Category: Intentionality

Memory, Memory Traces, and Causation

Hippy-trippyPassing a lady in the supermarket I catch a whiff of patchouli.  Her scent puts me in mind of hippy-trippy Pamela from the summer of '69.  An olfactory stimulus in the present causes a memory, also in the present, of an event long past, a tête-à-tête with a certain girl.  How ordinary, but how strange! Suddenly I am 'brought back' to the fantastic and far-off summer of '69.  Ah yes!  What is memory and how does it work?  How is it even possible? 

Let's start with the 'datanic' as I like to say:

1. There are (veridical) memories through which we gain epistemic access to the actual past, to events that really happened.  The above example is a case of episodic personal memory.  I remember an event in my personal past.  To be precise, I remember my having experienced an event in my personal past.  My having been born by Caesarean section is also an episode from my personal past, and I remember that that was my mode of exiting my mother's body; but I don't remember experiencing that transition.  So not every autobiographical memory is a personal episodic memory.  The latter is the only sort of memory I will be discussing in this post.  The sentence in boldface is the nonnegotiable starting point of our investigation. 

We now add a couple of more theoretical and less datanic propositions, ones which are not obvious, but are  plausible and accepted by many theorists:

2. Memory is a causal notion.  A mental image of a past event needn't be a memory of a past event.  So what makes a mental image of a past event a memory image?  Its causal history.  My present memory has a causal history that begins with the event in 1969 as I experienced it.

3. There is no action at a temporal distance.  There is no direct causation over a temporal gap.  There are no remote causes; every cause is a proximate cause.  A necessary ingredient of causation is spatiotemporal contiguity.  So while memory is a causal notion, my present memory of the '69 event is not directly caused by that event.  For how could an event that no longer exists directly cause, over a decades-long temporal gap, a memory event in the present?  That would seem to be something 'spooky,' a kind of magic. 

Each of these propositions lays strong claim to our acceptance.  But how can they all be true?  (1) and (2) taken together appear to entail the negation of (3).  How then can we accommodate them all?

Memory trace theories provide a means of accommodation.  Suppose there are memory traces or engrams engraved in some medium.  For materialists this medium will have to be the brain.  One way to think of a memory trace is as a brain modification that was caused at the time of the original experience, and that persists since that time.  So the encounter with Pam in '69 induced a change in my brain, left a trace there, a trace which has persisted since then.  When I passed the patchouli lady in the supermarket, the olfactory stimulus 'activated' the dormant memory trace.   This activation of the memory trace either is or causes the memory experience whose intentional object is the past event.  With the help of memory traces we get causation wthout action at a temporal distance. 

(Far out, man!)

The theory or theory-schema just outlined seems to allow us to uphold each of the above propositions. In particular, it seems to allow us to explain how a present memory of a past event can be caused by the past event without the past event having to jump the decades-long temporal gap between event remembered and memory.  The memory trace laid down in '69 by the original experience exists in the present and is activated in the present by the sensory stimulus.  Thus the temporal contiguity requirement is satisfied.  And if the medium in which the memory traces are stored is the brain or central nervous system, then the spatial contiguity requirement is also satisfied.

Question:  Could memory traces play merely causal roles?

Given (2) and (3), it seems that memory traces must be introduced as causal mediators between past and present.  But could they be just that?  Or must they also play a representational role?  Intuitively, it seems that nothing could be a memory trace unless it somehow represented the event of which it is a trace. If E isthe original experience, and T is E's trace, then it it seems we must say that T is of E in a two-fold sense corresponding to the difference between the subjective and objective genitive.  First, T is of E in that T is E's trace, the one that E caused. Second, T is of E in that T represents E. 

It seems obvious that a trace must represent.  In my example,the sensory stimulus (the whiff of patchouli) is not of or about the '69 event.  It merely activates the trace, rendering the dispositional occurrent.  But the memory is about the '69 event.  So the aboutness must reside in the trace.  The trace must represent the event that caused it  – and no other past event.  The memory represents because the trace represents.  If the trace didn't represent anything, how could the memory — which is merely the activation of the trace or an immediate causal consequence of the activation of the trace — represent anything?  How a persisting brain modification — however it is conceived, whether it is static or dynamic, whether localized or nonlocalized — can represent anything is an important and vexing question but one I will discuss in a later post.

Right now I want to nail down the claim that memory traces cannot play a merely causal role, but must also bear the burden of representation.

Suppose a number of strangers visit me briefly.  I want to remember them,  but my power of memory is very weak and I know I will not remember them without the aid of some mnemonic device.  So I have my visitors leave calling cards.  They do so, except that they are all the same, and all blank (white).  These blank cards are their traces, one per visitor.   The visitors leave, but the cards remain behind as traces of their visit.  I store the cards in a drawer.  I 'activate' a card by pulling it out of storage and looking at it.  I am then reminded (at most) that I had a visitor, but not put in mind of any particular visitor such as Tom.  So even if the card in my hand was produced by Tom, that card is useless for the purpose of remembering Tom.  Likewise for every other card.  Each was produced by someone in particular and only by that person; but none of them 'bring back' any particular person. 

Bear in my mind that I don't directly remember any of my visitors.  My only memory access to them is via their traces, their calling cards.  For the visitors are long gone just like the '69 experience.  So the problem is not merely that I don't know which card is from which person; the problem is that I cannot even distinguish the persons.  

Had each visitor left a differently  colored card, that would not have helped.  Nor are matters helped if each visitor leaves a different sort of trace; a bottle cap, a spark plug, a lock of hair, a guitar pick.  Even if  Tom is a guitar player and leaves a guitar pick, that is unhelpful too  since I have no access to Tom except via his trace. 

So it doesn't matter whether my ten visitors leave ten tokens of the same type, or ten tokens each of a different type.  Either way I won't be able to remember them via the traces they leave behind.  Clearly, what I need from each visitor is an item that uniquely represents him or her — as opposed to an item that is merely caused to be in my house by the visitor.  Suppose Tom left a unique guitar pick, the only one of its kind in existence.  That wouldn't help either since no inspection of that unique pick could reveal that it was of Tom rather than of Eric or Eric's cat.  Ditto if Tom has signed his card or his pick 'Tom Riff.'  That might be a phony name, or the name of him and his guitar — doesn't B. B . King call his guitar 'Lucille'?

If I can remember that it was Tom who left the guitar pick, then of course I don't need the guitar pick to remember Tom by.  I simply remember Tom directly without the need for a trace.  On the other hand, if I do need a trace in order to remember long gone Tom, then that trace must have representational power: it cannot be merely something that plays a causal role. 

Traces theories have to avoid both circularity and vicious infinite regress.

Circularity.  To explain the phenomenon of memory, the trace theory posits the existence of memory traces.  But if the explanation in terms of traces ends up presupposing memory, then the theory is circular and worthless.  If what makes the guitar pick a trace of Tom is that I remember that Tom left it, then the explanation is circular.  Now consider the trace T in my brain which, when activated by stimulus S causes a memory M of past experience E.  M represents E because T represents E.  What makes T represent E? What makes the memory trace caused by the encounter with Pam in '69 represent Pam or my talking with her?  The answer cannot be that I remember the memory trace being caused by the encounter with Pam.  For that would be blatantly circular.  Besides, memory traces in the brain are not accessible to introspection.

Infinite Regress.  Our question is: what makes T represent E and nothing else?  To avoid circularity one might say this:  There is a trace T* which records the fact of E's production of T, and T represents E in virtue of T*.  But this leads to a  vicious infinite regress.   Suppose Sally leaves a photo of herself.  How do I know that the photo is of Sally and not of her sister Ally?  If you say that I directly remember Sally and thereby know that the photo is unambiguously of her, then you move in a circle.  You may as well just say that we remember directly and not via traces.  So, to hold onto the trace theory, one might say the following:  There is a photo of Sally and her photograph, side by side.  Inspection of  this photo reveals that that the first photo is of Sally.  But this leads to regress:  what makes the second photo a photo of the first?

