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Psychology was consolidated as a region of Philosophy primarily by the later Philosophical Investigations of Wittgenstein which partly attempted to address the conceptual confusions of Modern Psychology and partly attempted to refute the theories of those Philosophers seeking to characterise the human psuche in terms of Hobbesian, Humean causal mechanisms and/or Darwinian instinct-theory. There is, in Wittgenstein, no ambition to furnish a competing theory, but there is in the reflections of R S Peters a startling resemblance to the kind of aporetic reflections we find in Wittgenstein (We find in Peters’ work arguments that in turn bears more than a passing resemblance to the kind of reflection we find in Aristotles Metaphysics). Wittgenstein we know voices personal frustration over the fact that his work resembles a Socratic “album of sketches” rather than a perspicuous representation of the kind we find in Aristotle’s works. Wittgenstein’s work was vitally important, however, in an era in which logical atomism and logical positivism dominated the scene of the Philosophy of the first half of the 20th century. Peters was continuing this important work, especially in the fields of the Philosophy of Action and Education, in which we can also find traces of Kantian Philosophical Psychology and Anthropology. Peters refers in a number of essays to the ontological distinction critical for psychological reflections, namely, that between what man does(action=what he does) and that which happens to man( =that which he suffers). In his early writings however there are uncomfortable references to Popper’s falsification theory: references that are located primarily in an inductive context of exploration which appears to place even truth conditions in the category of hypothetical judgements. We encountered this theory in Peters early work ,””Social Principles of Democracy”. Popper was regarded by the logical positivists (who had a more categorical relation to the truth conditions of judgements) as the “official opposition”, at least up until the time that Wittgenstein began to attack his own earlier work in the spirit of classical theories. Wittgenstein also, by the way, tried to “show” Popper the error of his ways in an ethical discussion by picking up a poker and hypothesising what he might do with it.
Bryan Magee claims that Popper solved the philosophical problem of induction which Hume had posed. Poppers formula “Problem1–trial solution—error elimination—problem2”, expressed well the mental orientation of the “new men” in their obsession with the context of exploration/discovery. For these new men, Popper included, scientific laws were simply generalisations from methodically determined observations and experiments. The results of these “investigations” formed a data base for the community of scientists : a data base that could be used to generate further observations and experiments in other regions of reality. The problem of induction was, however, a logical problem. From a logical point of view no number of observations and experiments could conclusively verify or guarantee the truth of a scientific law, because the assumption that induction was based on, was an experiential assumption that the future would remain the same as the past: that the world would not essentially change its “form” or behave in accordance with a different physical principle. The spectre of Aristotle haunted this discussion because the hylomorphic theory of change questioned the de re validity of the above assumption. Our theories, Aristotle argued, must both describe and explain change and one cannot therefore assume that the laws that explain and justify change assume that change will not occur. This aspect of Heraclitean theory must be accepted. We, as rational animals capable of discourse, desire, amongst other things, to understand the continually changing world, and therefore seek the “forms” or principles that will provide us with a norm for thinking: norms that are controlled by the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason(Rational principles). Aristotle’s theory of change also describes how we come to conceptualise the infinite continuum of the the world we dwell in, as specks on a globe that is in itself a speck in the universe. We need, however Kantian theory, to clarify why we cannot regard the assumption that the future will be like the past as a logical principle. If the world is an infinite continuum that is changing continually, unless one is able to logically identify a “something” that is the bearer of change and remains the same throughout the change, we would be unable to either talk or think about this something: This, for Aristotle, is a metaphysical truth but for Kant this would be a proposition of transcendental logic: a condition of claiming something about something or thinking something about something. It may, then be a consequence of this truth that the future will be like the past until that day that the sun explodes or some other earth shattering event occurs in our region of the cosmos.
Involved in the above context of explanation/justification is the invocation of a transcendental realm of understanding that lies between sensibility and rationality, and it is clear that this realm transcends Aristotelian categories of existence by postulating categories of the understanding which in turn assist in creating the categorical judgements that form the foundation of our different forms of thinking about reality.(For Aristotle these different forms would be encapsulated in three sciences: theoretical science, practical science, and productive science). It is clear for both philosophers that inductive activities that are part of the context of exploration/discovery, help to “form” our sensible intuitions into unities that are “ready for conceptualisation”. The process of the formation of these unities is partly conditioned by the nature of the reality involved and partly by the activity of the “I think” that Kant believes is a transcendental act of apperception.
Bryan Magee argues in a postscript to his work on Popper (Philosophy of the Real World: An introduction to Karl Popper, La Salle, Illinois, Open Court, 1985), that Popper argued for dualism, and against materialism. The faculty of the mind involved in the transaction with reality was the imagination situated in an environment in which the expectations generated by ones current theory are deliberately frustrated by the scientific attempt to falsify current hypotheses. The schema for this process of evolution is instrumentally pragmatic, beginning with a problem for which a trial solution is found, continuing with a process of error elimination until a modified formulation of the problem is “discovered”, and the process begins anew. Aristotle of course lifts this activity to a higher level into a context of explanation/justification, by postulating a judgement in which something is claimed about something with truth functional intent. The modality of the judgement is hypothetical and therefore differs from the modality of an ethical judgment which on Kant’s theory is categorical( cf metaphysical judgments of nature such as every event has a cause). The nature of these categorical judgments, however, are different because events happen, and “deeds” are what man does to make something of himself. In this later case we encounter a moral understanding constituted by a moral reasoning process: in other words two faculties of mind which pragmatists, existentialists, phenomenologists and atomists alike question the validity of. It was of course the lack of this form of moral insight in the work of Popper that provoked the “poker” incident with Wittgenstein. It should be pointed out , however, that Peters does not in his reflections upon Psychology, Ethics or Education appeal to Popper’s critical theory, although in the case of his work,”Brett’s History of Psychology”, there is a distinctive anti-rationalist orientation. Popper’s falsification formula has its roots in evolution theory, even though for him the origin of life is a mystery and lies at the limits of an understanding that can have knowledge of developmental sequences of life forms. In the animal life form, it is survival that is the problem, and the trial solutions of the animal occur with the help of the sensory-motor systems of the animal concerned. These animal forms of life manifest two forms of communication, firstly, expression of internal states of the organism by means of the body, and secondly, a signalling function that may be related to extreme emotions provoked by dangers in the external physical world. Human Language, according to Popper builds upon these two purposes with two others, namely firstly, conceptual description of the objects and events of the world which in their turn, secondly, create the truth function of language in which truth is distinguished from falsity with the aid of rational argumentation. This human form of life, Popper argues relates, not to one unified world, but rather to three worlds: world 1 which is a world of physical material things including books and records, world 2 which is a world composed subjective minds, and thirdly, world 3 which is a so-called “objective” world of the cultural products of the minds of human beings. This third world is both autonomous and created by us, it is a world of ideas, art, science, language , ethics, and institutions.
The dualism of the above account is self evident and provoke mind-body discussions that do not naturally arise in relation to Aristotelian hylomorphic theory or Kantian Critical Theory. Popper claims in relation to ethics that man is thrown into a world he has not created, a changing world with no plot or spirit determining its direction. Most of the structures we encounter in this world were not planned or intended: it has an “accidental” character. Marx and Hegel are the intended targets of Popper’s critical theory but unfortunately the dualistic metaphysics results in collateral damage to the Aristotelian and Kantian structures. Popper’s critical theory is neither rationally nor ethically based. It is obsessed with the context of exploration/discovery and in spite of its focus on hypothetical theoretical judgements the theory does not operate at the level of the kind of context of explanation/justification we find in Aristotelian and Kantian theory.
