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AMONG THE hypotheses concerning the relation between mind and body, one of the
most ancient is the radically materialistic one. Let us consider it first; and
then its polar opposite, the radically idealistic hypothesis.
1. The contention that thought is a physical process
The materialistic
conception of mind is that "thoughts," "feelings," ideals," "mental processes,"
or, comprehensively, "states of consciousness," are but other names for material occurences of certain kinds - more specifically, for molecular processes in the
tissues of the brain; or for speech, vocal or sub-vocal; or for discriminative
and adaptive behavior. This, if true, would entail that the supposition that
consciousness persists after death has terminated these material activities is
absurd because then obviously self-contradictory.
But as Friedrich Paulsen long ago and others since have made quite clear, no
evidence really ever has been or can be offered to support that materialistic
conception of mind, for it constitutes in fact only an attempt unawares to force
upon the words ',thoughts," "ideas," "feelings," "desires," and so on, a
denotation radically other than that which they actually have.
Paulsen writes: "The proposition, Thoughts are in reality nothing but movements
in the brain, feelings are nothing but bodily processes in the vaso-motor
system, is absolutely irrefutable"; not, however, because it is true but because
it is absurd. "The absurd has this advantage in common with truth, that it
cannot be refuted. To say that thought is at bottom but a movement is to say
that iron is at bottom made of wood. No argument avails here. All that can be
said is this: I understand by a thought a thought and not a movement of brain
molecules; and similarly, I designate with the words anger and fear, anger and
fear themselves and not a contraction or dilation of blood vessels. Suppose the
latter processes also occur, and suppose they always occur when the former
occur, still they are not thoughts and feelings."(1)
(1) Introduction to Philosophy, transl. F. Thilly, Henry Holt and Co. N.Y. 1895,
pp. 82-3.
Words such as "thought," "feeling," etc., have two possible functions. One is to
predicate of something certain characters which the word connotes; the other is
to indicate - point at, denote, tag, direct attention to - certain occurrences or
entities. And the fact is that, just as our finger does point at whatever we
point it at, or just as a tag does tag and identify whatever we tag with it, so
do our words denote - name, tag, direct attention to - whatever we use them to
denote. And what we use the words "thought," "feelings," etc., to denote are
occurrences with which we are directly familiar, and which are patently quite
different from those we denote by the words "molecular motions in the brain" or
"modes of bodily behavior."
Hence, however much there may be that we do not know about states of
consciousness or about bodily processes, however close and intimate may turn out
to be the relation between them, and whatever the particular nature of that
relation may be, it is at all events not identity.
2. Connection to be distinguished from identity
The point just made, although
elementary, is crucial. Hence, even at the risk of laboring it, a few words will
be added in order to render it unmistakable.
Let us consider the case, say, of the moon and the earth. They are connected and
influence one another, but the moon and the earth are not one and the same
thing. Hence it is possible to know much about one of them and little about the
other. On the other hand, the thing which the words "the moon" denote is
identically the same thing as that which the words "la lune," or the words "the
earth's largest satellite," denote; and the identity entails that, although one
might not know all three of these names of that single thing, nevertheless,
whatever (other than some of its names) one happened to know, or to be ignorant
of, about the thing denoted by one of them, one would necessarily know it, or be
ignorant of it, about the thing denoted by either of the other two names. For
one thing only is concerned, not three.
Now, a parallel conclusion follows in the case of, say, the word "pain" and the
words "a certain motion of the molecules of the nerve cells of the brain." If
these two sets of words both denoted - i.e., were but two different names
for - one single event, then any person who at a given moment knows pain, i.e.,
experiences the particular feeling which the word "pain" denotes, would
necessarily know which particular motion of which particular things the words "a
certain motion of molecules in the brain" denote at that moment; for, under the
supposition, one event only would be occurring, but denoted equally by each of
those two different names. But the patent fact is on the contrary that all men
know directly and only too well the event itself which the word "pain" denotes.