Conclusion:  To avoid both circularity and infinite regress, memory traces must possess intrinsic representational power.  Their role cannot be merely causal.

A later post will then address the question whether memory traces could have intrinsic representational power.  If you are a regular reader of this blog you will be able to guess my answer.

REFERENCE:  John Heil, "Traces of Things Past," Philosophy of Science, vol. 45, no. 1 (March 1978), pp. 60-72.  My calling card example above is a reworking of Heil's tennis ball example.

 

More on Intentionality as a Problem for Functionalism

1. Even if every mental state is a brain state, it is quite clear that  not every brain state is a mental state: not everything going on in the brain manifests mentality. So what distinguishes the brain states that are mental states from the brain states that are not? This question cannot be evaded.

The distinguishing feature cannot be anything intrinsic to brain states qua brain states. To put it another way, the biological, electrochemical, and other terms appropriate to the description of  brain phenomena are of no help in specifying what makes a brain state  mental. Talk of axons, dendrites, synapses, diffusion of sodium ions across synapses, etc. is not the sort of talk that makes intelligible why a particular complex state of Jones' brain is his intense elation at getting his neuroscience text accepted for publication.
  
2. To help you understand what I have just said, I offer an analogy.  Even though every valve-lifter is an engine part, it is quite clear that not every engine part is a valve-lifter. So what distinguishes  the engine parts that are valve-lifters from the parts that are not?

The distinguishing feature cannot be anything intrinsic to engine parts qua physical objects. The mechanical, chemical, electrical, metallurgical and other terms appropriate to the description of engine parts are of no help in specifying what makes an engine part a  valve-lifter. A metallurgist might tell us everything there is to know  about the physical properties of those engine parts that are valve-lifters. But knowing all of that, I do not yet know what makes the part in question a valve-lifter. Similarly, I don't know what makes a certain heavy object under my hood a battery just in virtue of knowing all the electrochemistry involved in its operation.

3. The obvious thing to say at this point is that what make an engine part a valve-lifter or a battery or a generator or a transmission is its function. Physical composition is irrelevant. What makes a part a valve-lifter is the causal role it instantiates within the 'economy'  of the engine. A thing is a valve-lifter in virtue of the job it does  when properly connected to valves, cams, etc. Its being a valve-lifter is not intrinsic to it. Its being is its function within a system whose parts are causally interrelated.

I stress that physical composition is irrelevant. Anything that does the job of a valve-lifter is a valve-lifter. Anything that does the job of a modem is a modem.  There is more than one implementation of the modulation-demodulation function.  The function is 'multiply  realizable' as we say in the trade. Of course, not every physical substratum supports the function: not even in Eskimo land could valve-lifters in internal combustion engines be made of ice.

Another important point is that a particular thing that functions as a valve-lifter can assume other functions, that of paper-weight for example.  So not only are causal roles typically multiply realizable, causal role occupants or realizers are typically multi-functional. 

I think we are all functionalists when it comes to things like valve-lifters, screwdrivers, switches, and modems. Anything that modulates/demodulates is a modem regardless of the stuff inside the
box that realizes or implements the function. For all we care, there is a colony of leprechauns inside the box that chop up the analog input into digital bits. If it does the job of a modem, it IS a modem.

Can we apply this functionalist model to the mind?

4. If there is nothing intrinsic to brain states that explains why some of them are mental states, then the naturalist must look to the extrinsic or relational features of brain states. How do they function? What causal role do they play? How do they stand in relation to inputs and outputs? How did they come into being? What are they good for?

One answer is the functionalist theory that causal role is what makes a brain state a mental state. What makes a mental state mental is just  the causal role it plays in mediating between sensory inputs,   behavioral outputs and other internal states of the subject whose state it is. The idea is not the banality that mental events have causes and effects, but that it is causal role occupancy, nothing more and nothing less, that constitutes the mentality of a mental state. The intrinsic nature of what plays the role is relevant only to its fitness for instantiating mental causal roles but not at all relevant to its being a mental state.

That's the basic idea. What makes a brain state a desire is the causal role that state plays. There is nothing intrinsic to the brain state itself that could tell you that it was a desire for a beer rather than
an intention to paint the bathroom, or a memory of a trip to the Grand Canyon.  In their intrinsic nature mental states are just brain states; it is only their external relations that confer upon them mentality.

5. Here is one problem. It seems clear that my intention to clear brush could not have been a desire for a cold beer. Nor could it be an intention to paint the bathroom. The act of intending is individuated by its intentional content (to clear brush; to pain the bathroom): the content enters into the description of the act. This entails that the act could not have been an act having a different content.

But if it is causal role occupancy that makes brain state B an intention to clear brush, then B could have been an intention to paint the bathroom, had its causal relations been different.  Since this is absurd, it cannot be causal role occupancy  that makes B an intention to clear brush.  The fact of intentionality refutes functionalism.

Compare the valve-lifter. A particular engine part is a valve-lifter in virtue of the causal role it plays in the engine. But that part might not have been in the engine; it might have been on my desk weighing down papers, in which case it would have been playing a different causal role. There is no problem in this case because valve-lifters lack content, or directedness to an object. A valve-lifter is not about anything. But an intention is. And this aboutness is intrinsic to it, which is why it cannot be captured extrinsically in terms of functional role.

So one should not suppose that qualia are the only problems for functionalism.  Intentionality is just as much of a problem.  Compare the Martian neuroscientist argument given earlier.

Besides, one is superficial and thoughtless if one imagines that a clean separation can be made between qualia and intentional phenomena.  But that's a separate post.

Intentionality Not a ‘Hard Problem’ for Physicalists?

The qualia-based objections are supposed to pose a 'hard' problem for defenders of physicalism.  The implication is that the problems posed by intentionality are, if not exactly 'easy,' then at least tractable.  An earlier post discussed a version of the knowledge argument, which is one of the qualia-based objections.  (Two others are the absent qualia argument and the zombie argument.)  It seems to me, though, that intentionality is also a damned hard problem for physicalists to solve, so hard in fact as to be insoluble within physicalist constraints and another excellent  reason to reject physicalism.

Before proceeding I want to make two preliminary points. 

The first is that the untenability of physicalism does not entail the acceptability of substance dualism. Contrapositively, the unacceptability of substance dualism does not entail the tenability of physicalism.  So if a physicalist wishes to point out the problems with substance dualism,  he is free to do so.  But he ought not think that such problems supply compelling reasons to be a physicalist.  For it is obvious that the positions stand to each other as logical contraries; hence both could be be false.

My second point is that considerations of parsimony do favor physicalism over dualistic schemes — but only on condition that the relevant data can be adequately accounted for.  And that is one big  'only if.'  (See The Use and Abuse of Occam's Razor: On Multiplying Entities Beyond Necessity.)

An Argument Sketched.  Mary, Meet Marty.

We were talking about Frank Jackson's Mary.  Now I introduce Marty, a Martian scientist who like Mary knows everything there is to know about human brains and their supporting systems.  So he knows all about what goes in the human brain and CNS when we humans suffer and enjoy twinges and tingles, smells and stinks, sights and sounds, etc.  We will suppose that Marty's sensorium is very different, perhaps totally different than ours.  He may have infrared color qualia but no color qualia corresponding to the portion of the EM spectrum for which we have color qualia.  Marty also knows everything there is to know about what goes on in my head when I think about various things.  We may even suppose that Marty is studying me right now with his super-sophisticated instruments and knows exactly what is going on in my head right now when I am in various intentional states.

