MIND

The last chapter of this book begins with these two sentences: "I have now completed the task I set myself in the first chapter. I have tried to give an account of the mind that will situate mental phenomena as part of the natural world", It ends with these two: "We do not live in several different, or even two different, worlds, a mental world and a physical world, a scientific world and a world of common sense. Rather, there is just one world; it is the world we all live in, and we need to account for how we exist as part of it." Even if the account mentioned in the first two sentences is found unsatisfactory, those who read this clear and critical treatment of the philosophy of mind will probably be more inclined to accept the conclusion set out in the second. However, this review is going to conclude that even if they do, they may also feel that the book has done little to help them account for their own sense of having a place in the 'one world' that we inhabit. Instead what it will have done, and done very well, is to suggest weaknesses in most of the well known positions and approaches to the philosophy of mind. Searle engages the reader very early on by setting out why he believes that the philosophy of mind is now the central and most important issue in contemporary philosophy. It is because Western philosophy has moved away from linguistic analysis towards a more direct engagement with mental life. Rather than inquiring into how we talk and think about the mind, philosophers now ask substantive questions about free will, intentionality and consciousness. This move has been prompted by the explosion of research into the brain and the increasing willingness of scientists to address subjective experience, something that was for so long assumed to be impossible because objectivity was assumed to be the essence of the scientific method. Searle's attempt to provide a naturalistic account of mental life starts from his claim that the best known and influential theories in the philosophy of mind are all false. His reasons are often refreshingly straightforward. Materialism, for example, is rejected on the basis of logic: it cannot be true because it denies the existence of something that obviously exists, namely, our own experience. Dualism is not rejected on logical grounds but because the balance of evidence makes it unreasonable to believe it. Methodological and logical behaviourism are crisply distinguished before being equally crisply dismissed. Computer functionalism gets more attention, on the grounds that it remains the most widely accepted philosophical influence on cognitive science. Searle's distaste for this position, expressed in his critique of Artificial Intelligence based on the notion of the 'Chinese Room', is well known. His treatment of it in this book is a condensed version of his position, to which he adds critiques that have been made of it along with his rejoinders. Lest all this makes the book seem to consist merely of destructive criticism, it is important to note that there is much in it which is positive as well. It shows Searle's own deep enthusiasm for the investigation of what he calls the "stunning and mysterious" phenomenon of consciousness. The enthusiasm is infectious and he clearly feels that we live a moment when philosophy and the scientific investigation of the mind can proceed together in a powerful epistemological alliance. For example, he dismisses the idea that consciousness is actually beyond human understanding. This view, most notably put forward by Colin McGinn, raises the question of why we should expect that human beings could understand consciousness to the same degree that they understand simpler natural phenomena. Perhaps it is just too complex and we should no more expect to understand it than we should expect a dog to understand, say, the theory of relativity. It's not that a dog is unintelligent or that the theory of relativity is an incoherent. It's that the dog's intelligence is not sufficient to the task. Searle's confidence in the progress he feels is being made both in philosophy and in the mind sciences leads him to reject this 'mysterian' position as far too pessimistic. This rejection is reflected in his enthusiasm for the attempts that have been made over the past decade or so to find patterns of brain activity that are linked to specific aspects of conscious awareness such as the change from one to another of an ambiguous figure like the Necker cube. Searle devotes quite a lot of space to attempts to find such neural correlates of consciousness. He commends it as a promising course which will lead to this conclusion: "The general character of the relation of consciousness to the brain, and thus the general solution to the mind-body problem is not hard to state: consciousness is caused by micro-level processes in the brain and realised in the brain as higher-level or system feature." (page 157). This confidence is, however, expressed in a particular way, reflecting Searle's background in analytic traditions of Western philosophy. When he proceeds to what the reader might hope will be a more positive line by addressing his own views on issues like free will, consciousness, intentionality and mental causation, what emerges remains dry and lacks any larger vision. In contrast to the earlier critical chapters, the writing becomes noticeable more dense and obscure. One specific example is his discussion of intentionality, the crucial 'aboutness' of consciousness. The argument gets diverted into the issue of self-referentiality where it becomes diffuse and far less accessible than elsewhere. In general, however, what the text offers is an analysis of the language in which ideas about consciousness are expressed. The actual inquiry into consciousness itself is at times too detached and even arid. An example is the treatment of the unconscious, which is really rather thin. It amounts to little more than the claim that unconscious states exist, that that they are like conscious states but differ only by being unavailable for introspection. Freudian notions of a dynamic, productive unconscious can have no place here, let alone Jungian views of the unconscious as a collective, creative storehouse. Likewise, although claims are made in various places in the book that consciousness must be treated as a biological phenomenon, there is virtually no mention of the role of the mind in evolution. There is a telling contrast here with approaches to the place of the mind in nature that take a more expansive, view. Mary Midgley, for example, reaches strikingly similar conclusions to those of Searle (e.g. Midgley, 2004). She finds simple materialism and dualism unsatisfying and urges a view of mind as a natural phenomenon. She too rejects the idea that the scientific worldview is somehow 'all there is' and predominates over all other ways to interpret the world and our place in it. But her route to this conclusion is via broader worldview. For example, she uses the Gaia hypothesis of James Lovelock to clarify what she actually means 'natural' in this context. In some important way this renders her route richer and more accessible. It also allows her efforts to be part of a longer tradition that would include religious worldviews and such enduring works as Lovejoy's 'Great Chain of Being'. Searle accepts, and enjoys, the mystery of consciousness. Like Midgley, he believes science is one way of investigating the world, not the final word on its nature and on how the mind fits into it. But unlike Midgley, it would be quite impossible to place Searle's book in broader, synthetic traditions. One imagines, too, that Searle would see any attempt to do this as some sort of mistake. His book is an impressive analytic exercise addressed to a specialised audience of fellow philosophers. For those seeking an authoritative introduction to contemporary philosophy of mind, it has great value. However, for those wishing to place human experience in a more diverse and humane perspective, it is of strictly limited use.

Reference

Midgley, M. (2004) Mind and Body: The End of Apartheid. In Science, Consciousness and Ultimate Reality edited by Lorimer, D. Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic.