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Consciousness and Object |
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Searle's Concept of Intentionality |
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by Jan Regner |
Contents:
2. The Mental and the Physical
2.1 Mental and Physical Phenomena
2.2 Being Directed towards an Object
3.2.1 Intentionality and Causation
3.2.2 The Background of Intentionality
and the Network
3.3 The Intentionality of Perception
3.3.1 Visual Experiences and Mental (Re)presentations
3.3.2 The Problem
of "Seeing-as"
3.3.3 Intentionality and Visual Experiences
3.3.4. Visual Perception and Its Conditions
3.3.5 Representationalism, Phenomenalism and Realism
3.3.6 The Problem of Particularity
3.3.7 Does Searle's concept lead to scepticism?
1. Introduction What kinds of relationship are there between our consciousness and the
real world? In what way do we perceive the world around us? Is there any
thought in our mind, which is not directed towards an object? How does
our mind work? One of the world's leading philosophers--John R.
Searle--attempted to answer all these and other questions. Reading his
books aroused my curiosity and provoked me to think.
Searle is known for his severe criticism of the dominant traditions in
the study of mind, both {\it materialist\/} and {\it dualist\/}, and of
the assertion that the mind is a computer program (so-called "Strong Artificial Intelligence"'). We may also recall his familiar
argument called "the Chinese Room". All these topics would be
worth of our attention, but it would go beyond the scope of this paper.
That is why I would like to pass all these things over in silence and
just present Searle's conception of Intentionality. Especially,
I intend to deal with the Intentionality of perception--the primary
theme of this paper.
The theory of Intentionality was founded when philosophers attempted to
describe and solve the philosophical problem of specific 'quasi-relations' between consciousness and objects and the direction of
our mind or language to the real world. I am referring to situations in
which we say for instance: "A thinks about p'', "B maintains that
q'', "X asks question if y'' and so on.
"Intentionality'' is a technical philosophical term which means being directed at, about or
of objects. This term has a long
history in philosophy. It is generally considered that the concept of
Intentionality was originally used by scholastic philosophers in the
Middle Ages, and then it was reintroduced into European philosophy by
the Austrian philosopher Franz Brentano (1833-1917). Brentano is very
often regarded as the creator of the concept of Intentionality. But it is
clear that he did not believe he was original at all. As Caston pointed
out: "He [Brentano] saw himself as belonging to a tradition reaching
all the way back to Aristotle that recognized the 'directedness' of mental acts.[1] Today we know that
Aristotle formulated explicitly the problem of Intentionality and also
made a solution to it a requirement for any adequate concept of
mind.[2]
Many other philosophers in history and nowadays were interested in
Intentionality; such thinkers as Husserl, Meinong, Frege, Twardowski,
Quine, Chisholm, Dennett and others. There was a lot of discussion among
them, but it is not possible to occupy all these inspiring theories and
controversies. Nevertheless, I intend to mention Brentano's concept in
passing because he is at the beginning of the discussion, and therefore
seems to be indispensable to understand Searle's thoughts. I also will
touch upon Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations on the subject of perception and the arguments of the critics against Searle's
concept. 2.
The Mental and the Physical It would be difficult to find a philosopher who had as large an
influence on European philosophy of the Twentieth century as Brentano
did and has been as little known as he has.[3] His works--especially
Psychologie
vom empirischen Standpunkt--were also a significant fountainhead of
philosophical investigations in analytical philosophy. The importance of
Brentano's thought for the concept of Intentionality seems to be largely
in his attempt to find a clear line of demarcation between the mental
and the physical. As Brentano notices the problem is that the
meanings of the words--'mental' and 'physical'--are not clear to us,
and that is why we do not possess a strict criterion for distinguishing
the mental and the physical. Nevertheless, Brentano realizes we possess
an intuitive or prephilosophical distinction between them. He describes
his project saying that the aim is to clarify the meaning of two terms 'physical phenomena' and
'mental phenomena.' He believes all the data of
our consciousness are divided into two great classes: that of the
mental, and that of the physical phenomena.[4]
2.1 Mental and Physical Phenomena Brentano's most profound and concise treatment of this problem is in the
chapter entitled "The Distinction between Mental and Physical
Phenomena'' of his work: Psychology From an Empirical
Standpoint. The first attempt at marking the mental-physical
distinction is the amassing of examples of mental and physical
phenomena. Brentano realizes that we mark the distinction
commonsensically, and he seems to be of the opinion that the distinction
introduced by himself is clearer.
To understand the demarcation between the mental and the physical let us
take the following examples: If A hears a sound x, or sees a coloured object
y, there are two different things we have
to distinguish: (1) the sound x, or the coloured object y and (2) hearing the sound
x, or seeing the coloured object y. Brentano asserts that all the
"states of imagination'' are
mental phenomena: "hearing a sound'', "seeing a coloured object'',
"feeling warmth or cold'', "thinking of a general concept'' etc. And
so every judgement, recollection, expectation, inference, conviction,
opinion, emotion, act of will, or intention is a mental phenomenon.
According to this classification, these examples are contrasted by Brentano
with the physical phenomena: sounds, figures, landscapes, colours, warmth,
cold, odour, images which appear in the imagination and so
on [5].
