RMPS
Metaphysics
Intermediate 2
5069
HIGHER STILL
June 1999
RMPS
Metaphysics
Intermediate 2
Support Materials
*+,-./
CONTENTS
1. Teacher’s Guide
2. Student’s Guide
3. Freewill and Determinism
4. Mind and Body
5. Appearance and Reality
6. Suggestions for Further Reading
7. Appendices
A. Freewill and Determinism in the Scientific World
B. Mind and Body: Knowledge of Other Minds
C. Mind and Body: Knowledge of Ourselves
D. Mind and Body: Karl Popper
E. Mind and Body: Dualism
F. Appearance and Reality: Hume and Kant.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
1
1. TEACHER’S GUIDE
Introduction
This unit offers students an opportunity to study some of the key issues relating to the
area of philosophy known as metaphysics. Metaphysics lies beyond the level of science
which gives us information about the natural world based on observation. For
example, metaphysics deals with the fundamental nature of space, time and causality,
about what kind of reality concepts such as love, truth, justice have, and about the way
in which we, as human beings, experience the world. Without theories of metaphysics
the world would just be a jumble of experiences with no overall coherence.
Metaphysics is therefore an attempt to give order and structure to all our experiences.
It is the branch of philosophy which deals with fundamental questions about being
(what is involved in saying that something ‘is’ or exists), and about what kinds of
things there are in the world. The aim of metaphysics is to try to account for what
happens in the natural world and in human affairs. If we are to interact with the world
we must make some assumptions about it. To this extent every human being is a
metaphysician.
The term ‘metaphysics’ originated as a title given to some of Aristotle’s works which
were catalogued by Andronicus of Rhodes in the second half of the first century BC.
It referred simply to the works which followed ‘physica’ in the catalogue - i.e.
‘metaphysics’ meant ‘after physica - or natural things’). However, it is generally
accepted that Aristotle’s Metaphysics was the first systematic attempt to discuss the
concept of being which also involved criticisms on some earlier thoughts on the
subject, notably Plato’s Theory of Forms.
In modern philosophy the problems of metaphysics may be seen as an attempt to
explain such issues as:
• how are values possible in a world of facts?
• how are minds and mental phenomena possible in a world of matter in motion?
• how is freedom and action of the will possible in a world of scientific laws?
• how can there be abstract entities in a world of events and other contingent
realities?
• how can we understand our experiences in a world of naturalism and scientific
realism?
• how does a person relate to the individual cells in his/her body?
The purpose of this unit is to:
• develop knowledge and understanding of the some key issues in metaphysics
• analyse these issues by distinguishing different viewpoints
• evaluate these issues by discussing them and drawing conclusions.
The unit focuses attention on issues arising from three areas of study in metaphysics:
• Freewill and Determinism
• Mind and Body
• Appearance and Reality.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
3
Students will be expected to study the above areas and to consider the issues which
arise within them. Students will require to have an understanding of these issues and
various responses to them. They will need to be able to analyse and evaluate the issues
and to present a personal conclusion about them.
For the purposes of evidence, students are expected to show knowledge and
understanding of the key areas studied and the ability to analyse and evaluate these
issues, which will include the presentation of a personal conclusion about them.
These support notes should be read in conjunction within the national unit specification
and statement of standards.
Learning and teaching approaches
While it is accepted that teachers and lecturers will have their own preferred strategies
and approaches, the recommendation of variety is important when considering the
kinds of issues studied in this unit as well as different learning styles of individual
students. The issues which are studied in metaphysics are of an abstract nature so it is
important that students are presented with as many examples of ‘concrete’ situations
and experiences as possible. It is important that students are not just made aware of
the academic nature of the issues and arguments but are also encouraged to see the
practical and experiential or existential significance of these debates.
Learning experience and techniques should take a variety of forms and may include
several of the following approaches:
• teacher input and student response exercises
• information gathering from text books, papers, magazine articles, television and
CD-ROM etc.
• class and group discussion and presentation of conclusions
• individual student preparation leading into discussion and debate
• opportunities to analyse and evaluate issues in a general way and in relation to the
human implications of them.
These approaches may allow for a degree of differentiation and the amount of support
given to students can be determined by the teacher’s discretion and the needs of
students.
The unit interfaces with the Higher level in both RMPS and Philosophy where it may
also relate to other units at Intermediate 2 level.
Assessment should take place in a continuous way and the opportunity for
consolidation of learning can lie naturally alongside the more formal assessment
processes required for evidence.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
4
2. STUDENT’S GUIDE
What do I need to know?
This unit is about some of the areas in metaphysics and the issues which arise within
them. As you work through the unit you will study one key issue from each of the
following areas:
• Freewill and Determinism
• Mind and Body
• Appearance and Reality.
You will need to be able to:
• relate the issues to human experience and to the given area of metaphysics
• distinguish and explain different viewpoints on the issues
• discuss both sides of an issue you are given
• reach a personal conclusion on the issue and give reasons which support it.
The key issue within each area is:
Freewill and Determinism:
Mind and Body:
Appearance and Reality:
Are we really free to choose?
How does our mind relate to our brain?
Is the world really as we see it?
What is metaphysics?
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy which deals with basic questions about being
or existence e.g. what is involved in saying that something exists? It is quite different
from science or mathematics. Unlike science it doesn’t rely on experiments or
observation; unlike mathematics it doesn’t concern itself with proof. A physicist will
ask what atoms are made of or what explains gravity, but a philosopher studying
metaphysics might ask how we can know that anything at all exists outside our own
minds.
The purpose of metaphysics is to consider the deeper significance of what we know (or
think we know) about the world. It is to push our understanding of the world and
ourselves a bit further by exploring the issues set out in this unit. Metaphysics will be
considering possible different interpretations about these, trying out different ideas and
thinking of possible arguments against them.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
5
How should I approach these areas and issues?
You will be doing this in a variety of different ways:
• you may be given information sheets by your teacher and you will have to answer
questions on these
• you may have to do some research in books and articles to find out what
philosophers have said or written about these issues
• you may have to consider articles presented in papers or newspapers, magazines,
television, videos and CD-ROMs
• you may be involved in class and group discussion and the presentation of
conclusions about the issues you have discussed
• you may have to do some individual preparation to lead your group or class in
discussion about a topic you are studying
• you may be given opportunities to analyse and evaluate issues in a general way and
in relation to the human implications of them.
Whatever combination of approaches you use, the aim is to develop both your
understanding of the issues and your ability to discuss, analyse and evaluate them. You
will also be expected to express a personal opinion on the issues and support it with
appropriate and relevant reasons.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
6
3. FREEWILL AND DETERMINISM: Are we really free to choose?
Consider the following situation:
You go into a baker’s shop one lunchtime and are faced with an array of cakes and
other confectionery. You are very partial to chocolate and cream but you are also
watching what you eat as you are on a diet. On the front of the counter are big
wedges of chocolate and cream cake but catching your eye behind the assistant is a
rather attractive display of fruit. The cake looks very enticing but you know it’s very
fattening. You are tempted and finally ask the assistant for two wedges of cake.
The following day you step on the bathroom scales. Your weight has gone up by
about 1 kg. since last week. You say to yourself, ‘ If only I hadn’t eaten that
chocolate cream cake yesterday. I really could have had the fruit instead!’
What does it mean to say, ‘I could have had the fruit instead?’
Is this statement true?
Now think about this situation:
You are studying for an important examination which is the final one of the year.
Nearly all your friends have already completed their exams and have decided to have
a party to celebrate. You have been very busy studying for the other examinations
and so have not spent as much time on revision for this one. You also feel you need a
break from studying and you are persuaded by your friends to join them for a couple
of hours. You end up staying until the end of the party and return home about two
o’clock in the morning. You are so tired that you flop into bed and fall asleep almost
immediately. The next morning you are sitting in the exam room looking at the paper.
You are beginning to panic as you read it as there are some parts of it you haven’t
revised for properly. You can hear yourself saying, ‘I wish I hadn’t gone to that party
last night.’
Could you really have decided not to go to the party? How do you know this?
These two examples raise the issue of whether we really have a free choice in many
situations in life - to choose one thing rather than another? In a given situation could
we have done something other than we actually did? All things being equal, did we
have the real option of choosing differently?
Or is everything determined or decided in advance? It seems as if it is determined in
advance that the sun will rise tomorrow at a certain time. It is very unlikely that the
sun will not rise and that darkness will continue. This could only happen if some basic
conditions were to change e.g. the earth stopped rotating, or the sun ceased to exist.
Could it also be said that everything we do is determined in advance? Was it
determined in advance that the person in the first example would have chosen the
chocolate and cream cake instead of the fruit? Was it inevitable that the student went
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
7
to the party instead of staying at home to study for the examination? Did neither of
these people actually have any choice at all in these situations?
When we speak about having a choice we normally mean that something was not
determined or controlled in advance; there were no processes or forces at work before
we chose which would have led us towards choosing that particular thing. If things
were determined in that way, then it would make no sense to say we had a choice.
Choice, in this case, would be an illusion.
Another point related to this is about responsibility. We usually think of people as
being responsible for the things that they do and the decisions that they make. For
example, if someone steals a camera from a shop they are normally held responsible for
this action. On the other hand, someone is not said to be responsible if they are pushed
from behind and, as they fall, they break an expensive piece of crystal on display in a
shop.
While these are fairly clear cut examples, there are many others where it is much more
difficult to decide whether people should be held responsible or not. If we are free to
make a choice, then we should be held responsible for these choices and be praised or
blamed accordingly. If, however, the things we do and the decisions we make are
determined in advance, then we have no choice in what we do and we cannot be held
responsible. Therefore we cannot be praised or blamed for our actions.
Different types of determinism
Historical determinism
Some people have thought that it is not possible to do anything different from what we
actually do. A good example to illustrate this is the analogy of a clock. Once the
clock is wound up it continues on its way controlled by the mechanisms which make it
work. It is a machine, a system which is purely mechanical and will not change until
the clock has wound down.
