| | Sarah wrote, So I remembered that in Luke's latest article he mentioned that Oism rejects pure materialism, or "the notion that all actions are fully determined and that free will is an illusion." I haven't been able to find the term "pure materialism" in any references but I did find "eliminative materialism" which mentions "hard determinists are eliminativists with regard to free will" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Is this just a case of different terms? I have not encountered the term "pure materialism" in academic philosophy, although I have seen the term "reductive materialism." However, as far as I am aware, materialism has never been defined the way Luke defined it, which, as far as I can see, is nothing more than a definition of determinism. Nor am I aware that Rand or any of her colleagues ever defined materialism in this way. Citing Peikoff's lecture series, "Founders of Western Philosophy: Thales to Hume (1972)," the Glossary of Objectivist Definitions defines materialism as follows: "Materialism [as a technical term in philosophy] . . . is the view that reality is basically matter in motion, and that all so-called non-material or mental phenomena are to be explained entirely in physical, material terms." Observe that this definition of materialism is not synonymous with eliminative materialism, because mental phenomena can be "explained" entirely in physical terms without being "eliminated" or dismissed as non-existent. In his book, The Art of Living Consciously (1997), Nathaniel Branden defines "materialism" as "the doctrine that all that exists is matter and its motions" (p. 201), which is more in accord with eliminative materialism than is the definition in the Glossary of Objectivist Definitions.
At any rate, neither of these definitions implies that determinists are necessarily materialists; one could reject free will and still embrace determinism without embracing materialism. What is illusory, according to eliminative materialism is not simply free will, but consciousness itself. In referring to hard determinism's elimination of free will, the article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy was giving examples, not of eliminative materialism, but of eliminativism in general. The reference only to hard determinism as eliminating free will undoubtedly reflects the contemporary view that soft determinism (or what Roger Bissell calls "value determinism") is compatible with free will. But, of course, the doctrine of "free will" with which soft determinism is compatible is not the traditional or Objectivist view of free will, which is "eliminated" by any form of determinism, not just by hard determinism.
But what exactly is the correct position on the relationship between mind and body or between consciousness and matter. According to Branden in The Art of Living Consciously, there is a radical difference between consciousness and matter, such that consciousness is not simply an attribute or manifestation of the material brain (and central nervous system), but something altogether separate from it. He writes:
We are not compelled to "reduce" consciousness to matter or matter to consciousness. We can justifiably maintain that neither matter nor consciousness is reducible to the other. There are powerful intellectual arguments against any such reductionism and no good reason to make the attempt. Metaphysically, mind and matter are different. But if they are different in every respect, the problem of explaining their interaction appears insuperable. How can mind influence matter and matter influence mind if they have absolutely nothing in common? And yet, that such reciprocal influence exists seems inescapable. This dilemma played a role in the attempt to reduce one of these two to the other.
Without going into details, I will suggest a possible way out. There is nothing inherently illogical--nothing that contradicts the rest of our knowledge--in positing some underlying reality of which both matter and consciousness are manifestations. The advantage of such a hypothesis is that it provides a means to resolve a problem that has troubled philosophers for centuries--"the mind-body problem," the problem of accounting for the interaction of consciousness and physical reality. If they have a common source, then they do have a point of commonality that makes their ability to interact less puzzling. How we would test this hypothesis, or provided justification for it, is another question. (pp. 201-202)
In his book, Introduction to Philosophical Analysis (1967), John Hospers comments on this hypothesis, which is known in philosophy as "the double aspect theory":
According to this view, mental and physical events are merely two aspects of the same underlying substance. The substance itself is generally conceived to be unknowable by human beings, but two of its aspects, the mental and the physical, are known. . . . We can speak glibly enough of "two aspects of the same thing," "two sides of the same coin," and so on; but precisely what is it of which the mental and the physical are two aspects? It would seem that in attempting to get rid of one mystery (or at any rate, one ultimate fact), we have got stuck with another. Instead of saying that mental-physical correlations are ultimate laws of nature, we attempt to explain them by saying that they are two aspects of some underlying substance--a substance with which, however, no one has any acquaintance, and of which no one has any knowledge. (p. 398)
Branden mentioned to me that Rand was sympathetic to this hypothesis and that her term for the underlying substance or underlying reality was "little stuff." Of course, we have only Branden's word on this, as Rand never said anything about it publicly (or privately in any of her journals), nor did she ever indicate that it was part of her philosophy. Moreover, the underlying reality concept (or "little stuff" theory) is at odds with the view originally presented by Branden in his book The Psychology of Self-Esteem (1969), wherein he writes:
