[Wittrs] Re: Understanding Dualism
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 22:14:05 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "walto" <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
<snip>
>
> Here's my take:
>
> Anybody who thinks that every item in the world is a physical object is a
> physicalist, and hence a substance monist.
>
One could hold that every appearance is physical but that there is something
still deeper down which isn't (doesn't fit the criteria of what we mean by
"physical" in any ordinary sense). Would such a person be a "physicalist", too,
on your view?
Further, one could also hold that what underlies everything is a complex
energic system or, say, a quantum flux, or just a complex system of things
lacking the normal features we ascribe to physical things (having features
accessible to our sensory apparatus). Would such a hypothetical underlayment of
the world of appearances (to which we have sensory access) be properly
designatable as what is meant by "substance" in classical philosophy?
It just seems to me that the usual categories in which we describe things, and
which have been relied on by classical philosophy, don't really apply here and
that that knocks the notion of "substance" out the window.
Of course we can replace that term with a broader and more generic one like
"ontological basic" which leaves open the nature of whatever is so denoted and
only requires that we mean by this whatever counts (whether known or not) as
the bottom-line something that underlies everything else known.
In that case, in a sense, we may still be seen to be talking about what some
might call "substance" but without some of the archaic connotations that
accompany that notion.
I do not, of course, argue for such a position myself as I think it is rather
hopeless in terms of a philosophical account (I'm a Wittgensteinian of the
later school on that score), but my point is that, when anyone is arguing for
dualism (in the way Searle has used the term in that paper we read -- which I
think is the only way "dualism" can be invoked in the philosophical context),
that the idea of at least two instances of "ontological basicness" is, finally,
the best description of what they have in mind.
This is not to say, of course, that we can ever hope to give a full and
complete account of things in such terms which is why I consider it
philosophically hopeless. But I think it's a better way of articulating
positions like dualism and monism. (On a later Wittgensteinian view, of course,
it's probably better not to talk about either and to stick with attending to
our linguistic practices.)
> However, not everybody substance monist believes that every property is
> (ontologically) reducible to some group of "physical properties": if among
> the properties that some physicalist believes are not reducible to physical
> properties are mental properties, then such a person is (at least) a property
> dualist.
>
The issue of reducibility is where the problem lies, I think. Questions of
causal reducibility are the only issues at stake here. I think we can grant
that we cannot reduce talk about minds in terms of our first-person accounts
(what we are feeling, what we think, believe, want and so forth) to talk about
physical phenomena (in this I depart from a strong Dennettian claim of
"heterophenomenology" though my view is probably consistent with a weaker
version of the claim).* But this says nothing about the question of whether we
can provide a causally reductive account of subjectivity which traces
subjectivity back to certain physical phenomena (entities and operations).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* In this I am plainly in accord with Bruce's insistence that we have certain
ways of speaking which are not simply interchangeable, talk of our motives, for
instance, being irreducible to talk about brain processes.
> In the paper under discussion, Searle cops to both substance monism and
> property dualism, given my description of those.
>
. . . while, of course, he provides us with a different description, thus
leaving us in a stipulative conundrum.
On your stipulation, what YOU call property dualism meets the criteria of what
Searle is claiming as his view except that he doesn't call that "property
dualism". So here the question hinges on whether we can simply chalk this up to
competing stipulations or whether this is a real question of fact as to what
self-proclaimed property dualists actually mean by that term.
Agreed that on your definition Searle IS a "property dualist" and, of course,
on his he isn't (except that, on my interpretation of his argument, he IS a
substance dualist which, for him on his explanation of property dualism, BUT
NOT FOR YOU on yours, is no different than his being a "property dualist").
But then at least part of the problem boils down to whether, as you say, Searle
has made a hash of these distinctions or, in fact, Searle has rightly seen that
these distinctions can only be meaningful if the difference between so-called
"property dualism" and "substance dualism" is seen to collapse.
> He also indicates the sort of philosophy HE takes to be property dualism, and
> it turns out really to be a species of substance dualism as I understand that
> term.
>
Yes.
> You may be right that Chalmers is some sort of quasi-this or that, so when I
> said that there aren't any property dualists of the kind Searle discusses, my
> exaggeration may have been false. But I note that he doesn't give a single
> example of any, and I think it's better to let others speak for themselves
> than to attack straw men.
>
As I recall (see Chalmers' response to Searle as reproduced in the The Mystery
of Consciousness), Chalmers denies Searle's assertion that his (Chalmers')
position implies epiphenomenalism -- just as some have denied MY assertion that
Searle's position on computationalism implies dualism (of the classical
ontological basic variety) and as Searle has denied others' assertions that his
position really amounts to property dualism.
> You both get into deeper issues than my class system, like, e.g., what does
> it mean to ontologically reduce? and what is dualism, really? etc. Those are
> hard and interesting, but it's not really what I was talking about.
>
> So, I'll say one final time, that I agree with the substantive position
> Searle takes in that paper (and yes, I know and have understood for many
> years that Stuart does not), but (not that it matters one little bit) I think
> it's more natural to call this position I share with Searle "property
> dualism."
>
Of course I agree with Searle's reduction of "property dualism" to "substance
dualism" in that paper though I think it's the case that: 1) some self-avowed
property dualists may not realize this about their own position; and 2) some
may hold to a view like yours which may finally not boil down to any real sort
of dualism at all. It is also possible that 1 and 2 are operant for the same
individuals in some cases.
That is, I will agree, based on your explanations, that at least some exponents
of "property dualism" aren't really holding dualism in a meaningful sense.
What then are they if not real dualists?
If they are only saying that they hold that there are some "properties" of some
physical objects/events that are subjective, then there is no real daylight
between such claims and the claims of someone like Dennett who argues for
subjectiveness (i.e., its various features) being the outcome of a complex of
physical processes of a certain type. All that is absent (which isn't absent
with Dennett) is the effort to formulate an account of how such properties
occur in the physical entities/processes of brains.
After all, there is no reason a system level feature need be thought of as any
less physical than features of physical objects (insofar as our experience of
such objects is as an entity rather than a system).
<snip>
SWM
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