On the above account Political Policies are hypothetical: they have the following structure, “If one does X, Y will follow”. This may be an acceptable account. Now whilst this may be an acceptable account of governmental policies connected to activities governed by the principle of distributive justice, ‘e.g. “If we increase spending in education the work force will become increasingly mobile”, the focus is on the means to the end (mobile work force) rather than the end in itself that is a good-in itself in both the Aristotelian and Kantian systems of thought. This judgment is clearly a predictive judgment in a context of exploration that is expected to either turn out true or false. Hypothetical judgments that are not aiming at the prediction of events but rather at a context of explanation/justification, e.g. “If one murder’s someone one is breaking the law” are not merely predictions (although it is at least that). In this latter case we are dealing with a categorical declarative that is justified by the moral law(So act that you will that the maxim of your action can become a universal law. So act that you treat yourself and others never merely as a means but also as an end). Policies of distributive justice are also connected to the ought system of concepts, and there will be a categorical aspect to these policies related to the kinds of good intended by the action of the policies of distributive justice: social mobility is of course a good of the external world, but education is architectonically, in the Kantian system, a higher good related to the goods of the soul. In judgements related to the categorical imperative, the focus is on a logical relation between intention and consequence that does not require a waiting to see if the effect expected follows from the cause. In such judgments the good will is the source of consequences that are good because of their source in a good will.
Poppers formula could not be used to analyse categorical judgments belonging in the context of explanation/justification, because it is an intellectual tool designed to discover mistakes. It is thus an instrumental imperative with negative intent. The formula demands that we re-describe the expression of an intention as an event, and change the context to one requiring an attitude more appropriate to the context of exploration/discovery. Popper uses this strategy to criticise Marxist theory. He focuses upon the planning of distributive policies and claims that they lack predictive value rather than focussing upon categorical factors such as the lack of respect for the law and the lack of respect for the freedom of the citizens of the society. His formula does not engage positively with ethical and religious questions such as “What ought we to do?” and “What can we hope for?” These questions, and the principles(e.g. categorical imperative) associated with them, ought to be a central feature of just rule, but the duty to become more an more ingenious in ones attempts to falsify these laws and principles is Popper’s idea of what makes a society rational. This is, as a matter of fact, the strategy that the new men pursued in relation to Aristotelian and Kantian categorical rationality. The power of rationality, for Popper, is tied to the power of his formula. Brian Magee in his work on Popper claims that this formula would be in the spirit of social democracy, and he characterises the instrumental imperative of such societies as “minimise avoidable suffering!”. This imperative has the advantage, Magee argues, of focussing concretely on what can be done, in contrast to what he regards as abstract utilitarian principles of the utilitarians such as “Maximising happiness” or abstract deontological principles relating to Freedom. Suffering, Magee argues, is a call to action in a way that is not the case with abstract principles. Revolution is a call to action and is in accord with Popper’s formula. Both the French Revolution and the Russian revolution were instrumentally in the name of distributive justice and the consequences that occurred certainly fell into the category of trial solutions and error elimination, but they included violence on a scale abhorrent to Aristotelians and Kantians. The Kantian response to the French revolution was to see in the intention not an instrumental imperative but a categorical imperative aiming for freedom from tyrannical rule–a good of the soul. This did not hinder Kant from deploring the violence from an abstract moral point of view, from the point of view of noncontradiction(the taking of life is a violation of the life principle itself which by definition is a life sustaining force) and the principle of sufficient reason(one cannot be free of tyranny through imposing another tyranny). Poppers formula invites us to evaluate the French Revolution instrumentally in terms of its consequences. He adds a second principle to “maximise freedom!”, but the formula by definition cannot eliminate tyranny because error elimination must generate another problem that it can be argued only quantitatively diminishes the scope of the problem. This formula, without any metaphysical or ethical infrastructure(Aristotelian or Kantian), cannot provide the universality and necessity required for a judgment relating to “What one ought(categorically) to do. The idea of freedom is viewed by Popper, consequentially, in the same light as suffering, and any appeal to a good will or good intentions belong in world 2, a subjective world that by definition is not “objective” in the way Kant postulates.
There is no doubt that Peters flirted with the above position in his earlier work on Politics. We see the beginnings of a movement away from confinement within Popper’s system of “Objective Knowledge” in the opening quote of his work “The Concept of Motivation”:
“Whether a given proposition is true or false, significant or meaningless, depends upon what questions it was meant to answer”(R G Collingwood)(Peters, R., S., The Concept of Motivation(London, Routledge, 1958)
In this work Peters distances himself from Popper by claiming that those Psychological theories striving to imitate scientific method were missing the central animus of Psychology, which he would later characterise in terms of “a judicious blend of Piagetian and Freudian Theory which, in my view, are complementary to each other”(Peters, R., S., Psychology and Ethical Development(London, Allen and Unwin, 1974, P. 16)
In “the Concept of Motivation” we can see the beginnings of Peters’ “turn” away from the paradigm of scientific method toward a more philosophically oriented theory. This can be seen, in particular, in his claim that Psychologists like Hull were more concerned with the description of human behaviour than its explanation(P.3). Peters, however, continues to theorise in the name of Science. Sometimes with occasional reference to Popper, but he does so in an Aristotelian spirit in that he founds his position on the Explanation of Action. There is also more than a hint of the influence of the work of the later Wittgenstein in the following claim:
“Man is a rule-following animal”(P.5)
Peters is clear in his teleological(Aristotelian) interpretation of the above claim, and he elaborates upon this theme by denying that rules mechanically(in accordance with material and efficient causation) regulate behaviour. They are, Peters claims, connected to the knowledge the agent has of the norms that determine following the rule correctly. These rules are embedded in mans character: a character formed by the knowledge he uses to engage with physical and social reality. In the context of this discussion, Peters points out in Aristotelian spirit, that the norms(disguised imperatives) are part of the definition of the end one is striving for. “Man”, argues Peters, “in society is like a chess player writ large”. The types of explanation we encounter in the domain of action are not to be found in the Scientific Psychology of his time. In fact he claims in this work that it is anthropology or sociology that are the basic sciences of human action. Reference is made, again in Aristotelian spirit, to the reason behind the action which, Peters also points out, the agent might not be conscious of. The reason being referred to here is not to be characterised in terms of material or efficient causation. The move Q to QB6 might be met with the question “Why?, and reference to the mechanical legality of the move, e.g. “This is how the Queen is allowed to move”, of course refers to a rule, but it does not fully explain or justify the move. The explanation/justification of the move may be as complex and comprehensive as the court transcript of a tribunal, and it would embrace causes in the chess case that would include the historical account of previous moves and the reasons for them: such an account might also include reference to mistakes etc. Areté will be the principle which is used to evaluate whether the respective moves of the game ought or ought not to have occurred. There is a clear reference to the Wittgensteinian concept of a language-game embedded in a form of life in Peters’ account. There is also evidence of the shift inspired by Wittgenstein’s later work from natural science and toward social science and the Humanities. Causal explanations are still very relevant in this context, especially if there is a need to explain deviations from what one ought to have done, on the grounds of principles that have been independently justified. Peters gives this interesting explanation:
“Or behaviour may go wrong by being deflected toward a peculiar goal as with a married man who suddenly makes an advance to a choir boy. In such cases it is as if man suffers something rather than dies something. It is because things seem to be happening to him that it is appropriate to ask what made. drove, or possessed him to do that. The appropriate answer in such cases may be in terms of causal theory.”(P.10)
Here there is clear reference to the ontological distinction we find in Kant’s Anthropology, namely, that between what happens to man and what man makes of himself(and his world). It is important to note here however, that the moral dimension involved in correctly blaming the married man for his behaviour remains a necessity given the fact that there was a sense in which the man(assuming normal mental health), ought not to have succumbed to the temptation to do what he did. We expected, namely, that the part of the mind that understands what ought, or ought not to be done, bear a significant relation to the part of the mind that strives to express sexual desire, thus preventing the operation of this sensible causal mechanism. We expect, that is, the mans character to dominate impulsive instinctive urges seeking expression. The causality referred to above, is, in Freudian theory, steered by the instincts/emotions but also by the history of the power of the sensible mind to form behavioural tendencies. Peters claims that these tendencies are also examples of purposive rule following. In what Popper called “The logic of the situation” there is clearly a kind of calculation of means to sexual ends involved in the above example, and little, if any, involvement of the deontological part of the mind responsible for understanding the duties of marriage or duties toward minors. These duties are categorical, they are ends-in-themselves that flow from the deliberative, contemplative higher faculties of categorical understanding and reason. Peters notably does not appeal to these notions or the Aristotelian/Kantian forms of rationalism that support these notions, but he does appeal to Freudian theory which we know was inspired by both of these forms of rationalism. Peters praises Freud’s commitment to psychogenesis(the role of the mind in the generation of symptoms and behaviour), but criticises Freud for not understanding that his proposed model of rule following behaviour applies to all behaviour whether we are confronted with rule following or behaviour that manifests deviation from a rule. This criticism does not do justice to the complexity of Freudian theory, in which it is clear that the married mans sexual advances toward the choir boy, may not be in accordance with the Reality Principle(what one ought or ought not to do) insofar as his duties are concerned but such behaviour is nevertheless in accordance with the pleasure-pain principle that governs Sensibility and the pleasures of the body. In this fantasy laden behaviour neither the goods of the external world nor the goods of the soul are involved.
