मासिक पुरालेख: मई 2008

Concept of Self in Hume and Buddha

मई 21, 2008 5:35 पूर्वाह्न / Concept of Self in Hume and Buddha पर 1 टिप्पणी

Concept of Self in Hume and Buddha

Desh Raj Sirswal

ICPR-JRF, Department of Philosophy, K.U.K.

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to give a descriptive analysis of the conception of self in eastern and western tradition with special reference to David Hume and the Buddha. David Hume concludes that self is merely a composition of successive impressions. Philosophers call Hume’s theory of self as a “bundle theory of mind” and again Hume says, “I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.”  We can easily consider that like other substances Hume also denies the self. We can compare this idea of Hume with Buddha. The Buddha denies the existence of any permanent entity either physical or mental. He considers the human person as a psychophysical complex. For him all worldly things are momentary and likewise the self is not more than it and rejects commonly believed conception of self. But how, it may be asked, does he then explain the continuity of a person through different births, or even through the different states of childhood, youth and old age? Though denying the continuity of an identical substance in man, Buddha does not deny the continuity of the stream of successive states that compose his life….This continuity is often explained with the example of  a lamp burning throughout the night….The existence of man depends on this collection and it dissolves when the collection breaks up. The self or the ego denotes nothing more than this collection. But there is also much difference between Hume’s and Buddha’s conception of self. We can conclude that both describe self in empirical sense not as a metaphysical entity.

 Note:

This paper is presented at 44th session of the All India Oriental Conference held on 28-30 July,2008 at Kurukshetra University,Kurukshetra.

Concept of Mind according to Philosophical Bahaviorism

मई 16, 2008 10:48 पूर्वाह्न / टिप्पणी करे

The Word ‘Mind’

The words mind, soul and spirit do not have quite the same meaning, but for the sake of simplicity we may call them our mental or perhaps our psychical life, and that when we use the substantiative words mind, soul ,consciousness, spirit, ego, self are merely different names applied to this inner life. Of course, these words are not synonymous for mind and mental suggested intellectual activities, while soul and psychical are apt to call up emotional and vital elements. When use the word spirit, while the adjective spiritual suggests moral and religious values.

In real sense, the mind is a complex thing, including, first a group of cognitive tendencies or biological interests; second, a system of adaptive processes which we call behaviour (mind in the narrower sense) and the third, consciousness. It would be better if we could use the word soul for mind in the broader sense to include the totality of dispositions, processes and relations and reserve the word mind for the narrower group of process included in adaptive behavior, the corresponding adjectives psychical and mental, falling into their appropriate places.

Behaviorism

Near the beginning of the twentieth century, physicalism began to dominate philosophy of mind. The first of these physicalist movements was behaviorist view that mental properties could be identified with behavior or tendencies to act i certain ways under certain conditions. Behaviorists hold that earlier approaches and methods in psychology were insufficiently scientific. The philosophical behaviorist holds that Cartesian conception of mind errors in a fundamental way.

According to Wittgenstein philosophical problems arise “when language goes on holiday”. When we lose touch with the way our words are actually used. In our everyday interactions with one another, we are not puzzled by our capacity to know what others feel or what they are thinking. The philosophical problem of other minds arises when we wrench mind, thought, feeling, and their cognates from the contexts in which they are naturally deployed. We put special interpretation on them, and then boggle at the puzzles that result.

Conception of Mind According to Ryle

Ryle’s book The Concept of Mind(1949) is a prolonged attack on Cartesian dualism, which Ryle mockingly labels it “the official doctrine”, of the dogma of the ghost in the machine”. He extends Wittgenstein point. He argues that the cartesianism is guilty a serious “category mistake”. In other words, that it has been misled by systematically misleading expressions. Exactly what a category is ,is never made clear but roughly it is a range of items of which the same sorts of things can be meaningfully asserted.

According to Ryle the supposition that minds are kinds of entity amounts to a “category mistake”, it represents the facts of mental life as if they belonged to one logical type or category…. when actually they belong to another . In the same way, the fact that “mind” is a substantive noun, or that we speak of ” states of mind” should not lead us to assume that “mind” functions to designate a particular entity, and that states of mind are states of this entity.

Ryle’s positive thesis, which assigns mentalistic talk to what he regards as the correct category, treats talk about mind as talk about the way in which we behave. In describing the workings of a person’s of mind, he tells us, “we are not describing a set of shadowy operations. We are describing the ways in which parts of his conduct are managed.

