Many philosophers, mainly those of a physicalist bent (perhaps non-physicalists also), agree that there is a conceptual difficulty with what is called interactionist dualism (hereafter, ID). This difficulty for ID arises from accepting the following two tenets:
(T1): There are non-physical and physical events of the human person that are ontologically separate.
(T2): The non-physical and physical events of the human person interact causally with one another.
The acceptance of both these tenets leads to the problem of dualistic causal interaction (hereafter, PDCI). As many see it, dualism suffers from a problem of its own making (given its acceptance of the conjunction of (T1) and (T2): namely, how do events of such a disparate nature interact causally with one another? From this one is supposed to infer that they cannot, given the extreme disparity of the things involved. Proposers of the PDCI see this as a devastating conceptual difficulty with dualism!
What is the dualist to do? For one, the dualist could forge ahead by denying that these different events do in fact interact with one other (thus denying (T2). He could offer contemporary versions of parallelism (a la Leibniz), occasionalism (a la Malebranche), idealism (a la Berkeley), or epiphenomenalism (a la Jackson). Although in principle the dualist could offer such accounts, I find them to be both implausible and unattractive. Implausible because they deny a seemingly fundamental datum of experience, namely, my thoughts, beliefs, and desires interact causally with specific physical events to bring about a desired state of affairs. For example, my desire to have a coke and my belief that I can acquire one at McDonald's leads to the event that I go to McDonald's and buy a coke. This just seems true to me. Now these views could be motivated by independent reasons other than to solve the PDCI, but insofar as they are motivated primarily to solve the PDCI, I find them implausible.
Second, and a more plausible response, the dualist could quite forcefully claim that the objector has no metaphysical-cum-logical arguments—other than the proverbial example of the two billiard balls—that would incline him to believe that entities of a disparate nature cannot interact causally with each other. And multiplying examples of how material objects interact causally with one another (like two billiard balls) does nothing to demonstrate that non-physical events cannot interact, as it were, with physical events.
This response is nothing more than to question the very notion of causation that is in play by the objector. What exactly does the objector have in mind when he speaks of 'causation'? Well, at least in the case of Jaegwon Kim, there seems to be the assumption that causation involves the notion of spatial contiguity. But why think that all causation only involves things that are spatially contiguous? Does this not baldly beg the question against the dualist (at least those who accept that the soul is non-spatial)?
Also, the dualist could offer a view of causation in which this problem fails to arise, like the regularity view of causation. On this view, causation is nothing more than an event of one kind that is followed by an event of another. Now the dualist could claim that non-physical and physical events interact causally in the sense that a non-physical event m* is regularly followed by a physical event p*. No interaction problem seems to ensue. Although I would not recommend the defense of such a view, I point this view out merely to show that in order for the PDCI to have its intended sting, the objector must demonstrate that by its very nature, causation, cannot involve non-physical and physical events. And I see no forthcoming metaphysical-cum-logical arguments for this consequent. Moreover, the PDCI does not seem to me to have the force that many philosophers ascribe to it.
Hi Craig. I am not sure that the first person phenomenological report *solves* the PDCI. For one, you are not aware phenomenologically of the causation relation between your desire for the coke and the action, are you? If not, then how are you able to use it to argue for there being a causation relation. Secondly, the problem is how do these disparate events interact? To merely assert that they do interact due to the phenomenology does not solve the how problem.
ReplyDeleteWhen Kim says that causation requires spatial contiguity, is he saying something like our concepts of causation and interaction necessarily involve spatial contiguity? Is it something of an a priori defense?
Travis
Hey, Travis! Yeah, I am not saying that the phenomenological report is what solves the problem. I am merely trying to point out that the objector(s) have not given, in my estimation, any a priori reason to believe that these disparate events can not in fact interact. So although this interaction is strange (given a mechanistic view of reality), I do not think that I initially see it as a conceptual difficulty for the dualist (particularly those bent towards Cartesian or property dualism). It might nevertheless be an empirical difficulty, given say, the causal closure of the physical domain. But this is another story!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think the dualist, given that he has a priori reasons for believing in dualism, could claim that he does not have to come up with initially some theory of 'how' this interaction occurs, so long as there are no metaphysical-cum-logical arguments to prove otherwise.
And although we may not be aware of the 'causal relation' itself, I definitely believe that we are aware (phenomenologically) that are beliefs, desires, etc. cause certain physical events (e.g. neural events and physical behavior). This just seems to be a given of experience.
On the last point, I am not sure if Kim is saying that our concept of causation involves spatial contiguity, although the notion of spatial contiguity is what gets his argument off the ground (I think). I hope his is not an a priori defense because I certainly do not see the PDCI as holding any a priori weight against ID.
I am curious what you take as a priori reasons for thinking that dualism has it right?
ReplyDeleteI guess I am not seeing in the above reasons to think that there isn't a conceptual problem in regards to the interaction especially if you don't think that we are aware of the causal relation. I'm not sure that one can fail to be aware of the causal relation and yet aware that a mental event caused a physical event as you want to assert. Constitutive of being aware that a mental event *caused* a physical event is to be aware of these events stand in a causal relation. But if Hume has it right and causation is not given in the experience (all we have is correlation between our mental events and physical events), then this phenomenological report would be ambiguous with respect to the dualist thesis and the physicalist thesis.
It would be similar to the realist who asserts that there is good reason to believe in the external world merely because I have sense experience of it. The skeptic does not deny that there is sense experience *as of* the external world. He denies that the sense experience gives reason to believe in the external world (it may exist but it may not). On my view, the realist (and perhaps the dualist) needs something further that would tip the scales of evidence one way or another.
So there would be a burden of proof on the dualist if the phenomenological report is ambiguous in this way?
I would think that any argument based on conceivability (either that I have a different body or brain than the one I currently have or that I exist disembodied) would be an a priori argument for dualism. Maybe I am mistaken in this, but this would seem to be a priori in nature. But even a part from this, the dualist would have other metaphysical-cum-logical arguments at his disposal that may not be considered, strictly speaking, a priori (but they might be if they follow from an a priori premise).
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think you are right about the causal relation. I do think we see (via eidetic intuition) the causal relation itself (both universal and particular instance). I was thinking of the causal relation as a universal, in your previous comment, and assuming that one might deny that we see the causal relation (as a universal) not the particular. We definitely see the particular instance (or property-instance) of the causal relation (whether you deny or accept eidetic intuition). If not, we would not be able to tell that it was a causal relation (which we obviously can) rather than the taller than relation or the father of relation or some other metaphysical relation.
So, I do think causation is given in experience (although I was not using this as an argument against the PDCI) and since I am not driven by empiricist considerations, I think Hume is wrong. Hume thought all things (ideas) needed to be validated through sense impressions, including causation. But this just seems blatantly false to me.
Again, in claiming that the interaction between non-physical events and physical events is mysterious (mysterious in the sense of how do these radically different things interact) is not to point out a conceptual difficulty. It is merely to point out a mystery resulting from ID. Why does the dualist have to provide the how, in order to know that there are non-physical and physical events and that they in fact interact? There are lots of items of knowledge of which we are unable to supply the how, but nevertheless we still know they are true. What can this not be the case with dualism?
I guess I am more fixed on the causal interaction issue. What I should have asked is, do you think there are a priori reasons to think that the mental and the physical causally interact? Again, mostly just curious here.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure what you mean by "eidetic intuition". You seem to be applying it to sense experience rather than intuition with respect to conceptual truths. Hume would be fine with causation if it were to be given in experience and would probably think that you are thinking like an empiricist to underwrite causation between the mental and physical by appeal to the phenomenology. However, Hume denied that causation shows up in the experience (this point has nothing to do with his empiricism) but that due to the constant conjunction between the mental state and the physical state that immediate follows, we judge there to be a causal relation. If you flipped a switch and there was an explosion, you would probably judge that the flipping of the switch caused the explosion (whether you were right or not). This would be a judgment though. It is something further to say that we are aware of causation itself (universal or particular). So, what is obvious is the correlation between these but the causal relation itself is at least not obvious to all the anti-dualists of the world.
The conceptual difficulty that some may have with it is not just that it is unclear how non-physical and physical events interact rather it is that it seems (conceptually so) that these two disparate substances cannot interact. This is what you are denying I think but you seem to be denying it by appeal to the phenomenology which a lot of people are going to say the causal interaction is not given in the phenomenology. The desire is. That you go get yourself a coke is. But that the mental state causally interacted with the physical state is not.
(By the way, I mostly playing devil's advocate here. I haven't had occasion to think about philosophy of mind in a while so I am somewhat shooting from the hip of what I think someone that does not share your/our commitments would say).
