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Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy Volume 9: hilosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Psychology Introduction Bernard Elevitch Thirty-five years ago the editor of a collection entitled Philosophy of Mind could plausibly claim that his selection of a dozen articles was representative of the wide range and vitality of contemporary inquiries. There was no need to categorize; he had chosen articles on the basis of merit, whether or not, in the aggregate, they encompassed the major problems or topics that are the special province of the philosophical study of mind. A 1991 text, on the other hand, offers five major categories, some requiring as many as four subdivisions-obviously in the interest of careful analysis. Yet it is not clear why, for example, "Consciousness, Self and Personhood" should constitute a subset of "The Nature of Mind," when "Self and Other" occurs as a major category two hundred pages earlier. I am only pointing out the vicissitudes of classification, too little in one case, in the other seemingly too much of a good thing. With these and other collections in mind, one might well conclude that the subject matter of philosophy of mind is too diffuse to allow precise organization and definition. Be that as it may, mind remains a central concept, and philosophy of mind, for all of its overlapping with metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of psychology, and whatever else, is in no danger of being neglected as a distinctive field. The metaphysical connection is especially revealing. Although Gilbert Ryle and his followers were successful, half a century ago, in subduing Cartesian mind-body dualism and initiating conceptual analysis as reigning methodology, in recent decades philosophers have revived important metaphysical concerns, returning to mental phenomena (states and processes) as indicative of the fundamental nature of mind. Important theorists have treated the mental realm autonomously at the epistemological level, perhaps sustaining the intuition that the bottom line may be Cartesian after all: mental phenomena seem to be unique, unconstrained by our spatial environment and our bodily constitution, resisting explanation in terms of physical lawfulness. Others of course leave open the possibility of ultimate mental-physical compatibility. Once thought to be barren as various "solutions" failed to gain ground, the mind-body problem has held steady in textbooks not least of all because its attempted resolutions constitute a history of grappling with a perennial if recalcitrant issue. (Likewise, free will vs. determinism, personal identity, and other traditional subjects have held their own.) Thus introductions to philosophy of mind run through arguments for and against versions of substance dualism, property dualism, monism, behaviorism, materialism (in particular, mind-brain identity theory), and functionalism. What strikes me about relevant contributions to the present volume is that they have for the most part left these broad theories behind, examining the mental-physical issue through the special lenses of mental causation, intentionality, and practical reason. An exception, however, is that several pieces involve functionalist conceptions, or have been written in the wake of functionalism: that is, they may regard mental states as functionally distinguished by their particular roles within a system of causal interactions-their causal relation to other mental states and to bodily behavior. Regarding mental agency, a number of authors challenge the physicalist premise that to represent a relation as causal is to provide an explanation in terms of physical processes. Disclaiming relations of correspondence or identity between physical and mental states of particular types, they also question relations of implementation or realization as indicative of physical states specific to particular instantiations of conscious states. Let me expand this notion, however sketchily. In response to late-afternoon hunger, I walk to the kitchen, open a package of crackers and carve a slice from a wedge of cheese. The total action, exhaustively described, would involve whatever beliefs converge on the satisfaction of my desire for something to eat, as well as what I do in pursuit of that satisfaction (in part as a response to my environment). This is only to illustrate the proposition that my action was causally determined by my complex state of mind. Now from a physical point of view one could also describe the condition of a particular organism, i.e., my body; a shorthand account would doubtless refer to a low blood sugar count at a particular time. Yet a proposition asserting the biochemical fact cannot be substituted for the sentence "I am hungry"; for one thing, it cannot be known directly from a first-person perspective. Now what I offer here by way of a rather simple example is only an analogy, since reference to blood sugar content could be rendered precisely, and would count at a restricted if relatively gross level as an explanation, while reference to alleged physical realizations (neurobiological correlates) of far more individuated states-beliefs, attitudes, intentions-are necessarily hypothetical. While such considerations may seem to lend support to the mentalist view that one can accept the fact of psychological causation and its explanation without appealing to a realm beyond the mental, there are ways to compromise: one can acknowledge, for example, that a physical account corresponds to the mental, but not in the strict sense that elements of each correlate isomorphically. Theories of supervenience, simply put, hold that for each type of belief, desire, or other mental phenomenon leading to an action, a physical property must lawfully operate at a more basic (i.e., physical) level. Beliefs and desires, then, are held to be