An Intelligent Person's Guide to Philosophy

by Scruton, Roger

  The argument deserves far more space than I can afford. But its vertiginous effect should already be apparent. In their different ways, Descartes and Fichte retreat into the one realm which seems to offer certainty: the ‘inner’ realm, knowable to self alone. They rescue themselves from the outer world, retrieving the precious gift of thought with which to light the inner chamber. But the gift dwindles to nothing as they close the door. They imagine that they know what they mean by ‘I‘, ‘think’ and ‘self’; but this is precisely what they cannot assume. All is darkness in that ‘inner world’, and who knows what resides there, or indeed, whether anything resides there at all? As Wittgenstein puts it: a nothing would do as well, as a something about which nothing can be said.

  If we accept the private-language argument, as I am inclined to do, then important conclusions follow. First, we have an answer to the demon. The argument tells us to stop seeking for the foundations of our beliefs, and to step out of the first-person viewpoint, which asks always what I can know, and how I know it. It invites us to look at our situation from outside, and ask how things must be, if we are to suffer from these philosophical doubts. Surely, we can ask the questions ‘Why?’ and ‘How?’ only if we have a language in which to phrase them. And no language can refer to a sphere of merely private things. Every language, even one that I invent for myself, must be such that others too can learn it. If you can think about your thinking, then you must do so in a publicly intelligible discourse. In which case, you must be part of some ‘public realm’, accessible to others. This public realm is also an objective realm. Unlike the inner realm of Descartes or Fichte, it might be other than it seems; its reality is not exhausted by our own impressions; it is the realm of being to which true propositions correspond, and at which our assertions aim.

  Moreover, we must reject the Cartesian picture of the mind, which derives entirely from a study of the first-person case - a study of what is revealed to me, as I cease to meditate on the ‘external world’, and turn my attention ‘inwards’. We must recognize the priority of the third-person case, which sees the mind from outside, as we see the minds of others. This third-person viewpoint is necessary to us, since without it we could neither teach nor learn what words like ‘mind’, ‘thinking’, ‘sensation’ and so on refer to. Nor could we use those terms of animals, even though they behave in so many ways as we do: for in their case, there is no first person, no self, wrestling with the not-self until both are determined and defined. Yet surely they have minds?

  Some would say, nevertheless, that there is an ‘inner’ realm, an aspect of mind which is hidden from all but the subject, an indescribable but all-important something, which only I can know, but which is the secret stuff of mental life. After all, pain is not the same as pain-behaviour, and the peculiar awfulness of pain - what it’s like - is never known except by feeling it.

  But is that true? Have you ever watched by a sick-bed, and said to yourself, ‘What I am seeing here is only pain-behaviour; the awful reality is something else, something hidden, something that only he can know’? On the contrary: you have seen exactly how awful it is, and you could hardly bear the sight. But suppose nevertheless that there were this ‘purely subjective’ aspect to our mental states. Imagine a society of beings exactly like us, except that, in their case, the subjective aspect is lacking. Their language functions as ours functions, and of course there is nothing we can observe in their physical make-up or behaviour that distinguishes them from us. They even speak as we do, and say such things as ‘You don’t know what it’s like, to have a pain like this.‘ Their philosophers wrestle with the problem of mind, what it is, and how it relates to the body, and some of them are even Cartesians. Is that an incoherent suggestion? No, because it describes the case that we are in.

  We understand the mind not by looking inwards but by studying cognitive and sensory behaviour. And we cannot study this behaviour without noticing the enormous structural similarities between human and animal life. We can arrange mental life in a hierarchy of levels; a creature may exhibit activity of a lower level, without displaying the marks of a higher, but not vice versa. Intuitively, the levels might be identified in the following way:

  1. The sensory. We have sensations - we feel things, react to things, exhibit pain, irritation and the sensations of hot and cold. Maybe animals such as molluscs exist only at this level. Still, this fact is enough for us to take account of their experience, even if we do not weep like the walrus as we scrape the raw oyster from its shell, and sting its wounds with lemon juice.

  2. The perceptual. We also perceive things - by sight, hearing, smell and touch. Perception is a higher state than sensation; it involves not just a response to the outer world, but an assessment of it.

  3. The appetitive. We have appetites and needs, and go in search of the things that fulfil them - whether it be food, water or sexual stimulus. We also have aversions: we flee from cold, discomfort and the threat of predators. Appetite and aversion can be observed in all organisms which also have perceptual powers - in slugs and worms, as well as birds, bees and bulldogs. But only in some of these cases can we speak also of desire. Desire belongs to a higher order of mental activity: it requires not just a response to the perceived situation, but a definite belief about it.

  4. The cognitive. It is impossible to relate in any effective way to the higher animals, unless we are prepared to attribute thoughts to them about what is going on in their environment. The dog thinks he is about to be taken for a walk; the cat thinks there is a mouse behind the wainscot; the stag thinks there is a ditch beyond the hedge and makes due allowance as he jumps. In using such language, I am attributing beliefs to the animals in question. To put it in another way: I am not just describing the animal’s behaviour; I am also making room for an evaluation of it, as true or false — I am comparing its beliefs with reality, making use of the very same concept of truth in which all human thinking is grounded. The dog, cat or stag might well be mistaken. Furthermore, to say that such an animal has beliefs is to imply not just that it can make mistakes, but that it can also learn from them.