Brentano divides mental phenomena into three groups: (1) presentations
(Vorstellungen), (2) judgments (Urteile) and (3) phenomena of love and hate--emotions (Ph
2.2 Being Directed towards an Object The concept of Intentionality is a central point of Brentano's ontology
of mind. The passage where he first refers to the Intentionalit
"Jedes psychische Phänomen ist durch das charakterisiert, was die Scholastiker des Mittelalters die Intentionale (auch wohl mentale) Inexistenz eines Gegenstandes genannt haben, und was wir, obwohl mit nicht ganz unzweideutigen Ausdrücken, die Beziehung auf einen Inhalt, die Richtung auf ein Objekt (worunter hier nicht eine Realität zu verstehen ist), oder die immanente Gegenständlichkeit nennen würden."[7]
In this way Brentano reintroduces Intentionality into philosophy saying that mental phenomena are characterized by "the Intentional inexistence of an object'', "reference to a content'', "immanent objectivity'' or as it is generally called, "direction toward an object''. By the "inexistence of an object'' he probably means that the object of our thought or perception may not actually exist independently of that thought or perception. Brentano draws our attention to the fact that the `object' is not to understood here as meaning a "thing'' because it is possible that the "object'' does not exist. For example we could think about a dragon with three heads, even though the object of our imagination is not a part of the real physical world.
A presentation has a privileged place in this theory. It is understood here as an act of consciousness, a nominal Intentional reference. Every presentation has its object. Brentano uses a kind of tautology saying that the object of presentation is simply the presented object, nothing more, but that which is presented is independent of things which actually exist.[8]
In the previous chapter I attempted to outline Brentano's ideas
concerning the demarcation of the mental and the physical. From the
standpoint of Intentionality we could summarize it saying that Intentionality is
"directedness'', "aboutness'' or "ofness'' of mental phenomena (mental acts) towards an object. Now, let us return to
Searle's concept and present his modifications of Brentano's theory. As
I have already said the primary aim of this paper is Intentionality of
perception, but before we turn our attention to that, we need to
adumbrate the "default positions'' and some basic terms.
By "default positions'' Searle understands the views we hold
prereflectively so that any departure from them requires a conscious
effort and a convincing argument. He calls them the Background
of our thought and language.[9] Here there are some of them:
Many philosophers in history criticized these default positions. The
great philosophers often become famous for rejecting what everybody else
takes for granted. But, Searle thinks the positions are in general true,
and the philosophical attacks are mistaken.
As I have already said in the introduction, Searle is not satisfied with
the mental-physical demarcation in the present dualist and materialist
analyses of the mind-body problem. We cannot take heed of his
research as thoroughly as it would be worthy of. I intend to mention his
reflexion in passing enough to understand the conclusion concerning
Intentionality as a biological phenomenon.
By dualism we here understand the view that man consists of
the material body and an immaterial part (soul), or at least that a
person's mind is not reducible to his body.
In contrast, materialists asserts that a person's mind is a part of his
material body and that we can investigate it using scientific methods,
especially those of neurobiology. Materialism comes in many different
varieties, such as behaviorism, physicalism, functionalism,
reductionism, and so on.[10] Searle believes neither dualism, nor materialism have a chance of being
right, and the fact that we continue to pose and try to answer these
questions in the antiquated vocabulary of "mental" and "physical," "mind" and
"body," should be a tip-off that we are making some
fundamental conceptual mistake in our formulating the questions and the
answers. Every dualist conception makes the status and existence of
consciousness utterly mysterious and materialism in each its variety
seems to be completely false because it ends up denying the existence of
consciousness and thus denying the existence of the phenomenon that
gives rise to the question in the first place.
Searle devises a new solution of this problem: we have to reject the
obsolete terminology and accept the assertion that mind is a part of
nature, and thus it is a biological
phenomenon.[11]
It is clear that the primary and most essential feature of any mind is
consciousness. Thus, in the beginning of this discussion on the
"naturalized mind," it seems to be necessary to begin with Searle's
reflexion of consciousness:
"By 'consciousness' I mean those states of
sentience or awareness that typically begin when we wake up in the
morning from a dreamless sleep and continue throughout the day until we
fall asleep again. Other ways in which consciousness can cease is if we
die, go into a coma, or otherwise become 'unconscious'."[12]
This definition could arouse our dissatisfaction and valid objections. We
still could ask: But, what exactly does "consciousness" mean? Searle
answers that it is a biological process occurring in the brain. Thanks to
the efforts of natural sciences we know all of consciousness states are
caused by cerebral processes. But now, we have another problem: How brain
processes could cause consciousness or how brain processes do
in fact cause consciousness.
Searle does not try to answer such questions. He believes that
this "mystery" must be explained by neurobiologists, because
consciousness is a biological phenomenon. It is caused by lower-level
processes in our brain. Thus, conscious processes are simply biological
neuronal processes.
