Identifying Reference - Part Six
Strawson's Characterization of 'Person'
After briefly running through a few arguments against claiming metaphysical priority for either some kind of Cartesian ego or for a No-ownership thesis in relation to explanations concerning the underlying character of experiences and states of consciousness, and after outlining what he perceives to be some of the conceptual problems surrounding these two approaches to understanding the nature of experience and states of consciousness, Strawson states:
"What we have to acknowledge, in order to begin to free ourselves from these difficulties, is the primitiveness of the concept of a person. What I mean by the concept of a person is the concept of a type of entity such that both predicates ascribing states of consciousness and predicates ascribing corporeal characteristics, a physical situation &c. are equally applicable to a single individual of that single type. What I mean by saying that the concept is primitive can be put in a number of ways ... a necessary condition of states of consciousness being ascribed at all is that they should be ascribed to the very same things as certain corporeal characteristics, a certain physical situation &c. This is to say, states of consciousness could not be ascribed at all unless they were ascribed to persons, in the sense I have claimed for this word. We are tempted to think of a person as a sort of compound of two kinds of subjects: a subject of experiences (a pure consciousness, an ego) on the one hand, and subject of corporeal attributes on the other. Many questions arise when we think in this way." (pp.101-102)
Many questions also arise when one thinks in the way which Strawson is suggesting. Strawson wants to make both states of consciousness, as well as physical features associated with human bodies, as functions of one subject. This is the person through whom states of consciousness and bodily characteristics are manifested and by whom they (the states of consciousness and the bodily features) are, in some way, made possible.
Strawson wants to make states of consciousness and bodily characteristics analyzable in terms of personhood, instead of making personhood analyzable in terms of either states of consciousness or bodily characteristics or features/dimensions of both taken together in compound form. Indeed, for Strawson:
"The concept of a person is logically prior to that of an individual consciousness. The concept of a person is not to be analyzed as that of an animated body or of an embodied anima." (p.103)
Nevertheless, to say that "a person is the concept of a type of entity such that both predicates ascribing states of consciousness and predicates ascribing corporeal characteristics ... are equally applicable to a single individual of that single type" doesn't actually say what a "person" is. Furthermore, if one can conceive of experiences and states of consciousness as being so many manifestations of the person-entity, what is to prevent one from conceiving of the person-entity as being a manifestation of some more fundamental metaphysical entity, process, principle, or whatever?
Finally, just as one, certainly, can ascribe furniture to a house as a feature of the latter but, nevertheless, one cannot claim the house is the causal agent responsible for furniture being in the house , so, too, one can ascribe states of consciousness or corporeal characteristics to some entity called a "person" without feeling compelled to make the person-entity the well-spring for the generation of those features. Instead, the person entity merely may be a locus to which such features are assigned, for whatever reason, to pass through, or be a part of, from time to time.
Is a person-entity something different from a material or corporeal brain substance capable of producing states of consciousness? If it isn't, then, one wonders if Strawson tenably can demonstrate that "the concept of a person is not to be analyzed as that of an animated body". On the other hand, if the person-entity is different from what a mind/brain identify theorist would contend, then, how is it different such that Strawson also could show that "the concept of a person is not to be analyzed as that of ... an embodied anima"?
By introducing the concept of person in the way he has, Strawson believes he is avoiding the difficulties which he maintains have arisen traditionally with respect to the Cartesian perspective concerning the relationship of mind and body. Yet, even if one were to concede there were some semblance of success in his efforts in this regard, this concession does nothing to conceal the difficulties which begin to emerge in his concept of person. This is especially the case when one is trying to grasp just what the character of a person-entity is and whether or not it has any ontological status beyond its use as an alleged means to get around certain philosophical problems concerning the relationship of mind and body.
Before one can hope to reach an understanding of the dimensions of reality which make states of consciousness and corporeal characteristics possible (assuming this kind of understanding can be reached), one must acknowledge that one starts and lives with the given of experience. One has experience irrespective of whether, or not, one knows how such experience is possible or what generated it - for experience is an integral expression of part of the ontological territory in which one finds oneself.
