Descartes on Mentality [4]

1. Descartes argues that thinking cannot arise or emerge from body. How does this argument go? How does the argument rely on the conception of thinking that is advanced in the Second Meditation?

Descartes defends the view that minds and bodies are different kinds of stuff. This view is often called – mind-body dualism.

He uses the Second Meditation to argue that at the most basic level the nature of body is to have features like size, shape, and three-dimensional extension. The thought-experiment is basically this: we consider a body at the macroscopic level; then we try to remove particular features from the body, but without taking away its identity as a body. Descartes considers a piece of wax, for example, and melts it by the fire, and its color, shape, and scent change. He could manipulate the shape, but the body would still have some shape or other. If we did something to the body so that it did not have any resulting shape at all, it would not even be a body. But if the body had no odor, it would still be a body. Or he notices that bodies are sometimes transparent and do not have color at all. At the end of the thought-experiment Descartes concludes that sensory qualities like color, taste, scent, and sound are not basic features of body, but size, shape, and three-dimensional extension are. If we took away any of those features, there is no longer a body before us, but we could remove any other features and what is left would still be a body.

An entity consists in part of its basic or core features. Descartes the argues that for any other feature that a body has, that feature has to be explicable in terms of its core features. The core features are basically the building blocks of the entity. So if it has basic features A, B, and C, it might have some other features in addition, but those features would have to be explicable in terms of A, B, and C. If the core features of body are size, and shape, and three-dimensionality, it is explicable how a body could have motion, for example. But Descartes argues that there is no way to explain how thinking/mentality could arise or emerge from the basic features of body. A body has size, shape, and extendedness, and we can infer that bodies also are capable of motion, but there is no way to explain how thinking could arise from the size, shape, and motion of bodies. A particular body might come to have a larger size, or a different shape or motion, but the emergence of thinking from bodies that exhibit no trace of thinking at the most fundamental level – that is impossible. In effect it would be a case of something coming from nothing, he is arguing.

To ask the question of whether or not thinking/mentality can emerge or arise from the basic features of body, we have to know what are the basic features of body, but we also have to know what thinking/mentality is. The Second Meditation does a lot of heavy lifting for Descartes. As we have seen, it is meant to show that sensory beliefs are not the most evident kind of knowledge. For example, (he argues that) we know abstract claims like “I am, I exist” much better than we know that a given body has a particular color. That helps us to move into the Third Meditation and confront claims like that something cannot come from nothing – and then utilize those claims to construct arguments that are much more evident than (what Descartes would dismiss as) the cognitive garbage of Meditation One. But of course we needed to work through the First Meditation to get to “I am, I exist.”

 

2. Cudworth argues that there is unconscious mentality that is ubiquitous in nature. How does he arrive at this view? He worries that we might be suspicious that there could be such a thing as unconscious mentality, so he points to examples of human behavior that are purposive and goal-directed, but not conscious. Discuss one example.

The Second Meditation also presents a view about the nature of body, and in addition it presents a view about the nature of thinking. It advances the view that thinking is always conscious and highly reflective. We can see how Descartes arrives at this view: he is trying to secure results that are absolutely indubitable; he notices that his thinking must exist if he tries to doubt anything, and so he posits the existence of that thinking. But the thinking of the Second Meditation is highly introspective. We turn our attention away from the sensory world and focus on some mentality whose existence cannot be doubted, and then we conclude that that mentality exists. Fair enough. But Descartes thereby overlooks any mentality whose existence is not so obvious – for example, unconscious states that might play a role in our cognitive system or that might inform our behavior whether we notice it or not. This is one of Descartes’ great blunders. He looks for indubitable results; he notices that there are indubitable aspects of his thinking; he concludes that the indubitable aspects of thinking are the only aspects of thinking.

Descartes takes to be self-evident that there is no activity that takes place in a mind such that the mind is not aware of it as an activity. An objection that a number of Descartes’ contemporaries would pose is that there are states of mind that are active but that are not conscious.

