Visits: 1925
Hacker’s Wittgensteinian approach undoubtedly contains both Aristotelian Hylomorphic and Kantian Critical elements. His work entitled “Human Nature: A Categorical Framework” is an account that aims to produce a perspicuous representation of the aporetic problem of Human Nature in the spirit of “Philosophical Anthropology”. In this work Hacker clearly demarcates the arena of concern connected to scientific investigation from the arena of concern connected to Philosophical inquiry and reflection. This latter activity obviously critically involves a perspicuous representation of the concepts we use to characterise/explain/justify ourselves and our activities.
Concepts when combined in propositions/judgements that have an explanatory/justificatory function are categorical and to that extent they are not merely recommending that we see a particular phenomenon “in a certain light”, but demand that conditions for making these judgments are intimately tied to essence specifying concepts. Categorical judgements can be universal or particular. Universal categorical judgements would be classified as Principles in Aristotelian Hylomorphic theory, irrespective of whether they were theoretical statements made in the spirit of justified true belief or whether they were practical judgments made in the spirit of the Good and the Just. The Goods of the soul (rather than the goods of the external world and the goods of the body) were obviously intimately related to Truth and Justice.
There is, of course, a fundamental difference between the statements “This rod is one yard long” and “All rods have a length”. In the former we may need to justify the particular truth with particular activities, and in the latter the justification becomes in the words of Hacker and Wittgenstein, a grammatical justification (Kant would have called such a universal truth synthetic a priori). What is clear is the difference between the two forms of explanation/justification. In the case of the Universal judgement “All rods have length” there would be no trip to Greenwich or reference to Greenwich, neither would there be any observation or manipulation of elements of my environment, or description of the results of such activity. Hacker argues that “All rods have a length” cannot be descriptive of any possibility because the contradiction of this proposition is not a description of a possibility. Hacker’s position here is that “All rods have a length” is a “norm of representation”(Human nature: A Categorical Framework, Oxford, Blackwell, 2007). A norm of representation for Hacker characterises the concepts of “rod” and “length” in relation to each other and embedded in categories of substance and quantity. The rod is a kind of substance that can be both observed and manipulated(measured) mathematically. The constitutive concepts we use to characterise human nature, on the other hand, belong in a different matrix of categories which include substance, causation, powers, and agency. Out of these categories emerges the rationalism that governs our thought about agents and their powers. This kind of thinking will, according to Aristotle, be governed not by rules but principles.
It was Wittgenstein that opened up the logical space for Neo-Aristotelian and Neo-Kantian reflections by stating that many disciplines, including Psychology, suffer from Conceptual Confusion. The origin of this claim was probably to be found in Wittgenstein’s early work on “The Picture Theory of Meaning”, to be found in his “Tractatus”. This theory, according to Hacker in his book entitled “Insight and Illusion”(1989) was inspired by Hertz’s investigation into the logical nature of scientific explanation. Hertz in his work “Principles of Mechanics” provided a “Picture Theory” of his own which claimed that the point or telos of science was to anticipate events or happenings in nature, the data of such science was the knowledge of past events, the method was theory construction and the mode of reasoning to be used was deductive. The theory is composed of pictorial conceptions that must match the facts or states of affairs they picture. Any theory that meets these criteria will be best able to detect conceptual confusions(contradictions). Frege also probably contributed to Wittgenstein’s position with his claim that ordinary language with its subject-predicate structure was disguising the correct logical form of judgement which was a truth functional form composed of the truth value of arguments.
The final abandonment of this “Picture Theory” came when Wittgenstein realised that facts are not spatio- temporal occupants of the world standing and waiting to be described/explained. Instead what needs to be described, he now argues, is the use of language with understanding. Understanding here is not a psychological process but rather a power to use language in accordance with grammatical rules in a grammatical framework. Conceiving of an ability as a psychological process or state was one of the conceptual confusions that led Psychology astray.
