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.

Is Smoking Irrational?

Bogarting To stymie the psychologizers, let me begin by saying that I do not smoke cigarettes. My enjoyment of the noble weed is restricted to the occasional cigar and load of pipe tobacco. What do I mean by  occasional? Well, so far this year I haven't touched even one of my twenty or so pipes, and I have smoked only two or three cigars.   In the interest of full disclosure I should say that I smoke the rascals right down to the 'roach' which I grip in a Bogart-like manner until such time as the finger tips protest. I swear that on only a half-dozen  occasions in my life have I rammed the stub into a smoking pipe and proceeded to convert the whole of the cigar into smoke and ash. I decided that this excess of frugality and vasoconstriction was contraindicated.

But I want to talk about cigarettes. Suppose you smoke one pack per day. Is that irrational? I hope all will agree that no one who is concerned to be optimally healthy as long as possible should smoke 20   cigarettes a day, let alone 80 like Rod Serling who died at age 50 on the operating table.  But long-term health is only one value among many.  Would Serling have been as productive without the weed?

Suppose one genuinely enjoys smoking and is willing to run the risk of  disease and perhaps shorten one's life by say five years in order to secure certain benefits in the present. There is nothing irrational about such a course of action. One acts rationally — in one sense of 'rational' — if one chooses means conducive to the ends one has in view. If your end in view is to live as long as possible, then don't smoke. If that is not your end, if you are willing to trade some highly uncertain future years of life for some certain pleasures here and now, and if you enjoy smoking, then smoke.

The epithet 'irrational' is attached with more justice to the fascists of the Left, the loon-brained tobacco wackos, who, in the grip of their misplaced moral enthusiasm, demonize the acolytes of the noble weed. The church of liberalism must have its demon, and his name is tobacco. I should also point out that smoking, like keeping and  bearing arms, is a liberty issue. Is liberty a value? I'd say it is. Yet another reason to oppose the liberty-bashing loons of the Left and the abomination of Obamacare.

Smoking and drinking can bring you to death's door betimes. Ask Bogie who died at 56 of the synergistic effects of weed and hooch.    Life's a gamble.  A crap shoot no matter how you slice it.   Hear the Hitch:

Writing is what's important to me, and anything that helps me do that — or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation — is worth it to me. So I was knowingly taking a risk. I wouldn't recommend it to others.

Exactly right. 

So why don't I smoke and drink?  The main reason is that smoking and drinking are inconsistent with the sorts of activities which provide satisfactions of a much higher grade than smoking and drinking.  I mean: running, hiking, backpacking and the like.  When you wake up with a hangover, are you proud of the way you spent the night before?  Are you a better man in any sense?  Do you really feel better after a night of physical and spiritual dissipation?  Would you feel a higher degree of satisfaction if the day before you had completed a 26.2 mile foot race?

Health and fitness  in the moment is a short-term reason.  A long-term reason is that I want to live as long as possible so as to finish the projects I have in mind.  It is hard to write philosophy when you are sick or dead.  And here below is where the philosophy has to be written.  Where I hope to go there will be no need for philosophy.  When the meal is served, the menu is set aside.

 

Neuroscientistic Neurobabble

UCLA philosopher Tyler Burge scores some good clean hits against neuroscientistic  Unsinn in a December NYT piece. (HT: Feser).  For example, did you know that there is an area of the brain that wants to make love?  (Is it equipped for any such thing, with  a tiny penis or vagina?  And what would it make love to?  An area of the brain of another organism?  Or a different area of the same brain?  The possibilities of mockery are endless, but I will restrain myself.) But I can't resist reproducing this tidbit:

For example, a recent article reports a researcher’s “looking at love, quite literally, with the aid of an MRI machine.”

Quite literally!  You, sir, have your head in the proctologist's domain, quite literally!

 

Mental Acts Versus Mental Actions: Sellars and Bergmann

I have been assuming that there are mental acts and that there are mental actions and that they must not be confused.  It's high time for a bit of exfoliation.  Suppose I note that the front door of an elderly neighbor's house has been left ajar.  That noting is a mental act, but it is not an action.  I didn't do anything to bring about that mental state; I didn't decide to put myself in the state in question; I just happened to see that the door has been left ajar.  There is nothing active or spontaneous about the noting; it is by contrast passive and receptive.  But now suppose I deliberate about whether I should walk onto the man's property and either shut the door or inform him that it is ajar. Suppose he is a cranky old S.O.B.  with an equally irascible old dog.   I might decide that it's better to mind my own business and "let sleeping dogs lie."   The deliberating is a mental action.  So, assuming that there are mental acts and assuming that there are mental actions, it seems as clear as anything that they are different.