Searle admits that consciousness is certainly still special among
biological phenomena. That is why, he maintains that it comprises
high-level processes realized in the structure of the
brain.[13] Consciousness comes in huge number of forms and varieties, but what
essential, in all its forms, is its inner, qualitative, and
subjective nature. It has therefore a first person ontology, and that is why, it cannot be reduced to
third person
phenomena--cannot be material.[14]
3.2.1 Intentionality and Causation It is worth to point out that consciousness and mental acts
occurring in the process are essentially connected with
Intentionality. As we remember Brentano realized that mental acts are
characterized by "reference to a content", "immanent objectivity",
or simply "direction towards an object". Searle draw our attention to
the fact that not all conscious states are Intentional, and not all
Intentional states are conscious. But in spite of that it is absolutely
true that there is a connection between them. Now, let us see how
Searle defines Intentionality:
"Intentionality is that feature of the mind by which
mental states are directed at, or are about or of, or refer to, or aim
at, states of affairs in the world. It is a peculiar feature in that the
object need not actually exist in order to be represented by our
Intentional state."[15] Searle realizes that a conscious state, such as an intention or a desire,
functions by representing the sort of event that it is caused by. This
kind of mental causation is called here "Intentional causation.''
Conscious beings have a fascinating property: to represent objects and
states of affairs in the world and to act on the basis of those
representations. As we know, that feature got a name in European
philosophy: "Intentionalität." Intentionality as a product of
evolution is the primary role of the mind; it causes our relations in
certain ways to the environment, and especially to other people.
As we could see Searle believes that there is an essential connection: we only can understand Intentionality in terms of consciousness. Now,
let us ask what exactly is the relation between consciousness and
Intentionality. Searle believes that not all conscious states are
Intentional, and not all Intentional states are conscious. Therefore,
cerebral states which are nonconscious can be understood as mental states only to the extent that we understand them as capable
of giving rise to conscious states.
When we are totally unconscious--Searle maintains--the only actually
existing facts then and there are facts involving states of our brain
that are describable in purely neurobiological terms. Then he asks what fact
about those states makes them my unconscious belief. He answers that the only
fact which could make them into a mental state is that they are capable
of causing that state in a conscious form.[16] Searle points out that causality is generally regarded as a natural
relation between evens in the world; Intentionality is here considered
as a biological phenomenon. We have already talked about the relation
between causality and Intentionality.
Now, let us say several words about Intentional causation. It is
Searle's belief that "volitive" states (an action) and "cognitive" states (such as, for example, perception) are causally self-referential.
Therefore, if I really see an object, then it must not only be the case
that I have a visual experience whose conditions of satisfaction are
that there is the object there, but the fact that there is the object
there must cause the visual experience that has those conditions of
satisfaction.[17]
3.2.2 The Background of Intentionality
and the Network Next terms that are important for the understanding of Searle's concept of
Intentionality are the Background and the Network. I intend to outline them in this section.
If we have an Intentional state, we also have to have a set of
capacities, abilities, tendencies, habits, dispositions,
taken-for-granted presuppositions and so on. Searle calls this set of "nonrepresentational" mental capacities
"Background." According to the American philosopher all of our Intentional states only
determine their condition of satisfaction against a Background of
know-how that enables me to cope with the world and our capacity for
rational though and behaviour is for most part a Background capacity.
Part of the Background is common to all cultures. Such universal
phenomena Searle calls "deep Background." In contrast, the features of
Background that cultures vary, he calls "local cultural practices," but he simultaneously admits that there is no sharp dividing line
between deep Background and local cultural practices.
What is important in this concept is that Intentionality does not
function as a separate mental capacity. Intentional states function
the way they do only given a presupposed set of Background capacities,
but the Background itself is pre-intentional.[18] Intentional states do not function autonomously in isolation. Each of
them requires for its functioning a Network of other Intentional
states. Only in this relationship their conditions of satisfaction are
determined. Searle believes that the Network is a part of the Background.[19] Perception is one of the fundamental themes in philosophy. It has
a principal importance for any theory of knowledge and consciousness.
We live in the world that consists of "recognizable" objects and the
process of perception gives us knowledge about them. We become conscious
of the world, of the sounds, tastes, odours, shapes, figures and spatial
location of any objects and warmth or cold that we feel.
But, there are some problems about the role of sense-perception in
connection with the world around us, about how perception is to be
construed and how it relates to a number of other aspects of the mind's
functioning.[20] In this place I would just like to refer to the problem about what precisely
perception.
In the history of philosophy perception was defined in various way: for
example, as mind's subjection to external influence and its adaptive
reaction to such influence (Bacon), as intellectual rather than sensual
apprehension (Descartes, Spinoza), as the internal state of one
"monad" whereby it takes cognition of other "monads" (Leibniz), as
(a) immediate knowing of something, (b) the total unified knowledge of a
present sensible objects, or (c) awareness through or dependently on the
external senses (scholastic philosophers).
After the huge expansion of exact sciences in last century, such
philosophers as for example Ryle argued that some well-known facts
of sciences, such as optics, acoustics and neurophysiology seem
to lead to the conclusion that what we see, hear or smell cannot be
things or happenings outside us, but are things or happenings inside our
own minds.[21] That way of thinking refusing the customary convictions on the process of
perception in philosophy at that time introduced principal changes to
its understanding. In contemporary epistemology, perception is the
apprehension of ordinary sense-objects on the occasion of sensory
stimulation. It is distinguished from sensation and from higher cerebral
processes, mental states.