The divorce settlement between Philosophy and Psychology in 1870, left Psychology with a questionable definition, namely “The Science of Consciousness”. which, when subjected to confirmation by the experiments of Wundt resulted in a schism between the activity of science and the concept of Consciousness. This schism was caused by paradoxical results from a series of experiments involving sensation/perception. Gestalt Psychologists, such as W Köhler attempted to explain away the resultant confusion by claiming that Psychology was a “Young Science” and to be compared with the state of affairs which once prevailed in the early years of the development of modern Physics. The methodology of Physics required that qualitative observations be “translated” into quantitative measurements and manipulations of “variables”. This kind of procedure was embraced by the behaviourists that made it a part of their mission to diminish the integrity of the direct qualitative experience of the subject(an experience that included expectations and reactions to “demands”). Köhler experimented with apes but he soon found that adherence to the strict methodology and language of science prevented him from adequately describing the behaviour of his apes: he seemed to be forced to go beyond the data given in order to make senses of the behaviour. In these descriptions we find psychological terms such as “want” and “believe”. Later research by neurophysiologists would suggest the complete elimination of all so called “subjective” terms from generalisations, demanding only “pure” quantitative and causal terminology linked with the Energy Regulation Principle(ERP) and the “reaction” of neurones in the brain to stimuli. More careful researchers, influenced by Gestalt theory adhered to a weaker position in which analysis included reference not to causality but to “correlations” between neural activity and so called “subjective” experience. Yet even if it was the case that “subjective” experience was not always “eliminated” in a “reduction”, the generalisations connected with this research certainly focussed upon patterns of neural firings in the sensory motor systems(in accordance with both the ERP and the PPP(Pleasure-Pain Principle). The philosophical aspect of the intentionality of the experience was not investigated. The final justification rested on the activity of the neurones in the material substrate of the brain : patterns or groupings of perceptual stimuli were then “connected” either by causality or correlation to firing patterns of neurones. The prevailing assumption was that theoretical science ought to provide us with the paradigm of investigation and explanation even in the analysis of practical action-related contexts. This was of course prejudicial to both the logic of practical reasoning and the aims of the architectonic of practical science as conceived by both Aristotle and Kant.
Hacker and Baker in an early work entitled “Language, Sense and Nonsense”( Oxford, Blackwell, 1984) pointed to the above “prejudice” and its consequences:
“The crucial question to be faced is whether law, morals and etiquette, games, logic, mathematics, and (the case that concerns us) language are an appropriate subject matter for theory- building and theoretical explanation of the form involved in physics. Certainly rules and normative phenomena associated with them give rise to a multitude of questions, puzzles, and difficulties. Observing unfamiliar normative behaviour immediately generates questions that seek for an interpretation of the behaviour. The observer strives to understand the meaning of what he sees and hears.”(P.308)
Normative behaviour is by definition behaviour that is not explorative(trying, that is, to discover the rule of the behaviour in the spirit of the hypothetical). It is rather categorical behaviour/action that knows its own justification. When I restrain myself from doing something I know to be wrong I know unconditionally that it is wrong(My restraint is not hypothetical–designed to find something out, or waiting for something). This knowledge in a court room is the test of sanity, e.g. knowing that murder and robbery is wrong. This kind of categorical awareness of arché is practical and not theoretical. The discussion above, however fails to recognise this Aristotelian/Kantian distinction between the theoretical and the practical. “Observing unfamiliar normative behaviour” is therefore a curious formulation and may be confusing theoretical behaviour with practical behaviour. We called attention in earlier volumes to the fact that observation of an activity is driven by an interrogative attitude directed at the external world. Anthropologists studying primitive societies approach the objects of their study with this attitude. We, on the other hand, who have grown up and live in our familiar societies approach behaviour with a more reflective attitude, e.g. “Ought X to be doing A”. Here we are reflecting upon the goods of the soul indirectly ,and directly upon the worth of the agent engaged in doing A. In this kind of reflection the principles of morality are not being “discovered” but are a condition of asking a higher level practical question of justification. Here the “meaning” of the question can be articulated firstly, in terms of the maxim of X’s action, and then subsequently(upon being asked for a further justification) reference to a higher principle/justification. Using one of Elisabeth Anscombe’s examples: if one is male and married and sexually tempted by a choir boy the maxim of such an agents action is hypothetically driven by the principle of self love which can be expressed thus, “Whenever my sexual desires for an object arise I am strongly attracted to that object”. Agents functioning in accordance with the PPP, have no qualms about acting out in accordance with such a principle which Kant would claim is the principle of self love in disguise( Freud might claim the agent has narcissistic tendencies in such a context). The reason, insofar as Kant is concerned, for this maxim failing to fall into the class of ethical-categorical statements is that is cannot be universalised in accordance with the formula of the categorical imperative. There is, that is no avoiding the fact that the choir boy is being used as means to a selfish/narcissistic end.
The tendency of some Philosophers to view the rules of language in the same way as Kant views the moral law of course raises the question as to whether there may be some kind of category-mistake occurring here–a mistake similar to that referred to by Stanley Cavell in his work “The Claim of Reason:Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and Tragedy”(Oxford, OUP, 1979) when he differentiated clearly between rule of chess that allows the move Kn to QB4, and a principle that justifies the move, e.g. the principle of controlling the centre of the chess board thus limiting the options of ones opponent. Both the rule and the principle are normative but the meaning of “normative” is distinct in these two cases. Rules, of course, specify what ought to be done under the hypothetical “If you want to play the game”. Principles, on the other hand, specify what ought to be done in a categorical spirit. Principles also demonstrate that they dwell in another realm of meaning in that they presume both the knowledge of the basic rules of chess and the more abstract knowledge of chess-strategy. The primacy of the importance of knowledge of the principles of chess is demonstrated in the intention with which we put the “Why?” question in this context, e.g. “Why did you move your Knight?”. Answering such an inquiry with “I am following the rules of chess will show that I have misunderstood the nature of the inquiry. A similar point can made in relation to the rules of language. In this context Why-questions relating to assertions are often best answered by justification in terms of principles or categories:
E.g. Why did you claim that we are different to animals?
