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Some Important Issues in Philosophy |
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by Celestine N. Bittle, O.F.M.Cap. A Study
and Critique
After reviewing the historical development of the body-mind problem, which is also the problem of the human Ego and the human person, it is not difficult to summarize the various views and theories into a few broad systems. Starting with Descartes' ultra-dualism, which everybody seemed to accept without question, the following main solutions have been offered as a metaphysical explanation of man's nature. Man has a body; man also has a mind. Whatever pertains to the body is physical; whatever pertains to the mind is psychical. The physical and the psychical, body and mind, have attributes and activities which are diametrically opposed to one another. The material and the mental are mutually irreducible, because the material is spatial while the mental is non-spatial; hence, they cannot reside in, nor be the product of, a single principle. Body and mind, therefore, since they have nothing in common, cannot interact upon each other; it is impossible for the mind causally to influence the body or for the body causally to influence the mind. Yet, such an interaction apparently occurs continuously. We must, then, accept a double series of events, one physical, belonging to the body, the other psychical, belonging to mind. Each series is independent of the other, but running parallel to it, giving the impression of interaction. The result of this line of thought is the theory of rigid psycho-physical parallelism in a metaphysical sense. Other thinkers were dissatisfied with this theory. It presupposes a division in man which is contrary to all experience. Man is not a double being, but a single being. If man were really a double being consisting of two irreducible parts, each part possessing an independent series of events without mutual interaction, one cannot explain the perfect synchronization or timing that exists between the physical and psychical series. Such a parallelism is inconceivable. The body-mind problem can only be solved by maintaining that body and mind are not distinct and separate entities, but fundamentally a single reality. In other words, there exists an identity of body and mind; their distinctness is merely apparent. These thinkers defend the identity theory. Even when maintaining the identity of body and mind, the problem is not solved thereby. This disparity between body and mind still remains. One must either reduce the body to the mind, leaving the mind as the sole remaining reality; or, one must reduce the mind to the body, leaving the body as the sole remaining reality. The psychical must absorb the physical, or the physical must absorb the psychical. To some philosophers it seemed evident that man is conscious, senses, thinks, and wills. The mental, therefore, is real. The existence of the mind must be maintained under all circumstances, because one cannot deny the existence of psychical experiences as a part of man's life. Consequently, the physical, the material, the body, must be identified with the mind. The mind, then, is the only reality; the physical, the material, the body, exist solely in the mind as a percept or idea. At the most, matter and the physical world can be nothing more than manifestations or modes of mind. This form of the identity theory is characterized as idealistic monism. There is, however, also a reverse side to the identity theory. Other philosophers are convinced that man is a bodily being existing in time and space, with all the attributes and properties of matter. If we are certain of anything, we are certain that we are material organisms. The material, therefore, is real. Hence, the mental, the psychical, the mind, must be reduced to the reality of matter. Matter is, at bottom, the only reality, and the mental is fundamentally identical with the physical. The identity theory thus becomes materialistic monism. Others take a metaphysical short-cut across all difficulties of explaining the union of body and mind by assuming that all matter is living and endowed with mind; or, as some prefer it, all bodies consist ultimately of some neutral stuff which is the substrate of both matter and mind. One need not wonder, then, that man possesses the attributes of a body and a mind in conjunction. These philosophers advocate pan-psychism. It is seldom, however, that any of these basic systems are accepted in their pure form. Most psychologists and philosophers mix the principles of the one with that of another. They may be parallelists from one standpoint and idealistic or materialistic monists or pan-psychists from another; even a pantheistic monist may be a parallelist. Others adhere strictly to an idealistic or materialistic monism; the former admit nothing but mind and mental states, the latter nothing but matter and material states. Although psycho-physical parallelism really should exclude all interaction between psychical and physical events, yet some thinkers believe in interaction. Some believe that body and mind (soul) are distinct substances; others believe in one of the two as a substance; and others deny the substantiality of both body and mind. There is no unity of doctrine; everything is confusion. Strictly speaking, every type of monism should be opposed to the dualistic concept of psycho-physical parallelism. Some monists, however, are parallelists, as our historical survey has shown. Under the heading of parallelism we find grouped together the most diversified theories -- interactionism, pre-established harmony, occasionalism, sensationalism, the