Searle's Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement (Philosophy of History and Culture, Vol. 27)

Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy

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Philosophy of History and Culture Editor

Michael Krausz Bryn Mawr College Advisory Board

Annette Baier (University of Pittsburgh) Purushottama Bilimoria (Deakin University, Australia) Cora Diamond (University of Virginia) William Dray (University of Ottawa) Nancy Fraser (New School for Social Research) Clifford Geertz† (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) Peter Hacker (St. John’s College, Oxford) Rom Harré (Linacre College, Oxford) Bernard Harrison (University of Sussex) Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago) Leon Pompa (University of Birmingham) Joseph Raz (Balliol College, Oxford) Amélie Rorty (Harvard University) VOLUME 27

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Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy Constructive Engagement

Edited by

Bo Mou

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008

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This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISCWP International “Constructive-Engagement” Conference (2nd : 2005 : Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) Searle’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy : constructive engagement / edited by Bo Mou. p. cm. — (Philosophy of history and culture ; v. 27) Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-16809-1 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Searle, John R.—Congresses. 2. Philosophy, Chinese—Congresses. I. Mou, Bo, 1956– II. Title. III. Series. B1649.S264I83 2005 191—dc22 2008009737

ISSN 0922-6001 ISBN 978 90 04 16809 1 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

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CONTENTS Acknowledgments ....................................................................... Note on Transcription and Guide to Pronunciation ................... Contributors ................................................................................ Constructive-Engagement Movement in View of Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: A Theme Introduction ............................................................ Bo Mou

ix xiii xv

1

PART ONE

SEARLE ON GLOBALIZATION OF PHILOSOPHY Chapter One The Globalization of Philosophy ...................... John R. Searle

17

PART TWO

CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT OF SEARLE’S PHILOSOPHY AND CHINESE PHILOSOPHY A. Mind Chapter Two Analysis of Searle’s Philosophy of Mind and Critique from a Neo-Confucian Point of View ...................... Chung-ying Cheng Reply to Chung-ying Cheng by John R. Searle Chapter Three Wú-Wéi, the Background, and Intentionality .......................................................................... Chris Fraser Reply to Chris Fraser by John R. Searle

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contents

Chapter Four A Daoist Critique of Searle on Mind and Action ..................................................................................... Joel W. Krueger Reply to Joel W. Krueger by John R. Searle Chapter Five The Philosopher and the Sage: Searle and the Sixth Patriarch on the Brain and Consciousness .................... Robert E. Allinson Reply to Robert E. Allinson by John R. Searle Chapter Six Searle and Buddhism on the Mind and the Non-Self ................................................................................. Soraj Hongladarom Reply to Soraj Hongladarom by John R. Searle

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B. Language Chapter Seven Reference, Truth, and Fiction ......................... A.P. Martinich Reply to A.P. Martinich by John R. Searle Chapter Eight How to Do Zen (Chan) with Words? An Approach of Speech Act Theory ...................................... Yiu-ming Fung Reply to Yiu-ming Fung by John R. Searle Chapter Nine Searle, De Re Belief, and the Chinese Language ................................................................................ Marshall D. Willman Reply to Marshall D. Willman by John R. Searle

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C. Morality Chapter Ten Confucianism and the Is-Ought Question ......... A.T. Nuyen Reply to A.T. Nuyen by John R. Searle

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contents Chapter Eleven Xun Zi on Capacity, Ability and Constitutive Rules ....................................................................................... Kim-chong Chong Reply to Kim-chong Chong by John R. Searle Chapter Twelve Weakness of Will, the Background, and Chinese Thought .................................................................... Chris Fraser and Kai-yee Wong Reply to Chris Fraser and Kai-yee Wong by John R. Searle

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D. Meta-philosophical and Methodological Issues Chapter Thirteen Searle on Knowledge, Certainty and Skepticism: In View of Cases in Western and Chinese Traditions ................................................................................ Avrum Stroll Reply to Avrum Stroll by John R. Searle

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Chapter Fourteen Searle’s Theory of Intentionality as a Philosophical Method for Research in the Human Sciences ................................................................................... B. Jeannie Lum Reply to B. Jeannie Lum by John R. Searle

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Chapter Fifteen Unconscious Intentionality and the Status of Normativity in Searle’s Philosophy: With Comparative Reference to Traditional Chinese Thought ............................ Yujian Zheng Reply to Yujian Zheng by John R. Searle

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Chapter Sixteen Searle, Zhuang Zi, and Transcendental Perspectivism .......................................................................... Bo Mou Reply to Bo Mou by John R. Searle Index of Names and Subjects .....................................................

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My deep appreciation goes to Professor John Searle whose rich, significant and thought-provoking ideas on extensive fronts of philosophical inquiry and whose vigorous engaging participation have greatly inspired and contributed to this constructive-engagement project. Very seriously, Professor Searle has invested his tremendous energy and time both in the oral critical discussion on the scene of the engagement forum and in his thoroughly reading all the other contributors’ essays and generously contributing his engaging replies to each of them as well as his own valuable keynote essay to this volume. It is also worth mentioning one thing that has substantially contributed to the inception of this project. When starting this project in late 2004, we then did not have guaranteed resources to cover his travel expenses to participate in the related conference project as an important face-to-face critical-engagement forum; Professor Searle loved the emphasis of the project on the critical engagement of his thought instead of mere celebration; he thus made his firm commitment to his participation in the engagement forum even if that then would mean possibly using his own resources. Professor Searle’s encouragement and support in this aspect is one of the crucial contributing elements to timely and effectively launching the project. I appreciate his persistent support and valuable participation in this project from its very beginning through the end. I am indebted to all the other contributing authors of this volume, Robert Allinson, Chung-ying Cheng, Kim-chong Chong, Chris Fraser, Yiu-ming Fung, Soraj Hongladarom, Joel Krueger, Jeannie Lum, Al Martinich, Anh Nuyen, Avrum Stroll, Marshall Willman, Kai-yee Wong and Yujian Zheng, for their valuable contributions, all of which are previously unpublished pieces written expressly for this book, and for their patience, cooperation, and understanding throughout the whole process, during which I have learned a lot from them in various connections. My special appreciation goes to Yiu-ming Fung for his important contribution to the success of the related conference project. To understand such importance, let me first give a brief background introduction to the conference project and its relation to the anthology project. To effectively fulfill the constructive-engagement purpose, this anthology

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project is accompanied with its conference project to provide a critical discussion and engagement platform. In this way, although the anthology project per se is an independent project instead of the conference proceedings, the latter is rather a very important stage for the sake of fulfilling the goal of this anthology and effectively implementing the constructive-engagement strategy; it also serves the purpose of bringing good international academic-exchange opportunities to the interested scholars of the conference host region and, more generally speaking, the homeland of Chinese philosophy. As the foregoing theme and purposes of the conference well fit the goal and agenda of the International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy (ISCWP) of which I then assumed president (2002–05), the conference is formally identified as “The 2nd ISCWP ‘Constructive-Engagement’ International Conference” on the constructive engagement of Searle’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy. In this background, Yiu-ming Fung as Acting Head of the Division of Humanities at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) timely offered to have his home institution take on the role of the conference host and made great efforts (from seeking internal and external financial resources to mobilizing other resources at HKUST and the Hong Kong philosophical circle) in support of the conference project. While the ISCWP took care of its academic organization, the conference host party was in charge of all the other aspects of the conference under Fung’s outstanding leadership. I appreciate Yiu-ming Fung’s important contribution to the success of the conference as well as his valuable contribution to the anthology. I am grateful to Paul Ching-Wu Chu, President of HKUST, for his valuable support of the conference project being held at HKUST. I am grateful to Joseph C.T. Lee for his substantial donation as well as his academic participation. I am grateful to the members of the Executive Committee of the Conference Host, Charles Wing-hoi Chan, Kimchong Chong, Yiu-ming Fung, Kam-ming Yip and Min Zhang, for their excellent organization work. I am thankful to the following student volunteers at HKUST, Qing-hua Cai, Hung-shing Hung, Chiu-tuen Chow, Chiu-chee Hung, Jenny Hung, Hay-man Kam, Kee-yeung Luk and Ke Sheng, for their helpful and effective logistics supports for the conference. I am grateful to Wan-Chuan Fang, Yiu-ming Fung and Linhe Han for their very professional reviews and their precious time offered during the process of reviewing the submissions to the conference project. I am grateful to those speakers other than the contributors to this volume,

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Wan-Chuan Fang, Ding-zhou Fei, Gang He, Joseph C.T. Lee, Jianyou Lu and Min Zhang for their engaging talks at the conference and for their valuable participation and contribution to the success of the conference, though their conference papers are eventually unable to be included in this volume for various reasons. My sincere thanks also go to Charles Wing-hoi Chan, Chad Hansen, Qingjie Wang, Simon Man-ho Wong, and Kam-ming Yip for their professional service as the conference session chairs. I am grateful to Xianglong Zhang and Tao Jiang, my colleagues in the 2002–2005 board of the ISCWP, for their very collegial cooperation and persistent support of the conference project. I am indebted to the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on International Cooperation (CIC), under the leadership of its chair Ernie Lepore, for its valuable support and co-sponsorship for the aforementioned international conference project on Searle’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy during 2004–2005 when I served as a member of the CIC. I am grateful to Roger Ames, Editor of the journal Philosophy East and West, and He Li, Editor of the Chinese journal World Philosophy, for their generous supports by publishing the “call for papers” of the project in the above journals. I am grateful to my school, San Jose State University in USA, and its Department of Philosophy for their various substantial supports that are related to this anthology project. A California State University Lottery Grant for 2004–2005 has substantially contributed to my work on this anthology project. I am thankful to Brenda Hood and Christopher Kinney, who are my graduate-student assistants respectively in fall 2006 and fall 2007, for their relevant professional assistance that they have completed timely. I am indebted to Michael Krausz for his vision and wise judgment of the nature and significance of this anthology volume and his strong recommendation to the publisher that the current volume be included in his edited series “Philosophy of History and Culture” at Brill. I am grateful to our editors at Brill, Hendrik van Leusen, Boris van Gool, Kim Fiona Plas and Renee Otto, for a variety of kindly and timely professional assistance and support. Bo Mou Albany, California December 8, 2007

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NOTE ON TRANSCRIPTION AND GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION Because of its official status in China, its relative accuracy in transcribing actual pronunciation in Chinese common speech and consequent worldwide use, we employ the pinyin romanization system in this volume for transliterating Chinese names or terms. However, Chinese names and terms are left as originally published in the following cases: (i) the titles of cited publications; (ii) the names whose Latinizations have become conventional and widely recognized (‘Confucius’ and ‘Mencius’); and (iii) the names of the writers who have had their authored English publications under their regular non-pinyin romanized names (such as ‘Fung Yu-lan’). The titles of cited Chinese books and essays are given in their pinyin transcriptions with their paraphrases given in parentheses. The following rule of thumb has been used in dealing with the order of the surname (family) name and given name in romanized Chinese names: (i) for the name of a historical figure in Chinese history, the surname appears first, and the given name second (such as ‘Zhu Xi’); and (ii) for contemporary figures, we follow their own practice when writing in English (typically, those who have had their English publications tend to have their given name appears first while the surname second). In the pinyin versions of Chinese publication titles and those proper phrases that contain two or more than two Chinese characters, hyphens may be used to indicate separate characters. Transcription Conversion Table

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Wade-Giles

Pinyin

ai

ei

ch

zh

ch’

ch q

hs

x

ien

ian

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note on transcription -ih

-i

j

r

k

g

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k

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b

p’

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szu

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t’

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ts’, tz’

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CONTRIBUTORS Allinson, Robert E. is Director of Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at the Soka University of America. He is an Institute Fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author or editor of seven books including Understanding the Chinese Mind: The Philosophical Roots (ed.) (1989, 2000), Chuang-Tzu for Spiritual Transformation: An Analysis of the Inner Chapters (1989, 1996, 2003), Harmony and Strife: Contemporary Perspectives, East and West (co-edited) (1988), Space, Time and the Ethical Foundations (2002), A Metaphysics for the Future (2001), Saving Human Lives (2005). He is the author of over two hundred academic papers. Cheng, Chung-ying is Professor of Philosophy at University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA. He received his Ph.D. degree from Harvard University (1964). Cheng is the founder and honorary President of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy and International Society for the Yijing; he is the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Chinese Philosophy. He is the author of many articles and books on Chinese philosophy and comparative philosophy, including Peirce’s and Lewis’s Theories of Induction (1969), Modernization and Universalization of Chinese Culture (1988, in Chinese), New Dimensions of Confucian and New-Confucian Philosophy (1991). He is coeditor of Contemporary Chinese Philosophy (2002). Chong, Kim-chong is Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Division of Humanities. He previously taught at the National University of Singapore, where he served as Head of Department for several years. His interests are in ethics, Chinese philosophy, and comparative philosophy. His publications include Moral Agoraphobia: The Challenge of Egoism (Peter Lang, 1996); The Moral Circle and the Self: Chinese and Western Approaches (co-edited, Open Court, 2003); and Early Confucian Ethics (Open Court, 2007). Fraser, Chris is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He holds a B.A. from Yale, an M.A. from National Taiwan University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Hong Kong. His main research interests are mind, language, knowledge, action, and ethics in early Chinese thought. He has published work on Mohism,

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Zhuang Zi, and early Chinese philosophy of language and is currently preparing a new edition of the Later Mohist Canons. Fung, Yiu-ming is Chair Professor of the Division of Humanities at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He received his Ph.D. degree in philosophy from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1984. Fung is the author of several books in Chinese, including The Methodological Problems of Chinese Philosophy (1989); Chinese Philosophy in the Ancient Period, 4 volumes (1992); Kung-Sun Lung Tzu: A Perspective of Analytic Philosophy (1999); and The Myth of Transcendent Immanence: A Perspective of Analytic Philosophy on Contemporary Neo-Confucianism (2003). He has also published more than 80 research papers both in Chinese and in English. Hongladarom, Soraj is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Ethics of Science and Technology at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. He has published books and articles on such diverse issues as bioethics, computer ethics, and the roles that science and technology play in the culture of developing countries, as well as Buddhist perspectives on these issues. His works have appeared in Journal of Philosophy in the Contemporary World, Eubios: Journal of Asian and International Bioethics, The Information Society, AI & Society, Philosophy in the Contemporary World, and Social Epistemology, among others. Krueger, Joel W. is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Danish National Research Foundation: Center for Subjectivity Research at the University of Copenhagen. He works mainly in phenomenology and philosophy of mind, continental philosophy, and Asian and comparative philosophy. Lum, B. Jeannie is an Associate Professor at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in Philosophy of Education and her B.A. from the University of California, Irvine in Comparative Cultures. She has co-edited two books: Globalization and Identity: Cultural Diversity, Religion, and Citizenship and Knowledge, Teaching and Wisdom, and has published articles about intentionality as a philosophical method for human research. Martinich, Aloysius P. is Roy Allison Vaughan Centennial Professor of Philosophy and Professor of History and Government at the University of Texas at Austin, U.S.A. He received his Ph.D. from the University of

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California at San Diego. He is the author or editor of many books and articles. His books include Philosophical Writing (3rd edition, 2005), The Philosophy of Language (5th edition, 2008), Hobbes: A Biography (1999), The Two Gods of Leviathan (1992) and Communication and Reference (1984), Much Ado About Nonexistence: Fiction and Reference (2007). Mou, Bo is Director of the Center for Comparative Philosophy at San Jose State University, USA. After receiving B.S. in mathematics, he received M.A. from Graduate School, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Ph.D. from University of Rochester, USA. He was president (2002–5) of International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy. He has published in analytic philosophy, Chinese philosophy and comparative philosophy, concerning philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophical methodology and ethics. He is contributing editor of several books including recent Davidson’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy (2006) and History of Chinese Philosophy (2008). Nuyen, Anh Tuan received his Ph.D. from the University of Queensland (Australia). He taught there for many years and was Reader in Philosophy when he left, in 2001, to take up his current position as Associate Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Singapore. His research interests are wide-ranging. He has published on the philosophy of Hume and Kant, Continental philosophy, ethics and applied ethics, and comparative Chinese-western philosophy. His works in comparative philosophy have appeared in Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Asian Philosophy, Philosophy East and West and Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies. Searle, John R. received his D. Phil. from University of Oxford and is Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor of the Philosophy of Mind and Language at the University of California at Berkeley, USA. His work ranges broadly over philosophical problems of speech acts, consciousness, social reality, ethics, rationality, free will etc. His representative works include Speech Acts (1969), Intentionality (1983), The Rediscovery of the Mind (1992), Construction of Social Reality (1995); his recent books include The Mystery of Consciousness (1997), Mind, Language and Society: Philosophy in the Real World (1998), Rationality in Action (2001), Consciousness and Language (2002), Mind (2004), and Freedom and Neurobiology (2006). Stroll, Avrum is Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He is the recipient of numerous awards and

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academic honors, such as the Constantine Panunzio Award and a Simon Guggenheim fellowship. His major fields of interest are epistemology, the philosophy of language, Wittgenstein studies, and twentieth-century analytic philosophy. He is the author of about 150 articles and the author or co-author of seventeen books, including Moore and Wittgenstein on Certainty, Surfaces, Sketches of Landscapes, Wittgenstein, and Did My Genes Make Me Do It? Willman, Marshall D. is currently Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa, where he received his Ph.D. His primary interests are in philosophical logic and the philosophies of language and mind. Having taught at academic institutions in both China and the United States, he has favored a highly comparative approach in philosophy that draws on recent trends in Chinese philosophy and linguistics. By investigating the grammars of different natural languages with the tools and methodologies of formal logic, he aims to shed light on how language understanding and use fit into the broader system of human cognition. Wong, Kai-yee is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he has worked since 1993. He received his B.A. and M.Phil. degrees from the Chinese University and his Ph.D. from the Australian National University. He has published papers on philosophical logic, philosophy of language, teaching philosophy, modal semantics, and applied ethics. Zheng, Yujian is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. With BS degree in engineering mechanics, he turned to philosophy of science at the MA level in China, and finally got his PhD in philosophy from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, USA. He has numerable paper publications in the overlapping areas of dynamic rational choice theory, philosophy of mind and action, and moral philosophy. His current research interests include evolutionary and naturalist account of normativity or emergence of intentionality.

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John Searle and most of the participants in the 2nd “ISCWP ‘Constructive-Engagement’ International Conference” on “Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy” at the conference site, Sze-yuen Chung Council Chamber, Academic Building, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, on 14th June 2005.

John Searle and the volume editor, Bo Mou, at the coffee shop of King Library, San Jose State University, on March 7, 2005 before Searle gave his colloquium talk at SJSU. (Photographed by Dagmar Searle).

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CONSTRUCTIVE-ENGAGEMENT MOVEMENT IN VIEW OF SEARLE’S PHILOSOPHY AND CHINESE PHILOSOPHY: A THEME INTRODUCTION Bo Mou The central theme of this anthology, “Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement”, is to investigate how John Searle’s philosophy and some thoughts and strands in Chinese philosophy can jointly contribute to the common philosophical enterprise in some philosophically interesting ways. The volume is the result of a recent collective research project in the constructive-engagement movement in comparative philosophy (or doing philosophy in a global context), generally speaking, and in modern Chinese philosophy, specifically speaking. Its nature, goal and significance need to be understood in this background. In the following, in Section 1, I will emphasize, and spell out, some distinct characteristics of the background of the constructive-engagement movement; in Section 2, I will explain how the current project is related to the whole constructive-engagement movement and what distinguish the current project from the others within the movement. In this way, the reader can look at this ad hoc constructive-engagement project in a broader setting and understand its nature, features and significance with a wide vision. In Section 3, I briefly explain the organizational strategy and structure of the current volume. As a theme introduction, this writing lays emphasis on the contents of the first two sections. 1 Though the current project focuses on the constructive engagement between the philosophy of a prominent figure in the contemporary analytic philosophy and (the contemporary studies of ) the classical Chinese philosophy, the constructive-engagement movement as a whole is not limited to that between Chinese philosophy1 and Western analytic 1 By ‘Chinese philosophy’ here I primarily mean various movements of philosophical thought in China from the Zhou Dynasty (roughly eleventh century to 256 B.C.)

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philosophy2 but that between Chinese philosophy and any movement of thought in the Western philosophical tradition (or even any movement of thought in any other philosophical traditions) in a global context.3 Therefore, to understand the nature and status of the current project, one needs to understand some general characteristics of the constructive-engagement movement as a whole. The identity of the constructive-engagement movement can be viewed from different angles. As a collective trend in comparative philosophy, it considers philosophy in a global context and through the constructive engagement of philosophies from around the globe. As a collective enterprise in modern Chinese philosophy, it emphasizes the constructive engagement between Chinese philosophy and Western philosophy (or any other philosophical traditions) and between distinct movements of thought within Chinese philosophy. They share the same constructive-engagement strategy or orientation of philosophical inquiry: to inquire into how, via reflective criticism and self-criticism, distinct modes of thinking, methodological approaches, visions, insights, substantial points of view, or conceptual and explanatory resources from different philosophical traditions and different styles/orientations of doing philosophy, can learn from each other and jointly contribute to the common philosophical enterprise and/or a series of common concerns and issues of philosophical significance. The label ‘the constructive-engagement movement’ can be understood in a weak sense and in a strong sense. In its weak sense, the phrase means a more or less collective trend in studies of Chinese philosophy

through the early Qing Dynasty (1644-mid 19th century and their contemporary developments and studies. 2 By ‘Western analytic philosophy’ or ‘Western philosophy in the analytic tradition’ I mean a Western mainstream philosophical tradition from Socrates, Plato and Aristotle via Descartes, British empiricism and Kant to the contemporary analytic movement. Note that, besides indicating a historical connection between Western philosophy in such a tradition and some methodological approaches taken in this tradition, such phrases as ‘Western analytic philosophy’ and ‘Western philosophy in the analytic tradition’ used here are not intended to imply that those methodological approaches are, intrinsically or conceptually, exclusively connected with Western philosophy. 3 From the point of view of studies of Chinese philosophy, the current project is also one project in modern Chinese philosophy. At the most recent stage of the development of modern Chinese philosophy, one of its prominent features (at least in regard to one significant portion of modern Chinese philosophy) lies in its moving towards world philosophy via the constructive-engagement movement. In this sense, and to this extent, the context of the recent development of modern Chinese philosophy and the mentioned global context have merged into the essentially same context.

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introduction

3

and comparative philosophy as shown in the past few decades in the direction of the foregoing constructive-engagement strategy, whether or not its involved meta-philosophical and methodological issues have been consciously and systematically examined, whether or not the trend has its explicit systematic agenda in print, and whether or not it has been explicitly promoted by a certain academic organization with its articulate constructive-engagement purpose. Nevertheless, in its stronger sense, the term means a movement that has emerged especially since the earlier years of the 21st century with its explicitly specified research agenda, some related academic organizations or institutions as a collective driving force, various coordinated systematic efforts for the constructive-engagement purpose, and some other distinct features to be addressed below. Such systematic efforts have formed up some major collective research programs and resulted in substantial outcomes. The current volume is one prominent case in this connection; a previously published sister volume, Davidson’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement (Brill 2006), is another case. Clearly, the nature and characteristics of the current volume as one project in the constructive-engagement movement should be understood in the context of the constructive-engagement movement as a whole. The nature and features of the constructive-engagement movement in the foregoing strong sense4 can be characterized in the following ten connections. First, generally speaking, the constructive-engagement movement as a whole has moved beyond some previous individual efforts, each of which typically features this or that specific perspectives in comparative studies, and has been guided under a wider vision concerning how to look at various eligible but seemingly competing perspectives in comparative studies of Chinese and Western philosophy: essentially it renders complementary those eligible perspectives that respectively capture some aspects, layers or dimensions of objects of study, instead of indiscriminately subscribing to one single finite perspective or rendering it exclusively eligible without doing justice to other eligible perspectives. In this connection, it is neither to ‘reform’ studies of Chinese philosophy exclusively by virtue of analytic approach nor to ‘reformulate’ studies of Chinese philosophy exclusively by the resources

4 It is arguably correct that some of those indicated features are also applicable to characterizing the constructive-engagement movement in the weaker sense, whether they are shown in some explicit or implicit, manifest or obscure, ways.

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of ‘Continental’ philosophy. Nevertheless, that amounts to saying neither that any specific project that is part of the movement has to be comprehensive in its manifest current coverage nor that it has to take a comprehensive perspective complex as its current working perspective; what makes a difference lies in the foregoing sort of methodological guiding principle that guides the project with a wide vision concerning how to look at the relation between the current subject/concern and other subjects/concerns and between the current working perspective and other eligible perspectives. Second, as far as the methodological dimension of the movement is concerned, a systematic, in-depth meta-philosophical discussion of the relation between the Western (especially analytic) philosophical tradition and Chinese philosophical tradition concerning philosophical methodology and the nature of philosophical inquiries has provided a necessary theoretical and meta-philosophical preparation for a comprehensive, systematic constructive-engagement enterprise. For example, as analytic philosophy and the classical Chinese philosophy have been considered by many to be less relevant or even alien to each other, some recent systematic and in-depth meta-philosophical discussions of how their constructive engagement is possible especially in view of their respective methodologies has provided an indispensable methodological preparation for subsequent in-depth investigations on how they can jointly make contribution to our understanding and treatment of a series of concrete issues.5 When a movement of thought in philosophy has its systematic meta-philosophical reflection on its own nature, direction and methodology, this reflective endeavor would be viewed as one mark of its maturity and one necessary condition of its long-term healthy development. Third, as far as its subject coverage is concerned, the constructiveengagement movement is comprehensive, including the engaging examination on a series of fundamental or significant issues and concerns in those central or important areas of philosophy like metaphysics, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind, epistemology, etc., instead of focusing merely on the issues in ethics and social & political philosophy. In the past, there is one quite widespread stereotype under-

5 One of such systematic methodological examinations is presented in the anthology book, Two Roads to Wisdom?—Chinese and Analytic Philosophical Traditions, Open Court, 2001.

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standing of the nature and scope of the traditional Chinese philosophy that renders traditional Chinese philosophy philosophically valuable only in regard to its thoughts on moral and social-political issues. Though also emphasizing the necessity of Western philosophers and Chinese philosophers learning from each other, some scholars consider such mutual beneficial engagement valuable and valid only or largely in regard to limited areas like ethics and social & political philosophy. But this view has turned out to be incorrect, as some individual scholars’ explorations in the past decades and some recent collective engagement projects in those important areas like metaphysics, the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind together with their fruitful research results have already clearly and convincingly shown it. Fourth, as far as its engagement mode is concerned, the movement emphasizes the direct and critical but constructive dialogue between the engaging parties (whenever situations allow) for the sake of effectively carrying out reflective criticism and self-criticism and jointly making contribution to the common enterprise of philosophy. Indeed, this is one of the due meanings of the phrase ‘constructive engagement’ that captures one crucial character of philosophical inquiries, i.e., the critical engagement for the sake of making joint contributions to understanding and treatment of the common concerns. Such a critical engagement character, instead of mere celebration, has effectively motivated relevant engaging parties in participation. For example, the current project and its sister project on the constructive engagement of Davidson’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy have well adopted such a critical engagement approach. Fifth, as far as its collective and systematic character is concerned, the constructive-engagement movement is not some individual scholars’ personal project but has already developed into a collective enterprise with its systematic character and extensive joint efforts. This shows the degree of its matureness, results from its in-depth theoretical preparation, and helps to bring about its related academic community that can provide decent critical examination of the works in the constructive-engagement scholarship. Especially, the movement is now well implemented through some effective organizational forces. Among others, one contributing force in this connection is an academic association, the International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy (ISCWP), which was formally established in 2002. The ISCWP has systematically planned and organized a series of academic events and projects explicitly for the sake of the constructive-engagement purpose

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and agenda. The foregoing conception of constructive engagement of Chinese and Western philosophy has been explicitly and formally documented in the ISCWP Constitution as follows: With the preceding general purposes, the Society emphasizes (but is not limited to) the constructive engagement between Chinese philosophy and Western mainstream philosophy (analytic tradition as well as continental tradition in the West in their broad senses); the Society stresses the sensitivity of such comparative studies to contemporary development and resources of philosophy and their mutual advancement; and, through the characteristic path of comparative studies of Chinese and Western philosophy, the Society strives to contribute to philosophy as common human wealth as well as to respective studies of Chinese philosophy and Western philosophy. The Society also emphasizes building up a channel and outlet for the academic exchange and communication between the homeland of Chinese philosophy and the Western world in philosophy.6

The reader can see that the above citation from the ISCWP Constitution, though in a concise way, well reflects a number of the key features of this movement and actually serves as the guiding line of the association for its agenda and organizational activities. Sixth, as far as the constitution of its participants are concerned, they are limited to neither those who major in traditional Chinese philosophy nor those who are native Chinese philosophers but also include scholars from other philosophical communities of the world (for example, the mainstream philosophical circle in the English-speaking countries). In this aspect and to this extent, the constructive-engagement movement in modern Chinese philosophy has already become an international enterprise (as one significant part of the constructiveengagement movement in global philosophy) and provides one effective channel by which scholars from different traditions and/or with distinct styles/orientations of doing philosophy carry out international cooperation, constructive dialogue and comparative engagement in studying Chinese philosophy towards world philosophy. For example, in recent years, two prominent analytic philosophers, Donald Davidson and John Searle, are among the active participants in the movement through their substantial participations in the two sister projects, the previous one on ‘Davidson’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy’ and the cur-

6 The full text of the ISCWP Constitution (both in English and in Chinese) is available at the ISCWP website whose current address is ‘http://sangle.web.wesleyan. edu/iscwp/’.

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rent one on ‘Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy’. Some other well-respected scholars in the analytic tradition have also been drawn to this enterprise.7 Though studies of Chinese philosophy are not among their speciality areas, they have made contributions to studying Chinese philosophy either via their valuable works on some meta-philosophical and/or methodological issues involved in the constructive engagement of Chinese and Western philosophy or directly through exploring some commonly concerned issues in such studies. Seventh, as far as its research outcomes are concerned, the movement, with the aforementioned systematic efforts, has already produced substantial research results on a series of philosophical issues, neither merely stopping at a sort of armchair speculation of the mere possibility nor merely remaining at the level of purely meta-philosophical discussion of how such constructive engagement is possible, though the latter discussion is necessary and has provided indispensable theoretic and methodological preparation for its healthy development, as emphasized before. Such in-depth detailed analysis of how distinct approaches in the Chinese and Western philosophy to some concrete issues can constructively engage with each other have been given not merely in some individual scholars’ works that have contributed to the development of the constructive-engagement movement, but also in some remarkable research results from the recent collective efforts that have been made expressly for the constructive-engagement purpose. Among others, the current volume and its sister volume on Davidson’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy for the two aforementioned collective research projects in the movement have already come out in print. Eighth, as far as its relation to contemporary philosophy is concerned, the movement is especially sensitive to various resources of the postKant stage of modern philosophy, or sometimes labeled ‘contemporary philosophy’ in its broad sense, especially those of the 20th century contemporary philosophy, in both analytic tradition and ‘Continental’ tradition. The reason is this. One primary purpose of the constructive-engagement strategy in studying Chinese philosophy is to inquire into how to make contributions to the common issues and concerns in the common enterprise of philosophy; for this purpose, the movement as a whole has paid much attention to, and has been concerned

7 Such as Michael Krausz, Ernie Lepore, A.P. Martinich, Adam Morton, Avrum Stroll, and Samuel C. Wheeler.

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especially with, two things: (1) distinct approaches to those common issues and concerns that have been suggested from other traditions (especially, those in contemporary analytic philosophy and ‘Continental’ philosophy in the Western tradition), and (2) new developments of philosophy as explored in various areas of contemporary philosophy. The concern (1) renders the movement comparative in character, while the concerns (2) together render the movement sensitive to the updated development of philosophy and conceptual-explanatory resources in contemporary philosophy; the concerns (1) and (2) together render the movement especially active in comparative engagement with various distinct approaches from other traditions in contemporary philosophy and in adoption of various relevant conceptual-explanatory resources developed in contemporary philosophy.8 Ninth, as far as its own standard for the philosophical scholarship is concerned, the constructive-engagement agenda and fruitful research results of the movement with the preceding characteristics have raised a higher standard for the philosophical scholarship of studying Chinese philosophy to this extent: the philosophical (instead of merely historical) studies of Chinese philosophy needs in-depth understanding and command (not merely introductory-level knowledge) of the developments of contemporary philosophy in various closely related central areas together with their conceptual and explanatory resources, instead of treating them as things irrelevant or alien. It has been realized that such understanding is not a mere preference but a must for the constructiveengagement purpose and agenda. In other words, when carrying out studying Chinese philosophy for the constructive-engagement sake, one cannot be satisfactory merely with an introductory level of knowledge of relevant subjects and their related conceptual-explanatory resources in contemporary philosophy; rather, one needs to have updated, indepth understanding of them, including carefully reading the relevant literature of contemporary philosophy and being sensitive to its new developments on relevant fronts.

8 For example, to jointly implement the two related concerns in this connection, the ISCWP as one contributing force to the movement has established its workshoproundtable series, i.e., ISCWP’s Beijing Roundtable on Contemporary Philosophy, which directly and explicitly address the two concerns in a joint way. Now the Beijing Roundtable on Contemporary Philosophy has already successfully held three workshops respectively in the summers of 2005, 2006 and 2007 and well implemented the agenda in this regard.

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Tenth, as far as its fundamental nature and direction is concerned, the movement is part of global philosophy (or part of comparative philosophy in general as doing philosophy in a global context), instead of a mere local one associated with Chinese philosophy alone and of comparative studies of Chinese and Western philosophy alone, in the following two senses or connections. (1) As far as its fundamental agenda is concerned, as already highlighted before, one fundamental agenda of the movement is such a general constructive-engagement strategy: to inquire into how, via reflective criticism and self-criticism, distinct modes of thinking, methodological approaches, visions, insights, substantial points of view, or conceptual and explanatory resources from different philosophical traditions and/or from the complex array of distinct approaches of the same tradition in a global context, can learn from each other and jointly contribute to the common philosophical enterprise and/or a series of common concerns and issues of philosophical significance.9 In this way, the issues and concerns under its reflective examination are eventually general and cross-tradition ones instead of idiosyncratically holding for Chinese philosophy alone. (2) As far as its basic methodological strategy is concerned, in view of its foregoing fundamental agenda, the constructive-engagement movement in modern Chinese philosophy is not limited to its constructive engagement with Western philosophy but also with other philosophical traditions as well as the constructive engagement between distinct movements within Chinese philosophy. To this extent, the constructive engagement between Chinese and Western philosophy can serve as a methodological template for the constructive engagement between any two (or more than two) seemingly competing approaches in philosophical inquiries towards world philosophy, say, between Chinese tradition and other non-Western philosophical traditions like Indian, African, Latin-American ones.

9 As a matter of fact, this strategy has been already implemented through some of the ISCWP’s recent projects (say, via its annual workshops of “Beijing Roundtable on Contemporary Philosophy”) in which Chinese philosophers and international scholars working in analytic philosophy and ‘Continental’ philosophy sat side by side exploring some commonly concerned issues and learning from each other via critical engagement.

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In the foregoing general background, and in view of the need and significance of the constructive dialogue and engagement of Chinese and Western philosophy, one effective way to carry out such studies is to focus on one philosophically significant figure or one significant movement of philosophical thought, either in the Chinese tradition or in the Western tradition, in constructive comparison with various relevant thoughts in the other tradition. It is rendered especially philosophically interesting, rewarding, and significant to carry out a case investigation of the constructive engagement between John Searle’s philosophy in the Western analytic tradition and some thoughts and strands in Chinese philosophy for four major considerations. First, from his groundbreaking book Speech Acts and his influential “Chinese Room” argument to his most recent studies of intentionality, freedom, social reality, and rationality, John Searle is known as one of the most influential figures among the contemporary philosophers as well as among the analytic philosophers. His work is discussed in a wide variety of disciplines as well as philosophy. He is a rare figure in the analytic tradition to actively carry out a critical engagement with ‘Continental’ philosophy. He has a strong interest in the issue of crosstradition understanding and engagement. Searle’s works involve a series of significant issues and concerns in philosophy many of which various thinkers in the Chinese philosophical tradition have also explicitly or implicitly addressed and somehow made their distinct contributions to; those issues include (but not limited to): (1) the relations between language, thought, and reality; (2) how to understand and interpret human rationality; (3) meaning and reference; (4) speech acts; (5) the philosophy of mind; (6) what counts as understanding language. Their constructive engagement on those issues would jointly contribute to our understandings and approaches to them. Second, a variety of related meta-philosophical ideas and insights of Searle’s philosophy concerning Background, rationality, etc. together with his holistic approach to various issues under his examination have significant implications to the relation and engagement among distinct modes of thinking, methodological approaches or points of view from different philosophical traditions including Chinese and Western philosophies. On the other hand, there are significant meta-philosophical thoughts in Chinese philosophy with regard to how to look at different

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approaches and points of view. It would be especially philosophically interesting and significant to investigate how some significant metaphilosophical ideas in Searle’s philosophy and in Chinese philosophy can contribute to (our understanding of ) the constructive engagement among distinct modes of thinking, methodological approaches or points of view from different philosophical traditions as well as within (the complex array of different approaches of ) the same tradition. Third, Searle is one of the most important and influential philosophers in the contemporary Western philosophy in the analytic tradition, and a research result from this case study would play a strong exemplary role for further constructive engagement of this kind both in view of methodological approach and with regard to substantial treatment of some fundamental issues and concerns in philosophy. Fourth, similar to its sister volume on the constructive engagement of Davison’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy, this project would provide an effective way to look at how the philosophy of one of the major figures in the Western analytic tradition has crossed cultural and national boundaries to contribute to the common philosophical enterprise. As indicated at the outset, the central theme of this anthology project is to investigate how Searle’s philosophy and some thoughts and strands in Chinese philosophy could jointly contribute to the common philosophical enterprise in some philosophically interesting ways. With this central theme, the volume has the following three objectives. (1) Through the preceding theme of the project, the volume is to investigate how Searle’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy could jointly contribute to the common philosophical enterprise and to constructive engagement among different philosophical traditions in philosophically interesting ways. (2) Through this challenging case study of the constructive engagement between Searle’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy, the volume is to show how Chinese philosophy and Western philosophy (including its analytic tradition) are not essentially alien to one another: they have common concerns with some fundamental issues and have taken their characteristic approaches to some of those issues; they can learn from each other and jointly contribute to the common philosophical enterprise in complementary ways. (3) Through the above (1) and (2), this project is to show how the constructive engagement in comparative studies is possible and how such comparative methodology of constructive engagement concerning distinct modes of thinking, methodological

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approaches or points of view from different philosophical traditions or within the same tradition is important or even indispensable in general philosophical inquiry. This volume has a number of distinguishing features. First, the anthology carries out the investigation at an in-depth level of the constructive engagement between a major figure in the contemporary Western philosophy in the analytic tradition and some thoughts and strands in Chinese philosophy through such a critical elenchus dialogue (both as a written one through an essay-reply format in the current volume and as an oral one through an engagement-conference forum which provides the necessary engagement preparation for this volume) between this figure himself and his contemporary scholars in Chinese philosophy.10 Second, this anthology volume is the first to explore how Searle as a major figure in the contemporary Western philosophy in the analytic tradition and contemporary scholars in studies of Chinese philosophy could jointly contribute to the common philosophical enterprise in philosophically interesting ways. Third, this anthology volume as a whole (and many an individual contributed essay in the volume) is to investigate some fundamental issues and concerns in philosophy from some distinct comparative approaches that would resort to the conceptual and explanatory resources from both the analytic tradition and the Chinese tradition instead of merely from one tradition. Fourth, through this case study of the constructive engagement, the current volume will show how Chinese philosophy and a mainstream Western philosophy in the analytic tradition are not essentially alien to one another: they have many common concerns with a series of fundamental issues and could jointly contribute to the common philosophical enterprise. Fifth, through the above third and fourth features, this anthology volume is intended to show how the constructive engagement in comparative studies is possible and how such comparative methodology of the constructive engagement is important or even indispensable in general philosophical inquiry. Sixth, this anthology volume, through the above first, second and third features, would play a positive or even strong exemplary role for further constructive engagement of this kind both

10 The aforementioned anthology volume, Davidson’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement, has the similar constructive-engagement orientation. Nevertheless, due to Donald Davidson’s unexpected passing away in the course of its preparation, the volume is unable to make it in this aspect (with Davidson’s own participation and written contribution), though it is effective and fruitful in other aspects.

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in view of methodological approach and in regard to substantial treatment of some fundamental issues and concerns in philosophy. Seventh, all the contributed essays in this anthology volume are previously unpublished pieces, written expressly for this volume, and unavailable anywhere else. 3 The main text of the anthology comprises two parts, which consist of total 31 contributing writings, all of which are previously unpublished pieces written expressly for this volume. The first part is Professor Searle’s keynote essay entitled ‘The Globalization of Philosophy’. The second part, the constructive-engagement part, includes 15 engaging pairs of essay-reply dialogues, each of which consists of one essay, contributed by some expert(s) in the relevant areas of study, and Searle’s engaging reply. This organizational feature highlights the critical engagement nature of this volume, which encourages the reader to read both the contributing essay and Searle’s reply to it as a whole and demands an attentive reading of both sides’ arguments and explanations instead of a mere rough look. (For this consideration, specially in this volume, I do not take a usual introduction-writing approach to give a brief description of each contributor’s essay piece by piece; for I render this both needless and less helpful to the reader for the sake of the above comparative-engagement purpose.) The constructive-engagement part of the book focuses on five broad issues or thematic topics that are respectively the subjects of the following four sections into which the fifteen essays together with Searle’s replies to them are organized: A. B. C. D.

Mind; Language; Morality; Meta-philosophical and Methodological Issues.

Within each of the sections, the articles are arranged in an order either roughly following the historical line (if any) or based on some prudent considerations that are understandable. For example, in Section A on mind, the order is given in that of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism. The topics are considered to be among those that are

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most conducive to the constructive-engagement-concerned comparative treatment in view of Searle’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy. Nevertheless, in so saying, that certainly does not mean that the current four topics have ever exhausted all the actual or potential aspects of such comparative engagement of Searle’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy; rather, the current selection of the topics more or less reflects the points of interest where a certain level of quality research results have been generated in the current scholarship on the constructive-engagement front of Searle’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy. Also notice that, because of the comprehensive nature of some of the contributing essays, and because of the intrinsic connections of those topics in Searle’s philosophy, the way to organize the entries is not exclusive. The reader who focuses on reading the entries on one topic (say, those in Section A) can thus have a cross reference to some of the entries in the other sections’ (say, Section B and Section D).

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PART ONE

SEARLE ON GLOBALIZATION OF PHILOSOPHY

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CHAPTER ONE

THE GLOBALIZATION OF PHILOSOPHY* John R. Searle I am extremely grateful to the organizers and sponsors of this conference for their efforts and support. There are so many organizations and individuals that I cannot express my gratitude to each individually but only give my collective thanks to all of them. This conference is especially welcome as one of the first steps toward expanding a dialog between Chinese philosophers and the philosophers in the rest of the world. I am sorry to say that I know almost nothing about traditional Chinese Philosophy and I hope to overcome some of my ignorance in the course of these few days. I do however know something about Philosophy in Europe and in North and South America and I will remark on some of its features and on the directions that it seems to have been going during my intellectual lifetime. Philosophy was often supposed to be identified with particular national cultures in such a way that each national culture was presumed to have its own distinctive national philosophy. In the United States many universities routinely offered a course in “American Philosophy”. The tacit idea was that “American Philosophy” referred to something more well defined than philosophy that happened to have been practiced within the boundaries of the USA and American philosophers were supposed to have something more in common than geography. Indeed, I took such a course as an undergraduate. There were also supposed to be other distinct national philosophies such as English Philosophy, (inaccurately so called, because its most famous exemplar, Hume, was Scottish; and Berkeley, another star, was Irish) and of course there was German Philosophy, French Philosophy, Italian Philosophy, etc. This raises an interesting question, namely, to what extent is it correct or * This essay is a revised version of Professor John Searle’s keynote speech delivered at the 2nd ISCWP “Constructive-Engagement” International Conference on “Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy” on June 14, 2005, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong.—the volume editor.

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useful to identify different styles of philosophy with points of national origin? And to what extent, indeed, should we see different philosophies as expressions of different general cultural outlooks? My discussion of these issues is going to ramble over many centuries and many different cultures, but I hope to draw certain general conclusions. Philosophy in the West was invented by the Greeks. It is conventionally thought to be the invention of the pre-Socratics but I think it is really in Athens, in the classical period, with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, that we meet Philosophy in the sense in which we all recognize it today. The greatest invention of the Greeks is one that is seldom remarked on: they invented the idea of a theory. By ‘theory’ I mean a set of propositions concerning a specific domain that are logically related to each other, and such that the propositions give a general account of the domain. In some theories the logical relations, are matters of logical derivation, as in the case of Euclid’s elements. It is hard to exaggerate the importance of the idea of a theory, because most of the intellectual advances that matter to us are in the form of theories. A true general theory is a wonderful thing because it gives a comprehensive account of a whole domain. So we now think of theories in physics, theories in economics and theories in logic, and we have a pretty good idea about what we mean by “theory” in each case. For the ancient Greeks, philosophy was the ultimate domain of theory, because philosophy articulates the theories that comprehend all other theories. Most philosophers today are less confident about the centrality of philosophy, but I think there is something right in the Greek conception. It is fair to say, again wandering rapidly over centuries, and , indeed, millennia, that the philosophical achievements of ancient Rome are not remotely comparable to that of the ancient Greeks. There is no “Roman philosophy” comparable to Greek philosophy. Indeed, it was not until the so-called mediaeval period, that philosophy began to flourish again in the West, first in monasteries, and later in universities, and it also needs to be emphasized that philosophy was flourishing in Moslem countries. Oddly, nothing did so much to re-awaken interest in philosophy as the re-discovery, and translation, of certain surviving texts of Aristotle. It is difficult today to appreciate Aristotle’s impact on the philosophy of the mediaeval period and the early modern period. With the development of Christian philosophy, and with the attempt, especially, by Aquinas, to make a synthesis of Christian philosophy and Aristotelianism, philosophy in the Greek theoretical sense, as a set of

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systematical propositions, logically related to each other, flourished, once again, in the West. However, as we all know, and as we all teach our students, there was an enormous breakthrough that took place in the seventeenth century, in philosophy and the sciences, especially as inaugurated by the work of Descartes and Bacon. During the seventeenth century and after we began to get the concept of distinctly national philosophies. And, indeed, by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were even certain stereotypical and clichéd conceptions. Thus it was thought that the distinctive philosophy of the United States was pragmatism, of Britain it was empiricism, of France it was rationalism, and of Germany it was idealism, though there was so much philosophy going on in Germany, that it is less plausible to saddle the Germans with a national stereotype, than it was with the other countries. I said that this conception of philosophy as being a matter of national disciplines survived into the twentieth century. The conception was that there was a distinctive style of philosophy associated with different national cultures. If one thinks of disciplines varying in their essential definition by the culture of their origin, then there would be a continuum, ranging from poetry and literature on one extreme to mathematics and physics on the other extreme. We do indeed think that literature in general and poets in particular is the expression of special, culturally specific modes of sensibility, and that the styles, of, let’s say, French poets of the late nineteenth century, are in fact quite different from the styles of the American poets of the same era. They are, in turn, different from English poets of the nineteenth century. But when we turn to mathematician and physicists, such subjects appear to be genuinely international. Cultures may vary in the amount of interest they give to one topic or another, but there is no such thing as French mathematics as opposed to American mathematics. It’s an odd fact, for example, that the French did not develop the kind of interest in mathematical logic that characterized both the German speaking and the English speaking world, but this is a matter of historical accident. (Indeed, I think a lot of it was due to Poincaré’s distaste for mathematical logic.) But it is certainly not essential to French culture that it was inhospitable to symbolic logic, nor is it one of the defining features of American culture that it is hospitable to symbolic logic. These are just historical accidents. I think the idea was that philosophy stands somewhere between mathematics and poetry. Like poets, philosophers were presumed to

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articulate a cultural sensibility, but, like mathematician and physists, they were supposed to be able to state their results as universal truths, valid across cultures and times. To some extent this perception still survives. I am sometimes surprised to see myself referred to in English and French popular newspapers and magazines as a typical American philosopher. And I have been approached, at more than one occasion, after giving a lecture in Europe, by people who told me that they like my American style and that they hope to be able to adopt the American style of philosophy. I have only the faintest idea of what they are talking about. At this point I want to advance what I take to be the first controversial thesis in this talk: In the West, at least, the idea of distinctive national philosophies is now obsolete. I said that I was often taken to be the typical American Philosopher, but, in fact all of my degrees are from Oxford, and in so far as I have developed a distinctive style of philosophy, it was influenced more by J.L. Austin and Peter Strawson, than it was by any American Philosophers. I was once asked by a famous French intellectual historian, if I had been heavily influenced by a philosopher, whom he referred to as “Day Vay”, I could not figure out whom on earth he had in mind until it occurred to me that he was referring to John Dewey. He was assuming that as an “American philosopher” My philosophical views must have been formed by previous American philosophers. But the answer is, Dewey had no influence on me at all. I read some works by Dewey and I read one book of his very carefully, his Logic the Theory of Inquiry, and I was unimpressed by it. I have not been influenced to any great degree by American philosophers in the way that I have been influenced by Gottlob Frege and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Indeed, if I were asked who were the philosophers most influential in my own work, I would have to say, they would be Austin, Strawson, Frege and Wittgenstein, far more than any others. (I sometimes see myself characterized as follower of G.E. Moore, or at least sharing with Moore a certain “common sense” conception of Philosophy, but I am made very nervous by this identification with Moore. I have not found Moore’s work inspiring, and it often seems to me that Moore misses the point of philosophical questions. His famous “refutation” of Idealism is an example.) In my university we no longer offer courses in American Philosophy as such (though for reasons of “political correctness” we offer something on multicultural influences on American philosophy), nor do we offer courses in German or French Philosophy. We do indeed offer courses in certain movements in Philosophy, such as British Empiricism, or 19th

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century German Idealism but the idea is to explore a certain set of philosophical ideas, not to articulate a particular national vision. But it seems to me someone might reasonably object by pointing out that there is a traditional distinction, one that can hardly be nonexistent, between “Analytic” Philosophy and “Continental” Philosophy. This way of stating the distinction obviously contains a gross category mistake, in that a method of Philosophy, analysis, is being contrasted with a geographical location of Philosophy, the European Continent. It is as if one said, there are two kinds of things going on in America, business and Kansas. But, avoiding the category mistake, we can say with some qualifications, there do seem to be stylistic and subject matter differences between so called “analytic philosophy” and “phenomenology” or “existentialism” and there is some, though not a great deal, of geographical and national localization of these philosophical movements. For example, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Quine, and most of the philosophers present here are reasonably construed as part of an analytic tradition. But there is also a distinct tradition that includes Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Foucault. There are important differences between these two traditions, but it is not easy to characterize these differences precisely, in a non-question begging fashion. Perhaps it is best to think of these as differences in style and subject matter rather than in competing theories. For instance, I have had very useful conversations with Quine, and I have had very useful conversations with Foucault. The differences are mostly a matter of interests and styles but I would not suppose that there are many propositions such that Quine would assert the proposition and Foucault would deny it. They have a different range of interests and different set of priorities. Far more important than their doctrinal differences, I believe, is the fact that they appeal to rather different publics. To put the point very crudely, Quine appeals to a public that is more oriented towards science and mathematics; Foucault appeals more to the public that is oriented towards literature and textual studies and to some of the social sciences. Both were obsessed with language, but in quite different ways. I am going to come back to this alleged difference between analytic and Continental philosophy, but first I want to say something about my own experiences. Beginning in 1985, I tried to make it a matter of policy to accept invitations to teach summer courses or at least to give summer lecture series in foreign universities. I had previously been a visiting professor in several American universities as well as universities in Canada (Toronto),

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Britain (Oxford) Norway (Oslo) and Brazil (Campinas). But the policy of teaching summer courses was in addition to the usual sequence of conferences like this one or invitations to give single lectures. The accidents of the Berkeley academic calendar, where we stop teaching in early May, allowed me to teach summer courses at other Universities, especially in Europe. Since 1985 I have taught as visiting professor at the universities of Frankfurt and Berlin in Germany, Florence, Venice and Rome (Roma Tre) in Italy, Graz in Austria, Aärhus in Denmark, The Collège International de Philosophie in Paris, Lublin in Poland and the Univerrsity of Lugano in Switzerland. In addition I have given lecture series in a number of places, the Sorbonne and twice in the College de France in Paris, and various universities in Spain. In China, I spent three weeks lecturing in Beijing, Xian and Shanghai as a representative of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1988, and a week at several universities in Shanghai in 2003. In my experience, globalization is not something that is simply a remote possibility, but is actually occurring as we speak and in a sense this conference itself is a form of the globalization. This is the second controversial thesis I want to advance: Globalization in philosophy is already occurring. Now, what exactly does that mean? “Globalization” is often used pejoratively to mean the spread of international big business corporations world wide. There is a great deal of opposition to economic globalization, but I do not see how this opposition to globalization can be carried over to academic and intellectual globalization. What globalization in philosophy means, as far as my experience is concerned, is: You can go to a very large number of places in the world today and lecture to audiences that are remarkably sophisticated, well trained and well read in a common family of problems. The problems are mostly in what used to be called “analytic philosophy”. But the dispersal of the so-called analytic techniques is now so world wide that it is probably better just to think of these as academic philosophy, that is, philosophy conducted at a university level. And this is especially so because the apparent alternative to analytic philosophy namely phenomenology, is now, at least in part assimilated to analytic philosophy. I lectured, for example, last year in Kirchberg, at the annual Wittgenstein conference and on this occasion the common theme of the conference was phenomenology. I was anxious, in my talk, to point out the limitations of some of the phenomenological authors I am somewhat familiar with, but the methods and the techniques of phenomenology seem to me

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at best to be simply a part of philosophy broadly construed. In short, at its best, phenomenology is not something opposed to but something in addition to logical analysis. What are the conditions necessary for globalization in philosophy, so construed? That is, what are the conditions of success for a globalized philosophy construed as a common world wide endeavor and not bound by any national or cultural traditions? Well it seems to me one can state a number of conditions: First, there has to be a common language. For reasons of historical accident, having nothing to do with the intellectual merits of the English language, English has become the international Lingua Franca. It plays a role in international discussion today that Latin played in the Middle Ages. I welcome this, partly because it makes it easier for me personally, but whether it is English, or some other language, there has to be a common language in which intellectuals all over the world can address each other. Perhaps one day it will be Spanish or Chinese, because there are more people speaking these languages than are speaking English, but for the moment at least it is one of the great intellectual pleasures that I have had in my life, that I can go almost anywhere in the world and lecture to sophisticated and intelligent audiences in English and have every confidence that I will be completely understood and that the discussion will take place in English. It is, by the way, an annoying fact, about some Anglophone philosophers, that they take for granted that everybody can speak perfect English and they engage in discussions with people for whom English is the second or third language as if these people were completely at home speaking English. Some Anglophone philosophers make no concessions. So it is common to hear people mumble in a style that was considered fashionable, and even aristocratic, in my Oxford days, or some people talk too fast and too aggressively and do not wait for their conversation partners to finish speaking. If English is to be a successful Lingua Franca we should try to develop an international style of English, written and spoken with total clarity and intelligibility. A second requirement of globalization, and this one is perhaps more controversial, is that there ought to be certain common standards of rigor and clarity, otherwise communication cannot take place. There is in some quarters a currently fashionable view to the effect that rationality is not a cultural universal, but is only defined relative to specific times and places, and usually in the interest of certain specific power groups. I believe this view is totally mistaken.

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General criteria of rationality are universal, because the constraints of rationality are built into the very structure of thought and language. I argued for this conception of universal rationality at some length in Rationality in Action, a book I published a few years ago. You cannot have a language or engage in thought processes without your thoughts and speech acts being subject to the universal constraints of rationality. However, the fact that there are universal constraints of rationality does not mean that all forms of philosophy are equally committed to standards of rigor, clarity and truth. On the contrary, I have discovered at least some branches of so-called post modernism that are deliberately committed to obscurantism and certain forms of irrationality. I don’t know for how long this sort of nonsense can survive, but it is still fairly strong in certain parts of the world, and it tends to be more influential in certain non-philosophical disciplines, such as literary theory and literary criticism, than it is in philosophy. This conference is a good example of how high standards of rationality can reach across cultural and linguistic boundaries. I have had a chance to take a look at some of the papers prepared for this conference and I can say they are uniformly of a high standard of clarity, intelligence and rigor. So the idea that you cannot have a truly international conference where you can take for granted that people from all over the world will share certain common standards of rationality seems to me completely mistaken, and this conference is a good refutation of the mistake. The third feature of globalization in Philosophy is less easily stated, but since it is a phenomenon that is actually occurring, I can point to it. It is essential that philosophers should engage in a more or less common set of research projects and that they can assume and take for granted a certain amount of background knowledge when discussing particular philosophical problems. I was, for example, delighted to see among the topics to be discussed at this conference such topics as “Confucius on the is—ought question”. The assumption is made, and I think it is a correct assumption, that there are certain common problems that cut across the cultural and national boundaries, and that philosophy can reach across these boundaries by discussing these common problems. Globalized philosophy has a common agenda of problems, even though this agenda is constantly growing and developing. A fourth feature of a successful globalized philosophy is one that we cannot take for granted but now seems to me widespread. Philosophers above all have to able to speak with their own individual voices and

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not be expected to represent particular religions, political ideologies or organizations, including nations. Before the collapse of Soviet communism it was very common when attending conferences in communist countries to find that there were really two conferences going on. One, officially, where philosophers from behind the iron curtain spoke with caution and under surveillance. Another more interesting conference took place in private conversations where people could tell you what they actually thought. There are still pressures for ideological conformity in some countries, but successful philosophy requires intellectual independence. And the globalization I am talking about, to be successful, requires that philosophers not speak as specimens or representatives but as individual and independent thinkers. The intellectual independence I am talking about would include, but goes far beyond, academic freedom in the traditional sense. If you have these four features, a common language, common set of criteria of rationality, intelligence and truth, a common (though changing , and developing) problematic, and forms of intellectual independence that go beyond mere academic freedom, then it seems to me that the success of globalization in philosophy is reasonably well assured. Now I want to say something about the agenda of a globalized philosophy. Philosophical problems are not timeless, eternal and universal; but they are not temporary, ephemeral and local either. Many philosophical problems arise because of permanent features of human life such as the problem of the nature of consciousness or the problem of how to achieve a good life. Sometimes philosophical questions arise because of events occurring outside of philosophy. Two obvious examples were the philosophical fallouts from the political upheavals in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Philosophy both contributed to those upheavals and was a response to them. More importantly, from my point of view, the scientific revolutions of the seventeenth century raised serious philosophical problems about the nature and extent of human knowledge. Indeed, Locke’s major book, the Essay, was described precisely by him as an inquiry into the nature and extent of human knowledge It is difficult for us today to appreciate the extent to which the possibility of knowledge that could be certain, objective and universal was regarded as problematic in the seventeenth century. It is, I think, no exaggeration to say that the epistemic bias in philosophy which was introduced by Bacon and Descartes tended to dominate philosophy for the next three hundred years. The central problems in Philosophy were seen as centering around objectivity,

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certainty, knowledge, evidence, proof, etc. And one essential task of philosophy was to address skeptical arguments. The tendency to treat epistemology as the center of philosophy continued into the twentieth century. In my intellectual childhood the problem of induction, the problem of other minds, the problem of skepticism generally and the problem of objectivity in ethics were among the dominant problems in the subject. It was typically believed that Russell and Wittgenstein had transformed the traditional question, How do you know? Into the question, What do you mean? But what you mean was taken to be prior to how you know, and the philosophical examination of language was supposed to give us an entering wedge into solving the traditional problems of skepticism. In my opinion, there has been a sea-change in philosophy that occurred in my intellectual lifetime. And I will briefly describe how I see it. The central intellectual fact of the present era is that knowledge grows. We know vastly more than our grandparents’ generation did, and the generation of our grandchildren will know vastly more than we do. If you go to any University bookstore today and go into the sections for biology, or engineering or any other discipline containing a large body of established truths, you will find textbooks containing an enormous amount of straightforward factual information. You will find a sheer volume of established knowledge that would have taken Descartes’ breath away. For more than one reason we cannot take skepticism seriously in the way that philosophers once did. Partly this is due to the philosophical arguments against skepticism, mounted by Wittgenstein and Austin, as well as other people, but, I think, more importantly than the actual philosophical arguments is that with the sheer fact of the growth of knowledge that is universal, certain and objective we have reached a point in philosophy where it is hard to treat the skeptical questions as at the center of the subject in a the way that our philosophical ancestors did. There is a place in philosophy for traditional epistemology but such questions as, Can I really know of the existence of an external world, or that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow?, we treat as puzzles like Zeno’s puzzles about space and time. It is a philosophical puzzle how I can get to the other side of the room, if first I have to go half way, and before that, half of that half, etc. And it is a philosophical puzzle about how I know that the sun will rise in the East tomorrow, but just as it is not rational to doubt that I can cross the room, so it is not rational to doubt the existence of certain, universal and objective knowledge.

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Assume for the sake of argument that traditional epistemology, with the threat of skepticism always lurking in it, no longer has the force for us that it once had, then where do we find ourselves in a globalized Philosophy? The situation we are in has certain analogies with Greek philosophy in the transition from Socrates and Plato to Aristotle. Socrates and Plato took skepticism seriously and tried to answer it. In a sense they prepared the ground for Aristotle by dealing with skepticism in a way that enabled Aristotle to move from epistemology to ontology. I do not want to overstate the analogy, but we can think of Wittgenstein and “ordinary language philosophy” as similarly dealing with skepticism in a way that enables for us a similar shift from epistemology to ontology. The epistemic obsession has now been resolved and we can now move on to ontology. What then is the form that the ontological questions should take for a globalized philosophy. It seems to me, (and here I am speaking in a very summary fashion) that there is one overriding question in philosophy, and it is this: How do we as human beings fit in with what we already know about how the world is anyhow? We have pretty solid knowledge of the world from physics and chemistry, and a good understanding of our own evolution from evolutionary biology. We know that the world consists entirely of physical particles in fields of force, that these are organized into systems and that on our earth some of those systems, with big carbon based molecules and lots of hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, have evolved into living biological systems, including animals like ourselves. We have in short a pretty good account of the basic physical, chemical and biological structure of the world, but how do we fit in? How do we make our self conception consistent with what we know about how the world is anyhow? How do we, as mindful, conscious, intentional, rational, political, social, speech-act-performing and free-will-having beings, fit into a universe of mindless, meaningless physical particles. Perhaps in the end we cannot make all the features of our self conception consistent with our factual knowledge of the world. But we will not know of the possible successes and failures without doing the work. I had been doing philosophy professionally for more than a couple of decades, before it occurred to me than this is the problem that I have spent all my life working on, even though I had not been entirely aware of it. So the problem of speech acts, for example, is: how do you get from the brute sounds that come out of the mouths of speakers to statements, questions, commands, promises, etc.? The problem

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of consciousness is: how is it possible for a hundred billion neurons to cause and sustain conscious states? The problem of society is: how it is possible that there can be an objective social and institutional reality of money, government, languages, marriage, property , etc. in a world of beasts like ourselves, and which in some sense exists only because we think it exists? And so on with other problems, such as the problem of ethics, rationality, free will etc. In any case, this is my philosophical agenda and I think it is the agenda of a rather large number of philosophers in the present era. I see it as an ideal global agenda. I think global contributions can give us insights into many of these problems that we would not otherwise have. For example, I have always been suspicious of the branch of ethics I was brought up on in Oxford, because it always seemed to be so very local. A typical ethical subject was the obligation to return a borrowed book. Now I am not even sure that our concept of ethics translates universally into all human languages. I say this, not to argue in favor of some sort of mindless ethical relativism. I think that is nonsensical. Rather I think our theory of ethics has to be grounded in a more biologically fundamental theory of human rationality, one that can accommodate both the universality of ethical concerns and enormous cultural differences in ethical conceptions. I want to mention two last questions that are faced by the conception of globalized philosophy that I am attempting to articulate. First, what is its relation to the history of philosophy? And second, what is its relation to other disciplines? Attitudes to the history of the subject vary notoriously among different sorts of philosophers. One strand, the Hegelian strand, thinks that we can never overcome our past history and that we should see ourselves, at any given point, as simply extensions of the previous history of the subject. In the Hegelian vein, all philosophy is history of philosophy. That is not my attitude. My attitude would be more like that of a miner. The history of philosophy consists of a series of huge repositories and we should attempt to mine as much philosophical utility out of these various repositories as we can. I realize that this attitude is not as reverential as it might be, but I think that the history of philosophy is immensely useful to us if we are able to learn from our predecessors and build on their achievements. Furthermore, this is where globalization really comes into its own. It is a lamentable fact about my education that I have learned nothing, literally nothing, from my official university training about several of the important philosophers discussed in this conference. It seems

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to me important that we pay an enormous respect to the tradition of Confucianism, Buddhism and others precisely by seeing how they bear on our contemporary issues. Actually I do not see the bifurcation I mentioned earlier, between the reverential attitude toward the history of the subject and the miner’s extractionist attitude, at any deep level, as inconsistent with each other. It is perfectly OK with me if people want to treat the history of the subject with more reverence than I do, I just want to be allowed to make use of the history in the way I have been proposing. Let us put this in very crude terms. I see a real interest in Chinese philosophy and in Asian Philosophy generally on the part of people who are working in a European tradition as giving those people enormous resources that were previously unavailable to them. Finally, what about other subjects? Philosophy in my intellectual childhood was pretty much treated by its practitioners as separate and independent from other disciplines. And there was a great deal of effort made to show that we were doing something different from Psychology, or from linguistics, when we were doing the Philosophy of mind or the Philosophy of language. I think all of that is a very serious mistake. One of the truly amazing things about the research project that I have been describing, is how readily it meshes with and how much it can learn from, and how much it can teach to other disciplines. I once had a public debate with Richard Rorty, where he argued that what he called analytic philosophy had little or nothing to say to other subjects. In my own experience, this has been a breathtakingly false assessment. The last three journals that I have been asked to contribute to have been The Annual Review of Neuroscience, for an article about consciousness, The Journal of Anthropological Theory, for an article about social ontology, and the Journal of Institutional Economics for an analysis of the ontology of human institutions, economic and otherwise. After this conference, the next conference I will attend is one of Neurobiology and the philosophical implications of neurobiology for the study of consciousness. One of the main reasons that philosophy is more exciting now than it was half a century ago, is that it connects with the rest of intellectual life in a way that has not always been the case in the past. And I see a globalized philosophy as increasing those connections.

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PART TWO

CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT OF SEARLE’S PHILOSOPHY AND CHINESE PHILOSOPHY

SECTION A

MIND

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CHAPTER TWO

ANALYSIS OF SEARLE’S PHILOSOPHY OF MIND AND CRITIQUE FROM A NEO-CONFUCIAN POINT OF VIEW Chung-ying Cheng 1. Problem of Explicating “Biological Naturalism” John Searle has made important contributions to contemporary philosophy of mind. His philosophical position on mind is not just based on an analysis of the language of mind. He has developed the philosophical theory of speech acts before he developed his theory of mind that is rooted in the central paradigms of speech acts. He titled his 1992 book on philosophy of mind The Rediscovery of the Mind,1 suggesting a new discovery of an old entity. But he was criticized for the implication of this claim, because there were others who have made this claim. However, I know no other philosopher to have made this claim as clearly and as meaningfully as Searle. Hence I do regard his work as a “re-discovery” and an important one for his time: this is because he has clearly identified the unique characteristic of mind as consciousness and described it as a unique quality not to be reduced to the brain. This is a relatively new position in a time when the materialist identity theory of mind and body has been quite in vogue. To call his work a “re-discovery of mind” indicates that he has given mind a new identity that is independent of brain and body, even though it is regarded as being caused by the brain by Searle. He explicitly says that brains cause minds and calls his position “biological naturalism”.2 One may still ask: Is Searle’s biological naturalism after all identistic if not materialist ? Namely, whether mind is still identical with some function of the brain even though it is not reduced to a materialistically

1 Searle, John (1992), The Rediscovery of the Mind, Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press. 2 See Searle (1992), p. 1; also see Entry on John Searle written by John Searle in Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, edited by Samuel Guttenplan (1994), Malden: Blackwells, p. 544.

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conceived brain? Apparently, Searle would deny this, because minds are “simply states that the whole neuronal system is in at certain times and under certain conditions”.3 Minds are not separate substances but are states of brains under certain conditions, which presumably are to be stated as physical or biological terms. Then, is this position dualistic after all if not Cartesian? But I doubt that Searle would condone such a label either. He wants to reject dualism of properties apart from rejecting dualism of substances. Of course, he cannot be an epiphenomenalist, because minds are real and their activities are essential for the maintenance of the brains and the living bodies. With regard to cognitive-scientific interpretation of minds, Searle is vehemently negative. But he is correct in showing that the mental (in understanding) is semantic, not simply syntactic and that even the syntactic is interpretative and hence observer-relative. This means that we simply have to presuppose a mind in interpreting mind in the brain. With all these disclaimers, I am not quite sure of how Searle identifies or explicates his own position called “biological naturalism”. One may suspect that his position could be a type of “anomalous monism” (to be abbreviated as AM) at best, because Searle has to reconcile the physical or physio-neurological origin and cause of consciousness with the unique quality of intentionality in mental consciousness with contents which cannot be reduced to the brain and which are “observer-relative”, to use his own words. It could be a fact that the same brain state is realized in two mental states of different contents. Hence it appears that he cannot escape from recognizing the distinction between “token identity” and “type diversity” offered by anomalous monism. But from Chapter 2 of Searle’s book this position was clearly rejected on the ground that it cannot identify the mental features of mental content.4 What this means is not quite clear, because for those who hold AM such as Donald Davidson and W.V. Quine, the mental features of mental content are recognized as contents of the propositional attitudes or propositional acts of language and are to be attributed to the human persons who speak the language. It was Donald Davidson who invented the term “anomalous monism” and he described the position of AM as follows: “The position that says there are no strictly lawlike correlations between phenomena classified

3 4

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Ibid., p. 545. Searle, op. cit., 53.

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as mental and phenomena classified as physical, though mental entities are identical, taken one at a time, with physical entities. In other words, there is a single ontology, but more than one way of describing and explaining the items in the ontology.”5 W.V. Quine was impressed by this position and he endorsed it in his book Pursuit of Truth.6 He described its as token physicalism: “There is no mental substance, but there are irreducibly mental ways of grouping physical states and events.”7 In his 1995 book From Stimulus to Science,8 Quine re-iterates the same endorsement but gives an a more elaborate description: “Each occurrence of a mental state is still, we insist, an occurrence of a physical state of a body, but the groupings of these occurrences under mentalistic predicates are largely untranslatable into physiological terms. There is token identity, to give it the jargon, but type diversity.”9 Both Quine and Davidson can be said to be materialist identist who are devoted to seek an extensional explication or reduction of intensions (conceptual or propositional contents of mental states) embedded in the language of propositional attitudes and language of propositional acts (speech acts). But this effort remains basically a program that has not produced any universally acceptable rendering of mentalistic language into the materialist or physicalist language. Nor has it given a systematic procedure for generating conditions of satisfaction in physical terms for the use of mental language, despite interesting efforts and exciting analyses have been made on piecemeal basis. It is interesting to note that the reason on why there is no full-scale success was not fully explored nor questioned. The term “anomalous monism” is simply an invitation to solution, just like the term “biological naturalism”. Given these circumstances it is certainly important to ask whether Searle’s assertion of consciousness as having intrinsic qualities and as being not irreducible to the brain contains an adequate explanation or rational/ empirical justification. It is also important to note that Quine has described the AM as a matter of token identity in brain and type diversity in mind. Given this observation, if mind is not reducible to 5 See his paper “Mental Events”, 1970, reprinted in Donald Davidson (1980), Actions and Events, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Quoted here from his paper “Could There be a Science of Rationality?” in Problems of Rationality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. 121. 6 Published in Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992. 71–72. 7 See Pursuit of Truth, 72. 8 Published in Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995. 9 See From Stimulus to Science, 87.

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brain in a substantive sense and enjoys its diversity versus the ontological identity or singularity of brain, could we say that mind is also ontologically real like brain except it has a unique mode of existence which nevertheless is still related to the brain as material existence. If so, could we say that Searle is a property dualist of mind and body on one level (the biological) and a causal materialist identitist on another (the systematic). He would be a dualist of two levels if not dualist of two substances. 2. Connecting Background Thesis to Zhu Xi In making the above suggestion, however, I recognize Searle’s central ideas regarding biological environment and background ability thesis. He suggests that our minds arise from brains in a largely evolving biological system of life and that brains as organs of life-bodies naturally give rise to (i.e. “cause”) the activities and dispositions of mind. He further holds that intentional states of mind function against a Background of non-intentional abilities and dispositions that are causally efficacious. But for the purpose of understanding the truth of the matter, it is up to Searle to clarify his notion of “causation” of mental states from brain states on which both his critique of cognitive science and his Background thesis rely. He says: “A genuine science of cognition would allow for at least three levels of explanation—a neuro-biological level, a level of intentionality, and a functional level where we identify the operation of Background capacities in terms of their functional roles in the life of the organism.”10 From this scheme, it is natural to expect that the causation of mind by brain or the causal efficacy of brains with regard to mind is rather a very complicated one. But then, Searle’s introduction of the Background Thesis is both helpful and obscuring. On the one hand, Searle denies that there is an intermediate level of computation between the level of mental (first person description) and the level of the neurobiological (the third person description). On the other hand, the Background seems to function precisely like an intermediate level although we need not to consider the Background as computational rather than biologically organic. As the Background contains no intentional states, it has to give rise or cause

10

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Samuel Guttenplan, op. cit. Searle’s Entry cited, 550.

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intentional states from a biological structure. It is a two-way self-connecting principle. The only difference from the computational model appears to be that the Background is biological and causal whereas the computer is not. But then could we imagine some biological machine as Descartes thought of the animals? I do think that Searle’s idea of a Background is highly suggestive because it is largely an open and heuristic concept and thus could lead to a position which is congenial with the philosophy of mind of Zhu Xi (1030 –1200), the great Neo-Confucian philosopher who argues for and explains the relationship between mind (xin) and nature (xing) as a relation between vital force (qi ) and structured being (pattern, law, principle, li ) based on the onto-cosmological theory of creative ontogenesis. Zhu Xi’s approach may appear to be metaphysical, but it is nevertheless based on first-person experience of consciousness of his mind and mind reflection as shown in his reflection on the presence of mental awareness with regard to mental activities and responses called the emotions (qing) on the one hand, and to non-activated state of mental dispositions called nature (xing) on the other. Hence his methodology and position are both metaphysical and experiential. Given Searle’s thesis on the Background, one may strongly question whether Searle could explain the generation and activities of consciousness from a brain basis without becoming both metaphysical and experiential like Zhu Xi. As we shall see, if consciousness cannot be explained reductively by brain, and yet is embodied by brain, there must be a deeper principle which enables mind or consciousness to present itself through the activities of brain and yet not to be fully identified with the brain. This is precisely like the working of the qi in li and li in qi where li presents itself in the living context of qi and qi presents itself in the structuring of li. It is in light of this analogy to Zhu Xi that I say that Searle has to become more metaphysically dynamical and creative in developing his “connection principle”, the principle that calls forth consciousness in connection and in relation with the biological brain. We may even suggest that, in this context, the only way-out for adequately explicating the position of “natural biologism” is for Searle to think like a Neo-Confucian Chinese philosopher, redefining not only his idea of brain-to-mind causation (or causal efficacy), but his ideas of the brain and the idea of the mind in the life-activities of the whole person in relation to his onto-cosmological environment. Searle may not perceive the importance of this suggestion which provides a way out for his thesis of biological naturalism of consciousness, not just brain, because he

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may not be familiar with the well-known philosophical thesis of Zhu Xi in Chinese philosophy.11 For any reader who knows both Searle and Zhu Xi and takes comparative philosophy seriously could easily see how Zhu Xi could be relevant and helpful as far as the concept of Background is concerned and as far as the explanatory power of the Background Hypothesis is concerned. At this juncture, a methodological remark is in order: My concern in this paper is not to find a suitable title for Searle’s position on mind, but to understand it so that we can find in it a clear, coherent, deep and yet comprehensible theory of mind and consciousness. Whether one could develop such a theory based on understanding of human experience of mind in its structure, process and diversity is a challenging question. It may appear for me to demand too much if we place such an expectation on Searle. But in my view Searle is as good as anyone if not better for possibly meeting this expectation. In this following sections of my article I shall raise some basic questions of coherence and clarity regarding Searle’s claims and then test his theory with some request for ontological depth without asking for achieving a comprehensive scope such as involving considerations of different functions of mind as one sees in Plato, Kant and Zhu Xi. It will be shown that despite his good intention and broad ambition Searle’s theory of mind may have left several loopholes and doubts that should prompt us to seek a broader perspective and to develop a new vision based on his initial insights. Hence I still wish to argue that Searle’s theory may already point toward such a new departure and a new vision without himself being quite aware of these. The fundamental methodological issue is how we understand experience, language and reference to reality both experientially and onto-hermeneutically. As a matter of fact, a prior ontological insight is needed to see the need for a new ontological paradigm on our language of experience for description or re-description and for explanation. This description and explanation must be based on recognition of intrinsic qualities of experience. What I have suggested with regard to Zhu Xi is precisely to serve this purpose of re-description and explanation. We may then see that Zhu Xi would agree with Searle in Searle’s strict understanding

11 See Appendix of this article on Zhu Xi’s philosophy of substance and function in li and qi.

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of consciousness of mind, but he would elaborate on and then explain the mind in an ontological and yet experiential manner as a function (of the qi ) in relation to the substance (of the li ) which is not simply confined to the brain and the body. In making this explanation the conception of creative generation (sheng-cheng) rather than causation ( yin-guo) would be more appropriate. We may perhaps further explain this sheng-cheng relation of the body (brain included) to mind as one of holistic origination-emergence and systematic supervenience in modern analytical terms. To see otherwise is to commit the fallacy of simple location. 3. Intrinsic Issues in Searle’s Position In the following we shall raise several key issues in Searle’s conception of mind as consciousness that has led to puzzlement and dispute. Nevertheless, we can show that Searle’s position is open to new interpretation, which would resolve the puzzlement and hopefully settle the dispute. Is consciousness located in the brain? Apparently if consciousness were located in the brain, which is spatially and temporally organized, it would be externally observed in the brain by a third person. But we have no single idea as to how consciousness can be spatially and temporarily located in the brain as a space having a time span. The primary sense of space is that it is externally extended and it is potentially to be observed by an observer. Our internal observation or introspection on consciousness in the brain is denied by Searle to be possible. (This is another issue to be treated separately). But even granted some form of external observation from an epistemic internalist point of view, what we have observed is a sequence or stream of occurring and vanishing events (if not acts) of consciousness in time to be marked as past, present and future. Where is the spatial place for various parts of consciousness to be located? It cannot be located in any single place or area of the brain even though we may have known the specific natures of areas of the brain as related to types of mental dispositions of a person. The reason for the non-locality of mental states or mental events is not only that the mental has to be understood as a whole that arises from the brain as a whole. The consciousness could be said to constitute a mental space and mental time that seem to co-exist with the space and time of the brain. There is a system-to-system relationship of dependence and variation rather than point-to-point correspondence.

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There is another important reason: there are contents of the mental states that contain reference to things or affairs in the world. These things or affairs are intentionally identified by the mental states. They have their own inner spatiality in the sense of relatively organized positioning of things within the system of contents of the mind. It is also necessary to recognize that the inner spatiality is still related to outer spatiality because some things that the mind intentionally identifies are actually located in the external world. Hence the spatiality of the mental state cannot have a singular location in the brain, but must exist as a relation between the mind and things in the world, in terms of which minds can be understood. This also explains why minds cannot be reduced to brains, because in order to explain the mind, we need to refer to what are recognized as intended referents of the mind in the world. In doing so, we have to presuppose that those things referred to in the intentional states of the mind are either independently real or real by interpretation. As such, another person may not have access to what is intended by a mind by the nature of the privacy of mental awareness. He may not have access to what is intended by mind even in perception. Besides, the scenes to be referred to by mental terms as contents may have disappeared in time. We may therefore not be in a position to catch what is encountered in that time by a mind. Experience of intentional reference, like perception, must be considered as a result of many causally facilitating factors, not just the brain. The above-mentioned Neo-Confucian perspective as represented by Zhu Xi regarding the relation between mind and body goes beyond the Western tradition of Plato, Descartes and Kant: Mind as a whole is not just a function of the body, but a function of the whole person in his constant organic interactions with things in the world and cosmos via the presence of the qi. Thus, while mind as intentionalities is neither severally nor collectively reducible to matter and space, it is both severally and holistically real in time and space. In this sense it has its referentiality to the world even though it cannot be reduced to either the brain or the things in the world. It resides simply in a sustained relation of the self to the world, and assumes the form of existence as a process of moving between the brain and things in the world. It is a relation between the brain and the body in relation to the natural environment that is onto-cosmologically explained in the mutual generation of li and qi as explained above. With this said, what Searle has named Background could be said to contain a secondary or virtual spatiality of mind, namely as a mental

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system that is structurally formed in a hierarchy of dispositions and inducements with capacities for simultaneous occurring events in the human body, which are presuppositions of the functioning of the brain. Thus emotions and desires could occur in a person together with his cognitions in the brain. Both emotions or emotions and cognitions are then spaced out in our simultaneous perceptions. But we must point out that this mental space as we have described is still a metaphor, because it only describes a level of relations among matters of mind, emotions, will, desires, cognitions: each interpenetrates with the other and depends on each other. This interpenetration and mutual dependence become inherent features of human mind or human consciousness as a mental system, which, nevertheless, requires activities of the brain for cognition or recognition. Normally, the brain provides the spatiality of mind, which, like a mathematical space, is to enable us to think spatially so that we can make distinctions and inferences among things, but this does not mean that those distinctions are externally observable on the primary level. We may even suggest that the mental space is a secondary space emerging from and supervening on the primary space as a result of emergence of mind from the human person as an organism in the world. Can we have a dualism without being called dualistic? Searle maintains that even though mind is not reduced to a brain state, it is still something to be considered caused by the brain. I wish to argue that in spite of Searle’s disagreement there is a subtle identity of this position with Davidson’s anomalous monism. In the case of Davidson, the mind as a whole is identifiable with brain. But no special or particular identity can ever be asserted. In other words, there is only generic identity, whereas specific identity requires occasional conditions only to be provided by circumstantial or external-perceptual or internal-mental conditions, which involve factors that are conditioned by the world and environment. E.g. I cannot predict my future state of my perception, my feeling or my desire because I have to become aware or exposed to external conditions that may not yet occur. The brain states provide an open channel to take in new values for unbound variables from experiences in an open world context.12 This openness allows the mind to be causally effective not by itself alone, but by

12

I.e. we are being- in- the world, and we are open beings in an open world.

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combining with circumstances from outside world. Hence there is no causal determinism here. The relation of brain to the mind therefore is both dualistic and monistic: it is generically monistic and it is specifically dualistic. To say that mind is spatial is to say that mind which is generically identified with brain is spatial because brain is spatial. It is not to say that it is spatial when considered as a specific system by itself. To say that the brain causes the consciousness is half-truth: it is to say that brain together with other factors as input from open functions of the brain such as perception and feeling would give rise to consciousness. E.g. the eye would not see a moon unless there is a moon and unless the eye looks at the moon. Hence the image of the moon in the pupil of the iris is a product not of brain alone but of the circumstances that includes the relationship between the moon and the eyes and the relationship between eyes and the brain. It is therefore better to treat consciousness as an event or happening which presupposes a structure that is the structure of mind that supervenes on the brain as an ontologically individuating function of the brain due to activities of the whole person. In light of this argument, we may have a dualistic phenomenon of the distinction between mind and body but they are mutually conditioned in the experience and activities of the whole person. Hence the dualism is not dualistically rooted but instead rooted in a singularly conceived common source with its own complexity. In a sense it is a dualism that is not dualistically rooted. Perhaps we may call it dualistic monism if we recognize that this characterization presupposes an unstated metaphysical thesis on the unity of the duality. Can we have introspection on our consciousness? Searle rejected the possibility of introspection into consciousness. He says: “There could not be introspection because the model of specting intro requires a distinction between the object spected and the specting of it, and we cannot make this distinction for conscious states.”13 As a factual statement, this statement can be made false by claims of the contrary. Self-introspection is possible because I can make the distinction between what I have thought and what I am thinking. The intentionality of consciousness precisely reflects this fact: I could think of a gold mountain and I can think of my, not another person’s, thinking of gold mountain.

13

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See Searle, Rediscovery of Mind, 144.

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This of course does not have to mean that I have a special faculty called introspection, nor to deny that my notion of myself is from my interpretation of my genuine experience of a subject-object structure in experience, even possibly a social construction for that matter. But this ability of thinking this way must be recognized. We do not have to observe the subject of the introspection when the subject is inspecting just as I need not see my eyes when my eyes are seeing things. If we do it in front of a mirror we are then seeing the object, namely that we are seeing. I only see my eyes and I may see the objects as reflected in the mirror. Not the object itself. One may show a picture of myself inspecting a fish. But this is not the same thing as showing myself now engaged in inspecting a fish while seeing myself seeing the fish. There is no adequate reason to hold that “once you get rid of the idea that consciousness is a stuff that is the ‘object’ of introspection, it is easy to see that it is spatial, because it is located in the brain. (105).” That we are able to realize that consciousness is a property of the brain is precisely a result of our introspective reflection on how consciousness could be explained in relation to the brain. It is precisely due to the fact that we are able to introspect our consciousness as objective, we can speak metaphorically that it is spatial as I have explained above. What is and why is there the Background? Is the brain the Background or some functional activities of the brain the Background? John Searle defines his thesis of the Background as the following: “Intentional phenomena such as meanings, understandings, interpretations, beliefs, desires and experiences only function with a set of Background capacities that are not themselves intentional. Another way to state this thesis is to say that all representation, whether in language, thought, or experience, only succeeds in representing a given set of non-representational capacities. In my technical jargon, intentional phenomena only determine conditions of satisfaction relative to a set of capacities that are not themselves intentional. Thus, the same intentional state can determine different conditions of satisfaction, given different background capacities, and an intentional state will determine no conditions of satisfaction unless it is applied relative to an appropriate Background”.14 But what is this Background that forms background conditions for the happenings of the consciousness which has intentional contents? It must be the brain

14

See Chapter 8 of his book Rediscovery of Mind, 175–176.

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in the first place: for it is a set of abilities that are not intentional but which can be activated by perception, thinking and desiring or believing. It can be also circumstantial contexts that are memories of experiences as organized into a body of layers of reference and cross-references. But Searle does not even mention these real possible candidates. For him Background seems to remain more like a metaphorical notion, something to be constructed perhaps in terms of social behavior patterns. How the non-representational or non-intentional Background relates to the intentional and representing consciousness also remains unclear. How are concepts such as “function within”, “succeeds in”, “determine conditions of satisfaction relative to” to be interpreted and understood? All appear to be ill-defined terms. However, I shall make attempt to give the following observations for clarification: 1) Intentional consciousness must take the background conditions which are physically or physiologically characterized as necessary conditions so that the latter may cause the former in collaboration or in combination with circumstantial factors in a situation. In this sense we may actually see consciousness as supervening over the background with supervience defined as contextually co-origination or co-determination or co-causation. Note we may actually treat the brain as part of the Background and treating actual occurring and situational contexts for consciousness as another part of the background. As Searle has demonstrated on page 180 of his above-mentioned book that the notion of Background is such that it cannot be detailed because there is an openness to what can and cannot be counted as Background. His illustration on speaking “bring me a steak with potatoes” is quite illuminating. This actually illustrates the situation of a speech act that occasions the speech and takes speech as part of the occasion. The speech act therefore completes the occasion. 2) It can be seen that given a Background, intentional consciousness could take place and it can take many possible forms. In other words, the Background does not determine the consciousness. Consciousness is under-determined by the Background, just as the Background is underdetermined by consciousness.15 Searle’s idea of conditions of satisfaction, like the idea of conditions of truth, depends on his understanding of

15 This is where indeterminacy of translation occurs and how Davidson comes to formulate his “anomalous monism” in which one cannot infer a brain state from a mental state as described in speech and vice versa.

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what constitutes the actual occurrence of consciousness and it says that a consciousness could happen with different set of intentionalities. This means that the Background underdetermines consciousness as a whole, which in turn would underdetermine any specific intentionality. There is a double under-determination that is not recognized by Searle. It is misleading for him to say that an intentional state will determine no conditions of satisfaction unless it is applied relative to an appropriate Background. One would think that once intentional consciousness takes place it already has presupposed a Background. The background needs not determine what the intentional state would further be. The intentional state could have different corresponding conditions of satisfaction so to speak. But it may take a specific Background to prompt its choosing one set over another set. 3) The question of the non-representing and non-intentionality of the Background must also be questioned. One cannot but see the functionality of brain and other supporting conditions for mind as an epiphany. We have yet to understand the complexity of the brain activities in order to see how the supervening system of consciousness takes place and correlates with parts of the brain in terms of the functionality of the brain. As there are phenomena of sleep and other mental diseases, whether there are mediating level between a brain state and a mental state is a matter open to investigation. No preemptive conclusion should be made. Mind as a system of dispositions in relationships: Now we have to see mind or consciousness as forming a system of meaning which has coherence of its own and which is also open to new experiences and new development. We need an idea of system as a coherent body of dispositions that allows us to speak of both mind and brain as systems on different levels. To use the term “system” is to stress the idea of internal coherence, organic relationships and sensitivity toward external matter for possible effects. As a system mind or brain can function relatively independently and yet these two relatively independent systems could also form inter-systematic crossings and linkages so that transfer of information can be made. As a system we can see how mind has its relative autonomy just like the brain or the body. Then we can also see how mind as a system can be said to emerge from and supervene over the brain as system. There is systemic dependence as well as systematic interdependence between mind and body in the flow of life of a human person. With the idea of system we are able to then see how brain as background has to be considered a system, albeit a complex

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one, because it has a complex structure as a whole and its relations to the context of a situation is a complex one. We may also conceive the context of a situation as a system or network that remains stable on certain level and unstable on a different level. We may indeed imagine the relationship of crossing-over between and among the various systems as indicated in the circles of the following diagram: brain

mind

background world actual context

world

This means that mind as a system must supervene on both the brain and the actual context of a situation that is part of the world. This implies that mind is part of the world just as brain is a part of the world. The intentional state hence is an active operation of the brain in the context of the world that has abilities to impact the world. With this re-interpretation of the Background as a system or systems, we see how we could make sense of Searle’s observation: “Differences in local Backgrounds makes translation from one language to another difficult; the commonality of deep Background makes it possible at all.”16 This is because the deeper the background is, the more generalized and more defused the mind system is related to the brain and to the world. The idea of a system of layers of backgrounds suggests a layered context of situations in our experience of the world and a hierarchical system of dispositions and abilities that characterize both the brain and the mind. We may conceive local backgrounds as formed by experience and learning. We may speak of the mind as a field that extends over and hangs over the brain as a magnetic field.

16

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John Searle, op. cit., 194.

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Other Issues: The questions of inference, interpretation, and immediate understanding in terms of some a priori conceptual system of beliefs are to be raised in regard to our understanding of mind as a system of dispositions and abilities. Cognitive mind could be considered a sub-systematic entity. But mind-heart as a whole forms correlative and interdependent or dependent systems or clusters of sub-systems, just like systems and sub-systems of the human language. The question arises as to how one system or one cluster of systems originate and whether a computer can be programmed to operate on them so that the system or the cluster of the systems could be made to consistently and successfully work in meeting questions of life of a person. If a computer is successful in doing so, one may treat the computer as identical with a human brain in its systematic intelligence. If this is the case, one might conclude that our mind or consciousness is no more than a set of algorithms of a Turing Machine and there is nothing unique or creative about consciousness or human mind. But Searle would not accept such a position. For him consciousness and mind cannot be imitated or simulated. What is imitated or simulated in a machine cannot be the genuine mind and cannot embody consciousness. There is an aspect of mind and consciousness that is understanding or intentionality that requires an internal structure of the human self and which is rooted in the Background of the person. This seems to be the gist and goal of his well-known Chinese room argument. What are the implications from the Chinese room argument? Searle asks us to imagine that someone who does not understand Chinese to follow instructions in dealing with Chinese language symbols so that he could answer correctly all the questions handed to him in Chinese language while he was locked in a room. From his successful responsive behavior we may conclude that he knows or understands Chinese. We may even infer that the computer or the computer program which formulates correct Chinese answers understand Chinese.17 However, as a matter of fact, the person who answered the questions does not understand Chinese. Nor could a computer or a computer program can be said to understand Chinese. This is because the syntax of a language is not the same as its semantics, as the former can be spelt out formally in formal symbols, the latter cannot be so given. Syntax

17

See op. cit., page 45.

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as external program is therefore no substitute for semantic meaning as embodying the intentional use of a language. Since language has to be learned in contexts of real ostensive situations involving objects and things in the world, there is no background in learning the language of Chinese for the person locked in a room. Hence we must conclude that understanding as a function of consciousness and mind can not be said to be explained by a correct pattern of verbal behavior. From this Searle comes to the conclusion that no AI can be made to substitute for the human mind for it does not have understanding, or for that matter, mind. Given this argument, Searle could be right in denying the mental intelligence with all its attendant features including intentionality and this does appeals to me intuitively at first glance. But upon reflection, Searle’s answer needs not to be necessarily valid. Nor does his answer gives us any insight into how understanding in a mind works. In the first place, one must say that although the computer program cannot be said to understand Chinese, the programmer must understand it in order to write the program for all the instructions. But then how do we ascertain that the programmer knows the Chinese or any one can be said to know the Chinese? The answer is that the programmer or any one knows the Chinese by learning how to speak or use Chinese in real situations and his use of Chinese would incorporate the feature of what Noam Chomsky calls the creativeness of the language in such a way he could produce a new sentence to respond to any new situation and his use of the language works for all practical purposes. It is not just the semantics which is involved in being able to respond to an objective situation, a pragmatics of use based on actual experience and on-going perception is needed for making sure that the response is a genuine response called for in the situation and is rooted in one’s past and present experience of the world. Given this understanding, one can come to see how one develops a Background for mastering the use of the language, namely by interacting in experience with situations in the world. It is a matter of learning and consequent building a body of dispositions that would be elicited in forms of correct linguistic expressions of Chinese in encountering new situations. In this sense consciousness and mind are simply the abilities to learn and to form dispositions to make correct responses in concrete situations of experience and perception. In the learning process brain functions as a tool of learning as if managed by the conscious mind. When the mind has learned the language and therefore can be said to understand the

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language, the brain as a system of neuronal inter-connections would function as a tool for responding to the situation as if directed by the mind that functions or operates through the brain. What we come to see from this is the fact that mind is indeed not reducible to brain and yet the brain does act as a cause in the given context of a situation to initiate or activate the mind so that it could respond to the world via the activities of the brain. It is not denied that the brain may maintain its own neuro-physiological interactions with its immediate environment, it has to interact with the larger environment of things in the world via the perceptive experience of the world and the intentional cognitive activities of conscious-ness or mind. The Background of understanding in the mind in this analysis suggests that the Background is a system of dispositions that incorporates the interrelated brain functions and mind functions into a unitary system posed toward the world of things. As there could be many such clusters of dispositions in such a system there could be many subsidiary Backgrounds for the many types of response of the mind to the world or for many types of the correct use of the language, which is invented by the mind in terms of accumulated experiences of the world. Understanding of a language or any form of mental activities results from such interaction of the mind-brain complex in its experience of the world. This analysis no doubt would illuminate and reinforce the metaphysical argument for the unity of mind and brain as suggested in connection with Zhu Xi’s philosophy of li and qi. How does this Background formation argument apply to the AI theory of simulation of the mind in the machine or computer? One result needs to be pointed out because it is quite relevant. Namely, if we can create a computer program that enables the computer to learn from experience with its sensors, one might imagine that such a computer would approach the the intelligence of a human mind just as a monkey or ape could be taught to slowly approach the intelligence of a human mind. But on the other hand, as human learning is a long process and it also involves a genetic structure of the brain having evolved from a long history, to approach the human mind would seem to require both a comparable structural design for an artificial brain and a proper development in a human historical environment in order to be said to be successful. Yet we cannot rule out this theoretical possibility. We may even venture to imagine that we could replace a human brain with computer chips bit by bit and part by part so that we may eventually come to a have a computer brain for a human person. It is

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then not clear whether this human person with computer brain would function normally as before. If he does function normally as before, there would be no reason why we may come to have a computer which now can be said to understand a language or to act intentionally. It is nevertheless a matter to be tested and observed and the result cannot be fully and exactly predicated. On the other hand, we may imagine that we could create a Pygmalion who comes to life because we have endowed her with stem cell parts like our own. Is she an instantiation of AI or is it a matter of mind learning because the stem cells form a brain of its own? 4. Concluding Remarks To conclude from above, the cognitive activities of the mind cannot be reduced to just the neuronal activities of the brain, even with a Background at work. It is important for Searle to be able to point this out. But it is equally important to see how the Background involves a history of learning and development so that the mind can be said to work in the brain and the brain can be said to function for the mind as both the brain and the mind belong to a complex system of systems of formed dispositions called the Background. It is in light of the learning experience and in light of the complexity of the brain as part of human organism that mind develops in the brain not only to achieve cognitive activities, but also to develop abilities or capacities for aesthetic, social, political, moral, social and religious understanding and activities. The mind comes to have a creative capacity that would enable it to construct social institutions and formulate moral and political principles for organizing and ordering a whole society of people. One might suggest that all these potential consequences could follow from Searle’s significant notion of Background as he has shown in his other work, The Social Construction of Reality.18

18

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Published in New York: Free Press, 1995.

