A few commentators rightly suggested that mind itself is probably not a “thing” hence not worth trying to locate. That is not to say — heaven forbid — that it is a non-material thing. Rather, it might be a bit like trying to locate the adorableness of a kitten. There is nothing magically non-physical about the kitten, but trying to fine-tune the location of the adorableness still seems like some kind of error or category mistake. In the case of mind, I think what we have is an intuitive sense of the kind of capacities that we are gesturing at when we speak of minds, and so we can then ask: where is the physical machinery that makes those capacities possible? It is the physical machinery of thought and reason that the extended mind story is meant to concern.This seems right to me, so perhaps I should just take back everything I said in my last post. But I'm still troubled by the fact that he and others care so much about these questions.
If the question really is just "Where is the physical machinery that makes [the kind of capacities that we are gesturing at when we speak of minds] possible?" then why aren't libraries and stomachs part of the answer, and obviously so? If they aren't part of the answer, then what does the question really mean? My impression is that many philosophers want to know whether tools are really part of our minds (for instance, if I use an address book or my cell phone to help me remember people's phone numbers, is the book or phone now part of my memory?). And I don't know what to say to this except to recommend that they read Kant or Nietzsche or Wittgenstein or... . As Wittgenstein said, say what you choose, so long as it doesn't prevent you from seeing the facts.
(I'm girding myself to look again at the paper I'm working on (or trying to work on, or tying not to work on), which is partly a resurrection of a paper I presented years ago at a conference on what philosophy is or ought to be. Struggling then to state my theses I began with "Philosophers ought to read Wittgenstein and Heidegger." The audience laughed. But it's not as if many people do read this stuff, as far as I can tell. Maybe this (that I'm trying to state the obvious when the obvious in question is not obvious) is why I'm not having much joy with the paper.)
Someone should write a paper about the word really, something like: "Does the word 'really' ever really do any work?"
ReplyDeleteMaybe all of this is related to a question I was asking myself and my wife after our daughter's Christmas program last night (at the Methodist daycare she attends): regarding Jesus: where do the metaphors end and the literalness begin (with believers)?
In the case of Clark, "really" seems tied up with a version of that question. But if mind isn't a thing, then "really"-questions seem odd, since the question is more about how we might sensibly use the word "mind" (which seems related to your paper on phil, which I have read and intend to post a comment about soon...when I get grading under control...)
I suppose his question is something like: in what precisely does the adorableness of the kitten consist? But that seems like a bad question, because it's some combination of the way the kitten looks and acts (and perhaps feels, etc. too). What I think of as common sense suggests that the precise ways of looking and behaving involved will not be specifiable. If people who attempt to specify them struggle, I would think the thing to do is to conclude that common sense was right and give up.
ReplyDeleteI remember hearing a talk at a conference once in which the speaker was trying to model a concept or map its contours or some such thing. There was a lively debate about where exactly the boundaries lay. But since all the talk about dimensions and contours was metaphorical there was an air of absurdity about the whole project, or so it seemed to me. Surely concepts don't have a structure in that sense, i.e. a structure that can be precisely identified and that can never change.
One of the things I want to say in that paper (the one that is in need of major revision and that I'm sorry you read in its present state) is that concepts worth discussing don't have that kind of essence waiting to be discovered. But can I prove that? And hasn't it been said before? And not by unheard of people in little-known journals but by giants on whose shoulders everyone claims to be standing (or else claims to have rejected on entirely rational grounds)? And doesn't it sort of seem obvious anyway? Perhaps it would be better to demonstrate an alternative conception of philosophy by practicing it than to issue manifestos repeating what has been said before. But there's something to be said for spelling out in a manifesto just what it is that you take yourself to be doing and why.
I don't see how Clark's response is supposed to address the objection here. Do we not have an "intuitive sense" of what sorts of things makes a kitten cute? (The fluffy ears, the soft fur, the purring.) Should he not then deny that it's silly to ask where the cuteness of a kitten is? I *think* he's granting the objection that THAT would be hopelessly goofy, and saying that mind is not like that. I just don't see where the analogy is supposed to break down. Is it that mind is about "capacities" and cuteness is about... something else?