Answer A: Because animals do not engage in discourse in the agora
Answer B: Because we argue with each other in the discourse using our knowledge of principles.
In such a context focussing upon the rule for the use of the term “animal” will not take us into the higher reflective realm of explanation/justification. The linguist focuses on this lower level of activity in the spirit of “modern science”. Baker and Hacker comment on this state of affairs in the following way:
“But the linguists “grammatical theory” is a calculus of rules. Its applications produces theorems not hypotheses and it neither has nor could not have(until it becomes a theory of performance) any room for factual initial conditions. To this, it will, of course be replied that the grammatical theory predicts that a given sequences is grammatical, and this is confirmed or confuted(just as in physics!) by experience, vix, the grammatical intuitions of the speaker. But this is wrong. The grammar entails that a sequence is according to its rules, licit or grammatical.”(P.314)
The authors then elaborate upon this claim of the theoretical linguist:
“His investigations, he contends, go deeper than those of the psychologist. He outstrips the Philosopher in conceptual clarification.”(P.314)
The above, the authors claim critically, is a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing(P.315).
What this discussion illuminates is a commitment to a reductionist program which reduces linguistic phenomena to various pragmatic conditions. Reductionism, in many respects fails to appreciate the fact that “causation” in the form of explanation/justification runs in two directions: bottom-up from social to moral and top down from the so called formal and final causes(forms of explanation) to lower-level material and efficient causes. In Psychology the lower level explanations are genetic and biological and the higher levels that are often “eliminated” by the lower level explanations are perhaps what is of most interest in psychological investigations. On Aristotle’s view a higher level explanation/justification is embodied in the definition of a person as a rational animal capable of discourse. We suggested in volume 2 of this work that Freud combines the principles of ERP, PPP, AND RP in an architectonic structure ranging from the lower levels of the biological(ERP, PPP) to the higher psychological levels that regulate our belief and action systems. Knowledge is obviously important to rational animals capable of discourse and there can be knowledge of many different kinds of thing at different levels of abstraction, e.g. the rules of chess v the principles of chess. A good game of chess is more likely to be related to principles than to rules. Given the kind of architectonic account that seeks in Kantian fashion to unify the totality of conditions of our Being-in-the-world into one system of epistemé, appeal to the theoretical, practical, and productive sciences is obviously important. Given the above assumptions one can be forgiven for seeing in reductionism, some form of category mistake (a kind of irrationality).
Hacker prefers the term “conceptual confusion” and points to Wittgenstein’s claim that the attempt to “reduce” arithmetic to logic illustrated the kind of conceptual confusion we encounter in a variety of disciplines with “psychological” concerns. Given the shifts in meaning of the term “psychological”, and given Kantian consent to two kinds of inquiry into the phenomena of psuche, the program of reductionism appears problematic. One kind of inquiry is based upon the synthetic a priori truth “Every event has a cause” and one kind of inquiry is based upon the logical principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Kant’s complex architectonic is the foundation of all disciplines, not of the Mathematical Logic of Russell and Frege, but of the philosophical logic of Aristotle and the above two Aristotelian principles. It is, in fact these two principles that make sense of the top down movement in mathematics from concepts to intuitions. For Kant it is the categories that allow us to construct a table of of principles or rules for the objective employment of the categories:
E.g. All intuitions are extensive magnitudes(synthesis of space and time)(P.197)
Experience is only possible through the representation of a necessary connection of perceptions(P.201)
That which agrees with the formal conditions of experience is possible, actual and necessary.(P.239)
From Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Reason, Translated Kemp Smith N., London, Macmillan Press, 1929).
The above is part of the Kantian matrix that subsumes rules under categories. Given this matrix it is difficult, if not impossible, in philosophical investigation, to detach concepts from their categorical framework and talk merely of conceptual confusions as Wittgenstein does. Hacker, on the other hand, especially in his later work(e.g. Human Nature: A Categorical Framework) is sensitive to the importance of the categories of understanding/judgement.These Kantian categories and tables of principles/rules must also be subject to the metaphysical principles of logic, namely the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. This Kantian framework or matrix in turn helps to constitute the context for the division of the mind into the faculties of sensibility, understanding and reason. This division obeys the Platonic imperative that “parts” or faculties must retain relations to the characteristics of the “whole” which in this case is the person. In Kant’s case the metaphysical principles apply throughout the architectonic structure all the way to the bottom which is composed of the functions of sensibility where sensation and perception occur relative to the categorical and metaphysical aspects of the architectonic.