supervenient on and thus determined by phenomena at the fundamental level. Still, the problem remains that one can readily speak of a network of mental causes and their physical underpinnings yet have scarcely any idea of the microanalysis required to show in precise detail that this is the case. Perhaps theories of supervenience appeal on an intuitive level, reflecting the everyday fact that since we normally attribute physical as well as mental properties to one another, there seems to be no good reason for regarding mental causation as uniquely nonphysical. The question arises as to whether notions of physical implementation or supervenience, since they do not involve or even promise resolution at the molecular biochemical level, are physically explanatory at all in any strict sense. Rather, such inquiries proceed on metaphysical terrain, with an eye toward establishing ontological priority of the physical. Thus they take their place in a venerable tradition, leaving it up to the individual philosopher to decide whether he or she is better off than Hume's metaphysician who persists in trying to discover the secret cause of one billiard ball's effect on another. Let us step back for a moment in order to review what is involved in ordinary explanation of human behavior. To ask why you did something, and to expect a reasonable answer, is to presuppose that your action followed from something you intended to do-something, as we say, you had in mind. Here I may or may not be making a further assumption as to causality; in asking you to explain an action, I may simply want to understand its significance. In that case I do not expect your reasons to tell me how your action came about, but rather why it counts as A rather than B; and here your intentions are telling. (Perhaps you bought the ring as an investment, not as a token of engagement.) So far, so good, yet some forms of noncausal explanation leave much to be desired. Quasi-Wittgensteinian theories hold, for example, that apparently anomalous behaviors, in order to make rational sense, have only to be fitted together like jigsaw pieces: one then sees their place in a broader context. At the very least this is to assume a degree of social conformity-constancy of description following from shared value-intuitions-sufficient to guarantee that the broader context is already fully understood and resistant to doubt. An intuitive factor in favor of causal analysis is its reflection of and response to the normal form, "He bought the ring because. . . ." The idea is that I would be missing the point if I were merely to single out the action as one of a particular kind-say, a traditional part of becoming engaged. Someone might still reasonably ask why the event occurred, what uniquely attaches the action to the individual in question as more than a marital statistic. Evidently this is to look toward a causal linkage between his reason for buying the ring and the actual deed. The force of "because" is that his reason is not just one that he might plausibly cite but the one that actually led him to buy the ring. Otherwise the connection between the intention or belief (or whatever state of mind) cited as reason and the action considered its consequence may well be fortuitous or coincidental. As Davidson contended years ago, causal conceptions are best suited to demystify the link between reasons and actions; we appeal to causation not merely to distinguish the "right" reason from any other, but in an effort to understand how reasons explain actions. However, theories of physical implementation, as well as functional analyses in some cases, regard reason explanation as inadequate from a causal point of view-a physical dimension must be introduced if an explanation is to serve as genuinely causal. I have reviewed issues related to mental causation because about one-third of the contributors to the present volume have chosen to work in this area, whether focusing on physical realization or on Davidson's notion of reason explanation as causal. A second group of papers-related but at some distance-treat the nature of thinking as intentional, as computational, as rational or irrational. While I might have ordered these under a broad classification, say "The Nature of Mind," and a third group under "Moral Ontology," I do not want to give the impression that there is more here than meets the eye. The fact is that since contributors were not requested to follow convergent themes or issues, the collection cannot be considered a representative indication of concerns in philosophy of mind, much less a comprehensive mapping of its contemporary standing. Josep Corbí and Josep Prades reject the idea of physical implementation, contending on logical grounds that causal physicalists are unable to individuate causal lines-that is, to account for a set of physical properties constituting implementation for the effects of a particular tokening of a non-physical property. And even if such a state could be individuated, its implementation could not be indicated in detail sufficient to rule out a different outcome under similar but differing circumstances. Jesús Ezquerro and Augustin Vicente focus on causal-explanatory exclusion: the inconsistency of a proposition regarding mental causation given the premises that physical events have physical causal antecedents and that there cannot be two causes for one event that are both complete and independent. Recognizing overdetermination as the exception to the latter principle, the authors argue that as a solution to the exclusion problem this would require massive coincidence-overdetermination on an unacceptable scale. Sydney Shoemaker offers a complex functionalist account of causal realization, with the goal of showing that the causal role of mental properties is not preempted by their physical realizers. To be in pain (as a functional property) instantiates a particular physical realization; it