Suppose I am now thinking about dogs. I needn't be thinking about any particular dog; I might just be thinking about getting a dog, which of course does not entail that there is some particular dog, Kramer say, that I am thinking about getting. Indeed, one can think about getting a dog that is distinct from every dog presently in existence! How? By thinking about having a dog breeder do his thing. If a woman tells her husband that she wants a baby, more likely than not, she is not telling him that she wants to kidnap or adopt some existing baby, but that she wants the two of them to engage in the sorts of conjugal activities that can be expected to cause a baby to exist.  Same with me.  I can want a dog or a cat or a sloop or a matter transmitter even if the object of my wanting does not presently exist.

So right now I am thinking about a dog, but no presently existing dog.  My thinking has intentional content. It is an instance of what philosophers call intentionality.  My act of thinking takes an object, or has an accusative. It exhibits  aboutness or of-ness in the way a pain quale does not exhibit aboutness of of-ness.   It is important to realize that my thinking is intrinsically such as to be about a dog:  the aboutness is not parasitic upon an external relation to an actual dog.  That is why I rigged the example the way I did.  My thinking is object-directed despite there being no object in existence to which I am externally related.  This blocks attempts to explain intentionality in terms of causation.  Such attempts fail in any case.  See my post on Representation and Causation.

The question is whether the Martian scientist can determine what that intentional content is by monitoring my neural states during the period of time I am thinking about a dog. The content before my mind has various subcontents: hairy critter, mammal, barking animal, man's best friend . . . .  But none of this content will be discernible to the Martian neuroscientist on the basis of complete knowledge of my neural states, their relations to each other and to sensory input and behavioral output. To strengthen the argument we may stipulate that Marty lacks the very concept dog. Therefore, there is more to the mind than what can be known by even a completed neuroscience. Physicalism (materialism) is false.

The argument is this:

1. Marty knows all the physical and functional facts about my body and brain during the time I am thinking about a dog.
2. That I am thinking about a dog is a fact.
3.  Marty does not know that I am thinking about a dog.
Therefore
4. Marty does not know all the facts about me and my mental activity.
Therefore
5. There are mental facts that are not physical or functional facts, and physicalism is false.

Credit where credit is due:  The above is my take on a more detailed and careful argument presented here by Laurence BonJour.  Good day!

Sentences as Names of Facts: An Aporetic Triad

There are good reasons to introduce facts as truth-makers for contingently true atomic sentences.  (Some supporting reasoning here.)  But if there are facts, and they make-true contingent atomic sentences, then what is the semantic relation between these declarative sentences and their truth-makers?  It seems we should say that such sentences name facts.  But some remarks of Leo Mollica suggest that this will lead to trouble.  Consider this aporetic triad:

1. 'Al is fat' is the name of the fact of Al's being fat.
2. 'Al is fat' has a referent only if it is true.
3. Names are essentially names: a name names whether or not it has a referent.

Each limb of the triad is very plausible, but they can't all be true.  The conjunction of (1) and (3) entails the negation of (2).  Which limb should we abandon?  It cannot be (1) given the cogency of the Truth Maker Argument and the plausible assumption that the only semantic relation between a sentence and the corresponding fact is one of naming.

(2) also seems 'ungiveupable.'  There are false sentences, and there may be false (Fregean) propositions: but a fact is not a truth-bearer but a truth-maker.  It is very hard to swallow the notion that there are 'false' or nonobtaining facts.  If 'Al is fat' is false it is because Al and fatness do not form a fact.  The existence of a fact is the unity of its constituents.  Where there is the unity of the right sort of constituents you have a fact; where there is not, you don't.

As for (3), suppose that names are only accidentally names, than a name names only on condition that it have a referent.  We would then have to conclude that if the bearer of a name ceases to exist, that the name ceases to be a name.  And that seems wrong.  When Le Verrier put forth the hypothesis of an intra-Mercurial planent  that came to be called 'Vulcan,' he did not know whether there was indeed such a planet, but he thought he had good evidence of its existence. When it was later decided that there was no good evidence of the planet in question, 'Vulcan' did not cease to be a name.  If we now say, truly, that Vlucan does not exist we employ a name whose naming is not exhausted by its having a referent.

So it seems that names name essentially.  This is the linguistic analog of intentionality: one cannot just think; if one thinks, then necessarily one thinks of something, something that may or may not exist. If I am thinking of something, and it ceases to exist, my thinking does not cease to be object-directed.  Thinking is essentially object-directed.  Analogously, names are essentially names.

So far, then, today's triad looks to be another addition the list of insolubilia.  The limbs of the triad are more reasonably accepted than rejected, but they cannot all be true.  A pretty pickle.

By the way, I insist on the primacy of the intentional over the linguistic.

How Many are the Ways of Denying that Intentionality is a Two-Term Relation?

How shall I deny thee? Let me count the ways.

I need an exhaustive classification of all the ways of denying that intentionality is a two-term relation. (Since one cannot think without thinking of something, one might suppose that intentionality is a dyadic relation connecting a thinker or one of his mental contents to an object.)  Here is what I have come up with so far.  If you know this subject and think that there is a way I have overlooked, the ComBox is open for you to tell me what it is.

1. There is no intentionality at all.  If there is no intentionality, then intentionality is not a relation between a subjective item and an objective item.  This eliminativist option is of course a complete nonstarter. 

2. Intentionality is sui generis.  On this view there are relations, but intentionality is wholly unique and so not a member of the category of relations.  At most, intentionality is relation-like.  One can find something like this view in Brentano and Findlay.

3. Intentionality is not a relation because there are no relations.  For Bradley, there are, in ultimate reality, no relations.  So a Bradleyan might argue that whatever intentionality is, it cannot be a relation.

4. Intentionality is not a dyadic relation; it is a monadic property of objects. (Sartre, Butchvarov, et al.) 

5.  Intentionality is not a relation because it is either an adverbial modification of subjects, or a property of subjects (Bergmann, Addis).

6.  Intentionality is not a two-term relation (though it is a two-place relation); it involves an identity between subject and object. (Thomism)  To see how this might work, see here and here.

7.  Intentionality is a not a two-term relation because it is a multiple-term relation along the lines of Russell's multiple-relation theory of judgment.  The idea here is that there is no one thing on the side of the object, no proposition or fact.  Accordingly, Othello's believing that Desdemona loves Cassio is not a two-term relation between Othello and the proposition that Desdemona loves Cassio; it is a four-place relation that can be depicted by 'Believes(Othello, Desdemona, loves, Cassio).'

Did I cover all the bases?  Is my classification exhaustive?

Singular Meaning

Edward Ockham of Beyond Necessity is back from his Turkish holiday and reports that, besides lazing on the beach at Bodrum, he

. . . spent some time thinking about singular concepts. Do you accept singular meaning? Either you hold that a proper name has a meaning, or not (Aquinas held that it does not, by the way). If it does, then what is it that we understand when we understand the meaning of a proper name? The scholastics held that there was a sort of equivalence between meaning and signifying ("unumquodque, sicut contingit intelligere, contingit et significare"). What I signify, when I use a term in the context of a proposition, is precisely what another person understands, when he grasps that proposition that I have expressed.

Do I accept singular meaning?  That depends on what we mean by 'meaning' and by 'singular.'  Let's see if we can iron out our terminology.

1. Without taking 'sense' and 'reference' in exactly the way Frege intended them to be taken, I would say that 'meaning' is ambiguous as between sense and reference.  Unfortunately, Edward seems to be using 'meaning' to mean 'sense.'  Of course, he is free to do that.

2. Edward also uses the word 'signify.'  I should like him to explain exactly  how he is using this word.  Is the signification of a proper name the same as what I am calling its sense? Or is the signification of a proper name its  referent? Or neither? Or both?

3.  Suppose I assertively utter a token of 'Peter is tired' in the presence of both Peter and Edward.   My assertion is intended to convey a fact about Peter to Edward.  The latter grasps (understands) the proposition I express by my assertive tokening of the sentence in question.  And of course I understand the same proposition.  What I signify — 'express' as I would put it — by my use of 'Peter' is what Edward understands when he grasps the proposition I express. 

