Colin Through the Looking Glass

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Colin Through the Looking Glass

Now I know why I am not allowed on campus: I might enter into a (non-romantic) romantic relationship with a student and fail to report it because it would be bad for the student. It’s perfectly clear: it’s wrong to not report (non-romantic) romantic relationships even if to make such a report would harm the student, especially if the student doesn’t want you to. If I visited the campus to listen to a paper, this would almost certainly happen. I should have harmed the student for no reason by making a false report about our relationship—perfectly logical! Contradictions don’t count against this mandate; consequences don’t matter. That’s just how it is through the looking glass. I also understand why faculty go along with this prohibition: they are afraid they might have their heads chopped off if they question it, or not be promoted. There is nothing stupid or cowardly about this—it’s just simple self-preservation. Yes, it all makes perfect sense now.

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De Re Consciousness of the Brain

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De Re Consciousness of the Brain

Do I have de re consciousness of my brain when I have de dicto consciousness of my mind? I speak of de reconsciousness not of de re belief or perception: the locution “conscious of” admits of a de re-de dicto ambiguity—does it mean a relation or a content? Suppose I am conscious of my left hand: does that mean I am conscious of it as my left hand or just that my left hand is something I am conscious of, though not necessarily under that description? There is a scope distinction to be made, according to whether the description falls within the scope of “conscious of” or outside its scope (as in “concerning my left hand, I am conscious of it”). In the former case, the description occupies a referentially opaque position; in the latter, a referentially transparent position. Clearly, both readings are possible, as with belief and perception. Now suppose I am conscious of a pain in my hand: we can say that I am conscious of my pain as an instance of pain—I would describe it thus—but can we say I am conscious of the correlated C-fiber firing? We certainly can’t say that I am conscious of the C-fiber firing as C-fiber firing: no such content enters my mind—I might never even have heard of C-fiber firing. But that doesn’t settle the question of whether I am conscious de re of the C-fiber firing: is it true of the C-fiber firing that I am conscious of it? Can we say “Concerning the C-fiber firing, I am conscious of that state”? Am I aware of my brain de re when I am aware of my mind de dicto? I am not aware of my brain de dicto when I am aware of my mind, but that is logically compatible with being aware of my brain de re. Is the case like beliefs about Hesperus and Phosphorus? I can have a belief about Hesperus quaHesperus (de dicto) and also have a belief about Phosphorus (de re) that contradicts the first belief, not realizing that Phosphorus is Hesperus. Following that case, we could try saying that I have a de re belief about my brain when I have a de dicto belief about my mind just in case my mental state is identical to a brain state. De dicto belief plus identity gives de re belief. Thus, I am conscious de re of my C-fibers firing if and only if I am conscious de dicto of my pain and the pain is identical to the C-fiber firing. I am conscious de re of anything that is identical to what I am conscious of de dicto. That is, the identity theory of mind and brain entails that I have de re attitudes towards my brain, including the “conscious of” attitude. It is true of my brain that I am conscious of it whenever I am conscious of my mind—though I am never conscious of my brain de dicto (as a content of my consciousness). In other words, I am relationally conscious of my brain but not propositionally conscious of it (conscious that my brain is thus and so). My brain is not a content of my consciousness, but it is an object of it, by virtue of psychophysical identity.