The Aristotelian architectonic or matrix of 3 media of change, 4 kinds of change, 3 principles of change, and 4 causes of change embedded in the reflective structures of his three branches of science, namely theoretical(including metaphysics and therefore the discipline of logic), practical and productive, is compatible(from a Kantian point of view) with the Kantian architectonic/matrix. The latter however differs to the extent it is an elaboration(in Aristotelian spirit) of the Aristotelian position.
Hacker is an important representative of the late-Wittgensteinian position which helped to criticise dualism , materialism, pragmatism, naturalism, logical atomism and positivism thus creating the logical space once again for Neo-Aristotelian and Neo-Kantian positions to re-emerge in the stream of philosophical debate. Ancient and Enlightenment commitments to the kind of rationalism that forms an important relation to experience, and various principles of organising experience, were reaffirmed. Hacker was part of the Wittgensteinian “turn” away from a narrower conception of science with commitments to reductionism, materialism and dualism, and toward a more social/humanistic broader conception more in line with the views of Neo-Aristotelians and Neo-Kantians. There were significant differences between the concerns of the later Wittgensteinians and these Neo-Aristotelians and Neo-Kantians. The focus of concern for the Wittgensteinians was on the critique of language and its grammatical structure: a structure that is more concerned with the sense of language rather than its truth function even if the former was an important condition of the latter. This characteristic was behind the insistence that this search was not a theoretical exploration aiming at a theoretical discovery: grammar, Wittgenstein insisted is not a theory about anything.
The pendulum of reaction to Hegelian dogmatism had obviously swung too far when it embraced forms of anti-rationalism and extreme scepticism in relation to the programs of Aristotelian and Kantian metaphysics.
In a work entitled “Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience” written together with M R Bennett, a neuroscientist, the conceptual confusions associated with neuroscience are examined by Hacker and Bennett. The focus in this work is upon the theoretical temptations of materialistic and dualistic arguments and positions. In a Foreword, authored by Dennis Noble, this issue is addressed:
“The central appeal of this book is to throw off the remaining legacy of the Cartesian confusions, first expressed as a duality of mind and body, but lately expressed as a duality of brain and body. The authors show that, although the first required belief in a non-material substance, while the latter is wholly materialistic, many of the conceptual problems are the same.”(Philosophical Problems of Neuroscience, Bennet, M., R.,Bennet, Hacker P.M.,S.,(Oxford, Blackwell, P. XIV)
The authors define the task of neuroscience in the following way:
“to explain the neural conditions that make perceptual, cognitive, cogitative, affective, and volitional functions possible”(P. 1)
So-called “conceptual questions” do not fall into this empirical domain where the investigations are primarily situated in a context of exploration/discovery in which the intention is to collect data and move to a more abstract level of generalisation. Concepts are generalisations and assume a fixed meaning and relatively determinate content which introduces a commitment to explanation and justification. When the focus is on individual concepts and their relations, categories form part of the matrix for the inquiry. When Principles are the focus of attention, the principles of logic(noncontradiction, sufficient reason) are the points of reference leading us from premises to conclusions. The authors claim that conceptual questions concern our “forms of representation”(P.2). This appears to be an acceptable characterisation if the inquiry is explorative, but it ought to be pointed out that the move to the level of generalisation requires the involvement of categories of understanding/judgement. It is important also to note here that at this level the inquiry is not purely rooted in phenomena(moving from the solution of a problem to a new problem). Inductive inquiry assumes the use of concepts whose structure and content is clearly and distinctly understood. The authors, in this connection, refer to the brain research of Adrian, Eccles, and Penfield, which they characterise as brilliant, but riddled with conceptual confusion. The central confusion, it is argued is over the following characterisation of human nature which the above researchers fail to grasp:
“Human beings possess a wide range of psychological powers which are exercised in the circumstances of life when we perceive, think, reason and , feel emotions, want things, form plans and make decisions. The possession and exercise of such powers define us as the kind of animals we are. We may inquire into the neural conditions and concomitants for their possession and exercise….But its discoveries in no way affect the conceptual truth that these powers and their exercise in perception , thought and feeling, are attributes of human beings, not of their parts—in particular not of their brains. A human being is a psycho-physical entity, an animal that can perceive, act intentionally, reason and feel emotions , a language-using animal that is not merely conscious but also self-conscious–not a brain embedded in the skull of a body”(P.3)
Aristotle’s essence-specifying definition of a human being is “rational animal capable of discourse”. This is embedded in an architectonic/matrix of the media of change(space, time, matter), kinds of change, principles of change, causes of change, all monitored and reflected upon by the productive sciences, practical sciences and theoretical sciences. This matrix is then at the conceptual level expressed by the Greek concepts of areté, epistemé, arché, techné and phronesis. The element of consciousness is, of course, of more concern for modern science than it was for either Aristotle or Kant. Given the Kantian imperative of reason to search for the totality of conditions of everything conditioned, the above largely descriptive list of characteristics of being human would appear to be acceptable to a Kantian Philosopher.