Historical determinism is a view of human affairs which says that history conforms to
certain laws making whatever happens inevitable. The idea here is that nothing
happens by pure chance. There are laws of nature which control all that happens in life
- not just in the world generally but also in the affairs of human beings. These laws of
nature, like those that govern the movement of the planets, control everything that
happens in the world. This means that all the circumstances and conditions prior to
any event determine that it will happen – and rule out any other possibility!
For example, the conflict in Kosovo or elsewhere, within this view, would be seen as
inevitable. The events and circumstances which preceded it would be seen as having
led directly to what happened with no way of avoiding it. These would be seen as
including for example, the historical background of the Balkans, the end of the cold
war, the weakness of the United Nations, as well as the particular personalities
involved.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
8
Psychological determinism
It is generally accepted that what we do depends on our choices, decisions and wants,
and that we make different choices in different circumstances. In this sense we are not
like the inevitable movement of the earth round the sun or the movement of the hands
of a clock. Psychological determinism claims, however, that the circumstances which
exist before we act determine or control our actions and make them unavoidable. The
sum total of a person’s experiences, desires and knowledge, heredity, and the nature of
the choice being faced - as well as other factors we do not know about - make a
particular action in the circumstances inevitable. In other words there are
psychological laws which control everything that a person thinks, decides and does.
So, for example, when you were trying to decide between the chocolate and cream
cake and the fruit in example one, it was already determined by the many factors
working on you that you would choose the cream cake. You couldn’t have chosen the
fruit even though you thought you could. The decision-making process you follow is
just the natural working out of events in your mind. If determinism is true then it was
already determined before you were born that you would choose the chocolate and
cream cake. This is because your choice here was determined by previous conditions
which, in turn, were caused by other previous conditions and so on as far back as you
want to go. In other words, no matter how free you think you are when you choose,
you are only really able to make one decision.
In everyday life we have a fair idea of how people will feel about and act on things.
We feel we can make a reasonable attempt in a common sense way to understand the
factors which cause decisions. Some psychologists, however, believe that we are
controlled by unconscious forces of which we are largely unaware. They argue that
behaviour, particularly abnormal behaviour, results from unconscious desires within the
person that are related closely to the kinds of early relationships they had with their
parents. The implication is that people are not to blame for their own abnormal
behaviour, but, as parents, may be partly responsible for the development of abnormal
behaviour in their children. This is linked to the idea that biology and genetics can help
to explain the cause of crime and violence. The theory here is that if parents have a
heritable tendency to crime they might transmit these characteristics to their children.
Environmental determinism
This type of determinism says that our behaviour is not the result of unconscious forces
within us but the result of reinforcement provided by the environment in which we live.
The environment would include our family, the particular community in which we live,
as well as the wider social and cultural factors affecting us. Given all this, we have
been conditioned into behaving in specific ways. As a result we have no real freedom
to choose our actions. When choosing between the fruit and the cream cake for
example, family background factors may be particularly important.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
9
The meaning of freewill
Freewill is the view that people can freely choose between several alternatives and that
their decisions are controlled by themselves and not totally caused by previous factors
or circumstances. This view would say that it is open for you to choose any one of
several alternatives up to the time you actually decide. You could have chosen to
study for your exam rather than going to the party with your friends. The point is that
the person making the choice determined or controlled what that choice was - by
actually doing it. It wasn’t determined in advance and did not just happen either.
YOU did it and could have done something else.
A decision made from freewill cannot be a totally arbitrary decision. It has to be the
result of the person’s choice, which may take into account the motivation behind the
decision but is not totally caused by these factors. Those who hold the freewill view
say that we all experience our own power and ability to control our decisions but
cannot always describe in complete detail how this works. The belief here is that if we
consider ourselves to have specific control over our actions and behaviour, we must be
free to make those decisions.
So do we make our decisions freely? Many scientists believe that determinism isn’t true
for the basic particles of matter (atoms etc.) - never mind human decision making (*
see Appendix A ). If so, does this not leave room for freedom and responsibility?
What if some human actions are not determined in advance? Is this enough for
freewill?
The argument against the freewill position is:
• if our actions are not determined in advance e.g. by our desires, beliefs, personality,
then in what sense could it be our decision as opposed to it just happening out of
the blue?
• if there is no determinism then how can I determine my actions if nothing
determines them?
• if determinism is completely false, then nothing could be responsible for anything as
even people themselves could not determine their choices.
This would mean that people could not have the choice about doing right or wrong or be held responsible for the decisions they make. Responsibility for our actions
requires that our actions be determined at least by us. If an action is something we
have done, it must be capable of being determined by us - otherwise the action would
not be ours. This can be called causal determinism. This causal determinism does not
necessarily threaten freewill. Free action does not require that there is no determining
cause - it just means that the cause has to be of a certain psychological (as opposed to
physical) type.
Another point can be made here. The case for freewill concentrates more on criticism
of the deterministic argument than producing strong positive arguments of its own.
The difficulty which freewill has is to produce arguments to explain the process by
which freewill operates as a more complete description than determinism.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
10
However, this is not accepted by everyone! If everything we did had a pre-determined
cause - physical or psychological - then we may still feel trapped - we are no more
responsible for our actions than a dog or cat. But there is also the problem of how we
can be responsible for our choices if they are not determined - by us! To get round this
problem people would have to be able to explain what it means to say we could have
done something other than what we did. This would not be an easy task.
Responsibility
If determinism is true for everything that happens, then it was already determined
before we were born that we would choose X. This would be a very significant fact if
everything was determined in advance. However free we might feel about choosing,
we would only really be able to make one choice in a given situation - the one which it
was determined we would make. We would not be able to blame ourselves - or
anyone else - for doing something bad or good - it would be inevitable! So how could
we hold anyone responsible for anything?
People have different views about this. One view is that everything which anyone did
would be the result of pre-determined choices. For example, if someone who was
visiting you stole some of your CDs this may make you angry but, if you followed the
determinist view, then you would have to accept that this action of stealing was
determined in advance by nature and circumstances. This would mean that you
couldn’t hold the person responsible as everything s/he did was determined by her/his
previous life and circumstances. No one could be praised or blamed for anything any
more than the rain could be blamed for falling. Those who believe that determinism is
true and that there can be no moral responsibility are sometimes called hard
determinists.
Others think that praising and blaming still makes sense even if our actions were
inevitable! Such behaviour as dishonesty, telling lies or lack of consideration could still
be regarded as bad. And if we don’t blame or even punish the culprit, then it is much
more likely that the behaviour will be repeated. However, if we think that what this
person did was determined in advance, it might be argued that it does not make sense
to blame them for doing it. Those who believe that determinism is true but feel that it
still makes sense to talk about moral responsibility are sometimes called soft
determinist
Those who hold the freewill view see it as being self evident that we have moral
responsibility and on this basis we hold people morally responsible for their actions.
But if we have no control over the choices we make because these are the result of the
laws of nature and events in our past (which is what determinism says), then these
choices would not be up to us. This would therefore make a mockery of any sense of
justice, criminal responsibility and punishment as we could not blame or punish people
for something over which they had no control. A person can be regarded as being
morally responsible for personal actions only if s/he could have done otherwise. This is
the whole purpose of moral education - to develop an awareness in people that, for
example, it would be wrong to torture an innocent person for a payment of several
thousand pounds, or to allow someone to suffer when something could be done to
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
11
prevent it. Most people would accept that when we make decisions in such situations
then we are doing so freely.
Summary
• It would seem that there are obviously levels of determinism; nobody is totally free.
We have physical limitations and this is the result of physical facts about the world.
We may be psychologically disposed to act in certain ways rather than others; shy
people will act differently from those who are not. We may be socially restrained;
we may want to act in an outrageous way but we know that we will not get away
with it. We may have financial or political restrictions; there are many things we
cannot do without money for example.
•
In terms of the moral implications we have to assess the degree of freedom which
people have. Is a soldier who is ordered to shoot people by a superior morally
responsible for his actions? Is he free to carry out the action if he could be
executed himself for not carrying out the order? Is the superior order a restraining
factor on the soldier’s freedom to choose?
•
What about people who are mentally disturbed at the time of committing a crime?
This would normally be taken into account when deciding what to do with them.
But how many people who commit crimes could be described as clear headed and
balanced?
•
The fact is that we are all conditioned by many factors; the crucial issue is to what
extent is this total or partial? How much human freedom or choice do we actually
have?
•
Moral choice may be influenced by our view of the world, our idea of God, our
values, whether we are totally determined by scientific laws or whether we have a
‘self’ which is free to make such decisions. All these things and more are there
when we make choices and these in turn are affected by what our views about
freewill and determinism are.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
12
Student activities
1. What is determinism?
2. Describe three main types of determinism.
3. What is meant by freewill and to what extent do you think human beings have it?
4. Why is the issue of responsibility an important one in the freewill/determinism
debate?
5. Assuming that someone could only be blamed for something if they had the
freedom to choose, in which of the following situations would you think the person
carrying out the action was fully responsible and should be blamed? Explain your
answer in each case.
i)
ii)
iii)
iv)
v)
vi)
vii)
viii)
a starving person for stealing food
a drunk motorist for speeding
a motorist for speeding to save someone’s life
a mother hitting her daughter for lying
a doctor for not knowing the best treatment for a particular patient
a student for cheating in an examination
a mother for hiding her criminal son from the police
a person for giving a friend an illegal drug to reduce the pain in an illness.
6. ‘If determinism is true then nobody could be guilty of committing any crimes.’ To
what extent do you agree with this statement?
7. List some examples from your own life/experience where you think that
determinism operates. Are these examples of hard, soft or psychological
determinism? Explain why.
8. Now list examples where you believe freewill operates in your life/experience.
Explain why you think that you are free to choose and not just deluding yourself.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
13
4. MIND AND BODY: How does our mind relate to our brain?
In the story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Victor Frankenstein had been seeking the
origin of life by dissecting a human body and studying its various parts and trying to
reproduce it. He had noticed the changes which had taken place at death, the
corrupting of the basic organs and he was trying to reverse the process and bring the
dead back to life. He collected the materials for his experiment - the various parts of
the human body - and made them into a human-like creature. Finally he found the
secret of animating them and brought his creature to life. The ‘creature’ was then
released into the world not fully human but then developed human feelings, reasoning
and skills. Longing for a mate of its own, it eventually confronted Frankenstein and
asked why it had been created and asked the question: ‘Who am I?’