At this point we might spot a vulnerability in the identity theory: can’t we contrapose and deduce the falsity of that theory? For (we might contend) it is not true that I have de re attitudes towards my brain—I am not aware of my brain whenever I am aware of my mind. I am no more aware of my brain in such cases than I am aware of the non-conscious parts of my brain. I can become conscious of my brain by looking at it in a mirror—then I have both de dicto and de re consciousness of it; but I don’t become aware of it just by being conscious of my mind. That would be a theoretically juicy argument: we can derive the falsity of materialism from the non-existence of de re attitudes towards the brain! If the two were identical, then we would have to say that de reattitudes towards the brain follow from de dicto attitudes towards the mind; but that is not plausible; therefore, they are not identical. The intuitive data are more compatible with dualism, since then there is no possibility of deriving de re attitudes towards the brain (there being no identity). It would be like inferring that we have de rebeliefs about planets by introspection given that mental states are identical to states of planets—better to give up the identity theory. However, it is not so easy to refute the identity theory, because the intuition of no de reconsciousness of the brain is not so firm as to ground such an inference. Is it really self-evident that I don’t have de re attitudes towards my brain? Is the case really different from theoretical identifications common in science—water with H2O, heat with molecular motion, etc.? We can truly say, “Concerning H2O, John believes it is good to drink”, even though this may sound strange in the early stages of scientific discovery (most people would never have heard of “H2O”). How can we refute this position for mind and brain? Certainly, mental states and brain states have a lot to do with each other, unlike planets and mental states. If we are to refute the identity theory, we need a stronger argument, e.g., Kripke’s modal argument or the knowledge argument. Conjoining such an argument with the argument from de re consciousness would be an attractive package, but the latter argument alone is pretty weak. What is the right thing to say?

Compare the following case: fictional characters and the real people they may be based on. Suppose I have a belief about a fictional character that is derived from a certain real individual X: can we infer that I thereby have a de re belief about X? Intuitions waver: the two are not identical, so we get no easy derivation; yet there is some inclination to be less strict. If I have a belief about a statue, do I thereby have a de re belief about the piece of bronze it is made from, even though the two are not strictly identical? We might feel inclined to say yes. If the relation between two things is sufficiently close, sufficiently formative, we might stretch a point and allow for the inference to a de re attitude. Similarly, if the mental state and the brain state are intimately joined, though not strictly identical, we might feel some pressure to allow a de re ascription—we have an approximation to an identity-based de re attitude. Thus, a semi-materialist position is consistent with our shaky intuitions about the de re ascription. The fact that we feel agnostic about it would suggest a degree of materialism, if not the simple identity theory. A double aspect theory, for example, would be consistent with our uncertainty. It doesn’t matter if the believer disbelieves any such materialist position—the truth of an identity claim always allows for a deduction of a de re attribution. The facts determine what objects you have de rebeliefs about not your beliefs about the facts. I find myself genuinely unsure whether I have de re beliefs about my brain when I have de dicto beliefs about my mind—I could go either way. Of course, the mind-brain connection is deeply mysterious, so we shouldn’t be surprised at this kind of uncertainty; the question of whether we do have such de re attitudes is one way to approach the problem. If we do, the case for materialism is strengthened; if not, not. In any case, it is an interesting puzzle to think about: “A Puzzle About De Re Belief (About the Brain)”.[1]

[1] We can also formulate the converse question: if I have a de dicto attitude towards my brain, say by perceiving it, do I thereby have a de re attitude towards the correlated mental state? According to the identity theory I do, since the two states are one: if I see my C-fibers firing, I also see (de re) the pain with which my brain state is identical. Does that seem plausible? It’s not an easy question: we feel pulled in two directions. It all depends on whether we accept the identity: yes, if we do; no, if we don’t. I think our first inclination is to say that I don’t have that belief, but then we wonder if that is just a prejudice born of a lack of knowledge. It would be interesting to do a survey. I have to confess that I like the idea that we have such odd de re beliefs, perhaps because it underscores the aporias of the mind-body problem. I am always thinking about my brain but don’t know it! My brain is an object of my consciousness though a fugitive object! It brings my mind closer to my body, especially the part most responsible for me. Much the same is true of external objects: I may not apprehend them as they are de dicto, but I apprehend them de re just as they are. I see (de re) the objects of physics: I am in the perception relation to them as they objectively are, in addition to seeing them as they are subjectively to me. Likewise, whatever mental states are in themselves (their real essence), I have consciousness of these things—I am not cognitively cut off from them. De reattitudes allow for contact with an unknown reality. Even the skeptic cannot deny that I stand in these relations (this is not to say that I can establish that I do). Attitudes de re are compatible with deep ignorance of their objects.

