Human Uniqueness

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Human Uniqueness

 

The recent discovery of yet another extinct hominid species (Homo longi) raises a deeply puzzling question: Why are we still here? Evidently there were a number of hominid species co-existing with us on the planet only a few hundred thousand years ago, but now there is only Homo sapiens left. All the other hominid species went extinct—but not us! What makes us so special? These other species had a relatively brief life in the evolutionary limelight and then succumbed to the pressures of natural selection; they didn’t have what it takes. But they were very like us physically and clearly had their foot in the door. So what makes us so different—why are we alone still here? Maybe we were the best in the line by some measure, but why aren’t we still living with those other species in a subordinate role? Shouldn’t we be living a world of multiple hominid species—or alternatively, zero hominid species? Our unique persistence is an evolutionary puzzle.

            I conjecture that it was a mental difference that made the difference, not a physical difference (we are not impressive physically): but what mental difference? I will not be bucking orthodoxy if I say that it was language: we had language and they didn’t. But that is just the beginning of an answer, because language has many properties that don’t explain what needs explaining. It isn’t that we could communicate with each other but they couldn’t: there is no reason to believe that, and communication is a common trait in the animal kingdom. I imagine our human-like cousins were as much chatterers as we are—a noisy rambunctious lot. No, I think it was an internal cognitive trait conferred by language construed as a property of the brain. Our bodies looked and functioned just like other hominid bodies, but inside our brains there lurked a mechanism alien to their (sometimes large) brains. But what mechanism might that be? Recursion has been proposed and the idea is not without merit: iteration, embedding, infinite productivity. This is certainly a powerful mental tool, but does it suffice to explain our species superiority? It is suspiciously abstract and general, not connected intimately to the environmental challenges faced by a species such as ours. No doubt cognitive recursion fed into our dexterous hands, enabling feats of tool construction alien to our species cousins (they would probably be stunned at our technology if they were still around). But still, what is it about this that kept us going while they perished? Why weren’t we just a passing cognitive-manual novelty act?

            I have a simple idea. One fact about us that stands out is that we are everywhere: we have spread ourselves across the planet. We are natural travelers. That alone would not explain our differential survival, but in conjunction with the mental-manual adaptation I am talking about we start to perceive a subtle superiority. We can move elsewhere when times get tough and use our brain to deal with the new environment. Most species have a fairly fixed brain that can’t adapt to drastic re-location, but we have a brain that can rise to the occasion, because our brain is pre-adapted to novelty. The combinatorial power of the brain mechanism that underlies language allows us to handle novelty in the world around us—we are not fazed by the shock of the new. Our minds are inherently novelty-generating machines, because language is a structure with novelty built right into its architecture. We can thus process new terrains, new animals to hunt, new climates and weather patterns to contend with. We became a geographically mobile species, forever on the move, not afraid of new worlds—because we had the cognitive wherewithal to cope with novelty in the environment. The novelty inherent in language (and exhibited in recursion) allowed us to process the novelty of changing circumstances. Our extinct relatives by contrast didn’t possess this cerebral adaptation (they didn’t undergo the necessary mutation) and so they were baffled by the new and different, as most animals are. Our versatile brain joined with our dexterous fingers allowed us to survive in novel circumstances, so mobility became an option for us. This creative property of language is not well understood, despite its familiarity, and it may well have dimensions not currently recognized (it may not be just like a digital computer’s computations); but the theory is that this internal adaptation is the root of our capacity to survive while our hominid relatives died out. In short, we are traveling thinkers—we are not stay-at-home eaters and drinkers. We are combinatorial brains lodged inside roaming bodies, and not just roaming bodies but globe trotting bodies. Here I see an analogy with birds, also known for their globe trotting ways. They have those two little wings (like our two short legs) but they also have considerable powers of cognitive flexibility in dealing with the facts of geography (consider the miracle of migration): could this be an offshoot of their remarkable vocal capacity? The bird’s brain can evidently combine sounds into complex rule-governed patterns (we need not call this language), more so than most species, and they are also world travelers capable of adjusting their behavior to changing circumstances. Their wings take them there but their brains enable them to deal with the journey and the destination. Birds are our brothers, our kindred spirits—creative gypsies, as it were. We are both geographical savants, relatively speaking: we both excel at navigating far-flung environments, using our ability with creative syntactic systems. For birds and humans life is a road trip.  [1]

            Most animal brains are steady-state pre-programmed conservative machines, content to mirror a relatively unchanging world. But human brains (and bird brains) fizz with combinatorial activity, containing a frenzy of sequencing and re-sequencing, with a passion for novelty; and this enables them to respond to a rapidly changing world that calls for constant updating and rethinking. At the root of this is the trait we call language, which is fundamentally a device of almost limitless recombination, almost too creative. What is all that creative firepower for? Isn’t it a drain on our energy resources? Most animals get by quite nicely without it. But we evolved this unusual trait for some reason (possibly originally as a tool for thought), and it turned out to help enormously with the geographical demands of hominid life back in the days of multiple hominid species. It made moving on not a recipe for extinction. The result was that we survived and they didn’t. It helped not just with communication and individual problem solving but also with the nomadic life-style. It enabled H. sapiens to become global gypsies. It is amazing to see how we humans can survive in radically different environments placing completely different demands on the inhabitants: this is our singular trait, our species character. It is what enabled us to survive and prosper but our relatives not so much; and it springs from the brain mechanism that makes language possible. We have a lot to learn about this capacity, but it seems to be the main reason we are still here. Without it we would now just be skulls and fossils.  [2]

 

Colin McGinn       

  [1] It is an interesting fact that we humans are so into traveling and tourism: we don’t want to stay home all the time—we long to venture forth to foreign lands. Tourism is in our genes. We feel creative when we are abroad meeting new challenges. Is this a manifestation of our old enthusiasm for moving on when the occasion warrants? New sentences, new locales: two sides of the same coin. And travel writing: using language in the service of geographical adventure. Language, we might say, is an adventure in symbols; travel is an adventure in geography. Thus we arrive at the linguistic theory of geographical competence—the abstract combinatorial structure of language is the basis of our ability to cope with new environments. And that was the key to survival in the early hominid days.

