Wittgenstein: belief, behaviour and beetles

The topic of today’s post is the meaning of mental-state terms, such as ‘belief’ and ‘desire.’ These terms are commonly used to refer, somewhat mysteriously, to strange things going on inside our heads. When a person says ‘I believe that it will rain tomorrow’, we take them to be referring to something intangible in the brain. Certainly, taking this view of beliefs and desires is useful in predicting human behaviour: philosophers call the use of such terms to predict and explain behaviour ‘folk psychology.’ This is all very well: but the interesting question is what these ‘folk-psychological’ terms actually mean. What is a belief? Is it a spooky new mental substance? Is it merely a combination of physical brain states in a particular combination at a particular moment? Or is it something else?

One really interesting answer to this question comes from Wittgenstein, who proposes a form of what has since been called ‘behaviourism.’ Wittgenstein’s philosophical behaviourism holds that ‘I believe X’ means ‘I am disposed to behave in a certain way given certain conditions’; and nothing more. All ‘a belief’ means is 'a tendency to do and say certain things given certain circumstances'. For example, if I believe that it is raining, all this means is that I display rain-like behaviour, such as putting up an umbrella, groaning about how I’m getting wet, etc. On this view, ‘belief’ is reduced radically to external, observable behaviour such as actions and sounds; ‘belief’ does not refer to anything going on inside my head, not even to a physical brain state or collection of brain processes. All it is to believe something (Wittgenstein and other behaviorists taught) is to be disposed to act in a certain way under certain conditions.

Why should we believe that this radical, externalist treatment of folk psychology is correct? Wittgenstein presented an interesting argument to show why: what has now been termed the ‘beetle in a box’ argument. In 'Philosophical Investigations', Wittgenstein imagines three people, each with a box in front of them that only they can look into (they can’t look into each others’ boxes). Each person looks into his/her box, and announces that inside their box, there is a ‘beetle.’ Wittgenstein points out that although the same word is being used to denote the contents of each box, there is no reason at all to think that each box contains the same object. The first person’s box could contain what we mean by beetle; the second person’s box could contain a fish; the third person’s box could contain nothing at all. We cannot know what is in each box, Wittgenstein points out, by merely listening to the word that each person uses to describe the contents of his/her box. Therefore, the word ‘beetle’ is meaningless when given meaning by a single person, and tells us nothing of what is within.

Wittgenstein’s main point is to show that all language is essentially public. There can be no such thing as a private language, because meaning is determined by public use, and in the beetle case, each person is employing his/her own unique use of ‘beetle.’ So too with words such as ‘belief’, ‘desire’, etc: using them to refer to private, intangible events going on inside peoples’ heads is meaningless, since the beliefs in your head are like a private language, only accessible to you, and nobody else. However, we know that ‘belief’ is a meaningful term; so, it must refer to something external and publicly verifiable: a behavioural disposition. (Whether Wittgenstein was a 'behaviourist' in a full sense is controversial, but we can take his reasoning here to provide a clear argument for behaviourism).

This conception of mental states such as belief is both very appealing and very counter-intuitive. It is appealing because it demystifies the mental; the mind can be given a much more plausible material explanation if beliefs and desires etc are no longer seen as intangible, ‘spooky’ occurrences inside our heads. However, the view is counter-intuitive because when we believe something, it seems obviously true that this is an inner mental event, something more interesting than a series of external behavioural patterns. Whether we accept Wittgenstein’s argument depends on how seriously we take what seems to go on in our stream of consciousness: how real is the internal nature of the mind? This question is absolutely central to the philosophy of mind, especially in questions about the phenomenon of consciousness, and the problems that arise from it.

Colin McGinn on the limits of explanation

McGinn: mean but fair

There has been a widespread assumption in philosophy, and other disciplines, that the problems of the world are there waiting to be solved, and that indeed they can and will be solved by human beings. The problem of consciousness, for example: though consciousness remains mysterious from a scientific perspective, philosophers have put forward a range of views and arguments for both physicalism and dualism (see, for example, Chalmers on zombies) which seek to explain consciousness, or at least provide the basis for thinking that we could explain it. 

