[Wittrs] Re: On the Varieties of Dualism
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:25:47 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
>
<snip>
> >>this account of substance dualism is quite confused.
>
> >It's intended as a generic account ... to cover a variety of bases.
>
> that's precisely why it is confused. the whole point of a taxonomy is to
> distinguish types --- it's like ... a typology!
>
Well you said I was presenting a "taxonomy", I didn't. I said I was presenting
what I took to be the four options before us. I never suggested I wasn't
generalizing and, indeed, my parenthetical remarks made quite clear that I was
lumping a number of different instances into particular categories, especially
with regard to option #1.
Not every point is best made by an exacting breakdown into every little
possibility, especially when it would be overkill (going beyond what's needed)
and therefore likely to add to confusion rather than reduce it. Does this mean
confusion might still not result? Certainly not as seen here where you want to
take me to task for not doing well something I did not say (or presume) that I
was doing at all.
<snip>
>
> >The idea of a "susbtance" is somewhat antiquated today. One needn't
> >speak in such terms to suppose that consciousness is ontologically
> >distinct, in some basic sense, from other existents which, presumably,
> >are physically derived. However, the point that needs to be made is
> >that whether one calls it "substance" or something else, if one
> >supposes this ontological divide (that one thing is not reducible to
> >the other in terms of how it comes about) then one is on dualist
> >ground.
>
> conflating all forms of dualism into one is not likely to be helpful;
> and, of course, it defeats the purpose of having a taxonomy in the first
> place.
>
What you call "conflation" is only that if it means a relevant distinction
isn't being recognized. But you have no evidence that it isn't, and, moreover I
have referred to it and even explained why I contented myself with a generic
summation of the possibilities. That's evidence of recognition if anything is.
> Searle, in trying to explain why he is not a property dualist, claims
> that consciousness has an irreducibly first-person ontology; but, he is
> not admitting to Cartesian style substance dualism.
>
Yes, I think Searle is confused on that point. I think he is using "ontology"
in a different way than it is meant in cases like this though Walter and Larry
(I believe) showed on the Analytic list that there is another way to use it,
namely as the name for describing whatever exists on whatever level. In THAT
sense, an ontology can be about all kinds of categories of things in which case
we can speak, as Searle does, of first person and third person ontologies. But
THAT isn't the way the term is used in terms of dualism vs. other theses. In
that case, the issue is really one of reducibility.
While we can agree that first person and third person claims represent
irreducibly different accounts applied to our actual experience (because they
deal with different aspects of it), this has NOTHING to do with the causal
question and even Searle agrees that consciousness is caused by brains. That is
the only arena where dualism matters and it is in that arena that the question
of ontology becomes relevant. So Searle confuses two different uses of this
term in his effort to argue for the irreducibillity of consciousness without
denying causal irreducibility to brains. It is, ultimately, an unsustainable
position but it is so clouded with ambiguities that it is hard to unpack.
> in my opinion, Searle should have said that consciousness has and
> irreducibly first-person phenomenology. that would mean only that he
> accepts what I call phenomenological dualism -- the irreducible
> difference between measurable phenomena and experienceable phenomena.
>
So you would recommend he use your vocabulary?
> the point is that claiming that there is an irreducible phenomenological
> dualism is to stand on dualist ground; but, it is not to stand where
> Descartes stands.
>
I agree with Searle that it is a difference without a difference. If it is
dualism, whether you speak in terms of substances or in terms of properties, if
at the end of it all you are talking about is two ontological basics, then you
have the same thing. A rose by any other name . . ., etc., etc.
> similarly, to claim that this phenomenological dualism is explained by a
> dualism of properties (physical objects have a set of properties that
> explain measurable phenomena and some objects have a set of properties
> that explain experienceable phenomena) is also to stand on dualist
> ground; but, again, it is not to stand where Descartes stands.
>
I think your distinction between measurable and non-measureable is a
non-starter but if you can explicate it further perhaps I'll reconsider. For
now note, again, my point that anything we can measure is therefore
experienceable nor is it clear that we cannot measure, in some ways, anything
that is experienceable. If I have a private experience, I can measure it
against objectively observable occurrences, clocking its duration, say.
> it is only where you postulate a second type of metaphenomenal object
> that you stand where Descartes stood.
>
> Joe
>
I think you are overly concerned with matching Descartes, metaphysical point
for point. One can fall into the same way of thinking as he did without
subscribing to his every claim or argument. Indeed, dualism, of the sort that
informed his thinking, seems rather prevalent among humans, at least at one
level.
SWM
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