[Wittrs] Re: Dancing Dualisms: Searlean Moves and Cartesian Moves
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:34:40 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Gordon Swobe <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
> --- On Fri, 3/26/10, SWM <wittrsamr@...> wrote:
>
> > But then Searle is a "property dualist" since he just expresses the same
> > notion differently, i.e., in his claim that consciousness
> > has a first person ontology that is irreducible to the third
> > person ontology of so-called physical things.
>
> But Searle doesn't make that claim. He acknowledges that we can reduce mental
> phenomena to physics both causally and ontologically if we so choose. He also
> observes that it would make no sense to do the ontological reduction, as we
> would lose the concept that interests us.
>
The issue, of course, isn't about ways of talking but about whether computers
can cause consciousness as brains cause consciousness since THAT is the crux of
Searle's CRA.
We can all agree that there are different ways of talking, different language
games relevant to speaking about our thoughts, feelings, intentions, etc., on
the one hand, and speaking about publicly observable phenomena on the other. So
the question is whether "it would make no sense" as you put it to speak of
subjective phenomena in terms of objectively observable (physical) causes.
Note that the language game of causal descriptions, a la science and some other
human endeavors, is not the language game of referencing elements of our
subjective experiences, our mental lives, of reporting our feelings, our pains,
etc. But they are not mutually exclusive either, i.e., we can acknowledge we
have feelings, motives, beliefs, perceptions, etc., AND speak about them,
without denying or jettisoning the scientific approach which hinges on
determining their causes, etc.
My recollection is that Searle says we can causally reduce minds to brains but
then makes a distinction between such reduction and ontological description
which, he avers, cannot be reduced, one to the other (via his first-person,
third-person ontological assertion). Thus he says that what is describable in
terms of what he calls first person ontology is NOT describable in terms of a
third person ontology and vice versa, making a distinction between ontological
claims and causally reductive ones. This distinction strikes me as an
artificial one precisely because speaking of causes is not to speak of
intentions, motives, etc.
And, as Feser indicates in that article, one can do an ontololgically causal
reduction, too, of course. That is, to speak of causes is also to attend to
ontology if the claim in that A's cause B's is that A's are the real underlying
phenomenon and B's are merely what we happen to see, etc.
Now you say Searle allows ontological causal reduction but I don't recall
seeing that he actually does. Have you a source for the claim?
The problem, or at least one problem for Searle, seems to me to be his
introduction of a distinction between first and third person ontologies on the
one hand, and causal reduction, on the other, since, by doing this, he seems to
say there is nothing ontological about causal reductions when, in fact, there
manifestly is, i.e., we can reduce B's to A's where A's are seen as the more
basic constituent of reality.
But it does seem to me that this talk of "ontologies" and "reductions"
introduces some very unclear ideas into the discourse since both terms are
fairly specialized with a range of somewhat technical and not necessarily clear
uses. Perhaps more clarity is needed with regard to these terms.
> By contrast, property and substance dualists outright deny the possibility of
> an ontological reduction on the grounds that mental phenomena have a
> non-physical kind of reality.
>
> -gts
>
>
What do you mean when you say Searle allows for ontological reduction? Are you
saying he allows for first to third person (or vice versa) causal reduction in
an ontological sense (A's cause B's) or are you saying that he merely allows
that we can re-state our mental (first person) claims in physical (third
person) claims?
If this is all you mean, no one is arguing that this wouldn't be clumsy and
impractical and even, perhaps, impossible on the grounds that mental phenomena
are just a different level of operation for us. But the issue, again, has to do
with how the physical begets the mental. Searle asserts that the CR can't do it
(we agree it can't as specked) and that, because it can't, none of the
constituents of the CR can do it under any other circumstances either. But IF
the mental is a system property rather than a property of particular physical
events (processes) as in so-called "property dualism", then there is no reason
it cannot do it, especially once we agree that physical events in brains can do
it.
But if computers can't, just because the physical events that make them up
can't, then why should we think that the physical events that make up brains
can? Well, we know physical events in brains do. But then that isn't an
argument that the ones in computers can't! Something else is needed. And that
is that what we call mental is basic. But then either brains do it by
introducing something new to the universe or in the same way computers might do
it.
Anyway, I see I'm getting into my argument with Searle again though I wanted to
mainly focus here on your claim that Searle allows ontological reductions while
"dualists" don't. Note that Feser says property dualists allow causal
reductions and calls them ontological while Searle, as you note, allows causal
reductions but doesn't call them "ontological". So what's the difference
besides the terminology?
SWM
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