4.  Now the issue seems to be this.  Is the meaning or signification or sense  I express, and that I understand,  when I say 'Peter'  a singular meaning?  More precisely: is it an irreducibly singular meaning, one that cannot be understood as logically constructed from general concepts such as man, philosopher, smoker?

5. I say No!   I don't deny that 'Peter' has a sense.  It has a sense and a referent, unlike 'Vulcan' which has a sense but no referent.  But the sense of 'Peter' is not singular but general.  So, to answer Edward's question, I do not accept singular meaning.

Corollary: the haecceity of Peter – Peterity to give it a name — cannot be grasped.  All thinking is general: no thinking can penetrate to the very haecceity and ipseity of the thing thought about.  One cannot think about a particular except  as an instance of multiply exemplifiable concepts/properties.  This is 'on all fours' with my earlier claim that there are no singular or individual concepts.  The individual qua individual is conceptually ineffable.  So if we know singulars (individuals) at all, we do not know them by conceptualization.

If Edward disagrees with this he must tell us exactly why.  He should also tell us exactly how he is using 'proposition' since that is another potential bone of contention.  Is he a Fregean, a Russellian, or a Geachian when it comes to propositions?  Or none of those?

Butchvarov: Objects, Entities, and Transcendental Idealism

This entry extends and clarifies my post, Blackman Versus Butchvarov: Objects, Entities, and Modes of Existence. 

Preliminaries

For Butchvarov, all consciousness is intentional. (There are no non-intentional consciousnesses.)  And all intentionality is conscious intentionality. (There is no "physical intentionality" to use George Molnar's term.)  So, for Butchvarov, 'consciousness' and 'intentionality' are equivalent terms.  Consciousness, by its very nature, is consciousness of something, where the 'of' is an objective genitive.

Continue reading “Butchvarov: Objects, Entities, and Transcendental Idealism”

Blackman Versus Butchvarov: Objects, Entities, and Modes of Existence

(UPDATE: 23 March.  Butchvarov sent me some comments via e-mail the main ones of  which I insert in the text in red.)

This post assumes familiarity with Panayot Butchvarov's "protometaphysics," as he calls it.  But I will begin by sketching the distinction between objects and entities.  Then I will present an objection that occurred to me and Larry Lee Blackman independently.  That will be followed by a response that Butchvarov could make to the objection.  Finally, I will try to show that Blackman's objection, despite his disclaimers, commits him to a doctrine of modes of existence, but that this is not the bad thing he thinks it is.  This post ties in with our earlier explorations of the modes-of-existence doctrine which is dogmatically denied by a majority of analytic philosophers.  (These earlier posts are collected in the Existence category.)  There is also an obvious tie-in with earlier posts on Intentionality.

I. Entities and Objects

Entities exist while objects may or may not exist. Some objects exist and some do not. When one imagines Santa Claus or hallucinates a pink rat, an object appears, an object that doesn’t exist. When one perceives his hand, an object appears too, one that exists. The difference between an object that exists and one that does not is explicated by Butchvarov in terms of indefinite identifiability: An object exists if and only if it is indefinitely identifiable with other objects. The domain of objects is logically prior to the domain of entities. The application of the concepts of identity and existence to the domain of objects results in a "conceptual transition" from the domain of objects to the domain of entities or existents. (BQB 39) The concepts of identity and existence sort objects into the existent and the nonexistent. Identity and existence are therefore classificatory concepts.  Of the two concepts, identity is the more basic since existence is explicable in terms of it.  The identity in question is material as opposed to formal identity, the kind affirmed in true, informative identity statements like 'The morning star is the evening star.'  But although identity and existence are genuine concepts, they are only concepts: there is nothing in the world that corresponds to them.

Butchvarov’s Meinongian commitment to nonexistent objects is a direct consequence of his Sartrean view of consciousness as exhausting itself in its objects. For on this view consciousness harbors no representations or other intermediary contents that could serve as surrogate objects when we think about what does not exist. Imagination of a mermaid is not consciousness of a mental image or other content of consciousness but precisely consciousness of a mermaid. Consciousness of a mermaid is just as outer-directed and revelatory of a material item as consciousness of a dolphin. But mermaids do not exist. Therefore, some objects do not exist. To take intentionality at phenomenological face-value, as Butchvarov does, is to accept nonexistent objects. Phenomenologically, consciousness is just the revealing of objects, only some of which are indefinitely identifiable. (THIS SECTION STATES MY VIEWS BETTER THAN I HAVE EVER DONE  MYSELF!)

II. An Objection

There is a strong temptation to suppose that if there are nonexistent objects, as Meinongians maintain, then they must have some ontological status despite their not existing.  After all, they are not nothing.   And so one might suppose that they must have the status of merely intentional objects.  By 'merely intentional object' I mean an accusative of consciousness that does not exist in reality but does exist as, and only as, an accusative of consciousness.  (We will have to ask whether one who accepts merely intentional objects must also accept modes of existence.)  (I AM UNEASY ABOUT YOUR USE OF ‘ACCUSATIVE.’ IT IS A GRAMMATICAL TERM. WHAT YOU MEAN BY IT IS ‘OBJECT,’ BUT THEN YOUR PHRASE “MERELY INTENTIONAL OBJECTS” JUST MEANS “OBJECTS THAT DO NOT EXIST BUT SOMEONE IS CONSCIOUS OF THEM.) But for Butchvarov, the class of nonexistent objects does not have the same extension as that of merely intentional objects.   For he tells us that there is "no contradiction in supposing that there are objects that are not perceived, or imagined, or thought by anyone." (BQB 62, quoted in Larry Lee Blackman, "Mind as Intentionality Alone," Metaphysica, vol. 3, no. 2 December 2002,p. 45)  If there are such nonexistent objects, then of course it cannot be true that x is a nonexistent object iff x is a merely intentional object.

Furthermore, what I am calling merely intentional objects are mind-dependent: they exist as, and only as, accusatives of mind.  No mind, no merely intentional objects.  But Butchvarov's nonexistent objects are neither mind-dependent nor mind-independent, whether logically or causally.  Only what exists is either mind-dependent or mind-independent.  It follows that none of his nonexistent objects are what I am calling merely intentional objects. 

Blackman's worry, and mine too, is expressed by Blackman when he writes, "He [Butchvarov] denies that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent, but in an obvious sense they are, since, in a world without minds, there would be no perceivings of golden mountains, no imaginings of centaurs, etc." (Blackman, 55)  Now Butchvarov denies on phenomenological grounds that there are individual mental subjects and mental acts as well.  So Butchvarov might respond that of course there are no imaginings of centaurs, if imaginings are mental acts.  So we need to put Blackman's objection more precisely.  The objection needn't presuppose that there are individual minds or mental acts.  The essence of the objection is that in a world without mind (consciousness)  there are no perceptual or imaginal objects.  (THIS IS AMBIGUOUS, THOUGH THE FAULT IS MINE BECAUSE I USE ‘PERCEPTUAL’ AND ‘IMAGINAL’ FOR THE NONRELATIONAL PROPERTIES IN QUESTION. BUT THEY ARE EXPLICITLY INTENDED TO EXCLUDE REFERENCE TO A CONSCIOUSNESS.) Denying as he does that there are minds and mental acts,  Butchvarov must deny that imagining, perceiving, remembering, etc. are types of mental acts or properties of mental acts.  Act-differences are displaced onto the object as monadic (nonrelational) properties of objects. Thus it is a nonrelational, and hence intrinsic, property of centaurs that they are imaginal objects.  This being understood, Blackman's objection can be put by saying that in a world without consciousness there would be no perceptual or imaginal or memorial objects, and that therefore, in a world without consciousness, there would be no such nonexistent objects.  Blackman is of course assuming that there could be a world without consciousness.  If Butchvarov were to claim that there could not be, then his theory of objects would have idealism as a consequence.