Consciousness is an attribute of living organisms--an attribute of life at a certain level of development and organization. . . . It is true that whereas matter can exist apart form consciousness, consciousness cannot exist apart from matter, i.e., apart from a living organism. But this dependence of consciousness on matter does not in any way support the claim that they are identical. On the contrary: as more than one critic of reductive materialism has pointed out, it is reasonable to speak of one thing being dependent on another only if they are not identical. (pp. 5-8)
Note the reference to consciousness as an "attribute" of material entities, that "cannot exist apart from matter, i.e., apart from living organisms." In the passage from The Art of Living Consciously, Branden no longer regards consciousness as an attribute of matter--an attribute of material organisms--since he now views consciousness as "interacting" with matter. After all, an attribute does not "interact" with that of which it is an attribute. In order for two things to interact, they must be independent of one another. But if consciousness is an attribute of material organisms, then it is not independent of matter--as Branden acknowledged when he wrote that "whereas matter can exist apart form consciousness, consciousness cannot exist apart from matter." It makes no more sense to say that the mind "interacts" with the body (or with the brain), then it does to say that vision interacts with the eyes, or that digestion interacts with the stomach. There is no mind-body problem if, as Branden claims, the problem is one "of accounting for the interaction of consciousness and physical reality."
But there is still the question of the exact relation that the mind does bear to the body. If the mind is simply an attribute of the body, as Branden originally stated, can it be described as material? It can insofar as it is part of the body, which is itself material. But we characteristically refer to consciousness as "mental" instead of physical or material in order to distinguish its actions from those that involve other parts of the physical body. So, in that sense, conscious acts are non-physical or non-material, by definition. The reductive (or eliminative) materialist is uncomfortable with this designation, because it suggests that mental acts are incorporeal and insubstantial, connoting some form of mysticism. But they need not be viewed that way, as long as we understand that consciousness is an attribute of a physical brain and central nervous system, which are indispensable to its existence.
But what about Branden's point that the reciprocal influence or interaction of mind and matter seems inescapable. After all, it would appear that fear, a mental state, can cause the heart to beat faster and that love (a mental state) can cause physical changes in the body. How do we reconcile this apparent reciprocal influence with the idea that two things cannot interact with each other unless they are independent existents. Is the mind, therefore, independent of the body, and not simply an attribute or manifestation of it? And if the mind is independent of the body, does that mean that the soul can survive death and that extra-sensory perception is possible--two positions that Objectivists (but not Branden) vigorously reject?
These questions can, I think, be answered by recognizing that if the mind is an attribute of the body--of the brain and central nervous system--then the effect of fear on one's heart rate, or of love on one's physical responses, is simultaneously the effect of a certain part of the conscious brain on the autonomic nervous system. According to this view, mental processes are simultaneously brain processes, identified from two different perspectives--extrospectively from external observation and brain imaging and introspectively from a person's own conscious awareness. For the same reason, brain abnormalities can manifest themselves as mental disorders, not because the brain "influences" or "interacts" with the mind, but because brain abnormalities and their corresponding mental disorders are the same phenomena viewed from different perspectives. The alternative "interactionist" explanation makes no more sense than does the idea that vision, a mental experience, interacts with the eye(s), a physical sense organ. The experience of vision is simultaneously the function of the eyes under certain physical conditions, not two different entities or substances interacting with each other.
What about Branden's point that if mental states are dependent on physical states, then the two cannot be identical? Is this true? It all depends on what is meant by "dependent" in this context. Is thunder dependent on lightening. Yes, because without lightening, there would be no thunder, yet thunder and lightening are the same thing in the sense that they are simply two manifestations of the same phenomenon--the atmospheric discharge of electricity. Is the evening star dependent on the morning star? Yes, because without the morning star, there would be no evening star, yet the morning star and the evening star are the same planet. Similarly, mental activity is dependent on brain activity, but that does not mean that mental activity and brain activity are not the same process viewed from different perspectives.
- Bill
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 1/21, 6:30pm)
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 1/21, 7:44pm)
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