Many seventeenth-century readers of Descartes resisted the conclusion that thinking/mentality is essentially conscious and reflective. An alternative view emerged from considerations of natural science and the attempt to explain the orderly behavior of physical bodies. Kepler, Galileo, and others posited that the explanation for such orderly behavior is that there are laws of nature – and that bodies obey them. But philosophers like Henry More, Margaret Cavendish, and Ralph Cudworth pointed out that if we say that it’s laws that are responsible for the orderly behavior, we need to say more about what those things are, and how they work. Are they commands – like in a human legal system – and do they tell bodies what to do? Do the bodies listen to he commands, and obey them? Are the laws things that are out there in the natural world – in addition to the bodies – and do they somehow influence bodies to act in an orderly way? We have to be careful in our use of the word ‘law’, More and Cavendish and Cudworth argued, and we have to get clear on what exactly we are positing when we say that there is something in nature that makes bodies exhibit the order that they do. Whatever it is, it must somehow come into contact with the bodies; it must help to move them in an orderly manner; and it must be pretty powerful if it moves planets (for example in line with Kepler’s law of elliptical orbits). More posited a “spirit of nature,” Cavendish posited reason and sense that accompanies bodies, and Cudworth posited a “plastick nature.” These are entities that help to guide bodies to exhibit orderly behavior. They are not conscious or highly reflective – presumably – but they enable bodies to exhibit a kind of order and sophistication that bodies would not be able to exhibit on their own.

More’s colleague Ralph Cudworth posited a similar unconscious intelligence that is pervasive in the natural world – what he called plastick nature. This is a being that “hath no Animal-Sense or Consciousness.” 

More, Cavendish, and Cudworth are thereby positing a kind of mentality that is ubiquitous in nature but that is not of the Cartesian variety. In case that kind of mentality seems unusual, Cudworth and Cavendish cite examples of human behavior that is purposive and goal-directed, but not conscious – like the hand movements of the expert dancer or piano player, or the leg movements of a person who is walking down the street absorbed in thought. 

Cavendish also highlights the way in which ideas often just come to us – for example, in the coherent order that is a train of thought. To use her language, there are background causes that “in order set” our thoughts.13 Often (if not always) we are unaware of these background workings; we are just their beneficiary,14 and lucky for us thoughts do not come to us in an order that is random. We might also consider the case of Henry More. He argued that there exists ubiquitously in nature a kind of thinking that is purposive and intel ligent, but wholly unconscious. He writes, The Spirit of Nature therefore, according to that notion I have of it, is, a substance incorporeal, but without Sense and Animadversion, pervading the whole Matter of the Universe, and exercising a Plastical Power therein according to the sundry dispositions in the parts it works upon, raising such Phaenomena in the World, by directing the parts of the Matter and their Motion, as cannot be resolved into mere Mechanical powers.15 More is thinking in part of the orderly behavior of bodies that scientists and philosophers document again and again in the period.16 Such order could not result from corporeal properties alone – for example, size, shape, and motion – because (More assumes) there needs to be something mental that guides the orderly behavior of bodies and keeps them on the rails. More’s colleague Ralph Cudworth posited a similar unconscious intelligence that is pervasive in the natural world – what he called plastick nature. This is a being that “hath no Animal-Sense or Consciousness.”

“These men (I say) seem not very well to understand themselves in this. Forasmuch as they must of necessity, either suppose these their Laws of Motion to execute themselves, or else be forced perpetually to concern the Deity in the Immediate Motion of every Atom of Matter throughout the Universe, in Order to the Execution and Observation of them . . . we cannot make any other Conclusion than this, That they do but unskillfully and unawares establish that very Thing which in words they oppose; and that their Laws of Nature concerning Motion, are Really nothing else, but a Plastick Nature.” - Ralph Cudworth, True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678), 151

“Fate, and the Laws or Commands of the Deity, concerning the Mundane Oeconomy (they being really the same thing) ought not to be looked upon, neither as Verbal things, nor as mere Will and Cogitation in the Mind of God; but as an Energetical and Effectual Principle, constituted by the Deity, for the bringing of things decreed to pass.” (Ibid., 161)

“Since neither all things are produced Fortuitously, or by the Unguided Mechanism of Matter, nor God himself may reasonably be thought to do all things Immediately and Miraculously; it may well be concluded, that there is a Plastick Nature under him, which as an Inferior and Subordinate Instrument, doth Drudgingly Execute that Part of his Providence, which consists in the Regular and Orderly Motion of Matter.” (Cudworth, TISU, 150)

“God himself [would do] all Immediately, and as it were with his own Hands, Form the Body of every Gnat and Fly, Instinct and Mite, as of other Animals in Generations, all whose Members have so much of Contrivance in them. . . .” (Ibid., 147)

“There is unquestionably, a Scale or Ladder of Nature, and Degrees of Perfection and Entity, one above another, as of Life, Sense, and Cogitation, above Dead, Sensless and Unthinking Matter; or Reason and Understanding above Sense, &c.” (Ibid., 858)