is "by conferring the conditional powers . . . bestowed by the property of being in pain that the instantiation of [physical property] P1 made its causal contribution." In this sense realized properties rather than their realizers may be regarded as causing an action. In part, Stephen Yablo also offers a proposal intended to save the causal role of mental properties: however plausible the appeal to a brain state as causal (e.g., wincing from pain), there is an advantage in "nominating a nonphysical event as the cause of a physical one." Affirming the proportionality of causes to their effects (nothing less would have sufficed for the effect and nothing more was needed), Yablo makes a case-assuming that my wincing would still have occurred had the pain been differently implemented at the neural level-for my headache as more proportional to the wincing than its neural implementation, and thus better suited to causal explanation. Expanding on Davidson's analysis, Henry Jackman argues that correlations between brain states and beliefs could never be lawlike-i.e., mental and physical predicates, although coextensive, cannot be determined to be necessary. He disagrees, however, with Davidson's emphasis on the rational basis of ascribing propositional attitudes to individuals. The fact that a particular belief, for example, would be inconsistent with other components of the person's belief-system would not, Jackman claims, rule out the attribution. Carlos J. Moya also takes Davidson's theory of reason explanation as his point of departure. The relation between reason and intentional action must be causally constitutive; simply having a reason may not constitute the actual reason leading to my action. Here the problem of deviant or wayward causal chains raises a roadblock. Moya suggests that it results from a view of rational justification as entirely independent of causal theory. To qualify as justification, an action under an appropriate description must follow from my actual justificatory reason and not as "merely coherent with certain reasons." Of several authors who focus on traditional concerns of consciousness and intentionality, Ted Honderich is alone in rejecting naturalistic or functionalist accounts, accepting the attitude of "the so-called phenomenology or . . . seeming nature" of consciousness, identifying perceptual awareness with the existence of "certain things with various properties in space and time." Although he claims to be able to provide barriers against "a rush to demote your world into a mental world," such statements as the following raise the question as to whether or not he escapes the consequences of Berkeleyan idealism: "For you to fall under a description of being perceptually conscious, it is necessary and enough for something to be the case-that a certain world exists." Ruth Millikan regards her defense of a naturalistic theory of intentionality as a correction to Brentano's "aboutness" property, overcoming the problem of bearing a relation to something nonexistent. Natural purposes also correct the notion of purposiveness as intrinsic to the mental in Brentano's sense. "Aboutness is associated with a purpose only when the purpose is explicitly represented." Fulfilling this requirement, a correspondence relation representing a natural purpose correlates with a state of affairs toward which it guides a cooperating mechanism. Also accepting the promise of naturalized intentionality, Pierre Jacob presents a "mixed informationally-based teleological approach" in the form of a critique of Millikan's theory. This is to emphasize a device's proper function as teleological-e.g., what a heart is for, what it is supposed to do. The notion in turn rests on etiology, what the device was selected for as the result of natural selection, or, in the case of sensory and/or cognitive devices, from either natural selection or learning. Three contributors discuss rationality and one its apparent antithesis. James Fetzer disputes computational theories of thinking on the grounds that thinking is not algorithmic; in his view, typical cases of ordinary thinking are associational rather than rule-following. Ordinary thought, Fetzer maintains, can best be understood from a semiotic perspective as an "iconic relation of resemblance." Seemingly unrelated by rational connections, his associational mental transitions are "effects of an interaction between a semiotic system that was conscious with respect to signs of that kind . . . and the presence of a sign of that kind within suitable causal proximity." By contrast, James H. Moor defends computational theory as applicable to ordinary cognitive processes, emphasizing the right kind of computation, a question he takes to be empirical. Thus cognitive science serves as a "fecund paradigm"-offering, for example, an explanation of recognition phenomena in terms of internal computational processes. John L. Pollock looks beyond theories of cognition, calling for a general theory of rationality on which an understanding of computationalism may be based. Pollock questions the relevance of decision-theoretical modeling to practical reason: "[I]t would require a rational agent to consider all the infinitely many things it can do . . . and choose the one with the highest expected value." A more promising theory of rationality may be modeled in relation to the intuitional procedural knowledge employed by philosophers: their conscious observance of norms to which they nevertheless lack privileged access. And a philosophical theory of generic rationality would still be required for construction of complex artificial systems: human cognition, in its most sophisticated problem-solving functions, including the ability to reason defeasibly, here serves as model for AI. Mary Tjiattas challenges the dominance of rational models in the explanation of thought and action, arguing that irrationality has a positive normative