Thinking in its fully actualised mode is thinking about something. Both what is being thought about and how it is being thought about must be possible, actual, and necessary for Kant. It is in this fully actualised mode that we encounter so-called conceptual judgements that in theoretical contexts aim at Truth and in practical contexts aim at “The Good”. Both forms of reasoning are logical and can therefore embed themselves in sound argument structures. This means that in the case of practical judgements the premises have to be True even if the primary purpose of the reasoning is to determine what action ought to be done.
The reductionist strategy of modern Science(dictated by its methodological obsession) is committed to the appeal to material and efficient conditions(causes/explanations). This approach changes the subject of thought and begins to speak instead of these underlying material and efficient causes by “eliminating” or “explaining away” the explanandum. Colour may well be materially and efficiently electro-magnetic radiation and stars similarly may be essentially defined in terms of “Gravitationally bound body of helium and hydrogen made self fluorescent by the process of nuclear fusion.” Yet it is not the material conditions of colour or the efficient causation that helps to produce light that is at issue when we stand in awe and wonder looking at the night sky or a sunset. What underlies these phenomena is not the object of attention.
In the descriptive quote above relating to human nature we notice a lack of reference to Principles although there is a clear intention to present the essence of being human. These Principles have emerged from Aristotelian, Kantian, and Freudian investigations. We should recall, in the context of the discussion of Hacker and Bennett’s work, that Freud was one of the early brain researchers, and in his Unpublished “Scientific Project” he discussed three categories of neurones in the brain: Phi, psi, and Omega neurone systems. He related these categories in various ways to the Psychological functions of perception, memory and consciousness. Freud, as we know, ended up burning this work as part of his “Socratic turn” away from the external world and toward the world of thought as characterised by Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. Freud made his mistakes(and admitted to them) during a period of 50 years of writing but he cannot be accused as he was by Cartesians of contradicting the idea of Consciousness. From the point of view of an Aristotelian and Kantian account of the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason there was no contradiction(if one excludes Freuds earlier “reductionist” writings). There is in Freud no reduction of Consciousness to the Unconscious but rather a teleological/formal explanation of Consciousness as a vicissitude of Instinct (in Aristotelian terms Consciousness might be regarded as an actualisation of the human potential of the human life instinct). The “Categories” of the potential, the actual and the necessary is the framework for Freudian reflections upon the nature of Consciousness, The Pre-Conscious, and the Unconscious as topographical systems. The Category of “Agency” is then superimposed upon this topographical structure via the “systems” of the Id, Ego and Superego. This Architectonic/Matrix is then constituted and regulated by the ERP, PPP, and RP. This architectonic is also by its nature intersubjective and objectively related to the structures and systems of Civilisation and its Cultural activities. Freud names two of his categories of Instincts, Eros(the life instincts) and Thanatos(death instincts) and this testifies to the Greek spirit of his reflections. Ananke appears in this spirit and there are clear references to the Delphic prophecies that “All things created by man are destined to ruin and destruction” and “Know thyself”. Freud was hoping of course that his own work would do something to mitigate the pessimism of this message and hinder the descent of humanity into the abyss of destruction and perhaps it did partly succeed in this by restoring both an Ancient and Enlightenment Spirit in our Culture. Kant’s Critical Philosophy was relatively quickly neutralised in its influence by Hegelian Philosophy. Freud’s Philosophical Psychology was also destined for negation by the modern spirit of Science inherited from the Cartesians committed to mind/body dualism and English Empiricists committed to an anti-rationalist program. These “Modern Scientists” or “new men” as we have called them in earlier volumes viewed the world through the lens of variables to be observed in order to be manipulated in a largely technological spirit(techné).
Hacker and Baker identify a long list of conceptual errors in Psychology, that are taken to be facts by neuroscientists, e.g. that perception involves harbouring an image in ones “mind”, that memory is always of the past, that memories can be stored like substances in the brain in the form of neural connections, that inquiries into the instinctual realms of sex, hunger, and thirst are inquiries into typical emotions.