Searle defines perception saying that it is an Intentional and causal
transaction between mind and the world; the direction of fit is mind-to-world, the direction of causation is
words-to-mind. He proceeds from the conviction that how our seeing of
any object works can be described by physical optics and neurophysiology.
But, he is interested in the question how it works conceptually. What
exactly are the elements that make up the truth conditions of sentences
of the form "X sees y'' where X is a perceiver
and y is an object? Searle introduces the problem using this
example:
"When I see a car, or anything else for that matter,
I have a certain sort of visual experience. In the visual perception of
the car I don't see the visual experience, I see the car; but in seeing
the car I have a visual experience, and the visual experience is an
experience of the car, in a sense of 'of' we will need to
explain."[22] As we can note in that paragraph, author draw our attention to
the fact that visual experiences are not themselves visual objects; they
are not objects of our perception, and thus it does not make sense to
ascribe to the visual experience the properties of the object which the
visual experience is of.
Next, he is distinguishing between experience and perception; the thing
is that the notion of perception involves the notion of succeeding in a
way that the notion of experience does not.
Finally, he is opening the problem of Intentionality of perception using
the expression of "experience of." As he realizes the "of"
of "experience of" is in short the "of" of Intentionality.
And, this problem will be the main theme in the subsequent discussion.
3.3 The Intentionality of Perception Searle's starting point is the assumption that the visual experience is
as much directed at or of objects and states of affairs
in the world as any of the paradigm Intentional states. His argument for
this conclusion is that the visual experience has conditions of
satisfaction in exactly the same sense that such Intentional states as
beliefs or desires have conditions of satisfaction. The Intentional
content of the visual experience determines its conditions of
satisfaction.
As Searle points out we can state several important similarities between
the Intentionality of visual perception and, for example, belief or
other Intentional states. The content of the visual experience, like the
content of the belief, is always equivalent to a whole proposition.
Visual experience is never simply of an object but rather it must always
be connected with the feeling that such and such is the case.
It is clear that the content of the visual experience does not just make
reference to an object. Searle believes that whenever it is true to say
that X sees y it must be true that X sees that
such and such is the case.[23]
It is worth of pointing out that according to Searle there is an important difference between
"I see that" and "X sees that y''. First-person
statements are intensional-with-an-s with respect to the
possibility of substitution whereas third-person statements are
extensional. Searle describes this situation saying that when in third-person
reports of seeings we use the "sees that" form we are committed to
reporting the content of the perception, how it seemed to the perceiver,
in a way that we are not committed to reporting the content by the use
of a simple noun phrase as direct object of "see''. Let us listen to
Searle's explanation of this distinction:
"The most obvious explanation of this distinction is that
the "see that" form reports the Intentional content of the perception.
When in third-person reports we say that an agent saw that p we
are committed to reporting the Intentional content of the visual
perception, but the "see x" form reports only the Intentional
object and does not commit the reporter to the content, to the aspect
under which the Intentional object was perceived." (Searle, op. cit., p. 42.) Now, we have to turn our attention to the following two facts: (1) Visual
perception, like belief, always has the mind-to-world direction of
fit. (2) Visual experiences, similarly as beliefs or desires, are
characteristically identified and described in terms of their
Intentional content. Thus, as Searle realizes, there is no way to give a
complete description of my belief without saying what it is a belief
that and similarly there is no way to describe my visual experience
without saying what it is an experience of.
3.3.1 Visual Experiences and Mental (Re)presentations
As we could see, Searle argues that there are perceptual experiences
which have Intentionality and mind-to-world direction of fit. Their Intentional content is propositional in form and the properties
which are specified by it are not in general literally properties of the
perceptual experiences. We could understand that there are some
analogies between visual experiences and such Intentional states
as belief or desires. Now, we will attempt to answer the question: what
disanalogies are there between them?
Searle believes that we could call such forms of Intentionality
as beliefs and desires ``representations'', but we should recognize that
there is no special ontology carried by the notion of representation.
It is just a shorthand for a constellation of independently
motivated notions such as conditions of satisfaction, Intentional
content, or direction of fit.
But, when we want to describe visual and other perceptual experiences we
need say much more to characterize their Intentionality. They have all
of the features of representations, but also other intrinsic features.
Searle describes this topic in the following way:
"... visual and other sorts of perceptual experiences are conscious mental
events. Intentionality of a
representation is independent of whether it is realized in consciousness
or not, but in general the Intentionality of a perceptual experience is
realized in quite specific phenomenal properties of conscious mental
events. For this reason the claim that there are visual experiences goes
boyond the claim that the perception has Intentionality." (Op.
cit., p. 45.) And thus, as Searle points out, not only is the visual experience a
conscious mental event, but it is related to its conditions of
satisfaction in ways which are quite different from such Intentional
states as beliefs and desires. We can see that visual experiences have
some special features, and that is why Searle proposes to describe
them as ``presentations''. Explaining this he claims that they do not
just represent the state of affairs perceived. When satisfied, it
gives us direct access to it, and in that sense it is a presentation of
that state of affairs. Presentations are then a special subclass of
representations.