Problem about the nature of the mind and the recurrent temptation to think of our mental life as a set of operation performed in a private “inner” that are continued to preoccupy Ryle in his later writings and some of his subsequent reflection can be found in the second volume of his Collected Papers (1971) and in the two posthumous collections of material On Thinking (1979) and Aspects of Mind(1993).

Although a few philosophers would now endorse the behaviorism of The Concept of Mind, its insistence on a priori connections between mind and behavior would still be widely accepted. For example, by functionalists among others. Even philosophers such as D.M. Armstrong and D.C.Dennett, who would count themselves among Ryle’s critics, would acknowledge the influence on them of Ryle’s thinking. If Ryle’s writing now seen as the products of an earlier era, it is because their considerable lessons have be so thoroughly absorbed into contemporary thinking.

References:

Descartes, Meditations on the First Philosophy

Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind

John Heil, The Philosophy of Mind

Richard Creel, Thinking Philosophically

How to Solve the Problem of Mind ?

मई 12, 2008 7:09 पूर्वाह्न / टिप्पणी करे

There are numerous aspects of the nature of man and each aspect gives rise to many problems.  Some of these problems are comparatively simple, other deep and perplexing. Throughout time, people have made distinction between the material or physical world and mental or psychical world, the former may be perceived by any observer; the later remains a private experience. Philosophy of mind, today centrally dealing with four issues: the nature of mind and body, mental content, mental causation and consciousness.1 The nature of mind is one of the most important issues that philosophy has to consider and one of the most complex and baffling. The answer depends on our definition of mind and our interpretation of the universe. Any single interpretation of mind is inadequate.

The problem of the nature of mind is central question not only from a view point metaphysical importance, but also from that of human interests. In everyday sphere of human experience the manifestation of the powers of mind is closely perceived.2 The  problem is of course, one part of the philosophical endeavor have been offered. The best way to arrive at the correct solution seems to view the problem in its historical setting.

Numerous theories of mind have been developed through the years. These theories can be classified according to the following simple system used by philosophers concerned with studying  the mind :

  1. mind as a non-material substance
  2. mind as a principle of organization
  3. mind as the sum-total of experiences
  4. mind as a form behavior
  5. mind as a series of thought processes.3

In his most famous work Meditations, Descartes declared that he would not accept anything as true unless it was demonstrated to be beyond doubt: he decided to question everything and begin anew, to adopt a programme of systematic doubt. He defended an ultra-dualism of body and soul in man. For Descartes, there were two substances mind and matter. He made a sharp distinction between them. Mind is immaterial, it is conscious and it is characterized by thinking. Matter is characterized by extension. The human body is a part of the world of matter and it is a subject of its laws.4   He has given the following distinction between the two substances:

    Material Bodies                            Minds

  1. Spatial                                      Non-spatial
  2. Material qualities                     Distinctly mental qualities
  3. Public                                       Private5

He makes the following argumentation:

  1. I have clear and distinct ideas of material substance, the essential or defining attribute of which is extension.
  2. Therefore, it is at least possible that material substances exist.
  3. I have a clear and distinct idea of mental substance, the essential or defining attribute of which is thought.
  4. Therefore, it is at least possible that mental substances exist.
  5. To say that two things are not really distinct means to say that it is impossible that they could exist separately.
  6. Matter and mind can possible exist separately therefore, they must be really distinct.
  7. And although we suppose that God united a body to a soul so closely that it was impossible to form a more intimate union, and thus made composite whole, the two substances would remain really distinct, notwithstanding this union. (Principles of Philosophy, Part One,60-1)

The most difficult problem before Descartes was as to, how these two diametrically opposed substances are united to form a single organism? The answer is given by Descartes is in the form of theory of interactionism. According to this theory mind and body affects one another via pineal gland. Here the relation of mind and body in clearly conceived as causal; through the meditation of the pineal gland a certain interaction is brought about between them. This theory open to many difficulties and there are so many other theories arises like occasionalism, parallelism etc. after it.

In the traditions of British Empiricism, Hume developed his empirical theory to its extreme limit. He was complete empiricist, who refused to allow credit to any element, which could not be in the category of sense experience. This attitude he maintained towards not only the matter but mind also. He refused the existence of mind.

According to Hume, such various elements in our mind as the flow of thought, sensation, imagination, feeling, desire, volition etc. are distinct and independent of each other. Although we definitely experience these elements yet we do not sense presence of any element, which unites them, and therefore, it is difficult to substantiate the existence of any mind. In Hume’s opinion, mind is like the stage of a theatre on which thoughts and ideas come in a procession. All such thought are transitory and temporary. The only reason for suspecting the existence of mind is that the rapidity of their change which an illusion. Some philosophers have argued that if there is no soul then what it that experiences thought and other mental entities is. Hume refutes this argument by stating that thought can experience itself and no mind is required for any such purpose.