Peters’ commitment to “Scientific Psychology” is still to some extent present as can be seen from the following claim:
“To give a causal explanation of an event involves at least showing that other conditions being presumed unchanged a change in one variable is a sufficient for a change in another. In the mechanical conception of “cause” it is also demanded that there should be spatial and temporal contiguity between the movements involved. Now the trouble about giving this sort of explanation of human actions is that we can never specify an action exhaustively in terms of movements of the body or within the body.”(P.12)
Peters is imagining here a context of exploration in which spatial and temporal contiguity is involved in the description of the movement concerned from a third person point of view: a view in which some event “is happening” to that body over there and now, .e.g. “He moved the Queen to QB6”, but it could never explain or justify the move because, as Peters claims, the move witnessed is an “intelligent” action, which he paradoxically characterises in terms of “achieving the same result by varying means”, e.g. some other move that could equally threaten the opponents King. Mere movements per se are not intelligent, Peters argues, but without the support of Aristotelian hylomorphic or Kantian Critical theory, Peters risks being regarded as a dualist in the same league as William James who makes the same kind of claims about “intelligent action”. Given the history of dualism we ought to be aware that when dualists like Descartes and James were pushed to “ground” their claims they resorted to materialistic explanations that refer to the brain. Peters seeks to escape such a consequence by referring to the Kantian ontological distinction between what happens to man and what man makes of himself.
Peters points out that humans have needs and these are expressed in normative judgements: e.g. “Man must eat to survive”. He does not however differentiate these needs in terms of goods for the body, goods for the external world and goods for the soul. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs does rank the relative importance of needs in accordance with Greek and Enlightenment criteria that distinguish between the goods of the body and the goods for the soul in a context of a hylomorphic actualisation process. Maslow regards his lower level needs, namely physiological needs, safety needs, and love and belongingness needs, as maintenance needs. Higher level needs such as self esteem needs and cognitive and aesthetic needs are regarded as higher level “growth” needs. Maslow also points out that needs emerge in the actualisation process only on condition that a lower level need has been sufficiently met. Cognitive and aesthetic needs include, for example, the needs we social/political animals have for obedience to the norms for action, such as keeping promises(marriage vows) and respect for the integrity of others as ends in themselves(the integrity of children). Here we are clearly in the territory of the combined goods of the external world and the soul. Maslow argues that the Cognitive and Aesthetic needs are characterised by the attempts on the part of the individual participating in the actualisation process to answer three basically philosophical questions: “What is truth?” “What is the Good?” and “What is Beauty?” These three aporetic questions reach back into the History of Ancient Greece and also into the history of Kantian Enlightenment critical theory, mirroring the concerns of the three Kantian Critiques. What is not clearly present in Maslow’s actualisation theory is firstly, the presence of the goods of the external world. Secondly there is an absence of reference to the role of “principles” in the actualisation process. Maslow’s model is therefore, largely a descriptive model, charting the properties of each level of development without referring to the principles of this development.
Principles obviously relate to action and performing actions well(areté). We can of course use Freudian and Aristotelian principles to assist in explaining the reasons for actions at different levels of the hierarchy of needs. Lower level needs are obviously regulated by the ERP and the PPP in an attempt to return the organism to a state of homeostasis after a period of dis-equilibrium, and the need to survive plays a decisive role in this regulative process. It is clear in this kind of context that dividing the respective needs up into initiating events and end-states in accordance with the resolution-composition methodology of scientific investigation, misses the complexity of the unity of these activities. It is this kind of dissolution(resolution) of activities into the atoms of events that subsequently prevents holistic explanation/justification. Here again we are dealing with different kinds of description and explanation/justification. Reference to the pleasure that supervenes as a consequence of certain types of egocentric activity is descriptive and not explanatory: descriptive of the goods for the body that Spinoza would describe as assertive or expressive of the state of the body in the mind, an assertion or expression that is fundamentally connected to how the organism is faring in life and not just in relation to the game of survival. In the light of these reflections it has to be admitted that Maslow may provide us with a theory of motivation, but he does so without giving us an account of what motivation is from a philosophical point of view. Peters, on the other hand, does attempt this task, claiming that motives are related to Reasons of a particular kind: reasons that are in their turn connected to an evaluative context in which there is the suggestion that there is something wrong with the action which is in question. Peters appeals here to moral and legal circumstances and the discourse which is embedded in such circumstances. Peters also refers to Wittgenstein’s insight that language has many more forms than its truth functional form. These forms include social forms of discourse: language-games, that is :
“may command, condemn, express states of mind, announce, provoke, exhort, and preform countless other social functions”(P.29)
Ought judgments are expressions of the imperative form and can command, guide, provoke, condemn or announce. In universal form, an ought judgement is a principle that both guides and announces our actions. Ought judgements can also occur in conclusions relating to particular actions. These conclusions in turn are related to a general major ought premise which legitimates the attitudes of commanding or condemning, especially in the legal institutional contexts that we encounter in tribunals. The superego is the agency of the mind which for Freud constitutes a form of inner tribunal that has “assimilated” the rules and principles of moral and social behaviour. Freud’s theoretical motive for the creation of this agency was the presence firstly, of unconscious motivation that is connected to a history of psychological defence against anxiety and , secondly, of manic fantasy activity. The “mood” of the activity of this agency was the imperative mood, and the language could, depending upon the context, guide, command, condemn or announce what ought or ought not to be done. The principles behind superego activity vary with the form of activity whether, for example the activity is life sustaining or destructively aggressive : Eros or Thanatos may dominate this agency depending upon previous psychological history. For Peters however, the general need we have for explanation and justification is connected negatively to action. Whether this connection is merely “seeing the action in a negative light” and therefore condemning it, must be questionable given the fact that forward looking motives, which Anscombe in her work “Intention” characterises as “intentions”, surely can refer to praiseworthy motives such as the need to achieve. If it refers to mental causation which “moves” a man to act, this too is problematic if one takes into consideration the essential role of non observational knowledge in the answering of the question “Why did you do that?”. We know that people generally know why they do what they do but we are not asking for a cause which “moved” them to act but rather a “reason” which will help us see the behaviour in the correct light.
For both Aristotle and Kant the fundamental positive attitude of of awe and wonder in the presence of the beauty and sublimity of the world is sufficient to generate the question “Why?”(why are things as they are?) In Kant’s reflections on “the sublime” the awe and wonder at the physical power and magnitude of a waterfall initially overwhelms the senses but subsequently “quickens” in us the operation of the understanding and reasoning in a complex act of appreciating the moral aspect of our minds. This is a positive event in the tribunal of explanation/justification. It is not clear, however whether Peters in his work “The Concept of Motivation” would claim this to be a form of rationality that defines man’s being-in-the-world. The evidence for this is:
“To asks for his motive, on the other hand, is only to ask for the end which explains his behaviour…The implication is that he is not sticking to standard moves. If one asks a mans motive for getting married we imply, that this is, for him, merely an efficient way of getting to some end, e.g. the girls money”(P.33-34)
Peters is clearly influenced by the methodology of ordinary language philosophy: however, by asking what we should say when, he is perhaps neglecting to pay attention to the origin of the word “motive”, which is to move. We are moved by desires and needs, and perhaps attitudes, and these are part of the reason why we do what we do. Kant’s example above focuses on mental activity, and the term “quickens” is deliberately chosen. so as to rule out any suggestion of material or efficient causation. Peters is correct to refer to the telos of the action here, but perhaps more attention ought to have been paid to the formal cause which also must be part of the explanation/justification we are searching for with our question “Why?”. Mental “causation” (in an Aristotelian sense) is omnipresent in Freudian theory and it allows the postulation of the superego as the agency of the mind that brings about a certain kind of action. The final justification for Freudian theory however resides in the complexity of hylomorphic theory with its three Sciences, 4 kinds of change, three principles, and 4 causes(kinds of explanation).