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APPENDIX: ZHU XI’S PHILOSOPHY OF MIND: UNITY OF SUBSTANCE AND FUNCTION In the following I shall give a brief statement on main themes of Zhu Xi’s philosophy of mind from his main works such as Si-Shu-Ji-Zhu and Zhu-Zi-Yu-Lei. My purpose is to present a background understanding of Zhu Xi so that we can see how he is relevant for illuminating the problem of mind and consciousness raised by John Searle in a contemporary analytical philosophical context. The philosophical language of Zhu Xi is metaphysical or onto-cosmological, but it forms a useful contrast with Searle and provides a basis for making a critique of Searle because Searle’s position could be better approached, interpreted and resolved from a metaphysical stance. 1. Unity of Substance and Function: Mind is to be seen onto-cosmologically as a matter of qi (vital force) to go with li (ordering force intrinsic to qi ) that is inherent nature of things and humanity. But qi has many functions and powers, the power of xu-ling-ming-jiao (vacuid- illuminating- perceptiveness) is considered inherited or latent in the human mind. In Xun Zi (298–238 BCE) we see how qi could give rise to life (sheng), how life could give rise to knowledge (zhi ), and how knowledge could give rise norms and values ( yi ). (See Xun Zi, Chapter Wang-Zhi ). In each stage the qi becomes progressively refined and qualitatively transformed. Similarly, the Neo-Confucian Zhang Zai (1020 –1077) has proposed that “From the Great Vacuid (tai-xu) we come to name the heaven (tian), from the transforming activities of the qi we name the Way (the dao). Unifying the xu (vacuid) and qi we come to name xing (nature). Unifying xing and zhi-jiao (perception) we come to name xin (mind).” (See Zhang Zai, Zheng-Meng, Chapter Tai-He). This again suggests how different orders of being emerge from one to the other to form a relation of substance and function. Zhu Xi is able to integrate the classical view of Xun Zi and the Neo-Confucian theory of Zhang Zai into his theory of unity of nature and mind as unity of sustaining substances and developing functions. 2. Although distinctions can be made between being and knowing, continuity between being and knowing is assumed. Although the relation is described as a matter of giving birth (sheng), it has a subtle structure of “emergence” and “supervening” expressed in words like

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“tong” (penetrate or integrate) or “zhu” (rule or lead). This is Zhu Xi’s doctrine of “xing tong xing qing” (mind unifies nature and feelings or mind unifies li and qi ). 3. Nature or xing can be seen as a set of organic capabilities evolved from reality of nature and contains both desires and feelings, not only principles of cognition. Hence it is both qi and li. This is the thesis of “li qi buli buza” (li and qi are neither separate nor merged). 4. Mind acquires the power to organize and integrate. But mind can also reflectively see how nature and feelings take place. The ultimate state of mind as a state of full enlightenment is that it is both intentional and non-intentional because it becomes related to things in direct contact via qi and it is itself a part of reality which is not seeking any other reality. Intentionality means that the mind as qi is reaching for li in reality. 5. Mind emerges from qi in the form of sustainable awareness or consciousness. It exits against a background unity of subject and object and having the properties of both constancy and change, both immanence and transcendence. 6. Mind can be cultivated and developed to reach the state of hitting the target correctly. In the Zhong Yong the state of wei-fa (un-activated) is a state of equilibrium where emotions remain in a state of unity and balance: neither this nor that. The mind relates to things in terms of knowing and perceiving and general feeling. But the mind could respond to things and persons with emotions when circumstances call for such responses. Emotions as responses have also a tendency to achieve a new state of balance and equilibrium from harmonizing with elements from outside world that upset the internal state of balance of mind. This means that mind and the world are ever in a harmonizing state: it is when this state of harmonizing becomes perturbed or disturbed that we need to respond and act to restore such a state of balance and harmony. Emotions are signals and responses in the first place, but emotion takes place under self-understanding and understanding of the world. Hence to maintain a clear understanding of the state of the world is an essential condition for maintaining the balanced state of the mind. Yet mind can also mislead itself: hence to do self-reflection is also crucially important. In the Confucian Analects, Zeng Zi speaks of making reflection on oneself three times a day. This indicates how it is important that we should maintain relationships with the world and how it is important that we must also sustain ourselves in order to be able to maintain

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our relationships with the world. This means that we have to cultivate ourselves. For Mencius the project of cultivating oneself has three parts: it begins with fulfilling our mind ( jin-xin), which means knowing our feelings and developing them properly for balance, then we must know our nature (zhi-xing), which is our potential for growth and future development. Finally, we must come to know heaven (zhi-tian), which is to know the limit of our capabilities and control our feelings regarding matters of life and death or matters of destiny. His idea of “rectifying destiny” (zheng-ming) is especially significant because it deals with an attitude of confronting the world as a whole and confronting the inherent limitations of the human life. In the Da-Xue and the Zhong-Yong the project of self-cultivation covers also a diachronic or horizontal dimension: how to expand one’s relationship with others so that family, community, state and the world of humanity can become parts of a growing circle of the human concern and human relating and flourishing. Apart from the world of humanity the whole of universe in heaven and earth also becomes integrated so that one’s presence and feeling of relevance leave no thing untouched and unenclosed. This is then called a unity of heaven and man in a horizontal sense of width that is different from unity of heaven and man in a vertical sense of depth. The intrinsic and reciprocal interdependence of inner sageliness (nei-sheng) and outer kingliness (wai-wang) can be regarded as the ideal state of perfect achievement of self-cultivation. 7. How is mind casually efficacious? It affects action: there is no consciousness which has no pragmatic significance as it must be integrated or incorporated into the full circle of consciousness and understanding of the self-cultivation. 8. Given the thesis of “Nature being principle (xing-ji-li )”, the relation between brain and mind is one of creative emergence in the context of a life-and—energy ontology that allows such creative emergence. But in Searle there is no hint of such a possible ontological background. 9. Here we see how a life-ontological realism as developed in NeoConfucianism, while differing from biological naturalism, could function as a metaphysical basis for Searle’s biological realism. But the question hinges on the content of the consciousness and intentionality that Searle speaks about. Searle may well be posed to take account of or take notice of the various ontological and moral implications of his view on consciousness and intentionality.

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10. The significance of Zhu Xi’s philosophy of mind is that it provides a picture of relationship between mind and body in a language that makes macroscopic sense on the level of onto-cosmology and makes microscopic sense on the level of moral psychology and onto-ethics. It has obviously assumed the continuity of the ontological being between the body/ brain and mind and show how they can be largely related and correlated. It provides an experientially meaningful language, namely the language of qi and li, in which the relationship between the two could be understood and monitored by general experience of the human person. What is most important is the recognition of the existence of xing, which participates in both li and qi, and which then provides a realistic foundation for the linking of the brain and the mental. The onto-cosmological paradigm of ti (substance) and yong (function) also applies here smoothly. It shows that body and mind must not be taken to be substances independently of each other, but must be related in such a way that they represent two aspects of the same reality which has a creative energy to be realized on two levels for the development of the underlying unity which is the human being as a whole entity. This process philosophy language makes it possible to see how body and mind could be theoretically transformable into each other and to also see how their functions complement each other as a result of ontogenetic development of an organism. Whitehead in speaking of the physical polarity and mental polarity of a process, also exhibits this underlying unity as basis for unifying the two and seeing the two as two aspects of the same underlying creative process of interaction and development. 11. We may therefore claim that the paradoxicality in Searle’s apparent dualism of mind and brain and in his notion of non-intentional dispositional background for intentional consciousness points to a metaphysical solution, for in science there cannot be a way out because one must reach for objectivity and reduction and elimination of intentionality in science, which leads to behaviorism. If Searle wants to avoid such a result, he would also develop a vision of onto-hermeneutical understanding so that intentionality of mind would have to take on an ontological significance, even in a phenomenological use of language. We may ask what other senses Searle could have given to the notion of consciousness? Unlike Kant, the content of consciousness is important for understanding the whole human person: the aesthetic and the moral, the functional and the teleological all point to such a understanding of the human person as a whole being in which there is a basic unity of nature and mind.

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12. Methodologically, we must maintain that there are three systems of language of description in use: the objective and the scientific language centered the brain, the phenomenological or intentional language centered on mind, and finally the onto-cosmological language centered on our experienced relationships between body (and brain) and mind. Mind may not have rigid and individual reference, but is capable of realizing its own reality in a holistic context of a process of experience. The mental could be even regarded origin for the normative and regulative for practical human action. This third form of language is the language of li and qi which constitutes a basis for the language of both the body and the mind as well as a basis for the language of moral selfcultivation for mind or for the language of health and medical care for body. Thus we have the following relationships of the three languages for describing the relationship of the brain and the mind:

The world < the human body < the human brain < the human nature < the human emotions < the human mind: “<” indicates the opening up or co-causing where opening up means that a higher order of system emerges from and then supervenes over an earlier level or stage of existence of qi in li and li in qi. Critique of Searle from Zhu Xi’s Perspective Against a background of an ontological analysis of the nature of consciousness and mind, Searle may not seem to give us any insight into mind’s purposivness and intentional activities. One consequence of S’s view is that we would not be able to account for morality, values and truth. Searle’s position rests on a scientific understanding of the brain and presents a rather narrow experiential conception of mind and consciousness. He seems to lose sight of the trans-scientist qualities of mind hidden in the intentionality of the mind, and hence cannot escape from a tendency toward a causal dualism from brain to mind,

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as a result of which mind has to appear to be an epi-phenomenon of the brain. He has not come to recognize an internal relationship between the consciousness as a form of qi and brain as another form of qi. Both Neo-Confucianism and Chinese medicine make such an assumption so that the gap between the mind and the body could be said to be mediated by layers of qi activities. There is another issue: In Searle’s social constructionism he tends to lose sight of the centrality of the human individual who is ontologically rooted and experientially oriented. The concept of self cannot and needs not be considered a construct from social consciousness and social agreement. The overlapping consensus among feelings of human people makes it possible to achieve a need for common conception of reality based on experience: Reality naturally evolves and emerges rather than simply be a product of social construction as such. It is constructive only when reality provides all essential gradients and conditions for such a construction.

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REPLY TO CHUNG-YING CHENG John R. Searle I am very grateful for this talk and I am fascinated by the points of comparison and difference that Professor Chung-ying Cheng points out between my own views and those of the neo-Confucian tradition, especially in the writings of Zhu Xi. I do not understand his explanation well enough to make a sensitive response to the points of comparison that he finds between me and the neo-Confucian tradition. I suspect from some of the things he says that my own views are radically unlike those of that tradition. I think the best way I can respond to his criticisms and to correct some of his misunderstandings is to give a summary of my own views, and just as importantly to give a summary of some of the presuppositions of my method of approaching these problems. In passing I want to correct some of his misunderstandings and also to clarify the differences between my view and the view of “anomalous monism”. The first step in my method of operation is: Make it absolutely clear what you think you really know for sure. You might, in the end, have to give up on some of the propositions that you think you know for sure, but at least initially it is important to be clear at the beginning of the investigation, what the assumptions behind the investigations are, what the starting point is. Using the contemporary vocabulary we can state, or at least I can state, what I think I know for sure as the following five assumptions and propositions: (1) I take it for granted that the basic structure of reality is as described by the basic disciplines: physics, chemistry and evolutionary biology. There are disputes about the details but the basic idea is that the universe consists of particles, (or whatever the ultimately true physics comes up with as the most basic building blocks) that these exist in fields of force and are organized into systems, where the boundaries of the system are set by causation. This is sometimes called “the scientific worldview” or sometimes even just “science”. I am reluctant to accept these characterizations because they suggest that this is just one possible way of looking at things among many others. They also suggest falsely that “science” names an ontological domain. I think that is all a mistake.

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The atomic theory of matter is what we know on the basis of available evidence and investigations that have gone on for several centuries. There is no separate epistemic domain of “scientific knowledge”, nor is there an ontological domain of “scientific reality”. There is just the real world and all that we have come to know about it. (2) Consciousness is real and irreducible. You can’t get rid of it by reducing it to something else, as you can with color and liquidity; and you can’t eliminate it by showing that it is really an illusion, as you can with sunsets and rainbows. Now why can’t you reduce it or eliminate it? Well you can’t reduce it to something that has a third person ontology because it has a first person ontology and any such reduction would leave out this essential feature of consciousness. You cannot show that it is an illusion, like sunsets or rainbows, because if you consciously have the illusion that you are conscious then you are conscious. Eliminative reductions rest on the distinction between illusion and reality, but where the very existence of consciousness is concerned, the illusion is the reality. (3) Consciousness is entirely caused by brain processes. Professor Cheng asked me to explain “cause”. It just means what makes it happen. I was fascinated that he thinks there is a notion that might be more useful than causation, namely holistic origination, emergence and systematic supervenience. Frankly, I find those notions less clear than “cause.” A cause is something that makes something happen. Maybe in the end I will have to give up on the concept of causation, but not yet. So that is proposition number three: brains cause minds. (4) Consciousness is going on in the brain. It is a biological process located in the brain. I put this by saying it is “realized in” the brain. It is spatially locatable in the brain, and with improved imaging techniques, we are sometimes able to get fairly precise locations of certain conscious events. (5) Consciousness functions causally. If you think it does not function causally, just observe the following experiment: I consciously decide to raise my arm, and it goes up. I know all of these five with far more certainty than I know any of the views that apparently challenge them. I am confronted with a tradition that is stocked with inadequate philosophical categories: Mentalism, Materialism, Dualism, Type-Type Identity Theory, Token-Token Identity Theory, Monistic Holism, Anomalous Monism, and all the rest of it. At least at this stage of the investigation I want to forget about all of these categories and ask: How

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does consciousness work as a real part of the real world? The categories that I am trying to avoid, at least for the moment, are involved with such questions as: Is my theory an identity-theory or not? Is it reductionist? Is it dualism? That is why I had to invent another term, “Biological Naturalism” just to have a name for my theory (I discovered to my dismay that many people think you do not have a theory until you have a name for it. I lectured in Reno, Nevada, and some guy said: “What’s the name of your theory?” I didn’t have a name for it, so I said on the spur of the moment: “I call it ‘Biological Naturalism.’ ” That’s how this expression came about.) I want to pick up on some of Cheng’s challenges because I think they are very important. He says that I should make the distinction of different levels clear, and I think he is justified in making that request, so let us go through some of the steps. I can clarify the distinction between the level of neurobiology, the level of conscious intentionality and the operation of Background abilities by giving an example: I am now thirsty. This thirst in me is caused by neurobiological processes, neuron firings in my brain. In the case of thirst we actually know something about how it is caused by brain processes. But this thirst is a conscious intentional state. It involves a desire to drink, and that desire to drink causes me, in turn, to intentionally drink. But in order to be able to drink I have to have certain Background abilities. I have to know how to raise a cup of water to my mouth and drink. I do not believe there is any special problem here of a philosophical kind, though of course a lot remains to be known about the neurobiology. But the way that I have described it, I believe, is how it works in real life. More needs to be said about the neurobiological details and about how the Background abilities actually function in the operation and coordination of my bodily movements. He says correctly that there are all sorts of other levels. There is a sub-neuronal level at which you can talk about molecules and subatomic particles, and there are much higher levels, such as society, that makes drinking certain types of things permissible and others not. But the three types of phenomena I have identified are the ones that matter to me for this particular stage of the enterprise. I believe we are blinded by our philosophical tradition. We think we must first answer such questions as: Are you a materialist or a dualist? Is this an identity theory or is it reductionist? I used to think that it was just the traditional dichotomy of materialism/dualism that was the source of our difficulty, but I now think there are other confusions that

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are also responsible. I think there are at least four sources of confusion. We tend to think we know what we talk about when we use this terminology, but in general I think we do not. First, there is the confused Cartesian vocabulary of dualism, materialism, and idealism, etc. I believe we should just forget about these categories, at least initially, and try to describe the facts. And when you describe the facts you find that consciousness is real and irreducible, but at the same time is a biological process caused by and realized in our brains. So the traditional Cartesian categories are one source of our confusions. A second source of confusion is the notion of identity. We think identity is unproblematic, for example, water is identical with H2O, the Evening Star is identical with the Morning Star. These seem completely clear. But event identity is more problematic. What are the identity conditions for the Second World War, for example? It is definitely an event, but I do not know what its boundaries are exactly. Right now there is an event going on in me which has one level of description where it is a neurobiological process. It has another level where it is a conscious desire to drink. There is a single event that has these different levels of description. In the same way, a car engine firing will have levels of description that go from the explosion in the cylinder, down to the oxidization of the hydrocarbon molecules. So, identity is a source of confusion. People often ask me, is Biological Naturalism an identity theory or not? Well, if you expand the notion of identity widely enough then it certainly is. There is one single event that has these different features. So far then we have identified two sources of confusion: One is the traditional dualistic vocabulary, and the second is the notion of identity. Now a third notion is the notion of reduction. People want to know, “Is consciousness reducible or not?” And the answer is that reduction is an unclear notion. Consciousness is causally reducible, because consciousness has no causal powers in addition to those of its neuronal base. But the causal reduction does not lead to an ontological reduction, because the first person ontology cannot be reduced to a third person ontology. He asks: But what is “ontology”? The answer is: Ontology is a matter of what exists and what its mode of existence is. And finally, a fourth source of confusion is causation. In the West we have a terrible burden to bear. We have all read David Hume and we think that causation must be a matter of law-like regularities going from left to right in time. We think that every singular causal

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statement must instantiate some absolutely general causal law. But that is a mistake. There are lots of true causal statements that do not instantiate a law under any description. For example, we believe that the First World War had causes and we try to identify the causes, but what would a causal law that would assimilate the actual causes of the First World War look like? The problem is not that there are no laws at the molecular, atomic and subatomic levels. There are. But the sizes of events picked out by these laws are quite different from the size of the event picked out by the expression “the First World War” and the expression “the causes of the First World War.” I do not have time here to expand on these points further, but these, I believe, are the four sources of our confusion in the traditional mind-body problem: the dualistic categories, the notion of identity, the notion of reduction and the notion of causation. This is not the place to go into detail about what is wrong with Anomalous Monism, but my objections to the whole approach adopted by Davidson and Quine should at least be stated. One problem is that, as I understand them, neither makes a clear distinction between what is observer relative and what is observer independent. This distinction is crucial for my whole account. Actual mental states are observer independent. For example, it does not matter what other people think, I really am conscious. They talk about mental predicates, but they don’t tell us exactly what facts in the world they think make these mental predicates true of a particular person. I can’t, for example, in either Quine or Davidson, find a discussion of the nature of consciousness. Perhaps more seriously, it seems to me that what they say in arguing for anomalous monism is often false. For example, they say there can be no psycho-physical laws. But why not? The arguments they give are extremely weak for that conclusion. As we sit here, neurobiologists are trying to figure out the neurobiological basis of such things as pain and color perception. Who are we to say in advance that it is impossible to come up with any systematic laws? Here is a kind of an argument for one version of “token identity”, though I am reluctant to characterize it that way, because I think the terminology is a source of confusion. Premise 1: We know that my conscious intention in action caused my arm to go up. Premise 2: We know that anything that causes my arm to go up in that way must have specific neurobiological features such as the ability to secrete certain neurotransmitters.

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Conclusion: Therefore, my conscious intention in action must have neurobiological features. That conclusion seems to me exactly right. There is a single event which has different levels of description. Those descriptions are describing actual features of the real world. Neurobiological features at the more basic level and conscious features at the higher level. There are a number of other questions that Chung-ying Cheng asked, and I would like to address at least some of them. Question 1: Is consciousness located in the brain? Answer: Yes. He says if it were spatially and temporally organized, it would be externally observed in the brain by a third person. And the answer is there is a sense in which its objective features can be observed. This is what we are doing with imaging techniques. The observations are very indirect but what we are observing is consciousness in its electrochemical properties. But of course the actual feeling that goes with the conscious state is not observable because it has a first person ontology. Question 2: What is the Background and why is it there? Answer: I have given a number of arguments for the Background and I cannot go into much detail here, but it is important to state that the Background is a set of capacities realized in the brain and perhaps in the rest of the nervous system. My ability to ski, for example, is a Background ability. There are a number of points where it seems to me he misunderstands my views in fairly serious ways. I cannot resist calling attention to one of these. About my criticisms of what I call “strong artificial intelligence” he says that I conclude “consciousness and mind cannot be imitated or simulated”(p20). But that is not my view it all. It seems to me quite possible that we could give up perfect “imitation” or “simulation” of consciousness and mind. The point is that the imitation and the simulation by themselves are not duplications. A computer program might stimulate some piece of intelligent behavior perfectly but it does not follow that the computer has any mental states at all. I want to repeat my gratitude and admiration for Professor Chungying Cheng’s paper. I think it goes to many of the central issues in my philosophy of mind. I have not had the space to answer all of his questions, but I at least tried to clarify my general approach.

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CHAPTER THREE

WÚ-WÉI, THE BACKGROUND, AND INTENTIONALITY Chris Fraser 1. Introduction Among John Searle’s many contributions to the philosophy of mind is his attempt to articulate the role of non-intentional capacities—knowhow, skills, abilities to engage in practices—in constituting intentionality. Searle’s attention to such capacities—which remains relatively rare among major philosophers of mind—makes his work particularly well-suited for constructive engagement with Chinese thought. For such capacities stand at the heart of mainstream Chinese conceptions of knowledge and action. Classical Chinese thinkers consistently explained knowledge in terms of practical know-how, and they conceived of action primarily in terms of ability, habit, and skill, rather than pieces of practical reasoning and the individual acts that issue from them. Searle refers to the various capacities, abilities, and know-how that enable intentional states to function as “the Background”, the capitalization indicating that the word is a technical term.1 He calls his account of the role of non-intentional capacities in intentionality the “thesis of the Background”. We can summarize the thesis as the claim that all intentional phenomena—such as meaning, understanding, belief, desire, experience, and action—function only within a set of non-intentional capacities that play an indispensable role in determining their intentional content, and thus their status as intentional phenomena.2 In and of itself, for instance, an utterance is merely a pattern of sound waves, meaning

1 John R. Searle (1992), The Rediscovery of the Mind, Cambridge: MIT Press, p. 175. 2 Searle’s most careful, precise statement of the thesis is: “All conscious intentionality—all thought, perception, understanding, etc.—determines conditions of satisfaction only relative to a set of capacities that are not and could not be part of that very conscious state. The actual content by itself is insufficient to determine the conditions of satisfaction” (Searle, 1992, p. 189). For an earlier version, see Searle (1983), Intentionality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143. Searle’s most informative accounts of

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nothing in particular. Utterances have meaning only in some context of use. But any such context will involve a range of non-intentional, causal capacities of the speaker and audience, from brute perceptual capacities to the know-how or abilities that enable us to participate in complex social practices. These capacities are aspects of the Background that enable particular utterances to have the meaning they do. One concept in Chinese thought naturally called to mind by reflecting on the role of non-intentional capacities in facilitating various sorts of activities is the Daoist concept of wú-wéi (“non-action” or “non-doing”), which refers, among other things, to a sort of non-intentional response to the particular situation. In this essay, I will try to show how Searle’s thesis of the Background can help us clarify what is plausible in the notion of wú-wéi, while at the same time shedding light on the kind of immediate, automatic activity that might originally have inspired this concept. Just as important, however, his work yields a convincing explanation of why the ideal of wú-wéi as expressed in early Daoist texts is untenable.3 Searle’s theory of intentionality helps us to clarify how automatic, wú-wéi-like responses are an indispensable part of action, but also shows why it is a mistake to think such responses could func-

the Background are at (1992, pp. 175–96) and Searle (1995), The Construction of Social Reality, New York: The Free Press, pp. 129–47. 3 Interestingly, the aspects of Searle’s account of intentionality that provide this explanation are to some extent just those he has applied in rebutting criticism from Hubert Dreyfus, whose Merleau-Ponty-inspired theory of “motor intentionality” is in some respects akin to a version of wú-wéi. I do not have space here to explore the Searle-Dreyfus debate, but instead refer the reader to the series of articles in which it has been carried out. These include, on Dreyfus’s side, Jerome Wakefield and Hubert Dreyfus (1990), “Intentionality and the Phenomenology of Action”, in E. LePore and R. Van Gulick, eds., John Searle and His Critics, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 259–70; Hubert Dreyfus (1993), “Heidegger’s Critique of the Husserl/Searle Account of Intentionality”, Social Research 60.1: pp. 17–38; Dreyfus (2000), “Reply to John Searle”, in M. Wrathall and J. Malpas, eds., Heidegger, Coping, and Cognitive Science, Cambridge, Ma.: MIT, pp. 323–37; Dreyfus (2001), “Phenomenological Description Versus Rational Reconstruction”, Revue Internationale de Philosophie 217: pp. 181–96; Dreyfus (no date), “The Primacy of Phenomenology over Logical Analysis”, available through Dreyfus’s course web pages at the web site of the Department of Philosophy, University of California at Berkeley. Searle’s responses have included his (1990), “Response: The Background of Intentionality and Action”, in E. LePore and R. Van Gulick, eds., John Searle and His Critic, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 289–99; Searle (2000), “The Limits of Phenomenology”, in M. Wrathall and J. Malpas, eds., Heidegger, Coping, and Cognitive Science, Cambridge, Ma.: MIT, pp. 71–92; Searle (2001), “Neither Phenomenological Description nor Rational Reconstruction: Reply to Dreyfus”, Revue Internationale de Philosophie 217, pp. 277–97; and Searle (2005), “The Phenomenological Illusion”, M. Reicher and J.C. Marek, eds., Experience and Analysis, 317–36, Wien: Kirchberg am Wechsel.

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tion autonomously, outside of the context provided by intentionality and agency. Sections 2 and 3 of the paper rehearse aspects of Searle’s thesis of the Background and his theory of intentional action, wrapping up with a summary of elements of his theory particularly relevant to understanding and evaluating the notion of wú-wéi. (Readers familiar with Searle’s work are invited to jump straight to the summary at the end of section 3.) Section 4 presents an interpretation of the ideal of wú-wéi as found in ancient Daoist texts, and section 5 an account of possible motivations for this ideal. Section 6 takes us out of the context of ancient thought, presenting what I think might be a tenable, revised conception of wú-wéi, which I call a “wú-wéi-like” state. This is the major constructive (and speculative) part of the paper. Section 7 concludes by turning back from this attempt at constructive engagement to critique the conception of wú-wéi found in the original texts. 2. Searle on the Background The thesis of the Background is part of Searle’s general theory of intentionality, the characteristic of mental states of being “about” or “directed at” something outside themselves and thus having content.4 For Searle, intentional states comprise a content and psychological mode. Roughly, the content indicates what the state is about, and the mode indicates the type of state it is. The same content—that I drink coffee, for instance—can be part of different types of states. I can believe, desire, hope, or intend that I drink coffee, among other possible coffee-related states. Some intentional states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions, have contents that are propositional in form, as the content of the four states just mentioned is.5 Other intentional states may have contents consisting of representations only of things, rather than entire propositions, as when I merely imagine a cup of coffee without actually desiring to drink one. States with propositional contents normally have what Searle calls conditions of satisfaction, which are the conditions under

4 For a quick summary of Searle’s theory of intentionality, see Searle (2001), Rationality in Action, Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, pp. 34 ff. 5 As Searle points out (2001, p. 36), this is not to suggest that the states are directed at propositions. They are directed objects or states-of-affairs, but their content takes a propositional form.

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which the content of the state coincides with how things are in the world. For instance, a belief is satisfied when true; an intention, when carried out. The conditions of satisfaction of propositional intentional states are also associated with directions of fit. Beliefs have what Searle calls a “mind-to-world” direction of fit. Their function is to represent how things are in the world, and a belief is satisfied—it successfully fulfills its function—if and only if its content fits the way the world is. Desires and intentions have a “world-to-mind” direction of fit. They do not represent how things are in the world, but how we want them to be (desires) or how we will try to make them (intentions).6 Searle was led to the thesis of the Background as a way to explain the holistic and non-self-interpreting nature of intentional content (1983, pp. 19ff.). Intentional states have conditions of satisfaction—or content—partly by virtue of being embedded in a Network of other potential intentional states with interrelated contents. Moreover, they have determinate conditions of satisfaction only by functioning against a Background of non-intentional capacities.7 These capacities—in effect, aspects of the causal dispositions of the agent, considered as a neurophysiological system—are what enable intentional contents to function in the various ways they do in intentional phenomena such as language and action. To understand the meaning of even the simplest sentences, for instance, we must employ a range of Background capacities. For without them, Searle suggests, “there is a radical underdetermination of what is said by the literal meaning of the sentence” (1995, p. 131). Consider the sentence “She gave him her key and he opened the door.” Consistent with the literal meaning of the sentence, we could take this to mean that the key was a signal for the man to bash the door down with his head or that the key was a large, heavy tool that he used to batter a hole in the door. What rules out such fantastic but still literal interpretations is “a certain sort of knowledge about how the world

6 A third direction of fit is what Searle calls the “null direction”, which is characteristic of emotions and other intentional states whose function is neither to represent how the world is nor how we want it to be. In having such states we simply assume that their content matches the world. 7 Searle originally took the Network—the holistic web of intentional states necessary for any single intentional state to function—to be distinct from the Background. Later, in response to difficulties concerning the notion of an unconscious mental state, he revised his view to treat the Network as one aspect of the Background. See Searle (1992, pp. 186 ff.).

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works . . . [and] a certain set of abilities for coping with the world, and those abilities are not and could not be included as part of the literal meaning of the sentence” (1995, p. 131). This know-how and these abilities play an essential role in fixing the conditions of satisfaction for the sentence and enabling us to understand and use it. In a similar way, other Background capacities are a necessary condition for having and carrying out intentions. Merely to have the intention to make myself a cup of coffee, I must have the physical capacity to walk to the kitchen, hold a cup, spoon out the coffee, and so forth, none of which is or could be part of the content of my intention (2001, p. 58). All of the non-intentional capacities that enable me to understand language and formulate and carry out intentions—to cite just two sorts of intentional phenomena—are part of the Background. 3. Intentional Action and the Background Intentional action for Searle is a species of intentional causation, a notion that for him refers to any causal relation between an intentional state and its conditions of satisfaction.8 In successful action, a certain kind of intentional state—an intention—causes its own conditions of satisfaction to be realized. More precisely, successful action is a case of causally self-referential, mind-to-world intentional causation. It is a form of mind-to-world causation because an intention can be satisfied only by causing facts about the world to fit its content. It is a form of self-referential causation because a condition of satisfaction of an intention is that, by causing itself to be carried out, the intention directly cause its own satisfaction conditions to be realized.9 (If the world were to come to fit the propositional content of the intention by some other cause, this fit would not be the result of the agent’s action and so would not count as satisfying the intention.) In premeditated action, the agent typically deliberates by considering various intentional states—paradigmatically beliefs and desires—and then reaches a decision, which marks the formation of a prior intention.

8 The summary of Searle’s views in this section is based on Searle, 2001, pp. 40–50, and Searle, 1983, pp. 83–98. 9 By contrast, some desires can be satisfied without the desire itself playing any causal role in producing its own conditions of satisfaction, as when my desire that Tiger Woods win the Masters is satisfied by his winning.

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(Prior intentions may also be formed without deliberation.) The prior intention is a representation of the whole action, which comprises an intention-in-action and the relevant bodily movements. The conditions of satisfaction of the prior intention are that carrying out that intention cause the action. When the time comes to act, the prior intention causes the intention-in-action, which causes the bodily movement. The conditions of satisfaction of the intention-in-action are that carrying out the intention-in-action cause the appropriate movement and thereby succeed in causing the facts about the world to fit the content of the intention (1983, pp. 98–99; 2001, p. 45).10 The intention-in-action may or may not be a conscious state (2001, p. 47; 1983, p. 92). When it is, the agent is aware of it as the experience of acting or of trying to do something, or, perhaps more precisely, as the experience of one’s intention being the cause of one’s own purposeful movement.11 Not all action is premeditated. We often act spontaneously, as when we just suddenly switch on the car radio while driving. In such cases, action is caused directly by an intention-in-action, without a prior intention. Subsidiary actions performed in the course of carrying out some complex action are also often performed without any prior intentions. For instance, suppose I form and carry out a prior intention to travel to my office. This involves taking a shuttle bus half way, walking to

10 The content of most intentions will not refer merely to bodily movements, but to events or states of affairs that the agent aims to accomplish by performing the movements. Hence typically “conditions of satisfaction of our intentions go beyond the bodily movements” (Searle, 1983, p. 99). In cases where an agent has an intention-in-action but fails to achieve the conditions of satisfaction—e.g., intending to make a basketball shot, I throw the ball but miss—the agent has tried but failed (Searle, 2001, p. 45). Having an intention-in-action corresponds to “trying”. 11 Searle characterizes the experience of acting as “a presentation of its conditions of satisfaction” (Searle, 1983, p. 88). That is, since one of the conditions of satisfaction of an intention-in-action is that the execution of that very intention bring about the action, the experience of one’s intention causing one’s movement is a conscious presentation to the agent of the conditions of satisfaction of the intention. (By analogy, veridical visual experience is a presentation of its conditions of satisfaction—the state of affairs that causes the experience.) Concerning this point, see Searle’s discussion of Wilder Penfield’s experiments in which involuntary bodily movements were caused in patients (Searle, 2001, p. 64; 1983, p. 89). Presumably what the subjects in the experiments were missing, which made their movements involuntary, was the experience of causing one’s own movement. Searle suggests (2001, p. 47), borrowing a phrase from William James, that the experience of intention-in-action is the feeling of “effort”. I tend to resist this suggestion, however, because it seems to me that we can also consciously experience action as effortless, though still under our control.

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a different bus stop, then taking a minibus the rest of the way. Being familiar with the route, I never form prior intentions concerning the action of disembarking from one bus and walking to the next. I just do so automatically, without thinking about it. Yet clearly my walking between the bus stops is intentional. Searle would say that in this case I have an intention-in-action, though no prior intention (2001, p. 45; 1983, p. 84).12 Indeed, Searle holds that any time we are acting at all, we have an intention-in-action; this is what makes our bodily movement an action, rather than merely an involuntary or reflex movement (1983, p. 107). This claim may seem mysterious, given that much of the time we may not be consciously thinking about our intention-in-action. But it is just a way of capturing the ontological point that whenever we act, we are doing something, and not merely being pushed along by our environment. So long as we are doing anything at all, our neurophysiological system is in some sense directed at fulfilling certain conditions of satisfaction, and thus we have an intention-in-action. Moreover, even when we are not consciously aware of our intention-in-action, we always have the capacity to produce a statement expressing it, as when we are interrupted and asked what we are doing. To complete complex, temporally extended patterns of action, such as my trip to the office or writing a book, we must maintain an intention-in-action over time. Provided we do, both the prior intention, if there is one, and the intention-in-action remain causally effective throughout the action, even though in some cases the entire complex action could take years to complete. In such cases, we will at times have no conscious experience of our intentions, since intentions-in-action need not be conscious. Yet these intentions remain “in force” so long as we continue the pattern of action aimed at carrying them out. In this they are analogous to software programs running in the background

12 Borrowing a useful concept introduced by Arthur Danto, we can say that for me traveling to the office is a basic action. (See, e.g., Arthur C. Danto (1965), “Basic Actions”, American Philosophical Quarterly 2, pp. 141–48.) Searle discusses basic actions at Searle, 1983, p. 100. Briefly, a basic action is one that an agent can intend to do without having to intend to do any other actions as means of carrying out the first intention. For instance, a skilled typist can intend to type a sentence, without intending separately to type each letter in the sentence. Someone unfamiliar with a keyboard might instead need to intend to type each letter one by one. For the skilled typist, typing a sentence can be a basic action (indeed, typing a whole letter or essay might be). For the beginner, typing a single letter might be a basic action.

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on a computer while most of the machine’s processing power is being used for other tasks. Such patterns of action highlight an important role of the Background in enabling action. We already mentioned one role of the Background in action: To have the intention to do any action A—and thus to be able to carry out that intention and do A—an agent must understand what A is and must have the know-how and physical capacities necessary to perform A. The relevant understanding and abilities all depend on Background capacities. In particular, it is worth emphasizing the crucial role of the Background in the actual physical execution of intentions. Searle emphasizes that Background capacities are causal structures, the locus of “a certain category of neurophysiological causation” (1995, p. 129). As such, the Background is what explains how intentions can cause action—how the agent’s neurophysiological system is able to translate intentional states into movements of the body.13 But beyond this role, the Background also determines what counts as “an action” and at what level we exert intentional control over our actions. What I have in mind is the role of Background skills and capacities in tying together subsidiary actions to form complex actions and extended patterns of action. Searle’s favorite example of this role of Background capacities concerns learning to ski (1983, pp. 150–51; 1992, p. 195). The novice skier follows explicit instructions about what movements to make while skiing. She learns to lean forward, keep her weight on the downhill ski, and so forth. The first-day beginner probably requires a separate intention to follow each of these instructions, and each movement she makes on the slope—each time she shifts her weight to turn while snowplowing, for instance—might count as a separate action, perhaps even with a distinct prior intention. But as the skier acquires skill, the situation changes in two ways. First, repeated practice in following the instructions leads her to develop physical capacities that, as Searle says, “enable the body to take over” (1983, p. 150). The skier no longer follows the instructions, consciously or unconsciously. Instead, she has developed Background capacities that enable her to perform in conformity with the instructions

13 Indeed, forming a prior intention probably just is a neurophysiological process of priming certain neural pathways so that the appropriate conditions for commencing the action will trigger bodily movement.

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without intentionally following them.14 (She is still acting intentionally, but no longer following the instructions intentionally.) Indeed, eventually her Background capacities enable her to perform more efficaciously than would be possible by following explicit, codified instructions, as she learns to smoothly and automatically adjust to complex, changing conditions while speeding down the hill (1983, p. 151). Second, as the skier becomes an expert, many of the separate intentions she had to make as a novice simply drop out of the picture, and the unit or level of action at which she forms intentions changes dramatically. As Searle says, “the beginning skier may require an intention to put weight on the downhill ski, an intermediate skier has the skill that enables him to have the intention ‘turn left,’ [and ] a really expert skier may simply have the intention ‘ski this slope’ ” (1992, p. 195). Searle summarizes this point as “intentionality tends to rise to the level of the Background ability.” The more advanced and comprehensive our Background skills and abilities become, the broader and more general the content of our intentions may be. To sum up, the following aspects of Searle’s theory of intentionality and the Background are particularly pertinent to appreciating and evaluating the concept of wú-wéi. 1. Intentional action does not require a prior intention (2001, p. 45; 1983, p. 84), nor a conscious intention-in-action (2001, p. 47; 1983, p. 92). We can act immediately and spontaneously, without being conscious of what we are trying to do. 2. But all action contains an intention-in-action as a component (1983, p. 107). This is what distinguishes action from random or involuntary bodily movement: it is directed at conditions of satisfaction, and this directedness is something the agent causes and controls. 3. Through training and practice an agent can develop Background skills and abilities that enable her to act in accordance with rulegoverned practices without intentionally following the rules either consciously or unconsciously (1995, pp. 137–47).

14 As should be clear, this is one application of Searle’s “Background causation” account of the role of rules in the causal explanation of human behavior (1995, pp. 137–47). Searle’s approach to rule-following behavior strikes me as one of the richest, potentially most fruitful aspects of his conception of the Background.

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4. “Intentionality rises to the level of the Background abilities.”15 The focus or content of an agent’s prior intentions and intentionsin-action is relative to the scope and level of her Background competence. An inexpert agent may experience a complex chain or pattern of activity as a series of distinct actions each requiring a separate intention. A skilled expert may experience it as a single action, carried out with a single, high-level intention. Her Background capacities are so highly developed that all the subsidiary actions needed to carry out the complex action occur automatically, without the need for further thought or intention. In my view, philosophers tend to underestimate the amount of everyday activity that occurs in this way. Very much of our daily activity is performed automatically, as part of complex, higher-level actions or patterns of activity. 5. Intentionality “reaches all the way down to the bottom of the [ Background] ability” (1992, p. 195; 1990, p. 293). Though an expert agent need not form a separate intention for each subsidiary action performed as part of a complex, higher-level action, all her voluntary subsidiary actions are still intentional. Their role in carrying out the higher-level intention means that it covers all of them. This feature of intentionality explains how we can carry out complex, temporally extended patterns of action with only a single intention. For instance, an agent might form an intention to improve his fitness by working out daily and thereby develop the habit of automatically going to the gym every evening at a set time without forming any further intentions. 6. The Background “consists of mental phenomena” (1983, p. 154) and manifests itself only when there is intentional content (1992, p. 196). The Background itself is not intentional, but it is not independent of intentionality, either. In effect, it is a label for the complex set of capacities needed to produce intentional phenomena, including action. It functions only when intentional phenomena, such as perception and action, are present, and thus if it is functioning, such phenomena are occurring. So even when an agent’s actions seem to be generated directly by the Background—as is the case with automatic, habitual actions in which the agent has no conscious

15 John Searle (1990), “Response: The Background of Intentionality and Action”, in E. LePore and R. Van Gulick, eds., John Searle and His Critics (Blackwell, 1990), p. 293. See also Searle, 1992, p. 195.

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intentions—they are nevertheless fully intentional. They remain actions, caused by the agent’s mental capacities, within the agent’s control, and for which the agent is responsible. Another way of getting at this point is to say that the Background is a name for certain neurophysiological, causal capacities of the sort of creature that acts, rather than merely moves.16 For such creatures, any voluntary movement at all invokes these capacities and thus is an action, which is intentional at some level of description. There is no such thing as action in which “the Background is so to speak present all the way up to the top, and there is no Intentionality” (1990, p. 294). 4. Wú-Wéi Wú-wéi is among the most prominent normative ideals presented in the Lǎo-Zî Dào-Dé-Jīng (also known, in an older romanization, as the Lao-tzu or the Tao Te Ching), and it plays a role in parts of the Zhuāng-Zî (also Chuang-tzu), Guǎn-Zî, and Huái-Nán-Zî. The word wú means roughly “absence” or “without”. Literally, then, wú-wéi is the absence of wéi, a word that means roughly “to do” or “to act”. Wéi probably refers to action undertaken intentionally, for some motive of the agent. The Mohist Canons explicate wéi as “intentional conduct” (zhì-xíng). Xíng, the word rendered here as “conduct”, refers to behavior, conduct, practice, or carrying out a plan. This suggests that a core component of wú-wéi is the absence of any purposeful pattern of activity directed by zhì, a word that refers to intention, purpose, motivation, or determination. Generally, then, we can hypothesize that wú-wéi will refer to not undertaking action intentionally, for the agent’s own reasons. Doing nothing at all—literal inaction—would be wú-wéi, as would non-intentional or non-purposive activity, such as movement due to spontaneous reflexes or to the sympathetic nervous system. When we examine the Dào-Dé-Jīng and other early texts, this initial interpretive hypothesis turns out to be a good first step toward explaining the conceptual role of wú-wéi, though many details remain to be

16 I do not know where to draw the line between creatures that do and do not fit into this category, but I am sure that it includes all primates and most other higher mammals. It certainly includes my two cats.

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filled in.17 The features of wú-wéi as characterized in the Dào-Dé-Jīng cluster around roughly three general ideas: (i) the absence of individual initiative, judgment, motivation, or ambition; along with (ii) the absence or minimization of the influence of cultural artifice, education, values, social norms, commands, or instructions; and, as a result of the absence of the factors in (i) and (ii), (iii) the achievement of certain practical outcomes. For convenience, we can assign headings to these three sorts of features based on prominent concepts in the text. The first two correspond to psychological states the text valorizes: (i) stillness or calm ( jìng) and (ii) being plain (sù) or unadorned ( pú, sometimes rendered “the uncarved block”). The third refers to the ideal state of affairs that results from attaining wú-wéi: (iii) being “self-so” or “so-of-itself ” (zì-rán). (i) The “stillness” group of features links wú-wéi to the absence of initiative, judgment, motivation, or ambition. Wú-wéi involves a form of stillness or calm ( jìng), which follows from and is reflected in the absence or reduction of desire ( yù), intention (zhì), thought (sī ), choosing or decision (q·), grasping or commitment (zhí ), and projects or affairs (shì).18 (ii) The “plainness” group contrasts wú-wéi with study or learning (xué), knowing or cleverness (zhī, zhì), and cultural adornment (wén). This group also links wú-wéi to namelessness (wú míng) and the absence of speech ( yán). Namelessness opposes wú-wéi to education, culture, and norms instilled through socialization processes employing language— which is to say, most such processes from very young childhood on. For in the early Chinese theoretical framework, names are associated with

17 I will ignore one family of uses of wú-wéi, the use in early Chinese “legalist” or Realpolitik texts to refer to the sovereign literally “doing nothing”, while entrusting all administrative tasks to subordinates. Several passages in the Zhuāng-Zî also express this conception of wú-wéi. 18 See, for instance, Dào-Dé-Jīng chapters 3, 10, 19, 29, 37, 48, 57, 63, and 64. (Citations are to chapters in the traditional text.)

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learned normative roles: naming someone or something ‘x’ determines how that person or thing should be treated and what duties the person is responsible for. Speech ( yán) includes teaching, commands, inspiring tales of exemplary conduct, and probably any motivation instilled through culture or linguistic communication, including such things as advertising and public service announcements. The rejection of names and speech probably also entails a rejection of conceptualization in favor of a sort of direct, uncontaminated response to the world. (Thus the claim that the “five colors make people’s eyes blind,” for instance.19) We might say that whereas the features of the “stillness” group amount to a rejection of intentions, those in the “plainness” group amount (among other things) to a rejection of the capacity for intentional states that require language. (iii) The “self-so” group refers to outcomes of wú-wéi both for the individual agent and as a political policy. This group emphasizes two main ideas. First, achieving the state of wú-wéi by removing the factors in the first two groups results in activity that conforms to natural processes, thus allowing things to happen “of themselves”, without being produced or interfered with by the agent. Thus when the ruler practices wú-wéi, things “transform of themselves” (zì-huà), “settle themselves” (zì-dìng), and “rectify themselves” (zì-zhèng). Second, wú-wéi is practically efficacious: it tends to yield practical success, or at least prevent failure. The claims here go beyond the obvious point that we cannot fail to achieve our aims when we have none to begin with. For the text claims that though one takes no action (wú-wéi ), nothing is left undone (wú-bù-wéi ), and that only by wú-wéi or undertaking no affairs (wú-shì ) can one govern (zhì ) the world and achieve sociopolitical “order”. Wúwéi is cited as a way to avoid failure (bài ) and loss (shī ) and to achieve success (chéng).20 Wú-wéi is attained by emptying (xū) the heart of desire and motivation through a process described as “loss” (s·n).21 Presumably, the notion of “loss” is intended to resolve one of the paradoxical aspects of wú-wéi. If wú-wéi is the absence of any action motivated by the agent’s intentions or aims, then we cannot intentionally pursue wú-wéi, on pain of thereby

19 For this claim, see Dào-Dé-Jīng chapter 12. See also chapters 2, 3, 10, 18, 19, 32, 37, 43, 48, 64, and 65. 20 See Dào-Dé-Jīng chapters 2, 3, 7, 10, 17, 29, 37, 43, 47, 48, 57, 63, 64, 65, and 75. 21 See Dào-Dé-Jīng chapters 3, 16, and 48.

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preventing ourselves from achieving it.22 By contrast, if the process of achieving wú-wéi is not one of actively, intentionally purging our hearts of desires, aims, and projects, but of somehow just passively “losing” these, then the paradox might seem to be circumvented (though wú-wéi may remain paradoxical in other respects). The theoretically interesting passages in the Zhuāng-Zî that mention wú-wéi—all of which fall outside the so-called “inner” chapters considered by some scholars to form the anthology’s core—emphasize emptiness, stillness, tranquility, and the non-intentional character of natural processes, such as water welling up from a spring, the sky’s covering the world, the earth’s holding it up, and the shining of the sun and moon. The association of wú-wéi with natural processes underscores part of the normative justification for wú-wéi: by intentionally acting on their own initiative, agents separate themselves from the Way (dào), the natural process of the cosmos. Wú-wéi ensures that we flow along with the Way. “Arts of the Heart”, Book 36 of the Guǎn-Zî, helpfully contextualizes wú-wéi as follows: Thus the gentleman is not dazzled by likes, not compelled by dislikes. Tranquil and wú-wéi, he eliminates knowledge and reasons. His responding is not something he sets up; his movements are not something he selects. Error lies in employing things oneself; fault lies in change and transformation. Thus a ruler who has the Way, at rest he seems to lack consciousness, and in responding to things he seems to be their mate.23

22 The paradox of wú-wéi described here—which is only one of several paradoxical aspects of wú-wéi—is distinct from that discussed by Edward Slingerland (2003), Effortless Action, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Slingerland understands wú-wéi mainly in terms of an absence of effort, rather than an absence of intention or motivation, and so construes the paradox as the problem of how one can “try not to try”, i.e., exert effort to not exert effort. In my view, Slingerland confuses two senses of “trying”, “trying” in the sense of acting with an intention and in the sense of exerting effort to achieve an end. (Not all intentional action is effortful, and not all effortless action or movement is unintentional. Moreover, there is nothing paradoxical about intending to perform an action effortlessly.) Partly because of this confusion, he mischaracterizes wú-wéi and overlooks the deeper paradox associated with wú-wéi, that of how one can act without intention, given that intentionality is a defining feature of action. (I discuss Slingerland’s interpretation of wú-wéi at length in a forthcoming review in Philosophy East and West 57:1 (2007).) 23 See Tang Xiaochun and Li Zhenxing (1995), Xīn-Yì-Guǎn-Zî-Dú-Bîn [ Newly Explicated Guan Zi Reader], Taipei: San Min, vol. 2, p. 668. This and all other translations are my own.

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To this an internal commentary adds: Tranquil and wú-wéi, he eliminates knowledge and reasons” describes being empty (xū) and plain (sù). “His responding is not something he sets up; his movements are not something he selects,” this describes going along with things ( yīn). Going along with things is relinquishing oneself and taking things as one’s guide/model. Sensing and only then responding, this is “not something he sets up”. Movement that follows the [natural, proper] patterns, this is “not something he selects.

Elsewhere the commentary tells us that “the Way of wú-wéi is going along with things ( yīn).” This accords with a description from the Han era Huái-Nán-Zî, which explains that “ ‘wú-wéi’ refers to not acting in advance of things. ‘Nothing is not done’ (wú-bù-wéi ) refers to what is done in going along with things.”24 Another Huái-Nán-Zî passage clarifies that “ ‘wú-wéi’ does not refer to being inert and unmoving, but to having nothing issue from the self.”25 To sum up, wú-wéi refers in some contexts to non-interference with things by literally “doing nothing”. In other contexts, in its most literal use, it seems to refer to a sort of untrained, uncultured, non-linguistic, unmotivated, unpremeditated or unplanned, non-intentional reaction to the particular situation, in which the agent empties or relinquishes himself and flows along with things. Wú-wéi activity conforms to the natural patterns of the world and for that reason is efficacious. 5. The Philosophical Motivation for Wú-Wéi Wú-wéi as I’ve just characterized it may seem nearly unrecognizable as a form of human activity at all. Why then did some early Daoists valorize it? They may have been motivated by a number of philosophical and religious beliefs. First, they were working in a philosophical context in which knowledge, reasoning, judgment, and action were all explained in terms of the exercise of practical abilities. For classical Chinese thinkers, knowledge is explained by appeal to know-how, specifically the ability to distinguish (biàn) different kinds (lèi ) of things and respond to them

24 See He Ning (1998), Huái-Nán-Zî-Jí-Shì [Collected Commentaries on Huái-NánZî ], Beijing: Zhonghua, Vol. I, p. 48. 25 He Ning (1998), Vol. II, p. 661.

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correctly—for instance, by doing and praising good acts and avoiding and condemning bad ones. Distinguishing different kinds of things is in effect a type of pattern recognition, and in early Chinese thought the same basic process of pattern recognition that explains knowledge is taken as the basis for explanations of perception, judgment, reasoning (and thus deliberation), and action. Moreover, action is treated mainly at the level of patterns of skilled activity, not individual acts issuing from individual pieces of practical reasoning. These features of early Chinese philosophers’ conceptual scheme made it easy to view the perfected agent as someone for whom reasoning, judgment, and action effectively collapse into an ongoing process of perception and skilled response.26 Second, the writers of the texts probably held a deeply romantic, quasi-religious vision of the cosmos as possessing an inherent normative order or Way (Dào), from which intentional activity and cultural artifice separate us. Other thinkers, such as the Mohists, had attempted to ground their normative ethics in the cosmic normative order exemplified by tiān (the sky, heaven, nature) itself. Such attempts raise the question of why, if such a natural order exists, human beings do not automatically conform to it, since after all we too are part of nature. The answer to this question given by some Daoist texts is that we can conform to it automatically, if only we eliminate interference from cultural influences and our own value judgments and desires, which are inherently partial and incomplete, and thus prevent us from flowing along with the comprehensive unity of the Way. Another aspect of this romantic vision was the model provided by natural processes. Tiān (the sky, nature) takes no action, yet natural cycles proceed and living things grow and reproduce “by themselves”. Analogously, ideal human activity ought to be something that just occurs “by itself ”, as an aspect of natural processes. Third, the political aspects of wú-wéi may have been motivated partly by the many disastrous, heavy-handed political, social, and military policies adopted by despotic rulers during the chaotic Warring States era, when the primary sources for the doctrine of wú-wéi

26 A preliminary articulation of this conceptual scheme is presented in my Ph.D. dissertation, Chris Fraser (1999), Similarity and Standards: Language, Cognition, and Action in Chinese and Western Thought, University of Hong Kong. A more well-developed, but partial version of my account is found in Chris Fraser (2002), “Mohism”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/).

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were written. Against a background of frequent, catastrophic wars and disruptive interference in people’s social, economic, and personal lives, a laissez-faire political program of “doing nothing”, naïve as it sounds, may have seemed prudent and enlightened—indeed, to some extent it genuinely would have been preferable to the available alternatives. The distressing social and psychological consequences of untrammeled desire and ambition in the turbulent, rapidly transforming social and political climate of the era probably also inspired the conservative advice to reduce desires and “do nothing”. At some level this advice is akin to a contemporary social critic suggesting that we can enhance our well-being by moving out of the fast lane, being less ambitious and covetous, and living a quieter, more focused life. Fourth, to some early Chinese thinkers, the normative ethical and political debates between leading schools of thought such as the Confucians, Mohists, and their opponents seemed interminable and in principle irresolvable. On the one hand, each side’s premises seemed to beg the question against the other’s. On the other, some thinkers seem to have become convinced that there simply are no correct general ethical norms (I will return to this point in the next section). Yet in practice we often have the experience of acting appropriately, without invoking explicit, general ethical norms, by responding immediately to the particular situation. This experience may have inspired advocates of wú-wéi to believe that the ethically perfected agent is one who simply “reacts to”, or “goes along with”, the particular situation in a natural, appropriate way, without conscious deliberation, judgment, or intention. Wú-wéi may thus have seemed to provide an answer to normative issues. Finally, the smooth, flowing, automatic response to the environment characteristic of perfected skill usually involves no deliberation and often no conscious intention at all. In contexts in which skill mastery allows us to “let the body take over” (Searle 1983, p. 150), the advice to be “empty”, “self-so”, and “do nothing” is overstated, but not utterly preposterous. (I will return to this point below.) Though this suggestion is speculative, I suspect that advocates of wú-wéi were impressed by the phenomenon of skill mastery and extrapolated from it in two ways. On the one hand, in light of their metaphysical and religious beliefs, these thinkers could easily have thought that wú-wéi was an accurate characterization and a reliable means of aesthetically excellent, normatively correct action in all contexts, not only those involving patterns of action in which the agent has become expert after long practice and

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habituation. At the same time, they may have thought that the scope of skill mastery could be expanded to comprise all of our activity. Life as a whole would then form a single flow of skilled action that the ideal agent could perform in the same immediate, automatic way that you or I ride a bicycle or drive a car. 6. A Contemporary Construal of Wú-Wéi As a charitable philosophical approach to understanding wú-wéi, I want to suggest that at least some of the descriptions of it in ancient texts are a roughly accurate, though exaggerated characterization of the sort of automatic action that occurs when an agent relying mainly on Background capacities, without prior intentions or conscious intentions-in-action, performs a series of subsidiary or habitual actions as part of a larger pattern of action, such as performance of a skill.27 In taking wú-wéi to be this sort of “automatic action”, I am characterizing it more narrowly than the original texts do. This proposal does not cover all aspects of wú-wéi. In particular, it does not cover the political aspects, nor the use of wú-wéi to describe processes of nature. Moreover, it requires that we jettison religious and metaphysical aspects of wú-wéi that the writers of the Dào-Dé-Jīng and other texts would have regarded as core parts of the concept, such as how it is action driven by the Dào of the cosmos. This characterization also discards most of the elements of wú-wéi having to do with “plainness” and lack of

27 I want to be careful here not to suggest that this sort of activity is wholly subsumed by the Background. The sort of activity that wú-wéi theorists had in mind might have included not only pure Background activity, but any sort of action that phenomenologically appears not to issue from conscious deliberation or judgment, especially deliberation or judgment based on standards or practices involving a high degree of artifice. Besides activity issuing directly from non-intentional Background capacities, this description might cover other sorts of automatic, non-deliberate responses to particular situations, such as action issuing from intentions that have settled into the status of dispositions. Consider, for instance, intentions to perform certain long-term or habitually repeated actions, such as eating a certain diet in order to lose weight. Such intentions can become part of our dispositional structure, but they still have intentional content and so are not purely Background capacities. Another example might be actions that issue from spontaneous, unconscious intentions-in-action, such as when I just naturally pet my cat after he jumps into my lap. One difficulty in pinning down just what sort of activity wú-wéi refers to, of course, is that the ancient sources are imprecise about what exactly wú-wéi is. To my knowledge, they give no concrete examples aside from actually just doing nothing at all.

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education, the second of the three sets of features identified in section 4. But it does retain a sense of wú-wéi activity as guided by the world rather than by the agent’s intentions. I will argue that the doctrine of wú-wéi as presented in the texts is untenable—in effect, a philosopher’s fantasy. But the concept of wú-wéi is not entirely fantastic. It contains elements that can be extracted and developed as part of plausible contemporary views in action theory and ethics. As a provisional attempt along these lines, I’m now going to discuss a stipulatively defined conception of wú-wéi, rather than the notion presented in the early texts. The sort of wú-wéi-like activity I have in mind can be characterized by three features. (1) It is a non-intentional, immediate and unpremeditated, typically efficacious response to the particular situation; in which (2) the agent experiences her movements as reactions to, and guided by, things in the environment, rather than issuing from her own initiative; and (3) her conscious experience is empty and still, free of desires, thoughts, or intentions. This characterization preserves many of the attributes of wú-wéi as described in ancient texts, with the notable exception that it does not rule out education, training, knowledge, culture, and language. These latter factors I think typically are causally necessary conditions for development of the capacity for wú-wéi-like activity as just characterized. I want to suggest that activity manifesting the first feature—a nonintentional, immediate, efficacious response to the particular situation—occurs as part of most normal action, provided we understand the description “non-intentional” to apply at the level of subsidiary actions or movements, and not at the level of the overall action or flow of activity. This feature seems to me to capture one aspect of the role of Background capacities in action. The subsidiary movements that make up an action will typically involve immediate responses to environment caused and guided by Background abilities. Examples include subtly shifting the position of one’s fingers in response to the feel of the keys while typing on a computer or transferring one’s body weight from one side to another in response to the shape of the hill while skiing. These responses are non-intentional insofar as they themselves generally are not part of the content of the agent’s intention, and the agent usually does not form any discrete intentions concerning them. (Of course,

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they are still intentional insofar as they are parts of an overall flow of intentional action, but I will set this point aside until the next section.) Searle’s insightful account of how rule-following behavior can become part of an agent’s Background capacities (1995, pp. 137ff.) shows how even the performance of complex social practices can become wú-wéilike in this sense. Unlike the first feature, the second and third features describe particular sorts of conscious experiences, and thus cannot plausibly be said to apply to most or all normal actions. In most actions, even if portions of the action manifest the first feature, the agent may be consciously thinking about something else, and so the second and third features may not hold. The second feature—experiencing one’s movements as reactions to the environment—might hold only in the performance of certain skills, when the agent is consciously experiencing the sort of immediate response characterized by the first feature. (Familiar examples of such skills might include skiing, tennis, and driving.) The third feature—the experience of a sort of “empty” conscious state—is probably crucial to the highly focused performance of challenging skills, such as those found in competitive sports or the performing arts. But it is sometimes manifested in the performance of everyday habitual actions as well. I suspect we all regularly have experiences corresponding to the third feature for short stretches of activity—as when we walk down the street without thinking about anything in particular—but they are so fleeting that most of us generally pay little attention to them. The second and third features may seem mysterious, so let me explain how I think we can understand them. The second feature—experiencing one’s movements as reactions to, and guided by, the environment, rather than something one initiates—is an attempt to articulate the phenomenological experience of “world-guidedness” associated with efficacious skilled action. By “worldguidedness”, I mean initially that such action reliably responds to and is guided by what is “really out there”, without bias or distortion due to misperception or misjudgment by the agent.28 This characterization An obvious question to ask here is how the skilled agent can be justified in taking her bodily movements to be direct responses to how things are in the environment. Couldn’t she be deluded? The answer is that her justification is grounded in the efficacy—the reliability—of her skill: the racket connects and the tennis ball flies over the net, or the skier successfully makes her way down the hill without falling. The world-guidedness and reliability that are partly constitutive of skill seem to me to be the core of the Daoist response to skepticism. 28

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is unacceptably vague, but I hope that we can take it as given, for the sake of discussion, that skilled action does manifest some sort of relatively uncontroversial world-guidedness. But beyond this general, uncontroversial point, I want to suggest that in wú-wéi-like activity, the experience of action becomes in some respects similar to the experience of perception. Perception is world-guided in a way that intentional action is not. In Searle’s terminology, it is characterized by a worldto-mind direction of intentional causation. Perceptual judgments are produced in us without intentional activity on our part. Yet perception is not entirely passive, either. The process of detecting sensory stimuli and causing perceptual judgments is constructive, involving the exercise of Background capacities that structure perceptual interpretation (1995, p. 132). I suggest that within the context of an overall pattern of intentional action, with a mind-to-world direction of intentional causation, certain of the agent’s responses to the environment can be thought of as having a world-to-mind direction of causation, somewhat analogous to that we find in perception. The idea is roughly that the Background functions as a kind of “program” that determines how we perceive and respond to situations. As Searle explains, it enables perceptual interpretation, provides motivational dispositions, establishes certain sorts of readiness, and disposes us to certain forms of behavior (1995, pp. 132–37). In certain contexts, we can simply activate this program and thereafter allow our movements to be triggered and guided directly by features of the situation, rather than by conscious thought. Of course, such responses are not purely passive, non-intentional reactions, as described by ancient proponents of wú-wéi. Contrary to the passage from “Arts of the Heart” quoted earlier, much “setting up” goes on before we are capable of them. Moreover, they are contingent on our first intentionally activating the Background “program” as part of carrying out some higher-level intention, and they can be “deactivated” at any time by our changing our higher-level intention.29 Thus they are in every respect expressions 29 Searle himself seems to lean toward a similar explanation when he discusses such responses to the environment in the context of trained athletes whose bodies respond to stimuli such as a starting gun or a tennis serve in less time than it takes to consciously perceive the stimuli (Searle, 2001, pp. 291–92). As Searle emphasizes, the readiness to respond to stimuli in this way is still the product of intentionality and remains under intentional control. As such, it remains different from genuine reflex movements, such as pulling one’s hand away from a hot stove, which are not under intentional control. Hubert Dreyfus has also suggested that skillful coping in general involves world-to-mind

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of the self and its intentionality, and not merely passive or involuntary reflexes. Yet within the context of some higher-level pattern of intentional action, we can experience our movements as to some extent elicited and guided by the world. The third feature is the conscious experience of feeling empty and still, free of desire, thought, and intention. This feature represents an attempt to capture a distinctive aspect of the experience of acting in cases where Background capacities are enough to carry us through a pattern of action without conscious intentions, and conscious attention to individual subsidiary actions (or to anything at all) would in fact tend to interfere with efficacious performance. Here I think characterizations such as “empty”, “desireless”, “without thought”, “without choosing”, and so forth misdescribe or exaggerate what actually occurs, but in an understandable way. For much of the typical waking day, our conscious awareness is unfocused, rapidly shifting, and divided in several directions at once. Compared with this sort of everyday, busy or “noisy” conscious experience, the conscious awareness of an agent focused on the performance of a challenging skill task may indeed seem “empty” and “still” or “calm”. (For many of us, I suspect, merely to suspend subvocalization—inner “talking to ourselves”—is enough to make our conscious awareness feel “empty”.) In fact, I suggest, the consciousness of such an agent is not literally “empty”—it could not be, since consciousness by definition always has content—but just focused in a distinctive way. I can think of two fairly obvious ways to characterize this focus. The first is in terms of the center/periphery distinction Searle helpfully introduces in mapping the main structural features of consciousness (1992, pp. 137–39). We can be conscious of a vast amount of information simultaneously, but we automatically push most of this content to the periphery of our attention, shifting it back to the center only when it is needed. As Searle points out, the center/periphery distinction is often mischaracterized as a distinction between conscious awareness and the unconscious (1992, p. 138). But many things of which we are said to be “unconscious” are actually conscious, just peripherally so. causation, though I think his characterization of such action paints a false contrast when he says, “In making a backhand stroke, for example, we do not experience our intentions as causing our body to move; rather, we experience the situation as drawing the movement out of us.” (See Dreyfus (2001), “Phenomenological Description Versus Rational Reconstruction”, Revue Internationale de Philosophie 217: pp. 181–96, especially p. 185.) I don’t see why we cannot experience the movement both as caused by our intentions and as elicited by the situation.

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One reason the conscious experience of an agent immersed in a flow of action may feel “empty”, at least metaphorically speaking, is that the center of her conscious attention is taken up completely by the environment with which she is coping. Desires, intentions, and other thoughts may still be present, but they are pushed to the far periphery because of the demands of the skilled task. The second explanation of the quasi-empty state is that an agent immersed in a flow of action may have a near-total lack of selfconsciousness. By “self-consciousness” here I mean conscious awareness of one’s own experiences and mental states, obtained by directing one’s attention toward them (cf. Searle 1992, pp. 142–43). In the sort of flow of action we are describing, the agent’s consciousness may feel “empty” because her attention is focused entirely on the object of her experience—the environment and things in it to which she is responding—and not on the experience itself, nor on her own thoughts. In fact, her consciousness has content—namely, representations of her environment—but the focus on the environment and the absence of self-consciousness combine to make her conscious experience feel especially “transparent”, as if it were in some sense “empty”. Explaining this third feature—the emptiness experience—by appeal to an absence of self-consciousness puts it in tension with the second feature—the experience of world-guidedness—which is in fact a form of self-consciousness. But the tension can be resolved by appeal to the center/periphery distinction. We can say that though the experience of world-guidedness involves a distinctive sort of consciousness experience of one’s movement, the content of this experience usually lies at the periphery of the agent’s conscious awareness. Hence the center of the agent’s consciousness may still be experienced as “empty”. I suggest that the wú-wéi-like state characterized by these features is one that genuinely exists, provided we understand it to obtain at the level of subsidiary actions by which we execute some higher-level action, and not at the “top” level at which we formulate and carry out intentions. Moreover, I want to suggest that ancient Chinese writers were right to valorize this state, for at least three reasons: It is intrinsically good, practically efficacious, and, as another side of its efficaciousness, it may play an indispensable role in the exercise of virtuous judgment. Let me briefly expand on these three points. The experience of wú-wéi-like activity, as I’ve tried to characterize it, is typically associated with the excellent performance of skilled activity. (Indeed, it may approach the status of a causally necessary condition for

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truly exceptional performance.) I suggest the experience of wú-wéi-like activity may bring with it an inherent sense of satisfaction arising from the adept exercise of skill. It also typically produces gratifying feelings of normatively appropriate spontaneity and of connecting with the world and feeling fully at home there. As such, it seems to be a deeply satisfying experience, one that probably has intrinsic value in itself, beyond the value of the excellent performances in which it is manifested.30 I think the regular experience of wú-wéi-like activity probably contributes to the overall excellence of a human life.31 These points make it easy to understand how an ancient thinker might have been inspired to suggest that the best life would be one in which all of life took place in a state akin to wú-wéi, as a continual experience of “flow”. In wú-wéi-like activity, reliable, well-honed Background capacities take over the guidance and execution of action, responding automatically to the particular situation with a sensitivity and speed that cannot be matched by deliberate, conscious thought and intention. For this reason, such activity generally tends to be practically successful. This is obvious in the case of skills. But I wish to suggest that one of the insights of Daoism is that it may apply to many aspects of life.32 In some decisionmaking situations, for instance, once the relevant facts, principles, and goals have been identified and rationally evaluated, the normatively or prudentially most justified response to a situation may sometimes be found most effectively by setting deliberation and ratiocination aside and trusting our Background capacities, manifested in wú-wéi-like state, 30 Obviously, other factors besides skill mastery and the occurrence of a wú-wéi-like state play a role in determining whether, all things considered, a particular sort of performance counts as a good activity or not. Consider the case of a masterful sociopath, who tortures and murders the innocent in a skillful, wú-wéi-like manner. Clearly, any good inherent in his skillful performance is massively outweighed by the injustice and pain inflicted on his victims. 31 Philip J. Ivanhoe has argued for a similar claim in an interesting paper entitled “Spontaneity as a Normative Ideal in Early Chinese Philosophy”, presented at “Taking Confucianism Seriously”, a symposium held at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, June 28–29, 2004. 32 The famous Cook Ding story in the Zhuāng-Zî seems to me an illustration of the practical application of a wú-wéi-like state. Despite his tremendous skill, Cook Ding does not have superhuman powers that carry him through his work effortlessly, without obstacles. He still faces “hard parts”. But his response is to focus his attention on the situation, letting self-consciousness and non-relevant content shift away to the periphery of conscious awareness, and then let his Background capacities flow. The story concerns the performance of a skilled task, but the example set by Cook Ding is intended to apply generally, as Lord Wén Huì concludes that from the cook’s words, we learn how to “nourish life”.

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to guide us. (This is not to suggest that we cannot then go on to cite reasons that explicitly justify judgments reached in this way.) I assume that this is just what we typically think of as trusting in expert intuition or expert experience. Judgments delivered by our Background capacities in this way may sometimes be more reliable than those reached through an explicit process of reasoning.33 This might sound dangerously close to the advice one would find in the latest pop-psychology self-help best seller. Yet I think it correctly captures aspects of the exercise of rationality and of how we actually do reach many judgments. My third point is an extension of the second. If the exercise of Background capacities in a wú-wéi-like state sometimes facilitates prudentially appropriate judgment and action, then the same holds for ethical judgment and action. Interestingly, one passage in the Zhuāng-Zî (Book 18) hints at just such a connection between wú-wéi and ethical judgment, claiming that “In the world, right and wrong in the end cannot be settled; yet wú-wéi can settle right and wrong.”34 Ancient Daoist writers were deeply impressed with the limitations of normative theories and explicit normative standards in guiding action.35 They emphasized that a capacity for practical judgment was needed to guide action in particular cases. Even if a general ethical norm is available, neither the exact features of the situation that trigger action guided by the norm nor the exact content of the action can be specified in advance.36 (Hence in action we usually do not have intentions with such precisely specified conditions of satisfaction.) Both the triggering and the content of the action depend on Background capacities for pattern recognition 33 An example of this may be so-called rational akratic action, when an agent acts against his all-things-considered best judgment, yet is rational to do so, because his best judgment was in fact faulty in some way. (Dan Robins brought this sort of case to my attention.) 34 For the quoted passage, see Chen Guying (1999), Zhuāng-Zî-Jīn-Zhù-Jīn-Yì [Zhuangzi: Contemporary Commentary and Interpretation], Taipei: Commercial Press, p. 468. 35 I have in mind, for instance, the writers of books 2 and 17 of the Zhuāng-Zî, the “Discourse on Equalizing Things” and “Autumn Waters”. 36 Partly because of the idiosyncratic way in which early Chinese writers thought about explicit normative standards—they conceived of them as models or paradigms, rather than as general, abstract descriptions—these aspects of action tend to lead Daoist writers toward a radical particularism in ethics. Some of them seem to think—on the basis of not very convincing arguments—that there simply are no general ethical norms. But these writers are not completely off base in noticing that we do not have intentions about the most concrete features of our actions (precisely how we move our arms and legs, to take an extreme example). Of course, as Searle suggests, we do have higher-level intentions, which apply no matter what the concrete features are.

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and for skillfully adjusting one’s responses to particular situations. In case of a virtuous agent, the exercise of these capacities may often take place in a wú-wéi-like state, and such a state could play a crucial, perhaps indispensable role in determining the virtuous agent’s response to complex ethical situations. 7. Wú-wéi: A Critique The discussion in the preceding section focused entirely on what I called subsidiary actions, which occur as parts of higher-level actions or patterns of action. I suggested that if we temporarily set aside the context of the higher-level action of which such subsidiary actions are a part and just consider them in themselves, they can manifest a state with some of the features associated with wú-wéi. During the performance of a higher-level action, an agent may indeed sometimes experience subsidiary actions as wú-wéi-like. This phenomenon may explain part of the ancient Daoists’ fascination with wú-wéi. Provided it is characterized in a sufficiently restricted way, we can say that a wú-wéi-like state genuinely exists, that it is an ideal genuinely worth endorsing, and that its achievement can contribute to a good life. But the wú-wéi-like state I’ve been discussing is of course not the wú-wéi of the ancient texts. Moreover, when we shift our attention back to the overall flow of action, rather than subsidiary actions, we quickly see that neither overall nor subsidiary actions are really wú-wéi in the ancient sense, for two main reasons. First, wú-wéi as literally presented in the ancient texts is a state free of any influence from the desires, goals, or values of the agent and largely free of the influence of language, education, and culture. Against this, we can point out that in most cases, a substantial portion of the Background capacities that enable wú-wéi-like activity to occur will have been acquired intentionally, through deliberate training and education, and will be largely the products of the agent’s motivations, values, culture, and so forth. Some of our Background capacities are innate, hard-wired into the structure of our brains and bodies. But many are acquired through patterns of activity that are definitely not wú-wéi. Second, and more important, the subsidiary actions I characterized as wú-wéi-like always occur as part of higher-level intentional actions or patterns of activity. As Searle explains, the subsidiary actions are thus intentional as well, for the higher-level intentionality permeates

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all of the component actions and movements that make up an action, even if the action is some long-term pattern of activity such as learning Cantonese or training for the Olympics. (To repeat a remark of Searle’s cited earlier, “Intentionality reaches down to the bottom level of the voluntary actions” (1990, p. 293).) Fundamentally, all of this activity is part of “doing x”, where x is the content of the higher-level intention. The agent’s capacity to perform subsidiary actions in a wúwéi-like manner does not actually make them non-intentional. It merely enables the agent to shift the intentions she frames to a higher level. (“Intentionality rises to the level of the Background abilities” (1990, p. 293).) In principle, she could always shift downward again and form a separate intention for each subsidiary action.37 We can make the same point by noting that in real life action typically occurs not in discrete bits, such as the contrived example of raising one’s arm, but as what Searle calls “a continuous flow of intentional behavior” (1990, p. 293). Much of what we do in the course of this flow can be carried out in a wú-wéi-like state. But the flow itself is intentional, and thus all the activity that constitutes it is intentional. Non-intentional Background capacities sometimes carry us through extended segments of the flow. But with the possible exception, in a limited range of cases, of activity directed at filling basic biological needs, these capacities are always employed as part of a pattern of intentional action. The tennis champion may return service automatically, without a single conscious thought. But first she must intentionally set out to play the game. So it seems to me that the ancient Chinese conception of wú-wéi is based on a fundamental misconception of action. The doctrine of wúwéi is in effect the idea that all of life could slip into the non-intentional Background. But as Searle explains, the Background is a background to intentionality. It functions only when activated by intentional content (1990, p. 294). All action, even if it appears to issue directly from Background capacities, is ultimately intentional or rooted in intentional action. Motivated partly by their religious and metaphysical beliefs, certain ancient Daoists seem to have thought they could isolate the phenomenon of wú-wéi-like skilled or habitual activity and detach it from the 37 Part of Searle’s thesis of the Background, of course, is that any such shift of intentions downward would have to bottom out at some level of brute physical capacities—some minimal level of intentional causation of bodily movement, such as causing individual muscles to contract—or else action would be impossible.

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context of an intentional flow of action and the desires, values, education, and social norms typically incorporated into any such context. By taking the self and agency out of the picture in this way, these theorists sought to ground all action in the Dào itself, giving it a sort of normative authority. This aim explains the false contrasts their texts draw between “acting” (wéi ) and activity issuing from the self ( jî ), on the one hand, and “responding” ( yìng) or “going along” ( yīn) and activity impelled by external “things” (wù), on the other. In fact, of course, “responding” does not properly contrast with “acting”: it is one kind of acting. Action does not issue either from the self or from things, but from causal interaction between the self and things. We might be tempted to say that, taken literally, wú-wéi is a vision of all of life as a single basic action, within which everything we do is but a series of subsidiary actions, requiring no separate intentions. But such a vision would still not fit the literal description of wú-wéi, for life conceived of as a single, extended action would still be a flow of intentional activity. Even if life were just one long downhill ski run, we would still need to intentionally push off at the top. Much as some early Daoists would have like to relinquish their capacity for agency in exchange for the metaphysical comfort and normative authority of having their every movement be guided by the world in itself, humans cannot avoid exercising agency, for to relinquish it is already to exercise it.

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Chinese Glossary bài 敗 biàn 辯 chéng 成 dào 道 Dào-Dé-Jīng 道德經 Guǎn-Zî 管子 Huái-Nán-Zî 淮南子 jî 己 jìng 靜 Lâo-Zî 老子 lèi 類 pú 樸 q· 取 shī 失 shì 事 sī 思 sù 素 s·n 損 tiān 天 wéi 為 wén 文 wú 無 wù 物 wú-bù-wéi 無不為 wú-míng 無名 wú-shì 無事 wú-wéi 無為 xíng 行 xū 虛 xué 學 yán 言 yīn 因 yìng 應 yù 欲 zhì 志 zhì-xíng 志行 zhì 治 zhī 知

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zhí 執 zhì 智 zì-dìng 自定 zì-huà 自化 zì zhèng 自正 Zhuāng-Zî 莊子 zì-rán 自然

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REPLY TO CHRIS FRASER John R. Searle That was a terrific talk, and I have no criticism to make. This is one of those rare occasions in philosophical argument when you agree with everything that was said. I especially appreciated the clarity and accuracy of Professor Fraser’s summary of my views. I am of course not competent to comment on his understanding of wu-wei, and it is quite possible that in my response to Professor Krueger I was not accurately representing wu-wei. In any case it seems to me that Fraser adequately answers many of Krueger’s points. It may seem disappointing at a philosophy conference if the target of a commentator agrees with the commentator, so I will make a further addition to what Fraser has said. I want to emphasize something he said. To a lot of people it seems paradoxical that I say that in intentional action you don’t have any intentions at the lower level; nonetheless, the higher level intention governs the whole flow of activity in such a way that the lower level actions are all done intentionally. I think that is exactly right, and Professor Fraser expressed it very well. For example, suppose I go for a walk around this beautiful campus. My aim is to admire the fantastic views, to appreciate the environment, the architecture, the views of the bay, the flowers, and so on. In the course of these experiences, I will walk. I will move one foot in front of the other. Now if somebody asks me what are you now doing, I would not say, “Well, I am intentionally moving my left foot.” No, that’s not it at all. I might say, “I am admiring the views”, I might say, “I am now walking over there to admire the views from over there.” All of those subsidiary actions are performed intentionally, even though they are exercises of a Background skill, my ability to walk. And in this case, the exercise of my ability is entirely governed by my higher level intention-in-action. So I am sorry to say I did not find anything to disagree with in his talk, but I can at least add a further gloss or explanation.

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john r. searle Discussion—

Fraser: This paper originally had another section, I may rewrite it, I lost it due to a computer accident, concerning the criticisms of Hubert Dreyfus on John Searle over the years. Since you mentioned that you have a reply to his latest paper on your website, I haven’t seen that paper, but what would your response be to one example that he has which I am going to cite. It is the most impressive example in all his articles that I have seen. There is some perhaps much lower level intentionality that is functional, or something that is not quite intentionality, or not intentionality with a propositional content and conditions of satisfactions. I have an answer to it of my own, but I prefer to hear yours. The example that Dreyfus is standing in an elevator and it stops at one floor and someone gets in and you shift to make room for that person. I am tempted to say that that is intentional behavior, but what is your take on that? Searle answers: I agree with you. It is completely false to say that my movement in the elevator is “not intentional.” My voluntary intentional movement backward is not at all like the peristaltic contractions of the gut during digestion. For example, a guy might come into the elevator and bounce on the floor in such a way that the peristaltic contraction of my gut increases. But when I move backwards, that is a clear case of an intentional action. I am voluntarily and intentionally moving my body. Both physiologically and intentionalistically, this is clearly a case of an intentional action. Now why does Dreyfus deny this obvious point? The reason he denies it is that normally someone would do it unthinkingly. One does not have to think about it. It just feels more comfortable to be a little further away from the person who entered the elevator. And in some countries I feel very uncomfortable because people get much closer to you than they would in California. It is just that they have a different set of Background practices. Dreyfus presents this example to me as something that is supposed to be not a case of an intentional action. But it seems to me clearly intentional. This example reveals something that I have written about elsewhere, and that is that the phenomenological method of investigations tends to blind the investigator to certain obvious intentionalistic facts. The mistake is to suppose that if it is not phenomenologically salient then

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it isn’t real, and in this particular example, though my movement is performed intentionally, it is not at the foreground or at the center of my attention. I can be thinking about something completely different when I perform the intentional action, but all the same it is an intentional action.

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CHAPTER FOUR

A DAOIST CRITIQUE OF SEARLE ON MIND AND ACTION Joel W. Krueger 1. Introduction In this paper, I argue that the Daoist formulation of the relationship between wu-wei and ‘naturalness’, as found in the Dao-De-Jing, offers a holistic, world-engaged model of bodily intentionality that challenges John Searle’s mentalistic theory of intentionality. More precisely, I contend that Searle’s overly-cognitivist model of intentionality—and particularly his claim that all intentionality invokes representational mentality—lacks the ability to account for the predominantly noncognitive (but nonetheless directed or intentional) bodily activities that constitute the bulk of our embodied life and situated action. Moreover, I argue that the Daoist formulation of wu-wei, or ‘effortless action’, in fact can explicate this noncognitive bodily dimension and thus is superior in this regard to Searle’s account. Next, I consider how Searle might respond to this charge. I then conclude by developing the ethical significance of wu-wei. I suggest that Searle’s insightful analysis of mind and action might be enriched by following Daoism’s lead on this point. 2. Searle on Intentionality and Action I begin with Searle’s account of intentionality and action. Searle’s discussion of these matters is rich, and I can only provide a summary of the features of his analysis most salient to our present discussion. To begin with some definitions: Searle defines intentionality fairly conventionally as that property of many mental states and events by which they are directed at or about or of objects and states of affairs in the world . . . I follow

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joel w. krueger a long philosophical tradition in calling this feature of directedness or aboutness “Intentionality” . . .1

Intentionality is thus the intrinsic directedness of mental states. Importantly, intentionality is a mental feature. However, not all mental states are intentional, according to Searle. Both moods (such as a general anxiety or elation) and pains are not intentional, in that they are not strictly speaking, directed at or about or of objects and states affairs in the world. But they are nonetheless mental states. Again, intentionality as Searle construes it is a mental feature. Moreover, intentionality must be a mental feature, Searle claims. This is because intentionality is a logical feature of mentality. Only mental states can take objects intentionally. They do so precisely by intending a particular intentional content (objects or states of affairs in the world) via different psychological modes (believing, desiring, remembering, etc.). To continue: Searle furthermore claims that all action is intentional. That is, all action must be caused and sustained by a form of intentionality that he terms “intention-in-action”. Searle believes that there is an important distinction between “intentions-in-action” and “prior intentions.” Once states, this distinction is fairly easy to grasp. Searle writes that “An action . . . is any composite event or state that contains the occurrence of an intention in action”2 He continues: “Actions . . . necessarily contain intentions in actions, but are not necessarily caused by prior intentions”.3 A prior intention, according the Searle, is an intention-to-act the agent forms prior to the performance of the act itself. The agent knows what she is going to do because she has already formed a prior intention to do that thing. For example, Jane turns on her stereo after having decided a few moments beforehand that she wanted to listen to some music. Her prior intention (given her belief that turning on the stereo would enable her to listen to music) governed her subsequent action (turning on the stereo). Not all actions are motivated by prior intentions, however. Intentions-in-action are the intentions an agent has when actually performing the action. Spontaneous actions performed without formulating a prior intention to do them—such as suddenly striking someone in

1 Searle, John. (1983), Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 1. 2 Searle, 1983, p. 108. 3 Searle, 1983, p. 107.

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the face, gesturing while talking, or jumping up and pacing while thinking deeply about a philosophical problem—necessarily contain an intention-in-action, according to Searle. But they neither contain nor are necessarily motivated by prior intentions. Thus “the intention-in-action just is the Intentional content of the action”.4 The intention-in-action causally shapes the action and sustains it as performed by continually representing the goal of the action. Searle thus claims that even spontaneous bodily actions, such as gesturing while talking, exhibit a goal-directedness that marks them as intentional. Surely this is correct. The intention-in-action is therefore the intentional component of the action that causes the directedness of a bodily movement without the necessary existence of a prior intention. And it is the intention-in-action that differentiates a spontaneous directed action (like gesturing while talking or slapping someone in the face) from mere reflex or movement (one’s leg extending when hit with a doctor’s hammer). Furthermore, intentions-in-action secure both the self-referential nature of an action (the “experience of action”,5 as Searle terms it, that I have when engaging in any intentional action; the property of what it feels like to actually “try” to do the action) as well as the bodily movement’s directedness. The composite structure of a successful intentional action for Searle thus consists of both (1) the intention-in-action (or mental component) as well as (2) the concurrent bodily movement (the physical component). Again, Searle insists that all action must contain intentions-in-action as one of its constitutive components. Under his rendering, then, intentions-in-action are both part of actions as performed as well as the cause of bodily movements constitutive of the actions as performed. But not all actions are preceded by an explicit (or even implicit) deliberative process or prior intention. An important corollary of this discussion is the next definition I want to look at, which is Searle’s notion of conditions of satisfaction. Intentional states according to Searle possess conditions of satisfaction. A condition of satisfaction is a condition that must obtain for a mental state to be true, veridical, or satisfied. Bodily movements thus qualify as actions when they are caused by an intention-in-action—a mental state that is a representation of the action’s conditions of satisfaction. The

4 5

Searle, 1983, p. 84. Searle, 1983, p. 88.

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conditions of satisfaction are therefore propositional representations of what would count as a successful action (e.g. pointing towards an object while describing it; turning on the stereo when I’ve decided to listen to music, emphatically shaking my fists when arguing for a specific point). And most importantly for our present concerns, according to Searle all actions are governed by conditions of satisfaction, or the representation of the action’s conditions of satisfaction. Searle therefore claims that all intentionality involves representation. He says that “Intentional states represent objects and states of affairs in the same sense of “represent” that speech acts represent objects and states of affairs . . .”6 Searle furthermore insists that “there is nothing ontological” about his use of the term ‘representation’, since according to him, it is part of his purely logical analysis of intentionality.7 However, recall that Searle’s definition of ‘intentions-in-action’, discussed above, purportedly captures the feel of trying to do something—“the experience of acting”—so it’s not clear that Searle’s logical analysis of intentionality is as phenomenologically neutral as he seems to think that it is. (Of course, if we start talking about phenomenology, we presumably have entered the realm of ontology, too). Searle rightly notes that any talk of the experience of acting will have to involve some sort of phenomenology-talk.8 Moreover, he says that the “phenomenal difference” between “the experience of acting”, on the one hand, and bodily movement lacking intentional components (such as Penfield’s moving a patient’s hand by stimulating their motor cortex),9 on the other, “carries with it a logical difference in the sense that the experience of moving one’s hand has certain conditions of satisfaction”.10 Therefore, the “experience of acting” has both phenomenal as well as logical properties.11 Despite Searle’s insistence that his is a purely logical analysis of intentionality, he finds that he does in fact have to deal with the phenomenology of acting if his account of intentional action is to be sufficiently robust. And since according to Searle the phenomenology of action (“the experience of acting”) also has (or rather, is) the action’s conditions of satisfaction—in that “trying”, succeeding”, and Searle, 1983, p. 4. Searle, 1983, p. 4. 8 Searle, 1983, p. 90. 9 Penfield, Wilard (1975), The Mystery of the Mind, Princeton: Princeton University Press. 10 Searle, 1983, p. 90. 11 Searle, 1983, p. 90. 6 7

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“failing”12 are relevant concepts here—and furthermore, since conditions of satisfaction are always propositional representations of an action’s success-conditions, it seems that we are talking about something very close to representational mentality. More simply, when we perform an action according to Searle—even an unplanned gesture—part of the action’s phenomenology is a representation of what counts as a successful (or unsuccessful) action. In the Penfield case, the phenomenology is different than in instances where a subject consciously performs an intentional action. Thus the “logical difference” that Searle references above is in fact a phenomenological difference. Therefore, given the structure of Searle’s account of intentional action, all action, phenomenologically speaking, involves representational mentality of some sort. It is this representational feature of Searle’s theory of action that is most salient to our present discussion. For as I will discuss momentarily, the Daoist sage—by the practice of wu-wei, or effortless action—acts purposively without explicitly thinking about her purpose for action. Put differently, the sage engages in intentional or directed bodily action without entertaining a representation of her action’s conditions of satisfaction. In fact, hers is an intentional and holistic mode of action lacing representational mentality. It is precisely this lack of representational mentality that enables the sage to act as spontaneously, effortlessly, and as situationally-appropriate as she does. Moreover, this lack of representational mentality is the phenomenological feature of her experience of action that marks the sage as an ethical-existential expert. This graceful efficiency of action is thus the “profound efficacy”-in-action of the sage who, as we read in chapter 47 of the Dao-De-Jing: Knows without budging Identifies without looking Does without trying.13

Intentional bodily action lacking a mental component (prior intentions, intentions-in-actions, or both) is incoherent under Searle’s model of action. The Daoist formulation of wu-wei and naturalness thus challenges Searle in two regards: first, it offers an alternative model of action that describes a form of bodily intentionality lacking representational mentality. Secondly, it points towards the ethical significance of this form Searle, 1983, p. 90. Addiss, Stanley, and Lombardo, Stanley, trans. (1993), Tao te Ching. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc: Indianapolis. 12 13

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of bodily action, an ethical dimension absent from Searle’s discussion of representational intentionality. 3. The Pragmatic Structure of Wu-wei Setting aside Searle’s discussion of intentionality and action for a moment, I will now discuss the pragmatic structure of the Daoist formulation of wu-wei. I will discuss two essential components of wu-wei as developed in the Dao-De-Jing: first, its phenomenological structure and secondly, its ethical significance. Classical Chinese thought was predominantly practical in its orientation. Early Chinese thinkers were not concerned so much with a theoretical consideration of the nature of human value and conduct as they were the question of how human value and proper conduct becomes embodied in particular forms of activity. The term ‘conduct’, with its definitional nuance of ‘comportment’ or ‘specific forms of behavior’, encompasses the moral significance of various forms of intersubjective relations that the early Chinese thinkers were most concerned with addressing. Thus ‘conduct’ is perhaps more appropriate here than is its more morally-neutral counterpart ‘action’. Of this preoccupation with ethical conduct, Edward Slingerland writes that “the primary focus of early Chinese thinkers remained the problem of how to become good. . . . [a consideration of ] concrete knowledge concerning how to act in a way that was good”.14 At the center of these discussions was the notion of wu-wei. So what is wu-wei, exactly? Wu-wei translates literally as ‘in the absence of/without doing’. It is variously rendered ‘doing nothing’, ‘no action’, ‘non-action’ or (less happily) ‘acting without acting’. While all of these renderings are perhaps individually inadequate, they collectively serve to provide a multi-dimensional model of what proves to be a deceptively complex phenomenon. To begin on a practical level, wu-wei refers to a spontaneous, situationally-appropriate skilled action that radiates effortlessly from the acting agent. It can be thought of as a ‘skill-knowledge’: an embodied and engaged form of activity consist-

14 Slingerland, Edward. (2000), “Effortless Action: The Chinese spiritual ideal of wu-wei”. Journal of the Academy of Religion, 68(2), p. 294.

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ing of the “mastery of a set of practices that restructure both one’s perceptions and values”.15 Beyond this emphasis on skill-knowledge, however, wu-wei as an ethical or religious ideal refers to the state of existence or mode of activity of the Daoist sage: one who has realized perfect experiential unity with the world and universe as a dynamic expression of the Dao, and who can therefore relate effortlessly to the people and things of the world. The ethical significance of wu-wei is its most important component. For it is only through this reorientation from a microcosmic (or self-centered) perspective to the macrocosmic awareness of a normative cosmic order that one can truly embody the Way in all action-contexts. This practical sagacity or ‘skill-knowledge’ enables the sage to engage with the world ‘naturally’ by exhibiting a kind of perpetually graceful efficacy, continually acting in selfless ways appropriate to changing situations. In chapter 30 of the Dao-De-Jing, we find that this graceful efficacy, or effortless action, “is called getting the right results without forcing them”.16 However, the first reference to the means by which wu-wei is actually embodied in the practical sagacity of the sage in a truly ‘natural’ form of life is already found in chapter 2 of the Dao-De-Jing: . . . sages keep to service that does not entail coercion (wu-wei ) and disseminate teachings that go beyond what can be said. In all that happens, the sage develops things but does not initiate them, They act on behalf of things but do not lay claim to any of them, They see things through to fruition but do not take credit for them.17

Wu-wei is thus activity that is neither conditioned by ingrained habits nor preceded by principled reasoning or axiomatic “teachings” that “can be said”, or formalized and subsequently passed on. Importantly, wu-wei cannot be adequately articulated in propositional or representational form. Nor is wu-wei a deliberatively coercive activity. It is an intuitive wisdom—embodied in a practical skill-set—that expresses an ability to effortlessly negotiate the changing aspects of human existence. As one might expect, Searle is not silent on the important role that skills play in the practical economy of our embodied life. Searle labels the skills that enable us to smoothly navigate our world and function

Slingerland, 2000, p. 295. Ames, Roger and Hall, David, trans. (2003). Daodejing: A Philosophical Translation. Ballantine Books. 17 Ames and Hall, 2003. 15 16

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within it ‘capacities’ or ‘practices’.18 These capacities or practices, Searle insists, are “phenomena [that] are explicitly mental”.19 But he also insists that such capacities need not be representational or propositional in nature. They are rather “the set of nonrepresentational mental capacities that enable all representing to take place”.20 Collectively, these nonrepresentational mental capacities are famously termed by Searle ‘the Background’. The Background does not itself consist of representational or intentional states but is rather constituted by nonrepresentational, preintentional states that make representing and intending possible in the first place. The Background provides the enabling conditions that make it possible for different forms of intentionality to function, according to Searle.21 One of Searle’s attempts to elucidate the relation between skill and the Background involves a description of skiing. A beginning skier is given a wealth of verbal instructions representing possible skiing-related actions: “lean forward”, “bend the ankles”, “keep your center of gravity low”, “don’t hit other skiers”, etc. Yet as the skier becomes more proficient, these verbal representations or rules according to Searle “recede into the Background”.22 They are not internalized and then summoned when relevant. Rather, “the body takes over”, Searle insists, and the skier is able to respond to different environmental conditions (changes in terrain, snow, presence of other skiers, etc.) without explicitly invoking rules and representational states.23 The various capacities, skills, abilities and preintentional assumptions constitutive of the Background—such as recognizing the function of skis, chairlifts, goggles, etc.; the belief that the mountain will not suddenly vanish while one is skiing atop it, and that gravity will enable one to make it down the mountain; the recognition that icy conditions require heightened attentiveness; the understanding that skiing naked is probably a bad idea for any number of reasons—are what enable the skier to respond flexibly and fluidly to changing conditions. At first glance, Searle’s characterization of the relation between skilled action and the Background sounds much like the Daoist rendering of

18 19 20 21 22 23

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Searle, Searle, Searle, Searle, Searle, Searle,

1983, 1983, 1983, 1983, 1983, 1983,

p. p. p. p. p. p.

156. 156. 143. 157. 150. 150.

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wu-wei. A closer examination reveals some important differences, however. To understand these differences, we must look more closely at what I will term the both the ‘external’ and ‘internal’ form of wu-wei as offered in the Dao-De-Jing. Chapter 29 offers a characterization of the proper place of noncoercive action (wu-wei ) within the world, a characterization that is progressively more refined as the text progresses. In this chapter we find the following sketch of the external form of wu-wei and how it is expressed in different contexts: One who desires to take the world and act upon it, I see that it cannot be done The world is a spirit vessel Which cannot be acted upon One who acts on it fails One who holds on to it loses . . . . . therefore the sage gets rid of over-doing.24

Later, in chapter 63, we find the following imperative: Do things noncoercively (wu-wei ), Be non-interfering in going about your business (wushi ), And savor the flavor of the unadulterated in what you eat. Treat the small as great And the few as many . . . it is because the sages never try to do great things That they are indeed able to be great.25

Both of these characterizations of wu-wei portray the effortless manner through which the sage skillfully navigates the world by yielding to situational givens and responding accordingly. Acting in a “non-interfering” manner is contrasted with a continually imposing of one’s self-directed concerns upon the world in an attempt to refashion it into a more egocentrically satisfying form. As the self of Daoism is not an internally self-sufficient atom but rather a function of its various relations with the world, the sage thus simply is the individual who recognizes this fact and acts in a way that ensures that these various relations constitutive of the self remain smooth and unperturbed. Observed externally, the activities of the sage appear to others as spontaneously dynamic

24 25

Ames and Hall, 2003. Ames and Hall, 2003.

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and natural, wholly devoid of agitation and artificiality while perfectly coordinated with the situation to which they are responding. Here we might think of the world-class swimmer gliding seamlessly through the water, their every gesture an expression of precision and economy. Or we might imagine how the seasoned teacher appears to her students, as she develops her material through the deft use of concrete images and illuminative anecdotes, responding directly to difficult questions while effortlessly exhibiting utter comfort in the classroom and command of the material. However, by focusing solely on the external form of wu-wei (as many interpreters do), we fail to account for the more subtle dimension of wu-wei that is perhaps its most important component. Slingerland points to this crucial phenomenological feature of wu-wei, a feature often overlooked in the discussions within the secondary literature.26 Wu-wei, Slingerland writes, refers not primarily to the extrinsic form of the action itself but rather to the inner phenomenology of the agent as she performs the action. According to Slingerland, wu-wei “describes a state of personal harmony in which actions flow freely and instantly . . . [and] perfectly accord with the dictates of the situation at hand”.27 Wu-wei is thus a phenomenological descriptive. It designates the agent’s inner inclinations and motives, their inner states (or as we shall see, conspicuous lack thereof ) in the moment of spontaneous action as performed. And it is this dimension of wu-wei that is directly at odds with Searle’s account of intentionality and action, as it refers to a mode of bodily motor-intentional action lacking representational mentality. Of course, the Dao-De-Jing does not offer a detailed phenomenological analysis of wu-wei. But this emphasis is made apparent through a close reading of a number of key chapters. To look at one of them, I quote the whole of chapter 48: In studying, there is daily increase, While in learning of way-making, there is a daily decrease: One loses and again loses To the point that one does everything noncoercively. One does things noncoercively And yet nothing goes undone.

26 27

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In wanting to rule the world Be always non-interfering in going about its business For in being interfering You make yourself worthy of ruling the world.28

Against the Confucian ideal of “studying” and “daily [ritualistic] increase”, the Daoist sage realizes the creative possibilities of each new situation by “losing, and again losing” pre-established patterns of behavior and deliberate, principled knowing. The skilled swimmer ‘rules’ the pool by coordinating her strokes with the flow of the water via a deep ecological sensitivity—a felt of union body and environment. She does not continually appeal to memorized coaching principles prior to each stroke but rather ‘loses’ these principles in her spontaneous bodily performance in response to ever-changing pool conditions. Similarly, the skilled instructor develops a lesson plan but, ever flexible, quickly abandons it when responding to unanticipated questions from students that suddenly open up new avenues of instruction and illumination. She does not refuse to answer questions that deviate from the day’s plan but rather adapts to the needs of her students. Again, the important point is that these skilled actions are not anticipated before the performance (or perhaps even during the performance). Rather, they reflect the sage’s deep somatic attunement: a perpetual openness or ‘readiness-to-respond’ that enables the sage to react in a way that does not appeal to represented ‘conditions of satisfaction’ (such as we find in Searle’s account) governing subsequent action. Such actions are spontaneous but situationally-appropriate. Moreover, this phenomenological aspect of wu-wei houses its ethical significance. The ethical significance of the concept of wu-wei is, again, its most important component. For wu-wei is not merely an integral part of a more elaborate Daoist theory of mind and action. Rather, it is first and foremost a mode of relating that enables us to live ethically and effortlessly with one another by harmonizing with the natural rhythms of the Way. Wu-wei is thus the mode of action by which we embody the virtue of naturalness. Naturalness is not equivalent to wu-wei but rather emerges from it. And naturalness, then, is a noncoercive relating to the people and things of the world: the ethical ‘fruit’, so to speak, of wu-wei. Chapter 64 tells us that

28

Ames and Hall, 2003.

