Abstract
This article aims to highlight the difficulties encountered by the experimental psychology promoted by Ribot, at the end of the nineteenth century up until the beginning of the twentieth century, with regard to the question of free will as part of his analysis of voluntary attention. It also aims to shed some light on William James’s possible role in Ribot’s subtle change of opinion in regards to the power of attention, as a mental effort somehow revealing the possibility of a top-down voluntary activity. In most of Ribot’s work, at first glance, the will is understood as a determined product of our idiosyncratic character, of our affective and physiological tendencies—rather than as an autonomous faculty of self-determination. But what might look like Ribot's commitment to determinism calls for some nuance. Some uses of the term "voluntary" in his work, particularly to describe the phenomenon of attention, seem to refer to a form of free will looking a lot more like an autonomous faculty than like a mere illusion induced by an epiphenomenal conscious state. We end the paper with remarks about the current state of studies of consciousness and voluntary action in relation to Ribot and James’s accounts of attention and will.
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Notes
“The thesis which I have called physiological (Bain, Spencer, Maudsley, James, Lange, etc.) connects all affective states to biological conditions and considers them as the direct and immediate expression of vegetative life.” (Ribot, 1896).
JAMES, W., « What the Will Effects», Scribner's Magazine, 3/2, Cornell University Library, 1888, pp. 240–250. Many passages in this article echo the chapter entitled "Will" of the Principles of Psychology, in which James describes certain diseases of the will that correspond to those developed by Ribot in his book on the subject. James refers directly to this book (see JAMES, W., The Principles of Psychology (1890), 2 vols., New York, Dover Publications, Courier Corporation, 2012, pp. 541–542), and alludes openly the case of Glénadal, the man who wanted to kill his mother, mentioned in Diseases of the Will, to illustrate the morbidity of irresistible impulses. Yet despite an apparent harmony of thought, the two psychologists seem to diverge on the issue of the autonomy of will.).
JAMES, W., « Are we Automata ?», Mind, 4, 1879, pp. 1–22. The expression “organe de perfectionnement” appears in French in the text. James is also the author of the article Sens de l’effort, published in La Critique Philosophique (review founded by Renouvier), in which he endeavors to show the intentionality –and the freedom– of consciousness (« The Feeling of effort», Boston, The Society, 1880).
Henri Bergson will famously reclaim this metaphor and describe the decision as a ripe fruit.
Ribot is therefore mistaken when he criticizes James for never having used the term 'passion': “Many authors do not mention the word 'passion' even once” (Bain, W. James, etc.). (EP, p. 2).
My translation reproduces the italics in the original text. JAMES, W., « What the Will Effects», art.cit., p. 245.
This is my translation of the French: Article 70. De l'admiration; sa définition et sa cause. L'admiration est une subite surprise de l'âme, qui fait qu'elle se porte à considérer avec attention les objets qui lui semblent rares et extraordinaires. Ainsi elle est causée premièrement par l'impression qu'on a dans le cerveau, qui représente l'objet comme rare et par conséquent digne d'être fort considéré. Puis ensuite par le mouvement des esprits, qui sont disposés par cette impression à tendre avec grande force vers l'endroit du cerveau où elle est, pour l'y fortifier et conserver. Comme aussi ils sont disposés par elle à passer de là dans les muscles qui servent à retenir les organes des sens en la même situation qu'ils sont, afin qu'elle soit encore entretenue par eux, si c'est par eux qu'elle a été formée.
We can’t help but thinking about Henri Bergson, reader of Ribot’s, who also, in his own way, puts change (understood as duration) at the center of his analysis of consciousness.
It bares mentioning here that the individuals to whom Ribot refuses the ability to pay attention, paradoxically, present the temperaments and characters considered as the most emotional. These include, unsurprisingly, women and children: "Note that children, women and generally light spirits are only capable of attention for a very short time" (MV, p. 21). Ribot first states that these "light spirits" are unfit for prolonged attention, but he goes on to explain that the difference lies in the object of attention: they are "inattentive to the high, complex, deep questions, because these leave them cold; on the contrary, they are attentive to frivolous things, because these interest them" (Ibid.). Sometimes, for the light spirits, it is the attention which is superficial, sometimes it is its object, which is not the same thing.
It is worth noting that if Libet believed that Free will cannot initiate action, he nonetheless suggested that we could freely and consciously veto an action: we have control over inhibitive power to not do something. Libet called this vetoing an intention “free won’t”. The conditions in which Libet tested the existence of our “free won’t” are highly questionable: if subjects know per advance that they are asked to form an intention that they then have to veto, then they don’t actually have any intention of doing anything (Mele, 2009).
References
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Proust, J. Attention and Free Will in Experimental Psychology: An Unexpected Analysis of Voluntary Action by William James and Theodule Ribot. Integr. psych. behav. 57, 547–568 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-022-09728-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-022-09728-x