  [2] I have suggested that there is a similarity between geographical capacity and linguistic capacity, in that both involve creativity. I have implied that the linguistic function came first, leading to the offshoot of geographical competence across varying domains. But it is not to be ruled out a priori that things were the other way about: the mutation that allowed for geographical versatility came first and then led to the capacity for linguistic creativity. That at least is a conceptual possibility. I think it is unlikely to be true, however, because language would need extra adaptations in order to exist as it is, but we should always be careful about claiming functional priority. The more likely hypothesis is that language came first and then its machinery was repurposed to form the capacity to handle geographical novelty. Language may also have been the basis for mathematical competence, and a similar story could hold true for the human ability to thrive in very different environments. In a slogan: geography recapitulates grammar.  

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Mysticism and Philosophy

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Mysticism and Philosophy

 

 

The word “mysticism” has a variety of meanings, but the one of interest to us now is “vague or ill defined religious or spiritual belief, especially as associated with a belief in the occult” (OED). This definition itself contains some vague or ill-defined words, notably “religious”, “spiritual”, and “occult”. For “occult” we find “supernatural or magical powers, practices, or phenomena”. Mysticism is thus understood to include belief in things that are somehow outside the natural, normal, everyday, ordinary, commonsense, intelligible world—the uncanny, spooky, weird, queer, profound, awe inspiring. Is mysticism in this sense a natural part of philosophy? Do philosophers find themselves believing in the mystical as part of their professional occupation? Certainly some philosophers have attracted the label “mystical”: one thinks of Plato’s theory of forms, of Hegel’s metaphysical monism, of the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus. But is the mystical a more entrenched part of the philosophical enterprise—is it woven into the very fabric of philosophy? If we survey the field do we detect signs of it in positions not avowedly mystical? What about panpsychism? What about David Lewis’s possible worlds realism? What about hardline Fregeanism? What about Godel’s mathematical platonism? These doctrines all traffic in entities that go beyond ordinary experience, and all require a leap of faith if they are to be taken seriously; there is a frisson of exhilaration in accepting them. And there is an aura of religious dedication in the attitudes of their firmest exponents. It isn’t as if the mysticism of philosophy past has completely withdrawn its tentacles from the subject; it still breaks out here and there. The philosopher, even the university-based analytical philosopher, is still in the mysticism business, still adjacent to the Department of Mysticism.

            Why is this? Why hasn’t philosophy outgrown its roots in primitive mysticism? The answer is that philosophical problems themselves involve us in the permanent possibility of the mystical. Mysticism is always hovering in the background waiting to pounce; we either embrace it or seek to ward it off. We might even call philosophy a battle against the bewitchments of the mystical, with some philosophers temperamentally on the side of the mystical and some against it. It can’t be ignored because it is what philosophy is so frequently about. Take the mind-body problem: the whole debate reeks of the mystical, notably in the threat of dualism. We are constantly trying to avoid going down a mystical path, embracing the occult and the spooky. Materialism might be defined as simply anti-mysticalism: it would have little appeal but for its promise to ward off its mystical-sounding rivals. No one ever claimed that materialism can be seen to be obviously true just by inspecting the nature of the mind! That is why the debate is so heated: mysticism looks to be a real threat when it comes to the nature of mind. But the same thing is true of other central problems: free will, the self, necessity, causation, mathematics, ethics, meaning, etc. In each area we find positions that introduce mystical elements, implicitly or explicitly—stuff that strikes us as occult, as suspiciously thrilling, as subversive of commonsense naturalism. Pure voluntarism, the transcendental ego, modal hyperrealism, inscrutable causal powers, abstract objects, objective values, mind-independent senses, etc. The world is threatened with realities not recognized in science and common sense—realities that excite devotion, enlarge our sense of what is, indicate a hidden reality akin to the divine. Some philosophers will fall in love with these mystical elements; others will bend over backwards to avoid accepting them. But they are part of the philosophical landscape: they define the subject. We may as well admit it and call it by its proper name. Isn’t this partly why philosophy has the appeal it has? The sciences don’t generally stray into mystical territory, except in their most philosophical moments, which is reassuring, if somewhat deflating (especially compared to earlier times); but philosophy is really up to its neck in mysticism, either welcoming it or resisting it. David Lewis was a modal mystic entranced with his super-ontology of existing but non-actual worlds. Quine was a desert landscapes mystic if you look deep: he campaigned for a world unified by physical science and radically contrary to common sense, and he was fond of the gnomic pronouncement (“To be is to be the value of a variable”, “Nothing is true but reality makes it so”). Davidson was a meaning mystic whose ruling deity was Alfred Tarski: the theory of truth as the key to all problems, if only we could see that there is nothing to meaning than those tantalizing snow-bound biconditionals. That is why these philosophers spawned cults whose members seemed hypnotized by certain phrases and postures (“Convention T”, “the museum myth”, “the indexical theory of actuality”). The later Wittgenstein was also a mystic, though of a peculiar variety: he was a kind of second-order mystic sternly opposed to the first-order mysticism of the Tractatus. His catchphrases resonate like cultish mantra: family resemblance, language game, form of life, grammar, use, criterion, custom, practice, rules, seeing-as, etc. He introduced a philosophical vocabulary that promoted a liberationist movement, a dream of a better philosophical life, a life of intellectual peace, and of smug superiority. The cult of the later Wittgenstein was itself a form of mysticism—possibly akin to nature mysticism, or the romantic worship of the everyday.