Why then are mental acts called acts if they are not actions?  It is because they are occurrent rather than dispositional.  Not everything mental is occurrent.  For example, you believe that every number has a successor even when you are dead drunk or dreamlessly asleep. This is not an occurrent believing.   Indeed, you have beliefs that have never occurred to you.  Surely you believe that no coyote has ever communicated with a bobcat by cellphone, although I will lay money on the proposition that you have never thought of this before.  You believe the proposition expressed by the italicized clause in that you are disposed to assent to it if the question comes up.  So in that sense you do believe that no coyote, etc. 

Mental acts are so-called, therefore, because they are actual or occurrent as opposed to potential or dispositional.  My noting that the old man's door has been left ajar is an occurrent perceptual taking that is not in the control of my will. As Wilfrid Sellars points out,

It is nonsense to speak of taking something to be the case 'on purpose.'  Taking is an act in the Aristotelian sense of 'actuality' rather than in the specialized practical sense which refers to conduct.  A taking may be, on occasion, an element of a scrutinizing — which latter is indeed an action in the practical sense.  To take another example, one may decide to do a certain action, but it is logical nonsense to speak of deciding to will to do it; yet volitions, of course, are mental acts.  (Science and Metaphysics: Variations on Kantian Themes, Humanities Press, 1968, p. 74.)

Another example Sellars cites is drawing a conclusion from premises.  That is a mental action, but there are mental acts involved in this will-driven thinking process.  One is the 'seeing' that the conclusion follows from the premises.  It cannot be said that I decide to accept a conclusion that I 'see' follows from certain other propositions.  The will is not involved.  The 'seeing' is a mental act, but not a mental action.

Gustav Bergmann says essentially the same thing. "An act is not an activity and an activity is not an act." (Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong, University of Wisconsin Press, 1967, p. 153.)  He says that this was crystal clear to Brentano and Meinong, but that in the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition 'act' carries an implication of activity.  "In the Aristotlelian-Thomistic account . . . an act of perceiving is the 'abstracting' of a substantial form; and an 'abstracting' is an activity." (Ibid.) 

Very interesting.  It sounds right to me, though I wonder if all Thomists would agree. Not being a Thomist, I incline to the later view.  So as I use 'mental act' a mental act is not a mental action or activity.  This is of course consistent, as already indicated, with its being  the issue of certain mental actions.

A deeper and more important question is whether there are mental acts at all.  Their existence is not obvious — or is it?  Wittgenstein appears to have denied the existence of mental acts.  Bergmann believes he did, while Geach believes he did not.  There is also the related but distinct question whether mental acts require a subject distinct from the act which remains numerically the same over time.  But is even a momentary subject needed?  Why couldn't awareness be totally subjectless, a "wind blowing towards objects" in the Sartrean image?  Butchvarov takes a line similar to Sartre's. 

Clearly, there has to be some distinction between conscious intentionality and its objects.  That's a rock-bottom datum upon which "our spade is turned" to borrow a phrase from old Ludwig.  But why must consciousness be articulated into discrete acts?  Why believe in acts at all?  What are the phenomenological and dialectical considerations that speak in their favor?

Future posts will tackle all these questions as we plunge deeper into the aporetics of mind and bang into one impasse after another.  It should prove to be a humbling experience.

What Song Did the Sirens Sing and in What Key?

Ulysses and sirens Ulysses had himself bound to the mast and the ears of his sailors plugged with wax lest the ravishing strains of the sea-nymphs' song reach their ears and cause them to cast themselves into the sea and into their doom.  But what song did the Sirens sing, and in what key?  Were their tresses of golden hue? And how long were they?  Were the nymphs  equipped with special nautical brassieres to protect their tender nipples from rude contact with jelly fish and such?

One cannot sing a song without singing some definite song in some definite key commencing at some definite time and ending at some later definite time.  But you understand the story of Ulysses and the Sirens and you are now thinking about the song they sang.  But what sort of object is that?

Current MavPhil Site Stats

This, the Typepad incarnation of Maverick Philosopher, commenced operations on 31 October 2008.  Since that date there have been 722,386 pageviews which averages to 876.68 pageviews per day. The site boasts 2107 posts and 4017 comments.  Recent surges: 1369 pageviews on 27 January and 1248 on 1 February.  I am somewhat surprised at this relatively high level of traffic given the arcane topics I write about.  Many thanks to those who visit.

I write out of an inner need, and would do so if I had no readers, driven by what drove me to maintain an off-line journal for the last 40 years.  But better read than unread.  Which reminds me of Schopenhauer's observation, "Forever reading, never read."