Moreover, part of the character of this realm of experience is an awareness that experience has a character of sometimes different, sometimes similar, quality from one point of awareness to the next. Whether the differences and similarities are a function of the character of awareness, taken in and of itself, or whether they are a reflection of the character of something independent of the awareness and which the awareness picks up on, or whether the truth lies somewhere in the middle, are questions which need to be answered.
However, the existence of these questions does not negate the fact that our immediate problem is a methodological one. In other words, we are faced with the task of trying to discern a means which will allow us to decipher successfully the character of experience and determine the relationship of this experience to the reality which makes it possible.
Descriptive metaphysics has methodological significance to the extent it really does provide us with the "actual structure of our thought about the world". For if we know or understand what the "actual structure of our thought about the world" is, we might be able to establish what aspects of experience are a function of that structure and what aspects, if any, are due to factors which lie outside of, or beyond, the influence of this structure. And, once we have some appreciation of the relative contributions of these two dimensions, we might be able to begin to build up a conceptual picture of the character of the facets of reality which makes experience possible at all and provides it (i.e., experience) with the character-parameters it has in any given case.
In view of the foregoing discussion, presuppositions about a vague notion of a person-entity, or arguments in favor of a notion of the sort which Strawson offers, are slightly premature, if not irrelevant to the aforementioned methodological task with which we are confronted. Assuming 'personhood' (even if the concept is allowed to be fairly imprecise) doesn't appear to offer much help in moving one along the path toward finding a satisfactory resolution to the problem of how to go about determining what the "actual structure of our thought about the world" is, as previously indicated, the presumption of personhood doesn't seem to be necessary to the making of identifying references to particulars within the experiential field. This is so because identifying references are a function of establishing a conceptual framework of demarcated character which can serve as a reference point through which speaker/hearer interchanges can locate, or focus on, those aspects of experience to which attention is being drawn for the purposes of delineation, exploration, characterization, experimentation, questioning and so on. In this respect, and contrary to what Strawson maintains, the concept of person is not logically prior to consciousness.
The resolution of the existential puzzle presented by reality (to whatever extent it can be resolved) requires, first, a determination of an appropriate methodology which will provide a reliable, epistemological access road, so to speak, to an identification and understanding of those aspects of the character of the world that are not merely a function of the "structure of our thought about the world" - qua thought. One also must have an understanding of those aspects of experience which can lead to insights concerning the actual character, at least in part, of the reality which makes possible both a world to think about as well as structures of thought to focus upon that world. In this respect, consciousness is methodologically prior to the concept of person because consciousness represents the only available means we have of attempting hermeneutically to approach the question of whether, or not, there is such a thing as a person-entity, and, if there is, what its character is. Furthermore, this relationship of methodological priority holds, even if consciousness should turn out to be a function of, and made possible by, some fundamental underlying reality to which we refer by use of the term "person".
M-Predicates and P-Predicates
At one point in his exploration of the concept of person, Strawson concedes that he hasn't really made clear just what type of entity a "person" is or what the concept entails. For the most part, he has been attempting to show that whatever it is, it is not to be analyzed in terms of either an embodied anima or an animated body. Therefore, Strawson undertakes to make lucid the character of the person typology which here-to-fore had been, by his own admission, somewhat opaque. To this end, Strawson says:
"I must make a rough division, into two, of the kinds of predicates properly applied to individuals of this type [i.e., person]. The first kind of predicate consists of those which are also properly applied to material bodies to which we would not dream of applying predicates ascribing states of consciousness. I will call the first kind M-predicates: and they include things like "weighs 10 stone", "is in the drawing room" and so on. The second kind consists of all the other predicates we apply to persons. These I shall call P-predicates. P-predicates, of course, will be very various. They will include things like: "is smiling", "is going for a walk", as well as things like ‘is in pain’, ‘is thinking hard’, ‘believes in God’, and so on." (p. 104)
A short while later, Strawson adds:
"Clearly, there is no sense in talking of identifiable individuals of a special type, a type, namely, such that they possess both M-predicates and P-predicates, unless there is in principle some way of telling, with regard to any individual of that type, and any P-predicates, whether the individual possesses that P-predicate. And, in the case of at least some P-predicates, the ways of telling must constitute in some sense logically adequate kinds of criteria for the ascription of the P-predicate." (p. 105)
Before continuing on to consider other aspects of Strawson's position concerning P-predicates, there is a potential source of confusion in the foregoing quotes which should be, once again, kept in mind. As suggested earlier in the present discussion of Strawson's approach to descriptive metaphysics, simply because one ascribes P-predicates to a given entity, this does not mean that the entity to which the ascription is assigned, automatically, must become a person in Strawson's sense.