I don’t say that all forms of mysticism in philosophy are necessarily wrong (though I tend to find myself opposed to them); I am merely observing that mysticism is a real phenomenon within even the most recent iterations of Western philosophy (it’s clearly alive and well in Eastern philosophy). Perhaps we find it embarrassing to admit such retrograde intrusions in our enthusiasm to mimic the natural sciences, but it is clear on reflection that mysticism is built into the structure of the subject. Russell published a book called Mysticism and Logic, relishing the jarring juxtaposition, but a book called Mysticism and Philosophy would hardly be eyebrow-raising, simply because the two things are just not so far apart. Mysticism can come in many forms, often in disguise, sometimes clandestinely, and philosophy as we have it now is not immune to its charms, as well as its possible harms. Let’s start talking about it openly. We need, as they say, to have that conversation.  [1]

 

Colin McGinn

 

                

 

  [1] A word on mystery and mysticism: one of main motivations for postulating mystery is the avoidance of mysticism. Instead of declaring some subject matter inherently supernatural we attribute its recalcitrance to understanding to human intellectual limitation. The spooky is just ignorance reified. The mysterian is the least mystical of philosophers. Of course this is compatible with accepting some elements of the mystical viewpoint: some things might really be quite different from other things, and matter might be the most mystical thing of all. There is intellectual room for the mystical mysterian, though he is certainly a rare bird.

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Missing Footnote

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This footnote belongs at the end of the paper just posted. [1] Possibly a more intimate acquaintance with universals would lessen the mystical impact of Plato’s theory, by which Russell was clearly affected. The aura of the mystical and supernatural might not survive an up-close look at these elusive creatures. Ignorance tends to breed superstition. Surface dwellers might find the idea of caves deeply meaningful and mystical, almost godlike. Even the form of the Good might not seem quite so radiant if you had to sit next to it on the subway every day.

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Thinking About Universals

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Thinking About Universals

 

In chapter IX of The Problems of Philosophy (1912) Russell makes a good case for the existence of universals in a roughly platonic sense. He ends with these stirring words: “The world of universals, therefore, may also be described as the world of being. The world of being is unchangeable, rigid, exact, delightful to the mathematician, the logician, the builder of metaphysical systems, and all who love perfection more than life.” (100) Let me add other characteristics of universals as traditionally conceived: they are undivided, non-spatial, non-temporal, non-mental, real, knowable, independent of particulars, capable of instantiation, yet not intrinsically instantiated. I want to focus on that last characteristic: in the platonic world (the word is appropriate) universals exist in a uninstantiated form—they are not exemplified in any particular. Hence they are not distributed in space or divided in their being: they are free-floating entities existing in their own right. While particulars cannot exist without dependence on universals, universals can exist in complete indifference to particulars. So they are not essentially and intrinsically instantiated: their original mode of being is not instantiated being. But in the world of sense their mode of being is to be instantiated: there are no universals in the world of sense that are not attached to a particular. You don’t see universals floating around without being tied to particulars. So in these two spheres of reality universals take quite different forms—particular-free or particular-bound. Particulars, however, take only one form—universal-bound.  We can thus say that universals enjoy a double life: in one world they are thus and so, in another they are such and such. The very same entity can appear in quite different guises, quite different incarnations—here unattached to any particular, there attached to particulars at the hip. It is as if the universal undergoes a transformation—a metamorphosis—when it makes the trip to the world of sense. It looks very different at the other end. It undergoes an ontological makeover.

            Plato introduced us to the idea of the cave as an analogy for having no acquaintance with universals as they are in themselves, seeing only particulars (mere shadows of reality). When a cave dweller escapes and encounters the world outside the cave he experiences a brand new reality and has trouble conveying his newfound knowledge to the other cave dwellers. This tells us that knowledge of universals as they intrinsically are is not attainable simply by sense perception, even though particulars exemplify universals (perceptibly so); we need to use our reason, the divine part of the soul. But we can construct another parable that illustrates the transformation wrought upon universals by their exemplification in the world of sense. Suppose there are people that live only on the surface of the planet and know nothing of caves: they have never been inside the earth and imagine it to be a solid block containing no cavities. Imagine there is no night on the surface, just constant sunlight. These surface dwellers are the analogue of beings that know only universals and never particulars; the world of underground caves is unknown to them. They are blissfully ignorant of darkness and shadows. Then one among them discovers a cave and enters its gloomy interior, thereby discovering a new reality. She is amazed by this new world, so different from the one she is accustomed to, but she has trouble explaining to the other surface dwellers what a cave is and is generally pooh-poohed by them. This is the condition of someone who knows only the world of abstract universals by the use of reason and is suddenly given senses through which particulars can be perceived. She had no idea that universals could be hooked up to particulars in this way, assuming them to be essentially autonomous entities. In fact, she doesn’t recognize them at first, finding them to be pale imitations of the real thing; it takes a while before she realizes that these funny little nuggets of appearance are in fact the dear old universals she knows from her use of reason. Ah, she thinks, so universals can actually become attached to things existing in space! Like Alice, she finds life very peculiar in her new world, a kind of distorted simulacrum of normal life outside the cave. The universals have changed into reduced parodies of their usual radiant selves.

            I am saying all this to dramatize the point that universals, as traditionally conceived, exist in two quite different forms, according as they are instantiated or not instantiated. This means that our knowledge of them is also of two types: sense-based and reason-based. They can be perceived and they can be thought about, but they are perceived as instantiated and thought about as uninstantiated. That is, they can enter thought in their pristine form, but they cannot be objects of sense in that form, but only in their instantiated form. There is thus a double epistemology corresponding to their double ontology. I think Russell fails to see this and thus fails to grasp that universals are epistemologically problematic. He writes in chapter X, “On Our Knowledge of Universals”, as follows: “It is obvious, to begin with, that we are acquainted with such universals as white, red, black, sweet, sour, loud, hard, etc., i.e. with qualities that are exemplified in sense-data. When we see a white patch, we are acquainted, in the first instance, with the particular patch; but by seeing many white patches, we easily learn to abstract the whiteness which they all have in common, and in learning to do this we are learning to be acquainted with whiteness.” (101) Here Russell uncritically subscribes to the empiricist’s abstractionist theory of general concepts, not realizing that the step from perceived whiteness to the concept of whiteness in general is not as small and smooth as he appears to think. For the latter concept is of whiteness as uninstantiated but the former experience is of whiteness as instantiated. How do we get from concrete perceived instances of whiteness in space and time, as exemplified by particulars, to a concept of whiteness as unchangeable, undivided, uninstantiated, non-spatial, non-temporal, and intrinsically independent of particulars? If universals in the platonic world are as different from particulars as Russell urges, how is it possible to move from the latter to the former, as the quoted passage suggests? The answer is that it is not possible—abstractionism is a broken theory.  [1] That is why rationalist philosophers, beginning with Plato, have adopted a non-perceptual theory of our knowledge of universals: we have innate ideas of universals that represent them in their original pristine form (allegedly: see below). That is, they adopted a double epistemology of universals to go with their double ontology; they didn’t try to leverage our pure concepts of universals from our perception of the particulars that exemplify them. Nor did they attempt, like Russell, to combine a robust platonic ontology of universals with a simple empiricist theory of concepts of them (Plato would be horrified). No, if you accept the platonic ontology of universals you need to recognize that empiricist epistemology won’t work for them; another epistemic faculty is necessary in order to account for our knowledge of universals. This is particularly true for knowledge of propositions that concern only relations of universals—a priori knowledge, as Russell says.  [2] If you want to stay empiricist in your epistemology, you can’t very well accept a platonic ontology—you need to go nominalist or conceptualist or Aristotelian or skeptical. Russell here lazily combines his mathematician’s fondness for platonic ontology with his British empiricist predilections regarding knowledge. The brief passage I quoted contains a gaping epistemological hole whose existence it is hard to believe he didn’t notice.

            So what should be said about the epistemology of universals under a platonic conception? It seems to me that an admission of inadequacy is in order. First, we do not acquire an adequate conception of universals by perceiving their instances, since (among other things) perception only presents them in instantiated form, which is not their original intrinsic form; nor is this conception derivable from perception by some intelligible procedure. If this were our only access to universals, we would be cognitively closed off from what they really are. But second, our actual intellectual grasp of them leaves much to be desired: we have only the most hazy and sketchy conception of what they like in themselves. Any mental images we might have corresponding to whiteness, say, do little to further our knowledge of the universal; but in their absence only the word provides a solid handle onto what we are talking about—and it is just a word. Notice how negative the list of characteristics is that define universals for us; we are shooting in the dark at an elusive target.  [3] I think it is even unclear whether our thought concerning universals represents them as instantiated or uninstantiated: we know that the platonic tradition says the latter, but earnest self-reflection leaves the question up in the air (I suspect many people would reject the tradition on this point). We really have very little idea what these entities are like—yet if they exist they must have a determinate nature. They can’t be as wispy and airy as they seem. Plato was right to teach that they are extremely hard to know, requiring diligent training and focus; but I see no evidence that any course of training has actually succeeded in bringing them limpidly into our ken. They remain as elusive—as tantalizing—as ever.  [4] I don’t think this casts doubt on their robust reality, but it does suggest that our knowledge of them is shaky and possibly inaccurate. Perhaps they are natural mysteries. Perhaps our grasp of them is like our grasp of the quantum world—just not very penetrating. Perhaps they belong to a world that our epistemic faculties are not well designed to comprehend; we do better with basic cave epistemology. Plato discovered a part of reality that is only dimly glimpsed by us. For those with different epistemic faculties it might present itself very differently. Russell should have considered the possibility that our knowledge of universals is inherently limited and sorely lacking in clarity and distinctness.

  [1] Many criticisms have been made of the theory, which I won’t rehearse, but let me just note a couple of points arising from Russell’s breezy discussion. First, does he really believe that young children consciously go through this process of reasoning in order to come up with the general concept of whiteness? Does he think parents and teachers instruct children to do this in order to acquire general concepts? Second, where do we get the idea of what is in common between things? Isn’t this a general concept that precedes all occasions of (alleged) abstraction? And don’t we see what is in common precisely by already having the universal concept we are supposed to be acquiring? When you judge that snow and milk are similar don’t you judge that both are white?

  [2] All knowledge, whether a priori or a posteriori, involves universals, but a priori knowledge is concerned with relations between universals in their uninstantiated form, while a posteriori knowledge is concerned with universals in their instantiated form. Thus we can define the difference between the two types of knowledge by invoking the concept of instantiation.

  [3] Here is a puzzle for you: if you could see the universal Whiteness, would it look white? Maybe it only looks white when it comes exemplified in a particular; in itself it has no color. Then how does it make things look white?

  [4] The idea that we have acquaintance with universals in our cognitive encounters with them seems particularly strained: to suppose that they come before the mind in naked form, fully revealing their contours and texture, is surely wide of the mark. Rather, they remain maddeningly out of reach, especially when no image accompanies their appearance in thought. This is why they have always seemed so speculative and suspicious to the epistemology obsessed. We are acquaintance-deficient with respect to them.