Intentional Objects and Dispositional Objects

One who balks at intentional objects on the ground of their queerness will presumably also balk at dispositional objects.  But there is reason to speak of dispositional objects. And there is the outside chance that  the foes of intentional objects might be 'softened up' by a discussion of dispositions and their objects.  But I am not particularly sanguine about bringing the Londonistas out from under their fog and into the Phoenician sunshine.

We can sensibly speak of object-directedness both in the case of thoughts (acts of thinking) and in the case of dispositions (powers, potencies, capacities, and the like).  I cannot think without thinking of something. That of which I am thinking is reasonably called the object of my thought.  Said object may or may not exist.  So we speak of intentional objects.  The intentional object of a mental act is the object precisely as intended in the act.

But dispositions have objects too.  Call them 'dispositional objects.'  Dispositions are directed to these objects which may or may not occur.  Thus dispositions to dissolve, shatter, or swell under certain circumstances are directed to dissolvings, shatterings, and swellings which may or may not occur, and indeed without prejudice to object-directedness.

A sugar cube, for example, is disposed to dissolve if immersed in water or some other fluid.  Distinguish the following four:  the sugar cube, its disposition to dissolve, the causal factors needed to trigger the disposition, and the manifestation of the disposition, i.e., its actual dissolving.  The last-mentioned is the object of the disposition, the dispositional object.  It is an event that may or may not occur depending on circumstances.  A disposition can exist without ever occurring.  Suppose a sugar cube is manufactured, exists for a year, and then is destroyed by being pulverized with a hammer.  It never dissolves.  But at each time during its career it harbors the disposition to dissolve. It is liable to dissolve whether or not it ever does dissolve.  It follows that one must not confuse a disposition with its manifestation.  Dispositions are what they are whether or not they are manifested, whether or not their dispositional objects occur.

Similarly, acts of thinking are what they are and have the specific aboutness that they have whether or not their intentional objects exist in reality.  In an earlier post I drew out the parallel between intentionality and dispositionality more fully.  There is no need to repeat myself here.  The point I want to make in this post is as follows.

If you admit that there are dispositions, then you must admit that there are dispositional objects.  Thus if you admit that a sugar cube, say, has the disposition to dissolve in certain circumstances, then you must admit that this disposition points beyond itself to an event — the manifestation of the disposition — that may or may not occur.  Why then balk at intentional objects?

Note that the following is apparently contradictory:  X is disposed to do something (e.g., shatter) but nothing is such that X is disposed to it.  That parallels: I am thinking of something but nothing is such that I am thinking of it.  Clearly, both statement-forms have some true substitution-instances.  So the statement forms are not contradictory.

How do we show that the apparent contradictions are not real?  By distinguishing between intentional  and dispositional objects on the one hand and real objects (objects-as-entities) on the other.

How will the Londonistas respond?  Will they deny that there are dispositions?  They might.  But if they accept dispositions, then they must accept dispositional objects and a fortiori intentional objects.  I write 'a fortiori' because, while dispositionality can be doubted, intentionality cannot be doubted, it being phenomenologically evident.  It is certain that I think and just as certain that I cannot think without thinking of something.

 

Obamacare and Wussification

An ugly word for an ugly thing.  Either one.

The Obamacare provision which allows children to remain covered by their parents' health care insurance until the age of 26 promotes wussification.  Do I need to explain this? Not to a conservative, for whom the old virtue of self-reliance is indeed a virtue and therefore something to be encouraged and not undermined. 

 

Representation and Causation, with Some Help from Putnam

1. Materialism would be very attractive if only it could be made to work. Unfortunately, there are a number of phenomena for which it has no satisfactory explanation. One such is the phenomenon of
representation, whether mental or linguistic. Some mental states are of or about worldly individuals and states of affairs. This fact comes under the rubric 'Intentionality.'  How is this intentional directedness possible given materialist constraints? Following Chisholm and Searle, I subscribe to the primacy of the intentional over the linguistic. But let's approach the problem of representation from the side of linguistic reference. How is it that words and sentences mean things? How does language hook onto reality? In virtue of what does my tokening (in overt speech, in writing, or in any other way) of the English word-type 'cat' refer to cats? What makes 'cat' refer to cats rather than to pictures of cats or statues of cats or the meowing of cats?  This, in linguistic dress, is the question, What makes my thought of a cat, a thought of a cat?  And how is all this possible in the materialist's world?

2. The materialist has more than one option, but a very tempting one is to reduce reference to causation. The idea is roughly that the referent of a word is what causes its tokening. Thus 'cat'-tokenings refer to cats because cats cause these tokenings. Suppose I walk into your house and see a cat. I say: "I see you have cat." My use of 'cat'  on this occasion — my tokening of the word-type — refers to cats because the critter in front of me causes my 'cat'-tokening.  That's the idea.