The ascribing of P-predicates is one thing. The determination of Strawsonian personhood is a separate issue.
The difficulty facing Strawson is not a matter of having to come up with a "way of telling, with regard to any individual of that type [i.e., person], and any P-predicate, whether the individual possesses that P predicate". The hurdle which Strawson must overcome is to be able to establish that only persons in his sense could manifest the identifying characteristics which would justify or warrant the ascription of P-predicates.
Quite possibly, this is what Strawson has in mind when he stipulates at the end of the previously cited quote: "the ways of telling must constitute in some sense logically adequate kinds of criteria for the ascription of the P-predicate". If this is so, then, whatever the nature of the logically adequate criteria one comes up with, these criteria must clearly demonstrate: a) the reasons for ascribing P-predicates to the entity in question are because the entity is a person in Strawson's sense; and, b) only persons in Strawson's sense represent the sort of entity to which P-predicates legitimately can be ascribed.
In further delineating the character of P-predicates, Strawson asserts:
"... it is essential to the character of these predicates that they have both first- and third-person ascriptive uses, that they are both self-ascribable otherwise than on the basis of observation of the behavior of the subject of them, and other-ascribable on the basis of behavior criteria. To learn their use is to learn both aspects of their use. In order to have this type of concept, one must be both a self-ascriber and an other-ascriber of such predicates, and must see every other as a self-ascriber. In order to understand this type of concept, one must acknowledge that there is a kind of predicate which is unambiguously and adequately ascribable both on the basis of observation to the subject of the predicate and not on this basis, i.e., independently of observation of the subject: the second case is the case where the ascriber is also the subject." (p.108)
In order to share (both in the sense of "having" and "understanding") Strawson's concept of person, two conditions are required to be satisfied. First, the individual must ascribe P-predicates to others if he or she ascribes them to himself or herself.
Secondly, the individual must base his ascriptions on the data and insight obtained through: a) being aware of the character of his own states of consciousness and experiences, as well as on b) observing the behavior of others and noting the characteristics of that behavior which can be, inferentially, tied to various facets of the character of instances in which one ascribes P-predicates to oneself. What is not clear, given the foregoing, is this: if an individual adopts the principles inherent in both of the conditions set out above, would he or she necessarily be admitting to the existence of a person in Strawson's sense - either with respect to himself/herself or with respect to others?
Implicit in the conditions stated above is the following idea of Strawson. In ascribing P-predicates to "my" frame of reference and in being willing, on the basis of observing the behavior of others, to acknowledge the legitimacy of assigning P-predicates to them in line with the P-predicates one assigns to oneself, Strawson believes this requires one to hold that the others also have a "my" frame of reference to which the P-predicates are being assigned.
According to Strawson (see Individuals, bottom of page 109), if others do not have a corresponding "my" frame of reference which serves as the locus for ascribing P-predicates, then, one also could bring into question the "my-ness" of the frame of reference which experiences others as "other". Even if one were to concede this point about "my-ness" (i.e., the ownership of states of consciousness and experience) having to be extended to others if one extends it to "oneself", there seems to be no compelling reason why one should suppose that "my-ness" is an expression of personhood in Strawson's sense.
Let us suppose a Cartesian were to stroll by and remark that he or she would be willing to ascribe P-predicates to others and that he or she even would be willing to allow one of these P-predicates to concern a notion of "my-ness" or ownership which tends to permeate all the P-predicate assignments to any given phenomenological frame of reference. Let us further suppose the Cartesian says (as he or she, undoubtedly, would) that despite the initial concession, he or she still sees no evidence for supposing there is some entity, called a "person", which is the moving force behind the existence of both P-predicates and the M-predicates that are associated with contexts of P-predicate ascription. Given the foregoing, what sort of recourse does Strawson have when responding to such a Cartesian?
Could Strawson say: "Well, obviously, you neither have nor understand the concept of a person which I'm advancing"? Surely the Cartesian easily could respond to this by maintaining that while, admittedly, he or she may neither have, nor understand, Strawson's concept of person, the fact is the Cartesian met the two conditions which Strawson said were required to both have and understand the concept of a person.