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Predication and Instantiation

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Predication and Instantiation

 

Predication is one thing, instantiation another. Predication involves language (and maybe thought), but instantiation relates objects and properties. The subject-predicate relation is not the object-property relation. The subject of a sentence is clearly not the same as the predicate: it sits in a different part of the sentence and can be torn apart from the predicate. No one would ever think that the subject-term is somehow a “bundle of predicates”, while it has been common to identify objects with bundles of qualities. Use-mention confusions never go that far! Maybe the meaning of the term consists in a bundle of concepts, but the term itself is hardly a bundle of predicates. Still, it would not be amazing if the subject-predicate distinction shapes our conception of the object-property distinction: we might conceive of the relation between objects and properties by analogy with the relation between subjects and predicates. And this could lead to an exaggeration of the distance between objects and their properties. It could lead to the idea of the bare particular or the property-less substance—the ontological analogue of the subject-term in all its autonomous glory. It might also lead to the idea of self-predicating properties: properties as containing within themselves the power of predicating themselves of objects. So instantiation would be construed as a property ascribing itself to an object. That is, if we model instantiation too closely on predication we end up reifying objects and anthropomorphizing properties—making objects too far removed from their properties and making properties into peculiar kinds of agents. Instantiation should not be modeled on predication; predication is merely a report of instantiation (when true). The relations certainly should not be confused.

            Having absorbed this point the metaphysician may feel free to propose a far more intimate connection between objects and properties. And it does indeed seem as if this relation is much closer than mere coupling: objects are nothing without properties, literally; and properties stick closely to objects, finding their natural home there. This has led theorists to propose that objects simply are bundles of properties—collections or aggregates of them. Properties have the power to congregate and when they do an object emerges. But this theory invites obvious objections: a collection of properties is just a set, an abstract object, not a concrete particular existing at a specific place; such a set is not unified in the way an object is, being just a collection of disparate entities; and it is left a puzzle how properties manage to join with each other (most sets don’t contain joined members). The bundle theory looks quite wrong on reflection, despite its initial appeal. But we don’t want to lapse back into the predication model with its sharp separation between object and property. We want to steer between these two extremes.

            This is going to call for some serious metaphysics. I propose that we accept that there is a force in the universe that is not recognized in physics but which is analogous to the attractive forces already accepted.    [1] This force induces fusion among properties: it brings properties together and binds them tight. As electromagnetism holds particles together in a steady state, so too this new force holds properties together in stable wholes. We call these wholes “objects” or “particulars” or “bodies”. If we think of properties in Plato’s style, we can conceive the force as acting on these entities and drawing them into proximity to each other. The idea is that in addition to an ontology of properties (universals, general kinds) we recognize a further ingredient to reality, viz. a binding force that ties properties together. The force is breakable, like other forces, and thus allows for change of properties, but it enables properties to be glued together for the duration. An object is not then merely a bundle, as the solar system is not merely a bundle; it is a unified whole held together by a real force. Plato needed to add a further ingredient to his ontology of universals: a force capable of generating particulars from universals. Of course, this force is pretty mysterious—as all forces are—but its introduction is motivated by theoretical considerations. It offers to explain what the other two theories get wrong; it must be evaluated in the light of the theoretical needs presented by the existence of instantiation. Let’s call this force “grippity”: then we can speak of the grippital force that holds properties together to form objects. Perhaps some pairs of properties have a greater grippital attraction than others, making it harder to break their bond: mass and density, say, may be more tightly joined than color and shape. But generally the universe contains objects that are constituted by a force that links universals to each other. It may involve some transformation of the original properties so as to suit them to melding together, as we may suppose that gravity affects the inner nature of the objects on which it acts. It is certainly a very basic and primitive force, antedating all others, since it is a condition for the existence of any object whatsoever. Putting it theologically, God first made universals as freestanding entities and then introduced a force to form them into clumps. Without this force the universals would simply have gone their own way, never meeting up and fusing. Grippity is what enables concrete universes to form—places where particular objects exist. We might say that it is the fundamental force in nature.

            Instantiation, then, is a product of something beyond the operations of predicating or bundling, an extra fact about the universe. Perhaps it is an all-or-nothing force not admitting of degrees (unless we can make sense of possessing a property to a certain degree); it either binds properties together or it does not. Its main mission is to create the things we call objects, i.e. centers of property instantiation. Properties can’t do it by themselves, but they allow it to be done to them by a specially customized force. When you predicate a property of an object you are in effect reporting the result of an active force—just as when you describe someone as standing still you are reporting on the force of gravity. Gravity keeps objects from floating apart; grippity keeps properties from floating apart.

    [1] To my knowledge no theory of this form has ever been proposed, but it is quite natural in the light of the history of physics. Physics has repeatedly postulated new forces to explain observed phenomena, often contrary to entrenched assumptions. The idea that properties just spontaneously clump together to create objects is reminiscent of the Aristotelian doctrine that objects spontaneously move in certain ways. Newton’s introduction of the force of gravity is an admission that we need more in the universe than just objects and their intrinsic natures; we need a force to supplement objects and their natures. Similarly, in order to explain instantiation we need something beyond bare properties and objects; we need a force that binds things together. We need an attractive force acting at the level of properties. The universe is a place of hidden forces of various kinds, and grippity is just another such force.

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A Problem for Direct Reference

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A Problem For Direct Reference

 

According to the theory of direct reference, the meaning of a name (and possibly an indexical expression) is the object that is its reference—typically an ordinary concrete object. The weak version of the theory says that this object is at least part of the meaning of the name; the strong version says that the object is the whole of the name’s meaning. In either case we can say, according to a standard formulation, that the object enters the proposition expressed by the sentence containing the name: it is a constituent of the proposition so expressed. Just as senses or intensions or concepts are said to enter into propositions, so objects themselves can be said so to enter. Thus a singular proposition is said to be an ordered pair of an object and a property, not just an assembly of properties. Meanings can be partly composed of objects—extensions not intensions.

            But objects have properties: some people hold that they are just aggregates of properties (bundles, sets). So aren’t properties a part of the package? If objects are contained in the proposition, don’t properties come along for the ride? If properties can be constituents of propositions in their own right, they can also feature in propositions as borne by the objects that instantiate them. Objects can hardly leave their properties behind when they step into propositions—they would not be objects at all if they did that. No, the object brings its properties into the proposition too—all of them (it doesn’t shed some and retain others). But if the object is the meaning, then these properties are also contained in the meaning. The parts of the object clearly accompany it into the heart of the proposition, and so do its actual properties; an object is a complex thing and its complexity survives in the warm environment of the proposition. The idea of direct reference is that the proposition contains at least the reference, but then it also contains what the reference contains—properties as well as parts. If it contains properties as detached from objects, it need not contain more than the properties in question (and their logical entailments); but if it contains objects, it will also contain all the properties that the object possesses. Thus the meaning of a name, so far from being simple and austere, is replete with properties—many more than under a classical description theory. The object itself guarantees that.