3. Unfortunately, this is only a crude gesture in the direction of a theory. For it is obvious, as Hilary Putnam points out (Renewing Philosophy, Harveard UP, 1992,p. 37), that pictures of cats cause 'cat'-tokenings, but   pictures of cats are not cats. Cats are typically furry and cover their feces. Pictures, however, are rarely furry and never cover their (nonexistent) feces. Yet I might say, seeing a picture of a cat over your fireplace, "I see you like cats." In that sentence, 'cat' is used to refer to cats even though what caused my 'cat'-tokening was not a cat but a non-cat, namely, a picture of a cat.

Indeed, practically anything can cause a 'cat'-tokening: cat feces, cat hair, cat caterwauling. Suppose I see Ann Coulter engaged in a 'cat-fight' with Susan Estrich on one of the shout shows. I say, "They are fighting like cats." Nota Bene: my use of 'cat' in this sentence is literal, but it is not caused by a cat! (My example, not Putnam's).

4. Our problem is this: what determines the reference of a word like 'cat'? What makes this bit of language represent something extralinguistic? 'Cat' is a linguistic item; a cat is not. (French   'philosophers' take note.) In virtue of what does the former target the latter? If both a cat and a pile of cat scat can cause a 'cat'-tokening, then the causal theory of reference is worthless unless it can exclude these extraneous (excremental?) cases.

The problem is that 'cat' refers to something quite specific, cats, whereas 'cat'-tokenings can be caused by practically anything. To solve this problem, a notion of causation must be invoked that is also quite selective. It turns out, however, that this selective notion of  causation presupposes intentionality, and so cannot be used in a noncircular account of intentionality. Let me explain.

4. Context-Sensitive versus Context-Independent Concepts of Causation. We often in ordinary English speak of 'the cause' of some event, a myocardial infarction say, even though there are many contributing  factors: bad diet, lack of exercise, hypertension, cigarette smoking, high stress job, an episode of snow-shoveling. Which of these will be adjudged 'the cause' is context- and interest-relative. A physician who gets a kick-back from a pharmaceutical concern will point to hypertension, perhaps, so that he can prescribe a massive dose of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, while the man's wife might say that it was the snow shoveling that did him in.

To take a more extreme example, suppose a man dies in a fire while in bed. The salient cause might be determined to be smoking in bed. No one will say that the flammability of the bedsheets and other room
furnishings is the cause of the man's incineration. Nevertheless, had the room and its furnishings not been flammable, the fire would not have occurred! The flammability is not merely a logical, but also a   causal, condition of the fire. It is part of the total cause, but no one will consider it salient. The word is from the Latin salire to leap, whence our word 'sally' as when one sallies forth to do battle at a
chess tournament, say.   A salient cause, then, is one that jumps out at you,  grabbing you by your epistemic shorthairs as it were, as opposed to being a mere background condition.

Putnam cites the example of the pressure cooker that exploded (p. 48).  No one will say that it was a lack of holes in the pressure cooker's vessel that caused the explosion. A stuck safety valve caused the   explosion. Nevertheless, had the vessel been perforated, the contraption would not have exploded!

What these examples show is that there is an ordinary-language use of 'cause' which is context-sensitive and interest-relative and (if I may) point-of-view-ish. A wholly objective view of nature, a Nagelian view from nowhere, would not be able to discriminate the salient from the nonsalient in matters causal. In terms of fundamental physics, the whole state of the world at time t determines its state at subsequent  times. At this level, a short-circuit and the current's being on are equally causal in respect of the effect of a fire. Our saying that the short-circuit caused the fire, not the current's being on, simply advertises the fact that for us the latter is the normal and desired state of things, the state we have an interest in maintaining, and that the former is the opposite.

The ordinary notion of cause, then, resting as it does on our interests and desires, presupposes intentional notions. I cannot be interested in or desire something unless I am conscious of it. And I   cannot adjudge one state of affairs as normal and the other as  abnormal unless I have interests and desires.

5. Recall what the problem was. The materialist needs to explain reference in physicalist terms. He thinks to do so by invoking physical causation. The idea is that the referents of a word W cause W-tokenings. The reference of a word is determined by the causal influence of the word's referents. So it must be cats, and not  pictures of cats, or the past behavior or English speakers that causes  'cat'-tokenings. But surely the past behavior of English speakers is part of the total cause of p
resent 'cat'-tokenings. (See Putnam, pp. 48-49.) 'Cat' does not refer to this behavior, however. To exclude the   behavior as non-salient requires use of the ordinary interest-relative notion of causation. But this notion, we have seen, presupposes intentionality.

6. The upshot is that the above causal account of representation –  which is close to a theory proposed by Jerry Fodor — is viciously circular: it presupposes the very notion that it is supposed to be   reductively accounting for, namely, intentionality.