The questions ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What am I?’ are questions about personal identity.
When we ask these questions we are asking some of the most basic and fundamental
questions in life. Law and morality assume that we are moral agents who have
responsibilities and are capable of committing wrong actions. Punishments are handed
out on this basis and one of the main aims of punishment is the reform of the wrong
doer so that s/he will improve his/her behaviour and not commit offences again.
Traditionally religions have accepted that humans are spiritual beings who are capable
of not only living in the world as such but also of surviving their physical deaths. In
modern science a great deal of our understanding of who and what we are has emerged
from the study of the brain. A great deal is now known about the functioning of the
brain although most scientists accept that there is so much more we still have to learn.
A common perception which human beings have always had is that they are more than
their remains which sink into a grave or a crematorium furnace. When people speak of
others they often speak of their personal or moral qualities and their ability to relate to
others. We talk about people as persons not just bodies.
There seems to be two distinct aspects to us which most people take for granted - that
we have physical bodies and are part of the world and that we have what we call a
‘self’ or a personality. Many people talk about having their soul or their spiritual side.
We know that we exist. We accept that there is a relationship between ‘my self’ and
‘my body’ even though we may not be too sure what that is.
We obviously have a physical body which is made up of a variety of chemicals such as
carbon, sulphur, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, water, oxygen, carbon dioxide,
nitrogen etc. which combine to form the major organs of our bodies - head, arms,
legs, body, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and so on. Part of our body is our brain which is
by far the most complex organ we possess and which controls virtually every aspect of
our waking and sleeping lives. Our brain can be described as an extremely complex
computer (far more complex than anything which human beings have designed so far).
As we read this our eyes are scanning from left to right, fingers turn pages, brain
consumes energy taking oxygen from its blood supply, electrical impulses are passing
between our brain cells - all part of the physical world, all able to be detected
scientifically.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
14
But how does all this relate to reading, understanding, thinking, learning, remembering
- all things which happen in our minds? Most people on a common sense basis would
accept that there is more to us than just our physical bodies and that we are also
persons, minds, and selves. One of the most important questions which we face is:
how do all these aspects relate to our personal identity? In relation to our physical
bodies where is the real me? Some of the questions we could consider are:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Is there more to me than my physical body?
Can I exist outside my body?
Could I continue to exist after death?
Is my mind the same thing as my brain?
If not, where is my mind?
Is there such a thing as a soul?
These are some of the questions which are explored within the philosophy of mind and
they relate to many areas of human knowledge including biology, psychology,
sociology, religion, philosophy, computer science etc.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
15
Consciousness and self-consciousness
One of the important issues in this area is: what is the relationship between
consciousness and the brain? Evidence shows that for anything to happen in the mind
or in consciousness, something has to happen in the brain e.g. we hit our finger and we
feel pain, we eat some chocolate and we taste it. We would not experience these
things if the nerves in the body did not carry impulses to the brain. We don’t know
what happens in the brain when we think, but we do know that something does - which
involves chemical and electrical changes in the billions of nerve cells which make up
the brain.
In many cases we know how the brain affects the mind and how the mind affects the
brain. For example, the stimulation of certain nerve cells near the back of the head
produces visual experiences and when we decide to have a shower certain brain cells
send out impulses to the muscles in the arm. So is the mind different from the brain
although connected to it or are the mind and the brain just two words for the same
thing? Are thoughts, feelings, perceptions, sensations things that happen in addition to
the physical processes of the brain or are they just the actual physical processes?
When you eat a chocolate bar and the chocolate melts on your tongue, this causes
chemical changes in your taste buds which send electrical impulses along the nerves
leading from the tongue to the brain. When those impulses reach your brain they
produce further physical changes there and finally you taste the chocolate. Is this
purely a physical event or is anything else happening to cause you to taste the
chocolate?
If your skull was opened during this process all that would be seen would be a grey
mass of neurones which, if measured by various instruments, would detect complicated
physical processes of many different kinds. But would this detect the taste of the
chocolate? Probably not, because the experience of tasting the chocolate is locked
inside the mind in a way that makes it unobservable to anyone else - even if someone
were to open up your brain and look inside.
Our experiences are inside our minds in a way which is different from the way our
brain is inside our head. This means that our experiences and other mental states may
not be just physical states of our brains - there may be more to us than our bodies with
its brain and nervous system.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
16
Different theories of human identity
Materialism or physicalism
A materialist or physicalist tries to explain everything in physical terms and tends to
deny the reality of anything not related to this. For example, a table has four legs and a
top, and a bicycle has two wheels, a frame, a seat and handlebars. No one would say
that the table or bicycle is one thing and their parts something else which are
mysteriously connected. The table or the bicycle is just the parts appropriately related
to one another.
So for the physicalist, as far as human beings are concerned, the ‘mind’ or the ‘self’ is
nothing more than a way of describing our physical bodies and their actions, including
brain activity. Human being are just the totality of their bodily parts working together
in such a way as to be described as living bodies, or living material organisms. Thus, if
we apply electrical shocks to the brain, the personality can be affected; a person who
has suffered brain damage is no longer the same person, her/his character changes. In
severe cases they may not appear to be a person at all, but merely a living body.
Physicalism is often described as a ‘reductionist’ or a ‘nothing buttery’ approach to
things. For example:
• music is nothing but a set of vibrations in the air
• a painting is nothing but paint on a canvas
• sentences are nothing but collections of letters of the alphabet
• a person is nothing but a brain attached to a body and nervous system
• humans are nothing but collections of chemicals.
Physicalists would argue that everything in the world is made up of purely physical
matter - our bodies grow by a complex physical process from a single cell produced by
a sperm fertilising an egg and then adding physical matter as it develops various bodily
parts. They believe that this physical process is sufficient to produce mental life as it
develops. There is no extra ‘soul’ or ‘mind’ to be added. On this view, mental states
are just states of the brain and eventually science will be able to explain how it all
works. Our experiences, e.g. tasting chocolate, are just complicated physical events
taking place in our brains.
They would argue that eventually science will show that our experiences are really just
brain processes in the same way as we have discovered what other things are really
like. For example, science has shown us that diamonds are composed of carbon, the
same material as coal is made of. And water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen
even though these two elements are nothing like water when taken by themselves.
For the physicalist then, mental phenomena are merely physical phenomena given
another name. Crying is what pain is all about; shouting and waving a fist is all that
anger is; all mental states are reduced to observable, physical and measurable
behaviour. All talk about minds and mental qualities are really just about people’s
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
17
actual behaviour. For example, to say someone is intelligent, generous or angry is just
to say that the person is likely to behave in intelligent, generous and angry ways.
On this basis we do not need to think about any relationship between the mind and the
body - or how the two are connected. This is because the physicalist denies that we
are actually dealing with two things, a mind and a body; there is only one side, the
physical side. For the physicalist the death of the physical body also signals the death
of the person and the person’s fate is to return to the earth from which s/he emerged.
If persons are identical with their body, any threat to their body is also a threat to
themselves and so the destruction of the body is also the destruction of the self.
Objections to physicalism
Those who have disagreed with physicalism say that while human beings may be
collections of chemicals, they are more than this. Just as sentences may be collections
of letters, what is important about them is the meaning they convey. There is
obviously much more to humans and sentences than the parts out of which they are
made.
Although it might be quite straightforward to say that I was born in a certain place at a
certain time and so was my body; or that my body weighs x kg and so do I, this does
not apply to all situations. For example, we might say that a person was morally to
blame for a certain action or to be praised for another, but it would be odd to say my
body was to blame or my brain should be congratulated for these same actions.
A person may have certain desires to be in a particular place on holiday but it would
sound funny to say that my body or brain wishes to be there. If someone were to say
they were in love, would it make sense to say their body or brain was in love? These
examples show that in most situations the terms are not interchangeable. We do not
use the terms body or brain when we mean ‘I’. This would suggest that we are more
than just a physical thing.
Dualism
This is the view that mind and body/matter are two distinct and very different things.
The properties of the mind are seen to be quite different from the properties of the
body. The most straight forward view of dualism identifies the person or self with a
soul or mind which occupies the body. One of the earliest philosophers, Plato, and
many others who were to follow him, regarded the body as the prison of the soul something from which the soul will escape some day to live its own independent
existence like a bird flees a cage or a snake its skin.
In this way a person was thought of as a non-material substance or spirit related to an
animal body as something which owns or occupies a house. A person has a body in
the sense that they have temporary occupation or ownership of it. But people are quite
distinct from their bodies and have a destiny beyond its limitations. If so, then we are
made up of two very different things - a complex physical organism and a soul which is
purely mental.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
18
The dualist would argue that other non-human things are different - water is clearly
part of the physical world that we can all see and touch. When we find out that water
is made of hydrogen and oxygen, we’re just breaking down a physical substance into
smaller physical parts. This is different from the way we taste, feel or experience
water. But there is no way that we can analyse how we experience things by just
referring to the physical parts of the brain. Mental processes are different from
physical ones and physical parts don’t simply add up to a mental whole.
1. One form of dualism says that physical (bodily or brain) events can cause mental events
and so the mind is a by-product of brain activity. But mental events cannot cause
physical events - the mind cannot control the brain or the body. It is the body or more
specifically the brain that acts on the mind. As a result, most if not all psychological
states are the direct result of occurrences in the body, especially the brain and the
nervous system. In this view a person is a living physical body having a mind, which
consists of a series of conscious or unconscious states and events such as feelings,
thoughts, images and ideas. These can be the effects but never the causes of bodily
activity.