  Learning involves acquiring and losing beliefs, on the basis of a changed assessment of the situation; it involves recognizing objects, places and other animals; it involves expecting familiar things and being surprised by novelties. An animal which learns adapts its behaviour to changes in the environment: hence, with the concept of belief come those of recognition, expectation and surprise.

  Learning is therefore not to be thought of in terms of the ‘conditioning’ made familiar by behaviourist psychology. The process of conditioning - the association of a repeated stimulus with a ‘learned’ response - can be observed in forms of life that have not yet risen to the cognitive level. Conditioning involves a change in behaviour, but not necessarily a change of mind. It has been abundantly shown that the higher animals acquire new behaviour not merely by conditioning, but in innovative ways, taking short cuts to the right conclusion, making intuitive connections, swimming to a place which they had known only through walking, or recognizing with their eyes the prey that they had been following by nose.

  When describing behaviour of this kind - cognitive behaviour - we make unavoidable reference to the content of a mental state: the proposition whose truth is in question. The terrier believes that the rat is in the hole, it is surprised that the hole is empty; it sees that the rat is running across the floor of the barn, and so on. In all such cases the word ‘that’ - one of the most difficult, from the point of view of logic, in the language - introduces the content of the terrier’s state of mind. The use of this term is forced on us by the phenomenon; but once we have begun to use it, we have crossed a barrier in the order of things. We have begun to attribute what are sometimes called ‘intentional’ states to animals: states of mind which are ‘about’ the world, and which are focused upon a proposition. Intentionality introduces not merely a new level of mental life, but also the first genuine claim of the animals upon o
ur sympathies and our moral concern. For it distinguishes those animals which merely react to a stimulus, from those which react to the idea of a stimulus. Animals of the second kind have minds which importantly resemble ours: there is a view of the world which is theirs, an assessment of reality which we ourselves can alter. It is therefore possible to relate to a creature with intentionality, as we do not and cannot relate to a creature without it.

  This partly explains the great difference between our response to insects, and our response to the higher mammals. Although insects perceive things, their perception funds no changing store of beliefs, but simply forms part of the link between stimulus and response. If the stimulus is repeated, so too is the response, regardless of the consequences - as when a moth flies into the candle flame, not out of stupidity or heroism, but because this is what happens when it perceives the light. Moths learn nothing from this experience, and have no store of information as a result of their past perceptions. They end life as they began it, in a state of cognitive innocence from which no experience can tempt them.

  By contrast, dogs, cats and the higher mammals have an understanding of reality which motivates their behaviour. They learn from their perceptions, and we can share parts of our worldview with them. We can even join with them in a common enterprise, as when a shepherd and his dog work side by side.

  That digression served the purpose of reminding the reader that the mind ceases to be mysterious, once we see it as it should be seen, as part of nature. There are creatures who have minds, but who have no ‘self’, and neither the need nor the ability to launch themselves on the path of self-discovery. The mind cannot be the mysterious thing that philosophers have made of it, if it is the common property of so many innocent beings.

  But what then distinguishes us from the other animals, and who or what are we? Such questions can best be answered through a study of intentionality. The creature with intentionality has a view on the world, and the concepts and classifications in which that view is founded. He is not merely part of the natural order: he has a world of his own, created in part by the concepts through which he perceives it. In our case, these concepts are expressed in language, and ordered by rational discussion. Animals suffer from no such disadvantage. Their world is entirely ordered according to their interests: it is a world of the edible, the drinkable, the dangerous, the comfortable, and the unreliable. There is no place in this world for ‘if ’ or ‘perhaps’, no place for ‘Why?’, ‘When?’ or ‘How?’, no place for the unobserved, or the unobservable. All learning takes place within a framework of interest, and the gulf between appearance and reality never opens so wide, that the mist of doubt can rise from it.

  For us, however, the distinction between the world as it is, and the world as we think it to be, is one that our own concepts force on us. Our emotions, perceptions and attitudes have intentionality: they are focused by thought, and formed in response to our classifications. But they can also be corroded by thought, when the classifications on which they depend seem merely arbitrary, interest-relative, or intellectually confused. The respect and awe that we feel for sacred things could hardly survive the demise of the concept of the sacred. Yet many people would dismiss that concept as a survival of the ‘pre-scientific’ way of explaining things. Intentionality introduces the problem which I surveyed in the first chapter: the fragility of the human world, in the face of the scientific understanding which seems to undermine it.

  Philosophy, in its negative, ‘critical’ employment, can tell us whether our concepts are in order; but not whether our beliefs are true. And the best way to vindicate a concept is to show that a distinction can be made, between a true and a false application of it. Thus, there is an old dispute, made central to philosophy by Locke, concerning the nature of ‘secondary qualities’ - qualities like colours, which seem intimately tied to the way things appear to us, but connected only obscurely with the underlying reality. If you ask what redness really is you find yourself in a sea of difficulties. Perhaps all we can say, in the last analysis, is that redness is a way of appearing. Nevertheless, our beliefs about the colours of things may be true, even if the concepts used to express them are deviant. We can justify the distinction between true and false colour-judgements, and that is sufficient vindication of the concept of colour.

