Phil 132, again, I guess trying to argue that Searle himself is wrong 😅.. (6/13/22)
In his letter to Jaegwon Kim, Searle explains his position on mind body problem and try to explain why Kim’s argument against him is fallacious. The core of Kim’s charge that biological naturalism suffers from overdetermination comes from his misunderstanding of Searle’s use of word “cause”. While Searle’s explanation easily counters this fact, his answer itself rebounds with another challenge to him that is embedded in Kim’s remark which questions the idea of irreducible subjective ontology of the conscious states. Searle’s simplistic answer that calls to preserve subjectivity doesn’t seem to go far enough to properly counter such a charge. This mainly stems from the fact that such a claim needs a deeper analysis of subjective states. It might also have to engage in the formidable argument from Kim that conscious states are functionally reducible, and it is unclear why Searle’s letter does not clearly answer this question. However, on the outset, Searle in his letter to Kim succeeds in pointing out that his theory does not suffer from overdetermination in the way that Kim points out, while leaving the reader yearning for a more comprehensive analysis of the situation.
Jaegwon Kim argues that Searle’s notion of neurobiological processes causing mental states is void of overdetermination only if the mental states are identical to physical states. However, since Searle says every mental state M is caused by some neuronal process NP, Kim claims that Searle’s theory cannot accept NP=M, hence charging him with overdetermination. As Searle points out, this argument suffers from embracing Humean causation, as evident from Kim’s passage,
“For one thing, the instantiations of the related properties are wholly simultaneous, whereas causes are standardly thought to precede their effects” (p44).
In Searle’s use of the word, however, “NP causes M” is better understood as “M is explained by NP” which doesn’t require a temporal displacement as in Humean causation. Thus, In this use of the word “Cause”, it is possible to identify both NP and M as “descriptions of the same system given at different levels”, hence causally reducing the mental states to physical states. For now there is only one causal arrow between the two sides, NP/M and NP*/M*, there is no danger of falling to overdetermination. While Kim slightly advances his argument the next paragraph, this seems to be the main argument he points out against Biological Naturalism. Hence, the letter from Searle clearly shows the weakness of Kim’s main claim; yet, his answers to Kim’s next question might not sound as clear.
The more serious attack against Searle comes from Kim as more of a side remark about irreducible subjective ontology of conscious states.
“Also, and perhaps more important, it is not at all clear how the view that pain talk and talk of neural firings are about the very same phenomena but only at different levels squares with Searle's doctrine of the ‘subjective ontology’ of the mental and the irreducibility of consciousness. But these are not matters that concern us here.”(p50)
His argument, while is not discretely formulated, seem to question Searle’s position that causal reducibility does not imply ontological reducibility. Searle’s swift answer to this is that the usual method of redefining the phenomenon in terms of causal reduction is not applicable to mental states due to their first person ontology, and thus needing to preserve it as it is. This argument, however, is plausible only if you believe subjective phenomena are inherently different from the normal objective physical phenomenon, which might not be that apparent for some, including my self. This ambiguity suggests that Searle’s answer needs to be more thorough in explaining the reasoning behind ontological irreducibility of mental states.
The crux of the abovementioned question Kim poses comes with the need to analyse subjectivity more closely. Let’s think about the two different subjective categories Searle brings out, epistemic and ontological, and do a short analysis (I think this ‘short’ analysis would suffice due to the limits of this paper) to identify why Kim’s claim is important. As the use of word ‘subjectivity’ relates more closely to epistemic subjectivity, let’s consider such a statement, “roses smell better than lavenders”. The subjectivity of this statement comes from the fact that different individuals can assign different truth values to this statement without contradicting themselves. The reason is that the mental state pertaining to this situation in each individual is different. (Assume, to be extremely conservative with the arguments, the nerve signals that travels to the brain of each individuals are the same, yet they like different scents). The difference of the mental states, given that the inputs are the same, have to come from the difference in the brain states, the physical brain states, as any interaction between neuron firings have to be physical (One argue for the same thing by saying that every different mental states needs to have a difference in brain states according to supervenience argument). Thus, epistemic subjectivity can be explained by lower level objective phenomenon (differences in receiving brain states), and in Searle’s language, is “causally reducible” to physical states. Now, in the case of subjectivity itself, you cannot invoke the same argument that “subjective ontology” keeps ‘subjectivity’ from being reduced to physical phenomenon, and thus calls for a better explanation than what Searle proposes. The case with ontologically subjective entities is quite similar that I think there’s no need for repetition (to keep the paper short, of course). The limitations of Searle’s short answer thus become more visible when one analyse the subjectivity of mental states more closely. This is quite important given that Kim argues for a functionalist reductionist view that is very close to physicalism.
Kim’s argument against Searle in this part consists of two facets. One is that if Searle says mental states are causally reducible, he cannot claim that they are not ontologically reducible. The next is that if Searle wants to say they are not causally reducible, then he suffers from over determination. Kim himself takes on a position which calls to functionally reduce intentional states to their brain states, and given that Searle advocates for causal reduction of mental states according the first section of this argument, he needs to address the difference between the two viewpoints to properly refute the argument against him. His reply, however, lacks this vital information, and hence does not succeed in fully answering Kim’s allegations.
Searle, in his letter to Kim refutes the most visible argument from Kim against him, yet fails to capture the deeper charges against his positions. He properly points out the misinterpretation of his views that is caused by Humean notion of causal relation, thus coherently rejecting the claim that his theory suffers from overdetermination. However, the more subtle point of how ontological irreducibility is distinct from causal reducibility is left almost unanswered as he fails to analyse the irreducibility of subjectivity more closely. While Kim also says that he does not intend to discuss the latter problem in detail, an independent reader might find Searle’s letter lacking a proper response to this problem. This brings us to an uneasy conclusion that while Searle answers Kim’s charges in their face value (just the way they are presented,) he fails to address the real conflict between Kim’s view and his.
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