identity theory, the double-aspect theory, the actuality theory, automatism, the mind-dust and mind-stuff theory, epiphenomenalism, pan-psychism. Yet some of these theories are also fundamentally monistic. Here we will critique and evaluate only the pure basic systems, as outlined above. Psycho-physical Parallelism The theory presupposes the ultra-dualistic opposition between matter and mind, between the physical and psychical, as propounded by those who deny the possibility of interaction between these supposedly antagonistic realities. This denial is based mainly on the argument that such an interaction would be contrary to the Law of the Conservation of Energy, as H. Hoffding, contends, in as much as the total amount of energy in the physical universe would be decreased or increased by the causal action of the physical on the psychical or of the psychical on the physical. The validity of this argument is very doubtful. Furthermore, there is good evidence to show that intellectual (and volitional) activities do not consume physical energy, so that there would be no infringement on the law. The main point, however, is that all evidence of our daily life definitely establishes the fact of a mutual influence between the physical and psychical events in man, irrespective of the postulates of any theory. The physical conditions of the body influence our sensations, imagination, memory, intellect, emotions, and will; there can be, for instance, no sensations without physical stimuli. Reversely, emotions have physical resonances in the body; and the will, as consciousness testifies, does control the movements of our bodily members throughout our waking state. The testimony of consciousness is so clear on this score and the mass of experiential evidence so overwhelming, that an unprejudiced observer cannot doubt the facts. Parallelism rests on a false assumption. It places an excessive division between the body and mind of man, as if the two were completely separated entities. Such a division does not exist. Man is a unitary, integral organism in which the physical, vegetative, sensory, and rational activities are fused into a single harmonious whole. The ultimate nature of man, therefore, must be a dynamic and entitative unit and not the extrinsic union of ultra-dualistic entities. It follows, that Descartes' and the parallels' concept of the nature of man is an assumption which is erroneous in its foundation. The facts are true; the theory of parallelism is wrong. Idealistic Monism Every type of idealistic monism, whether it be spiritualistic (Berkeley), phenomenalistic (Hume), or absolutistic (Fichte), takes it for granted that, as Descartes proposed, we can know nothing but our own internal mental states. The body, the physical objects, the material universe -- all have no existence except in so far as they are present in our perceptions and thoughts. At bottom, then, everything is mental; the mind alone exists, and matter is identified with mind. In this way, idealists claim to reduce ultra-dualism and parallelism to unity and the difficulty of the body-mind problem in man is overcome. The theory, however, is fallacious. Idealism, for one thing, is contrary to the sound teachings and experimental findings of the natural sciences. Every natural science -- physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, biology, physiology, and all the rest -- is based on the actual existence of material bodies endowed with spatial attributes and physical energy independent of the mind and its conscious contents. True, we cannot know that they exist unless we have a conscious percept or idea of them, but it does not follow that they have existence only in knowledge. Experimental psychology shows how our sensations are dependent on external stimuli for their origin and specificity; it also proves that nerves and a brain, which are material realities, are required for the transformation of the stimulus excitation into conscious perception. Without the body, there can be no reception of stimuli; without the mind, there can be no knowledge of the objects transmitting the stimuli. If nothing exists but the nonspatial mind and its ideas, then our knowledge should absolutely be restricted to the mind and its ideas. But then it should be utterly impossible to have any perceptions and ideas of such nonexistent things as brains, nerves, bodily organs, houses, automobiles, cities, and countries. Yet we are as certain of these material things as we are of our mind and its conscious states. Our emotions and feelings are accompanied by definite bodily changes, as we know from the findings of experimental psychology; these facts are not the result of sheer imagination. When idealists speak as scientists and psychologists, they invariably speak of sensation and perceptions as if they possessed a bodily character; it is only when confronted with the difficulty of explaining the reciprocal action of body and mind that they seek to evade the difficulty of denying the existence of matter and material bodies. Man has both a body and a mind, and we are conscious of both; we have no more right to deny the existence of the one than of the other. We are conscious of being passively influenced by extra-mental objects. When I close my eyes and imagine a parade, I know that I am the agent producing these images; but when I watch a parade passing by, I am passive and do not myself determine what images I shall or shall not receive. Such a situation could not arise, if the production of sensations, perceptions, and ideas were solely dependent on the mind and its operation. Idealism is inadequate, because it leaves out of account the body, which is just