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joel w. krueger . . . because the sages do things noncoercively They do not ruin them. And because they do not try to control things They do not lose them.29

By relating to the people and things of the world naturally, we encourage the free expression of their uniqueness and particularity. We allow them to meet us in their double-aspect of (1) human individuality, as well as (2) their respective place in the Heavenly order. To return to a point made earlier, the natural conduct of the sage expresses an ability to act with a fine-grained microscopic skill that simultaneously maintains a macroscopic sensitivity. To return to Searle: this ‘microscopic skill’ differs from Searle’s earlier discussion of skills in an important way. The point will be developed in more detail below, specifically during my discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of realizing a ‘maximal grip’. However, the salient aspect of this difference can be succinctly expressed as follows. The situationallyspecific, fine-grained microscopic skill marking the conduct of the Sage emerges from a more general macroscopic sensitivity that Searle’s discussion of skills and capacities cannot accommodate. This ‘macroscopic sensitivity’ is itself a second-order skill or capacity—the Skill of skills or Capacity of capacities, we might say. (I’ll follow Searle’s convention with ‘the Background’ and capitalize these terms). More precisely, it is a general bodily Skill or second-order motor Capacity that enables the sage to continually perform particular first-order skills or capacities in a truly effortless and yielding manner. Thus the Sage can exercise ordinary skills (mowing the lawn, skiing, washing dishes, chatting with co-workers) naturally and effortlessly. The sage does not suddenly become an expert lawn-mower, skier, dish washer or conversationalist, of course. Rather, whatever capacities they already posses with respect to these activities are simply allowed to manifest in a spontaneous and yielding manner. This second-order Capacity or Skill is, then, the ‘empty’ phenomenology of the Sage acting in an intuitive manner that lacks representational mentality.

29

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Ames and Hall, 2003.

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4. Sharpening the Critique: Daoism on Action without Representation I will now clarify some of the pointes introduced above, and highlight more carefully how the Daoist formulations of wu-wei and naturalness can be summoned in criticism of Searle’s account of intentionality and action. I will then consider how Searle might respond to this criticism, before concluding by briefly developing the ethical significance of this criticism. John Dewey’s distinction between ‘know-how’ and ‘knowing-that’ will assist our initial discussion. According to Dewey, ‘knowing-that’ is a kind of knowledge that “involves reflection and conscious appreciation”.30 Put differently, knowing-that is a form of propositional or representational knowledge. However, Dewey argues that the bulk of everyday human activity exhibits knowledge of a different sort: We may, indeed, be said to know how by means of our habits . . . We walk and read aloud, we get off and on street cars, we dress and undress, and do a thousand useful acts without thinking about them. We know something, namely, how to do them.31

Thus know-how, for Dewey, is a practical familiarity with certain environments or situations that progressively emerges from our various embodied interactions with the salient features of these environments. Practical know-how refers to the absorbed coping or bodily comportment—the conduct—characteristic of our familiar routines and patterns of action in particular lived environments. More simply, know-how is a generalized feeling of ‘at home-ness’ that enables this absorbed coping. Dewey writes that The sailor is intellectually at home on the sea, the hunter in the forest, the painter in his studio, the man of science in his laboratory. These commonplaces are universally recognized in their concrete; but their significance is obscured and their truth denied in the current general theory of mind.32

Dewey furthermore claims that know-how is a kind of knowledge that “lives in the muscles, not in consciousness”.33 As he describes it, then,

30 Dewey, John. (1988), Human nature and conduct (Vol. 14), Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, p. 125. 31 Dewey, 1988. p. 124. 32 Dewey, 1988, p. 123. 33 Dewey, 1988, p. 124.

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bodily know-how exhibits a form of intentionality or goal-directedness that (1) marks it as genuine knowledge, but which (2) differentiates it from propositional or representational knowledge. In other words, it is operative without explicit representation of ‘conditions of satisfaction’. Embodied know-how is a bodily skill (or skill-set) that achieves its practical goals without representing them. The ‘at home-ness’ of Dewey’s conception of know-how can be used to further explicate the practical skill-knowledge dimension of wu-wei. For the true Daoist sage embodies the Way in all action-contexts via the perpetual practice of wu-wei. She expresses the ultimate form of skill-knowledge: namely, manifesting an expertise of living that allows her to develop and express her humanity to the fullest degree, and to encourage the same capacities in others by serving as an example for them. Therefore the sage’s ‘ethos of expertise’, as we might refer to it, is generalized from particular environments (the sailor on the sea, the painter in her studio, the swimmer in the pool, the teacher in her classroom) to encompass the entire world. This is the generalized ‘macroscopic skill’ of which we spoke earlier. The sage is naturally at home in all situations she encounters, and thus can respond to situational demands in a spontaneous and appropriate manner. In doing so, she serves as a moral exemplar for all those who meet her. Her microscopic expertise resonates with a simultaneous social (or macrocosmic) efficacy. To return to the critique of Searle: Dewey’s analysis and the Daoist insistence on the pragmatic significance of wu-wei point to a phenomenon that we might refer to as the body’s ‘intentional project’, or a form of noncognitive motor intentionality. Put bluntly, Searle’s overly-cognitive discussion of intentionality (with its emphasis on representational mentality) lacks a sensitivity to this bodily dimension and thus artificially carves off an essential aspect of human action. A more natural approach to human action is an embodied approach that recognizes the central role of the body’s intentional project. So what is the body’s intentional project? Put simply, the body’s intentional project is the nonconceptual field of experience through which our body is knowingly integrated into its lived environment, and by which it intuitively responds to the practical saliencies of its lived environment by knowingly inhabiting it. In other words, the body’s intentional project is the mechanism that maintains the ‘equilibrium’, in Dewey’s terminology, between the agent’s body and the practical saliencies of its environment. The practical saliencies are what solicit various forms of skilled action. Dewey writes that know-how consists of “securing prompt and exact adjustment to

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the [organism’s] environment” since “the truth is that in every waking moment, the complete balance of the organism and its environment is constantly interfered with and is constantly restored”.34 Thus life just is, then, a perpetual series of “interruptions and recoveries” according to Dewey. This continual organic exchange between the organism and the environment constitutes the ‘equilibrium’ we are continually establishing and re-establishing. Like the Daoist conception of ‘naturalness’, equilibrium, for Dewy, just is the “degree of fit” between the body’s intentional projects and the environment (including the practical saliencies constitutive thereof ) within which the body’s intentional projects are enacted. Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the ‘maximal grip’ further elaborates this phenomenon of nonrepresentational bodily intentionality. Moreover, it perhaps illuminates most effectively the practical import of wu-wei and its precise point of divergence from Searle’s conception of intentional action. In Phenomenology of Perception, Merleau-Ponty writes that realizing a ‘maximal grip’ consists of achieving “a certain possession of the world by my body, a certain gearing of my body to the world…my body is geared onto the world when my perception presents me with a spectacle as varied and as clearly articulated as possible, and when my motor intentions, as they unfold, receive the responses they expect from the world.”35 But the mechanism enabling the body’s ‘maximal grip’ with the world—the body’s intentional project—does not exhibit a propositional or representational structure characteristic of knowing-that. According to Merleau-Ponty: “Our body is not an object for an ‘I think’, it is a grouping of lived through meanings which moves towards its equilibrium.”36 Like Dewey, Merleau-Ponty’s ‘equilibrium’ or ‘maximal grip’ (which is the body’s tendency to establish equilibrium) refers to the way that our body responds to the practical solicitations unique to each situation in such a way that the situation is brought closer to our sense of an optimal gestalt.37 Importantly, this optimal gestalt or situational harmony is achieved without entertaining conditions of satisfaction. According to Merleau-Ponty: “The polarization of

Dewey, 1988, pp. 124–125. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1962), Phenomenology of Perception. (C. Smith trans.), New York: Routledge, p. 162. 36 Merleau-Ponty, 1962, p. 153. 37 Dreyfus, Hubert (2002), “Intelligence Without Representation: Merleau-Ponty’s critique of mental representation”, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 1(4), p. 367. 34 35

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life towards a goal is entirely unrepresented. Objective thought bypasses true intentionality, which is at its object rather than positing it.”38 This “true intentionality” is a more basic motor intentionality beneath the representational mentality of “objective thought”, or Searle’s conditions of satisfaction that Searle thinks must be a phenomenal (in addition to logical) component of intentional action. It is the bodily capacity that enables an immediate and effortless response. In the flow of skilled activity, Merleau-Ponty and Daoism both insist that I am simply responding to the specific solicitations of each encountered situation. In other words, I allow the situation to draw the proper response out of me. Against Searle’s conception of intentional action, I experience neither prior intentions nor intentions in action as guiding my action. And I am not aware of an explicit ‘experience of acting’ or ‘feeling of trying’, as Searle puts it. In the process of realizing an optimal situational gestalt, I allow my body to respond in a way that expresses an overarching ‘macroscopic sensitivity’: a felt sense of my relationship to the gestalt established by my agentive body and the larger situation in which I am acting. The actions are thus not initiated by me, strictly speaking, but by the larger situation of which I am a part. I experience my environment very literally drawing the appropriate response out of me. In this way I am ‘empty’ of purposive or self-directed striving. This, I contend, is the very definition of acting in a ‘yielding’ or ‘natural’ manner. I am truly “acting without effort.” I am acting intentionality but without invoking representational mentality or purposive striving. Some concrete examples will help here. Hubert Dreyfus has famously directed a similar criticism of Searle’s account of intentionality and action as the one offered above.39 One of Dreyfus’ favored examples of the phenomenon described involves playing tennis. The expert tennis player, Dreyfus argues, need not appeal to rules and representations when absorbed in the flow of a tennis match. Rather, Dreyfus contends that what one experiences is more like one’s arm going up and its being drawn to the appropriate position, the racket forming the optimal angle with the court—an angle one need not even be aware of—all this so as to complete the gestalt made up of the court, one’s running opponent, and the on-coming ball. . . . But that final gestalt . . . is not something one

38 39

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could represent. One only senses when one is getting closer or further away from the optimum.40

The continual establishing of gestalt equilibrium—a practical ‘gestalt maintenance’, we might say—is enacted too rapidly and spontaneously to involve representing conditions of satisfaction. Rather, the better I am at tennis the more immediate and refined my sensing becomes, with respect to how close or far away from an optimal gestalt I currently am. However, my performance is too refined and subtle—in other words, situationally specific—to simply be the product of vague Background skills fortuitously coming into play. Rather, the situationally-specific discriminations conform too precisely to the situation at hand to be anything but intentional. However, while acting, I may not know in what way I am going to realize an optimal gestalt until after I’ve done it. Many athletes speak of not remembering what they’ve done during the moments comprising an especially spectacular athletic performance (such as a football player’s zig-zagging run for a touchdown during which he eludes multiple would-be tacklers) until they later view a video replay of it. In other words, they don’t know what they’ve done, exactly, until after they do it. In this sense, they are intentionally performing an action but, phenomenologically speaking, are ‘empty’ in the sense described above. Once more, the phenomenology of such actions lacks Searle’s requirement for individuating actions: his represented ‘conditions of satisfaction’ that determine either before or during the action what the best response is. Therefore, the reports of athletes (and artists, individuals acting in a time of crisis, etc.) describing cases of acting without thinking points to the fact that one can indeed experience intentional bodily action that is empty of representational mentality. Dreyfus’ examples generally involve practical action-contexts. In the next section, I will extend this characterization of motor intentionality to include the ethical, intersubjective realm. However, prior to doing this, it is important to note that, while most of us realize this sort of effortless, nonrepresentational action within specific skill domains, the Daoist sage is poised to affect this effortless action in all contexts. The sage naturally and spontaneously brings every situation she encounters to an optimal gestalt in the manner described above. Wu-wei, as a second-order bodily Skill, enables her to do just this. Bodily skills can be realized in an indefinite number of ways—certainly more ways than can 40

Dreyfus, 2002, p. 379.

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be antecedently represented. Moreover, the very definition of genuine skill involves realizing responses that cannot always be antecedently represented. Very often, therefore, the situation draws forth a response from the skilled agent that, only retrospectively, is seen to have been the most appropriate one. Again, genuine spontaneity—action without representation—is the key feature here. To sum up this section: with their respective formulations of what I have referred to as “motor intentionality”, Dewey, Merleau-Ponty and Daoism each in their own way insist that, phenomenologically speaking, we do not represent antecedent conditions of satisfaction to determine whether or not an action has been performed correctly (and thus ‘equilibrium’ or ‘naturalness’ achieved between the body, its lived environment, and the situational saliencies of the environment to which the body is responding). For the body’s intentional project is not a form of cognitive or representational intentionality whatsoever. It is a purely practical or skillful poise. Put differently, it is a deep bodily-perceptual attunement. This poise or attunement is an expression of the sage’s generalized second-order Skill or Capacity, discussed in the previous section. And poise, as a perpetual readiness-to-respond, is what enables the body’s intentional projects to be enacted via a nonrepresentational mode of activity, without the need to articulate antecedent conditions of satisfaction to determine whether or not an action is successful. Therefore, Dewey describes this poise as a feeling of at home-ness, an affective interface between self and world that enables expert nonrepresentational (but nonetheless intentional) skilled action. Similarly, the Daoist sage exhibits an intuitive wisdom that, in its spontaneity and flexibility, is operative without the invocation of representational mentality. This is the mode of noncognitive motorintentionality activated by the one who “knows without budging” and who “does without trying”, in the words of the Dao the Ching. I therefore suggest that the practical dimension of wu-wei—as a noncognitive or bodily intentionality, a generalized ethos of expertise that allows the sage to move effortlessly through the flow of everyday situations—discloses an aspect of embodied human action that Searle’s cognitivist theory of intentionality cannot accommodate, and which he overlooks. The skillful navigation of life’s “interruptions and recoveries” is accomplished more successfully and naturally the less one thinks and the more one simply acts. Searle’s emphasis on representational mentality therefore offers a less robust picture of the skillful bodily actions that constitute the bulk of our everyday lived experience and, as I will explore in the

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final section, our intersubjective relations. However, I first want to look at how Searle might respond to the above criticisms levied against his model of intentionality. 5. The Primacy of Logical Analysis: A Searlian Response So how would Searle respond to the above criticisms? Very likely, he would reiterate a point that has already been mentioned. Put simply, the point is this: Searle would contend that he is not concerned with a phenomenological analysis of intentionality but rather a logical analysis of its basic features. The criticisms above presuppose that Searle’s analysis is somehow phenomenologically deficient. But as his concern, one again, is with logical analysis, the criticisms miss the mark. There are a number of points to be offered in response. First, I’ve already noted how, at several junctures, Searle’s model of intentionality seems to bring the phenomenological as well as the logical features (as he defines them) of intentionality into something of a mysterious union. He wants to do purely logical analysis but has to contend with the irreducible phenomenology of intentional action—including the phenomenology of bodily intentionality. Searle’s model of intentionality is as clear as one would like on this point. (See the end of section two for this criticism). More simply, it’s not clear that Searle’s logical analysis remains entirely phenomenologically neutral when discussing “the experience of acting”, as he terms it. Since I’ve already mentioned this criticism, however, and for the sake of moving to more interesting responses, I won’t discussion it further. Next, I question Searle’s more general contention that a purely logical analysis is in itself up to the task of offering an explanatorily adequate model of intentionality and intentional action. Searle has recently summed up this approach when he writes that: “The method of logical analysis is to state conditions—truth conditions, performance conditions, conditions of constitution, etc.”41 So Searle’s method is logical analysis, a stating of conditions. Why then logical analysis over phenomenological analysis? Again, Searles’s basic contention is

41 Searle, John (2004), “The Phenomenological Illusion”, in Experience and Analysis: Contributions to the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society (Vol. XII), edited by J.C. Marek and M.E. Reicher, pp. 317–336.

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concisely stated: “some of the most important logical features of intentionality are beyond the reach of phenomenology because they have no immediate phenomenological reality.”42 According to Searle, the “phenomenological illusion” is essentially the belief, which he attributes to those who utilize phenomenological analysis, that unless something is “phenomenologically real”, it has no “mental, intentionalistic or logical reality”.43 Put differently, the phenomenologist contends that the world is only known insofar as it experienced from human perspectives. Thus whatever reality the world and the things in it have is constituted by the human perspectives (attitudes, stances, cultural and linguistic practices, etc.) that confer reality upon it. This perspectivalism founds phenomenological methods, according to Searle. Searle therefore says that phenomenology can, with a straight face, speak of “incompatible realities” and “incompatible lexicons” that are used to structure and describe competing realities.44 For different human perspectives very literally create different realities. Of course, Searle’s criticism of the “phenomenological illusion” is more nuanced than this mere sketch suggests. However, this gloss captures the core of Searle’s argument. As usual, Searle’s criticisms are pointed and well-argued. Moreover, I’m inclined to think that there is much of worth in a number of his criticisms. However, there are also a number of problems with several aspects of Searle’s basic argument here, and I’m going to focus on those. First, Searle speaks as though there is one way to do phenomenology, in the same sense that analytic philosophy, according to Searle, has modeled its form of analysis on Russell’s theory of descriptions, and specifically Russell’s analysis of conditions under which sentences are true.45 This of course is simply not the case. Searle’s major target is Husserlian phenomenology. But one can indeed levy criticisms at Husserlian phenomenology that find little if any traction in other phenomenological methods—often radically divergent from Husserlian methodology—such as those employed by Heidegger, Sartre, MerleauPonty, Schutz, Kitarō Nishida or even Daoism, as I am here presenting it. (Even to speak of a single entity that is “Husserlian phenomenology” is to remain insensitive to the many revisions and often profound changes that characterized Husserl’s continually-evolving approach 42 43 44 45

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2004, 2004, 2004, 2004,

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to phenomenological analysis). These are more exegetical concerns, however, so I leave them aside. To return to the more general question at hand. Can logical analysis render a sufficiently robust account of intentionality? It’s not entirely clear that it can. Here’s why. Despite his insistence on the centrality of the body and what he terms the ‘1st person ontology’ of consciousness in our everyday human experience, Searle’s logical analysis of intentionality fails to capture what intentionality really is: namely, the lived activity of an embodied agent engaged in an enactive relation with its environment. Intentionality is a feature of this enactive, open-ended relation—and not simply a logical feature of mentality. Searle finds “breathtaking” the suggestion, evidently put forth by Hubert Dreyfus, that he is a Cartesian.46 Surely we should give Searle the benefit of the doubt when he insists that this is simply false. But given his cognitivist rendering of intentionality, however, it’s relatively easy to see why a critic might accuse him of falling prey to a naturalistic variation of Cartesian internalism. Put crudely, internalism is the view that mentality (the events, states, and processes that constitute our mental life) resides squarely in the head. As we’ve already seen, Searle claims that intentionality is a mental feature. Consistent with his “biological naturalism”, he furthermore claims that intentionality is “a biological feature of the world, on all fours with digestion and photosynthesis. It is caused by and realized in the brain.”47 Hence, intentionality is a feature of mentality internal to the intracranial structures of the intentional subject. In contrast to Searle’s internalist model of intentionality, the reading of wu-wei I have here offered, with its emphasis on the open-ended, world-directedness of bodily intentionality, can be thought of as providing an externalist model of mentality and intentionality. In other words, the mind is not localized solely in the events, states, and processes realized in the brain. Rather, mental events, states, and processes extend beyond the limits of the skull and skin, out into the living world. The mind, in a very literal sense, is distributed into the world, intermingled with it. And intentionality is a feature of the relation that is enacted between the ‘extended’ agent and the world in which she acts. The internalism/externalism debate is indeed a thorny one, very much at the center of contemporary debates in epistemology and philosophy of

46 47

Searle, 2004, p. 319. Searle, 2004, p. 322.

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mind, and I can’t here offer a full defense of Daoist externalism. Thus I’ll simply confine myself to a few remarks relevant to the immediate critique of Searle. When I speak of wu-wei and bodily intentionality as an open-ended, world-directed enactive relation realized externally, I mean something like the following. In some sense, mentality is, of course, realized in the brain. It seems quite silly to deny this “basic fact”, as Searle would call it. For, if my brain were suddenly to vaporize, it’s clear that I would cease to be an intentional subject in any meaningful sense. But it does not follow from this that intentionality, too, must be realized solely in the brain. Our discussion of wu-wei has offered us a rich way of conceiving of the reciprocal relationship between an acting agent and the agent’s environment. Moreover, we have seen that the notion of “acting without thinking”, far from being an abstract, mystical, or incoherent notion, instead disclose an essential aspect of our embodied human experience, and our basic human way of living and acting in the world. Much of our everyday life is spent embodying this form of “empty” acting, as described above. And the reason that we are able to act without thinking on so many occasions, I contend, is due to the fact that the world itself—including the people and things that make up my lived environments—serves as the vehicle of many of my mental tasks (such as thinking, perceiving, remembering, believing, etc.). ‘Vehicles’ of mental tasks are simply the events, states, and processes that carry mental content, where the latter are understood to be the objects of events, states, and processes. The cases of wu-wei we have described above enable us to understand how the world itself can serve as the vehicle of thought. Let’s return to the tennis example. Using the model of wu-wei developed in the second portion of the paper, I have argued that, in this example, the environment itself draws the appropriate response out of the tennis player unthinkingly absorbed in the flow of a tennis match. The tennis expert does not consciously think about each and every shot before, during, or after she enacts them. Again, she simply does them. This is possible because the structures comprising her environment—her racket, the court, her opponent, the weather conditions, etc.—individually and collectively serve (or at least, potentially serve) as vehicles of cognition. But they only do so when our tennis player probes and manipulates them through her embodied engagement with them. Intentionality emerges within this enactive relation.

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Thus, when the wind suddenly picks up and the tennis expert slips on a wet spot while about to unleash a thunderous forehand, we can speak of the environment as carrying salient information. The environment becomes an information-bearing structure: information about the direction of the gust of wind and how it will effect the tennis expert’s return forehand, relative to her position on the court; information about how the wet spot will very suddenly change the angle the tennis player will assume respective to her opponent; the range of available forehand returns given the sudden gust of wind and the player slipping on the wet spot, etc. The expert player, while absorbed in the flow of playing, does not have to think about all of this information because the environment itself contains this information, waiting for her to access, act upon and respond to it. These environmental saliencies thus serve as vehicle of thought, bearing information which the player spontaneously accesses through her embodied engagement with the environment. This embodied engagement is what enacts an intentional relation. Intentionality here emerges through the sensorimotor patterns of action by which the tennis player accesses the information contained in various environmental structures. By manipulating these information-bearing structures (countering the gust of wind by putting more topspin on her forehand), the tennis player acts intentionally. But once more, she can do so without thinking. The information-bearing structures of her environment do the “thinking” for her. In this sense, then, the environment literally draws the appropriate responses out of her. Therefore, the characterization of wu-wei explored above—and specifically its embodied and pragmatic aspects—allows us to see how intentionality emerges not simply through internal mental processes but rather through the active probing and manipulation of an external environment by an acting agent. Intentionality is not a logical feature of mentality but rather a lived relation that is enacted through our embodied engagement with the world. 6. The Ethical Significance of Wu-wei There is one final point to be made. In overlooking the foundational bodily dimension of human action discussed at length above, Searle has neglected an essential component of our ethical interrelations: our affective or felt connection with other individuals and their respective needs.

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Again, according to Daoism, affectivity (and not reflective cognition) is the basic interface between self and world. The “ethos of expertise”, as I’ve termed it, is precisely the felt familiarity that enables us to respond optimally to concrete situations (or experiential gestalts) without invoking representational thought. This ethos of expertise can be realized within ethical encounters, too. Indeed, Daoism would insist that all of our intersubjective relations exhibit an irreducible ethical structure. Moreover, ethical interrelatedness is a matter of embodied, affective action that unfolds spontaneously, prior to cognitive or reflective critical-rational judgments. Kantian paradigms of moral life as consisting of the detached formulation of moral judgments and universalizeable principles are thus replaced by an emphasis on the situated microencounters with particular individuals in specific moral contexts that comprise the very “marrow” of our real-world ethical relations. To put the matter more precisely, we might utilize Daoist insights and suggest the following. Moral maturity (as it is embodied in the practice of wu-wei and, concomitantly, the expression of naturalness) involves a heightened attunement to situational saliencies that allows the sage to intuitively perceive the relevant moral features of concrete situations and to spontaneously react to these features in a selfless manner. Like an artist at home in her studio or a sailor on the sea, the moral expert is deeply attuned to the moral saliencies of changing situations that others may not notice: a nearly imperceptible change in a co-worker’s tone during a casual conversation; the slight blush of someone whom I’ve abruptly made uncomfortable by uttering an ill-considered comment; a twenty dollar bill that slips out of the pocket of a person in front of me as they continue down the street unaware; a sudden cry for help just around the corner; the expectant glance of a lone child waiting to be acknowledged in a room full of adults. Searle would surely recognize the moral importance of situations such as those mentioned above. But it’s not clear that Searle’s discussion of intentionality and action can offer a skillful capacity for responding to these situations that that captures the moral character of these kinds of actions. However, the Daoist notion of wu-wei can. By being deeply attuned to these features of concrete moral contexts, the sage affects a radical gestalt shift. (This shift, I suggest, is an expression of the sage’s sense of how to bring about an optimal moral gestalt). She immediately foregrounds the needs of the others she encounters while allowing her own self-directed concerns to recede into the background. Moral expertise thus entails a radical perspectival reconfiguration. By being perpetually

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poised to affect such a gestalt shift, the sage thus generates a spontaneous, selfless form of moral action that does not entail reflective deliberation or represented conditions of satisfaction. For the moral requirements of individual situations are generally too rich and fine-grained to be laid bare by prior planning or falling back onto universal rules. Cultivating an ethos of expertise in nearly any practical domain is precisely the ability to avoid “over-thinking” a proper course of activity—again, recall the earlier discussion of the tennis player who simply performs without being conscious of the coaching principles governing expert performance—by simply responding to situational saliencies in the proper manner. And this holds for ethical action as well. For by affecting the gestalt shift described above, the moral expert is prepared to react spontaneously and appropriately without being hindered by egocentric self-interest. The needs of the other are foregrounded and the sage intuitively responds to those needs. Genuinely selfless compassion and yielding to the needs of the other thus becomes possible. 7. Conclusions To conclude: I have argued that the notion of wu-wei, as developed in the Dao-De-Jing, is a generalized bodily Skill or Capacity that can be expressed through the various ways that the sage relates to the people and things of the world. Moreover, I have argued that it is an intentional bodily Skill (in that it is directed towards, as well as open and responsive to, the world and the things in it) that nonetheless doesn’t have the representational character required by Searle’s discussion of intentionality and action. Even Searle’s discussion of the Background, I have argued, cannot accommodate wu-wei understood as a second-order, generalized bodily Skill or Capacity that enables the sage to perform local first-order skill or capacities (like walking, playing tennis, or serving others) in a truly effortless manner. For Searle, the Background is not intentional but is rather composed of preintentional assumptions, skills, and capacities that enable the subsequent formulation of intentional states. However, I have argued that wu-wei, as a second-order Skill, is itself intentional (again, in that it is directed towards the cosmic order as a whole, including the world and the things in it), but that it is operative without representational mentality. The sage intuitively responds to changing situations in ways that feel appropriate (via an “ethos of expertise”) without invoking representations of success conditions. In

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this way, the sage can act spontaneously and fluidly, in accord with the natural rhythms of the Dao. Wu-wei thus discloses a crucial fact of our embodied agency—this second-order Capacity—that Searle’s account overlooks. Moreover, it also suggests a number of intriguing reasons to rethink the internalist bias informing not only Searle’s discussion of intentionality but more generally, the Cartesian prejudices informing our sense of self and our conception of our own agency. Finally, and most importantly for Daoism, wu-wei furthermore discloses a fact about our embodied moral agency—and particularly, our capacity to cultivate a heightened moral attunement—that Searle’s discussion cannot account for. Yet Daoism would surely insist that moral significance of wu-wei is its most important element. Our capacity for selfless moral action is the core of our uniquely human agency. The sage would thus encourage Searle to enlarge his discussion to encompass this crucial aspect of human experience. In this way, then, I have endeavored to show that Daoism offers an important challenge to a theorist who has exerted a deservedly profound influence over the shape and concerns of contemporary western philosophy. Contemporary Chinese thought, too, can assuredly benefit from an engagement with John Searle’s work. However, the relatively humble aims of the essay will have been realized if I have been successful in demonstrating a way in which Searle’s philosophy can itself be enriched by listening to voices from within another philosophical tradition. Given his admirable history of engaging differing western philosophical traditions, it is likely that Searle will be open to such an international dialogue. World philosophy will surely be richer for it. References Ames, R.T. and Hall, D.H., trans. (2003), Daodejing; “Making This Life Significant”: A Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Books. Addiss, S. and Lombardo, S., trans. (1993), Tao te Ching. Indianapolis: Hackett. Dewey, J. (1958), Experience and Nature, New York: Dover. ——. (1988), Human Nature and Conduct (Vol. 14), Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Dreyfus, H.L. (2002), “Intelligence Without Representation: Merleau-Ponty’s critique of mental representation”, Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 1(4), pp. 367–383. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962), Phenomenology of Perception (C. Smith, Trans.), New York: Routledge. Penfield, Wilard (1975), The Mystery of the Mind, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Searle, J.R. (1983), Intentionality: An essay in the philosophy of mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——. (2004), “The Phenomenological Illusion”, in Experience and Analysis: Contributions to the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society ( Vol. XII), edited by J.C. Marek and M.E. Reicher, pp. 317–336. Slingerland, E. (2000), “Effortless Action: The Chinese spiritual ideal of wu-wei”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 68(2), pp. 293–328.

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REPLY TO JOEL W. KRUEGER John R. Searle Professor Krueger offers a criticism of my account of intentionality of action which, as he recognizes, echoes certain criticisms of me by phenomenologists. However, his is based on the Daoist doctrine of wu-wei. Before answering his objections, let me state how I interpret the notion of wu-wei. As he describes it, it seems to me there are two quite distinct aspects. There is the naturalness of the abilities that one has in coping with the world. This is in large part a set of skills. But of course wu-wei is manifest in the exercise of these skills. Now what is true of the skills themselves, namely that they do not consist of representations, is however, not true of the manifestation of those skills in actual intentional actions. My own account is like the wu-wei doctrine of the Dao in postulating a set of Background skills or abilities. In describing my account, Krueger persistently misunderstands me as supposing that the representation of conditions of satisfaction must somehow or other be part of the conscious phenomenology, that one must consciously think in advance what is to count as succeeding or failing. Thus he speaks of someone acting “without entertaining a representation of her action’s conditions of satisfaction.” The word “entertaining” is revealing here because it suggests precisely what I am denying, namely that to have a representation it is essential to have some conscious thought about the conditions of satisfaction of that representation. My point is that conditions of satisfaction need not be, and frequently are not, “entertained”. I want to emphasize this point. The analysis of intentionality has very little to do with consciousness then and there on the spot. Of course, if you think about it later, you can often recover the unconscious intentionality, but much, perhaps most, intentionality is totally unconscious at the time of its actual occurrence. Anybody who thinks seriously about the philosophy of language would be aware of this fact. The argument that both the prior intention and the intention-inaction must have conditions of satisfaction is a purely logical argument. Here is how it goes. First ask, Can the agent succeed or fail? The answer is Yes. If the agent is doing something intentional, then

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that intention must either succeed or fail. But if it can succeed or fail, then there must be conditions of success and failure. The agent may be quite surprised at the nature of his success or failure. It need not be something that he anticipates in a conscious thought. That is not the point at all. The point is if it can succeed or fail, it follows trivially that it has conditions of succeeding or failing. And that is just another way of saying that it has conditions of satisfaction. So the existence of conditions of satisfaction is a trivial logical consequence of the possibility of succeeding or failing. Furthermore, the notion of a condition is a propositional notion because a condition is always a condition that such and such. So if you can have success or failure, you must have conditions of success or failure, and those conditions are propositional, and in that sense they are representational. And if those conditions are set by your intentionality, those conditions are again, by trivial definition, represented. Now nothing whatever that I have just said is intended to be phenomenological. In most cases of skilled action, one need not be consciously thinking about what one is doing and one may be quite surprised at the nature of one’s success or failure. So in fact his account of wu-wei is quite consistent with my account of intentional action. Why is this point so difficult to see? I think the answer is because many people think that if we are talking about intentional actions, we must be talking about conscious experiences of representations of the conditions of satisfaction. Something that in his terms is “entertained.” I came to all this from the study of language, where it is much more obvious that one can have all sorts of unconscious intentionality, such as following rules that one is unaware of and could not even state. I think the points I am making might have been apparent to him if he had considered conversations. There is nothing more wu-wei-like than exercising my linguistic abilities and engaging in conversations. I am often surprised at some of the things I say spontaneously, but all the same, my utterances are performed intentionally and they have truth conditions and other sorts of conditions of satisfaction, and indeed the utterances are themselves the conditions of satisfaction of the intention to perform them. My objection, in short, to Krueger, is that his account is phenomenological rather than logical. Well, isn’t the phenomenology enough? Why not just say that I am not consciously aware of thinking about the conditions of satisfaction, so we need not include them in the analysis? And the answer is that there are important logical properties which the phenomenology is inadequate to get at. It would be evolutionarily

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inefficient for us to consciously think all of the conditions of satisfaction of our intentional actions or for that matter, all of the conditions of satisfaction of our speech acts. He says that he “offers an alternative model of action that describes a form of motor intentionality or bodily action lacking representational mentality.” But it does not lack representational mentality, and this is shown by the fact that it can succeed or fail, and thus has conditions of satisfaction. I want to emphasize this point. Motor intentionality, as he describes it, is propositional, representational and it has conditions of satisfaction right down to the ground. And in general none of these are, or need be, present to the consciousness of the agent. None of them are “entertained”. I have another related argument that gets at the same point and that is to ask, Are the actions performed intentionally? And the answer of course is, Yes. Motor intentionality is not like the spasmodic contraction of my gut during digestion. These actions are all intentional actions. Then the question is, What fact about them makes them intentional? And I think he cannot answer that given his apparatus because there isn’t any phenomenological fact that he can point to. The correct answer is that they are intentional because they contain intentions-inaction as component parts, even though the agent may often not be consciously thinking about his intentions in action. I think properly understood, wu-wei is perfectly consistent with my account. There is a nonrepresentational aspect of wu-wei and it concerns Background abilities, and there is a representational aspect that has to do with the actions succeeding or failing. Our interest here is not with the Western philosophical traditions, but I cannot resist remarking on the differences between two of those traditions, roughly identifiable as analytic philosophy and phenomenology. Traditionally, analytic philosophy is primarily concerned with logical conditions. Think of Russell’s theory of descriptions. Of the sentence “The King of France is bald”, he does not ask what it feels like to utter it, he just analyzes its truth conditions. Phenomenology is more concerned with the character of the experiences that one has, and in this sense it is more in the Cartesian tradition. I have attempted to use analytic methods to analyze forms of intentionality that are not necessarily linguistic and have been more discussed in the phenomenological tradition. This has given several people the illusion that I’m trying to talk about the phenomenology of intentionality. I am not.

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Notice in this connection that the terminology that Professor Krueger has appealed to is resolutely Cartesian. The quotation from MerleauPonty, “Our body is not an object for an ‘I think’.” I have never said anything about an “I think”. He gets this from Merleau-Ponty. Next page, “The polarization of life toward a goal is entirely unrepresented.” The assumption that Merleau-Ponty (and perhaps Krueger) is making here is that a representation has to be conscious. The subject has to be consciously thinking a representational thought. That is not my view at all. Next sentence: “Objective thought bypasses true intentionality.” By “objective thought” he must mean some sort of Cartesian “I think”. That is not my view at all. I will repeat part of my view here, and then I will say why phenomenologists literally find it difficult if not impossible to hear it. I am not accusing Professor Krueger of phenomenology but I have experienced this sort of misunderstanding in several other contexts. My view is that it is a trivial logical consequence of the fact that intentional action can succeed or fail that it has propositionally represented conditions of satisfaction. Every item of Merleau-Ponty’s motor intentionality is by definition propositional because it represents conditions of satisfaction. Merleau-Ponty’s “motor intentionality” is a matter of the representations of conditions of satisfactions right down to the ground. Now why can’t these philosophers see these obvious points? And the answer is, because they have the presupposition that where the mind is concerned if something is not phenomenologically real, then it is not real at all. But of course none of my account is intended to be phenomenologically real. As Professor Krueger points out correctly, things happen too fast for an agent to be able to think through all of these logical properties. But nonetheless they are there, and you cannot account for intentionality without them. I think a lot of the phenomenology is misdescribed. Consider for instance Dreyfus’s example of the tennis player who fails to achieve a satisfactory gestalt. What does he say when the coach says, “Why the hell didn’t you try to get your second serve in? We need to work on that”. What does he say? Does he say, “Coach, I failed to achieve a satisfactory gestalt”? I sometimes watch tennis matches on television and I read about them in newspapers afterwards. When the player tells why he lost the match he never says, “I failed to achieve a satisfactory gestalt because I was getting further away from the optimum”. What he

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says are things like, “I lost my concentration in the third set”. But this is straight intentionality. However, let us suppose that there is this additional part; that the player is also trying to achieve a certain gestalt. If so, then that effort has to be represented propositionally with conditions of satisfaction. But, to repeat, this claim is not phenomenological. Now, let me explain further, why it is difficult for some philosophers to see these points. The answer in Merleau-Ponty’s case is that he is an idealist. He is an idealist in a European idealistic tradition. This is disguised from us by the fact that he constantly appeals to the body. But when he is talking about the body, he is not talking about the actual chunk of matter, for him the chunk of matter does not exist. He is talking about “le corps vécu”. He is talking about the experienced lived body, and that is not a physical object. There is something deep going on here, and it is what I call a phenomenological illusion. The phenomenological illusion involves two halves. One: if it is phenomenologically real, it is real, that is all the reality you need. Second, if it is not phenomenologically real, it is not real at all. Now, almost none of my logical points about intentions-in-action and conditions of satisfaction are phenomenologically real. Philosophers, can, if they like, stop and think about them and then they will become phenomenologically real. But whether phenomenologically real or not, they are nonetheless logically real. Because, if you analyze the structure, if you analyze what counts as succeeding or failing, then you will find these logical features even though, to use Professor Krueger’s terminology, they were never “entertained”. The guy did not stop and entertain the content of his intention in action, nor the condition of satisfaction. There is an interesting subtext to all of this. The existential phenomenologists seldom talk about language or conversation. But of course language and conversation are precisely examples of skilful behavior, of places where in fact you do try to achieve a satisfactory gestalt. The reason they have little to say about language in this way is that it is obvious in language that you have propositional conditions of satisfaction, most of which you are not thinking about. I don’t have to think about the next clause I am going to utter, or whether or not the relative clause had a proper anaphoric antecedent, because it just flows quite naturally. I was fascinated by what Professor Krueger said about MerleauPonty. We were all brought up to believe that Gilbert Ryle discovered the distinction between knowing how and knowing that. But maybe Merleau-Ponty made the discovery before him. That is a fascinating historical question, but from my point of view the philosophical issue

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is more important. From my point of view you will understand the distinction better by thinking of how Background abilities are activated in the course of intentional behavior. It is indeed the case that the hunter is at home in the forest and has various kinds of know-how. But when he goes out with his gun to hunt the bear, all of that is intentional behavior, intentional behavior that is made possible by activating the Background skills. I think you get a much better account if you go through the logical structure carefully in the light of the fact that his actions are made possible by the existence of his Background skills. To conclude, I think Professor Krueger’s criticisms of me are based on misunderstandings. My account is not a phenomenological account. But there is a deeper point: I think phenomenology disguises the logical structure. Let me just give one example of that. He gave the example of a moral case. A man drops a twenty dollar bill out of his pocket as he is walking down the street. Now I rush to pick it up and hand it back to him. I would not think, “Maybe I should put the money in my pocket, I can always use an extra twenty bucks”. I would not do that, rather, unthinkingly, I would give the money back to him. Now notice, I said “unthinkingly”. I did not have to think about it, but all the same this is intentional behavior. Again, it is not like the peristaltic contraction of the gut, or the wearing out of my shoes when I walk. It is intentional behavior on my part. Phenomenologists have difficulty in describing that fact, because though it is intentional behavior it is done quite automatically and unreflectively. I recognize it as intentional, and if that makes me partly a Daoist, I am happy about it.

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CHAPTER FIVE

THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE SAGE: SEARLE AND THE SIXTH PATRIARCH ON THE BRAIN AND CONSCIOUSNESS Robert E. Allinson At first blush it would appear that there is very little in common between Searle and the Sixth Patriarch. Searle, a leading analytic philosopher, views consciousness as an emergent feature of the brain. In various formulation of this thesis, Searle states: . . . mental states are both caused by the operations of the brain and realized in the structure of the brain (and the rest of the central nervous system).1 Mental phenomena are caused by neurophysiological processes in the brain and are themselves features of the brain.2

The Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng, discusses consciousness in a different way, with a view to pointing individuals toward the achievement of a special state of understanding that involves a spiritual liberation: When sentient beings realize the Essence of Mind, they are Buddhas. If a Buddha is under delusion in his Essence of Mind, he is then an ordinary being.3

Searle analyzes the concepts of brain and consciousness in a way to attempt to show the connection between them. Hui Neng refers to mind or consciousness (he does not directly discuss the brain) in order to free the subject knower from a state of unliberated consciousness. The concept of a liberated consciousness in the writings of the Sixth Patriarch represents a higher level of consciousness than a non-liberated John R. Searle (1983), Intentionality, An essay in the philosophy of mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 265. 2 John R. Searle (1992), The Rediscovery of the Mind, Cambridge: The MIT Press, p. 1. 3 Sutra Spoken by the Sixth Patriarch on the High Seat of “The Treasure of the Law”, transl. Wong Mou-lam, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Buddhist Book Distributor Press, 1952, p. 122 (Yu Ching Press, Shanghai, 1930). 1

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consciousness. This parallels Searle’s concept that consciousness is a higher level development except that in the case of the Sixth Patriarch, it is a higher level of consciousness that is realized and not a higher level of brain functioning. Let us attempt to delve more deeply into the differences between these two thinkers. In the case of Searle, the different understanding of consciousness that we would achieve is a sense that will eliminate the concept of a floating consciousness. Consciousness will be understood to be a biological functioning of the brain. It will not be a separate entity at all. We will have reduced our concept of consciousness. Consciousness will be understood to be a feature of the brain. What exactly does it mean to say that consciousness is a feature of the brain? I know what it means for my nose to be a feature of my face. It is a visible part of my face and it has a specific function. It has a special location. It does something. It also possesses weight, colour and shape. It can be touched. It can be smelled. Consciousness, on the other hand, if we take as an illustration of consciousness the content of my thought that I am tired, this thought that I am tired does not possess weight, color, shape, and so on. If Searle were putting forth a mindbrain identity thesis, then we could presumably identify consciousness with parts of the brain and then it would possess the kind of qualities that my nose possesses. I do not think he is presenting a mind-brain identity thesis unless he means that consciousness is identical with the higher levels of brain processes. When I say my nose is a feature of my face, I do not only mean that my nose functions in order to smell. I also mean that it has a long shape and sticks out from my face and is above my mouth and so on. Searle does not want to say that the mind is only the functioning of the brain. He seems to say that the mind is the result of the functioning of the brain and a feature of the brain. My nose is feature of my face but is not the result of the functioning of my face. At some points, as we shall see below, he identifies the mind with firing of neurons. But this would not differentiate the mind from my nose. I can correlate my smelling with the firing of certain neurons. But when I say my nose is a feature of my face, I am not referring to the firing of certain neurons. If my mind is a feature in this sense it might be best to describe the mind as an internal part of the brain at a time when that internal part is functioning in a special way. The mind is the activity or functioning of certain brain parts. It is both the brain and the result of the brain in the sense that it is the neurons and the firing of the neurons. But this is not quite it, either. For it is

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caused by the firing of the neurons. Could the mind be new neurons that have come into being after the firing of the initial neurons? The brain in this sense will be continually enlarging itself. As far as physiology is concerned, the number of brain cells is reducing, not increasing. I should not mix up brain cells and neurons. Perhaps the neurons come into being and then fade away as our thoughts do. Or, it is only the rate of firing or the pattern of firing of the neurons that is different.4 When a thought changes; the rate or pattern of firing changes. There is no need of an expansion of material. In this sense the mind would be the temporary state of certain firing patterns that are the result of slower or more elementary firing patterns. Or, are the thoughts that I am having the result of the faster or more complicated firing patterns? When these thoughts are stressed and repeated, are they themselves expressed as yet faster firing patterns with even more intricate firing patterns? Whichever pattern one chooses—and one must choose or else face an infinite regress—that pattern must be either the cause of the thought as experienced by the subject, or the correlate/appearance of the thought from the standpoint of an external brain observer. If it is the cause of the thought, then the thought must be something else. If it is the correlate/appearance of the thought from the standpoint of an external observer, then it is not the cause of the thought. For if it is the correlate/appearance of the thought, then there cannot be a further existence of it. On the other hand, if it is the cause of the thought, then it cannot be both cause and effect. Searle does distinguish between a ‘feature of the brain’ and ‘a part of the brain’ in his concept of there being different levels of the brain. As he says at one point, “It is precisely because there are higher level features of systems that are not parts of the system that we need levelism in the first place.”5 (emphasis his) But if the level of the brain that is consciousness is not part of the brain but its feature, then where is this level located? If it has a location, it is part of the brain. If it has no location, Searle is a Cartesian dualist. Searle wants to plump for consciousness as having a location to avoid Cartesian dualism. He says that “Consciousness is not a ‘stuff,’ it is a feature or property of the brain, in the sense, for example, that liquidity 4 Searle refers to ‘patterns of neuron firings’ in John R. Searle (1995), “Consciousness, the Brain and the Connection Principle: A Reply”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. LV, No. 1 (March 1995), p. 219. 5 Searle, 1995, p. 217.

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is a feature of water.”6 Liquidity is one of water’s three states. For Searle, when we say “water is a liquid” we are saying, “the brain is a consciousness”. If liquidity is to water as the mind is to the brain, then Searle would be holding a mind-brain identity thesis so long as the brain could change states as from solid (ice) to liquid and from liquid to a vapour (steam). Since, so far as we know the brain does not change from ice to vapour, it is not at all obvious how the mind could be a state of the brain. There are changes in brain waves. But, so far as I know, Searle has not put forth an argument to link these changes with consciousness. In any case, the brain does not wholly change itself into another substance as does water. In this sense, it would have only one state. If the brain only has one state, then the brain is always a mind. But we do not say the brain is a mind (if we say this at all) if the brain belongs to a corpse. But water is always a liquid, a solid or a vapour. Water does not have a corpse state. Water does not require life for its changes of state. The analogy with water does not hold water. Though we do, I must confess, sometimes speak of people having water on the brain. While the mind is for Searle caused by the brain, liquidity is not caused by water. Searle goes on to say that, “. . . once you get rid of the idea that consciousness is a stuff that is the ‘object’ of introspection, it is easy to see that it is spatial, because it is located in the brain. . . . It might, for all we know, be distributed over very large portions of the brain.”7 Here, consciousness has a clear location and sounds very much like something that is distributed, e.g. a stuff. He deduces from this that, “There is no ‘link’ between consciousness and the brain. . . . If consciousness is a higher level feature of the brain, then there cannot be any question of there being a link between the feature and the system of which it is a feature.”8 But my nose is linked to my face because it is part of the same flesh. It has a material link. My nose is a part of my face. But if the mind is not a stuff, is not a material, then how can it have a location? Either it is a vapour and extends over the brain like a mist or it adheres to the brain like an icicle. We do speak of cloudy thoughts. We might say of someone that he is hot headed. But if one does not prefer to think of the mind as being a ‘stuff’, then it has no location. If it has no location, it needs a link.

6 7 8

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Searle, 1992, p. 105. (emphasis his) Ibid. Ibid.

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We understand what it means to say that water exists in certain states because we can change it from state to state. We can boil water and turn it into steam and we can condense it back to water. Do we understand what it means to say that consciousness is a state of the brain? We cannot condense consciousness back into brain matter. Searle says that “Consciousness is a mental, and therefore physical, property of the brain. . . .”9 But what is physical can be measured. It is not clear what it means to say that what is mental is physical if what is mental cannot be measured. He does state that with FMRI we can show certain pictures in your brain which show that certain conscious activities are going on. But does FMRI show some kind of neurons firing or do the pictures reveal that I am performing quadratic equations? We know the answer to that one. If it is the activities of neurons, we cannot call this consciousness. It cannot become consciousness via fiat. For Searle, neuronal activity does have a special brain location: the thalamo-cortical system. With respect to Searle, the thalamo-cortical system would have to correspond to the higher level of the brain as in a two-story house or a split-level house. From this knowledge we cannot infer that consciousness inhabits the same space. From the standpoint of the experience of consciousness we do not experience consciousness in that portion of the brain. This is the old problem of Bertrand Russell looking at the grey cells of his brain instead of objects. In addition, if I think that my argument is valid, its validity is not located in any section of the brain. This is very different from neurons firing because when they fire, their firings can be located in the brain. Thus, the validity of my argument is not identical to the neurons firing. On the other hand, Searle himself does sound like a Cartesian dualist in many places. In a very recent book, one which I take to be a particularly brilliant one, he says, “Consciousness is entirely causally explained by neuronal behavior but it is not thereby shown to be nothing but neuronal behavior.”10 This statement sounds like consciousness is something above and beyond neuronal behavior. Or, take for example his statement that, “. . . the sheer qualitative feel of a pain is a very different feature of the brain from the pattern of neuron firings that

Ibid., p. 14. John R. Searle (2004), Mind, A Brief Introduction, New York: Oxford University Press, p. 119. 9

10

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cause the pain. So you can get a causal reduction of pain to neuron firings but not an ontological reduction.”11 This would make it appear that pain is a distinct ontological existence from neuron firings. In this case, one could not adopt the proposal that neuron firings and pain are the same phenomenon looked at from two different angles, one as looked at by the physicist and one as felt by the subjective feeler of the pain.12 Why cannot it be both cause and effect? Unlike neurons and their firing, consciousness, for Searle, is subjectively experienced, unique and non-reducible. This feature cannot be identified with the firing of neurons simpliciter. By definition, the qualia, the internal state of consciousness as experienced cannot be the same as an observable and non-internally experienced of neurons firing at a certain rate. If it is non-reducible, a fortiori it cannot be reduced to the firing of neurons. Searle himself says as much: “You can neither reduce the neuron firings to the feelings nor the feelings to the neuron firings . . .”13 The irreducible feature of consciousness is a feature of consciousness that is not shared with the brain or with my nose. At the same time, for Searle, the subjective side of the mind is not at all incompatible with the wider feature of consciousness that it is an emanation or emergence of the brain. Its irreducibility, its existence as a qualia is fully compatible for Searle with its being an emergence, an effect, an emanation. How can its existence qua qualia be compatible with its existence as an effect and an ontological constituent of that which is not a qualia, but rather an observable external thing? If it is an irreducible quality, how can it be reduced to being part of the physical brain? To put it simply, if it is irreducible, how can it be reduced? For Searle, it is not reducible in the sense that I have reduced it: “You can’t reduce these first-person subjective experiences to third-person phenomena for the same reason that you can’t reduce third-person phenomena to subjective experiences.”14 But the problem is, if it is not reducible in that sense, and it is therefore not part of the physical world, we surely are back to Cartesian dualism. This may not be a bad place to go back to, but for Searle, it is a bad

11 John R. Searle (1997), The Mystery of Consciousness, New York: New York Review of Books, p. 31. 12 For an enlightening discussion, cf., R.G. Collingwood (1942), The New Leviathan, Oxford: the Clarendon Press, pp. 1–17. 13 John R. Searle, 1997, p. 212. 14 Ibid.

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place: “To accept dualism is to deny the scientific worldview that we have painfully achieved over the past several centuries.”15 In one attempt at explaining this seeming paradox, Searle argues that: In my view the problem of the irreducibility of consciousness is not a problem about consciousness but about reducibility. . . . The sense in which consciousness is irreducible to physics is the sense in which money is irreducible to physics. The irreducibility of money does not commit us to money-body dualism and the irreducibility of consciousness does not commit us to mind-body dualism.16

But there is a significant disanalogy here. Money is irreducible to physics because the concept of money only exists in the human mind. The concept of money does commit us to money-body dualism in the sense that the concept of money must exist for a human mind. Consciousness does not stand to body as money does to physics because physics does not cause money. Money is a concept, not a physical existence. That is why money is irreducible to physics. Consciousness is not a concept. It is a real existence. Money is irreducible to physics for the simple reason that money is not a physical object. Consciousness is irreducible to physics because its existence as a qualitative experience is not reducible to physics. To put it crudely, money is irreducible to physics because money is not real; consciousness is irreducible to physics because it is real. (Of course money is very real in our phenomenological world of values!) Searle seems to know this. He even says that “You cannot perform an eliminative reduction on anything that really exists.”17 But if you cannot perform an eliminative reduction on consciousness, then it must exist non-physically. If it exists physically, it can be eliminatively reduced. Searle’s argument against this seems to be that “. . . the . . . fact that six points [in a football match] . . . really exist and are irreducible is not inconsistent with the fact that the world consists entirely of physical particles in fields of force.”18 But the six points in football only exist in the minds of sports fans and sports historians. The six points are not real in the sense which the physical particles are real. The six points (as a meaningful phrase) are irreducible to physics and so are not inconsistent with 15 16 17 18

Ibid., p. 194. John R. Searle, 1995, p. 230. Ibid. Ibid.

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the existence of physical forces. The real existence of consciousness is real ( for Searle) in the same sense in which the physical particles are real. That you cannot reduce the six points to physics has nothing to do with the fact that you cannot reduce consciousness to physics. You cannot reduce the six points to physics because the six points are not real to begin with. You cannot reduce consciousness to physics because it is real to begin with. Now, you could say that the six points are real in the sense that they are part of someone’s consciousness. But consciousness is not real in this sense. Consciousness is a real, ontological existence. Consider Searle’s sentence: “The irreducibility of consciousness is not an argument for “property dualism,” any more than the additional irreducibility of points, dollars and elections is an argument for property quintuplism.”19 Points, dollars and elections are, if you like, derivative irreducibles. They are irreducible because they exist in someone’s consciousness and consciousness is irreducible. The whole problem is how a physical/chemical/biological process can produce thoughts like ‘six points’. The problem is how can a physical/chemical/biological process produce something immaterial? Searle himself says “. . . you can’t reduce anything that really exists, and since consciousness really exists it is irreducible.” If in the ontological sense consciousness is irreducible, then he cannot say that he is not a property dualist on the grounds that, “. . . the failure of reduction of consciousness is not so much a problem about consciousness as it is about the ambiguities in the notion of reduction. Consciousness is ‘irreducible’ for trivial reasons having to do with our definitional practices.” While he states that he is referring to two different senses of reduction (one that is eliminative and one that is not), he also argues that consciousness cannot be reduced definitionally either since “if you make the reduction you lose most of the point of having the concept in the first place. So because of the pragmatics of our definitional practices, we refuse to make the second sort of reduction.”20 If consciousness is irreducible in both senses, eliminative and non-eliminative, then Searle becomes a property dualist on both accounts, ontological and definitional. This may not be a bad thing at all, but it does not appear to be what Searle would like.

19 20

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Ibid., p. 230. Ibid., p. 220.

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The reason why some time ago, I interjected the word ‘emanation’, a word chosen from the prescientific world view, is to suggest that consciousness as a product (if indeed it is a product or is produced by brain processes in the way Searle suggests) is something different from that which is the result of a physical production. In this sense, I have not simply interjected the word ‘emanation’ as a spoof term, but to provoke a certain awareness. The awareness is, if ‘emanation’ is an inappropriate choice, why is ‘emergence’ more appropriate? How does ‘emergence’ differ from ‘emanation’? The word ‘emanates’ is a magical term. The use of a magical term warns us that we might be in the presence of a magician. The magic act is to seduce us with words and by sleight of word make us think that something has taken place which has not taken place. The “physical” word ‘emergence’ makes us think that something physical has emerged because we know how physical things emerge. We know how the rabbit emerges out of the hat. It physically jumps out of the hat. If we use the word ‘emanation’ we are more guarded. For we are not so sure how things ‘emanate’. And this is closer to the state of our knowledge of the affair that exists between the brain and consciousness. Let us consider a simple case of consciousness, the passion for strawberries. How does this come about? The strawberry lies in a glass dish in my favorite restaurant. In spying this strawberry, photons strike the retina, (I borrow from Searle), a retinal image is formed and sent to my visual cortex and the nerve endings of certain neurons are whetted with desire (now I am interpolating). Somewhere in this description, the physical strawberry has become an intentional object of desire. So far, it is the object of desire of my neurons. I think it is I who am desiring to eat a strawberry. But since the desire is coming from the neurons, I am but an actor acting out the desires of my neurons. My felt satisfaction in eating the strawberry will enable me to perpetuate my life and thus perpetuate the life of my neurons. My consciousness does not need to be an epiphenomenon. It is an active agent feeding my neurons. Wait a second. Admittedly, I have wildly exceeded an exposition of Searle. Nevertheless, in this Dawkins like scenario, how do we explain the emergence of consciousness? The nerve impulses of the visual image of the strawberry are sent into my brain. Everything so far is physical all the way down. My neurons are excited. They stimulate my salivary glands. My fingers encircle the strawberry. Why do I need consciousness at all in this scenario? Consciousness is a Doppelgänger. If consciousness

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emerges, there are two questions. The first question is how? How does all of this physical stuff become consciousness? The second question is why? While the first question does not seem to be capable of being answered by anyone, the second question appears to make sense only to Dawkins. Consciousness needs to be there with all of its special needs in order to be a caretaker of the brain cells (here I conflate Dawkins and Searle). The brain cells generate consciousness as they are aware they need a guardian for their own self-perpetuation. I will venture further in my attempt to describe Searle’s concept of consciousness and attempt to curb my desire to conflate Searle with Dawkins. Let us return to the feeling of passion for strawberries. The passion for strawberries, is, for Searle a bona fide example of consciousness.21 If one takes a Collingwoodian tack, one could say that the passion for strawberries, if looked at from the point of view of someone looking into the brain, is a certain pattern of the firing of neurons. This approach is not inconsistent with some aspects of Searle’s approach. The paradoxes with which I began, citing the incommensurability of the analogy between my nose as a feature of my face and my mind as a feature of the brain can be cleared up by choosing this path. We make a distinction between the physical way of looking at something and the mental way. When experienced from the inside or mental side, it is felt as a passion for strawberries. When looked at through an instrument examining brain activity, it is perceived as a firing of neurons. However, Searle would not be content, methinks, to describe the strawberry/brain affair in this fashion. But this attempt at a description attempts to capture the side of Searle’s definition that brain processes are intentional or mental. In order to make sense of this, I have employed the concept that they are so experienced when one is inside consciousness or, if you prefer, as phenomenological data. The only problem with this rendition of the mind-body problem for

21 For Searle, “The problem of consciousness is the problem of qualia, because conscious states are qualitative states right down to the ground. Take away the qualia and there is nothing there. That is why I seldom use the word ‘qualia’, except in sneer quotes, because it suggests there is something else to consciousness besides qualia and there is not. Conscious states are inner, qualitative, subjective states of awareness or sentience.” John R. Searle (2002), Consciousness and Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 26. (emphasis in original) But if consciousness = qualia and qualia is what Searle in many places says is irreducible (cf., n. 13 for example), then how can consciousness be reduced to a biological brain process? For the problems with Searle’s attempts to extricate himself from this problem, cf., above, pp. 7–10 et passim.

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Searle is that it is not clear that it totally captures Searle’s account of the neurons causing the strawberry passion: Visual and auditory experiences, tactile sensations, hunger, thirst, and sexual desire, are all caused by brain processes and they are realized in the structure of the brain, and they are all intentional phenomena.22

Of course, one could construe that what Searle means here is that brain processes, when looked at as an object of inquiry are in that sense intentional phenomena for the brain onlookers, but I do not think that is his meaning here. He could also mean that the strawberry passion is caused by a brain process (an initial stirring of the brain cells that is the incipient state of a mild titillation provoked by the image of a strawberry) and is a brain process again after being realized. In this sense, realization would stand for the full blown feeling of a mouth watering, incessant, not to be denied craving which now has blossomed in the brain as part of the soil/structure of the brain. Its intentional status is its in between life as an intentional idea between its two phases in brain life as incipient titillation/neuronal twitching and full fledged passion/neuronal firing. But I do not think that Searle means this either. I think that what Searle means is that all the phases of the strawberry passion are intentional in the sense that they are experienced phenomenologically or as qualia whichever of these terms of description appeals to your philosophical palette. In my view, one could say that the same intentional experiences, if observed by a set of observers looking into your brain, would appear as neuronal activity. What Searle also wants to keep in this description is that the neuronal activity is the cause of the intentional features. The slight twitching of the neurons is the cause of the incipient desire for the strawberries and the rapid firing of the neurons is the cause of the outburst of the passion for strawberries. The consciousness is intentional all the way down. The result that Searle hopes to achieve would be the clearing up of a long-standing puzzle, the Cartesian mystery of two worlds, the world of things, of rēs extensa and the world of thoughts, rēs cogitāns. But does his solution bring more paradoxes in its wake? Let us consider the idea of clarity. This would seem to be a reasonable enough objective for an analytic philosopher. How could clarity of thinking be achieved? If all thoughts are caused by brain processes, would we not achieve a 22 John R. Searle (1984), Minds, Brains and Science, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 24.

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clarity of thinking by cleansing our brain? If there are impediments in the proper firing of the neurons, would not removing these result in clearer thinking? By cleaning up whatever might be clogging up or impeding the totally clean firing of the neurons, one could even achieve the proper understanding of the mind-brain relationship. If cleaning is an inappropriate regimen, perhaps a thorough-going, electronically stimulated work-out of the neurons would result in Searle going to his computer and typing out his argument. Contrariwise, one should find, for example, after discovering a new version of the ontological argument, that the neurons were running with less friction, just as one could find the source of the smooth running of an engine can upon examination be found to have emanated from having given the pistons a good oil bath. Just a moment. Since consciousness is a higher emergence of the brain, it should not be reduced to a cleaner pattern of neuron firing. Perhaps, in addition to being located higher up, it is manifested in a more intricate pattern of the firing of the neurons or a pattern which achieves the firing with graceful simplicity. This intricate pattern may be discovered in the upper regions of the brain. The way in which consciousness is related to the brain would in this way be more properly elucidated. It is not the lower part of the brain, since it has emerged from this. It is the pattern of the neuronal activity of the brain which operates near the top of the skull. It is Searle who has recourse to the language of levels (higher emergence) and thus I am assuming that levels refer to upper and lower. Thus, the thalamo-cortical system must be located near the top of the skull. It could be argued that if one were to achieve the exact, intricate pattern of neuron firing, as in a code, one might discover that the intentional correlate was the ontological argument and vice-versa. While what we are saying might seem fantastic, it is, I believe, perfectly consistent with Searle’s viewpoint. My use of the terms ‘intricate patterns’ is not terribly different from his use of the terms ‘variable rates of neuron firing’. Consider this passage: All of the enormous variety of inputs that the brain receives—the photons that strike the retina, the sound waves that stimulate the ear drum, the pressure on the skin that activates nerve endings for pressure, heat, cold and pain, etc.—all of these inputs are converted into one common medium: variable rates of neuron firing. Furthermore, and equally remarkable, these variable rates of neuron firing in different neuronal circuits and different locations in the brain produce all the variety of our

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mental life. The smell of a rose, the experience of the blue of the sky, the taste of onions, the thought of a mathematical formula: all of these are produced by variable rates of neuron-firing, in different circuits, relative to different local conditions in the brain.23

In case anyone might think that this was an early position of Searle that he has abandoned, one may consider this sentence from a more recent work: As far as we know anything about it, thoughts about grandmothers occur at a much higher level than that of the single neuron or synapse . . .24

To my way of thinking, the problem with Searle’s analysis is that he has mixed two viewpoints, the mental and the physical. To escape the paradoxes that his approach engenders, one should use the mental language of ‘grandmothers’ when referring to one’s family and the language of neurons when discussing matters with a neurophysiologist. But if one insists on mixing these languages, as Searle does, there are several tasks which must be carried out. First of all, one must define what a higher level of neuronal activity amounts to. Can it be neuronal activity that takes place at the top of the skull? Or, can this can be defined in terms of a more rapid rate of the firing of the neurons? But this is not a task that is a fait accompli. Even if we could correlate some rate of firing with the concept of a grandmother, the point is there is no necessary connection between that rate of firing and the concept of a grandmother. That rate of firing might, for example, be perfectly correlative with the concept of a grandfather. We simply do not know the answer to this question. If it turns out that the rate of firing is also perfectly correlative with the concept of an uncle and of Swiss cheese, we will still not comprehend the relationship between the rate of neuron’s firing and the content of thoughts. But there are more paradoxes yet. If consciousness is resident in the brain just as the neurons are residents in the brain, then when I think of my grandmother, I am thinking about certain grey brain cells. After all, it is Searle who tells us that it is the brain that is thirsty: “. . . we can say of a particular brain: . . . This brain is experiencing thirst . . .”25 If Searle, 1984, p. 9. Searle, 2002, p. 10. 25 Searle, 1984, p. 22. It is not clear that this is a position that Searle wishes to maintain. In a later work, he writes: “. . . biological brains . . . produce experiences, and these experiences only exist when they are felt by some human or animal agent. [as 23 24

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the brain can be thirsty, then thirst is a quality of the brain. A certain pattern of neurons, Searle tells us, are the thought of my grandmother. The thought of my grandmother is a quality of the brain. When I think of my grandmother, I am thinking about part of my brain. What is more, since my grandmother is bigger than these grey brain cells I am not at all certain how I am containing her inside of them. She certainly does not look as tiny as a brain cell. In fact, she does not even look like a brain cell. I think I am looking at my grandmother standing on the porch. But in fact I am really staring into my brain and gazing at cell matter. In Searle’s language, my grandmother is a certain rate of the firing of the neurons. Thus, to think of my grandmother is to think of the neuron’s firing. It is difficult not think of a neuron firing like a spark plug igniting. But, my grandmother looks different from a sparkplug. To be fair, Searle does waver on this issue. At some junctures, he does talk as if consciousness is part of brain processes. After all, he steadfastly maintains he is not a property dualist: ‘So we can, and indeed must, grant the irreducibility of consciousness without claiming that it is somehow metaphysically not a part of the ordinary physical world.’26 This would make grandmother into a sparkplug. On the other hand, he also states that: ‘Consciousness is not reducible in the way that other biological properties typically are . . .’27 But the problem is, if it is not reducible, then we have Descartes’ two worlds all over again. And, more importantly, if consciousness is not reducible in the way that other biological properties typically are, then why is it right to assert that consciousness is a biological feature of the brain? Searle might say at this point that I am very confused. It is not the firing of the neurons that is my thought of my grandmother. The firing of the neurons results in the thought of my grandmother. But here is the crux of the matter. If the thought of my grandmother is different from, emergent from, an effect of the firing of the neurons, then it manifestly is not the firing of the neurons. This enables the thought of my grandmother to be a different thought than the thought of a neuron firing. But if the thought of my grandmother is different from my thought of a neuron or sparkplug, then we cannot say that the thought of my grandmother is the same as that level of the brain. It opposed to a brain] . . . You can neither reduce the neuron firings to the feelings nor the feelings to the neuron firings . . .” John R. Searle, 1997, p. 212. 26 Ibid., p. 214. 27 Ibid., p. 213.

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must exist at a higher level. If the thought of my grandmother is caused by the neuron firing, it is something different than the neuron firing. At the very least, it exists at a higher level than the neuron firing level (the thalamo-cortical system). Where is the location of this level? Have we have returned to the land of rēs cogitāns? On the other hand, if the higher level of the brain functioning is the neuron firing, then the thought of my grandmother is not caused by the neuron firing; it is the neuron firing. But then we are back to grandmother as sparkplug. It seems that either the neurons firing cause thoughts of grandmothers or they are thoughts of grandmothers. But they cannot be both. But there is one final point. Even if a certain rate of firing was correlative with the thought of a grandmother, it would not prove that the rate of firing was the cause of the thought of a grandmother. One would still have to be conscious of the concept of a grandmother. Ironically, Searle himself has already invented the solution to the problems that his way of thinking has led him. In the sense relevant to my argument, the firing of neurons is no different than ‘the passing out of Chinese symbols in response to incoming Chinese symbols’28 in Searle’s justly famous ‘Chinese Room’ argument. In this brilliant argument Searle demonstrates that ‘Understanding a language, or indeed, having mental states at all, involves more than just having a bunch of formal symbols. . . . In the case of the Chinese, you simply manipulate formal symbols according to a computer program, and you attach no meaning to any of the elements.’29 It is the same with the case of the pattern of the neurons. If we substitute neurons for symbols, there is no relationship between the pattern of the neurons and the meaning of the word ‘grandmother’. In Searle’s words, ‘. . . a computer has a syntax but no semantics’.30 If we substitute the word ‘brain’ for ‘computer’, we have the situation of an observer looking into the Chinese room. Now our observer is looking into the brain. He sees the neurons fire. The subject he watches says the word ‘grandmother’. Consciousness must be there to interpret the meaning of the symbol ‘grandmother’. The firing of the neuron cannot be the interpretation. It is, for Searle, the mechanical cause of the thought. Searle could say in answer to this that the brain

28 29 30

Searle, 1984, p. 32. Ibid., pp. 32–3. Ibid., p. 33.

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is a causal mechanism which is different from a computer. But that it is a causal mechanism, unlike a computer, is not relevant here. What we do have is a neuron firing. In my language, it takes an intelligence based on a lifetime of experience to understand the concept of a ‘grandmother’. Whether the brain is a causal mechanism or not does not help us to understand how a neuron or a group of neurons can understand anything. Even Searle’s oft repeated mantra that brain processes cause consciousness cannot explain how neuronal firings can comprehend anything at all. It is only in this sense that I compare neuronal firings to his Chinese room symbols. His argument is seductive because sometimes, instead of the phrase ‘neuronal firings’, Searle slips in the term ‘brain processes’ which preempts the issue by illicitly planting the intentional concept of ‘processing’ in the biological model like putting the rabbit into the hat. A computer would be no better off at understanding if it could produce its symbols. There is no inherent relationship between neurons and grandmothers. It could be argued that the brain caused consciousness but consciousness is in this sense simply neuron patterns. Having a language, the pattern of neurons firing, is to have a syntax. This syntax must still be interpreted and understood. Even if it were the case that neuron firing caused consciousness (neurons again), it cannot cause the understanding of the content of consciousness. To carry on with Searle’s gifted analogy, the meaning of Searle’s argument is realized in the consciousness of readers becoming enlightened (in a non-spiritual sense). The meaning of Searle’s argument is not realized in the Chinese room or in the brain. Mental states are not realized in the brain or the central nervous system. The only things that can be realized in the brain or the central nervous system are the shadows or echoes of the firing of the neurons. It is the conscious, intelligent reader who is enlightened by Searle’s argument. There are worse problems yet with the concept that thoughts are produced by neuronal activity. The question arises, who is responsible for the thoughts that one possesses? If a group of neurons are responsible for producing our thoughts, then they are also responsible for the kind of thoughts that we think. Unethical thoughts, for example, that it is important to kill all human beings who are Jewish, are produced by the activity of our neurons. If we are to attribute responsibility to human beings, this would be inappropriate because it would imply that human beings could produce thoughts that were not produced by neurons. Since all thoughts are produced by biological brain processes, this cannot be

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the case. We are no more responsible for our thoughts than we are for the power of our stomach acid which, according to some reports, can eat through steel. Punishing criminals for murder would be senseless because one would be punishing the entire human being for the actions taken by neurons. The only appropriate punishment for crimes should be lobotomy or to be more precise, neuronectomy. Perhaps, some of these dilemmas could be solved if one systematically applied the two languages approach which Searle appears to have recourse to at times, but steers clear of in other places. He is aware of the approach of utilizing two different approaches, the approach of the physical sciences and another approach, for the lack of a better term, the approach of the mental sciences, à la Collingwood, and at certain junctures of his argument he does seem to lean in this direction.31 Consider the following passages: There is just the brain system, which has one level of description where neuron firings are occurring and another level of description, the level of the system, where the system is conscious and indeed consciously trying to raise its arm.32 Our conscious states are higher-level or system features of the brain, and consequently there are not two separate sets of causes—the psychological and the neurobiological. The psychological is just the neurobiological described at a higher level.33 Now, because mental states are features of the brain, they have two levels of description—a higher level in mental terms, and a lower level in physiological terms. The very same causal powers of the system can be described at either level.34 Realized in: the liquidity of a bucket of water is not some extra juice secreted by the H2O molecules. When we describe the stuff as liquid we are just describing those very molecules at a higher level of description than that of an individual molecule.35 (emphasis in original)

If he stayed within the limits of the two language description and did not attempt to mix the languages, he might avoid some of the aspects of

31 It might be more useful to contrast the two approaches in terms of language systems. One can consider the use of physical language for one approach and the use of mental language for the other. For a discussion of Collingwood’s approach to the mind-body problem, cf., Robert Elliott Allinson (2001), A Metaphysics for the Future, Avebury Series in Philosophy, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishers, p. 185. 32 Searle, 2004, p. 210. 33 Ibid., p. 227. 34 Searle, 1984, p. 26. 35 Searle, 1983, p. 266.

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his theory that this discussion finds to be problematic. If we use mental language for our general life and use neural language for brain surgery, there are many pitfalls that can be avoided. But Searle cannot embrace the two language approach without giving up too much of his own ground. The reason for this is that the two language approach, adopted whole-heartedly, would not allow Searle to stake his major claim. Searle’s main thesis is that consciousness is the emergent property of the brain just as liquidity is the emergent property of the unity of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. In this analogy, to which Searle returns time and time again, ‘. . . liquidity is . . . a higher-level emergent property of H2O molecules when they are, roughly speaking, rolling around on each other [ I fancy this formulation] (water). Consciousness is a mental, and therefore physical, property of the brain in the sense in which liquidity is a property of systems of molecules.’36 But as Searle himself points out, consciousness cannot be a property of the brain in the same sense that liquidity is a property of water because as he himself poses the question, ‘Why then is consciousness irreducible in a way that other observer-independent properties such as liquidity and solidity are reducible? Why can’t we reduce consciousness to neuronal behavior in the same way that we can reduce solidity to molecular behavior, for example?’37 But if all other biological brain processes can be reduced to molecular (neuronal) behavior and consciousness cannot be reduced to neuronal behavior, then how in the world can it be a biological brain process? If consciousness is indeed irreducible as Searle wants to maintain, it cannot be reducible. If it is irreducible, it cannot be an organic brain process. If it is an organic brain process, it cannot be irreducible. The problem may be that it still remains unclear how liquidity can belong to the hydrogen and oxygen atoms after they are combined when we cannot discover it when we analyze, or break apart this water molecule into its separate parts. Searle puts it this way: ‘Now we cannot say of any individual molecule that it is wet, but we can say both that the liquid properties of the water are caused by the molecular behavior, and that they are realized in the collection of molecules.’38 (emphasis in original).

36 37 38

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Searle, 1992, p. 14. Searle, 1997, pp. 211–212. Searle, 1983, p. 265.

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I have only a very fuzzy and inchoate idea of how liquidity is caused by molecular behavior but no idea at all of how liquidity is realized in molecules. This problem is the same whether we analyze matter into quarks with strong forces like rubber bands holding them together or atoms. Liquidity, which is a quality, cannot be dispersed in (realized in?) non-liquid molecules. Let us take the case of liquidity being caused by molecular behavior as it is possibly the easier of the two. Searle offers a detailed explanation of this in one place: The solidity of ice is causally explained by the behavior of the molecules (crudely, it’s because the molecules make vibratory motions in lattice structures). Now consider water in a liquid state. The liquidity of water is causally explained by the behavior of the molecules (crudely, it’s because the molecules are rolling over each other in a random fashion). Neither causal relation involves a time gap or a mechanism. In fact, the solidity and liquidity are just features of the system made up of molecules.39

Consider the question of a time gap. There was a time when the water was solid. At a later time, it became liquid. There is certainly a time gap that occurs between the changing state of solidity to liquidity. The molecules have to alter from vibrating to rolling behavior. This requires time. All of the molecules do not alter from vibrating to rolling at once. A time-span is required, however minute, for a full roll of each molecule to take place. The liquid state is caused by a critical mass of molecules rolling at the same time but each molecule still requires time for a complete roll-over on its own. This must be the case for it takes time to change this state again back to ice. The molecules must begin to slow down first. The very act of slowing down requires a time span. One could say that in a liquid state the entire set of molecules are rolling at the same time as the liquid but this is to ignore the time it takes for each individual molecule to roll. If it were the case that consciousness was a timeless feature of the brain in the sense in which gravity holds the table to the floor, the consequences of this view would be hyperparadoxical. For Searle, some causes do not precede effects. Presumably, he means that the neurons causing consciousness belong to this type. He argues that: ‘The fact that the table over there exerts pressure on the floor is due to the force of gravity, for example. But “gravity” does not name an event. And 39

Searle, 1995, p. 218.

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it is an enduring feature of the universe, not something that always happens just before its effects.’40 If this were the way in which neurons caused consciousness, then we should have at this very moment every thought we ever had or were going to have. As this is contrary to fact, I suggest that it constitutes a reductio ad absurdum of the proposition that the causal effect of neurons is the kind of causal effect in which causes do not precede effects. The real problem which all of these discussions appears to cover up is that while we can to a certain degree follow the analogy of how molecular networking can produce ice, we cannot follow the analogy of how neuronal activity can produce the thought of my grandmother. The reason for this is that in the case of molecular patterns producing ice we are going from physical to physical. In the case of neuron firing producing the thought of my grandmother we are going from physical to, and here I must have recourse to that forbidden word, ‘mental’. That is why the analogy breaks down. Liquidity, solidity are physical features. Despite all of Searle’s protests, there is a distinction between the physical and the mental. Physical objects have a location. Even quanta have a probabilistic location. Physical objects possess extension. That is why Descartes came up with the brilliant term, rēs extensa. Even if science has detected neuronal activity in the thalamo-cortical region, this is not consciousness in the sense that science has been able to detect that the truth of the proposition that all bachelors are unmarried males can be located in the brain. While difficult indeed, I can to some degree grasp the sense of a relationship between the physical act of movement of molecules and a physical result. I cannot grasp the relationship between neuron firing and the tautological truth of an analytic proposition. I cannot grasp the relationship between neuron firing and the understanding of what a tautology is. We can look into water with a microscope and see its molecular structure. We cannot look into validity and find neurons firing. Liquidity can be predicted from the behavior of elementary particles but the thought of my grandmother cannot be predicted from neuron firing. If we stick to the example of neurons and qualia, it may be the case that such a problem can be obviated with the two language approach. We can approach the neurons from the outside in and qualia from the inside out. In this way, we can say that neurons and qualia are the same thing which can be looked at in two different ways. This may not

40

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Ibid., p. 230.

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answer all the questions, since it does not address the issue of a causal relationship, but it does seem to answer some of them. Searle appears to be a two language theorist when it comes down to the question of qualia. But if this is so, his central theory that the brain causes consciousness may be jettisoned for it is only with qualia that anyone has any concern.41 The sense in which for Searle the brain causes consciousness is not the sense in which the brain causes qualia.42 With the water molecule, we cannot experience its possible liquid state from the inside out. (In chemistry the water molecule can be referred to by its humble English name instead of its formulaic equivalent). We could of course argue that the problem does not arise or that it would only arise if the molecule had a consciousness and it could then have its own qualia. But if we are to say, with Searle, that the liquid state is a property of the systems of molecules, then how does it emerge from the parts of itself that do not seem to have this trait? The model of consciousness as emergent from brain is not clarified by referring to the model of liquidity, for example, as a property of water. The present author is still puzzled how liquidity can be a property of water. There is some intuitive plausibility to the notion that that it requires a certain number of molecules behaving in a certain way for liquidity to take place in the same way as it takes a certain number of people to form a dense crowd which then becomes impenetrable. But there does not seem to be any intuitive plausibility between a number of neurons firing and the validity of a proposition. There is a further problem which we have not explored. If we drop the two languages approach for a moment, we might be tempted to say that consciousness can in certain instances cause brain states. For Searle, these are instances in which the conscious states have themselves first been caused by brain processes. (Then, possibly they are entitled to possess causal properties of their own.) But liquidity, to my way of thinking, cannot cause water. For example, if I wish to move my arm, my intention can result in my deciding to move my arm. I can link a present wish to a future action. In this sense, my mental intention can cause a physical action. Of course, it can be argued that this must be accompanied by the physical movement or followed by the physical 41 For the sake of convenience I am using the term ‘qualia’ in this context to cover my arguments which include understanding, meaning, validity, etc. and not only subjective states of feeling. 42 However, cf. n. 21. This is a fundamental point on which Searle wavers.

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movement. Even so, there is some sense in which the mental intention caused the later physical movement. It could be argued, and Searle does argue, that even the intention is due to the workings of brain states. But the point is that I cannot conceive of any sense in which liquidity can cause something to change in the water molecule. In Searle’s language, ‘My beliefs and desires, my thirsts and visual experiences, are real causal features of my brain, as much as the solidity of the table on which I work at and the liquidity of the water I drink are causal features of tables and water.’43 Now, I do not know what this means unless Searle means that my belief (as G-d is in Heaven) can cause a set of neurons to fire in my brain. But how can the liquidity of water be a causal feature of water? Liquidity surely cannot cause water. Liquidity may be a state of water but it surely is not a cause of water. I confess that I am puzzled, as Socrates puts it in the Meno, as puzzled can be. Searle also says that ‘. . . if one knew the principles on which the brain worked one could infer that it was in a state of thirst or having a visual experience.’44 While I think I may know what it means for me to be in a state of thirst (my throat becomes dry, I begin salivating), I do not know what it means for my brain to be thirsty. In some of his later writings, Searle does seem to move away from this position. In one work, he states: ‘. . . biological brains . . . produce experiences, and these experiences only exist when they are felt by some human or animal agent.’45 In an even more recent work, he states, ‘. . . conscious states exist only when they are experienced by a human or animal subject.’46 I take it that a human agent is different from a brain. In this case, if experiences only exist when they are felt by a human agent, then these experiences are not felt by the brain. It would thus be inappropriate to say that the brain was thirsty. This would be similar to saying that Big Blue was exultant when it felt that it had won the chess match. In the latter work, he even postulates the existence of a non-Humian self, a postulation that (for me) brings with it a host of questions such as, what is the relationship between this self and the brain? Is the brain, as part of the body, a possession of this self ? He even says, ‘. . . I have the experience of a continuous consciousness interrupted by phases

43 44 45 46

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Searle, Searle, Searle, Searle,

1983, 1983, 1997, 2004,

p. 271. p. 268. p. 212. pp. 134–5.

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of sleep.’47 If the brain, as Searle says in other works, is not conscious during certain phases of sleep, then consciousness can be aware when the brain is not conscious.48 As he states in this work, ‘. . . one maintains a sense of passage of time even during sleep . . .’49 Then consciousness exists without the brain. One’s ‘I’ is separate from one’s brain. One has returned to Descartes. In the case of the Sixth Patriarch, we may ask if there is a parallel puzzle. There is the well known story of the two poems that are written in the effort to describe who has achieved the state of enlightenment. There is the poem of Shin Shau, the elder monk and the poem of the young master to be, Hui Neng. The poem of Shin Shau: Our body is the Bodhi-tree, And our mind a mirror bright, Carefully we wipe them hour by hour. And let no dust alight.50

The elder monk’s poem treats the mind as a mirror that needs to be polished every day so that it remains clear. To some extent this depiction partakes of the concept of the outside in approach. One has to keep polishing the mirror in order to keep it clean from contamination from the outside. Perhaps, this suggests that the mind, or consciousness, is a separate thing but only reflects what is put into it. It is like the tabula rasa of John Locke. The poem of Hui Neng: There is no Bodhi-tree, Nor stand of a mirror bright, Since all is void, Where can the dust alight?51

The point of Hui Neng is very different. For Hui Neng, there is no mind at all. The notion of a mind, and having to clean it every day, both propounds and compounds the problem. The problem is the mistaken notion that there are questions to begin with. If one sees the mind as Searle, 2004, p. 293. Cf., n. 49, n. 50. 49 Ibid. 50 Sutra Spoken by the Sixth Patriarch on the High Seat of “The Treasure of the Law”, transl. Wong Mou-lam, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Buddhist Book Distributor Press, 1952, p. 24. (Yu Ching Press, Shanghai, 1930). 51 Ibid., p. 18. 47 48

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needing to be continually clarified or cleansed, one is continually left with the problem of the mind. What then is one to do with the mind? It is left over. It is an encumbrance. Indeed, from the point of view of the higher nuances of Ch’ an Buddhism, it is the encumbrance. We see a certain likeness here with Searle. Searle would also like to have us eliminate the mind as a separate existence. The notion of the mirror leaves the mind as a kind of thing. Even a separate kind of thing. The notion of the Sixth Patriarch seems closer here. There is no mind or separate consciousness. But and there always seems to be a ‘but’, if there is no mind, then who is thinking? The one who asks this question reveals that she or he has only reached a certain level of understanding. This level of understanding that is reached has not realized (here the subtle term of ‘realized’ reappears) the subtle level that is necessary to understand the Sixth Patriarch. The Sixth Patriarch is not saying that the subject knower’s consciousness or brain does not exist at all. He is saying that if one persists in thinking that one possesses a mind, one will always suffer. The ceasing of the thought of self-reference (not the elimination of the belief in the reality of the subject, or in the analogy here, the brain) is the key to obtaining the higher state of enlightenment in which suffering is dissolved. The Sixth Patriarch is not attempting to show that the mind is a functioning of the brain. He is attempting to show that the effort to connect the mind with the brain (or the consciousness with the self in his terms and in the terms of Searle’s late reflections in Mind A Brief Introduction) is the source of all of our troubles. If we are able to let go of the concept of the ego, the identity of consciousness and self, we will free ourselves from the burden of life’s suffering. The goals of Searle and the Sixth Patriarch are different. But they do possess some similarity. As an analytic philosopher, Searle, (in my attribution) clarity of understanding, e.g., the solution to philosophical puzzles is an end-goal. This is not to say that there are not other goals that Searle may wish to reach but in his famous arguments regarding the consciousness and the brain, the goal of the clarity of understanding would appear to be the relevant goal to reach. For the Sixth Patriarch, the relevant goal would be to understand that the question itself is the problem. This, too, is remarkably like Searle. For Searle it is the conception that mind and body are two separate things that creates the problem. For the Sixth Patriarch, it is the conception that self and consciousness are two separate things that creates the problem. The

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elimination of the separation for Searle brings clarity. The elimination of the separation for the Sixth Patriarch brings liberation. There is more to come. When I wake up in the morning, it must be the case that I am already conscious to some degree because consciousness must exist to hear the terrible tolling of the bell on the alarm clock. I do not have to listen carefully to hear the alarm clock, but I must already be conscious to some degree. It cannot be the case that consciousness, as Searle seems to suggest, comes into being when I am awake.52 Even if it is a low degree of consciousness, I must have that degree of consciousness or else I cannot awaken at all. It cannot be the case, as Searle says, that consciousness switches on and off.53 This much seems obvious. Consciousness must then exist in sleep. For Searle, it does not work this way at all. In his words, the stimulus of your auditory system activates the brain in such a way that you wake up. This is all physicalist language that Searle switches into when it suits his purposes. I am using mentalist language. To use physicalist language of a sort (the language of an observer) to describe what I was talking about I would have to say that according to an external observer, a body arose from the bed when this observer took note that this alarm bell went off and that it must have stimulated the auditory centers that must have activated the brain in this body that he now sees moving from the bed. But what do we mean by ‘auditory centers’? We mean, if we switch to the language of qualia, that ‘we hear a sound’. We cannot hear a sound unless we are conscious. ‘Sound’ is a qualia. ‘Sound’ is not that which stimulates auditory centers; perhaps, that is sound waves, I am not entirely sure. But I do know that it is not the shrill bell sound that I hear. Searle goes on to say that we can wake people up with doses of cold water. The point I am making is that I cannot feel cold water unless I have some sensitivity to cold. That sensitivity cannot come into being from not being there at all. It must exist in order to sense the water. Searle can talk all day about auditory centers stimulating the brain. But this is a battle that cannot be won by word repetition. If ‘I’—not my brain—wakes up, then I have to

52 “By ‘consciousness’ I simply mean those subjective states of sentience or awareness that begin when one awakes in the morning from a dreamless sleep . . .” Searle, 2002, p. 7. 53 “. . . ‘consciousness’ refers to those states of sentience and awareness that typically begin when we awake from a dreamless sleep . . . Consciousness so defined switches off and on.” Searle, 1997, p. 5.

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hear a bell. If it takes an auditory stimulus, then ‘I’ must possess the sensitivity to hear the auditory stimulus. If Searle wants to say that the brain is conscious and it is awakened and it is my illusion (or antiquated philosophy if he prefers) that causes me to think that I have heard the bell, then that is a consistent view. But he cannot mix physicalist language with mentalist language and use a physicalist thesis to explain how ‘I’ have awakened. We cannot awaken the dead. Physically there is a body if it has not yet decayed. But we determine that a body is alive through activity. Death is indicated when the brain cells show no movement. There is a flat line. There is no heartbeat. When there is movement, the brain cells are active. When they are active, according to Searle, they will produce consciousness (or consciousness is the effect of their functioning at a certain level). What makes life in short makes consciousness. For the present author, even at the very lowest functioning of the brain cells, there must be consciousness. The body that possesses sentience is alive; the body that does not is dead. Or to put it in another way, if the brain is dead, consciousness does not exist for that individual. We define the corpse as a corpse because it is not functioning. It is a piece of dead meat. What makes a corpse not a corpse is sentience. The corpse cannot produce sentience. Either the brain cell is already alive, is already conscious on some level, or it cannot produce consciousness on a higher level. Perhaps, lower level consciousness can generate higher level consciousness although there may be mystery enough in this as well. I can have a thought that G-d is in Heaven now. This thought is not communicated to me by the activity of brain cells. I may need brain cells in order to have this thought but the brain cells do not give this thought to me. If this is not convincing, think of this. When I think that G-d is in Heaven, other brain cells start acting up. Do they ask, where is He sitting? Is He sitting on a throne? The point of all of this is that when I think of something, I think of it first. I may need brain cells to do my thinking just as I may need firewood to make a fire. But my idea of G-d is not a creation of my brain cells. My idea of G-d does not emerge from my brain cells. If it does, then why don’t we just speak this way and say that my brain cells have a new thought? Now, Searle may say to me I am really confusing the two levels I separated so well before. If we adopt the two-language form of description, we can put the point this way. If I want to talk about G-d, then I can

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use the mental language. But from the point of view of the neurons, this is just some neurons firing. Why relate the two at all? The problem is, Searle wants to have a causal connection between thought and the brain and vice-versa. When I think of G-d, for Searle, I may cause some other neurons to fire. How can my thinking, which is mental, cause something physical to occur? How can something which emerges from the brain, have a causal effect on that from which it emerges? If it emerges from the brain, it cannot cause effects in the brain. In other words, if all thought is caused by brain activity, and Searle says that it is, then thought cannot in turn cause brain activity. For Searle, ‘brain processes cause conscious processes.’54 (emphasis in original) Of course, he also says that mental processes cause biological phenomena: ‘. . . mental states are caused by biological phenomena and in turn cause other biological phenomena’.55 Perhaps the important word here is the word ‘other’. What does he mean by the term ‘other’? Does he mean that mental phenomena do not cause the same biological phenomena that cause them, but they cause other biological phenomena?

But all of this reveals a deeper problem. For if in one instance, consciousness is not caused by brain processes, why should consciousness be caused by brain processes in any instance? If I can form an intention to move my arm and I can decide to follow this intention by moving my arm, then my conscious intention has caused a physical action to occur (of course through the medium of muscle movement, etc.) But it has been my conscious decision that has been the primary cause of the movement of my arm. I can, if you like, look into my brain and notice that my conscious decision has been accompanied by or followed by some neuronal firing. And I can say that it is this neuronal firing that is the signal to the muscles to move the arm. But the decision to move the arm is the instigation of the neuronal firing. While this decision may itself need neuronal activity for its energy; this decision is not caused by the energy that it utilizes. In Searle’s analysis of the arm moving, he argues that ‘. . . the mental event, the intention to raise my arm, causes the physical event . . . But the top-down causation works only because the mental events are grounded in the neuro-physiology to begin with.’56 But in the analysis which I have given above, the mental event is not caused by its neuro-physiological underpinnings

54 55 56

Ibid., p. 9. Searle, 1983, p. 264. Searle, 1984, p. 93.

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any more than the decision to have dinner is caused by the energy my brain cells are using in order to function. I may decide to eat some food. And my decision to eat has been made possible by reserves of energy that helped my brain cells to function. But my decision to eat is not caused by the functioning of the brain cells. Despite his intriguing use of the term ‘other’ in the passage quoted from his book, Intentionality, implying (possibly) that some consciousnesses are not caused by brain processes, in his Mind, Language and Society, he says: ‘We know for a fact that all [not some] of our conscious states are caused by brain processes. This proposition is not up for grabs.’57 And again, in his Mind A Brief Introduction, he states, ‘. . . there is no casual efficacy to consciousness that is not reducible to the causal efficacy of its neuronal basis.’58 One cannot offer a clearer statement of ontological reduction than this. Perhaps, Searle will say that what he is actually trying to say is that what has an effect on the brain is not my thought of G-d, but the neuronal activity that is the brain’s version of that thought. But my point is that my thought of G-d happened first. If my thought of G-d shows up as neuronal activity, that is all right. But how did it occur in the first place? Maybe Searle will just say that some neurons were firing away and somehow or another, their patterns fired in such and such a way and that was my thought of G-d. But this is either epiphenomenalism or it is determinism. If there is no connection, then this is epiphenomenalism. If the cells fired first, I am not free to think what I want. We have Searle back in the same camp with Dawkins again. Then the cells also determined that I would have an intention to move my arm. I begin here to sense that something must be wrong with the model of explanation. Or at the very least, I am still puzzled. In the supposedly simpler case where I decide to move my arm, Searle describes the 57 John R. Searle (1998), Mind, Language and Society, Philosophy in the Real World, New York: Basic Books, p. 51. When one considers that organisms without brains also exhibit traits that can be likened to consciousness, it is not at all clear that consciousness is produced by brains. For example, single celled organisms such as amoeba move towards agreeable organisms that they can absorb and move away from the presence of harmful organisms. The behavior of mitochondria, which are single-celled organisms which exist within cells show sense abilities without instruction from the brain. Consciousness it could well be argued is not limited to brain products. And if in some instances it clearly is not, why is every case of consciousness as Searle argues, a product of the brain? 58 Searle, 2004, p. 209.

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matter this way: ‘. . . I want to say that the intention in action and the bodily movement are caused by and realized in a microstructure . . .’59 But, my experience is that it is my intention to move my arm that moves my arm and I have no experience that this intention has been caused by a microstructure. If it has, then my idea that I can decide to move my arm is an illusion. For I have not made such a decision: it has been “decided” for me by the microstructure. It is not realized in a microstructure either. It is realized in obtaining the objective for which I moved my arm (waving in the classroom for example) even if this were only for demonstrative purposes. If I take an even more graphic example for illustrative purposes, consider this passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Breakfast of Champions: The brochure also offered him [Dwayne Hoover, one of the protagonists of the novel] motion pictures such as the ones Kilgore Trout [the other protagonist] had seen in New York. There were still photographs taken from the movies, and these causes the sex excitation center in Dwayne’s brain to send nerve impulses down to an erection center in his spine.60

How did the photographs cause the sex excitation center in Dwayne’s brain to send nerve impulses down to an erection center in his spine? It was not the pictures but the thought of what the pictures represented that provoked Dwayne’s physiological reaction. This mental thought which had the same level of ontological existence as Searles ‘six points in a football game’ was necessary and perhaps even sufficient to provoke a physical reaction. Is there any way in which the case of the Sixth Patriarch can shed some light on the dilemmas that do not seem to be finding any way of resolving themselves? There is one passage in which he distinguishes between the notion of the mind or consciousness as a vacuity and the notion of consciousness as non-attached. The concept of the vacuity would seem to be consciousness as nothing but brain activity. If you could empty the mind of all thought, as one presumably could if that were the end-goal of meditation, then what would be left over would be pure neuronal activity. If one were not thinking, presumably, according to Searle, there could only be low level neuronal activity. It would not be conscious because consciousness as Searle has defined it, is a

Ibid., p. 269. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1973), Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday!, New York: Delacourt Press/Seymour Lawrence, p. 151. 59

60

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higher level of brain activity. Consciousness, if emptied out, would itself be nothing. One would have brain activity but brain activity that had not reached the level of consciousness. Of course, one could dispute whether one could obtain such a state of emptiness. But deep sleep or dreamless sleep would seem to qualify. Of course, the Sixth Patriarch is not using the neuronal model, but I think the comparison is a fruitful one. On the other hand, the correct model of consciousness for the Sixth Patriarch is the model that consciousness is not empty but rather is not attached to any of the things that it is thinking about.61 Consciousness is thinking but it moves freely from one thought to another. It is not stuck on any object of consciousness. This would seem to mean that consciousness is something separate from things. For to be able to freely move from one thought to another would seem to imply that consciousness is free from thoughts. To incorporate the neuronal model here, this would seem to suggest that consciousness is separate from the neuronal firing. Here is where, if I am right in my strange attributions, the Sixth Patriarch and Searle part company. For the Sixth Patriarch, consciousness would be something separate from that which is physical since it would not be tied to any thought. In Searle there is a slight suggestion of this as well since Searle likens consciousness to an emergence but at the same time contains this suggestion since the emergence takes place within the brain. And indeed the emergence might still be a further pattern of neuron activity. Consciousness for Searle could not be separate though it is capable of separating itself from the earlier neuron firing pattern. In this sense it has some separation capacities. But there is an irony here. Earlier, I had said that for the Sixth Patriarch, the solution was the non-separation of the mind. It was the belief in the separate mind that was the problem with the elder monk’s solution. The entire beauty of the young Hui Neng’s solution was that the mind itself was to be dissolved. It was not supposed to possess any separate existence. Here, I am suggesting that it is the capacity of the mind to keep itself separate, separate from thought, that is its liberating quality. This points up one of the key differences between Western and Eastern philosophy. Since, in the end, the end-goal of Eastern philosophy is the realization (here is that word again) of the

61

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Sutra, pp. 28–29, 35.

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subject seeker; it does not matter overly much what conceptual content conduces to reaching that state of realization.62 Contradictions such as first alleging that consciousness is not a separate entity and then alleging that it is are not permitted for Western philosophers, such as Searle. How unfair this must seem! But for Eastern philosophy, such seeming contradictions are allowed because the goal of the Sixth Patriarch is to bring the subject seeker beyond any specific linguistic definition. The Sixth Patriarch knows that any linguistic formulation will be deficient. This is not because language is an inherently deficient instrument. It is because what is being discussed only exists when it is not being observed. It is, if you like, a kind of Heisenberg dilemma. If you become aware of consciousness, consciousness in the fullness of its operation, ceases to be. It is circumscribed when it is known. When it is released, so to speak, it can realize its full self. The least deficient linguistic description will be the one that functions to bring the subject seeker to the state of realization. This description may indeed vary from subject seeker to subject seeker. One subject seeker may respond to one antibiotic; another to another. The idea is that the important thing is not the doctrine, the medicine, but the objective of gaining health. The medicine or doctrine is dispensed depending upon the symptoms of the disease. Ultimately, one does not adhere to any doctrine but understands that all doctrines are designed to free one from all doctrines. So long as one is attached to a doctrine, one cannot be free. The freedom from all doctrines is the liberation of consciousness. For the Sixth Patriarch, the mind is neither separate nor non-separate. This is because ultimate reality or the mind as a thing-in-self can be neither one. In the condition of being a thing-in-itself it cannot be separate from, for that is a relation to another, nor can it be unseparated from, for that is yet another relation. In the instant of realization the subject knower is dissolved into consciousness. In that moment of dissolution, one would not be accurate in labelling what is, consciousness. For even the concept of ‘knowing’ has dissolved into being. Of course, what all of this results in is making something mysterious again. And in place of clarity we now have a mysterious fog. But,

62 “ ‘If I tell you,’ said the Patriarch, ‘that I have a system of Law to transmit to others, I am cheating you. What I do to my disciples is to liberate them from their own bondage with such devices as the case may need.’” Sutra, p. 95.

