Problems with Panpsychism

 

I will list as concisely as possible a number of problems that I see with panpsychism. Panpsychism comes in two forms, partial and total. Partial panpsychism says that all matter has a mental aspect as well as a physical aspect; total panpsychism says that all matter is wholly mental. I will focus on the total kind for ease of exposition, though the problems arise equally for both versions of the doctrine. In addition, panpsychism has been proposed to deal with two problems, which I will call the matter problem and the mind problem. The matter problem is the problem of what constitutes matter, and the claim is that the intrinsic nature of matter is consciousness. The mind problem is the problem of what makes mind possible, and the claim is that mind is possible because it arises from matter construed as consciousness.[1] These are separate claims: the first does not entail the second; nor does the second entail the first. I shall suggest that panpsychism cannot in principle solve the mind problem, though its prospects for solving the matter problem are brighter. That is, even if true as a theory of matter, panpsychism cannot explain how mind arises from matter, or how it is possible. The list runs as follows.

 

1. The Incompleteness Problem. If there is any property of consciousness that is not explicable in terms of particle consciousness, then panpsychism cannot be the solution to the mind problem. The panpsychist position is that consciousness in animals can only arise from consciousness in the elementary components of matter, whatever they are (particles, strings, fields): so if there are facts of consciousness that cannot be explained in this way, then the theory fails. If there are such facts, then particle consciousness (as I shall say for convenience) is not needed to explain animal consciousness, so we may as well abandon it altogether. Even if there is just one consciousness property that cannot be explained in this way, then the theory is doomed—as it might be, one type of sensation that does not arise from more elementary consciousness. But clearly there are many properties of animal consciousness that are not mirrored in particle consciousness, whatever that may be like. For particles are few in type and cannot contain every form of consciousness that exists in the animal world: how can they harbor even the sensations found in the five human senses? The particles must contain only a subset of the consciousness properties that actually exist, but then their properties cannot explain the existence of those properties. It is no use saying that the latter arise by combination of the former, since it is not credible to suppose that sensation types are combinations of other sensation types—visual sensations of red are not combinations of auditory sensations, say. Animal consciousness contains many irreducible types of conscious state, far too many to be anticipated by particle consciousness, which must be quite limited given the physical facts. Electrons have one type of consciousness, protons another, and neutrons a third: that is a very meager basis for deriving the full panoply of animal consciousness. The explanatory basis is inevitably incomplete. The panpsychist might suggest that the brain fills the explanatory gap: it is the way the particles are arranged in the brain that generates the full variety that we see in the animal world. This is vague, but anyway it throws in the towel as a solution to the mind problem: for now we are admitting that the brain as a physical object plays an explanatory role in producing consciousness. Particle consciousness alone is not sufficient; we also need input from the brain’s structure if we are to account for animal consciousness–say, from the cellular structure of neurons. Neurons not neutrons are now doing the explaining. The explanatory basis in particles is just too exiguous to do the job. Of course, we don’t know how the brain does the job—that’s the basic problem–we just know that particles alone can’t do it.

 

2. The Uniqueness Problem. The panpsychist typically agrees that not every physical object is a conscious being—brains are, but rocks are not. The components of rocks are conscious, but not the rocks themselves. But this raises a question: why is that so? There must be something about brains apart from the consciousness inherent in their particles that makes the difference. A brain and a rock may be identical in respect of their particle consciousness, since they may contain the same particles, so it must be something about the brain that accounts for the difference—and this something is not reducible to particle consciousness. But then the existence of consciousness in brains and not rocks must be explicable by something other than particle consciousness—say, by the organization of brains. But this implies that some other fact about matter is the explanation of consciousness in the one case but not the other. Brains uniquely produce (macro) consciousness and yet their quotient of particle consciousness does not differ from that of non-conscious objects: so the difference must trace back to a property of brains other than the consciousness of their constituents. Again, we don’t know what this is, but we know that it must be so—in which case panpsychism can’t explain the existence of (macro) consciousness. It can’t even explain why a brain is conscious and a rock isn’t! Even if all matter is agreed to be conscious, we still need something else to explain the facts about (macro) consciousness, specifically its distribution.