The problem can be set forth as an aporetic triad:

1. Only what exists is either mind-dependent or mind-independent. (MY POINT IS THAT CAUSAL RELATIONS HOLD ONLY BETWEEN EXISTENT OBJECTS. IF THERE IS AN EXISTENT SUCH AS MIND, THEN DEPENDENCE ON IT WOULD BE SUCH A RELATION.)

2. There are objects that do not exist.
3. Both the distinction between objects and entities, and the related distinction between existent and nonexistent objects, are  mind-involving in the sense that in a world without mind these distinctions would not obtain. (THE TERM ‘MIND’ HERE IS AMBIGUOUS. IF IT MEANS ‘CONSCIOUSNESS’ THEN MIND IS NOT THE SORT OF THING ON WHICH ANYTHING CAN DEPEND OR NOT DEPEND.)

The limbs of this triad are individually plausible but jointly inconsistent.  For example, (1) and (2) taken together entail the negation of (3).  Indeed, any two limbs, taken together, entail the negation of the remaining one.  Since Butch is committed to both (1) and (2), he will solve the problem by denying (3).  Unfortunately, (3) is at least as plausible as (1) and (2).  Blackman, if I have understood him, will go further and say that (3) is more plausible than (1).  Accordingly, Blackman will solve the problem by denying (1). 

There is of course the possibility that the inconsistent triad is a genuine aporia, a conceptual impasse, and thus insoluble on the plane of the discursive intellect, which of course is where philosophy must operate.  I can't prove that it is a genuine aporia, but all three limbs, though jointly inconsistent, make a strong claim on our acceptance.  It is therefore not unreasonable to hold that we have no rational ground to prefer the rejection of one limb rather than another.  Of course, there is no way to stop people from being dogmatic.  Thus some will quickly reject (2) while ignoring the phenomenological and dialectical considerations Butch adduces in support of it.

My point, then is that Butchvarov's position, which requires the acceptance of (1) and (2), and the rejection of (3), is not compelling and is rationally rejectable.   

III.  A Possible Butchvarov Response

Suppose we reject (1) as I am inclined to do.  We would then be maintaining that an item can be mind-dependent without existing in reality. ('Exist' when used without qualification just means 'exist in reality.')  An imagined centaur would then exist-in consciousness without existing in reality.  And so we would have to distinguish between two distinct modes of existence, existence simpliciter (existence in reality) and intentional existence (existence in consciousness as a mere intentional object).  A scholastic philosopher would speak of esse reale and esse intentionale.  At this point Butch would probably object by saying that talk of modes of existence involves an intolerable equivocation on 'exists.'  If one adheres strictly to the univocity of 'exists' and cognates, then one cannot sensibly speak of modes of existence (as opposed to categories of existent).  So one can imagine Butchvarov arguing:  (a) To reject (1) is to embrace a doctrine of modes of existence which entails the  thesis that 'exist(s)' is equivocal.  (b) But this equivocity thesis is unacceptable.  So (c) (1) ought to be accepted.  (d) Given the phenomenological evidence for nonexistent objects, (3) ought to be rejected.  On the equivocity of 'exist(s)' see the work by the Butchvarov student, Dennis E. Bradford, The Concept of Existence: A Study of Nonexistent Particulars (University Press of America, 1980), pp. 37 ff.

IV.  Blackman's Attempt to Avoid Equivocity

Blackman agrees with me that in a world without mind there are no nonexistent objects.  But Blackman doesn't agree with me that holding this commits him to modes of existence:  ". . . to assert that gargoyles exist as the objects of our awarenesses is not to employ the term 'exists' equivocally, as Butchvarov might allege." (Blackman, 55)  Why not?

To say that gargoyles exist as the objects of my imaginings and that penguins exist as the the objects of my (veridical) perceptions is no more to use the term 'exists' equivocally than it is to to claim that the word 'exists' is used equivocally in the locutions, 'I exist as a father' and 'I exist as a husband.'  In neither case are we supposing different 'modes' of existence. (Ibid.)

The comparison is faulty.  I grant that there is no equivocation on 'exists' as between 'I exist as a father' and 'I exist as a husband.'  The first is equivalent to 'I exist and I am a father' while the second is equivalent to 'I exist and I am a husband.'   No equivocation!  But then  'Gargoyles exist as the objects of my imaginings' is equivalent to 'Gargoyles exist and gargoyles are objects of my imaginings' and 'Penguins exist as the objects of my (veridical) perceptions' is equivalent to 'Penguins exist and penguins are the objects of my (veridical) perceptions.'  Here there is equivocation! From this one can see that the comparison is flawed.  For while it is true that penguins exist and are the objects of my (veridical) perceptions, it is false that gargoyles exist and are the objects of my imaginings when 'exists' is employed univocally.  Penguins exist but gargoyles do not.

Blackman is trying to have it both ways: he is trying avoid the doctrine of modes of existence (modes of being) while maintaining that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent.  But this is impossible.  If nonexistent objects are mind-dependent, then they must exist in some way or mode.  This is because ontological dependence/independence obtains only between items that have some mode of existence.  An item that has no being or existence whatsoever cannot be said to be independent or dependent on mind or on anything else.  This is the core insight embodied in (1).  On the other hand, if there are no modes of being or existence,  then nonexistent objects cannot be said to be mind-dependent.

Although Blackman is on very solid ground in claiming that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent, he falls into incoherence because of his adherence to the analytic dogma that there cannot be modes of existence.  Further proof of the incoherence is in evidence when Blackman states that  "We might say that nonexistent objects, like the existent ones, belong to something larger called 'reality,' but the claim that nonexistent objects are in a sense 'real' is innocuous, as long as it understood that their 'reality' consists merely in their being the (strictly mental) intentions of certain awarenesses. (55-56)  It seems to me that the first independent clause in this sentence contradicts the second.  If reality is common to existent and nonexistent objects, then surely the reality of an object (whether existent or nonexistent) cannot consist in its being the strictly mental intention (i.e., intentum, intentional object) of certain awarenesses.

I claim that the widespread analytic view that there cannot be modes of existence is but a dogma.  In earlier posts collected in the Existence category I try to show that typical arguments against the doctrine fail and that there is a way between the horns of univocity and sheer equivocity of the river bank/financial bank sort (which I grant is intolerable).  If I am right about this, the insights of both Blackman and Butchvarov can be accommodated.  Blackman is right to insist that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent.  And Butchvarov is right to think that only what exists can stand in relations of dependence or independence.  But Butchvarov is wrong to think that only what exists in reality exists.  What exists in the mode of esse intentionale also exists but not in reality, only in consciousness.

Self-Reference and Individual Concepts

The following can happen.  You see yourself but without self-recognition.  You see yourself, but not as  yourself.  Suppose you walk into a room which unbeknownst to you has a mirror covering the far wall.  You are slightly alarmed to see a wild-haired man with his fly open approaching you.  You are looking at yourself but you don't know it.  (The lighting is bad, you've had a few drinks . . . .) You think to yourself

1. That man has his fly open!
but not
2. I have my fly open!

Now these propositions — assuming they are propositions — are obviously different.  For one thing, they have different behavioral consequences.  I can believe the first without taking action with respect to my fly, or any fly.  (I'm certainly not going to go near the other guy's fly.)  But if I believe the second I will most assuredly button my fly, or pull up my zipper.

So it seems clear that (1) and (2) are different propositions.  I can believe one without believing the other.  But how can this be given the plain fact that 'that man' and 'I' refer to the same man?  Both propositions predicate the same property of the same subject.  So what makes them distinct propositions?

I know what your knee-jerk response will be.  You will say that, while 'I' and 'that man' have the same referent, they differ in sense just like 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus.'  Just as one can believe that Hesperus is F without believing that Phosphorus is F despite the identity of the two, one can believe that (1) without believing that (2) despite the fact that the subject terms are coreferential.