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I would like to leave us with two thoughts. The first is, we have not explained the mystery of life. That too is a puzzle. How a physical thing can be alive has no explanation. We can explain what counts as life (movement, sentience), but we cannot explain how there can be life in a physical thing. If we cannot explain this, why do we think that we can explain how there can be consciousness? Searle may assert that this question is no longer meaningful because the old dispute between the vitalists and the mechanists no longer has any meaning for us because the discoveries of DNA and RNA and the replication of these have explained the origin of life. The question, he says, of whether a wheat seed is alive or not is not interesting to us. Well, it is damn interesting to me. To assert that molecular biology has solved this philosophical problem is just that, an assertion. We can find dead organisms with DNA. DNA cannot explain the origin of life if DNA exists in a corpse. Vitalism raises its ugly Hydratic head despite Searle’s attempts to sever it. Of course, he might say that DNA must replicate itself to constitute life. But again this is to beg the question. What makes DNA replicate itself ? This is the question, not the answer. Secondly, while we are left with a mystery, it is better to be aware that there is a mystery than to think that we have explained a mystery away when we have not. For Searle the mystery of consciousness is solved when we think that consciousness emerges from and at the same time is a higher level of brain functioning. From my point of view, this is not an explanation at all because it leaves us with a question, how can consciousness emerge from that which is not conscious? For Searle, ‘. . . consciousness . . . [is] . . . a higher-level feature of the brain in the same way that digestion is a higher-level feature of the stomach . . .’63 But digestion is something that the stomach does. We know this because we can put food in the stomach and watch it being digested. We cannot put thoughts in the brain and watch them being cogitated. What we see in the brain are neuronal activities. What we see in the stomach are bits of food. We can measure the amount of food we put in our stomach and measure our excretions. We cannot measure the electrical impulses of the brain and come up with the ontological argument. For Searle, in a certain sense, life is not a mystery. For Searle, ‘. . . it is possible to build an artificial heart that pumps blood. There is no reason, in principle, why we could not similarly make an artificial brain

63

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Searle, 1998, p. 52.

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that causes consciousness.’64 In the case of the heart, there is a purely mechanical relationship required. In the case of the brain, it is not obvious how a mechanical event can cause consciousness. This brings us to the Sixth Patriarch. He did not attempt to explain consciousness as a feature of the brain. He did not attempt to explain consciousness at all. This for him, was the wrong question. When someone would, full of life’s suffering, want to know what was enlightenment, he would attempt to lead that questioner to the state of enlightenment. The question for the Sixth Patriarch was not what was consciousness; the question was, ‘what was enlightenment?’ One could, of course, say, you mean, ‘what is enlightened consciousness?’, but this is precisely to misunderstand the question. This will lead you to the answer of the elder monk, polishing the mirror that will remain a lifelong task that will keep you from reaching enlightenment. The mirror itself is the problem. Enlightenment is precisely the understanding that it is the belief in consciousness that is the problem. When you realize that there is no consciousness, there is no problem. A puddle of mystery has been replaced with an ocean. How can there be no consciousness? For the Sixth Patriarch, the whole point is for the thinker not to think of consciousness, not that there is no consciousness. If the thinker can free herself or himself from the thought that consciousness has a referent—that consciousness is a brain creation—one can obtain enlightenment. It is the freedom from this question that is the source of enlightenment. It does not answer the question, ‘what is the relationship between the mind and the brain?’ For any answer to this will leave the term or terms to be explained. Any answer will perforce leave a question behind. The only answer that solves the mystery is the answer that does not leave any question behind. The pure thought that there is no consciousness is, if you want to describe it at all, a thought of consciousness itself. There is no ‘you’ in the picture. There is no ‘brain’ in the picture either. The idea of the ‘brain’ would be another thought you would have. Of course, once one comes down to the level of asking questions such as, ‘don’t you have to have a brain to have thoughts like this?’, you are on another level of consciousness, the level, perhaps that entertains such questions as these. On this level of consciousness there are puzzles. On this level of consciousness, consciousness and the brain are mysteries.

64

Searle, 1998, p. 53.

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At the moment of having a pure thought, however, in that moment of experience, there is just pure consciousness, nothing else. You may object that we are using the language of qualia now and are attempting to describe something from the inside. But this language, too, is not part of the experience. In its use you have already departed from the experience of pure consciousness. Or, since all language is separating us, we should by rights, not speak of it at all. In the language of the Sixth Patriarch, we at most, should say, it is non-dual.65 Searle, at one point, comes amazingly close to the same insight: Once you see the incoherence of dualism, you can also see that monism and pluralism are just as mistaken. Dualists asked: “How many things and properties are there?” and counted up to two. Monists, confronting the same question, got as far as one.” But the real mistake was to start counting at all.66

This language which is neither the language of the brain nor the language of consciousness, neither the language of the physical nor the language of the mental, is the language that is the least false language; it is the language that says, in its usage, that what is described is not describable. That is what is experienced. The purpose of this is to give the subject knower a way of life that helps her or him through suffering. The purpose is not to solve the mind-brain puzzle. The way out, the way of the Sixth Patriarch is to bring the subject knower to the state of mind where the question does not exist any more. This is clarity. There is no question; there is no mystery; there is no questioner. This is perfect clarity. Of course once you call it ‘clarity’, all the features of the problem come back into the mirror. So long as the dialogue, the problem keeps resurfacing. In order for there to be no problem at all, no mystery, language must cease. Of course, there can be the silence of understanding and the silence of being puzzled. It is hoped that we are left with the silence of understanding. But, being puzzled is not such a bad thing either. So long that one is puzzled by the right sort of question. Searle seems to think that the problems that I have raised are the result of the Cartesian starting point I have adopted which he points out is three hundred years old. I am not sure that I hold any set view at all about the mind-body problem, but in any case, my viewpoint is 65 66

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‘Buddha-nature is non-duality.’ Sutra, p. 95. Searle, 1992, p. 26.

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not at issue. Searle does possess a mind-body viewpoint and it is his duty to defend it and it is no defense to accuse my view of being three centuries out of date. It does not follow that if a view is old that it is untrue. Plato’s views on mathematics are 2,500 years old but some of them, according to Sir Roger Penrose, are more viable than certain contemporary views. I stated earlier that while I can decide to move my arm, that that decision cannot be the result of a neuron firing consensus or else I am suffering from an illusion that I—not a sub-committee of neurons—started that decision making process. Whether it is grounded in neurons or not is the very question at issue so to simply assert that is to beg the question. If it is grounded in neurons, then I as I understand my ‘I’ did not decide to move my arm; the neurons did. If this makes me an unregenerate dualist, then call me a dualist. But this does not answer my objection. My objection is very simple. If my neurons have decided (or I am my neurons if we want to put it this way), then I am determined by my neurons firing. I do not accept this for it makes me into a machine. I would prefer my consciousness to be a ghost than to be an illusion. At one point Searle says this: You can say that neuron firings are causing my arm to go up—that is certainly true. Or you can say that my conscious decision is causing my arm to go up.67 But creating the impression that these two foregoing sentences are equivalent obscures the fundamental problem. The fundamental question is what starts the process? If it is neuron firings, then it is not an act of free will (perhaps another outdated residue in my thinking?). I thought that it was my conscious decision but it was really my neurons. Thus, I am suffering from an illusion. In fact if it were my neurons, then why did I think it was me? Where in the world did my illusion come from? From my neurons as well? If my arm went up by itself, then I might be happy to think my neurons did this. But I think in my folly that I did it. If all I should mean by my ‘I’ is that my neurons have fired then this is totally unsatisfactory to me. I am not sure what I do mean by my ‘I’, but I know that I do not mean simply that my neurons have taken action. Whatever I am, and I am not sure that I know or that I am obliged to know in order to question what someone else has advanced, I do think that I am something more than neurons firing. Doubtless, for Searle, if is

67 John Searle (2004), “Toward a Unified View of Reality” (an interview), The Harvard Review of Philosophy, Volume XII, Spring 2004, p. 112.

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robert e. allinson the work of my neurons that I think such and such, this represents quite an advance on Descartes’ evil genius. For my neurons have convinced my illusory self that this illusion convinced my arm to move. Now that is an accomplishment!

For Searle, the single event of my moving my arm is simply classified under two different descriptions. One description, the lower one, uses the language of neurons. The other, the mentalese language. But he is not content with a two language theory. He wants to switch languages in midstream. Watch his moves carefully. He says that first we have neuron firings that activate the motor cortex and send a series of neuronal signals down the arm until it reaches the axon in place of the motor neurons. The name of the neurotransmitter is acetylcholine. The acetylcholine hits the axon in place and enters the ion channels. And so on. Where is the metaphysical mystery? It has been hidden by the abbacadabra of scientific language. Notice the sleight of mind. It is all where he begins. He begins with, ‘First we have neuron firings . . .’ But this is magic. It is word magic. It is illusion. What we had started with was the phenomenological awareness that I began to move my arm through a conscious intention. When we switch languages to neurons firing, we are performing word magic. We have put the rabbit into the hat. We have never proved that neurons caused my arm to move. We have also not proved that my decision started neurons to fire up. This is a mixing of the languages. Through the obfuscating miasma of scientific jargon we have created the illusion that my decision set an entire chain of physiology in motion. But there was no scientific explanation. There was a metaphysical one. Our mental decision caused a chain of reactions. But this is a mystery. We could assert that our mental decisions are already embedded in neurons but this is to beg the very question at issue.

What about the other way ‘round? What of the simple act of drinking cabernet and getting tipsy? Does this prove that the brain causes consciousness in the sense that something obviously physical caused something apparently mental? There are two possible responses. One response takes a more metaphysical turn. One might say that the proper conditioning of the body is a necessary condition for clear thinking. It does not follow that it is a sufficient condition. The mind might be (and I am not saying that it is, I am only pointing to one possible explanation) like a pianist who requires that a piano be properly tuned. It does not follow that the piano composes, plays and appreciates the composition and it is this that Searle must prove if as he assserts over and over again, that brain processes cause consciousness—(though not qualia?).

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An alternate explanation of the “cabernet paradox” is that this too involves a switching of languages. Drinking cabernet and getting tipsy, as I would enjoy so doing with Searle, would fit into the language of phenomenological awareness. Cabernet is not a ding-an-sich. My phenomenological awareness would be that after drinking cabernet, I feel tipsy. There is no causation here outside of the realm of phenomenological awareness. Indeed, from this perspective, the “brain” is also a phenomenological datum. We have no access to the “brain in itself ”. If we keep ourselves within two separate languages, the “cabernet paradox” dissolves. I either describe the entire affair in the language of physiology or in the language of phenomenological awareness. This response leaves one with Spinoza rather than Descartes.68

68 Cf., Avishai Maergarlit’s article, “The Genius of Spinoza”, a review of Stuart Hampshire, Spinoza and Spinozism, in The New York Review of Books, October 20, 2005, p. 50 for evidence that Spinoza’s two language approach is still inspiring contemporary philosophers.

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REPLY TO ROBERT ALLINSON John R. Searle I had more difficulty composing a reply Professor Allinson’s paper than to any of the other papers in this volume. I am very sorry that Professor Allinson did not attend the conference, where his paper was read by another person, because I think that his paper contains very serious misunderstandings of my views and at the time I thought that I might have been able to correct these in a face to face exchange. Afterwards he had access to my replies to his paper (the proceedings were video recorded) and he made a number of changes. But he did not, as far as I can tell, correct any of the truly serious misunderstandings. Does he, for example, really think that when I say that brain processes cause conscious states that I am committed to the view that brains of dead people must be conscious? And does he really think that because I suppose that thought processes occur in the brain, I am committed to the view that when he thinks about his grandmother, his grandmother must be inside his brain? Or that my views “would make grandmother into a sparkplug”? If he really holds these, as well as several other striking views, then I really have nothing to say by way of reply except to urge that he reread the relevant works of mine. The best rebuttal to his views is his own paper. There is a certain irony in his paper because the purpose of the conference was to discuss the relationship between my philosophy and Chinese philosophy. But for the most part, his response seems to me not based on Chinese philosophy, not even on the Sixth Patriarch, but on a set of very Western categories and assumptions, mostly from the Cartesian tradition, that I reject and try provide an alternative to.

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CHAPTER SIX

SEARLE AND BUDDHISM ON THE MIND AND THE NON-SELF Soraj Hongladarom 1. Introduction In works such as Rediscovery of the Mind, and Mind, Language and Society, Searle holds famously that the mind is a biological phenomenon.1 He states: “Consciousness is, above all, a biological phenomenon. Conscious processes are biological processes.”2 I would like to argue in this paper that Searle’s view here does not necessarily contradict the Buddhist conception of mind and its close corollary the doctrine of Non-Self (anātman), the idea that a series of causes and effects are all there is to the mind, self or consciousness. Furthermore, I also show that, except for the Buddhist insistence on the continuity in some form of the mind after bodily death, which Searle apparently does not accept, the two positions share quite a lot in common. The main reason why Searle’s view of the mind does not necessarily contradict that of the Buddhist is that Searle seems to be talking only about the mind in its concrete manifestation, as what happens to a living person, and there is ample evidence in the Buddhist texts that states roughly the same thing. Consciousness, both in Searle and in Buddhism, do share many same characteristics together, most notable of which are perhaps that the content of consciousness is always changing and is intentional, and that one cannot find a deep core, the ‘homunculus’ inside the body or the brain. Another similarity is that both reject Cartesian dualism. This is because Cartesian dualism assumes that the mind is a distinct entity,

1 Searle, John (1992), The Rediscovery of the Mind, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; (1999) Mind, Language and Society, London: Phoenix; his other works are (2004) Mind: A Brief Introduction, Oxford University Press, and (1984) Minds, Brains and Science, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2 Searle, 1999, p. 53.

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a substance on a par with the material one, and it is this idea that is rejected by both Buddhism and Searle. Both Buddhism and Searle affirm that the mind is a changing entity (or a collection of entities), and that in fact it is more accurately described as an event. The mind is an event of the brain, or more accurately a series of events of the brain. Thinking, feeling, desiring, etc. are but episodes in this series of events that all together make up one person’s life history. The mind is not a substantial entity that endures throughout a person’s life. In Buddhism as in Searle there is no special category of the ‘mental’ as distinct from the physical one; the world is not just cut up into these two separate categories. However, the major difference between Searle and the Buddhists concerns what happens to the consciousness after the death of the body. According to the scientific world view that Searle subscribes to, the mind is a function of the brain and consequently does not seem to be able to survive the death of the latter, whereas Buddhism is well known to hold quite a contrary view. Nonetheless, I would to argue that Searle’s view here does not necessarily preclude the possibility that consciousness might exist in some form after death of the brain either. If he is willing to expand his epistemological apparatus somewhat and include the possibility of what Buddhists have consistently taken to be a source of knowledge, then his view and the Buddhist would be remarkably similar. I shall investigate these similarities and differences between Searle and the Buddhist theories of mind and of Non-Self in the course of the paper, beginning with an outline of the Buddhist theory of the mind and Non-Self. Being well aware of the fact that Buddhism consists of various schools and traditions, each of which can significantly diverge from each other, I shall focus on two of the most important schools that deal substantively with the mind and the non-self, viz. the Abhidharma and Yogācāra Schools.3 In addition, I also refer to His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s treatment on the topic, especially his division between the grosser and the subtler levels of body and mind. The reason My policy regarding Buddhist terminology in this paper is that I shall use both the Pali and Sanskrit terms, depending on which tradition the terms are taken from. This should help the reader less experienced with Buddhism to find out more information on their own better. Another reason is that, since I am referring to both the Pali and Sanskrit traditions, it is natural to mention terms in both languages. However, when a Buddhist term has become accepted into the English language, such as karma, no diacritics showing the actual Indian spelling is used. 3

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why I chose these schools is that the Abhidharma represents the most highly developed school of philosophical thought of the Theravāda tradition. Yogācāra, on the other hand, is one of the main philosophical schools of the Mahāyāna tradition. Moreover, the Dalai Lama is head of Tibetan Buddhism, which belongs to yet another major tradition, Vajrayāna Buddhism. Hence referring to all three here would more or less comprise all of Buddhism currently practiced. There is a caveat, however; even though I plan to present the representative voices of the major three Buddhist traditions, one should always bear in mind that there are much more schools whose views also diverge from these three, and that each school and tradition has their own subdivisions and internal differences. But due to the constraint of this paper, such subtleties in Buddhist schools of thought cannot be dealt with adequately here. My focus is only to compare and contrast Searle’s view with that of some of the most representative Buddhist philosophical schools. Another reason is that, of all the Buddhist philosophical schools that discuss the mind and the Non-Self, Abhidharma and Yogācāra appear to stand at the most extreme opposite to each other, and that of the Dalai Lama somewhere in between. The idea is that Abhidharma presents a very thorough and finely detailed categorization of the mind, with the aim of showing that there is nothing that substantially endures after bodily death except for continuity of the causal links of mental episodes. Yogācāra, on the other hand, seems to maintain the existence of some sort of mind, called ālayavijñā a, that carries on after the death of the body. The Dalai Lama somehow blends these two and says that the body/mind complex that continues takes place at a subtle level. However, none of these representative traditions affirms that nothing remains after bodily death. There is always some form of continuity, but that does not mean that there is something that gets carried over. That view is refuted by all the Buddhist schools also. The differences among the representative Buddhist schools here concern only what this continuity consists in. Looking rather closely at these three Buddhist representative views may shed light on Searle’s view of the mind and on the idea of the mind in general. After discussing the Buddhist schools, I shall in the next section present a comparison and contrast of what these schools have to say with Searle. Then the last section concludes the paper.

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soraj hongladarom 2. The Buddhist Theories

All Buddhist schools of thought concur that the mind is not a distinct entity that can exist in and of itself. That may seem surprising since Buddhism also holds that the mind or consciousness does exist in some form after death. These two seemingly conflicting characteristics of the mind can be reconciled if one realizes that consciousness is not a static, substantial, self-subsisting thing that exists through time. Instead, consciousness should be more accurately viewed as an event or a series of changes. An analogy for this is a flame, which is always changing and moving. That there seems to be one flame as distinct from another is only possible through a designation—it is we language using human beings who conveniently designate, through language and conceptual mechanisms, that this is one flame and that this one flame is the same one that is burning on this particular candle from one moment to the next. According to Buddhism, this convenient designation is necessary for ordinary understanding and communication. Nonetheless, it should be recognized as what it really is. In absolute terms the flame cannot be individuated, nor can its identity be established through time. And what goes for the flame goes for all other entities. According to Buddhism, no entities are static, substantial, or self-subsisting, and when consciousness does exist after death of the body, it does exist through a subtle medium that is currently undetectable and is a kind of energy that transfers the series of causes and effects constituting the consciousness of a particular person to another sentient being who is about to be born. Abhidharma In the Abhidharma, there is a very detailed analysis of consciousness (vijñā a) and mental states (caitasika). The idea is to present the practitioner with a series of mental categories which will help her identify her own mental categories and states so that she realize what is going on with her mental episodes and hence does not fall prey to them, which would lead her astray from the path of Liberation. In the Abhidharma, all entities are divided into four major classes: §2. Tattha vutt’ ābhidhammatthā —catudhā paramatthato Citta cetasika rūpa —Nibbāna ’ iti sabbathā.

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§2. In an ultimate sense the categories of Abhidhamma, mentioned therein, are fourfold in all:— i. consciousness, ii. mental states, iii. matter, and iv. Nibbāna.4

The keyword here is ‘in the ultimate sense’, because the Abhidharma, as with the other major Buddhist philosophical tradition, Nāgārjuna’s Mādhyamika, states that there are two truths, namely the conventional truth and ultimate truth.5 The former is the truth that is normally understood through language and perception; a celebrated example is the property of ‘Snow is white’. The latter, on the other hand, refers to the typical Buddhist insistence that things as normally perceived do not represent the ultimate truth, which lie deeper and is available to analysis. Thus snow may appear white to the normal eye but in the ultimate sense, or according to the ultimate truth, snow is not white at all, because it is composed of atoms and molecules which only appear white depending on certain conditions, such as availability of light and the normally working eyes. Without these conditions, snow is not, or does not appear, white. Furthermore, snow is not even there because all there is is nothing but a collection of very small particles. The Buddhist practitioner sees that things are composed in this way and is thus liberated from the cycle of suffering when she realizes that this is all there is to it and hence see things as they really are. What the text above says is that all existing entities are of four kinds. Consciousness and matter is straightforward. Mental states are modifications of consciousness, and nibbāna (Pali, nirvā a in Sanskrit) is something that is unlike any of the previous three categories and is utterly transcendent. We might group the first two categories together and, except for nibbāna, the result seems to be that the Abhidharma holds some kind of dualism. What there is consists of the mental and the physical. However, it is clear from the text that this is not the case. Firstly there is no attempt in the Abhidharma to affirm that there are two separate substances. ‘Consciousness’ and ‘mental states’ in the Nārada Mahā Thera, ed. and transl. (1979), A Manual of Abhidhamma being Abhidhammattha Sa gaha of Bhadanta Anuruddhācariya, Buddha Dharma Education Association, p. 21, available on the Internet at http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/abhidhamma .pdf, retrieved September 1, 2005. 5 See especially Nāgārjuna (1995), The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamādhyamakakārikā, Jay Garfield transl., New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 296–8. 4

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Abhidharma are terms referring to the feeling, thinking, sensing activities of persons, and there is no evidence in the text to the effect that these are indeed substantial in the Cartesian or Aristotelian sense. In fact that would run counter to the spirit of Buddhism that steadfastly denies that there is substance of any kind. Furthermore, ‘matter’ here obviously refers to the material world that is perceptible through the five senses. This does not refer to any kind of self subsisting material substance, but ordinary material entity whose existence in fact depends on a set of causes and conditions. This leaves only the fourth category, nibbāna. It is quite clear that the intention of the Abhidharma is to emphasize that nibbāna is utterly different from mundane existence. Hence it cannot be that nibbāna is the same as either consciousness, mental states or matter. For the Theravāda Buddhist, nibbāna cannot be described in any positive term. One can say, of it, what it is not, but not what it is. With regard to the mind and the mental states, the intention of the Abhidharma is to help the practitioner see them as they really are, that is, as a series or a collection of very small episodes which otherwise would not be perceptible to the untrained person. All mental episodes of a person are divided and subdivided and categorized in a highly detailed manner. The purpose is again to facilitate the practitioner to see that these mental episodes—which include greed, sensuous desires, anger, and so on—do not exist in and of themselves. They only appear to exist according to the conventional sense, but ultimately they do not exist, because all of them are composed of very minuscule and very short-lived mental episodes specified in the Abhidharma. How short-lived these episodes are is demonstrated in the Abhidharma as occurring as many times as 1012 times in a second.6 Consequently, the idea here is that the mind, or the self and the consciousness, is not what it appears to be to the untrained eyes. In truth, the mind is just a collection of these very short-lived episodes; hence it could be said that the Abhidharma presents a theory of the mind that runs parallel to that of matter. As matter is composed of atoms each of which are changing very rapidly, so too is the mind. Though the Abhidharma does not specifically mention that the nature of the mind 6 Mehm Tin Mon (2002), Introducing the Higher Teaching of the Buddha: Buddha Abhidhamma Ultimate Science, Buddha Dharma Eduction Association, p. 22, available on the Internet at http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/abhidhaultsci.pdf, retrieved September 1, 2005.

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is physical or mental, it is clear that the parallelism between mind and matter would seem to point to the fact that for the Abhidharma at least the nature of mind and matter is not too different from each other. The mind is divided first of all into four major categories: §3. Tattha Cittani tavā catubbidham hoti:— i. Kāmavacara , ii. Rūpavacara , iii. Arūpāvacara , iv. Lokuttara c āti. §3. Of them, consciousness, first, is fourfold— namely, (i) Consciousness pertaining to the Sensuous-Sphere, (ii) Consciousness pertaining to the Form-Sphere, (iii) Consciousness pertaining to the Formless-Sphere, and (iv) Supramundane consciousness.7

There is not enough space in this paper to give an elaborate exegesis of the texts quoted here, but they should suffice in showing the direction that the Abhidharma is up to. Consciousness is divided here into four kinds. The first one, consciousness pertaining to the sensuous sphere, refers to consciousness that takes as its object forms that are perceptible directly through the normal five senses, such as color, taste, smell, sound and tactile quality of things. The second kind refers to consciousness that takes as its object the forms of things in the world, such as when one perceives a rope to be long, or an apple to be more or less round. This also refers to the objects of lower states of meditation that are focused on perceptible objects. The third kind, consciousness pertaining to the formless sphere, refers to consciousness that takes as its object formless entities which are the objects of higher meditational states that do not take perceptible objects as their focus but ‘formless space’ or the like instead. Finally, supramundane consciousness refers to those consciousness of the arahants who have totally renounced the world and who are free from the cycle of suffering. Since they are free from the life cycle it is said that their consciousness is supramundane in quality. Supramundane consciousness thus parallels nibbāna as some sort of transcendental entities as opposed to the mundane ones of sa sāra. The Abhidharma is clear in insisting that sa sāra, the endless life cycle in which all sentient beings who are not released have to endure, and nibbāna, the total liberation, is completely distinct.

7

Nārada Mahā Thera, p. 25.

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Concerning what happens to consciousness after bodily birth and death, the Abhidharma has the following to say: §15. So, to those who have thus got rebirth, immediately after the cessation of the relinking (consciousness), a similar consciousness, depending on the same object, flows on, in the absence of a thought-process, uninterruptedly like a stream, until the arising of the decease-consciousness. Being an essential factor of life, this consciousness is known as bhava ga. At the end, in the way of dying, it arises as decease-consciousness and perishes. Thereafter the relinking-consciousness and others, revolving according to circumstances, like a wheel, continue to exist. §16. Just as here so again in the subsequent existence there arise relinking-consciousness, life-continuum, thought processes, and deceaseconsciousness. Again with rebirth and life-continuum this stream of consciousness turns round. The enlightened, disciplining themselves long, understanding the impermanence (of life), will realise the Deathless State, and, completely cutting off the fetters of attachment, attain Peace.8

When consciousness takes shape in one who has gained rebirth, it takes its cue, so to speak, from the previous consciousness that functions as as the ‘relinking’ consciousness. When the relinking consciousness ceases, the new consciousness, that of the new body that is being born or gaining rebirth, takes shape, and the process happens continuously like a stream that is flowing smoothly. The new consciousness, when not interrupted by thought processes, is the connecting factor that binds up different episodes of mental events in a person together. This consciousness is called bhava ga, and is intimately connected with the ālayavijñāna in the Yogācāra thought that we will examine later. Bhava ga consciousness is what happens to the person when she is in deep, dreamless sleep. It is there when the person lost her consciousness momentarily and is responsible for her being able to retain all her memories and personalities that make up her persona. When this person dies, the bhava ga consciousness gives rise to another consciousness that takes shape in the body of a new being that is about to be born. At this moment the bhava ga consciousness becomes the decease-consciousness and it then functions as a relinking consciousness giving rise to a new bhava ga consciousness of the new being. The process goes on without end, unless and until the person enters nirvana, and cuts off completely this cycle. This is the only way ultimate peace can be obtained. The arahant attains the Deathless State because he or she is totally free from all defile-

8

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Nārada Mahā Thera, pp. 311–312.

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ments; since death is arrived at only when one still remains in sa sāra, the arahant who is released from sa sāra will not thus experience death. This does not mean, however, that the arahants will not experience the dissolution of his body. They do; the bodies of the arahants will perish as bodies of all living organisms do. Even the Buddha himself died some two thousand five hundred years ago. But this is something to be expected and the arahants completely understand this phenomenon as a natural one arising out of causal chains. The difference is that when the bodies of the arahants are dissolved, they are not be reborn. They are completely free from the fetters of sa sāra. The relation among these episodes of consciousness is a causal one. If one has performed a lot of unwholesome actions, she has then collection a large amount of bad karma and at the moment when she dies, her relinking consciousness will show all her past experiences, especially the bad ones since these are the powerful karmas that will determine the what her imminent rebirth will be. So we are told that those who have slaughtered and butchered pigs in their lives will see all these pigs coming back to them claiming for justice, and so on. On the contrary, those who have performed good deeds, such as donating money to temples and monks, helping others in need, and so on, will see a vision of the heavenly realm in which she will going to be reborn in. The idea is that there is a continuity of episodes of consciousness and they are linked together in a causal chain. In sum, the Abhidharma view of the mind or consciousness is that it is one basic category of reality, and is composed of minuscule mental events each lasting a very short period of time. Consciousness itself is further divisible into many smaller kinds, the most basic of which is those pertaining to the Sensuous-Sphere, the Form-Sphere, the Formless-Sphere, and the Supramundane-Sphere. Each of these types of consciousness can be further divided and subdivided. The purpose of all these divisions and subdivisions is to acquaint the mind of the practitioner of the non reality of the mental events that comprise her normal waking life. Since suffering (du kha) arises out of misapprehension of reality, for example, when something that one holds dear is lost, one tends to feel sad because one mistakenly believes that the dear one is a permanent, unchanging entity and so one becomes attached to it. Realizing the truth that there is no such permanent entity anywhere will help the practitioner realize that the sad feeling is only caused when she grasps at what is actually not there. When she realizes this, her mind is set free and she is set on the path toward Liberation or nirvana.

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However, the Abhidharma does not focus on the important question concerning the nature of the mind itself. It is one thing to present an array of divisions and subdivisions of the mind and mental categories, but it is another to present a theory on what the mind is, like Searle did. On this the Abhidharma is silent. One might speculate that this is in accordance with the Buddha’s insistence philosophical questions of this kind are not conducive to Liberation and hence should be put aside so that one attends to the more threatening matter. Be that as it may, there are many reasons why one should think that the mind, at least in its manifestation in a living body, does have material basis. Peter Harvey concludes that the mind-body relationship in Theravāda Buddhism should be seen as a ‘pattern of interaction between two types of processes’, namely the physical and the mental ones. The living body is a complex of mind and body and the two cannot be separated from each other.9 Harvey sees that the mind and the body are not distinct, but in fact are two are “streams of momentary events which could not occur without the interactions which condition their arising.”10 Here is what the Abhidhammattha Sa gaha has to say on the relation between mind and matter: F. Mind and matter are related to mind and matter in nine ways according to circumstances—namely, by way of predominance, co-nascence, reciprocity, dependence, nutriment, control, dissociation, presence, and non-separation. ... The relation of nutriment is twofold:—edible food is related to this body; and immaterial nutriment, to the coexisting mind and matter. The relation of control is threefold:—the five sensitive organs are related to the five kinds of cognition; the controlling power of material vitality, to the material qualities that have been grasped at; the immaterial controlling factors, to the coexistent mind and matter. ... The five kinds of relations—coexistence, antecedence, post-occurrence, edible food, and material life—are, in every way, the relation of presence and that of non-separation. All relations are included in the relations of object, powerful dependence, Kamma and presence.

9 Harvey, Peter (1993), “The Mind-Body Relationship in Pali Buddhism: A Philosophical Investigation”, Asian Philosophy 3.1, pp. 29–41. 10 Harvey, 1993, p. 40.

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Herein coexisting material qualities should be understood as twofold:—throughout the course of life they should be understood as those born of mind, and at rebirth as those born of kamma.11

What is very interesting here is that the Abhidharma refers the process of nutrition and digestion and their relation to the mind. The text says: “edible food is related to this body; and immaterial nutriment, to the coexisting mind and matter.” ‘Immaterial nutriment’ here obviously refers to the quality of the food that has been eaten and its effects on the complex of mind and body that comprises the living body. It is thus clear that the Abhidharma views the physical and the mental not as something totally distinct, but as one interacting whole. Yogācāra Another important tradition of Buddhism is that of the Yogācāra. Let us look at the following quotation, which is taken from an article by Walpola Rahula. Here he cites the founder of the Yogācāra School himself, Asa ga: What is the definition of the Aggregate of Consciousness (vijñānaskandha)? It is mind (citta), mental organ (manas) and also consciousness (vijñāna). And there what is mind (citta)? It is ālayavijñāna (Store-Consciousness) containing all seeds (sarvabījaka), impregnated with the traces (impressions) (vāsanāparibhāvita) of Aggregates (skandha), Elements (dhātu) and Spheres (āyatana) . . . What is mental organ (manas)? It is the object of ālayavijñāna always having the nature of self-notion (self-conceit) (manyanātmaka) associated with four defilements, viz. the false idea of self (ātmad sti), self-love (ātmasneha), the conceit of ‘I am’ (asmimāna) and ignorance (avidya) . . . What is consciousness (vijñāna)? It consists of the six groups of consciousness (sad vijñānakaya ), viz. visual consciousness (caksurvijñāna), auditory (śrotra), olfactory ( ghrāna), gustatory ( jihva), tactile (kāya), and mental consciousness (manovijñāna) . . .12

‘Aggregate of consciousness’ refers to one of the five aggregates that according to all schools of Buddhism comprise the living body of a human being. These five aggregates are: form (rūpa), feeling (vedanā), perception (sa jñā), mental disposition (sa skāra) and consciousness

Nārada Mahā Thera, 1979, pp. 415–417. Rahula, Walpola (2005), “ĀlayavijÒāna—Store Consciousness,” available at http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/ebdha195.htm, retrieved September 7, 2005. 11

12

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(vijñāna). Only the first one, form, is material and the latter four are mental. For Asa ga the mind is the basic, underlying element whose objects and modifications comprise the mental organs and the groups of consciousness. The basic, underlying mind is the ālayavijñāna, which remains the same throughout a person’s life and in fact carries its identity over when the person is entering the process of being reborn. Asa ga says that the ālayavijñāna is akin to a storehouse where all the defilements as well as positive modes of consciousness are kept. Hence it contains all ‘seeds’, and it is ‘impregnated’ with traces of aggregates, elements and spheres because these are the factors that can have impacts on the consciousness. For example, it is influenced by feeling (which is one of the Aggregates), resulting in the consciousness being sad or elated; it is influenced by the elements, which are purely material, through actions such as nutrition and heat in the atmosphere, and so on. Moreover, it can also be influenced by the Sense Spheres, which lead to feelings and thought constructions, all of which are modifications of the basic, underlying consciousness. Consciousness is related to the ālayavijñāna as a special category of the latter. The ālayavijñāna is the deep underlying consciousness that runs through a person’s life, and the consciousness consists of the interaction between the sense organs and the cognitive agent. The result is six different kinds of consciousness. Thus when the eyes see a picture, a visual consciousness develops. This consists in the awareness of a picture which is being seen through the eyes. I am having a visual consciousness of the monitor of my computer as I am typing this article, for example. The interaction between my eye, which receives the data input from outside environment, and my cognitive mind, which translates the input into something that I can make sense of, is where the visual consciousness lies. Hence visual consciousness is a special modification of the basic store consciousness that remains throughout. Furthermore, Asa ga also mentions the ‘mental consciousness’; this is also a species or a modification of the store consciousness. This happens when I, for example, think of an episode in my memory, such as when I played with my son this morning, and am consciously aware of it. I am not playing with my son right now, but I am being aware of my memory or my recollection of my playing. This is my mental consciousness. The five sense spheres are not working, but my mind is. As before, the mental consciousness lies precisely at the interaction between my cognitive mind and the mental episode that is presented to my mind.

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The Dalai Lama The ālayavijñāna may be comparable to what the Dalai Lama calls the subtle level of mind, namely the level of the mind that is responsible for putative identity of the person across bodily lives. He would deny, though, that his view here bears any resemblance to the ālayavijñāna, since the ālayavijñāna is part of the Yogācāra theory, which is consistently refused by the Dalai Lama, who comes from the rival tradition of Prasa gika Mādhayamika, which is accepted by his lineage, that of the Gelugpa. The latter emphasizes emptiness of phenomena and regard the ālayavijñāna as an attempt to bring back reification to Buddhist philosophy. However, we need not concern ourselves with these niceties here. According to the Dalai Lama,13 what is empirically perceived is the ‘grosser’ level of mind—the mind as the subject of empirical psychology and neurophysiology, but the Buddhists also hold that there is another level of the mind, the ‘subtler’ one, that is responsible for its activity before or after the death of the body in which it manifests itself: In the case of a particular person, besides this body and mind, we cannot identify anything else as an I, or as a self. The self is just mere designation based on the combination of body and mind. Because it is just simply designated, there is not independent I, or self, apart from this body and mind. The Buddhist’s conclusion is that the I, or the concept of I, is just a mere I, designated by the combination of the five skandhas. In other words, body and mind. However, body and mind is not necessarily the obviously body and mind alone. There are more subtle levels of the body and mind. Therefore, even if this solid body and gross level of mind dissolve, the subtle body and subtle mind are still there. So, the basis of mere I is still there. Without distinguishing the solid body from the subtle body, we can say that there is always a continuation of body and mind. That is the basis of the mere I, which exists from beginningless time. Sometimes, due to that subtle body and subtle mind, a solid body and a grosser level of mind, such as ours, develop.14

It is the subtler mind that is responsible for the carrying over of actions and its fruits in the next lives as one is reincarnated. Here lies a subtle difference between his view and that of the Abhidharma that we have just seen. According to the Abhidharma, there is no such thing as the

13 The Dalai Lama (1997), The Buddha Nature: Death and Eternal Soul in Buddhism. Cristof Spitz transl., Woodside, CA: Bluestar Communications, pp. 85–86. 14 The Dalai Lama, 1997, pp. 85–86.

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subtle self. What there is, on the contrary, is a series of conscious episodes linked together through a causal chain. What exactly is reborn when a person dies is nothing but this series of causal links working out its own process; however, according to the Dalai Lama, there is the subtler level of the body that seems to be responsible. Even the Abhidharmic theory of the bhava ga consciousness cannot do the work that the Dalai Lama is ascribing to the subtle mind here, for the bhava ga consciousness also arises and ceases within the causal chain in the same way as the other types of consciousness, such as the relinking or the decease ones. It is here that the Dalai Lama’s view of the subtle mind seems to bear quite a lot of similarity with the Yogācāra theory of the ālayavijñāna. Another point that needs to be carefully considered is that the Dalai Lama’s subtle body and mind or the Yogācāra’s ālayavijñāna should not be confused with the Cartesian mental substance. The difference is clear. The subtle body and mind or the ālayavijñāna consists of a series of mental episodes and can be explained through natural terminologies as we have seen. The subtle body and mind do not inherently exist in themselves; without causes and conditions giving rise to them they just do not exist, and these causes and conditions can well be of the same kind as the material world, only that it may require some very fine-grained and well trained perceptive ability to detect them. Cartesian mental substance, on the other hand, is something that inherently exists, and Descartes famously held that it is by no means caused by the physical substance. A picture that emerges out of these differing schools of Buddhism is, then, that the mind is not some substantial entity that exists on its own. There is just no category of the mental as opposed to the physical. What carries over after the death of the body, which is the contentious point in the Buddhist’s dialog with Searle, is explicated in more or less natural terms. There is no divine intervention, and even if one is reborn as a deity, the process described here also repeats itself. Here a god, as another sentient being swimming in the sea of sa sāra, is no different from all other lesser beings. If modern science were advanced enough to investigate these phenomena, it would seem likely that any picture that would come up would have to start with this basic picture given by the Buddhists. That is, if things like reincarnation and rebirth were to be scientific categories, any theory that describes and explains them would need to be couched in natural terminologies not unlike the ones in the Abhidharma, Yogācāra, or by the Dalai Lama.

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As for the self, all the Buddhist schools concur that it does not exist. What we human beings normally take to be our selves, for example the referent of the first-person pronoun ‘I’ in day-to-day statements such as “I am having a cold” or “I weigh 77 kilograms” and the like, are only empirical selves that are always subject to change. All the Buddhist schools have no qualms about these empirical selves. However, what they deny is that there exists an underlying Self that is the basis of individuality and personality and transmigrates after bodily to take on new form of life. The Abhidharma analysis clearly refutes such a notion of Self. Moreover, the Yogācāra and the Dalai Lama are also clear on this. The ālayavijñāna is not to be confused with this subsisting self because it is strictly speaking not a basis of individuality or personality. That one is reborn at all is due to the fact that one has collected certain karmas and most importantly one has not realized the truth—that one already possesses the Buddha Nature (tathāgatagarbha) in oneself. It is only that the Buddha Nature, which is above conceptual construction and therefore cannot be counted, is obscured by the defilements that has prevented the person from realizing Liberation. Since all Buddhist schools teach that the endless life cycle endures because one clings to the mistaken belief in the enduring self, the ālayavijñāna or the Buddha Nature thus stands in direct opposition to that notion. Searle also does not recognize the enduring self, and here is another point in which his view and that of the Buddhists are similar. Nevertheless, he does mention the binding problem: In order for a person to function more or less coherent as a self, there has to be something that binds these separate episodes together. Kant calls this binding function, the Transcendental Unity of Apperception. According to Kant, the ‘I think’ must be able to be accompanied by this transcendental unity, for otherwise the functioning self would not be able to make a coherent picture out of her own cognition, with the result that understanding would not develop.15 Searle argues that the binding problem is only an apparent one, and once one understands that consciousness is already bound from the beginning, then the problem disappears.16 Searle’s point Here in Kant’s own words: “It must be possible for the ‘I think’ to accompany all my representations, for otherwise something would be represented in me which could not be thought at all, and that is equivalent to saying that the representation would be impossible, or at least would be nothing to me” (Immanuel Kant (1929), Critique of Pure Reason, Norman Kemp Smith transl., New York: St. Martin’s, B131–132, pp. 152–153). 16 Searle, 1999, pp. 80–83. 15

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is that the binding problem only asserts itself when one believes that the consciousness is akin to a stage on which events occur. If one watches over one’s mental episodes as if one is watching the television, then there seems to arise the problem of how these different elements are bound together. Searle points out that such a metaphor would presuppose that there is a homunculus inside our brain that does the watching. But both the Buddhists and Searle are in complete agreement that the homunculus is a myth. His suggestion, that consciousness should be considered more as a field and its various episodes as modifications of the conscious field, seems to be very much in the Buddhist spirit, and indeed in many Buddhist meditative traditions there is an injunction for the meditator to regard her own mind as a sea and her passing thoughts as its waves. Those who propose the binding problem use it as a foil to argue that the enduring self needs to exist to function as the binder. But there does not need to be such a binder. For Searle, consciousness is already bound; for the Abhidharma, there is no need for the minuscule mental events to be bound by something external, because these episodes actually bind themselves through their causal links. According to Yogācāra, the ālayavijñāna does not function as the binder either. Instead it should be more accurately viewed in the Searlean spirit: It is a ‘field’, and the various empirical episodes are but modifications of it. The same could also be said with regards to the Dalai Lama’s subtle body and mind. 3. Searle and Buddhism The issue, of course, is how to establish objectively or scientifically that the subtler level of consciousness exists. That may not be possible given the perspective and the methods of today’s science.17 But perhaps such a scientific proof does not need to concern us here. What I would like to establish in this paper is much more modest. If Searle’s account is correct, then it needs not contradict the Buddhist teaching because he has not established beyond any doubt that the mind exists only at the ‘grosser’ level. Since the subtler level of mind—which at least according 17 The Dalai Lama has also discussed this point in great detail, together with a number of neuroscientists, philosophers and psychologists, in Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness with the Dalai Lama, Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1997, especially on pp. 137–176.

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to the Dalai Lama’s theory is not a Cartesian, first-person only mental substance at all but a kind of all pervasive, basic reality—cannot yet be ascertained through simple empirical means, Searle’s account obviously does not discuss it. The point here is only that it may be possible for there to be the subtler level of the mind, since empirical science does not seem to exhaust all truths there are, at least those that are attested through deep meditative techniques and testimonies of those who apparently remember their past lives.18 If this is actually the case, then one can pinpoint an area where Searle’s and the Buddhist theories of mind do overlap. Searle’s idea that the mind is a biological phenomenon implies that the mind is anything but static, substantial and self-subsisting, because nothing in biology is so. The mind is what the brain does. Furthermore, the brain itself is also nothing but a series of events, as it is composed by billions and billions of nerve cells all performing their activities by firing and communicating with one another. Thus the brain is more like a hive inhabited by the billions of neurons firing at one another very fast and very frequently. But as the hive is not an individual thing (unless we decide to call it that way out of convenience). Thus the brain itself, too, can be compared to the flame. In this sense the conception of mind in Searle and in Buddhism is remarkably similar. Nonetheless, it is on the matter of life before birth and after death that Searle’s and the Buddhist’s theories diverge most from each other. To go back to the flame analogy, one lights a candle by putting another, lit candle to it so that the flame touches the wick of the unlit one. One can say here that the flame from the lit candle “passes on” to the wick of the (hitherto) unlit one. The question is whether the flame on the first candle is the same or different from that on the second candle. In one sense it is the same flame, only now taking place on two candles at the same time. However, there is also an obvious sense in which the flames are different, for one is taking place on one candle, and the other is on the other. 18 The Dalai Lama had an engaging conversation with a number of scientists and philosophers on this topic, which is recorded in Houshmand, Z., Livingston, R.B., and Wallace, B.A. (eds) (1999) Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science and Buddhism, Itaca, NY: Snow Lion, pp. 45–48. Another interesting account of the comparison between brain science and Buddhism is found in Matthieu Ricard (2003), On a Relevance of a Contemplative Science, in Buddhism & Science: Breaking New Ground, edited by B. Alan Wallace, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 262–279.

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It should be beneficial to see how the three representative views outlined above deal with this flame analogy. The Abhidharma would be straightforward on this issue. The fact that one candle is being lit by being touched by another, burning candle is just a graphic illustration of the continuity of the series of mental episodes that the Abhidharma talks about. The first candle is at this point on the receiving end of the causal chain constituted by the activity of the flame that is burning on the other candle, and when the first candle is lit the activity continues on to another material constitution. There is a clear causal link between the burning candle, or more accurately the fire that is burning on that particular candle, and the newly emerging flame on the first candle. When a person dies, exactly at the moment of death his consciousness dissolves and there emerges immediately another episode of a consciousness that results from the impetus provided by the dying consciousness. The analogy is quite exact. However, when one comes to the Yogācāra and the Dalai Lama, things become a little more complicated. The question is how to put the store consciousness and the Dalai Lama’s subtle body/mind complex into the picture. Based on the assumption that the teaching of the Abhidharma is basic to all Buddhist schools, one could say that the ālayavijñāna and the subtle mind is comparable to the energy that is transferred from the burning candle to the one that is being lit. In this case one can say that the energy is the same one, but one has of course to bear in mind that in saying this one has to be metaphorical. It is not that there is literally one concrete piece of energy that moves from the burning candle to the other one. The accurate picture is perhaps that the energy of the burning flame gets transferred to the other one that is being lit. But here it makes no sense to talk of there being one or two pieces of energy, for if one does that one is imposing thought or conceptual construction on to external reality, resulting in some distortion of the picture. Yogācāra is here quite clear in maintaining that the ālayavijñāna, being Buddha nature, is beyond conceptual construction, hence it cannot be described through language. The only way to ‘get in touch’ with it, so to speak, is through meditation. The Dalai Lama himself affirms that the subtle body and subtle mind must not be mistaken to be the self; the reason can be none other than the fact that this subtle body and mind is constituted not by anything substantial, but must be akin to the causal series of links that we are talking about here.

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4. Conclusion What the flame analogy illustrates regarding the possibility of the survival of consciousness after death is that the existence of the consciousness of a new person is a carrying over of the consciousness of the old, dying person just like the unlit candle gets its flame from the lit one. There is a series of causes and effects, a line of transmissions of mental events. The death of one person, depending upon satisfaction of certain causes and conditions, initiates the sequence, which culminates in the conception of a new consciousness in a new body. Searle might object to this claim, for it might seem to run counter to the kind of naturalism and materialism that he is proposing. But if he is willing to acknowledge that consciousness is not reducible to physical properties, then I think he should be willing at least to consider the possibility that there may be more to consciousness than what normally appears to a waking person. During dreamless sleep the consciousness appears to be extinct, but in fact it is not, at least according to Buddhism, since the subtle level is still at work, and it is this subtler level that unites the discreet episodes of conscious thoughts and feelings so that a more or less unified personality during an episode of dream emerges. Of course if Searle were to insist that no such subtle level of mind exists, then his view would be opposed to the Buddhist one, but in order to accomplish that he would have to start to discuss the distinction between the grosser and the subtler level, otherwise he cannot even start to say that the latter does not exist. Another related argument concerns the perspective of the first person when the subject of discussion concerns the putative survival of consciousness after death of the body. Searle would perhaps dismiss such a scenario as mere fantasy. But as he has been insisting that consciousness cannot be reduced to a third person perspective, then he should also be willing to entertain the admissibility of talking about the first person perspective of the dead. What I mean is that normally we think we understand quite well how the first person perspective of a living person should be like. After all if we are not dead yet, we can well compare such perspective with that of our own, assuming, of course, that the owner of the perspective in question is in many ways like us. However, when the focus is on the putative first person perspective of the dead, or what it is like to be conscious when one is dead, then it seems we are faced with a dead end. This is so because

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we seem to take for granted the presupposition that the dead cannot ever be conscious. That presupposition, however, is only tenable if the third person perspective is assumed. What is missing is an account, in the first person narrative, of what it is like to be living at one moment and then to be dead at another, later moment. As we ourselves are not dead yet, there is no way we could compare our own subjective experiences with those of the dead, and we then typically assume that such perspectives are not possible. To assume that the dead has no consciousness whatsoever (the term ‘the dead’ here does not obviously refer to the dead body, which certainly does not survive, but the consciousness of the person who is dead) would be to beg the question because one has to assume that consciousness is exclusively the function of living bodies, but this point is what is contested in some form by the Buddhist tenet. Finally, it should be clear by now the Buddhist tenets referred to here do not imply that Cartesian dualism is the case. To say that consciousness can exist in some form after death of the body does not necessarily imply for the Buddhist theories that there are two distinct substances. The chain of causes and effects that constitute the subtle level of the mind does not imply that there is an inherent substance that remains the same throughout the changes. As the flame example shows, and as the biological character of the brain also shows, the series of causes and effects here do not contain anything that remains from one moment to another. There is no substratum within the series that could be compared to Descartes’ mental substance. Here Searle is correct in arguing that the vocabulary used in the dualism/monism debate in philosophy of mind is no longer tenable,19 but the reason why it is not is, according to the Buddhist theories, rather that the debate presupposes the existence of self subsisting substances, either mental or physical, that are denied in Buddhism. Hence one cannot establish whether the chain of causes and effects that constitute either the gross or the subtle levels of consciousness is either absolutely mental or physical, for the two are inextricably interlinked.20 Searle, 1999, p. 52. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the 2nd ISCWP International Conference, Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement on June 14–15, 2005 in Hong Kong, I would like to thank Prof. Searle for his insightful comments and to Bo Mou for his superb organization and help. Research for this paper was partly supported by a grant from the Thailand Research Fund, grant no. BRG4680020. I also would like to thank the Research Division, Chulalongkorn University, for their help in establishing the Center for Ethics of Science and Technology. 19

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REPLY TO SORAJ HONGLADAROM John R. Searle I am very grateful for this thoughtful contribution, and I certainly learned a great deal about the Buddhist conception of the non-self. I agree with what I take to be one of his main contentions, namely that I share with Buddhist philosophy a denial of any sort of Cartesian substantial self. In this reply let me mention two areas of possible disagreement. First, the problem with the flame analogy is one that Professor Hongladarom is aware of: namely it is not enough for me that my consciousness should have been a product of previous lives, nor that after my death there should be a continuation of consciousness in other conscious lives. What one worries about when one worries about the possibility of an afterlife is whether or not this sequence of experiences can continue. And notice that this is independent of any issue about the substantial self. The tragedy of any particular person’s death is not that consciousness in general will cease. It will not. The tragedy is that this sequence will cease. For me, even worse than my own death is the death of the people I most love. And my account of the overwhelming probability of extinction is a very depressing account in this respect: it seems most likely that all individual sequences of consciousnesses will cease with death. Professor Hongladarom says, “When a person dies, exactly at the moment of death his consciousness dissolves and there merges immediately another episode of a consciousness that results from the impetus provided by the dying consciousness.” He then goes on to tell us that the analogy between lighting one candle with another candle is “quite exact”. The problem with this account of reincarnation is that it is not enough for reincarnation of actual people or for an afterlife. If I am to be reincarnated by another conscious existence, then one wants to know: what fact about the second conscious existence makes it identical with me? What fact makes it a reincarnation of me? And I cannot see that he has given any satisfactory answer to that question. Soraj Hondgladarom is right in pointing out that my conclusion that consciousness cannot survive the destruction of a brain is not a logical

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derivation; it is just an empirical fact. It might be that a hundred years from now we will all be discussing this same issue and thinking how hilarious it was that we all thought our consciousnesses would end with the death of our bodies. The fact that my consciousness will not survive the destruction of my body is not a necessary logical truth. But it is just overwhelmingly probable given the facts we know about how things work. The analogy with digestion is apt here. After my death it is very unlikely—it is not logically impossible, but it is very unlikely—that I will be able to digest pizza and beer. That is an empirical claim on my part. That is how the world works: it is not in the cards that our consciousness is going to survive the death of our body. I am sorry to report this news, I wish I had better news, but that’s just the way things are. And it is no good saying, “Yes, but there will be some form of life that goes on.” Yes there will be living consciousnesses. But they will not be yours or mine. This is what one worries about: individual death. My second comment about Hongladarom concerns the possibility of different levels of consciousness, especially the “subtler level”. There is no question that consciousness exists at different levels, and there are all sorts of different forms of consciousness. But what then is to exclude the highest level of consciousness that he ascribes? My difficulty is this: if consciousness is defined as a form of awareness, then it has to be at least in principle the kind of thing that I could become aware of having. That means that if I have this consciousness but I am not aware of having it, it can only be due to things like inattention. That might be the case, that is, if I concentrated enough and paid close enough attention, I would become aware of it. It seemed as if he were saying that there could be a form of consciousness which you were totally unaware of and could not become aware of. “During dreamless sleep the consciousness appears to be extinct. But in fact it is not, at least according to Buddhism, since the subtle level is still at work, and it is this subtler level that unites the discrete episodes of conscious thoughts and feelings so that a more or less unified personality during an episode of dream emerges.” The difference between us can be stated perhaps clearly as follows: he thinks that in a dreamless sleep there is still a form of consciousness. I think that if you are sound asleep and having no dreams then you are totally unconscious. I think it cannot be right to say that during a deep dreamless sleep there is still a “subtler consciousness” because that would then be

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unconscious consciousness. It seems to me if there really is to be an extra level of consciousness it has to be accessible. It has to be the kind of thing that if I am unaware of it, it can only be due to something like inattention, because it cannot be the case that it is totally unconscious and in principle inaccessible to consciousness. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a form of consciousness. Anyway I will stop with those two comments because we are running late, but I am grateful for this thoughtful contribution. Hongladarom’s Reply Just briefly as a form of continuation than response. I am making essentially two points in the paper. One thing which seems to be more interesting is about the possibility of consciousness existing after death, and Professor Searle has elaborated his view on that. The other point I’m making but I’m not making it outstanding enough in the paper is that the Buddhist idea of the self. I would like to ask you Professor Searle, it seems to me that your conception of the mind appears, to me at least; it seems to lead to the conclusion that the self, that in Buddhism is something that needs to be deconstructed and understood to be essentially non-existent, is nowhere to be found. You talk about there exists no homunculus, and no where in the brain can be found a place where it functions as there something that corresponds to what we normally understand as the self. The brain itself as a biological organ of the cells, I don’t know, but if it’s like other organs all the cells are changed in a period of time. So do we have the same brain or if we don’t, do we have the same self-identity? Searle’s Response I deny the existence of any substantial self in addition to the sequence of the experiences, conscious and unconscious. I do think however that we need to postulate a purely formal notion of the self in order that we can make sense of the sequences. This is like the postulation of a point of view in order to make sense of visual experience. The self is never itself experienced, just as the point of view is never seen.

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It seems to me that I share with Buddhism the view that there is no substantial self in the Cartesian sense. There certainly is no res cogitans that provides the basis for all of my conscious experiences. The problem we are having here is that the word “self ” means so many different things, and there is a sense of that word in which I do have to say that we have to suppose that there is a “self ” in that respect. My conscious experiences occur from a particular point of view, and they have a particular kind of coherence and that is what enables me to coordinate my past experiences with my present reflections to make rational decisions about what I am going to do in the future. That process makes no sense at all unless you suppose there is an x such that it has all these features: it is capable of consciousness, it is capable of reflection, capable of decision making, acting on its decisions and assuming responsibility. Now that is not a self in the Cartesian sense, because there is no substance to that self. Rather you have to postulate a self in this minimal formal sense in the same way that you have to postulate a point of view to account for visual perception. Whenever I have a perception I only have it from a point of view. I cannot see the point of view, but the point of view is an essential postulate to make sense of perception. Now in the same way in order that I can account for my rational activities, my reflection and experience, decision-making and acting and assuming responsibility, I have to postulate that there is a single entity that has all of these features. But there is nothing further to this entity, there just is an x that unites all of these features. And in that sense I do believe that there is a self. But the way I understand your presentation, my views are consistent with Buddhism. There is no substantial self. In answer to your question about brain identity: We do have the same brain throughout our lives, just as we have the same arms and legs. The molecules in all of these organs are replaced, in fact rather frequently. But at the level of the cell the brain does not replace itself. It does replace itself at the level of the molecule. So the molecules in your body will all be changed in about a year and a half at most (and the only reason that the process is so slow is because your teeth and your bones are slower than the other parts). It is amazing how fast body molecules change. If you put a tracer molecule of calcium in your bloodstream, it will be a structural part of your tooth or bone within about a minute. The processes can be very rapid. So you do get a change of your sub-cellular part. But at the level of the cell the research

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results in a depressing fact: you cannot replace dead neurons. There are odd exceptions to that, but the general result is that if you destroy big chunks of your brain you can’t replace them with new neurons. You asked the question, “Do we have the same brain or don’t we?” And the answer is, “We have the same brain throughout our lives.”

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SECTION B

LANGUAGE

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CHAPTER SEVEN

REFERENCE, TRUTH, AND FICTION A.P. Martinich 1. The Axiom of Existence One of the oldest problems in philosophy is also one of the most debated topics in the philosophy of language today. In its current form, which can be credited to John Searle, it is called the problem of negative existential propositions. The problem is to answer correctly the questions, Are sentences like (1) and (2) meaningful? If so, are they true or false? And if they are true, how is this possible, given what they say? (1) Sherlock Holmes does not exist. (2) Santa Claus does not exist.

The answers to these questions and the justifications given for them are too numerous and complex to catalog, and for the most part, it is unnecessary to do so because they all seem to rely upon a false view of referring. For the philosophers who think that negative existential propositions are puzzling, the intuition about referring is this: Proper names need to hook on to or to attach to something in the world in order to be meaningful. If (at least some) words did not hook up with objects in the world, then sentences would signify nothing; they would have no content. If they had signified nothing and had no content, then they could not express truths either. Among direct reference theorists, who, I believe, are currently the dominant group, the intuition is expressed in the view that the meaning or the semantic content of a proper name is the object the name refers to.1 This is the view of Wittgenstein in his Tractatus: “A name means

1 The description theory is still a live option. In addition to Searle, John (1983), Intentionality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 231–61, see for example, Kroon, Frederick (2004), “Descriptivism, Pretense, and the Frege-Russell Problems”, Philosophical Review 113, pp. 1–30; reprinted in A.P. Martinich (ed.) (5th edn. 2007), The Philosophy of Language, New York: Oxford University Press.

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[bedeutet] an object. The object is its meaning [Bedeutung]” (3.203). The meaning of the proper name, “Sun Yat-sen,” or its semantic content is Sun Yat-sen himself.2 For direct reference theorists, the problem of negative existentials arises because sentences like (1) and (2) don’t provide all the semantic content they need to in order to be used to express a proposition. The major Chinese school of the philosophy of language held the same view. One of the Mohist Canons says, “What designate are names; what are designated are actualities; when names and actualities pair with each other, there is correspondence.”3 When the Canons explain what names are, a private or ‘proper’ name is defined as one that is “restricted to . . . [one] actuality.”4 While Searle is not a direct reference theorist, he is no better off than the direct reference theorists when it comes to the problem of negative existentials, because he, like them, accepts the axiom of existence: “Whatever is referred to must exist.”5 I think the axiom is false, in part because people seem to refer to all sorts of nonexistent things, such as Sherlock Holmes and Santa Claus, and because I think the axiom of existence is motivated by a mistaken picture of language. In response to the apparently disconfirming examples of ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘Santa Claus’, Searle claims that speakers “can refer to them [fictional characters] as fictional characters precisely because they do exist in fiction.”6 Russell called this kind of reliance on existence in fiction a “pitiful and paltry evasion,” and Searle does not explain why it is not. Although Russell’s words are harsh, his point seems to be right. ‘Existence in fiction’ is not a kind of existence. One of the

2 Since Sun Yat-sen is dead and hence does not exist, a special explanation is needed for how ‘Sun Yat-sen’ can be used to refer. 3 Quoted from Fung, Yu-lan (2nd edn. 1952), History of Chinese Philosophy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 253; see also p. 257. See also Chan, Wing-Tsit (1963), A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 243. 4 Fung, 1952, p. 255. The Later Mohists also have a correspondence theory of truth to go along with their correspondence theory of language. Other texts relevant to the issue of refence and existence are these: Number 11 of “Names and Objects” says, “One uses names to refer to objects.” (Graham, A.C. (1978), Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science, Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, p. 483). This can be interpreted either as a statement of the axiom of existence or as a metaphysically neutral comment. Canon A31 says, “To refer is to give an analog for the object.” Canon A32 says, “To say is to emit references.” (Quoted from Graham, A.C. (1989) Disputers of the Tao, La Salle, IL: Open Court Press, p. 141). 5 Searle, John (1969), Speech Acts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 77. 6 Searle, 1969, p. 78; see also Searle, John (1979), Expression and Meaning, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 71.

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problems with David Lewis’s treatment of fiction for people like me, and I suspect Searle, is that according to Lewis, fictional characters are as existentially real as Sun Yat-sen is in the worlds in which he never entered politics. Similarly, the problem with theories that maintain that fictional persons are just like real persons except that real persons are factually dense—for every property, the person either has it or does not have it—in contrast with fictional persons who are not. Lady Macbeth neither had nor did not have five children. Fictional people are not existentially similar to real people at all.7 From ‘Sherlock Holmes exists in fiction’, ‘Sherlock Holmes exists’ does not follow, as it should if existence in fiction is a type of existence. The tag-phrase ‘in fiction’ robs the word ‘exists’ of its normal semantic power, somewhat as the phrase ‘in theory’ in ‘Iraq capitulates in theory’ neutralizes the semantic power of ‘capitulates’.8 To put the problem that Searle faces in stark form, either the axiom of existence is vacuous or not. If it is vacuous, it does not elucidate the concept of referring, as it was intended to do. If it is not vacuous, then it does not explain how people can refer to fictional, nonexistent objects. As mentioned above, the problem of negative existentials is a symptom of the acceptance of a more general, incorrect view about language, namely, that in order for (most) nouns, verbs, and adjectives to be meaningful, they must connect to some object in the world, broadly construed.9 And this view is connected with an even more general view, namely, that language is one thing, the world is another. This too may be a doctrine of the Later Mohist School of Logic: “But marks [words or signs] are no marks [for themselves]. . . . Marks are what do not exist in the world, but things are what do exist in the world.”10 Consequently, in order for sentences to be meaningful, various parts of them must connect with various parts of the world. Wittgenstein expressed this

7 I’m talking about purely fictional characters, like Sherlock Holmes and Santa Claus. Many real people, for example, George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte, occur in fiction. Their ‘existence in fiction’ does not change their existence. They remain real. 8 The phrase, ‘in fiction’, is not a negator, as ‘toy’ in ‘toy gun’ is because an object that exists in fiction may also exist in reality, for example, George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte. 9 Broadly construed, the world includes properties or universals. 10 Chan, 1963, p. 237.

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view in the Tractatus when he said, “A picture is attached to reality as follows: it reaches right out to it.”11 Searle indicates his acceptance of this picture when he asserts the existence of vertical conventions. Vertical conventions tie “sentences to the world,” and sentences are tied to the world in virtue of ties that exist between individual words and objects in the world. Proper names are the paradigmatic case of words being tied to the world by denoting the individuals named. In contrast, horizontal conventions pull “fictional discourse . . . away from the world.”12 Searle’s point is that fictional discourse is not tied to the world in the same way that nonfictional discourse is. Although this point is right, the idea of horizontal conventions does not succeed in distinguishing fictional discourse from nonfictional discourse. As Searle himself says, the word ‘red’ means red as much in fictional discourse as it does in real world or nonfictional discourse, and this holds generally for the words of fiction.13 The sentence, ‘The brilliant detective who lived at 221B Baker Street wore a deerstalker hat’ means what it means whether the context is fiction or nonfiction. If the horizontal conventions of fiction lifted fictional discourse away from the world, this would not be the case. In short, fiction does not differ from nonfiction semantically.14 It does not radically differ pragmatically from nonfiction either. This is perhaps easiest to see in connection with reference. Nonphilosophers know that Baker Street is in London, England, and thousands of people have gone to Baker Street in London to see what it is really like, although no building has the address 221B Baker Street. A bank stands at the location where that numerical address would be if it existed. Few, if any, of the people who visit Baker Street are so benighted as to think that a real Sherlock Holmes lived there. Many or most philosophers think that Baker Street cannot be the referent of ‘Baker Street’ in the novel because they believe either that references do not occur in fiction

11 Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1961), Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, trans. D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuinness (1961), London: Routledge, 2.1511. 12 Searle, 1969, p. 79; see also Searle, 1979, p. 66. It appears that the horizontal conventions operate selectively. If a novelist writes, “Jones shook hands with Napoleon,” the horizontal convention would lift Jones, but not touch Napoleon (Searle, 1969, p. 73). I agree with Kendall Walton on this point: “Nor does the essential difference [between fiction and nonfiction] lie in the relation of words to the world” (1990), Mimesis as Make-Believe, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 77. 13 See Searle, 1969, p. 79; see also Searle, 1979, pp. 61, 64, 66. 14 Searle recognizes this in 1979, p. 66.

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or that the references that occur are to possible worlds that are similar to but different from the actual world. Neither reason for thinking that Conan Doyle did not refer to Baker Street seems plausible to me. If no occurrence of ‘Baker Street’ referred to the same thing as another occurrence of ‘Baker Street’, then no occurrence would be co-referential and the coherence of the stories would suffer. The same holds for every other occurrence of a referring expression with correspondingly adverse consequences for narrative coherence. A necessary condition for keeping track of the events of a story, fictional or nonfictional, is to keep track of the repeated references to various things. As regards the appeal to possible worlds, on the realist interpretation of them, Sherlock Holmes does not exist in any of them, precisely because he is a fictional character, an invented character, not a denizen of another world, that is at that world ‘real’, as David Lewis maintained. Sherlock Holmes does not exist in one or more other possible worlds as Sun Yat-sen would (supposing for the sake of argument that the realist view is correct). If a nonrealist interpretation of possible worlds is accepted, the philosophical problem of explaining how the names of fictional objects refer or otherwise operate remains: How does fictional reference function? My view about fiction does not need possible worlds.15 Related to Searle’s idea that the vertical conventions are linguistically primary is his idea that the language of fiction is not simply secondary but parasitical. I think the use of ‘parasitic’ to characterize fictional discourse is tendentious. Granted that there could not be fictional discourse if there were no present tense sentences about the real world first, there also could not be past and future tense sentences or sentences about possibility and necessity if there were not present tense sentences first. But this is a primacy in learning a language, not a primacy in a fully developed one. There could be no talk about presidents, citizens, and laws without there first being present tense sentences (with a lot of other aspects too), and no talk about ethics, and—let’s add for good measure—no scientific discourse about the past or future without there first being present tense sentences. The fact that these other forms of discourse or language games arise subsequent to present-tense language about the here and now does not mean that these other forms are any less legitimate than other parts of a fully developed natural language. In fact, fictional discourse is no more derivative or parasitic

15

Cf. Searle, 1979, p. 72.

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than many of the other discourses I have mentioned. Moreover, fictional discourse requires less conceptual apparatus than political and scientific discourse do, since it, unlike politics and science, exists in hunter-gatherer societies. Coordinate with the distinction between vertical and horizontal conventions is Searle’s distinction between serious, real world discourse and play-acting, make-believe discourse.16 Presumably this is supposed to capture the distinction between nonfictional and fictional discourse. But it fails in this regard. Much fictional discourse is serious, for example, Anna Karenina, War and Peace, and Raise the Red Lantern. Much real world discourse is nonserious, for example, columns by Dave Barry. These columns are not play-acting or make-believe either. And some real world discourse is both serious and funny, as when Maureen Dowd says that Vice-president Cheney is the Darth Vader of the Bush administration (on CBS August 12, 2004) and Henry Kissinger was the Dr. Strangelove of the Nixon administration (New York Times, February 29, 2004). These objections to Searle’s claims are not cavils because getting the precise word for something is essential to rigorous philosophy. If someone objects on Searle’s behalf that ‘serious’ and ‘real world’ just mean ‘nonfictional’, then they still do not capture the difference between fictional and nonfictional discourse and that is what they were supposed to do. Another problem with the distinction between serious, real world discourse and play-acting, make-believe discourse is that it does not seem to keep fictional references segregated from nonfictional ones in the way that they are supposed to. In a discussion of the personal integrity of lawyers, a speaker who knows more about literary lawyers than real ones or who believes her audience does might say, “Perry Mason never would have defended O.J. Simpson the way that Johnny Cochran did.” This is a perfectly serious remark. Does it belong to real world discourse because of the references to Simpson and Cochran or to make believe discourse because of the reference to Mason? Either answer, to the exclusion of the other, is arbitrary because fictional names and references are fully integrated into nonfictional discourse, and real names are fully integrated into fictional discourse. Think about all the historical fiction that exists. Some ‘pretense’ theorists may want to say that when the speaker uses the name ‘Perry Mason’, she is merely pretending to

16

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Searle, 1969, p. 79.

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refer to someone. But if there is only the pretense of reference, there is no genuine comparison between someone and Johnny Cochran and so no comparison has been made. This yields the wrong result. Some philosophers would analyze, ‘Perry Mason never would have defended O.J. Simpson the way that Johnny Cochran did’, as saying that the name ‘Perry Mason’ is connected with certain properties, say, integrity, in such a way that a person with those properties would not have defended O.J. Simpson in the way that Johnny Cochran did. But if this is accepted, ‘Johnny Cochran’ can be treated the same way as ‘Perry Mason’, and by parity of form, there is no reason to treat one name in one way and the other name in the other way,17 with the consequence that this method does not count as a theory of fictional names. It is a theory about the analysis—an implausible theory in my opinion—of certain kinds of sentences that contain proper names, a theory that does not illuminate fiction or fictional names. Searle may object that by ‘serious discourse’, he means normal discourse, which commits speakers in various ways. If a speaker asserts that Holmes is a detective, then he is committed to the belief that Holmes is a detective and committed to having evidence for it. If a speaker promises to do something, then she is committed to doing what she promised to do. If a speaker asks a question, the speaker intends the hearer to give an answer. Searle maintains, I believe, that fictional language is nonserious in the sense that fiction commits the speaker to nothing. My reply to this objection has two parts. The first is to concede that fiction does not of course commit the speaker to things in exactly the same way that nonfiction does. In fiction an author suspends what H.P. Grice called the conversational maxims of quality, “Say what is true” and “Do not say what you do not have evidence for.”18 Suspending a maxim, in contrast with opting out of a maxim, occurs in set contexts as the result of some rule or convention. The maxim of brevity is suspended in debates of the U.S. Senate, unless a closure rule is passed.19 The same maxim is suspended in the annual Bullwer-Lytton competition for the worst opening sentence of a work of fiction. The maxim of quality, “Say what is true,” is suspended for a speaker on Similar remarks apply to ‘O.J. Simpson’. See Martinich, A.P. (2001), “A Theory of Fiction,” Philosophy and Literature 25, pp. 96–112. 19 Arguably, all the maxims are suspended during filibusters. 17

18

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the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, in order to maximize freedom of speech. It is also suspended in competitions sponsored by the Liars’ Club. The maxim, “Avoid ambiguity,” is suspended in the annual competition of the O. Henry Pun-off, the purpose of which is to make the cleverest puns in a specified period of time. Other examples of suspension can be imagined. Instead of the current legal rule that a defendant does not have to testify in his own defense but that if he does testify he must tell the truth, the legal rule could require each defendant to testify but suspend the maxim of quality, “Say what is true.” According to Dutch law, I believe, a suspect is permitted to lie to the police as long as he is not under oath. It is important to note that even though a maxim may be suspended, discourse may still fulfill the maxim that is suspended. A U.S. Senator could make his remarks brief during a filibuster. A contestant for the Bullwer-Lytton prize may write a succinct sentence, a competitor in the Liars’ Club might tell the truth. As regards fiction, an author may make true and evidentially supported statements. The second part of my reply is to observe that authors of fiction do assume the consequences of many of their speech acts. Cao Xueqin, the author of The Story of the Stone (aka The Dream of the Red Chamber), ends each chapter with some speech act that refers to the content of the following chapter. One ends, “The remainder of this episode will be told in the following chapter.” This sentence is used directly to make a statement; and indirectly to promise to tell the remainder of the episode in the following chapter. If Cao did not continue the episode in the next chapter, he could be criticized for the omission. At the end of another chapter, Cao writes, “For further details, please consult the following chapter.” This is a directive speech act; and if the author did not help the reader learn of the further details, he would again be subject to criticism. At the end of Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray wrote, Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire, or, having it, is satisfied? Come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out.

This is serious discourse in fiction. Thackeray wanted the reader to reflect on the question of our happiness and the question of our desires. Anyone who thinks that Thackeray is not asking those questions has

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missed a central feature of the novel. Even if the phrase, “Come, children,” involves a figure of speech and is not used for a literal command, it is used to perform a genuine speech act, perhaps an indirect request. Thackeray is saying, among other things, that the novel is at an end. If the novel continued, the reader would have a genuine complaint against Thackeray, ceteris paribus. So we have a fairly substantial group of sentences of fiction that commit the speaker in just the way they would commit the speaker if uttered outside of fiction. I see no reason not to generalize to fiction as a whole. Searle might reply that the examples I have given are examples of speech acts that occur within the boundaries of fiction but are not thereby part of the fiction. They are not fictional speech acts. Such a reply seems to me to be ad hoc. It is an attempt to rule out a priori any example of a speech act in which the author of fiction commits himself. Any word count of the novels mentioned in my examples would include the words of the examples themselves; and any of the sentences quoted would count as an example of a sentence of and from fiction. If one could simply rule that certain sentences of a work of fiction are not fictional, then the size of the fiction could shrink enormously. A highly accurate historical novel might shrink to half its size. Moreover, a novel could theoretically contain no fictional statements or sentences at all, because a novel could be written that would consist of only genuine directives: Think about whether you would deserve to die if you killed in self-defense. Consider whether you would have killed in self-defense if your neighbor, say, his name is ‘Joe Blow’, had tried to steal the food you had stored for the impending nuclear war. Contemplate whether you gave Joe Blow sufficient warning . . .

These seem to me to be genuine directives. Surely the author wants the reader to think, consider and contemplate what he directs the reader to think, consider and contemplate in order to understand the story. The fact that the narrative content of the fiction is conveyed by the propositional content of the directives does not change the fact that these are genuine directives. (I remember from the early 1970s a philosophical book, possibly with the title, What is Philosophy?, that consisted only of questions.) It might be urged that such a book would not be a novel or any other kind of fiction. But if the directives were about nonexistent people and events that had a narrative unity as part of a

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plot, a fictional part, I have no doubt but that the title, say, Think: A Novel would land it in the fiction section, and rightfully so. I do not want to suggest that the commitments taken on by authors and readers of fiction are restricted to those that result from speech acts other than statements. I began with speech acts other than statements in order to use relatively noncontroversial examples that would show that authors do take on commitments by what they say in fiction. The point applies to statements also. Searle observes that some sentences within fiction are used to make statements, for example, the opening sentences of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: “All happy families are happy in the same way. All unhappy families are unhappy in each their own way.” My claim is stronger. Even the sentences that appear to be ‘only’ fictional statements are genuine statements. After writing, “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,” George Orwell could not have gone on in 1984 to deny that the day was cold or that the clocks had struck thirteen, except in the most unusual circumstances. His opening statement commits him to certain things, consistency being only one. Although the second sentence of 1984 could have been any number of things, his first statement effectively ruled out many things. The next sentence could not very well have been “Grass is green.” My comments on 1984 do not exclude satire, sarcasm or irony. When Jane Austen begins Pride and Prejudice with the statement, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a great fortune, must be in want of a wife,” she commits herself to write an ironic or satirical novel about the theme of the courtship and marriage of wealthy men and women of limited means. It is only because we expect Austen to presuppose most of what she and her readers actually believed about the world that we can understand that her opening statement is satirical. It is because we know what Austen and her readers actually believed about their world that we can recognize that the maxim of quality is being flouted. The language of fiction works; it is not idle. Authors are sometimes criticized for having their characters act in some way or have certain emotions that are out of character. This kind of criticism would make no sense if authors did not commit themselves in certain ways by their statements. Some authors are criticized when their fictional statements are insufficiently true to the real world facts, as Joyce Carol Oates was for supposedly gratuitously changing some facts about the life of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde. Nicole Krauss was

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criticized for unrealistic situations in her novel The History of Love.20 These two examples could be multiplied indefinitely. Fictional statements commit the authors in various ways because of what they say. These commitments are not always exactly like the commitments of statements about quotidian life, but it is inappropriate to demand exactly the same commitments precisely because we are dealing with fiction. One reason for holding that fictional speech acts are genuine speech acts is that we need the vocabulary appropriate to the assessment of genuine speech act to describe some of them. Within fiction, some statements are insincere or false, as in stories with an unreliable narrator, and in some that are defective for other reasons. Consider the third sentence of O. Henry’s “The Story of the Magi”: “One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies.” This statement either violates a conversational maxim of quality, “Say what is true”21 or one of quantity, “Say as much as is necessary,” or perhaps, one of manner, “Be precise.” In any case, something is wrong with it. Some attempted speech acts would be unsuccessful in fiction. Consider this passage: I praise the winner of the 2003 New York marathon. I praise the winner of the 2004 World Series, and I praise the winner of the 2005 Stanley Cup.

The narrator, whether she is identical with the author of the fiction or not, has succeeded in praising a marathoner and a baseball team. But, given that the work of fiction gives no other indication that the reader is supposed to believe that the National Hockey League (NHL) played its 2004–5 season, the last clause of the quoted passage fails to praise anyone or anything because the NHL cancelled its season, and the Stanley Cup was not awarded in 2005. The reader would justifiably judge that the author made a mistake in trying to praise an NHL team.

20 Concerning Krauss’s novel, see Louis Begley (2005) “The Custom of the Country,” New York Review of Books, volume LII, number 11, p. 50. For Blonde, I am relying on my memory. 21 Although the maxim of quality is suspended in fiction, some form of it operates within the fiction.

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If the preceding example is not persuasive, perhaps the following one is. Contrast two, at least slightly postmodernist, novels. In the first, the author promises in the novel to send a variant ending to the novel to anyone who requests one and includes a self-addressed stamped envelope. If the author does not send such a variant to those who request one and thereby fulfill his instructions, he can be criticized. (This example is inspired by William Goldman’s claim in The Princess Bride to have a variant chapter available from his publisher.) But an author who tries to make a bet by writing, “I bet your first born child that this novel wins the Nobel Prize for fiction,” has not succeeded in betting because betting requires the acceptance of a proffered bet, and no sane reader will accept such a bet. 2. Fiction and Pretending Searle might object that even if I am right in my criticisms of his views about fiction, another account of the difference between fictional and nonfictional discourse has not been refuted. According to this other account, a person who writes fiction pretends to perform speech acts, in contrast with those who actually do perform speech acts. So, Conan Doyle pretended to refer to Sherlock Holmes and pretended to make statements about him. The idea that fiction is pretense has been accepted by many philosophers over the last two decades, largely because of Kendall Walton’s book, Mimesis as Make-Believe, which contains a sophisticated theory of pretending as making believe.22 This is not the place for me to explain why I think Walton’s theory is mistaken, and to attribute it to Searle is unjustified. Instead, I want to focus on his explanation of the relation between fiction and pretending. He says that the mechanism “by which the author invokes the horizontal conventions” of fiction is to perform lower order or less complex actions which are constitutive parts of the higher order or complex action . . . The author [of fiction] pretends to perform illocutionary acts by way of actually uttering (writing) sentences.23

22 Walton, Kendall (1990), Mimesis as Make-Believe, Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press. 23 Searle, 1979, pp. 67–8.

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Since uttering sentences does not distinguish pretending to refer or to state from practicing one’s diction, more is needed to identify the pretense of fiction. Searle says, “It is the performance of the utterance act with the intention of invoking the horizontal conventions that constitutes the pretended performance of the illocutionary act.”24 What kind of intention is this? Presumably, it is some communicative intention. But which one? It is not like a referential or predicative intention, and not an illocutionary force intention either. In short, pretending is not like stating, promising, congratulating, or forgiving at all. I believe that what Searle is getting at or should be getting at when he mentions the invocation of “the horizontal conventions” is that the speaker makes known that the maxim of quality is being suspended. This suspension is often made known by the use of the words or phrases, ‘A Novel’, ‘A Short Story’, or ‘Fiction’ either on the spine, cover or title page of a book, or somewhere near the title of a short story. In this way, the maxim of quality is suspended without thereby eliminating the possibility of making genuine statements, any more than suspending the relevant maxims eliminates the possibility of speaking briefly during a filibuster, speaking the truth on the floor of the House of Representatives, or speaking briefly in a Bullwer-Lytton contest, and so on. I doubt that pretending of any sort is essential to fiction. Fictional language is a problem in the philosophy of language and needs to be explained using the resources appropriate to it. Pretending, unlike some other mentals acts and states like intending, believing and wanting, has no role to play in the analysis of language. Rather, language is often needed to explain pretending. According to Searle, the reason that there are facts about fiction, such as that Sherlock Holmes is a detective, is that Conan Doyle pretended to refer to Holmes and to say of him that he was a detective. This is a strange view. In other cases of someone’s pretending that a person P does A or is X, it does not become a fact that P did A or was X. If an impressionist pretends to be John Wayne tap dancing, it does not become a fact that John Wayne was tap dancing; and if an impersonator pretends to be a major-general, it does not become a fact that the pretender is a major general. So why should Conan Doyle’s pretense that Holmes was a detective give rise to the fact that he was a detective? I think it is a fact that Holmes is a detective (in the sense

24

Searle, 1979, p. 68.

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explained in the following section), but pretense does not enter into the explanation at all. 3. The Institution of Fiction My criticisms of Searle’s treatment of fiction do not arise from a basic disagreement with him.25 To the contrary, they are grounded in the spirit of his basic position about the philosophy of language. The philosophy of language is part of action theory; speaking is a kind of doing. Speaking in a context is the basic linguistic phenomenon. Language is one kind of interpersonal behavior.26 Searle’s view should be contrasted with the now dominant view that is the heir of the view of the early Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell and Alfred Tarski. For these latter philosophers, the basic linguistic phenomenon is language as an abstract object, an infinite set of strings or sentences, generable from a finite vocabulary and a finite number of recursive rules.27 Speakers and contexts are nowhere in the picture. Recent work in semantics refers to speakers, but as constituents of n-tuples, in model theoretic structures, not walking, talking people. In my opinion it is language as an abstract object that is a derivative object, abstracted and idealized from linguistic behavior. There is little temptation to think that proper names, thought of as elements in linguistic behavior, have to reach out and hook up with nonlinguistic things in the world, because they are part of the world. Speech acts are worldly events. If I’m in Hong Kong talking about my children, the metaphor of my words reaching across the Pacific and hooking up with some things in various parts of North Carolina and Texas is a bit outlandish. You understand whom I’m talking about without any informative hook up.28 Searle, however, does not agree. When I talk about behavior, I am not excluding mentalistic talk. I don’t see why we should yield the word ‘behavior’ to the behaviorists who want to strip it of its richness. Behavior is action and intentional. 27 Although the name of current research in this mode is ‘formal semantics’, the philosophers are essentially treating language as a syntactic object to which a semantics is assigned. When Tarski wrote his classic article on “Truth,” he was essentially taking what he and others took to be a nice, regimented, syntactic entity, a language L and in effect eliminating the concept of truth in favor of something nonsemantic. 28 I think that one of the lessons of Wittgenstein’s language game that contains the word ‘Brick’ has as one of its purposes the point that there’s no need to think that 25 26

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The problem of negative existentials for proper names would not exist if those names had no meaning. As regards fictional names, they would not exist if there were no short stories, novels, myths, and the like. And to have short stories, novels, and myths, is to have stretches of discourse that the speech community accepts. True negative existentials presuppose a more or less substantial body of discourse that indicates what is true about the things that do not exist. The intelligibility of fiction depends on most of the statements of fiction being true. Almost every philosopher will recoil from this last claim. They will insist that statements (3)–(6) are not true, not strictly and literally, true: (3) (4) (5) (6)

Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock

Holmes Holmes Holmes Holmes

was a detective. sometimes wore a silk hat. lived at 221B Baker Street. had Dr. Watson as a friend.

I disagree. Of course, (3)–(6) are not scientific truths, and not historical, philosophical, ethical, political, or aesthetic truths. They are truths about fiction, and it would be easy enough, if time consuming, to provide evidential support for them by quoting appropriate parts of Conan Doyle’s short stories. When people are not doing philosophy, there is no question of their denying (3)–(6). It is only when people begin to do philosophy that they decontextualize sentences and think of language as abstract that they are inclined to deny them. In this decontextualized state, abstracted from its use by people, language seems to need something to get it back in touch with reality; hence the need for vertical conventions to hook up words with the real world. Since (3)–(6) contain references to some things that are not part of the real world, philosophers feel driven to deny that they are true or express facts.29 Although Searle’s commitments to vertical and horizontal conventions do not permit linguistic behavior needs proper names that hook up with the world. The utterances of ‘Brick’ and the bricks are two parts of behavior that involves much more. 29 Allow me to speculate about the psychology of philosophers, perhaps the chief reason that philosophers deny that (3)–(6) are true is that they want to be tough-minded and scientific. One symptom of this scientism is the desire to explain meaning in terms of truth-conditions, where truth conditions have to be conditions that could possibly be a fact of science. There’s a more sensible fear, connected with the idea that (3)–(6) are true, namely, that an inconsistency results. I agree that the whole truth must be consistent and claim that the truth of (3)–(6) is consistent with the truths of science. While I cannot

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him to acknowledge the truth of (3)–(6), sometimes he concedes that statements like them are true.30 Searle believes that it is true that Sherlock Holmes was a detective even though he thinks that Conan Doyle never stated anything to that effect in any of his stories because he believes that, with a few exceptions, authors of fiction do not state anything. But then on what basis can Searle assert that Sherlock Holmes was a detective? Searle believes in the correspondence theory of truth. For every true statement, there is a fact that makes it true. I am willing to grant something that is theory neutral, namely, that if the statement that p is true then it is a fact that p or that it fits the facts, because of the meaning of ‘true’ and ‘fact’. I am also willing in this context to say what kind of facts makes the statements of fiction true. They are institutional facts. Institutional facts may be contrasted with natural facts, such as that snow is white, that mountains are tall, and that molecules are small bits of matter.31 They are things the truth of which does not depend on any human institution. Institutional facts are those that depend upon the existence of an institution. Certain paper is money because of the institution of money. Tony Blair is prime minister of England in 2005 because of the institution of the parliament of Great Britain. A basket scores two points in basketball because of the institution of basketball. The basic fact about institutional facts is that they exist because people, not mistaken about any of the relevant information and knowing that they are not natural facts, accept them as factual. It is a fact that the paper currently on my desk is 100 yuan because I, following the beliefs of one billion Chinese, accept that it is 100 yuan. It is a fact that George W. Bush has been president of the United States since 2001 because citizens of the United States accept this as a fact. In the same way, statements (3)–(6) are true because readers of Conan Doyle’s stories about Sherlock Holmes accept them as true, and accept them as true because of the narration of those stories. There are two kinds of institutions: formal and informal. Formal ones have their laws and other rules either written down or otherwise standardized in some explicit form. Nations, professional sports, and sophisticated social clubs are formal institutions. Fiction is an informal go into my full account of why this is the case, it is implicit in my account of criteria of applicability in section 4. 30 Searle, 1969, p. 78. 31 Searle, John (1995), Construction of Social Reality, New York: The Free Press.

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institution. The rules that govern it are not written down even though they are generally understood. It is because fiction is an institution that there are authors of fiction, literary critics, prizes for novels and short stories, publishers of fiction and fiction discussion groups. For the same reason, there are characters, plots, and various kinds of narrators, omniscient and unreliable ones, to mention two. Structuralists claim that there are fixed patterns to the narratives of fiction. Whether they are right or not, we know how to recognize a work of fiction and even know when something is on the border between fiction and nonfiction, such as Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night and Edmund Morris’s Dutch: a Memoir of Ronald Reagan. Because fiction is an institution, there are abuses of fiction.32 Some critics claimed that Armies of the Night was an abuse of fiction. The same claim can be made against In the Labyrinth by Alain Robbe-Grillet who wrote in the first paragraph of his book, Outside it is raining, you walk through the rain with your head down, shielding your eyes with one hand while you stare ahead nevertheless . . . Outside the sun is shining, there is no tree, no bush to cast a shadow and you walk under the sun shielding your eyes with one hand, while you stare ahead.33

By beginning with a contradiction, and then continuing with other logically absurd narration, In the Labyrinth is an abuse of the novel form. Robbe-Grillet’s goal was to generate a new form of novel by abusing the old form. In fact, he failed because it is not possible to sustain a form of fiction that allows unrestricted contradiction, not to mention the fact that most of the novel’s features are (virtually) the same those of standard novels. In short, fictional statements are true—when they are true—because they are part of the institution of fiction. In his comments on this article when it was presented in a conference in Hong Kong, Searle denied that fiction was an informal institution on the grounds that institutions create commitments and that authors of fiction do not create commitments for themselves. I have already shown that fictional authors do create commitments for themselves. It should also be mentioned that institutions create commitments for people other than the principals. Readers of fiction, as well as their authors, take on commitments. Readers are committed to taking what

Searle, 1995, p. 48. Two Novels by Robbe-Grillet, trans. Richard Howard (1965), New York: Grove Press, p. 141. 32 33

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the narrator says as true, or show cause why they should not, as when a narrator is unreliable. A reader who asserted of virtually every sentence in every work of fiction that it expressed a false statement would not have accepted the institution of fiction. Searle, again in Hong Kong, rightly corrected my assertion of (7). (7) Sherlock Holmes wore a deerstalker hat.

He assured the audience that there is no foundation in the stories about Holmes, that Holmes ever wore such a hat. I happily conceded his point. The upshot of his information about Holmes’s haberdashery is that readers of Conan Doyle’s fiction take on commitments about what is true and what is false about Holmes. Searle felt some need to correct me on a point of fact concerning Holmes, even though his doing so confirmed my view. There are facts and truths to be told about what Holmes did and did not put on his head. Now recall Searle’s claim that when pretending a person performs “a higher order or complex action by actually performing lower order or less complex action” (Searle 1979: 67–8). This description of what supposedly happens in pretending is also true of institutional actions. By throwing a basketball into a basket, standardly 10’ above the court (lower order action), a player scores two points (higher order action). Scoring a basket can also be described another way. Searle explains that institutions create institutional actions by having some natural or lower order institutional action X count as a Y (institutional) action in a context C. Institutions create objects in the same way. Some person (X ) counts as the president of the United States (Y ) in the context of receiving the most electoral votes in the presidential election (C ). It may at first appear that fiction does not have such objects. But it does. Consider film and theatrical fictions. Charlton Heston counts as Moses in the film, The Ten Commandments. Barbara Stanwyck counts as Eve in The Lady Eve. Like presidents who are presidents only for a length of time and in certain contexts, actors are their characters only for a length of time and in certain contexts. Similar remarks could be made about props. A certain piece of cardboard counts as a tree in the context of its place on stage during a performance of Our Town. It takes only a bit of imagination to do without Heston and to accept on the basis of reading Lew Wallace’s novel that it is a fact, an institutional fact of fiction, that Ben Hur drove a chariot and did many other things.

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Consider a different example. Chess is a game played on a board with 32 pieces, usually made of wood, plastic, ivory, or metal. I could show you one of these pieces of wood and truly say that it is the white queen. That piece of wood (X ) would count as the white queen (Y ) in the context (C ) of a game of chess. But material objects are not absolutely necessary for chess. Two people of formidable memory could imagine the initial board, agree about who is white and who is black, and play the game mentally. Institutional facts would be generated simply by their acceptance of mental moves. These two examples, novels and mental chess games, show that institutional facts do not require physical realization. This is not unique to fictional facts. Although Searle claims that money requires a physical realization and acknowledges that in much contemporary finance the realization is in magnetic traces, it is doubtful that any aspect of the computer is the money. Rather, they are the records of money owned or owed. The magnetic traces recording the existence of a certain amount of money could exist in multiple machines, and probably does, without thereby multiplying the money. If the machine or machines recording the ownership of the money is destroyed, the money itself is not destroyed but the evidence of its existence; and so the purchasing power of the money disappears. I have been dealing with fiction and the negative existentials that may result from accepting fictions. Of course, the problem of negative existentials would occur even if there were no fictional statements. Urbain John Joseph Leverrier believed that there was a planet between Mercury and Venus, and introduced the name ‘Vulcan’ to denote it. He created a discourse about Vulcan, and others contributed to it. So ‘Vulcan’ seemed to denote Vulcan. But it turned out that Vulcan did not exist. So, (8) Vulcan does not exist.

is a true statement. A proper name acquires a place in language if its use in discourse is accepted. Leverrier’s discourse was accepted. Once someone became convinced that Leverrier was mistaken, that person could assert (8). Pace pretense theorists, it is implausible that someone who asserts (8) is only pretending to refer, and there is no need to say this once one rejects the axiom of existence. (8) is strictly and literally true.

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a.p. martinich 4. Meaning and Criteria of Applicability

In order to make my view clearer, I need to make two distinctions: The first is the distinction between the meaning of a word and its criterion of applicability. The second is the distinction between the criterion of applicability for nonfictional discourse and the one for fictional discourse. Concerning the first, meaning is a semantic notion. It relates to what sentences entail. So it is primarily an intralinguistic phenomenon. The criterion of applicability is nonsemantic. It relates to the speakers’ knowledge of the appropriate conditions under which a word applies to a situation, and the application is often ad hoc. This is factual, not semantic knowledge. Consider some examples. ‘Flat’ as regards the topology of a surface, I maintain, is univocal. Ordinary end tables are flat according to the criterion appropriate for furniture, but not flat according to the criterion applied by molecular physics. Mesas are flat according to the criterion appropriate for geological formations but not according to the criterion appropriate for furniture. ‘Round’ as regards the shape of a physical object is univocal. Oranges and grapes are round, according to the criterion appropriate for pieces of fruit, but are not round according to the criteria appropriate for billiard balls and baseballs. A billiard ball in the shape of a typical orange or grape is not round, according to the standards appropriate to billiard balls. Most philosophers who make observations similar to the ones I have just made, think that such words are indexical and a feature of their semantics. For me, the words are not indexical and the feature is nonsemantic.34 One of the reasons I think the various criteria of applicability do not create new meanings is that a word with different criteria of applicability passes the standard tests for univocity.35 Jumbo is a big elephant but small compared to the Empire State Building, which is big for an office building. These facts do not preclude us from saying this:

My view about criteria of applicability guides my view of proper names. In order to be able to use a name, a person must be able to associate one or more descriptions with it, as the descriptivists maintain. However, these associated descriptions may vary from person to person and are not the meaning of the proper name. 35 Decisive arguments against the view that words like ‘flat’ and ‘round’ change meaning when they change reference can be found in Cappelen, Herman and Lepore, Ernie (2003), Insensitive Semantics, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. 34

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(9) Jumbo is big and so is the Empire State Building (10) Jumbo and the Empire State Building are big.

Contrast these examples with the ambiguous word ‘bank.’ Even if Li goes to a bank, the edge of a river, and Bo goes to a bank, a financial institution, the following sentences are defective: *(11) Li went to a bank and so did Bo. *(12) Li and Bo went to banks.

In order to know how to use certain words, it is necessary to know both its meaning and at least some criterion of application, but learning a new criterion of application does not result in knowing a new meaning for a word. If it did, then, meanings would change every time a new criterion came into or went out of existence. When a new kind of object is invented, of which, some instances are large and others not, speakers need to learn what size counts as big and what does not. But acquiring this information is not acquiring a new meaning for the word ‘big’. Unabridged dictionaries often provide information about the criteria of applicability of words. This does not show that these criteria are part of the meaning of words but that in addition to giving the meaning of a word, a dictionary tries to provide people the nonsemantic information they need to use a word. Like the words already discussed, ‘true’ has various criteria of applicability associated with it.36 The criterion for truth for statements in fictional discourse is not (always) the same as the criteria for statements in nonfictional discourse. In fact there are many criteria for statements in nonfictional discourse. Quotidian statements like, ‘This table is flat’ and ‘The sun is rising’ have criteria that differ from the ones for atomic physics and Copernican astronomy. Because philosophers for at least a century, and possibly for more than three centuries, have given the criteria appropriate to scientific statements a privileged position and thought that any statement that did not satisfy those criteria was false or nonsensical, ethical, aesthetic, and political statements have often been said to lack a truth value or to be noncognitive. For me, it indicates only that the criteria of applicability are not the same as those for empirical or scientific statements.

36

Similarly, ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’ have various criteria of applicability.

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Recognition of the variety of criteria of applicability provides the solution to a possible objection, to be discussed in the next section. 5. ‘Exists’ and Criteria Does the distinction between quotidian and fictional criteria of applicability apply to ‘exists’? Initially, it may seem that it could not. A single criterion for ‘exists’ may seem to be crucial for distinguishing what is real from what is not. But this is not correct. Both within fiction and in talking about fiction, the criterion for the applicability of ‘exists’ may differ from the quotidian criterion. A famous problem within Henry James scholarship concerns the sentence (13) (The ghost of ) Peter Quint exists.37

In James’s short novel, The Turn of the Screw, a governess has grave concerns about the moral character of the two young children, a boy and a girl, under her care. She comes to think that they are extremely wicked, especially the boy, because she believes that they are in contact with someone who had died under mysterious circumstances before the governess was employed, Peter Quint. In the end, the boy dies and the governess is distraught for decades. The question is whether (13) is true. If it is true, then the governess is not insane, and Quint killed the boy. If it is not true, then the governess is insane, and she killed the boy. So the question of whether (13) is true or not is of great importance to the story. In normal discussions of The Turn of the Screw, (13) is not a question about what exists in quotidian space and time. No James scholar thinks that Peter Quint really existed. That is not being debated. A sensible straightforward way to put the issue of the debate is to ask whether (13) is true or not. Let’s suppose for the sake of discussion that (13) is true. Does that contradict (13’), if it is said to someone who thinks that ghosts might exist in the real world? (13’) (The ghost of ) Peter Quint does not exist.

37 (13) is important because scholars are trying to figure out the truth value of (16) The governess is not hallucinating but sees (the ghost of ) Peter Quint.