as much a part of man as his mind. Materialistic Monism Little need be said here in refutation of materialistic monism. If nothing exists but matter and material energy, then everything in man must be able to be interpreted strictly in terms of matter and material energy. However, not even the ordinary phenomena of sensation admit of such an interpretation. The sensation of "blue," for example, is something totally different from the physical stimulus of a definite frequency of light waves striking the retina; and the sensation of "pain" has no similarity to the piercing of the skin by a needle point. Cognition and consciousness cannot be be explained in terms of atomic oscillations of brain substance. Ideas are abstract and universal, while everything material is concrete and particular. Intellection is spiritual and intrinsically independent of material conditions; it cannot, therefore, be reduced to material activity. Materialism accounts for the body, but it does not account for the mind. Yet the mind is as much a part of man as his body. The theory is inadequate, because it fails to give an explanation of the "whole man." Like idealism, it is an oversimplified system which evades the real issue by denying the existence of an essential part of man's nature. Pan-psychism Pan-psychism assumes, in one form or other, that everything material is also mental; in other words, every body is fundamentally endowed with life and mind. This assumption is gratuitously made and is contrary to the verdict of the natural sciences. The sciences make a distinction between living and nonliving bodies, and they base this distinction on essential differences in structure and operation. Nonliving beings are characterized by "transitive" action, living beings by "immanent" action. There is not a shred of evidence for maintaining that the electron, proton, and atom have life and mind. The metaphysical necessity of overcoming the cartesian ultra-dualism of mind and matter prompted the formation of the theory; the theory, however, is contrary to all known facts. The prodigious confusion of philosophical and psychological systems of the three preceding centuries stems logically from the ultra-dualism of Descartes. It is the clearest proof that Descartes' assumptions must be wrong, because this confusion furnishes a complete reductio ad absurdum: when the conclusion is so disastrous, the premises must inevitably be false. Wherein did Descartes err? His error consisted in splitting man's nature into two antagonistic substances, body and spirit. He conceived the body as a mechanistic aggregate of atoms and the spirit as the sole seat of all mental states. A psycho-physical parallelism was unavoidable, and he thereby made a metaphysical explanation of man's unitary nature impossible. The result is seen in the fruitless attempt of most modern philosophers to restore the evident factual unity of man as an integral organism capable of both bodily and mental activities. Descartes made his initial mistake in rejecting the traditional teaching of man's nature as embodied in classical realistic anthropology. Here was the correct doctrine, but Descartes misunderstood it. In rejecting it, he led subsequent thinkers into a quagmire of errors. To remedy this desperate situation, we must return to the fundamental doctrine of the classical realists. The correct view of the matter is called vitalistic animism. In vitalistic animism we find the solution of all the difficulties involved in the various systems mentioned above:
Animism, therefore, contains whatever there is of truth in parallelism, idealism, materialism, and pan-psychism, while avoiding the errors of extremism found in each and all of them. The animism of classical realistic philosophy alone accounts for all the facts and phases of man's complete nature. What, then, is the human Ego? Whatever in man is bodily and mental, physical and psychical, material and spiritual, is referred by the Ego to itself: I weigh one hundred fifty pounds, I see a house, I think, I will. The physical and the psychical represent the whole man. The Ego, therefore, is the whole man. Body and soul are integrated into one thing, the whole man, the Ego. The Ego, therefore, is not the body, not the soul, not the intellect, not the will, not consciousness, not life. All these things "belong" to the Ego as constituting "the whole man." The Ego is a substance. A "substance" is an individual being whose nature it is to exist in itself and not in another as in a subject. A being whose nature it is to exist, not in itself, but in another as in a subject, is called, in philosophical terminology, an "accident." Shape, color, motion, thought, feelings, etc., are modifications of some ultimate reality; they do not exist in and for themselves, but exist in the substance which they modify. Man, considered as a totality, is a self-contained being with a naturally independent existence of its own; man, therefore, is a "substance." And since the Ego is the whole man, the ultimate reality which possesses everything pertaining to man's being, it is evident that the Ego is substantial and not merely accidental. The Ego (man) is a person. The term "person" is never applied to a chemical being, to a plant, or to a brute animal; no one calls a piece of carbon, a tree, or a horse, a "person." Since man alone, among all material beings and organisms, is called a "person," what specifically constitutes man s "person"? It is not "materiality," because chemicals, plants, and brute animals are material. It is not "life," because plants and brute animals are living. It is not "sentiency," because brute animals are sentient. It must be that