3.3.2 The Problem of "Seeing-as" It is plausible that later Wittgenstein's discussion on the
Intentionality of perception had a significant influence on Searle's
thinking. Thus, it seems to be useful for understanding of our
next discussion to touch on Wittgenstein's reflexions on mental
representations in his famous Philosophical
Investigations. (See Wittgenstein {pa18}, pp. 307-67.) Wittgenstein begins by distinguishing two uses of the word ``see.''
First, if somebody asks: ``What do you see there?'' I will answer: ``I
see this'' (a description). Second: ``I see a likeness between
these two faces.'' This shows, according to author, einen
kategorischen Unterschied between two ``objects'' of
sight. (Op. cit., p. 307.) Wittgenstein believes that this is not something we make up, but it is a
part of our visual experience. He makes this remark about visual
experience: What is the criterion of the visual experiences?--The
representation of `what is seen' (die Darstellung dessen, `was
gesehen wird'). He introduces us to the problem as follows:
"Der Begriff der Darstellung des Gesehenen, sowie der
Kopie, ist sehr dehnbar, und mit ihm der Begriff des Gesehenen.
Die beiden hängen innig zusammen. (Und das heißt nicht, daß sie ähnlich sind.)
(Op. cit., p. 315.) Let us recognize, for example, a situation in which two people (A and
B) are looking at this familiar duck-rabbit drawing
taken from Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations.
A sees it as a duck drawing and B as a rabbit drawing.
There is a sense in which A and B are seeing the same
thing and another sense in which they are not. Wittgenstein's solution
of this problem is that we fall into confusion when we merge these
categorically different uses of the word ``see.'' He maintains that
we only ``see the duck and rabbit aspects'' if we are already conversant
with the shapes of those animals.
Heil gives another drawing depicting the face of an old lady and--from
other aspect--the profile of a young woman. As Heil points out
there are the same lines making up two different figures; we can
distinguish them in our minds by shifting our attention, but one figure
cannot be present without the other. (Cf. Heil {pa6}, 181-86.)
Searle claims that in this case we are inclined to say that even
though we have two visual experiences with two different presentational
contents, there is only one picture on the page before us, and thus the
Intentional object of the visual experience is different in the two
cases.
Searle devises the following solution of the problem: as we can
literally see objects, even though whenever we see an object we always
see it under an aspect, so we can literally see the rabbit aspects of
objects.
To make a discussion on the comparison between seeing and other mental
acts (such as believing, desiring remembering) more clear Searle ({pa12}, pp.
52-3), presents the following table: 3.3.3 Intentionality and Visual Experiences There is a variety of ways in which the Network and Background of
Intentionality are related to the character of the visual experience,
and the character of the visual experience is related to its conditions
of satisfaction. Searle admits that he does not know a systematic
theoretical account of the relations between these various parameters.
Searle just presents tree ways of these relations:
3.3.4. Visual Perception and Its Conditions The account of visual perception that Searle argues can be represented
schematically as follows: Visual experience Perceiver
X -----------------------------> y Object
perceived (object causes visual experience) This figure of visual perception consists of at least three elements:
X (the perceiver), an arrow (the visual experience), and
y (the object or, more strictly: the state of affairs) perceived.
As we can see, the visual experience has Intentional content, it is
directed at the Intentional object, whose existence is part of its
conditions of satisfaction.
In the case of visual hallucination the perceiver has the same visual
experience but no object is really present: Visual experience Perceiver
X -----------------------------> Now, let us attempt to answer the question what are the truth conditions of
the sentence of the form X sees y. From the point of
Searle's concept of Intentionality we have to formulate it more precisely,
for instance in this way: X sees that there is y in
front of X.
Searle believes that there are the following truth conditions of this
sentence: 3.3.5 Representationalism, Phenomenalism and Realism We saw that according to the presented account in the process of
perception we perceive a material object (a part of the real world)
and the object itself causes our visual experiences. This view is often
called ``naive realism'' or simply ``realism''. Many philosophers engage in
controversy with this way of thinking claiming that we do not apparently
perceive the material object itself, but the visual experience or sense
datum is something like a copy (representation) of the object
(the representative theory). Others believe that the object is a
collection of sense data (various versions of phenomenalism). In this
discussion, I would like to outline very shortly Searle's arguments
against representative concept and phenomenalism on his reflexion
concerning the Intentionality of perception.
As Chalmers realizes, representationalism is a popular
position claiming that phenomenal properties are just
representational properties. The representation of this suggestion
depends on just what account is given of representational properties in
turn. Chalmers points out that most often, the suggestion is combined
with a reductive account of representation (usually a functional
account), in which case it becomes a variant of reductive
functionalism. (Cf. Chalmers {pa5}, 377-78.) According to Heil this way of thinking of total functional systems
enables us to see more clearly how creatures with very different beliefs
and desires might nevertheless be seen as functionally on a par. He
draws our attention to the fact that the representative theory of mind
requires the postulation of a system of symbols that function as
``mental representations.'' (Cf. Heil {pa6}, 377-78. On arguments for representationalism, see for
instance: F. I. Dretske, Naturalizing the Mind (Cambridge, MA,
1995); G. Harman, The Intristic Quality of Experience
(Philosophical Perspectives, no. 4, 1990), pp. 31-52; W. G. Lycan, Consciousness and Experience (Cambridge, MA, 1996); M. Tye,
Ten
Problems of Consciousness (Cambridge, MA, 1995), etc. On arguments
against representationalism, see Chalmers {pa5}, 377-78; D. M.