Yet, the Cartesian did not have or understand the concept. Instead, the individual persisted in holding onto his or her Cartesian dualism. To be sure, the Cartesian might not be able to explain just how mind/body dualism works or how two different entities can interact with one another and have such profound effects on one another. However, acknowledgment of these problems does not constitute sufficient reason for abandoning the dualism in order to embrace a theory of persons which, at bottom, is as mysterious and problematic as is dualism.
Moreover, the Cartesian could go on the attack and demand that Strawson must provide an account of why someone could agree to the aforementioned principles or conditions but not feel compelled, subsequently, to take the further step of acknowledging the existence of individuals as persons in Strawson's sense. Is an individual who accepts the conditions outlined on page 107 of Individuals, but who does not have or understand Strawson's notion of person, making some sort of logical error? If so, what is the exact nature of this error? And, if no logical error is involved, then, where does the problem lie?
Strawson's development of the concept of a person (as he understands it) began with the contention that neither the no-ownership thesis nor the Cartesian doctrine of dualism could account for the sense of "my-ness" which appeared to permeate an individual's experiences and states of consciousness. Strawson's solution was to argue that the aspect of "my-ness" associated with experience in general could only be explained and understood if one were to posit the existence of an entity called a "person" which was logically prior to (and, therefore, more primitive than) the notions of corporeal bodies or states of consciousness. In a sense, the very presence of this dimension of "my-ness" constituted, for Strawson, evidence of the existence of a person-entity.
Strawson also believed there are "others" who fall within a range of certain corporeal characteristics and who exhibit behavior which strongly indicates an underlying nature to which P-predicates could be assigned and that one cannot deny the dimension of "my-ness" to these "others" without being forced to consider withdrawing the sense of my-ness from one's own experiences. This is the case since, for Strawson, the ability to ascribe P-predicates is what indicates that an entity is a person (i.e., the source of the subject in which "my-ness" is supposedly housed). In other words, according to Strawson, if, despite the presence of P-predicates being legitimately ascribed to "others", there were no person-entities in these "others", then, how can one maintain that when P-predicates legitimately are ascribed to "oneself", there is a person-entity in oneself capable of providing a metaphysical source for the facet of experience characterized by the sense of "my-ness"?
Strawson quite clearly holds (e.g., see Individuals, p. 106) that the concept of a person does away with the scepticism which he feels haunts both the Cartesian and no-ownership doctrines with respect to identifying and determining the status of "others" vis-á-vis the issue of ascribing P-predicates to these "others". Strawson goes on to claim:
"The point is not that we must accept this conclusion in order to avoid skepticism, but that we must accept it in order to explain the existence of the conceptual scheme in terms of which the skeptical problem is stated." (p. 106)
Apparently Strawson believes one cannot even raise, let alone solve, the issue of scepticism without being forced to acknowledge the need to adopt Strawson's conceptual scheme in order to introduce this issue. On the other hand, if one acknowledges this need, then, according to Strawson, the problem of scepticism disappears in the light shed by the character of the conceptual scheme of personhood.
Nonetheless, Strawson may be mistaken about what is necessary in order for one to be able to raise the skeptical issue. In order to understand this possibility, consider the following.
An individual is aware of a variety of different states of consciousness over time. He describes these states in terms of P-predicates. He notes that correlated with the states to which P-predicates can be ascribed there is an associated corporeal entity which can be described in terms of M-predicates. Some of these M-predicates concern movement, gestures, stances, looks, action sequences of certain character and so on, of which the individual is aware, to varying degrees, from within his peculiarly phenomenological proximate position to such behavior.
The individual also perceives other corporeal bodies to which M-predicates can be ascribed. Among these M-predicates are a large number that appear very similar to certain behavioral M-predicates the individual has witnessed in relation to the corporeal body associated with the states of consciousness to which he or she has direct access.
Given all of the foregoing, the skeptical question, then, becomes the following. Does the observance of M-predicates in other corporeal bodies which one experientially encounters in a restricted manner ( "Restricted" in the sense one has direct access only to the dimension in which M-predicates are manifested, and one does not have direct access to what makes their manifestation possible) constitute a reliable and defensible basis from which to infer that P-predicates may be ascribed to such bodies as being, correlated, approximately with observed M-predicates of a certain kind?