However, Colin McGinn, a philosopher currently at the University of Miami, thinks otherwise. McGinn has formulated ‘Transcendental Naturalism’: the view that due to our biological and evolutionary background, we are inherently limited to some extent in our cognitive abilities, and thus there will be problems (both scientific and philosophical) that we will never be able to solve or explain in our current status as human beings. To many, this view will at first sight appear extremely pessimistic, but I think it holds a lot of plausibility. 

McGinn describes conscious beings as each having a ‘cognitive space.’ This is analogous to our perceptual space, or our physical space: areas within which we can ‘move’, so to speak. Our perceptual space is our visual and auditory field, outside which we cannot see or hear anything. Our physical space is the space within which we can move, and outside of which we cannot. So too with our ‘cognitive space’ - the intellectual area within which we can think, reason, and form concepts; and outside which, we cannot reason. 

We have cognitive limitations just as
we have perceptual and spatial limitations

If we accept that we are cognitively limited in this sense (and this seems likely, since as McGinn states, ‘we are not Gods, cognitively speaking’), then we should expect that some of the problems of philosophy we will be unable to solve. McGinn most famously treats the problem of consciousness as such a problem, not unsolvable in principle, but unsolvable to us, due to its solution falling outside our cognitive space. After 2000 years of thought and experiment, the basic nature of consciousness continues to remain mysterious: it is a Hard problem with a capital H, and raises a significant explanatory gap. The natural explanation for this mystery, McGinn argues, is not that consciousness itself is inherently mysterious, or is made up of new ‘mental, non-physical stuff’, as Descartes thought. Consciousness is probably as grounded in the physical world as tables or chairs. However, its nature lies outside our cognitive space: our biologically limited concept-forming abilities do not extend to grasping it. We can no more understand consciousness than a slug can understand mathematics. 

McGinn also applies his transcendental naturalist view to other problems, such as the problem of Free Will (a response also shared with Noam Chomsky). On reflection, these conclusions may be extremely disappointing: after all, if we agree with McGinn that these problems are in principle unsolvable to us, then we must admit that they could only in principle be solved by a higher intellectual race, 1000s of years of evolution in the future. This is not a nice conclusion to draw, certainly if one is a philosopher. 

However, as is often pointed out, the unpleasant-ness of a view is not a reason not to hold it, especially if one has good philosophical reasons to hold it. And I think we do: why assume that we are intellectually so superior as to solve profound philosophical problems such as the problem of consciousness? Our powers must stop somewhere; and there is good reason to think that consciousness does indeed lie outside our cognitive space. It’s not all so bleak though; McGinn’s view does allow the physicalist/materialist a good response to the arguments for dualism drawn from the explanatory gap between the mental and the physical. The explanatory gap exists not because there is a gap in the world, between physical and mental stuff; it exists because there is a gap in our cognitive abilities to grasp the physical world, and the conscious states that arise from it.

McGinn's more substantial defence of his position as applied to consciousness can be found here, in his classic paper.

Sources: Colin McGinn, 'Can We Solve The Mind-Body Problem?' and Problems in Philosophy: The Limits of Inquiry

In defence of William Lane Craig

William Lane Craig, or 'Bill' to his mates.

William Lane Craig is a Professor of Philosophy at the Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. He is best known for his 'Christian apologetics', which has led him into combat with some of the world's most famous atheists and agnostics. However, he has become a much maligned figure in the public eye recently, and I have a few words to say in his defence.

Craig is often mischaracterized, usually by his ideological opponents, so it is necessary to take a few lines to detail what he has actually acheived in philosophy, and what sort of reputation he enjoys. Craig is an important figure in the philosophy of time (check back for more posts on this fascinating subject), where he has made notable contributions to defending ‘presentism’, a theory of time which holds that there is an objective present moment, and that past and future events do not exist. In fact, he has been important in the resurrection of this intuitive but philosophically problematic position, which appeared to have died a death around about about the 1960s. The problems associated with presentism do nothing to discredit Craig’s contribution to the theory, nor his detailed and wide-ranging critical studies of the two major theories of time, the A- and B-theories. (Presentism is a variant on the former).