Hume would hold that the use of such words as I, me and mine is due to the exigencies of language and that such words do not reveal a metaphysical “self”. What is meant by self, according to Hume, is simply the totality of experiences and nothing more. These experiences in large part are conditioned and organized by principles of association, such as contiguity, and resemblance. All knowledge comes through experience, he held, and the sole content of the human mind is impressions and ideas. Impressions are our simple and elemental experiences; they are lively and vivid. Ideas are only copies of impressions. When we introspect, we find only these fleeting experiences and, ideas which are constantly changing. There is no evidence of any substance or of any permanent self. The mind and the faculties and properties of the mental life were nothing but an association of ideas and experiences. Mind is only a name for the sum total of the experiences, ideas and desires that occupy one’s attention and life. It was a bundle of experiences, or a collection of sensations. Hume wrote:” for my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception and never can observe anything but the perceptions”(A Treatise of Human Nature). Hume denied the more traditional concept of mind.6

 

Locke and Hume had many followers chief among them are James Mill, A.Brain, J. Sullys, Herbert Spencer, T.Ribot, H.Taine, E.Condollao and the founder of positivism, Auguste Comte. They differ among themselves in many respects, but they all adhere to the general doctrine of empiricism and sensationalist phenomenalism.7

 

Ryle’s book The Concept of Mind (1949) is a prolonged attack on Cartesian dualism which Ryle mockingly labels it  “the official doctrine “or” the dogma of ghost in the machine.” In his book Ryle has two objectives:

 

(i) to refute a current philosophical theory about mind.

(ii) to substitute at least in blue print, a satisfactory alternative.

 

Gilbert Ryle attacked on Mind-body dualism and insists that mind is not something separate and distinct from body and matter. Mind is not another world either parallel to or beyond the ordinary world. Ryle attempts to get rid of what he calls the traditional “dogma of the ghost in the machine”, and rectify the “category-mistake” or the “philosopher’s myth”. This myth occurs when we put the facts of mental life in a category or class to which these facts do not properly belong. So, to talk about the “mind” as a word behind or beyond the activity of the organization of its ideas is a mistake.  Mind is a way in which a person behaves. In his own words,” In opposition to this entire dogma, I am arguing that in describing the workings of a person’s mind, we are not describing a second set of shadowy operations. We are describing certain phases of his one career; namely we are describing the ways in which parts of his conduct are managed”.8

 

The Objective of the Research

 

The main objective of this study is to critically evaluate these three views and arrive at a position, which could do philosophical justice to the concept of mind without involving difficulties like Cartesian interactionism or Humian reductionism of mind to fleeting impressions. We would see the problem of mind as a linguistic problem rather than a metaphysical one. The mind is a complex thing including first a group of cognitive tendencies, second a system of adaptive processes which we call behavior, and third consciousness. The mental words will remain in our ordinary-language, but we need not go beyond them and search for entities they are referring to.

 

When analyising mind, we must recognize life itself. Firstly, because  human life cannot be conceived independently of human mind and vise-versa. Secondly, the above indicated fact entails that our theories or what may be called conceptual analyses of mind must cohere with our ordinary discourse pertaining to human life.  Our theories must remain synthetic and adaptable to new information. In a word, we should adopt Gestalt attitude viz. that the whole is more than the sum of its parts; wholes often have qualities not presented in their parts.

 

REFERENCES:

  1. H.H. Titus & others (Ed.), Living Issues in Philosophy ,p.06
  2. J.P. Shukla, The Nature of Mind,p.01
  3. H.H. Titus & others (Ed.),Living Issues in Philosophy,p.66
  4. Brain Cooney (Ed.), The Place of Mind,p.23
  5. John Heil, The Philosophy of Mind, p.23
  6. H.H. Titus & others (Ed.),Living Issues in Philosophy,p.66
  7.  ibid,p.69
  8. Gilbert Ryle , The Concept of Mind,p.49

Note: Writtten for and highlighted in ICPR Fellows Meet 2008 from May 8 to 10,2008 at J.N.U. New Delhi.