 

3. The Overabundance Problem. This problem is connected to the previous one: how to explain why rocks are notconscious. Something must prevent a rock from possessing consciousness given that all of its parts are brimming with it. If there is so much consciousness within it—and nothing else if total panpsychism is true—how come it is devoid of consciousness itself? There is something it is like for every constituent of the rock but nothing it is like for the rock—odd! If we say that the constituents of the rock are not organized like the constituents of a brain, we are admitting that something other than particle consciousness plays an explanatory role—this becomes a brain organization theory of consciousness not a panpsychist theory. The difficulty is that to avoid the problem of why rocks are not conscious the panpsychist must invoke something other than particle consciousness to explain the facts about consciousness—in this case its absence from nearly all macroscopic objects. To get out of this difficulty the panpsychist may choose to say that rocks are conscious, so there is no problem about explaining why they are not given the panpsychist’s premises. But this is (a) massively implausible and (b) raises the question of why brains exist at all, given that they are not needed for full-blown consciousness. Why did evolution produce them if they are not needed to have the equivalent of an animal mind? This makes the brain’s complex machinery quite redundant in the business of engineering a conscious mind. And are we to suppose that rocks might have richer minds than ours, despite our large complex brains? Here the mounting absurdities are too much even for the staunchest panpsychist.

 

4. The Specificity Problem. Animals have quite specific conscious states each clearly differentiated from the others, but how is that possible given that the raw materials afforded by particle consciousness are so limited? Shouldn’t animal minds be much less heterogeneous? Shouldn’t one type of conscious state blur into another? Let’s suppose that there are precisely three kinds of conscious state possessed by the basic constituents of matter, corresponding to electrons, protons, and neutrons—three types of what it’s like. How can many more types of conscious state arise from this slender basis? Shouldn’t animal minds be a lot simpler than they are? How can panpsychism explain the origin of the specific sensation of red, say, without something closer to that sensation? The panpsychist will not want to attribute such specific sensations to particles, hoping to work with something more capacious and pliable; but then how does that specific conscious state arise? How do conscious distinctions arise? Again, we cannot appeal to the brain’s organization, because that is to admit that we need another ingredient to explain the properties of consciousness. The more undefined we make the basic consciousness properties the harder it becomes to explain the specific character of the various conscious states we encounter. Something else will need to be invoked in order to reach consciousness as it actually exists.

 

5. The Mind-Mind Problem. The claim is that the mini minds in particles explain the maxi minds in animals. One type of mind underlies another type of mind. Here the panpsychist faces a dilemma: either the mini minds are just like the maxi minds or they are not; the claim that they are thus alike is absurd, so it must be that they are not; but then how do they explain the maxi minds? Suppose someone was to say that human consciousness arises from insect consciousness: that would involve either attributing a lot to insect consciousness or supposing that a rather radical form of emergence is possible. We can dismiss the first alternative, but the second lands the panpsychist just where he started. For now the claim is that something quite unlike human consciousness can be the sole explanation of human consciousness—as if our consciousness can intelligibly arise from mosquito consciousness. What kind of consciousness is possessed by electrons? Presumably it is nothing like ours—maybe we can’t even know what it is like. But then how can it explain our consciousness? That is like supposing that bat minds are just extensions of human minds. You can’t get one type of mind from another of a radically different type. But how can particle consciousness fail to be radically different from animal consciousness? This is the mind-mind problem: how to get from one type of mind to another type without positing radical emergence—precisely the problem panpsychism was designed to solve. If electrons experience sensations of attraction and repulsion, how does that convert into the normal range of animal sensations? Some sort of magical transformation would need to be posited, just what panpsychism is supposed to avoid.

 

6. The Species Problem. What kinds of conscious state should we attribute to matter? It is natural to be guided by our own case—particles have the kinds of conscious state that we have. They are like tiny mirrors of ourselves. But what about other species, here on earth or elsewhere, real or imaginary? Why not suppose that bats are the correct model for matter generally? Maybe electrons have sensations somewhat like a bat’s echolocation sensations, not like our visual sensations. Or maybe there is a species in another galaxy that is quite unlike any species on earth, and this species is the one that electrons most resemble. The question seems entirely arbitrary: why our species and not some other species? But species differ in their phenomenology, so which is it to be? The problem is that particles are uniform and must have uniform phenomenology; but animal minds are not, so the panpsychist is forced to choose arbitrarily. It’s all very well to say that all matter is conscious, but there is the question what kindof conscious—and this exposes a kind speciesism at work. We tend to think we are the model for matter in general, but that is anthropocentric and arbitrary. The only way out is to postulate some sort of species-neutral consciousness, but this is (a) not clearly intelligible and (b) lands us back with the Specificity Problem. Vagueness on the question of the precise character of electron consciousness is what enables the panpsychist to avoid confronting this problem. At bottom the problem arises from the variety of animal consciousness and the (relative) uniformity of matter.