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Perception De Dicto and De Re

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Perception De Dicto and De Re

Locke held that all we ever perceive of external objects is their powers and not their intrinsic qualities: we do perceive their powers to produce sensations in us, and we don’t perceive the basis of these powers in the object. This seems doubly wrong: we don’t perceive powers and we do perceive qualities (non-powers). For we don’t and can’t perceive powers as powers, and we do perceive qualities as qualities. The power is a mere potential, a disposition, and we can’t see those; while the qualities we do see (shape, color) are real qualities not mere potentials or dispositions. I see the object before me as having the quality of being red, but I don’t see it as having the potential to produce experiences of red in me. I don’t see what could or might be (I might think this). So, is Locke simply mistaken? I think not; in fact, I think he is basically right. But to see this we have to introduce a familiar distinction: the de dicto-de re distinction. What we see de re are powers; what we see de dicto are qualities. It is true of powers that we see them, but it is not true that we see powers as powers—we don’t see that an object has certain powers. It is true of a spy that I see him as a patriot, but it is not true that I believe that a spy is a patriot. It is a matter of different logical scopes. Thus, it is consistent to hold that all I see (de re) are powers and that I never see (de dicto) powers—instead seeing qualities. For example, I see objects as red (de dicto) and I also see (de re) powers to produce experiences of red. This means that I never see the properties that things actually have de dicto, but I do see properties that things don’t have, since objects don’t really have the qualities that I attribute to them (or my eyes attribute). I do see properties that things really have de re, but I never see them de dicto. In effect, my purported perceptions of things are hallucinations, but they are still perceptions of something real, viz. powers. The de re object is painted in colors it doesn’t really have, but it is still there as a real thing. The de re objects of vision (etc.) are nothing but powers; the de dictoobjects of vison are qualities not powers. There is no overlap or coincidence between the de re objects of perception and the de dicto objects of perception. What I see in one sense I don’t see in the other sense. I see colors de dicto but not de re (since they do not exist in objects), and I see powers de re but not de dicto (since powers can’t be seen). I project the colors onto the object falsely, but the powers are already present as relations between the object and my mind. In other words, I don’t de dicto see the real objective world, though I do de re see it. The de dicto content of my perceptual experience is cut off from the de re referent of it. I represent the object as having certain qualities that it doesn’t have, and I fail to represent it as having properties (powers) it does have—though my perceptual experience is of those properties. The powers cause my perceptions, but they are not represented in those perceptions; the perceptions are merely signs of the powers. The qualities represented in my perceptions are not the cause of my perceptions—they are by way of being figments of my imagination. I imagine the quality of being red (it comes from inside me), but the power to produce sensations of red is constituted by something outside of me—I don’t imagine the powers. Perception is thus de re realist and de dicto fabulist (projectivist, fictionalist). The powers exist in reality but the qualities don’t (save as intentional objects). Logically, the case is like seeing a bull as a unicorn: the bull is the existing de re object, while the de dicto unicorn is an imagined intentional object that doesn’t objectively exist. All perception is of bulls as unicorns—bulls de re and unicorns de dicto. It is powers illusorily seen as qualities. This is essentially Locke’s position. The phenomenal unicorn qualities are triggered by external bull powers. Locke thought that the external object is not properly known by us, so the power is not intelligible to us; while the perceived quality is not an external objective fact. The power is thus an actually existing mystery, while the quality is a fictional non-mystery. This is his basic epistemology and ontology. He didn’t have the de re-de dictodistinction, but it serves to articulate what he was driving at (correctly, in my view). Perception is of the unknown but as of the known: the former is objectively real, though mysterious, while the latter is really fictional (mind-created), though transparent. We perceive physical things de re but not de dicto; we perceive mental things de dicto but not de re (since the qualities perceived have no existence in reality outside the mind). Perception thus has a complex mixed structure.[1]

[1] Notice how this position fails to correspond with the standard philosophies of perception, viz. direct realism and the sense-datum theory. It captures what is right about both of them without the usual faults. It might be called “realist fabulism” or “fabulist realism”.