Published at: SYPOSIA:the online philosophy journal, Link: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com/Article/How-to-Solve-the-Problem-of-Mind–/2381

Hume’s Discussion on the Personal Identity

मई 2, 2008 6:16 पूर्वाह्न / टिप्पणी करे

-Desh Raj Sirswal                        

     ‘What am I’ is the question which is generally asked and answered differently , since the history of thought. It is related to one’s identity, so everyone gives different answer according to their personal history, physical features and circumstances. For Hume self is neither a body, nor a mind, nor a combination of both, nor an unknown substance as some thinkers generally say and defend. It is only a series of experiences, a strew of feelings, sensations, desires, thoughts, beliefs etc After that he considers the problem of personal identity by adopting the classical exposition of the positivist’s theory of personal identity. It is the view of those thinkers, who adopted sceptical view and also think that the idea of self can be described in the empirical or linguistic formula. It is common to all positivist that they think self is an abstraction from the facts with no ontological status of its own.

       Hume is against those philosophers, who believe in the conception that we have an idea of a permanent, independent and immaterial self and its continuous identity.

       He is not satisfied with this thinking that the idea of self is the foundation of all our emotions, passions, thoughts and desires etc. He thinks that all these are different and separate from each other and may be separately consider and exist.

      Hume says there should be one impression that gives rise to every real idea. But we don’t have any such impression about the self. Hume refutes the existence of all material and immaterial substances. Hume argued that if we can directly know, we know nothing but the object of our sense experience as ideas and impressions only.

     He says these are all different and separable so, there is no need for their support. When we examine we found nothing, what we call it a self or any certain principle.

     Our mind is like a stage of a theatre in which thoughts and ideas come in a procession. All thoughts are transitory and temporary. The only reason for suspecting the existence of self is that the rapidity of their change causes an illusion. He says we should try to be clear that we are just concentrating mind on only successive perceptions, not where they are presented. So, self is merely a composition of successive impressions.

     We can compare this idea of Hume with Buddha. He also rejects commonly believed conception of self though he does not deny the continuity of the stream successive states that compose life. The self or the ego denotes nothing more than this collection and the existence of man depends on this collection and it dissolves when the collection breaks up. But there is much difference between above conception of the self and Hume’s conception of self.

       Now, here  a problem arises about this view that if we have not any permanent  self, then how can we explain personal identity ? And how can  we justify this conception?

       Firstly, John Locke introduced problem of personal identity in his book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke defines a person as a “thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection and  can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places.” This self-consciousness, which is inseparable from thinking ,constitutes the essence of personality. Consequently the identity of a person is to be found in the identity of consciousness. Of course, we are not always conscious.In contrast toLocke, Hume does not believe in an identical self. For him  there are no constant and invariable impressions of such a self and that introspection does not discover anything, but  particular perceptions. Thus we can have only  particular sensation and emotions, but no impression of  self.

       Hume’s discussion of personal identity is primarily built on the major role of the imagination, which it plays in the formation of belief. From this formation of belief in general, we arrive at belief in causes, continued existence, and then on to the personal identity. Hume uses the word ‘feign’ to explain this conception of personal identity. By the reason of memory and imagination we “make believe” in the continued existence of a “self” or identical personality during these interruptions by the same methods and for the same reasons as I feign the continued existence of external world.

        For Hume identity depends upon the three relations of resemblance, contiguity, and causation. It follows from these principle that the notion of personal identity proceeds from the “smooth and uninterrupted progress of the thought ” by its continuity. Hume thinks that the identity which we ascribe for the human mind is same as the identity what we ascribe to  vegetables and animals, it is fictitious one. This is only by the reason of imagiantion that we do with another objects.

        With reference to the  personal identity, Hume’s above said theory is not far from fallacies and difficulties. Actually, he himself knows that his principle is not completely satisfactory. In the “Appendix” of his Treatise, he mentioned a difficulty which is not solvable by him. It is related to inheritenceness and composition of perceptions. If all our perceptions are different and independent to each other and there is no idea of self then, Hume questions how were they organized and related to each other. In other words, we ask this question as what is the prime substance and principle by which we integrate and organize our perceptions. Hume himself asks this question and he found himself incompetent to answer it.

        Hume sums up the discussion of personal identity by saying that his whole  examination of this question reveals that most of the disputes about personal identity are ‘merely verbal’ he says it is a grammitical rather than a philosophical problem.

        Modern logical positivists have tried to give an empirical explanation of this theory, as Hume does. But, it has also some dogmaticism and it failed to give any satisfactory solution.

       Many philosophers have criticized Hume’s ideas by various points. Some are related to memory that it is not the  only criterion for the self. Although memory seems to be the most important and the primary criterion to the discovery of the personal identity, but it is not only based on memory and continuity but on some other factors also.