 

7. The Extension Problem. Are the mini minds extended in space? If they are, then presumably maxi minds are too: but that flies in the face of a strong intuition. If they are not, then how can they constitute matter, which is extended in space? The problem is that to solve the matter problem panpsychism exacerbates the mind problem: matter is extended, so whatever constitutes it must be too; but then it can’t constitute mind, if mind is not extended. To solve one problem disqualifies the theory from solving the other. Suppose that a particle has a certain size and shape; then its constituting mental entity must have that size and shape too. Very well, let it be so: but then we are committed to holding that the mental entities it composes also have size and shape. We might be willing to accept that, but we need to be aware that we are accepting it. Panpsychism either entails that the material word is non-spatial or that the mental world is spatial—which is it to be?

 

I am myself rather inclined to think that the stuff of the so-called material world and the stuff of the (also so-called) mental world are fundamentally the same stuff. I also think that panpsychism has at least the form of an adequate theory of the material world (though I have problems with the details). Perhaps the uniform stuff is most closely approximated by the simple minds of simple creatures, before complex minds like ours developed, so that reptiles (say) exist in a more unified way than mammals. Or maybe we need to descend further down the phylogenetic scale in order to find mind stuff in its purest form. The basic metaphysical picture promoted by the panpsychist seems to me not wide of the mark. But I am far more skeptical of the claim to solve the mind-body problem for the reasons stated above (and for other reasons too). It might conceivably offer a partial solution, but other ingredients would need to be added if we are ever to understand how consciousness came to exist.[2] It can’t be the wholeaccount of the origin of consciousness. So it looks like panpsychism has a better chance of solving the body problem than the mind problem, ironically enough.[3]

 

C

[1] For my reasons for calling it the mind problem, see my “The Mind Problem”.

[2] A hybrid position heaves into view: panpsychism plus mysterianism. The emergence of animal consciousness results from a combination of primitive consciousness at the basic level and an unknown factor at the level of the brain. The brain uses this unknown factor to convert primitive consciousness into the full-blown kind. How, is a mystery.

[3] A problem I have not mentioned because it is very recherché is this: why suppose that the basic mental properties apply to the objects identified by physics? Why should the soul of the universe be divided up according to the physicist’s carving knife? Why not suppose that mental reality exists in the interstices of the objects of physics? Perhaps space itself is permeated by consciousness, and electrons only derivatively upon that. True, this view prevents us from literally identifying electrons with packets of consciousness, but it still allows that consciousness is basic to reality. So the panpsychist needs to tell us why she insists that particles are the locus of consciousness and not the spatiotemporal manifold. In short: why isn’t space conscious but not particles in space? This shows how under-motivated the theory really is—and yet how attractive to the imagination.

 

 

Properties as Functions

 

 

I have always thought that there is something right in Frege’s idea that concepts are functions from objects to truth-values. Bear in mind that for Frege concepts are not psychological or subjective entities, nor are they senses, but rather belong at the level of reference, like objects. They are individuated extensionally and exist independently of the mind (or even of Fregean thoughts). His idea is that these objective entities act as—indeed are–functions with arguments and values, just like mathematical functions. The arguments are objects (but sometimes other concepts) and the function takes us to other objects as values, truth-values being objects for Frege. In other words, the semantic value of a predicate is a function from objects to truth-values—Frege’s main interest being semantics. But we can interpret the view so as to cut out language, holding simply that facts are composed of objects and functions, since concepts in Frege’s sense are the objective correlates of linguistic expressions. Frege never speaks of properties in the intuitive sense in his semantic theory, but there is nothing to stop us formulating his insight in terms of properties: properties are functions too, forming facts. What are they functions from and to? From objects evidently (except when second-order), but are their values truth-values? That seems stretched given that truth-values attach to thoughts or propositions or sentences and properties exist outside the realm of sense.[1] For example, the property white is a function that can take snow as an argument, but it can’t yield the True as a value unless there exists a proposition that says that snow is white—but that is not the same thing as snow simply being white. As a metaphysical claim, the function theory is a theory about the structure of non-linguistic facts, so we don’t want to define it by reference to language and truth-values. So how do we transpose Frege’s insight from the semantic level to the ontological level? What does a function theory of objective mind-independent non-linguistic properties look like?

