in the standard mind-body debate has from the outset misconceived the nature of belief and the ontology of mind more generally. The argument begins with a version of Moore's paradox. Utterances of the form "I believe that p, but p's truth is an open question" are incoherent, even though the two components are compatible (they could both be true). The apparent paradox is resolved by recognizing that in saying "I believe that p" you are asserting or taking a stand on p, and you therefore cannot also maintain that p is an open question. Now, constitutive analyses identify a belief with some thing (brain state, disposition, or whatever). Call this thing "B". Clearly, the existence of B and the truth of p are separate issues. Therefore, one might report the existence of B without asserting p. However, since B is the belief, to report the existence of B is to claim to believe p-and that, as we just saw, is a way of asserting p. One cannot assert p without asserting p. It seems that something has to give. According to Collins, we must surrender the constitutive analysis: The state of believing that p can be explicated as an epistemic state, that of being at risk about p. A person who believes that p is a person who stands to the right or wrong as p is true or false. But this "state" cannot be given a constitution, mental or physical, internal or external, because, if it were, we would immediately be able to report that the state is present without taking a stand on p. ((Collins, 1994) p.943) Beliefs are not to be given constitutive analyses but rather what Collins calls "logical" analyses. A logical analysis explains the logic of belief ascriptions rather than the ontological nature of beliefs. "I believe that p" is not a report of the existence of some entity, the belief; rather, it is equivalent to a disjunction: "p, or I am much mistaken". There is room for debate over the proper lesson to be drawn from Collins'
argument. I take it to have demonstrated that whatever the belief that
p is, it cannot be something which might exist independently of the believer's
taking a stand on p. In other words, believing that p essentially involves
commitment to p. This is why claiming to believe p is a way of asserting
p. Any adequate ontology of belief must respect this fact. Collins' argument
establishes a problem, not for any constitutive analysis whatsoever, but
for any constitutive analysis which separates the belief that p from commitment
to p, such that it is then possible the belief could exist without the
commitment. What, more precisely, is the relationship between believing that p and being committed to p? The most sophisticated discussion of these issues is that provided by Robert Brandom in his book Making it Explicit (Brandom, 1994). Much that he says there suggests that beliefs simply are commitments of a certain sort. For example, The inferentially articulated commitments expressed by assertional speech acts are doxastic commitments. Much of the theoretical work done by the concept of belief can be done instead by appeal to this sort of deontic status, and to the practical scorekeeping attitudes of acknowledging or undertaking such commitments. (xv) The "theoretical and explanatory work" done by the concept of belief includes playing central roles in theoretical accounts of phenomena such as knowledge, perception, and action. In order to know that p, for example, one must believe that p. Brandom's case for a close relationship between belief and doxastic (assertional) commitment is based on his success in two projects. The first is elaboration of the notion of doxastic commitment. The second is demonstrating that doxastic commitments can be called upon to do the theoretical work of beliefs. Brandom provides illuminating accounts of a wide range of belief-related phenomena within a single integrated framework by invoking doxastic commitments, and attitudes towards them, wherever one might be tempted to invoke the ordinary notion of belief. These considerations suggest that belief should be identified with commitments on much the same basis as, say, lightning was identified with electrical discharges. Somewhat surprisingly, Brandom avoids this move. His statements of the relationship between beliefs and commitments always delicately avoid outright identification. Why? Because, in Brandom's opinion, the fit between beliefs and commitments is, in a variety of ways, not close enough to warrant identification. For example, 'belief' may simply be ambiguous between a sense in which one believes what one is prepared to avow and a sense in which one also believes what one ought rationally to believe, as a consequence of what one is prepared to avow... An unambiguous, univocal technical term 'doxastic commitment' is introduced, which comprises both commitments one is prepared to avow and commitments that follow from those one acknowledges. But attention to the attitudes in terms of which those deontic statuses are explained makes it possible also to distinguish clearly between these two kinds of commitment, as 'belief'-talk does not. (196) Since talk of commitments and attitudes towards them actually provides superior accounts of belief-related phenomena, belief talk is eliminable in favor of commitment-talk: The proposal is accordingly not to analyze belief in terms of commitment but to discard that concept as insufficiently precise and replace it with clearer talk about different sorts of commitment. (196) But if beliefs are not to be identified with commitments, and talk of commitments is theoretically superior to talk of beliefs, we have a theoretical case for eliminating beliefs from our ontology, a case that directly parallels the infamous neuroscientific case. The lack of fit between beliefs and their theoretically superior counterparts provides, as Brandom puts it, reason "not to believe in beliefs" (508). On the other hand, there is also considerable evidence in Making It Explicit that Brandom has not joined the eliminativist camp. In dozens of places he seems to take for granted that there are such things as beliefs, and often appears to be in the business of providing a philosophical account of the nature of beliefs.[2] Collins' argument established that believing that p essentially involves