Elisabeth Anscombe in “Intention” argued that the concepts of motive and causation are not used clearly in philosophical discussions. Reflecting on the origin of the concept of “motive”(to move) in terms of a linear one dimensional concept of causation will not express the complexity of the concept of mind that we find in Aristotle and Kant, and will, according to Anscombe, merely lead to added confusion in the fields of Psychology and Philosophical Psychology. In the context of this discussion, Anscombe criticises Ryle’s account of motive, which claims that the statement “Jack boasted from vanity”, is in accordance with a law-like proposition that whenever he finds an opportunity for securing the admiration and envy of others he engages in that behaviour which will secure those ends. Anscombe criticises the assumption behind this position: and assumption that appears to involve a reduction of mans deeds to logical behaviourism which of course in turn depends upon observation and third party reporting for the content of motive-judgments. Anscombe points out, that such an assumption, would make describing the first time someone boasted from vanity impossible to describe and understand, especially if this were the only time in the agents life that this occurred. Aristotle’s hylomorphic theory and Kant’s Critical theory would support this criticism. Both Aristotle would also agree with and Anscombe’s recommendation to define motive in terms of “see the action in this light”(Intention, P.21). Anscombe also distinguishes those motives that are connected to moral praise and blame and those which are not. The Concept of Intention, she informs us, shares with the concept of motive the characteristic of being an explanation/justification given in discourse when the question “Why?” is asked. Intention differs from motive in being directed at the future. Intentions are forward looking motives.
We know how important these concepts of intention and motive are in the tribunals of the legal system where, for example, we seek to discover the motive for a murder via a context of exploration/discovery. There is a sense in which we are searching for a “mental cause” for the action, but all this means is that we wish to establish that the action in question is seen in the correct light which involves establishing that it was intentional and not “caused”(material and efficient causation), for example, by a paranoid “voice” in a continually fluctuating state of mind that cannot distinguish what is right from what is wrong. Anscombe discusses a case of an agent pumping poisoned water into a house. There are four possible descriptions of the physical movements being performed, each of which refers to a widening context of circumstances. The “final end” of “poisoning the inhabitants” is conceptually related to the means expressed by the other three descriptions, e.g. “moving his arm up and down with his fingers round the pump handle”, “operating the pump”, “replenishing the house with water”. With respect to this final description “poisoning the inhabitants of the house”, it is important to point out that if one is to separate theoretical reasoning about events from practical reasoning about actions, the kind of knowledge presupposed in the final description is non-observational. This suffices to dismiss all accounts that regard the intention as an “event” of “mental causation”. This is not to deny that the agent can also know on the basis of evidence by observation that his intention is being carried out, but in such circumstances this knowing will be the product of the calculating part of the mind(the part of the mind responsible for instrumental reasoning). Here Anscombe is claiming that observation in these circumstances is merely an aid, and not the central constituting activity, of the action. Anscombe is acutely aware of the confused state of modern Philosophy on this issue:
“Can it be that there is something that modern philosophy has blankly misunderstood, namely what ancient and medieval philosophers have meant by practical knowledge?Certainly in modern philosophy we have an incorrigibly contemplative conception of knowledge. Knowledge must be something that is judged as such by being in accordance with the facts. The facts, reality, are prior and dictate what is to be said, if it is knowledge. And this is the explanation of the utter darkness in which we find ourselves.”(Intention, P.57)
This is part of the message of Heidegger’s and Ricoeur’s work, We should also recall, however, Anscombe’s criticisms of Wittgenstein’s earlier work where she pointed out that the work failed to articulate the capacity of language to put things that are happening and things that are done in different lights. This Fregean idea of the sense of language being part of its meaning, was not of course registered in the Tractatus which claimed that it was reference that was primarily determining the meaning of language: the truth function of language was for Wittgenstein the general form of the proposition. Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and its concepts of language-games embedded in forms of life and the seeing-as function of perception was not only a shift away from the claim that the only genuine propositions are those that occur in natural science: it was a shift towards the human sciences in which action replaces the event as the key ontological phenomenon requiring explanation and justification. The shift also involved viewing language as an activity rather than as a phenomenon or event lying (to use Heidegger’s terminology) present-at-hand. Involved in this shift is the viewing of language from the neglected first person perspective. This assisted in the analysis of emotion, which for Peters, was an aspect of the concept of Motivation. According to Peters motivation can be characterised as “an emotively charged reason”. This suggestion is actually captured in an OED definition:
“That which “moves” or induces a person to act in a certain way; a desire, fear, or other emotion, or a consideration of reason, which influences or tends to influence a persons volition: also often applied to a contemplated result or object the desire of which tends to influence volition.”(Peters Concept of Motivation, P.37)
The above definItion was taken from an OED in the 1950’s. A more recent dictionary(1999) defines motive in the following way:
“a factor inducing a person to act in a particular way: a motif:acting as a motive”
We can note that there is a dramatic reduction of content of the 1950’s definition and this may be a consequence of Peters’ work on motivation in which it is suggested that “The motive is the reason that is causally operative.” Peters points out also that:
“when we have a motive we always have a goal but are only sometimes in some kind of emotional state.”(P. 40)
There is also in Peters a defence of a philosophical reference to ordinary language usage:
“for ordinary language enshrines all sorts of distinctions, the fine shades of which often elude the clumsiness of a highly general theory.”(P.49)
Peters then admits that the analysis of the concept of motivation requires more than a phenomenological inquiry into the use of a word. In his chapter on Freud, Peters also illustrates how east it is to be clumsy in ones interpretation of a general theory when he says:
“Freud thought his explanations relevant only to phenomena which can hardly be called actions in that they seem either to have no point or conscious objective or to fall short of standards of correctness…. The implication of Freud’s criteria is surely that if a man exercises a skill correctly or performs a habitual routine, psycho-analytic explanation is out of place.”(P.54)
Ernest Jones has criticised this position and Peters appears, as a consequence, to retreat to a position that Freud would probably share, namely, that psychoanalytic explanation would not suffice to philosophically explain all kinds of reasoning about action. We should bear in kind here, however, that as the years rolled by in his 50 years of authorship, Freud turned his attention more and more to the rationalism of Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. We should also recall that he was one of the cultural figures called upon by the League of Nations to testify to the evils of war, and give a Psychoanalytical explanation of the phenomenon. Freud’s writings on the Psychology of Groups and the Discontents of Civilisation are also testaments to the wider cultural intentions of his later writings. Indeed the Reality Principle embodied by the Ego in the very normal rule guided activities of loving and working is both Platonic and Aristotelian in its form. We ought to recall also that the Ego has the more primitive function of protecting the body, and such activity involves the ERP and PPP. For Freud, a strong Ego was the key to being a virtuous man, and this clearly involved the harmony of the three principles cited above. The differing distribution of these principles amongst the agencies of the Id, Ego, and Superego also serve to provide a differentiation of forms of explanation for a wide range of human phenomena.