We have two options, one of which is implicit in a theory Frege considers and rejects. This is the theory that sentences denote states of affairs or facts and not truth-values, which would enable us to say that properties are functions from objects to states of affairs or facts—as Frege could have said that concepts are functions from objects to states of affairs considered as the reference of sentences. The function theory is quite independent of Frege’s decision to make the values of concept functions truth-values, taken to be the reference of sentences. So let us say that properties are functions from objects to facts, to put it briefly: the property white is a function that gives the fact that snow is white as value for the object snow as argument. According to this theory, the values of property functions are specific to the objects and properties we are considering, not general entities like the True and the False. The second option, however, seeks to mimic Frege’s decision by introducing special entities to serve as values of property functions—I will call these the Real and the Unreal. Thus the value of white for snow is the Real, while the value of white for coal is the Unreal. Intuitively, snow is really white—this is part of Reality—while coal is not really white—not part of Reality. The Real is the ontological counterpart to the True, which applies properly to representational entities not to facts. There are real states of affairs and unreal ones, and the Real and the Unreal are the entities that encompass (somehow!) these. We thus preserve parity with Frege’s economical apparatus: properties are functions from objects to reality-values, either the Real or the Unreal. This is neat theoretically, though a bit jarring to normal sensibility, just like Frege’s parallel stipulation; I like it as a concise means of formulation, though it is good that we have the fact-based theory to fall back on. We can keep both options in mind, while preferring the second option on grounds of elegance. The important point is that both values are distinct from truth-values and that they exist at the level of reality not our representation of reality—they are metaphysically objective. Then we can say that a fact consists of a function applied to an object (or sequence of objects in the case of relations) that gives the Real as its value (or the fact in question if we prefer that formulation). The thrust of the theory is less the nature of the value of the function as the fact that properties act as—and are—functions defined over objects. That is, the concept of a mathematical function can be generalized to all properties, thus delivering a metaphysical theory of properties.

Mathematics came to be understood as a theory of functions with arithmetical operations taken as paradigms. Addition, say, is a function from pairs of numbers to another number: its nature is to map numbers to numbers. We speak of this as giving, yielding, delivering—as a type of abstract action. Functions do something. The structure of a mathematical fact is a functional structure—argument, function, and value. Frege proposed to extend this structure beyond mathematics, purporting to discover that non-mathematical entities were also function-like, such as the concept denoted by the predicate “is white”. Later theorists extended the notion of function in developing formal semantics, postulating that intensions are functions from possible worlds to extensions (including truth-values): that is, they suggested that meanings are functions taking worlds as arguments and extensions as values. This is already a significant enlargement, since it applies the concept of function beyond its original home in mathematics; the concept is allowed to be not strictly mathematical but to have wider application. Semantics accordingly becomes the study of a certain type of function, somewhat like mathematics. What I am proposing is that the concept be extended yet further to furnish us with a general metaphysics of properties, and hence of reality generally. Facts are function-argument structures, whether physical, mental, legal, ethical, or what have you. The world is the totality of function-argument structures.

