Descriptive versus Revisionary Metaphysics and the Mind-Body Problem R. L. Phillips Philosophy, Vol. 42, No. 160. (Apr., 1967), pp. 105-118. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8191%28196704%2942%3A160%3C105%3ADVRMAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-C Philosophy is currently published by Cambridge University Press.
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PHILOSOPHY
THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE
OF PHILOSOPHY
VOL. XLII No. 160
APRIL 1967
DESCRIPTIVE VERSUS REVISIONARY METAPHYSICS AND THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM
I
I
appropriated the terms 'descriptive' and 'revisionary' metaphysics from P. F. Strawson's Individuals. I n the Introduction to that work he draws a broad general distinction between two types of metaphysics. Descriptive metaphysics is concerned to 'describe the actual structure of our thought about the world' while revisionary metaphysics is 'concerned to produce a better structure'. They also differ in that revisionary metaphysics requires justification of some sort whereas descriptive metaphysics does not. Strawson makes this point when he says, 'Revisionary metaphysics is at the service of descriptive metaphysics'. Thus, the descriptivist has the sober, scientific task of elucidating our extant conceptual schema while the revisionist has the speculative, slightly literary job of inventing a new conceptual schema. The first important point to notice about Strawson's account is that metaphysics seems indistinguishable from a certain type of epistemology. The job of both revisionary and descriptive metaphysics is to produce accounts of thought structures. The former type invents them while the latter describes those which we actually possess. Thus it does seem, at the very beginning, that an important question is being begged. For in order to make this definition hold it is necessary to presuppose a Kantian style epistemological realism. But this is, of course, precisely what makes possible the invidious comparison between the two types of metaphysics. If it is assumed without argument that the task of metaphysics is to elucidate in Kantian style those logical categories of thought which order nonlogical perceptual data then revisionist philosophers such as Berkeley and Hegel will be relegated to a secondary role. This is so because HAVE
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Kantian epistemological realism must deny that the categories of thought can penetrate beyond the data given in perception. This being the case, metaphysics must restrict itself to getting clear about the ways in which we think and speak about the world of sense experience. The Ding-an-sich is forever inaccessible to experience, i.e. perception, and therefore to thought. But, of course, it is about the Ding-an-sich that most revisionary metaphysicians wish ultimately to speak. I n order to do this it becomes necessary to go beyond those categories or structures of thought which organise perceptual data. It is clearly a moot point whether this can be done, but it must not be assumed a priori that it cannot. The second point to be noticed is that it may not be possible to preserve this dichotomy in the face of historical examples. A clear case of a revisionary metaphysician is Hegel, and yet Hegel insisted that he was a Kantian. He did this because he was forced to agree with the Kantian schema insofar as it was an account of the subject thinking about the world in terms of perceptual data. The Kantian picture, for Hegel, is of logical but empty categories of thought ordering and arranging non-logical perceptual data but being at the same time unable to penetrate to the Ding-an-sich. Such a picture is perfectly permissible but one-sided, because in the mere recognition of the Ding-an-sich thought moves beyond the perception-organising categories. Hegel's point is not that Kant is wrong but that he is incomplete; that a distinction between what can be known through perception and what cannot is ultimately a distinction of thought and is, therefore, fair game for the metaphysician. T o restrict thought about the world to thought about perceptual data is for Hegel to possess only a 'partial vision'-just the charge which Strawson levels against the revisionists. I t thus emerges that the sense of 'world' in which 'descriptive metaphysics is content to describe our actual thought about the world' is different from its use in conjunction with revisionary metaphysics. The two are complementary, but not in the way Strawson suggests. For the revisionary metaphysician cannot deny what the descriptive metaphysician says about the world, for he is elucidating our conceptual schema insofar as it deals with perceptual data, but he would deny that metaphysics is conjned to elucidating these aspects of the schema. Strawson also draws attention to the close connexion between descriptive metaphysics and contemporary analytic philosophy. He notes, 'It does not differ in kind or intention (from analytic philosophy) but only in scope and generality'. The point here seems to be that insofar as analytic philosophy requires or is a metaphysic it will be of the descriptive sort. I think this is surely correct. For if