In the light of the above misunderstandings of the work of Freud it is rather surprising to find Peters saying in a later work that he subscribes to a Psychological theory that would incorporate the insights of Freud and Piaget. Peters does not refer to Freud’s famous chapter seven from his work “The Interpretation of Dreams”, where the theoretical model of a psychical apparatus is presented as having no physical location. The apparatus clearly, however, contains reference to several of the powers espoused by Aristotelian theory. These powers are situated in the context of the actualisation of the state of mental health. They occur in the context of four functions of mind which are firstly, to function as a capacity, secondly, to function in terms of the occurrence of feeling, thirdly, to function as states of mind that can be unstable emotional capacities that transitorily experience pleasure and pain, and fourthly stable states of mind that have been formed from capacities into virtuous dispositions in the spirit of areté resulting in the telos of eudaimonia (a flourishing life). There is obvious reference to an actualisation process in the account of these functions: an actualisation process that strives after rational solutions to theoretical and practical problems. In Freud’s terms the principle regulating this actualisation process is the Reality Principle striving for a flourishing life. The psychic apparatus of chapter 7 of the Interpretation of Dreams leaves a conceptual space for two kinds of mental process associated with the sensory-motor terminus of the apparatus: a primary process functioning in accordance with the ERP and PPP: and a secondary process that functions in close proximity to the language effect of “becoming conscious” in accordance with the Reality Principle. The technical relation of the ERP and PPP is described by Freud and quoted by Peters on page 21 of “The Concept of Motivation”:
“In the theory of psychoanalysis we have no hesitation in assuming that the course taken by mental events is automatically regulated by the pleasure principle. We believe, that is to say, that the course of these events is invariably set in motion by an unpleasurable tension, and that it takes a direction such that its final outcome coincides with a lowering of that tension–that is, with an avoidance of unpleasure or a production of pleasure.”
It is clear from this quote that the ERP is related to what Ricoeur refers to in his work as the desire to be and effort to exist which the mind registers in terms of the way in which the body expresses itself to the mind. The Freudian Life and Death Instincts, and their vicissitudes, obviously have links to the powers of the body rather than its feeling-states. Anxiety is a feeling based process of the mind that is shut off from the motor terminus of the psychical apparatus and cannot therefore result in an external flight reaction. Anxiety, therefore obviously poses an accommodation problem for the mind. Wishing is also a power of the mind, related initially to tension in the psychical apparatus. Wishing is not willing in which there is a reason which sufficiently explains/justifies striving for the object or state of affairs imagined by the subject. If, for various reasons, action cannot occur and the tension or unpleasure persists, then the memory system of the psychic apparatus that has formed mnemonic traces of previous satisfactions, contributes to a temporary lowering of tensions. This is what Freud called a hallucinatory wish-fulfillment–a common feature of dreams and mental illness. This hallucinatory activity occurs because the secondary process of the mind connected to motor and linguistic activity, for some reason, is not engaged in processing the material of the wish or anxiety-process. The discharge of tension normally occurs via the use of the motor apparatus but the explanation of such activity is no longer in terms of the rationality of action(the explanation is in terms of material and efficient causation). The Rat Man’s verbal attack on Freud, for example, is an emotional attack whose explanation will require a knowledge of the operation of the primary process where substitute satisfactions or tension reduction takes the place of real pleasures and achievements. Freud’s therapy generated anxiety in the Rat Man, and the subsequent aggression(a vicissitude of the death instinct) lies behind the impulsive response that substitutes in fantasy Freud for his cruel father on the ground of a particular resemblance of particular peripheral characteristics. This substitution is not an activity of the understanding in which both figures are subsumed under a concept, e.g. of authority. Rather, the mechanism involved in these emotional equivalences is an associative mechanism: Freud through this process of association symbolises the Rat Man’s cruel father.
Peters acknowledges the presence of the Reality Principle(RP) but fails to appreciate the role of Plato, Aristotle and Kant in the formation of this principle. For Peters, Freud is, of course, preferable to what he calls the “rat men” of psychology(who study rats) but it is nevertheless clear that Peters does not do Freud justice in his commentary. Kantian theory in Peters is conspicuous by its absence in this discussion, despite Freud’s claim that his Psychology is Kantian. Aristotle would no doubt have agreed with Peters on the “rat men” of Psychology, on the grounds of the significant differences between the life forms of rats and the life forms of rational animals capable of discourse. These significant differences are acknowledged by Peters and they are connected to the complex activities associated with living in a society and speaking a language: activities not to be found in rat collectives.
Wittgenstein, in his later work, “Philosophical Investigations”, claimed that one can imagine dogs to be frightened, unhappy, happy, and startled, but not hopeful. He asks the question whether only those life forms that have mastered a language possess the power of hoping, thus aligning his thought with that of Aristotle and Kant. Peters elaborates upon this thought by claiming that even though men are a part of nature they nevertheless understand some of the laws operative in nature, and alter their behaviour accordingly. Rats, Peters argues, do not create and maintain complex institutions because they do not have the cognitive powers to understand normative laws or History.
Observation and experimentation with animals into how they learn was certainly done with the intention of applying the results to human beings and human contexts of learning. Peters argues that this form of Psychological investigation is confused, especially when it indiscriminately applies its results to higher forms of life. This problem forced Gestalt Psychologists like Wolfgang Köhler, to conduct experiments with more advanced forms of lives, namely apes. He, too, however, experienced difficulties in correctly describing the behaviour of these apes. Clinical longitudinal studies in which Psychologists attempted to teach apes language, also resulted in nothing more than the installation of advanced signalling systems. The use of language presupposes the power of knowing the meanings of words. Peters illustrates this point by referring to psychological terms such as “want”:
“Properly speaking the term “want” implies that a person knows what he wants.”(The Concept of Motivation,P.98)
Peters suggests that at best applying this term to animals requires assuming knowledge animals may not have. It is not clear, then, that (with respect to the behaviour of apes solving a problem to retrieve bananas located outside of their cages)this behaviour can be correctly described as “wanting the bananas”. Wittgenstein would also have argued that we cannot attribute the term “hopeful” to these apes because this requires a mastery or knowledge of language they do not possess. We can also add from a Kantian perspective that both hope and want require a memory system organised by understanding, language and judgement.
Peters, however, does not fully embrace the consequences of claiming that acting requires the power of knowing what it is that we want, or want to do, or indeed knowing what is right to do in a particular set of circumstances. He uses the ideas of purpose and rule-following in order to introduce teleological elements into the act. There is however, a question as to whether Peters means to suggest that the knowledge of the act is composed of events that need to be observed and are associated with each other in a quasi-causal fashion. This kind of view destroys the conceptual unity of action, a unity provided partly by the relation of the “I think” to the concepts and rules of the understanding, and it’s relation to the reason and judgement. It is in the system of Kant that we can see the kind of complex interrelation of sensible and intellectual powers that we find traces of, in the theories of Freud and Piaget. Peters claims to hold the theories of Freud and Piaget in high esteem yet in his later work we encounter misjudgements about the animus of Freudian theory in, for example, the following remarks:
“It is quite obvious, for instance, that Freud was little influenced by observationalism. His interests were technological rather than methodological, and technological pressure means that he had to think up hypotheses to explain and cure his patients(Psychology and Ethical Development, (P.43)
Peters’ view of Freud was obviously coloured by the admiration he had for Popper’s work. This can be seen in the insistence upon the putative ambiguity of some of Freud’s judgements, when viewed from the perspective of what Peters calls operationalism, where discourse must ultimately refer to discriminatory and differential reactions. The view here is that experience must be reduced to behaviour in a way that enables one to speak in terms of manipulating and measuring variables in a closed universe of discourse in which one knows that a change in the value of one variable will necessarily lead to a change in the value of another variable: a universe in which there are causal relations between events. Peters claims not to subscribe to reducing experience to reactions, but we can note that he systematically avoids the metaphysical and ethical implications of what he calls the Freudian Copernican revolution in Psychology. His response here is influenced by his prejudice in favour of the creative power of formulating hypotheses.