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No. Two different criteria of existence are appropriate to (13) and (13’), respectively. For (13), a criterion appropriate to fiction is at issue; for (13’) a criterion appropriate to real objects is at issue. The appearance of contradiction will dissipate if one attaches ‘criterial’ subscripts to relevant words, just as one might attach subscripts to discriminate between the two senses of the word ‘bank’ in these sentences: (14) Lee went to a bankF. (14’) Lee did not go to a bankR.

So, we would have (15) (The ghost of ) Peter Quint does not existA. (15’) (The ghost of ) Peter Quint does existF.

My claim that ‘exists’ has various criteria of applicability is not a form of crypto-Meinongianism. Proponents of the axiom of existence engage in discussions of the truth value of (13) as readily and seriously as opponents of it. In neither case do the discussants require that those who think (13) is true be able to produce some evidence that ghosts exist. To do so would be to confuse the criterion appropriate to one kind of discourse with the criterion appropriate to another kind. The assumed truth of (13) does not show that I am surreptitiously committing myself to the axiom of existence. Suppose that (13) is false. ‘(The ghost of) Peter Quint’ refers even though (the ghost of ) Peter Quint does not exist. Near the beginning of this article, I said that Searle did not explain why saying that Holmes exists in fiction is not an evasion. I think it is not an evasion if it is taken to mean that the criterion for determining whether Holmes exists as a character in fiction is different from the criterion for determining whether he exists in reality. This does not mean that the axiom of existence is vindicated; for that axiom has always been understood as applying to real existence. To accept the axiom of existence and to hold that fictional characters satisfy it is to embrace some kind of Meinongianism. My view is not Meinongian at all because to affirm a statement like (13) is not to commit oneself to the existence of an object, but to engage in certain institutionalized linguistic behavior that does not require the existence of either Peter Quint or his ghost.

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a.p. martinich 5. Conclusion

To conclude, my main points are that the problem of negative existentials is easy to solve if we accept the following: (i) that speech is the primary linguistic phenomenon and that it is a kind of behavior; hence (ii) that words do not need to ‘hook up’ with the world in order to be meaningful and hence that the axiom of existence is false; (iii) that fiction is an informal institution and statements of fiction are made true by institutional facts, and (iv) that whether a statement is true or false depends in part on the criterion of applicability appropriate to the kind of statement involved.38

38 I want to thank Liudmila Inozemtseva, Cory Juhl, and Leslie Martinich for commenting on this paper.

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REPLY TO A.P. MARTINICH John R. Searle Most of my response to Professor Martinich will consist in stating my disagreements, so perhaps this is a good point to say how much I appreciate him and his work. He has been a great asset to the philosophical profession. 1. Taking Speech Acts Seriously, including Nonserious Speech Acts Professor Martinich says he agrees with me that we should think of speech as a form of behavior and I take it that this implies that the speech act is the fundamental unit of analysis in the philosophy of language. The problem is that he does not take seriously the consequences of that view. It is essential to understanding the nature of the speech act that it is intentional. If you want to understand what the speaker is doing you have to understand his intentions and the intentions in language are revealed by the speaker’s commitments. This has the consequence that the same sentence with the same meaning may be uttered with totally different intentions and commitments. To illustrate this, consider the following cases: (1) “Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street” said by Conan Doyle in composing a Sherlock Holmes story is intentionally creating a fictional character of Sherlock Holmes and he does this by pretending that there really is such a person and that he is really referring to that person. (2) The same sentence “Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street” said by me explaining the Sherlock Holmes stories to someone who wanted to know about them would be uttered with completely different intentions. Same sentence, same meaning, different speech act. In my case I am not pretending that there is a real person to whom I am referring, but rather I am actually referring to a fictional character, a character invented by Conan Doyle when he made such pretended statements as the one I quoted above.

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(3) The sentence “George Bush lives in the White House”, said by me with the intention of stating where Bush lives has a quite different use of the proper name from the use of “Sherlock Holmes” in examples (1) and (2). Here there is no pretense involved. I am really referring to a real person, not pretending to refer to a real person (fiction), nor referring to a pretended person (nonfiction about fiction). Now I think all of the above is obvious. The philosophy of language is an attempt to explain the sorts of facts that I have just stated. Martinich thinks that the second case where I described myself as really referring to a fictional character is a “paltry evasion”. But he does not tell us why. If he takes seriously the speech act approach rather than the formalist approach that he says he rejects, he would have to grant that the expression “Sherlock Holmes” functions quite differently in (1) and (2), because the intentions of the speakers are quite different in the two cases. He thinks that I offer the analysis that I do of (2) because of my commitment to “the axiom of existence”. That is exactly back to front: the axiom of existence is an attempt to describe the role of reference in speech, and it has to be consistent with the facts reported in (1), (2) and (3). I think if you take seriously the speech act approach to language then you will begin with the illocutionary intentions and the illocutionary commitments made by speakers in utterances. If you work that out in detail, as I have tried to do, then you will find that you need to make important distinctions between the fictional and the nonfictional cases. I think the fact that I can give a general theory, accounts for all of these and lots of other cases, including indirect speech acts and metaphors is an additional argument for my approach. From the few things he says of general theoretical character, I think that we have much more profound disagreements than just about negative existential statements and fictional discourse. When he summarizes his views on the last page he says “words do not need to hook up with the world in order to be meaningful and hence the axiom of existence is false”. Of course, words can be meaningful and still fail to refer. That is one of the lessons of Frege’s distinction between sense and reference. It is a very strange misunderstanding of my views to suppose that I equate meaning and reference. But from the fact that we need to distinguish meaning from reference, it does not follow that the axiom of existence is false. The words I utter can be meaningful, and yet I fail to refer if the object I think I am referring to does not exist.

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Another profound disagreement I have with him is over his claim that fiction is really an institution in the sense that money, property, government and marriage are institutions. The decisive objection to this view is that no deontic powers attach to fiction in a way they do attach to these other institutions. Indeed fiction is part of the institution of language, not a separate institution, and it differs from nonfictional discourse, precisely in weakening the deontic commitments that nonfictional speech has. 2. Spelling Out the Details I have stated my main objections to Martinich’s paper, but only in a summary form. In this section I will work them out in some more detail. He gives several examples that show that in a work of fiction you can have non-fictional statements. His quotation from Thackeray is a good example. He talks as if this were an objection to me, but I gave similar examples in my work, especially the example of Tolstoy saying that happy families are happy in the same way, and unhappy families are unhappy in different ways. Though that statement occurred at the beginning of Anna Karenina, a novel, it is not a fictional statement. It is a straightforward non-fictional claim. It is a consequence of such examples, both the ones he gives and the ones I give, that we have to distinguish between works of fiction on the one hand, and fictional discourse on the other. A work of fiction may contain both fictional discourse and non-fictional discourse. The novel is a work of fiction, but many novels contain non-fictional statements, as the example from Tolstoy illustrates. Tolstoy, by the way, is a famous case because Tolstoy, at least in some of his work, is so afraid that the readers might lose the point of the story, that he is constantly, so to speak, grabbing them by the lapels and saying, “Now this is what I want you to learn from this work.” And then he makes a statement that is non-fictional. Some of his implications are of doubtful historic accuracy. So in War and Peace, for example, he wants to convey that the humble Russian General Kutuzov is a much better general than the pretentious Napoleon from Paris. I doubt that many military historians would agree with that judgment, but it is one that Tolstoy is attempting to convey to us. On the other

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hand the story of Natasha and Pierre is totally fictional. What is the difference between the non-fictional statements and the fictional statements within the same work of fiction? I believe the way to find the answer is to look at the intentions of the author and, in particular, what the author is committed to. In the Sherlock Holmes stories the reference to London is a real reference to a real city. In Tolstoy the reference to Russia is a real reference to a real country and the reference to the battle of Borodino is a real reference to a real battle. Again, this illustrates the need to distinguish between which speech acts are pretended and which are not. The attempt to treat fictional discourse like other types of discourse reminds me of Wittgenstein’s statement that if you wrap up different kinds of furniture in enough wrapping paper, you can make them all look the same shape. If you wrap chairs and tables, bookcases and footstools in enough wrapping paper they will all look more or less round. I think there is a danger that if you do that with fictional discourse you make it look like any other type of discourse. I am anxious to insist on the differences between fictional discourse and other types of discourse. How should we go about discovering those differences? The key to examining any type of speech act, and indeed examining language in general, is to ask yourself, What exactly are the speaker’s intentions? The intentions will enable you to get at the question, To what exactly is the speaker committed? What are the commitments in his utterances? But the question about commitments implies that you have to ask yourself what counts as succeeding or failing. In a standard speech act if you ask me whether or not it is raining and I tell you it is raining when it is not raining, I have failed in one of my commitments. I am committed to the truth, but I produced something that wasn’t true. Now the point about fictional discourse is that the commitments are quite different from the commitments in non-fictional discourse. You can see this by considering various sorts of examples, such as those I gave above. When Conan Doyle wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories, he described Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as living at 221B Baker Street. But notice that he is not committed to the truth of this claim. His commitments do not require that there be an actual doctor and a detective living at that address. Furthermore if we asked Conan Doyle, how he knows that Holmes and Watson lived on Baker Street, this would not be an appropriate question because he has no commitment to providing evidence for the claim, because he has no

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commitment either to their existence or to their living on Baker Street. Indeed, as a matter of fact, there is no such address on Baker Street, as thousands of tourists are disappointed to find out. But as far as the work of fiction is concerned it does not matter whether or not it exists because Conan Doyle made no actual commitment to its existence. I describe this by saying that from his point of view, the author does not make statements, but only pretended statements. When Conan Doyle says that Sherlock Holmes lives at 221B Baker Street, that is not a genuine statement, but a fictional statement, which is to say it is a pretended statement. Now let us suppose that I, who am not the author, but a critic or a historian or just a reader, say that Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street. I, as someone explaining the story to someone else, can make non-fictional statements about a work of fiction. By pretending to refer to real people the author can create fictional people. We then can actually refer to pretended people. This is a crucial distinction, so let me clarify it. The author in examples such as 1 does not make actual statements, but only pretended statements. By pretending to talk about, refer to, and describe real people, he creates fictional characters. These are not real characters but pretended characters. But now we, who are the critics or historians or readers, describing the work of fiction, can then make true statements, actual statements, not pretended statements, but actual statements about the pretended characters in a work of fiction. In a nutshell: Conan Doyle pretends to make statements about real people, and thus creates a class of fictional or pretended people. We, who are not the author can really make statements, and not just pretend to make statements about the pretended people, the fictional people created by the author. My statement in 2 that Sherlock Holmes lived at 221B Baker Street is a true statement about a fictional character, and it corresponds to the facts about the work of fiction. I can give evidence for its truth, indeed conclusive evidence. It is important to be clear about the scope of the pretense. From the point of view of the author, it is not: There are these real people, Sherlock Holmes etc. and I pretend (I refer to them).

It is rather: I pretend (there are these real people Sherlock Holmes etc. and I referred to them).

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I think some of Martinich’s other examples reveal important features of works of fiction. One of these examples was that Sherlock Holmes wore a deerstalker hat. We are all used to seeing Holmes portrayed in Hollywood movies wearing a deerstalker hat, but there is no textual evidence whatever that Sherlock Holmes wore a deerstalker hat. There is no reference to a deerstalker hat in the entire nine volumes of Sherlock Holmes, even though there are several references to an old cloth cap that he wore (I am reasonably confident about this because I read the entire nine volumes aloud to my children). Where did the deerstalker hat come from? As far as I can tell, the deerstalker hat was an idea of a theater director in London when the Sherlock Holmes stories were put on as plays in the West End. It has since become part of the reality of the fictional character, Sherlock Holmes. (It so happened that one day in Berkeley, when I was wearing my deerstalker hat, a small boy came up to me and asked, “Mister, are you a detective?”) Our criteria for what counts as truth for the fictional character Sherlock Holmes now spreads beyond the original text, and includes what subsequent authors, play directors, et al have added. There are some further important points made by Martinich. He said that we have to think about fiction as an institution like any other, the main difference being that fiction is an informal institution. In some sense, any general human practice can be considered an institution, but notice there is a huge difference between fiction on the one hand and such institutions as private property, marriage or government, on the other. A short explanation of the difference is to say that fiction does not have the consequences that the other institutions have. This point goes back to my earlier claim about the commitments involved in fiction, as opposed to non-fictional discourse: what counts as getting it right or wrong. So, for example, I cannot sue in a law court, and say “There is no 221B Baker Street. I want my money back because there is a geographical lie in this book I bought in a London bookstore.” But if I actually buy property listed at “221B Baker Street”, I can go to a law court and say there was a fraud, the property did not exist. So the test always is to ask, What is the speaker committed to? That tells you what counts as succeeding or failing. Just two final points. The first is about serious and pretended discourse. When I say fictional statements are not serious statements, I am not saying that great novelists like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were giggling with frivolity. That is not my point at all. It is rather that the commitments that go with genuine statements do not exist in fictional

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statements. You cannot ask the author, “How do you know?” You cannot ask, “What is your evidence?” You cannot make an objection on the ground that there is no 221B Baker Street. To find out what an author is committed to, always ask, “What counts as succeeding or failing?” That will give you the scope of the commitments. And, similarly, I want to say about pretending: it isn’t the case that every element in a novel is pretense. That isn’t it at all. Rather, the statements that occur in the fictional part of a fictional text are not genuine statements. The author is only pretending to tell you about real people. He is not committed to the truth of what he writes. He isn’t really telling you about real people because there are no such people as he describes. However, as I pointed out above, a work of fiction may contain many serious nonfictional statements. Finally the problem of negative existentials. I believe it is not true to say that the problem of negative existentials arises only for fictional discourse. People have fought for centuries over whether or not it is true or false that God exists. A famous negative existential is that God does not exist. The heretics who were burned at the stake for saying that could not get away with saying, “Well I was only talking about fictional discourse.” The problem with negative existentials is a genuine problem, quite apart from issues about works of fiction.

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CHAPTER EIGHT

HOW TO DO ZEN (CHAN ) WITH WORDS? AN APPROACH OF SPEECH ACT THEORY Yiu-ming Fung 1. What Is Koan (Kung-an)? What is a koan [in Japanese or gong-an (kung-an) 公案 in Chinese]? What is its function in Zen (in Japanese or Chan 禪 in Chinese) Buddhism? As D.T. Suzuki described, “Ko-an literally means ‘a public document’ or ‘authoritative statute’—a term coming into vogue toward the end of the T’ang dynasty, It now denotes some anecdote of an ancient master, or dialogue between a master and monks, or a statement or question put forward by a teacher, all of which are used as the means for opening one’s mind to the truth of Zen. In the beginning, of course, there was no koan as we understand it now; it is a kind of artificial instrument devised out of the fullness of heart by later Zen masters, who by this means would force the evolution of Zen consciousness in the minds of their less endowed disciples.”1 Although the goal of a koan is the same as that of other Buddhist teachings such as ritual practice and quiet meditation which are used by a master to liberate or transform his disciples’ mind, its distinct function is to lead the uninitiated monks into a predicament and to effect them a shock through the stimulation from some kind of absurdity or senselessness expressed by a koan. In this sense, koan is undoubtedly a very special kind of teaching which is only occurred in Zen Buddhism. What does a koan look like? I think it can be shown by the following famous or paradigmatic examples: (1) A monk asked Tung-shan (東山), “Who is the Buddha?” The answer is: “Three chin (斤 pounds) of flax.”

1

D.T. Suzuki, 1991, p. 102.

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(2) When Ming the monk overtook the fugitive Hui-neng (惠能), he wanted Hui-neng to give up the secret of Zen. Hui-neng replied, “What are your original features which you have even prior to your birth?” (3) A monk asked Chao-chou (趙州), “What is the meaning of the First Patriarch’s visit to China?” “The cypress tree in the front courtyard.” (4) A monk asked Yun-men (雲門), “Who is the Buddha?” The answer is: “The dried up dirt-cleaner.” (5) “If you meet the Buddha, kill him.” (6) “What is the clap of one hand?” (“Listen to the sound of one hand.”) (7) “I am him and yet he is not me.” (8) “What is gained is what is not gained.” (9) “I hold spade empty-handedly. I walk on foot and yet I ride on horseback. When I pass over the bridge, the water flows not, but the bridge does.” (10) “I am writing here and yet I have not written a word. You are perhaps reading this now and yet there is not a person in the world who reads. I am utterly blind and deaf, but every color is recognized and every sound discerned.” As indicated in the above examples, it seems to us and is confirmed by most of the scholars in the field of Zen Buddhism that these koans in their literal sense are statements of contradiction, absurdity, or irrelevant to the understanding of the truth of Zen or to the enlightenment of Zen. Some of the experts even think that koans, as specific words and experiences of the ancient Zen teaching, cannot be understood or solved by logic or rational thought; people of Zen training use them to cut dualistic thinking, awaken to their Buddha nature, and rid themselves of ego. Suzuki is one of the main figures who maintain this kind of anti-rationalism or anti-intellectualism. He thinks that “Zen is the most irrational, inconceivable thing in the world”, that it “defies all concept-making”, and that the essence of Zen is satori (悟), the experience of “sudden enlightenment”, which is irrational, inexplicable, and incommunicable.2 This is what Suzuki calls the “Zen approach”. But,

2

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D.T. Suzuki, 1996, pp. 13, 103.

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is this approach effective to the understanding of the ultimate goal of Zen enlightenment? 2. Suzuki’s Approach of Anti-rationality According to Suzuki’s understanding, a koan, as an anecdote or dialogue, is a special kind of Zen teaching which is used by a Zen master as a means to direct his uninitiated disciples to enlightenment (satori in Sanskrit) or to grasp the truth of Zen. Although I generally agree with him that koan is functioned as a teaching means leading to enlightenment, I have two points in conflict with his thesis of truth and anti-rational approach. My first point is that I do not think there is any truth of Zen in terms of enlightenment except that of what C.G. Jung says about “spiritual reality”.3 But Suzuki believes that, since the truth of Zen in terms of its characteristic of anti-rationality is different from the ordinary concept of truth, Zen teachings, including koans, cannot be understood as rational speech acts. I think this thesis is not sound because there are no criteria for us to identify the so-called “truth” and there would be no teaching if a koan were not an intentional act. My second point is that I do not think this kind of anti-rational approach is healthy for the understanding of koan. As a matter of fact, what Suzuki had done is nothing but some kind of rational explanation for the so-called “inexpressible”. In other words, what he had expressed is the “inexpressible”; and “to express the inexpressible” is obviously a self-defeating thesis. First of all, it seems to me that Suzuki’s anti-rational or mystical approach cannot answer the question of communication if there is any communication between a master and his disciples in Zen teaching. Although he often claims that the ancient Zen masters were doing the job of “communicating the incommunicable”, he does not reject that the masters did have intention to communicate or to direct his disciples to reach the ultimate goal of enlightenment. If communication is necessary C.G. Jung stresses that, “We can of course never decide definitely whether a person is really ‘enlightened’ or ‘redeemed’, or whether he merely imagines it. We have no criteria for this. Moreover, we know well enough that an imaginary pain is often far more painful than a so-called real one, in that it is accompanied by a subtle moral suffering caused by the gloomy feeling of secret self-accusation. It is not, therefore, a question of ‘actual fact’ but of spiritual reality; that is to say, the psychic occurrence of happening known as satori.” See his “Foreword” in D.T. Suzuki, 1991, p. 15. 3

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for teaching, including the teaching of koan, and what the masters had done are intentional acts,4 the masters’ verbal and non-verbal behaviors as described in koans cannot be understood by Suzuki’s anti-rational approach as something irrational. What is irrational is not the koan as a speech act in a non-literal sense, which is of the function of directing mental transformation, but the koan as a speech act in its literal sense. Furthermore, Suzuki’s effort of making sense of the function of a koan implies that the absurdity literally reflected in a koan is suggestive, if not necessary, for its function of directing enlightenment which is not reflected in the koan literally. So, if Suzuki’s explanation is rationally acceptable, his anti-rational thesis is definitely self-defeating. 3. An Approach of Speech Act Theory I think one of the effective and rational approaches to the understanding of the language of Zen in general or koan in particular is an approach based on a theory of speech acts. It is clear that what a koan means literally is not what a Zen master implicitly intends to mean or to do by the koan, though the former is related to the latter in a complicate or perhaps an elusive way. So, the master’s response or answer to his disciples in a koan can be recognized as a peculiar sort of speech act. If we use Searle’s idea, we can say that a koan is an institutional fact and all the koans used by Zen masters are various speech acts of which the game of Zen teaching is constituted. In the game, each expression understood in its literal sense appears to be absurd or ridiculous, but, as an intentional speech act uttered by the player (Zen master), it is intended to mean or to do something other than what is literally understood and it is not absurd or ridiculous. To say something literally absurd or nonsense but non-literally functioned in a sensible way is probably to make a special kind of speech act. In this sense, a koan can be recognized as a rule-governed act and can be intellectually understood.

4

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This point can be found in Suzuki, 1991, pp. 69, 92, 104, 107–8.

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4. Reflection on Searle’s Theory of Speech Acts To explain the question how to do Zen with words, I think a Searlean approach is heuristic and effective. However, Searle’s theory of speech acts, especially his theory of indirect speech acts, cannot be applied to koan directly though koan looks like a special kind of indirect speech act. I think some adjustment is necessary if we want to use Searle’s theory to explain the function of koan. According to Searle’s view, in order to understand metaphorical utterances, ironical utterances, indirect speech acts, etc, we have to distinguish word and sentence meaning, on the one hand, and speaker’s meaning or utterance meaning, on the other. He thinks that what the sentence means may depart from what the speaker means as in the cases of metaphors, ironies and indirect speech acts. With regard to the point of “meaning departure”, I feel a little bit uncomfortable. Because I think that there is no sentence meaning without speaker’s meaning and vice versa. That is to say, what the sentence means is nothing but what the sentence used by the speaker means. Of course, what the sentence used by the speaker means in one context may be different from what the same sentence used by the speaker means in another context. This is one of the reasons why we can use the same sentence to make different speech acts in different contexts. Furthermore, if I am right in saying that what the sentence means is nothing but what the sentence used by the speaker means, there would be no real distinction between sentence meaning and speaker’s meaning. As argued by Paul Grice, “to say that a sentence (word, expression) means something” is “to be somehow understood in terms of what particular users of that sentence (word, expression) mean on particular occasions”. Or, “what sentences mean is what (standardly) users of such sentences mean by them”.5 For example, in contrast to the cases of indirect speech acts, Searle mentions that there are some simplest cases in which what the sentence means and what the speaker means may be exactly the same.6 But, from a different perspective, we may say that what Searle says about “exactly the same” is actually the different descriptions of the same meaning. So, in some of the literal speeches, I think the distinction

5 6

Paul Grice, 1991, pp. 298, 350. John Searle, 1979, p. 118.

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between sentence meaning and speaker’s meaning is nothing but the different perspectives of the same thing. In regard to indirect speech acts, although it seems that what the speaker really intends to mean departs from what the sentence literally means, it does not imply that the speaker’s meaning can be separate from any sentence. In some cases, an indirect speech act may have some “possible speaker’s intentions”,7 as indicated by Searle himself; but the non-literal meaning of the indirect speech act may not be semantically related to or determined by this kind of speaker’s intentions, except the intention for communication (i.e. what the speaker intends to get the hearer to understand).8 For example, when a wife responds to her husband’s proposal of going to movies by saying that “It is raining”, the speaker’s intention for communication is very clear, i.e. a rejection of his proposal. However, this intention may not be the real intention of his wife’s utterance of the sentence; it is possible that her real intention is to complain her husband’s unromantic arrangement though she still wants to go to movies. So, the non-literally meaning of the sentence “It is raining” is semantically related to and determined by the speaker’s explicit intention for communication, but not determined by the speaker’s implicit intention though they are causally related to each other. In this regard, Searle’s point of “meaning departure” can be explained by some kind of implicit intentions of the speaker but which is not equivalent to the speaker’s intention for communication. Based on the speaker’s intention for communication, we can say that there is some kind of speaker’s meaning which is reflected in some implicit sentence, such as “I don’t want to go to movies” (a sentence of rejecting the proposal). But there is no “meaning departure” for the speaker’s intention for communication and the implicit sentence. In other words, the non-literal meaning of the sentence “It is raining” is semantically related to and determined by the speaker’s intention for communication and thus exactly the same as the literal meaning of the implicit sentence “I don’t want to go to movies”. I think that, in some cases of indirect speech acts, in John Searle, 1979, p. 77. Searle’s explanation of the distinction between sentence meaning and speaker’s meaning is sometimes misleading. For example, in Searle (1999), he stresses that, “the meaning of the sentence is entirely a matter of the conventions of the language”, while “the speaker means by the utterance of the sentence is, within certain limits, entirely a matter of his or her intentions” (p. 140). It seems to me that it is inaccurate, because, as indicated by Searle himself, as an intentional act, a sentence’s meaning is also related to intentions. 7 8

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addition to the literal meaning of a sentence, there is some non-literal meaning of the sentence which can be understood as or reduced to some literal meaning of another sentence which is semantically related to and determined by some kind of intention for communication, and may be causally related to some of the speaker’s implicit intentions. Hence, this kind of non-literal meaning of a sentence does not depart from the meaning of a second sentence though it does depart from the literal meaning of the first sentence. Here our problem is: how to identify this second sentence? Some of the examples to demonstrate the existence of this kind of second sentence are the indirect speech acts which are semantically related to some kind of logical implication and embedded in the background knowledge of the speaker and the hearer. This background knowledge is some kind of implicit capacity or tacit knowledge shared by people living in the same language environment. In this regard, the non-literal meaning of a sentence A can be considered as nothing but the literal meaning of another sentence B which is inferred from the literally uttered sentence A. Let us see one of the examples of indirect speech acts used by Searle as follows: (1) X suggests: Let’s go to the movies tonight. (2) Y replies: I have to study for an exam.

How does X know that Y’s utterance is a rejection of the proposal of going to the movies? Searle’s explanation is that, “the primary illocutionary act performed in Y’s utterance is the rejection of the proposal made by X, and that Y does that by way of performing a secondary illocutionary act of making a statement to the effect that he has to prepare for an exam. He performs the secondary illocutionary act by way of uttering a sentence the literal meaning of which is such that its literal utterance constitutes a performance of that illocutionary act.”9 I agree with Searle that in this case there is one sentence with two illocutionary acts on the stage; but I do not think there is no sentence behind the stage. The sentence behind the stage is the sentence of rejecting that proposal (sentence (2+), i.e. “I cannot go to the movies tonight”) which is implied by the sentence on the stage (sentence (2)). Let us suppose that X is a child of three years old and Y is his old brother. It seems

9

John Searle, 1979, pp. 33–34.

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that the child does not understand the response of sentence (2), so he may ask a question as follows: (3) X asks: Why did you say, “I have to study for an exam” (2) [in answering my proposal]?

The old brother may answer or explain his question like this: (4) If I have to study for an exam, I cannot go to the movies tonight. Since I said in (2) that I have to study for an exam, it implies or means that I cannot go to the movies tonight.

Although we are not a child of three years old and know that (2) is a rejection of the proposal, what we know about the non-literal meaning of (2) is not different from what the child knows after he gets his old brother’s explanation except that we swallow up this logical implication into the stomach of our background knowledge. Now, for the child, the non-literal meaning of (2) can be understood as or reduced to the literal meaning of the implied sentence “I cannot go to the movies tonight”. For us, what the speaker Y means is nothing but what the implied sentence means. There is no non-literal meaning of the speaker’s utterance which is not also the literal meaning of some other sentence. There is another kind of speech acts, such as metaphors, which can be used to illustrate this point, i.e. there is no speaker’s meaning without sentence meaning. I think koans cannot be understood as indirect speech acts as discussed above, i.e. they are not a dual speech act which is constituted of two illocutionary acts by one sentence. In contrary, a koan is a special kind of speech act which is constituted of one illocutionary act accompanied by some kind of perlocutionary act. Or, we can say that, a koan is mainly functioned as a perlocutionary act which is supervenient on an illocutionary act. It seems to me that a koan is more like a metaphor than an indirect speech act. In this regard, I do not agree with Searle that there is speaker’s meaning other than sentence meaning in a metaphor; and I agree with Davidson that there is only perlocutionary effect in addition to a metaphor’s literal meaning. Just like a Davidsonean metaphor, a koan is mainly functioned as a perlocutionary act which is supervenient on an illocutionary act in a peculiar way.

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5. How to Do Zen with Words? As we know, Searle stresses that, “Meaning is more than a matter of intention, it is also at least sometimes a matter of convention”.10 Grice claims that, on the other hand, there is “a distinction between those elements of meaning which are present by virtue of convention and those which are present by virtue of something other than convention”.11 Here I do not want to enter into Searle and Grice’s debate on whether convention is essential to meaning or illocutionary acts or not, whether what we can mean is a function of or rule-governed by what we are saying. It may be a verbal dispute if we accept Grice’s distinction between conventional meaning and non-conventional meaning. However, if “meaning” can only be understood by virtue of “illocutionary act”, as defined by Searle, I agree with Searle that this kind of meaning is ruled-governed and can be understood as illocutionary effect. Based on this point, it can be said that, in the case of literal speech, there is only one illocutionary act with only one illocutionary effect in a sentence, while in the case of indirect speech act, there can be two illocutionary acts with two illocutionary effects. A koan looks like an indirect speech act because the former, just like the latter, seems to have another illocutionary effect at the non-literal level in addition to the effect produced by its speaker at the literal level. Nevertheless, if there were a second illocutionary act with an illocutionary effect in a koan, we would have been able to make it explicit, i.e. to paraphrase or translate it into another sentence or expression. This difficulty (or impossibility) of paraphrasing gives me an impression that a koan is much more like a metaphor than an indirect speech act, because we cannot have a paraphrasing or translation for a metaphor either. If we accept Davidson’s idea of metaphors, I think the explanation of the function of koan should be focused on its perlocutionary effect, instead of its illocutionary effect.12 In other words, according to Davidson, there

John Searle, 1969, p. 45. Paul Grice, 1991, p. 340. 12 Donald Davidson is right in saying that, “We must give up the idea that a metaphor carries a message, that it has a content or meaning (except, of course, its literal meaning). The various theories we have been considering mistake their goal. Where they think they provide a method for deciphering an encoded content, they actually tell us (or try to tell us) something about the effects metaphors have on us. The common error is to fasten on the contents of the thoughts a metaphor provokes and to read these contents into the metaphor itself.” See Davidson, 2001, p. 261. 10 11

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is no second meaning or metaphorical meaning in metaphors. For the same reason, we can say that, in addition to a literal meaning, there is no second meaning in a koan. In addition to the speaker’s intention of communication which is essential for the understanding of a sentence,13 there may be more than a dozen of other kinds of (implicit) intentions attached to the sentence. When I say to a host of a party that the party is very successful, I may attach an intention of expressing my personal (subjective) gratitude or an intention of expressing my objective evaluation. But these intentions do not play a role of rule-governor for the sentence’s meaning; they cannot semantically determine the meaning of the sentence as discussed in the last section. For the similar reason, the speaker of a metaphor may have an intention of expressing his or her idea metaphorically as meaning something implicit, but he or she cannot make it explicit or spell it out without killing the metaphor. The only case that the speaker can make it explicit is the case of dead metaphor. For example, the sentence “You are fired” normally used as a metaphor is dead; and we can make it explicit as meaning the same as the sentence “You are lay off work”. On the other hand, the sentence “He is a pig” is still a live metaphor today; so the hearers cannot grasp the speaker’s hidden intention and the so-called metaphorical meaning based on this intention. If some day people have a collective agreement that only one of the characteristics of a pig is tied up with the laziness of a man, this sentence will become a dead metaphor and its new meaning can be spelt out loudly. I think one of the indicators for distinguishing a live and a dead metaphor is that the speaker of a live metaphor cannot produce any intentional meaning other than its literal meaning without a collective agreement while the speaker of a dead metaphor can translate the metaphorical sentence into its (rhetoric) equivalent, i.e. a non-metaphorical sentence. In other words, when some metaphors become dead or frozen, they will have their second meaning by virtue of a collective agreement within a (professional or non-professional) community. We know that the speaker’s hidden intentional meaning of a live metaphor, if there is any, cannot be paraphrased or translated into the meaning of a literal sentence unless the metaphor turns into dead and loses its perlocutionary effect. A koan acts like a metaphor in the sense that the hidden intention of a Zen master cannot be spelt

13

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This is Searle’s idea of “reflexive intention”. See Searle, 1969, pp. 47–49.

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out without turning into a stiffened or dead indoctrination and losing its effect of mental transformation for enlightenment.14 Just like the case of uttering a literal or non-literal speech, first of all, the master of a koan must have a reflexive intention in uttering his sentence for meaning something literally. But unlike an indirect speech act, a koan does not have a second meaning or second illocutionary effect though the master may have some kind of implicit intention. The reason why this intention cannot be spelt out as a second meaning is that when it is spelt out the function (i.e. the effect of mental transformation) will be totally faded out or disappeared. I think one of the main reasons for us to assert that a koan does not produce a second illocutionary act is that the function of producing the effect of mental transformation can be obtained by any koan. I think it is very difficult, if not impossible, to explain why different koans can do the same job of producing the same illocutionary effect if we assume there is a second illocutionary act produced; but it is quite easy for us to explain why they can have the same perlocutionary effect of mental transformation no matter whether they have second illocutionary act or not.15 Why, to one and the same question, a master’s answer is sometimes “No”, sometimes “Yes”?16 Why a master can flourish a stick in different way each time but all have the same effect of directing his disciples to enlightenment?17 And, why two great Japanese masters, Sekito and Yakusan, who may seem to have much disagreement with each other in answering the same question, are identified in Zen literature as talking about the same thing?18 I think the answer is not due to illocutionary force, but due to perlocutionary effect. Furthermore, as claimed by almost all the ancient Zen masters and the contemporary Zen scholars that, “our everyday language fails to convey the exact meaning as conceived by Zen”19 and “Zen mondoo [i.e.

14 A Zen master’s intention of producing an effect on his disciples’ mental transformation into enlightenment or directing his disciples’ to have some kind of mental transformation, spiritual emancipation or Zen liberation is the main purpose of his uttering a koan. Suzuki has the point in Suzuki, 1991, pp. 60–61, 66–68. 15 The answers given by Zen masters to the same question, say, “What is the Buddha?” are full of variety. Some of the examples can be found in Suzuki, 1991, pp. 77, 81, Suzuki, 1996 p. 137, and Suzuki, 2000, p. 96. 16 D.T. Suzuki, 2000, p. 279. 17 D.T. Suzuki, op. cit., pp. 275–276. 18 D.T. Suzuki, 1972, p. 138. 19 D.T. Suzuki, 1991, p. 52.

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question and answer in a koan] cannot be set aside as of no meaning”,20 I think this thesis of inexpressibility is suggestive for us as another reason to explain the thesis of “no second meaning”. As I have argued elsewhere, the term “meaning” mentioned above cannot be understood as referring to a mystical entity from a perspective of anti-rationalism or mysticism.21 If the meaning cannot be understood as a mystical entity and also cannot be expressed by our everyday language, I think the only possible scenario is that what Zen masters mention is not semantic meaning at all, but some kind of directive value in term of mental transformation. Suzuki’s idea of “pointing” or “pointer” is another indicator of the directive function of koans.22 Suzuki sometimes even stresses that, Zen language is “devoid of intelligible meaning” though it is able to have “psychological effect”;23 “No [second] meaning is to be sought in the expression itself, but within ourselves, in our own mind, which are awakened to the same experience”;24 and “Just a little movement on the part of the master may be sufficient to open up a new life in the questioner. The answer is not in the master’s gesture or speech; it is in the questioner’s own mind which is now awakened.”25 Although sometimes he asserts in a mystical way that Zen language suggests “a meaning beyond meaning”,26 what is beyond, actually, is not meaning in terms of semantics. So, when he mentions what is “awakened (to the meaning of the koan)”, his explanation is nothing but having “something of enlightenment (satori)”.27 I agree with Suzuki that, “there is in Zen nothing to explain, nothing to teach”,28 but it is not because there is some kind of transcendental truth or mystical meaning which is inexpressible and cannot be taught. Instead, the reason of “nothing to explain” and “nothing to teach” is that there is no truth and meaning at all except the literal meaning of a koan and the plain truth, if any, described by the sentence. If I am right in saying that there is no transcendental truth and mystical mean-

D.T. Suzuki, 1955, p. 170. Yiu-ming Fung, 2003, pp. 307–322. 22 D.T. Suzuki, 1991, pp. 38, 89; Suzuki, 1972, p. 159; Suzuki, 2000, First Series, p. 292 and Second Series, pp. 63, 95. 23 D.T. Suzuki, 2000, Second Series, p. 175. 24 D.T. Suzuki, 2000, First Series, p. 290. 25 D.T. Suzuki, 2000, Second Series, p. 74. 26 D.T. Suzuki, op. cit., p. 193. 27 D.T. Suzuki, 1972, pp. 153, 155. 28 D.T. Suzuki, 1991, p. 92. 20 21

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ing in Zen language, including koans, the remaining question would be that how a master do Zen with words or how he can open his disciples’ mind via a koan. To answer this question, I think we should pay amble attention to the view of anti-intellectualism held by most scholars of Zen. According to the teaching of Buddhism in general and Zen in particular, human beings’ sufferings are coming from their attachment to desires and being dominated by its companion, rational calculation. To liberate from sufferings and to enter into the state of enlightenment, human beings should give up their mind of desire and calculation. As emphasized by Suzuki, rational or logical thinking is the obstruction of satori. So, to move this obstruction out of the mind is essential to Zen enlightenment. If we ignore the perspective of mysticism, when Suzuki says that, “a satori turned into a concept ceases to be itself ”29 he does have a point. The point is that to free the mind from conceptual calculation is a necessary condition of mental transformation. With regard to the question why ordinary people cannot but a master can be enlightened when they both “have a cup of tea”, I think the answer is that the former is still in the mental state of calculation, say, to consider which tea is tasty and which cup is useful, while the latter is free from such calculation. So, in Zen Buddhism, Suzuki is legitimate to claim that the koans are generally such as “to shut up all possible avenues to rationalization”.30 Now, I think we are ready to recognize why most of the koans are expressed in a senseless or nonsensical way. The purpose of the masters to express their koans in a form of absurdity, contradiction or irrelevance to their disciples’ questions for enlightenment is to give them a great puzzle or baffle, and surprise or shock. In Zen culture, there is a consensus that leading pupils to perplexed predicament and letting them to have an ever-increasing mental strain, they would face a mental crisis which may suggest an abrupt (tun 頓) transformation in their mind. For example, as mentioned by Suzuki, when a student grapples with a koan of single-handedly he will come to see that he has reached the limit of his mental tension, and he is brought to a standstill. Like the man hanging over the precipice he is completely at a loss what to do next.31 So, Suzuki is right is saying that, “[a] psychological impasse is the necessary D.T. Suzuki, 1991, p. 92. D.T. Suzuki, op. cit., p. 108. Similar point can be found in Suzuki, 2000, First Series, p. 230. 31 D.T. Suzuki, 2000, Second Series, p. 107. 29 30

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antecedent of satori.” In this regard, in order to help his students to free from this impasse, the masters probably have an intention of banning rational or logical thinking which is the mode of thinking in the mind of calculation; but they cannot spell it out. If they make the intention explicit, the banning function would be vanished. Just like the case of paraphrasing a metaphor, if we translate a metaphor into its so-called non-metaphorical equivalent, the performative function of a specific perlocutionary effect would be disappeared. The function of urging a child to swim faster by saying that “There is a jaw behind you” cannot be replaced by a description of intention like “You are urged to swim faster”. The how-knowing being cultivated in a learner’s mind can be stimulated by a teacher’s act of making puzzle and shock; but it probably cannot be indoctrinated by a teacher’s act of producing some kind of that-knowing. In the case of swimming, although the how-knowing cannot be replaced by the that-knowing, we cannot exclude the possibility that the former may be helpful for the latter. Nevertheless, in the case of attaining Zen enlightenment, the story is extremely different. The very how-knowing is to know how to ban the that-knowing in our rational thinking because this mode of thinking goes against the essence of Zen. This is why the koans being used as pedagogic method is peculiar and is not welcome to ordinary people. Works Cited Davidson, Donald (2001), Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press. Yiu-ming Fung (2003), “The Thesis of Antilogic in Buddhism”, in Bo Mou (ed.), Comparative Approaches to Chinese Philosophy, Ashgate Publishing Company. Grice, Paul (1991), Studies in the Way of Words, Harvard University Press. Searle, John (1969), Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge University Press. —— (1979), Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts, Cambridge University Press. —— (1999), Mind, Language and Society: Philosophy in the Real World, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Suzuki, D.T. (1955), Studies in Zen, London: Rider & Co. —— (1972), Living by Zen, Samuel Weiser, Inc. —— (1991), An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, Random House. —— (1996), Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D.T. Suzuki, edited by William Barrett, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. —— (2000), Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series and Second Series, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd.

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REPLY TO YIU-MING FUNG John R. Searle I am grateful for Professor Yiu-ming Fung’s paper and for enlightening me about the nature and function of the koans in Zen teaching. I especially want to emphasize my agreement with him that we should not think of koans as somehow or other necessarily irrational: “What is irrational is not the koan as a speech act in a non-literal sense, which is of the function of directing mental transformation, but the koan as a speech act in its literal sense”. Because philosophical discussions are more interesting if disagreements rather than agreements come to the fore, I will concentrate my reply mainly on disagreements. These are about his account of indirect speech acts and his accounts of metaphor. On my account, in an indirect speech act, one performs two speech acts, one which is literally encoded in the meaning of the sentence, and another which is meant by the speaker. I distinguish in short between sentence meaning and speaker meaning. If I understand him correctly, he rejects my account of indirect speech acts on the grounds that only one speech act is performed in the indirect speech act and not two, and therefore he thinks that the sentence uttered must contain what I call the speaker’s meaning. As in my example when the suggestion is, “Let’s go to the movies tonight,” and the reply is “I have to study for an exam,” you have two speech acts that are performed. The primary speech act is to reject the proposal to go to the movies and this is done indirectly by way of the literal secondary speech act of stating that I have to study for an exam. Now, for reasons that are not clear to me, Yiu-ming Fung rejects what I think are obvious points. He thinks that my view of indirect speech acts requires me to hold a view which he attributes to me as a doctrine of “meaning departure”. But I have, as far as I know, never used the term “meaning departure.” What I have said is that the speaker might literally say one thing and mean literally what he says but also mean something else which is not literally contained in the meaning of the sentence but which is implied by its utterance. A rejection of this seems to commit him to the view which I think he in fact holds. He believes that under these circumstances the sentence,

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“I have to study for an exam” means “I cannot go to the movies”. In response to this I would want to emphasize that the initial speech act with the literal meaning is indeed performed. The speaker said and meant that he had to study for an exam. And the proof of that is that the response to the literal meaning is always appropriate. The hearer might respond No, you don’t have to study for an exam. Your exam is not until next week.

On my account the sentence does not have two meanings. It just has its literal meaning. He says the sentence uttered implies “I cannot go to the movies”. But I think that cannot be right. The sentence by itself has no such implication, because it is perfectly consistent to do both: study for an exam and go to the movies. It is not the sentence as such but rather the speaker who implies that he cannot go to the movies and therefore rejects the proposal. But there is no way to say that without postulating two speech acts on the part of the speaker, one encoded in the literal sentence meaning, the second implied by the speaker’s utterance meaning. This disagreement with Yiu-ming Fung comes out more strongly when he takes a position like Davidson’s on metaphors. He says that live metaphors have only perlocutionary effects, but never convey a propositional content different from the literal meaning. I believe this is wrong. To take obvious examples: Pick up any newspaper and you will find metaphors pretty much throughout and we understand the propositional content that is conveyed in these as different from the literal meaning of the sentence printed. I was in Paris when in the headlines in the papers there were statements like “The European Constitution is now dead”. “The French killed it off ”. “It was shot down”. All of those are metaphors. “Shot down” is certainly not a dead metaphor. We would not teach people that when something is voted out, the right way to describe the negative vote literally is to say the proposal was “shot down.” “Dead” in “dead metaphor” is indeed dead; but if I say that the European Constitution is “dead;” that is very much a live metaphor. And the proof that there is an actual propositional content conveyed by the metaphorical utterance is that people can debate its content. And the way they might conduct the debate would be to continue to use the metaphorical expressions. They might say, “No, the French election didn’t shoot down your constitution, it didn’t shoot down the European Union, it just shot down this early version of

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the constitution”, and then they would go on using these metaphorical terms to convey propositional content. Metaphors are unlike indirect speech acts in that typically in the metaphorical utterance the literal meaning is not included in the speaker’s meaning. In indirect speech act it is included. I want to emphasize the way metaphorical utterances can convey propositional contents different from the literal meaning of the sentence. As I understand him, Davidson is committed to the view that in genuine metaphors, as opposed to dead metaphors, there is no content conveyed other than that of the literal meaning of the sentence. I believe that must be wrong. I don’t see how we could begin to communicate propositional contents in speech acts without using live metaphors. And one reason is that language doesn’t have enough literal resources to convey everything we would wish to say. Also, it is boring to use the same literal resources over and over. And indeed, if we went over Fung’s own paper, I think we would find lots of live metaphors. Just looking at random here I see “stiffened” and “frozen” used as metaphors. But I do not interpret them literally. I understand the metaphors perfectly. They convey a metaphorical content which differs from its literal meaning. I also want to emphasize again that my account of metaphor is quite different from my account of indirect speech acts. In the indirect speech acts the literal meaning is intended and communicated. In metaphors it is not. In the case of indirect speech acts, one performs two speech acts: a literal secondary speech act and a non-literal intended primary speech act. In metaphors, two speech acts are typically not communicated. The literal meaning is not intended literally. The problem with Davidson’s thesis is that it can only be made plausible if it is trivialized. The thesis is that in genuine metaphor there is no propositional content conveyed other than that of the literal sentence. Cases where a propositional content is conveyed, are dead metaphors. Thus if I say, “Sally is a block of ice,” on Davidson’s account, I would convey nothing except the literal statement, “Sally is a block of ice,” unless the expression has now become a dead metaphor so I can convey Sally is unemotional. I want to argue that that is not a dead metaphor, it is a live metaphor, and it does convey that Sally is unemotional. The only way to rescue the Davidson thesis is by trivializing it to the point where you say, “Well then, if it did convey something it must be a dead metaphor.” But if you say whenever there is a second propositional content it must be because the metaphor is dead, that begs the question.

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If I say, “Sally is a block of ice”, and you say, “No, she is not a block of ice, she is a bonfire,” we might then have an argument about her emotional capacities, and it is no good saying, “Well, those are dead metaphors, ‘block of ice’ and ‘bonfire.’ ’’ I think they are very much live metaphors. So, the general Davidsonian point is, I think, good for certain types of metaphors, certain types of poetic metaphors. But the use of metaphor in ordinary, everyday speech seems to me pervasive and it typically functions to perform illocutionary acts that are not encoded in literal meaning. It seems to me the only way to deal with this Davidsonian claim is to ‘shoot it down’. The deeper point is this (note the metaphor of “deeper”): Why do dead metaphors become dead? The first time a metaphor is used it is not a dead metaphor. It becomes dead because it fills a semantic gap. (Notice the metaphor here—“semantic gap”) Because it fills a need; we use the metaphor over and over, but we wouldn’t use it over and over to the point of “death,” (another metaphor), if it didn’t enable us to perform an illocutionary act. It isn’t that I want to achieve some spectacular perlocutionary effect on my hearer. If I say the usages have become “frozen,” or there is a “semantic gap,” it is because I want to communicate, and one way to communicate is with live metaphors. I agree with him that the functioning of the koan, if it actually functions in communication, has to be something that can be rationally accounted for. That is not to say that in order to describe the operation of the koan, we have to describe it in terms of algorithms or logical inferences. But if it works, there must be some way of describing how it works. It is giving up on a philosophical task to resort to some mystical or irrationalist account of meaningful, effective human communication. I do not know enough of the functioning of koans to know how to best describe their functioning, but from the examples he gives it seems to me they achieve the effect of transformation in ways that are similar to certain types of poetry. I think the achievement of the effects cannot be accounted for by appealing to the mechanisms by which we understand indirect speech acts or metaphors.

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CHAPTER NINE

SEARLE, DE RE BELIEF, AND THE CHINESE LANGUAGE1 Marshall D. Willman 1. Introduction A striking feature of Chinese that sets it apart from many other languages is its grammatical prioritization of a topic-comment sentence structure as opposed to one involving subjects and predicates. The unusual occurrences of many noun phrases in Chinese have compelled grammarians to distinguish topics from subjects in Chinese sentences so as to better represent variations in its syntax.2 Although there are certainly other notable criteria, it is natural to identify the topic of a Chinese sentence loosely as what the sentence is about—the very thing that grammarians of English typically assume to be true of the subject. Comments are then construed as topic compliments of various forms. By contrast, English sentences are often thought of as having a (grammatical) subject-predicate structure. Such a structure contains a subject that is not only generally required, but also easy to identify, since it bears a direct semantic relationship with a verb, which is indicated by a morpheme that agrees with it in number. Compare: This book is intriguing. Those books are intriguing.

1 I want to thank Richard Fumerton for reading an earlier draft of this paper and providing valuable comments. 2 Interpretation of Chinese as a “topic-prominent” language is controversial, but happily it enjoys many contemporary supporters. Here I am influenced predominantly by Li, Charles and Thompson, Sandra A. (1989), Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. For a longer discussion of the topic-prominence of Chinese, see Li and Thompson (1976), “Subject and Topic: A New Typology of Language”, in Subject and Topic, Li (ed.), New York: Academic Press. Another early account is found in Tsao, Feng-fu (1977), “A Functional Study of Topic in Chinese: The First Step toward Discourse Analysis”, Doctoral Dissertation, University of Southern California.

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In each case there is an agreement between the subject of the sentence and its corresponding verb: ‘book’ goes with ‘is’, and ‘books’ goes with ‘are’. For this reason subjects are said to perform actions or exist in states identified by verbs. In contrast with subjects, topics in Chinese generally do not have the same semantic relationship with the verbs of the sentences in which they occur. In sentences with direct objects, subjects are often said to have a doing or being relationship with those objects in ways that topics do not. Moreover, while topics generally lack this doing or being relationship with direct objects, they always occur—when they occur, for it is not obligatory—at the beginning of Chinese sentences, syntactically dangling apart often rather conspicuously like some curious appendage. This is especially true with sentences whose topics are separated by a verbal pause, or by a pause particle such as ‘a’, ‘me’, ‘ne’, or ‘ba’.3 The function of this curious appendage, although it is debate-worthy, seems to be to facilitate communication about something of which both the speaker and listener are assumed to have knowledge. In any event, it is not hard to identify, with these distinctions in mind, Chinese sentences in which there are topics and subjects occurring separately, topics only, subjects only, and topics that function simultaneously as subjects. This makes for four distinct categories of sentences that are generally not reflected in the surface grammar of English. Another way to recognize the point is to observe that on this theory of Chinese grammar the subject of the traditional subject-predicate distinction common of Western grammar is neither necessary nor sufficient for having a complete, non-elliptical Chinese sentence. To illustrate, notice that the sentence, (a) nèi zhī göu wö yìjing kàn guo le, (“That dog I have already seen.”)

contains both a topic (‘nèi zhī göu’, “that dog”) and a subject (‘wö’, “I”) functioning separately. And this is quite distinct from: (b) nèi bĕn shū chū băn le, (“That book, (someone) has published (it).”)

which contains a topic (‘nèi bĕn shū’, “that book”), but no subject. (At the same time it is not considered elliptical and is a complete sentence.) There is also:

3 Li and Thompson follow Tsao, 1977 on this point, emphasizing that the use of the pause or pause particle is optional.

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(“A person came in.”)

Grammatically, the expression ‘yi ge rén’ (“a person”) cannot be the topic of the sentence for two reasons: (1) it doesn’t (and cannot) occur at the beginning of the sentence, so as to provide a communicative context, and (2) it is an indefinite noun phrase, failing to indicate an entity that was previously known in the discourse. At the same time, it must be considered the subject of the sentence, because it clearly indicates that there was an entity doing or being something—to wit, “coming in”. Lastly, consider: (d) wö xìhuān chī píngguö.

(“I like to eat apples.”)

In this sentence ‘wö’ (“I”) occurs at the beginning of the sentence, it is clearly what the sentence is about, and it stands in a doing or being relationship with the verb of the sentence, ‘xìhuān’ (“like”). So it is one in which topic and subject are identical.4 Now, philosophically, the topic-comment/subject-predicate distinction in Chinese is provocative because of what it has to say, I think, about the so-called de re/de dicto distinction in the philosophy of mind. Or should I not say de re/de dicto distinctions? For there are so many different interpretations of the dichotomy in the literature that it has become almost completely uninformative merely to characterize someone as maintaining that there is such a thing as de re belief. Searle, for one, takes a rather parsimonious approach to the matter, indeed a commendable one in the face of what otherwise amounts to a steaming jungle of confusing explications. He thinks of de re beliefs as nothing more than a special subclass of de dicto ones—those whose referents actually exist: [All] beliefs are de dicto. They are entirely individuated by their Intentional content and psychological mode. Some beliefs, however, are also actually about real objects in the real world. One might say that such beliefs are de re beliefs, in the sense that they refer to actual objects. De re beliefs would then be a subclass of de dicto beliefs, in the same way that true beliefs are a subclass of de dicto beliefs, and the term “de dicto belief ” would be redundant since it just means belief.5

4 Each of these examples has been borrowed from Li and Thompson, 1989, pp. 87–92. 5 Searle, John (1983), Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 209.

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The point of this passage, I think, is easy enough to understand, but since it has the potential of misleading dramatically, it has to be clarified. Contrary to appearances, Searle is not saying that the class of all de re beliefs are all and only those beliefs that happen to be true. De re beliefs make up a subclass of de dicto beliefs only in the same way that true beliefs make up a subclass of de dicto beliefs. But nowhere is it implied that these classes are coextensive. One might think of the true beliefs as a subclass of the subclass of de re beliefs: those whose referents not only exist, but which also satisfy the relevant doxastic intentional content. Thus, if Theodore believes that Hu Jin-tao is the President of China, and Hu Jin-tao is in fact the President of China, then Hu Jin-tao satisfies the intentional content of Theodore’s belief. That makes Theodore’s belief not only de re, but also true. But on this reading one can have a de re belief that isn’t true: for were it the case that Hu Jin-tao was Vice Premier instead of President, then while Theodore’s belief would be false, it would nonetheless be about a real object in the world. For Hu Jin-tao would still be the object of Theodore’s belief, only Theodore would then merely believe something false about him. So while a de re belief is analogous to a true one, on Searle’s view, they are by no means the same.6 These clarifications in mind, the important point is simple: all beliefs are de dicto in the sense of being entirely exhausted by their internal content and psychological mode. So they are entirely in the head, as it were. De re beliefs are then those, being in the head, which happen to be about real things. But, as is well known in Western philosophical literature, a more stringent interpretation of the de re/de dicto distinction has come to be favored by many, particularly by those who are arguably characterized as content externalists. Kripke and Putnam are two, although it might be more appropriate to characterize both as semantic externalists, given their chief preoccupation with meaning and reference.7 In any event, both argue that the references of proper names

6 This leaves open the possibility of there being some de dicto beliefs which are true, but not de re. That would make them true propositions about nothing actual or existing, such as: “Peter Pan can fly.” If Theodore were to have this belief, it would certainly not be de re—since there is no such individual in the world answering to the name of Peter Pan who satisfies the description of the fictional character—yet on some accounts it would still be regarded as true. 7 See Kripke, Saul (1972), “Naming and Necessity”, and (1979), “A Puzzle about Belief ”, both in The Philosophy of Language, edited by A.P. Martinich, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 272–87, and 405–32, as well as Kripke’s (1982), Wittgenstein on

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and natural kind terms are determined in part by considerations of external cause and history. And McGinn has shown that the semantic externalism advocated by Kripke and Putnam is easily adapted to mental content.8 Either way, we have a more stringent interpretation of the dichotomy than the simpler approach advocated by Searle, and it is this more stringent interpretation that I want to argue is committed to an assumption that itself stands in need of independent justification, especially in light of the fact that it appears to have the effect of rendering a substantial class of Chinese sentences incoherent! For reasons that will follow, I shall call this the Active Role assumption. I take the Active Role assumption to stand at the bottom of most accounts of propositionhood in Western literature (for those who accept propositions), an all-too-natural point of view to anyone whose first language is a Romantic or Indo-European one, on account of a few seemingly unpretentious features of the kind of grammar that is prevalent in the languages of that class. It is important to note that here I am assuming, along with Searle, that the intentionality of language is parasitic on the intentionality of mind, and thus that linguistic meaning must in some way answer to broader, more inclusive notions of meaning and representational content. Such content I hold to be properties of psychological states. So I am not only committed to some form of semantic realism, I am also committed to sharply separating the ontological issue of what fixes the propositional content of a person’s thoughts from the epistemological issue as to how another person might identify that content, in virtue of recognizing the meaning of what he or she says. Thus, insofar as one understands another’s utterance of the sentence ‘Beijing Opera has a tremendously long history’, there is a proposition to which that sentence corresponds, a proposition which is the bearer of a truth-value and which is the object of an assertion, belief, or other intentional psychological state. One cannot assert or believe or know that Beijing Opera has a tremendously long history without standing in a relation to such an entity.

Rules and Private Language, Oxford and New York: Blackwell Publishers. For Putnam, see his (1973), “Explanation and Reference”, in Conceptual Change, edited by Glenn Pearce, pp. 199–221, as well as his (1981), Reason, Truth, and History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 8 McGinn, Colin (1977), “Charity, Interpretation, and Belief ”, Journal of Philosophy 74.

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There are those, of course, who reject the view that thought can occur without language, or that thought in some sense is not exhausted by the medium of language, or that theories about thought are not altogether irrelevant to any language that purports to be scientific.9 The assumptions I have made here, however, need not deter those with such sympathies. This is because the point that I wish to make is potentially of interest not only to philosophers of mind and language generally, but also specifically to those whose interest it is to procure more grist for the semantic irrealist’s mill. I can easily see someone exploiting the conclusion I wish to draw to make a case for skepticism about semantical notions. As I said, I don’t see it that way, but that is a matter that demands more than can be dealt with here. 2. De Re Ascriptions and Content Externalism There is, to be sure, something misleading about Searle’s use of the terminology ‘de re’ and ‘de dicto’, for it is not clear to what extent the original meanings “of things” and “of words” have been preserved. Has he not just fixed a common distinction to his own purpose? (Indeed he generally allows that there is intentional content that is entirely nonverbal, so one’s belief that Peter Pan can fly is not necessarily a linguistic thing.) Yet I think that the adaptation is fairly innocuous, and far more so than the interpretation typically attributed to it by content externalists. Indeed, it is often claimed that an English sentence like: (1) Theodore believes that the snake in the road won’t bite people,

is fundamentally ambiguous, ambiguous in an ontologically odious sort of way in terms of the kind of thing on which it is making a report. On an externalist de dicto interpretation, (1) may be said to assert merely something about the content of Theodore’s belief, independently of anything about the snake (if there is one). Interpreted de re, on the other hand, it may be said, supposing that there really is a snake, to assert something about it—namely, that Theodore believes of it, that it won’t bite people. Now I generally don’t quarrel about that way of 9 I have in mind Quine, but see Davidson, especially Essay 11 of his (1984), Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Clarendon Press, and Kripke, the latter of whom is, notoriously, a hostile skeptic to semantic notions in his interpretation of Wittgenstein on rules in his (1982).

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saying things, but the externalist goes further: he thinks that it involves a relationship between a “believer” and a “thing-believed-about”—an object outside the head, at it were. Those who maintain this interpretation usually take it as evident that, in the case of a de re belief, a fact about a believer simultaneously involves a fact about a thing-believed. For instance, if it is the case about Theodore that he believes that the snake in the road won’t bite people, then there must also be a fact about that snake: that it is believed by Theodore to be such that it won’t bite people. This allows for the inference from the de re belief—which I think is an innocuous representation of (1)—, (2) About the snake in the road, Theodore believes that it won’t bite people,

to the philosophically loaded statement, (3) The snake in the road is such that Theodore believes that it won’t bite people.

And this in turn leads naturally to the existential generalization of (3), that is, that there is something which Theodore believes won’t bite people.10 I said that, on this view, (1) is ambiguous with respect to the kind of thing that it is reporting on, and this is now more easily observed. For if it is the case that a de re belief involves not only a fact about a believer, but also a fact about a thing-believed, then any change in the thing-believed will simultaneously involve a change in the belief itself, even if the intentional content—what is in the head of the believer, as it were—remains the same. Suppose, for instance, that in the above example Theodore is mistaken: there is no snake in the road, but rather a piece of rubber from a tire instead. Then Theodore’s belief is now different, in spite of the fact that the intentional content of his mental state remains the same. This, it is supposed, is unlike any belief that is de dicto, for in that case Theodore’s belief that the snake in the road won’t bite people stays the same even if he happens to be the victim of mass hallucination. Those who hold this view are likely to describe those beliefs that are de re as irreducibly so, because their conditions of individuation are different. What individuates and distinguishes a de re belief necessarily involves reference to an object outside the mind, 10 In his Intentionality (1983), Searle discusses this and represents it semi-formally as “(%x) (Theodore believes ( y won’t bite people) of x)” (p. 210).

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whereas a de dicto belief is safely individuated entirely in terms of its internal, intentional content. And here we have two different kinds of things.11 3. Chinese Ramifications on Content Externalism Now it is not my purpose to give a decisive refutation of content externalism—although I think it is wrong; I only wish to question an assumption that I think lies at the bottom of it, by appealing to a certain fundamental feature of the Chinese language that indicates the contrary. That feature is, as I said, the topic-comment orientation of its grammar. If it is the case that the content of a de re belief is not exhausted by its internal, intentional content, and that part of that content involves a constituent outside the head, then it must be the case that assertions of de re belief posit a relation between two things, one internal and the other external. Consider a statement expressing some ordinary relation, such as (4) Block A is on top of block B.

The grammatical subject of this sentence may be block A, but mightn’t one equally insist that it is an assertion about block B? For isn’t it also the case, given (4), that block B is such that A is on top of it? I am considering this only because it is obvious that if something were to happen to B—if it were to be burned to ashes or kicked away—then it would be no longer the case that A is on top of it. So there is a factual dependence between the two assertions suggested here, a dependence

11 I should clarify that I am using the term ‘internal’ here loosely, merely in the negative sense of being “not outside the head”. The externalist can certainly take different attitudes on the ontological status of “internal, intentional content”. He might regard it as irreducibly mental, supporting in effect a sort of externalism/internalism hybrid view. He might regard it as a brain state or type of brain state, and thus be a direct physicalist or a functionalist, respectively, making him a physicalist of sorts. Or again he might look at the whole thing behavioristically, regarding as “internal” that to which one might assent in the form of a behavioral, verbal utterance. On my view, one is an externalist simply if one accepts the thesis that there is a certain class of beliefs whose contents are necessarily individuated by reference to something existing independently of the brain or mind. That makes one free to analyze the term ‘internal’ either physicalistically (in terms of brain states or behavior) or mentalistically, although I stick to the latter because I treat mental entities as having ontological status.

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between the fact that block A is on top of block B and the fact that block B is such that A is on top of it.12 But are assertions of de re belief really analogous to (4)? Consider again my “innocuous” translation of statement (1) above: (2) About the snake in the road, Theodore believes that it won’t bite people.

What I want to suggest is that while (2) may reasonably be held to be about the snake in the road, it is an added assumption that in so being it must play an active role in the proposition of which it occurs as a constituent, doing or being something—that indicated by the predicate of the sentence to which it corresponds. My contention is that this assumption tends to follow from English-speaking philosophers’ unwitting tendencies to treat the logical subjects of propositions analogously to the grammatical subjects of the English sentences that correspond to them. Recall that grammarians of English typically identify the grammatical subjects of English sentences according to two criteria: 1. What the sentence is about. 2. The presence of a certain grammatical correspondence between the noun (or noun phrase) of the sentence and its verb (or verb phrase).

The first of these is a semantic criterion that picks out the logical subject of the associated proposition; the second, referring to certain structural and morphological features of the sentence, is a formal or syntactic criterion. These two features being considered co-extensive properties of grammatical subjects in English, it is only natural to assume that the syntactic criterion of the sentence must reflect something about the logical subject of the proposition corresponding to that sentence—namely, that it must be something that stands in a doing or being relationship with whatever is indicated by the grammatical predicate. Return again to statement (2): Arguably, it is about the snake in the road, but it is entirely unclear whether that snake is being asserted as doing or

Well, the matter is complicated, to be sure. How ought one to identify what a proposition is about? And is it possible for a proposition to be about more than one thing, as I have suggested here? At least insofar as ordinary language is concerned, sentences may be thought of as being about different things depending on subtle differences in communicative contexts, expectations, presuppositions and the like. On the other hand whether or not (4) is really also about block B isn’t all that important; I merely introduce it here to raise a question about the status of de re assertions of belief. 12

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being anything. And until we have an answer to that question, we are not justified in making any inference to (3), namely, (3) The snake in the road is such that Theodore believes that it won’t bite people.

Now while I don’t think that the inference from (2) to (3) is justified, it isn’t my purpose to argue for that claim here. I merely wish to point out that it is an assumption that stands in need of justification, especially in light of the fact that Chinese grammar does not appear to support it. The closest Chinese analogue I can think of to (2) is the following sentence: (2′) lù shàng de shé, Theodore xiăng shì bú huì yăo rén de.

The expression ‘lù shàng de shé’ is translated roughly as “the snake in the road” and occurs at the beginning of the sentence. It is then followed by ‘Theodore xiăng’ (“Theodore believes”) and ‘shì bú huì yăo rén de’ (“(it) won’t bite people”).13 13 One can easily imagine Quineans retorting that my claim to have the “closest analogue” to the English sentence (2) is undermined by translational indeterminacy: The claim is that my believing that (2′) is the closest analogue to (2) is justified only relative to certain questionable and philosophically suspect presuppositions that I have brought to the table in interpreting it—presuppositions engendered through the imposition of a conceptual framework or grid embodying not only specific singular terms to serve conveniently as translational analogues, but also a plethora of auxiliary devices associated with predication, quantification, and identity. And these are presuppositions from which one cannot get free. If I have no choice but to appeal, and ultimately acquiesce, to my own background language (and after all, what else is there?), then my interpretation of (2′) as “the closest analogue” to (2) can only be justified relative to the presuppositions established by it. Independent of those, there is nothing to which I can appeal that would be sufficient to show that the evidence is in favor of my theory about its meaning as opposed to some other, incompatible theory that equally accommodates all the behavioral data. This is so, the Quinean contends, because no matter what methodology I use to determine what another person means, it cannot yield content that is richer than that which can be had by the methodology of radical translation. One cannot know, it is supposed, facts about meanings that the methodology of radical translation cannot emulate. (See Wright, Crispin (1999), “The Indeterminacy of Translation”, in A Companion to the Philosophy of Language, edited by Hale, B., and Wright, C., Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., pp. 397–426 for a useful summary of the underlying issues and presuppositions here). Now I can agree that in the context of radical translation, when translating another’s utterances into one’s native tongue, there may be questions about meaning that the methodology of radical translation cannot answer, and this is to agree that there may be theories about another’s meanings in the context of radical translation that are underdetermined by the empirical data. But this is not to agree, as the Quinean thesis does presuppose, that there is no third-person/first-person asymmetry in the epistemology of the comprehension of meanings. For I do believe that there are certain things

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What is intriguing about a sentence like (2′) is that there is no anaphoric pronoun in the last expression of the preceding paragraph referring back to the expression ‘lù shàng de shé’, so there is no indication, contra externalism, that the snake in the road, qua mind-independent object, is literally a constituent of Theodore’s belief state.14 That alone, in my opinion, is strong evidence for the claim that Chinese does not support the thesis of externalism. But furthermore, and perhaps even more importantly, while the grammar of (2′) suggests that it is indeed about the snake in the road, there is nothing asserted directly about it; the presence of ‘lù shàng de shé’ in the sentence serves only to fix a context for the communication of the meaning of the sentence. Such a context is generally assumed to be something about which both the speaker and listener have prior knowledge. This usually, though not always, carries with it the assumption that the object of that context exists. But this in no way implies that a relation is being asserted between that object and something else, such as a believer, because there is nothing in (2′) that suggests any doing or being relationship between the snake in the road and either Theodore or some internal, intentional content. The expression ‘lù shàng de shé’ serves to fix a

that I can know about what I mean that you cannot know likewise merely by observing my behavior, even in idealized observational circumstances. I thus hold that the understanding of meaning is not exhausted by conditions that some might describe as “public”. In holding this I thus deny that the underdetermination of translation leads to the indeterminacy of meaning, for I deny that there are no facts of the matter beyond what might be discriminated through dispositions of behavior. So my point is that as long as I have privileged, determinate access to my own meanings, then I can appeal to those meanings to make reasonable conjectures about what another person means, in a way that extends beyond—but is not quite independent of—the behavioral data. Needless to say, these claims cannot be defended here; I am merely pointing them out to clarify some of the presuppositions that motivate the present work. 14 A word about descriptions: In making this point I have used the descriptive phrase ‘the snake in the road’ which, as we know from Russell, may not really be a genuinely referring term at all. Very well, I am then taking for granted that there is a snake in the road, and that nothing else is a snake in the road; i.e., that there is something that instantiates the relevant properties. What I am pointing out, then, is that, in the corresponding Chinese sentence, there is no indication that there is anything instantiating the relevant properties which is also literally a constituent of Theodore’s belief state. At most, owing to the curious absence of pronominal anaphora in reports of belief in Chinese, we have indicated a concept of a sort—to wit, being such that it won’t bite people. Such a concept could, reasonably in accordance with internalism, be a constituent of Theodore’s belief state, along with, perhaps, some others, but the moment we introduce a physical object into the makeup of the belief state, we lapse into externalism.

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communicative context, but the object to which it corresponds plays no active role in the corresponding proposition.15 One can make the point another way by comparing (2′) to another sentence that is non-doxastic but which shares a common grammatical structure in the relevant respects, such as: (5) nèi kē shù, yèzi shì lù de.

(“That tree, (its) leaves are green.”)

This sentence is clearly about the tree in question, since it is an object of which both the speaker and listener are assumed to have knowledge, but it is not the tree that is being asserted as green, but its leaves. Hence ‘yèzi’ must be its grammatical subject. And here ‘yèzi’ fulfills the same functional role in (5) as “Theodore” does in (2′): both stand in a doing or being relationship with that which is indicated by the verb phrase of the sentence in question. For these reasons I want to say that the difference between (2′) and its Chinese “de dicto” counterpart, (1′) Theodore xiăng lù shàng de shé shì bú huì yăo rén de,

is rather pedestrian. It is not a difference in the kind of belief reported on—as though we are talking, ontologically, about two different sorts

15 I owe Searle the observation that there are sentences in English that don’t appear to support the thesis of externalism either (from discussion with him, Hong Kong, June, 2005). Witness the sentence ‘The snake in the road, Theodore believes, won’t bite people’. Just as in (2′) above, this sentence fails to contain any pronominal anaphora; consequently, it fails to suggest that the snake in the road (assuming there is one) is literally a constituent of Theodore’s belief state. So any claim to the effect that the grammar of English is misleading—systematically, at least—when it comes to reports of intentional attitudes loses some of its traction here. Nevertheless, it is clear that many Western philosophers (i.e., many content externalists) have been misled by the grammatical form of the English de re assertion (2) above, by tacitly regarding it as the grammatical form that is most transparently representative of the class of de re beliefs. Moreover, the form of the sentence here indicated is still misleading in its encouragement of externalism, I maintain, so long as we hold fast to a subject-predicate interpretation of its grammatical structure and ignore the fact that Chinese supports the view that topics be treated as an independent grammatical category. This is because the expression ‘the snake in the road’, qua subject of the sentence (and not topic) still encourages the idea that the object to which it corresponds makes up a literal constituent of Theodore’s belief state. If, on the other hand, ‘the snake in the road’ were capable of being interpreted as a topic in English (which it is not), then the question as to whether it ought to be understood as a constituent of Theodore’s belief state would simply be unnecessary: as a mere fixer of grammatical context it wouldn’t indicate anything about the content of Theodore’s belief. It is my hope that observations such as these will admonish us to think more flexibly not only about propositions involving belief states, but also about propositional content in general.

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of entities here. Rather, what we have is a grammatical distinction in Chinese more naturally compatible with the view that (2′) and (1′) express a distinction in reports of belief. (2′) commits us (generally) to the existence of the snake, whereas (1′) remains noncommittal on the issue. This being the only difference conveyed, it is entirely compatible with the view that that which is indicated as the internal mental content of Theodore’s belief may be exactly the same in each case, and that such content is the only thing that is genuinely relevant to the individuation of beliefs. That puts the phenomenon of belief right back in the head, as it were (precisely where, incidentally, Searle wants it). It is important to emphasize that the internal mental contents indicated in (2′) and (1′) only may be the same, not that they must be the same. For (2′) leaves that matter undecided. To see why, suppose our reporter tells us that: (6) About the F, Theodore believes that it is G.

Question: Does this statement commit Theodore to believing, de dicto, that the F is G, or does Theodore appeal to some other concept in order to pick out the referent that satisfies the description ‘the F’? Put another way, would Theodore assent to the statement: The F is G,

if (6) were in fact true? Well, quite simply, he might, and he might not, depending on the circumstances. Suppose “the F” is “the man who lives next door”, and suppose that the man who lives next door was creeping around Theodore’s backyard last night. We can imagine Theodore believing that there was an extraterrestrial creeping around in his backyard last night, without any inkling that it was really his neighbor. And we can even embellish the idea by imagining Theodore to have a disposition to insist that it was not his neighbor, but a genuine extraterrestrial. In those circumstances, at least, Theodore would not assent to the assertion that The man who lives next door is an alien,

although someone else might legitimately report that Theodore believes about his neighbor that he is an alien. For who else would it be, but his neighbor, in virtue of whom he has formed his belief ? And there would be nothing wrong with this, because it would only tell us that our reporter is committed to the existence of the F, not that there is any particular assertion to which Theodore would assent.

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The upshot of this is simply that de re reports of belief in English, at any rate, have to be considered ambiguous. This is because, quite independently of the ontological issue as to whether Theodore’s neighbor himself would literally be a constituent of Theodore’s belief state, the pronominal anaphora (e.g., ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’) within the that-clauses of such reports are flatly uncertain as regards their semantic significance. When it is said, for instance, “Theodore believes about his neighbor that he is an extraterrestrial”, how ought we to interpret the word ‘he’? Because its referent is had only parasitically through a host term situated outside the very scope of the that-clause, and hence apparently beyond the scope of Theodore’s internal mental content, it is entirely unclear how it ought to be understood. Notice, furthermore, that this problem is carried over into the Russellian transcription of (6), which can be expressed semi-formally as: (%x)((Fy ≡ y y = x) & Theodore believes (Gx))

Within the belief context of this expression we have an open formula ‘Gx’ whose variable is bound by a quantifier from the outside. In the West there has been a tendency to treat pronominal anaphora as analogous to the bound variables of quantification, but a hard look at Chinese gives us reason to believe that quantification into belief contexts is indeed what Quine has called “a dubious business”.16 In this respect it is to the merit of Chinese that it simply derails a whole stock of issues pertaining to pronominal anaphora (within the context of belief ascriptions), and their precarious implications thought so problematic in Western analytic philosophy, by simply omitting them and letting certain things go happily unsaid.17 Quine, W.V. (1956), “Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes”, Journal of Philosophy 53, pp. 177–87. 17 There is a temptation among English-speaking philosophers to think of what follows the word ‘that’ in sentences such as ‘S believes that the F is G’ or ‘S believes that it is G’ as always representing complete proposition, and that sentences expressing attitudinal states in general (such as those, for example, using the words ‘believes’, ‘desires’, ‘hopes’, ‘worships’, ‘loves’, etc.) are always translatable into sentences embodying thatclauses indicating complete propositions as objects of attitudes. (I need only point out, as evidence of this “temptation”, the prominence with which the term ‘propositional attitude’, originally coined by Russell, has gained in Western analytic philosophy). Now I don’t mean to say that there is no proposition or other believed by Theodore in the event that the sentence ‘Theodore believes of the F that it is G’ is true. What I am pointing out is that one has to resist the temptation to treat either ‘The F is G’ or ‘it is G’ as a reliable indicator of the content of that proposition. Here again, Chinese strikes one as more faithful to the ontology, not by what it says, but by what it doesn’t 16

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4. Is Searle’s Philosophy More Effectively Represented in the Language of Chinese? The compatibility observed in Searle’s views on de re belief and Chinese representations of such beliefs is striking. While Searle wholly dismisses a de re/de dicto distinction with respect to beliefs (except in the innocuous sense we discussed above in which de re beliefs are treated merely a subclass of de dicto ones), he happily embraces one with respect to reports of beliefs: [T]here is a genuine de re/de dicto distinction, but it is only a distinction in kinds of reports. If de re propositional attitudes are supposed to be those in which Intentional content is insufficient to individuate the mental state, then there are no such things as de re propositional attitudes; though there are de re reports of propositional attitudes in the sense that there are reports that commit the reporter to the existence of objects that the propositional attitudes are about.18

It is no small challenge to abandon our prejudices about this. If Searle is right, then the grammatical difference embodied in the de re/de dicto distinction conveys no real ontological significance. One might say that it boils down to something much like a common distinction involving indirect objects in Chinese. Consider these sentences: (7) wö rēng le nèi ge lán qiú gĕi tā. (“I threw that basketball to him.”) (8) wö rēng gĕi tā nèi ge lán qiú. (“I threw to him that basketball.”)

Arguably both of these sentences express the same proposition: They both indicate that a particular object, a basketball, is being transferred by me to another person. Yet they are different: In the former case the direct object of the sentence precedes the indirect object, while in the latter, the reverse is true. The difference here has nothing to do with ontology. Li and Thompson argue that it is a functional one, by suggesting that they are most appropriately used in different speech

say. I say this because if we have the de re Chinese report ‘lù shàng de shé, Theodore xiăng shì bú huì yăo rén de’, the expression ‘Theodore xiăng shì bú huì yăo rén de’ is not a complete sentence in Chinese. The very fact that it is incomplete decisively undercuts any propensity to treat it as indicating the content of a complete proposition. To be sure, this only adds ramparts to the Russellian idea that ordinary grammar is misleading as to the forms of the propositions it is used to express, and this widens the gulf between ordinary language sentences and formal language transcriptions. But on the positive side, Chinese at least avoids, on this matter, the pitfalls of ambiguity. 18 Searle, 1983, p. 217.

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contexts.19 (7) would be used in a context in which the direct object (‘nèi ge lán qiú’) has already been mentioned as a piece of information, but not the indirect one; whereas (8) would be used in a context in which the indirect object (‘tā’), but not the direct object, has already been mentioned. That makes the distinction simply one of information and emphasis. As I have articulated it, the Chinese distinction between (2′) and (1′) above is likewise most plausibly taken to represent a distinction between reports of belief, as opposed to anything that is genuinely ontological. There is the curious absence of anaphoric pronoun use in reports of belief in Chinese (as in (2′) above), which cleanly and effectively sidesteps those issues regarding pronominal anaphora that have been thought so problematic by Western English-speaking philosophers. As I read him, Searle would happily do without them, for it would render unnecessary the need for furnishing an explanation for the connection of pronouns to references parasitically through other terms outside the that-clauses of belief sentences. Without such pronouns, it would be far easier to maintain that the content of one’s belief is entirely “inside the head”, for there would be no inclination to treat the references of the anaphora in question as genuine constituents of belief states. And furthermore, there is the notable fact that while Chinese grammar recognizes a distinction between subjects and predicates, it is also best interpreted as supporting a topic-comment grammatical structure that allows us to talk meaningfully about things without implying that the things talked about are being asserted as doing or being anything. And this obviates any fear we might have in being committed to otherwise undesirable implications about the objects of belief in de re belief reports. I don’t know whether Searle himself would find this latter point congenial to his own views on propositions. This is because it abandons what I take to be a very deeply ingrained assumption at the bottom of most positive accounts of propositionhood in Western philosophical literature. I have referred to this as the Active Role assumption, and I have tacitly regarded it as a Western criterion of meaningfulness: for a sentence to be meaningful, the thing that it is about must play an active role in the proposition to which it corresponds, doing or being something (indicated by the verb). Now while I have not shown that this assumption is false (something that would require an essay of its own),

19

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Li and Thompson, 1989, pp. 371–3.

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I have, I think, exposed it as something implicitly endorsed by those adopting the more stringent de re/de dicto distinction. I have also shown that it stands in need of independent justification, especially in light of the fact that accepting it seems to have the effect of rendering certain classes of grammatically well-formed Chinese sentences incoherent. For while it is suggested and encouraged by the grammar of English, it is not by the grammar of Chinese. And this is a sign not only that certain of our ontological assumptions may have been distracted by surface-level features of English grammar, but also that a familiarity with Chinese may serve to free us from that distraction by opening up a new ontological possibility.

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REPLY TO MARSHALL D. WILLMAN John R. Searle I thought Marshall Willman’s talk was excellent and I think I agreed with almost everything. I also learned some things about Chinese philosophy that I did not know. I have a few additional comments I would like to make. First, you can have the same phenomenon in English without an anaphoric pronoun. So I can say, using his example, (2) About the snake in the road, Theodore believes it won’t bite people.

But there is another English sentence which does not have an anaphoric pronoun, but which I think most English speakers would interpret as a de re report: (2*) The snake in the road, Theodore believes, won’t bite people.

That is, I think that sentence would be given an interpretation which is equivalent to his de re (2). And the reason is that by syntactically moving the subject to the front of the sentence 2* allows for a semantic interpretation where they reference is outside the scope of “believes”. And 2* example seems to have the same type of topic-comment character that he was citing for Chinese. Both of these sentences seem to commit the speaker to the existence of a snake in the road. So I don’t think there is such a big difference between English and Chinese, because you can do the same in English, you can knock out the anaphoric pronoun. What is actually going on in these cases? Well I think the confusion is, as I said in the book he cites, between features of reports of beliefs and features of beliefs. There definitely are de dicto reports and de re reports, and clearly there is a distinction. So if I say: “You know that snake in the road. About that snake in the road, Theodore believes it won’t bite people,” This is a de re report, but if I say, “Theodore believes that the snake in the road won’t bite people,” that is a de dicto report. But the real mistake is in supposing that because there are different kinds of reports of beliefs there must be different kinds of beliefs. And the decisive argument is that the distinction is not one Theodore can make. That

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is, I say to Theodore, “Theodore do you believe the snake in the road won’t bite people?” He says, “Oh no John, you ask me if I have a de dicto belief. I don’t believe that the snake in the road won’t bite people. What I believe is about the snake in the road, it won’t bite people, and that is a de re belief.” I cannot hear any difference in Theodore’s commitment in the two cases. That is, if there is a distinction between two different kinds of beliefs, then Theodore should be able to make that distinction, and he can’t. Theodore says, “About the snake in the road I believe it won’t bite people.” Or he says, “I believe the snake in the road won’t bite people.” Those are exactly the same belief from Theodore’s point of view because any circumstance in which one is true will be a circumstance in which the other is true. Now it can’t be a difference in two kinds of belief if Theodore himself can’t make the distinction. So why do we make the distinction? Well, I think Willman gave a very good answer to that: because sometimes we want to focus our attention on the thing that the belief is about and commit ourselves as reporters to the existence of that thing. In other cases we don’t. There is another mistake that the philosophers I am criticizing make, that Willman did not point out, but that I want to call attention to now. They think that the fact that corresponds to a belief statement is that the speaker stands in a relation to a proposition. They think that belief reports are like standard reports of relations such as the relation described if I say, “The book is on top of the table.” On this view, if I say, “Theodore believes that the snake won’t bite people.” I am reporting a relation between Theodore and a proposition. I believe that this is a deep mistake. The word “belief ” does not name a relation between me and a proposition, because the belief just is the proposition as believed. The proposition is not the object of the belief, but its content. Belief doesn’t name a relation between a believer and something else. But once you make that mistake, once you think “belief ” names a two place relation, then it is easy to believe that there might be beliefs that are three place relations. Then you get the conclusion that there must be de re belief. On my account, the view that the verb “believe” names a relation is another source of the mistake involved in believing that there are two kinds of belief, de re and de dicto. In line with what he was saying, that is another grammatical source of the mistake. There are two things he said that I think I disagree with, but it is quite possible I may simply be misunderstanding him. He says that

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john r. searle (2), The snake in the road, Theodore believes it won’t bite people

is not equivalent to (3) The snake in the road is such that Theodore believes it won’t bite people.

The way I understand these they have exactly the same truth conditions. In both cases the speaker commits himself to the existence of the snake in the road and then he goes on to state a fact about it. The report is de re in both cases. He objects to this on the grounds that “it is entirely unclear whether that snake is being asserted as doing or being anything”. But in the ordinary sloppy ways that school grammarians talk, the snake is indeed being something, it is being believed by Theodore not to bite people. Secondly, and related to this, he says de re reports of belief in English have to be considered ambiguous, because the “reports are flatly uncertain as regards their semantic significance” But what the example shows is not that the sentence is ambiguous but that the report is incomplete. If I utter a sentence like (2) I tell you what Theodore believes about the snake. But I do not tell you how he represents the snake to himself. That is left unspecified. This is not a form of semantic ambiguity. This is merely a form of incompleteness. Willman’s Reply I was just curious how you saw that as an argument. The argument that you made earlier that Theodore cannot make that distinction for himself because the content externalists are going to say, “Yea that’s precisely the point.” I mean he’s not going to be in a position in certain circumstances to make that distinction by himself. But I don’t see that as quite an argument against externalism. Searle’s Response It is not an argument against externalism, it’s an argument against the de re/de dicto distinction for types of beliefs, as opposed to that distinction being a distinction between different types of reports of beliefs. The structure of the argument is this: because beliefs only exist from

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the first person or the believer’s point of view, if the believer himself cannot make a distinction between the de dicto belief and the de re belief, it cannot be the case that they are two different kinds of beliefs. What then is the distinction? The distinction is two different kinds of reports of beliefs. In one case, the de dicto, the reporter reports the whole belief but does not commit himself, the reporter, to any of the content of the belief. On the other hand, in the de re report, the reporter can decide to commit himself to some part of the belief, namely to the existence of the object that the belief refers to. The point of the argument is not to show that externalism is false. The point, rather, is to show that one of the arguments for externalism is not valid because it confuses different ways of reporting beliefs with different kinds of beliefs. Willman’s Reply I am just curious as to how you would analyze sentence (2) here. If you were to spell that out completely in ordinary language, what would you consider to be an analysis of that sentence? Searle’s Response I think we would normally interpret sentence (2) as saying, first that utterance of the sentence commits the speaker to the existence of the snake in the road. That’s why I don’t see any interesting difference between (2) and (3). So (2) says, “There is this snake in the road and now about this snake Theodore believes it won’t bite people.” And in this utterance, the reporter is committed to the existence of the snake in the road. Theodore has to have some way that he represents the snake in the road, but in a report like (2), the reporter does not tell you how Theodore represents the snake in the road. It only tells you that there is a snake, and that about that snake, Theodore believes it won’t bite people. I think ordinary language is much looser than most philosophers are aware. I once looked up “King Arthur” in a children’s encyclopedia, and it said something like, “About King Arthur most experts believe that he never existed.” Philosophers are more attuned to these subtle distinctions than I think most people are. But I am a philosopher and I

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want to say that the natural way to hear (2) is different from (1) because (2) commits the person who says it to the existence of the snake and (1) doesn’t. Willman’s Reply The analysis that I have in mind of (2) would be something like there is a snake in the road, and there is some proposition or other, but (2) doesn’t specify what that proposition is, that Theodore believes whose subject term picks out that snake in the road perhaps by some other content. Theodore believes about that thing, whatever it is, that it won’t bite people. Searle’s Response That’s OK by me. Theodore must have some representation of the snake, but (2) doesn’t tell you how Theodore represents the snake. Willman’s Reply Right. And I was just saying that if you look at (2), you are not led to assuming that you know what the content of Theodore’s beliefs is by that sentence because the pronoun is simply not there. If you look at (2) in English, there is that pronoun and there is that question, as I said before, as to how to interpret that, and you want to treat that as a proposition. But the Chinese doesn’t suggest that. There is one other point I was trying to make in my paper, and that is that you don’t see too much of a distinction between (2) and (3) here but in Chinese I don’t know how (3) would be represented but there are certain interesting things about the topic-comment grammatical distinction in Chinese that suggest or at least raise certain questions about proposition-hood. I want to return to that one sentence that I suggested before (something in Chinese). Translated literally what that says is, “that tree over there, its leaves are green.” To me if you said that in English that is not expressing a complete sentence. Although we might communicate that way in ordinary conversation, but if you wrote that out on a paper and turned it in to an English professor he is going to mark it as an

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incomplete sentence. So that suggests very interesting questions about the nature of proposition-hood that we would not be thinking about in English because we don’t have that topic-comment grammatical distinction. Searle’s Response I appreciate that. I learned something I didn’t know.

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SECTION C

MORALITY

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CHAPTER TEN

CONFUCIANISM AND THE IS-OUGHT QUESTION A.T. Nuyen In this paper I aim to give a reading of Confucianism such that, if I am right, we can say that the Confucians showed us how to derive ‘ought’ from ‘is’ long before Searle did in his 1964 paper.1 This is not to say that the medal should be taken away from Searle and awarded retrospectively to the Confucians instead. Indeed, I will show that thanks to Searle, we now realize that the Confucians were saying all along that ‘ought’ is derivable from ‘is’. I will use Searle’s derivation as a kind of template to read many of the central claims of Confucianism and through this process cast some light on the nature of Confucian ethics. It is not my intention to demonstrate that Confucianism is the source of counter-examples against the Humean thesis that Searle wants to put in doubt, let alone to argue that Confucianism can contribute to what Searle hopes for, namely “a theory which will generate an indefinite number of counter-examples” (p. 38)—on the contrary, there may be reason to think that there are no counter-examples to be drawn from Confucianism. It is even further from my intention to enter, through my reading of Confucianism, the debate between the (moral) naturalists and non-naturalists, and the related debate between the (moral) realists and non-realists, though it is possible to construct a Confucian perspective on these debates. 1. Deriving ‘Ought’ from ‘Is’ and the Confucian Context In his paper, Searle argues that from the factual statement “Jones uttered the words ‘I hereby promise to pay you, Smith, five dollars’ ”, we can derive “Jones ought to pay Smith five dollars”. He claims (pp. 39–40) that if we add to the first, factual, statement two further factual

1

Searle (1964), in Sterba (1998). Page references are to the latter.

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statements stating that under certain “conditions C ” anyone who utters the words in question indeed promises to pay Smith five dollars, and that conditions C obtain, we derive “Jones promised to pay Smith five dollars”. This statement, in turn, entails “Jones placed himself under (undertook) an obligation to pay Smith five dollars”, if we accept as a matter of fact that a promise is an act of “placing oneself under (undertaking) an obligation to do the thing promised”. Now, given the fact that all those who “place themselves under an obligation are, other things being equal, under an obligation”, and supposing that other things are equal, we can derive from Jones’ undertaking the following: “Jones is under an obligation to pay Smith five dollars.” Other things being equal, this last statement entails “Jones ought to pay Smith five dollars”. Searle insists that we can specify “conditions C ” and all the things that are supposed to be equal in such a way that no evaluative statement has been smuggled in at any stage of the derivation of “Jones ought to . . .” from “Jones uttered the words . . .”. As is well known, Searle’s argument has generated a huge volume of critical reactions. It is not my intention here to adjudicate the debate between Searle and his critics, although if I am right in my claim that the Confucians can be said to have derived ‘ought’ from ‘is’ in a way similar to what Searle suggests, we can better understand that debate through an examination of Confucianism and Confucian ethics. My main interest here is to establish that claim about Confucianism, which will help us better understand Confucian ethics. Towards establishing the claim, let us consider the following statements: 1. Chan had thought long and hard about marriage, finally decided to marry his girlfriend, and went through all the proper legal and social marriage ceremonies. 2. Chan promised to be a husband. 3. Chan has placed himself under (undertaken) an obligation to be a husband (to his wife). 4. Chan is under an obligation to be a husband (to his wife). 5. Chan ought to be a husband to his wife. Statements (1) to (5) above are meant to mirror Searle’s derivation. That Chan ought to be a husband (by acting in a certain way) is derived from our understanding of the act of promising to be a husband embedded somewhere in the legal and social marriage ceremonies. We can show, following Searle with minor variations, that each statement from (2) to

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(5) follows from the previous one. This, of course, is not how Confucians would derive the claim that Chan, or any other man, ought to be a husband to his wife by acting in a certain way from the factual events in (1). Textual evidence indicates that the entailment is rather bluntly stated. On such evidence, Confucians would be more likely to say that (1) above simply entails that Chan is a husband, and the fact that Chan is a husband simply entails (5). This can be seen, for instance, from Mencius’s account of the five relationships stated in the Mencius (3A4).2 Indeed, the ‘ought’ in (5) is spelt out rather specifically in various places in the Mencius, where Mencius says that the fact that Chan is a husband entails (6): “Chan ought to act with righteousness toward his wife.” The same thing can be said about the other four relationships mentioned at Mencius 3A4. Thus, being a ruler, one ought to be benevolent (to one’s subjects, and being a subject, one ought to be loyal); being a son, one ought to be filial; being a wife, one ought to be submissive; and being a friend, one ought to be faithful. Elsewhere in Confucian writings, the ‘ought’ becomes more specific as we find specified what one ought and ought not to do in order to be a benevolent ruler, a loyal subject, a filial son and a faithful friend. For instance, we find in Lun-Yü [the Analects] that the filial son ought not to disobey his parents (2.5), ought not to travel far from home when his parents are still alive (4.19), ought to observe the bent of his father’s will (1.11), and so on.3 On the face of it, claims such as “X is a ruler (or subject, or son, or friend) so X ought to do A, B and C and ought not to do X, Y and Z” simply violate Hume’s law. To show that Confucians did not commit a logical error, we have to show that the Confucian “is” in such claims does entail the Confucian ‘ought’. One way to do so is to map those claims onto the template given by Searle, as in (1) to (5) above. However, it is difficult to do so in such a way that reflects Confucian thinking: as mentioned, the way from (1) to (5), let alone to (6), is not the Confucian way. In any case, in some relationships, such as being a son, or to some extent being a subject, what one happens to be is not a matter of deliberately doing something, such as uttering certain words, that would put one under an ought-yielding obligation. Such cases do not seem to fit Searle’s template. However, a closer look at Searle’s

English translation of the Mencius has been adapted from various sources. English translation of Lun-Yü [the Analects] has been adapted from various sources. 2 3

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derivation shows that it works by exploiting the socio-linguistic context of a certain speech-act, which in his case is the act of promising.4 The crucial move, for Searle, is the move that equates the act of promising with the act of placing oneself under an obligation. The crucial claim is: “No analysis of the concept of promising will be complete which does not include the feature of the promiser placing himself under or undertaking or accepting or recognizing an obligation to the promisee, to perform some future course of action . . .” (p. 39). Searle’s argument is that certain social conventions and certain conditions—felicitous conditions as Austin puts it, which are all factual to be sure—operate in such a way as to set up a context in which the uttering of certain words counts as placing oneself under, or undertaking, an obligation that entails an ‘ought’. Following Searle, it is possible to argue that there is a Confucian context—the equivalent of Searle’s “conditions C” and all the things that are supposed to be “equal”—operating in the background, from which we can extract the necessary premises to make the move from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ that we frequently encounter in Confucian texts a logical one. In my example above, which can be repeated to apply to a father, a subject, a friend, etc., we may say, borrowing Searle’s words above, that in the Confucian context, “no analysis of the concept of [a husband, a father, a subject, a friend . . .] will be complete which does not include the feature of the [husband etc.] placing himself under or undertaking or accepting or recognizing an obligation . . . to perform some future course of action . . .”. Thus, Searle may be said to have shown us the way to show that there is a logical link between the Confucian duties and obligations—the Confucian ‘ought’—and the way the world is as the Confucians saw it. We may, of course, reject the Confucian ought-claims, but if I am right then we have to do so by rejecting the Confucian world-view, not by invoking Hume’s law. In the next section, I will construct the Confucian context in the broadest possible terms, namely in terms of the way the Confucians understand the self, to show that in the Confucian context, the concept of a person in a social role, e.g. that of a husband, does entail that person placing himself or herself under an obligation to behave in a certain way, which in turn entails that the person ought “to perform some . . . course of action”. My strategy is

4 This has been pointed out by many commentators. See for instance, Anthony Flew (1964).

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to generalize from Searle’s specific case where “we construe ‘I hereby promise . . .’ as . . . having a certain meaning [and it is] a consequence of that meaning that the utterance of that phrase under certain conditions is the act of promising” (p. 41), which in turn is an act that yields an ‘ought’. In other words, I aim to show that, again borrowing Searle’s words, the Confucians “construe [the self ] as having a certain meaning and it is a consequence of that meaning that [the self is, factually, under certain ought-yielding obligations]”. 2. The Confucian Context: Self and Others Many commentators have claimed that there is a marked difference between the conception of the self in the west and that found in Chinese philosophy in general, and in Confucianism in particular. It is often said that the western self is a self-sufficient, autonomous individual who understands himself or herself as separate from and independent of others and who chooses to form relationships with others, relationships that are purely contingent.5 This picture of the western self is often enough painted and equally often attributed to liberal thinkers. It contains, as we shall see, a conception of the self quite consistent with the kind of dualistic thinking that produces the fact-value, or the is-ought, distinction. I have elsewhere argued that this picture of the western self is at least misleading.6 However, it seems to be part of a conception of a larger social context in which duties and obligations are a matter entirely for the autonomous and independent self to decide. Arguably, Searle’s derivation succeeds because it appeals to a different context, one in which the self is not entirely autonomous and independent, and its success may be said to undermine the commonly painted picture of the self. I shall not pursue this point here, as my target is not Searle but the Confucians. But if I am right about Searle, or about his strategy, the way is open for us to argue that there is no logical error in the Confucian move from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ because the Confucians operate with a conception of the self and an understanding of the social context in which the self is embedded, that permit the

In some countries, a son or daughter can ‘divorce’ his or her parents! See my “The Self and Its Virtues: Is There a Chinese-Western Contrast?”, Nuyen (2006). 5 6

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move, perhaps even require it. To understand the Confucian conception of the self, and through which the Confucian social context, we need to return to the supposed contrast between it and the misleading picture of the western self mentioned above. In that picture of the western self, the self, being an independent, autonomous and individual person, has a private domain, in which reside his or her feelings, wishes and desires, hopes and fears and all other inclinations, and a public domain, in which all his or her interactions with others take place. Private inclinations, which are non-rational, in turn generate values, which should remain private to a self. In dealing with others in the public domain, a person must remain objective, deal only with facts and suppress inclinations towards private values. Even when it comes to what one ought to do, the self must remain factual and objective except, just in case one is a moral subjectivist, for a certain moral principle that has to be posited as an ought-premise that enables an ought-conclusion to be generated. Thus, for instance, once the utilitarian principle of maximizing happiness or the good consequences has been accepted, the moral calculations must remain factual and objective. One ought to save the archbishop and not one’s own mother if she is only a chambermaid. One can, of course, adopt an ought-premise that generates the conclusion that one ought to save one’s own mother rather than the archbishop, but it would stand accused of being not a rational, universalisable premise. For the objectivists, values may be posited in the public domain, but they have to be rationally arrived at, such as the utilitarian value of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Only these can serve as universalisable ought-premises. In any case, the non-rational, private values, such as those one attaches to the mother-son or mother-daughter relationship, will not do. The rational, in turn, is typically seen as the product of the mind, or the intellect, whereas the non-rational is the product of bodily functions, of the heart. It seems, then, that the is-ought distinction goes hand-in-hand with the fact-value, rational-non-rational, mind-body, mind-heart, public-private, distinctions, all of which, in one way or another, are connected to the others-self distinction. If this is right, it will be fruitful to look at these distinctions in Confucianism to see how Confucians derive ‘ought’ from ‘is’, particularly the others-self distinction. This is why, even though the supposed western-Chinese contrast on the self is at least misleading, it is a useful starting point. The supposed western-Chinese contrast on the self is misleading not just because some commentators have painted a misleading picture

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of the western self. The same error has been committed on the other side. To get at an accurate picture of the Confucian self, we can begin with erroneous ones and make corrections to them. At one extreme, we have what might be called the ‘selfless view’ according to which Confucianism teaches the total suppression of the self, or suppression of self interests and self identity. For instance, Donald J. Munro believes that there is no self as such in the Chinese understanding of a person. On his reading, the Confucian self is a “selfless person [who] is always willing to subordinate his own interests, or that of some small group (like a village) to which he belongs, to the interest of a larger group”.7 This rather extreme “selfless person” reading of the Confucian conception of the self is mistaken. Indeed, taken literally, Munro’s view is incoherent: to be willing to subordinate one’s own interests to the interests of a larger group, one must be aware of one’s own interests, understand the interests of the larger group, and come to the conclusion that one’s own interests must be subordinated to the group’s interests, all of which requires a strong sense of the self, not a selfless view of one’s self. Somewhat less extreme is Julia Ching’s view. According to Ching, “. . . the Chinese view of the human being tends to see the person in the context of a social network rather than as an individual” (emphasis added).8 Nevertheless, this characterization still implies that the Chinese do not see the self as an individual at all, which is at best misleading. In all the Confucian classics, the stress is always on the development of the individual, on the process of individual learning (to become a gentleman, jun-zi, and ultimately a sage). The teachings in the Confucian classics make use of exemplary individuals with distinct and unique characteristics, individuals who are the driving force of the moral society, not anonymous beings lost in the ‘social network’, or a ‘cog in the machine’ as some would have it. To be sure, the idea of harmony (he) is important in Confucianism, but harmony is not to be achieved by suppressing individual identity. Indeed, the very idea of harmony implies individuality and distinctness, like orchestral harmony which preserves the individuality and distinctness of different musical instruments. One characterization of the Confucian self that preserves self identity is Chenyang Li’s. Li contends that in “the Confucian view, [the]

7 8

Munro (1997). See also Munro (1985). Ching (1998), p. 72.