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Origins of Intentionality

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Origins of Intentionality

What is the origin of intentionality? There are three main areas to consider: perception, thought, and language. In the twentieth century it was fashionable to take linguistic intentionality as basic; the other two are then derived from it. The classical empiricists took perceptual intentionality as basic with thought and language parasitic on that. A third possibility would be that the intentionality of thought is basic with perception and language dependent on thought. These appear to exhaust the options, though in principle there could be combinations (e.g., language and perception are independently intentional and together they fix the intentionality of thought). Further formulations might introduce the concepts of behavior and consciousness: linguistic behavior fixes intentionality, or consciousness does. In other words, it might be linguistic use that fixes intentionality, or it might be conscious experience. In either case the origins of intentionality lie in facts we are aware of—outer acts of speech or inner acts of mind. But there is a third possibility: intentionality derives from something we are not aware of, something pre- or sub-conscious. This was in effect the view of the rationalists or nativists: the mind is innately equipped with subconscious mechanisms that develop into what we know as mature intentionality. These “innate ideas” are the real source of perceptual, cognitive, and linguistic intentionality. The interesting point here is that the origins of intentionality are taken to be unconscious. They derive from genetically determined states of the brain of which we have no conscious awareness. It isn’t consciousness per se that gives rise to intentionality, or observable linguistic use per se, but the underlying representational states of the brain that are encoded in the genes. The innate ideas shape sense experience and linguistic behavior, so producing what we are aware of; but they themselves exist in a state of unconsciousness. Perhaps this is why this type of theory has not attracted much attention: it deals in unobservable entities whose nature eludes us. These are the hidden springs of intentionality. Even if the empiricist theory is true, the intentionality of consciousness derives from an outside source; consciousness doesn’t itself produce intentionality. Neither does language use produce its own intentionality (how could it?); that comes from the innate store of representational items (ideas, concepts). We know there are unconscious processes involved in generating perceptual experience and linguistic use; according to the nativist theory, these include devices for generating intentionality. The origins of intentionality are thus hidden not open to inspection. They are hidden as the genes are hidden—and the genes are the things that generate bodies and minds. It isn’t that language creates conscious experience, or that conscious experience creates language; rather, both are created by unconscious innate ideas (plus some). Humans and animals are subject to the same biological law: pre-experiential and pre-linguistic intentionality that reveals itself in observable phenomena.[1]

[1] From a wider perspective, we may say that the linguistic theory of intentionality is itself an empiricist theory, since it locates the origin of intentionality in observable facts about the world—speech acts we can see and hear. The nativist theory, by contrast, traces intentionality back to its unconscious roots deep in the brain and the genes; the causes of intentionality are hidden causes—not perceptible by the senses. The linguistic turn took place within the empiricist circle. But the nativist-rationalist theory abandons such empiricism, even to the point of making the causes of intentionality unknowable (hence mysterious). Moreover, this theory is actually true.

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Alienation

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Alienation

The OED defines “alienate” as “cause to feel isolated”; “alienation” is then “the state or experience of being alienated”. I have lived in the United States for 35 years and I am now officially alienated: I feel isolated, cut off, removed. It wasn’t always so—I used to feel integrated, joined. This is really the first time in my life I have ever experienced alienation; and it is multi-pronged, comprehensively so. I am hyper-alienated. How so? The obvious proximate cause is the political climate in this country, upon which I need not dilate, except to say that the level of stupidity has reached fever pitch. Many people feel this way at this moment, immigrants and non-immigrants alike. But I have a secondary (in fact primary) source of alienation: I am alienated from my profession, my history, my old friends, my erstwhile colleagues, university life, my previous life-style. Not completely alienated, to be sure, but the old framework has gone. I am no longer a part of the academic community in the country in which I live. So, I am doubly alienated. It is a strange feeling. It isn’t loneliness; it isn’t dislike, distrust, and disgust (though it includes those); it’s more a feeling of apartness, dislocation, dissonance. I look at the world differently; I see other people as alien (“unfamiliar and distasteful”: OED). I used to like talking to philosophers, but now I want to keep my distance, as if they have a disease (not all of them but the vast majority). I rarely interact with this particular demographic anyway, but I rather dread having to—I’m afraid of what I might say (would say). I tend to see people as a vast sea of atrocious aliens from whom I am violently estranged (this includes people I used to be good friends with). The alienation is comprehensive and deep. It isn’t a good feeling I can tell you. This means that I divide other people into two sharply distinct groups: the small group of people I am not alienated from and the much larger group that I am alienated from. All this is mitigated, however, by a highly contingent fact—I live in Miami. I find myself not alienated from the people I live among: Latin people, as they are known (to me they are just normal nice people, not nasty, not insane). These people are my people; I am not alienated from them. Cubans, Venezuelans, Colombians, Nicaraguans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and so on. I am also not alienated from Europeans living here. I am fortunate in this respect. I suppose the thing that nags at me the most is that the people I would have felt solidarity with at this political moment are the very people from whom I am most alienated—academics, professors, university types. Bear in mind that I have not been on a university campus in over ten years, after spending the previous forty odd years in universities; nor have I attended a philosophical meeting here. This is really quite alienating.