role and should not be identified with akrasia or self-deception. Her context is pragmatic, emphasizing the possibility of irrationality's "useful purpose," "desirable consequences," or "effective action" (Nozick). This would include issues of trust-i.e., an attitude whose desirable consequences we may foresee yet have no good reason to adopt. One wonders whether Tjiattas's call for a more "differentiated and enriched" concept of rationality would not be met by a simple distinction between "rational" and "reasonable." Although judgment may be based only on reasonable expectations, falling short of a standard of Davidsonian (not to say Euclidean or computational) strictness, under ordinary circumstances we do not believe it is irrational (the result of mistaken reasoning) to trust a spouse or friend or even a banker. And hasn't this entire discussion been anticipated by David Hume? Three articles may be categorized under moral psychology, each introducing more than a hint of ontology. Michael DePaul confronts Gilbert Harman's critique of virtue ethics as reliant on nonexistent dispositions, according to which character traits are merely conventional attributions. DePaul objects to his citation of a number of psychological experiments demonstrating attribution error, implying but not specifying the need of serious criticism of psychological theories of attribution, of the scientific status of experiments which are presumably their foundation, and their relevance to philosophy of mind. Finally, DePaul contends that Harman's critique would leave classical virtue theorists untroubled, because "the empirical results . . . are pretty much exactly what [they] would have predicted." Olbeth Hansberg analyzes the emotions of indignation and shame from a Davidsonian standpoint, which is to say that emotional states "have a propositional content that provides the object of the emotion." Moral emotions then are defined insofar as they "require concepts, beliefs and desires that are related to morality." Following Giselle Taylor, Hansberg stresses the role of an audience or witness as reinforcing the negative self-assessment of shame. Unlike shame, indignation is always a moral emotion, occurring within a system of personal relations confirming "the central importance of [a] sense of sympathy, and of a common humanity" (Strawson). But it is not clear in such treatments whether the structural articulation of propositional content descends from universal premises, or, on the contrary, from exhaustive descriptions of the beliefs and practices of particular or ideal societies. Mark Leon's paper is unique in that it unapologetically adopts a Cartesian faculty psychology. Freedom of action, Leon claims, requires autonomous belief; and "an appropriate sort of determination of belief, rather than compromising, would enhance [that] autonomy. . . ." Belief states, in this analysis, are determined "if not by the facts . . . then by the evidence for what is true." Where Descartes is troubled by the will's tendency to overstep its bounds (thus accounting for false beliefs), Leon expects it to live up to an ideal: "Just as actions should go where the will goes, so beliefs should go where the truth or evidence goes." Unsurprisingly, autonomy is equated with rationality of belief, but its determinants-"if not the facts . . . then the evidence for what is true"-are cited as if self-evident. Two papers treat, respectively, authenticity and personal identity. Lynne Rudder Baker defends a "constitution" view of personal identity as a response to Eric T. Olson's critique of psychological continuity, specifically his contention that a bizarre consequence of the latter view is "that I was never an early-term fetus." Baker argues that Olson's version of psychological continuity "overlooks the possibility that I, who am now a person, may exist at some other time without being a person . . . ." In short, as a person-properly defined in respect to complex psychological properties involving a first-person perspective-"I never was an early-term fetus." She is constituted by, but not identical to, the human organism that was a fetus. Olson's biological view, Baker concludes, "is simply inadequate to the issue of personal identity." Diana Tietjens Meyers writes on authenticity in opposition to Harry Frankfurt's delineation of an ordered and integrated self-mastery which she criticizes as unlikely to be achieved and as involving a stultifying degree of stability. In place of Frankfurt's coherence and unity of purpose (a "geometry of integration"), Meyers offers a view that acknowledges conflict and the spontaneity of response to unanticipated personal and social experience. Authenticity requires "a repertory of introspection, imagination, . . . reasoning, interpretation, and volition skills that enable self-discovery and self-definition." Adolf Grünbaum's contribution to the collection is-not unexpectedly-sui generis. Grünbaum continues to rebut commentators who accept the explanatory power of whatever aspect of psychoanalytic theory in any way, shape, or form. Primarily he challenges Davidson's defense of "mental compartmentalization" as a Freudian notion central to the explanation of irrationality. Centrality here is dubious, Grünbaum claims, Davidson having failed to defend the fundamental nature of postulates constituting a theory's "distinctive hallmarks vis-a-vis different or rival theories pertaining to the same domain of explananda." Or to have shown that the centrality of a hallmark such as compartmentalization is preserved as one proceeds to operate deductively within the theoretical system. In Grünbaum's discussions of Marcia Cavell and Thomas Nagel, focusing on their responses to his critique of Freud's causal linkage of repression and neurosis, one notices again, at this late date, the pronounced empirical basis of his critique.
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