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self is not an independent agent who happens to be in certain social relationships”.9 Rather, the self “is constituted of, and situated in social relationships” (ibid.). I read Li’s claim to imply that the Confucian view allows for a self with an individual identity even though it is an identity defined in terms of the social relationships. The Confucian self does have an identity, but this identity is not arrived at, or defined, independently of the society in which the self finds itself. Rather, the self defines itself in terms of the social roles it occupies in the society. The society, in turn, is constituted by distinct individual selves acting in different roles. Roger Ames and David Hall have helpfully employed the focal-field metaphor to characterize the relationship between the individual self with the social network of relationships in which it finds itself. For Hall and Ames, the Confucian self is “a focal in that it both constitutes and is constituted by the field in which it resides”, the “field of social activity and relations”.10 Using Hall and Ames’ metaphor, we may say that what is wrong with Ching’s and Munro’s characterizations of the Chinese view is that, in them, the self ’s identity is lost in the social field; it lacks a focus. Elsewhere, Ames argues that the relationship between the Confucian self and its social others should not be seen in terms of a dualism between self and others. Rather, he claims, it is a “polar” relationship. Borrowing the dualism-polarism distinction made by David Hall, Roger Ames claims that classical Chinese metaphysics is characterized by polarism, or the principle of symbiotic existence of polar opposites, “which require each other as a necessary condition for being what they are”.11 In the polar relationship, “each ‘pole’ can only be explained by reference to the other” (pp. 159–160), precisely because each pole is constitutive of the other. In the Chinese conception, the self-others relationship is a polar relationship and as such, “the ‘other’ particulars which make up existence are, in fact, constitutive of ‘self ’ ” (p. 159). In such relationship, “‘self ’ requires ‘other’ ” (p. 160). In terms of Ames’s (and Hall’s) focus-field metaphor above, presumably, the “focal self ” stands in a polar relationship with the “fielded self ” in as much as a focus stands in a polar relationship with a field (“since the field is always entertained from a particular perspective”, or the focal point, and since

9 10 11

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Li (1999), p. 94. Hall and Ames (1998), p. 43. Ames (1993), p. 159.

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a focal point is always a point in a field). Ames goes on to argue that the Confucian self stands in a polar relationship with the body, not a dualistic relationship as in the Cartesian view of the self. Hall and Ames point out that the Confucian body is a “lived body (shen)” (p. 34), which cannot be neglected in the understanding of the self, as it often is in (what Hall and Ames take to be) the philosophy of liberalism. Given that the self “is constituted of, and situated in social relationships” as Li puts it, Li seems to be right in claiming that “self-knowledge can only be reflective [and] can only be gained through knowing people with whom we are in relationships” (pp. 94–5). Indeed, we might be able to support Li’s claim by examining the Confucian view of self-cultivation. Thus, as a relational self, the self cultivates itself by cultivating relational virtues. As Tu Wei-ming puts it, “(s)elf-cultivation can very well be understood as the broadening of the self to embody an ever-expanding circle of human relatedness”.12 For Shun Kwongloi, the Confucian self-cultivation is the cultivation of humaneness and righteousness, the former stressing a “proper affective concern for other living things,” and the latter the fulfillment of the “obligations one has in virtue of the social positions one occupies, such as being a parent or an official, as well as following certain ceremonial rules of conduct governing the interaction between people in various social contexts”.13 This last claim of Shun’s deserves closer examination. For Confucians, social relationships are characterized by social positions, or roles, and social positions are defined in terms of obligations. To each position is attached a set of obligations, and to be in a position is to be under a set of obligations. Which obligations go with which position is encoded in the rites, li. To be in a social relationship, then, is to stand under certain obligations. What one ought to do and how one ought to behave in a certain relationship are all set out in li. Thus, li describes both the factual and the ethical. This is clearly seen in the close connection between li and yi (righteousness, or as Cheng Chung-ying has chosen to render it,14 “basic morality”), a connection clearly spelt out in the Analects. Thus, “The gentleman is on the side of yi” (Lun-Yü [The Analects] 4.10), “takes yi to be his essence and acts in accordance with li” (Lun-Yü [The Analects] 15:17). Li is the repository

12 13 14

Tu (1985), pp. 57–8. Shun (2001), at pp. 232–33. Cheng (1972), pp. 269–280.

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of past righteous actions. In the Confucian classics, great examples of li are typically drawn from historical records of righteous actions performed by people of high moral standing. It follows that the person who acts in accordance with li acts with righteousness. As Xun Zi puts it, “(w)hen the gentleman ( jun-zi ) has practiced righteousness by means of li, he is righteous” (Xun-Zi, Ch. 27).15 We may say that yi is the oughtside of li, and li the factual side of yi. The Confucian social context in which the self, as the Confucians understand it, is embedded, has now emerged as one that facilitates, perhaps even requires, the move from ‘is’ to ‘ought’. Thus, I am who I am by virtue of standing in a network of social relationships, a father to A, a husband to B, a friend to C, a citizen of D, and so on. Being a something entails that I owe them certain things, such as benevolence, faithfulness, respect, loyalty, and so on, as set out in li. What I owe others is what I ought to do unto them, as a person of yi. As we saw above, Kwong-loi Shun takes yi to be the fulfillment of the “obligations one has in virtue of the social positions one occupies . . .”. Incidentally, or rather coincidentally, the Confucian position is perfectly consistent with the linguistic fact that ‘ought’ used to be, in old English, a conjugated form of ‘owe’, its past tense. We may, of course, reject the Confucian characterization of being a father, or a friend, or someone in any other social role. Different societies have different rites and rituals, different li. But there is no denying that, in general, a social relationship entails certain obligations, no denying that to be such-and-such to someone entails that we owe something to that someone. A father owes certain things to a son and conversely. Indeed, some of the things we owe to others are recognized by the law. It does not seem to make much sense to say that I am your friend but I owe you nothing. It does not make much sense particularly to the Confucians to say that I am a self, a person, but I owe nothing to others. The next step for the Confucians is to say that we ought to render what we owe, that being under an obligation entails an ‘ought’. All this, as indicated before, is a generalization from Searle’s derivation: To utter certain words, given the right context and conditions, is to put oneself in a certain relationship to one’s interlocutor, which entails a certain obligation, which in turn entails an ‘ought’. Among the many objections to Searle in the ensuing literature is the claim that the ‘ought’ in Searle’s derivation is some socio-linguistic

15

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Translation adapted from Knoblock, J. (1994).

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‘ought’, not a ‘moral ought’. Hume’s law has not been breached after all. In some of his responses, Searle appears to admit this much.16 It is not my intention here to discuss whether Searle is right in admitting it, or what the admission implies for the is-ought question in general. For my purpose, the important question is whether the Confucian ‘ought’ that is entailed by the Confucian ‘is’ of the social relationships that characterize the Confucian self is also some socio-linguistic fact and not a ‘moral ought’. From what we have seen so far, it is clear that the Confucians did intend the ‘ought’ of social relationships to be the ‘moral ought’. If so then, given Searle’s own admission, the Confucians intended to go much further than Searle. But are they justified in going further than Searle? I suggest that the Confucian understanding of the self does indeed entitle them to go further than Searle in claiming that the ‘ought’ that flows from it is indeed the ‘moral ought’. The suggestion that Searle’s ‘ought’ is not a ‘moral ought’ is rooted in the idea that the self is an autonomous, independent self who chooses to take on obligations, including those that are entailed by socio-linguistic conventions. This self can, on the one hand, admit that uttering “I hereby promise . . .” under certain conditions means promising, which in turn means placing oneself under an obligation, yet on the other hand, rejects the moral implication of his or her act. There is no inconsistency if this self can separate the socio-linguistic entailment from the moral one. However, for the Confucian self, the moral entailment is not a matter of choice. It is embedded in the Confucian understanding of the self. In terms of Searle’s account, we may say that for the Confucians the moral is part of the socio-linguistic meaning. To be moral is what it means to be someone in the Confucian context. Now, this may sound that being moral is an easy thing, namely, just being oneself. For Confucians, this is far from the case. Being oneself requires self-cultivation, which in turn requires dedication and hard work. It requires, firstly, understanding what it is to be something, which is made difficult by our tendency to misunderstand things. This tendency must be corrected by the process of ‘rectification of names’. Secondly, having understood what it is to be something, and ultimately what it is to be a person, one may still not be living accordingly. To correct this tendency, we need to learn to be sincere, that is, to be true to one’s self. In what follows, I will examine the Confucian processes of the rectification of names

16

Searle (1970), p. 182.

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and of being sincere, and what they aim at, namely being true to our human nature as the exemplification of Nature, of the Way (Dao). This will reinforce the claim made here, the claim that the Confucian self entails a ‘moral ought’. 3. Rectifying Names and Being True to What Is Named As mentioned above, what it is to be a father, a friend, etc., is prescribed in li. ‘Father’, ‘friend’, etc. are names with specific denotations. Among the things denoted by such names are duties and obligations to others. To call oneself by a name, to say for instance “I am your friend”, and not to accept and try to discharge the obligations denoted by the name is to live by a false name, to be a false friend. The same goes for other roles that one happens to be in without choice, such as being a son, or a daughter, or even a ruler or a subject. It is our task to learn what the name means, from li, and to try to live up to what the name specifies. If someone does not, or if something is not what it is meant to be, then some other name must be used. The Confucians refer to this process as the rectification of names, zheng-ming. The process has two sides. On one side, we are to use a name that fits what is named. We are to use the name ‘father’, ‘son’, ‘ruler’, etc. only to refer a person with certain qualities, that is, in their proper meanings. As we have seen, the proper meanings are encoded in li. The other side of the process of rectification of names is the rectification of one’s self to fit the name that one bears. It is the process of learning to recognize and accept one’s obligations, and to do what one ought to do as a person named. For a self who stands in a network of social relationships, it is to follow li in doing what is appropriate. If we succeed, we are deemed righteous, yi, and there will be harmony (“Of the things brought about by li, harmony (he) is the most valuable”—Lun-Yü [the Analects] 1.1). If we fail, we are deemed unrighteous and will bring destruction upon ourselves (“By his many deeds of unrighteousness, he will bring destruction upon himself ”—Zuozhuan, Book I, Year I).17 For Confucius, the rectification of names is the most important process in the cultivation of the self, or the process of becoming a superior person, or a gentleman ( jun-zi ). At Lun-Yü [the Analects] 13.3,

17

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Zuo-zhuan, in The Chinese Classics, vol. v, trans. Legge (1960), p. 5.

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Confucius, when asked what the ruler of Wei should do as the first thing, does not hesitate to say that it was to “rectify names”, for if names are not rectified, nothing we say or do will correspond to the truth of things, and consequently we will not achieve propriety and the people will not know what to do. Confucius adds that the superior man “does not take this process lightly”. Earlier in the Analects (12.11), Confucius said: “Let the ruler be ruler, the minister minister, the father father and the son son”. Someone who is an X must rectify himself or herself to be truthful to the name X, or else rectify the name and call himself or herself by some other name. But since the self is a person already in a network of social relationships, the scope for rectifying names to fit one’s unreflective habits and behavior is limited. Doing so in any systematic way is futile self-denial. It is better to reflect on one’s thoughts and actions and rectify oneself so as to be truly the self that one already is. When this is done all will be well. Thus, as Confucius said elsewhere, “when the father is father, the son is son, the elder brother is elder brother, the husband is husband, and the wife is wife, then the family is in proper order. When all the families are in proper order, all will be right with the world”.18 The rectification of names is the process of learning to be true to the self that one already is, which is to be true to the names that describe the social relationships in which one stands, the names that signify specific duties and obligations. Such names and what they signify are obtained on the linguistic side of the process of rectification of names. To be true to the self that one already is, is to be sincere. This is why learning to be sincere is equally stressed by the Confucians. Indeed, this is the same process as self-cultivation, although the stress here is on the outcome. For the Confucian Zhou Dun-yi, “(s)incerity is the foundation of the sage” without which “the Five Constant Virtues and all activities will be wrong” and all the esteemed dispositions “will be depraved and obstructed”.19 That sincerity consists in being true to the nature of things is made clear in Da-Xue [the Great Learning] where great learning is said to consist of firstly “investigating things” so as we come to know their true nature, and then “making one’s will sincere”.20 When the will is sincere, the person may be said to be cultivated. Chapter 6 of the

18 19 20

The Yi King, in The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16, trans. Legge (1885), p. 240. Zhou Dun-yi T’ung-shu, in Chan (1963), p. 465 and p. 466. In Chan (1963), p. 86.

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“Commentary” makes clear that “(w)hat is meant by ‘making the will sincere’ is allowing no self-deception”. “Allowing no self-deception” can be taken to mean not deceiving oneself about what one really is, or to be true to one’s own nature. This turns out to be not an easy thing. Even the superior man must “always be watchful over himself when alone” lest he fall into the way of the inferior man for whom “there is no limit to which he does not go in his evil deeds” (Chan, p. 89). The same “Commentary” goes on to assert that just as it is one’s true nature to “hate a bad smell or love a beautiful color” (Chan, p. 89), it is in one’s true nature to hate what is bad and to love what is good. Thus, to be sincere, or to be true to one’s self, is to be swayed by the normative force of moral judgments. Wang Yang-ming endorses this claim in his commentary on Da-Xue [the Great Learning], asserting that the sincere person “really loves” what is good “as he loves beautiful colors” and “really hates” what is evil “as he hates bad odors”.21 Thus, to be sincere is to be motivated to do the right things: “Hold on to sincerity and you will move to what is right” (Lun-Yü [the Analects] 3.12). Now, as we have seen, the moral judgments of what is good or bad, what is right or wrong, in relation to social relationships are encoded in li. It follows that the gentleman who has rectified himself will be sincere, will do what is good or right and refrain from doing what is bad or wrong, will follow li, and in following li, will attain yi and will be righteous. The Confucian context is now complete. We can now see that when Confucius says “Let the ruler be ruler, the minister minister, the father father, the son son . . .”, he means to say that if one is a something then one ought to do certain things and ought not to do certain other things. The fact of being a something entails an ‘ought’—not some sociallinguistic ‘ought’ but a ‘moral ought’. Putting all the above together, we can say that in the Confucian context, the derivation of the ‘moral ought’ from what is the case goes as follows: (1) A person is a self who stands in a network of social relationships. (2) To stand in a social relationship (to be a father, a son, a husband, etc.) is to stand under a set of obligations (specified by li). (3) If names are rectified (or if one is sincere), a person is a self who places himself or herself under (undertakes) obligations to behave in a certain way (specified by li).

21

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Chan (1963), chapter 35, “Dynamic Idealism in Wang Yang-Ming”, p. 664.

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(4) A person is obligated to behave in a certain way. (5) A person ought to behave in a certain way (to follow li).

Arguably, (1) above parallels Searle’s first factual premise, namely “Jones uttered the words ‘I hereby promise to pay you, Smith, five dollars’ ”. Thus, it is often the case that we remind ourselves of who we are by uttering to ourselves words such as “I am a father,” “I am a son,” etc. In any case, (1) is held to be true as a matter of fact in the Confucian context, as I have shown. Also as I have shown, in the Confucian context, (1) entails (2) and (2) entails (3). The rest of the entailment follows Searle’s derivation exactly. If I am right, the Confucians have not committed a logical error in arguing from what is for them the case with respect to who we are, to what ought to be the case with respect to what we ought to do. Furthermore, the ‘ought’ in question is a ‘moral ought’. Do we have here a counter-example to Hume’s law? Have we bolstered Searle’s case against the Humean thesis? I said earlier that it is not my intention here to enter the debate between Searle and his critics. However, by way of closing, I want to suggest, below, that, for all that has been said above, supporters of Hume’s law as well as Searle’s critics might have reasons to insist that Confucianism does not give rise to a counter-example to the Humean thesis. A closer examination of Confucianism opens up the scope for saying that the Confucian context already allows for an ‘ought’ to operate among the apparently factual premises, or differently put, the context supposes the ‘ought’ to be attached to the factual understanding of the world. Thus, the Confucians understand the world to be governed by dao, by the Way of Heaven, and dao, as Lin Yutang puts it, stands for “the moral law”.22 The true self is one that is in harmony with dao and as such already moral. To be true to this self, to be sincere, is to be moral. To see what one is, is to see what one ought to be. It might be said that Confucians are moral naturalists, seeing moral properties as part of nature. There is a sense in which this is true. However, it would be more accurate to say that they do not see a sharp separation between the descriptive and the evaluative, but slide rather easily between the two. They are moral naturalists and natural moralists. They do not see the world in those dualistic terms that give rise to the 22

Lin (1938).

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is-ought question in the first place. Nowhere is this more evident in the Chinese concept of xin. Operating with a dualistic frame of mind, we will be at a loss, not knowing whether xin refers to mind, the faculty of reason, or to heart, the faculty of feelings. For the Confucians, it is at times reason, at times feelings, and at times both at once. Xin, as mind, reveals the nature of things as both factual and moral and at the same time, as heart, inclines a person to the good. The ‘superior man’ ( jun-zi ) learns to rectify names so as to be true to things as they are, including his own self, and thus has sincerity. Being true, he is in harmony with the Way of Heaven, and since the latter embodies the moral law, he is moral, or righteous. But this is not a purely rational process revealed in a purely intellectual vision. For the moral externalists, a purely intellectual vision, pace Kant, does not motivate. But with the concept of xin as mind-heart, the Confucians navigate easily between the internalist and the externalist accounts of morality. With xin, the superior person apprehends the good and at the same time feels in his heart an inclination toward it, thus attaining sincerity. As Sim and Bretzke have reminded us, in the Book of Rites, the term cheng (‘sincerity’) is used to refer not just to the fact that one can be sincere by following li, but also to “a disposition of ‘oughtness’ within the human heart . . .”.23 But this is so only because of the xin of the sincere person, which allows him or her to see the world as it is and at the same time to feel its oughtness. In advancing his thesis, Hume did not have the Confucian context in mind, and he would have his own reasons for rejecting the Confucian case as a counter-example to his thesis. Indeed, he would reject the Confucian worldview altogether by insisting that the world is one in which the self has a mind that see things as they are, devoid of moral values, and a heart that feels “moral distinctions” and inclines us one way or another. In Hume’s world, what one ought to do is a matter for the heart and does not follow from what is the case, and what is the case is a matter for the mind to apprehend, which the heart will only confuse. By contrast, in the Confucian world, a person is a self that knows itself as an individual but embedded in a network of social relationships, and has a mind-heart, xin, which sees and feels but does not always distinguish between what is seen and what is felt, which comprehends the difference between facts and values but does not

23

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Sim and Bretzke (1994), p. 180.

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always put them in separate categories, which can tell the difference between what is and what ought to be but can see also both at once. If the Confucians were right in their views of the world and the self, we would have not so much a counter-example to Hume’s thesis, but a case for revising the very basis for that thesis. And they just might be right. References Ames, Roger T. (1993), “The Meaning of Body in Classical Chinese Philosophy”, in Self as Body in Asian Theory and Practice, edited by Thomas P. Kasulis, (with Roger T. Ames and Wimal Dissanayake), Albany: SUNY Press. Chan, Wing Tsit (1963), A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy [“Chou Tun-I’s T’ung-shu”], Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cheng, Chung-ying (1972), “On yi as a Universal Principle of Specific Application in Confucian Morality”, Philosophy East and West 22, pp. 269–280. Ching, Julia (1998), “Human Rights: A Valid Chinese Concept?” in Confucianism and Human Rights edited by W. Theodore de Bary and Tu Weiming, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 67–82. Flew, Anthony (1964), “On Not Deriving ‘Ought’ from ‘Is’”, Analysis 25, pp. 25–32. Hall David and Ames, Roger T. (1998), Thinking from the Han: Self, Truth and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Cultures, Albany: SUNY Press. Knoblock, J. (trans.) (1994), Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Legge, James (trans.) (1885), The Sacred Books of the East, vol. 16 [The Yi King], Oxford: Clarendon Press. —— (trans.) (1960), The Chinese Classics, vol. v (Zuozhuan), Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Li, Chenyang (1999), The Tao Encounters the West, Albany: SUNY Press. Lin, Yutang (1938), The Wisdom of Confucius, New York: The Modern Library. Munro, Donald J. (1985), Individualism and Holism: Studies in Confucian and Taoist Values, Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press. —— (1997), The Concept of Man in Contemporary China, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Nuyen, A.T. (2006), “The Self and Its Virtues: Is There a Chinese-Western Contrast?” in Conceptions of Virtue: East and West, edited by K.C. Chong, Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, pp. 237–254. Searle, John R. (1964), “How to Derive ‘Ought’ from ‘Is’”, Philosophical Review 73, pp. 43–58, reprinted in Sterba (1998), pp. 38–43. —— (1970), “Reply to ‘The Promising Game’”, in Readings in Contemporary Ethical Theory, edited by Kenneth Pahed and Marvin Schiller, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Sim, Luke J. and Bretzke, James T. (1994), “The Notion of Sincerity (Ch’eng) in the Confucian Classics”, Journal of Chinese Philosophy 21, pp. 179–212. Sterba, James P. (1998), Ethics: The Big Questions, Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell.

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REPLY TO A.T. NUYEN John R. Searle I found Professor Nuyen’s paper fascinating and I learned a lot about the Confucian philosophy from reading it. He thinks that there is a close similarity between my derivation of “ought” from “is” and the Confucian conception of how one might derive “ought” from “is”. I think there are some important differences and I will be emphasizing some of those in what follows. It has been over forty years since I wrote “How to Derive ‘Ought’ From ‘Is,’” so let me try to recover some of the intellectual climate in which it was written. In those days, when I was a student and young faculty member at Oxford, moral philosophy consisted largely in stating, explaining and deriving implications from a single claim: The claim was that you cannot derive an “Ought” from an “Is”. That was supposed to be just another way of saying: You cannot derive evaluative statements from descriptive statements. To believe that one could derive evaluative statements from descriptive statements was to commit “the naturalistic fallacy”. This had enormous consequences. It meant that any objective ethical statement was impossible. It is important to emphasize that the claim about the naturalistic fallacy was considered a general logical truth about the nature of language. Ethics was just an application of this very general, logical, linguistic claim. I was always suspicious of the underlying ideology, and I was not especially interested in ethics for its own sake, but interested in normative discourse and factual discourse. One of the key points that I was trying to make in that article is that the notion of a factual discourse already is a normative notion. There is something self-defeating about the very terminology in which the orthodox view was stated. To say: You cannot derive an “Ought” from an “Is” is to use the descriptive notion of “derivation” as an evaluative or normative notion. Notions like “derivation” are already normative, because, for example, derivations can be valid or invalid. So I tried to challenge the distinction by showing that you could make a very simple derivation of the form “X ought to do Y” from certain statements of facts. I was anxious that it shouldn’t

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be a conditional, because Oxford moral philosophers of the time had another item in their ideology which was Kant’s distinction between the conditional and the unconditional “ought,” the distinction between categorical and hypothetical imperatives. It is not an objection to my derivation that the “ought” that comes out at the end is not a ‘moral’ “ought” because the whole point of the underlying ideology was that morals were just a special case of some much more important logical truth and I was just challenging that claim. It is perhaps hard today to recover the atmosphere of that time, but roughly speaking, it was something like this. Morality is of rather little importance in philosophy, but language is of supreme importance. I was challenging a claim about language, which incidentally, had some implications for moral philosophy. But the important thing was language, not morality. My derivation rests on two simple principles. One is that “ought” is used to express reasons for actions. When you say somebody ought to do something, it always makes sense to ask: Why? What’s the reason he ought to do it? Because “ought” is a way of expressing reasons. And that was suggested by Prof. Nuyen pointing out, as I pointed out in my early writings, that “ought” is the past tense of the old English verb for “owe.” (We have another word in English which means pretty much the same thing, namely “should.” “Should” has a totally different etymology, it comes from the German “sollen.”) So that is the first principle: “Ought” expresses reasons for action. The second principle is: Human beings can voluntarily and intentionally create reasons for action for themselves. That is the key point, and that is why it was essential to me that the person intentionally says “I promise to pay you five dollars” with the intention of undertaking an obligation. That for me is absolutely essential: We can create obligations for ourselves, create reasons for ourselves by intentionally performing an action by which we intend to create a reason for ourselves, and which we know will create such a reason. It is at this point that I have doubts about whether or not my view is really like the Confucian view described by Professor Nuyen. A crucial question is whether or not his examples are cases where obligations are voluntarily and intentionally undertaken. Some of the cases are like that, but others just seem to derive from social situations in which one finds oneself. On his account, social relations such as being a father or being a wife or a child automatically entail certain obligations. I do

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not think that can be quite right. Suppose a woman is forced to marry against her will. She finds herself in the position of being a wife but it seems to me she does not thereby acquire any obligations. That for me is the crucial point. The creation of desire independent reasons for action must be intentionally undertaken. Otherwise you get absurdities. You cannot say that just any set of social relations anywhere place me under an obligation. Suppose a bunch of people that I know in Australia decide, “Let’s make Searle our benefactor, so he has to be the person who is going to support us.” Let us suppose that I do indeed have social relations with these people because I know them. Then suppose I get e-mail from Australia saying, “You owe us a thousand dollars this month, because you now stand in these social relations, and you have an obligation towards us, because we have imposed that obligation on you.” On my account, there is no obligation in this case. Some of the things Nuyen said suggest that if people think that you are in social relations, that is enough for you to be in the social relations. That will create the obligation by itself. That is emphatically not my view. If the people in Australia appeal to my article, I will explain that they did not understand the article, because on my account, the sort of cases that I am talking about, are cases where the agent intentionally places himself or herself under an obligation. I am not talking about imposed status situations. I am not talking about common examples such as, for example, that the first born son of a king is required to take the throne upon his father’s death. Let me address his question concerning whether or not the “ought” in question is a moral “ought.” The point that I am trying to make is that by making a promise, you create a desire-independent reason for action. Now if all that is meant by “moral” is that it does not depend on your particular desires, then all of my cases would be moral cases. I like to use the word, “moral,” in a much more restricted fashion for really serious matters. I think that if I make a promise to go to a party, I have an obligation. But it is not a question of morality in the sense that I would be immoral if I didn’t go. At the very end of his talk, he suggests something which may be important and that is that perhaps there is a basic difference in world outlook between the Western view as exemplified by Hume and the Confucian view. I think he is probably right in that suggestion but I do not think that difference implies a relativity of logical relations. I think

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the logical relations can be the same even though the world outlook may be quite different. My theory requires the self and that the self is capable of creating desire independent reasons for acting. That is a fundamental principle on which the argument rests.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

XUN ZI ON CAPACITY, ABILITY AND CONSTITUTIVE RULES Kim-chong Chong 1. Introduction There is a persistent issue in Chinese Philosophy of how to understand the relation between certain alleged inborn features of the heart-mind,1 and their full intentional expression or manifestation. More specifically, this has to do with Mencius’s (c. 371–289 B.C.) claims that we are all born with the capacity to be sensitive toward the suffering of others and that this sensitivity will manifest itself in compassion with an intentional object, given the appropriate circumstances. What exactly is the relation between the alleged sensitivity and compassion? In this paper, I shall describe the issue and some contemporary attempts to resolve it. Instead of resolving the issue, however, these attempts only serve to highlight it. The best solution, I think, lies in a distinction that Xun Zi (c. 298–238 B.C.) makes between ‘capacity’ and ‘ability’, and the connection between this distinction and constitutive rules. Although I have discussed this distinction elsewhere I shall attempt to get clearer about the philosophical import of the distinction here.2 In contemporary Western philosophy, the term ‘constitutive rules’ has been established and is best known through the work of Professor John Searle.3 It refers to rules that do not merely regulate but create or define 1 This is the English translation of the Chinese word xin. It is sometimes translated as ‘heart’ and sometimes as ‘mind’. In ancient Chinese the xin is has both cognitive and affective functions. The translation ‘heart-mind’ therefore best reflects this dual function of the xin. 2 Chong, Kim-chong (2003), “Xunzi’s Systematic Critique of Mencius”, Philosophy East and West, 53:2, pp. 215–233. 3 Searle, John (1964), “How to Derive ‘Ought’ from ‘Is’”, Philosophical Review 73, pp. 43–58; (1969), Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 51–52; (1995), The Construction of Social Reality, New York: The Free Press. The whole notion of constitutive rules is greatly elaborated upon and formalized in this last reference, together with the associated ideas of ‘institutional facts’, ‘brute

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new forms of behavior. The aforementioned capacity/ability distinction will slide into a discussion of constitutive rules in the context of the construction of ritual. Searle has discussed constitutive rules through the structure of social objects such as money, property, governments, marriages, baseball, and so on. This idiom of constitutive rules helps us to appreciate how ritual and morality can be socially constructed. However, Searle has said little about whether the emotions—and in the present context, the moral emotions—can also be constituted through certain social/ritual forms. This possibility is explored in the following discussion of Xun Zi’s philosophy. 2. Sensitivity and Compassion—An Ambiguity Let us first proceed with the issue mentioned in the first paragraph. According to Mencius, “No [person] is devoid of a [heart-mind] sensitive to the suffering of others.”4 In support of this statement he adduces the famous example: Suppose a man were, all of a sudden, to see a young child on the verge of falling into a well. He would certainly be moved to compassion, not because he wanted to get in the good graces of the parents, nor because he wished to win the praise of his fellow villagers or friends, nor yet because he disliked the cry of the child. From this it can be seen that whoever is devoid of the [heart-mind] of compassion is not human . . .5

One reading of this passage is that compassion has, characteristically, an intentional object. Its intentionality is such as to make salient the imminent suffering and at the same time identifies the suffering as a reason to act. This reading emphasizes that the emotion of compassion is cognitive in that it frames the salience of the situation in terms of the

facts’, ‘collective intentionality’, and so on. Antonio Cua has already associated certain functions of ritual principles in the philosophy of Xun Zi with constitutive rules. See Cua, Antonio (1998), “Basic Concepts of Confucian Ethics”, in his Moral Vision and Tradition, Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, pp. 295–299. 4 Lau, D.C. (1984) tr., Mencius, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, passage 2A:6. I have replaced ‘man’ with ‘person’ and ‘heart’ with ‘heart-mind’ in the square brackets. 5 Ibid. As we shall note later, a different translation is possible for “He would certainly be moved to compassion.”

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suffering of the object.6 The advantage of this reading is that it helps to explicate a point that Mencius seems to be making in the passage, about the possibility of having a direct concern for someone, as opposed to other motives or desires. I have elsewhere argued independently that this account of compassion as having inseparable cognitive and affective dimensions is valid.7 However, it does not answer the following question. What exactly is the nature of the ‘sensitivity’ that the compassion is said to manifest? Is it the same as compassion with an intentional object? If so, why is it that someone who has such sensitivity may fail to act in a manner characteristic of the compassionate person? These questions surround the well-known conversation that has been recorded between Mencius and King Xuan of the state of Qi. The latter is reminded by Mencius that he has sensitivity because he spared an ox about to be led to sacrifice, yet he does not have compassion for his subjects (that is, he does not look after their welfare when he is in a position to do so).8 One possibility could be that this ‘sensitivity’ is a compassion that one may be unaware of. In talking of the intentionality of belief, for instance, Searle mentions the fact that he has beliefs that he may never have thought of. He cites as example the belief that “my paternal grandfather spent his entire life inside the continental United States but until this moment I never consciously formulated or considered that belief ”.9 Similarly, it could be held that King Xuan has compassion for his people except that this is something that he was not conscious of. In other words, he just never thought of it. What holds for beliefs, however, may not hold for an emotion like compassion. (Searle does not claim that they are the same.) There seems to be something disingenuous about saying that one has compassion for a certain object, but never consciously thought of the object. That is, it would be disingenuous of King Xuan to claim that although he has compassion for his people this is something that he never realized or thought of. Indeed, the very admission that he has never thought of the welfare of his people would show that he lacked compassion. A view expressed by Wong, David (1991), “Is There a Distinction between Reason and Emotion in Mencius?”, Philosophy East and West 41:1, pp. 31–44. See for instance, p. 32. 7 Chong, Kim-chong (2003), “Egoism in Chinese Ethics”, in Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy, edited by Antonio Cua, New York: Routledge, p. 244. 8 See Lau, 1984, passage 1A:7. 9 Searle, John (1983), Intentionality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 2. 6

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Another possibility is that the sensitivity is something less than full compassion. In his discussion of the example of King Xuan, David Wong refers to the sensitivity as an “innate compassionate impulse” that is “not compassion in the full sense”. Wong elaborates: “While our biology may determine the kind of intentional object the impulse has, just as human infants are programmed to react strongly to the human face, the intentional object is not fully determinate. What is perceived as suffering, and precisely whose suffering becomes salient as a reason to act, and furthermore, the nature of the likely helping response to perceived suffering, is still largely to be determined.”10 Thus, as children we may have some innate responses to the sufferings of others but unless these are developed and channeled in the right direction, we may not become motivated by compassionate reasons. Similarly, King Xuan’s moral development is said to be comparable to that of a child’s. According to Wong, what Mencius is doing in citing the example of the ox is “to bring before his mind a past action of his that constituted a paradigm scenario for compassion, and he has helped the king to verify the emotion that moved him to spare the ox. He has identified for the king the ox’s suffering as both the cause and justifying reason for his action”.11 David Wong’s discussion of the processes involved in moral development is plausible. His suggestion is that as children we may have an innate response to the suffering of others. However, the intentional object of this response is not fully developed. Once it becomes developed or articulated through an educational process such as the provision of paradigm scenarios, it will become a cause of and provide a justifying reason for compassionate action. However, with reference to the example of King Xuan and the ox, I think that the suggestion does not help clear up the ambiguous status of the alleged innate sensitivity and its relation to compassion. The ambiguity is as follows. The king’s sensitivity to the ox’s suffering is first held to be something less than compassion. But, as just described in the previous paragraph, the emotion that moved the king to spare the ox is said to both cause and justify his reason for action. This emotion, as described, sounds very much like what is characteristic of—full—compassion with an intentional object. And in fact, Mencius says to the king that if he can have compassion for animals, what more

10 11

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Wong, 1991, p. 34. Ibid., p. 37.

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his people? A related point is that although it is possible for the king to be morally immature, it is difficult to accept the description of him as (being like) a child who has not reached a certain stage of moral development. For we learn later from the conversation that what he actually wants is territorial expansion and Mencius tries to persuade him that the way to achieve this is to care for his people first. What this implies is that he is able to care for his people and he is in a position to do so, except that this is not a priority for him. 3. Distinguishing Capacity and Ability We need, at this stage, to remind ourselves that we are not talking about a particular individual and why he or she is insufficiently motivated to act compassionately. Instead, Mencius is making a universal claim that everyone has the inborn capacity to be sensitive to the suffering of others. This capacity will, if properly developed, manifest itself as compassionate action under appropriate circumstances. With reference to the example of King Xuan, we saw that there is a problem distinguishing the sensitivity from compassion itself. On the one hand, it is said to be something less than compassion. On the other hand, it is also described in a way that makes it the same as compassion with an intentional object. It would seem that for Mencius there is no inherent difference between them. This suspicion is confirmed by Xun Zi’s analysis. When reminding King Xuan that he has both the capacity (ke-yi) and the ability (neng) to be compassionate, Mencius likens this to the ability of the eyes to see—all one has to do is to look. Xun Zi is therefore referring to this when he says: Those who say man’s inborn nature is good admire what does not depart from his original simplicity and think beneficial what is not separated from his childhood naiveté. They treat these admirable qualities and the good that is in man’s heart and thoughts as though they were inseparably linked to his inborn nature, just as seeing clearly is to the eye and hearing acutely is to the ear. Thus, inborn nature they say is “like the clear sight of the eye and the acute hearing of the ear”.12

12 Knoblock, John (1994), tr., Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, Stanford: Stanford University Press, Volume 3, passage 23.1d, p. 153. For the Chinese text, I have consulted Li, Disheng (1994), Xunzi Jishi, Taipei: Xuesheng Shuju.

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Barring any interference or accident, the capacity and the ability to see are held to be the same. In this sense, the eye (with its capacity to see) is inseparable from eyesight (the actual ability to see). The structure that allows for the capacity to see at the same time constitutes the ability to see. Xun Zi observes that Mencius talks of moral abilities in the same organic terms. Thus, this assumes that the alleged innate capacity to be sensitive to the suffering of others has the same organic structure as compassion. Xun Zi goes on to question the assumption that intentional activities (and the abilities involved in them) must be determined by innate capacities that share the same structure by providing the following analogy: The potter molds clay to make an earthenware dish, but how could the dish be regarded as part of the potter’s inborn nature? The artisan carves wood to make a vessel, but how could the wooden vessel be regarded as part of the artisan’s nature? The sage’s relation to ritual principles is just like that of the potter molding clay. This being so, how could ritual principles, morality, accumulated effort, and acquired abilities be part of man’s original nature?13

In other words, it is not to be assumed that before an object can be produced, its structure must have already been innately present in the producer. This being the case, it should also not be assumed that the processes, rules, and structures of intentional activities—including ritual and moral activities—must already have been present (innately). Ordinarily, one would not make a distinction between ‘capacity’ and ‘ability’.14 Xun Zi, however, states that “they are far from being the same, and it is clear that they are not interchangeable”.15 One way of interpreting this is to say that although someone may have a certain capacity she may not succeed in manifesting this as ability to do something. However, this interpretation can be accommodated by Mencius in terms of a lack of the appropriate circumstances that would allow for

Ibid., passage 23.4a, p. 157. According to Ruth Millikan, “The modern philosophical tradition has unreflectively assimilated abilities to capacities and capacities to dispositions.” Millikan, Ruth Garret (2000), “The Nature of Abilities: How is Extension Determined?”, in her On Clear and Confused Ideas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 51. Millikan has some interesting things to say about the distinctions between capacities, dispositions, and abilities. I thank John Greenwood for this reference. 15 My translation of this sentence is different from Knoblock, 1994, passage 23.5b: “that something is possible or impossible is entirely dissimilar from having or not having the ability to do it”. 13 14

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this manifestation. What prevents the capacity from being manifested as ability is the interference of inappropriate circumstances (or the absence of appropriate circumstances). Xun Zi’s potter analogy in the last paragraph would pre-empt this move by denying the assumption of a structural similarity between an innate capacity and its manifestation as ability. As Xun Zi sees it, ritual/moral16 ability need not be structurally predetermined by some innate capacity. He debunks this idea in his remarks about an ‘original simplicity’ and ‘childhood naiveté’ (see above), adding that the moment one is born, one would have moved away from any such simple state. It could be argued on behalf of Mencius that he does not always talk in a way that assumes similarity of structure between capacity and ability. That is, he does not always talk of compassionate ability as if all one needs to do is act, in the way that all one has to do in seeing something is to look. Instead, he talks of the need to nurture the innate sensitivity that one has. This is brought out by David Wong’s suggestion that if certain innate responses are not channeled in the right direction we may not be motivated by compassionate reasons. Surely, this does not amount to saying that the capacity to be sensitive to the suffering of others shares the same structure as the ability to be compassionate? Here, I am reminded of a debate between David Wong and Craig Ihara on interpreting Mencius. In his discussion of Wong’s original essay, Ihara notes a tendency to talk of the innate sensitivity in the heart-mind as a cognitive emotion that provides a justifying reason for action. With regard to this tendency, Ihara says: “If hsin [xin, heartmind] were a cognitive emotion in Wong’s sense, it would mean that all human beings have emotions that, at least implicitly, recognize a justifying reason for their affective responses. This in itself seems highly unlikely since it builds the concept of justification, however that is understood, into the most primitive responses.”17 In his reply to Ihara, Wong agrees that “there is direct evidence [in the text of the Mencius] only for the primitive instinctive response in Mencius’[s] conception of 16 In this paper, I make no distinction between ritual and morality. Antonio Cua notes that “we may say that the concept of morality is non-contingently related to ritual, in that it is ritual, as comprising customs, conventions, or formal rules of proper conduct, that provides the starting point of individual morality. Even if we distinguish customary or positive from reflective or critical morality, the distinction is relative rather than absolute”. See Cua, 1998, “Basic Concepts of Confucian Ethics”, p. 301. 17 Ihara, Craig (1991), “David Wong on Emotions in Mencius”, Philosophy East and West 41:1, pp. 45–53. See p. 48.

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moral development”. Nevertheless, Wong believes that the metaphor of moral development is important. I shall quote Wong in full here: The relevant theme is Mencius’[s] use of the metaphor of sown wheat and the resulting stalks to portray the growth of human beings from their innate and good beginnings to full virtue (3A:7). Moral development for Mencius really is a development, from seeds that contain within themselves the contours of their full development, but that need certain nourishing conditions and treatment to grow properly. The problem is to turn the seed and stalk metaphor into a specific picture of moral development. My distinction between the primitive innate beginnings of compassion and a fully developed compassion with the cognitive dimension that enables reliable helping helps to spell out the seed-and-stalk metaphor. My claim that the king’s compassion for his people is already there in an important sense and that, in another sense, it needs to be crystallized in the form of recognition of a reason to act in the suffering of others, is a claim meant to illuminate the way that the seed of compassion can contain the contours of its full development, and yet need cultivation.18

Wong accurately describes Mencius’s idea of moral development as a metaphor of plant growth from seed to stalk. Under this metaphor, the capacity for compassion is not an ability until it is developed or ‘nourished’ or ‘cultivated’. At the same time, however, it is stated that the compassion “is already there in an important sense” and that in this regard “the seed of compassion can contain the contours of its full development”. There is certainly a legitimate use in everyday life for a metaphor such as the development of seed to stalk in the context of moral development and education. Thus, Mencius is talking in a morally earnest way of the need for displaying compassion. This is put both in terms of the idea that one possesses the seed of compassion and the idea that one is already compassionate. What enables this kind of ambiguity, however, is the (non-metaphorical) belief that there is a structural similarity between the seed and the plant, even if this is only in ‘contour’. The potter analogy made by Xun Zi that we described earlier is aimed precisely at this belief. It argues that ritual/morality is a constituted product with a different structure from the original capacities that may have given rise to it. Insofar as it has a different structure, it cannot be said to have been inborn. The capacity/ability distinction expands

18 Wong, David (1991), “Response to Craig Ihara’s Discussion”, Philosophy East and West 41:1, pp. 55–58. See p. 57.

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upon this argument. In this regard, Xun Zi several times emphasizes what we may refer to as a ‘species ability’. This is yi—the ability to make social distinctions and to institute and apply ritual principles that constitute the general structure of society and social relations.19 This ability would involve language and associated ritual practices that empower human beings in ways that go beyond the strength possessed by other animal species. It also allows for relations that are qualitatively different from the biological relations and pecking orders that other animals too recognize. Xun Zi refers, for example, to the qin between father and son. The word qin implies not just closeness and affection, but the relation of filial piety between father and son and all the ritual behavior that constitutes, including the duties and obligations governing the relationship. Similarly, although other animals recognize sexual differences, they lack nan-nü-zhi-bie or ‘distinction between man and woman’.20 In other words, for human beings as a species, the difference between progenitor and offspring and between the sexes is not simply biological, but socially constitutive. 4. Ritual Transformation and Constitutive Rules For those familiar with the work of John Searle, the above discussion self-evidently slides into and is strongly reminiscent of Searle’s notion of constitutive rules. According to Searle, constitutive rules do not merely regulate. Instead, they also create the possibility of certain institutional facts and/or objects. Examples of these are money, marriages, promises, and so on. Language plays an important role in the creation of these institutional facts, since they are both language dependent and constituted by language. An important facet of this that is relevant to

19 My translation and interpretation. John Knoblock translates yi as “a sense of morality and justice”. See Knoblock, John (1990) tr., Xunzi, Stanford: Stanford University Press, Volume 2, passage 9.16a, p. 104. Various commentators have misunderstood yi to mean ‘a sense of morality and justice’ or ‘a sense of duty’. This has led to accusations that Xun Zi in fact shares with Mencius a belief that people have an inborn moral sense. What is true is that for Xun Zi, the term yi also means in some contexts what is ‘right’ or ‘righteous’, but certainly without the connotation that it constitutes an innate ‘sense of morality and justice’. 20 Knoblock, John (1988) tr., Xunzi, Stanford: Stanford University Press, Volume 1, passage 5.4, p. 206, translates qin as ‘natural affection’ and nan-nü-zhi-bie as ‘separation of the sexes’.

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the present discussion is the deontic status that language imposes on these facts. In this regard, Searle says: Animals running in a pack . . . can . . . have hierarchies . . . cooperate in the hunt, share their food, and even have pair bonding. But they cannot have marriages, property or money. Why not? Because all these create institutional forms of powers, rights, obligations, duties, etc., and it is characteristic of such phenomena that they create reasons for action that are independent of what you or I or anyone else is otherwise inclined to do. Suppose I train my dog to chase dollar bills and bring food back to me in return for food. He still is not buying the food and the bills are not money to him. Why not? Because he cannot represent to himself the relevant deontic phenomena. He might be able to think “If I give him this he will give me that food.” But he cannot think, for example, now I have the right to buy things and when someone else has this, he will also have the right to buy things. Furthermore, such deontic phenomena are not reducible to something more primitive and simple. We cannot analyze or eliminate them in favor of dispositions to behave or fears of negative consequences of not doing something. Famously, Hume and many others have tried to make such eliminations, but without success.21

In the same vein, Xun Zi does not speak of the ability to make social distinctions as ‘inborn’. Instead, he mentions it in response to posing the question, “What makes human beings ‘human beings’?”.22 Although this is in contrast to other animals, what has largely gone unnoticed is that the contrast is also with certain basic desires (for food, warmth, comfort, and so on) and certain self-interested and emotional dispositions (such as being envious) that Xun Zi describes as biological or inborn. These basic desires and emotions, if overindulged and unregulated, would lead to chaos and a very incommodious life for all. By contrast, the ability to make social distinctions is a species ability that allows for the transformation of these basic desires and emotions, and for the realization of a refined life in which comfort, security, luxury and wealth can be enjoyed. The significance of not calling this an inborn ability is that it leaves open the possibility of there being different constitutive social

Searle, 1995, p. 70. Compare Knoblock, 1988, passage 5.4: “What is it that makes a man human?” Knoblock’s translation is compatible with an essentialist account of human nature. See note below. 21 22

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structures.23 We may see this as a further implication of the ‘capacity’ and ‘ability’ distinction. It is not uncommon for people to object that the ability to make social distinctions is not uniquely human. Thus, it might be said, for example, that animals too have ‘social distinctions’ and ‘hierarchies’. However, yi is not just the ability to make social distinctions, but as mentioned above, it includes the ability to “institute and apply ritual principles that constitute the general structure of society and social relations”. The ritual principles that govern human interaction have a form that go beyond a natural hierarchy that other animals may have as a matter of what Searle calls ‘brute fact’.24 Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is to mention the role that aesthetic and moral considerations play in ritual principles for Xun Zi. One example is the ritual principles that are involved in grief or mourning. Human beings are not alone in having the emotion of grief in losing their loved ones. In this respect, other animals too can feel grief (and perhaps even in their case, this grief can occasion ‘ritual’ of some sort). However, the intentional content of human ritual can go beyond what occasioned it in the first place. Thus, grief alone does not explain a mourning ritual. The content of the ritual can include, for instance, an expression of the attitudes of loyalty, faithfulness, love, reverence, and even be an indication of status. It can also include aesthetic considerations that come to determine what is proper or improper in the expressions of mourning and the ritual performance itself. In Xun Zi’s own words:

23 Xun Zi does not hold an essentialist view of human nature according to which the nature of some entity X is what makes it a genuine X, what every X has and without which it would not be an X. This is the way in which A.C. Graham characterizes human nature as discussed by the Pre-Qin Chinese philosophers, and that he notes as ‘Aristotelian’. In another paper [(2008), “Xunzi and the Essentialist Mode of Thinking About Human Nature”, Journal of Chinese Philosophy 35:1, pp. 63–78], I argue that this characterization of the essentialist mode of thinking about human nature might apply to Mencius, but not to Xun Zi. See Graham, A.C. (1986), “The Background of the Mencian Theory of Human Nature”, in his Studies in Chinese Philosophy & Philosophical Literature, Singapore: The Institute of East Asian Philosophies, p. 33. 24 This has nothing to do with a misplaced pride in what human beings can do as opposed to other animals. On the contrary, there are many abilities that other animals have that human beings lack. Under certain circumstances, these abilities could be crucial to survival, as demonstrated for instance in the tsunami that struck the Indian Ocean in December 2004. It has been reported that many animals sensed the impending danger and got out of harm’s way in good time.

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kim-chong chong Rites trim what is too long and stretch out what is too short, eliminate surplus and repair deficiency, extend the forms of love and reverence, and step by step bring to fulfillment the beauties of proper conduct. Beauty and ugliness, music and weeping, joy and sorrow are opposites, and yet rites make use of them all, bringing forth and employing each in its turn. Beauty, music, and joy serve to induce an attitude of tranquility and are employed on auspicious occasions. Ugliness, weeping, and sorrow induce an attitude of inquietude and are employed on inauspicious occasions. But though beauty is utilized, it should never reach the point of sensuousness or seductiveness, and though ugliness is utilized, it should never go as far as starvation or self-injury. Though music and joy are utilized, they should never become lascivious and abandoned, and though weeping and sorrow are utilized, they should never become frantic or injurious to health. If this is done, then rites have achieved the middle state.25

In other words, the rites transform emotions such as joy and sorrow through conceptions of what is aesthetic (beauty and ugliness), moral (for example what is not lascivious and abandoned) and health. The emotions are judged to be harmoniously expressed only when they have been transformed through a blending of these conceptions. But this raises a question that goes to the heart of the status and function of constitutive rules in the making of social reality: in what sense can the emotions be said to have been transformed? Thus, it might be said that if ‘transformation’ refers to the refinement of the emotions, then surely what this means is a regulation of the emotions through the creation of certain behavioral forms, and not any change in the emotions themselves?26 This is a question that I think perhaps Searle has not sufficiently addressed in the context of constitutive rules, given his focus on examples such as money, baseball, marriages, property, and so on. The following remarks of his, however, are suggestive: “La Rochefoucauld says somewhere that very few people would fall in love if they never read about it . . .”27 I would take the notion of the transformative power of ritual in relation to the emotions seriously. We tend to take for granted the emotions we ourselves have as what comes ‘naturally’. That is because in the ordinary course of events, there is no reason to 25 Watson, Burton (1963) tr., Hsün Tzu: Basic Writings, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 100–01. 26 I thank Chris Fraser for raising a question about what transformation pertains to during my presentation in the ISCWP conference on “Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy” that was the occasion for this paper. 27 Searle, 1995, p. 135.

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take into account the fact that there are collective processes at work that mold the forms in which the emotions are felt and expressed. In the language of Searle, these forms are not merely regulatory, but constitutive of the emotions themselves. As human beings who think and feel in certain ways through forms of collective intentionality that are not just biological,28 we can say that the raw emotional capacities do not in themselves determine what is aesthetically appropriate or inappropriate, morally proper or improper, healthy or unhealthy. This is not to deny that emotion is a human universal—people smile when they are happy, frown when they are sad. But beyond these basic expressions there is a wide range of emotional forms and standards that are constituted. That is, the emotions can be structured by the ritual processes to take different forms, instead of merely being restrained and regulated. Take the following contemporary account of the different metaphorical ways in which grief is conceived, for example. Thus, there is said to be a “standard western way to grieve” that employs “the metaphor of hydraulics: the human being as a steam engine. It just feels so instinctively right to the western mind to think of grief as bursting to get out and, if bottled up, libel to explode at some improper place or time”. On the other hand, it is said that “The typical Chinese tends to see expressing intense, negative emotions as shameful. His or her metaphor of choice is the human being as a holistic system—hence, the high incidence of somatic symptoms among the bereaved in Hong Kong. From the hydraulic angle, expressing your emotions will make you feel better; from the organic one, it can make you ill.”29 The point is not whether this account is accurate or not. Instead, these brief general remarks about the different forms that an emotion can take point to the possibility of emotions being structured according to different conceptions of what is healthy or unhealthy, and so on. If it is granted that emotional and other capacities can be so structured, then whether they have proper intentional objects or not cannot be a function of some self-interpreting innate state. But returning to the example that we began with and that is the main focus of this essay: what about the case of compassion? Even here, what counts as having compassion is not self-interpreting.

For the idea of collective intentionality, see Searle, 1995, chapter 2. Nicol, Jean (2005, April 23), “Death and the depths of emotion”, Hong Kong: South China Morning Post, p. A13. 28 29

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In the text of the Xun-Zi, someone asks Xun Zi if he upholds the values of ren and yi, how can he say that they constitute the fundamental basis of warfare? The term ren is variously translated as being ‘humane’ or having a sense of ‘humanity’ or being ‘benevolent’. The term yi means (a feeling of ) ‘right’ and is often also translated as being ‘righteous’.30 (We should be careful not to associate this with contemporary English connotations of a certain kind of stiff ‘self-righteousness’). The questioner referred to above is claiming that Xun Zi is contradicting himself in holding ren and yi to be the fundamental basis of warfare. Xun Zi’s reply is that although holding ren means loving others and being concerned about yi means having a concern for rightness and the social order, it is precisely because of these concerns that one is prepared to go to war.31 Applying this to compassion, we can say that what constitutes compassion is not something to be determined by an innate response, and in this regard too, any such innate response cannot be self-interpreting. We can illustrate this through what Mencius says in the context of the child about to fall into a well—that anyone who does not express compassion is not human. This is meant to assert that any human being would react compassionately. But at the same time, a collective conception of the ‘human’ is at work here that interprets and prejudges the response, that it must be compassionate. Interestingly, Wing-tsit Chan’s translation of the response in seeing the child about to fall into a well is not that the witness “would certainly be moved to compassion” but that he would “have a feeling of alarm and distress”.32 This somewhat more neutral expression of ‘alarm and distress’ would need filling out, in terms of what is morally and humanly important, and in terms of the kind of ‘proper’ reaction that would constitute this moral and human importance.

30 Although Xun Zi does use the term yi in this way, a central meaning of yi for him, as we have seen, is the species ability to make social distinctions with the ultimate aim of establishing social order. 31 Knoblock, 1990, passage 15.2. 32 Chan, Wing-tsit (1963), A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, p. 65.

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Conclusion In conclusion, I would like to return to a consideration of Mencius’s claim that an innate capacity will manifest itself as ability, given ‘appropriate circumstances’. This will serve as a reminder and a summary of Xun Zi’s capacity/ability distinction. A question that needs to be asked about Mencius’s claim is: What role does mention of the ‘appropriate circumstances’ play in helping us to understand the innate capacity and its manifestation? We can approach the issue with another example from Mencius’s conversation with King Xuan. Mencius has just told the latter that if he governs benevolently then all would flock toward his territory, and he would thereby become a ‘true King’. King Xuan asks for further advice, and Mencius says: Only a Gentleman can have a constant [heart-mind] in spite of a lack of constant means of support. The people, on the other hand, will not have constant [heart-minds] if they are without constant means. Lacking constant [heart-minds], they will go astray and fall into excesses, stopping at nothing. To punish them after they have fallen foul of the law is to set a trap for the people. How can a benevolent man in authority allow himself to set a trap for the people?33

Mencius is contrasting two categories of people. One is the Gentleman who abides by the ritual rules and still performs his duty in straitened circumstances. Another is the common people who can abide by the ritual rules and perform their duty only when they have sufficient means of livelihood for their families and themselves—no use impressing on them the ritual rules and duty when they are starving. Under Mencius’s seed-stalk metaphor of moral development, it might be argued that this

33 I was alerted to this example by the remarks of Antonio Cua at a conference in Singapore in 1999. See Cua (2002), “Xin and Moral Failure,” in Mencius: Contexts and Interpretations, edited by Alan Chan, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, pp. 126–150. Cua notes that Xun Zi recognized the need to make special provision for the incapacitated. Cua’s own remarks (pp. 141–42) are worth noting: “Moral requirements for action are thus subject to defeat by the absence of resources, the necessary means to moral performance. Although a few laudable moral agents are capable of self-sacrifice and even giving up their life for the sake of ren, we cannot reasonably expect ordinary humans to do the same. In my youth I was impressed by someone saying, ‘You cannot preach morality to a starving man.’ This serves as a constant reminder in my decades of teaching ethics: Ethics is vacuous of moral significance unless it acknowledges the intimate connection between scarcity and moral evils.”

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example shows that people’s capacity to be good cannot find expression because it is blocked by impoverished conditions of life. But how does this account for the Gentleman who maintains a ‘constant heart-mind’? Let us assume that both the Gentleman and the common people are in similar straits—both are starving, and everything else is equal. Following the seed-stalk metaphor, both have the inborn seed of goodness—why is it that the same inborn capacity is manifested and maintained as goodness in one case but not the other? Evidently, the Mencian answer would be that the Gentleman has already developed his inborn capacity to the extent that he can maintain his ability to do the right thing. In opposition to this, here is another answer inspired by Xun Zi: the idea that the inborn capacity would be manifested and maintained as the ability to be good if the appropriate circumstances are present has begged the question all along. The notion of ‘the appropriate circumstances’ is only a buffer for the belief that an inborn capacity must have a structure that is shared with its manifestation as ability. But as we learn from Xun Zi, this is precisely what is in question. So, in the contrast between the Gentleman and the common people, the idea of an innate capacity to be good would have to drop out since it does no work. A well-known remark of Wittgenstein’s, namely, that ‘the engine is idling’, very aptly applies here. (“The confusions which occupy us arise when language is like an engine idling, not when it is doing work.”)34 Xun Zi’s distinction between capacity and ability helps us to see, and Searle’s concept of constitutive rules helps us to appreciate, that there is a structure that needs to be in place before the ability to be good can be said to function in any logical sense, and that this structural ability is not to be simply equated with any innate sense.

34 Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1968), Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, passage 132.

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REPLY TO KIM-CHONG CHONG John R. Searle I am very impressed by this paper and I am very grateful. It is a very subtle paper and I am not sure I was able to take in all of its subtleties. So let me add some crudities of my own. The central idea in the paper is that we need to take seriously the distinction made by Xun Zi over 2000 years ago between “capacity” and “ability”. I have many innate capacities but society will shape many of these into specific socially conditioned abilities. I am very sympathetic with this distinction. I am reminded of La Rochefoucauld’s claim that very few people would ever fall in love if they never read about it. Relating this claim to Xun Zi, we might say that people have the capacity to fall in love but in order that they should ever be able to exercise that capacity they have to acquire the ability, and the ability is very much shaped by society. I am also very sympathetic with his idea that we should apply this distinction to the manifestation of compassion. I think there is no question that there is an innate capacity to recognize a distinction between the natural environment and conscious others. I think that is a common feature of humans and lots of animals, and it is not because they have solved the other minds problem philosophically. It seems to be innate. Small puppies will chew up pretty much everything, but I notice my puppies will not chew up my hand with the same enthusiasm that they chew up the furniture. They seem to recognize you can only go so far with a hand. Occasionally one puppy will bite another puppy and the second one yelps. Then the momma dog has to lick all the puppies and get them back in order again. That is how they are instinctively working out the details of “the other dog’s minds problem”, of canine compassion. I think this is a remarkable fact about the higher animals. We seem to have an innate ability to recognize consciousness in others. Now unfortunately it is not always compassionate. I think it underlies cruelty as well as compassion. I do not think it has been shown that cruelty must come with the genetic endowment, but I am depressed by the possibility that it might. Recent work on mirror neurons shows how there might be a neurobiological basis for our frequent immediate understanding of the experiences of others.

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The subtle point that I want to emphasize, and here I am echoing what I take to be Kim-chong Chong’s thesis, is how much of socialization, including constitutive rules builds on the underlying biological capacities. So we get obligations, rights, duties, constitutive rules and all sorts of structures, building on what is already biologically given to us. The family is an obvious case. The family has a biological definition, but then we build a social institution on a structure which is biologically given. I think it is ambiguous to say that animals have social distinctions. Of course they do have alpha males and alpha females, but it is important to remember that the terminology of “alpha male” and “alpha female” is all in the eyes of the ethologist. No dog ever looks at another dog and thinks, “He is the alpha male, so I have to defer to him.” That is our terminology. We differ from other species in certain crucial ways. The hierarchy among animals is not like the hierarchy among human beings, because it is not linguistically represented. The only thing I would add to Chong’s presentation would be to call attention to the centrality of language. You cannot have social institutions, and indeed I do not think you can have morality in our sense without having a language. You have the innate biological capacities and you have the linguistically structured abilities which are imposed on the biological capacities through the exercise of language. If I understand it correctly, I did not find anything to disagree with in his paper.

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CHAPTER TWELVE

WEAKNESS OF WILL, THE BACKGROUND, AND CHINESE THOUGHT Chris Fraser and Kai-yee Wong 1. Introduction The following is so common a kind of action failure that it is almost an everyday problem for many of us: Having formed a firm and unconditional intention to do y, after judging that it would be better on the whole to do so, a person ends up doing x, which is incompatible with y. Things like New Year’s resolutions not kept and overdue papers yet to be written come to mind. Most of us will agree that sometimes we knowingly and intentionally perform an action counter to our best judgment, either moral or prudential. This phenomenon is commonly known as “weakness of will”, or “akrasia”, and such actions are commonly called “weak-willed”, “incontinent”, or “akratic”. Weakness of will has traditionally been regarded as a kind of practical irrationality, and thus its nature and possibility have been considered a subject demanding philosophical explanation. However, John Searle and Nomy Arpaly have recently argued that weak-willed action is not characteristically irrational.1 Searle’s argument is very much simply a blunt denial based on the blatantly obvious: if we were to deem irrational every person who acts in weak-willed way, there would hardly be a practically rational person left in the land. On his diagnosis, the traditional idea that weakness of will is problematic for rational agency arises from a mistaken conception of the causal relation between reason and action. According to Arpaly, on the other hand, our belief about what would be rational for us to do—our best judgment—has a special normative force only when it is warranted by our other beliefs and desires, insofar 1 John Searle (2001), Rationality in Action, Cambridge: MIT Press, and Nomy Arpaly (2003), Unprincipled Virtue, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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as the latter beliefs are responsive to evidence. So, to claim that acting against one’s best judgment is always less rational than following it, one must rule out cases in which one’s best judgment is not warranted by one’s evidence—that is, cases in which one’s supposedly best judgment is in fact irrational. But then the claim becomes the uninteresting one that acting against one’s rational, best judgment is always less rational than following it. On Arpaly’s diagnosis, the view that acting against one’s judgment is necessarily irrational is an unfortunate result of the mistaken idea that deliberation is necessary for rationality. There clearly are, Arpaly argues, cases of rationality without deliberation. Searle’s critique, and indirectly Arpaly’s, challenge the assumption that the possibility of weakness of will is something that requires special philosophical demonstration. This assumption is central to the contemporary Western conception of the problem of weakness of will. It has given rise to many ingenious arguments purporting to show that apparent cases of acting against one’s unconditional intention are not genuine cases of weakness of will. In contrast, such a notion hardly has a place in the Chinese conception of weak-willed action. One of the aims of this paper is to develop this and other contrasts between recent Western philosophical approaches to weakness of will and the classical Chinese approach. In our view, some aspects of Searle’s and Arpaly’s critiques (especially the former) of common Western conceptions of the problem dovetail with the Chinese orientation. They thus may be useful in understanding the nature of the Chinese problem and the differences between it and familiar Western approaches. In this paper, we will focus on Searle’s discussion of weakness of will and bring it to bear on central aspects of the traditional Chinese conception of weak-willed action. Searle’s discussion concerns recent proposals concerning how to explain the phenomenon of weakness of will, and so he says little about the practical ethical problem of how an agent can avoid weak-willed actions. Yet his attack on the conventional conception of the problem can be taken as an invitation to shift emphasis from the explanatory to the practical issue, i.e., to an aspect of weakness of will that in recent Western thought has been overshadowed by the puzzle regarding how weakness of will is possible. In this sense, Searle’s view indirectly encourages an investigation of weakwilled action along the lines of what we see as the Chinese approach, which focuses on the practical problem of overcoming weakness of will, rather than the theoretical problem of explaining it. As David

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weakness of will, the background, and chinese thought 315 Nivison’s work insightfully suggests,2 the practical problem of how to overcome weakness of will can fruitfully be treated as a central theme of classical Chinese moral psychology. However, Nivison’s interpretation of early Chinese psychology tends to take for granted what Searle calls the Western classical model of rationality. He assumes that the problem with an agent who fails to act as she thinks she should lies in a motivational defect. Hence he sees the key to preventing weak-willed actions as lying in ethical cultivation aimed at restructuring the agent’s affective states. One of our aims in the discussion below is to highlight the weaknesses in Nivison’s account. Searle’s theory of action, specifically his notion of the Background, suggests a more compelling way of overcoming weakness of the will, one that converges in some respects with what we argue is a more defensible account of the classical Chinese conception of agency. In the final part of this paper, we suggest that a plausible way for Searle to address the practical problem of weakness of will would be to show how weaknesses of the self in carrying out intentions can be ameliorated by strengthening capacities included in the Background, much as the development of such capacities enables us to master skills. 2. The Classical Model of Rationality and the Gap Let us briefly review Searle’s analysis of weakness of the will by way of his criticism of the now-familiar Davidsonian account.3 According to this account, we can characterize an akratic or weak-willed action thus: (A) Sometimes an agent makes a judgment that it would be better to do x than y, believes herself free to do either, and then intentionally does y.

David S. Nivison (1996), The Ways of Confucianism, La Salle: Open Court. Davidson, arguing that that weakness of will is explicable and intelligible, disregards the moral aspects of the problem and treats it simply as an issue concerning practical reasoning. But Searle considers the general idea behind Davidson’s account to be the same as that behind accounts such as R.M. Hare’s for resolving akrasia in moral contexts. Thus, Searle thinks, his criticisms of the shared general idea apply to both. See Searle, 2001, pp. 221 ff. 2 3

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The problem of weakness of will is that (A) seems to be incompatible with familiar and plausible principles concerning practical reasoning.4 If (A) is considered to describe pure cases of weak-willed actions, then a common approach to the problem of weakness of will in twentieth-century analytic philosophy, of which Davidson’s account is an example, has been to deny that such pure cases exist. Davidson contends that actions that we think of as exhibiting weakness of will are not really instances of (A). Instead, they involve a conditional, rather than an unconditional, judgment by the agent that it would be best for her to do a certain action. So, to correctly describe the sorts of weakwilled actions that in fact commonly occur, the word ‘judgment’ in (A) should be qualified by “conditional” or “prima facie”. So qualified, (A) no longer contradicts any familiar principle concerning practical reasoning. On Searle’s analysis, Davidson’s solution to the problem is a consequence of a mistaken conception of the relation between reasons and actions. In Searle’s view, Davidson assumes a central tenet of what Searle calls the “classical model” of rationality and practical reasoning (2001, pp. 5 ff.), according to which intentional states such as beliefs and desires are causally sufficient to determine rationally motivated actions. Constrained by this idea, Davidson’s account inevitably must claim that, when an agent acts contrary to her intention or best judgment, she did not really hold the unconditional intention or value judgment in question. In Searle’s view, the Davidsonian approach to weakness of will is a kind of reductio ad absurdum of the classical model.5 This model—and this approach to weakness of will—entails that there cannot be a gap between the psychological antecedents of an action and its intentional

4 Davidson mentions two such principles: (i) If an agent wants to do x more than she wants to do y and she believes herself free to do either x or y, then she will intentionally do x if she does either x or y intentionally; and (ii) If an agent judges that it would be better to do x than to do y, then she wants to do x more than she wants to do y. See Donald Davidson, “How is Weakness of Will Possible?” in Davidson (2001), Essays on Actions and Events, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 23. Davidson’s article was first published in 1969. See also Searle, 2001, p. 221 f. 5 Granting that Searle is right about the Hare-Davidson approach, there is still a question about just how far back the Hare-Davidson conception of the puzzle of weakness of will goes in the Western philosophical tradition. Aristotle, for example, does not seem to share this conception. Clearly, whether Searle’s critique of the approach constitutes a (partial) refutation of the classical model of rationality and practical reasoning depends a great deal on how one answers this question. In this paper, we will not concern ourselves with this historical and interpretive issue, however.

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weakness of will, the background, and chinese thought 317 performance (or the intentional attempt to perform it). Yet the existence of such a gap, Searle argues, is absolutely essential to rational decision making and action. The traditional puzzle about weakness of will is thus a result of a mistaken conception of intentional causation, according to which the process of deliberation is causally sufficient for the formation of an intention to act and such an intention is causally sufficient for the actual undertaking of the intended action.6 By contrast, according to Searle, in voluntary, non-compulsive action, because of an inescapable causal gap between different stages of deliberation and action, the mere presence of reasons or an intention to act does not compel the agent to act (2001, p. 50). Rather, the agent must act on the reason or intention, making it effective as a cause of the action.7 This “acting on a reason”

6 According to Arpaly, deliberation is not a necessary condition for acting for reasons, either. See Arpaly, 2003, Chapter 2. 7 Here we wish to raise a question concerning the causal role of what Searle calls “effective reasons”. A central assumption of the classical model that Searle attacks is that rational actions are caused by beliefs and desires. A prominent idea in his critique is that since “cause” in this assumption has the sense of the common or Aristotelian “efficient cause” or “sufficient cause”, the assumption in effect fails to provide a model of rationality. For it is only in cases of compulsive, irrational actions, such as an addict’s use of drugs, that the psychological antecedents of an action are really causally sufficient to bring about the action. In the case of rational action, the existence of the gap entails that the agent’s beliefs and desires (for instance) are not casually sufficient to cause her action. Given the thesis of the gap, then, Searle must offer a new explanation of the basic causal connection between intentions and actions. His approach is to replace the notion of a reason or an intention as a sufficient condition or an efficient cause with the notion of a reason “made effective” by the agent (Searle, 2001, p. 85). But it is not completely clear exactly what kind of causation is in play when an effective reason functions as the cause of an agent’s action. For on the one hand, Searle distinguishes between the notion of “causing” and that of “performing” an action (p. 157), suggesting that the proper notion to apply in explaining action, at least at the level of intentional phenomena, is that the self performs actions—nothing “causes” them, in the sense of a sufficient cause. Nothing “fills” the gap. (This of course leaves open the possibility of an explanation in terms of sufficient causes at the neurophysiological level.) On the other hand, he also suggests that an appeal to such a reason to explain intentional action is a case of non-sufficient causal explanation (p. 83). This seems to imply that a reason made effective by the agent thereby causes the agent’s action, through a form of intentional causation in which an intentional state causes the very state of affairs it represents (p. 41). And though Searle emphasizes that a reason cannot be an efficient cause or a sufficient condition, he characterizes intentional causation as a type of mental causation, which is a subcategory of efficient causation (p. 41). This leaves us unclear as to the precise causal role of effective reasons.

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corresponds to actually trying to do what we have made up our mind to do while exercising freedom of the will.8 Weakness of will, therefore, presents no puzzle, since it is but a symptom of freedom of the self. Actions are not just events that follow from certain psychological antecedents by causal necessity, but performances by agents presented with an indefinite range of different reasons or options for action. Weakness of will arises as a natural consequence of the gap between the psychological antecedents and the performance of an action. This brings us to Searle’s three-part conception of the gap. 3. The Gap Discussions of the problem of weakness of will focus almost invariably on cases where an agent is weak-willed in executing an intention to act according to his own best judgment. But reflection on our experience as agents seems to show that in the structure of deliberation and action there are also other junctures at which weakness of will may arise. One of the strengths of Searle’s account of intentional action is how it contributes to articulating these other sorts of cases of weakness of will. In Searle’s view, we do not normally experience the process of deliberating, making up our minds, and acting as a sequence of stages each of which is causally sufficient for the next to occur (2001, p. 50). Rather, we experience a continuous causal “gap”, manifested in different ways at different stages of the process, by which each stage could fail to lead on to the next. Searle suggests that the overall experience of the gap divides fairly naturally into three distinctly identifiable gaps: (1) The first gap obtains between an agent’s deliberation on her reasons for deciding to act one way or another and her resulting decision—the formation of an intention to act, or what Searle calls a “prior intention”. (2) The second obtains between the prior intention and the intentionin-action, between deciding to do something and actually trying to do it.

8 In terms of the three gaps identified in §3 below, we can say that the existence of the first gap rebuts principle (ii) in Davison’s argument (see note 3) and the existence of the second gap rebuts (i).

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weakness of will, the background, and chinese thought 319 (3) The third holds between the initiation of an action and its continuation to completion, and thus it is present at every stage in the execution of a temporally extended intention-in-action. More precisely, as Searle puts it, this is the gap between “the causes in the form of the prior intention to perform the action and the intention-in-action on the one hand, and the actual carrying out of the complex activity to its completion, on the other” (2001, p. 63).

The problem of weakness of will, as traditionally conceived, relates mainly to the second gap, the failure to execute prior intentions. But Searle’s idea that there are at least three gaps, if correct, suggests that weakness of will need not be confined to this failure. An agent could also manifest weakness of will by failing to form the prior intention most justified by the reasons she considers in making up her mind, or she could manifest it in carrying a complex action to completion. The focus of the traditional problem of action failure as arising from the second gap9 is but a result of a widespread tendency toward internalism about reasons. Searle’s notion of the gap thus provides several useful distinctions to employ in characterizing different aspects of—or, more precisely, different locations of—weakness of will. Traditional accounts have paid little attention to the location problem. Searle’s three-part conception of the gap also opens up the interesting possibility that the importance or plausibility of an account of weakness of will may depend on which gap one is talking about. Since, in Searle’s view, the gap is closely tied to the experience of freedom, one might suggest that the three kinds of weakness of will can be only as different as the ways an agent may exercise freedom with respect to the three kinds of gaps, and this difference cannot amount to much, since the freedom in each case is essentially one and the same phenomenon. But this does not mean that very different solutions might not be applicable to the ethical and prudential issue of how one is to overcome weakness of will in the three sorts of cases. How one deals with a failure to carry out a complex activity might be very different from how one deals with a failure to form the best-justified prior intention as a result of a process of deliberation or practical reasoning.

9 Of course, as Searle sees it, the conventional conception of the problem arises not from the second gap, strictly speaking, but from a failure even to recognize the existence of the gap.

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Searle’s critique of the classical model and his thesis of the gap will prove useful both in understanding the nature of the Chinese problem of weakness of will and the differences between it and the traditional Western problem. We will now briefly sketch the Chinese problem and then relate it to Searle’s views. 4. Weakness of Will: The Chinese Problem Among the central issues of classical or early Chinese philosophy—the thought of the pre-Qin or Warring States era10—is a problem of moral weakness related to but distinct from the traditional Western problem of weakness of will. There are two major differences between the traditional Western philosophical problem and the Chinese problem. First, where the Western philosophical problem mainly concerns explaining weakness of will—that is, understanding how it is possible— Chinese philosophers were mainly concerned with overcoming weakness of will—that is, preventing it from occurring. The Western philosophical problem is one of theory; the Chinese problem one of practice.11 Moreover, in the Western formulation of the problem, weakness of will occurs when an agent fails to act according to his best judgment. The failure is sometimes regarded, on the classical model, as one of rationality. The Chinese problem is how an agent can overcome moral weakness or character weakness so that he adheres more reliably to the right ethical path. Thus it seems more appropriate to label the Chinese version a problem of moral weakness or character weakness, involving a failure of reliability in performance, rather than weakness of will, involving a failure of rationality. Relabeling the topic “character weakness” helps bring out the second way the Chinese problem of action failure is different from the Western problem. The unit of action at stake in Chinese discussions is the ethical path, not the single action, and the problem is a failure of character, not a failure to carry out an intention. Western philosophers

10 “Classical”, “early”, “pre-Qin”, and “Warring States” are four labels for the same historical period, which can be conveniently demarcated as lasting from the death of Confucius in 479 B.C. to the founding of the Qin Dynasty in 221 B.C. 11 This is not to suggest that the practical problem has been entirely neglected in the Western tradition. But it seems to have been addressed mainly under the rubric of religion, not philosophy.

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weakness of will, the background, and chinese thought 321 have tended to focus on reasoning about individual actions and to treat weakness of will as a problem concerning the logical relation between practical reasoning and the agent’s actions. The challenge is to resist temptation or failure on an act-by-act basis. Weakness of will is seen as revealing a failure to execute an intention, rather than a failure to consistently adhere to the right path in pursuing ethical goals. By contrast, the central issue in pre-Qin discussions of action failure concerns agents who know the right ethical path and desire to follow it but fail from a lack of resolve, nerve, or moral fiber. It is epitomized by the following exchange in the Analects, a collection of sayings attributed to and anecdotes about Confucius. Rǎn Qíu said, “It’s not that I don’t delight in the master’s Way (dào, path), it’s that my strength is insufficient.” Confucius said, “Those whose strength is insufficient collapse along the way (dao). Now you draw a line.”

We will note just two points about this passage. First, here, as throughout pre-Qin thought, the unit of action at issue is the practice of an ethical path or “way” (dào)—a set of practices, habits, and styles of conduct— rather than the execution of a discrete individual action. Second, the problem in question is Rǎn Qíu’s failure to practice the Way because of his belief that he lacks the needed ability or “strength”.12 For this, Confucius rebukes him for giving up in advance, using rhetoric that would sound familiar coming from a sports coach: Trying and failing is one thing, but placing limits on one’s abilities before even giving the task an honest try shows a shameful lack of gumption. As this passage illustrates, moral weakness, in the Chinese context, is a failure to stick to the path—to consistently and reliably do the sorts of things one knows one should do. Pre-Qin thinkers generally agreed that this sort of failure is to be rectified by training and habituation. So when discussing the practical problem of moral weakness, they tended to talk about how agents can develop virtues leading them to reliably act correctly, or more precisely, to adhere to the right path. Following a path is matter of developing certain abilities and habitual patterns of behavior, which add up to developing a certain sort of virtuous character. Thus Chinese thinkers were concerned mainly with

12 Notice that Rǎn Qíu is portrayed as “delighting” in the Way, an attitude that can plausibly be taken to imply that he sincerely believes this Way is ethically right and desires to practice it himself. He thus has the psychological antecedents normally taken on the Western classical model to be sufficient for him to act.

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the performance of skills and habits and the issue of practical training aimed at cultivating skills, habits, and virtues. Searle’s thesis of the gap is useful in characterizing the difference between the Chinese and Western problems of weakness of character or will. We noted that the traditional Western problem has concerned the second gap, the failure to act on one’s prior intention. By contrast, Chinese thinkers’ main concern is with something like the third gap, that between the agent’s intentions and the actual performance of a complex, temporally extended activity. We can think of early Chinese thinkers as concerned with two interlaced practical problems, that of maintaining the concrete practice of the Way over time, and that of continuing the process of character development and training that is both part of and strengthens our ability to practice the Way.13 Searle’s account of the gap should also help to underscore the importance of the Chinese version of the problem of action failure as compared with the Western version. Recall that in Searle’s view, instead of something strange and puzzling, weakness of will is a natural consequence of the gap, whose existence is essential for the operation of free, rational decision making and voluntary action. To the extent one is not skeptical about freedom of the will, the possibility of weakness of will presents no particular explanatory problem. Moreover, as Searle reminds us repeatedly, a natural consequence of existence of the gap and human freedom is that no matter how you structure the antecedents of your action, weakness of will is always possible. What then calls for a solution, one might say, is not the explanatory problem but the practical problem of how to cope with or overcome weakness of will. In understanding the problem of moral weakness as fundamentally a practical problem, early Chinese thinkers may have rightly drawn our attention to where it should be. 5. Nivison on Weakness of Will in Early Chinese Thought In several essays collected in The Ways of Confucianism,14 David Nivison usefully suggests that the Analects, Mencius, Mo-Zi, and other early 13 The committed attitude required to succeed in this project is surely part of the Confucian virtue of chéng. 14 See David Nivison, 1996, in particular the essays “Weakness of Will in Ancient Chinese Philosophy”, “Motivation and Moral Action in Mencius”, “Philosophical Voluntarism in Fourth-Century China”, and “Two Roots or One?”

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weakness of will, the background, and chinese thought 323 Chinese texts can fruitfully be approached as addressing the problem of how to overcome weakness of will. Interestingly, Nivison proposes that the Chinese problem is not akrasia so much as acedia, a sort of apathy or lack of motivation to do what one knows is right (1996, p. 93). This proposal already hints that his interpretation of the Chinese version of the problem presupposes the classical model of rationality.15 For he identifies acedia as a condition in which the agent does not “care enough about it to act” (p. 92) on her practical judgment, and he ties moral weakness to “the problem of my ability to feel the way I would have to be genuinely moved to do” what a normative argument tells me I should (p. 96). As Nivison frames it in one place, the problem is that “the motivational component is not something that just automatically is there when one sees the connection” between the premises and conclusion of a practical argument (p. 145). So he sees the Chinese paradigm of moral weakness, or action failure, as a case in which an agent correctly judges what she should do but fails to do it because she either has insufficient motivation or has not applied her existing motivation correctly. On his view, the Chinese solution, exemplified by his interpretation of Mencius, is for the agent to refocus and restructure her emotions or desires so that they coincide with her normative judgments (see, e.g., pp. 99, 102, 144). This is achieved through a process of self-cultivation in which the agent “extends” natural affective responses, such as the love we feel for kin, to new objects, such as distant strangers. Then the agent will “care enough” and action will ensue. As this solution suggests, Nivison assumes that motivation, or at least morally worthy motivation, can arise only from desires or emotions, and this assumption structures his way of framing the Chinese problem and his Mencian solution.16

15 Specifically, Nivison’s approach is likely to have been influenced by his colleague Donald Davidson’s treatment of akrasia. 16 The emphasis on affective responses seems to be something Nivison brings to the texts, motivated probably by his construal of internalism, for it is hard to find it in the texts themselves. Early Confucian texts do insist that the proper performance of rituals requires the right sort of attitude or feeling, and the Mencius links the capacity for moral goodness to the capacity to feel alarm at danger to others (2A:6) and to feel love for one’s parents (7A:15). But there is little evidence that feelings were considered essential to moral motivation or moral worth. Nivison (1996, p. 99) cites Mencius 4B:19, which distinguishes between “acting from kindness and duty”—that is, acting from virtue—and “putting kindness and duty into practice”—acting according to the norms of kindness and duty, but without yet having fully developed the virtues oneself (this is a plausible interpretation, though the classical text is vague). But it is question-begging to suggest

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Thus Nivison assumes motivational internalism and something like the classical belief-desire model of action, in that he assumes motivational force must come from feelings or desires. He sees the problem of moral weakness as in effect a failure to carry out the result of a piece of practical reasoning, though in the Chinese context the reasoning in question is analogical, not syllogistic (pp. 96 ff.). The agent sees the case at hand as analogous to a case in which a certain action is performed, but lacks the motivation to perform the analogous action. Nivison’s solution is to strengthen the agent’s affective response to the situation, so that the agent indeed responds to it in a fashion appropriately analogous to some paradigm case, such as the treatment of beloved family members. The agent shifts the needed motivation into place by analogically extending virtuous reactions from paradigmatic cases to other, relevantly similar cases. Nivison conceives of two sorts of situations in which the agent might modify her motivations in this way. We can think of these as synchronic and diachronic. In synchronic cases, we know what to do and have a disposition to be moved to do it, but are unable or unwilling to apply that disposition (p. 89). Here the solution is to learn to perform an “inner act of thought” (p. 85) that brings the disposition into play.17 For instance, for Nivison’s Mencius, we have natural pro-attitudes toward the good and the right, and the key to overcoming moral weakness is to focus thought on these properties to bring the motivational power of our affective response to them into play (pp. 85, 113). Diachronic cases receive most of Nivison’s attention, because they are central to his understanding of the development of virtue.18 These are cases in

that acting from kindness and duty involves experiencing any particular emotions, rather than simply having a reliable disposition to act in the right way. 17 One might object to Nivison’s use of the term ‘disposition’ here, since the term usually refers to a reliable response, not one that needs to be intentionally invoked. Perhaps ‘capacity’ would be a more appropriate label for what Nivison is getting at. 18 This is due to a nuance in Nivison’s view arising from his version of internalism, which leads him to run together the problem of moral weakness with a particular conception of moral worth. He believes actions are morally worthy only when they issue from certain sorts of feelings, such as compassion for others; that these feelings are the product of “cultivating” and “extending” our natural feelings for those close to us; and that this process of extension normally takes time. Hence in his view merely pushing oneself to act in the right way cannot solve the problem of moral weakness, since the goal is action that is not merely right, but morally worthy. We believe that Nivison’s views do not explain the texts well—the Mencius, for example, says little or nothing about the diachronic cultivation of emotions and seems to adopt more or less just the views Nivison proposes are being criticized there—but the interpretive

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weakness of will, the background, and chinese thought 325 which the project of bringing our motivations into line with our normative knowledge requires an extended, indeed lifelong, process of self-cultivation (p. 85). Gradual, unselfconscious cultivation is needed, because just forcing oneself to act would not solve the problem, since the only reliable solution to moral weakness is for action to be driven by a spontaneous, “lively, animated” affective response. Nivison takes Mohist consequentialism—and, astonishingly, any ethical view that appeals to normative principles to guide action—to face a serious problem of moral motivation, because the Mohists do not place the cultivation of affective dispositions at the center of their moral psychology and moral reform program. Instead, they believe that normative arguments, social encouragement, and a system of material incentives and disincentives will be enough to motivate most people to abide by moral norms and eventually to become good. Nivison takes the exchange between Mencius and a wayward Mohist named Yí Zhī (Mencius 3A:5), who failed to observe Mohist doctrines by giving his parents lavish funerals instead of modest ones, to illustrate the pitfalls of a purported Mohist doctrine of moral cultivation. Nivison imputes to Yí Zhī the view—not found anywhere in the Mo-Zi—that agents can be led to practice the Mohist doctrine of all-inclusive care by redirecting and expanding their natural concern for kin so that it becomes universal and impartial (pp. 102 ff.).19 But, as Nivison sees it, the Mohist approach is condemned to failure, because it pushes agents to perform, for normative ethical reasons, actions that their affective dispositions in themselves would not otherwise lead them to perform.

arguments needed to explore these issues thoroughly would take us beyond the scope of this paper. 19 The Yí Zhī story is almost certainly unrelated to moral cultivation, since neither Yí Zhī’s explanation nor Mencius’s response allude to anything like a cultivation process. (Moreover, it is odd to offer an interpretation of Mohist doctrine on the basis of few words from a failed Mohist reported in the text of one of the Mohists’ opponents.) Yí Zhī tries to excuse his failure to conform to Mohist doctrine by saying that “care has no degrees, but practice begins with one’s family.” The point of this remark in the context is probably that—consistent with Mohist doctrine—he has an equal degree of moral concern for all, but that—again, consistent with Mohist doctrine—in practice he takes care of his family’s needs first. The implication is that he would give everyone’s parents a lavish funeral if he could. The excuse is mysterious, since it fails to explain his action, which violated the Mohist doctrines of frugality and modest funerals, not the doctrine of all-inclusive moral care. But Yí Zhī’s remark has nothing to do with a cultivation or reform regimen. Mencius responds with an imagined tale about the origin of funerals in people’s spontaneous disgust and horror at seeing insects and animals eat their dead parents. Again, nothing resembling a cultivation process is depicted.

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The purportedly superior Mencian solution is an internalist one, on which actions spring from suitably cultivated affective responses, for on Nivison’s interpretation this is the only reliable way to prevent action failure due to moral weakness. Searle’s attack on the classical model and his account of weakness of will help highlight the flaws in Nivison’s account in two ways. They remind us that ancient Chinese thinkers could have been applying a theoretical framework other than the classical model, and they cast doubt on the plausibility of Nivison’s Mencian solution to moral weakness. For on Searle’s account, no matter what one does to strengthen the affective component of one’s reasons for action, weakness of will remains an ever-present possibility. A plausible practical solution will not come from modifying the premises of the practical reasoning that leads to the intention to perform an action. The solution must come from whatever it is in the agent that translates intentions into actions. And that is the Background. 6. Resolving Moral Weakness We suggest that Nivison misconstrues the nature of the problem of moral weakness for Chinese thinkers. They do not focus on individual acts, and they do not think the solution to the problem is to cultivate and refocus one’s feelings and desires, bringing them into harmony with one’s judgments. Rather, they emphasize that everyone has the ability or capacity to develop a virtuous character, just as every normal human being has the capacity to learn to read, speak a foreign language, swim, or ride a horse. Having this capacity means that we already possess sufficient motivational resources to enable us to become virtuous. But to develop and apply our abilities reliably, we need habituation and training. Initially, the process of habituation and training may help us to recognize the right ethical Way, if we have not already. But generally it functions simultaneously as a component of our practice of the Way and as a means of strengthening that practice. Having set out and made some progress in following the Way, we may experience two sorts of moral weakness: isolated instances of failure to act, which are a familiar, common form of weakness, and a comprehensive collapse in our practice of the Way, a rare but severe form of failure. Isolated instances of weakness are akin to errors in the performance of skills, whether the failure of a novice still acquiring a

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weakness of will, the background, and chinese thought 327 skill or an expert having a bad day. In this sort of case, we have what Searle calls “a failure in ‘how to do things’ ”, due fundamentally not to a problem with the agent’s beliefs and desires, but to “a breakdown in the functioning of the pre-intentional capacities that underlie the intentional states in question” (1983, p. 155). The solution to such isolated breakdowns or instances of weakness would seem to lie in continued training to develop and perfect one’s moral dispositions and skills. Comprehensive weakness is akin to abandoning a training program, course of study, avocation, or career path. Here again the failure seems not to lie in the content of the agent’s intentional states, nor in the rational relation between them and the initial intention in action that got the agent started on the path. What is missing is rather a kind of perseverance, commitment, or determination—that is, whatever quality or qualities of character move us across the gap from the intentional, psychological antecedents of action to its performance. (We hope this suggestion will strike a chord with anyone who has ever had difficulty quitting smoking, losing weight, or sticking with a rigorous training program.) If so, then the solution to this sort of weakness may also lie in a sort of habituation and training to strengthen the relevant aspects of the agent’s character. Thus if we have correctly sketched some of the structural elements of early Chinese philosophy of action, the Chinese solution to the problem of moral weakness lies in continued training and practice aimed at developing both particular virtues, such as kindness, and broader character traits, such as perseverance or resolve, which lend coherence to the self and enable us to carry out temporally extended intentions. The immediate aim of such training is not to modify one’s affective responses to things, but simply to develop reliable habits and dispositions. (Very likely, these will involve certain sorts of affective responses, but such responses are not the crucial feature.) The success of the training process depends less on the status of the agent’s conative or affective states at any one stage than on the agent’s raw determination to stick with the program. If this interpretive hypothesis about early Chinese thought is correct, then we should expect to find the texts frequently expressing the view that everyone has the ability to be virtuous, if only we simply “get out there and do it”, and that though we will inevitably fail sometimes, when we err we must simply get back on track and continue practicing until the Way becomes second nature to us. We suggest—though for brevity we will not marshal texts to support this claim—that Confucius,

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Mo Zi, and Mencius are frequently depicted as expressing, directly or indirectly, roughly just this view, and that in the dialogue with King Xūan (Mencius 1A:7), Mencius is portrayed as stating the first half of it quite explicitly. 7. Modifying the Background and a Strengthened Self We suggest that Searle’s theory of action, in particular his thesis of the “Background”, has the resources to provide a complementary solution. The thesis of the Background is Searle’s account of the role of non-intentional or pre-intentional capacities in intentionality; the “Background” refers to the various non-intentional capacities, abilities, and know-how that enable intentional states to function. (Searle capitalizes the word to indicate that he uses it as a technical term.) We can summarize the thesis as the claim that all intentional phenomena—meaning, understanding, belief, desire, experience, action, and so forth—function only within a set of non-intentional capacities that play an indispensable role in determining their intentional content, and thus their status as intentional phenomena.20 In and of itself, for instance, an utterance is merely a pattern of sound waves, meaning nothing in particular. Utterances have meaning only in some context of use. But any such context will involve a range of non-intentional, causal capacities of the speaker and audience, from brute perceptual capacities to the know-how or abilities that enable us to participate in complex social practices. These capacities are aspects of the Background that enable particular utterances, or for that matter, intentional states, to have the meaning or content they do. We suggest that the complementary solution Searle’s theory can provide to the practical problem of moral or character weakness, and thus weakness of will, is an account of how habituation and training

20 Searle’s most careful, precise statement of the thesis is: “All conscious intentionality—all thought, perception, understanding, etc.—determines conditions of satisfaction only relative to a set of capacities that are not and could not be part of that very conscious state. The actual content by itself is insufficient to determine the conditions of satisfaction.” See John R. Searle, 1992, The Rediscovery of the Mind, Cambridge: M.I.T. Press, p. 189. For an earlier version, see Searle (1983), Intentionality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143. Searle’s most informative accounts of the Background are at Searle, 1992, pp. 175–96, and Searle (1995), The Construction of Social Reality, New York: The Free Press, pp. 129–47.

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weakness of will, the background, and chinese thought 329 can modify and strengthen the agent’s Background, a significant portion of which can be considered the basis for, and perhaps even partly the locus of, the agent’s character or self. This training would seek to develop virtuous dispositions and habits that function automatically, without requiring intentional control or guidance, once the agent has commenced an intentional course of action. Though the patterns of activity issuing from these dispositions and habits can to some extent be monitored and controlled by conscious reasoning and judgment, generally they are not. Instead, virtuous dispositions and habits are allowed to operate immediately and spontaneously. These dispositions will include the sort of rule-responsive dispositions that allow us to act in accordance with the rules of social institutions without actually employing representations of the rules consciously or unconsciously to guide our action.21 Such Background dispositions constitute a central part of the underlying action-guidance mechanism of an agent with a virtuous character. On the picture of moral agency we have in mind, a well-trained agent follows the Way consistently and reliably. For him, commitment to his ongoing practice of the Way—and thus his continuing ethical training and cultivation—is so much a part of his character that turning off the path is not a real option. Paradoxically, the more advanced the agent’s training becomes, the more restricted his sense of the possibilities or options open to him, yet the greater the degree of his control over his actions, and thus the greater his moral freedom. One might wonder how this restriction of “real” options could avoid diminishing the agent’s freedom, because to be free is usually understood as a matter of being presented with a wide range of possible courses of action. But consider the example of a skilled professional basketball player who spots a chance for a shot. His response will be so automatic that he can experience only a very restricted range of options as open to him. Obviously, this does not reduce his shot to an involuntary, robotic action, however. These observations suggest that modifying and strengthening the Background may be an instructive way to understand the character

21 We are referring here to the sorts of dispositions Searle describes in his account of rule-sensitive or rule-conforming behavior that issues directly from the Background, and thus is no longer dependent on intentional rule-following. Searle’s thesis is that we can develop behavioral dispositions that enable us to act in conformity to rules without actually following them. See Searle, 1995, pp. 137–47.

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training needed to overcome moral weakness, for the Background is simply the underlying set of pre-intentional and non-intentional capacities that enable action and other intentional phenomena to function. A virtuous act is an intentional action that flows from the agent’s virtuous character. We can think of such acts as morally appropriate, “skilled” responses to particular situations that issue from reliable dispositions developed as a result of a long-term ethical “training program”. We suggest that the dispositions in question reliably generate morally skilled responses precisely because they are part of a pre-intentional or nonintentional Background that functions largely spontaneously, without intentional guidance or control. The notion of the Background also helps to clarify how an agent can experience an apparent restriction of options without a reduction in freedom. As free agents, we are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as presented with a wide range of possibilities for action. Nevertheless, this range is always limited by various factors, including our physical environment, biological capacities, and Background (2001, p. 25). Like our biological capacities, the Background sets genuine limits on what we can freely do. But far from reducing our freedom, the Background is what enables us to act in the first place. It functions to open up, not close off, possibilities for action, and indeed it is partly constitutive of our character and our very capacity for agency. The training an amateur basketball player receives that transforms him into a professional does not turn him into a robot.22 Just the opposite: It enhances the reliability and skillfulness of his Background capacities, giving him the ability to perform new sorts of actions and forging his identity as a basketball player. Similarly, the training and habituation a moral agent might undertake to modifying her Background abilities and strengthen her character may narrow her range of real options for action, but it does not make her robotic. Rather, it is a process of strengthening the self, and the agent is likely to experience the concomitant restriction of “live” options not as a limitation but as strength of character.

22 One reason for this is that the relevant locus of freedom in extended patterns of activity, such as pursuing a training program, lies in the voluntary, intentional commitment to a complex, long-term task or goal. Since much of what we do that makes human life human lies in the pursuit of long-term projects, such commitment, and the apparent “restriction” of freedom that comes with it, is characteristic of human agency.