One of the problems with this view is that it seems hard to accept that our thoughts and
ideas have no significant effect on our behaviour. A great deal of human behaviour
seems to be the result of thoughts, feelings, hopes, desires etc. It seems wrong to
suggest that a person’s behaviour would be no different if we did not take into account
such things as thoughts, feelings, beliefs and ideas.
2. A second form of dualism, however, argues that the mind can in fact affect states of the
body and states of the body can affect the mind. The mind and the body can therefore
interact. A living person sees or perceives the world through their bodily senses.
People feel pains, pleasures, tensions, anger, joy in their bodies; they act in the world
through their bodies and their bodily powers. For example, if people take drugs this can
affect their perception of the world via their minds. On the other hand, an intense
emotional experience like excitement can bring about physical changes in the body like a
dry throat or sweat. An experience of pain in a tooth occurs in the mind but is caused
by certain events in the brain. A decision to do something causes events in the brain
which are transmitted by the nerves to the appropriate muscles. The mind can thus
control some of the behaviour of the body in these ways.
If someone were to observe all these bodily changes which take place - and even all the
inner processes within the body or brain with the help of sophisticated equipment – s/he
could not pick out the choices, decisions, causes of the behaviour seen. S/he could see
the effects of these decisions or choices through observation of bodily behaviour but
could not see the causes. This is because these are changes within the mind and these
are incapable of being observed.
Double or dual aspect theory
3. A third view is that your mental life goes on in your brain yet all your experiences,
feelings, thoughts, desires, are not just physical processes in your brain. Your brain
does not just have physical processes going on in it but it also has mental processes.
This is called double or dual aspect theory because two different things are going on at
the same time e.g. when you are eating some chocolate - a physical aspect involving
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
19
various chemical and electrical changes and a mental aspect (the taste of the chocolate)but only you can experience the mental side.
On this view, human beings are bodies but bodies are not just physical systems but
have both physical and mental properties or aspects. The mental cannot be exposed to
dissection as the physical can but it is nevertheless real. Ideas, thoughts, feelings etc.
and the physical parts of the brain are two aspects of the same thing. Thinking is the
inner aspect of which the outer aspect is brain activity. Just as music is the inner
aesthetic aspect of physical sound waves which are the outer phenomena.
There seems to be two different kinds of things which go on in the world; the things
that belong to physical reality - which people can observe from the outside - and the
things which belong to mental reality - which each of us experiences from the inside.
This inner reality (or consciousness) appears to be present in many things, to different
degrees, such as dogs, cats, horses, birds and other things too - fish, beetles, ants etc.
We will not have an adequate description of the world until we can explain how, when
we put together physical elements in the right way, they form not just a functioning
biological system, but a conscious being. If consciousness could be identified with
some physical state we could then have a unified physical theory of mind and body and
perhaps one of the universe too. But the reasons against a purely physical theory of
consciousness are strong enough to make it likely that a purely physical theory of the
whole of reality is improbable. Physical science has progressed by leaving mind out of
what it tries to explain but there may be more to the world/reality than what can be
understood or explained by physics, chemistry and biology. Followers of this theory
say that double aspect theory gives the best explanation of what we mean by a human
being in relation to the body/brain/mind problem.
Summary
• Either everything is material and the mind is an illusion
or everything is mental and the material body is an illusion
or there are both minds and bodies which are distinct but react on one another
or mind and body are both part of an indivisible unity and each needs the other to
provide a total explanation of a psycho-somatic(mind/body) being.
•
A person’s view of the mind/body problem depends on a general view of the world and
his/her knowledge of it. Most philosophers have concluded that human nature is
mysterious and there is no straightforward or simple answer to the problem. This is true
no matter what metaphysical theory of human beings one holds.
•
The psycho-somatic unity of body and mind which is now more fully understood
through modern developments in science and medicine(but also asserted by others
throughout the centuries) and the double aspect theory has been an attempt to do justice
to the intriguing problem of what we are as human beings.
•
There may be more to the world than can be understood by physical science and its
materialistic outlook on all that it studies. What we call the mind still appears to have a
significant contribution to make to our understanding of ourselves and the world.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
20
Student activities
1. Write down a description of yourself making sure you include physical, mental and
spiritual properties. Now do the same thing for someone else. Compare the two
descriptions. What similarities and differences do you find?
2.
‘Who am I?’ is a question about our identity. Write down as many ways as you
can which identify you as person, about who you are e.g. family member, student,
friend etc. What do you think is the significance of these ‘identities’ which we
have?
3. Outline the main points of the physicalist/materialist approach to a human being.
What criticisms can be made of this approach?
4. What are the main characteristics of the dualist approach to describing a human
being?
5. It is often claimed that states of the mind can affect the way the brain/body works
and that states of the body/brain can affect the way the mind works. Give some
examples to illustrate each of these processes.
6. What is meant by the dual aspect/ double aspect theory? To what extent does this
theory deal with the problems raised by physicalism and dualism?
7. Discuss the view that the mind is to the body what a pilot is to an aeroplane.
8. If we change in so many ways during our lives how can we claim to be the same
person?
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
21
5. APPEARANCE AND REALITY: Is the world really as we see it?
Relationship with experience
When you look around you what do you see? A book, a desk, a chair, a window?
What is outside the room? Cars, bicycles, dogs, people, trees?
Are you sure they are there?
How do you know?
We generally assume that all these objects are there: they are familiar and solid so they
must be! We accept that the world in which we live actually exists. It must be there!
We might debate whether ghosts, God or life on other planets exist, but everyday
things like forks, plates, CD players, dogs or buildings surely must be real!
The area of philosophy called metaphysics deals with questions like:
How do we know the things we see in the world e.g. tree, house - are really there?
• What is the world really like?
• Is there anything there at all?
• Is the world exactly as we see and experience it to be?
When we experience something we experience two things:
1. The sensations of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch which seem to be coming from
outside ourselves and giving us information about the world.
2. Our own senses - and if we are partially deaf or colour blind or asleep, we will not
be able to distinguish certain things or be unaware of them.
How do we know an object is really there as opposed to it being an illusion? Is there
anything there at all? How do we know something is not a figment of our
imaginations? What can we know for certain? How reliable are our senses as a source
of knowledge?
We can approach this in two basic ways:
1. We can start with the sensations which we experience and say that all our
knowledge of the world is based on our senses.
2. We can argue that the basis of all our knowledge is the set of ideas we have - the
ideas that help us to sort out and interpret experience. The mind is primary and the
senses secondary.
Rene Descartes, a philosopher who lived in the seventeenth century, would only accept
what he could see clearly to be true. He knew his senses could be deceived so he did
not fully trust them. Nor would he always trust his own logic. The one thing he said
he could not doubt was his own existence. If he doubted, he was there to doubt;
therefore he must exist. ‘Cogito ergo sum - I think (I am thinking), therefore I am.’ He
regarded this as the first principle in his philosophy.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
22
Descartes went further by suggesting at one stage that he even doubted the existence
of his own body. However, while doubting, he could not deny that he was thinking.
He came to the conclusion that the only thing he could really be certain of was the
existence of his own mind for ‘ I am a thinking thing and it would be illogical to
suggest that I am not thinking.’ Descartes argued that everything else was open to
doubt and could be mistaken.
Descartes is generally regarded as the founder of modern philosophy because,
challenged by his scepticism, those who followed him began to look for what it was
that gave us our knowledge in the world. How can we know anything at all?
We generally accept that reality is there whether or not anyone is present to see or
experience it. We try to represent or describe this reality as accurately as we can in
our thoughts, perceptions and ideas but it is quite possible for any individuals or
groups to be wrong in their assessment of what they see or experience. We accept that
reality is perhaps a bit different from the way we perceive it and from our imaginary
ideas or views.
For example we might wrongly see liquid to be on the road ahead or sticks appearing
to bend in water when this is not the case. The imaginary oasis in the desert to an
exhausted wanderer is another example of this. How things appear to us is not always
how they actually are. In hallucinations and dreams people may experience whole
situations which do not correspond to reality.
The main reason it is important to distinguish between appearance and reality is that
we have to act in reality and how we act often matters. Action based on what we
understand to be real will be more successful than action based on false conceptions or
wishful thinking. People who hallucinate that they can fly may have the illusory
experience of flying when they jump out of the window, but they will still fall and be
injured or even killed when they hit the ground.
Role of the senses
In the early part of this century Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) set out to analyse and
question what happens in human experience when we see things. He examined a table
and observed that its appearance changes according to its position and the light. He
came to the conclusion that our sense perceptions (colour, shape, texture) are not the
same thing as the table itself. They make up what we infer the table is like from our
perceptions of it. He argued that we must distinguish the information we get through
our senses (how we see things) from the physical object we are considering.
For most purposes these differences of perception are not important but to someone
like a painter, a furniture designer, or antique dealer these differences can be very
important. Here the difference is between how we see things and what they actually
are. There is probably no colour of a table which is the colour but there are different
colours or shades from different points of view. The light, the viewer’s colour
blindness, the normally sighted person’s perception of it, will all affect how the table is
seen.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
23
The same is true of the shape of the table. We are so used to judging what we
consider to be the real shapes of things that we think that we actually do see the real
shapes. But if we try to draw the shape we will soon discover that an object looks
different in shape from many different points of view. If the table is really rectangular
it will look, from almost every direction, to have two acute and two obtuse angles - not
right angles. If opposite sides are parallel they will look as if they converge to a point
away from the observer. In general we tend to construct the real shape from the
apparent shape. But the real shape is not what we actually see, so our senses do not
give us the true shape of the table itself - only what the table appears to be like.
Different people who look at the same thing from different positions will see it
differently, that is, from a different perspective. The angle of perception, light etc. will
alter what we see e.g. place a brief case on a desk and get people to draw what they
actually see. Whose drawing or perspective is the right one? What is the briefcase
really like?
Even if we look at something e.g. a country scene, it changes as we look at it - the
earth changes in relation to the sun, shadows are cast, light/darkness changes. We
call it the same scene over a period of time but it actually changes from moment to
moment. Something can look quite different in the light from the way it looks in the
dark (get some examples of shapes which reflect this difference). Certain places
may appear more ‘spooky’ at night. If we cannot actually see something we are
familiar with, how do we know it is still there e.g. if our view of it is blocked?