            This has a rather startling consequence: all true sentences containing names are analytically true. For every property we can truly predicate of the object is already contained in the meaning of the name via the object named. The properties get uploaded into the proposition via the object and hence anticipate whatever might be truly predicated of the object. If only a single property occurs in the subject position, then we don’t have this consequence—there will only be one analytic truth generated by the name—but if the object brings all its properties along with it, then every true sentence containing the name will be analytic. That means every such sentence will be a necessary truth. Not an a priori truth to be sure, because speakers can’t be expected to know every property of the denoted object, but a truth that follows from meaning alone. This Leibnizian conclusion falls directly out of the direct reference theory, unless some way can be found to block it. It’s like putting a bunch of objects into a drawer: the objects will be in there but so also will their properties—the objects don’t stop having their properties just by being put in a drawer. Take a peek inside and you will see the properties lurking in there. The proposition doesn’t contain bare particulars but propertied particulars. If objects are literally bundles of qualities, then you will be putting such bundles into the drawer—or the proposition. This is not a consequence of the direct reference theory that I have ever seen acknowledged, but it appears inescapable.

            But there is an even more startling consequence in the immediate offing, which I hesitate even to mention. Some may see in the derivation just rehearsed a welcome refutation of the direct reference theory, but what if I told you that the same result, or something very like it, applies no matter what the theory is? Glee might then turn to panic—or hysterical incredulity. Here is one way to put the point: when properties enter into propositions (i.e. sentence meanings) they too have properties—for instance, the property of being instantiated, or the property of being co-instantiated with another property in a certain object. For example, the property of being red has the property of being instantiated by British post boxes and also the property of being co-instantiated with roundness in a cricket balls. Properties thus bring with them other properties that are not analytic entailments of the given property; and this gives rise to what may be called surprise analytic truths—as that redness has instances and is the color of cricket balls. If the property itself has certain properties, then this property will bring these other properties along with it, thereby generating surprise analytic truths. Or consider senses: these too have assorted properties—having a certain reference, being currently grasped by the Queen of England, being sometimes too complex for humans to get their minds around, etc. So when a Fregean Thought contains such senses must it not also contain the properties of those senses? They come with the territory, just as in the case of objects and theirproperties. Why do we assume that only some properties of senses properly belong to the meaning of a sentence expressing them—why not all? By what magic might some properties of senses be incorporated and some not?  [1]Frege compared senses to aspects of references, but aspects are themselves rich with attributes—a given aspect might be an aspect of Mount Everest, or frequently found with another aspect, or apprehended by some individuals but not by others.  So aspects of the aspect are going to find themselves wherever the aspect finds itself—lodged inside a sense. We are beginning to see the outlines of a general problem—the problem that whatever we choose to constitute meaning carries within it too much to be a meaning, as meaning is normally understood. We want meaning to be a thin slice of reality, so to speak, but the available theories always make it a good deal thicker than we bargained for. We could call this the thickness problem—and it threatens to undermine the notion of meaning as we have it. How do we stop too much of the world from getting into the proposition? How do we stop meanings from absorbing too much of reality? Any entities they comprise are bound to be carrying a cargo of extra baggage—to be overstuffed, overly inclusive. The entities will have features that make them (allegedly) suitable to function as meanings, but they will also have other features that are irrelevant to meaning: the features arrive in a package that can’t be broken apart. In the case of direct reference theory, we want the object to be in the proposition for various theoretical reasons, but the object presents other features that disqualify it from doing the job of meaning, notably the totality of its properties. We end up having to say that every true sentence containing a name is analytically true, and that the meaning of sentences containing names can never be fully grasped. It looks like we are headed for the conclusion that meanings cannot be made up of entities at all. But what else could they be? What else could anything be? Objects, senses, properties, functions, and images—all these are entities that bear more properties than meaning intuitively bears. So how could any of them be meaning? But then how could meanings exist at all? We are headed straight for skeptical paradox. Nor will use get us out of trouble, since uses too contain more than meaning does—vocal noises, laryngeal movements, events in the motor cortex, etc. Anything that exists in the empirical world has an abundance of properties that go beyond anything that could constitute meaning, so how could meaning be identical to anything like that? Empirical reality is just too thick to constitute meaning, too multilayered. And abstract entities such as we find in mathematics won’t work either: meaning isn’t mathematical, and anyway the problem will recur in a new guise—for mathematical entities are too ontologically rich as well. Propositions are sparse etiolated things, sliced very thin, but any facts we can mention, empirical or abstract, have too much depth, too much substance, too much thickness. The point is very vivid in the case of the direct reference theory, but apparently much the same problem afflicts theories that deal in more rarified entities. It looks like there is no way out, as a matter of principle. It looks like we have a problem, Houston. Meaning is having difficulty getting back down to earth.  [2]

 

  [1] References don’t present the same problem: they can be as rich and extensive as you like without generating unwanted analytic truths. This is because they are not construed as part of meaning in the Fregean picture, so there is no risk of them stuffing meaning with too much material. But senses are meant to be constitutive of meaning (which is commensurate with linguistic understanding) and so cannot accept any old properties into their constitution–yet they have many properties that go beyond what meaning intuitively contains.

  [2] I am as shocked as the next man by the argument of this paper and I keep thinking there must be a simple answer to it, but so far I have been unable to find one. I put it out there with some misgivings. Perhaps I should announce that I thought of it while trying to interpret an obscure text by an unknown philosopher consanguineous with L. Wittgenstein. It’s certainly a killer argument.