The trouble with this response is that it requires  special 'I'-senses, and indeed a different one for each user of the first-person singular pronoun.  These go together with special 'I'-propositions which are a species of indexical proposition.  When I believe that I am F, I refer to myself via a special Fregean sense which has the following property: it is necessarily a mode of presentation of me alone.  We can also think of this 'I'-sense as an individual concept or haecceity-concept.  It is a concept such that, if it is instantiated, it is instantiated (i) by me, (ii) by nothing distinct from me, (iii) and by the same person in every possible world in which it is instantiated.

But what on earth (or on Twin Earth) could this concept be, and how could I grasp it?  The concept has to 'pin me down' in every possible world in which I exist.  It has to capture my very thisness, or, in Latin, my haecceitas.  But a better Latin word is ipseitas, ipseity, selfhood, my being a self, this one and no other.    In plain old Anglo-Saxon it is the concept of me-ness, the concept of being me.

The theory, then, is that my awareness that

3. I am that man!

consists in my awareness that the concept expressed by 'I' and the concept expressed by 'that man' are instantiated by one and the same individual.  But this theory is no good because, even if my use of 'I' expresses an haecceity-concept, that is not a concept I can grasp or understand.  Maybe God can grasp my haecceity, but I surely can't.  Individuum ineffabile est said the Scholastics, echoing Aristotle. No finite mind can 'eff' the ineffable.  The individual in his individuality, in his very haecceity and ipseity, is ineffable.

Self-reference is not routed though sense, however things may stand with respect to other-reference.  When I refer to myself using the first-person singular pronoun, I do not refer to myself via a Fregean sense.

So here is the problem expressed as an aporetic pentad:

a. (1) and (2) express different Fregean propositions.
b. If two Fregean propositions are different, then they must differ in a constituent.
c. The difference can only reside in a difference in subject constituents.
d. The subject constituent of (2) is ineffable.
e. No sense (mode of presentation) or humanly-graspable concept can be ineffable.

This pentad is inconsistent:  (a)-(d), taken together, entail the negation of (e).  The only limb that has a chance of being false is (a).  One could say that (1) and (2), though clearly different, are not different by expressing different Fregean propositions.  But then what would our positive theory have to be?

 

The Philosophizing Hiker: The Derivative Intentionality of Trail Markers

IMG_0303 You are out hiking and the trail becomes faint and hard to follow. You peer into the distance and see what appear to be three stacked rocks. Looking a bit farther, you see another such stack. Now you are confident which way the trail goes. Your confidence increases as further cairns come into view. On what does this confidence rest?

Your confidence is based on your taking the rock piles as other than merely natural formations. You take them as providing information about the trail's direction, which is to say that you to take them as trail markers, as meaning something, as about something distinct from themselves, as exhibiting intentionality, to use a philosopher's term of art.

Of course, the rock piles might have come into existence via purely natural causes: a rainstorm might have dislodged some rocks with gravity plus other purely material factors accounting for their placement. Highly unlikely, but nomologically possible. But please note that if you believe that the cairns originated in that way, then you could not take them as embodying information about the direction of the trail. It would be irrational in excelsis to hold both that (i) these rock piles came about randomly; and that (ii) these rock piles inform us of the trail's direction.

So if you take the rock piles as trail markers, then you take them as other than merely natural formations caused to exist by natural causes. You take the stacking and the placement as expressive of the purposes of a trail-blazer or trail-maintainer, an intelligent being who had it in mind to convey information to himself and others concerning the direction of the trail. This shows that any intentionality embodied in the cairns is derivative rather than intrinsic. The rock piles in and of themselves do not inform us of the trail's direction. They provide us this information only if we take them as embodying the purposes of an intelligent being. Of course, my taking of rock piles as embodying the purposes of an intelligent being does not entail that they do in fact embody the purposes of an intelligent being. But in most cases my ascription of a purpose corresponds to a purpose: I ascribe a purpose and the rock piles do in fact embody a purpose.

Thus there are two streams of intrinsic intentionality converging on the same object, one emanating from me, the other from the trail-maintainer.  The latter's embodying of his purpose in the cairn construction is a case of intrinsic intentionality.  And when I take the rock piles as embodying the trail-maintainer's purpose thereby ascribing to the rock piles a purpose, that too is a case of intrinsic intentionality.

The ascribing of a purpose and the embodying of a purpose are usually 'in sync.' There are rock piles that have no meaning and rock piles that have meaning. But no rock pile has intrinsic meaning. And the same goes for any material item or configuration of material items no matter how complex. No such system has intrinsic meaning; any meaning it has is derived. The meaning is derived either from an intelligent being who ascribes meaning to the material system, or from an intelligent being whose purposes are embodied in the material system, or both.

Thus I am rejecting the view that meaning could inhere in material systems apart from relations to minds that are intrinsically intentional, minds who are original Sinn-ers, if you will, original mean-ers. We are all of us Sinn-ers, every man Jack of us, original Sinn-ers,  but our Sinn-ing is not mortal but vital.  Intentionality is our very lifeblood as spiritual beings.

I am rejecting the view that any sort of isomorphism, no matter how abstract, could make the rock piles mean or represent the trail's direction. No doubt there is an isomorphism: the trail goes where the cairns go. No one cairn resembles the trail to any appreciable extent; but the cairns taken collectively do resemble the trail. Unfortunately, the trail also resembles the cairns. But the trail does not represent the cairns.

Representation is most of the time asymmetrical; but resemblance is always symmetrical. I conclude that resemblance cannot constitute representation. Note also that the cairns might resemble things other than the trail. Thus the cairns taken collectively might resemble the path of a subterranean gopher tunnel directly below the trail and following it exactly. But obviously, the cairns do not mark this gopher tunnel. Note also that isomorphism is not sensitive to the difference between rocks whose stacking is artificial, i.e., an artifact of a purposive agent, and rocks whose stacking came about via random purely natural processes. But it is only if the stacking is artificial that the stacks would mean anything. And if the stacking is artificial/artifactual, then there is a purposive agent possessing intrinsic intentionality.

Mind is king.  Naturalists need to wise up.

BonJour on Intentionality and Materialism

Questions about intentionality can be divided into two groups. In logically first place there are questions about what it is, how it is possible, and what ontological resources are required to render it intelligible. And then there are more specific questions about what implications intentionality has for the mind-body problem.  Does it, for example, rule out materialism?  In What is it Like to be  Human (Instead of a Bat)?  Laurence BonJour mounts an argument from intentionality against materialism. I will quote just the bare bones of his argument, leaving aside many of the supporting considerations:

      Suppose then that on a particular occasion I am thinking about a
     certain species of animal, say dogs  — not some specific dog, just
     dogs in general (but I mean domestic dogs, specifically, not dogs
     in the generic sense that includes wolves and coyotes). The Martian
     scientist is present and has his usual complete knowledge of my
     neurophysiological state. Can he tell on that basis alone what I am
     thinking about? Can he tell that I am thinking about dogs rather
     than about cats or radishes or typewriters or free will or nothing
     at all? It is surely far from obvious how he might do this. My
     suggestion is that he cannot, that no knowledge of the complexities
     of my neurophysiological state will enable him to pick out that
     specific content in the logically tight way required, and hence
     that physicalism is once again clearly shown to be false.

     [. . .]

     Suppose then, as seems undeniable, that when I am thinking about
     dogs, my state of mind has a definite internal or intrinsic albeit
     somewhat indeterminate content, perhaps roughly the idea of a
     medium-sized hairy animal of a distinctive shape, behaving in
     characteristic ways. Is there any plausible way in which, contrary
     to my earlier suggestion, the Martian scientist might come to know
     this content on the basis of his neurophysiological knowledge of
     me? As with the earlier instance of the argument, we may set aside
     issues that are here irrelevant (though they may well have an
     independent significance of their own) by supposing that the
     Martian scientist has an independent grasp of a conception of dogs
     that is essentially the same as mine, so that he is able to
     formulate to himself, as one possibility among many, that I am
     thinking about dogs, thus conceived. We may also suppose that he
     has isolated the particular neurophysiological state that either is
     or is correlated with my thought about dogs. Is there any way that
     he can get further than this?

