Lycan, William - Giving Dualism Its Due

2016/06/10

Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Vol 87, No 4, December 2009

This paper is a serious but largely brisk jaunt through the anti-dualist arguments (relating to the mind-body problem) and how they generally fail to refute the strong Cartesian 'substance' dualism. Author is a staunch materialist, so this is a bit of a confessional, in that he is concerned that his considered beliefs aren't just a product of mainstream philosophy culture but rational and scientific thought. Author first starts with a review of the major arguments in favor of materialism. The first major proponents of the view gave precious few arguments in its favor, instead mostly assuming it or 'inveighing against Cartesian dogma'(pg552). The first bona-fide argument author discusses is from Smart, a rather elementary identity theory for mind-body correspondence and then reduction using parsimony. And here author introduces the first main point of the paper: that the use of the concept of parsimony in evaluating competing theories is only available once all other facets of the competing theories have been considered, and "many, nearly all, other things must be equal" before parsimony can be used. Because dualists and materialists are still arguing over a body of evidence (qualia, intension, meaning, etc.) and how it is to be interpreted (or even whether it should be so), "the parsimony argument does not even come in the door until it is agreed we can find nothing to distinguish mental states from neurophysiological ones" (pg553).

The first argument that had a formal structure that was logically valid and left open the question of the actual substance that would occupy a functional-, or causal-, role, was from Armstrong & Lewis (c-fibers firing). Author's first objection is that the first premise, namely that (a priori) [mental state] occupies a causal role in the behavior, tendencies, and dispositions, of a creature is a "culpably good premise for materialists"(pg554). The dualist, according to author, would not accept this at the very outset: a [mental state] is what presents itself to consciousness, the attendant causal roles it plays are a posteriori. The main point for the dualist is that "we know the mind primarily through introspection" (pg554), not through behavior. The second premise, author claims, begs the question by claiming that [mental state] is exhausted by its causal role. In other words, it denies that there could be overdetermination of the causal role by both something physical and something mental. While many may scoff at overdetermination, author then claims that using parsimony to adjudicate is premature (see above). The strategy to hold off parsimony and allow for overdetermination, epiphenomenalism, and other causally-inert dualist theories is repeated often by author (pg555-6). This concluded the dispatching of arguments in favor of materialism.

Most of the rest of the paper then deals with replies to objections to dualism.
1. The "Interaction problem": how can non-matter interact with matter in any way?
Author: Just because there is no good model doesn't mean the objection is fatal. Causality itself is a tough concept to get right, as is determinism. Also, amend dualism to be spatial: it's right behind the eyes, in each brain. This takes away the non-spatial weirdness of dualism.
2. "Excrescencehood": mind-stuff seem to follow no laws and be extraneous to known facts.
Author: this is just a fundamental dualist/materialist disagreement about what's prior in accounting for mental life: is it prediction and behavior or the phenomena and feels? Clearly the dualist will claim the feels are what are important to capture in accounts of the mental. Besides, according to Wilkes, mental ascriptions are used for more than just explanations and prediction.
3. "Laws of Physics": conservation of matter and energy prohibits mental stuff from getting involved.
Author: Weak-form conservation is still compatible with dualism. Strong-form isn't required by physicists. Also, since we allow that the mental is spatial (but not material), the physical conception of space-time isn't violated.
4. "Evolutionary Theory": How could the mental have evolved as adaptive?
Author: nobody believes that all traits must be adaptive. And Churchland's claim that all traits must be physical and evolved from a physical process is question-begging.
5. "Explanatory Impotence": dualism explains little (if anything), while neuroscience explains a "great deal"(pg560).
Author: This is a bad comparison. Dualism competes with materialism, not neuroscience. But of course materialism does underwrite why neuro-facts are relevant to mental-facts. Author claims the dualist both use these facts through using a "transducer" but also capitalize on the neuro-facts being content-poor with respect to mental properties.
6. "Neural Dependence": mental life is dependent on a working neural one.
Author: Use the transducer argument. "Mind-brain interaction may be constant and very intimate" (pg561).
7. "Epistemology of other minds": How could we know about other minds, especially non-spatial ones?
Author: Again, we fixed that part of dualism by making it spatial. So after that fix is applied, this is a perceptual and epistemological problem, not a mind-body one.
8. "Unity and Individuation": How could the mental and the physical both be attached to one brain?
Author: Well, because dualism is interactionist and each mind has causal connections to a particular body. How is this unique relation explained? Well, look to some evolutionary story (aka, hand waive).
9. "The Pairing Problem": How can each mind be paired with each body?
Author: well, by making the mental spatial. Causal explanations may just be "brute" facts, not requiring further analysis (pg562).