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Naming and Memory

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Naming and Memory

 

Two theories of naming have dominated recent discussion: the description theory and the causal chain theory. But there could be others: descriptive fitting and causal connection are not the only conceivable relations that might underlie the naming relation. Earlier theorists might have suggested that a resemblance relation is the relation that underlies naming: the reference of a name on a given occasion of utterance is the object that resembles the mental image in the mind of the speaker. Such theories have not been popular since Wittgenstein’s criticism of image theories of meaning, and for good reason. But images do have referents, so they are the kind of thing that might logically qualify as determining the naming relation. Perhaps there are speakers elsewhere in the universe that invariably have detailed images corresponding to every name they use, and in fact these are the determinants of a name’s reference. This is the correct theory for them. We might want to modify it to accommodate the conceptual point that objects and images can’t really resemble each other, being entities of quite different types; but that is easily accomplished by saying that the image resembles the percept that speakers have in mind when they perceive the reference of the name. It appears that such a theory is pretty hopeless empirically for human name users, given their paucity of imagery, but in principle the theory could be correct for differently constituted beings. However, the theory suggests a wider range of options than is commonly recognized. Might there be a better theory that has some affinity with the image theory but avoids its pitfalls?

            I want to suggest that memory provides such a theory. The basic idea is simple: the reference of a name is the individual the user of the name is remembering when he or she utters the name. More precisely, the user associates the name with a certain memory (possibly a memory image) of its referent. The name evokes a specific memory of particular person or thing, and it refers to the entity thus remembered. For example, I have memories of Saul Kripke derived from meeting him, and “Saul Kripke” refers for me to the person I am remembering when I use that name. So there are two relations that go into fixing the reference of a name: the memory relation itself (“m is a memory of object x”) and the association relation between a name and a particular memory (“m is associated with name n”). We need not go into what constitutes these two relations—it could be a causal relation and a relation of psychological association of ideas—what matters now is that the two together supply an alternative to the usual two theories of naming. In short: you are naming what you are remembering when you use the name. The remembering relation between memory image (trace, engram, etc.) and object is what underlies the naming relation. We are not limited to invoking descriptive relations and causal relations—that is, semantic fitting and social transmission. We need to consider the suggestion that the basic relation in naming is remembering x.

            There is an immediate objection: what about naming things of which we have no memories? The objection must be conceded: we often refer to people and things of which we have no memory, that we have never seen, met, or experienced in any way. For example, I can refer to Plato (I just did) and yet I have no memories of Plato. But this is not a real problem for the theory, because we can simply take a leaf out of the chain-of-communication theory’s book: those with no memories of the bearer of the name refer to that individual by using the name with the intention of referring to the same individual as the speaker from whom they learned the name. So the theory is really a two-part theory: there are the in-the-know speakers with memories of the individual in question, and there are the speakers that are parasitic on these privileged speakers. This resembles the standard theory that combines an initial baptism with an historical chain of linked uses, but we substitute memory for baptism. Instead of saying that the reference of the name is fixed by a description or demonstrative in an initial baptismal act we say that speakers acquire memories of an individual and these memories fix the name’s reference.  [1] Intuitively, you encounter someone, perceive that individual in some way, and form a memory of the individual in question; you then decide to call that individual by a certain name. To ascertain the reference of a speaker’s use of a name we need to know which individual is being remembered when the name is used. The mechanism of reference is the memory-name connection—who or what the accompanying memory image is a memory image of. The material of the memory trace can be of any type—sensory, linguistic, computational, analogue, digital, etc.—what matters is that it is a memory of a specific thing. Other speakers can then defer to these original speakers in their use of the name, relying upon their memory of the referent to gain referential traction. The original reference is fixed by something in the speaker’s mind but it isn’t a definite description or a conceptual content that uniquely individuates the reference; it is simply a memory of the object, whatever form that memory takes.

            It might be countered that some names don’t rely on memory to achieve a referent: for example, we can just stipulate that the name “Albert” will refer to the first person born in the next century—and no one has a memory of such a future person. And does naming myself require that I have memories of myself? What about names of numbers? What about names of past objects that no one was around to remember? The answer to these natural questions is that no theory of naming should try to encompass every kind of name. There are different ways that names can hook up with objects: by descriptions, by demonstratives, by mental images, by memories, even by intellectual intuition. There is no such thing as the naming relation, if that means a single kind of grounding relation applicable in all cases. But the memory theory is a good empirical theory of most human names; it captures the most central cases, viz. our typical reference to people and places by means of ordinary proper names. The human institution of naming, as it now exists, is founded on human memory. If speakers were subject to widespread amnesia naming would not be possible in its current form: you have to remember the people you have met and you have to remember what names are associated with these remembered people. There doesn’t have to be a formal baptism for names to get introduced into the language, but there does have to be a general capacity to remember things. What all names do have in common is that they are a dependent mode of reference: they rely on other ways of singling objects out. This is not true for descriptions, demonstratives, images, perceptions, or memories; these don’t depend on some other type of reference to make them possible. But names have to piggyback on other referring devices, which can be of various kinds. We could justifiably speak of the “varieties of naming”. Still, for the vast majority of cases memory is central to our naming practices. We accordingly need to add the concept of memory to our account of names, as they mainly exist for us now, not just the concepts of description and referential link. The right final account probably includes all three elements suitably combined: memories, descriptive contents of memories, and interpersonal referential links.