So, if the supposed same object appears differently to different people at the same time
- and to the same person at different times, how can anyone know what the object is
really like?
What about a situation where a variety of witnesses see the same event and how their
different perceptions, memories, understandings of what happened can be quite
different and maybe contradictory? How can we know what really happened as
opposed to what appeared to happen?
If we are trying to give an account of something which we have seen or heard and it
sounds right or agrees with what others have said, we will probably be believed. But
we can’t be sure we are right because it is only ours and others’ perceptions that are
being compared rather than reality’s. We could be mistaken - our senses may not have
given us the true picture of what happened.
Some things we can know for certain e.g. 2 + 2 = 4 because mathematics and logic
work from the basis of agreed definitions and certain things follow from this. They do
not depend on particular sensations or experiences. If A= B + C then B + C are
contained or implied in A and will always be true. In other words, they are true by
definition. But this is an example of a ‘logical’ truth and most of the time we are
concerned with the ‘empirical’ truth of objects or situations - about what is actually
there or what actually happened.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
24
Empiricism
So how do we know whether there is anything there? How do we know that objects in
the world are real? Some philosophers have taken an empiricist view. We see an
object differently at different times and from different positions. What we have is a
collection of pictures or information about the object. This comes to us through our
senses so we call it sense data. From these pictures we build up information which we
can infer (intelligently guess) from the data. The differences in appearance are what
we would naturally expect given the different perspectives from which we observe the
object.
We can add evidence from other people to confirm our own general perspective and
this is what we literally call ‘common sense’. For example, we see a tree; this is the
result of our senses - the colour, shape, smell, roughness of trunk and so on. In other
words we have a sensation of the tree from sense data. So, whenever we see a colour,
we have a sensation of the colour, but the colour itself is the sense data, not the
sensation. Thus, what we experience is the sensation we have of the object - not the
object itself.
Many philosophers have been satisfied with the answer that we can infer the existence
of objects from the sense data we receive and this seems to answer the demands of our
common sense and be realistic. Others have argued that it does not really matter that
we cannot discover a reality beyond our sense data which would convince us of the
real existence of an object. These philosophers are sometimes called phenomenalists
because they do not seek any reality beyond our senses. Things function pretty well in
life without asking such questions. They argue that to doubt such situations is
pointless and absurd. When we say ‘I see a tower’ we mean that there is a tower and
we can see it. A tower is not a collection of sense data or an object implied or inferred
from sense data. When we say ‘I see a tower’ that is exactly what we mean! We do
actually see the object because there actually is a real, tower there. There is no need to
complicate the issue by wondering whether the information from our sense is giving us
an accurate picture.
However, if we put all the sense data together why should we think that we have a
picture of what the object is really like? We could always add one more image/picture
which might throw doubt on the others e.g. a tower by moonlight which looks
different. How do we know when we have a complete picture? If it is not complete
then how can it be fully accurate?
The influence of the mind
Idealism
The first philosopher who put forward the argument for the objects of our senses not
existing independently was Bishop Berkeley (1685 - 1753). He argued that there was
nothing in our perception of something which we can show to continue even when we
are not looking at it. What we call matter (external objects) are only known to exist as
a result of our minds which perceive them.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
25
Berkeley’s position is sometimes called idealism. This is the theory that everything
which exists has a reality only in the mind. A strict idealist holds that mind itself is the
only reality.
•
•
•
All we actually know of the world are sensations (colour, sound, taste, touch and
the relative positions of things). We cannot know the world by any other means.
The sensations we have are the world for us.
All these sensations are ideas, they are mental phenomena. The colour ‘red’ does
not exist independently of the mind perceiving it.
Things are thus collections of these ideas and only exist by being perceived. They
have no independent reality of their own.
Berkeley also said that there were no abstract general ideas. If you think of a triangle
or a chair you are thinking of a particular one; there is no concept of a triangle that
does not spring from a particular triangle. What we think of as a ‘universal’ (a general
idea) is just a set of qualities abstracted from particulars e.g. numbers are abstractions
from particular objects.
Berkeley’s problem was showing how something could exist while not being
perceived. If we look at a tree, seeing it means having sensations of it. If we close our
eyes we have no sensations of it and so it no longer exists. I step forward and the tree
re-appears to my senses in the form of a bump on the head. What is the status of the
tree between shutting my eyes and bumping into it?
Berkeley says that the tree only continues to exist because it is being perceived by
God. However, we can ask where the sensations are located. As they take place in
the brain Berkeley says that they are mental. They take place in the mind. But just
because a sensation varies in different conditions it does not imply that the reality of
the object is purely subjective. The colour red, for example, does not just exist in the
mind as a subjective experience.
Russell pointed out that common sense suggests that things continue to exist even
when we are not perceiving them. If you put a tablecloth over a table you cannot then
see the table but you imply that it is there because of the shape of the cloth. Unless
there was some underlying reality to things they could not be observed by people. He
came to the conclusion that there must be an external world which gives rise to our
sense experience.
Scepticism
According to Descartes the only thing we can be sure of is the inside of our own
minds. Whatever we may believe, everything we think we know about: the sun,
moon, stars, houses, science, people etc. is based on our own experiences and
thoughts. That’s all we have to go on directly. Everything in and about the world is
further from us than our inner experiences and reaches us only through these inner
experiences. Normally we have no doubts about the existence of things like floors,
trees, our teeth and most of the time we do not even think about the mental states
which make us aware of these things. We seem to be aware of them directly but how
do we know they really exist?
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
26
People argue that there must be an external world otherwise you wouldn’t see various
objects that reflected light into our eyes and caused such visual experiences. But how
do they know that? This is just another claim about the external world and is based on
the evidence of our senses. But if that evidence relies on the contents of the mind to
tell us about the external world, then the argument becomes circular.
The problem is that all the evidence about anything has to come through our minds whether it is by perception, what we read, what others tell us, memory etc. - and this is
consistent with the idea that there is really nothing at all except what is in our minds.
It is even possible that we do not have a body or a brain since our beliefs about that
come only from the evidence of our senses. People have never seen their brains
(in most cases) and we normally just assume that we all have one. But even if we had
seen our own brains that would just be another visual experience - as a result of the
contents of our minds. As the subject of our experience, maybe we are the only being
that exists and there is no physical world at all! Maybe there is no space, no stars, no
earth, no humans.
The most radical conclusion which can be drawn from this is that our mind is the only
thing that exists. This view is called solipsism. It is a lonely view and not many people
have held it. What would be the point of doing anything if there was no world around
to respond? Everything would be the result of impressions and would be like living in
an imaginary world. Everything would be a product of our own mind and nothing
could be done to prove to such a person that anything actually existed - it
would all be put down to the imagination or the mind. A solipsist would also claim
that nothing could actually be known beyond our impressions and experiences. There
may or may not be an external world; it may or may not be quite different from how
we experience it, but there’s no way to tell.
Would it be any different to us if things only existed in our minds - if the ‘real world’
were just a dream or hallucination? If reality were only a dream from which we did not
wake up (as there would be no real world to wake up to) wouldn’t it just be like a
normal dream which goes on in people’s minds who are actually lying in a real bed in a
real house? A dream is what we understand to be happening in the brain while the
person sleeps. How do we know that all our experiences are not just a great big dream
- that everything which happens in our ‘interaction’ with the world is just an
occurrence in our minds? If we want whatever happens in our minds to be a guide to
what is happening outside our minds, we can’t just depend on how things seem from
inside our minds.
However, many would say that this seems to be absurd as we operate in life from the
general pictures which are given to us by our senses and the reality which other people
experience. But if this is an absurd position to take we should be able to show that it is
absurd.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
27
Objections to scepticism
Others would argue that the solipsist and sceptical views of the world are meaningless.
A dream has to be something from which you can wake up; a hallucination has to be
something which others can see is not really there. Impressions which do not
correspond to reality have to be compared to ones that do - or nothing can be known
at all about who is right or more accurate. A dream from which you can never wake
up is not a dream at all - it is reality! We say that things exist because we can observe
them. Sometimes our observations are mistaken - but that means they can be
corrected by other observations. Wrong impressions or understandings can thus be
corrected.
If this is right, the sceptic is mistaken if he thinks that the only thing that can exist is his
own mind. It could not be true that the physical world does not exist unless somebody
could observe that it does not exist. But the sceptic argues that there is no one to
observe this - except himself - and all he can observe is inside his own mind.
The sceptic would claim that if there is an external world, the things in it are
observable because they actually exist - they do not exist because they are observable.
It is not meaningless to think that the world might consist of nothing except what is in
our minds. But no one could confirm whether or not this was true. It cannot be
proved to be false either, without arguing in a circle. There would appear to be no
way out of this predicament.
Summary
• The way in which we know something is a creative activity and always involves an
element of interpretation. We know nothing with absolute certainty except those
things which are true by definition - a priori. However, we can gradually build up
a degree of knowledge of which we can have reasonable certainty.
• Descartes developed the idea of systematic doubt - he set aside all previously held
opinions and accepted only what he could clearly and distinctly know to be true.
But we do not need to maintain total scepticism in practice - even Descartes saw
no reason to believe that the created order/reality should deceive us. So he could
accept as true that which he perceived to be true.
• Russell came to accept the reality of external objects on the grounds that they are
seen by a number of different people at the same time and that this shared
experience was a basis for accepting the objectivity of e.g. a table. This generally
amounts to common sense - literally!
• One of the problems of Western thought has been the view that the ‘self’ and the
‘world’ are separate things, with the one trying to find out if the other is actually
there. Yet what we call ‘the self’ is a temporary and changing part of what we call
‘the world’. There are not two separate realities, but only one.
• Experience is not an object but a word we use to express the relationship we have
with the rest of the world. It is both physical and mental and depends on our
senses and the construction of our minds to be interpreted. Thus it is not fixed but
is constantly changing. Philosophy needs to take into account the fundamental
unity and interactive nature of life.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
28
Student activities
1. What do we mean when we say ‘ I see a tree’?
2. How do we know our senses are not deceiving us?
Do our senses sometimes deceive us?