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philosophy is to be concerned solely with ordinary language, i.e. what we ordinarily say about the world, in the sense of the perceptual world, the sort of conceptual schema which will be laid bare by analysis will probably be Kantian or Kantian-like. This should not be surprising. Ordinary language is, by and large, used to talk about objects in our immediate environment; it is a thing-denoting language. If an interest in ordinary language is coupled with an implicit epistemological realism we are well on the road to a Kantian style metaphysics. But this does surely raise two very large questions: (1) How far are we justified in assuming an epistemological realism ? (2) How far are we justified in attempting to construct an exhaustive metaphysics based on the way we ordinarily talk about the world? Historically, revisionary metaphysicians such as Berkeley and Hegel have been anxious to point out that certain substantial questions in philosophy could not be answered or indeed even understood in terms of how we ordinarily talk. This is particularly clear in the case of the philosophy of mind. For Berkeley, talk about the mind was ordinarily carried on in metaphor because the mind was not itself an object of perception. This did not mean that an understanding of the mind was closed to philosophers; Berkeley would not have wished to restrict philosophy to sense experience as did Hume. I t is safe to say that if the philosopher's job is to solve philosophical problems by an examination of ordinary language then the resultant metaphysics (if any) will be descriptive in the Kantian-Strawsonian sense. What I wish to contend, however, is that this approach is laden with a great many assumptions which need to be tested in conjunction with specific philosophical problems. I t is impossible within the scope of this article to consider all of the many points raised in Individuals. I will confine myself to one which is highly representative and which has been widely canvassed in other works of contemporary philosophy, viz. the mind-body problem. For the purpose of elucidation I have divided this problem into two sub-problems which I will consider separately. The first is the theory of Cartesian or classical dualism and the second is the problem of other-minds scepticism. What I hope to show is that the mind-body problem involves substantial philosophical theses which do not depend for their meaningfulness upon certain antecedent forms of common speech about minds nor upon any concepts presupposed by that speech. If I can throw doubt upon Strawson's thesis in Chapter 3 of Individuals this will constitute some evidence for my general objections to descriptive metaphysics. For it is Strawson's thesis that the mind-body problem can be dispensed 107
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with once we get clear about the concepts which are employed in thinking about persons. The argument is in fact that our extant conceptual structure reveals the mind-body problem as a pseudoproblem. I hope to show that this is not the case.
II Strawson's arguments in Chapter 3 of Individuals are directed towards showing not that classical dualism is a false theory but that it is logically incoherent. He does this by trying to show that the language which we use to talk about ourselves and other persons presupposes a concept of persons which rules out the possibility of coherently stating the dualist position. According to Strawson, an examination of person language reveals that the presupposed concept of a person is 'primitive' in the sense that it is not analysable into two sub-concepts, a mind and a b0dy.l Strawson's main conclusion here seems to be that because there is a relation of logical interdependence between the corpus of person-language and the concept of a person as primitive it is illegitimate to put forward any theory about the nature of a person which is cast in our extant person-language and which violates the concept of a person as primitive. I n other words, Strawson is saying that we would not even have our present person-language structure if we did not begin by regarding persons as an unanalysable mind-body unity and, therefore, it is a manifest contradiction to seek to undermine this mind-body unity while employing the idioms of our present person-language. Now I think that this argument is typical of descriptivism and if it were valid it would be of extreme importance. This is so because 'The first question which seems to arise here concerns the meaning of the term 'unanalysable'. On at least one standard account of analysability (G. E. Moore) there is an entailment relation between 'X is unanalysable' and 'X is indefinable'. Thus, 'Yellow is unanalysable' entails 'The word "yellow" is indefinable'. This seems to be adequate for simple qualities such as colours, as there does not seem to be any clear answer to such a question as, 'What sort of thing is yellowness?' I t is difficult to imagine an answer to this question which would constitute an analysis of 'yellowness', and yet the same does no seem true of 'persons'. Prima facie the word 'person' does seem definable, i.e. analysable, in a way in which the word 'yellow' does not. That is, one can think of a whole range of answers to the question, 'What sort of thing is a person?' whereas one cannot seems to think of any answers to the question, 'What sort of thing is yellowness?' The point here is that the sense in which 'persons' is said to be unanalysable is different, or seems different, from the sense in which any other concept is said to be unanalysable, and it is not clear whether a new concept of analysability is being introduced or whether it is just illegitimate to entertain answers to the question, 'What sorts of things are persons?' if such an answer is intended to be an analysis of 'persons'. This is a crucial point because with 'persons' we are dealing with a concept which does in fact appear to be analysable, even at the level of ordinary language, into minds and bodies.