They know it in the sense of experiencing it, whether or not they happen to know
also that it is called "pain"; whereas no man knows what particular molecular
motion is occurring in the nerve cells of his brain at the time he feels pain;
and only a few men know even that molecular motions occur there. Moreover, even
this they know not empirically and directly as on the contrary every man knows
pain, but know it only indirectly through theoretical inferences.
How one comes to learn that "pain" is the English name of the feeling he or
someone else has on a given occasion is one question; but what that feeling
itself is (and no matter what, if anything, it is called at the time) is another
question. One learns what pain is by having pins stuck into him, and in various
other manners that likewise cause it to occur. "Pain" is the name of the feeling
caused in these various ways.
The concrete occurrences which the word "pain," and the words "thought," "ideas"
"desires" "sensations," "mental states," etc., denote in English, are quite
familiar at first hand to all of us, for they are directly experienced by us and
open to our introspective attention; and what introspection reveals is, for
example, that the event we denote by the word "pain" when we say "I have a pain"
does not in the least resemble - to say nothing of being identically - what
attention to perceptually public facts reveals when directed perhaps to the
cutting or burning of the skin, or to the writhing or shrinking behavior or to
the groans on such an occasion; or to the words "I have a pain," or to the
(postulated, not observed) molecular motions in the brain.
All these are material events, and no doubt are connected with the mental event
called "pain," which occurs when they occur. But connection is one thing and
identity is wholly another.
This simple fact, which becomes patent if only one attends strictly to the
denotation of the "material" and of the "mental" terms, strangely eludes some
of. the writers who express themselves on the subject of the mind-body relation.
Dr. C. S. Myers, for example, in his L. T. Hobhouse Memorial Lecture for 1932
entitled "The Absurdity of any Mind-Body Relation," writes:
"The conclusion which I have at length reached is that the notion of any
relation between mind and body is absurd - because mental activity and living
bodily activity are identical. The most highly specialized forms of these two
activities are, respectively, conscious processes and the processes of living
brain matter." (p.6)
But obviously what is absurd is to do, as these statements do, both of the
following things: On the one hand. to mention two activities, to wit, the
activity called "mental" and the activity called "living bodily activity" - both
of which are observable and when observed are found to be each patently unlike
the other; and yet, on the other hand, to assert that these two utterly
dissimilar activities are identically one and the same!
Farther on, we shall consider specifically another contention which is often
confused with this and which-however otherwise open to criticism - is anyway not
absurd; namely, the contention that mental activity and living bodily activity
are two aspects of one same process.
In conclusion, then, since connection is one thing and identity wholly another,
the fact that the events which the expression "mental events" denotes, and
certain of the events which the expression "material events" denotes
(specifically, certain neural or behavioral events) are perhaps so connected as
to form a "psychophysical unity" - this fact does not entail, as Lamont and
others have alleged, that the unity is indissoluble; but only that, so long as
the connection remains what it has been, the two series of quite dissimilar
events-the mental and the bodily-continue ... to form "a psychophysical unity"!
What cessation of the connection may entail as regards continuance, or not,
either of the bodily series or of the mental one, depends on the specific nature
of the connection, and cannot be inferred simply from the fact that during the
life of the body, the two were in some way united, i.e., closely connected.
3. Disguised assertions about the word "thought" mistaken for assertions about
thought
Some additional remarks are called for at this point in order to
account for the fact that such statements as that thought is really a motion of
molecules in the brain, or is really a particular mode of bodily behavior, have
been made by some intelligent persons and have been considered by them
penetrating instead of absurd as in fact they are.
The first thing to note is that of course anybody can devise and use language
that differs from the common language in that certain words of the common
language-for example, the words "thoughts," "ideas," "feelings," "desires,"
"mental states" - are employed in the devised language to denote certain things
- for example, brain states of certain kinds - which are radically other than
the things they denote in the common language.
