Think - Simon Blackburn
Chapter Two — “Mind”
Overview of the Main Idea and Themes
Blackburn examines how mind relates to body and how (or whether) we can know other minds. Beginning from Descartes’s “ghost in the machine,” he probes the epistemic puzzles (zombies, mutants, other minds) and the metaphysical puzzles (interaction, epiphenomenalism). He contrasts rationalist attempts (Leibniz) to make mind–body connections intelligible with Lockean appeals to “God’s good pleasure,” then surveys modern strategies: analytic reductions (logical behaviorism, functionalism) and scientific identity theories. He uses color perception to show how empirical structure can narrow “inverted spectrum” possibilities, and he closes by distinguishing sensations (qualia) from thoughts (representation/intentionality), previewing coming chapters on freedom and identity.
Key Arguments and Developments (in sequence)
1) From Descartes to “the ghost in the machine”
- Descartes treats inner experience as private and certain while the brain’s electrochemical activity is public and measurable. He posits an immaterial res cogitans interacting (famously, at the pineal gland) with the physical res extensa—substance dualism. Ryle’s slogan: humans as a “ghost in a machine.” Property dualism is distinguished (one bearer—body—with two kinds of properties) from substance dualism (two kinds of bearers).
2) Epistemic shocks: Zombies and Mutants
- Zombies: physically and behaviorally identical to us, but with no consciousness.
- Mutants: physically identical, conscious, but with systematically different qualitative experiences (e.g., pinprick “feels” like hearing middle C).
Both possibilities seem “wide open” on Cartesian dualism and make knowledge of other minds (and even their qualia) unverifiable; the usual “argument from analogy” is weak (Wittgenstein: “How can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly?”).3) Why the possibilities matter
- Philosophers test conceptions by their implications. If a view makes rampant skepticism (zombies/mutants) unavoidable, that is a cost against the view. Blackburn urges “conceptual engineering”: adopt a metaphysics that forecloses intolerable skeptical possibilities by tightening the tie between what a state is like and how it is expressed or integrated in life.
4) The interaction problem, Locke vs. Leibniz, and occasionalism
- Locke: bodily motions “produce” ideas by divine annexation; the psycho-physical link is brute and contingent—“God’s good pleasure.” This edges toward occasionalism (Malebranche): physical events are occasions for God to insert mental events.
- Leibniz: rejects arbitrariness; insists on a rational, lawlike correspondence (principle of sufficient reason). If the physical biography is fixed, the mental is fixed—no independent variation; hence no zombies/mutants.
5) Epiphenomenalism and the causal role of mind
- If the physical story from pin to wince is complete, does consciousness “do” anything? Epiphenomenalism says no (mind is like a whistle on an engine). But then: why did it evolve, and how does it enter memory? The pressure to explain how mental events figure in causal accounts fuels non-dualist strategies.
6) Analytic routes: logical behaviorism and functionalism
- Logical behaviorism: analyze mental concepts (e.g., pain) via dispositions to behave (attention-demanding, withdrawal, complaint) and their roles; challenges: same sensation with differing overt behavior, “brave” suppression, neurological anomalies.
- Functionalism: retains role-characterization but allows a wider network (typical causes, effects on other mental states, and behavioral outputs).
Both aim to secure a priori or conceptual ties from the mental to the physical/behavioral, pushing back against Lockean contingency.7) Qualia and the limits of analysis
- Experiences like the taste of coffee (qualia) seem to lack direct behavioral “signatures,” making them recalcitrant to behaviorist/functional reduction; leave room for Lockean superaddition and revive zombie/mutant worries.
8) Scientific identity theories and their hurdles
- A psycho-physical identity theory models reductions like “temperature = mean kinetic energy” or “genes = DNA segments”: no independent variation once identities are discovered a posteriori via bridging laws. Objection: first-person authority (if silicon replaces C-fibers but “feels” the same, it is still pain), species-variance (e.g., shrimp) and the lingering thought that neuroscience delivers correlations that a Lockean can still call contingencies. “New mysterians” doubt we will ever close the gap.
9) Inverted spectra and color science as a case study
- Dualism invites the inverted spectrum (my “yellow” is your “blue”). Blackburn invokes vision science: three cone types (L, M, S), opponent-process coding (L vs. M → red/green; S vs. L → blue/yellow), and systematic constraints on color space. Explaining why no “yellowish blue” or “reddish green,” why brown is darkened yellow and gray darkened white, why yellow is lighter than violet, and why transparent white is impossible helps show that many apparent qualia “freedoms” are constrained by the physical/computational structure. Result: inversion scenarios become far less coherent once full physical function and normal discriminations are held fixed.
10) Private language worries: memory of qualia
- Extending zombie/mutant doubts to one’s own past raises: how do I know yesterday’s colors “looked” the same? Wittgenstein’s anti–private-language insight: if qualia are utterly private items, memory could “constantly deceive,” leaving no standard for correctness. Again, pressure mounts to integrate mental life with publicly tractable structures, not Lockean annexations.
11) Thought vs. sensation: representation and reification
- Sensations “sit there”; thoughts represent (intentionality). How can a “thing” (if thoughts were things) point to a fact? Blackburn cautions against reification: it’s people who think; thinking is shown in patterns of behavior, plans, language, and responsiveness to reasons. A promissory note is sketched for attributing thoughts via the appropriateness of behavior given aims/functions (without a completed reduction). This sets up later discussions of agency and identity.
Notable Quotes (brief, representative)
- Ryle’s gloss on Cartesianism: the human being as a “ghost in a machine.”
- Zombie possibility: “There is no ghost within,” despite perfect physical/behavioral duplication.
- Mutant possibility: a pinprick “may” yield an experience “like hearing middle C on a clarinet,” while behavior remains “ouch.”
- Locke: ideas of color/pain are annexed by “God’s good pleasure.”
- Leibniz’s reply: God does not act “in an unruly and unreasoned fashion”; there must be an orderly relation—principle of sufficient reason.
- Wittgenstein on the private object: assume it “constantly changes,” and you “do not notice” because memory “constantly deceives you.”
Connection to the Whole Book
- From knowledge to mind: Having staged radical doubt in Chapter One, Blackburn now probes what minds are—how they can be known and how they fit in nature—before turning to freedom and identity. The chapter models the book’s method: test metaphysical pictures by the skeptical scenarios they generate and prefer conceptions that make sense of our practices without inviting “monsters.”
Concise Takeaway
The Cartesian split begets zombie/mutant skepticism and an intractable interaction problem. Blackburn surveys two families of responses: analytic (behaviorism/functionalism) and scientific (identity theories), while acknowledging the resilience of qualia-based doubts. The color case suggests that rich physical structure narrows room for inversion fantasies, supporting a tighter mind–body linkage. Thoughts add the further puzzle of representation, which he treats without reifying “mental things,” setting up the next chapters on freedom and identity.
Link to original
Hume and Kant in modern cognitive science
- Hume vs. Kant on the Human Mind - What Modern Psychology and Neuroscience Support — where affective motivation favors Hume, active cognitive organization favors Kant, and contemporary science produces a hybrid
References
Dualism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Ghost in the machine
Ludwig Wittgenstein (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
John Locke (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Locke on Real Essence (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Principle of Sufficient Reason (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)