McIver Lopes, What Is It Like to See with Your Ears? The
Representational Theory of Mind (Philosophy and Phenomenological
Research, No. 2, 2000), pp. 439-53, etc.) Even though there are various objections concerning the view that we
perceive sense data, Searle is looking for new arguments against
representationalism. As he realizes, the main problem of the
representative theory is that the notation of resemblance between the
sense data and the material object which the sense data represent must
be unintelligible since the object term is by definition inaccessible to
our sensation.
Next Searle's argument is that it makes no sense to claim that the
shapes and colours that we see resemble the shapes and colours of the
material object which is absolutely invisible.\newpage
In addition, on this account there is no way to attach any literal sense
to the assertion that objects have some sensible qualities.
Searle also believes that there is decisive objection against
phenomenalism: On the phenomenalist account, the publicly accessible
objects in the world become sense data (or strictly collections of sense
data) that are always private. Therefore, what I perceive is a private
word that is not accessible to anybody else because it consists entirely
in my own sense data.
And thus, any hypothesis that other people might perceive the same
objects or that they even exist and see sense data in the same sense in
which I exist and see sense data becomes unintelligible because my
perception of other people here is always my perception of my private
sense data, that is my perception of some features of
myself. (Cf. Searle {pa12}, pp. 57-61. As we can see such a
view as this reduces to solipsism. For more details about phenomenalism,
see R. Chisholm, Phenomenalism. In Perceiving. A
Philosophical Study (Ithaca, 1957), pp. 189-98; R. J. Hirst, Phenomenalism. In The
Problem of Perception (London, New
York, 1959), pp. 74-97; or Priest {pa4}, pp. 77-8, 112-19, 163,
183-209. On critics of phenomenalism, see for instance D. M. Armstrong, Refutation of Phenomenalism.
In Perception and the Physical
World (London, 1961), pp. 47-61.)
3.3.6 The Problem of Particularity We attempted to assimilate an account of perception to Searle's theory
of Intentionality. Now, we intend to discuss the situation when a person
sees that a particular, previously identified, object is in front of
him. Searle's question is this: How does this particularity enter the
Intentional content of perception?
To understand that the `problem of particularity' is a serious
difficulty for the theory of Intentionality Searle uses for his analysis
Putnam's twin earth fantasy. (See H.
Putnam, `The meaning of meaning', in Mind, Language, and Reality,
Collected Papers, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975),
pp. 215-71.) In short, the fantasy is as belows: Suppose on our earth, a
man X sees his wife Y in action a and in a fantastic distant galaxy, on twin earth (type identical with our earth)
X' sees Y' in action a'.
In this case, Searle (see {pa12}, pp. 62-5) asks the
question what is it about the content of visual experience of X that makes the presence of Y rather than
Y' part of the
conditions of satisfaction of his visual experience? The problem is
that both--experiences of X and those of X'--are qualitatively identical, but it is part of the conditions of
satisfaction of each experience of X that he is exactly seeing
his wife Y.
Now, we do not want to know how X can be sure that who he sees
is his wife Y, and not Y' identical with Y
(epistemological problem). The question that we are asking rather is: what is
it about visual experience of X right here on our earth that
makes it the case that it can only be satisfied by one particular
previously identified woman Y and not by some other woman who
happens to be type identical with that woman, whether X can tell
the difference or not?
Furthermore, the point of the fantasy is not to suggest that there might
actually be a twin earth, rather the point is to remind us that on our
very own earth, we have Intentional contents with particular and not
general conditions of satisfaction. In short, what we want to know is
how the particularity enters the Intentional content. Namely, any
theory of Intentionality has to account for the fact that one often has
Intentional contents directed at a particular object.
According to the currently fashionable solution, the difference between X and
X' is simply that in case of X his
experience is actually caused by Y, and in case of X' his experience is caused by
Y'. If the visual experience of
X is in fact caused by Y, then he is seeing Y, and he would not be seeing her if she did not cause his visual experience.
Searle is not satisfied with this solution because it is from a
third-person point of view, but the problem as he presents is a
first-person internal problem. Then our question is, more precisely:
``Under what conditions does X find himself to be seeing that Y is in front of him?'' As Searle believes, to solve this
problem we have to remind ourselves of the following:
As we can see, to answer questions concerning the problem of
particularity we have to be conscious of the fact that Intentional
contents do not determine their conditions of satisfaction in isolation
as I have already wrote describing Searle's terms of Background and
Network. We can also recall our reflexion about assumption that
causation characteristically figures in determining the conditions of
satisfaction of Intentional states when it is Intentional causation,
that is, when the causal relation occurs as part of the Intentional
content.(Cf. Searle {12}, pp. 112-40.) The Network of Intentional states that X is aware of is his
Network and the Background capacities he makes use of have to do with
his Background (indexicality). Searle realizes that the problem
is to show how Background and Network reach inside the
Intentional content to determine that the causal conditions of
satisfaction are particular rather than general. He proposes the following
``key to understanding how Intentionality can be aimed at particular
objects'': the conditions of satisfaction of each experience and each
memory of X after the initial encounter with Y are not
just that the experience should be satisfied by a woman satisfying
description of Y in general terms but that it should be caused
by 'the same' woman who caused other experiences and memories of
X.
