Link: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~jsearle/articles.html
I’ve been addressing the philosophy of mind and this week I looked at an article by John Searle. In “Why I Am Not a Property Dualist,” Searle challenges property dualism in favor of his biological naturalism. Both are theories of mind that attempt to make sense of the mind-body problem. The version of the mind-body problem Searle is interested in is how consciousness relates to brain states. Are either reducible and what does that entail?
Searle argues that there are two reasons the mind-body problem persists. The first is our inability to understand how brain states cause consciousness. The second is that the very language we use to talk about such things distorts what we say. (Searle, 2) I’m interested in this second suggestion. I think he has a point that just by saying there are mental things and physical things we assume that they are fundamentally different. Maybe a philosophically perfect language would not include notions like the mental/physical dichotomy.
Searle paints a version of property dualism which is fairly appealing. I will point out that property dualism is different than substance dualism. Rather than postulate two distinct substances, the property dualist holds that there are mental and physical properties that things like brains can share. Each is not reducible to the other and to deny one or the other is to make an ontological error. The problem for Searle is that the theory can’t account for how consciousness functions causally. We’re left with consciousness as an epiphenomenon which can’t guide behavior; it’s just a mysterious property we experience subjectively that arises from the physical causal chain. (Searle, 3)
Searle offers that consciousness is causally reducible to brain states, but is not ontologically reducible. By causally reducible to brain states, he means that we can provide the full account of behavior by appeal to nothing but the physical machinery of the body; consciousness doesn’t add a missing link or provide anything over and above the physical. By not ontologically reducible he means that the first person ontology of consciousness warrants it an existence of its own, a subjective existence. (Searle, 4) For Searle consciousness is biological and therefore physical. (Searle, 5)
So far so good, but how does this avoid epiphenomenalism? If consciousness is causally reducible to physical events, how is it causally efficacious? He attempts to explain by analogy to the solidity of the piston. Solidity is a feature of a piston. It is causally reduced to the micro events, but has a higher level causal capacity. Solidity is not a mere epiphenomenon, but causally interacts on a higher level. Hurricanes and liquidity have similar higher level features. (Searle, 6,7)
I encourage you to read this article, it is relatively short and a pretty easy read. I think Searle has put clarity to many concepts. I left out much of what he said about language but I encourage checking it out. I believe his ideas there have a lot of merit. I agree with much of what he says about the mind-body problem, but I don’t see how his final thought on epiphenomenalism fits. His analogies don’t quite do the trick for me, and I’m always a little skeptical about arguments from analogy in the first place. I don’t see how this view doesn’t entail logical fatalism. It seems to me that my higher level causal capacities of my consciousness still must have been determined out of necessity. If all acts are determined out of necessity there is only one possible future and we’ve got logical fatalism. I can say that yes, something exists, consciousness, by which I causally decide to raise my right arm. But we’ve conceded that on a deeper level, that very conscious act can be reduced to physical events in the brain, which were physically caused. Now for me, logical fatalism doesn’t seem like a bad idea but I don’t know if Searle would agree. It seems he doesn’t like the implications of epiphenomenalism, so accounts for a theory of causation in the mental, but it’s a kind of causation that is at bottom determined.
Searle, John. “Why I Am Not a Property Dualist”, Journal of Consciousness
Studies, 2002.
What is ontological reduction?
I'm not sure I understand Searle's view. I've tried reading him without much luck, so I'll focus on what you say, and contrast it with the views of David Chalmers.
Chalmers is a property dualist and an epiphenomenalist. He thinks there are psychophysical laws which dictate that where there are certain physical facts in the world, there will be conscious states, which don't in turn cause anything. The psychophysical laws are like the laws of physics: they could have been different. There could have been no consciousness in the world at all, even given the way the world is physically. For this reason, conscious states aren't physical, even though they have a physical source.
Since consciousness doesn't cause anything, Chalmers would agree with Searle that "we can provide the full account of behavior by appeal to nothing but the physical machinery of the body." Your description of ontological reductionism, that consciousness has "existence of its own," also sounds like something Chalmers would say. Therefore, Searle must have something non-obvious in mind. The analaogy of the piston helps, but only a little: in what sense is the solidity not reducible to physics?
response
Solidity is reducible to the micro physics involved, but what Searle argues is that it still makes sense to say on this higher level that this solidity functions causally. Consider "Why does the piston cause x? 1. Because it is solid. 2. Because the micro particles are in such and such an arrangement. "Why did you drink coffee?" 1. Because I desire coffee. 2. Because my brain in in such and such a state. The analogy is that my desire causes my action just like solidity causes things. Who cares that my desire is reducible to brain states just like who cares that solidity is reducible to micro states, they are still causally efficacious on this higher level.
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