Peters, views Aristotelian science via a lens of modern science and classifies Aristotle as the first behaviourist. This is a peculiar characterisation of a philosopher who is investigating the logos of the psuche. Peters’ motivation is contained in the following:
“.. for the distinction between the private world of the individual’s own conscience and the public world which all could observe was alien to the Greeks. Indeed there is a sense in which the Greeks had no concept of Consciousness in that they did not link together phenomena such as pain, dreams, remembering, action and reasoning as exemplifying different modes of individual consciousness. The concept of Consciousness was largely a product of individualism, of the various movements such as Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Christianity which supplied conceptual schemes that were different from those which were appropriate to the shared life of the city-states. The coordinating concept of individual consciousness was not made explicit until it found expression in the system of St Augustine and Descartes. The use of introspection as a technique for investigating consciousness went along with such systems of thought. Behaviourism could only be understood as a reaction against such a technique.”(Psychology and Ethical Development, P.48)
From an Aristotelian point of view individualism would have been regarded as a figment of an overactive imagination that had detached itself from an understanding of principles and reasoning in terms of these principles. Hylomorphism argues clearly, that he who lives outside of a society is either an animal or a God. It is true that the Greeks would have spent less time in linking phenomena to sensible experience, being more inclined toward seeking explanations and justifications for phenomena in terms of the view of reality as an infinite continuum. In this search, the mind attempts to understand and reason about the aporetic questions that arise from attempts to comprehend this complex world and ourselves. Peters’ diagnosis, however, of the origins of individualism would largely have been shared by Aristotle whose work was transformed and distorted by a series of scholastic interpreters under the auspices of, firstly. the Church and then, subsequently the Universities. Aristotle, therefore, would probably have agreed with Freud’s claim that Consciousness was a surface phenomenon, a vicissitude of something deeper, namely the Instincts. Human Instincts we should recall here have the complexity of an advanced form of life, possessing a source in the body, an aim, and variable objects. Pursuing his curious claim of Aristotle being the first behaviourist, Peters compares Aristotle with the 20th century Psychologist William McDougall who studied behaviour in terms of instincts and purposiveness. Peters’ criticism of McDougall’s greatest mistake:
“from a philosophical point of view, was to translate a conceptual insight into genetic terms(Peters, Brett’s History of psychology, P 707)
McDougall, in other words did not conceive of behaviour in terms of its matter and principles(form), but rather began with the assumption that all behaviour was a function of a finite number of innate(genetically determined) purposive patterns. This, of course, is a materialist account that Aristotle would have dismissed on the grounds of the lack of a constitutive principle. The fact that McDougall complements his account with an account of emotion which we access via introspection adds a dualistic aspect to his account that also would have been questioned by Aristotle. In conclusion, McDougall’s Psychology can only be linked to Aristotle on the most tenuous of grounds, principally because Aristotle’s notion of “purpose” was not by any stretch of the imagination a behaviourist notion, but rather a power of our thought that was self originating.
Peters criticises Behaviourism for the vagueness of the concepts of stimuli, response, etc but the main thrust of his criticism is individualistic, and he appeals not to the level of principles, but rather in terms of the absence of the sensible idea of Consciousness. Only I can know what I am immediately conscious of in a visual field or in the realm of emotion, it is argued. This is the Neo-Cartesian heritage of the concept of Consciousness, a heritage that is criticised by Analytic Philosophers like O Shaughnessy who situates Consciousness in an ontological hierarchy, whose framework appears to correlate with hylomorphic theory: beginning at the foundational level of forms of life and culminating in the Mentality of a being that is rational and capable of discourse. O Shaughnessy also postulates an ontological hierarchy of Reality that begins in a non-vital inorganic realm, continues into a vital realm , which in turn continues into a “Psychological” realm and terminates in the final realm of mentality. Consciousness, O Shaughnessy argues, has emerged with the help of laws of nature from the vital realm of the “psychological”(psuche). It manifests itself entirely internally in the organism but this does not entail that it is totally self contained phenomenon like a light in a black box. Consciousness is, in spite of this characterisation, world oriented and directed outwards. It makes contact with the world through the phenomenon of psychological awareness. This awareness is also involved in intentional actions that are life sustaining and life provoking. Such awareness also has the reflective property of self-awareness. The nature of this awareness is, according to O Shaughnessy, truth relational and takes a particular form of awareness of the rules and principles of the individuation of objects, and also a more general form connected to the kinds of explanation we generate at the mental level of our existence. These explanations are expressive of the truth orientation of consciousness. O Shaughnessy regards this truth functional characteristic of Consciousness as prior to its final motor orientation in intentional action.
This kind of account has hylomorphic elements and this can be seen in its naturalistic and physicalist account of the physical substrate of a matter that is defined in functional terms. It is this matter that ensures the possible continuity of consciousness as well as its interruptions in sleep, and in various forms of unconsciousness. This matter is formed in an organ system that constitutes the human life form, and it’s possible forms of life. The truth orientation of the function of Consciousness is part of the constitution of an advanced form of life that requires the actualisation and manifestation of many potential and latent powers including perception, memory, imagination, understanding, judgement, and reason. Failure of the actualisation process also accounts for pathological forms of consciousness. We clearly see here, the cognitive relation of Consciousness to reality that prevents us from regarding it as an internal private individual phenomenon.
Perceptual attention is one of the functions of consciousness, that, for many different reasons, is concerned with the “reading” of what is occurring in Reality. Notwithstanding this “reading”, what we are in contact with is not sense-data but rather “phenomena”–things that announce themselves. There is, however, a layered response to this Reality, consisting of the visual recognition of the phenomenon, the subsequent awareness of the existence of the phenomenon, and the consequent awareness of the existence of the phenomenon expressed by the judgement “I saw that…” The extended form of this judgement would be “The lightning struck the tree” and this, of course, is grounded upon perception embedded in a learning experience that is retained in memory. For Freud, the hylomorphic critical Psychologist, there is agreement that the physical substrate of the brain is the material foundation of consciousness. In the context of this discussion, Freud referred to a subset of neurones in the brain which he called “Phi” neurones that are not altered by what is consciously perceived. Another subset of neurones of the brain(termed “Psy” neurones) are altered by discharge and are related to learning and the formation of memory traces. A third subset Freud terms omega neurones and these are related to qualities of consciousness and reality testing of these qualities. The details of the contribution of neurone systems to the phenomenon of consciousness are obscure. Recognition of the lightning striking the tree will obviously involve memory, and given that we are capable of discourse, the event might unleash a subconscious thought of saying “The Lightning struck the tree”. The further truth function of Consciousness will obviously require other powers that O Shaughnessy relies upon, but does not mention, e.g. powers of conceptualisation(individuation), categories of judgement, categories of understanding and the powers and principles of reason(noncontradiction, sufficient reason). These arguments support the view that there are degrees of Consciousness and that we become conscious in the sense outlined by O Shaughnessy over the course of time in a complex process of actualisation. The recognition of lightning, however, is only one form of consciousness. Another form of consciousness is that involved in thought about the phenomenon.
Perception, for O Shaughnessy, Aristotle, and Kant is of real extended objects, events, places, and people in the external world. This act requires an occurrent “event”(state) of consciousness. Involved in this operation of consciousness is the transformation of what is external, into an internal psychological representation of what is external. This in, O Shaughnessy’s view, is the process he describes in terms of the opening of the doors of the mind in order to allow the entrance of the external world. O Shaughnessy argues also comparatively(in Aristotelian manner) and points out that animal forms of life probably find their objects via routes other than thought, e.g. complex combinations of different avenues of perception(smell, sight, touch, and sound), but this is done at the expense of a form of being-in-the-world which is tied to the world in a way that does not permit the animal to psychically distance itself from its environment. Animal experience is a form of consciousness that cannot distance itself from itself and become reflectively conscious of itself. Such forms of consciousness, O Shaughnessy argues, are not capable, at the perceptual level of consciousness, of seeing something as something, a necessary requirement for categorising or classifying something, situating it, that is, in a system of concepts. O Shaughnessy tethers the ship of our mind to the dock of reality, and does not allow flights of Consciousness up into the stratosphere where one can imagine reality does not exist or one’s body does not exist. In the harbour of our being-in-the-world, the forming of concepts and the connection of concepts to each other, obviously differ from each other and both operations differ from the raw presentation of the manifold of representations to Perception. Perception encounters individuated particulars of various kinds in the world and there are causal mechanisms linking these things to the final result in the perceptual form of consciousness: causal processes that involve matter, light, surfaces, organs, neuronal systems of the brain and their interaction, etc. Many of these mechanisms would fall under the material and efficient forms of explanation/justification we encounter in Hylomorphic theory. For O Shaughnessy there is a role for sense data in the above causal exchange. Sense data obviously have some connection to Kantian noumenal reality but have the following phenomenal characteristics:
“an array of mere coloured point values in an ordered two dimensional sensory continuum”(Consciousness and the World, P.30)
The Kantian a priori intuitions of Space and Time are also conditions of perceptual forms of consciousness although O Shaughnessy admits to being uncertain about the a priori intuition of Space. The process of Perception begins, then, in a change in the world that attracts our power of attention, and continues until a phenomenon announces itself to consciousness as a clearly situated existence, in a three dimensional spatial-temporal setting. Involved in this processing of two dimensional sense-data is a transition to three dimensional reality that obviously involves a priori elements including a practical knowledge tied to the potential circumambulation of objects and phenomena. O Shaughnessy shares with Peters a negative opinion on the contribution of Behaviourism to the discipline of Psychology.