As far as I am concerned, the above considerations do more than enough to anchor Craig’s position as a prominent figure in academic philosophy. However, when we move to religion, things get a little more hazy. Craig’s early approach to the philosophy of religion was a strictly academic one, and his book ‘The Kalam Cosmological Argument’ is still regarded as a leading work on that particular argument for God’s existence; so far, so good. On paper, Craig is also theologically credible, having studied under two of the most important theologians of the last 100 years - John Hick and Wolfhart Pannenberg. However, more recently, Craig has turned his attention to Christian apologetics, the defense of faith, and as such has come under fire. His ‘pastoral’ mission includes touring the Middle East with followers, writing self-help style books aimed at everyday Christians looking to defend their personal belief, and pursuing an obsessive debating schedule with just about every famous atheist and agnostic academic in existence. In aid of these aims, his promotional machine is a powerful force, pushing such debates in a manner that might be described as a little aggressive. Dawkins et al have taken pains to discredit Craig on these grounds, dismissing him as ‘a theologian’ (a term of abuse in Dawkins’ language), and ‘a professional debater.’

It’s sad that such criticisms conveniently seek to ignore Craig’s well-earned academic credentials, and the startling length of his list of publications (though quantity of work does not, alas, entail quality). Also frequently maligned is Craig’s debating style, which is sharp, sometimes rhetorical and verbally forceful; amusingly, he appears to have learned his lines well, since the content of his opening speech on anything God-related has remained identical for over 30 years (see the vast list of Craig’s videos on youtube). His opponents unfairly level the charge that Craig’s arguments take the form of logical trickery, designed to confuse and obscure to his popular but not intellectual advantage. But this is an easy criticism, and not a very clever one. The arguments Craig presents are just the standard theistic arguments for God’s existence; and the philosophical debates they raise are too lengthy and complex to properly assess here, or indeed in any public-debate environment. This is half the problem with any debate about God’s existence. We should therefore be careful not to confuse style with substance; Craig’s opponents confuse the idea that Craig is deliberately muddying the intellectual waters with obscurantism with the depth of the subject matter Craig introduces in support of his case. Granted, Craig is perhaps ill-advised to rehash one-sided arguments for God as ‘proofs’ for his case in public debates, but the problem is in this style of presentation, not the substance of the arguments themselves, about which there are often lively philosophical arguments to be had. The problem is that the chance of giving proper treatment to such debates in a public forum is slim; but the debates do exist nonetheless, and Craig has a right to raise them in his defence. In light of this, the claim of Andrew Copson, of the British Humanist Association, that Craig's arguments are 'easily refuted' outside public debate is particularly laughable. Copson needs to read some Plantinga.

I think, then, that I would generally defend WLC from his critics. He certainly has some crazy ideas, most often religious, which I could never accept, nor defend - his admission of faith over reason is worrying, as is his bold but unacceptable defense of certain biblical events. But these are propounded in the domain of Christian apologetics, which calls for crazy ideas to defend its often crazy claims! By contrast, in the domain of philosophy proper, Craig deserves respect, and this should also be shown in response to the philosophical arguments he calls upon in debate. Respect for an argument entails fairly engaging in the debate surrounding it, and not writing it off as nonsense before even properly considering it. Far from being a ‘professional debater’ or ‘crackpot theologian’, Craig is a distinguished academic philosopher, and this should not be forgotten in spite of his many unpalatable religious views, or his forthright debating style. Certainly, his philosophy is much more highly regarded by the philosophical community in general than the 'philosophy' of his most famous counterpart, Richard Dawkins; I'd probably echo the letter to Dawkins by philosopher of religion Daniel Came concerning the proposed debate between the two.