Much is made of the idea of a perspicuous representation by Hacker and Bennett and the controlling image of this idea appears to be that of “uno solo ochiata”–grasping a view of the world vaguely characterisable as a “picture” or “world-view”. These are terms taken from the later writings of Wittgenstein and they are static image-like terms that perhaps are more “mathematical” than dynamic, to use a Kantian distinction drawn from his third critique. These terms certainly sit uncomfortably with the more dynamic Aristotelian idea of “form of life” that Wittgenstein also embraces. A picture can of course be synoptic and like Giorgione’s “Tempesta” capture the essence of mans rationality in an image, i.e. by showing how man is calmly situated in a busy and threatening environment. Language for Wittgenstein, Hacker and Bennet is a medium for change–the principles/rules are grammatical and there are kinds of use, e.g. interrogative, descriptive, and imperative. Language also has moods and tenses but perhaps the most important feature of its essence, insofar as its relation to reality is concerned, is to represent the world in its absence. Its dynamism is a vicissitude of both sensory-motor, and thought operations. A word is a stand-in for reality in the realms of discourse and thought. Discourse brings distant places and spaces, the past, and the future into the agora. If there are language games being played in the agora they are perhaps less important than the rational world view the visitors to the agora expect of each other. Games can be won or lost but there is a feeling that much more is at stake than personal wins and losses in the dialectical interplay of thesis-antithesis in such discourse. Socratic elenchus was designed to restructure this dialectic via the rational use of an early form of the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Winning and losing debates(techné) subsequently took second place to areté measured by arché, diké and phronesis .
One of the most important definitions of psuche claims that life is the first actuality of a natural living body that has organs. The Latin translation “anima” does not quite capture the full Greek intentions of this term and renders it more substantial and confined to the modality of actuality. Life, in the light of this translation, became substantialised in the form of ones breath or ones blood which in the one case when it ceased marked the end of life and in the other also marked the end of life when enough of the substance of life-blood was shed. Here the senses were sufficient to establish death with the minimum of knowledge. For the Greeks, life was a vicissitude rather than an actuality and the controlling framework of thought was developmental in accordance with the modalities of possibility and necessity. Forms and principles entered into this dynamic scene and their task was primarily to explain or justify changes such as the end of life. Logic was paramount in this process—something had to remain the same throughout the change if it was to form the subject term of our discourse. The Latinisation of Greek transformed this something into an actual substance, materialising it in a way not intended by the Greeks. For the Ancient Greek Philosophers the most important aspect of this something was not its matter but rather the principle organising that matter. The powers a being possesses were for them obviously important to the essence of this being–the power of life–the power of discourse, and the power of reason. These are the powers of a human form of life, a form of life that is organised hierarchically with the lower powers being related in complex ways to the higher powers by principles(ERP, PPP, RP).The ERP rests on the functions of the organs and the limbs which in turn both partly constitutes and is subject to regulation by the PPP which in its turn partly constitutes and is regulated by the RP. The highest level of existence for Aristotle was that of contemplation– a state in which the Reality Principle (RP) demands rationality of all the vicissitudes of ones life: an aim mirrored in more abstract and complex manner by the organised discourse of all the sciences(Productive Science, Practical Science, Theoretical Science). It is worth remembering in the context of this discussion the Freudian early reliance on the hierarchy of brain functions proposed by Hughlings Jackson in relation to his studies on Aphasia. The Freudian “turn” of course, involved a turning away from studying the neural substrate and toward studying the conditions necessary for the human being to be mentally healthy. The Psychic apparatus presented in the famous Chapter 7 of Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams” retains clearly the trace of the influence of Hughlings Jackson but at the same time it also points the way forward to the Freudian “turn” where principles rather than substance will dominate both concept formation and theoretical and practical justifications. In Freud’s last wave of theorising nothing is “reduced” to anything else, nothing is “eliminated” and what we now find is the presence of principles in a hylomorphic and critical framework. Recall here Freud’s own claim that his Psychology was Kantian. Freud was throughout his career combatting Cartesianism and its commitment to Consciousness via a certainty grounded in scepticism. This scepticism, we need to remind ourselves, urged us to meditate far from the madding crowd of the agora and in the process think away our own physical bodies. Descartes approached Aristotelian Philosophy in the same spirit of scepticism and accused him of dogmatic rationalism without fully understanding the complexity of the hylomorphic framework. The Cartesian form of certainty that emerged was certainly a dogmatic form of rationalism that a Freudian might become suspicious of, considering the facts relating to Descartes own earlier mental problems: we know that Descartes suffered at least one mental breakdown in his youth. The removal of the body from the realm of the Cogito left Descartes with a form of dualism which in the opinion of many was inferior to the form of dualism we encounter in Plato. Both were rationalists but it is not unreasonable to assume that Platonic Rationalism was more sympathetic to hylomorphism than Cartesian rationalism was.
Hacker and Bennet in their discussion of Aristotle discuss the nervous system in relation to the Aristotelian idea of sensus communis. Aristotle we know had no idea of the exact function of nerves in the brain. Hacker and Bennet note the functions of temporality and the ways in which imagination and memory organise time and images into a unity(P.18).