Peters points out in the context of this discussion that the same physical behaviour(from the point of view of observation) can be very different ontological entities, e.g. an identical wave of the hand may be, either consciously signalling to a friend, or instinctively waving away a mosquito. Both are psychological acts, but are situated at very different levels of what O Shaughnessy calls “rationality of state”. The former requires the activation of cognitive powers not required by the latter. Behaviourism, we know oscillated in its opinion about consciousness, between denying its existence completely, to denying its relevance in explaining behaviour. Peters appeals to Aristotle in his criticism:
“When, however, we pass to Skinners operants, to things done as instrumental to an end, we are entering the sphere of action proper. Such actions, at the human level at any rate, cannot either be described or explained as mere movements exhibited at the reflex level. For an action is not simply a series of bodily movements, such movements as are necessary to it are done for the sake of something, as Aristotle pointed out in his criticism of the mechanists of the ancient world.”(Ethical Behaviour, P.75)
Peters goes on to argue that insofar as Perception is concerned, the presence of consciousness is inescapable in accounting for the meaning of what is occurring. Gestalt Psychology is invoked to support the claim that humans see what they perceive as meaning something. This is the reason, Peters argues, that the behaviourist account of the emotions in terms of behaviour and circumstances to the exclusion of any psychological or mental constituents, is misleading, because the component of seeing something as something or seeing something in a certain light does not have any role in the account. Peters believes that the major problem with behaviourist accounts is that there is excessive reliance upon a biological methodology that cannot be applied to psychological phenomena at the level of human beings. Involved in this criticism is the fact that the internal nature of consciousness requires verbal reports of what one is experiencing and these reports are not, then, on the behaviourist account, related intentionally to the experience, but rather regarded as a logically separate event, distinct from the ” event” of the experience. Verbal reports are not understood observationally, but only in terms of their intentionality. This kind of understanding is an interpretative exercise in the cognitive sphere of meaning. Peters notes in the context of this discussion, that we are confronted with one of the central issues of the “new discipline” (1870) of Psychology, namely “What is a Psychological question?”. This of course brings us back to the fourth question of Kantian Critical Philosophy, namely “What is man?”
For Aristotle the posing of a psychological question does not require the institution of a new and special discipline, but rather the conceptual schemes of common sense and the various philosophical methodologies that were developed by Socrates, Plato and himself. Forms of life, and the language we use in relation to these forms of life, are, of course, in need of description and explanation. Regarding man, as Peters does, as a “rule-following animal”, without the cognitive apparatus we are provided with in hylomorphic and Kantian Critical theory, risks giving a one dimensional answer to the multidimensional question “What is man?”. It also risks a one dimensional interpretation of Aristotle’s answer to this question, namely. rational animal capable of discourse. Scientists influenced by Poppers one dimensional problem solving formula, can be regarded as rule following animals unaware of the scope of their freedom and responsibility. Stanley Millgram’s experiment in this field clearly investigates the philosophical implications of the thesis that man is a rule following animal. The ethical implications are clearly both descriptively manifested, and cry out for an interpretation that appears to lie beyond the scope of Psychology and Modern Science. Interpretation of the meaning of this experiment requires, of course, seeing it in a certain light. This in turn is not an invitation to a tribunal of conflicting interpretations, but rather an invitation to see something real in the light of an ethical judgement. Peters’ insistence that we understand our own cultural lives because we have been initiated into its form of life via imitation of rules and purposes, omits the role of choice and freedom and the grasp of principles which enable us to understand and criticise rules and purposes such as the “final solution” for the Jews or the “final solution” for the Japanese. The focus on rules and purposes, distantiated from ethical tribunals invites us to ignore central components of our theoretical and practical rationality, the freedom of discourse, and the ability of consciousness to adopt a sceptical attitude to the “new men” in white coats or “the men in uniform” or “the men in political office” . Peters follows Popper down the garden path:
“We assume too, certain postulates about rule following..We assume as I have argued before, that man is a purposive rule following animal, who acts in the light of what Popper has called “the logic of the situation”( Psychology and Ethical Development, P.97)
The logic of the ethical situation, of course, requires a more complex account than that given by either Popper or Peters. It requires a Philosophical Psychology of the calibre of that we find in hylomorphic Philosophy or Kant’s Critical Philosophy: a Philosophical Psychology that focuses not on rules, but on the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason, when attempting to answer the question “What is man?”.
Peters account of the emotions, on the other hand, contains many Aristotelian insights. He claims that there is a fundamental connection between emotion terms and “appraisals”(praise and blame). Here, the Wittgensteinian notion of seeing something as something plays an important role in the identification of an emotional form of consciousness. Both the lower level pleasure-pain principle and the higher level reality principle are involved in our emotional judgments in the context of explanation/justification. Intuitively also we realise that there is a kind of selection of the objects of emotion that suggest the above cognitive component. The sensible aspect of the mind is able to individuate objects non-conceptually, and must be involved in the selection of, for example, objects of anger. In the state of consciousness we call anger, we witness a form of consciousness which, even if it is extremely egotistical, and not under the control of the principles of understanding or judgement, is nevertheless obeying what Popper would refer to as “The logic of the situation”.
Peters correctly points out that under the influence of behaviouristic Psychology there has been a tendency among psychologists to regard fear and anger as the paradigmatic cases of emotion. These emotions can, of course, be clearly identified in the animal population. Generalisation from animals to humans is seen to be unproblematic in spite of the obvious significant difference between these forms of life : differences that manifests themselves in the human capacity to, for example fear objects, and be angry at objects, in a way that would not be possible for animals( e.g. fearing the end of the world, being angry at God). Peters points to sorrow and pride(P.118) as being specific to human forms of consciousness because they require a complex conceptual matrix in order to occur.
Peters also refers to the fact that many terms used for the naming of emotions are also used to name motives. Both emotions and motives involve appraisals, Peters argues, but emotions appear to happen to us, whereas motives appear to be more active and connected with our intentions and intentionally directed action. Peters points to the presence of the operation of the autonomic nervous system in relation to the experience of emotions, which he claims, confirms that we have a more passive relation to these states of consciousness, which would be regarded ontologically as “inactive” by O Shaughnessy. In the work entitled “The Will: A dual aspect theory”(volume 1, P.16 it is claimed that anger is not something that is done, but rather something that overwhelms us in much the same way as sensations do: sensations “Happen to us “. Perhaps the sensations that are just happening have their source in the autonomic nervous system as William James suggests. These sensible components of emotional states may not be capable of enabling active conceptual thought. This might have the consequence that we are caused to be angry in a way in which we are not caused to think or intentionally act. Similarly with grief. One is overwhelmed by the sensations of grief which operate in a theatre of sensibility best described by Freudian theory. Here, too, the autonomic system disturbs our breathing and releases a stream of physiological responses that might include tears. Aristotle in his discussions of the phenomenon of akrasia referred to the overwhelming of our normal responses to phenomena by grief and anger and he described this state of affairs in terms of sensations, namely he claimed that we can fail to do what we know to be right if we are “drunk” with emotion.