commitment to p. If both identification and elimination are out of the
question, there seems to be only one alternative: commitments are constituents
of beliefs. That is, beliefs are ontologically complex structures,
whose components include commitments, among other things. As we will see,
this ontological complexity is relevant to how beliefs relate to the physical. Commitments are a kind of deontic status, and deontic statuses are a kind of normative status. Possessing a normative status is a matter of having what one does count as (im)proper or (in)correct in relevant ways. Brandom is a social pragmatist about normative statuses. Such statuses arise only because people are in the business of treating each other as having those statuses: The natural world does not come with commitments and entitlements in it; they are products of human activity. In particular, they are creatures of the attitudes of taking, treating, or responding to someone in practice as committed or entitled (for instance, to various further performances). (xiv) In other words, commitments are instituted by human practices. They only exist, and are what they are, because certain practices take the shape they do. To understand why, or how it is, that there are deontic statuses in the world, one must understand how things can be brought into being as what they are by what we do. Some instituted entities are physically realized. A church, for example, "is" a building, but not merely a building; it is a building made into a church by the community treating it as a church. However, some instituted entities are not physically realized; they lack material embodiment. Commitments are prime examples. As Brandom puts it, Norms (in the sense of normative statuses) are not objects in the causal order. Natural science, eschewing categories of social practice, will never run across commitments in its cataloguing of the furniture of the world; they are not by themselves causally efficacious-any more than strikes or outs are in baseball. Nonetheless... there are norms, and their existence is neither supernatural nor mysterious. Normative statuses are domesticated by being understood in terms of normative attitudes, which are in the causal order. (626) In the language of the debate, we would say that commitments are not identical with, reducible to, in causal interaction with, or even realized by physical entities. In at least one sense, they are abstract objects. Nevertheless, they are real, countable, temporal things, and it is plausible that they supervene on the physical. It is only because the physical is the way it is that we exhibit the practices we do, and it is our practices which institute commitments. If we stopped treating each other in the right kinds of ways, all commitments would vanish without a trace. Institution is a metaphysical relation. It is not the same as
identity, reduction, realization, supervenience, or causation. If one tried
to account for the place of instituted entities in the world just in terms
of these five relations, a large and essential part of the story would
simply be missing. It would be like trying to understand how the president
of the US is related to the citizenry without talking about voting. Since
commitments are instituted entities, and commitments are essential to beliefs,
institution must enter into any adequate solution of the mind-body problem.
The first of the four assumptions-that the five major relations suffice-is
false. Thus far it has been argued that beliefs are ontological complexes involving commitments, which are abstract instituted objects. What else is involved? Suppose Sheila believes that her name derives from that of a pre-Christian fertility symbol, the Celtic Sheela-nu-gig. Then Sheila stands committed to the claim that her name is derived from that of a fertility symbol. This is an interesting claim about Sheila. It is not true of my left shoe, even though my shoe exists in the same social milieu. What is it about Sheila, such that she has this belief, and my shoe does not? The answer, at least in broadest outline, is obvious enough. Sheila does the right kinds of things, whereas my left shoe does not. That is, Sheila behaves in ways such that she and others correctly take her to be committed to the claim that her name has a certain origin. She behaves in these ways because her brain is wired up in a certain very complex way. My shoe doesn't even have a brain. Believing that p is thus a rather complex social/behavioral/causal situation. For something to believe that p, it must have a very complex internal constitution, such that it behaves in certain characteristic ways, such that it is treated as standing in a web of deontic statuses, one of which is the doxastic commitment that p. The ontological constituents of belief include commitments, behavioral dispositions, and internal causal (possibly representational) states. This is what is required for belief in the fullest sense. If any of these ontological ingredients are missing, what is left over is, at best, a degenerate case. A brain in a vat might be wired up the right way, but unless that brain is situated appropriately in a body and social context, it is ontologically deficient. Call what it has "belief" if you like; nobody owns the term. The deep point is that you and I are possessed of much richer ontological structures. Much the same goes for a zombie remote-controlled by aliens. It behaves the right way, and has the commitments, but has less than full-blooded belief, for the zombie is not causally responsible for its p-appropriate behaviors. We can now see that the standard ontological analyses of belief offered
within the mind-body debate are all partly right and partly wrong. They
each latch onto an important ingredient of the total situation, but mistake
it for the whole. Physicalists are right that believing that p, in the
full sense, essentially involves having one's brain configured in an appropriate
way. Their mistake is to identify beliefs with these brain states. Behaviorists
are right that believing p, in the full sense, essentially involves having
the right behavioral dispositions. Their mistake, as physicalists have
often pointed out, is to identify beliefs with behavioral dispositions.