which distinguishes man from all these types of being, and that is "rationality," "intellectuality." Boethius has given us the following definition of a "person": naturae rationalis individua substantia -- an individual substance of a rational nature. A "person" is, therefore, an individual, complete, subsistent, rational (intellectual) substance. A moment's consideration will reveal the fact that the human Ego, or whole man, is indeed a substance which is individual and complete and subsistent and rational. Consequently, the human Ego, or man in his totality, is a "person." We must make an exact distinction between "personality" in this metaphysical sense and "personality" in a psychological sense. Psychologists, when they use the term, mean the sum-total of human functions and capacities, traits and aptitudes, and this concept is akin to "character." The unity of "personality" in this psychological meaning is a functional unity, and this functional unity may at times be impaired or destroyed, as we notice it in "split personality," "dual personality," and so on. "Personality" in the philosophical or metaphysical sense is the essential mark of man's nature as a "rational animal" and is never subject to change, because the essential constitution of man's being from the moment of conception to the moment of death remains the same. In other words, man is and remains at all times a "person," namely, an individual, complete, subsistent, rational substance, irrespective of what happens to the functional unity of his mental states and operations. The human being, the human Ego, is a person. As a person, man is a substance consisting of two really distinct substantial co-principles, soul and matter. The soul is the animating principle and therefore the primary principle (in conjunction with matter) of the vital attributes and activities of vegetancy and sentiency. The soul, however, is spiritual (nonmaterial) in essence and as such the sole agent (though with an extrinsic dependence on matter) of the spiritual activities of intellect and will. Matter is the principle (in conjunction with the soul) which accounts for all the physical attributes and activities in man's nature. Man is a unique being, the fusion of spirit and matter compounded into a single substance and organism. He is in all truth a microsm, uniting within his person the essential realities of chemical elements, living plants, sentient animals, and spiritual intelligences. How can spirit and matter be so intimately linked together that they constitute a single substance, nature, Ego, person? The fact, from all that has been said, is demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt; the manner of this union will never be clearly understood. We explain the union of spirit and matter in man by saying that the spirit is the soul of the body, the "vital principle" or "substantial form" or "entelechy" of matter. Such terminology may not clarify the "manner" of their union to any great extent, but it is a philosophical explanation which at least avoids the difficulties inherent in parallelism and monism and is in accord with all the material, sensory, and spiritual phenomena observed to be present in man. T.V. Moore's remarks are classic: "Since Infinite Power cannot make a square circle, neither can it make the essentially nonthinking and lifeless matter, while it remains nonthinking and lifeless, at the same time think and live. But it is possible for living matter to live by a principle of life inherent within it; it is possible for a sensory organism to have sensations by means of sense organs vitalized by a living soul; it is possible for man to be a living being with sense organs capable of being acted on by the energies of matter in the outside world, because these same sense organs are themselves material, but not lifeless matter, and live by the soul that vivifies the body. It is possible for this same living soul, which is a principle of life, vivifying the body and animating the sense organs, to be conscious of the way in which its sense organs are affected, and to think about those revelations of the world outside, which come to it through the sense organs, by powers which are in no way the activity of bodily organs, though they can interpret the data derived from bodily organs, and so understand and interpret the world outside by nonsensual and spiritual concepts." [Cognitive Psychology, p. 157.] No other theory can explain all the pertinent facts so clearly and completely. Man is the ultimate ground and agent of everything that occurs within the realm of his being. Whatever pertains to his being in any manner whatsoever must, in its final analysis, be referred to his person and Ego and not to any particular part or power. Man is material and spatial. Man is composed of a matter and a spiritual soul, and is an organism. Man assimilates food and reproduces himself. Man has a nervous system and sense organs. Man sees, hears, tastes, smells, has the sense of touch, and feels pain. Man synthesizes the sense data, imagines, remembers, and performs instinctive actions. Man strives for sensuous good, avoids sensuous evil, and experiences various emotions. Man forms ideas, judgments, and processes of reasoning. Man exercises free will and desires spiritual values. Man is conceived, lives, and dies. The immediate principles of functions are powers or faculties, but the ultimate agent is man, the person, the Ego. There are a thousand-and-one aspects to man's being, but they are all just so many phases of one ultimate substantial reality, the human person, expressing itself in multitudinous ways.
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