I appreciate your comments Travis! No I can not think of any a priori reasons for believing that non-physical and physical events interact.
ReplyDeleteBy eidetic intuition (deriving from Husserl) I simply mean that one can directly perceive the universal itself in the property-instance. Yes, perception (sense experience of the property-instance) is a necessary condition for this type of seeing, but eidetic intuition is different from ordinary sense experience in that is has its own act character. I do not think this is crucial to my points though.
Hume denied causation (i.e. causal powers, production, and necessity) because it was not corroborated in sensory experience (which is brought about by his empiricism, namely, that ideas need to be validated via sensory experience). So for Hume, all we have is nothing but regularity. Thus, on his view, there is no real causal relation in which one event brings about the other, only regular succession.
Now if we are not driven by Hume’s empiricism (namely, that things be validated via sensory experience), why can we not admit that there is a causal relation that we are aware of when one billiard ball hits another or when a mental event causes physical events. I do not see a problem with using phenomenology (or common sense for that matter) in this regard. And I know of no proponent of the PDCI who has presses this point. They press the point with regards to the conceptual difficulty, not whether the dualist is aware of the causal relation or not.
And again, this is the point I am trying to press in this post, the objector must demonstrate more than just merely pointing out the oddity of this causal interaction, if he is to show that there is a conceptual difficulty for ID. He must show that causation by it very nature rules out this type of interaction, and I do not think that PDCI shows this. I conceive of this interaction as not only possible, but I know that it happens.
Interesting post! A couple of details I'd like to note. First, it isn't clear what spatial contiguity amounts to (for the objector to dualist interactionism). Suppose the dualist grants that the soul is unextended. It could still be located. Simples are that way (a la Chisholm).
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, they could be extended but colocated with other physical things (e.g., bodies and arms, legs, etc.). This option would allow the dualist to satisfy spatial contiguity, but might give rise to other problems (pushing the burden of argument back, at least).
(Second main point...) Regarding the topic of intuiting causal relations, I'm a little concerned that the physicalist (whatever sort of physicalist is relevant here) could give just the same account. They have the eidetic intuition of the impossibility of that very same relation, leaving the debate at a standstill again. That's not too much of a problem for your own view, but I worry that it won't undermine they're argument, unless they have a general epistemological view that requires agreement or shared intuitions for their own epistemic confidence. You might undermine it at that level, suggesting that rational disagreement (of a certain sort) over such things sufficient for undermining arguments based on the PDCI.
The worry that John raises about the physicalist giving the same account (mutatis mutandis, of course) with respect to whether or not one is aware of the causal interaction I think is similar to my worry above that the phenomenology being ambiguous between the dualist and the physicalist construal. I think we need to be careful of saying what one is aware of or what one grasps via intuition in the sense experience and what one judges to be the case. Craig, you said "why can we not admit that there is a causal relation that we are aware of when one billiard ball hits another or when a mental event causes physical events". What many philosophers will say is that we can't admit this because we are not aware of the causal relation when one billiard ball hits another. We are merely aware of the conjunction of events and then we judge (many times subconsciously) that the one event caused the other. Why think this? Because it could be the case that God stopped the motion of the one billiard ball a nanosecond before it contacted the other ball and then simultaneously caused the second ball to move. If this were the case the phenomenology would be the same (or at least it would be from our subjective persepctive). We would still be thinking/judging that the one ball caused the other ball to move but this would be false. Again, in the same way that if I were to flip a switch and there was an explosion I would be tempted to judge that the switch flipping caused the explosion. On my view, awareness of this sort is a success term. If one takes oneself to be aware of the causal relation between the switch flipping and the explosion but it turned out that this was false, then one was not aware of the causal relation no matter how strongly it seemed like one was. I am inclined to agree with Hume in regards to things like billiard balls. Maybe the first person access to our mental states is different but I think it is still a tough sell to many. I actually think a stronger argument might be an inference to the best explanation (this is how I would go on the billiard balls as well).
ReplyDeleteMy point about Hume is that I don't see anything in your (Craig) methodology that Hume would necessarily disagree with given his empiricism. What you disagree with Hume over is what is given in experience. You think that we are aware of the property instance of the causal relation in the experience. He and many others would think that this is a subtle judgment we make given the correlation between whatever two events are in view.
Travis