How can we tell the difference?
3. When we put a stick into water, how do we know it only appears to bend rather
than actually bending? The desert traveller thinks he sees water. It turns out to be
an illusion. How would you explain this to the traveller?
4. Outline the main points of Bertrand Russell’s approach to the relationship between
appearance and reality. How far do you agree with him? Explain your reasons.
5. Imagine that the following people are admiring a table:
i) a joiner ii) an antique dealer iii) a scientist iv) a furniture salesman.
Write down how each of them might describe the table from their own point of
view. What particular characteristics would each one emphasise? Remove any
description which does not add anything distinctive about the table. Now assess
whether any one description is true or complete. Are any meaningless or
inaccurate? What is the difference between the appearance of the table to these
people and the reality of it? What conclusions can you draw about this?
6. According to the empiricist approach, how do we know things are real?
7. What is a phenomenalist’s view of this issue? What are the problems with this
approach?
8. Outline the idealist’s view of how we know things. What are the main problems
with this approach?
9. What are the main issues surrounding the sceptic’s understanding of reality?
10. Some people have suggested that life is just a dream - and in our dreams we can
imagine or experience ourselves doing different things. How do we know that life
is not one vivid dream?
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
29
6 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
1. Philosophy: An Introduction - Mel Thompson, Hodder and Stoughton, 1995
ISBN 0-340- 64394 - 3
2. What Does It All Mean? - Thomas Nagel, Oxford Paperbacks, 1987
ISBN 0 - 19 - 505216 - 1
3. Beginning Philosophy - Peter Mullen, Edward Arnold, 1977
ISBN 0- 7131- 0129 6
4. Introduction to Philosophy - Peter McInerney, Harper Perennial, 1992
ISBN 0-06-467124-0
5. The Problems of Philosophy - Bertrand Russell, Oxford Paperbacks 1912
ISBN 0 - 19- 888018 - 9
6. A Beginner’s Guide to Ideas - Raeper and Smith, Lion Educational
ISBN 0-7459- 2136 - 1
7. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy - Ed Ted Honderich Oxford, 1995
ISBN 0-19- 866132 - 0
8. Metaphysics - Richard Taylor
Prentice Hall, 1963 ISBN C 57850
9. The Construction of Social Reality – John Searle, Penguin, 1995
ISBN 0-14-023590-6
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
30
7. APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
Freedom and determinism in the scientific world
In a mechanistic view of the world (from Newton) everything may be described in
terms of laws which operate by mathematical precision: know all the laws and you can
predict what will happen in the future. Laplace said that everything was determined
and when asked how God fitted in to his scheme of thinking, he said: ‘ I have no need
of that hypothesis’. Where an event does not follow a deterministic process it is not
regarded as ‘free’ but as following a law as yet unknown or not understood. Haeckel,
the German scientific materialist (19th century) argued that everything, including
thought, was the product of the material world. He believed that religion, or God, was
unnecessary as science would eventually explain everything and lead to a unified
system of understanding. This was called absolute, causal determinism.
Religion is concerned with human thought, action and behaviour; and with morality,
choice and value. Responsibility follows choice. It assumes that people are free to
make choices - and that we experience our own freedom in a way that no one else can.
So how can this be reconciled with determinism?
Kant argued that everything we experience is conditioned by categories such as space,
time, causality - which our minds impose on reality to make sense of it. The observed
world he called phenomena, the experiencer who experiences things in themselves
noumena. People were phenomenally conditioned but noumenally free. Freedom can
be acted upon but cannot be observed. Thus, thought Kant, he had overcome the
problem created by Newton’s mechanistic view of the world. We know that we are
free to choose or to act in a particular way, but an observer may view our actions and
explain them as being conditioned or caused by certain things. The world of science
has no place for freedom - but that does not make freedom any less real.
However, recent developments in 20th century science have created other issues.
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle showed that events in the sub-atomic world show
random behaviour - they do not have a ‘cause’ in Newton’s sense. Quantum physics
does not offer certainty, only high probability. Some physicists were led to abandon
the idea of causality but Max Planck (1932) argued that to reconcile quantum theory
with strict determinism, it was necessary to replace the old view of reality with a new
one as reflecting waves of energy. This challenges ‘common sense’ approaches we all
have. However, while indeterminism operates at sub-atomic levels, once these ‘events’
combine in larger numbers they begin to behave in a deterministic way. Thus, at the
level at which we live and operate in the world, determinism still operates and it would
be accurate to explain causality in this way.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
31
In the world of molecular biology, change is regarded as being brought about by
random mutations at the genetic level and all that takes place at the higher levels e.g. in
a human being, is the result of chance. (Jacques Monod)
He concluded that ‘man at last knows that he is alone in the unfeeling immensity of the
universe out of which he emerged by chance.’
Absolute chance in biology, like absolute determinism in physics, is equally
problematical for religion since randomness and chance appears to rule out any sense
of meaning, value or purpose. It also challenges the idea of providence - that God has
so organised the world so that his will for humanity can be fulfilled.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
32
APPENDIX B
Mind and Body: Knowledge of other minds
On a dualist understanding of mind/body you cannot have direct knowledge of the
minds of others; you can know their words, actions, writings etc. but you cannot get
access to their minds. Knowledge of other minds comes by analogy; I know what I
experience, therefore I can identify with others who claim to have similar experiences.
I assume that what I experience, they too, experience. From Ryle’s point of view there
is no problem; there is no ‘ghost in the machine’ and what we mean by mind is the
intelligent communication and abilities of others. If I know someone’s actions, I know
their mind. But there are problems with this as previously indicated - what is the
known difference between an actor playing the part of someone in pain and someone
actually being in pain? Doesn’t it assume some ‘self’ over and above the actual
feelings and experiences of someone in pain?
Is it possible to know another mind directly?
If you ask someone whom you’ve invited for a meal, whether they like chocolate cake
they may reply that they do. If they are telling the truth then it may be reasonable to
assume that you know at least one thing about them. However, they may only be
saying this because they do not want to hurt your feelings assuming that you have
prepared some for a sweet. So, we need to assess, by past experiences whether they
are truthful about their answers, anxious to please, not wanting to hurt your feelings,
and so on. We may not be too sure about what their genuine feelings are. So we
could serve the chocolate cake and observe how they eat it and draw our conclusion
from their behaviour. This may lead to observing them in the future and seeing if they
ever do eat chocolate cake.
The point here is that it is very difficult to know what is going on in someone’s mind.
It has to be the process of assessment based on observation. It is not instantaneous
and is always open to revision.
Think of this situation in answer to the question of a girlfriend to a boyfriend: ‘Do you
love me?’ How do you know that the answer they give is genuine? How can it be
tested? What evidence would show this one way or the other?
There usually would be both a physical and mental approach to these situations looking at the person as a unity and not just as a body or soul or mind. It can only be
solved satisfactorily as a result of a process of communication - of a holistic assessment
of the person as an individual.
The idea of the self is an important part of this. People may be able to mislead others
in many situations; what they cannot normally do is to mislead themselves!
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
33
APPENDIX C
Mind and Body: Knowledge of ourselves
We are immediately aware of our thoughts, and the thoughts of others come to us via
words, gestures, appearance. Some people have argued that we can only know our
own minds and not the minds of others. This is called solipsism and is the logical
consequence of those who, like Ryle, think of the ‘soul’ or ‘mind’ as a crude,
unknowable ‘ghost’. In practice we do get to know people by what they say or write
or how they act; we can question them to seek their views and opinions, but in the end
we still rely on our observations and interpretations of what we see and hear. When
we ask someone about their childhood we are much more limited because we do not
have the access they have (the effects of the unconscious may have a profound effect
on the person concerned without even them being aware of it). Knowledge of other
minds is a process of assessment, based on observation. It is not instant and is always
open to revision and reassessment! To find out such information we employ a great
number of techniques (as previously mentioned). Getting to know someone is a twoway process and depends on enquiry and the willingness of a person to be known. A
profile can be built up - but hardly a unique description. Even criminal psychologists
can only suggest, based on previous experience, the type of person that a suspect is but they cannot be precise about a particular and unique individual.
When we think of ourselves by comparison, we have instantaneous direct access, based
on sensation not observation; we know exactly what we are. Or do we? Are we
absolutely certain? Could we be mistaken? Could we be confused about ourselves? The
process of knowing ourselves may be even more complex than knowing other people!
But knowing ourselves we have two main advantages:
1. We have memory - the accounts we give of ourselves are more immediate and
detailed than those given by others even although our memories may let us down,
(we can forget, repress etc.)
2. We can deliberately mislead others but generally do not mislead ourselves.
We can identify ourselves in different ways- name, family, job, country, race, culture
etc. We will emphasise different things in different situations. Identity is not just a
matter of body or mind only, but an integrated functioning of both body and mind
together. Once we begin to analyse ourselves, it is difficult to find a ‘bit’ of us which
is not at the same time something else. Analysis shows bits and pieces - none of which
is the real ‘me’, whereas synthesis shows the way in which body, mind and social
function all come together in a unique combination which is ‘me’.
Where are our thoughts located? In our heads? Are they ‘things’ at all?
Where are our friendships located? In our heads or the heads of our friends? In the
space between the two? In a reality which does not depend on space? Where are most
of the realities we take for granted on a day to day basis located? Do they have a
location? Is it in space and time? Can they be pinned down as other things can?
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
34
It has been suggested that, just as an actor creates and projects a character in a film or
play, so we do the same in life. But we can never step off the ‘stage’ of life and see
ourselves as we really are. There is no ‘other self’ off-stage! This may refer back to
Aristotle for whom the ‘soul’ is the ‘substantial ‘form’ of the body. But ‘substance’
for Aristotle was not a static thing; the ‘soul’ is not an added extra to the body to make
it a living thing – compared with the adding of ‘breath’ by God to Adam and Eve in the
garden of Eden. For Aristotle, the body gets its being and its life from the soul. To
‘be’ is to project a sense of oneself - to assume a ‘mask’ (persona in Greek theatre).