  Other fragments of the human world can be saved in the same way. Consider the concept of justice. Marxism tells us that this is a piece of ‘bourgeois ideology’, which gains currency only because it is functional in a capitalist economy. In a similar way, at the beginning of Plato’s Republic, the cynical Thrasymachus argues that justice is nothing but the ‘interest of the stronger’: the only function of the concept is to describe the forces and interests which prevail in the social order. It may sometimes look as though the concept of justice were entirely undermined by such theories, losing its status as an instrument of judgement. But the appearance is illusory. Marxist theories of ideology leave everything exactly as it was, and even if true, do nothing to undermine either our beliefs or the concepts used to express them. We can all agree that the concept of justice serves to stabilize the social order. It is therefore in the interest of those who benefit from social stability (among whom the propertied classes are prominent) that standards of justice be widely accepted and applied. But this does not discredit the concept of justice. For there is a real distinction that we have in mind, when we distinguish just from unjust actions. By showing that there is a difference between a true and a false claim of justice the philosopher vindicates the concept.

  But there is a further argument that the philosopher can make. He can describe the impact of the concept of justice on human intentionality. The human world presents another aspect to the one who thinks in terms of justice, than it presents to the one who does not. The first sees the world in terms of rights and obligations; in terms of desert, reward and punishment. His emotional life takes on another and more social structure: in place of rage he feels anger and indignation, and acceptance in place of jealousy. The ‘me’ feeling retreats from the centre of his consciousness, and another, more elevated and more impartial viewpoint takes its place. The task of exploring this impartial viewpoint, and describing the kinds of thought and emotion that belong to it, could be called ‘phenomenology’: at least that would be a good use for a much misused word. Phenomenology, as I envisage it, traces the a priori connections between concepts whose role is not to explain the world, but to focus our emotions upon it. It describes the way the world appears to us; and shows how appearances matter.

  The concept of justice is one among many which only human beings deploy. Why is this? What is it about human intentionality, that makes so vast a difference between the human world, and the world of animals? Biology tells us that humans are animals; so why do we give ourselves such airs?

  5

  PERSONS

  Well, we don’t in fact. Human behaviour has been ‘de-moralized’, dragged down from its sacred pedestal and dissected in the laboratory. The very ‘third-person viewpoint’ that banishes Descartes’ demon, prompts us to do the work of a more serious devil. The most important task for philosophy in the modern world is to resurrect the human person, to rescue it from trivializing science, and to replace the sarcasm which knows that we are merely animals, with the irony which sees that we are not. Having set aside the self and its dear illusions, we find ourselves in the midst of an ancient controversy. What exactly is it, that distinguishes us from the other animals; and does it justify the investment that we have made in the idea and the ideal of humanity?

  Plato and Aristotle described human beings as rational animals, identifying reason as our distinguishing mark, and implying that our mental life exists at an altogether higher level than that of the other animals. Later philosophers, including Aquinas, Kant and Hegel, endorse the suggestion, and it is one that is intrinsically appealing. But it is not easy to say what it means. Definitions of reason and rationality vary greatly; so greatly, as to sugge
st that, while pretending to define the difference between men and animals in terms of reason, philosophers are really defining reason in terms of the difference between men and animals. On one understanding at least, many of the higher animals are rational.

  They solve problems, choose appropriate means to their ends, and adjust their beliefs according to the evidence of their senses.

  Nevertheless, there are capacities which we have and the lower animals do not, and which endow our mental life with much of its importance. Unlike the lower animals, we have a need and an ability to justify our beliefs and actions, and to enter into reasoned dialogue with others. This need and ability seem to underlie all the many different ways in which we diverge from the lower animals. If we survey our mental life, and examine the many specific differences between us and our nearest relations, we seem always to be exploring different facets of a single ontological divide - that between reasoning and non-reasoning beings. Here are some of the distinctions.

  1. Dogs, apes and bears have desires, but they do not make choices. (Aristotle emphasizes this in his ethical writings.) When we train an animal, we do so by inducing new desires, not by getting him to see that he should change his ways. We, by contrast, can choose to do what we do not want, and want to do what we do not choose. Because of this, we can discuss together what is right or best to do, ignoring our desires.

  2. The beliefs and desires of animals concern present objects: perceived dangers, immediate needs, and so on. They do not make judgements about the past and future, nor do they engage in long-term planning. Squirrels store food for the winter, but they are guided by instinct rather than a rational plan. (To put it another way: if this is a project, it is one that the squirrel cannot change, no more than an ant could resign from his community and set up shop on his own.) Animals remember things, and in that way retain beliefs about the past: but about the past as it affects the present. As Schopenhauer argues, the recollection of animals is confined to what they perceive: it involves the recognition of familiar things. They remember only what is prompted by the present experience; they do not ‘read the past’, but ‘live in a world of perception’.