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Blog Thoughts

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Blog Thoughts

I sometimes search this blog in order to remind myself of what I have written on such-and-such a topic. I am always surprised. I have completely forgotten about this paper or that, and I read the paper with genuine interest, as if written by someone else. I find myself entering an old-new world. The coverage is enormous, obscenely so. I am always trying to get to the bottom of things, rethinking everything. I write with a kind of horrible fluency, like a philosophical Nabokov (he has his nymphet; I have my syllogism). The poetry of ideas. And very scientific: reports from the field (Voyages of the Philosophical Beagle). It seems unending. I question everything I was ever taught. Audacity is not an issue. I insult the reader. I am arrogantly humble. I view myself clinically. Someone once described me as a stickler: I accept the label. But am I not kind to the reader? I try to make it easy for him or her: I try to spare the reader pain. Yet I stir up disquiet, distrust, distress. Is it a journey? No, it’s a party, a seminar—thrown by me. It has no destination. It is ideology-free. It is egotistical in the purest sense—self-assertive, candid. I mean it to be like no other philosophical writing. Philosophy in the Garden of Eden. Not Socratic, or even pre-Socratic; more Socratic-Socratic—as if I have collared him in the market-place. I strive for naivete, innocence—but armed to the teeth. A knife-like penetration. Modesty is beside the point. There is no time for that, or place. It is easy to interpret—there are no obstacles. It is a rebuke to Wittgenstein. It is a thank-you to Russell (but goodbye Bertie). It beckons to Sherlock Holmes. It is light, like Oscar Wilde or P.G. Wodehouse. I find it funny when I skim through those old pieces, though I never laugh. It has a teasing phenomenology. Is it stream of consciousness? Not at all. That stream is murky; this is more like little blocks of ice.

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The Unconscious Body

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The Unconscious Body

We are thought to have an unconscious mind, or minds. The idea is that we have two minds (or more) only one of which are we conscious of. We are aware of one mind but not of the other; hence, we know what is going on in the conscious mind but not the unconscious mind. It isn’t that the unconscious mind is a part or aspect of the conscious mind that we don’t normally attend to; it is a separate mind. It is a mind but it isn’t one that we sense or introspect or otherwise have access to, except by means of indirect theorizing. It may have a different nature from the conscious mind, containing different elements, functioning differently. We thought we had one mind, the one we are conscious of, but it turns out that we have more than one, and this mind (or these) is unconscious, unknown by us in the normal course of events. The question I want to ask is whether we might have more than one body: we have the body we are familiar with, the one we experience every day, but might we have an additional body that we are not conscious of? This would be an unconscious body—a body we are not aware we have. It may have a different nature from the body we know about. It stands apart from our conscious body, coexisting with it, possessing different properties. It doesn’t emerge into consciousness, though it may be investigated indirectly. It is, in short, the bodily analogue of the unconscious mind.