        Chisholm attacks on Humean position to say that Hume made a conceptual error in his notion of what constitutes the idea of self, he seems contradictory when he examine self in experience and lastly, he is only aware about particular mental data.

       According to Flage Reid’s and Beattie found Hume’s theory of mind have many misconceptions and it is not much clear.

         And lastly, we cannot  perceived self as an object as Hume does. Because we cannot deny our experiences about the authority of awareness of self. This self awareness makes possible all concentration and contemplation. The self which is the basis of all knowledge cannot be perceived as an object.

        Copleston found that Hume’s use the ambiguous word ‘identity’ and memory not possible in his theory and Ayer also defends it.

        Finally, it is also to be considered that Hume accepts scepticism in his all logical and philosophical speculations. According to scepticism, we cannot get the definite knowledge of anything. Therefore, we should think all our knowledge suspicious and shouldn’t try to give  any definite judgment  about any problem or principle. Hume follows this rule in his entire speculation, but softly. He realizes that one cannot follow this rule in his practical life, if we will adopt this we cannot do anything faithfully and cannot  live whole life easily. So, David Hume is both an epistemological and metaphysical subjectivist and a moral and ethical relativist. His theories make both philosophical knowledge and scientific knowledge impossible. Hume solution for the problem of personal identity is not satisfactory, but it has a great relevance in today’s era.

          Hume’s ideas not only effected Eighteenth and Nineteenth century philosophy, but also  effects contemporary philosophy. Most problems which are discussed as contemporary issues  are due to Hume’s critical philosophy.  In present times, analytical point of view is more dominant., it also gets inspiration and effect from Hume. His thinking not only effects epistemology and metaphysics, but every field of philosophy. Two major theories of contemporary ethics Emotivism and Prescriptivism have originated from his thinking.

        Mostly thinkers like Moore, Russell, Wittegenstein, Carnap, Ayer etc. are inspired by Hume’s speculations. So, we can concludes that, Hume is pre-eminently a breaker of new ground: a philosopher who opens up new lines of thought, who suggests to us an endless variety of philosophical explorations. Nothing as ultimate except the spirit of enquiry. In this sense Hume is the fore runner of postmodernism and deconstruction, post-structuralism, feminism, post-colonialism, new historicism, et al. 

REFERENCES: 

Ayer, A.J. (2006) Hume: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, New Delhi.

Beloff, John (1962) The Existence of Mind, Macgibbon & Kee, London.

Chennakesavan, Sarasvati (1991) Concept of Mind in Indian Philosophy, Motilal Banarsidas Publisher Pvt. Ltd., Delhi.

Clack, R. Jerold (1973) ” Chisholm and Hume on Observing the Self”, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research ,Vol.XXXIII, March, No.3,pp.338-348.

Copleston, Frederick (2003) A History of Philosophy, Vol.5, Continuum, London & New York.

Dutta & Chatterjee(1984) An Introduction to Indian Philosophy, University of Calcutta.

Flage ,Daniel E.(1990)David Hume’s Theory of Mind, Routledge, London and New York.

Flew, Antony (1962)Hume on Human Nature and the Understanding, (Edi.),Collier Books, New York.

Fuller,B.A.G. (1989) A History of Philosophy, Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi.

Gould, James A. ,Mulvaney, Robert J.(2001)Classic Philosophical Questions, (Edi.) , Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, Tenth Ed.

Gupta, Suman (1983) The Origin and Theories of Linguistic Philosophy : A Marxist Point of View, Intellectual Publishing House, New Delhi, First Ed.

Hume, David (1978)  A Treatise of Human Nature, Edited by L.A.  Selby-Bigge Oxford University Press, London.

Nayak, G.C. (2002) Philosophical Reflections, ICPR, New Delhi.

Passmore,John(1980) Hume’s Intentions, Gernald Duckworth &Co. Ltd.,London,Third Ed.

Smith, N. Kemp (1960) The Philosophy of David Hume, Macmillan & Ltd. New York and St. Martins Press, London.

Verma, V.P.  (1978)  David Hume ka Darshan, Rajasthan Hindi Granth Academy, Jaipur, First Ed.

Williams,J.Anthony (2006) “Is Hume a Sceptic with regard to Personal Identity and Ontology in General ?”

http://home.sandigo.edu/-baber/SCP2006/papers/williams.pdf, Dated:07-07-2007 

Note: this paper is presented at Utkal University, on the occasion of All Orissa Philosophy Association Annaul programme.

Published :“Hume’s Ideas on the Problem of Personal Identity” in Journal of Bihar Philosophical Research, 2005 (Combined Edition) , pp.189-197.