     The problem is essentially the same as before. The Martian will
     know a lot of structural facts about the state in question,
     together with causal and structural facts about its relations to
     other such states. But it is clear that the various ingredients of
     my conception of dogs (such as the ideas of hairiness, of barking,
     and so on) will not be explicitly present in the neurophysiological
     account, and extremely implausible to think that they will be
     definable on the basis of neurophysiological concepts. Thus, it
     would seem, there is no way that the neurophysiological account can
     logically compel the conclusion that I am thinking about dogs to
     the exclusion of other alternatives.

     [. . .]

     Thus the idea that the Martian scientist would be able to determine
     the intrinsic or internal contents of my thought on the basis of
     the structural relations between my neurophysiological states is
     extremely implausible, and I can think of no other approach to this
     issue that does any better. The indicated conclusion, once again,
     is that the physical account leaves out a fundamental aspect of our
< span style="font-family: georgia,palatino;">     mental lives, and hence that physicalism is false.

I will now sum up BonJour's reasoning in my own way.

BonJour is thinking about dogs. He needn't be thinking about any particular dog; he might just be thinking about getting a dog, which of course does  not entail that there is some particular dog, Kramer say, that he is thinking about getting.   Indeed, one can think about getting a dog that is distinct from every dog presently in existence!  How?  By thinking about having a dog breeder do his thing.  If a woman tells her husband that she wants a baby, more likely than not, she is not telling him that she wants to kidnap or adopt some existing baby, but that she wants the two of them it engage in the sorts of conjugal activities that can be expected to cause a baby to exist.

BonJour's thinking has intentional content. It exhibits that aboutness or of-ness that recent posts have been hammering away at.  The question is whether the Martian scientist can determine what that   content is by monitoring BonJour's neural states during the period of time he is thinking about dogs. The content before BonJour's mind has various subcontents: hairy critter, mammal, barking animal, man's best  friend . . . . But none of this content will be discernible to the neuroscientist on the basis of complete knowledge of  the neural states, their relations to each other and to sensory input and behavioral output. Therefore, there is more to the mind than what can be known by even a completed neuroscience. Physicalism (materialism)  is false.

I of course agree. 

The Primacy of the Intentional Over the Linguistic

Following Chisholm, et al. and as against Sellars, et al. I subscribe to the broadly logical primacy of the intentional over the linguistic.

But before we can discuss the primacy of the intentional, we must have some idea of (i) what intentionality is and (ii) what the problem of intentionality is.  Very simply, (mental) intentionality  is object-directedness, a feature of some (if not all) of our mental states.  (The qualifier 'mental' leaves open the eistemic possibility of what George Molnar calls physical intentionality which transpires, if it does transpire, below the level of mind. I take no position on it at the moment.) 

Suppose a neighbor asks me about Max Black, a stray cat of our mutual acquaintance, who we haven't seen in a few weeks.    The asking occasions in me a thought of Max, with or without accompanying imagery.  The problem of intentionality is to provide an adequate account of what it is for my thought of Max to be a thought of Max, and of nothing else.  Simply put, what makes my thought of Max a thought of Max?  How is object-directedness (intentionality, the objective reference of episodes of thinking) possible?

Why should there be a problem about this?  Well, an episode of thinking is a datable event in my mental life.  But a cat is not.  No cat is a content of consciousness.  Cats ain't in the head or in the mind.  Obviously, no cat is spatially inside my mind, and it is only a little less obvious that no cat depends for its existence on my mind:  it's nothing to Max, ontologically speaking,  if me and my mind cease to exist.  He needs my thinking of him to exist as little as my thinking needs to be about him.  Cats are physical things out there in the physical world.  And yet my thinking  of Max  'reaches'  beyond my mind and targets — not some cat or other, but a particular cat.  How is this possible?  What must our ontology include for it to be possible?

To get the full flavor of the problem, please observe that my thinking of Max would be unaffected if Max were, unbeknownst to me, to pass out of existence while I was thinking of him.  (He's out on the prowl and a hungry coyote kills him while I am thinking of him.) It would be the very same thought with the very same content and the very same directedness.  But if Max were to cease to exist while a flea was biting him, then the relation of biting would cease to obtain.  So if the obtaining of a relation requires the existence of all its relata, it follows that intentionality is not a relation between a thinker (or his thought) and an external object.  But if intentionality is not a relation, then how are we to account for the fact that intentional states refer beyond themselves to objects that are (typically) transcendent of the mind?

Now it seems to me that any viable solution must respect the primacy of the intentional over the linguistic.  This thesis consists of the following subtheses:

1. Words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs and the like, considered in their physical being as marks on paper or sounds in the air or carvings in stone (etc.) are entirely lacking in any intrinsic referential, representative, semantic,  or intentional character.  There is nothing in the nature of the mark 'red' that makes it mean red.  After all, it doesn't mean red to a speaker of German.  It doesn't mean anything to  a speaker of German qua speaker of German.  In German 'rot' means red while in English the same sign is in use but has a different meaning.  Clearly, then, marks on paper, pixels on screen, etc. have  no intrinsic sense or reference grounded in their very nature.  It s a matter of conventional that they mean what they mean.  And that brings minds into the picture.

2.  So any sense or reference linguistic signs have must be derivative and relational as opposed to intrinsic:  whatever intentionality they have they get from minds that are intrinsically intentional.  Mind is the source of all intelligibility.  Linguistic signs in and of themselves as mere marks and sounds (etc.) are unintelligible.

3.  There can be mind without language, but no language without mind.  Laird Addis puts it like this:

Conscious states can and do occur in beings with no language, and in us with no apparent connection to the fact that we are beings with language.  Thus we may say that "mind explains language" in a logical or philosophical sense: that while it is perfectly intelligible to suppose the existence of beings who have no language but have much the same kinds of conscious states that we have, including introspections of other conscious states, it is unintelligible to suppose the existence of beings who are using language in all of its representative functions and who are also lacking in conscious states.  The very notion of language as a representational system presupposes the notion of mind, but not vice versa. (Natural Signs: A Theory of Intentionality, Temple University Press, 1989, pp. 64-65)

An Argument of Russell Against Mental Acts

Bertrand Russell's (1872-1970) The Analysis of Mind first appeared in 1921.  Lecture I contains a discussion of Brentano, Meinong, and mental acts.  He quotes the famous Brentano passage from the 1874 Psychology From an Empirical Standpoint, and then confesses that until very lately he believed "that mental phenomena have essential reference to objects . . .'" but that he no longer believes this. (p. 5)  One of Russell's arguments against acts is contained in the following passage:

. . . the act seems unnecessary and fictious. [. . .] Empirically, I cannot discover anything corresponding to the supposed act; and theoretically I cannot see that that it is indispensable.  We say: "I think so-and-so," and this word "I" suggests that thinking is the act of a person.  Meinong's "act" is the ghost of the subject, or what once was the full-blooded soul.  It is supposed that thoughts cannot just come and go, but need a person to think them. (p. 6)

Russell is making three claims.  The first is phenomenological: acts are not given to introspection.  The second is dialectical:  there are no arguments or considerations that make plausible the positing of acts.  The third is genetic:  the reason some believe that there are acts is because they have been bamboozled by the surface grammar of sentences like 'I want a unicorn' or 'I see at tree' into the view that when thinking takes place there is an agent who performs an act upon an object. 