This substantially affects the way we think of both properties and objects. Let’s switch terminology and speak of universals and particulars: then we can say that universals are essentially entities (what other word is there?) that contain a slot or gap for objects—the argument-place of the universal—and that particulars are essentially entities that occur as arguments in such functions. Addition is essentially an operation that takes us from numbers to numbers, and numbers are essentially things that are subject to such operations; similarly whiteness is essentially an operation that takes us from objects to objects (specific facts or binary reality-values), and objects are essentially things that are subject to such operations. Universals are intrinsically argument-directed and particulars are ripe for occurring as such arguments—each feeds into the other. No function without arguments, no argument without functions. Just as addition is for numbers and numbers are for addition (among other functions), so whiteness is for objects like snow and objects are for universals like whiteness. The two are made for each other; they link harmoniously together, forming a logical unity. A fact is not a list but an organic unity (such phrases are unavoidable): the fact of snow being white is the result of snow and whiteness standing in the argument-function relation. And let us take this very literally: it is not just that we can represent facts this way—this is what they are. Reality consists of functions applied to arguments: not just an object and a property but an object acting as an argument to a property acting as a function. Frege liked to say that applying a function to an argument “saturates” the function, conceived as an incomplete entity: it made the function complete. As it were, a function with only a variable in its argument place suffers lonely incompleteness, which a willing object could satisfactorily saturate; well, that applies to the whole of reality, given that properties are functions and objects are arguments. Objects saturate incomplete properties thereby acquiring them. To put it poetically: objects yearn for properties to slot into and properties yearn for objects to saturate them. Less poetically: objects act as arguments to properties and properties act as functions defined over objects. The function-argument nexus is the root of reality. The world is the totality of saturated functions. Plato tended to oppose universals and particulars, locating them in different places, elevating one over the other, but he should have realized that they are partners in crime, natural bedfellows, man and wife. A universal is defined as a function over certain particulars; a particular is an argument destined for certain functions.[2] And not just any argument or function will do: functions will not accept any old argument and become saturated, and arguments will not offer themselves to any function in order to perform the act of saturation. For example, we cannot add John to a carrot and get a certain number as value, and 2 and 5 will not serve to saturate the function of being to the left of. Properties and objects are selective in their partners, only accepting certain potential mates in the saturation relation. In other words, the function-argument structure is both intimate and exclusive. The vision of reality it promotes is that of interlocking elements designed to fit harmoniously together. No doubt this was Frege’s intuition in the case of predicates and names; I am extending the point to objects and properties generally. Thus we derive a metaphysical conception of reality as a whole, indeed of the very structure of any reality. For it is not to be doubted that any conceivable reality containing objects and properties will exhibit the function-argument form: this is a necessary truth about reality as such. To rephrase, properties are essentially entities that take something as input and give something as output, just as addition takes pairs of numbers as input and gives a number as output. There is something action-like about functions, almost as if they have a purpose. A theist might see in this metaphysical picture an argument for the existence of a Creator: the architect of the world made it so that objects and properties would be capable of joining together—a non-trivial problem in ab initio universe design—and the solution she hit upon was to impose the function-argument structure on reality (she already had extensive experience in mathematical design). Surely, our theist might insist, it cannot be an accident that the universe is so cunningly designed—properties must have been made that way. We can sympathize with the theist’s starting point, though we may demur from his conclusion: it is certainly a very fortunate fact that properties are functions or else the world would have had trouble fitting coherently together. As it is, objects and properties nestle tightly together in the nurturing womb of the function-argument structure.

Frege’s motivations for his theory that concepts are functions were partly theoretical and partly intuitive. Theoretically, this idea might help with the problem of the unity of the thought or sentence; and it promises an enormous simplification in the semantic apparatus, as well as extending the reach of mathematical concepts (agreeable to a mathematician like Frege). Intuitively, a predicate joins with a singular term to form a sentence that is true or false, so its job is to ascend from one kind of expression to another concerned with truth. Likewise, the extension of this theory to properties is motivated both by theoretical and intuitive considerations. Theoretically, it might help with the problem of the unity of the fact; and it promises a striking uniformity in our metaphysical apparatus, as well as extending mathematical concepts still further. Intuitively, it seems natural to suppose that properties create facts from objects: facts are combinations of objects and properties, and the function theory enables to grasp the nature of this mode of combination. Frege’s overall theory strikes one at first as quite bold and counterintuitive in some ways, but it grows on one and one starts to see language through its theoretical lens (everyone should go through a dedicated Frege phase). Likewise, the theory I am proposing may seem startling and counterintuitive at first, but after a while one starts to see the world through its eyes—one looks at objects and their properties and sees them as function-argument structures. Certainly the theory affords an enormous simplification as well as other theoretical benefits, so any intuitive resistance it encounters should be regarded with suspicion. It is a nice theory, combining a sense of real discovery with an intuitively comprehensible foundation (viz. properties generate facts from objects).

Once we have absorbed the theory we can apply it further. Frege took logical connectives to denote truth functions construed as mappings from truth-values to truth-values (taken as objects). We can follow his path and understand conjunctive facts (say) as involving reality functions: conjoining two simple facts as arguments gives as value a further complex fact, or the reality-value the Real. Negation takes us from a fact to its opposite, or from the Real to the Unreal (or vice versa). So we can apply the theory to complex (“molecular”) facts not just to simple (“atomic”) facts.[3] For second-order functions we simply mimic the standard story: existence, say, is a function from properties to properties: the fact that dogs exist is analyzed as consisting in the first-order property-function dog as argument yielding the fact that that function is instantiated, where instantiation is a second-order function from functions to existential facts or reality-values. The instantiation function as applied to the dog function gives as value the fact that dogs exist, or simply the contrived theoretical entity the Real. Reality is composed of functions all the way up the hierarchy of properties, which is to say it is also composed of arguments to functions. All facts consist of arguments and functions locking together. If mathematical facts consist of function-argument combinations, the same is true of empirical reality. Thus in a certain sense all of reality is mathematical, since it has a structure characteristic of mathematics. The form of an empirical fact is the same as the form of a mathematical fact.

The value of a function is uniquely determined by its arguments, so that it depends on those arguments: the value of the addition function is fixed by the arguments inserted into it—if the arguments are 2 and 3, then the value must be 5. But the same is true of facts and properties: the fact is uniquely determined by the objects that occur as arguments and the identity of the function. Given that we are considering John and Mary and the marriage function, say, it is determined that the fact is that John and Mary are married (assuming they are): it could not be that the value of this function for those arguments is the fact that Paris is in France—the fact is a function of the function and its arguments. Intuitively, once you have the objects and properties the fact (state of affairs) is fixed; you can’t get a fact involving other objects and properties. So again facts, objects and properties relate just as mathematical functions and their arguments and values relate: the value of the property function for those arguments is uniquely such and such a fact, just as the value of the addition function for those arguments is uniquely a certain number. The dependency we observe in the mathematical case is mirrored in the non-mathematical case–one more reason to trust the analogy.

Finally, the humble variable achieves metaphysical significance: for it marks the place at which arguments are inserted into functions, and this operation is the key to constructing worlds.[4]

 

C

[1] This difficulty applies to Frege’s own theory, since concepts and truth-values are supposed to lie on the side of reference not sense, and yet truth-values are the reference of thoughts. We can suppose that Fregean concepts could exist without senses (they are close to sets of objects), but could truth-values? Aren’t truth-values precisely what thoughts stand for? I suppose Frege could maintain that truth-values, being objects, could exist in the absence of thoughts, and hence be the values of concept functions applied to objects; but that is certainly a very odd view and not one that we find Frege enunciating. Here we have the True and the False but with no thoughts to denote them! Note that if Frege had chosen states of affairs as the reference of sentences, instead of truth-values, he would not have faced this problem.

[2] We might see in this conception reconciliation between Plato’s view of universals and Aristotle’s view: by all means bring particulars into our account of universals (Aristotle), but don’t assimilate the two (Plato). Functions and arguments form a natural pair, but we need not deny that functions have being of their own.

[3] We thus obtain Russell-style logical atomism along with an injection of Frege-style function-argument theory.

[4] Allow me to add that the perspective developed here came to me as something of a revelation: the empirical world has more in common with mathematics than I had supposed (the same thing could be said about meaning understood in terms of functions). The abstract structure of the empirical world mirrors the abstract structure of arithmetic—how Pythagorean!

