[Wittrs] Re: Does Dennett throw out the baby with the bathwater?
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 12:16:37 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "BruceD" <blroadies@...> wrote:
> --- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "SWM" <SWMirsky@> wrote:
>
> >... Dennett's denial of what Searle calls "intrinsic intentionality"
> > in favor of his "intentional stance" is not a denial that
> > we can think about things.
>
> That no one can deny. But what does he deny?
>
That there is a something of a mental type that exists in (or as part of) the
mind which we call "intentionality". He's denying an ascription of thingness in
the sense of there being an entity called "intentionality" somewhere in the
world. Instead he says certain ways of behaving on the part of some entities
prompt us to think of the observed entity's behavior as being what we call
intentional. It's a distinction very much in keeping with Wittgenstein's
insights about how language shapes our ideas.
> > denying there is some sort of object of reference to be found in the
> brain
>
> It sounds like you are saying that (for D and you) the brain plays no
> part in thinking. I know I have you wrong. But what are you saying?
>
That there is no "thing" called "intentionality" or "intrinsic intentionality"
in the brain or in the mind.
As you know, I do think that we can speak of intentionality as a "thing"
because I think "thing" is a very broad, nondescript sort of term (as in "that
thing you do"). But I also think that the use of "thing" in such cases prompt
us to think of entities (such as "the thing in the room") which is to say
physical objects of different types. Thus, prompted, we slip into the confusion
of looking for (or thinking there is something that is localizable as) a thing
called "intentionality".
I would tend to agree that Searle would recognize this problem right off and
that to some extent he and Dennett may be arguing over this issue at cross
purposes, but I think the important point is that their respective usages in
the case of a word like "intentionality" fit in with their broader programs and
I think Dennett's broader program is right whereas Searle, with his CRA, has it
wrong.
> > in some special mental realm, an object...called "intentionality".
>
> My impression: D denys this mental realm and objects because he thinks
> if allows intentionality to be real, he must allow it to exist as an
> object in some realm. But concepts aren't objects and don't exist in any
> realm. He is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
>
I think this is a very fine point. However, I don't think one can argue the
merits of Dennett's position by assuming or trying to guess his motivations.
I would add this: Dennett doesn't deny that we have experiences or think about
things. He denies that we need to posit a special class of mental properties
like "qualia" or "intentionality" to explain that we have experiences and think
about things. He thinks the explanation can be given in physical and
information processing terms which eliminates a whole class of notions that
imply a parallel realm of mental phenomena.
In this many (like Gordon) take him to be denying that we have experience and
intentionality when all he's really doing is proposing that we talk about these
phenomena in a different way. Nothing but a way of talking, and, consequently,
of imagining these phenomena, is being tossed out with the bathwater.
Experience and the capacity to think about anything remain exactly what they
were before changing the ways we think or speak about them.
> > ...Searle thinks the mind and its contents are describable
> > within the context of what he calls "first person ontology"
>
> I take the last phrase to mean that 1st person accounts are unique to
> that person.
>
Okay, as far as that goes. But my view is it's a mistake to make a fetish of it
and propose, thereby, to push the possibilities of brain science or AI out the
door.
> > Dennett thinks that thinking about things is best understood
> > as a way we have of treating (relating to) certain kinds of behaviors
> > (by taking an "intentional stance" toward them).
>
> "Best understood'? Why would D's account of S's mental life be
> preferable to S's account of his own mental life?
>
It would be different though I do believe Dennett holds that we could, at least
in principle, get a complete picture of anyone's mental life externally
(heterophenomenolgically). I am agnostic on that myself but certainly, given
where we currently are, there is a clear difference now. Whether that
difference is eradicable depends on what science can ultimately do.
> > But Searle goes wrong when he separates causal accounts from ontology,
>
> Or is he correctly pointing out that in gasping a 1st person account
> (why I find this List annoying or stimulating) we are not asking for
> causes, e.g., the feeling center in my brain fired, but for reasons,
> e,g., why read the Posts in the first place.
>
Searle is confusing such personal experience observations with questions of
causal reductions. We can have subjective experiences and they can still be the
result of objectively observable physical events in brains (even if, at this
stage in our knowledge, we cannot make sufficiently fine correlations and even
if we are never able to do so) though he seems to want to draw a line between
the two that is uncrossable. Of course he agrees that brains are the physical
agents that are causative of minds but then he gets into this thing about
computers, denying that they could ever do what brains do and he does this in
some rather contradictory ways (denying computers are physically causative and,
also, that the features of mind are reducible to what isn't mind-like, etc.). I
think the business about first person vs. third person ontologies he introduces
is part of that confusion.
> If you take D's point of view, that his theory is caused by his brain,
> then, if I want to change his mind (I mean brain), I should not reason
> with him but just stimulate the right centers.
>
I don't think he would argue against the possibility that you could find some
way to do that. But he would not, thereby, be denying that we can interact with
others with minds via the usual ways, too.
> > If physical brains cause minds...
>
> all minds, yours and mine, we still left with the question of whether we
> ought to treat each other as mechanical, causal entities, or
> intentional, purposive rational beings.
>
No, because the point is to explain how we come to be what we are and part of
what we are includes interacting with others having subjectivity (mental lives)
like ours -- interacting in the usual ways.
> To try to do both, at the same time, isn't having your cake and eating
> it too, but more like trying to eat a cake that isn't there.
>
> bruce
>
>
I don't agree with that conclusion at all, Bruce. But I guess you knew that
going into this.
SWM
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