There is also reference to Cicero’s account of the lost works of Aristotle in which the mind is regarded as a fifth element of the universe(complementing earth, air, water, and fire). This fifth element had the function of thinking and is also in a state of eternal motion. The Greek term “endelecheia” is referred to in this context and its meaning is contested amongst critics but it in all probability refers to the power of nous, the active intellectual aspect of psuche. Hacker and Bennett claim that the term is the same as the term “entelecheia” which connects the general term energeia to the developmental and actualisation processes.
With Descartes (the combination of scepticism and an epistemology resting upon God for its justification), thought and thinking was transformed into consciousness. Unfortunately the dominant category Descartes used in his reasoning about consciousness was that of substance. The Primary premise of Cartesian reasoning begins with the axiomatic claim that the substance of the mind is immaterial. Thinking, is, of course, an activity rather than anything substantial. Activities are logically linked to agents–there cannot be dancing in the street without anyone dancing in the street. The “I” on the Cartesian position is an immaterial substance and eventually forced Descartes into defending his position by agreeing that thought(immaterial substance) and extension(material substance) interact in the material matrix of the brain. An alternative way of conceptualising the “I think” is in terms of “I can” where the “I” at the source of the activity is a “lived body”(Merleau-Ponty”). This “lived body” or “form of life” for Freud was best characterised as a vicissitude, or a function(William James) or an operator(Julian Jaynes).
It is, of course a person who thinks and not a brain or a body and to deny this fact is to commit what Hacker has referred in several different works as the Mereological Fallacy. This fallacy involves attributing a predicate true of the whole to a part of the whole, e.g. a predicate true of a person is used to claim that the same predicate is true of his brain or his body. Hacker and Bennet then draw up a long list of authors who have used this form of fallacious argumentation. The list includes names such as Sperry, Crick, Edelman, D Marr, J.Z. Young, Le Doux, C. Blakemore, Helmholtz, and Damasio. Many of these authors claim in various ways that neurones have knowledge or intelligence(P.69)
Sensation is obviously a form of consciousness that has a close connection to the body. Wittgenstein, in his later work, focuses upon pain and the language game associated with it. To say “I am in pain”, he argues, is not a descriptive claim as many have maintained but rather an expression of the speakers pain(sometimes in the form of an exclamation). This expression is learned perhaps as a substitution for the primitive cry of pain. In both cases I am directly conscious of the pain. In the case of reporting someone else’s pain I am not in the same non-observational way aware of his pain but rather in a sense observing his suffering and in so doing I take his expressive behaviour to be a call for attention and appropriate forms of social activity that aim at alleviating the suffering. Wittgenstein argues that I cannot be said to know that I am in pain because I “notice” or “observe” the pain in myself. Rather, as he puts it ” I have my pain”(a form of non observational awareness). It is also important to note that I am not here naming my pain in expressing it. Naming requires criteria and such criteria are necessary of course when it comes to the third person use of pain. Saying “I am in pain” becomes for the observer, a criterion for saying “He is in pain”. Similarly, in the case of “I intend to have a shower”, is a criterion for saying “He intends to have a shower”. Here the idea of moves in a language game certainly appears as an illuminating way in which to avoid conceptual confusion involved in assimilating the third person use of a psychological predicate to the first person use. But a sceptic may interject, “What if he is not telling the truth?”. Wittgenstein does not explicitly say this but playing such a language game assumes truthfulness. As a language user playing this kind of language game, I also am aware that particular agents( not everyone) are, for certain particular reasons, not to be trusted, and in such cases it is best to see what they do before believing that they are in fact in pain. This however is a convolution of the language game and not a central defining feature. We learn that sometimes there can be “mitigating circumstances”. If someone is known to be a pathological liar it is only prudent to not believe what one hears but rather see what he does.
Intention is of course future directed and the primitive expression of this language game is founded upon the expression “I am going to…” (have a shower). The game ends when the agent expressing the intention does what he intends to do. There are in these games no appeal to inner observation or introspection no search for a sensation, no search for a characteristic experience of pain, or intending or wanting. There is merely activity in accordance with an underlying maxim of “I can”(express my pain, intentions, wants). The responder also responds in the spirit of “I can”, e.g. by sympathising, helping, etc. Activity is the dominant category and the concepts of areté and entelecheia embedded in a hylomorphic or critical framework are part of the matrix the above forms of life.