ReplyDeleteIf he's granting that his project is like trying to say where the cuteness of a kitten resides, only he thinks that's a serious question, not a silly one, then I don't know what to say. What sort of person doesn't laugh that question off?
"Struggling then to state my theses I began with "Philosophers ought to read Wittgenstein and Heidegger." The audience laughed."
Oof.
Yes, I think that's it: asking where the cuteness is would be silly, but asking what makes the kitten cute would not be, he thinks. It's the kind of thing psychologists might investigate, I suppose. Are pigs of the same size found to be cute too (as measured by surveys and brain scans, perhaps)? What if a robot behaves in the same way as a kitten? And so on. We have intuitive ideas about these things, which could be tested (to some extent).
ReplyDeleteWe also have an intuitive sense of what capacities we "gesture at" when we talk about mind. The problem, as I see it, is that if we take these capacities as given by our intuitive sense, then it is child's play to identify the physical machinery that makes them possible. E.g., reading is one such capacity, and the relevant physical machinery is books, eyes, lamps, etc. If, on the other hand, we question the intuitive sense of the relevant capacities, then what are we to go by? The intuitive sense would have to straighten itself out, rejecting intuitions that don't seem to fit and so on. That would be a familiar kind of philosophy, but it doesn't seem to be what Clark says he is doing, because it makes no reference to the underlying or necessary physical machinery.
Matthew, sorry my first reply seems to have ignored most of what you said. I think most believers don't go far enough to reach the point where they might have to distinguish between the metaphorical and the literal. That's theology, I suppose, and most people leave it alone. Probably wisely. Some fundamentalists claim all kinds of crazy-sounding things are literally true (e.g. that you could get to heaven in a rocket if it traveled far enough), but this makes me wonder what they mean by "literally true." I've met Mormons who have said things like "I know this all might sound weird, but I just know in my heart that it's true." That sounds like a refusal to indulge in philosophical or theological speculation or reflection. This seems a little intellectually cowardly, but it's less assertive than the stereotypical fundamentalist attitude. But then Methodists aren't either of these, so I'm off-topic again.
ReplyDelete"Yes, I think that's it: asking where the cuteness is would be silly, but asking what makes the kitten cute would not be, he thinks. It's the kind of thing psychologists might investigate, I suppose. Are pigs of the same size found to be cute too (as measured by surveys and brain scans, perhaps)? What if a robot behaves in the same way as a kitten? And so on. We have intuitive ideas about these things, which could be tested (to some extent)."
ReplyDeleteI suppose that does make some sense. The psychology of beauty is a real field of inquiry; the psychology of cuteness would seem to be as legitimate as that. Just operationalize some notions and start producing papers that show the results of some controlled studies of what people find cute in various kittens, with hopes of ending up getting interesting findings. Actually, Professional Kitten Cuteness Researcher sounds like a pretty awesome job.
There is a problem if this is Clark's take on the issue, though: If asking "Where's the cuteness in a kitten" really is silly, then asking "Where is my mind" is not less silly. It doesn't matter if you can connect both of these to questions that aren't silly (things that psychology can test). And I'm with you in not seeing why the extended mind folk never mention how important a digestive system or oxygen is to being able to think, if all they want to do is figure out what all can be important for thinking. (Finding that preventing people from gesturing makes it harder for them to solve puzzles is an interesting thing to learn. Finding that removing someone's liver makes it harder for them to solve puzzles would not be surprising to anyone. Maybe that's all there is to it: they only talk about the interesting parts of "the extended mind thesis". I thought it might be that livers and air are not part of the "extended mind" story because they move inside the body, but that wouldn't account for why Clark mentioned gestures in his first article. If my hands aren't "inside" my body, they certainly aren't an extension of it, either.)
Yes, I don't see what there is to get excited about here. It looks as though there must be some confusion underlying the whole project. But perhaps it comes down to taste. Golfers can get worked up over whether it's really golf if you don't walk between the holes, others will shrug and see the matter as completely arbitrary. Maybe some people care about "the self" or "the mind" the way that others care about golf, and if I don't care about either, who am I to say they are wrong? (Though, to repeat, it looks to me as though there must be some confusion here.)
ReplyDeletecan i just say:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuteness_in_Japanese_culture