Thus, personal identity is a dynamic and changing thing which is constantly being acted
out, changed and developed. It is not a static existence (compare with the Buddhist
concepts of anatta and anicca - no permanent ‘self’ and a constantly changing identity
or being - and hence no ‘self’ or ‘soul’ to be reincarnated or to exist beyond physical
death - ideas taught by the Buddha in relation to the Noble truths and rejection of
‘God’ or the ‘gods’ in his religious teachings).
Thus, the mind/body issue is important for philosophy because:
•
•
•
thinking is a mental activity and doing philosophy implies a relationship between
the mind and the world of the senses
it touches many other areas e.g. epistemology, metaphysics (is ‘mind’ reducible to
matter or matter to mind?)
it has to do with persons and this has implications for what we understand by a
person in relation to the rights of the unborn the status of those in comas or who
have ‘lost’ their memories, the severely handicapped etc.
Trying to analyse a human being by science, artificial intelligence/computers, the search
for the ‘soul’ is unlikely to produce anything other than an incomplete caricature of a
person. The experience of being a thinking, feeling, reflecting person is not susceptible
to such analysis because it is not part of the world as we experience it. Not that we are
not part of the physical world but there is more to us than can be analysed or defined
by the natural sciences. Perhaps Wittgenstein was right when he said that the self was
the limit of the world, rather than part of it. (This mysterious ‘self’ may be the real
reason why the concept of the transcendent or God actually developed in the minds
and experience of human beings - there seems to be a need for a theory or explanation
to make the picture complete - the systematic illusion of the ‘I’ and the idea of
Feuerbach of the projection of this experience on to the objective, physical world as
God).
Nor does the self seem to be a fixed entity. Hume could never ‘see’ his mind except
by the procession of thoughts that passed through it. From birth to death there is a
constant change (aka Buddhism) and our thoughts and beliefs of today shape what will
be or happen tomorrow (compare with the Buddhist idea of ‘re-becoming’ where what
we do in this life will have implications for others who follow us - not an individual
reincarnation but a global ‘re-becoming’). Throughout our life we leave the imprint of
what we are and what we do. These are our changing story and define our character
from moment to moment. Even our process of reflection is dependent on the outside
world - we need language and culture to give us the terms we can adopt and use. We
cannot experience things as they are, in simplicity; we always do so
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
35
through a process of language, concepts and ideas. Our patterns of thinking are
controlled by the language and culture we experience.
Those who practice meditation and who still the mind to focus on a single point, say
they experience something different from normal ‘reality’. The self becomes empty,
becomes nothing and everything at the same time. There is no self. Returning to the
world of everyday experience the ‘self’ continues in an ever changing pattern of
thought, feeling and response - the process we call life and development.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
36
APPENDIX D
Mind and Body: Karl Popper
Not everything in the world can be explained only in these basic physical constituents even though they are that as well. To explain things in this way is to lose sight of the
way basic things are arranged. The order in the basics gives rise to properties in the
whole which the basics do not have. If hydrogen and oxygen (both gases) are
combined together we get a liquid, a new substance with new properties. An emergent
property is ‘wetness’ not possessed by the original gases. Even though the atoms of
carbon are alike, when they are joined in different ways, graphite or diamonds are
formed. Colour is a property of many things but colour is not a property of the
protons, electrons and neutrons which make it up. Colour emerges because of the way
in which the elementary particles combine. The ability of chemicals to replicate and
make copies of compounds is a feature of the world. At this stage too, in the process
of evolution, the border between non-living and living things is crossed. It is extremely
difficult for biologists today to define what is meant by life and why or how non-living
forms of life become living. It seems that ‘life’ is one of the emergent properties of the
way things are put together.
Perhaps the most important emergent property in the world is consciousness (and
eventually self-consciousness) and this is at the end of a long process of physical
change and development from sub-atomic particles to human beings. It can be
illustrated in this way:
At one level things can be described as:
MATTER (M) (protons, neutrons, electrons, atoms, molecules, cells etc.)
At the next level they can be seen as being alive and having LIFE(L)
At the next level CONSCIOUSNESS(C) is a further development
Finally there emerges SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS (S/C) e.g. in human beings
So the process
M then M + L then M + L+ C then M + L + C + S/C
is a description of how things have developed or emerged in the process of life. It is
particularly important at the level of human beings that self-consciousness has
developed, as this is the basis of virtually everything that we do.
It was Karl Popper (the philosopher of science) who developed the levels of
explanation approach to the world and life. In other words the same thing can be
explained in different ways at different levels
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
37
One of the problems which materialism faces us with is how to explain the intelligence
aspect of a human being to say nothing of moral and spiritual dimensions? Popper said
that when evolution produces minds and human language, and when human minds
produce stories, theories, ideas, art and science, we cannot analyse these in purely
materialistic terms. The philosophy of materialism caused us to think of the world as a
very complex machine which controls all that occurs in it. However, such a view
seems to rule out such things as creativity and newness. This led Popper to produce a
new model of reality which consisted of three levels - World 1, World 2 and World 3.
WORLD 1
THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE (including
all physical objects and processes in the
whole universe, all living organisms
including humans and everything created
by human beings and other creatures)
WORLD 2
THE SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCES
(including consciousness at all levels from
lowest to highest level of human selfconsciousness, and including thinking,
feeling, remembering, deciding etc.)
WORLD 3
PRODUCTS OF THE HUMAN MIND
(including ideas, beliefs, names, art,
science, philosophy, religion,
morality/values, technology, meaning - all
the main products of the human capacity
for language)
Popper argued that we can explain things at:
• the basic level of sub-atomic particles - gluons, quarks, mesons;
• at atomic level - protons, electrons and neutrons;
• at levels of cells - biologically;
• at levels of persons - human beings.
At every level there is something more which cannot be explained at the lower level.
These are the creative, emergent properties of reality. Popper also spoke of the physical
(level 1), the mental/psychological (level 2) and the abstract (concepts and ideas) (level
3) as the three important and different levels of reality. Philosophy, religion and morality
- and all the abstract ideas of every other subject, operate at level 3.
This model by Popper may be called a metaphysical model and its main contribution is
the way it relates to consciousness. Any approach to reality which ignores or
underrates consciousness as a mere by-product of physical reality (which materialism
does) does not give a full description of reality or the world as it is. Consciousness and
self-consciousness are probably the most significant emerging aspects of the
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
38
evolutionary development of life. Materialism/physicalism does not provide an
adequate explanation of the world as we experience it. Although it has been the basis
of a great deal of development and research in the sciences and has contributed a great
deal to our present understanding of the world, there must be a level beyond it which
provides a more complete or holistic approach to the world.
It is also easy to imagine how scientific ‘explanations’ may be seen to ‘explain away’
any sense of meaning, purpose or value in life. Everything is just, or nothing but, X.
Even the idea that certain things ‘are just psychological’ may threaten more holistic
interpretations. However, ‘psychological’ is part of reality and more than basic
physical explanations are needed to cope with this too.
For example, if the act of waving is explained as a chain of cause and effect involving
the physical movements of nerves and muscles, there is no point in the process for
some ‘mind’ to have its say - the world of physical sense experience is a closed system
and everything is totally determined (materialism). However, it can also be argued that
the human mind imposes its influence on the physical process so was the cause of the
waving in the first place e.g. the recognition of a person and the intention to
communicate with her or him. Philosophers such as Kant held that there are minds and
these are things in themselves but we cannot know them through sense experience,
whereas the materialist accepts as reality nothing but the physical world known to the
senses.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
39
APPENDIX E
Mind and Body: Dualism
The basis of interactionism is that the body and the mind are quite different things so
that changes in the body, which are caused by what is happening in the mind, lie
outside normal physical laws. How acceptable is this theory? For example to say that
thoughts in the mind produce sweat on the hands is to oversimplify what actually
happens. This is a very complex process but in essence is caused by little glands in the
skin not necessarily caused by any mind acting on them, but by the contraction of little
unstriated muscles which are composed of minute cells. These cells are activated by
hormones caused by the release of adrenalin. Physical and chemical changes in the
brain are thought to produce an effect on part of the brain called the hypothalamus
which, in turn, produces the perspiration on the hands. The point is that mental events
are not thought to be the cause of such activity and there is no need to introduce those
as part of the explanation of mind affecting body. In addition, many aspects of this
process are still not fully understood even for a physical description.
If the question is then asked about how this physical process actually gets started, then
the answer must be in the complex mechanism of the brain. If the mind actually acts
upon the body to produce this perspiration, it must be in the cortex of the brain that
this interaction occurs.
How can this process be understood? If thoughts, images, ideas occur ‘in the mind’
and produce these effects ‘in the body’, then, according to this theory, it cannot be in
the brain (for the mind is regarded as being separate from the brain in this case). These
non-physical thoughts are believed to act upon the brain, not by another physical action
in the brain, but by an idea. But how can an idea bring about such changes in the
brain? It is impossible to say how such a thing as an idea could enter the chain of
physical or chemical activities in the brain to bring about such changes. It is one thing
to say that the mind acts upon the body; it is something quite different to explain how
any mind, thought or idea could be involved in any such changes of behaviour. This is
not an explanation of the cause of the bodily action. This is the problem which the
interaction theory has to overcome. Where does this interaction actually take place?
To say that the mind ‘acts on the brain/body’ is not to actually explain anything, but
merely to stop the activity of looking for an actual physical description of the chain of
events in the brain which caused the behaviour in the first place.
A further argument put forward against dualism was by Gilbert Ryle in his book, ‘The
Concept of Mind.’ Ryle said to speak of bodies and minds as if they were equivalent
things was a category mistake. For example if someone is shown all the buildings of a
university but then asks ‘where is the university?’ he has made a category error - there
is no university over and above the buildings visited - its a way of describing all these
things together. Similarly, people should not expect to find a ‘mind’ over and above all
the various parts of the body; mind is simply another category to explain the physical
complex structure. This is the fundamental error made by dualists and Ryle argued
that the mind is not present in the brain/body like ‘a ghost in the machine.’