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weakness of will, the background, and chinese thought 331 The example of the basketball player also helps to bring out a related point about the role of training in cultivating moral fortitude. Just as an expert player needs to maintain his training (if only to retain his already perfected skills), part of being a virtuous agent is maintaining a commitment to continuing moral “practice”. One may have already traveled far along the Way, but the gap, as an inescapable feature of genuine agency, is always present. Sticking to the path requires training; continuing to stick to the path requires sticking to further training. Moral weakness is displayed not only by straying from the Way or by failing to develop our native ability to do what is right into a virtuous character. It is displayed also by a lack of commitment to the ongoing training needed to keep oneself on the path. Developing our abilities is the key to overcoming isolated instances of action failure; the continuing commitment to training and practice is the key to preventing us from abandoning the Way outright. These considerations point toward a solution to moral weakness that focuses not on intentional states, reasoning, and deliberation, but on training the agent’s ability to perceive and respond to moral situations in the right way—the way that an agent with a virtuous character perceives and responds to them. To avoid moral weakness, such perception and responsiveness must of course be highly reliable. This brings us to two further functions of the Background that Searle identifies, which fill out our explanation of how habituation and training can strengthen character and overcome moral weakness. The Background facilitates certain kinds of readiness, preparing us for the sorts of situations we are likely to encounter, and it disposes us to respond to those situations in certain ways (1995, p. 136). Two aspects of this sort of readiness and response are particularly important here. First, a major function of the Background is to enable perceptual interpretation to take place; it is by bringing Background skills to bear on raw perceptual stimuli that we apply categories to things perceived (1995, p. 132). Clearly, what goes for perception will also go for the agent’s ability to recognize types of moral situations. By modifying our Background abilities, we can enhance the immediacy and reliability of our moral perception, a key component of a virtuous character. Second, in Searle’s view, the Background can be “causally sensitive” to the rules of institutions “without actually containing any beliefs or desires or representations of those rules” (1995, p. 141). Consider again the example of the basketball player. A player learning how to play the

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game may initially need to learn a set of explicit rules and strategies and deliberately guide his play by them. But as he becomes skilled, he acquires a set of dispositions that enable him to respond smoothly and directly to the demands of the situation, so that he moves appropriately yet automatically, without actually thinking about the rules and strategies. Searle’s theory suggests that it is a mischaracterization to say that at this point the player has learned to apply these rules and strategies more skillfully. Rather, he is no longer actually applying them at all. Instead, he has developed Background skills and abilities that are “functionally equivalent to the system of rules, without actually containing any representations or internalization of those rules” (1995, p. 142). This role of Background causation in explaining rule-responsive behavior helps to explain one aspect of the virtuous agent’s moral strength—the agent’s capacity to reliably respond in a morally “skillful” way to the ethical demands of particular situations. As with the exercise of any skill, activity governed by ethical norms reaches its highest level of reliability and mastery when it is integrated into the Background and becomes the sort of activity we can perform automatically, without conscious thought. We suggest that what Searle contends goes for language, games, and social practices goes for morality as well.23 To sum up, the Background—and thus the agent’s strength of character and moral fortitude—can be modified through training and practice in such a way that the agent becomes increasingly disposed to reliably carry out his intentions and, in moral contexts, to act virtuously. Searle’s notion of the Background includes many of the dispositions, capacities, and other factors that constitute a virtuous character. Recognizing the function of the Background and the role of reliable dispositions within it highlights a central feature of the Chinese way of thinking about weak-willed action. Fundamentally, the weakness in question is not simply a failure of rationality or in the execution of intentions, so much as a failure of the Background mechanisms that normally enable the agent to consistently adhere to a chosen course of action, moral or prudential.

23 This point is particularly germane in the context of ancient Confucian thought, in which the virtuoso, context-sensitive performance of an elaborate system of ritual actions was considered a central feature of the virtuous agent’s activity.

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weakness of will, the background, and chinese thought 333 Chinese Glossary Chéng 誠 dào 道 Yí Zhī 夷之

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REPLY TO CHRIS FRASER AND KAI-YEE WONG John R. Searle I thought the paper by Chris Fraser and Kai-yee Wong was fascinating and insightful. Two things I especially appreciated are the clarity with which they summarize my views. I think they are quite fair and accurate. Second, I appreciate their suggestion that the way to deal with the practical problem of weakness of will has much to do with the role of the Background in shaping our actions. I think they are especially on the right track when they say that the improvement of Background skills may actually narrow the range of real options for action, nonetheless, they do not decrease freedom. As they say, “It is a process of strengthening the self, and the agent is likely to experience the concomitant restriction of ‘live’ options not as a limitation but as strength of character.” That seems to me very much on the right track. What they are suggesting, and it is a powerful addition to my own writings, is that we should not just think of the Background as facilitating languages, games and social practices generally, but for morality as well. The special philosophical puzzle about weakness of will has to do with a specific theory of human action and a specific conception of rationality that goes back to Aristotle. As they are aware, worries about the very possibility of weakness of will are the preserve of professional philosophers. These philosophers are confronted with a paradox: the prevailing theory of action is called a “causal theory” because it says an intentional action is defined in terms of its causes. A typical version of the story goes: actions are caused by reasons, but reasons for actions are beliefs and desires, but then an intentional action is an event caused “in the right way” by beliefs and desires. If the beliefs and desires set sufficient causal conditions, how is it possible that there could be such a thing as an incontinent or akratic action? If by definition actions are caused by reasons, and if a person has the right reasons and recognizes them as the right reasons for the right action, then how can he fail to act on those reasons? How can weakness of will be possible? But it is quite obvious that weakness of the will is not only possible, it is actual. It is very common in real life. And the fact that the standard theories

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make it seem impossible or at least bizarre shows a weakness of those theories. Weakness of the will is a natural consequence of the existence of what I call the “gap.” There is a causal gap between reflecting on the reasons for action and actually making up one’s mind on the basis of those reasons; there is a continuation of this gap between making up one’s mind and actually initiating the action that one has decided to do; and in the case of actions extended over time there is a continuing gap between one’s commitment to the course of action and one’s actually carrying it out through to the conclusion. When we face this problem, we realize that there is a distinction between what worries professional philosophers and what worries educators. The point I wish to make now is that the real life educators in the West have very much the same problem that philosophers in the Chinese tradition have. The problem is not to explain the possibility of weakness of will but to enable us to overcome it. I think it may be misleading to characterize the distinction between Western and Chinese philosophy in dealing with the problem of weakness of will as a difference between the theoretical problem of how weakness of the will is possible and the practical problem of overcoming weakness of will, especially in moral situations. The reason I think this is misleading is that of course the problem of overcoming weakness of will is very much part of the traditional moral education in Western culture, as it is in other cultures. In my youth, what religious people and school educators worried about is very much what the Confucians worried about: Strength of Character, Learning, Fortitude, Self-Control. All of this is part of the stock in trade of Sunday school teachers and school principals. Perhaps the school principals gave up. But in the United States the standard aim of moral education was to produce self-control. We were always taught that you have to learn strength of character and self-control. The effort to induce self-control in the young seldom worked, but it was traditionally the objective of much moral education. Now, it is true that there are some things missing in the Western tradition. One is anything at all similar to the Confucian rituals. Another thing missing is the idea that there is “the way.” But with those qualifications, I think the educational philosophy and the religious philosophy in Western countries, is much like the way the authors characterize the Chinese problem. I think it is an implausible and indeed unrealistic feature of technical philosophy in English speaking countries that weakness of will is made

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out to be something bizarre or unusual. The idea is that it is puzzling that such a thing could ever happen. The idea that weakness of will is some weird anomaly, as Fraser and Wong are right to see, results from a failure to see the importance of what I call the gap. I want to say, in opposition to the prevailing Western tradition, that if you think weakness of the will is a remarkable problem, you have a mistaken theory of action, because weakness of the will is very common in real life. Weakness of will is as common as tea in China. I think most ordinary people have cases of weakness of will several times a day. Perhaps they have not followed the Confucian disciplinary training well enough, but all the same, weakness of the will is not uncommon. For example, one thinks, “I should not drink another glass of wine, but the Cabernet tastes very good, so I will have a little bit more.” This sort of thing occurs to me often. Davidson’s solution to the problem of weakness of the will, seems to me, a solution by fiat. He says that if the causes of the action in the form of reasons are satisfactory, it is impossible that weakness of will should occur. But it obviously does occur. Therefore, he stipulates that in any case where it occurs, there must have been something wrong with the antecedents of the action. The formation of the intention wasn’t an unconditional all-out intention, but only a prima facie conditional intention. But that is simply a solution by fiat—I want to say: whatever the form of the intention, however strong and unconditional you make the intention, you can still have weakness of will and still have akrasia. The only way to avoid this is to make it a tautology that unless the psychological states in the form of reasons caused the action, then there was something inadequate or conditional about the psychological states. I very much appreciate their suggestion that the practical problem of overcoming the weakness of the will is in large part a matter of developing Background abilities, and as they are right to see, this has theoretical implications both for our philosophy of action and for our philosophy of morality.

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SECTION D

META-PHILOSOPHICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SEARLE ON KNOWLEDGE, CERTAINTY AND SKEPTICISM: IN VIEW OF CASES IN WESTERN AND CHINESE TRADITIONS Avrum Stroll 1. Introduction In a paper published in 2003, entitled “Philosophy In A New Century,” John Searle offers an original and bold vision of the future of philosophy in the 21st Century. This vision, too elaborate fully to be described in a short paper such as this, rests on a historical thesis, namely that epistemology, long considered the central discipline of the philosophical enterprise, has been superseded by a huge accumulation of knowledge that is certain, objective and universal. Searle argues that the traditional mission of philosophy from the 17th C. to the present has been to justify the existence of knowledge in the face of radical skeptical doubt. His view is that the enormous body of scientific knowledge we now possess makes it impossible today to take the Cartesian project seriously. As he puts it, the era of skeptical epistemology is over because “we know too much.” Searle does not claim that such skeptical challenges lack intellectual interest or that philosophers should stop working on them. His point is rather that they have been moved off central stage, very much like Zeno’s paradoxes of motion. Just as nobody can rationally doubt that motion exists, so nobody can rationally doubt that we know more than Descartes did. Searle claims that such new information will have a significant impact on future philosophical research endeavors. To a great extent his paper is a prevision of the kinds of issues that a scientifically oriented philosophy will encounter in the next one-hundred years. He considers a number of classical areas of the discipline and suggests how they and their traditional problems will be transformed in the post-skeptical era. The matters he discusses include the rapidly developing field of cognitive science and its impact on the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language; the need for an upgraded

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philosophy of society; the prospects for developing a theory of practical reason and its import for ethics; the influence that a revival of realism will have for the philosophy of science; and the implications of modern work in biology for the traditional mind-body problem. In the course of explaining why the growth of knowledge in the past half-century has rendered a skeptical-based epistemology otiose, Searle advances a provocative thesis, namely that certainty and corrigibility are compatible. To my knowledge no other philosopher has considered this possibility. It has been assumed from the time of Plato to the present that the concept of certainty entails incorrigibility. This is just the view that John is challenging. In what follows I will examine his historical thesis about the present irrelevance of scepticism and the thesis that certainty does not entail incorrigibility. Although there is some evidence in favor of each, I will eventually arrive at the conclusion that neither is correct. 2. The Historical Thesis It is, of course, difficult to find a decisive argument either pro or con for any complicated historical thesis. I wish, therefore, to do something that is more modest. I will suggest a different construal of the Western historical situation. I think that Searle is right in saying that epistemology has been the central player in that tradition since the 17th C. And I think he is also right in saying that at least for Descartes skepticism is seen as a main threat. But I disagree about what it is threatening. In my view, the challenges Descartes worries about are to certainty rather than to knowledge. The textual evidence in support of this interpretation is powerful. In Meditation II, for example, Descartes writes: Yesterday’s meditation has thrown me into such doubts that I can no longer ignore them, yet I fail to see how they are to be resolved. It is as if I had suddenly fallen into a deep whirlpool; I am so tossed about that I can neither touch bottom with my foot, nor swim up to the top. Nevertheless, I will work my way up and will once again attempt the same path I entered upon yesterday. I will accomplish this by putting aside everything that admits of the least doubt, as if I had discovered it to be completely false. I will stay on this course until I know something certain, or, if nothing else, until I at least know for certain that nothing is certain. Archimedes sought but one firm and immovable point in order to move the entire earth from one place to another. Just so, great things

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are also to be hoped for if I succeed in finding just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshaken.1

It will be noted that in this passage Descartes does not speak of knowledge. It is true that he uses the word “know” but the passage makes it clear that what he wishes to know is whether anything is certain. He says he is searching for “just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshaken.” So the emphasis is clearly on certainty, not on knowledge. I think it is fair to say that this emphasis runs through all six Meditations. 3. Chinese Philosophy and Scepticism Searle’s emphasis on knowledge rather than certainty bears on a long tradition in Chinese thought, going back at least to Zhuang Zi (Chuang-tzu) who in the 4th C. B.C. developed versions of the Dream Hypothesis that anticipated Descartes by two millennia. Zhuang Zi awoke from a dream, unsure whether he was Zhuang Zi who dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who is now dreaming that he is Zhuang Zi. If Searle is right both this tradition and its later, Western, versions have been rendered obsolete by the huge accumulation of scientific knowledge since the time of Galileo. Most commentators, differing from Searle, have treated Zhuang Zi’s arguments as challenging the existence of certainty. In a seminal essay comparing Greek and Chinese versions of skepticism, entitled “Sextus Empiricus, Zhuangzi, and Xunzi,” Paul Kjellberg makes it plain that for Chinese skeptics it was certainty and not knowledge that was at stake. As he says: The arguments would seem, therefore, to be performing much the same function for Zhuangzi that they were for Sextus, inducing uncertainty, which, as we noted earlier, is a very different thing from disproving knowledge. (my italics). The enigmatic Perfected People at the end of the above passage make the most sense if interpreted as uncertain in this sense. . . . . Thus Zhuangzi would share with Sextus the assumption that people need only be uncertain whether something is good or bad, rather than certain that

1 Descartes, Rene, Meditations on First Philosophy, trans. from the Latin by D.A. Cress, 3rd ed., 1993, Indianapolis: Hackett, p. 17.

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avrum stroll it is neither, in order to remain unmoved. . . . This suggests a different vision of the whole text not as providing solutions but rather as asking questions leading to uncertainty.2

It is, of course, well-known that science in the Western sense did not develop in China in the way that it did in the 16th and 17th Centuries in Europe, but as Kjellberg and other historians emphasize, Zhuang Zi and many subsequent Chinese writers presupposed that much was known about the world and its inhabitants, even though such “knowledge” fell short of certainty. Although I am hardly an expert on the history of Chinese thought, those who are suggest that there is a long tradition coming down to the present from at least the time of Zhuang Zi that casts doubt on the possibility of attaining certitude about reality. Zhuang Zi’s Dream Hypothesis is a good example of this line of thinking. Moreover, it is curious that in his own essay, Searle uses locutions that are almost identical with those we find in Descartes. In speaking about knowing something with certainty, he is in effect distinguishing between knowledge and certainty and presupposing that certainty is what is at stake. Here is a quote in illustration of the point: There is a very large body of knowledge that is known with certainty. You will find it in the university bookstore, in, for example, textbooks on engineering or biology. The sense in which we know with certainty that the heart pumps blood, for example, or that the earth is a satellite of the sun, is that given the overwhelming weight of reasons that support these claims, it is irrational to doubt them. (p. 6)

I have two further objections to Searle’s historical thesis. A. Many philosophers, including some in the Chinese tradition, have had no reservations about the abundance of knowledge, including the amount and accuracy of the scientific or technological knowledge that was available at the times they were writing. It is true that China never developed an experimental/theoretical science in the Western sense, but their accomplishments in technology were extraordinary. Their technology was already well developed thousands of years before comparable achievements were available in the West. Such things as the wheelbarrow, the cross-bow, the kite, iron-chain suspension bridges, the magnetic compass, block printing, gunpowder, and water-powered textile mills are only a partial list of such creative activities. It is dubious therefore 2 In Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi, ed. by Paul Kjellberg and Philip J. Ivanhoe (1996), Albany: State U. of N.Y. Press, pp. 9–10.

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that the Chinese did not regard the workings of these various devices as examples of things they knew to be true. But like their counterparts in the West they held that all such knowledge was probable only, given the liabilities of most mechanical devices, and never reached the level of certitude. As a consequence of advancing such a position, they did not see skepticism as contesting the existence of knowledge, since they thought there was plenty of it on a practical level, but rather as questioning the possibility of attaining certainty about the world. Such skepticism was also rampant in the West, although at a much later date. Hume is an excellent example. Like Locke before him, he is interested in the origin, nature and extent of knowledge about matters of fact—what we would now call “empirical or factual knowledge.” Clearly there would be no point in trying to trace the origin of factual knowledge unless one presupposed that there was such a species and enough of it to make it worthwhile to explore its nature. Indeed, Hume was much impressed by Newton’s achievements and often spoke as if his ambition were to be the Newton of philosophy. The tradition that accepted the probabilistic nature of empirical knowledge has had a long career in Western thought and was prominent among the logical positivists in the 1920’s and 30’s, and then later among such neo-positivists as Quine. Unlike Quine, Hume argued that certainty, in the sense of ‘incorrigibility,’ existed and was definable. As is well known, he distinguished what today we would label “analytic propositions” from “synthetic propositions,” and contended that the former could be known to be true with certainty but that they were empty of any factual content. Earlier Locke had called such propositions “trifling.” This was exactly the view that the early Wittgenstein inherited. In TLP Wittgenstein states that “all propositions of logic say the same thing. That is nothing.” (5.43). His supporting example is memorable. He writes: “I know, e.g., nothing about the weather when I know that it rains or does not rain.” Indeed, he asserts that both tautologies and contradictions are without sense, “like the point from which two arrows go out in opposite directions.” (TLP, 4.461). Like Hume, Wittgenstein does not question the existence of empirical knowledge. Hume and the early Wittgenstein resemble one another in adhering to forms of scientism, the doctrine that the only statements about the world that are both meaningful and true belong to natural science. But they differ in their attitudes toward skepticism. Hume is clearly a skeptic, whereas Wittgenstein throughout his entire philosophical career

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from the TLP to his final notebook, On Certainty, held skepticism to be senseless (unsinnig). As he says in the Tractatus, Skepticism is not irrefutable, but palpably senseless, if it would doubt where a question cannot be asked. For doubt can only exist where there is a question; a question only where there is an answer, and this only where something can be said. (TLP, 6.51)

Hume’ scientism has its most famous expression at the end of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. As he puts it: If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask: Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames; for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

At the end of the Tractatus, Wittgenstein makes a similar comment. He writes: The right method of philosophy would be this. To say nothing except what can be said, i.e., the propositions of natural science, i.e., something that has nothing to do with philosophy. (6.53)

It is obvious that neither Hume nor Wittgenstein has any worries about the existence of scientific knowledge; and it is also obvious that Wittgenstein, like many analytic philosophers, disassociates the status of skepticism from the abundance of such knowledge. Searle’s thesis that skepticism arises as a challenge to the existence of scientific knowledge does not fit the historical facts very well. B. I turn now to a second problem with the historical thesis. This is Searle’s claim that it is the skeptical arguments, such as the Dream and Demon hypotheses, that are the main sources of the challenges to knowledge. I believe this contention to be mistaken. My view is that many thinkers who have held that scientific truths can be known only with a certain degree of probability but never with certainty, have not relied on skeptical arguments to reach this conclusion. Let us turn to Hume again to illustrate the point. Here is Searle’s interpretation of Hume: The question, “How do I know that I am not a brain in a vat, not deceived by an evil demon, not dreaming hallucinating, etc.”—or, in a more specifically Humean vein, “How do I know I am the same person

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today that I was yesterday?” “How do I know that the sun will rise in the East tomorrow?”—I regard these as like Zeno’s paradoxes about the reality of space and time. . . . . . Analogously, I should like to say, no one should doubt the existence of knowledge because of the skeptical paradoxes. These are nice exercises for philosophers but they do not challenge the existence of objective, universal and certain knowledge.” (4–5)

It is clear that Searle is assimilating the radical skeptical arguments advanced by Descartes to the skeptical arguments Hume constructs about the Principle of Induction or Personal Identity. He is surely right in asserting that Hume’s deflationary arguments about the Principle of Induction lead to a skeptical conclusion, namely, that we have no evidence either deductive or inductive for the irresistible conviction that what is true of the past will be true of the future. But Hume offers a set of non-skeptical arguments, differing from his skeptical analyses, in support of his contention that our knowledge of matters of fact is never certain but at most probable. These are arguments that depend on the principle that all knowledge about matters of fact is based on experience, present or past. For Hume all generalizations, including scientific laws, are based on past experience. And the fact that this is so leads him to a probabilistic or corrigibilistic thesis about natural laws. To feel the full power of his analysis we should look again at the three examples that Searle presents of propositions that he claims are known to be true with certainty. These are: The heart pumps blood. The earth is a satellite of the sun Water consists of H20 molecules.

Searle claims that the evidence for these three claims is overwhelming, and further that the theories in which they are embedded are so wellsupported by evidence that it is irrational to doubt them as well. A close inspection of these propositions reveals that they have two features in common: each is a sub-case of a particular science and none of them is based on direct observation. Proposition 1—“The heart pumps blood”—is clearly meant as a generalization. One can read it most plausibly as asserting that all hearts pump blood. But then Hume’s point becomes relevant. Because nobody has ever observed all hearts there is an inference involved from past instances where hearts have been observed to pump blood to all cases of hearts and the pumping of blood. Hume’s analysis of a proposition of this sort takes place at two levels of sophistication. He agrees that the proposition represents

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a specimen of scientific knowledge, but argues (he is now at level one) that because past experience is only a sample of all experience, we cannot be sure that future experience will conform to past experience. His conclusion is that the proposition about the heart is not certain but probable only. At level two, he demonstrates that the argument from past experience which supports Proposition 1 as a piece of scientific knowledge assumes the Principle of Induction. But as his analysis of the Principle of Induction reveals, it is incapable of rational demonstration. It follows that scientific research rests on a principle that inevitably leads to skepticism. The important points to draw from his account are that he concurs that Proposition 1 is a case of scientific knowledge, and, furthermore, that all scientific knowledge is probable only. His skeptical conclusion about induction rests on a wholly different line of reasoning. If we examine Searle’s other examples, about the planetary status of the earth, and the composition of water, we can see that Hume’s level one analysis would apply to both propositions. Both, if true,3 would be based on past observation, and would involve an inference from past observational data to all future cases. Hume is to be read as presupposing that the arguments that support such a probabilistic reading of these propositions are not skeptical arguments but depend on other principles, such as the limited scope of past experience. Accordingly, Searle’s construal of the historical relationship between skepticism and scientific knowledge cannot be accepted as presented. 4. Certainty and Corrigibility I will begin by quoting the entire passage in which Searle sets forth his surprising thesis that certainty does not entail incorrigibility. I do so both to avoid misrepresenting his position and to see how he interprets

I have argued elsewhere that the proposition, “Water is composed of H20 molecules” is not true. As Harold Urey showed in 1932, some molecules of water contain deuterium and tritium, which are isotopes of hydrogen. Accordingly, some molecules of pure water are composed of D20, and there are many other combinations of isotopes of both hydrogen and oxygen that form molecules differing in composition, molecular weight and chemical properties from molecules of H20. For details see Stroll (2001), “Why Water Isn’t H20” in Facta Philosophica, V. 3, No. 1. 3

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the question. He seems to present it as a logical issue: Does certainty imply incorrigibility? But we shall find that the examples he cites in the passage make that interpretation questionable. Here is what he says: The sense in which we know with certainty that the heart pumps blood, for example, or that the earth is a satellite of the sun, is that given the overwhelming weight of reasons that support these claims, it is irrational to doubt them. But certainty does not imply incorrigibility. It does not imply that we could not conceive of circumstances in which we would be led to abandon these claims. It is a traditional mistake, one I am now trying to overcome, to suppose that certainty implies incorrigibility by any future discovery. We are all brought up to believe that certainty is impossible because claims to knowledge are always tentative and subject to further correction. But this is a mistake. Certainty is not inconsistent with tentativeness and corrigibility. There is no question that we know a great many things with certainty, and yet those things are revisable by future discoveries. (p. 6)

This passage is very complex. As a minimum it contains the following assertions: A. Claims to knowledge are subject to future correction (i.e., are corrigible). B. Certainty does not imply incorrigibility.

(A) is obviously true. It is possible for someone to claim to know something and to be mistaken in that claim. Future evidence may well be relevant to determining that the claim is erroneous. But (B) is a much stronger assertion. It asserts that a proposition that is certain is revisable in the light of future evidence. The question is: Is B true? The answer to some extent depends on how one understands the concept of “incorrigibility.” In the literature, it has been taken in two ways—first, as referring to a feeling of assurance on the part of someone who makes an assertion; second, as referring to propositions that are indubitable, independently of how any speaker feels about them. The second sense can be further divided between a weaker and a stronger sense. Both of the latter senses apply to propositions rather than to persons. According to the weaker sense, a proposition p is incorrigible if p holds come what may. In that sense, analytic statements, but not contingent, statements, have been taken to be incorrigible. According to the stronger sense, a proposition p is incorrigible, if it is impossible for p to be false. Some philosophers—G.E. Moore is a notable example—have interpreted

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incorrigibility in this second, stronger sense.4 As the passage I have quoted indicates, it is not clear in which of these senses Searle is using “incorrigibility.” If he means that a speaker feels certain at time T1 in the light of overwhelming evidence about some proposition, that claim is clearly consistent with the statement that future evidence may show the speaker and the proposition to be mistaken. On this interpretation, we would assimilate his view to A, i.e., to the thesis that claims to know something with certainty are subject to future correction. Since this is not an interesting principle, I suggest instead that he wishes to speak about propositional certitude as revisable, which is indeed a bold and original point of view.5 That Searle seems to be speaking about propositions per se and not about speakers, for example, is supported by comments he makes in the cited text. He says (as quoted above) “we know a great many things with certainty, and yet those things are revisable by future discoveries.” It is natural to interpret his references to the “things we know with certainty” as propositions. If we do interpret him in this way then he is saying that a proposition that is known to be certain at time Tl may turn out to be false. If this is what he is indeed saying he seems to be using the term “proposition” in a weaker sense than Moore. On the supposition that Searle is speaking about propositions, let us look again at the examples he cites of propositions that are known to be true with certainty. The heart pumps blood. The earth is a satellite of the sun.

Now both (i) and (ii) are contingent propositions. By definition, a contingent proposition is one that does not hold in all circumstances. So the proposition, “This wall is painted brown,” may be true today but after the wall is painted white tomorrow, will not be true tomorrow. If 4 See Moore’s “Four Forms of Scepticism,” in Philosophical Papers, London: Allen & Unwin, pp. 220–22. 5 In On Certainty Wittgenstein draws a sharp distinction between a person’s having complete conviction which he calls “subjective certainty,” and a non-psychological sense that he calls “objective certainty.” He thinks that Moore confuses these two senses of certainty. It is possible that Searle does so as well. Much of On Certainty is dedicated to explaining when something is objectively certain (see entries 194 and 195 for example). For an excellent, extensive discussion of this distinction see “Unravelling Certainty,” by Daniele Moyal-Sharrock. Her essay is to be found in Moyal-Sharrock (2005), Readings of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, esp. pp. 76–90.

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Searle is pointing out that both (i) and (ii) are subject to future correction what he is saying is true but trivial. But as I read the passage, that is not where he thinks the central issue lies. The real issue for him is: Does anyone ever know with certainty that (i) and (ii) are true? Or to give an alternative formulation to the question: Is it possible to know any contingent proposition with certainty? And here is where Hume’s analysis becomes relevant again. For if (i) and (ii) are revisable in the light of future experience Hume would deny that it is correct to say that we know them with certainty. Searle disagrees; his reasons for saying that we do are: 1. There is now overwhelming evidence that supports these claims. 2. As a result, it is irrational to doubt them.

I agree with Searle that 1 is true. There is overwhelming evidence in support of both (i) and (ii). I am not sure about 2, i.e., whether it is irrational to doubt them. For centuries it has been part of the received wisdom that the sun has nine planets and that Pluto is one of them. Yet recently, based on new evidence, some astronomers have speculated that Pluto is not a planet at all but, rather, an outer satellite of Neptune. Whether they are right or wrong is still a matter of dispute. But even if wrong they are surely not irrational in holding such a belief given the evidence they have. The case of Pluto is, of course, different from that of the earth; there is overwhelming evidence that it is a planet. But even if we have such evidence does that demonstrate that we know (ii) with certainty? Hume would say we do not and Searle would say we do. Since both concur that future findings affect the status of such beliefs, how do we decide who is right? And what is the relevance of their disagreement to the issue about the relationship between certitude and incorrigibility? I suggest as a way of breaking the deadlock that we explore the clues we find in everyday discourse. Consider the following scenarios, for example. (1) Suppose a dispute should arise about which batter had the most hits in a regular major league baseball season. A says: “I know it was Babe Ruth.” B says: I have just checked the official baseball guide and it states that it was George Sisler. So you are wrong. A says: “I guess I was. I thought I knew but I was mistaken.”

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Let us shorten the previous scenario to one sentence. The issue is still the same: Which batter had the most hits in a regular major league season? A says at time T1: “It was possibly Babe Ruth.” In these scenarios we find the key we are looking for. They inform us about the conceptual relationships between knowledge and certainty and certainty and incorrigibility. The first tells us that if a proposition, p, that is claimed to be true, is found to be mistaken, the claim to know that p must be withdrawn. So if p is not true, p is not known. It follows by contraposition, that if p is known then p is true. In the second scenario, in using the word “possibly” A is saying that it may or may not have been Babe Ruth who had the most hits in a season, a comment that entails that A does not know whether p is true or false. A’s comment thus gives rise to a parallel argument. If A’s remark at time T1 that p is possibly true, entails that p is possibly false, then if A knows that p is true, it follows that p is not possibly false. We can illustrate the point with a specific example: Let us call the true sentence, “George Sisler had the most hits in a season,” p. The scenario thus entails that if at time T1 A does know that p, then it is not possible for p to be false. And this is simply another way of saying that p is incorrigible. I should add a further word about the second scenario. It indicates that one needs to distinguish between two uses of “possible.” The first I might label “logical possibility.” In that use, it is possible for any contingent statement to be false. The second I will call “epistemic possibility.” In that use, If A knows that p is true, then it is not possible for p to be false.6 It will be noted that my argument does not turn on modal concepts. Although the notion of possibility is embedded in the argument, it simply depends on first order (in fact on simple) sentential logic i.e., on the theorem that ~p⊃~q≡p⊃q.

Moore says that the failure to distinguish these two senses of “possible” leads to a fallacy. He gives the following argument as an example of such a fallacy. It is possible for a human being to be of the female sex. I (Moore) am a human being. Therefore, it is possible that I (Moore) am of the female sex. He says that the premises are true but that the conclusion does not follow. His point is that since he knows he is male, it is not possible for him to be of the female sex. This argument appears in his “Four Forms of Scepticism.” 6

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According to the classical tradition, stemming from Plato through Wittgenstein, three conditions must be satisfied before A can correctly be said to know that p with certainty. These are i) that p is true at time T1 ii) that it is impossible for p to be false, even where p is contingent, and iii) that A at time T1 possesses substantial evidence in favor of p. It is the second of these conditions that expresses the logical bond between certitude and incorrigibility. I thus conclude, contra Searle, that even where p is contingent, the traditional view about the relationship between certainty and incorrigibility is correct.

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REPLY TO AVRUM STROLL John R. Searle This is a good opportunity for me to express my enormous gratitude to Avrum Stroll, not only for what he has done for me personally, but what he has done for the profession of philosophy. His constant belief in intellectual quality, logical rigor, and clarity has been a source not only of our education, but a source of inspiration to us all. I will only make two critical comments about his paper. The first is about the Cartesian tradition and the second about certainty. It is true that Descartes talked about certainty and not so much about knowledge. But I think it is clear from the context that what he had in mind was this: He thought that unless we know something with certainty we cannot even have any probabilities. That was the point of the reference to Archimedes. You have to get a fulcrum which enables you to get a kind of epistemological leverage. You have to have a certain basis that you can build on. I take it that Descartes’ skepticism about certainty was part of a general methodological skepticism about knowledge. Hume is a more radical skeptic than Descartes. Hume really is a genuine skeptic about the crucial things: the existence of material objects in the world, personal identity, induction, etc. Indeed if you read Hume’s Treatise carefully, the bottom line is that the only things you can really know are your own experiences and analytic propositions. All else is based on inadequate reasoning. And it is not sufficient, that these reasonings should be probabilistic, because Hume also has a famous argument about declining probabilities: that in any probability statement the probability will eventually decline to zero. I do not want to get into heavy historical analysis, but I think the skeptical tradition after Descartes is a continuing argument that begins with Descartes and continues through Hume. Hume, in a sense, works out the logical consequences of Cartesianism as modified by Locke, and Berkeley, and thus as modified by empiricism. Then Kant comes in and tries to rescue knowledge by basically putting the form of knowledge in our heads, that the world has to be responsible to us, not we responsible to the world. However, those are points of historical criticism.

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Now the second part of Stroll’s paper is for me the more interesting. I think there is a fallacy which goes as follows: he says correctly that if you know something with certainty then it must be true, and indeed, even knowledge by itself has that consequence. If you know something then that something must be true. But then it seems to me that he makes a fallacious inference based on a scope ambiguity. There is a necessary proposition: necessarily ‘S knows that p’ implies ‘p’. But Avrum wants to conclude from the truth of the antecedent that therefore the consequent p is necessary. That does not follow. The following conditionals are necessary: (S knows p £ p) If S knows that p, then p. (S is certain that p £ p) If S is certain that p, then p. It does not follow that if S knows or is certain that p, then p is necessary. S knows p £ p S is certain that p £ p Neither of these follows. You cannot detach the necessity from the conditional and apply it to the consequent on the basis of the truth of the antecedent. I think there is a clear scope ambiguity. From the fact that it is necessarily the case that if I am certain that p, then p, it does not follow that if I am certain that p, then p is a necessary proposition. I could be certain that p, and yet p could still be a contingent proposition. I hope I am interpreting Stroll correctly here. The passage I am referring to goes as follows “if at time T1 A does know that p, then it is not possible for p to be false. And this is simply another way of saying that p is incorrigible.” In the next paragraph he adds, “one needs to distinguish between two uses of ‘possible’. The first I might label ‘logical possibility’. In that use, it is possible for any contingent statement to be false. The second I will call ‘epistemic possibility.’ In that use, if A knows that p is true, then it is not possible for p to be false.” (p. 16) There is a deeper point here that I would like to clarify. Certainty is an epistemic property of agents such as ourselves as we relate to propositions. It is not a property of propositions as such. We now know some propositions with certainty, but at one time the same propositions were not known with certainty, and later we came to know those propositions with certainty. But corrigibility is not in that way a property of

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human agents. It is a semantic property of propositions, meaning, roughly speaking, that they are contingent. And the fact is that we can have the epistemic property of certainty about contingent propositions. Why has there been so much resistance to this point in our philosophical tradition? I think the answer is that we were all brought up in the tradition of empiricism which made a systematic confusion between epistemology and ontology, and in this case, between epistemology and semantics. Certainty is an epistemic property of agents relative to propositions. Corrigibility is a semantic property of propositions. If you recognize a clear distinction between semantic and epistemic properties, then there are indeed epistemic properties such as certainty, but it is not at all puzzling that these epistemic properties of certainty should be consistent with the semantic property of corrigibility.

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SEARLE’S THEORY OF INTENTIONALITY AS A PHILOSOPHICAL METHOD FOR RESEARCH IN THE HUMAN SCIENCES B. Jeannie Lum Over the last decade, a reinterpretation of the Chinese notion of self has emerged among China scholars in contradistinction to what some have regarded as a long tradition of a Western imposed, culturally biased perspective in translations of Chinese philosophical and literary texts into English. Historically, philosophical analyses dominated by Westerners differentiate between two senses of the self: the personal private self in conflict or tension with the social public self. This dualist view of a split identity at odds with itself in its commitments to individual freedom in contrast to its conformity with society has driven European and Western philosophical and social philosophical dialogue for centuries. Counter to a Western sense of self, the Chinese self is viewed as bound by the weight of tradition in its willing submission to the authority of elders, its obedience to regulative rules of society, and its devout allegiance to the collective or larger community at the sacrifice of any sense of individuality. Consequently, in Western tradition a Chinese psychology of being is characterized oppressively constrained within its cultural conventions, politically imprisoned within decidedly undemocratic institutions, and mentally lacking in creative freedoms.1 Roger Ames and others have challenged these interpretations and 1 See the passage by Hegel originally from Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree (1956) Reprint, New York: Dover, pp. 111–12, reported by Roger Ames (1994) in “The Focus-Field Self ”, in Self as Person in Asian Theory and Practice, Edited by R.T. Ames with W. Dissanayake and T.P. Kasulis, State University of New York Press, p. 88. Hegel writes regarding the Chinese Confucian conception of self: “moral distinctions and requirements are expressed by Laws, but so that the subjective will is governed by these laws as by an external force. Nothing subjective in the shape of disposition, Conscience, formal freedom, is recognized. Justice is administered only on the basis of external morality, and Government exists only as the prerogative of compulsion. . . . Morality is in the East likewise a subject of positive legislation, and although moral prescriptions (the substance of their Ethics) may be perfect, what should be internal subjective sentiment is made a matter of external arrangement. . . . While we obey, because what we are required to

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claim that a more authentic rendering of the Chinese philosophical and literary texts reveals a highly particularized ‘relational self ’2 that is concretely constructed in situ and uniquely individual.3 In this paper, I wish to address this recent bifurcation among China scholars through a rather circuitous route using this opportunity to analyze the differences between a Western, in this case American, and Chinese sense of self through the extension of Searle’s theory of intentionality and social reality as a general social method. In part, this is a “thought experiment”, because there is an asymmetry in making this comparison. While I am able to draw upon actual data from an ethnographic study for my analysis of an American sense of self, I then examine the philosophical assumptions drawn from this analysis and correlate these with Chinese philosophical interpretations to construct an example of a Chinese sense of self. Also, while my intent is to demonstrate how Searle’s theory can operate as a philosophical method for method for human science research, I question his notions of the Background and Network of Intentionality. First, I present the conceptual issues at stake in his revisions of the Background and Network of Intentionality. Secondly, I provide data on students’ collective intentionality and consciousness from previous studies needed as background to understand the comparative analysis of an American and Chinese sense of self that follows. I identify some correlations between Searle’s philosophy and other China scholars. Thirdly, I return to discuss the theoretical challenges at issue and pose a reassessment of these issues through Searle’s speech act apparatus.

do is confirmed by an internal sanction, there the Law is regarded as inherently and absolutely valid without a sense of the want of this subjective confirmation.” 2 See Roger T. Ames (1994), “The Focus-Field Self in Classical Confucianism” in Self as Person in Asian Theory and Practice, edited by Roger T. Ames with W. Dissanayake and T.P. Kasulis, State University of New York Press, pp. 187–212. Ames identifies four models of the Confucian self—The Hollow Men, Autonomous Individuality, The Organic Self, Part of the Whole as Self—and criticizes the substance of their constructions. He puts forward a fifth model: The Self as Focus and Field in a Focus-field Model which is the basis for this notion of a ‘relational self ’. 3 See Roger T. Ames (1991), “Reflections on the Confucian Self: A Response to Fingarette,” in Rules, Rituals, and Responsibility: Essays Dedicated to Herbert Fingarette, edited by Mary I. Bockover, Open Court, pp. 103–12.

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1. Conceptual issues: The Background and the Network of Intentionality In earlier works, Searle distinguishes two important concepts in relation to intentionality: The Background and the Network of intentional states.4 Following his studies in the philosophy of language, the thesis of the Background and Network grew out of his studies in literal meaning. He extended this to include speakers intended meaning and all forms of intentionality, whether linguistic or nonlinguistic. The essential relationship between the Background and the Network is that the contents of intentionality are not self-interpreting or self-applying. And thus the Background is necessary but not sufficient for generating conditions of satisfaction of intentional states. In Searle’s early works he posited two levels of the Background: There are ‘deep Background’ capacities with a certain kind of know-how such as how to do things like walking, eating, seeing, etc., that we have by virtue of our biological make-up. And there are ‘shallow Background’ or ‘local cultural practices,’ such as knowing how to open a lunch box, find the courtyard, tell time, or open a gym locker that enable students to formulate the intentions that they have.5 The Background provides “the set of practices, skills, habits, and stances that enable Intentional contents to work in the various ways that they do”.6 These enabling conditions are non-representational, that is, they do not function like propositional states as forms of representations, such as beliefs, desires, intentions, etc., that have conditions of satisfaction and meaning intentions.7 The Background as “a set of kinds of know-how differ from forms of knowing that.”8 In addition, as part of the Background, there is a set of representational states that form a Network of intentional states and have the content and conditions of satisfaction they do relative to their position to numerous other states in the Network. A simpler way of putting this is that our mental states and orientation towards objects, states of affairs, and events in the world are influenced by a larger complex of still other psychological states, some of which are logically related to

4 Searle, John R. (1983), Intentionality: an Essay in the Philosophy of Mind, Oxford: Cambridge University Press, pp. 141–59. 5 Searle, 1983, p. 143. 6 Searle, 1983, p. 158. 7 Searle, 1983, p. 143. 8 Searle, 1983, p. 143.

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the first intentional state and some of which are not.9 The Network of intentional states enables us to judge whether an intentional action has succeeded in achieving its conditions of satisfaction. The Network exists as a holistic set of beliefs relative to an intentional state providing it with semantic content. But it is not the beliefs that are internal to the state, but “the relations to the Network which are internal” [my italics].10 Intentional states are not quantifiable, nor do they neatly individuate.11 In Searle’s later 1992 revision of the Background thesis, he makes a point that raises some questions about the functioning status of the Background and the Network. All conscious intentionality—all thought, perception, understanding, etc.—determines conditions of satisfaction only relative to a set of capacities that are not and could not be part of that very conscious state. The actual content by itself is insufficient to determine the conditions of satisfaction. This much is lost: There is no occurrent reality to an unconscious Network of intentionality, a Network that holistically supports its members, but that requires further support from a Background. Instead of saying “To have a belief, one has to have a lot of other beliefs,” one should say “To have a conscious thought, one has to have the capacity to generate a lot of other conscious thoughts. And these conscious thoughts all require further capacities for their application.”12

I understand Searle to propose that the Network does not contain representative content that, like beliefs, is propositional in nature, but that these mental states have only generative capacities that make up the unconscious level of the Network similar to the Background nonrepresentational capacities. That is, there are no mental contents in the unconscious Network of intentionality that are self-interpreting, but only capacities that either generate consciousness or function to fix the application of the conscious states. In this paper, by drawing upon an analysis of a case study about students beliefs about principals, I want to explore these issues further: One, that there is no occurrent reality

Searle, 1983, p. 20. Lepore, Ernest and Van Gulick, Robert (eds) (1991), Searle and His Critics, Oxford: Blackwell. Searle, 1983, p. 21. 11 Searle, 1983, p. 19. 12 Searle, John R. (1992), The Rediscovery of the Mind, Boston: MIT Press, pp. 189–90. 9

10

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to the unconscious Network of intentionality; two, that the interpretations of reality are not fixed by the content of intentional states at this unconscious level; and three, that the mental contents at the level of the Network are insufficient to determine conditions of satisfaction of conscious beliefs. Let me briefly get around this as a problem of the obvious. As a physiological matter, there would seem little to argue against. Thus, we might say that biologically, the capacities at both the Background and Network levels are in deed functional capacities and that these descriptions “to generate consciousness” or “function to fix the application of the conscious states” are correct, in that there is nothing but physical stuff that we are referring too. After all, what can mental content possibly look like as physical stuff when working from a biological level of argumentation anyway? But, my question is more directed at the nature of psychological states of intentionality at the unconscious level of the Network and their causal efficacy in determining the conditions of satisfaction of conscious beliefs. And, I take these conditions of satisfaction to include the individual’s capacity for action to extend beyond speech to human behavior, decision making and judgments. The task of this paper is to unravel some of these issues by drawing upon research data. Keeping in mind that the academic aim of research is not to apply theory in order to prove it right, but to test the scope, coherence, viability and limitations of a theory for its improvement and further expansion, I now turn to the study. 2. Comparative analysis of American and Chinese sensibilities A. Research on student mentality I recall the results of two prior studies in order to set the context for my comparisons of the American and Chinese sensibilities. In 1996,13 I analyzed transcribed interviews of high school students (9–12 grades) that had been collected from an earlier ethnographic case study14 to 13 Lum, B. Jeannie (1997), “Student mentality: intentionalist perspectives about the principal”, Journal of Educational Administration 35.3, pp. 210–33. 14 Lum, B. Jeannie (1992), Intentional Leadership: Values and Meaning in Principals’ Practices, unpublished dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.

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understand the intentionality of students about their principal. The methodology included an analysis of students’ metaphors and narrative descriptions about their principal. Students described their beliefs, feelings, impressions, thoughts, and actions in their interactions and observations with their principal in various situations inside and outside of school. In order to maintain a first person point of view, I used their words verbatim as the basis for any analysis and conclusions. I concluded that from kindergarten through high school, principals are perceived negatively by students as figures of authority and moral disciplinarians and these images are ingrained in students’ minds through the status indicators of the institution, assigned functions, routine behaviors, language and roles given to persons occupying the principalship. I identified the phenomenon of reification in students’ collective consciousness and intentionality that I called student mentality. An essential feature of this reified mental state is a consequent breakdown of one’s conscious capacity for coherent reasoning and a loss in the ability to act according to one’s true beliefs. In this psychological state, students hold images of the principal that cast him as all powerful and dominant. This results in subjective feelings of insecurity, powerlessness, and often makes them helplessly defensive. Further, students reify and objectify the principal, which in extreme cases, may lead to their own self-victimization. Recently, in 2003, I was able to resume this project again and extend the analysis by including Searle’s twelve characteristic features of consciousness.15 However, I want to delve deeper into the analysis here; on the one hand, to show the inseparability of intentionality and consciousness, meanwhile providing a context for the comparisons to follow in the next section; and, on the other hand, while it seems unavoidable for a social analysis of psychological states, in seeing this as a philosophical endeavor, to minimize the use of psychological terminology as I have used in previous writings. I will just list and explain each of these ten features16 and its manifest description. (1) Finite modalities (ontological subjectivity): Students’ denuding of their own senses and their complete dehumanization of the principal—not taking him as having Lum, B. Jeannie, “Managing Consciousness: Intentional Leadership”, paper presented at the Second Philosophy of Management Conference, Practicing Philosophy of Management, July 7–11, 2004, St. Anne’s College, and Oxford, England. Philosophy of Management (in review). The twelve features first appear in Chapter 6, Rediscovery of the Mind (1992), and later, ten features are identified in Chapter 3 of Mind, Language, and Society (1998). 16 Ten are taken from later reductions. 15

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any human sensibilities similar to their own; (2) Unity—horizontally, a historical continuous reproduction of predominantly negative images and representations of the principal; vertically projected through the assigned functions and the status indicators of the administrative role of the principal as a figure of authority contingent on the hierarchical structure and organization of the institution (educational, notwithstanding other types of social organizations, e.g. family, military). Student mentality reveals an inert memory of impressions, what we might see as a breakdown phenomenon. (3) Intentionality: The aspectual shape of student mentality towards the principal indicates a split between the cognitive and volitive modes in representative conditions of satisfaction. The principal is the authority in the school but students want to be able to regard him as an equal. (4) Subjective feeling (mood): conscious and unconscious subjective feelings of anxiety17 embedded in students’ dispositions (intentionality) towards the principal associated in the presence or absence of the principal in either real or anticipated interactions with him; (5)18 Structure of experience: The common everyday perception of the principal as “someone up there”, “the man in the office”. Students are relationally “down here”. Moral attitudes are inherently embedded in this structure of experience. The principal is regarded as an evil authority figure. (6) Attention: While students are able to shift their attention at will in their perception (descriptions) of the principal in varying degrees from good to bad, they nevertheless generalize negatively from the particular context to all contexts. As one student put it, “It wouldn’t matter who the principal was, they [students] would regard that principal as a bad authority position”; (7) Boundary conditions: Students sense of their own situatedness in student mentality is always a position of submission, and sometimes but not always oppressed. In student mentality, the extreme state of being oppressed could lead to self-victimization. (8) The aspect of familiarity:

17 In psychiatry, ‘anxiety’ is defined as a state of intense apprehension or fear of real or imagined danger. 18 Searle identifies the fifth feature in 1992 as the Connection between Consciousness and Intentionality, but the Figure-ground Gestalt experience (feature six in 1992) presupposes this ontological relationship and in 1998 it is not included in the reduced list of ten most likely because Searle devotes a chapter to this issue in Chapter Four of Mind, Language, and Society. Searle collapses this condition of satisfaction into the fifth feature “structured” (1998) as I do here. He also takes the Center and Periphery conditions (feature nine in 1992), in principle, as a parallel socially manifested experience gestalt.

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Consciously and unconsciously students regard the principal with the assigned status head of the school. (9) Overflow: Correspondingly, consciously and unconsciously there is the unquestioned associations that the principal has omniscient powers like “a god”, an invisible presence extended beyond students’ immediate presence as a moral disciplinarian, e.g. the principal is “always there looking over your shoulder.” (10) The pleasure/unpleasure dimension: Students’ generally experience displeasure or indifference when in the physical presence, in thought, or in interaction with the principal. This is often times masked by student’s expression of politeness. They perceive principals as unapproachable. Consequently, most students will avoid opportunities for interaction, inadvertently, assuming a subordinate disposition or indifference towards him. It is against this background consciousness and network of intentionality that the following interpretation is possible. “Do me a favor.” Jason is an 11th grader. When I mentioned to the principal that I would be interviewing Jason, he said that he would be a good student to interview since he had interacted with him on several occasions. Here Jason responds to an open ended question, “What do you think about the principal?” 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

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Uh, I like [the principal] a lot. He’s a really nice guy. He tends, I feel, he tends to use his position to pressure people into situations. Where, for instance, one time, I can’t remember, I think it was two years ago that we just got a new sound system in the gym. And there was an awards assembly during fourth period and it was currently third period. And he asked me if I could do him a favor. And what am I suppose to say . . . he’s the principal! [ Jason mimics their exchange] “Of course, yes, I’ll do you a favor.” [Principal] “I want you to find a tape of some music that everybody will like, that won’t offend anybody.” [ Jason] “Uh, Ok.” So that’s a near impossible task itself, plus the time constraints. Well, there was a twenty minute break and everything. But I had a third period class that I couldn’t really get out of or anything. So, uh, I got a tape and he didn’t even use it. (Chuckle) So . . . but . . . And there have been other people who I know who have been placed in situations to do tasks that aren’t really impossible, but because of the time limitations that they’re given, they’re made almost impossible. And it’s for [the principal] and, I don’t know. That bothers me. Well, I was pretty bummed, because I worked hard trying to get this tape and then when he didn’t use it, I was all, well . . . oh well . . . that’s O.K., I don’t mind, its [the principal], he’s a nice guy, he’s my friend.

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But then, he [the Principal] just clashed really hard, really hard with a couple of coaches who were very beneficial to both the teaching and the sports, extracurricular activities in the school. Mr. Day and Mr. Sanchez. Mr. Day, he was my freshman football coach and also my freshman wrestling coach and, I mean I would hate to see the type of person I would have turned out to be if I hadn’t of listened to Mr. Day and had his guidance. Yep, and he also at the time was running the bingo program, which we run to raise money for our athletic program, which I might add, we do make a lot of money doing it. Mr. Day was running that, running the whole thing down there. And because of [the Principal], he quit that too, and he resigned his coaching responsibilities. Yeah . . . it was never really discussed but I personally feel it was conflicts in ideologies, I guess. I really can’t elaborate it, elaborate on it, because I really don’t know. All I know is the end results. I think it didn’t get out at all. Well, I’m sure a lot of people know, it’s just that it’s the type of thing that a student doesn’t need to know.

A western interpretation. Jason begins by saying that he “ . . . likes[s] the principal a lot” and that “He’s really a nice guy” (line 1). We can take these literally as Jason having some positive feelings for the principal. However, we also find a tension about the tone of these feelings in comparison to his very same references in lines 19–20: “Oh well . . . that’s O.K., I don’t mind, it’s [the principal] he’s a nice guy, he’s my friend.” Methodologically, these early comments may be taken as dismissive lead-in statements, possibly in anticipation of the negative stories he is about to tell indicating possible regret, guilt, or desire not to appear as a bad person to the interviewer in expressing his negative feelings towards the principal. However, the latter comments are clearly bouts of sarcasm following his expressed feelings of being “bothered” which raises the question of sincerity in Jason’s first statement. Whether we take him as sincere or insincere will make no difference to the claims that follow as long as we accept that a person may simultaneously hold contradictory feelings for some thing or some one. However, my interest is not in second guessing the meaning of these sentences as much as in showing how two different structural levels of operation of intentionality are clearly revealed: one, the formal institutional framework of collective intentionality19 with regard to the principal as “the principal” and two, a personal framework of individual intentionality with regard to the principal as a friend. A peer group

19 Searle takes this institutional level of collective intentionality as representing commonly agreed upon social conventions.

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framework of collective intentionality or student mentality—what I have identified as a reified state of student consciousness and intentionality (above) that lies somewhere in between. Nevertheless, the primary state in which predisposes Jason towards the principal. Jason proceeds to describe a situation where he was asked to do a favor but ultimately felt bothered because his grandiose efforts in securing the music tape were not appreciated. The tape was not used. Jason depersonalizes this incident, “Oh well . . . that’s OK. I don’t mind, it’s [the principal]” (line 19). In this depersonalization he also reaffirms both his recognition and resignation to the principal’s status as an authority figure (line 7). Even though he states that he feels “bothered” and “pretty bummed,” he continues to deny or compensates for the validity of his own subjective feelings by saying, “I don’t mind, it’s [the principal] . . . he’s my friend.” This kind of reference to the principal implies an image of a higher power of authority, of the type found in authoritative relationships. But, on the other hand, a kind of higher power of authority also found in the common bonds of friendships. Hence, the dilemma Jason faces is whether he is entitled to feel upset as an underling, as ‘just’ a student. A subtext to this dilemma is his struggle between seeing the principal as a formal authority figure or as a friend. Additionally, to further justify his position, he adds the caveat that he’s not the only one; that other students have been put in the same situation (line 10), thus drawing upon his social peer network of collective others in defense and validation of his voice so that it does not appear to be just his problem. Respectively, we can see this as evidence of the network of student mentality at work. In describing the next incident (lines 21–36), Jason shifts the burden of his own diminished value, by augmenting the value of his teacher as a cause for which he can defend (by raising above his own) his feelings of anger and disappointment with the principal. He blames the principal for his teacher’s resignation, but is unable to recognize his own resignation in his inability to confront the principal as an ‘equal’ (as friends do). He takes the principal to be at fault even though he does not know enough of the details to make a fair judgment about the principal’s role in the case of his teacher, Mr. Day, leaving his job (line 30–33). Jason effectively expresses himself as a victim, “it’s the kind of thing that a student doesn’t need to know” (line 34). He empathizes with his teacher whom he regards as a real friend, and by association further legitimates his own right to be angry. Jason takes a stand in support of his teacher who is, like Jason, in a subordinate

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position relative to the powers of the principal. They share a sense of victimization as a common bond. From the western perspective, Jason’s central dilemma is about how to take the principal either as the administrative head of the school or as a friend. In this particular case, Jason feels used by the principal and that the principal has taken advantage of him by virtue of his institutional position and powers. Jason wants the principal to be like a friend and to see their relationship as equals. The decision to take sides with his teacher is a result from his student mentality, an orientation towards the principal that undermines Jason’s sense of autonomy and capacity for rational thought and willful action. In a sense it is like an unconscious default mode of being. It is a comfort zone that is always available for Jason to fall into when things do not go his way, when he has trouble fitting into the principal’s world or the principal doesn’t fit into his. The Chinese interpretation I now want to interpret the narrative from a Chinese ‘relational’ sense of self. It is a ‘thought experiment’ by comparison because the interpretation is based on the reexamination of assumptions in traditional western interpretations of Chinese philosophical texts and their implications for understanding Chinese self and identity. I refer to the Chinese version of Jason as CJ. First of all, CJ does not have this struggle with seeing the principal as both an authority figure and administrative head of the school or as a friend. He accepts that the conditions of his relationship with the principal in both these contexts are different. As the head of the school, the principal has a role, certain functions, and specific powers that go along with that position. Similarly, CJ sees that his student status within the institution carries limited powers in relationship to the principal. CJ would not act in defiance but act constructively to further his advantage in sight of the situation as a whole. His response to being asked to hunt down a tape may be a challenge but he accepts this in carrying out his role as a student to an authoritative figure and in consideration of the scope of his past interactions which have also allowed him to regard his relationship with the principal as one of friendship. When he goes to search down the tape in the interest of doing his part, it is also for the success of the awards assembly and the enjoyment of the greater student body. When the tape is not used CJ may be “pretty bummed” because he does not get any recognition from the principal for his efforts. But, the larger aim,

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the success of the awards assembly, takes precedence over his individual part. When CJ says “I don’t mind, he’s a nice guy, he’s my friend” (lines 16, 17), this isn’t in a tone of sarcasm because he trusts that the principal had a good reason for not using his tape. We can take his comments in this instance as sincere. In fact, these statements would acknowledge his respect for the principal as a leader of the school and the importance of their friendship in seeing his role as one of many who contributed to making the event a success. This does not mean that CJ does not have a sense of self worth, would take himself as less important, or is selfless. CJ understands that there are appropriate ways to behave regarding different assignments of functions and powers and different status indicators among members of the school, but this does not mean that he is unaffected or in self denial. He considers the context of his relationship to the principal and that there are certain regulative and constitutive rules which govern the possible ways in which relationships may be carried out. As he says, “Of course, yes, I’ll do you a favor” . . . “what am I suppose to say . . . he’s the principal!” (Lines 5, 6) And, that’s Ok. If this were an incident that followed a pattern of behavior in which CJ saw that he was being taken advantage of, he then would adjust his behavior to fit the new circumstances of his situation in a changed relationship. Also, from CJ’s perspective, he does not blame the principal for Mr. Day’s resignation. He realizes that it is an affair that he “can’t elaborate on” because he only heard rumors that it was the result of “conflicts in ideologies,” and additionally, he takes it as none of his business, the “type of thing a student doesn’t need to know.” CJ, unlike Jason, maintains a balanced view that accepts his differential status as a student and as a personal friend in relation to both the principal and his teacher. The matter of Mr. Day’s resignation is something outside of his ability to effect. CJ learns from the concreteness and particularity of his place in relationship to others ‘in situ’. For this reason, the phenomenon of student mentality does not appear in the shape of CJ’s intentionality towards the principal. Indeed, a relational intentionality that escapes this reified state of being expresses a unique mode of being. B. Linkages between the Searle’s philosophy and Chinese philosophy In this section, I want to identify some of the underlying philosophical premises upon which the above analysis relies, in particular, the concept

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of ‘relational’ self introduced by Roger Ames and David Hall. In my earlier analysis of the nature of collective student intentionality and consciousness I used Searle’s conceptual framework of intentionality as philosophical method in examining data drawn from student interviews. I then selected an example, Jason’s narrative, to show how individual intentionality can be interpreted given that collective background and network set of meanings, however, in this case intentionality emerges as a reified mental state, what I call student mentality. A state that appears arrested in its development and adaptability to conditions in the world. In the case of CJ, I have not arrived at an interpretation through an analysis of gathered data from Chinese students, but rather taken the same example narrative of the American Jason and reinterpreted it from a conceptual framework supported by concepts derived from China scholars whose works set out to reexamine the past Western tradition of Chinese scholarship about Chinese philosophy and who claim that their interpretations and their implications render a more authentic understanding of the Chinese sense of self and identity. So far, the results show that an example of the ‘relational’ sense of the Chinese self, as compared to the example of the ‘reified’ sense of the American self distinctly differ in their expressed intentionality—their orientation to themselves in their relations to others and the world. Let us now look at some similarities in ontological assumptions between China scholars and Searle’s philosophy that make an assessment of CJ possible. While China scholars take up their argument from a wholly different conceptual approach to philosophy than Searle, I think by taking this step, it shows the further potential for the use of Searle’s philosophy as a methodology for social cross-cultural research. In a manner of speaking, how Searle’s philosophy may be viewed as constructive in aiding our understanding of Chinese philosophy. Roger Ames identifies one major philosophical difference between Western and Chinese ontology in the background notion of ‘order’. Westerners see the world as an objective, formal, and mathematical order that presupposes perfection of either metaphysical or natural origins. In contrast, a Chinese notion of order is not abstracted from the concrete details of a this-worldly existence. As Ames describes, The most dominant meaning of order in the West is associated with uniformity and pattern regularity. In its most general sense, this ‘logical’ or ‘rational’ ordering is expressed in terms of the structure or logos of the cosmos. The Chinese understanding of order is one in which the natural and social worlds comprise concrete particulars whose uniqueness

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b. jeannie lum is essential to any context to which they belong. Aesthetic order emerges from the way in which these details are juxtaposed and correlated. As such, the order is resolutely immanent. This is not only of social order but of ‘natural’ order as well . . .20 The crucial difference between these two senses of order is that in the one case there is the presumption of an objective standard which one perforce must instantiate. In the other, there is no source of order other than the agency of the elements comprising the order. The claim that the Chinese create order aesthetically rather than by recourse to logical or rational operations of the sort familiar to Western metaphysical thinkers requires us to reevaluate our most common stereotypes.21 Rational order depends on the belief in a single-ordered world, a cosmos. Aesthetic order speaks of the world in much less unitary terms. In China, the cosmos is simply “the ten thousand things”. The claim that the things of nature may be ordered in any number of ways is the basis of philosophical thinking as ars contextualis. Rational order, on the other hand, is based on the notion that this world is one, rendered coherent by laws guaranteeing its rationality.22

Searle also has challenged the tradition of Western metaphysics and their logo-centered paradigm. A corresponding operating principle of ‘logic’ in Searle’s social ontology that reflects similarity in the relations of concrete particulars within the Chinese understanding of order is in Searle’s positing that the social construction of societies is based on the logic of constitutive rules, “X = Y in Context C” and that this is iterative.23 In his discussion of the Chinese Lei-Shu (traditional encyclopedic or classificatory philosophical and literary works) Ames further contrasts tropic nominalist Chinese analogical classificatory systems of knowledge24 with those stemming from the ancient west (Platonic, Aristotelian) and other hierarchical models of the world order with their embedded

20 Hall, David H. and Ames, Roger T. (2003), “Understanding Order: The Chinese Perspective” in From Africa to Zen, edited by Robert C. Solomon and Katherine M. Higgins, Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., p. 6. 21 Hall and Ames, 2003, p. 7. 22 Hall and Ames, 2003, p. 7. 23 This point was presented at Searle’s talk, “The Ontology of Civilization”, in the University of Hawaii Distinguished Lecture Series at the University of Hawaii, April 22, 2005. 24 We see this nominalist position that preserves rationality and the recognition of universal in the works of the Confucian philosopher, Xunxi and later Mohists closer to nominalist view offered by Searle.

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teleological assumptions (Arthur Lovejoy’s “The Great Chain of Being, and Robert Fludd’s Uriusque cosmic-historia”).25 . . . there is no basis for appeal to objective connotation in the sense that there can be no effort to characterize all of the essential properties common to the members of a class, then we shall understand that there can be no objective denotation in which, presupposing the connotative properties, we could point out all the members of a class. Once we understand this, we shall avoid demanding a definition and remain content with asking for concrete examples and models. If we stubbornly persist in our confusion and ask what the examples or models to which we have been directed are examples or models of, we shall be pointed, not toward abstract nouns, but in the direction of specific, paradigmatic instances celebrated, for this reason or that, by the tradition.26

A relevant principle in Searle’s methodology is his adherence to the identification of counterexamples as an exemplary mode of explanation. More specifically in Searle’s argument against the traditional term theory of propositions, the naming of universals is not related to their properties but by understanding the use of corresponding general terms. We can see how paradigmatic instances can be transposed as referring expressions, while not indefinite, always in reference to particulars. Likewise, Chinese categories are correlated by their functional similarities in relationships that obtain among unique particulars. Human being, as uniquely individual, is placed self-consciously at the center in proximity to all other natural and cultural objects.27 An example of the ‘relational self ’ is modeled by the imperial ruler (not metaphysically transcendent but within a particular set of historical circumstances) who in this nominalist tradition participates “in ‘naming’ (ming) his world, is ‘commanding’ (ming) it to be a certain way.”28 A third important challenge to the traditional denial of a Chinese sense of self under the token stereotype of what Ames refers to (although positively) as the widely held “pan-Asian ideal of selflessness” is his com-

25 Hall, David L. and Ames, Roger T. ( 1995), “Extending the Circle,” in Anticipating China: Thinking through the Narratives of Chinese and Western Culture, State University of New York Press, p. 253. 26 Hall and Ames, 1995, p. 254. 27 Hall and Ames, 1995, p. 254, quote: “The leishu [Lei-Shu] illustrates what we should call an ‘ethical’ or ‘aesthetic,’ rather than a ‘logical,’ principle of organization. Individual entries begin with the most ‘noble’ and conclude with the most ‘base’: animals begin with ‘lion’ and ‘elephant’ and finish with ‘rat’ and ‘fox’; trees begin with ‘pine tree’ and ‘cypress’ and end with ‘thistles’ and ‘brambles’”. 28 Hall and Ames, 1995, p. 254.

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mentary on Fingarette’s interpretation of the Chinese jun-zi. Fingarette claims that modeled in the Confucian jun-zi is a self that has no reified Faculty of Will and hence is empty of an “inner psychic life.” Ames cautions us about attributing this demonstration of selflessness in an apparent “transparent medium through which the Tao is expressed”29 to mean to be without a will. In taking ren as an “authoritative self ” reflexively shaped in its irreducibly interdependent and interpersonal relations with others, Ames restates the problem of the will as one of intentionality. . . . for Confucius at least, no distinction is drawn between a superordinate and individuating faculty of intentionality and what is intended. Under this assumption, both intentionality and specific intentions are, like one’s self, social facts. What one’s correlative self “wills” and how it “wills” are mutually determining. This is not to suggest that Confucius would deny the biological basis of human experience, but only to claim that in Confucian terms, the structure of human action is patterned by contingency. It is an ongoing process specific to social, cultural, as well as natural conditions.30 This claim explains why Confucian ethics is not one of choices made by autonomous subjects. . . . The effect of “will” being fundamentally social is that decisions tend to be dispositional rather than clearly discernable choices. It should further be noted that, given our distinction between autonomous and unique individual, while the intentions of the correlative and social self are not autonomous, they are, nonetheless, unique.31

This aesthetic sense of the Chinese self privileges the self referential particularity of human experience, not as an atomistic objectification of one’s essential self, but in so far as self consciousness is recognized as the locus of creation in a field of codetermining relationships with others. The similarity to Searle’s view is obvious in proposing that the problem of the will is a matter of human disposition, a matter of the intentionality of human action and decision-making in the creation of social facts. One last significant consideration is the operational mode of communication and action of this Chinese sensibility. Francois Jullien attempts to explain the inner logic of indirect strategies of meaning reflected

29 Ames, Roger T. (1991), “Reflections on the Confucian Self ”, in Rules, Rituals, and Responsibility: Essays Dedicated to Herbert Fingarettte, edited by M.I. Bockover, Open Court, p. 105. 30 Ames, 1991, p. 109. 31 Ames, 1991, p. 110.

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in Chinese texts in dialogue with Western thought. Jullien identifies a pivotal point in the ontology of the structure of grammar relative to the functioning of the Tao which is worth noting. In isolating this feature, I want to transpose it into the intentionalist position I am advocating. In taking up Wang Bi’s commentaries on the Dao-De-Jing, Jullien examines the movement of the Tao through the use of language. The actualization of Being takes place as a back and forth process between its original condition of emptiness (negation of Being) and its efficaciousness as an indirect intervening creative intentional action that is never consummated. He looks at the mode of negation in apophasis in the Dao-De-Jing in the following example of prose: Do that which consists of taking no action; pursue that which is not meddlesome; savor that which has no flavor.32

Jullien points out that “the negation refers not to the predicate . . . but to the direct object of the verb . . . In this case, the activity indicated by the verb is conserved; only its object is withdrawn.33 While Jullien’s position utilizes a different linguistic framework from Searle, seemingly the traditional paradigm that Searle opposes, Jullien’s point is about the self-referential conditions of particularity of the self and epistemic conditions of knowing constituted in speech acts; in this case, the reflexive yet indicating energy of the Tao. In Searle’s apparatus, the predicate is not withdrawn, but the predicate functions to describe or characterize the object (subject) so identified. As Searle posits, “. . . reference is identification via predication.”34 I have taken what is interchangeably called the ‘relational,’ ‘correlative,’ and ‘focus-field’ Chinese self and tried to draw some correlations with some assumptions in the underlying social ontology that appears in Searle’s works. These are not elaborately developed in this discussion but intuitively such renderings demonstrate that philosophy not only can be understood as a universal language, but also utilized as a methodology in applied social science research. In this case, a form of philosophical anthropology, based on a Searlean social ontological conceptual framework that renders distinctly different cultural appearances

32 Jullien, Francois (2000), Detour and Access: Strategies of Meaning in China and Greece, trans. by S. Hawkes, Zone Books, p. 297. 33 Jullien, 2000, p. 297. 34 Searle, John R. (1969), Speech Acts, Cambridge University Press, p. 119.

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in student intentionality and consciousness. We saw distinct differences in the reified ways student mentality appeared in our American student, Jason, and how intentionality otherwise may appear as an integrated relational construct in the Chinese student CJ. Jason’s narrative is laden with dualistic struggles that do not appear problematic in CJ’s world. One major distinction between the western (American) and eastern (Chinese) forms of intentionality are that the former represents the traditional picture of “we intentions”, where two separate individuals have in their minds, “I intend and I believe that you believe that . . .” Whereas the latter is an example of what Searle proposes as an alternative “we intentions”, where each see themselves as playing their parts in the orchestration of a larger “we intentionality”.35 It may be tangential that I linked some of Searle’s views with revisionist challenges to the western tradition in interpreting Chinese philosophy and sense of self. But in doing so, I wanted to show how Searle’s philosophy has a constructive impact on Chinese scholarship in striving for authenticity. I want to return now to the original set of conceptual issues that I set out to explore regarding Searle’s revision of the Background and Network in light of this analysis of Jason and CJ. 3. Extending the analysis It seems that it would be a mistake to deny the existence of reified states provided all the discussion surrounding it as a phenomenon of the mind from political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, and other philosophers. And, along that tradition, perhaps, I have misleadingly made intentionality appear as a substratum of conscious intentionality or superstratum of an unconscious intentionality at work by using the terms ‘reified’ and ‘integrated’. However, rather than see reification as a matter of content, e.g. as a state which resides in the unconscious like a dark closet of the mind or as a fog that causes amnesia in the functioning of consciousness, in effect, intentionality appears to lie in-between in the

35

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Searle, John R. (1995), The Construction of Social Reality, Free Press, p. 24.

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relationality of conscious states. Its power is in its directedness36 or dispositional potential to set a course of action and belief in one direction or another. I have tried to demonstrate how the locus of the phenomenon of intentionality at the explanatory level as it appears in either its reified or relational forms lies in its ‘in-betweenness’ in the relationality of the Network and Background of conscious states. Now, I want to try and look at this problem by using Searle’s speech act apparatus and draw some implications about the mind and the structure of social relations related to this reified state of intentionality which I have called student mentality. Before doing this, we need to finish the inquiry that led me to this venture in the first place, which is the problem of the revision of the thesis of the Network and the Background. Let me restate the problem. Earlier, I proposed three consequences to Searle’s revision of the Background and the Network that I’ll restate here: One, that there is no occurrent reality to the unconscious Network of intentionality; two, that the interpretations of reality are not fixed by the content of intentional states at this unconscious level; and three, that the mental contents at the level of the Network are insufficient to determine conditions of satisfaction of conscious beliefs. Accordingly, I understand him to have proposed that at the level of the unconscious Network intentionality has only generative powers or function to fix the application of conscious states. We find that the constructs of Jason and CJ’s expressions of intentionality differ; on the one hand, Jason is reified, and on the other hand, CJ’s is integral to conscious awareness. Jason’s intentionality towards the principal supersedes his assessment of reality, conscious beliefs, and language of description; while, CJ’s intentionality towards the principal appropriates his reality. Now if we turn to comment on these concerns about the revisions above, the answers are not quite that simple: One, is there an occurrent reality to the unconscious Network of intentionality? If the occurrent reality reflects the external world, then the answer would be an affirmative “no” in Jason’s case where his student mentality (intentionality)

36 These terms appear in Searle’s original book, Intentionality (1983). The difficulty has been in demonstrating how intentionality can be located in social philosophical analysis.

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appears incongruent with his conscious awareness of his beliefs and actions. Yet on the other hand, the Network is full of beliefs which are in conflict with each other and as a consequence Jason remains submissive, holding on to negative collective images of the principal. We might then say that there is an occurrent reality internal to Jason’s unconscious Network of beliefs out of which is projected a mental construct (student mentality) that comes between Jason and his ability to function effortlessly in the external world. In CJ’s case, the answer would be “yes” because there is a fit at all levels of intentionality held in CJ’s mind. CJ is in the groove, so to speak. Two, are the interpretations of reality fixed by the content of intentional states at this unconscious level? The answer would be an affirmative “no” in that the contents (of the Background) are just there to be interpreted or taken in a certain way. Even in the case of meaning contents (in the Network), these cannot be separated out of the intentional state, nevertheless, it is intentionality that functions to manifest or make beliefs or actions coherent and not the other way around. Three, are the mental contents at the level of the Network insufficient to determine conditions of satisfaction of conscious beliefs? I would say an affirmative “yes”. The Network and the Background are intertwined and interdependent in their relations. One cannot function without the other in either case. Even Jason’s reified mental state has to have something to be reified from as validation of his state of reification. Now, I would like to briefly comment on the phenomena of student mentality within the framework of Searle’s speech act apparatus and borrow a concept from Sartre to help in this explanation. Sartre sees the problem of reification as part of the problem of the ‘practico-inert’ state of institutions. That is, once social ideals and conventions become institutionalized then the ideals get frozen in time. The impact of becoming ‘institutionalized’ creates a practico-inert whereby flexibility in human actions and creativity in human thought lose out to practical routines required to maintain an institution. The penchant for change is stifled. In our example, because the principal (“S”peaker) stands in a position with designated assigned powers as a figure of authority, irregardless of what he says, how he says it, or where he says it, the illocutionary force of his illocutionary acts simultaneously express three fundamental categories of speech acts: assertives and declaratives (a special case of assertives) where statements count as the “belief that p”,

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and directives (orders, commands, requests, etc.) where the expressed desire is ‘that A be done’. Students’ (“H”earer) are in a relative position that also carries a certain institutional status in relationship to the principal. Their responses to assertions are that they must fit into the way the principal takes the world to be. Therefore, students act on the basis of S’s beliefs whether or not they agree with their truth conditions. They may appear to disagree, reject, or ignore S’s assertions, but we find that they report that their decisions and actions are always done in awareness with the principal “in the back of [my] mind,” whether consciously or unconsciously. As a Hearer the responses to S’s directives is ‘to do A’. But this is like entering in the backdoor of commissives. Because H’s doing A is taken as an imperative, it is something H takes as something he must do which carries the force of an obligation on the one hand. On the other hand, H is committed to the force of having made a promise. The act of promising—making a commitment to ‘do A’, intending to ‘carry out A’, and fulfilling an obligation ‘that A get done’. It is the structural and ideal conditions of the illocutionary force and psychological modes that are ‘negated’ or ‘falsified’ in consciousness. The problem is that in H’s ‘doing A’ the conditions of satisfaction of the intrinsic character of fulfilling an obligation made by a promise are never fully satisfied but are attributed to the satisfaction of S’s request and S as having ‘done A’. H is essentially robbed of his force of will and his self-referentiality in identity by his own conscious actions however unconsciously motivated. Hence, the result is the phenomena of reification in consciousness and contradictions (or its denial) in intentionality. 4. Concluding Comments I have attempted to show how Searle’s philosophy of intentionality and social reality may apply in understanding the distinction between Chinese and Western understandings of “self ”. Further research and discussion is important for laying out the specific steps that are required in taking a philosophy of consciousness and intentionality and extending it as a philosophical methodology for applied research in the human sciences. This is but one first step towards that goal.

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REPLY TO B. JEANNIE LUM John R. Searle I am grateful for Jeannie Lum’s helpful contribution. I learned a lot from it about how my views relate to Chinese philosophy and I am especially grateful for her attempts to apply my work to problems that go beyond the scope of what I originally wrote these ideas for. Jeannie Lum’s work exhibits a thorough understanding of both the Chinese and the Western sensibility and a strong sense of the empirical reality of all of these issues when applied to real life problems in education. I want to mention especially two things I learned from her. First is the idea that the traditional Chinese principle of categorization is aesthetic and particularistic rather than regulative and universalizing. This is a fascinating idea and explains a lot of things that have always seemed puzzling to me, for example Foucault’s quotation of the Chinese principle of classifying animals at the beginning of “The Order of Things.” A second idea that is very powerful is that the Chinese have a relational conception of the self. At first I was puzzled whether she meant to present this as a normative ideal or as a description of actual facts. I thought that she might mean that the Chinese thought that the self ought to be social and relational rather than individualistic, but her powerful discussion of the American student, Jason, leads me to think that she is suggesting that the Chinese conception is more accurate to the empirical facts of Jason’s thought and behavior. Her discussion of this case is really quite brilliant, and combines analytical rigor with an almost novelistic sensitivity. She raises many fascinating issues that I cannot hope to begin to discuss. And since I am basically in agreement with her whole approach, I have little to say by way of criticism. The only real area of disagreement, I believe, is where she characterizes my revision of my earlier conceptions of the relationships between the Network and the Background as a set of five propositions. I cannot accept these five in quite the form they are stated. Specifically, contrary to what she says, unconscious intentional states sometimes do function in virtue of their propositional contents. Thus, for example, when I drive on the right hand side of the road I follow the rule, “Drive on

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the right hand side of the road”, quite unconsciously. I don’t have to think about it at all, but I could bring it to consciousness if I wanted to. The propositional content of my unconscious intentional state functions causally in producing my behavior, and the same propositional content can be either conscious or unconscious. For me, the problem is one of the ontology of the unconscious when unconscious. The Background consists of a set of abilities, capacities, dispositions etc. The unconscious, when unconscious, consists of a set of brain capacities which are in principle capable of turning the unconscious intentional state into a conscious form. But that makes it look as if unconscious intentional states, when unconscious, have the ontology of Background abilities. Their ontology is that of brain states, described dispositionally. From that it does not follow that those states, when unconscious, cannot function in virtue of their propositional contents. We cannot make a sharp distinction between unconscious intentional states and Background abilities because every unconscious intentional state must be in principle accessible to consciousness. Of course, in actual cases, there may be all sorts of reasons why the unconscious intentional state is blocked from consciousness, such as brain damage, repression, or simple forgetfulness. But in principle, the notion of an unconscious mental state is the notion of something that is in principle accessible to consciousness. And that means that its ontology, when unconscious is that of a brain capacity. I think this whole area of the notion of the unconscious and its relation to consciousness and to Background abilities requires more work and I am grateful to Jeannie Lum for pointing out some unclarities in my account. This is a good opportunity for me to thank Jeannie Lum for her friendship over the years. She was a wonderful student in Berkeley and now I regard her as a great colleague, even though she is thousands of miles distant.

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

UNCONSCIOUS INTENTIONALITY AND THE STATUS OF NORMATIVITY IN SEARLE’S PHILOSOPHY: WITH COMPARATIVE REFERENCE TO TRADITIONAL CHINESE THOUGHT Yujian Zheng John Searle’s undoubtedly great contribution to the study of human mind, language, action and society has involved the notion of normativity in some central, though not always obvious and explicit, way. Despite the great service done by the notion in its various forms in Searle’s often illuminating accounts of those complicated and entangled phenomena, he seems to fail to appreciate the importance of exploring a possible crucial link between some deep, yet naturalized form of normativity, and the emergence of bona fide (i.e., human) intentionality, with all its teleological consequences or repercussions, in the natural evolutionary process. As this seems to be too large an issue to be handled properly in a paper like the present one, I shall limit my discussion to one salient topic in Searle’s theory, i.e., ‘unconscious intentionality’, and also put it in some comparative light from a broad Chinese perspective. Perhaps as a byproduct, my appraisal of Searle’s relevant views might also serve to show both the virtues and limitations of certain core ideas in traditional Chinese philosophy. 1 The phenomena of unconscious intentionality can be easily illustrated by a typical example Searle gives. I believe that G.W. Bush is the US president even when I am sound asleep. Why can I legitimately claim that I have such an unconscious belief as opposed to saying that I wouldn’t have any beliefs whatsoever if I lost consciousness at any moment? If we take beliefs or other mental states as occurrent brain states with appropriate intentional contents, then the answer to the above question must lie in an account of the function of those nonconscious

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brain states involved at the particular time to the effect that it has the intentional content in question (i.e., “G.W. Bush is the US president”). Searle has a brief answer here: “an unconscious state is mental only in virtue of its capacity in principle to produce a conscious mental state.”1 Talk about ‘capacity in principle’ has the advantage of avoiding the hard job of testing whether any occurrent brain state is in fact in a position to cause the conscious state with that particular content. The question is, nevertheless, should we ascribe a particular intentional or propositional content to such an unconscious state? It seems obvious, or it may well be argued that when I ascribe a simple, common-sense belief to someone (including myself ), whether the person is awake or asleep, the certainty of the ascription does not (need to) rely on any particular knowledge of his (or my) occurrent state of the brain, but rather on some holistic feature of the mind/brain as a system with its general adaptive capacity within the social and natural environment. If I have no doubt that I now believe that G.W. Bush is the US president, I can reasonably assume that, without relevant information change, I will continue to hold the belief even when my mind is preoccupied or overwhelmed by mental states whose contents have nothing to do with that Bush belief, including when I am having a dreamless sleep. The reason why I can make this assumption has a lot to do with my confidence or knowledge of the fact that my brain will continue to function normally with its memory as well as the capacity to retrieve and organize relevant information in response to certain contingent circumstances, either external or internal (i.e., inside the body), arising from time to time. In other words, my ability to have access to well-formed beliefs or their neurobiological equivalents will remain stable no matter whether I am in fact having access to them at the moment. This seems to be all the insight underlying Searle’s statement above, and with that I certainly do not disagree. But there is a further point that should not be ignored. That is, belief is taken here as some occurrent, functional mental state as opposed to a merely stable disposition or capacity of some sort belonging only to holistic (and dynamic) structure of the brain as a system. Searle seems to conflate, or equivocate between, the two meanings. On the one hand, when he talks about a causal reduction of token mental states to token neurobio-

1 Searle, John (1998), Mind, Language and Society, New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 76.

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unconscious intentionality and the status of normativity 381 logical states, he certainly takes belief as an occurrent functional state whose individuation cannot but be determined by its conscious intentional content. On the other hand, however, when he tries to develop a coherent notion of the unconscious, he ends up with a dispositional analysis (with which, he admits, he is not entirely satisfied).2 A distinguishing test for the validity of a dispositional definition of belief is this: if the same dormant brain state (presumably with the same dispositional capacity) may lead to different conscious beliefs (including surprising or creative new beliefs), simply depending on the succeeding circumstances in which the subject happens to find himself, then which of these beliefs is the dormant dispositional state supposed to be identified with? Or, one may ask, how many conscious beliefs does a particular brain state correspond to, if the mind has capacity to produce endless ones on request or in need? In other words, I find it simply ridiculous to say that a single brain state, which cannot but be a temporal manifest effect of the brain structure contingently conditioned by the circumstance, is equivalent to the brain structure itself, let alone whatever normative structure is somehow embodied by the brain structure. More concretely, it does not make much sense to say that any two distinguishable states, s1 and s2, of my mind/brain (say, at t1 and t2) must be the same qualitative state as long as the normative (or dispositional) structure of my mind remains unchanged—which implies that its capacity to produce all those conscious, intentional states remains unchanged. E.g., s1 can be the pure and simple awareness of my belief “G.W. Bush is the US president” and s2 the lack of it (and perhaps the simultaneous lack of any other thought), or s2 “Bill Clinton was the US president,” while my mind’s normative and other capacities remain exactly the same. The upshot is: there cannot be a real-time state of the brain which carries all the mental contents ascribable only to structural features of the brain (plus its circumstantial or contextual parameters at the time). An alternative one may propose is to stick consistently to the occurrent definition of belief or other mental states and therefore to give up on the misleading use of the notion ‘unconscious belief (or intentionality)’ as is exemplified by Searle’s example above.3 What is then left

See Searle, John (2004), Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Chap. 9. Later in this paper we will see that there will be an illuminating use of the term once we clear the way for a new interpretation of the ‘Connection Principle’ 2 3

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to explain is only the normative fact that we can only make sense of any intentional state (with its propositional content) against a rationally constituted network of intentional states. The question is how the normative fact is possible in a world of natural causes. Perhaps what also demands explanation is just the other side of the same coin: certain nonconscious neurobiological structures or processes are capable of causing behavior that looks as if it were intentionally motivated. The reason I regard these two explanada as opposite sides of the same puzzle is that, ontologically speaking, there is only one unified reality (viz., ‘one coin’), which apparently allows for two kinds or levels of description (viz., ‘two sides’): at the neurological level, none of the elements or processes involved can be said to have consciousness, aspectual shape or intentionality; whereas at the linguistic-psychological level, what corresponds to any occurrent state of the body has to be some intentional content that is only constituted by some holistic structure whose normative properties as well as boundaries can hardly be captured, embodied, or fixed by the state itself. I do not suggest that there is no puzzle about the relation between the two levels of description in the alternative proposal here. I only want to point out that the notion of ‘unconscious intentionality’, in the way Searle uses it, can offer little help to resolve the puzzle. Neither can it help clarify the meanings of terms such as ‘preconscious’, ‘repressed unconscious’, and ‘deep unconscious’ mental states. On the contrary, it may just add to the muddiness of that already muddled water. 2 There may be an unexpected heuristic value in the notion of ‘unconscious intentionality’ if we do not stick to Searle’s original use. A new interpretation, in a direction which will become clear presently, may make the notion intimately related to another important Searlean notion, i.e., the ‘Background’, perhaps even more than Searle himself comes to be aware of in his later work.4 That is, animal or pre-human intentionality seems to have a mode of ‘unconscious intentionality’

underlying Searle’s original use of the term. Cf. the kind of examples used in footnote 11 below. 4 Searle, 2004, p. 249.

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unconscious intentionality and the status of normativity 383 which, unlike its nonconscious biological state, shares much with fullfledged human intentionality without being linguistically articulate and reflective, or without any (self-imposed) normative structure. When we see and describe a cat stalking a mouse, or a lion hunting a gazelle, we have little doubt that it is kind of an intentional behavior, which obviously has its definite condition of satisfaction determined by the intentional content ascribable to the behavior. The question is: if we do not regard such ascribable content as merely as-if intentional content, does it mean that the animal in question has a relevant set of beliefs and desires just like those of a human agent in a comparable situation, i.e., a coherent set of mental states intelligible only against the backdrop of a normatively constituted network of beliefs, desires, and other types of propositional attitudes or reasons? My answer is no. One may contend that the beliefs and desires an animal may have do not have to be just like human beings’, but they can be as functionally efficacious as the latter and also methodologically necessary in the sense that their ascription can explain, and to a certain extent predict, its various behaviors in related contexts. My reply is simply that although there is no universally authoritative use of the commonsense or folk-psychological terms like ‘belief ’ and ‘desire’, there should be logically consistent and philosophically significant use of these and other terms. The descriptive situation we are facing here has clear enough constraints which only allow two coherent options: one is to stick to the humanly familiar fact that intentional states like belief and desire must have a normatively built-in structure of rationality which not only regulates their operations but also constitutes (i.e., ontologically guarantees) their existence in the first place. Whereas the other option is to pay sufficient heed to the evolutionary fact about the continuum of nature, all the way up to human nature, and thus to permit a freer use or more inclusive sense of these intentional terms which seem to work so well for most of our explanatory purposes. On the first option, one needs to find a sort of bridging account for the transition from non-rational inhuman mentality to this rationally closed or self-sufficient human mentality. On the second option, nevertheless, the challenge is rather how to dilute or reduce proportionally, so to speak, the rational or normative force those (permissive, though) intentional terms carry for the various animal subjects all the way down to certain extremely simple organisms like amoeba. How is it possible that rationality or normativity allows for degrees of its existence?

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Searle’s comprehensive theory of mind seems to waver between the two options, with virtuous as well as undesirable consequences. (I shall come back to these consequences in section IV.) Against the above context of discussing his notion of ‘unconscious intentionality’, I’d like to propose a charitable reinterpretation (or a benign misinterpretation, perhaps) of it to the effect that it may provide an interesting way out of the common problematics underlying the above two options. The common problematics lies in the apparent conflict between the naturalistic, evolutionary continuity among various forms of purposeful or intelligent behavior of organisms on the one hand, and on the other hand the undeniably normative structure of human rationality which finds no predecessor in any pre-human species. In short, a seemingly unbridgeable conceptual or explanatory gap exits where there should be none from a pure naturalistic point of view. My suggested solution can be sketched in a broad stroke as the following two related points. Firstly, normative relations or structures are ontologically real and independent things discoverable in nature as well as in human culture. Although all of them are epistemologically dependent on or grounded in human rational ability, with its background capacities, most of them (except for the class normally called social institutions) are not invented by human beings. In a sense, normativity is through and through, which, in an unusual way, also fits well with the famous claim “nature has no leap.” Although this first point may find little acceptance among many or even most naturalist philosophers today, it is actually endorsed by Searle himself (“normativity is pretty much everywhere”).5 My second point is more crucial, and perhaps inevitably sounds somewhat paradoxical in those familiar terms which we have no way to dispense with. It is the assumption that those ontologically real and original (i.e., primitive and preceding) forms of normativity must await the later evolutionary emergence of human rationality and intentionality for their acquiring the meaning or status of the ‘normative content’ as we, the fully rational animals, understand. ‘Await’ means that without us, the rational late comers, the less rational or non-rational predecessors (our more or less remote evolutionary ancestors) and their behavior cannot possess the very ‘normative content’ that we so readily observe, which is supposed to be observer-independent. That is, the presumably

5

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Searle, John (2001), Rationality in Action, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 182.

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unconscious intentionality and the status of normativity 385 ‘intrinsic’ intentionality of certain pre-human organisms has a fundamental, special mode of existence, i.e., its content cannot in principle (as opposed to “does not in fact on one or other occasion”) be grasped or comprehended by the organisms themselves. To put it bluntly, the content can only be in the eyes of a human beholder. Or more radically, it is a reverse or retrospective endowment by full-fledged human intentionality, ‘reverse’ in the sense that the endower is the offspring of the endowee, thus causally dependent upon the latter for its own existence. Let me elaborate on the reason why I think such a dependent mode of existence for animal intentionality is something more than epistemological dependence. I take it to be an uncontroversial point that the propositional content of the fact that water is H2O must be epistemologically dependent upon our logico-linguistic system or our conceptual abilities for its presentation or articulation. And the case is no different when it comes to biological and ecological facts. But things get a peculiar turn when it comes to intrinsic (i.e., not ‘derived’ or ‘as-if ’, in Searlean sense) intentionality. “In general, intentionality is representation of conditions of satisfaction. The most biologically basic intentional states, those that relate animals directly to the environment, have a causally self-referential component in their conditions of satisfaction.”6 It is this aboutness or self-referentiality embedded in any form of intentionality that makes itself distinct from the brute, dumb or nonconscious facts of nature (such as the particular state of the stone I am sitting on): it simply does not make sense to say that a conscious animal cannot in principle be aware of whatever content is internal to its functional state which, according to Searle’s analysis above, is supposed to determine its own conditions of satisfaction; and these conditions of satisfaction must involve, as a necessary component, the reference to the very state itself. For instance, when a dog sees her master coming home, the conditions of satisfaction for her visual experience are supposed to be Vis Exp (that is the master and the fact that the master is there is causing this Vis Esp).7 The conditions of satisfaction thus required by such visual experiences cannot fail to be propositional, and not merely in the trivial sense that any brute fact of nature has its corresponding propositional

6 7

Searle, 2004, p. 173. This notational expression is adopted from Searle, 2004, pp. 222–3.

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content cognizable in principle by potential cognitive beings. In order for that perceptual state of the dog to be intentional, part of the propositional content of its conditions of satisfaction specified above has to figure causally in producing and sustaining the very consciousness of the intentional state. One cannot help wondering: how could a dog entertain such conditions of satisfaction? Were the dog to have such propositional consciousness, it would definitely not be a simple mental state—it would have to have some element equivalent to a second-order belief, and it would amount to self-consciousness. I cannot imagine that any animals having such a self-conscious capacity are short of linguistic and conceptual ability or sophistication. In brief, the bare bones of my argument are this. Causal (or indexical) self-reference is a built-in element of primitive forms of intentionality such as perception, action or utterance. Self-reference presupposes selfconsciousness of some kind (otherwise, it can have no causal power of the kind required in the above analysis).8 But it is an uncontroversial empirical fact that no animals other than human beings can have selfconsciousness based on a well-developed linguistic-conceptual system. Therefore, the conclusion must be that no animal can have observerindependent intentional content that has the same type of logical structure as that of human intentionality. But animals, especially of certain higher kinds, do seem to have capacities that are very close, if not identical, to those human capacities involved in intentional behavior. (Perhaps even to the point of exhibiting primitive symbolic ability in making and understanding signs of various kinds.) Without prejudging the extent of the revolutionary (or ground-breaking) power of human languages, we cannot ignore this obvious and overwhelming fact of natural continuity among biological species.

8 One might raise questions such as: why isn’t self-referential causality just like other causal relations in nature whose operation need not depend on consciousness even though it is compatible with conscious grasp by a cognitive being? Or, why is the explicitness of propositional content involved in self-reference necessary for the causal efficacy of the things referred to by such content? A brief answer would be: any meaningful or principled way of talking about ‘self ’ (rather than ‘itself ’ which just means ‘that very thing’ or ‘exclusive of other things’) presupposes consciousness of the subject with respect to particular holistic states it has or whatever entity underlying these states. A more interesting, normativity-centered answer may, I hope, emerge in some nascent form from subsequent arguments in this paper.

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unconscious intentionality and the status of normativity 387 3 Now comes the time for our reinterpretation of the notion of ‘unconscious intentionality’, by extending the application of Searle’s ‘Connection Principle’ to a broader, cross-species evolutionary context. The ‘Connection Principle’ basically claims that our notion of the unconscious is logically connected to the notion of consciousness. For the individual organism, it implies that an unconscious mental state must be the kind of thing that could be or become a conscious mental state.9 As my earlier argument shows, Searle’s use of ‘unconscious intentionality’ runs into difficulties in the case of the diachronic becoming-conscious of certain nonconscious states within one individual mind. But things may turn differently in the case of evolutionary becoming-conscious of certain biological structures across species along the phylogenetic dimension. Short of being able to produce self-consciousness in virtue of entertaining or engaging in linguistic activity, any seemingly intentional phenomenon of an animal can hardly be called authentic intentionality. Instead, they might be called pre-intentional or proto-intentional, or better, forms of ‘unconscious intentionality’ if we apply the ‘Connection Principle’ at a higher level. Here ‘unconscious’ does not mean that the animal’s internal state has no subjective, qualitative properties, or is not a state of awareness. It only means that whatever propositional content ascribable to the animal from an intentional stance (that a human interpreter may adopt successfully) does not take the form of (self-)consciousness in the brain of the animal. Despite this limitation, however, the animal may still have a whole lot of neurobiological dispositions and operations, with their behavioral manifestations, that are so similar to, or even indistinguishable from human counterparts under similar situations. We must say that it is no accident that such manifested similarity should warrant the pragmatic success of our intentional ascriptions to the animals of such kinds. In the interpretation I suggest, ‘unconscious intentionality’ is compatible with both the fact that many animal species share with humans various kinds of sentient, perceptual or other capacities in their adaptive dealing with the world, and the claim that no animal, including our animal ancestor, can have self-consciousness qua animal (i.e., then and there in the evolutionary ladder).

9

Searle, 2004, p. 246.

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The sense in which certain animals may be said to have some kind of intentionality is a special, derivative sense sustained by the ‘Connection Principle’. There are several points worth mentioning about the plausibility of applying this principle to evolutionary scenarios. Firstly, the reason why the application of the principle here can avoid the trouble I have identified in the supposed case of belief in sleep is the fact that the source of intentionality for the unconscious, according to the dispositional analysis implied by the principle, lies more at the level of structures of some kinds, which can be said to have stable capacities or tendencies to produce or maintain self-referential relations, than at the level of particular states, any one of which, by itself, i.e., isolated from neighboring states, can hardly partake or realize any self-referential relation. A meaningful state, or its content, can be identified or individuated only by its location in the relationship with other meaningful states within a certain normative structure. In other words, my use of the ‘Connection Principle’ takes systems or structures as the primary object, and the intentional status of particular states (of either humans or animals) is therefore secondary in a sense of depending upon their respective structures. Secondly, the gist of the principle is that any unconscious mental phenomenon or feature has to be consciously thinkable (say, at any particular time, other than the one in question) in order for it to be intentional.10 As was analyzed earlier, a definitional feature of intentionality is selfreference. Is the self-referential feature open to conscious thinking of an animal at any moment of its life? The answer is no. But it is open to the conscious thinking of self-referential human beings who, evolutionarily speaking, are the real successor or offspring of some ancestral animal, with the brain or biological structure which defines, or closely resembles, that of the animal in question. Figuratively speaking, the human species (homo sapiens) is a later stage or moment of the larger life or life-chain, which not only inherits and develops enough of the necessary and useful structural features of the earlier moments, but incorporates them in such a way as to endow them with some status that is holistically meaningful or congruent. The status of intentionality, though non-self-conscious or unconscious for our evolutionary predecessors, is as justifiable as, in the case of a personal biography, we credit that person’s young age

10

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Searle, 1998, p. 88.