Sartre, we recall from volume two characterised the world through the eyes of the emotionally afflicted as ” a difficult place”. In this state of consciousness Sartre argued the agent adopts “magical” solutions to the problems the world poses. These “solutions”, e.g. fainting in the face of an attack by a ferocious beast, are not action-solutions, they are rather the solutions of a sensible mind operating independently of our understanding, judgement, and reason. In this strange sensible world daggers appear to hang in the air and dead people appear at feasts: one can lose ones sight and regain it as miraculously again, one can lose ones voice and regain it again and one can even lose the use of ones legs and walk again—all without physical cause–the sensible world is indeed a magical world. Ghosts of the dead can appear to those overwhelmed by sorrow, and I can also be caused to become like someone who has traumatised and beat me in angry fits of temper. All of this, in spite of the apparent absence of rationality, can be characterised in discourse, and explained in philosophical and psychological theory.
Freud the explorer charted the domain of the psuche from the level of the most primitive form of being human to the level of the psychological and further to the level of the higher mental process involved in civilisation where the “agents” of Eros, Thanatos, and Ananke are involved in the distribution of primary and secondary processes in accordance with the logical principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Involved in these processes are the psychological principles of the energy regulation principle(ERP), the pleasure-pain principle(PPP) and the reality principle(RP). Peters remains agnostic in relation to many of these Aristotelian/Kantian/Freudian reflections and, at least insofar as embracing rationalism is concerned, is prepared to go only so far as Piaget was willing to go.
Piaget, Peter’s argues, articulates his idea of rationality in terms of the description of intelligent judgment and its operation. If, for example, a novel form of change occurs in our environment, we assimilate it on the condition that we are in possession of a belief system containing the relevant concepts to allay our curiosity. If not, and our curiosity or awe and wonder persists, we actively change our belief system by forming new concepts or alternatively altering existing concepts with the consequence that truths not acknowledged previously are now acknowledged. These truths, in turn, can become the subject matter of judgements that will, in the future, enable the thinker to assimilate relevant aspects of reality under the judgement.
It is these belief systems that enable us to see something as something, and furthermore to act in a way that involves intending or desiring something under some description provided by the belief system. Rationality will obviously be involved in these complex operations of assimilation and accommodation. The process of accommodation, though, is not necessarily some private operation occurring in the private space of ones mind. It can, for example, take place in the course of a conversation(discourse), occurring in the agora with Socrates. In the process of accommodation the capacity(disposition)of judgement is required, a capacity that involves categorically judging that S is P, an operation where the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason are obviously operative. If we are dealing with judgements that are expressive of knowledge at a higher level, then these may require higher levels of explanation/justification contained in, for example, various bodies of Science, including the science of metaphysics as conceived by Aristotle and Kant. We can include in this the Aristotelian metaphysical principles of change, namely, that which the change is from, that which change is toward, and that which endures throughout the change(.e.g. the enduring self that remains constant throughout processes of assimilation and accommodation). In action contexts this will be the case whether we are dealing with world building instrumental action or world preserving categorical action.
Peters, in reference to Piaget’s relation to rationality says the following:
“Reason is the end product of the process of development”(Psychology and Ethical Development, P.128)
Freud would agree with this judgement. In Freudian terms, Reason is a vicissitude of the vicissitude of Consciousness: a precipitate of the extensive division of the ontological character of the Psychological as charted by Freudian theory. For Piaget, and for Freud, a human in the first years, possesses a form of consciousness that is more sensible than intellectual. Accommodation, is therefore the dominating cognitive operation in a rapidly developing belief system. In this context of exploration, the affective principles of ERP and PPP are critical. These are egocentric principles and for Piaget, centre around the seeking of rewards and avoiding of punishment. For Freud, Wish and Anxiety during these formative years largely determine the way in which the world is encountered. Both Psychologists would agree that the enduring self referred to earlier, is in the process of construction. Trauma and high levels of anxiety can, of course, disturb the development of this self. The enduring entity that is changing in this phase of development is dominated by the primary process of mental functioning. Prevalence of this phase of mental functioning in later years can, for example, result in pathological forms of consciousness such as hallucinating that one is Napoleon or a form of consciousness that believes ones body is being dispersed among all the celestial bodies and space of the universe. This latter pathological form is a perfect picture of the lack of integration of the powers of the body that constitute the ontological realm of the psychological. The first stage of development is characterised by Piaget as the sensory motor stage in partial recognition of the fact that stable thought processes play a minimal role in the actualisation process. The next stage of the actualisation process is the so called pre-operational stage, and extends from 2 to 7 years old. One of the key landmarks of this stage is the acquisition of language and its subsequent effect upon consciousness. This occurs partly through the process of accommodation. Both Freud and Piaget share the view that consciousness is intimately linked to language function. Peters believes that it is the rules of language that are “internalised” in this acquisition process. Piaget claims that the child at this stage cannot psychically distance themselves from their environment and adopt the viewpoint of someone else, and to this extent he is regarded as egocentric. Piaget presents evidence for this thesis in the form of phenomenological descriptions of child discourse which, Piaget claims, is largely in monologue form: a form that is designed to assist them in the performance of tasks in the process of accommodation. The child at this stage develops a positive feeling for those of his peers that share his interests, and further, is largely respectful towards older people. This form of respect is, however, affective–a combination of affection and fear. It is on this basis that accommodation of the belief system occurs until that point at which there is a Copernican revolution in which the world can now be seen from other points of view. This stands at the gateway to the next stage which is the stage of Concrete Operations. This operation is called “de-centring” by Piaget, and it provides the child with an important condition for cooperating with others. Moral rules are no longer blindly accepted but rather seriously discussed against the background of a growing awareness of the importance of intentions that express desires, and are necessary to understand if one is to understand different descriptions of one and the same movement or piece of behaviour. With this realisation, the will is born and a form of mental organisation is actualised that transcends the concerns of the particular moment, thereby strengthening the role of future expectations in the mind of the subject. The final stage from 12 years old onward is the abstract operations stage. Logical operations that were formerly tied to concrete reality can now be applied to more abstract representations of this reality. In practical terms the subject begins to form a personality with a life-plan and attempts are made to answer aporetic questions such as “Who am I?” and “Where am I going?” This is a stage on the way to developing a personality that is free and autonomous.
Autonomy and heteronomy are Kantian terms, and the difference between them turns upon the reasons why an individual forms the maxims of their actions. In cases of heteronomy, there is a mixture of awe and fear in the face of authority, and a reaction of “obedience”. In such circumstances, we can indeed speak of rule following behaviour that gives the rule the quality of a prohibition which demands emotional rather than intellectual responses. Peters criticises Piaget for not specifically charting the cultural influence in the maturational development of the individual. Peters also points to the influence of Kant on Piaget’s thought. He does not, however, as we have pointed out earlier, appreciate the extent to which Kant can be regarded as a hylomorphic Philosopher who probably believes that powers can only be actualised by appropriate environmental stimuli. Certain powers, e.g. sensory motor powers, and powers of language, are powers we are born with. Here, material explanations are necessary, but not sufficient, for the complete explanation of our cognitive, pragmatic, and aesthetic activities.
The sequence of the stages of moral and intellectual development are, Piaget argues, invariant and this provides a clue to which kinds of powers are biological functions of the organ systems that we possess. The question which Piaget does not address is whether consciousness is an innate power or rather a vicissitude of other powers. Such a question is difficult to answer until we have a viable philosophical account of consciousness. Perhaps the institution of Education(where the powers of the soul are writ large) can assist us in providing the knowledge we need in order to understand the actualisation process of lower and higher mental powers. Such an account will need to utilise concepts and principles from all three Aristotelian sciences, namely Theoretical Science, Practical Science, and Productive Science.What needs to emerge in this process is a clear picture of the scope and limits of Consciousness.
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