23 January, 2017 Outline 1. Introducing Identity Theory
2. Arguments for Identity Theory
3. Arguments against Identity Theory
4. Functionalism (and the Arguments for It)
5. Arguments against Functionalism
Part 1: Introducing Identity Theory Background Substance dualism and behaviorism have been rejected by most contemporary philosophers and cognitive scientists
But the next three views well be looking at
mind-brain identity theory, functionalism, and eliminative materialism are alive and well in contemporary philosophy of mind All of these are variants of materialism Identity Theory The central idea of the Identity Theory, also known as the mind-brain identity theory or reductive materialism, is that mental states can be identified with brain states A particular mental state is identical to the firing of particular neurons in the brain Striking examples of this in clinical patients during brain surgery Reduction The term reductive materialism reflects the idea that mental states can be reduced to brain states
Intertheoretic reduction is an important
concept from philosophy of science It means, roughly, to show that higher-level entities/phenomena are in fact instances of lower- level entities/phenomena Reduction (cont.) Reduction often takes the form of the lower- level theory being posited for independent reasons And then it being discovered that the theory in fact maps almost perfectly onto and explains higher-level phenomena that were once thought to demand their own theories/explanations
Famous instances of reduction in the history
of science include sound, heat, and color The meaning of identity Another key notion is that of identity Without a precise definition of identity, the MBIT risks being vacuous It is not enough simply to say that there is some mapping between mental states and brain states We need to specify the nature of that mapping
There are different types of identity
Specifically, the type-token distinction is important to understanding the different ways that the MBIT can be developed Type-Type and Token-Token Identity Type-Type Identity holds that a particular type of mental state is identical to a particular type of brain state Concerns that this is overly restrictive: entails that only organisms with brains like our own can have mental states
Token-Token Identity holds that for any given
mental state there is some physical state to which it is identical Avoids the problem of excessive restrictiveness, but also gives up much of the (supposed) explanatory power of the MBIT Part 2: Arguments for Identity Theory Support for Identity Theory There are a variety of arguments in support for identity theory And it is, indeed, in many ways the new default view from a secular/scientific perspective With other views in contemporary philosophy of mind being variants of, or reactions to, the materialistic commitments at the heart of identity theory
Churchland gives four main arguments in
support of identity theory Arguments 1 & 2: Humans as Physical Systems The first two arguments appeal to the idea that humans are purely physical in origin Science has a compelling account of the origins of human biology both developmentally (Argument 1) and evolutionarily (Argument 2) Identity theory is in line with this, for it says that the mental can be reduced to the physical: ontological parsimony This avoids the problem that we saw last week
with forms of dualism: the mysterious
existence/emergence of mental substances or properties Argument 3: Neural Dependence The third argument is that all mental phenomena we know of are systematically dependent on brain phenomena Some we understand better than others, of course, but theres (arguably) no mental activity that happens without corresponding brain activity Property dualism acknowledges this as well, but again identity theory can appeal to considerations of parsimony Argument 4: Neuroscientific Progress A final argument is that the neurosciences are making impressive progress in explaining the nature of the relationship between mind and brain And the history of science provides strong
reason to think that phenomena once
thought inexplicable by science will eventually yield to scientific explanation Part 3: Arguments against Identity Theory Arguments against Identity Theory Nonetheless, the identity theory is in many ways a promissory note Particularly Arguments 3 and 4
Systematic neuroscientific explanations of
many phenomena are a long way off And, as well see momentarily, there are some phenomena that philosophers think may never be amenable to reductionist explanation Counterargument 1: Introspection One argument against identity theory is that introspection doesnt support the idea of mental states as (just) brain states We discussed this last week as a potential argument for dualism, but it also works as an argument against identity theory
Possible identity theorist response: our
senses dont necessarily reveal the fundamental physical character of things Examples of light, sound, and heat Counterargument 2: Meaning and Identity Another counterargument puts a semantic and logical spin on the first: there seem to be statements, and properties, that are true (or at least believed to be true) of mental states but not brain states, and vice versa Thus, the argument concludes, mental states cannot be identical to brain states
The identity theorists response here is similar to the
response to the first argument Our commonsense meanings and attributions of properties are beholden to our own (incomplete) commonsense knowledge Again can construct a reductio ad absurdum using examples like temperature, light, and sound Counterargument 3: Subjective Experience (Qualia) The third argument against identity theory is the big one, so well spend quite a bit more time on it
This argument takes various forms and appeals
to various famous examples but at root is pretty simple: Purely physical explanations cannot account for the subjective character of experience Complete reduction is not possible since some aspects of mental experience are not reducible to the physical Therefore identity theory is false (or at least incomplete) Nagels Bat One famous argument of this form is found in Thomas Nagels article What is it like to be a bat? (1974) The article spends a great deal of time
describing how bats use echolocation as a
highly sophisticated way of perceiving and navigating their environment This is, of course, quite different from our own experience, which (cases such as blindness aside) relies heavily on sight Nagel (cont.) Nagel argues that even if science tells us exactly how bats echolocation works, down to the tiniest neural detail, we still will not understand what the experience of being a bat is like That is, reductive explanation is not a complete explanation of the mind Qualia, according to Nagel, are not explicable through reduction Jacksons Mary Another argument along similar lines comes from Frank Jackson
In Jacksons case, Mary is a neuroscientist
