Abstract
According to mentalism some existing things are endowed with (subjectively) conscious minds. According to physicalism all existing things consist entirely of physical particles in fields of force. Searle holds that mentalism and physicalism are compatible and true—“the world is one”. The aim of this paper is to show that Searle fails to make the compatibility between mentalism and physicalism intelligible. The paper has three parts: first, I criticize drawing an analogy between solidity and consciousness as macro-features of systems with micro-features. Second, I argue that Searle’s defence of the ontological irreducibility of consciousness is terminologically confused and that his argument for the trivial nature of that irreducibility is unsuccessful. Third, I defend Nagel’s argument for the causal irreducibility of conscious minds by answering some of Searle’s objections to it.
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Notes
To be more precise, concerning the “unity of the world” the pre-modern philosophers—being for the most part non-reductionists—were not so much concerned with the ontological differences between non-living and living or between vegetative and sensitive things. Rather, they focused on the division between universals and particulars. Searle dismisses this issue since for him universals are nothing but linguistic entities (predicates): “universals are parasitic upon predicate expressions” (1969, p.120).
See e.g. (1983, pp. 262–272) and (1984, pp. 13–27). The most substantial contribution to this issue is in (1992), replies to the main critics in (1997) and a popular synthesis in (1998). Several papers in (2002) are also relevant. Secondary literature, Lepore and Van Gulick (1991), Fotion (2000), and Smith (2003), presents Searle’s views on the mind in a physical universe faithfully without, however, pinning down its unintelligibility or incoherency. The exception is Willard’s (unpublished) paper, which levels some of the same criticisms as I do. From (1983) till (2002), Searle’s views on this issue are remarkably consistent, which is in contrast to the development of his views on free will and determinism. Sandis (unpublished) has identified three stages of Searle’s views: (1984) Agnostic stage: free will is incompatible with scientific determinism; one of the beliefs is wrong we just do not know which; (1999) Pessimistic stage: it seems we do not have a free will; (2001) Optimistic stage: science could show that determinism is not true.
I take the existence of consciousness and subjectivity as established. I have nothing to add to Searle’s excellent arguments (1992) against those who deny this obvious fact.
Some authors might wish to distinguish between consisting and constituting. To claim that (P1) everything consists of physical particles and fields, implies that (P2) everything is constituted by physical particles and fields, but not vice versa. I do not think there is any good distinction between consisting and constituting but, at any rate, Searle does not merely claim that everything is constituted by physical particles and fields but that everything consists of physical particles and fields. Searle says, for instance: “The theory of the mind I have attempted to develop is in large part an attempt to answer the question, How does a mental reality, a world of consciousness, intentionality, and other mental phenomena, fit into a world consisting entirely of physical particles in fields of force?” (1995, p. xi; emphasis mine).
Searle also mentions other forms of reduction (property ontological, theoretical and logical) but in our context he does not consider them relevant and so we can leave them aside (1992, pp. 113–114).
At this occasion I omit Kripke’s (1972, 1980) variety of the argument.
“I think the argument [for ontological irreducibility] is decisive, though it is frequently misunderstood in ways that treat it as merely epistemic and not ontological. It is sometimes treated as an epistemic argument to the effect that, for example, the sort of third-person, objective knowledge we might possibly have of a bat’s neurophysiology would still not include the first-person, subjective experience of what it feels like to be a bat. But for our present puposes, the point of the argument is ontological and not epistemic. It is a point about what real features exist in the world and not, except derivatively, about how we know about those features.” (1992, p. 117) Especially the last sentence appears as if Searle wanted to suggest that the point of the argument is to convince the skeptics of the existence of conscious minds. But this would be a mistake—what is at stake is not the existence of conscious minds but their reducibility to physical particles and fields. These two problems are clearly distinct (similarly, the question of the existence of solidity is not the question of its reducibility).
The legitimacy of this distinction seems to be a necessary condition of the intelligibility of Searle’s discussion. Thus, for instance: “[w]e can summarize [...] from the point of view of the property dualist as follows: The apparent contrast between the irreducibility of consciousness and the reducibility of color, heat, solidity, etc., really was only apparent. We did not really eliminate the subjectivity of red, for example, when we reduced red to light reflectances; we simply stopped calling the subjective part “red.” We did not eliminate any subjective phenomena whatever with these “reductions”; we simply stopped calling them by their old names.” (Searle 1992, p. 123) Searle clearly distinguishes here between red-as-consciously-experienced and red-as-electromagnetic-reflectances.
It could be, of course, that the causal basis of red-in-itself is a proper part of the causal basis of red-as-experienced. This would still means, however, that the causal basis of red-as-experienced is unknown.
I am grateful to John T. Kearns for his help with expressing this point.
The original context of the argument is the discussion of the body–mind problem (1992, pp. 100–105). Nagel’s argument was to show that we lack conceptual apparatus even to conceive of a solution, whereas in Searle’s opinion the problem is not that difficult. Searle sees only two obstacles to solving it: first, the false assumption that the mental and the physical are two distinct realms; second, our ignorance of the exact workings of the brain.
Throughout the discussion of Nagel’s argument I operate with the notion of necessity. Now, notoriously, this notion (or rather cluster of notions) has been highly difficult and controversial. For my purposes, however, it is sufficient to say that what I have in mind is not logical but something like natural or causal necessity. Intuitively, when one billiard ball hits another, it is causally necessary that the other sets into motion.
References
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Acknowledgments
Portions of this paper have been presented at two occasions: Jednota Filozofická, Prague, 06/18/2002 and the Conference The Philosophy of John Searle, University of Buffalo 05/12/2003. I would like to thank participants of these events for stimulating discussion. For various comments concerning this paper I am grateful to Raymond Dennehy (USA), Randall Dipert (USA), Michael Gorman (USA/Germany), Ryan Kohl (USA), Constantine Sandis (UK), John R. Searle (USA). Special thanks are due to John T. Kearns (USA).
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Novotny, D.D. Searle on the unity of the world. Axiomathes 17, 41–51 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-006-9003-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-006-9003-7