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unconscious intentionality and the status of normativity 389 with a certain type of thought or potential thought which only finds fruit in its full explicitness or splendor at a later age. Thirdly, the normative character of the ‘Connection Principle’ is distinctive and interestingly suggestive. What the principle requires us to recognize or grant is a connection between presumably unconscious mental phenomena and unproblematic intentional ones if they satisfy certain conditions of structural similarity and/or dynamic continuity. Just on the face of it, this connection is normative, in the trivial sense of being required by a stipulation. What turns out not trivial, and in fact tremendously significant, is to see the rationale behind the principle, i.e., to see how some deep underlying type of normativity is at work in our inevitable, natural disposition to interpret the behavior of our predecessors in light of our own intentionality. The remarkable thing here is not really the fact that we cannot help but use our own and only available conceptual resources to interpret, but rather, the amazing fact that such interpretations really work, i.e., fit well with observable behavior of animals. When one applies intentional terms to describing the clever tactics (including cooperative ones with partners) an animal predator has used in its highly focused hunting behavior, the degree of descriptive fitness or adequacy seems no less than in similar cases involving human hunters. The fitness is so impressive as to lend some natural or prima facie justification for claiming that those animals do have genuine intentional states, whose propositional contents operate in the same way as those in human agents do, rather than merely have as-if or metaphorical intentional states. But the difficulty for such claims is the built-in rational or normative elements in any mental representation of the conditions of satisfaction for an intentional state. How could we legitimately ascribe normativity of any kind to animal mentality without presupposing it has linguistic articulated concepts? My proposed solution is to get unconscious (non-deliberate) normativity by appeal to the ‘Connection Principle’. Here is how it might go. The primary, original locus of the normative is of course the human mind with its undisputable linguistic and metalinguistic abilities. We also know for a fact that whatever biological mechanisms underwriting human mentality have their continuous forms of approximation in various animal minds/brains. Moreover, the systematic, objective relations of things in the world which are comprehensible through, or with the help of, human language have always been subject to animal grasp or comprehension by virtually all means other than language. The animal ways of relating themselves to

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the world have been shaped and selected by the same forces of nature in the long evolution as those which ultimately lead to the formation of human species, with its perhaps late emergence of linguistic and rational powers and products. A crucial move at this point is to face and properly accommodate the largely hidden fact that teleological phenomena are an intrinsic part of nature or natural history. Without teleological concepts at their disposal, organisms constantly exhibit goal-oriented or goal-directed behaviors under diverse circumstances and these behaviors are often successful in the objective sense that they get what the organisms want or need in order to survive. Here ‘want’ is used as a general, unintentional term of description which corresponds to a type of disposition or internal trait connected to the behavior. Animals of many kinds certainly are aware of such wants and their satisfaction or frustration as embodied by occurrent brain states, even though they can never be aware of the survival end, qua end, these satisfactions or frustrations are meant to serve. Another way to put it is this: these animals have real states of want (plus real states of cognition of some primitive kind) which have their objective conditions of satisfaction, and the animals are conscious of whether certain satisfactory states obtain without being able to take such obtainable states as conditions of satisfaction, or of anything. That is, the consciousness granted here to the animals in question is not, and cannot be, consciousness of the normative character of those wanting states in the sense of having a world-to-mind direction of fit. (This latter consciousness is in fact the self-consciousness linked to the self-reference discussed earlier.) But the interesting thing to note here is nonetheless that pragmatically speaking, these animals already have everything they need (or need to care about) in terms of fulfilling their subjective wants as well as objective ends in their survival. Why bother having the normative stuff if it did not add anything to actual practical success, say, in a particular instance of adaptive behavior? My interest here is not about whether or how much the normative contributes to our practical enterprise (e.g., language makes categorical difference in constructing social institutions), i.e., not about the world-changing effects of the normative, but rather about the world-discovering effect of the normative with the emergence of human language. In particular, at this moment of my argument, what is most significant in connection with the human ability to adopt the normative stance (all stances are normative ones) is to find ‘suddenly’,

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unconscious intentionality and the status of normativity 391 as it were, that everything in the biological world makes perfect sense to us in the way those organisms cannot make sense of themselves. Another crucial move is in order here. The existing objective relations of the world are rediscovered or reconstructed, as opposed to created, as subsumable to ‘new’ orders that are normatively establishable; some of these relations concerning animals of certain kinds are thereby found to be homological with relations of human intentionality. The originally unconscious normative relations, embedded and embodied in these animals’ conscious behavior, now acquire a new status of being (constituted as) a special form of intentionality, viz., unconscious intentionality, as is implied by the ‘Connection Principle’. The ontological basis for the validity of ‘Connection Principle’, i.e., for the possibility of such a ‘retrospective’ endowment of (unconscious) intentionality is natural selection, which dynamically guarantees that the presumably normative relations concerning these animals be realized or well maintained, even though there are no relevant consciousness, on the side of the animals, about the relations as normatively required. The thrust of the idea of ‘unconscious intentionality’ lies exactly in disclosing an intriguing reverse relationship between bona fide (i.e., human) intentionality and its predecessor, ‘reverse’ in the sense that the later player in the causal-historical (or evolutionary) order has to take priority place in the logical order which, and only which, may define the identity and status of each player. One may wonder, what would happen to the status of such an animal unconscious intentionality if evolution somehow had never produced the human species? Would the already existing animal species not be entitled to any status of intentionality, even of a lesser kind? As long as the relations concerning the animal species were self-sufficient and objective, how could they acquire different identities when different extraneous subsequent results followed? Theoretically, one could always assume a certain timeless, omniscient (i.e., Godlike) Interpreter’s perspective from which every real thing or event objectively possesses or partakes real patterns, but such a perspective itself is possible and conceivable only when human representation is in order. Had people never appeared in this otherwise identical world, animal mentality would still have its mode of existence in those objective relations to the world; but no less valid would be the counterfactual claim that it cannot have (not just the name but) the status of intentionality, not even potential or proto-intentionality, as there is no such

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thing that has the possible meaning of ‘intentional’ in that hypothetical world. Therefore, it should be a conceptual truth that the actual (despite late) emergence of human intentionality normatively established or constituted the rational order in which everything else (or earlier) began to get its objective meaning or identity, ‘objective’ in the ordinary sense of independence from any individual mind once the normative order is available. We are rational legislators for ourselves as well as for the universe—Kant is surely right in saying so, and I don’t think that it is necessarily an idealist thesis. 4 It is really worth pondering why things in the world should get their ‘objective’ meanings which readily or ultimately cohere with each other as if there were a predetermined harmony owing to some graceful super-design, especially when we take seriously the fact that all meanings depend ultimately on the normative order mankind legislates for itself. The lines of thought in the above section, I hope, have already shed some light on this amazing nonaccidental coincidence, but now I’d like to approach this feature from another angle, i.e., a comparative perspective drawing on some of Searle’s most distinctive ideas as well as certain central, long-standing ideas in traditional Chinese philosophy. Two closely related ideas in Searle’s account of intentionality, i.e., the Network and the Background, are relevant to our general concern here. By my reformulation, in light of what has been presented above, the Network is simply a normatively constituted holistic web of intentional states whose interrelations make possible the individuation of content for any particular intentional state in question. The more precise or finegrained the content is or needs to be, the larger number of interrelated states have to be involved. But the obvious fact or factual constraint is that any real-time, full-blooded human mental state can hardly entertain propositional content beyond a certain limit, either in terms of degree of complexity or in terms of sheer quantity of distinguishable items (such as sentences or words). Searle is perfectly aware of such a constraint, so he has to postulate the Background: I believe that anyone who tries seriously to follow out the threads in the Network will eventually reach a bedrock of mental capacities that do not

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unconscious intentionality and the status of normativity 393 themselves consist in Intentional states (representations), but nonetheless form the preconditions for the functioning of Intentional states.11

Although almost every argument in favor of the Background Searle offers makes good sense to me and is quite insightful, he seems never to emphasize the crucial point about the necessity of the Background for keeping the normative status of the Network intact.12 Given the preintentional (nonrepresentational) character of the Background capacities, and yet also given the smooth, borderless transformational relationship between the Background and the Network, the above-indicated worry about the likely mismatch between our limited psychological powers and unlimited logical requirements of a mental content can be dissolved. I think that it is exactly this point about how to fit normativity into a descriptive picture that makes the Background hypothesis indispensable. As my main purpose at this point is not critical, but expository, I just assume that Searle has no fundamental disagreement with my version of the link between the Network and the Background, and perhaps also my version of the ‘Connection Principle’ formulated in section III. Having said this, I want to draw your attention to the next point which Searle surely endorses: the Background mental capacities are largely shared by humans and animals of many kinds. When one claims, concerning cases of individual human behavior, that the Network of intentional states or contents of a person can shade off into a Background of his various skills, abilities, presuppositions, stances, and nonrepresentational attitudes etc., an analogous claim can be made, concerning cases of animal behavior, that the legitimacy of ascribing a Network of (unconscious) intentional states to an animal can derive from the fact that these manifest Background capacities are similarly at work for the animal under similar situations. It seems hard to imagine that the seamless fitness or harmony between the Background and the intentional contents systematically generated by our cognition or interpretation is purely accidental, like a gift from heaven.

Searle, John (1983), Intentionality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143. For instance, the proper type of examples for Searle’s ‘unconscious intentionality’ should be people’s doing instinctive or habitual things, largely or exclusively based on the Background capacities, often without any effort of self-conscious thinking—which, nonetheless, are no less entitled to be called ‘intentional’ than those relevant animal behavior, due to the “Connection Principle” in my reinterpreted sense. 11 12

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If, instead, the fitness has to be somehow necessary, one will surely expect, or everywhere find, that the intentional stance is adoptable (i.e., used with success) towards whatever pre-human behavior may be said to share a certain amount of the Background with humans; and the relationship between knowledge and action will ultimately turn out to be nothing but two sides of the same deep unified mechanism. This latter point seems particularly significant for our comparative purpose: there is a strong intellectual tradition in the west of overemphasizing the distinction of ‘how things are’ versus ‘how to do things’, whereas in Chinese philosophy, such a distinction is always relative and contextdependent to the effect of denying any sharp or permanent dividing line between the two. According to the latter tradition, both knowledge and action rely heavily on certain innate or preintentional capacities (equivalent to the Searlean Background) to be cultivated largely by practices of a noncognitive kind. For instance, there is a long-standing Confucian orientation giving primacy to the so-called ‘intuitive ability’ in comprehending the world. Mencius, as one of the founding fathers of Confucianism only second to Confucius, thus defines: The ability possessed by people who have not acquired it by learning is intuitive ability [良能] and the knowledge acquired by them without the exercise of thought is their intuitive knowledge [良知]. (Mencius 7, Exhausting the Mind A, #15)13

Later Confucian scholars continuously expound this theme about ‘the unity of knowledge and action’, as is shown in the following small sample of quotes. To not study and yet to be able to do x means that one depends on human nature’s own ability. This is what is best. It is the greatest ability human beings can have. (Correct Meaning of the Mencius 13, Exhausting the Mind A, #15, p. 529)

Intuitive ability is said of the greatest type of ability. Intuitive knowing is said of the greatest type of knowing. The greatest type of knowing and the greatest type of ability are what one is most able to do and know; that is the peak of ability and of knowing. (Ibid.)

13 This and all the rest of the quotes in Chinese texts are from Zhang Dainian (2002), Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy, trans. in English by E. Ryden, Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.

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unconscious intentionality and the status of normativity 395 How is it that people know? It is because things have similarities and differences in form and because there are constant changes occurring so the unity of inner and outer by the ears and eyes calls for natural talent and then one can be said to know already as if automatically. (Siku Quanshu 697, Correcting the Unenlightened 7, Great Mind, p. 117a)

The unity of inner and outer, or of knowledge and action, may imply the original inseparableness of the mind/knower from the object known or action performed in some primordial mechanisms of nature, which not only underwrite or make possible the separation or differentiation of the inner from the outer, but continue to provide the basis for the ultimate harmony between the two differentiated sides. It is therefore no wonder that the offspring of past survivors or adaptors naturally or ‘automatically’ know their way around in the world. The biologically primary forms of such knowledge are habits, perceptual or behavioral dispositions, know-how skills, etc., which are components of the Searlean Background. One way to emphasize the point is to say that animal agents are trivially or necessarily the followers of the principle of ‘the unity of knowledge and action’ as long as we do not want to deny any sense of knowledge to animals. By contrast, however, only human agents are non-trivial, authentic followers of this principle which has already obtained the normative or rational status for them precisely because only they are able to violate it, i.e., to be irrational. What is more fundamental than the idea of unity of knowledge and action in Chinese philosophy is the idea of unity of heaven and human beings. It plays such a central and overarching (i.e., crossing different schools) role in ancient Chinese thought about the status of human beings in the universe that one can hardly understand many other fundamental features of Chinese philosophy without understanding this idea. The Chinese concept of ‘heaven’ embraces both a naturalistic sense of the sky and a transcendental sense of God, but never has a stark division or opposition between the two as in the West. The Chinese character for ‘heaven’ is derived from that for ‘big man’—that is probably why a human element has always been present in this very conception of ‘heaven’ as the ultimate source for everything, including human nature. Mencius explicitly links the ability of the human mind to think or represent, as natural endowment, with ‘what heaven has given’, and affirms the commonality of human nature and heaven: “those who exert their minds to the full know their nature, and those who know their nature know heaven.” (Mencius 7, Exhausting the Mind A, #1)

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I shall not bother quoting almost endless texts of Chinese philosophy in this direction. Nevertheless I’d like to point out that what the Searlean Background ultimately requires is something very much like the unity of nature and humans, not only in the causal sense that human brain/mind must be physically realized, but also in the sense of semantic or epistemic fitness or harmony between human understanding and all its objects in the non-human or pre-human world. Why do all these nonconscious, preintentional (neuro)biological mechanisms, inside or outside human bodies, fit so well with our intentional efforts in action and representation? What might explain the trivial or nontrivial unity of knowledge and action in some animals including humans? I think that the answer must first lie in the seemingly built-in purposefulness of a large amount of natural relations in the ecological and genetic environments for the animals in question. The idea of the unity of heaven and humans is fit for capturing such a unintentional purposefulness or natural teleology, regardless of what shape the ultimate naturalistic explanation might take in addition to, or other than, that of Darwinist natural selection. For the ‘heaven’ side of this unity represents all the spontaneous elements in nature while the ‘humans’ side the teleological/ normative element in intentionality. When Kant mentions that nature seems to cater to our rational or moral tastes or legislation, what is at issue is the susceptibility of nature to normativity (rational legislature), or equivalently, the realizability of the normative in nature. The principle of the unity of heaven and humans thus provides a metaphysical ground for such a possibility. And in the present context, it speaks in favor of Searle’s insightful ideas in terms of the Background capacities and the ‘Connection Principle’ (at least in its reinterpreted form above). Some scholars of Chinese philosophy may want to raise an issue of disanalogy between the two Chinese unity principles and Searle’s Background talk: the former is in fact about the moral cosmic order or moral knowledge embodied in action, rather than about the logical, general features of intentionality which seem the pure concern of Searle’s talk in question. Fair enough. But, in fact, I have no need to argue that it is illegitimate or unsound to interpret the two unity principles above as mainly or even exclusively addressing moral concerns. Neither do I need to argue that moral principles, if valid, must be ultimately based on corresponding metaphysical ones. Nonetheless, their analogy with Searle’s ideas still holds in a more formal way. When Chinese sages or philosophers stress the paramount importance of cultivating moralityrelated capacities, habits, dispositions, etc. in order to have authentic

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unconscious intentionality and the status of normativity 397 moral knowledge and achievement, Searle may simply stress the paramount importance of the evolutionary (and developmental) cultivation of those Background capacities in order to have smooth functions of ordinary intentionality, with or without remarkable epistemic or practical results. A more significant parallel to the Chinese philosophical tradition in Searle’s thought can be found in his strong and thorough-going criticism against the modern Western dominant tradition in philosophy, i.e., Cartesian dualism, together with all of its idealist, monist, materialist, physicalist progeny. His criticism is thorough-going on two counts. Firstly, in order to overcome the common assumption in both materialism and idealism that a purely physical description of the world could not mention any mental entities, Searle adopts a simple realist position which takes mental phenomena, with all their familiar features, as instances of physical reality.14 This position is exactly what the Chinese tradition, with its undivided holist and naturalist feature, has always held. Secondly, Searle is emphatically critical of the so-called ‘epistemic stance’, rooted also in Cartesian tradition, toward the world whereby we are making inferences from evidence of various kinds. Against this tradition, Searle has the following remark: [E]pistemology is of relatively little interest in philosophy and daily life. It has its own little corner of interest where we are concentrating on such things as how to understand certain traditional skeptical arguments, but our basic relationships to reality are seldom matters of epistemology. I do not infer that my dog is conscious, any more than, when I come into a room, I infer that the people present are conscious. I simply respond to them as is appropriate to respond to conscious beings.15

Anyone who is a little familiar with Chinese philosophy cannot fail to notice that the lack of, or opposition to, such a Cartesian epistemic stance is characteristic of Chinese tradition. Skepticism has never been a major concern. The Chinese emphasis is never on how knowledge is acquired but rather on what ought to be the relevant object of knowledge under particular circumstances. In this vein, what often gets stressed is the cultivation of tacit, know-how skills or capacities involved in cognitive as well as practical matters. All this tendency obviously fits

14 See, e.g., Searle, John (2002), “Intentionality and its Place in Nature,” Consciousness and Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 82–4. 15 “Animal Minds,” ibid., p. 75.

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with Searle’s remark above. It is undeniable that this general shared view not only does maximum justice to our common-sense experience, but also has the great merit of avoiding a whole range of unnecessary conceptual confusions or mistakes, many of which are pointed out by Searle. On the other hand, however, there is a no less interesting issue or dimension that might be neglected by (a potential overemphasis on) this general (naïve naturalist) orientation: themes or questions about normativity can only emerge or stand out against the backdrop of a special type of naturalism, i.e., a certain version of reductive physicalist naturalism. If my earlier arguments for the normativity thesis in making sense of intentional phenomena (including unconscious intentionality) are sound, then we can’t simply dismiss the very ground on which such arguments are based, i.e., humans are continuous with a biological world which in turn is part of a much larger physical world that clearly, for the most part (including most of its historical parts), has no intentionality or normativity. Searle himself certainly won’t deny this ground premise. But the issue seems to be: this ground only became conspicuous and started to be taken seriously in the modern era, with the rise of Galilean or Newtonian physics, by the mechanist reductive moment of the Cartesian tradition. It is no accident that for ancient Chinese, just as probably for any other traditional mindsets, normativity cannot be an issue. In Chinese philosophy, there is no distinction of the normative from the descriptive: everything in the world embodies or is laden with the normative, so to speak; the Way of the heaven (or the natural laws, in today’s term) is fundamentally contiguous and homogeneous with the Reason embedded or latent in human mind or understanding; human nature, i.e., the ‘second nature’, is just the first nature or some central, quintessential part of it. Therefore, any investigation into nature can ultimately lead to, or even be replaced by the (largely introspective) study of human nature. Whatever its merits or attractions on other accounts, such a philosophical system is simply unable to motivate vigorous, relentless, detached or disinterested exploration of non-human fabrics of the world, let alone those leading to revolutionary scientific discoveries such as Darwin’s evolution theory. I am not arguing here that Searle’s theory necessarily suffers the same kind of weakness, given its apparent affinity to the traditional Chinese spirit. I only want to emphasize a methodological point in favor of the Cartesian legacy: one effective way to make progress is to simplify the messy picture by polarizing or dichotomizing it in terms of

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unconscious intentionality and the status of normativity 399 its clear extremes. Explanatory innovation or penetration often lies in making a certain feature of whatever holistic, seemingly inexplicable structure salient, explicit, and/or problematic, perhaps on a single solid dimension first. I believe that the ontological reductivist approach, as a research programme in a Lakatos’s sense, is productive and fruitful in stimulating heuristic ideas and maintaining necessary momentum for increasingly fine-tuned studies of higher-level phenomena like the mental, even though this programme may ultimately turn out to be based on some false assumptions. Normative phenomena are real and fundamental, and in this sense one may call them ‘brute facts’ at some high level; but they must be ultimately grounded in reduced, low-level brute facts of physics.

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REPLY TO YUJIAN ZHENG John R. Searle I am very grateful for Professor Zheng’s thoughtful and intelligent paper. He makes a lot of very powerful points and I will not be able to respond to all of them, but I will concentrate on what I think are the chief areas of disagreement between us. The first point of disagreement has to do with his claim that animals cannot have consciousness or intentionality except in some metaphorical or observer-relative sense. They cannot have honest-to-john intrinsic consciousness and intentionality of the sort that human beings have. A second main point of disagreement has to do with his claim that the holistic and normative character of mental contents makes it impossible that they could be caused by and realized in specific brain states. About animal intentionality, I will quote some of the key passages. “In brief, the bare bones of my argument are this. Causal (or indexical) self-reference is a built-in element of primitive forms of intentionality such as perception, action or utterance. Self-reference presupposes selfconsciousness of some kind (otherwise, it can have no causal power of the kind required in the above analysis). But it is an uncontroversial empirical fact that no animals other than human beings can have selfconsciousness based on a well-developed linguistic conceptual system. Therefore, the conclusion must be that no animal can have observerindependent intentional content that has the same type of logical structure as that of human intentionality.” My claim is that the weakness of this argument comes out when he says “Self-reference presupposes self-consciousness” and that in this form of self-consciousness, no animals other than human beings can have self-consciousness of this type. In answer to this I want to say the causal self-referentiality of intentional action and perception does not require any kind of self-consciousness in the sense of consciousness of the self or higher order consciousness. The animal need only be conscious of what it is doing or what it is perceiving. Consider a dog digging for a bone. There is no question that the dog acts with the intent of causally moving the earth so as to cause it to be the case that he gets the bone. That is, the dog operates with the category of causation

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(where the category is a feature of his conscious experience) not with the concept of causation. The dog need have no higher level thoughts of the form that the philosopher in analyzing his intentional content would state. When I say that the dog’s intentional content is causally self-referential, that is in no sense a description of how it is supposed to seem to the dog, that the dog has to have some higher level thought of that sort. The dog, as well as of course all primates, deals with a large number of categories such as objects, space, time, color, etc., without having concepts corresponding to any of these categories. To repeat, the causal self-referentiality of the dog’s intentional content does not require any higher level of self-consciousness. The dog is just conscious of what he is trying to do (intentional action) or what is happening to him (conscious perception). Indeed, for the most part, human beings have no awareness of the causal self-referentiality of their actions and perceptions. This is something that is revealed by philosophical analysis, but it is not required for actual experiences of perceiving and acting. The dog’s experience in the case of action will be something we can represent as “I am doing this.” In the case of perception is something we can represent as “this is happening to me”. He thinks that when I specify the conditions of satisfaction of intentional states this must be something that the animal consciously “entertains”. But that is not my view. But then he challenges me, How can this be consistent with the connection principle? Once again I think this is a misunderstanding of the Connection Principle. It does not imply that one has to be consciously able to think the philosophical analysis of the unconscious intentional state in order to have an unconscious intentional state. Rather the point is that when a state exists in an unconscious form it must be the kind of thing that could be conscious. So I have an unconscious perception, or perform an unconscious action, those are the sorts of things that I can also do consciously. I think in fact with a little imagination you can become conscious of the causally self-referential component of perception and action. In the case of action just imagine your body moving without any effort on your part. In this case, the movement is experienced as something happening but you do not experience yourself making it happen. In the case of perception just imagine, for example, that you have the powers of visual imagery that will enable you to form visual images indistinguishable from the imagery of conscious visual perception. All the same the experience of forming the visual images is not

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an experience of “This is happening to me”. It is rather an experience of “I am making this happen”. We know independently that no analysis that has the result that higher animals do not have conscious states like our own can be right, precisely because we know that the animals’ neurophysiology is so closely like our own. The higher animals, after all, have a motor cortex, which serves to activate the muscles that actually constitute the conscious intentional movements. No philosophical arguments can refute the brute biology. The second argument in Yujiang Zhen’s paper is harder to summarize, but I think it goes something like this. Intentional content, in humans, is both holistic and normative. It is holistic in the sense that in order to have one intentional state I have to have a whole lot of other intentional states. And it is normative in that beliefs, desires and intentions, for example, have normative criteria that are constitutive of their very existence. That is, for example, beliefs are supposed to be true. Thus inconsistent beliefs are to that extent defective, and fail to meet normative criteria. But holistic normativity of this kind cannot exist in animals and cannot exist in specific brain states. There are two conclusions that he wants to derive from this combination of normativity and holism. The first is that animals cannot have this sort of intentional content because they do not have a rich enough apparatus. He says, “To put it bluntly, the content can only be in the eyes of a human beholder. Or more radically, it is a reverse or retrospective endowment by full-fledged human intentionality, ‘reverse’ in the sense that the endower is the offspring of the endowee, thus causally dependent upon the latter for its own existence.” The second conclusion is that my account of the relation of consciousness to the brain cannot be right because, he says, “Whereas at the linguisticpsychological level what corresponds to any current state of the body has to be some intentional content that is only constituted by some holistic structure whose normative properties as well as boundaries can hardly be captured, embodied, or fixed by the state itself.” My answer to both of these claims will be brief. First, there is no question that what the animal has intentional states that are normative in exactly the same sense of normative that we have. So for example, if a dog perceives that the bone is not “over here” where he has been digging, but in fact “over there” under the leaves, he will give up digging here and starting digging over there. That is, he will abandon his belief in the face of the inconsistent intentionality of the perceptual experience, and he will acquire a new belief. He used to believe the

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bone was over here; now he believes it is over there. This is a case of rationality in action. The dog doesn’t have a full blown holistic intentional apparatus, but he has enough of it so that it is not merely a manner of speaking to say that the dog has intentionality which is both holistic and normative. As an objection to this, he asks rhetorically, “how is it possible that rationality or normativity allows for degrees of existence?”. But I think it is clear that it does allow for degrees of existence. Watch a human child developing and you will see degrees of rationality and normativity. The example he gives of the amoeba is hardly relevant because the amoeba has no consciousness at all and therefore no intentionality. The answer to the second objection is that it must be the case that all of my holistic normative intentionality is realized in the brain, because I have no other way to realize it. I think perhaps there is a misunderstanding due to the fact that he thinks of mental states as somehow or other small microstates that exist only for an instant. But as far as I am concerned, a state of the brain can be as big as the whole brain and can exist over long temporal periods in the life of the brain. So if you have a rich enough conception of a brain state, what he says is not correct. He says that normative holistic structure could not be captured or embodied or fixed by the state itself. Substitute “brain” for “state” and you will see that this is not a correct account: that is, it is obviously incorrect to say that normative holistic structure cannot be embodied in an entire brain extended over time because of course, that is exactly how the normative holistic structure is realized in the biology. A brain both causes and realizes our normative holistic intentionality and in so doing it provides us with the capacity for consciousness that enables us to bring unconscious mental states to consciousness. The states of the brain can be as rich as you like. Indeed, they have to be rich enough to capture the holistic structures in question. I was especially grateful for the last portion of his paper where he compared my views with certain Chinese, particularly Confucian, traditions. And I welcome his finding a similarity between my approach and the traditional Chinese approach.

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SEARLE, ZHUANG ZI, AND TRANSCENDENTAL PERSPECTIVISM Bo Mou In this essay, I intend to show how Searle’s thought on aspectuality of intentionality and his critique of subjective perspectivism, on the one hand, and Zhaung Zi’s relevant insights concerning how to look at seemingly competing points of view, on the other hand, can make their joint contribution to a kind of objective perspectivism, which I call ‘transcendental perspectivism’, a meta-philosophical methodological framework of how to look at seemingly competing perspectives towards an object of study for the purpose of constructive engagement to be explained. My strategy in this writing is this. First, in Section 1, after briefly examining the major points of Searle’s thought on aspectuality and his critiques of subjective perspectivism, I spell out some significant implications of Searle’s relevant ideas and argue that they point to a kind of objective perspectivism; I then address two issues for the sake of developing a complete account of objective perspectivism. Second, in Section 2, I present an interpretation of Zhuang Zi’s ontologicomethodological strategy of how to treat different or seemingly competing points of view; in so doing, I explore how Zhuang Zi would respond to the two issues addressed in the preceding section. Third, in Section 3, I present a meta-philosophical methodological framework, which I might as well call ‘transcendental perspectivism’, of how to look at seemingly competing perspectives towards an object of study, especially concerning its guiding-principle dimension, in view of the preceding discussion of Searle’s and Zhaung Zi’s relevant insights, views and resources. 1. Searle on Aspectuality of Intentionality and Perspectivism Let me first clarify the meaning of one key term used in this discussion, i.e., ‘perspectivism,’ to avoid conceptual conflation. The term

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‘perspectivism’ per se, instead of a clearly used word, is a blanket term used to (ambiguously) refer to a number of different kinds of metaphilosophical attitudes, methodological guiding principles, or even more systematic methodological frameworks concerning how to look at the nature and status of a variety of perspectives taken to approach an object of study. There are two kinds of perspectivism, a subjective one and an objective one. When the term ‘perspectivism’ is used to mean the former, it is sometimes used as another label for, or characterized in terms of, a radical ‘anything goes’ version of conceptual relativism: given an object of study, it renders relevant and eligible any (methodological or substantial) perspective so long as that perspective is projected from the subjective agent (or its validity merely being relative to the subjective agent’s conceptual scheme is sufficient for its relevance and eligibility), whether or not the perspective really points to (some aspect of ) the object. There is no wonder that subjective perspectivism is actually taken as one major argument against external realism and for idealism/antirealism. In contrast, objective perspectivism bases the eligibility of a perspective (given an object of study) on whether the perspective points to some aspect that is really or objectively possessed by the object of study. It is clear that, from the point of view of objective perspectivism, given an object of study and given that the identity of the genuine aspect(s) of the object is thus determined, it is not the case that any ‘perspective’ can go but that only eligible perspectives that point to genuine aspects of the object can go. When examining features of consciousness and intentionality, Searle identifies and emphasizes one intrinsic feature of intentionality, i.e., aspectuality. He asserts that all intentionality is aspectual. By this he means that consciousness of some object is always consciousness of it as such and such from a certain perspective or from a point of view. “Seeing an object from a point of view, for example, is seeing it under certain aspects and not others. In this sense, all seeing is ‘seeing as’.”1 Aspectuality extends beyond the object of perception to the more abstract object of study. The perspective can be physical (e.g., I see the house from its front door, while you see it from its side door) or metaphysical (e.g., one thinker focuses on the universal, unchanging aspect of the object of study while another thinker on the particular, changing aspect) or theoretical (e.g., a Marxist sees it as class conflict).

1

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Searle, John R. (1992), The Rediscovery of the Mind, The MIT Press, p. 131.

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In this way, “. . . what goes for seeing goes for all forms of intentionality, conscious and unconscious. All representations represent their objects, or other conditions of satisfaction, under aspects. Every intentionality state has what I call aspectual shape.”2 Searle thus calls this feature of consciousness ‘the perspectival character’ or the ‘aspectuality’ of intentionality. One might call Searle’s view here ‘perspectivalism’ (it seems that this is Searle’s own label). Searle uses perspectivalism of this sort in his criticism of the claim to the effect that there are deep unconscious rules in the mind; for, if these unconscious rule really existed, they would not be able to work, as they must, from some perspective or other because they never can be consciously realized. Searle’s doctrine of perspectivalism in analyzing consciousness, together with his account of external realism, implies, or at least is compatible with, two general doctrines concerning how to look at seemingly competing points of view. One is a kind of conceptual relativism, which Searle explicitly addresses and endorses, to the effect that “All representations of reality are made relative to some more or less arbitrarily selected set of concepts.”3 Such a modest version of conceptual relativism, as Searle emphasizes it, does not entail the negation of external realism, which maintains that reality exists independently of our representations of it; it rather presupposes external realism. However, unfortunately, such a conceptual relativism is sometimes conflated with the foregoing radical version of conceptual relativism, which is often simply labeled ‘perspectivism’ but actually means subjective perspectivism, for the sake of refuting external realism and arguing for antirealism. So there is no wonder why Searle severely criticizes such a perspectivism (actually radical conceptual relativism as subjective perspectivism) as a major argument for antirealism4 while still rendering the aforementioned modest version of conceptual relativism correct.5 In this way, what Searle rejects is subjective perspectivism instead of objective perspectivism; what is incompatible with the modest version of conceptual relativism as well as external realism, both of which Searle endorses, is subjective perspectivism instead of objective perspectivism. The other general position, implied by his doctrine of perspectivalism in analyzing consciousness and intentionality together with his 2 3 4 5

Ibid. Searle, John R. (1995), The Construction of Social Reality, The Free Press, p. 161. Cf., Searle, John R. (1998), Mind, Language and Society, Perseus, pp. 18–22. Cf., Searle, 1995, pp. 160–167.

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account of external realism and his doctrine of social reality, as I see it, is a kind of objective perspectivism. However, to my knowledge, Searle has not explicitly addressed it in a way that I will explain below, and some significant components of a complete account of objective perspectivism have yet to be further explored. Indeed, on the one hand, Searle’s various accounts strongly suggest a kind of objective perspectivism to the extent that, given an objective object of study in the sense of ‘objective’ as specified by Searle, one looks at the object from a perspective of a certain conceptual scheme. On the other hand, a complete account of objective perspectivism needs to go further; it is consistent with or even includes, but does not simply amount to, the foregoing modest version of conceptual relativism plus external realism. As far as their respective focuses are concerned, the latter emphasizes that, given [the same one aspect of ] an objective object of study, one always makes one’s (intentional) judgment or representation of it from some perspective associated with a certain conceptual system. In contrast, the former stresses that, given an object of study and thus the identity of a variety of genuine aspects of the object (and given a certain conceptual scheme or system), there are a variety of eligible perspectives that point respectively to various aspects of the objects. A complete account of objective perspectivism is thus expected to give adequacy conditions for understanding the due relation between various eligible perspectives. This maneuver per se requires the agent to be able to transcend a certain finite perspective under aspectuality or to reach an aspectuality-transcending point of view for the sake of looking at the connection and relation among various finite perspectives. In this way, a due account of the aspectuality-transcending feature of consciousness would contribute to our understanding of how it is possible for objective perspectivism to constructively guide our reflective practice in philosophy. At this point, there remain some questions that need to be adequately answered for a complete account of objective perspectivism. For the sake of this account, I address two issues to which Searle and I might have more or less different answers or approaches, although I agree with him to almost all of his ideas that point to objective perspectivism. The first issue is more or less descriptive: besides its aspectual character, does or can consciousness also simultaneously have an aspectualitytranscending character? Though the issue appears to address something paradoxical (that is, being both aspectual and aspectuality-transcending), the relevant phenomenon of consciousness would not be odd: perhaps

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everyone has an experience of making one’s conscious perspective-shift when one looks at an object under a certain aspect so that one can simultaneously take multiple perspectives while seeing the partial character and limit of each of the involved local perspectives. One might disagree that Searle has already had his holistic conceptions of Network and Background as the Boundary Conditions of consciousness to cover the alleged aspectuality-transcending feature of consciousness (if any). My opinion is this. If I do not misunderstand Searle, his conceptions of Network refers to a large number of Intentional states or claims that nest individual mental states or claims via intentional causation under a certain perspective;6 and his conception of Background refers to pre-Intentional presumptions that we come into contact with in terms of knowing how.7 In this way, it seems that both are not intended to cover the aspecuality-transcending feature of consciousness as addressed here. Another disagreement might be this: if there is any aspectualitytranscending feature of consciousness that cannot be well covered by Searle’s conceptions of Network and Background, this alleged aspectuality-transcending feature must be too ‘transcendental’ to fall beyond what a due account of consciousness is supposed to characterize; that is, this aspectuality-transcending feature (if any) would only belong to the states of conscious awareness of a certain special group of persons, while a scientifically oriented account of consciousness is to describe only those pervasive features of ordinary, non-pathological states of conscious awareness. There are two responses here. First, it is not true that the aspectuality-transcending feature of consciousness is limited only to one special group of reflective persons; rather, it seems to be a pervasive case to the extent that perhaps everyone would have an experience of transcending a certain perspective via making one’s conscious perspective shift while simultaneously keeping multiple perspectives. Indeed, the aspectuality-transcending feature shown in some reflective persons’ consciousness in dealing with certain abstract and complex theoretical issues might be viewed to occupy the ‘high end’ of a wide spectrum of the aspectuality-transcending feature; but the distinction between the ‘high end’ and the ‘low end’ of the spectrum is quantitative rather than qualitative. Second, even if the aspectuality-transcending

6 Cf., Searle (1983), Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind, Cambridge University Press, pp. 65–69. 7 Cf., Searle, 1983, pp. 69–71, 143.

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feature of consciousness in question was limited only to one group of persons who have achieved such a capacity of consciousness due to a certain kind of cultivation, it is arguably correct to say that a complete account of consciousness is expected to take it into account, instead of leaving it out of account, because it shows one significant aspect of the potential capacity of human consciousness which is clearly not pathological but contributes to the well-being of the human mentality and whose full development is achievable by any person who makes a sufficient effort. Another issue is basically evaluative or normative. As indicated above, a complete account of objective perspectivism intrinsically involves how to look at the due relation between various eligible perspectives that point respectively to different aspects of an object of study (i.e., different aspects that are really possessed by an object of study).8 Now one question emerges: among those eligible perspectives, could one certain perspective, say, the scientific perspective, be entitled to be par excellence or absolutely superior to the others indiscriminately? Note that what is evaluated here is not the status of the scientific perspective as one eligible perspective in contrast to an ineligible perspective, which points to none of various aspects of the object of study, but in comparison with those other eligible perspectives that respectively point to some genuine aspects that are really possessed by the object of study. Also note that the concern here is not whether one is entitled to consider one finite perspective as best suitable for one’s certain purpose but whether one is entitled to identify a certain one among various eligible perspectives as the absolute par excellence, or another as the absolute inferior, irrespective of one’s purpose and focus and of the nature of a philosophical problem at hand. When reading Searle’s writings on the relation between philosophy and science, one cannot help being impressed by a strong inclination for the celebration of the scientific perspective. Searle may have a ready-made answer to the preceding question: it seems that he may render a scientific perspective superior over the other eligible perspectives. Indeed, his point in this respect is somehow related to his view of the relation between philosophy and science. . . . both philosophy and science are universal in subject matter. Both aim for knowledge and understanding. When knowledge becomes sys-

8 For a more explanation of the distinction between eligible and ineligible perspectives, see the relevant discussion in Lib: Section 3.

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tematic, and especially when systematic knowledge becomes secure to the point that we are confident that it is knowledge as opposed to mere opinion, we are more inclined to call it ‘science’ and less inclined to call it ‘philosophy.’ Much of philosophy is concerned with questions that we do not know how to answer in the systematic way that is characteristic of science, and many of the results of philosophy are efforts to revise questions to the point that they can become scientific questions . . . These relation between philosophy and science explain why science is always right and philosophy is always wrong, and why there is never any progress in philosophy [in regard to philosophical questions for which “there is no generally accepted procedure of solution”]. As soon as we are confident that we really have knowledge and understanding in some domain, we stop calling it ‘philosophy’ and start calling it ‘science,’ and as soon as we make some definite progress, we think ourselves entitled to call it ‘scientific progress.’9

Though it is unclear whether Searle would think that our approaches to those reflective issues like justice, virtue, the good life and aesthetics can, or should, be reduced to treatment in terms of the scientific perspective, it seems that Searle actually takes the scientific perspective as the expected exclusive model of methodological approach one should strive for in philosophy. But, on the other hand, Searle does emphasize that it is the illusion that the methods of the natural sciences, especially physics and chemistry, might be generally applied to solve the [philosophical] problems that most perplex us. “Such optimism turned out to be unjustified, and most of the philosophical problems that worried the Greek philosophers—problems about truth, justice, virtue, and the good life, for example—are still with us.”10 The methods he used in his philosophical books “are not those of the empirical sciences, where one would perform experiments or at least conduct public opinion surveys. The methods I employ are more adequately described, at least in the first stages, as logical pr conceptual analysis . . . my aim . . . has been to try to make progress toward getting an adequate general theory.”11 Still, there remain two questions. First, after the first stages in which the method of conceptual analysis is due, should a scientifically oriented method with one “generally [or universally] accepted procedure” be exclusively strived for in philosophy, especially when one treats those with one generally philosophical problem “about truth, justice, virtue,

9 10 11

Searle, 1998, pp. 157–8. Ibid., p. 158. Ibid., pp. 160–1.

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and the good like”? At this point, if I do not misunderstand Searle, there seems to be some tension between his relevant ideas, as the above cited passages explicitly or implicitly suggested: on the one hand, Searle seems to take the scientific perspective as the superior one over other eligible perspectives; on the other hand, he seems to think that we cannot apply the purely scientific method (if this is what he means by ‘the methods of natural sciences’) to solve such philosophical problems as those concerning “truth, justice, virtue, and the good life” that he renders legitimate. Actually, the issue I address here is further: even for those objects of study in philosophy some of whose aspects should be subject to the treatment of the scientific perspective, is the scientific perspective doomed to be indiscriminately and absolutely superior to other eligible perspectives that capture other genuine aspects of the objects of study? Another related question is this: should a “universally accepted procedure of solution,” which Searle considers as one trade mark of the scientific perspective, be taken as the decisive identity of progress concerning a study so that one is entitled to assert that there is no reflective progress in philosophy because “there is no generally accepted procedure of solution”? One can imagine the following general situation: with their distinctive focuses on different genuine aspects of an object of study together with their distinct purposes, a number of philosophers take distinct but eligible perspectives respectively as their different (current) working perspectives for the sake of capturing distinctive aspects of the object of study; in so doing, though they do not practice the same one working perspective (that is, it is not accepted by all the practitioners as their current working perspective), their joint efforts would eventually provide us with a more complete account of various aspects of the object of study than taking the exclusive one working perspective (say, the scientific perspective). My opinion on the issue is this: the preceding issue concerning the due relation among various eligible perspectives has yet to be explicitly addressed and explicated; an adequate answer to this issue is one cornerstone for a complete account of objective perspectivism, a point that will be more clearly illustrated in my subsequent elaboration of Zhuang Zi’s relevant ideas. Now let us move onto Zhuang Zi’s insights towards to transcendental perspectivism and see how Zhaung Zi could contribute to the issues addressed here.

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2. Zhuang Zi’s Insights Towards Transcendental Perspectivism Zhuang Zi (c. 360 B.C.) is a brilliant and fascinating figure in philosophical Daoism while it is also controversial how to interpret his philosophical thought. My presentation of Zhuang Zi’s relevant insights below is my interpretative elaboration of them in view of some of my general methodological considerations concerning studies of Chinese and comparative philosophy for the sake of the constructive-engagement strategy.12 I will employ some more explicit conceptual resources to elaborate the otherwise implicit points or hidden implications in Zhuang Zi’s ideas. These ideas were sometimes less clearly expressed for lack of the explanatory and conceptual resources that are available to us but were unavailable to the ancients including Zhuang Zi. My strategy here is this: I cite a number of passages from the Zhuang-Zi text that I render most philosophically interesting and relevant to the current topic;13 I then give them brief interpretative elaborations that are related to the theme of this essay. [1] Everything has its that aspect and its this aspect. One cannot see the this aspect of one thing if one looks at the thing from the perspective of the that aspect; one can see the this aspect if one looks at the thing from the perspective of the this aspect. One thus can say that the that and the this come from each other . . . Thus, the sage is not limited to looking merely at the this or that aspect [from the finite point of view] but looks at all the aspects of the thing in the light of Nature. The this is also the that, and the that is also the this. The that has one criterion of right and wrong, while the this has one criterion of right and wrong. Is there really a distinction between the that and the this? . . . When the this aspect and the that aspect cease to be viewed as opposite, it is called ‘the pivot of taking Dao point 12 To save the space, I will not repeat the major points and their explanations here but give their references as follows: Bo Mou (2001), “An Analysis of the Structure of Philosophical Methodology: In View of Comparative Philosophy,” in Two Roads to Wisdom?—Chinese and Analytic Philosophical Traditions, edited by Bo Mou, Chicago: Open Court, pp. 337–364; Bo Mou (2002), “Three Orientations and Four ‘Sins’ in Comparative Studies”, the APA Newsletter (in the portion on comparative philosophy edited by Chenyang Li) Vol. 02, No. 2 (Fall 2002), pp. 42–45; and the first section of Bo Mou (2004), “A Reexamination of the Structure and Content of Confucius’s Version of the Golden Rule”, Philosophy East and West 54:2, pp. 218–248. For a detailed explanation of the constructive-engagement strategy, see my relevant discussions in my theme introduction to this volume and in Lib: Section 3 of this essay. 13 The English translations in [1], [3] and [4] are mine, and that in [2] by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English (1974), Chuang Tzu: Inner Chapter, New York: Vintage Books, p. 55.

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bo mou of view’. One’s capturing the pivot is like one’s standing the center around which all things revolve in endless change: one thus can deal with endless change from the Dao point of view, among whose many manifestations the this and the that are. Therefore it is said that the best way is to look at things in the light [of Nature]. —Inner Chapter 2 “Qi-Wu-Lun” [On Equality of Things] [2] When I first began to cut up oxen, I saw nothing but whole oxen. After three years of practicing, I no longer saw the ox as a whole ox. . . . I follow the natural grain, letting the knife find its way through the many hidden openings, taking advantage of what is there, never touching a ligament or tendon, much less a main joint . . . A good cook changes his knife once a year because he cuts, while a mediocre cook has to change his every month because he hacks. I have had this knife of mine for nineteen years and have cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the edge is as if it were fresh from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints. The blade of the knife has no thickness. That which has no thickness has plenty of room to pass through these spaces. Therefore, after nineteen years, my blade is as sharp as ever. —Inner Chapter 3 “Yang-Sheng-Zhu” [The Secret of Caring for Life] [3] The hundred bones, the nine external cavities and the six internal organs are all in my body as a complete whole; which part shall I love best? Should you love all of them to the same extent or with some preference? Shall we treat them all as servants alike? Isn’t that they then would not govern each other? Or shall we let them serve respectively as governor and as servant by turn? Isn’t that there is no [exclusive] genuine governor who [permanently] controls the others? ...... Only the wise people know how to unify all things into one. Therefore, they do not stick [to their biased one-sided judgments] but find home in the nature. . . . That is to let it [Nature] take its own course. ...... Nie Que asked Wang Ni, “Do you know all things would have the same criteria?” Wang Ni replied, “How can I know?” “Do you know that you do not know?” Wang Ni replied, “How can I know?” “Then you have no knowledge of anything?” Wang Ni replied, “How can I know? Nevertheless, let me try to tell you something. How can it be known that what I call ‘knowing’ is not not-knowing and what I call ‘not-knowing’ is not really knowing? Now let me try to ask you this: If a person sleeps in a damp place, he will have a pain in his waist and gets stiff in the joints; but would the same would happen to the loach? When a person sits up in a tree, he will

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be frightened and shakes; but is that true of the monkey? Which is the three knows the right place to live? The human being eats vegetables and meat, deer eat the grass, centipedes enjoy snakes, and owls and crows like mice. Which of the four knows the right taste? Baboons mates with female apes, elaphures like the company of deer, and loaches play with fish. Two ladies, Mao Qiang and Li Ji, were beautiful in the eye of the human being, but when the fish saw them they plunged deep, when the birds saw them they fly high, when the deer saw them they ran away. Which of the four knows the right kind of beauty? —Inner Chapter 2 “Qi-Wu-Lun” [On Equality of Things] [4] Zhuang Zi and Hui Zi were wandering on the dam of the Hao River. Zhuang Zi said, “That fish swims around freely; this shows the fish’s happiness.” Hui Zi said, “You are not a fish; how do you know a fish’s happiness?” Zhuang Zi said, “You are not me; how do you know I don’t know a fish’s happiness?” Hui Zi said, “I am not you; so I indeed don’t know [in the sense of first-person knowing] you. But you are surely not a fish; that’s enough to say you don’t know a fish’s happiness.” Zhuang Zi said, “Let’s trace back to what you have originally said: when you said ‘how do you know a fish’s happiness?’, you were asking me [with the presupposition of ] already knowing I knew it. I knew it above the Hao River.” —Outer Chapter 11 “Qiu-Shui” [Autumn Floods]

I consider [1] as one of the most philosophically interesting messages in the context of inner Chapter 2 “Qi-Wu-Lun” as a whole. In contrast to some other interpretations that take this passage as one crucial textual evidence for Zhuang Zi’s alleged radical “anything goes” relativism or subjective perspectivism, I argue that Zhuang Zi’s point here is essentially a kind of objective perspectivism. For, instead of ‘any perspective goes’, Zhuang Zi bases relevance and eligibility of a perspective (given an object of study) upon whether it points to some aspect that is really or objectively possessed by the object of study. There are two significant points that are related. First, each thing has its various aspects, and one can take a certain finite or local perspective [as a current working perspective] to look at one aspect to which the finite perspective points: one can look at its this aspect, from a this-aspectconcerned perspective, and sees it as a this; one can also look at its that aspect, from a that-aspect-concerned perspective, and sees it as a that. Its metaphysical foundation is this: various aspects, the this aspect and

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the that aspect, ontologically depend on each other; various [eligible] perspectives, the this-aspect-concerned perspective and the that-aspectconcerned perspective, thus complement each other. [Zhuang Zi here actually addresses the aspectuality of consciousness if we use Searle’s terminology to indicate this.] Second, for the purpose of looking at the connection of various aspects of a thing and/or of having a comprehensive understanding of the thing, Zhuang Zi also encourages us to look at things from a higher point of view which transcends various finite points of view; in this way, those different aspects cease to be viewed as opposite or incompatible but complementary. [ Here Zhuang Zi actually points to the aspectuality-transcending character of the cultivated consciousness, a characteristic feature of consciousness addressed in the previous section.] With the understanding of these two strategic points of Zhuang Zi’s objective perspectivism, one can effectively understand Zhuang Zi’s various substantial approaches to various issues; for the latter actually constitute implementations and illustrations of the former. In [2], Zhuang Zi applies the two strategic points to treat the metaphysical issue of identities of objects. After three years of fine training, Cook Ding saw an ox no longer as a whole ox but as a pack of flesh and bones. The story has some deep metaphysical implication. For Zhuang Zi, Cook Ding is not mistaken: what he saw is real, though the object was certainly also an ox. The point is: an ox can be recognized not only as an individual ox with its ox-essence constitution [as one looks at it from a certain scientific perspective which biologically identifies and distinguishes the ox-essence from the essences of other big animals], but also as a pack of flesh and bones; as a being, the object is both an ox and a pack of flesh and bones. Zhuang Zi would render eligible both Aristotle’s essence-aspect-capturing perspective and Cook Ding’s pack-of-flesh-bones-aspect-capturing perspective; furthermore, Zhuang Zi encourages us to have a complete account of various aspects of the ox. In [3] and [4], Zhuang Zi actually presents his implementations and illustrations of the above two basic methodological points in treating some epistemological issues. Zhuang Zi’s points, embedded in his story-telling style discourse, can be highlighted in terms of the following theses. First, there are a variety of eligible knowing organs of the human being whose epistemic status are rendered eventually equal. This insight transcends the view that considers the inter-subjective rational mind as the only eligible knowing organ. Second, there are a variety of

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knowable, knowing-worthy aspects of the object of study to be known. This insight transcends the view that considers a certain aspect (say, the definite, constant, stable, unchanging, regular or universal aspect or, simply, the being aspect in contrast to the becoming aspect) of the object of study as the only worthy aspect to be known. Third, there are various species of eligible knowing agents. This insight transcends the view that considers the human knowing agent as the only eligible knowing agent. Indeed, Zhuang Zi’s approach is sometime presented as a kind of skepticism; nevertheless, the Zhuang Zi style skepticism needs to be understood in terms of the foregoing points. It is clear that Zhuang Zi does not deny the possibility of knowledge of the external world but puts into doubt absoluteness and one-sidedness in the following senses. First, knowing and not-knowing is relative to the aspect of the object of study: (not) knowing this aspect of the object does not amount to (not) knowing that aspect; Zhuang Zi thus brings it into doubt whether the agent who knows (does not know) this aspect does (not) knows that aspect. Second, knowing and not-knowing is relative to knowing organs of the knowing agent: (not) knowing via one knowing organ does not amount to (not) knowing via some other organ; Zhuang Zi thus brings it into doubt whether the agent who knows (does not know) via one knowing organ does (not) knows via the other organ. Third, knowing and not-knowing is relative to the species identity of the knowing agent; that is, what the knowing agent of one species knows (does not know) on one topic is not necessarily the same as what the knowing agent of some other species knows (does not know) on the same topic; Zhuang Zi thus brings it into doubt whether, given that ‘know’ is used in an imaginatively broad sense, what the agent of one species (e.g., the human being) knows (does not know) on some topic (e.g., what is the right place to live? What is the right kind of beauty?) is the same as what the agent of some other species (e.g., monkey) knows. The transcendental character of Zhuang Zi’s approach can be highlighted in the following ways. First, from the transcendental point of view (transcending one specific human perspective), one can make a knowing-perspective shift and come to know some other aspect(s) of the object from some other knowing perspective. Second, from the transcendental point of view (transcending one specific human knowing organ), depending on one’s purpose, one can make one’s knowingorgan shift and arrive at some other knowing state (say, knowing-that or knowing-how) via some other human knowing organ. Third, from

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the transcendental point of view (transcending all the human-knowing perspectives on a certain topic rather than being limited to one or several of them), one can examine the adequacy or relevance of each human-knowing perspective on the topic at a higher level. Fourth, from the transcendental point of view (transcending the human perspective as a whole and looking at things “in the light of Nature”), a humanbeing can examine the status and connection of all knowing agents of various species in the light of Nature [via observation and analogical reasoning], even though we as the human beings cannot enter other species of knowing agents to know the contents of what they know. How would Zhuang Zi respond to the two issues that are raised in view of Searle’s approach in the previous section? As far as the first issue is concerned, Zhuang Zi’s second strategic point highlights the aspectuality-transcending character of one’s state of consciousness. One takes a higher point of view to simultaneously capture a number of eligible finite perspectives while holding a global or holist point of view. This is explained and illustrated as a kind of transcendental point of view in the preceding passage and would be characterized as ‘the Dao point of view’ in Zhuang Zi’s term. Surely, not everyone has actually achieved the Dao point of view; but every human being has a potential capacity to do it given a certain amount of reflective cultivation. In this way, Zhuang Zi’s response is partially a descriptive response and partially a prescriptive call. It is descriptive to the extent that Zhuang Zi descriptively identifies one characteristic feature of the state of conscious awareness of the persons who have achieved the Dao point of view; it is prescriptive in the sense that Zhuang Zi encourages people to take such a higher point of view, though this higher point of view resulting from reflective cultivation is not a ready-made mental state currently possessed by all of the human beings. As far as the second issue is concerned, Zhuang Zi’s response is quite clear and straightforward: All eligible perspectives are equal from a higher point of view; there is no par excellent one among all the eligible perspectives, although, given a certain purpose or focus, one can identify a better or best one among others. In Zhuang Zi’s terms in [3], there is neither absolute governor nor absolute servant among various knowing organs; we need to treat them all alike; only relative to a certain purpose or focus, one can let one among others serve as governor; in this sense, each would serve as governor and as servant by turn; in the same sense, there is no exclusive genuine governor who permanently controls the others.

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3. Transcendental Perspectivism By ‘transcendental perspectivism’ I mean a meta-philosophical methodological framework of how to look at seemingly competing approaches for the sake of constructive engagement.14 The term ‘constructive engagement’ means a general philosophical approach that inquires into how, via reflective criticism and self-criticism, distinct modes of thinking, methodological approaches, visions, insights, substantial points of view, or conceptual and explanatory resources from different philosophical traditions, and/or from the complex array of distinct approaches of the same tradition, can learn from each other and jointly contribute to the common philosophical enterprise and/or a series of common concerns and issues of philosophical significance. Though an earlier version of this framework is given in a previous writing of mine,15 what is given below is a substantial development especially concerning its guiding-principle dimension in view of the preceding constructiveengagement discussion of Searle’s and Zhaung Zi’s relevant insights, views and resources. An outline of the transcendental-perspectivism framework, together with some necessary elaborations of the crucial points, is given as follows. 1. A mutual understanding and constructive engagement among seemingly competing approaches is made possible by these: the common, objective object of study via linguistic means and medium (both metaphysically speaking and semantically speaking), the constructiveengagement-availability status of distinctive but eligible methodological perspectives towards the common object of study (epistemologically speaking), and the guidance under adequate methodological guiding

Some of the methodological points and conceptual-explanatory resources that are presented here have been suggested, explicitly or implicitly, directly or indirectly, in some of my previous writings, as some of the central ideas and resources of this methodological framework have been pondered by me in the past decade in guiding my own relevant researches and my evaluation of some others’ approaches. What I am doing here is to give a systematic presentation of the relevant ideas (previous and newly suggested ones) in terms of ‘transcendental perspectivism’, explain how Searle’s and Zhuang Zi’s relevant ideas and resources can significantly contribute to the framework, and further refine some points via strengthening their theoretic foundations. The basic conceptual resources concerning the distinction between three methodological things and their explanatory points first appear in Bo Mou (2001) mentioned above. 15 See Mou, op. cit., 2001. 14

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principles (meta-philosophically speaking), given the meanings of the involved key terms to be explained below. 2. One basic, minimal metaphysical presupposition of the suggested version of transcendental perspectivism as a meta-philosophical methodological framework is this: given an object of study, and given that the identity of the genuine aspect(s) of the object is thus determined (whether it is a naturally produced object in physical reality or a socially constructed object in social reality), there is the common, objective object of study, linguistically or semantically addressed in the mutual understanding and constructive engagement. This minimal metaphysical presupposition consists of three components or three sub-presuppositions: (1) given an object of study, the object has its objective character in a certain sense so that subjective perspectivism that subscribes to the “anything goes” version of conceptual relativism cannot succeed; (2) given an object of study, the object possesses its genuine multiple aspects, or all these aspects are genuinely possessed by the same, common object so that various agent-speakers who point to these different aspects actually talk about the same object; (3) an agent-speaker who talks about the same common object can linguistically or semantically reach the common object as a whole, whether or not she is currently able to epistemologically reach all the aspects of the object. People have, or would have when pondering for a while, their pre-theoretic understandings that (would) confirm the three claims or even consider them as platitudes. It is possible for transcendental perspectivism to proceed while reasonably resorting to our pre-philosophical understandings of the three things. However, it is both philosophically interesting and significant to raise and explore the three corresponding issues for the sake of establishing a due metaphysical/semantic foundation for transcendental perspectivism as a kind of objective perspectivism in the constructiveengagement enterprise in philosophy: (1) how it is possible for us to have the common objective object of study without running into subjective perspectivism; (2) how it is possible for us to have the common or same object of study that genuinely possess its multiple aspects; (3) how it is possible for the agent-speaker to linguistically (or semantically) reach the object as a whole, whether or not she is currently able to epistemologically (or pragmatically) reach all the aspects of the object. As far as (1) is concerned, I think that Searle’s account on the necessary-presupposition status of external realism for a large chunk

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of thought and language, his elaboration of the due relation between conceptual relativism and external realism, his critique of subjective perspectivism, and his doctrine of the constitution of social reality,16 can jointly, and in a straightforward way, provide a sound metaphysical foundation for transcendental perspectivism in regard to the issue of how it is possible for us to have the common objective object of study without running into subjective perspectivism. In other words, one can either theoretically subscribe to Searle’s foregoing accounts concerning objective reality or resort to one’s pre-philosophical understanding to comprehend the due metaphysical foundation of transcendental perspectivism. As far as (2) is concerned, I currently work on a thick-object metaphysical account of the structure of things in the world17 together with a collective-noun hypothesis concerning the referential function of names.18 As far as (3) is concerned, I have suggested a double-reference account of how it is possible for the agent-speaker to semantically refer to the same (thick) object as a whole in various pragmatic contexts, whether or not she is able to epistemologically reach all the aspects of the object, and no matter how she pragmatically refers.19 In sum, in this portion, I sketch two available and reasonable ways to understand the metaphysical foundation of transcendental perspectivism: one way is through a minimal metaphysical presupposition which is based on our pre-theoretic understandings of the three things, while the other way is through a theoretical account to which Searle’s relevant ideas concerning the nature of objective reality and our understanding

Cf., Searle, 1995 and 1998. An early version of this account, as part of my article “Frege-Church Slingshot and a Daoist Account of Thick Objects”, was presented at the ISCWP panel “Daoism and Contemporary Philosophy” at the APA Eastern Division 2003 meeting (December 29, 2003, Washington, DC). 18 The collective-noun hypothesis mentioned here is a substantial extension of its earlier version concerning the structure of Chinese common nouns [Bo Mou (1999), “The Structure of Chinese Language and Ontological Insights: A Collective-Noun Hypothesis,” in Philosophy East and West 49:1, pp. 45–62). In the current version, I make two substantial extensions concerning natural languages in general. (1) I argue for the collective-noun hypothesis concerning the deep structure of common nouns in natural languages not limited to Chinese; (2) I argue for the collective-noun hypothesis concerning the deep structure of all nouns, including proper nouns as well as common nouns, in natural languages. 19 For a presentation of its basic points with their explanations, See Bo Mou (2007), “A Double-Reference Account: Gongsun Long’s ‘White-Horse-Not-Horse’ Thesis”, The Journal of Chinese Philosophy 34:4, pp. 493–513. Nevertheless, the current version of this account is still sketchy and needs to be further refined. 16 17

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of it can make their straightforward and significant contribution in one connection. 3. Given a way to approach an object of study in cross-tradition understanding, there is need, both conceptually and practically speaking, to make the distinction between three kinds of ways or methods, which constitute three dimensions of methodology in view of mutual understanding and constructive engagement. 3.1 A way to approach an object of reflective study is a methodological perspective, or a perspective-simplex, in the perspective dimension of methodology when (i) the way responds to how to approach the object, (ii) the way is intended to point to a certain aspect of the object and explain the aspect in terms of the characteristics of that aspect rather than some other aspect, and (iii) the way provides a starting point for that study with a minimal metaphysical commitment that there is that aspect of the object. One can understand and explicate the issue of how a methodological perspective is possible in terms of a joint account of Searle’s resources concerning aspectuality of intentionality, as addressed in the first section, and Zhuang Zi’s resources concerning the legitimacy and eligibility of ‘this’-aspect-concerned vs. ‘that’-aspect-concerned perspectives (i.e., the first one of Zhuang Zi’s two significant points as delivered in the citation [1], in Section 2). The two figures’ resources concerning this issue are complementary in the following sense. The strength of Searle’s account in this connection lies in its systematic character, its articulate way of delivering points, its comprehensive characterization of various features of consciousness, and its sensitivity to scientific evidence and updated data concerning human consciousness; however, if I do not misunderstand Searle, his account has yet to explicitly address the issue of aspectuality-transcending feature of consciousness, as explained earlier. On the other hand, though less systematic and articulate, the strength of Zhuang Zi’s resources lies in this: his view of legitimacy and eligibility of perspectives is intrinsically related to his perspectivetranscending vision, as explained in the previous section. In this way, it seems to me, an adequate understanding and explanation of how a methodological perspective is possible within the framework of transcendental perspectivism needs both Searle’s resources and Zhaung Zi’s resources; that is why a joint account is needed. There is the distinction between eligible and ineligible methodological perspectives concerning an object of study. If the aforementioned

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minimal metaphysical commitment is true in the sense that the object does possess that aspect, the methodological perspective is considered eligible in regard to that object. Otherwise, the methodological perspective is considered ineligible in regard to that object. If a methodological perspective is eligible for examining an object of study, then one’s reflective activity per se of taking that methodological perspective alone as one’s working perspective to look at the object is philosophically innocent, whether or not one also consciously takes some other eligible perspective as one’s working perspective, and whether or not one holds an adequate methodological guiding principle to be explained below. [ For convenience, it the foregoing sense, it is just said that (taking) an eligible methodological perspective per se is philosophically innocent.] 3.2 A way to approach an object of study is a methodological instrument concerning a certain methodological perspective when (i) the way responds to how to approach the object, and (ii) the way is an instrument, which is used as means to implement the methodological perspective. If the methodological perspective that an instrumental method can implement is eligible for examining the object, then the instrumental method is clearly also eligible. On the other hand, if the methodological perspective that an instrumental method is to implement is ineligible for examining the object, it is not necessary for the instrumental method to be ineligible either; for an instrumental method might be neutral to various perspectives and thus can be used to implement some other eligible methodological perspective(s). 3.3 A way to approach an object of study is a methodological guiding principle concerning a certain methodological perspective (or a group of perspectives) in regard to the object when (i) the way responds to how to approach the object, (ii) the way is, or should be, presupposed by the agent who takes that perspective (or one or more among the group of the perspectives), and (iii) the way is, or should be, resorted to for the sake of guiding and regulating how the perspective should be evaluated (its status and its due relation with other perspectives) and used (how to choose among the group of perspectives), and how the purpose and focus that the perspective serves should be set. There is the distinction between adequate and inadequate methodological guiding principles concerning methodological perspective(s) in regard to an object of study. The six sorts of adequacy conditions for adequate methodological guiding principles are explored in 4. For the purpose of cross-tradition understanding and constructive engagement, it is especially philosophically interesting, relevant or even

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crucial to have an adequate methodological guiding principle, which the agent is expected to presuppose in evaluating the status and nature of the eligible methodological perspectives, applying her methodological perspective, and looking at the relation between her current working perspective and the other perspectives. Generally speaking, on the one hand, the merit, status, and function of a methodological perspective per se can be evaluated independently of certain methodological guiding principles that the agent might presuppose in her actual application of the perspective. The reflective practice per se of taking a certain methodological perspective as a working perspective is philosophically innocent as the practice per se implies neither that one loses sight of other genuine aspects of the object nor that one ignores or rejects other eligible perspectives in one’s background thinking. On the other hand, it does matter whether one’s taking a certain methodological perspective is regulated by an adequate or inadequate guiding principle, especially for the sake of the constructive engagement of seemingly competing approaches. When one’s application of an eligible methodological perspective as part of one’s reflective practice is guided by some adequate guiding principle and thus contributes to a holistic understanding of the object of study, one’s application of that perspective would be philosophically constructive in regard to a complete account of the object of study; otherwise, it would be philosophically less constructive in that connection—, although the reflective practice per se of taking that eligible perspective is still philosophically innocent in the foregoing sense. 4. Transcendental perspectivism identifies six sorts of adequacy conditions for adequate methodological guiding principles.20 The first four, (1)–(4), of them, and one of the last two, (5) and (6), depending on situations, are expected for an adequate methodological guiding principle that the agent presupposes to guide her application of her working methodological perspective and regulate how she looks at the relation between her current working perspective and the other perspectives.

20 A further discussion of the six adequacy conditions for methodological guiding principles together with case illustrations appears in my article “A Methodological Framework for Cross-tradition Understanding and Constructive Engagement”, in Nicole Note et al. (ed.), Worldviews and Cultures, Springer (forthcoming).

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(1) The perspective-eligibility-recognizing condition. A methodological guiding principle which is presupposed by the agent who uses a certain eligible methodological perspective as her current working perspective in treating an object of study is considered adequate when this guiding principle renders other eligible methodological perspectives (if any) also eligible and somehow compatible with the application of the current working perspective. In contrast, it is considered inadequate in this connection if otherwise. Note that this adequacy condition requires a due understanding of the identity of the aspects of the object of study which eligible methodological perspectives are supposed to point to and capture respectively. For convenience, call the adequacy specified by the above condition ‘the perspective-eligibility-recognizing adequacy’. (2) The agent-purpose-sensitivity condition. A methodological guiding principle is considered adequate if it has its choice of a certain working perspective, among eligible methodological perspectives, sensitive to the agent’s purpose and thus renders the most applicable or the most appropriate (relative to that purpose) the perspective that (best) serves that purpose. In contrast, a methodological guiding principle is considered inadequate in this connection if otherwise. For convenience, call the adequacy specified by the above condition ‘the agent-purposesensitivity adequacy’. (3) The equality-status-granting condition. A methodological guiding principle is considered adequate if it renders all the eligible methodological perspectives (perspective simplexes) equal in the following sense: being equally necessary for the sake of a complete account of an object of study and being equally local from the global point of view that transcends any local methodological perspectives; thus none of them absolutely superior (or inferior) to the others in the above sense. In contrast, a methodological guiding principle is considered inadequate in this connection if otherwise. For convenience, call the adequacy specified by the above condition ‘the equality-status-granting adequacy’. (4) The new-eligible-perspective-possibility-recognizing condition. A methodological guiding principle is considered adequate if it has an openminded attitude towards the possibility of a new eligible perspective that points to some genuine aspect of the object of study but has yet to be realized by the agent because of the ‘unknown-identity’ status of that aspect. A methodological guiding principle is considered inadequate in this connection if otherwise. For convenience, call the adequacy specified by the above condition ‘the new-eligible-perspective-possibilityrecognizing adequacy’.

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(5) The complementarity-seeking condition. Given that multiple, seemingly competing eligible methodological perspectives concerning an object of study turn out to be complementary (in the sense that each of them points to one aspect of the object and is indispensable for a complete understanding of the object), a methodological guiding principle is considered adequate if it captures the complementary character of the involved aspects of the object and thus seeks the complementary connection and harmonious balance between those perspectives. It is considered inadequate in this connection if otherwise. For convenience, call the adequacy specified by the above condition ‘the complementarityseeking adequacy’. (6) The sublation-seeking condition. Given that multiple seemingly competing eligible methodological perspectives concerning an object of study are genuinely competing to the extent that they point to the genuinely contradictory aspects of the current status-quo state (or some future stage of development) of an object of study or the genuinely competing aspects of distinct objects of study, such a methodological guiding principle would be considered adequate: when there is a genuine need, this guiding principle seeks a due solution through a Hegelian synthetic balance in the newly formed object of study via sublation. In contrast, it is considered inadequate in this connection if otherwise. For convenience, call the adequacy specified by the above condition ‘the sublation-seeking adequacy’. The perspective-eligibility-recognizing condition is the minimal condition in the sense that it is presupposed by the remaining kinds of adequacy conditions. Which one, between the latter two kinds of adequacy conditions, needs to be maintained would depend on the nature of the involved perspectives and the purpose that a certain methodological guiding principle serves. Typically, an inadequate methodological guiding principle metaphysically overloads or inflates its regulated methodological perspective, MP, in one, or both, of the following two ways. (1) In its guidance of how to apply MP, the guiding principle metaphysically overloads MP by positively attributing to MP the agent’s favored metaphysical import that goes beyond the minimal metaphysical commitment of MP and makes MP incoherent with other eligible perspectives. (2) The guiding principle metaphysically overloads another seemingly competing but eligible methodological perspective, MP*, by attributing to MP* some negative, or the agent’s unfavored, metaphysical import that goes beyond the minimal metaphysical commitment of MP* and makes MP*

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become incoherent with MP. Through (1) or (2) or both, the guiding principle metaphysically overloads itself to become incompatible with (the adequate application of ) other eligible and philosophically innocent perspectives that are eligible for examining the object of study. In this sense, to overcome an inadequate methodological guiding principle, one needs to deflate its metaphysical over-supplies in the preceding two connections. 5. Some paradigm guiding principle models in terms of the ‘transcendental perspectivism’ framework. At the level of the guiding-principle dimension of the framework, there are three paradigm guiding-principle models, the Zhuang Zi’s, yin-yang, and Hegelian models. When they are applied to the right situations with due purposes, they are rendered appropriate; otherwise they are inappropriate. In this way, there is the distinction between appropriate and inappropriate applications of the three paradigm guiding-principle models. The core idea of the Zhuang Zi style model is suggested in the first citation from inner Chapter 2, “The Equality of Things,” of the Zhuang-Zi. The Zhuang Zi style model as elaborated in the preceding part captures and implements ‘the perspective-relevance-recognizing adequacy’, ‘the agent-purpose-sensitivity adequacy’, ‘the equality-statusgranting adequacy’ and ‘the new-eligible-perspective-possibility-recognizing adequacy’, which are expected for all adequate methodological guiding principles. Briefly speaking, it regulates how to choose one among eligible methodological perspectives as the current working perspective and how to evaluate the status of the current working perspective and its relation to the other eligible perspectives: depending on one’s purpose or interest, one is entitled to focus on ‘this’ aspect of the object of study thus taking a ‘this’-aspect-concerned perspective as the current working perspective (to capture ‘this’ aspect), or a ‘that’ aspect thus taking ‘that’-aspect-concerned perspective as the current working perspective (to capture ‘that’ aspect), or all aspects thus explicitly taking an ‘overall’ perspective as the current working perspective21 (to

21 Although the agent is expected to implicitly take the ‘aspectuality-transcending’ vision in the background thinking whenever she takes any one-aspect-concerned perspective, she is sometimes expected to explicitly turn the ‘aspectuality-transcending’ vision in the background thinking into an ‘overall’ working perspective in case there is such need.

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have a complete account). One distinguishing point of the Zhuang Zi style model is this: while helping one in choosing the current working perspective among the eligible perspectives, this model encourages or demands that the agent take an aspectuality-transcending point of view as a methodological guiding principle so as to realize the local character of one or many local perspectives and avoid one-sidedness (mistaking one local aspect to be the only or exclusive aspect), whether or not one takes the ‘overall’ perspective as the current working perspective.22 The yin-yang model captures and implements the ‘complementarity-seeking adequacy’ expected for certain methodological guiding principles. This is one paradigm guiding-principle model of treating the constructive-engagement relation between any eligible and complementary methodological perspectives for the sake of a holist and complete understanding. One good and significant illustration of such a complementary relation is the relation between the Socrates-style being-aspect-concerned methodological perspective and the Confuciusstyle becoming-aspect-concerned methodological perspective, which are considered as two paradigm methodological-perspective models at the level of the perspective dimension of the framework. For the two kinds of methodological perspectives point respectively to two most basic modes of existence, being and becoming, of things in the world that are typically possessed simultaneously by most of things in nature.23 Because the two fundamental modes of existence, being and becoming, are interdependent and complementary in a number of senses,24 the two methodological perspective models are thus interdependent and complementary. This renders the yin-yang model suitable for looking at the relation between the two representative perspectives.

22 In his recent essay “Hegalian, Yi-Jing, and Buddhist Transformational Models for Comparative Philosophy” [in Comparative Approaches to Chinese Philosophy, edited by Bo Mou (2003), Ashgate, pp. 60–85], Robert Allinson resorts to the Buddhist ‘upāya’ model which is similar to Zhuang Zi’s model in some aspect. As I see it, the Zhuang Zi style model might be more complete than the Buddhist ‘upāya’ model to this extent: the latter asks the agent to be sensitive to the concrete situation in order to choose a working perspective but without expectation that the agent needs to also take the above mentioned ‘aspectuality-transcending’ point of view as a methodological guiding principle. 23 I give a detailed account of the two methodological perspectives in, op. cit., 2001. 24 For a detailed discussion of this, see Bo Mou (2003), “Becoming-Being Complementarity: An Account of the Yin-Yang Metaphysical Vision of the Yi-Jing,” in Comparative Approaches to Chinese Philosophy, edited by Bo Mou, Ashgate, pp. 86–96.

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The Hegelian model captures and implements the ‘sublation-seeking adequacy’ expected for certain methodological guiding principles. This model deals with the constructive-engagement relation between the eligible but genuinely competing perspectives in the dual sense of ‘genuine’: first, as far as the current status-quo state of the object of study is concerned, the object possesses its genuine contradictory aspects whose solution needs to resort to the Hegelian synthesis via sublation; thus the two eligible perspectives that point respectively to the two aspects are genuinely competing; second, as far as some future stage of its due development is concerned, the object possessed some genuine contradictory aspects whose solution needs to resort to the Hegelian synthesis via sublation. The three paradigm guiding-principle models, theoretically and practically speaking, are not mutually exclusive but could be applied simultaneously even when facing the same group of perspectives. The Zhuang Zi style model is clearly compatible with the other two: while taking either the yin-yang model or the Hegelian model to look at the relation between the involved perspectives depending on their nature, one can follow the Zhuang Zi style model to choose one eligible perspective as the current working perspective in view of one’s current purpose and interest. Even the seemingly mutually-exclusive yin-yang model and the Hegelian model could be applied simultaneously when one focuses both on the current status-quo state of the object of study, which would render certain perspectives eligible, and on some future stage of its due development where some genuine internal contradiction would emerge, which would render the involved eligible perspectives the character of Hegelian contraries. The paradigm identity of the three guiding-principle models does not render the three models exhaustive. There would be other guidingprinciple models. The relation between adequate methodological guiding principles (generally speaking) or between adequate applications of the yin-yang, Hegelian and Zhuang Zi models (specifically speaking) are yin-yang complementary both in the sense that they are needed in regard to different situations and in the sense that they could be used simultaneously. For all three guiding-principle models are relevant to our treatment of the relation between methodological perspectives in the foregoing ways. To this extent, the yin-yang model is one important meta-guiding-principle model. *

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*

*

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In this essay, I have endeavored to show how Searle’s thought on aspectuality of intentionality and his critique of subjective perspectivism, on the one hand, and Zhaung Zi’s relevant insights concerning how to look at seemingly competing points of view, on the other hand, can make their joint contribution to a kind of objective perspectivism, which is called ‘transcendental perspectivism’ in this writing. The essay consists of three parts. In the first part, after briefly examining the major points of Searle’s thought on aspectuality and his critiques of subjective perspectivism, I have spelled out some significant implications of Searle’s relevant ideas and argue that they point to a kind of objective perspectivism; I have then addressed two issues whose due accounts are needed for a complete account of objective perspectivism but have yet to be explicitly and sufficiently explored in Searle’s doctrine. In the second part, I have presented an interpretation of Zhuang Zi’s ontologico-methodological strategy of how to treat different or seemingly competing points of view; in so doing, I have explored how Zhuang Zi would respond to the two issues addressed in the preceding part. In the third part, I have presented a version of transcendental perspectivism as a meta-philosophical methodological framework of how to look at seemingly competing perspectives towards an object of study, especially concerning its guiding-principle dimension; I have explained how this framework can enrich and strengthen itself by resorting to Searle’s and Zhaung Zi’s relevant insights, views and resources: especially, Searle’s resources can significantly contribute both to a sound metaphysical foundation for transcendental perspectivism in one important respect and to our understanding and explanation of how a methodological perspective is possible, while Zhuang Zi’s resources can significantly contribute to our understanding of adequacy conditions for methodological guiding principles.

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REPLY TO BO MOU John R. Searle This is a good opportunity for me to say how grateful I am personally, and how we all are, to Bo Mou for his terrific work in organizing this wonderful conference. In his paper he raised so many questions that I will not be able to answer all of them, but let me approach at least several of them. I will begin by mentioning two possible areas of disagreement. First it seems to me that he sometimes talks as if “transcendental perspectivalism” would enable consciousness to rise above all perspectives and thus dispense with aspectual shape. I do not believe this is possible. By definition all intentionality, and indeed all representation, is always under an aspect, from a point of view. I wish to distinguish on the one hand between the claim that we should always be able to rise above our local cultural prejudices and points of view, and on the other hand the claim that we might have representations which had no point of view and no aspect under which the conditions of satisfaction are represented. I think the idea of rising above our local predilections is possible and indeed desirable. This conference is a good example of transcending local points of view. But I do not believe it is possible to have representations without aspectuality. A second possible misunderstanding is where he suggests that there is a “tension” in my view about the relationships of science and philosophy. He says “Searle seems to take the scientific perspective as the superior one over other relevant perspectives”. But that is not my view. My view is that to solve a problem you need to use any resources that are available. Since the 17th century we have found certain problems solvable by a family of methods that we misleadingly call “science”. But many of the problems that worry us most, about truth and justice and the good life, for example, have not proved amenable to these methods. At the level at which I try to work I do not have any serious practical use for a sharp distinction between “science” and “philosophy”, though there are important historical, sociological, and even intellectual differences, as I try to explain in the article he cites.

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I think the best way for me to proceed in the rest of this reply will be to try to state some of my views in a way that will relate them to his discussion. First, conceptual relativism. I insist that the world divides up the way that we divide it. It does not come to us previously divided by conceptual categories. So for example, we think of this rostrum as one object and this table on which the rostrum sits as another object, but there is nothing to prevent us from having a conceptual structure that treats the bottom half of this rostrum and this portion of the table as a single object. We could give this object the name “klerg.” You might suppose there is a culture where klergs are very important—they can only be constructed by sacred virgins working underwater, and if you destroy a klerg you suffer the death penalty. That is not our culture, but it is easy to imagine a culture like that, and frankly, there are probably things in our culture that are just as silly as that. Anyway, that is a possible culture. The view that we can invent any concepts we like to describe the world, and thus divide up the world the way we want to divide it, is called conceptual relativism. Some philosophers suppose that the truth of conceptual relativism implies that there is no real world, that we are constantly inventing the real world. I want to say that this is a mistake: it is not the world which is changed from culture to culture, it is our way of describing the world which is changed, and that is because we can use different categories for describing the same reality. Thus in one culture there are klergs but in another culture there are no klergs. The point is this: once you invent categories like “tree” or “cow” or “ghost” then it is a matter of objective fact in the world whether or not there are trees or cows or ghosts. We invent the categories, but whether or not there are features of reality that correspond to the categories is up to the real world and not up to us. Now, there are some parts of the real world that we do invent, and those are the social and institutional features of the world such as money, property, government and marriage. But that is a separate question, distinct from the question about cultural relativism. Just to summarize this point, and it is a crucial point, we can invent any categories we like, but whether or not there are objects that correspond to those categories is not up to us, it is up to how reality is, independently of us. What about perspectivalism and aspectual shape? All intentionality has aspectual shape. That just means that all representation is under an aspect, and remember there is nothing necessarily phenomenological

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about the notion of representation. We are talking about logical structures, not about how they are realized or not realized in consciousness. All intentionality has aspectual shape and all perception has aspectual shape from a point of view. So you get not only aspectual shape but you get perspective. The aspectual shape under which I see this object is from a certain perspective, from a certain visual point of view. So you get a special combination of perspective and aspectual shape when it comes to perception. Now perspectivalism, in one of its forms, is a view I attack because I think it is a kind of idealism that treats the perspective as part of the ontology. It is true that all perception, and indeed all intentionality, is from a point of view, and thus under certain aspects. The deep mistake, and it is a deep mistake which pervades many phenomenological authors, is to suppose that the aspect itself becomes part of the ontology, that the point of view from which we view reality is part of the reality itself. It has the logical feature that you never get de re references to objects. The references to objects are always inside the scope of a phenomenological operator such as transcendental consciousness or Dasein. So it is never “Reality is such that . . .”, but rather “Dasein is such that . . .”, and then reality appears within the scope of Dasein. That is the view that I criticize. I want to say that there is a view that I think is correct and a view that I think is wrong. The correct view is conceptual relativism, that the concept we have are chosen by us. This does not mean that they are entirely arbitrary. We would not have survived over long periods of evolutionary time if we did not have concepts that enabled us to cope effectively with an independently existing reality. The wrong view is to suppose that because conceptual relativism is true, it follows that there is no real world, no world that exists independently of us. Conceptual relativism does not imply a denial of realism. The second point is about aspectual shape and perspective, and those are indeed features of intentionality. All perception is from a point of view, and all intentionality has aspectual shape. But once again, there is nothing anti-realist about those claims. That is, it does not follow from the fact that all intentionality is under a certain aspect and perceptual intentionality is from a certain perspective that the perspective and the point of view are parts of the objects represented by the intentionality, that they become a part of the ontology. This is the kind of idealism that I criticize. I did not understand Bo Mou’s points about methodology well enough to make an intelligent criticism of them, but any criticism I

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make would be a statement of my general view about the relation of perspective, conceptual relativism, realism, and aspectual shape. When Bo Mou talks about the possibility of a form of conscious intentionality that lacks aspectuality, I reject that because for me all intentionality is aspectual. All intentionality represents objects under some aspect or another and thus all intentionality has aspectual shape. It is an important premise in my argument that we understand unconscious intentionality only in terms of the possibility of accessibility to consciousness because consciousness will make clear what the aspectual shape of the unconscious intentional state is. I have not discussed adequately either here or in my published work the role of imagination. Part of being able to perceive something is being able to imagine what it would look like from the other side and having a perception of something is awareness that it has another side. It need not be conscious, but you have to have the capacity to imagine its other side. It is a Background ability that if you are able to look at a tree you have to have the capacity to know that there is another side to the tree and that you could walk around the tree to see the other side. The tree, so to speak, offers the possibility of walking around it and adopting different perspectives. Since the question of morality has come up, it seems to me that this capacity of the imagination is absolutely crucial to understanding moral, social and political behavior. You have to be able to imagine what the world looks like from a different perspective. How does the world seem to your enemy? How does the world seem to your friend? All of those seem to me a part of the ability to imagine things from perspectives other than the ones you are right now having. I think a mistake we make, (one that might seem to be implied by my work, but I do not mean to imply it), is the idea that the intentionality you have is always fixed. Because, of course, one of the features of any active mental life is that one is constantly imagining alternatives. This capacity is essential to understanding ethics and public policy. We are constantly in a situation where we have to imagine what would it be like if we did this? What would it be like if we did that? And how do things seem to people who do not have our perspective? People who make policies just have to live with this, they have to imagine: How does it seem to the Sunnis? How does it seem to the Shiites? And how does it seem to the Kurds? Most of us are inadequately prepared for that type of effort of imagination. We suppose that everybody is like us, and of course they are not. This is a difficulty that we have, not only

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in our ordinary ethical dealings with other people, but in day to day activity. I have no idea what it is like being a pregnant woman giving birth, but I imagine that you could not make public policy regarding hospitals unless you had some capacity to see the world from her perspective. In public policy this capacity for imagination seems to me to be essential.

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INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS*

(* The English translations of non-English terms, primarily Chinese ones, are given either in view of the relevant authors’ paraphrases in certain contexts or merely tentatively for the heuristic sake, especially when the concepts are under reflective scrutinization in this volume. These translations are thus neither exhaustive nor exclusive. The transliterations of Chinese names are given their originals when available.) aesthetics/aesthetic, 306, 369n, 370, 376 Allinson, Robert E., ix, 131–67, 168, 428n Ames, Roger, 280–1, 355, 355n, 356n, 367–70 Analects 《論語》 (Lun Yü), 52, 275, 281, 284–5, 321–2 analytic method / methodological approach, passim philosophy, 2–12, 21–29 and passim Aristotle/Aristotelianism, 2n, 18, 27, 368 Arpaly, Nomy, 313–4, 317n aufheben (sublate), 426 Austin, J.L., 20, 26, 276 Background and Network, 36–50, 63, 65–73, 66n, 84–90, 93–5, 104–22, 124, 313–32, 357–9, 372–5, 376–7, 382, 392–4, 396–7 imagination as a capacity of, 434–5 Bacon, Roger, 19, 25 Berkeley, George, 352 Bretzke, James, 288 Buddhism, 29 Abhidharma School (in the Theravāda tradition), 170–9, 181–3, 186 Chan 禪 / Zen Buddhism, 229–46 koan [in Japanese or gong-an (kung-an) 公案 in Chinese], 229–46 The Sixth Patriach: Hui Neng 慧能, 131–68 Tibetan Buddhism (in the Vajrayāna tradition) / the Dalai Lama, 171, 181–6, 184n, 185n Yogācāra School (in the Mahāyāna tradition), 170–1, 179–84, 186

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capacity and ability, 295–312 Cappelen, Herman, 216n Cartesian, also see Descartes dualism, see dualism self, see self Causation, 36, 60–1 Chan, Wing-tsit 陳榮捷 (Chen Rong-jie), 308 cheng 誠, 288, 322n Cheng, Chung-ying 成中英 (Cheng Zhong-ying), ix, 33–56, 57–62, 281 Chinese philosophy, passim Ching, Julia 秦家懿 (Qin Jia-yi), 279–80 Chong, Kim-chong 庄錦章 (Zhuang Jin-zhang), ix, 295–310, 311–2 comparative philosophy, passim constructive-engagement methodology of, 2–5, 419 constructive-engagement movement of, 1–14 Confucianism 儒家 (Ru, Ru-Jia, Ru School), 24, 29, 107, 273–89, 290–2, 320, 327, 335–6, 370, 394–5, 403 Neo-Confucianism, 33–56 Confucius 孔子 (Kong Zi; given name ‘Qiu’ 丘), 24, 320, 327 Consciousness, 28–9, 131–68 aspectuality of, 406–10 aspectuality-transcending capacity of, 408–10 Backgound of, see Background constructive-engagement enterprise in, 1–14 and passim. Also see comparative philosophy, ISCWP and methodology ‘Continental’ philosophy, 4, 6, 7, 9n, 10, 21, 29

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correlative way of thinking, 371 corrigibility, 339–54 Cua, Antonio S., 296n, 301n, 309n Da-Xue《大學》(Ta Hsüeh) (Great Learning), 53, 285, 286 Danto, Arthur, 69n dao 道, 284, 287, 321–2, 371 Dao-De-Jing《道德經》(Tao Te Ching), 73–5, 80, 101, 103, 105–8 Daoism 道家, 97–122, 124–6, 129 Darwinism, 396, 398 Davidson, Donald, 6, 7, 11, 12n, 34–5, 41, 44n, 61, 236–7, 244–6, 252n, 315–6, 315n, 316n, 323n, 336 Dawkins, Richard, 139–40, 158 de 德. See virtue de re and de dicto beliefs, 247–65 Descartes, Rene, 2n, 19, 25, 26, 40, 144, 150, 153, 167, 182, 188, 281, 339–42, 344–5, 352, 397 description and evaluation, 273–93 Dewey, John, 20, 109–11, 114 dualism, 41–2, 44n, 55, 58–61, 165, 169–70, 397 Cartesian, 34, 60, 131–68 Dreyfus, Hubert, 64n, 83n, 84n, 94, 112–3, 117, 127 elenctic method (elenchus), 112–3, 117 empiricism, 2n, 19, 20, 352 epistemology, 4, 26, 27, 117, 251, 256n, 339–54, 397 equilibrium. See harmony ethics, 4, 5, 8, 26, 28, 290, 340, 434 Fingarette, Herbet, 370 Flew, Anthony, 276n Foucault, Michel, 21 Fraser, Chris, ix, 63–92, 93–4, 313–33, 334–6 Frege, Gottlob, 20, 21, 222 Fung, Yiu-ming 馮耀明 (Feng Yao-ming) ix–x, 229–42, 243–6 Global philosophy, 17–30. Also see world philosophy Graham, Angus, C., 305n Grice, H.P., 203, 233, 237 Hall, David L., 280–1, 367–9 Hare, R.M., 315n, 316n he 和 (harmony), 279 Hegel, G.W.F., 28, 355n, 427–9

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Heidegger, Martin, 21, 116 holism, 58 Hongladarom, Soraj, ix, 169–88, 189–193 Hume, David, 60, 273, 276, 283, 287–9, 292, 343–6, 352 Husserl, Edmund, 116 idealism, 19, 20, 21, 60, 128, 397, 406, 433 Ihara, Craig, 301 intentionality animal (pre-human) versus human, 382–92, 400–3 Background (and Network) of, see Background conscious, see consciousness unconscious, 93–5, 124–9, 358–65, 372–5, 377, 379–99, 434 irrationality, 24 ISCWP (International Society for Comparative Studies of Chinese and Western Philosophy), x, 4–6, 8n, 9n, 17n Ivanhoe, Philip J., 86n James, William, 68n Jullien, Francois, 370–1 jun-zi 君子, 279, 282, 284, 288, 370 Kant, Immanuel (Kantianism), 2n, 38, 40, 54, 120, 183, 183n, 288, 291, 352, 392, 396 Kjellberg, Paul, 341–2 Knoblock, John, 303n, 304n Knowledge, also see epistemology Certainty of, 339–54 Krausz, Michael, 7n Kripke, Saul, 250, 251, 252n Krueger, Joel W., ix, 93, 97–123, 124–9 Lakatos, Imre, 399 language, 13, 197–269, 290–1 Chinese ideographic, 247–63 philosophy of, 4–5, 26–7, 29, 124, 197, 210, 222, 339 Lao, Zi 老子 (Lao Tzu; given name ‘Dan’ 聃) / Lao-Zi《老子》. See the Dao-De-Jing Lewis, David, 199, 201 li 禮 (propriety, rite), 284–6 li 理 (reason, principle), 37, 49, 53 Li, Charles, 247n, 248n, 249n, 261 Li, Chenyang 李晨陽, 279–81

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index of names and subjects Lin, yutang 林語堂, 287 Locke, John, 25, 343, 352 Lum, B. Jeannie 林嘉珍 (Lin Jia-zhen), ix, 355–75, 376–7 Lun Yü《論語》. See Analects McGinn, Colin, 251 Martinich, Aloysius P., ix, 7n, 197–220, 221–7 Materialism, 33, 58–60, 397 meaning, 197–227 indeterminacy of, 257n descriptivist theory of, 216n Meinong, Alexius von / Meinongianism, 219 Mencius 孟子 (Meng Zi; given name ‘Ke’ 軻), 53, 275, 296–303, 308–10, 324–6, 328, 394–5 Mencius《孟子》, 275, 322–3, 323n, 328 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 111–2, 114, 116, 127–8 Metaphor, 244–6 metaphysics, 4–5, 368 methodology (method), passim analytic. See analytic comparative, 1–9 and passim constructive-engagement, 2–5, 419. Also see constructive-engagement enterprise in philosophy for research in the human sciences, 355–75 Millikan, Ruth, 300n mind, 13, 26, 33–194 Philosophy of, 4, 5, 29, 117, 339–40 Mohism 墨家, 198–9, 198n, 325, 325n monism, 397 anomalous, 34–5, 41, 57–8, 61 Moor, G.E., 20, 347–8 Morality, 13, 291, 312–32, 334–6, 434 Morton, Adam, 7n Mou, Bo 牟博, ix–xi, 1–14, 405–30, 431–5 Moyal-Sharrock, Daniele, 348n Munro, Donald J., 279–80 naturalism, 117, 398 biological, 33–5, 59–60 Newton, Issac, 343 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 21 Nishida, Kitarō, 116 Nuyen, Anh Tuan, ix, 273–89, 290–3 objectivity, 25, 26 ontology, 27, 58, 60, 368, 433

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439

perspectivism, 405–30 objective, 406–8, 415–8 scientific, 410–2, 431–5 subjective, 406–7. Also see (radical) conceptual relativism transcendental, 405, 419–30 perspectivalism (Searle’s term), 406–7, 432–3. Also see aspectuality of consciousness phenomenalism, 21–3, 100–21, 124–9 Plato, 2n, 18, 27, 38, 40, 165, 351, 368 Positivism Logical, 343 post modernism, 24 pragmatism / pragmatic, 19 Putnam, Hilary, 250–1 qi 氣 (vital energies), 37, 40, 49, 56 qin 親 (affection), 303, 303n Quine, W.V., 21, 34–5, 61, 252n, 256n, 260, 343 rationalism, 19, 28 rationality, 4, 10, 24–5, 28 logically real, 124–9 phenomenologically real, 124–9 realism anti-, see idealism external, 407–8 semantic, 251 reality, 56, 57–8 social (institutional), 10, 28, 368, 371 reasoning. Also see logic reference self-, 375, 385–91, 400–1 semantic, 420–1 relativism conceptual (radical and modest), 406–8, 432–3 ethical, 28 ren 仁 (humaneness, humanity), 29, 308, 370 Robins, Dan, 87n Rorty, Richard, 29 Russell, Bertrand, 21, 26, 116, 135, 198, 210, 257n, 260n, 261n Ryle, Gilbert, 128 satori 悟, 230–1, 240–2 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 21, 116, 374 Schutz, Alfred, 116

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index of names and subjects

scientific world view, 57–8 perspective, 410–2, 418, 431 Searle, John R., ix, 1, 6, 10–14, 17–30, 57–62, 93–6, 124–30, 168, 189–94, 221–7, 243–6, 264–9, 290–3, 311–2, 334–6, 352–4, 376–7, 400–3, 431–5 and passim self, 40, 56, 230–1, 240–2, 277–84, 355–6, 365–75 as brain identity, 192–3 Cartesian, 189, also see (Cartesian) dualism non-, 169–88, 189, 191–3 postulated, 191–3 -reference, see (self-)reference semantic, 197–227 content, 197–8, 200 semantics, 210, 210n, 216 Shun, Kwong-loi 信廣來 (Xin Guanglai), 281, 282 Sim, Luke, 288 skepticism, 26, 27, 252, 339–51, 352–4, 397, 417 Slingerland, Edward, 76n, 102–3, 106 social and/or political philosophy, 4–5, 8 speech acts, 197–227, 229–44 Spinoza, Benedictus de, 167, 167n Strawson, P.F., 20 Stroll, Avrum, ix, 7n, 339–51, 352–4 Suzuki, D.T., 229–32, 239n, 239–41 tai-ji 太極 (supreme ultimate) Tarski, Alfred, 210, 210n Thompson, Sandra A., 247n, 248n, 249n, 261 ti 體 (physical body) -yong 體用 (origins and their applications), 54 tian 天, 78. See also heaven truth / truths, 20, 25, 26, 210n, 392 Tsao, Feng-fu, 247n, 248n Tu, Wei-ming 杜維明, 281 understanding cross-trandition, passim upāya, 428n virtue. See cheng, jun-zi, ren and yi Wang, Bi 王弼 (Wang Pi), 371

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Wang, Yang-ming 王陽明 (given name ‘Shou-ren’ 守仁), 286 Western philosophy, 1–12 and passim Wheeler, Samuel C., 7n will freedom of, 10, 27, 28, 318–9, 322, 329–30, 330n, 344 weakness of, 313–36 Willman, Marshall D., ix, 247–63, 264–9 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 20–2, 26, 197, 199–200, 210, 252n, 310, 343–4, 348n Wong, David B. 黃百銳, 297n, 298, 301–2, 302n Wong, Kai-yee 王啟義, ix, 313–33, 334–6 world philosophy, 9, 122. Also see global philosophy Wright, Crispin, 256n wu 無 (to have not, nonbeing) wu-wei 無為 (nonaction), 97–122, 124–6, 63–90 xin 心 (heart, mind, heart-mind), 37, 40, 47, 53, 288, 295 xing 性 (predispositions of the heart, nature), 37 Xun, Zi 荀子 (Hsün Tzu; given name ‘Kuang’ 況) / Xun-Zi《荀子》, 51, 295–311 yi 義 (righteousness; a sense of righteousness), 284, 286, 303, 303n, 305, 308, 308n yin-yang 陰陽, 427–9 yong 用, 54 Zhang, Zai 張載 (Chang Tsai), 51 zheng-ming 正名 (rectification of names), 53, 283–5 Zheng, Yujian 鄭宇健, ix, 379–99, 400–3 Zhong-Yong <中庸> (Doctrine of the Mean, Centrality and Commonality), 52, 53 Zhou, Dunyi 周敦頤 (Chou Tun-I), 285 Zhu, Xi 朱熹 (Chu Hsi), 36–40, 49, 51–6, 57 Zhuang, Zi 莊子 (Chuang Tzu; given name ‘Zhou’ 周) / Zhuang-Zi《莊子》, 341–3, 405, 412–9, 427–30

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Philosophy of History and Culture ISSN 0922-6001

1. HERTZBERG, L. and J. PIETARINEN (eds.). Perspectives on Human Conduct. 1988. ISBN 90 04 08937 3 2. DRAY, W.H. On History and Philosophers of History. 1989. ISBN 90 04 09000 2 3. ROTENSTREICH, N. Alienation. The Concept and its Reception. 1989. ISBN 90 04 09001 0 4. ORUKA, H.O. Sage Philosophy. Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy. 1990. ISBN 90 04 09283 8 5. MERCER, R. Deep Words. Miura Baien’s System of Natural Philosophy. 1991. ISBN 90 04 09351 6 6. Van der DUSSEN, W. J. and L. RUBINOFF (eds.). Objectivity, Method and Point of View. 1991. ISBN 90 04 09411 3 7. DASCAL, M. (ed.). Cultural Relativism and Philosophy. North and Latin American Perspectives. 1991. ISBN 90 04 09433 4 8. WHITE, F.C. On Schopenhauer’s Fourfold Root of the Principle of SuYcient Reason. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09543 8 9. ZEMACH, E.M. Types. Essays in Metaphysics. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09500 4 10. FLEISCHACKER, S. Integrity and Moral Relativism. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09526 8 11. Von WRIGHT, G.H. The Tree of Knowledge and Other Essays. 1993. ISBN 90 04 09764 3 12. WU, Kuang-ming. On Chinese Body Thinking. A Cultural Hermeneutic. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10150 0 13. ANDERSSON, G. Criticism and the History of Science. Kuhn’s, Lakatos’s and Feyerabend’s Criticisms of Critical Rationalism. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10050 4 14. VADEN HOUSE, D. Without God or His Doubles. Realism, Relativism and Rorty. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10062 8 15. GOLDSTEIN, L.J. The What and the Why of History. Philosophical Essays. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10308 2 16. BARRY, D.K. Forms of Life and Following Rules. A Wittgensteinian Defence of Relativism. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10540 9 17. Van DAMME, W. Beauty in Context. Towards an Anthropological Approach to Aesthetics. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10608 1

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18. CHATTOPADHYAYA, D.P. Sociology, Ideology and Utopia. Socio-Political Philosophy of East and West. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10807 6 19. GUPTA, C. and D.P. CHATTOPADHYAYA (eds.). Cultural Otherness and Beyond. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10026 1 20. WU, Kuang-ming. On the “Logic” of Togetherness. A Cultural Hermeneutic. 1998. ISBN 90 04 11000 3 21. DESJARDINS, Rosemary. Plato and the Good. Illuminating the Darkling Vision. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13573 1 22. MOFFITT, John F. “Inspiration”: Bacchus and the Cultural History of a Creation Myth. 2004. ISBN 90 04 14279 7 23. MOU, B. Davidson’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy. Constructive Engagement. 2005. ISBN 90 04 15048 X 24. BOULTING, N.E. On Interpretative Activity. A Peircian Approach to the Interpretation of Science, Technology and the Arts. 2006. ISBN 978 90 04 15409 4 25. STRAYER, J. Subjects and Objects. Art, Essentialism, and Abstraction. 2007. ISBN 978-90-04-15714-9 26. VANHESTE, J. Guardians of the Humanist Legacy. The Classicism of T.S. Eliot’s Criterion Network and its Relevance to our Postmodern World. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16160 3 27. MOU, B. (ed.). Searle’s Philosophy and Chinese Philosophy. Constructive Engagement. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16809 1

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