You might say that we do, but trivially, because there are facts about our ordinary body that we don’t normally know about. I know about the exterior of my body and something about its interior, but I don’t know about the internal organs or their microstructure. I am not conscious of these facts about my body. But this is not an unconscious body in the sense I intend; it is just my usual conscious body in its hidden aspects. It isn’t another body separate from the usual one. It’s the same body. This would be like saying that my conscious mind has aspects I don’t normally know about or pay attention to. So, what would count as a separate unconscious body? Easy: a fetus in the womb but not known about. If everyone carried such a body around with them but didn’t know it, they would harbor an unconscious body in the relevant sense. Notice that this body might itself be conscious; but its carrier would not be conscious of it. Likewise, the unconscious mind might be conscious in itself and to itself, but not be an object of consciousness for the mind associated with “I”: I am not conscious of my unconscious mind, but it might be. Put that aside: the point is that one body might contain another body that the conscious mind doesn’t know about. This, surely, is perfectly possible: suppose that there is a tiny body lurking somewhere in the recesses of the body that has never been discovered—that would be a second unconscious body. Or a parasite that hides its existence particularly well.

The question, then, is whether there actually is such a thing but more hidden. May we contain a body we don’t know about, as humans didn’t know they had a second unconscious mind till quite late in their history? The mind boggles: you thought you had just one body, but it turns out there is an extra body you didn’t suspect existed. You are multiply bodied as you are multiply minded. We are going to have to get pretty recherche if we are to find such a body, but the search should be enjoyable—and we are accustomed to finding greater plurality in the physical world than we expected (atoms, stars, universes). I can think of two possibilities: dark matter and the hidden brain. If dark matter exists, then animal bodies are partly composed of it: every physical object is really a double existence—dark matter and the usual bright kind. So, we have a dark body and a bright body; the dark body is unconscious, i.e., we are not conscious of it. If matter has dimensions we don’t know about, then bodies composed of it will have a dual nature: the dark body will be the analogue of the shadowy unconscious—a different form that matter in general can take.[1] Maybe dark bodies are more primitive than bright bodies, as the unconscious mind is often thought to be more primitive than the conscious mind. The second possibility is that the brain and nervous system might have a corresponding, though distinct, brain and nervous system coexisting with them—a kind of shadow body. We might, in effect, have two brains: the one we know about and another one we don’t know about. The reason is that the brain is correlated with the mind: the mind is the second brain. As it happens, we are conscious of this mind, but not as a second brain coexisting with the usual brain; so, let’s consider the unconscious mind in relation to the brain—is that a second brain-body? Suppose this mind to be identical to a certain physical system located in the head, though not any physical system we have ever heard of; it belongs to some future or possible science not to present science. Then we could say that inside the head are two brains (like the two hemispheres): the conscious brain (the one we know about) and an unconscious brain (that we don’t know about). It isn’t a whole body, to be sure, but it has enough autonomy to count as distinct from the regular brain; accordingly, we have two brains, one of which we are not conscious of (we can’t see or touch it). Maybe dark matter is bound up with it, since only dark matter can provide a foundation for the mental. My point is that it could turn out that we have more than one body, as it has turned out that we have more than one mind—and that the extra body is not something we are conscious of having. Physics and brain science are still in their infancy, and it might turn out that the usual model of the body is too simple: it has a duality we didn’t expect. The criteria of individuation for bodies might permit multiplying the number of bodies per person (or animal): this is epistemically possible. The unconscious mind is sufficiently different from the conscious mind that we count them as distinct (we are conscious of one but not the other, to start with); similarly, the body might harbor a duality that encourages the same largesse—there are two of them! People have multiplied spaces and times in a similar fashion, and even physical objects (e.g., Eddington’s two tables); we might find ourselves theoretically driven to multiply animal bodies. It is not a necessary truth that you have only one body, epistemically or metaphysically. What if Kant is right and there are two worlds, the phenomenal and the noumenal? Then you would have two bodies as a matter of metaphysical necessity. We are not conscious of the noumenal body, but it exists nonetheless. So, let’s not close our minds to body dualism. Why should the mind be capable of duality and the body not be? Perhaps the unconscious body is necessary to keeping us alive (as the unconscious mind keeps us sane, according to some).[2]

[1] I haven’t mentioned what is called the “astral body” in certain mystical traditions, which is supposed to be constituted of some sort of subtle energy within the mortal organic body. I don’t believe in this, but I think it indicates that the idea of a second body has some appeal to the human imagination.