Many philosophers of mind have fixated upon the term “mind” and substantiated it in various problematic ways. Hacker consistently points out that the agent of activity is the person, the “I”, and if we wish to use the term “mind” as a synoptic means of referring to the intellectual and moral powers of the person there is no problem with doing this as long as one does not fall down the rabbit hole of attempting to solve the pseudo-problem of the relation of an immaterial substance of mind with the material substance of body.. Persons have brains, minds cannot have brains, and brains cannot have two “selves” interacting(corresponding to the neuronal interaction of the right and left hand sides of the brain). Indeed there is every reason to doubt that there is such a thing as a self which is an inner owner of experiences. The person owns his experiences and the inner-outer polarisation may not be the most appropriate conceptual representation of the relation of a person to his experiences. The Kantian “I think” has no such problematic implication. Kant with this expression is indicating the ability one possesses to conceptualise ones experiences: an ability that is, according to Hacker, an expression of a two way power plus the ability to use personal pronouns and other person-referring expressions. Saying “I am in pain” after having learned to use the concepts of “I” and “pain” is a ground for other persons or “I’s” to say of me “He is in pain” . The “I” Hacker claims, is an essential condition of the whole language game. Hacker appears here to be in agreement with the Kantian more schematic account of the child learning to use the word “I”:
“The first person pronoun is one piece in a complex game in which the other personal pronouns and person referring expressions are other essential pieces. Like the king in chess it is the pivotal piece for each player, but without the other pieces one cannot play the game.”( Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, P.348)
Self-Consciousness is thus not a state but rather connected to an ability to think of oneself. The mastery of all first personal pronouns and psychological predicates in the first person case are learned together with criteria related to the observation of other persons: criteria are necessary to master third person usage of psychological predicates. This means that the usage of first person predicates are criterionless. We recall that Kant’s schematic account of this phenomenon referred to a stage of using language where the child uses its name to express its wants etc: “Karl wants ice-cream”. For Kant the advent of the usages of “I” “You”, “Me”, “He”, “She” etc transforms the consciousness of the child to a self consciousness that involves the ability to take a reflective step back and psychically distance oneself from ones actions and beliefs. This reflective step back is also a step into the territory of the context of explanation/justification. One can, for example, after a period of learning, ask of ones own beliefs “Are they True?”: and also ask of ones actions “Are they Just?” . Self-Consciousness, then, is a complex vicissitude of Consciousness. The space of self consciousness, according to Hacker and Bennett is created partly by a disposition to say that “I am in pain” and thereby the disposition to think that one is in pain. This space is the space in which the activities of explanation and justification arise. Reasons are asked for and given and understood in the demand for Truth and Justice. It is in this space, for example, that one can become conscious of ones motive for doing something(an important aspect of “knowing oneself”). Such knowledge is vitally important for knowing ones efficacy and worth as an agent and this knowledge is an important aspect of the operation of the Reality Principle in ones life. Ones knowledge of oneself may not of course necessarily be shared by others and this is part of ones Stoical appreciation of the role of Ananke in human affairs.. The Goods of the Soul are known by the phronimos who knows himself and these far outweigh the goods of the body and the goods of the external world: an attitude well reflected in the Christian warning that one may gain the whole world but lose ones soul in the process.
Hacker and Bennett correctly point to the importance of the role of language(discourse) in the actualisation process of becoming self.conscious. They also point to the unfortunate tendency of many thinkers to focus on the theory of language rather than the practice or mastery of language. Psychological concepts are of course not merely theoretical technical concepts but rather concepts that stretch over the domains of all three sciences(productive, practical, and theoretical). Rules are practical activity-related entities. When, for example, I am uncertain of someones motive in doing something this is not only a theoretical uncertainty even though I am in a sense in search for the Truth–my search is also related to the practical sphere of activity and action. The authors in making this point maintain correctly that “Science is not the measure of all things”(P.374). In purely theoretical scientific investigations if a term fails to to explain what it intends to explain it can be jettisoned. If the term concerned was a central term of the theory, indeed the whole theory may be jettisoned. This cannot happen with psychological concepts, according to Hacker and Bennett because they are partly constitutive of the human life forms they characterise. Suffering, intending, and wanting do not merely reveal what we are experiencing but play a role in our becoming or being the kind of form of life we are.
Hacker and Bennett claim to be writing under the banner of of analytical Philosophy and this is a reasonable claim given the omnipresence of the Philosophy of the later Wittgenstein(a reformed analytical philosopher?). The boundaries of sense rather than the division of the world into referential facts is the new North Star. Clarification of concepts alleviate the effects of the virus of conceptual confusion. Not just the use of language but its mastery(areté), becomes an important part of the new methodology. Hacker and Bennett agree that there are different forms of analytical Philosophy but they fail to engage with our principal question in this work which is “What roles can hylomorphic and Critical Philosophy play in the future of Philosophy?” There are aspects of both forms of philosophising in Hackers largely Wittgensteinian account but the question of its relation to both rationalism and Metaphysics remains unanswered.
Hacker in his work “Insight and Illusion” supports the view that there is a “family resemblance” between the Kantian and the later Wittgensteinian positions when he says:
“Both Kant and Wittgenstein shared a conception of philosophy as concerned with the bounds of sense… both sort to curb the metaphysical pretensions of Philosophy”.
This however merely forces us to once again question why there is a failure to engage with forms of rationalism and metaphysics we find in Aristotle’s and Kant’s works.