Even dualists were half right. Believing that p essentially involves commitments,
which are abstract instituted objects, located in time but not in space,
lacking material constitution. Having understood that beliefs cannot be
identified with material objects, Descartes' mistake was to identify them
with non-material objects. How do beliefs relate to the physical? This divides into three subsidiary questions: 1. What are the ontological constituents of beliefs? 2. How do these constituents fit together to form beliefs? 3. How do these constituents themselves relate to the physical? Sketches of answers to the first two were provided in previous sections.
The answer to the third is perhaps most easily conveyed on a table.
Table 2. Relating ontological constituents of beliefs to the physical.
The important thing to note here is the difference between the columns. The various constituents of beliefs relate to the physical in different ways. No one of the standard "isms" accounts for how all constituents of beliefs relate to the physical-and this is not only because the standard isms ignore the metaphysical relation of institution. Once the three subsidiary questions have been answered, we have said
all there is to be said about the ontological relationship of beliefs to
the physical. It makes little sense to ask whether beliefs themselves are
identical with, reducible to, ... the physical. They partly are, and partly
are not. I shall take for granted that, whatever sensations are, they do not have propositional content. They are unlike beliefs in that they do not essentially involve socially instituted doxastic commitments. The relevant ontological breakdown of sensations, if any, is unlike that of beliefs. Therefore, sensations are ontologically different in kind than beliefs, and demand a different relational story. The second and third deep assumptions-those of ontological and relational homogeneity-are false. Since all four assumptions are false, the solution to the mind-body problem cannot be anything like the standard "isms" of the debate. It cannot be entered in any one column of any table like table 1. All the standard answers in the official mind-body debate are wrong in their basic form. The general question of the ontological "fit" between mind and the physical world cannot be simplified in quite the way the tradition has always imagined. The true solution to the mind-body problem is nothing less than a long story, only a small portion of which has been sketched here. We can, however, describe a kind of meta-position which captures the general form of the solution. If the orthodox mind-body debate has been characterized by a drive to monism, or at most dualism, the meta-position is a kind of pluralism. Pluralism acknowledges a multiplicity of ontological kinds in the general vicinity of mind, and a multiplicity of relational stories, and rejects as ill-conceived questions about how high-level mental such as beliefs themselves relate to the physical. This pluralism is not "dualism and more". As we have seen, orthodox dualism, corresponding to some selection of columns of table 1, is deeply misconceived. If dualism is the position that the mental and the physical are two wholly distinct substances, then the pluralism recommended here has nothing at all to do with dualism. Philosophers have for decades, indeed centuries, been attempting to slay the dualist monster. It is time we recognized that the dualist monster is just a kind of philosophical hallucination arising as a byproduct of an inadequate conceptual framework. The pluralist framework recommended here is not a "discourse pluralism"
of the kind recommended by Rorty and Price and criticised by Cussins.[3]
It simply allows for a multiplicity of entities in the vicinity of the
mental, and is not committed in advance to any theses about the number
of different discourses, the connection between discourse and reality (between
how we talk and what there is), or any form of anti-realism. Indeed, pluralism
is perfectly consistent with a hard-nosed realism which divorces the question
of what kinds of mental entities in fact exist from the question of how
we talk about people and what concepts we may have. A realist pluralism
of this kind does not try to read ontological commitments off language
or concepts. In particular, it is perfectly willing to allow that folk
discourses and folk concepts are inadequate to the ontological structure
of mental reality. Distinctions built into ordinary ways of talking need
not reflect deep ontological distinctions, and there may be ontological
differences among kinds of mental entities to which folk talk is entirely
