Consciousness and Mental Life

Daniel Robinson

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9780231512800
• Topic: Filosofía
• Subtopic: Filosofía y ética en la ciencia

In recent decades, issues that reside at the center of philosophical and psychological inquiry have been absorbed into a scientific framework variously identified as "brain science," "cognitive science," and "cognitive neuroscience." Scholars have heralded this development as revolutionary, but a revolution implies an existing method has been overturned in favor of something new. What long-held theories have been abandoned or significantly modified in light of cognitive neuroscience?

Consciousness and Mental Life questions our present approach to the study of consciousness and the way modern discoveries either mirror or contradict understandings reached in the centuries leading up to our own. Daniel N. Robinson does not wage an attack on the emerging discipline of cognitive science. Rather, he provides the necessary historical context to properly evaluate the relationship between issues of consciousness and neuroscience and their evolution over time.

Robinson begins with Aristotle and the ancient Greeks and continues through to René Descartes, David Hume, William James, Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Derek Parfit. Approaching the issue from both a philosophical and a psychological perspective, Robinson identifies what makes the study of consciousness so problematic and asks whether cognitive neuroscience can truly reveal the origins of mental events, emotions, and preference, or if these occurrences are better understood by studying the whole person, not just the brain. Well-reasoned and thoroughly argued, Consciousness and Mental Life corrects many claims made about the success of brain science and provides a valuable historical context for the study of human consciousness.

1

THE GREEKS (AGAIN) AND THE “CONSCIOUSNESS” PROBLEM

Were this intended as an addition to the ambitious offerings of the MIT Press and designed to enlarge its appreciative community of readers, this first chapter might best begin with the neonatal rhesus monkey. Here is a primate still innocent as to the ways of the world but possessing brain cells that respond uniquely to the distress cries of its own species. Presumably thus shaped by evolution, these cells surely must have analogs within the human brain. Why not, then, posit pressures that would shape the brain of Homo sapiens in such a way as to foster communal modes of organization dependent, as we now know, on aesthetic values? By the time the opening chapter reached page 4, readers would be urged to give credence to the theory that the best understanding of the summoning power of the adagio movement of Schubert’s Quintet in C Major is by way of evolutionary biology. And, if evolution favors “Schubert cells,” how much greater must be the shaping of “consciousness cells.” Alas, so much for the problem of consciousness!

Such neat solutions will be considered in later chapters. At this point, it is important to consider the nature and the source of the problem of consciousness, which more than one contemporary philosopher has declared to be the core problem in philosophy of mind.¹ As such, other problems, such as memory, problem solving, ingenuity, aesthetics, motivation, emotion, etc., are either less problematic or presumably are destined to be settled once consciousness has been dealt with adequately.

As it happens, however, there is nothing in memory, problem solving, originality, or the ordering of objects according to specified standards of beauty that requires consciousness on the part of the entity that accomplishes such tasks. Indeed, as William James observed a century ago, there is very little that we do by way of engaging the challenges of daily life that could not be done without the addition of conscious awareness.² Even motives and feelings, if understood as no more than processes or mechanisms by which to induce activity and modulate the “gain” in the system, can be incorporated into explanations requiring no role for consciousness. In light of this, it is far from clear that such complex functions would be explained if the so-called problem of consciousness were settled. Furthermore, once consciousness enters the scene, the already complex phenomena of memory, motivation, and the rest take on a new character radically different from any that would be supposed were the entity a robot.³ Granting, then, that the problem of consciousness is in some sense the “core problem” in philosophy of mind, it is a problem that adds yet other dimensions to what might seem to be distal to the core.

There is something else that is, as it were, problematic about the problem of consciousness, at least as understood within philosophy. If one relies on contemporary scholarship, there would seem to be a more or less settled position to the effect that the problem is relatively recent in its appearance, largely (and, on some accounts, wisely) overlooked by those very ancients who bequeathed most of the other problems that philosophers would come to claim as their own.⁴ Neither Plato nor Aristotle, we are often told, is found dilating on the problem or even recognizing it. Plato, to be sure, was skeptical about perceptual sources of knowledge and defended a theory of the psyche (soul, or, more loosely, that which grounds our comprehension of truth) that removes it from the realm of materiality. Clearly, Plato is an early source of that related problem—the “mind-body” problem—but (again, we are told) he cannot be said to have directly addressed the problem of consciousness as such.

Aristotle, of course, as the more biologically inclined commonsense psychologist, took for granted that perception, learning, emotion, etc. occur within the framework of waking life. His theoretical orientation finds him enlarging the functions and powers of perception. It would be a plausible inference to expect Aristotle, faced with what we take to be the “problem” of consciousness, to reply that it is no more or less problematic than perception itself and is best treated as an essential property of much of the animal economy. It has been suggested further that what Aristotle would resist, however, is any version of the problem thought to arise from the alleged duality of mind and body, a point to which I will return.