[2] It is perhaps necessary to say that this paper is highly speculative, indeed fantastic. It belongs to the conceptual-imaginative side of philosophy.

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Mechanism, Mystery, and Miracle

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Mechanism, Mystery, and Miracle

Locke thought that the external world is a mystery: we know there is such a world, but we don’t and can’t know how it works or what it’s like. Physics is a mysterious science (Newton agreed). But he didn’t think the mind is a mystery, specifically knowledge: he thought he knew how the mind produces knowledge, and it is really quite simple. Ideas are derived from sense impressions by an intelligible process (abstraction). Knowledge consists of mental images. He is a physical mysterian but a mental non-mysterian. Matter is mysterious, but the knowing mind is not. Descartes, on the other hand, is a mysterian about mind but a non-mysterian about matter. He thinks the external world consists of objects in space that obey knowable mechanical laws—a machine. He thus believes that we can know about the intrinsic nature of this world, in principle limitlessly. But he is a mysterian about the mind: this is because ideas (concepts) are implanted by God in the human soul at birth. Descartes has no theory of how this happens or what ideas intrinsically are (they are not mental images). Our knowledge of the world is mysterious, but the world known about is not. Locke has (he thinks) an intelligible theory of knowledge (human reason) but not of material bodies, whereas Descartes thinks he has an intelligible theory of material bodies but not of knowledge. Berkeley, for his part, is a mysterian about neither: he thinks the whole universe is intelligible to us, mind and matter. First, he doesn’t believe in matter in the sense in which Locke and Descartes do (the philosopher’s concept of matter)—though he does believe there are tables and chairs outside human minds (“finite spirits”); these objects exist in God’s mind as mental entities. His theory of knowledge is like Locke’s (and Hume’s)—an empiricist theory. He doesn’t even have a problem explaining abstract ideas, because he doesn’t accept that they exist. He gets rid of mystery altogether, which is all to the good because he thinks it leads to atheism. Thus, idealism dispels mystery (hence skepticism). In this he was broadly followed by subsequent philosophers—they are mostly idealists of one kind or another (despite their official intentions). Of course, Berkeley replaces mystery with miracle, because we need God to perform constant miracles of producing ideas in human minds (animal minds too, presumably). There could in principle be mysterians about both or non-mysterians about both: Chomsky and I are of the former persuasion; most contemporary thinkers claim to be of the latter. There is no entailment from one locus of mystery to the other: you could be a mysterian about one but a non-mysterian about the other, like Locke and Descartes; or you could be a global mysterian or a global non-mysterian. I would say, though, that mystery about one naturally leads to mystery about the other, and ditto for non-mystery, since it is probable that human intelligence is limited across the board or it is not.

How about mechanism? Locke would seem to be a mechanist about both mind and matter, though not a hardline mechanist: for his empiricist theory of ideas is quasi-mechanistic and his conception of nature follows the corpuscular philosophy of Boyle. Descartes is emphatically not a mechanist about the mind, but he is about the body and matter in general. Hence, his dualism. Berkeley is not a mechanist of any kind about the external world, but his theory of knowledge is like Locke’s and therefore quasi-mechanistic (as is Hume’s). Berkeley’s ontology, however, consists only of active spirits, so is not mechanistic. He is a non-mechanistic non-mysterian. Locke is a double mechanist, Descartes is a single mechanist, and Berkeley is a double non-mechanist. What we don’t see is someone who is a mechanist only about the mind, the body being regarded as non-mechanistic; but the position exists in logical space (maybe a behaviorist occultist about nature would qualify).  Berkeley avoids both mystery and mechanism by postulating God, but the cost is a giant miracle at the heart of things. This is the general shape of the history behind our current moment. It revolves around these three concepts.[1]

[1] Of course, I have not gone into any detail about all this, restricting myself to broad themes and summary formulations.

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