            The theory I have in mind combines features from both the classic description theory and the newfangled causal chain theory. Causality enters through memory itself as well as through the historical chain of uses; and the memory theory locates naming in a certain state of mind, viz. possession of a memory image. Memories are always partial and perspectival, like Fregean senses, so that aspect of the description theory is preserved—remembering Hesperus is not the same mental state as remembering Phosphorus. Memories don’t have reference by means of uniquely identifying descriptions, any more than perceptions do, but there is clearly a definite content embedded in a given memory. Hence the associated name can have sense as well as reference in virtue of these memories. Descriptions and demonstratives don’t invoke memory in this way: you don’t need to remember anything in order to employ these referential devices (except what their constituent words mean). But you can’t successfully use a name unless you either remember its bearer or are suitably connected to someone who does (for those names that actually do depend on memory). Naming is a bit like knowledge: knowledge too is either memory-based or testimony-based, with the latter radiating out from the former. Similarly, naming is either grounded in memory or it radiates out from that basis by mean of interpersonal linguistic links. We might call this “the extended memory theory if names” just to have a label. We often don’t remember people’s names, but we don’t typically forget name’s people: say the name and we reliably remember the person referred to. This is fortunate or else we would be unable to use names in the way we do. Naming and memory go hand in hand.  [2]

 

Colin McGinn            

  [1] Note that babies are usually already named before a formal baptism is performed, so the baptism can’t be the mechanism whereby names are bestowed. The baptism is more a legal confirmation than an original source of naming.

  [2] I haven’t discussed names for natural kinds as well as names for perceptible qualities like colors, but the same considerations apply mutatis mutandis to these. For example, the use of “red” to name the color red depends on our ability to remember what red is, as well as our ability to associate such memories with color words. In general we must not underestimate the role of memory in linguistic understanding and use.

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The Virtuous Lie

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The Virtuous Lie

 

Kant held that all lying is wrong, even when the consequences of telling the truth are terrible. Most people have disagreed: sometimes lying is the right thing to do in cases in which truth telling would have bad consequences (e.g. the Nazis looking for the fleeing Jewish girl). The idea is that lying is always prima facie wrong (to use Ross’s terminology) but that in some cases net utility overrides this wrongness; not perhaps any degree of negative consequence but when the bad consequences are extreme enough. Surely it is right to lie if a whole civilization is at stake! What is not considered, however, is whether it can be right to lie even when the consequences of telling the truth are not bad. Can it ever be right to lie when the consequences of doing so are worse than the consequences of telling the truth? That sounds impossible, since consequences are the only conceivable way that the prima faciewrongness of lying can be overridden; there has to be something to counterbalance the wrongness of lying—and what could that be but the securing of good consequences? The only morally permissible lie is the beneficial lie: there can be no other valid reason for telling a lie.

            But this ignores another possible reason for lying: the binding force of a promise. Suppose you have a friend, Phil, who is rather short; and suppose Phil has an enemy, Bert, who is pettily obsessed with Phil’s height in relation to his own (he is an inch taller than Phil). Bert has been trying to find out Phil’s height so that he can loudly boast of his vertical superiority to Phil, but hitherto has been unable to ascertain this information. Phil asks you to promise not to tell Bert his height because he knows it will fill Bert with unseemly glee, and you agree. Bert subsequently asks you to tell him Phil’s height. If you tell the truth Bert will be overjoyed, relishing his petty rivalry with your friend Phil; but if you lie Bert will be disappointed and grumpy. Should you lie or tell the truth? If you tell the truth you break your promise to your friend, possibly being motivated by utilitarian considerations; but if you lie, you fail to maximize the amount of happiness in the world (let’s suppose Phil knows nothing of your encounter with Bert). This would be a lie that has no good consequences defined in terms of net utility. I say it would be right to lie in these circumstances, yet utility cannot be the reason. The reason is obvious: you made a promise to Phil, and that promise imposes a moral obligation on you. Now if it turned out that keeping that promise would result in the death of innocent people even Phil would agree that the promise should be broken, but not just because Bert would be made marginally less happy than the alternative. Promises must be kept even when utility is not maximized—as when you keep a promise to meet someone for lunch even though a more attractive option has presented itself.  [1]So lying can be the right thing to do just because you have promised (for good reasons) to lie—even when utility is not maximized. The promise overrides the lack of utility maximization. So virtuous lies can occur even in cases where consequences indicate otherwise. This is one of those cases in which your moral duties all things considered favor lying but not because one of these duties is to ensure the best possible outcome in respect of consequences.

            But isn’t the example abnormal? We don’t usually promise to lie, though we often promise to tell the truth. That may be true as a matter of statistical fact, but it doesn’t reflect a necessary truth. Consider a society ravaged by disease in which visible signs of the disease mar people’s physical appearance. There may be a general promise, implicit or explicit, not to remark on such signs—it just hurts people’s feeling to be reminded of their condition. This promise has binding force even if it is slightly worse for people in the long run if they don’t know what they look like—not catastrophic but real. Once the promise is in effect it creates a prima facie obligation to maintain the lie, even when the consequences of doing so may be slightly worse than insisting on the truth. Promising to lie is like promising to do anything: it creates a duty to act as promised—except in cases in which the consequences are dire enough to overrule the promise. Thus there could be a society in which this kind of virtuous lying is common and expected. There will be no general prohibition in this society against lying. We can even formulate a moral rule: it is morally wrong to tell the truth if you have promised to lie (insert the usual caveats). You ought to lie if you have promised to lie, just as you ought to do whatever you have promised. So Kant was wrong even by his own non-consequentialist standards: a pure deontologist can accept that lying is sometimes right, because the rule of promise keeping applies to lying too. Lying can be required by the rules of morality even when its consequences are less than optimal.  [2]

 

  [1] Ross gives the compelling example of carrying out a deceased person’s will: if the deceased has willed his property to John, it is wrong to allocate it to Jim on the ground that you think (correctly) that Jim will be made marginally happier than John. Promising as such carries moral weight irrespective of consequences.

  [2] It is tempting to conclude that lying is never intrinsically wrong, i.e. wrong just by being a lie. In the case of Phil and Bert you do nothing wrong in lying; the wrongness of lying, which is indeed generally wrong, depends on the surrounding context.

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