THE ARGUMENT FROM ANALOGY

(And More)

The traditional (Cartesian) Picture: Knowledge of our own minds is direct and immediate, but we know about the minds of others only indirectly through their behavior.

I. Skepticism about other minds (or the Problem of Other Minds):

(1) All the evidence we have to infer the existence of other minds is others’ observable behavior.

(2) This observable behavior isn’t sufficient to infer the existence of other minds.

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(3) So we don’t have good reason to believe in the existence of other minds.

II. The Argument from Analogy: Rejects premise (2) above.

(1) Much of our own behavior is directed by conscious thought and planning.

(2) We observe similar behavior in others.

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(3) We can infer that their behavior is also directed by conscious thought and planning.

Objections:

à Why think that the analogy holds? Computers, robots, and the like might be able to do things that, in our case, requires conscious thought and planning. Yet despite the fact that they "behave like we do," we might not be tempted to think that those things have minds of their own.

à Why be sure of premise (1)? Indeed, some of this behavior in others seems to have physical (neural) causes. Why couldn’t we turn the argument around and conclude that our own behavior is "simply" caused by complex physical events?

II. Ryle and the traditional mind-body problem: The traditional (Cartesian) picture is completely mistaken. There are no privately known, inner mental states, which are the hidden causes of our overt behavior.

When we look inside the head, we don’t see anything except synapses, neural pathways, and the like. To suppose that “the mind” must be something in addition to (or over and beyond) neural activity would be to commit a “category mistake.” It would be to suppose that something belongs to a certain kind or class that it clearly doesn’t.

Other examples of Category Mistakes:

(1) The university as something on a par with and above and beyond the totality of its buildings.

(2) An army division as something on a par with and above and beyond the totality of its various regiments, battalions, squadrons, etc.

(3) Team-spirit as just another skill alongside the others displayed by the members of an athletic team.

(4) The constitution as a political institution alongside the various branches of government.

(5) The average taxpayer as someone one could actually pick out in the crowd.

The fallacy of “the ghost in the mind’s machine” is to suppose that mental states are causes of an individual’s behavior on a par with, and of the same sort, as the internal, neural causes of their behavior. This only suggests that mental causes must compete with neural causes, and so once we have given a material explanation of a subject’s behavior, we have therefore ruled out their having any mental activity.

Instead (MATERIALISM): There are no causal influences upon our behavior apart from physical (or material) causes.

This brings up the traditional mind-body problem in its contemporary form: How do mental states (which we think we have and we’d like to think have some effect upon our behavior) relate to the physical (or neurophysiological) states that science tells us are the true causes of our behavior?

III. Ryle’s response to this problem is known as Logical Behaviorism:

All talk about mental states and activity is to be translated into talk about observable behavioral dispositions.

As one can see, this amounts to a "skeptical solution" to the problem of other minds.

Some Other Materialist Positions:

(1) The Identity Theory: Mental States are to be identified with particular physical or neurological states inside the heads of subjects.

[An objection: Seemingly “intelligent” creatures that don’t share our neurophysiology – Robots, octopi, Martians]

(2) Functionalism: Mental states are the inner causes of seemingly intelligent behavior, whatever they might be made of.

(3) Eliminativism: Strictly speaking, we should give up talk about mental states altogether, in favor of some more scientifically respectable way of talking about our behavior.