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we would be provided with a very simple and far-reaching method for solving philosophical problems. This would consist of showing that some aspect of ordinary language entails a given set of concepts and then arguing that any concepts which are different from the entailed set are incoherent. However, I now want to show that this argument against classical dualism is not in fact conclusive even if it be the case that there is a relation of interdependence between our extant person-language and the Strawsonian concept of a mind-body unity. The core of Strawson's attack on dualism seems to be as follows: Dualism regards a person as a compound of 'two subjects of experience', a mind and a body. Because of this assumption certain difficulties inevitably arise. Chief among these is the problem of accounting for the genesis of person language as we know it, given the dualist hypothesis. If dualism were correct, says Strawson, then we would be directly aware of two subjects of experience in our own case but not in the case of others. There would be one subject of experience of which I am directly aware called the 'ego' and another subject of experience of which I am directly aware called the 'body'. Now I might presumably ascribe bodily experiences to myself and others because I can observe my own and others' bodily behaviour, Thus I might be able to say 'I am sitting' to distinguish my sitting from everyone else's standing. This contrast between 'my experiences' and 'their experiences' is possible because I can give meaning to 'other's' bodily experiences by observing them and could thus ascribe similar experiences to myself. But, unfortunately, 'egos' are not in such a favourable position. As I don't observe any other egos, how could I ever contrast, e.g. 'my' anger with 'his' anger? I might contrast 'my' altered facial expression with 'his' altered facial expression but I would have no way of contrasting 'my' inner states of consciousness with 'his' inner states of consciousness so long as there is a dichotomy of mind and body. Thus, the dilemma which Strawson poses for the dualist is, (a) because I do not observe any other egos I can only ascribe states of consciousness to myself, but (b) if I can only ascribe states of consciousness to myself then I cannot ascribe them at all because there is no possible contrast of 'my . . .' with 'other .. .'. The only way I could possibly think of myself as having states of consciousness is if I thought that others had them too. But, argues Strawson, this would be impossible if dualism were true, i.e. if we began with the concept of a person as a compound of 'two subjects of experience'. But as it is quite obvious that we do ascribe states of consciousness to ourselves and others we must, as a matter of fact, not be conceptualising persons according to the dualist hypothesis. For if we were so conceiving of persons we would not say what we do now say about them.
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Strawson's argument is somewhat difficult to follow but the upshot seems to be a particularly straightforward instance of descriptivist argument: the existence of our present person-language is only possible given a concept of persons which is primitive in the Strawsonian sense because only then can we account for the fact of selfand other-ascription of states of consciousness. Dualism cannot account for this fact because there is no provision for a viable contrast with the ego, or pure individual consciousness, which would allow the development of expressions such as 'my depression', 'my anger', etc. Dualism is thus demonstrated to be incoherent on the basis of how we actually speak about persons. Dualists manage to give their hypothesis a superficial plausibility only by first accepting the framework of person-language along with its attendant concepts and then unfairly going on to use this linguistic framework to undermine those attendant concepts. Once we see through this ruse, dualism is exposed as a 'pseudo-problem'. The first difficulty in criticising Strawson's argument lies in trying to make sense of the expression 'two subjects of experience' as part of the vocabulary of dualism. I t may be that Strawson merely wishes to call attention to two different types of experience, viz. bodily experiences such as walking and running and mental events such as thinking, willing, and intending. However, the effect of such terminology is to give the impression that dualists either hold or would like to hold that persons are compounds of two independent centres of consciousness which are contingently connected. Any classical dualist I know of, including Descartes, would certainly repudiate such a description. For dualism there is only one subject of experience which is itself the product of the interaction of mind and body. Strawson's interpretation amounts to saying that a person is really two persons, an external bodily person and an internal mental person. Even Descartes would be prepared to admit that, despite the ultimate separability of mental and bodily substance, the whole range of experiences which persons do in fact have would not be possible without some form ofinteraction between mind and body. Thus, 'the subject' is, in part, a product of this interaction. But a more serious difficulty in Strawson's account seems to be the assumption that if dualism were true this fact would be known to us in the form of a pre-linguistic direct awareness of minds and bodies as totally distinct entities or subjects, i.e. as 'two subjects of experience'. I t is, I think, quite clear that if we were thus aware of minds and bodies the Strawsonian refutation of dualism would be completely valid-even though we probably wouldn't know about it as person-language would be radically different from what it is now. But it is a simple fact that we are not so acquainted. We always