To say that this characterization of ancient thought is widespread needs to be qualified, for it is surely understood as a controversial claim among those who engage in the systematic study of that thought. In “Why Isn’t the Mind-Body Problem Ancient?” Wallace Matson does acknowledge, in the works of both Plato and Aristotle, a recognition of the special nature of the psychic.⁵ Nonetheless, he concludes that for both Plato and Aristotle sensation is a natural, corporeal reaction to external events impinging on the sense organs. Thus, having no theory about some inner world of representations accessible only to “mind,” neither Plato nor Aristotle needs to wrestle with a mind-body problem. As Matson says: “From Homer to Aristotle, the line between mind and body, when drawn at all, was drawn so as to put the processes of sense perception on the body side. That is one reason why the Greeks had no mind-body problem.”⁶

The matter, however, is more complicated than this. Aristotle’s analysis is ancient but not dated, and it is useful to consider at the outset, if only to test the interesting claim that his age was oblivious to the finer points at issue. His examination of mind-body relations can be found in a number of his works but, for present purposes, the concentrated version of his analysis is most readily found in book 1, section 4 of On the Soul.⁷ It is in this section that he critically reviews various theories (for example, that the soul is a “harmony” or, following Empedocles, that it is some sort of ratio of constituent elements). He rejects the “harmony” theory chiefly because, if it is intelligible at all, it must refer to relationships among quantities or magnitudes that are localized in space and subject to motion. Such properties, however, must refer to parts of the body and to places therein. But, he says, “there are many and various compoundings of the parts; of what is thought, or the sensitive or the appetitive faculty. . . . And what is the composition which constitutes each of them?”⁸

Just after raising this question, Aristotle notes the tendency to speak of the soul as being pained or fearful or bold. As such states are regarded as modes of movement and change, one might be led to think that the soul, therefore, is thus moved and altered. Granting that such states arise from alterations and motions, this does not warrant the conclusion that the soul is thus affected; rather, the changes originate in the soul, where this term refers not to a place but to a principle of action. Soul, Aristotle notes in his very definition of the word, is a first principle of animate things, in virtue of which a living entity possesses and expresses various powers.

Against those who would have the soul desiring or fearing or being bold, Aristotle offers a schoolmaster’s correction, still instructive, especially if the word “brain” or one or another part of the brain is substituted for “soul”: “To say that it is the soul which is angry is as if we were to say that it is the soul that weaves or builds houses. It is doubtless better to avoid saying that the soul pities or learns or thinks, and rather to say that it is the man who does this with his soul.”⁹

As Aristotle considers the nature of thought (and here “thought” serves as a permissible variant of “consciousness”), he is prepared to accept the substantial difference between it and the merely corporeal properties of the body and its parts. The latter undergo degeneration through injury, disease, and advancing age. Such changes are at the expense of the performance of various parts—eyes, ears, hands. When extensive enough, pathological changes come to impair all the functions that rely on the workings of such parts. Accordingly, when thoughts (or the various aspects of conscious life) are seen to become degraded, it is not the thoughts themselves that have changed but the states and functions on which thoughts depend for their contents and executive functions. Thought as such does not move; it is “impassable.” And, as it does not move, it does not self-move.¹⁰ For Aristotle, movement and change are the signal features of matter. For matter to rise to the level of life, however, the movement and change must be of a special kind. The movement must be of the sort that enters into the processes of nutrition, growth, repair. Wherever plant and animal life is found, there are at least two powers that are required: a nutritive power and one or another form of reproductive power. Absent the first, individual life is lost; absent the second, the species is lost. Thus, when Aristotle takes “soul” to be the “first principle” of living things, he would have “soul” understood as the constellation of life-sustaining processes. At higher levels of organization, these powers are extended to include locomotion, sensation, and forms of animal “intelligence.” With human life there is added that rational power generative of cognitive functions that are taken by Aristotle now as being, in principle, “impassable.” This would seem to remove them from the domain of matter-in-motion.

Does all this make Aristotle a “dualist”?¹¹ This is an anachronistic query not unlike “was Democritus a particle physicist?” Democritus asserted that reality is ultimately decomposable into indivisible particles—α τομος being that which cannot be cut further. His position on atoms was part of an overall cosmology. Aristotle, too, adhered to a cosmological theory according to which the order and lawfulness of nature expressed an originating and designing intelligence itself not reducible to matter in motion. Ever the teleologist, Aristotle understood the corporeal features of life in terms of ends to be served and realized. Rational choice is toward goals that require perception and locomotion, even memory and imagination, not to mention nutrition and general health. All such modalities may be understood in their respective material and efficient causal roles, but neither together nor separately do they constitute the ultimate goal or aim as such.

Aristotle was as much the biologist as the logician when considering yet other theories that would have soul suffusing the body as a whole, in the form of some sort of subtle matter, as in the atomistic theory of Democritus. But such a theory would require two bodies to be in the same place! The animal can’t begin to move until each soul-unit moves in just the right way. If this is to explain the movement of the animal, there is then the task of explaining the causes of the movements of the units themselves, ad infinitum.