“[Plastick nature] is not Master of that Reason and Wisdom according to which it acts, nor does it properly Intend those Ends which it acts for, nor indeed is it Expressly Conscious of what it doth, it not Knowing, but only Doing. . . .” (Ibid., 162)

“But because this may seem strange at the first sight, that Nature should be said to Act for the sake of ends, and Regularly or Artificially, and yet be itself devoid of Knowledge and Understanding, we shall therefore endeavour to persuade the Possibility, and facilitate the Belief of it, by some other Instances; and first by that of Habits, particularly those Musical ones of Singing, Playing upon Instruments, and Dancing.” (Ibid., 157)

“[There is] no Reason, why this Plastick Nature (which is supposed to move Body Regularly and and Artificially) should be thought to be an Absolute Impossibility, since Habits do in like manner, Gradually Evolve themselves, in a long Train or Series of Regular and Artificial Motions, readily prompting the doing of them, without comprehending that Art and Reason by which they are directed.” (Ibid.

 

3. Discuss an example of a case in which a non-human creature is engaging in purposive activity but is presumably not conscious or reflective. How might this example present a problem for Descartes' view that mentality cannot arise from body? Does the example suggest that at the fundamental level bodies exhibit a kind of mentality?

In order to ask the question of whether or not thinking emerges or arises from bodies, we need to know what body is, and we need to know what thinking is. If thinking is essentially conscious and reflective, then it can be hard to see how thinking would emerge or arise from body. Consider for example the elements of the periodic table. If these exhibit no trace of conscious awareness or reflection, it is hard to see how thinking would emerge from them – from features like mass and atomic charge.

But if thinking is something different from what Descartes takes it to be, then maybe it could arise or emerge from body.

There are seventeenth-century arguments for the view that there exists unconscious thinking or mentality, and there are more contemporary thought experiments that we can offer as well. We considered some of these with the discussion of the “thinking about thinking” handout. For example, if spiders and bees and (perhaps) cells exhibit some form of mentality, but it is not conscious or reflective, then thinking is not essentially conscious or reflective.

1. Cells communicate.
2. The spider set a trap for the fly.
3. The bees are going after Jones, who has struck the beehive with a bat. The bees are going after Jones deliberately. 4. A baby bird is accurately described as trying to figure out how to fly.
5. The rock is trying to roll down the hill.
6. Smith fell asleep thinking about a problem and woke up with the solution, but was not consciously thinking while asleep. Intelligence was not operative in the solving of the problem.
7. The immune system learns via a process of acquired or adaptive immunity. 8. Guests are on the way. A is cleaning up in the living room and consciously thinking about the game last night. A is expecting company. 9. B is consciously thinking “I am expecting company.” B is lounging on the couch, and the living room is a mess. B is expecting company. 10. A and B are walking together and are absorbed in the same conscious thought – for example about pizza – and then there is a loud noise or similar external stimulus, and different thoughts pop into the minds of A and B. Those thoughts pop into their minds at random

There is still such a thing as consciousness of thinking, just like there is consciousness of other things, but thinking itself is not essentially conscious. There might be thinking that takes place below the threshold of conscious awareness – for example the cognition by which a clever thought comes to us – and it is thinking, even if it is not conscious. Another example is the thought that a person has upon hearing a particular sound. Another person might think of a different thought upon hearing the sound, and we might conclude that the occurrence of the thought in each person is random. Or, we might conclude that different thoughts occur to people because of different background mental states that are operative.

4. Discuss an example of a case in which a person is engaging in some behavior and is completely in the zone. What happens if the person tries to exit the zone and engage in the behavior from a persepctive of conscious reflective awareness? How might this case present a problem for Descartes' view that mentality cannot arise from body?

Students introduced a large number of wonderful examples in class, both in response to the T/F questions and also in the identification of examples of human behavior that is seamless but not conscious. We also discussed numerous cases in which a human being might try to engage in that same behavior, but in a way that is mediated by conscious mental states, and there is a breakdown – for example in juggling, or driving a manual transition, or thinking of the next word or topic in a conversation, or staring to long at the letters of a word. We also discussed objects – like a baseball bat or bench – that appear to depend for their identity on our unreflective use of them. There is a purposive sort of human activity that exposes the central the features of such objects, and that sort of activity is overlooked – along with the features of the objects themselves – if we think of reflective conscious thinking as the paradigm.