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experience ourselves as embodied. As Austin Farrer puts it in The Freedom ofthe Will, 'If I am in a hurry to cross some rough ground I push myself to run, and I place my steps with care. Here is conscious bodily action concerned with its own bodily performance; here is the simple identity of body and mind, not as the sophisticated product of a philosophical reflection, but as the primary form of selfawareness; not the conclusion of speculation, but the beginning of experience.' What I am suggesting is that there is a confusion in Strawson's account between two quite different sorts of question. Whatever else the dualist hypothesis might be, it is also a metaphysical theory which attempts to interpret a certain range of the facts of experience. Whether dualism is successful in this attempt is open to debate. But what does not seem questionable is that Strawson's descriptive analysis produces solutions to a quite different set of problems than those which confront the dualist. The dualist is asking 'Are there in fact two different sorts of substance, bodily and mental?' Strawson is asking 'Given our present language structure, what concept of persons is necessary to account for that structure?' This latter question is directed toward finding out which concepts we must have, or must have had, of persons which will allow us to formulate personlanguage as we know it. But such a task would certainly not eliminate dualism as a possible hypothesis for two reasons: (1) There is nothing in dualism which would be upset if people either now or in a pre-linguistic situation regarded themselves as primitive mind-body unities, and (2) Dualism purports to be a substantial hypothesis about the nature of persons, not an interpretation of the relation of concepts to language. Of course, if there were absolutely no features of experience which favoured dualism then the theory would clearly be implausible, but dualists claim that there are such features of experience. We must, I hasten to add, admit the possibility that there are some features of classical dualism which exclude the possibility of self- and other-ascriptions of states of consciousness, but this is nowhere actually demonstrated. All that is shown is that I couldn't talk about 'my anger', etc., unless I at least paripassu came to believe that other persons were angry, etc. But this would clearly not be inconsistent with classical dualism. I n order to satisfy the descriptivist criterion I must believe that mental events such as are correlated with and/or phenomenologically continuous with those that are correlated with movements of and happenings to my body occur in conjunction in other bodies. Such a belief would allow me, if necessary, to have a concept of a person as a mind-body unity and to treat behaviour as a logically adequate criterion for the ascription 111
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of states of consciousness. But such a belief is obviously a version of dualism. The point is that there is nothing prima facie inconsistent in holding both that we possess a Strawsonian primitive concept of persons and that persons are in fact compounds of bodily and mental substance. T o summarise : I n order to show that the dualist thesis is inadequate the descriptivist will have to demonstrate that there is something about it which would prevent us from saying what we now do say about persons. This has not been shown. All that has been shown is that if we were unprepared to regard others as subjects of states of consciousness we would not regard ourselves as subjects of these states either. This thesis is, I submit, compatible with dualism, for the question of the truth or falsity of dualism is independent of the question as to which concepts are necessary antecedents of our extant person-language. I n part Strawson seems concerned to specify which concepts we must possess if we are to talk as we now do. To put the matter shortly, if the concepts of minds and bodies are regarded as logically prior to persons then we would not talk about persons in the way we now do. But again the dualist would want to argue that there is a difference between the doctrine that minds are one kind of thing and bodies another kind of thing (to which he subscribes) and the view that minds and animated bodies come into being out of association with one another (a doctrine which he does not hold). He would, of course, agree that if we were born sceptics about other minds then talk about 'my depression', etc., would never have got under way. But if this is all that is involved in the concept of a person then from pre-linguistic times people have been using this concept. But as I have argued above, our present linguistic-conceptual structure does not of itself prevent us from raising the question of the truth or falsity of dualism. The point is that a classical dualist could agree with the descriptivist insofar as the latter is exhibiting concepts which we must hold if we are to account for our present ways of talking about the world. Thus it may well be that a prelinguistic concept of a mind-body unity is necessary for talk about persons to get started. Certainly, the dualist would have to agree that if other-minds scepticism were universal our talk about persons would be very different from what it is now. But hating agreed to all these things he will insist that a sharp distinction be drawn between an extant conceptual schema which serves as a 'backing' for person language and a substantial philosophical hypothesis about the nature of mind and body. 'Granted', he might say, 'that unless I was prepared to speak of others hating states of consciousness I would not ascribe such states to myself either and this may indeed presuppose