Even though there are in philosophy varieties of objections against such
an assumption, Searle maintains:
"The capacity to recognize people, objects, etc., does not
normally require comparison of the object with pre-existing
representations, whether images, beliefs, or other sorts of `mental
representations'. One simply recognizes people and
things." (Searle {12}, p. 69.) It is clear that to recognize people and things I had to have in the past
a set of experiences caused by the presence and features of these people
and things and in present I have a set of memories of those experiences.
Let us analyse a situation in which I see my friend John staying
before me. I have a capacity to recognize a certain man X as John, which is such that: I have a visual experience of a man with
what I recognize as identical John-like features staying before me and
his presence and features are causing this visual experience and that
man is identical with X. (Cf. op. cit., pp. 68-70.) Therefore, Searle's solution of the problem of particularity is
following: Both X and X' have qualitatively identical
visual experiences. The difference in these cases is that experience of X makes reference to his own Background capacities and that of
X' to his own Background capacities. The recognitional capacity
is normally caused by the object of the recognition, but we can
imagine cases where one might learn to recognize an object without one's
capacity being caused by the object.
3.3.7 Does Searle's concept lead to scepticism? There is a sceptical argument against the theory of perception presented
by Searle that reads as follows: It looks as if the causal version of
naive realism that was presented leads to scepticism about the
possibility of ever knowing about the real world on the basis of your
perceptions, because there is no neutral point of view from which
you can examine the relationships between your experiences and their
supposed Intentional objects (or conditions of satisfaction) to see if
the latter really cause the former.
In contrast, Searle believes that on his account of the self-referential
causal character of the Intentional content of perception, Intentional
causation cuts across the distinction between the Intentional content
and the natural world which contains the objects and states of affairs
which satisfy that Intentional content, because the Intentional content
both represents and is one term of the causal relation and yet causation
is a part of the natural world. According to Searle the sceptical
objection would only be valid if one could not directly experience the
causal impact of objects on me in my perceptions of them but had to
ascertain the presence of the object, as cause, by some further process
of inference and validation of the inference. But on Searle's account
the visual experience does not represent the causal relation as
something existing independently of experience, but rather as a part of
the experience is the experience of being caused. (Cf. op. cit., 71-6.)
4. Conclusion The starting point of Searle theory is the ``classical'' Brentanian
concept of Intentionality, in which Intentionality is a phenomenon
taking place in the majority of mental states. Searle characterizes
Intentionality as that feature of the mind by which it is directed at or
about or of objects or states of affairs in the world. Also according to
Brentano mental phenomena are directed towards objects. As we can see
in this point both these conceptions are alike.
But, we must not forget that there is also an essential difference
between these two theories. Namely, the main theme in Brentano's theory of
Intentionality is the mental-physical demarcation which leads its author
to dualism. In contrast, Searle rejects such terms as the ``mental'' and
the ``physical'' saying that it is antiquated vocabulary that stays on
the ground of such theories of mind as materialism or dualism. As we can
remember he is sure that every materialist and dualist system is
mistaken: Dualism because it makes the status and existence of
consciousness utterly mysterious and materialism because it ends up
denying the existence of consciousness and thus denying the existence of
the phenomenon that gives rise to the question in the first place.
According to the American philosopher our mind is a part of nature and
Intentionality is simply the primary role of the mind causing our
relations in certain ways to the environment, and especially to other
people.
Searle is a positivist: Consciousness is understood here as a high-level
biological process realized in the structure of our brain. It has a first-person ontology, and that is why, it cannot be reduced to
third person phenomena. Even though he admits that consciousness is
still special among biological phenomena and that it ``cannot be
material'' he believes that just such sciences as neurobiology can
explain the ``mystery of consciousness'', and this view is at least
contentious.
Once, some theorists of philosophy had a serious problem where Searle
should be placed in the philosophy of mind. Several thought that
he is a materialist others believed that he is a representative of
``property dualism''. Searle protested against these assumptions in his
book The Rediscovery of Mind. (For more details, see
Searle {16}, 1-26.) Now, his solution of the mind-body problem is
most often called ``biological naturalism'' (this name comes from Searle
himself). I have to admit that his arguments still did not really
convince me that there is any principal difference between so-called
``biological naturalism'' and materialist monism. We can notice that he
is kinder to his own views then to those of others. When he criticizes
some conceptions he most often simplifies them and exposes them to
ridicule, but sometimes his own arguments against them are not
satisfactory.
Generally, Searle's philosophical reflexions provoke any concentrated
reader to thought. Of course, we have to be critical reading his books
and be circumspect in the agreement of his answers to questions and
solutions of problems. But, I am sure that John Searle's analyses are
worth of our attention.