who has been raised in an entirely black and white room She knows everything there is to know about how color vision works, the reflectance profiles that define each color, and so forth That is, she knows everything there is to know about the mind according to identity theory Jackson (cont.) Yet Jackson argues that Mary would nonetheless learn something new the first time she stepped outside of her room and actually saw the color red for the first time
Thus, physical facts alone do not exhaust
what can be known about the mind For this reason, Jacksons argument is sometimes referred to as the knowledge argument Chalmerss Zombies A final example is David Chalmerss philosophical zombies
Chalmers says that we can imagine a world
that is physically identical to our own but in which the people (who are, by stipulation, physically identical to us) do not have any subjective experience These are zombies in the sense that they have no inner life Chalmers (cont.) The conceivability of such zombies, Chalmers argues, shows that the intrinsic/essential features of our conscious experience are distinct from physical features of the sort appealed to by various forms of materialism
The argument applies not just to identity
theory but also to views such as functionalism Possible Materialist Responses There are various lines of response available to materialists in response to these qualia-based arguments:
1. Deny the intuitions or the coherence of the
cases 2. Deny intuitions validity as reflections of the fundamental nature of the world Again the history of science is instructive 3. Appeal to different types of knowledge (especially relevant to Jackson/Nagel) Part 4: Functionalism (and the Arguments for It) Background: concerns about identity theory The view we discussed last week, identity theory, holds that mental states simply are brain states
One set of challenges to identity theory (and
physicalism more generally) come from property dualists who believe that physicalism cannot account for all mental phenomena Qualia have received particular attention here: Nagel, Jackson, Chalmers Physicalist concerns about identity theory However, identity theory also faces a significant challenge from within the physicalist camp Whether it is possible to specify identities between types of mental and physical states
Without such type identities, all we have is
the much weaker thesis of token identity And identity theory loses much of its explanatory punch Physicalist concerns (cont.) More specific threats to type identity are: Multiple realizability: there may be indefinitely many types of brain states that physically realize a particular type of mental state (e.g., belief) Ruling out mentality for other types of physical systems (e.g., aliens, computers, maybe even other animals) If mental states are identified with the types of physical states found in human brains, this suggests that intelligent entities that are very physically different from us dont actually have mental states But this seems wrong Defining functionalism Functionalism is an attempt to address these perceived shortcomings of identity theory Rather than defining mental states in terms of their physical form (viz., particular brain states), functionalists define mental states in terms of the functional role that these states play
The functional role of a state is generally
defined in terms of the causal relations that it bears to the environment, body, and other mental states Functionalism as a solution to problems with identity theory This gets around the problems of multiple realizability and alternative physical systems As long as the causal relations/functional role that define a given type of mental state are present, it doesnt matter what the physical system instantiating those relations/roles is Human biology, alien biology, silicon chips, etc.
To use a computer metaphor: what matters
for functionalism is the software, not the hardware Functionalisms popularity Functionalism is especially popular among researchers in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence For it suggests that we can study the mind as a computational system abstracted away from messy details about the brain Autonomy of psychology arguments
Also popular among philosophers of mind
for similar reasons: we can study the mind without bothering with neuroscience! Avoiding misconceptions Functionalism vs. behaviorism: Functionalism is similar to behaviorism in its focus on causal relations, but with the key difference that its functional definitions involve ineliminable reference to other mental states In contrast to behaviorisms requirement that mental states be defined solely in terms of outwardly observable behavior
Functionalism is not a form of dualism
Nearly all functionalists subscribe to physicalism: theyre just token physicalists rather than type physicalists Part 5: Arguments against Functionalism Qualitative character and functional indistinguishability One objection functionalism faces will be quite familiar by now, both as an objection to behaviorism and to (type) physicalism: The objection is that functionalism cant account for the inner or qualitative dimensions of our mental states Since according to functionalism, these states are purely causally defined
Inverted spectrum thought experiment: functional
roles are identical but phenomenal character is very different Reluctant to say that these are the same mental state even though they are functionally identical Blocks China brain objection A very influential objection to functionalism comes in the form of Ned Blocks China brain thought experiment Imagine that all the citizens of a very populous country arrange themselves in such a way as to mimic the functional organization of the human brain
According to functionalism, such a system
should be a mind, since it (by hypothesis) instantiates all of the functional roles of the human brain Blocks objection (cont.) Yet most people are reluctant to say that such a system would be a mind just like any other A couple ways of cashing this out: The absent qualia problem: such a system, even if it could perform computations and the like, would not have qualitative experience Thus, there is something more to mentality than functional roles Can also see the China brain as a reductio ad absurdum of functionalisms openness about the physical basis of the mind Opposite problem from type identity: too open about physical basis rather than too restrictive Functionalism and the autonomy of psychology Another line of objection takes aim at the idea that functional definition implies disciplinary/methodological autonomy Churchlands temperature example: Strictly speaking, the temperature is mean molecular kinetic energy identity only holds for the temperature of a gas Slightly different definitions for other states of matter Yet it would be absurd to conclude from this that thermodynamics is an autonomous science that can be abstracted away from particular physical realizers Rather, reductions are domain-specific Provides the identity theorist with a response to concerns about alternative realizations