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the concept of a mind-body unity.' But dualists have always said that there was a very intimate mind-body unity so dualists have always held that the concept of a person is primitive, if all this amounts to is that mind and body are sufficiently connected so there is nothing odd about our ascribing states of consciousness to ourselves and others. Strawson's attempt to eliminate dualism as incoherent is based upon the incorrect assumption that for dualism to be true means that it must be known to be true in the sense of a direct awareness of 'two subjects of experience' antecedent to the formulation of personlanguage. But not only is this a bizarre interpretation of dualism, there is nothing in the dualist hypothesis which is incompatible with the notion of persons as a primitive concept if this means no more than a concept of a mind-body unity sufficient to account for person-language. There would be an incompatibility between the two theories if Strawson had shown not only that the way we talk about persons requires an antecedent concept of a person as a unique, unanalysable subject of experience, but that persons really are unique, unanalysable subjects of experience. I n other words, it would have to be shown that the primitive concept is in some way descriptive of the real nature of persons (as dualism claims to be) rather than, as has actually been argued, that such a concept is necessary to account for a certain way of speaking about persons. There seems to be an assumption here thac as soon as a given concept is shown to be logically connected with an extant body of language the descriptive correctness of that concept is established. But more about this later. The pattern of Strawson's attempted refutation of dualism is as follows: (1) H e correctly argues that unless I was prepared to regard others as having states of consciousness I would not ascribe these states to myself. But since we do make these ascriptions, this implies (2) a concept of persons as unique, unanalysable subjects of experience, etc. (3) Dualists seek to undermine this primitive concept while, at the same time, employing the idioms of which this concept is a necessary pre-condition. Dualists are, therefore, involving themselves in a contradiction. My arguments have been directed towards showing that step (3) is no concern of dualists; that, indeed, they do not share Strawson's peculiar interpretation of the dualists hypothesis and, of greater importance, it is no concern of dualism to undermine any concept of persons so long as the only claim being made for that concept is that it must necessarily be held if we are to speak about persons in the way we now do. A dualist would object to Strawson's primitive concept (a) if it were argued that not only is it necessary to account for a certain way of talking but also (b) that the
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concept correctly describes the nature of persons. As it stands, the dualist could assent to (a) while merely pointing out that nothing in Strawson's arguments demonstrate, or could demonstrate (b). I now want to turn briefly to the problem of other-minds scepticism. I t may be that there is little or no connection between this problem and that of dualism, but Strawson considers them to be closely linked. As he rejects them both for essentially the same reason, I feel justified in treating them as part of the same problem. I n The Concept of a Person A. J . Ayer makes the following point about other-minds scepticism : 'It is, therefore, true that I could not think of myself as satisfying the conditions for being a person unless I admitted the possibility that others satisfied them too.' (p. 105.) What this rules out, admits Ayer, is the view that one can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself alone. What is not excluded is the view that one does not or cannot know if one is correct in making these ascriptions. 'So even if I could not think of myself as a person unless I also thought that I had reason to think the same of others, I could still consistently raise the question whether these reasons really did the work required of them; and even if I were able to decide that they were good reasons, I should still not be bound to hold that they were conclusive.' (pp. 104-105.) The main issue then is that even if it be the case that in order to speak as we now do we must possess certain concepts which can be laid bare by descriptive metaphysics, it is still possible subsequently to raise the mind-body problem meaningfully. Thus, in order for our present person-language to get under way we must, at some time, have regarded persons as mind-body unities, but this does not of itself prevent us from raising at a later time the mind-body problem. I have argued this point in the case of dualism. I want now to show that it is equally true of other-mind scepticism. Ayer has argued that even if I could not regard and talk about myself as a person unless I also similarly regarded others, it is still possible to consistently raise the question, 'I wonder if I am correct in ascribing states of consciousness to others?' There are at least two lines of defence which the descriptivist might erect against the sceptic, both of which, I shall attempt to show, are inadequate. The first runs as follows: The desciptive metaphysician is not interested in questions of the sort raised by the sceptic. His sole purpose is to make a logical point about language and about the concepts which are presupposed by that language. The fact that the language which we have does the work we want it to do in practice is sufficient to justify the exercise. The descriptivist is not concerned