 

Externalism Re-Formulated

 

 

There is quite a deal of debate about whether externalism is true but not much about what it means. We know the thought experiments (Twin Earth etc.) but how should we formulate their conclusion? Putnam puts it by saying that meanings are not “in the head”—and by extension mental content is not “in the head”. But that is too crude: what if the brain was not in the head and yet content supervenes on brain states? The brain is in your chest instead, but it fully fixes everything you think and mean. Is that externalism? Obviously not. So should we say that externalism is the view that mental content is not in the brain? But that would be agreed to by a dualist for non-externalist reasons; and besides do we really want to commit the externalist to holding that there is anything mental that is literally in the brain? That sounds like a materialist speaking not an externalist: it isn’t that the externalist holds that some of the mind is in the brain and some isn’t—he or she may reject such spatial talk as a category mistake. Similarly, we don’t want to say that externalism holds that the mind is spatially external to the body and brain—as it might be, over there. Nothing in the intuitions surrounding the usual thought experiments implies that mental content is distributed over the spatially remote, still less that the mind extends over space. Space doesn’t come into it. We can accept externalism for mathematical thought without supposing that numbers exist at some distance from the thinker’s body. Likewise we can defend an externalist position for psychological concepts without supposing that minds are located in space: other people’s mental states may be said to fix my concepts for those states without assuming that the states in question occupy space. For example, there may be two types of mental illness on earth and twin earth that can’t be distinguished by the people there and yet the term for these two types has different reference (say, schizophrenia and twitzophrenia). We can stipulate this kind of case without assuming that states of mind are spatially located.

We might try saying that externalism is the view that causal relations to the environment enter into content determination: but this presupposes that all externalist content is caused by what it is about (what about thoughts concerning numbers?), and what is to be meant by the “environment”? Are platonic forms in the environment? What about other people’s mental states? Doesn’t the physical environment start just where the skin stops, i.e. well short of things like water? A better approach would be to advert to introspection: externalism says that introspection doesn’t reveal the full nature of one’s mental contents. That applies to natural kind cases like H2O and XYZ, but it also applies to any mental state whose nature is not given to introspection, like abilities and traits of character. Just because my psychology is not fully known to me by introspection doesn’t imply that my mind is fixed by something “external”. Nor will the concept of the physical help us, as in “Mental content is fixed by the physical world”. That is clearly not sufficient since brain states are physical if anything is, but it is also not necessary. Suppose you are an idealist a la Berkeley: you hold that everything is an idea in the mind of God. Then twin earth is an idea just like earth, so that what fixes the meaning of “water” in the two places is something mental, viz. God’s ideas of H2O and XYZ. Thus you can be an externalist about “water” while accepting that nothing physical is involved: idealism and externalism are logically compatible.

I think the best we can do is the following: externalism is the doctrine that the phenomenology of a mental state does not wholly fix the content of that state but that something not identical to the state must be invoked. Thus our phenomenology of water (and “water”) does not fix the meaning of that word but something not identical to what has that phenomenology does, viz. water. Here we make no reference to location, space, externality, causation, the environment, or the physical—we merely speak of phenomenology and identity. Something not identical to anything in the state that has a phenomenology enters the individuation of the state. Numbers, natural kinds, individual objects, and other minds are not identical to anything in the state of mind that has a certain phenomenology, yet they fix at least part of the content of that state (“wide content”). The essence of the doctrine, then, is that the mind is not individuated purely phenomenologically, even when dealing with states that have a phenomenology (and have it essentially). It is a form of anti-subjectivism in one sense of “subjective”. This says nothing about supervenience on brain states, or the causal impact of the physical environment, or spatial separation; it is purely a point about phenomenology and what it doesn’t fix. To cover the full range of cases we use the abstract topic-neutral concept of identity not relations like spatial separation or causation or non-supervenience on brain states. That is the real logical thrust of the doctrine labeled “externalism”: we could say that it invokes something extrinsic to phenomenology—“external” in that non-spatial sense. Instead of saying “meaning isn’t in the head” we can say, “meaning isn’t in the phenomenology”, where the “in” here is not spatial. Intuitively, what confers content is not identical to the mental state on which content is conferred—it could be a number, a natural kind, a type of mental phenomenon, or an individual object. It stands outside (careful!) the representational state and yet it fixes that state’s content. In particular, it is not identical to the phenomenological character of the state. The thesis is really about the relation between phenomenology and meaning with all the other formulations more or less misleading. This is why we focus on how it seems to the speakers on earth and twin earth—for the question is whether the identity of seeming implies identity of meaning. Whether their brains are in the same state is beside the point, as is the question of what kind of thing earth and twin earth are (whether material objects or ideas in the mind of God). We do better to formulate the thought experiment by specifying that speakers on earth and twin earth are phenomenological twins and leave it at that.[1]

 

Col

[1] After all, nobody really thinks that brain states alone can distinguish the two meanings of “water” independently of their impact on phenomenological state. That is, no one is a non-psychological internalist, holding that purely physical brain states on earth and twin earth can force a distinction of meaning. It was always about whether subjective facts are the sole determinant of semantic facts, not internal facts more generally.

 

 

Communication and Language

 

 

It is commonly supposed that the use of language in communication is its primary use. There is either nothing else that is language or anything else is an internalized version of outer speech. But in fact communication itself presupposes that language exists in another form and is not self-sustaining. First, communication is precisely the conveying of thought from one person to another, but this thought must exist in some symbolic medium, so it is required that sender and receiver share a language-like cognitive structure. Suppose I am thinking about a problem, talking to myself the while, and eventually I decide to communicate my conclusion to you: I say out loud “We had better take a left”. I have a thought and I attempt to transmit it to you, causing you to have the same thought; but this thought is in both cases a representational entity. Communication is the communication ofsomething, and that thing has to have properties that are encoded in communicative speech. It can’t be just unrelated to the speech act that conveys it; it must map onto the speech act, intelligibly so. Often, of course, it simply is an internal act of speech. The case is not like saying “I’m in pain” because that is not a case of communicating pain—I am not causing you to share my pain. But in communication I am causing you to share my thought, so my method must capture what is constitutively true of the thought; it must recapitulate the thought in some way. But what could this recapitulation be except a sharing of form? So a speech act of communication presupposes a prior instantiation of language in the mind of the speaker in the form of a thought. No communication without thought transmission, but also the transmitted thought must be alike in nature to the means of transmission; otherwise it is not communicated. If we regard language as primarily an instrument of thought, this is easy to understand: the internal language is simply translated into external language in acts of communication. But if we insist that outer speech is the only linguistic reality, we have trouble even explaining what communication is. For what precisely is it that gets communicated?

Second, speech acts require speech intentions. If I say, “It’s raining” I do so by forming an intention to say those words, just as if I raise my umbrella I form an intention to act in that way. So I have the intention to say, “It’s raining”. Acts of communication require intentions to make certain utterances.[1] But those intentions embed a reference to language: you intend to say the words “It’s raining”—this is the content of your intention. That implies that language exists in your mind prior to the act of external utterance, so it cannot be the product of your external speech. Speech acts require speech intentions, but speech intentions make reference to language, so the former cannot be the basis of the latter. In order to learn to communicate with language we have to learn to have linguistic intentions, but those intentions are already steeped in language, so communication cannot be prior to linguistic intentions. To put it differently, communication requires linguistic plans, but linguistic plans involve the ability to use language internally, so we can’t hope to base internal language use on external language use, let alone deny the existence of any language use other than overt communicative language use. Even if language were primarily used for communication, that would still require that language exists in another form—in this case as embedded in intentions. And since communication is precisely the communication of thought, the alleged primacy of communication would still require that language exists in the form of thought. Thus we cannot derive from the primacy of communication thesis the claim that language has no other form, or that whatever other forms of language exist they must depend on the outer form. The far more natural thesis is that language is not primarily a means of communication, still less is it identical to outer speech acts, but that it has an existence that is independent of such public expressions of language. That is, there are inner instantiations of language, in both thought and intention, and these get expressed, contingently so, in acts of outer speech. Outer speech is consequential not constitutive.[2]

 

C

[1] If you blanch at the word “intends” here, we can always replace it with something more neutral and sub-personal such as “directs” (cf. Chomsky’s “cognize”): the essential point is that the vocal system will include a preparatory phase of internal processing leading up to the actual utterance of the words determined on inwardly. Also, the usual strictures about implicature apply to using the familiar word “intends”, which I prefer: just because we don’t normally say that someone intends to say what they actually say doesn’t mean that it isn’t true.

[2] The idea that human language is identical to outer speech is well nigh universal in recent philosophy of language, though seldom explicitly stated, no doubt as a result of the prevalence of behaviorism. Yet it seems fairly easily refuted by the points made above. It is amazing what a stranglehold behaviorism has had despite its obvious weaknesses: it qualifies as an ideology and not merely a rational doctrine.