Moreover, a person who is using such a subverted language may be unaware that he
is doing so and may assume, as naturally will his hearers, that when, for
instance, he makes the statement that "thought is really a motion of molecules
in the brain," he is using the common language.
That statement, however, when taken as made in the common language, is so
paradoxical that hearers of it are likely to assume - humbly though in fact
gratuitously - that somehow it must express a truth which the utterer of it
perceives, but which the hearer is as yet unable to apprehend. And the utterer
too but proudly instead of humbly - is likely to assume this.
On the other hand, if one allows neither humility nor pride to becloud one's
judgment, then what one perceives is that the statement "thought is really a
motion of molecules in the brain" is in fact not worded in the common language;
and that to make that statement is on the contrary to perform an act of
subversion of the common language.
That is, one perceives that the statement is in fact not an assertion about
thought itself and molecular motion itself, but only about the words "thought"
and "molecular motion;" and that, in that assertion, the word, "really,"
expresses not at all an insight, but only the utterer's naive preference for
language as in so far subverted!
The case is thus exactly parallel, except in one irrelevant respect, to a case
where a Frenchman who, using English but holding with naive pride that French is
the one "real" language, were to say: "A dog is really un chien." He would
appear to himself and to others to be talking about dogs, but he would in fact
be talking only about the word "dog" and claiming that it would be preferable to
use instead the word "chien." The minor and only difference between the two
cases is that "dog" and "chien" belong to two independent languages but have the
same denotation in each; whereas both the word "thought" and the words
"molecular motion in brain cells" belong to the same language, to wit, English,
but, in it, do not have the same denotation. They would have it only in
(materialistically) subverted English.
The statement that thought is really a motion of molecules in the brain thus
operates as do the statements in which communists - sometimes perhaps equally
sincerely but then naively - use "liberation" to denote enslavement and
"democracy" to denote tyranny: Such statements only befuddle both the persons
who make them honestly and the persons who accept them uncritically.
4. The radically idealistic conception of material objects
Only a few words
will now be needed to make evident that the radically idealistic conception of
material objects is invalidated by the same kind of absurdity which we have seen
invalidates the radically materialistic conception of mind.
Paulsen, it will be remembered. rightly insists that feelings, sensations, or
thoughts themselves, which are introspectively known to all of us, are what the
words "feelings," "sensations," or "thoughts" denote, and
not the very different
things denoted on the contrary by such expressions as "motions of molecules in
in the brain" or "modes of bodily behavior."
Now, conversely here, we must insist that when we use the latter expressions, or
the broader expression "material events and objects," we denote by them material
events and objects themselves, or motions of molecules or modes of behavior
themselves and not, as Berkeley would have it, certain groups of systematically
associated sensations; for these are something very different indeed. They are
elements in the process of perceiving material objects, but not in the material
objects themselves, which exist independently of whether they are or are not
being perceived.
The contention of a radical idealism would be on the contrary that what the
words "material objects" denote is, identically, the same as what the words "perceivings
of material objects" denote; namely the particular kind of state of
consciousness which such perceiving constitutes. As in the case of the analogous
radical materialistic claim, this radical idealistic claim too cannot be
refuted; and this, again not because it is true but because it is absurd. It can
and need be met only by flat denial: The words "the object perceived” do not, in
English as distinguished from Idealese, denote the same thing as the words "the
perceiving of an object;" and words do denote what we employ them to denote. To
assert that the two expressions denote one and the same thing, instead of each
something different, is not to set forth a novel truth but only here again to
subvert the English language and thereby to muddle oneself and possibly one's
hearers or readers. What specifically the relation is between the material
object perceived and the psychological events - sensations and others - that
enter into the process of perceiving the object is a most interesting but
intricate question, into which fortunately we do not need to go for present
purposes. What need be said is only that, whatever may be the relation between
the two it is anyway not identity.
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