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with the question, 'Are we correct in ascribing states of consciousness to others?' I n fact, this question is illegitimate because the language in which it is cast could only arise among people who were not othermind sceptics. The first line of defence is inadequate because it is not shown why the problem of other-minds cannot be raised, even if it is admitted that an initial other-minds scepticism would have ruled out person language altogether. I am suggesting that there is a confusion in the descriptivist account between the question 'What concepts are necessary to account for our talk about persons?' and the question 'Are our concepts of other persons the correct ones?' The second line of defence brings out what seems to be a concealed premise in most of the descriptivist arguments, viz. the fact that the language which we use to talk about persons works in practice somehow demonstrates that the concepts presupposed by that language are correct. This is, I suppose, a kind of transcendental argument which can be generalised in the following way: We speak about the world in a certain way X. X must be the correct way of speaking because if it were not the world would be so different from what it now is that language would break down; we would be unable to say anything about the world. But since we do talk about the world there is a good case to be made out that we are correct. An example of this line of argument might be Kant's treatment of causation: Every event must have a cause because if it does not things would be so erratic as to make a coherent language about events impossible. But since we do have a language with which we discourse coherently about events, there is an argument for saying that every event must have a cause. The descriptivist might want to argue, on this model, that not only must we treat behaviour as a logically adequate criterion for the ascription of states of consciousness in order to account for our present language schema, but also because if we were not correct in so ascribing, persons would be so different from our conceptions of them that we would not have ascribed states of consciousness to them in the first place, nor, therefore, to ourselves either. But while we might assent to the first part of this statement the latter part is surely wrong. For all the sceptic need reply is that persons would be cleverly designed automata which would behave in precisely the way they now behave. Thus, we would have exactly the same reasons for ascribing states of consciousness to them as we now have, viz. behavioural characteristics. We can now distinguish between a weaker and a stronger descriptivist thesis about persons. The weaker thesis is a pure logical doctrine about the relation of concepts to language. I t asserts that
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the language which we use to talk about persons presupposes a concept of persons as unique subjects of experiences to which one can ascribe both mental and corporeal states, and in addition, this concept is not an amalgam of two sub-concepts, a mind and a body. The weaker thesis makes no claim that this concept is correct, i.e. that persons really are unique subjects of experience, etc. I t only says that the language of persons could not be employed as it is employed if' users of the language began by regarding minds and bodies as primitive rather than persons. I t would be quite possible to assent to this weaker thesis while holding that questions may be raised about the correctness of these concepts. The stronger thesis asserts the weaker thesis and in addition says that the concepts presupposed by person language correctly describe the real nature of persons. That is, not only are we correct in practice when we ascribe states of consciousness to others, but the concept of a person as primitive is also correct. It is claimed that on the stronger thesis traditional problems in the philosophy of mind do not arise. The argument for the stronger thesis is, as I have suggested, the same as for any transcendental argument, viz. the language used to talk about X and any concepts which may be presupposed by that language correctly describe X because if they did not X would as a matter of fact be so different that we would either be unable to say the things we do say about X or we would be unable to say anything about it. The stronger thesis clearly will not do. It is not easy to think of an X such that if X was different from our ordinary ways of speaking about it we wouldn't be able to speak about it in the way we now do. This point has to be distinguished from the sceptic'sview that it might not be correct to speak of X in the way we now do. Put in another way: It is difficult to think of a case where failure of our present language to correctly represent some feature of experience would result in a breakdown of language as such. And in the case of persons there is nothing prima facie which would prevent us from speaking about them as we have always done even if they were automata. At least it has nowhere been shown that we could not do this. But unless the stronger thesis (or something very like it) can be established it is difficult to see why the problem of other-minds and the dualist thesis cannot be meaningfully advanced. This throws us back on the weaker thesis, which Ayer seems willing to accept. But this thesis does not rule out classical dualism (nor the other-minds problem). Only an extremely eccentric dualism would be upset by the weaker thesis. This would have to be a dualism which not only postulates two separate subjects of experience, but also fails to assert any connection between them. Granted, classical