Defective theories thus eliminated, Aristotle is able to return to the central question of just how it is that modes of thought, feeling, and action are brought about. Considering such powers or states as “knowing, perceiving, opining, and further, desiring, wishing and . . . all other modes of appetition,” Aristotle questions whether such discrete functions require a soul divisible into parts, each serving one of these powers. Tested here is a version of today’s “modularity” theories. It is challenged by Aristotle on the grounds that such an account leaves unanswered the question as to what it is that holds the parts together. We perceive a dark liquid having a distinct odor and giving off steam. We know it to be strong coffee, about which we have a definite opinion; viz., that it helps the day get started. We desire it and hope that there is more than the cup before us. In this set of functions—perception, recognition, recall, desire, volition—the achievement is a fully integrated ensemble held together as a whole. Were the soul to function as a set of discrete modules, the question that would arise is just how the separate operations are held together to form a complete and seamless psychic occurrence. As the modularity theory cannot explain how the parts of the soul (if it has parts) are integrated, it fails utterly to make sense of the associated claim that the soul holds various parts of the body together as functional systems.¹² All such notions having failed, Aristotle concludes book 2 with the observation that “the question whether the soul and the body are one . . . is as though we were to ask whether the wax and its shape are one; or generally, the matter of a thing and that of which it is the matter.”¹³

What is implied by this and similar passages is that “soul” is not a “something” but an operative principle such that what would otherwise be merely dead matter now functions in a characteristic manner. However, such an account is not “on the side of the body,” for the same account is required to explain our wishing that there were more coffee to help us get started on the day. There is not a divided assembly of perception + knowledge + wish + desire; there is the complete thought as such.

As for the functions of “soul,” it is in book 3 that Aristotle develops the distinctions between perception and thought: between the sensory recording of events and an understanding of them. Considered as recording instruments, the special senses are not prone to the errors that stalk attempts at understanding. Thinking, on the other hand, is associated with opinion and belief. It goes beyond the sensory data and reflects a power or process different from perception. Granting that sensation in ancient Greek thought is, to use Wallace Matson’s phrase, kept on the side of the body, thinking is another matter entirely. Granting further that there would be no ancient version of the mind-body problem triggered by the facts and assumed processes of sensation, the ancient Greek philosophers would still find in thinking (deliberation, understanding, judgment) any number of problems of the mind-body sort. This is evident in Aristotle’s comments about intellect or reason (νους), which he declares to be immovable and enduring, properties true of nothing merely material.¹⁴

It is also in book 3 that Aristotle offers a suggestive analysis of the nature of perception, imagination, and comprehension.¹⁵ The sensory organs supply creatures with representations (phantasmata) of objects in the external world. Imagination (phantasia) permits the retrieval of this information, and the overall process, as a material transaction between organ and world, carries nothing of “truth” or “falsity.” Rather, a series of concrete steps unfolds in much the way a heated stylus produces a copy of its shape in softened wax. But with intellect or understanding there is belief and also conviction as to the meaning or significance of what is perceived, and it is only by way of human reason that these aspects of experience come about.

These considerations move Aristotle toward a distinctive and distinguishing conception of mind, as such. Noting that, in principle, everything is a potential object of thought, it cannot be the case that the power or faculty of thought has mixtures of material properties. If there were a thought-making device, everything thereby thought would include in some way properties of the device itself. (Crudely put, if thought were produced by a Cuisinart, it would be chopped !) A most suggestive conclusion is then reached: “Mind, in order, as Anaxagoras says, to dominate, that is, to know, must be pure from all admixture. . . . It follows that it can have no nature of its own, other than that of having a certain capacity.” Thus, that “in the soul which is called thought . . . is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.”¹⁶

The knowing mind has, as it were, fully taken in the object of knowledge, in a manner that flexibly accommodates all the nuances and particulars. Were the mind a mixture of colors or shapes or odors, then any object absorbed into the cognitive realm would be imbued with such properties, which is patently not the case. Considering only this much, it is clear that Aristotle and, for that matter Anaxagoras, recognized that there is a core problem in philosophy of mind, and Aristotle was able to offer, if not a solution, then at least a clarification of what is problematic about “mind.” Any attempt to absorb mind into the realm of material or corporeal parts of things will result in implications defeated by the very manner in which the objects of thought are thought, defeated by the very elasticity and capacity of the thinking process. Is the mind, then, some invisible, massless something? No, it’s not actually any real thing at all! It is not a “process,” nor is it a set of “functions.” It is the conceptual space within which we find, alas, the objec...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents 
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Epigraph
• 1. The Greeks (Again) and the “Consciousness” Problem
• 2. The Problem of Consciousness “Solved”
• 3. “Cartesianism” Revisited
• 4. Higher-Order Thought: A Machine in the Ghost
• 5. Self-Consciousness
• 6. Emotion
• 7. Motives, Desires, and Fulfillment
• 8. Plans: An Epilogue
• Notes
• Index