The Philosophy of Mind |
The concept of mind
Gilbert Ryle suggests in The Concept of Mind (1949) that to speak
of minds and bodies as though they were equivalent things is a 'category
mistake'. To explain what he means by this, he used the example of someone
visiting a university and seeing many different colleges, libraries and research
laboratories. The visitor then asks 'But where is the University?'. The answer,
of course, Is that there is no university over and above all its component
parts that have already been visited. The term university is a way of describing
all of these things together it is a term from another category, not the
same category as the individual components.
In the same way, Ryle argued that you should not expect to find a 'mind'
over and above all the various parts of the body and its actions, for 'Mind'
is a term from another category, a way of describing bodies and the way in
which they operate. This he claims is the fundamental flaw in the traditional
dualistic approach to mind and body (which he attributes to Descartes
and calls the 'ghost in the machine'):
| When two terms belong to the same category, it is proper
to construct conjunctive propositions embodying them. Thus a purchaser may
say that he bought a left-hand glove and a right-hand glove, but not that
he bought a left-hand glove, a right-hand glove and a pair of gloves... Now
the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine does just this. It maintains that there
exist both bodies and minds; that there occur physical processes and mental
processes; that there are mechanical causes of corporeal movements and mental
causes of corporeal movements. I shall argue that these and other analogous
conjunctions are absurd; but, it must be noticed, the argument will not show
that either of the illegitimately conjoined propositions is absurd in itself.
I am not, for example, denying that there occur mental processes. Doing long
division is a mental process and so is making a joke. But I am saying that
the phrase 'there occur mental processes' does not mean the same sort of
thing as 'there occur physical processes', and, therefore, that it makes
no sense to conjoin or disjoin the two. The Concept of Mind, Peregrine Books 1949; p.23 |
For Ryle, talking about minds is a particular way of talking
about bodies and their activity. Remember, however, that Ryle is primarily
concerned with language - his book is about what we mean when we speak about
the 'mind'. What he shows is that, in ordinary language, mental terms actually
describe activities performed by the body, or are at least based on such
activities. We speak about the mind of another person without claiming to
have any privileged information about their inner mental operations.
| An example If I say that someone is intelligent, I do so on the basis of what he or she has said or done. Descriptions of mental states depend upon information provided by physical bodies, activities and forms of communication.
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Clearly, we can get to know another person, but, if Ryle is
correct and there is no 'inner' self to be found, in what does the personality
consist? His answer is in terms of 'dispositions'. These are the qualities
that make me what I am; the propensity to behave in a particular way in a
particular situation; the sort of beliefs and knowledge that habitually inform
my actions and words.
If I say that someone is 'irritable' I do not mean that I have some privileged
access to an 'irritability factor' in their mind, I just mean that, given
a situation that is not to his or her liking, he or she is likely to start
complaining, sulking, etc. In other words, the irritability is simply a way
of describing a disposition.
Thus, for Ryle, the ascription of mental predicates (clever, etc.) does not
require the existence of a separate, invisible thing called a mind. The
description 'clever' indeed refers to the way
in which something is done, but, equally, cleverness cannot be defined simply
in terms of that action. What is clever for one person might not be so for
another, and the mental description refers more to the way in which the
individual person habitually relates to the world, and the expectation a
person would have of him or her, rather than some special quality of an action
that makes it clever.
| An example A child is 'clever' if it learns to stagger to its feet and totter a few paces forward before collapsing down on the ground again. The same is not claimed for the drunk who performs a similar set of movements. If Ryle wishes to dismiss the 'ghost in the machine' he must equally dismiss the 'ghost in the action', for mental predicates refer to, but are not defined by, individual actions. |
One particular difficulty with identifying a mental phenomenon
with physical action is illustrated by the idea of pain.
| Comment Much modern debate on the mind/body issue has been prompted by Ryle's critique of dualism. One feature of his work that one should keep in mind is that his approach is linguistic. He asks what it means to ascribe mental predicates. The question remains, of this or any similar approach, whether the meaning of the mental predicate is the same as its method of verification. I can verify my description of someone as clever by observing and listening to him or her. But is the information I receive in that way identical to what I mean by cleverness? Or is cleverness hinted at by, but not defined by such information? |
A 'place' for mind?
A basic question for mind/body, as for many other areas of
philosophy is this: Can something exist if it does not have a place within
the world of space and time? It is clear, for example, following Ryle, that
there is no place for a 'self' or 'soul' alongside the body. Everything to
which language about the mind refers has its own place in the world - the
clever action, the kindly word - and he is right in using these criterion
for using these words 'clever' and 'kindly' etc. refers, not so some occult
substance, but to the way in which particular deeds are performed.
But the dualist is not actually saying that the mind exists physically outside
the body - the dualist position is that the mind is not extended, that is
does not exist within time and space. We have returned therefore to the
fundamental philosophical issue of reductionism.
Consider any piece of music:
There have been many subtle variations on the problem of how
the body and mind are related, but most of them can be seen, in one way or
another, to be a result of an attempt to express the interconnectedness and
yet distinctness of physical and non-physical reality.
What is clear from recent neurophysics, is that the brain is extremely complex,
that it controls not just the autonomic nervous system, but also those elements
that we describe as personality or mind.
It is equally clear that an essential feature of mind is communication. It
is difficult to see how one could describe a mind that did not communicate
- and in communicating, by words, facial expressions, writing, the qualities
of that mind are shared. It is no more sensible to try to analyse an isolated
human brain in the hope of discovering the seeds of cultural history, than
it is taking a Stradivarius apart, in order to discover why a violin concerto
can be so moving!
Neurones and computers
In The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for
the Soul (1994), the scientist Francis Crick asks how it is that, if
the brain is a machine made up of nerve cells and neurones, it can also take
on the functions of what we know as mind: appreciating colour, telling jokes,
thinking through problems. He argues that the brain has 'awareness neurones',
which are the physical basis of mind. He believes that the 'soul' is physically
located in the head, and that research into brain activity will come to reveal
the processes which we call consciousness.
In suggesting this, he rejects two common conceptions. The first (from a
dualistic standpoint) is that the soul or mind is not physically located
in the body, but is external, and may be able to survive the death of the
body. The second is the 'homunculus' idea: that the soul is distinct from
the brain, but located inside the head, like a person within a person. This,
Crick believes, solves nothing.
He argues that a complex structure has characteristics that go beyond those
of its component parts. (So, for example, a city has a character over and
above those of its individual citizens.) Therefore the 'soul', or mind, is
the product of the interactions of the billions of brain cells. The human
brain is, after all, the most complex thing known in the universe. He suggests
that only a part of the brain is involved with consciousness. Most of it
controls the various functions that keep us alive.
He accepts that we are probably still some way off from an understanding
of these 'awareness neurones', but his essential point is that the more science
comes to understand the operations of various parts of the brain, the more
it will be apparent that all of what we know as 'mind' will be found within
it.
Notice what Crick's work can and cannot claim. If these 'awareness neurones'
are identified, they may be recognised as the physical basis of mind, in
exactly the same way that DNA is the physical and chemical basis of life.
(Crick was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1962 for his part in the discovery of
DNA.) Since the discovery of DNA, it is accepted that the characteristics
of the physical body are given in its unique DNA molecule, hence the possibility
of DNA fingerprinting. But that does not mean that the phys.ical body is
'nothing but' a DNA code, simply that it is as it is because of it. In the
same way, the 'awareness neurones' may one day be shown to be the basis of
mind and personality. But that does not mean that the mind is 'reduced' to
them.
In other words
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