oblivious. What are the implications of a pluralism of this kind for our understanding of mind as a scientific object? Cognition, as I use the term, is the entirety of states and processes which form the causal underpinnings of our sophisticated behaviors, from wine-tasting to mental arithmetic and basketball. The most complex and critical component of the cognitive system is the brain; that is where most cognitive activity takes place. Cognition is thus largely "inner," i.e., internal to the skull. Cognition, as one aspect of the causal organization of the universe, is just another part of the subject matter of science. The relevant science is, of course, cognitive science (in the broadest sense). Some decades ago, it was seen as an important task for philosophers of mind to defend the idea that cognitive science is a respectable form of science. That was when cognitive science was dominated by what has been called "GOFAI" (Haugeland, 1985). Cognition was described as the operation of a digital computer. GOFAI explanation was unique in science, and so its legitimacy as a form of science had to be established. There is currently a powerful trend in cognitive science away from orthodox computational forms of explanation. Increasing numbers of cognitive scientists are applying the mathematical tools of dynamics-dynamical modeling, and dynamical systems theory-to the study of cognition.[4] Dynamical accounts of cognition are very different to computational accounts. Dynamical systems and computers are very different kinds of systems, and the tools of dynamics are very different to those of computer science. The gulf between computationalists and dynamicists currently constitutes the single most important theoretical chasm in cognitive science. The scientific credentials of this new kind of cognitive science do not stand in need of any defense. Dynamical explanation in cognitive science takes much the same form as dynamical explanation in many other branches of natural science. Insofar as dynamicists are successful, cognition is a scientific domain in a perfectly straightforward sense. Dynamical cognitive science has even deeper implications. A sufficient condition for counting as physical, in a broad sense, has always been amenability to a certain kind of mathematical account-namely, explanation in dynamical terms. Any phenomenon that can be rigorously described in terms of the coupled interaction of a range of quantitative variables is automatically counted as physical, whatever else might be known or not known about its relationship to sub-atomic particles or anything else in the inventory of respectable physical entities. Therefore, dynamical cognitive science is in the process of demonstrating
that cognition is a physical phenomenon in the most substantial
and direct sense. If the dynamical approach succeeds, then cognition is
not physical because it is somehow built up out of or supervenient upon
physical stuff. Cognition is already as physical as quarks and gravity.
In short, current developments in cognitive science suggest not merely
that cognition is a scientific subject, but also that it is a physical
phenomenon. We are already more thoroughly physical than most philosophers
realize-and that includes those who loudly trumpet their physicalist allegiances.
An assumption that has dominated our philosophical and scientific tradition is that mind and cognition are the same thing. Almost everyone, from dualists to functionalists to redneck neurobiologists, subscribes to the idea that mind is that inner realm of states and processes that are causally responsible for our sophisticated behaviors. In this, Descartes, Fodor and Churchland are merry bedfellows; they just disagree over how best to describe that inner causal stuff. If mind is cognition, then cognitive science is the science of the mind. If cognition is a scientific domain, then so is mind. Dynamical cognitive science would then be establishing that mind is inherently physical. The classical mind-body problem would have been effectively abolished, for the relation of the physical to itself is not an interesting metaphysical or philosophical issue. However, it seems that the ultimate price of the mind as cognition doctrine is elimination of mind as we ordinarily conceive it. If mind is cognition, and cognition is a matter for scientific investigation, then the concept of mind is held hostage to the outcome of those investigations. As the Churchlands have been pointing out, cognitive science is increasingly demonstrating that cognition bears little direct resemblance to mind as described in our everyday or "folk" vocabulary. They have bravely bitten the metaphysical bullet and embraced the idea that science is showing that all of us have been thoroughly deluded all our lives about the real nature of our own minds. Gilbert Ryle argued valiantly against the ontological identification of mind and cognition (Ryle, 1984). Unfortunately, his powers of persuasion did no justice to his powers of insight. His arguments were dismissed from a distance and subsequent generations of philosophers returned to embrace the ghost in the machine. From the pluralist perspective defended here, Ryle was essentially correct. Mind is not the same thing as cognition. They differ in ontological kind. Why? One reason is that minds include beliefs, beliefs include commitments, and commitments are not, as Brandom puts it, part of the causal order. This is not to downplay the importance of cognition. Cognition is an essential ontological constituent of mind. Rather than thinking of mind as the inner engine of behavior, we should think of cognition as the inner engine of mind. Two fundamental insights drive the rejection of the mind as cognition doctrine. The first, owing to Ryle, is that having a mind is as much behaving in appropriate ways as it has having the right kind of internal states. The second, owing to Heidegger, is that in behaving the way we do, we ontologically constitute ourselves as having minds. We are ontologically self-constituting. For example, we only have commitments, and hence beliefs in the full sense, and hence minds in the full sense, because we have practices of treating each other as committed in certain ways. There are two important consequences for our