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dualism depends upon some notion, however fundamental, of a mind-body interaction which, as I have remarked several times, may be close to the descriptivist's primitive concept. T o conclude this section, I have argued that the most the descriptivists can be said to have shown is that there is a logical relation between our ordinary linguistic characterisation of persons and a concept of persons as primitive; that if we were not prepared to regard other persons as having states of consciousness we would not talk about ourselves as having them either. Or, to put it the other way around, if we had been born other-mind sceptics, our present ways of talking about persons would never have got started. But the dualist would wholeheartedly assent to this. Strawson tries to argue that if minds and bodies were as the dualist says they are we would not talk about persons in the way we now do and, therefore, dualism would not be possible. I n part this argument is based on what seems to me a near caricature of the dualist hypothesis, e.g. talk about 'two subjects of experience'. But even if it is admitted that the descriptivist conceptual scheme is the one we do possess, nothing in dualism rules this out. The same point can, of course, be made in favour of the other-mind sceptic. What ties these two traditional problems together is my central anti-descriptivist thesis that there is a difference between whether a certain concept is presupposed by some extant language structure and whether that concept correctly describes those features of reality to which it refers. Finally, I have clearly not been concerned to champion dualism and other-minds scepticism as positive doctrines. Rather, I have been concerned to defend them as legitimate philosophical problems against a philosophical technique which would preclude the possibility of their even being coherently stated. If I have succeeded in doing this then doubt will have been cast on descriptivism as an exhaustive metaphysics.
111 Now that we have examined a specific set of problems and their treatment by descriptive metaphysics it should be possible to specify a few general morals. The first would seem to be that descriptive metaphysics is a viable philosophical position only if it does not attempt to eliminate a priori certain traditional problems in philosophy. If the descriptivist had wanted to say that the concepts presupposed by person-language are necessary if that language was to come into existence in the first place and that this provides an argument of sorts for its correctness there could be no serious objection. But this would mean that the descriptivist had accepted
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the mind-body problem as a coherent problem, something which he does not seem willing to do. On the other hand, to argue that metaphysics is merely the elucidation of our extant conceptual schema leaves untouched certain major problems and certainly does not place revisionary metaphysics 'at the service of descriptive metaphysics' as claimed by Strawson. For if I am correct, revisionary metaphysics would be much broader in scope than descriptive metaphysics. The second moral seems to be that in rejecting certain traditional problems as pseudo-problems a strong strain of pragmatism emerges. Thus, we have a person-language and an attendant conceptual schema which in practice works. It is, therefore, somehow contradictory both to accept this schema and then use personlanguage in such a way as to undermine this schema. But as I have argued above, the dualist and the other-minds sceptic need not admit that what they say does undermine 'our conceptual schema' unless it is held that that conceptual schema somehow carries its own credentials of truth or correctness. But how could a conceptual schema carry its own credentials of truth? Only, it seems to me, by assuming that workability is the criterion of correctness. But a moment's reflection will show that this does not follow. At least it does not follow in the case of persons. The third moral is that the distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics is not of much use and can be harmful if taken seriously. For it would seem that certain problems in the philosophy of mind can only be treated within the purview of what is called revisionary metaphysics. But if this is so then the invidious distinction between them drawn in the Introduction to Individuals is unreal. The final question is: Could a similar analysis be performed for individuals of a material sort as well as for persons? I think the answer is yes-but that would be another article.' Lincoln College, Oxford.
'1 wish to thank Mr I. M. Crombie for his many helpful discussions of the mind-body problem.
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