The Phenomenology of the Situation

What is involved in the awareness of the lamp on my desk?  Phenomenologically, as it seems to me, there is awareness of (i) the lamp and of (ii) being aware of the lamp.  At a bare minimum, then,  we need to distinguish between the object of awareness and the awareness of the object.  Both items are phenomenologically accessible.  There is straightforward awareness of the lamp if it is seen or imagined or remembered, whereas the awareness of the lamp is given to introspection.  Of course, the awareness does not appear alongside the lamp as a separate object.  Being aware of the awareness of a lamp is not like being aware of a lamp being next to a clock.  And yet, phenomenologically, there is awareness of the lamp and awareness of the awareness of the lamp. Notice that I didn't smuggle in any ego or subject of awareness in my description.  So far, then, we are on solid phenomenological ground: there are objects of awareness, there is awareness of objects, and there is awareness that the two are different.  This is the phenomenological bare minimum.

But of course this does not show that there are mental acts.  For the bit of phenomenology that I have just done is consistent with the subjectlessness of awareness. If awareness is subjectless, as Sartre et al. have maintained against Husserl et al., then it cannot be articulated into individual acts of awareness  unless some individuating/differentiating factor can be specified.  But there seems to be no phenomenological evidence of such a factor. 

Well, let's see.  There is awareness of the lamp; there is awareness of the clock; there is awareness of the books piled up on the desk, etc.  But awareness appears 'diaphanous,' to borrow a word from G. E. Moore's 1903 "The Refutation of Idealism."  The diaphanousness of awareness is a phenomenological feature of it.  This being so, there is no phenomenological evidence of any act-articulation on the side of awareness.  All the articulation and differentiation appear on the side of the object.  But aren't there differences among seeing a lamp, imagining a lamp, and remembering a lamp?  No doubt, but why must they be act-differences?  It is consistent with the phenomenology of the situation that these differences too fall on the side of the object.  Instead of saying that there are acts of imagination and acts of memory, one could say that there are imaginal objects and memorative objects.

The point, then, is that phenomenology alone cannot justify the positing of mental acts. So Russell does have a point with respect to his first claim.   Phenomenology needs dialectical supplementation.

The Dialectics of the Situation

Being aware of a centaur and being aware of a mermaid are of course different.  This difference is phenomenologically evident.  But what differentiates them if there are no mental acts?  Not the objects, since they don't exist, and not the awarenesses since they are one and not two on the assumption that there are no mental acts.  And if there are no mental acts, then there are no subjects of mental acts.  And yet there must be something that accounts for the difference between awareness of a centaur and awareness of a unicorn.  The denier of acts seems at this point forced to embrace a Meinongian theory of beingless items.  He could say that the centaur-awareness and the mermaid-awareness are numerically different in virtue of the fact that a centaur and a mermaid are distinct denizens of Meinong's realm of Aussersein.

To this I respond that there are no beingless items.  The realm of Aussersein is empty.  (The arguments cannot be trotted out here.)  Hence there is no Meinongian way out.  I conclude that we are justified in positing mental acts to account for the difference.  I gave this argument already in more detail in my recent reconstruction  of an argument from Laird Addis for mental acts.

I conclude that Russell is wrong in his second claim.  If the argument I gave is sound, then acts are theoretically indispensable. 

Russell's Genetic Claim

This is fairly weak inasmuch as Russell seems not to appreciate the distinction between a mental act and a mental action.  An action is the action of an agent  who performs the action.  But a mental act is merely an occurrent episode of intentional awareness.  As such, it needn't be anchored in a substantial self.  One could reject substance ontologies as Bergmann does while admitting mental acts.  There is nothing in the notion of a mental act that requires that the subject of the act be a substance that exists self-same over time. 

An Argument for Mental Acts

An earlier post explains the distinction between mental acts and mental actions.  But a logically prior question is whether there are any mental acts in the first place.  Suppose I hear the characteristic rumble of a Harley-Davidson engine and then suddenly think of Peter.  One cannot move straightaway from such a commonplace observation recorded in ordinary English to talk of mental acts of perceiving and of remembering.  This is because 'mental act' is a terminus technicus embedded within a theory.  It is a term that drags behind it a load of theoretical baggage that one may not want to take on board.  Every mental act is a mental state, a state of a mind.  (A state is necessarily a state of something; a mental state is necessarily a state of a mental something.)  So talk of mental acts seems to commit one to talk of minds or mental subjects.  But their existence is denied by those (Sartre, Butchvarov, et al.) who maintain that consciousness is subjectless.  That theoretical denial, however, is consistent with the commonplace that we sometimes hear and remember.  On the other hand, talk of mental acts commits one to an act-object distinction, a distinction that adverbialists deny.  So although it is obvious that we sometimes hear and remember, it is not obvious that there are mental acts.  So we need an argument.  Here is one.  It is my reconstruction of what I think Laird Addis is saying on p. 71 et passim of Natural Signs: A Theory of Intentionality (Temple University Press, 1989).

1. Consider two states of affairs, S1 and S2.  In S1 I am imagining a unicorn (and nothing else) at time t, while in S2 I am imagining  a mermaid (and nothing else) at t.  S1 and S2 are individually possible, though not jointly compossible.

2. S1 and S2 are numerically different, and this difference requires a ground, a 'difference-maker.'

3. One cannot locate the difference-maker on the side of the object, because there are no unicorns and there are no mermaids.  (For an analogy, compare two mathematical sets, one whose sole member is a unicorn, the other whose sole member is a mermaid. These sets are the same  set, the null set, inasmuch as there is nothing that could ground their difference.)

4. Since both S1 and S2 involve the same type of mental directedness, namely, imagination, the difference between S1 and S2 cannot be ascribed to a difference in type of mental directedness.

5. Since one and the same subject is the imaginer in both cases, the difference between S1 and S2 is not on the side of the subject.  Therefore:

6. There must be something that grounds the difference between S1 and S2, and this all men call 'mental act.' 

Cuteness and quinque viae parody aside, there must be something that grounds the difference between S1 and S2 assuming the Difference-Maker Principle: No difference without a difference-maker.  This principle strikes me as well-nigh self-evident: how on Earth (or on Twin Earth for that matter) could two different complexes just differ?  S1 and S2 are complexes not simples: their numerical difference requires an ontological ground.  Suppose someone insisted that the unordered set {Bill, Peter} is just different — barely different — from the unordered set {Peter, Bill}.  You would show him the door, right?  I can swallow a bare difference of simples but not of complexes. 

The difference between S1 and S2, then, traces back to a difference between two mental acts.  If you ask me what makes these two mental acts different, my answer will be that they differ in their object-directedness: one has unicorn-directedness, the other mermaid-directedness.  Perhaps this could be explained further by saying that a mental act is a mental state, where a mental state is a mind's exemplification of an intentional property.  So in S1 my mind exemplifies the intentional property unicorn-directedness while in S2 my mind exemplifies the intentional property mermaid-directedness.  These property-exemplifications just are the mental acts.

This is pretty close to a Bergmann-Addis assay of the act.  If it could be made to work in all details, then we could avoid Meinongianism, Adverbialism, and Sartreanism (Sartvarovianism?).  But being an aporetician, I am not sanguine.

 

Thinking and Thinking Of

I have claimed more than once that, necessarily, to think is to think of something.  But is that right?  Perhaps one can think something without thinking of something.  That would be a spanner in the works. 

Suppose I think that Tom is tired. The parsing could be done like this: I/think/that Tom is tired.  This suggests that one can think without thinking of or about anything.  One thinks something (e.g., that Tom is tired) without thinking of something.

It is clear that to think that Tom is tired is not to think of or about the proposition that Tom is tired, although of course one can think about that proposition, as when one thinks, of that proposition, that it is true or that it is a proposition.  But I cannot think that Tom is tired without thinking about Tom. Nor can I think that Peter is taller than Paul without thinking about both Peter and Paul. If I am thinking that nothing is in the drawer, or nobody is at home, then I am thinking about the drawer and the home, respectively.  If I am thinking that the null set is unique, then I am thinking about the null set. If I am thinking that wisdom is a virtue exemplified by few leftists, then I am thinking about wisdom and about leftists.

So it looks like I saw a ghost.  I was scared there for a minute.  Necessarily, to think is to think of something, if not directly, then indirectly as in the cases cited.