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
40
So, for Ryle, there is no ‘inner self’ to be found; if so, what constitutes someone’s
personality? Ryle talks of ‘dispositions’ the qualities, shown by bodily actions, which
make people what they are - how they behave in particular situations. To call someone
irritable is not to access a state of their minds but to observe their behaviour. To call
people clever, caring, is not to refer to some kind of aspect called mind but to refer to
the way something is done. What is clever for one person may not be for another; how
people relate to the world is all that such categories mean.
However, one problem of identifying a mental phenomenon with physical actions is
illustrated with the idea of pain. People may shout, cry, scream, roll on ground etc.
but none of these is the same thing as the pain which is being experienced; the pain is
indicated by them but not defined by these actions. An actor may do all the things
mentioned above because he/she is acting - not because they are in pain. Yet,
according to Ryle’s approach, the actor would have to be in pain if he is exhibiting
these behaviour forms.
Ryle’s approach is linguistic: he asks what it means to ascribe mental predicates. But
is its meaning the same as its method of verification? In other words, can we verify
whether the actor really is in pain or is just acting? Is what we can verify the same as
the actual pain?
A basic question must be: can something exist if it does not have a place within the
world of space and time? (This is a basic question of philosophy and refers to many
other ‘things’ as well). For Ryle, there is no place for a ‘self’ or ‘soul’ alongside the
body. Everything to which the language of mind refers e.g. cleverness, caring etc. has
its place within the world - by an action. So, is he right? The dualist is not saying that
the mind exists physically outside the body i.e. it is not extended and does not exist
within time and space. So we are back to reductionism!
If we consider a piece of music:
It is made up of sound waves in the air; there is no music apart from the sound waves.
All the qualities of music e.g. to move people, its beauty and calming effect, originate
from the sound waves. The language a musician uses to describe music is quite
different from the language used by a scientist to describe sound waves. There is no
hidden, secret music which exists alongside the sound waves - the sound waves are the
medium through which the music occurs
Therefore, it should not be difficult to see that the brain, along with the nervous system
and all the physical activities it controls, is the physical medium through which mind
expresses itself. There have been many ways of looking at the problem of how the
body/brain and the mind are related. Most attempts have aimed at looking at the
interconnectedness but distinctness of physical and non-physical reality.
Studies of the working of the brain have shown that the brain is very complex and
controls not only the autonomic nervous system, but also those aspects which we
describe as personality or mind.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
41
In addition, a key feature of the mind is communication and it is in communication by
words, facial expressions, writing etc. that the qualities of the mind are shared. To
analyse a human brain to try to understand someone’s thoughts and feelings is about as
helpful as taking a piano apart to find out why the music it plays is so moving!
An epiphenomenalist would argue that states of the brain and nervous system have two
distinct kinds of effects - the mental and the physical; as long as certain brain states
occur, then for the epiphenomenalist certain forms of bodily behaviour will also occur whether or not there are also accompanying mental states. The existence of mental
states e.g. thoughts, feelings are simply unnecessary to explain physical or bodily
behaviour. Therefore any account of mental states being the cause of physical or
bodily behaviour would be superfluous.
However, if all bodily behaviour is caused by purely physical processes alone, then the
mind can have no effect on such behaviour and cannot be part of the explanatory
process of human behaviour. This would seem difficult to accept in relation to how we
understand human behaviour. While the ‘behaviour’ of such things as plants and
insects is nothing but the physical or chemical processes within them (as they have no
consciousness), it seems impossible to believe that this applies to many forms of animal
and human behaviour.
Dual aspect theory
There has been a long history of belief among human beings in life after death.
Traditionally the ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ was conceived of as departing from the physical body
at death and, by various means, being transported to some final destiny such as
‘heaven’ ‘nirvana’ ‘moksha’ - to the ‘presence of God’. The question of survival after
death is related to the mind-body issue. From the religious point of view, ‘life after
death’ is linked to appropriate compensation for how the person lived (reward and
punishment) and also the belief that human life goes ‘beyond’ the confines of only the
human body. Neither of these views provides evidence for ‘life after death’ but
develops what has been held on conviction by a large number of people throughout the
ages. Many religious people may hold to this belief in the absence of evidence. Such
experiences are being investigated to see if they do give us a glimpse of ‘out of the
body’ realities or are simply figments of the imagination. If they are literally true they
suggest a dualistic mind/body relationship - or that the mind is not totally physically
limited to the brain. (Or is there a monist variation where all reality is one but we tend
to break this down and see things atomistically instead of holistically?) One test which
can be applied was suggested by Hume. Which is more likely: that the event actually
happened as reported, or that the person reporting it is mistaken? He would have gone
for the latter.
If dualism is true, each person consists of a soul and a body connected together and
therefore the soul could separate and exist on its own and have a mental life without
the body. But this might not be the case as the survival of the ‘soul’ might depend
entirely on the presence of some kind of physical body to house it; it may not be able to
switch bodies. If materialism is true then mental processes which go on in the brain
and are dependent on the biological functioning of the brain, will not occur outwith the
brain and so life after death without some kind of body may not be possible;
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
42
mental life after death would require some kind of restoration of biological, physical
life so that the body comes to life again. But even if this could happen e.g. by freezing
a body and later resuscitating it, would the person who was brought back to life be the
same person who died sometime earlier? But even if this were possible it would not be
what people would normally understand by life after death.
In the case of dual aspect theory, this would be similar to materialism where the inner
life (which we call mind) would be distinct from the outer life (which we call body) and
each would be dependent on the other so that one could not exist without the other.
Spinoza and many other philosophers have argued that everything is both conscious
and extended; all reality has both mental and physical aspects; the mind and body
cannot be separated and so for example, there can be no life beyond physical existence.
Many people believe in life after death as a matter of faith rather on the basis of any
kind of evidence which may be put forward e.g. out-of-body experiences, spiritualism.
An assumption of this belief is that there are separable parts of a human being - and so
the ‘soul’ can exist apart from the body. Others find it difficult to accept that they will
cease to exist after their deaths (although the state of a person’s mind and personality
in old age may make it difficult to imagine what life after death might be for those
‘souls’ which would survive).
While the idea of life after death is not the only argument against non-dualist theories
of human nature, it is a significant one put forward against any kind of materialistic or
dual aspect theory of the body/mind problem.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
43
APPENDIX F
Appearance and Reality: Hume (1711-1776)
Hume developed a radical empiricist position - that all knowledge could only be
obtained through sense experience. He distinguished between analytic and synthetic
statements:
• Analytic statements show the relationship between ideas, a priori statements, and
to deny them meant a contradiction e.g. mathematical and logic statements. They
offer certainty but not information about the world.
• Synthetic statements describe matters of fact and can only be known by experience
- a posteriori - but are not certain and depend on empirical evidence.
If a statement shows neither a relationship between ideas nor contains matters of fact it
is meaningless.
His argument runs as follows:
1. I see something happen several times.
2. I therefore expect it to happen again.
3. I get into the mental habit of expecting it to happen.
4. I may be tempted to project this mental habit on to the external world to form a
‘law’ of physics.
But you can never have enough evidence to make absolute statements e.g. every event
has a cause, because:
• it can’t be justified by logic since its denial does not involve a self-contradiction
• it can’t be proved from experience because we cannot witness every event.
Hume says that we can accept the idea of causality because it is the habit of the
imagination based on past experience. But it is important to distinguish between
claiming that something must be the case and that we have always found it to be the
case in practice.
Hume’s approach is useful in assessing whether or not the external world exists and
whether we could prove it to exist. He says that we cannot prove that the external
world exists but we accept that it does on the basis of two features - constancy and
coherence. Constancy suggests that we see objects remaining in the same place over a
period of time and we assume so even when we are not observing them. We may see
someone at different times in different places and so we infer that they are moving
about. The assumption that the world is predictable enables us to fill the gaps of our
own experiences. But it should be noted that this cannot actually be proved.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
44
Appearance and Reality: Kant (1724-1804)
Immanuel Kant argued that certain features of experience - space, time, causality were imposed by the mind on experience. For example, when we see a sequence of
things we say that time is passing and that one thing follows another. But where is
time? Does it exist ‘out there’? Kant says that it doesn’t but time is the way our minds
organise experience. We make sense of the world by organising it into categories.
If, for example, we ask ‘What happened before the Big Bang?’ this is an example of
imposing the category of time onto something which scientists tell us cannot be done.
However much we accept the idea of space and time as coming from the initial
singularity, our minds may still demand that more space and time lie beyond it.
If we are given a description of the universe but ask: ‘What lies outside it?’ and we are
told ‘nothing’, we may become confused as we imagine that something must stretch
out indefinitely from what is known. (Many people may regard God as existing in
eternity before the creation of the universe, for example).
On this basis we assume that everything must have a cause. Even when we have no
such evidence, we expect that it will eventually be found - because we believe that this
is the way the world works. But Kant would say that this is the way the mind works
and we impose this idea of causality on our experience. Kant made the important
distinction between our senses (which he called phenomena) and things as they are in
themselves (which he called noumena). For example, the real ‘you’ is a noumenal
reality, how you exist in yourself as opposed to what people’s perceptions of you are;
but to everyone else you are a phenomenal reality - all people know is what you show
to them. But there is more to ‘you’ than other people’s perceptions.
What Kant wanted to show was that the world of our experience is shaped by the way
we perceive and understand it. The ‘certainties’ of space, time and causality were not
a feature of the world in itself, but were feature of the structures of our own
perceptions of the world - things which our mind imposed on the world. This was
Kant’s way of reconciling these two important aspects of our consciousness. In
summary:
• what we know of the world depends on our senses and how we interpret them
• there are no simple ‘facts’ which are independent of our perception; qualities of
colour, texture, space, time, causality - all depend on the way human beings
perceive things
• it is difficult to say what we know for certain.
RMPS Support Materials: Metaphysics (Intermediate 2)
45