Peiyang Tang
Gaigg, Sebastian
December 7, 2018
A REVIEW ON
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO MIND
BY JOHN R. SEARLE
“The philosophy of mind is unique among contemporary philosophical subjects, in that all of the most famous and influential theories are false,” claims John Searle. In the world of psychology and philosophy, the philosophy of the human mind is definitely one of the most fascinating concepts. There are numbers of philosophers digging down into the subject of mind, trying to figure out what makes us believe that we have free wills and how to explain them in a way that is comprehensive and reasonable. This book from the eminent thinker, John R. Searle, is an accessible introductory academic material for people who are interested in the field of psychology and philosophy with Searle’s lucid language and examples.
A brief introduction to mind is well structured, looking at twelve problems of the philosophy the mind. Searle does not attempt to provide a neutral introduction to the philosophy of mind throughout the book; rather, he brings his own interpretations of several prominent ideologies, such as functionalism, epiphenomenalism and Cartesian dualisms and etc., and explains the falsities behind these untenable concepts with clearly stated arguments and examples. Almost half of the pages are devoted to address the critiques of both materialism and dualism. And later on he turns the audience attention to “Biological naturalism” as he advocates such approach may be the proper way to analyze consciousness.
In the book, Searle focuses mostly on debates about 12 different subject matters: the Mind-Body problem, the problem of the other mind, skepticism about the external world, the analysis of perception, the free will, the self and personal identity, the debate on whether animals have minds, the problem of sleep, intentionality, mental causation and epiphenomenalism, the unconsciousness, and finally the psychological and social explanations. In the first chapter, Searle outlines these problems and then further demonstrate their according answers and his complementary understandings. For these dozen problems, he believes there is an common overwhelming concern, the big-deal problem, that can be asked to all of them: How these phenomenon work in out real life.
The first three paragraphs are mainly about the “Mind-body Problem” of which philosophers wonder about the relation between mind and body, and how does the body cause anything in the mind and vice versa. First, Searle pointed out the obvious inadequacy of the dualism. All forms of substance dualism, the mental and the physical are separate substances with independent existence, inherit Descartes’ problem of finding a way to give a consistent account of the causal link between the spirit and the torso. But Searle finds it impossible to make substance dualism coherent with modern physics as they disobey the law of energy conservation. Even though now it is odd to think the world is consisted of two different properties or substances, Searle believes that dualism would not disappear entirely. With the fall of dualism, philosophers turn their attention to Monism, a concept explained as there is only one component in the universe. Whilst idealism is one of the monists’ views, it is widely objected due to its fallacious ideology. Then Searle leads us to the saga of materialism, from behaviorism to strong artificial intelligence. The second and the third chapters discuss all the materialism concepts, its critiques and debates, and the response from materialists. For example, Computer functionalism is one of the most interesting philosophical development in the twentieth century. Those who support such idea claim that our mind is a digital computer program. And that being said, mental states are just computational states of the brain. This idea seemed to give an explanation to the mind-body problem; however, critics cast their doubts on such concept by giving the example of the “Chinese room problem.” The computer functionalism was rejected because computers have only syntax without any semantics whilst human brain can have them both. Searle draws the problem with reduction. Materialism states that there cannot be any irreducible nonphysical phenomenon. But Dualism believes that there are irreducible mental features, consciousness, and intentionality particularly. By the end thees three chapters, Searle comes to a conclusion that neither dualism nor materialism is acceptable.
After the debates on Monism and Dualism, Searle address one of the most important thing in the study of the mind— Consciousness. He talks about consciousness specifically in the fourth and fifth chapter. About consciousness, Searle pointed out four assumptions. First, he points out the assumption that there are some distinctions between the mental and the physical. He explains it as “Mental qua mental excludes physical qua physical.” Then there is the assumption called “the notion of reduction.” The third assumption is about causation and events, which we assume that causation is always a relation between evens ordered in chronology. Finally is the assumption of the transparency of identity. All identity is assumed to be identical with itself than anything else. Searle further demonstrates his thesis that neither dualism nor materialism is correct after he rejects all these assumptions. Searle also talks about the structure of consciousness as he lays out all the features. Central features of our consciousness are qualitativeness, subjectivity, unity, etc. In the end, he concludes the topic with some neurobiology approaches that attempt to solve the scientific issues of consciousness. Besides consciousness, there are the problems of intentionality as well. In chapter 6 he discusses the three problems of intentionality and their possible responses. Searle uses the connection between the problem of consciousness and intentionality in chapter 9 to talk us through four types of unconsciousness ( Preconscious, repression, deep unconscious and the nonconscious) and the explanation of behaviors. But the unconsciousness is a relatively new ideology discovered by recent phycologists like Freud, so it remains a place to explore in terms of the modern model of subconsciousness.
In the other chapters, Searle guides us to think about the relationship between our body and the external world. He talks about mental causation to the physical world; the problem of free will. Ending the book with a discussion on the definition and arguments of “Self,” Searle relates the subject of free will and the self as he looks into quantum physics at the level where we see the brain as a biological organ. He provides his insight to the problem of how to make sense of the existence of the phenomenological gap and the biological processes of our brains. He also looks at the way our perception relates us to the rest of the world. About perception, he discusses the arguments from science and illusion. He puts out the sense datum theory, its consequences and its transcendent after several refutations.
It is clear that Searle argues for many positions in the book. We learn from the book that neither materialism nor Cartesian dualism is not enough to interpret how mental states are caused by and realized in biology process. We also gradually find out his belief that the only alternative to match the scientific model and the subjective nature of consciousness is “ biological naturalism.” However, judging from the intricacy of our mind’s mechanism and the advanced methodologies in current neuroscience, there is doubt on the validity of his oversimplified assessment about a potential way to fully explain our complicated minds.
At the end of the review, I want to talk about the literature itself. Even though the major matters Searle discussed in the book are academic and sophisticated, his audiences can somehow get the big picture. After he named the academic terms in philosophy, he immediately explicates the meaning of them. When the terms or the arguments are confusing or ambiguous, Searle would provide real-world examples of his subject to explicate the ideas. For example, when he is trying to question the cognition of identity, he gives the example of the “ship of Theseus.” chapter is followed by a list of suggested further readings and the endnotes are informative and clear without overflowing the pages. The intriguing examples he used bring the dull terms and arguments to life, making the book more readable and compelling. The arguments in the book are persuasive to an extent due to the fact that Searle is a discreet writer. He lays out the arguments clearly and logically. What’s more, he would analyze his own deficiencies in arguments and his potential problems. Searle creates a suggested readings session at the end of each chapter for those who are particularly interested into the individual topic. Some places in the book can be difficult for casual audiences to follow, especially when it comes to biological terminologies and therapeutic approaches. But he tried to make the arguments as succinct as possible without losing the academic rigorousness and accuracy. Searle’s refreshing look on naturalism and ontological realism are dazzling, and the efforts he put into the book really let it stand out to be an engaging writing for rigorous readers to enjoy.