understanding of mind in relation to science. First, cognitive science is the science, not of mind as such, but of one major constituent of mind. Cognitive science cannot be the whole story about mind, for cognitive science studies causal mechanisms, and there is more to mind than causal mechanisms. Mind itself cannot be counted as a scientific object just because there is a successful science of cognition. Second, mind as ordinarily conceived is under no direct threat of elimination from cognitive science. Cognitive science would have complete authority over the nature of mind only if mind were equal to cognition. Since there is much more to mind, there are limits to the impact cognitive science can have on our understanding of what minds are. Consider again Brandom's analogy between doxastic commitments and strikes and outs in baseball. There are strikes and outs because people make it that way by playing baseball, i.e., by behaving in certain cooperative ways. Science can tell us a great deal about baseball-about the physics of pitching and batting, the physiology of muscles, and so forth. The science of baseball might even come up with some surprises. What it could not do is reveal that there are, in fact, no strikes or outs. Our talk about baseball is not theoretical conjecture as to the way reality might be. It is perspicuous description of the way we make reality to actually be. Similarly with beliefs. We institute ourselves as believers by taking part in the discursive game. As Brandom says: Sapience of the sort distinctive of us is a status achieved within a structure of mutual recognition: of holding and being held responsible, of acknowledging and exercising authority. (276) We could not scientifically discover that there are no beliefs,
any more than we could scientifically discover that there are no strikes
or outs in baseball. The most cognitive science could tell us is that the
internal causal mechanisms which partly constitute our beliefs are rather
different than we might supposed on the basis of a misunderstanding of
the ontology of belief. It could come to be the case that there are no
beliefs, but only if we stop playing the discursive game. The classical mind-body problem, as I have been discussing it, takes as its central issue the question of the ontological relationship between mental entities on one hand, and physical entities on the other. It specified a range of possible answers to that question-i.e., the standard "isms"-and proceeds to debate the relative merits of those answers. We can now see that the classical discourse is founded on false assumptions of homogeneity and simplicity. The central question is a bad one; there is no answer expressible in the terms in which the question is framed. Rejecting the homogeneity and simplicity assumptions entails embracing a pluralist orientation on the question of the fit between mind and physical world. Pluralism is not another position alongside the standard "isms"; it is simply the denial that the form of the standard "isms" is adequate to the issues. To adopt pluralism is to go beyond the classical mind-body problem. References Brandom, R. (1994) Making It Explicit. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Collins, A. (1994) Reply to Commentators. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 54, 929-945.Collins, A. W. (1987) The Nature of Mental Things. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Collins, A. W. (1996) Moore's paradox and epistemic risk. The Philosophical Quarterly, 46, 308-19.Cussins, A. (1992) The limitations of pluralism. In D. Charles & K. Lennon ed., Reduction, Explanation and Realism. Oxford: Clarendon.Haugeland, J. (1985) Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Port, R., & van Gelder, T. J. (1995) Mind as Motion: Explorations in the Dynamics of Cognition. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Price, H. (1992) Metaphysical Pluralism. Journal of Philosophy, 89(8), 387-409.Rorty, R. (1991) Non-reductive physicalism. In Objectivity, Relativism and Truth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: Ryle, G. (1984) The Concept of Mind (1949). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sellars, W. (1962) Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man. In R. G. Colodny ed., Frontiers of Science and Philosophy. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.van Gelder, T. J. (1995) What might cognition be, if not computation? Journal of Philosophy, 91, 345-381. 1. The central reference is The Nature of Mental Things (Collins, 1987); see also (Collins, 1996), (Collins, 1994). 2. For example: łThe idea pursued here is that the state or status of believing is essentially, and not merely accidentally, related to the linguistic performance of claiming. Beliefs are essentially the sort of thing that can be expressed by making an assertion...speech acts having the pragmatic significance of assertions play an essential role in (social) functional systems within which states or statuses can be understood as propositionally contentful in the way beliefs are...˛ (153-4) 3. (Cussins, 1992; Price, 1992; Rorty, 1991). 4. For overviews of dynamical cognitive science, see (Port & van Gelder, 1995); (van Gelder, 1995). Acknowledgements are due to: Arthur Collins, Tony Chemero, Brian Garrett, Chris Gauker, John Haugeland, Beth Preston, Andrew Melnyk, Daniel Stoljar. Barry Smith, David Smith, Amie Thomasson. |
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