Seeing
Believing
Desiring
Remembering
Nature of the Intentional component
visual experience
belief
desire
memory
Presentation or representation
presentation
representation
representation
representation
Causally self-referential
yes
no
no
yes
Direction of fit
mind-to-world
mind-to-world
world-to-mind
mind-to-world
Direction of causation as determined by
Intentional content
world-to-mind
none
none
world-to-mind
[1] Caston {4}, p. 249.
[2] On more detailed description of Aristotle's philosophy of mind, see for example: Caston {4}, pp. 249-68; Annas, Aristotle on Memory and the Self (Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 4, 1986), pp. 99-117; Barker, Aristotle on Perception and Ratios (Phronesis 26, 1981), pp. 248-66. Also see: Burnyeat, Is an Aristotelian Philosophy of Mind Still Credible? In M. C. Nussbaum and A. O. Rorty (eds.) Essays on Aristotle's De Anima (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), pp. 15-26; Cashdollar, Aristotle's Account of Incidental Perception (Phronesis 18, 1973), pp. 156-75., etc.
[3] On the importance of Brentano's ideas for Austrian philosophy, see for instance Barry Smith, Austrian Philosophy: The Legacy of Franz Brentano (Chicago: Open Court, 1994).
[4] Cf. Brentano {2}, vol. 1, Book 1, p. 109: "Die gesamte Welt unserer Erscheinungen zerfällt in zwei große Klassen, in die Klasse der physischen und in die der psychischen Phänomene."
[5] Brentano {2}, Vol. 1, Book 1, p. 112. It is worth pointing out that Brentano realizes that all physical phenomena have extension and spatial location. The opposite, however, is true of mental phenomena: thinking, willing, and the like appear without extension and spatial location.
[6] Brentano {2}, Vol. 2, Book 2, pp. 28-37.
[7] Brentano {2}, Vol. 1, Book 2, p. 124.
[8] Let us notice that Brentano does not use the problematic scholastic concept of the object of intention. It is just the nominal form which seems to be similar in both of these concepts.
[9] Cf. Searle {17}, pp. 9-20.
[10] For more details about materialism, dualism, and their varieties, see for instance: F.H.C. Crick and C. Koch, Towards a Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness. Seminars in the Neurosciences (New York, No 2, 1990), pp. 263-75; S. Guttenplan (ed.) A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind (Oxford, Cambridge MA, 1995), pp. 265-69, 317-32, 471-84); also see Chalmers {5}, pp. 129-49, 161-68, 168-71; or Heil {6}, pp. 16-32, 40-49, 94-5, 207-9, 220-1.
[11] For further discussion of the mind-body problem and Searle's solution, see especially: Searle {16}, pp. 1-63.
[12] Searle {17}, pp. 40-1.
[13] Cf. Searle {17}, pp. 49-53.
[14] For further discussion of the mind naturalized as a biological phenomenon, see for instance Searle {16}, pp. 1-57; or {17}, pp. 45-55. On more detailed description of the structure of consciousness, see especially: Searle {15}, pp. 1-98; and {16}, pp. 127-49. For more information about the irreducibility of consciousness, see Chalmers {5}, pp. 93-209, and Searle {16}, pp. 111-26.
[15] Searle {17}, pp. 64-5.
[16] Cf. Searle {17}, pp. 86-9. On the nature of Intentional states, see especially Searle {14}, pp. 1-36. For more details about mental causation, see Kim {7}, pp. 29-87.
[17] Cf. Searle {17}, p. 105 and {12}, pp. 112-40. On the idea of causal self-referentiality see, for instance: Gilbert Harman, Practical Reason (Review of Metaphysics 29, no. 3, March 1976), pp. 431-63.
[18] Cf. Searle {17}, pp. 107-9. On Searle's concept of Background, see also his discussion in {12}, pp. 141-59; {14}, pp. 384-85; {16}, pp. 175-96.
[19] Cf. Searle {16}, pp. 186-91.
[20] For more details on these problems, see D. W. Hamlyn, Perception. In S. Guttenplan (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind (Oxford, Cambridge MA, 1995), pp. 459-63.
[21] Cf. Ryle {9}, pp. 93-110.
[22] Searle {12} pp. 37-8.
[23] Cf. op. cit., pp. 40-1.
4. Bibliography
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{2} Brentano, Franz. Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt. Vol. 1-2, Leipzig: Verlag von Felix Meiner, 1924-25.
{3} Brentano, Franz. Wahrheit und Evidenz. Leipzig, 1930.
{4} Caston, Victor. Aristotle and the Problem of
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{5} Chalmers, David J. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
{6} Heil, John. Philosophy of Mind. London and New York: Routledge, 1998.
{7} Kim, Jaegwon. Mind in a Physical World. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998.
{8} Priest, Stephen. Theories of the Mind. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991.
{9} Ryle, Gilbert. Dilemmas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954.
{10} Searle, John R. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
{11} Searle, John R. Expression and Meaning: An Essays in the Theory of Speech Acts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
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{13} Searle, John R. Minds, Brains and Science, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984.
{14} Searle, John R. Intentionality. In: A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, ed. Samuel Guttenplan. Oxford, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1995.
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{16} Searle, John R. The Rediscovery of the Mind, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1998.
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{19} Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Über Gewißheit}, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1970.