Three sorts of general conditions have shaped the foregoing question. 1) The first general condition involves an awareness capable of differentiating certain aspects of experience, including the distinction between M-predicates and P-predicates. 2) The next condition concerns an awareness capable of noting similarities between two seemingly different sets of M-predicate loci within the experiential field. 3) Finally, there is need for an awareness capable of asking whether the presence of a certain set of M-predicates associated with other corporeal bodies represented sufficient evidential basis to warrant positing the existence of a set of P-predicates which are to be correlated with those M-predicates, given that such an M/P-predicate relationship was understood to exist within the context of the phenomenology of the awareness which was asking the question.
Irrespective of how an individual decides to respond to the skeptical challenge, one does not appear to need to adopt Strawson's conceptual scheme concerning persons in order to be able to ask the question in the last paragraph. At the very most, one might be forced to concede that the framework of awareness does have, in the case of humans, a dimension of "my-ness" which pervades it and constitutes part of the phenomenology of that awareness' reflection upon itself. This concession, however, need not mean one must presume that the source from which the idea of "my-ness" arises is a function of personhood.
A given framework of awareness may have no more right to claim possession of either the awareness occurring in such a framework, or the contents appearing in the awareness, than a television set has a right to claim ownership of the pictures which it displays. For instance, a television set has the capability to receive certain wavelengths of electro-magnetic radiation and to decode the information which those waves contain in the form of a picture of certain characteristics. The television thereby serves as a framework within which the picture manifests itself. However, the picture does not 'belong' to the television so much as the electronic structure of the television permits the picture to be given expression through the set.
Similarly, human beings might be considered capable of receiving something called awareness and decoding the information which such awareness contains in the form of a phenomenology of certain characteristics. As a result, human beings could be construed to serve as a framework within which the phenomenology manifests itself.
Nonetheless, like the case of the television set, such circumstances need not be thought of as belonging to the human being. They merely may indicate that the biological structure of the human being serves as a locus of manifestation through which consciousness can be given expression.
Whether, or not, a given framework of awareness considers such awareness or the contents of that awareness in possessive terms, the one thing which cannot be denied by that awareness is the facticity of the awareness' existence, qua awareness, as a reality. This remains true even in the case of illusions, hallucinations, delusions, dreams, demonic possessions and mystical states.
Moreover, if a framework of awareness does not happen to think (even implicitly) that an experience is "mine", but simply 'witnesses' the experience as it (the experience) runs its course as an experience which has a certain character, the absence of the dimension of "my-ness" in relation to the experience in question does not alter the character of the experience except in the one respect of "my-ness". In all other respects, the experience is the same - an awareness (irrespective of whose it is and what the nature of that 'who' is) of a certain character.
If the awareness being considered has adequate capabilities of understanding, insight, intelligence, etc., then, the three previously stated conditions are enough of a conceptual scheme to permit the issue of skepticism to arise, should, for whatever reason, a question of skepticism actually bubble to the surface of that locus of consciousness. Whether one must posit the existence of an underlying metaphysical entity comparable to Strawson's notion of person in order to account for this kind of awareness is another question altogether.
Furthermore, this latter question presupposes an acknowledgment of the existence of the experience of awareness before it can even be raised. Thus, the skeptical question about what inferential links can be established with regard to the relation of M- and P-predicates, given a certain range of experience, can be considered independently of the question of personhood.
Methodologically speaking, the skeptical question must be addressed first. If one denies the legitimacy (as the sceptic would) of presuming P-predicates, given appropriate M-predicates, then, to inquire as to the source of these P-predicates in others, makes no sense because they (i.e., others) have been divested, by the sceptic, of any dimension to which P-predicates could be ascribed, despite the sceptics continued use of M-predicates with respect to those "others".
Under these circumstances, if one were to ask questions about the possible relationship of a person-entity (with its P-predicates and M-predicates of an appropriate kind), the questions would be purely self-directed. On the other hand, the sceptic would, then, have to deal with providing an account of why one could not legitimately extend the M-predicate/P-predicate relationship (noted with respect to oneself) to "others" who manifested the appropriate sorts of M-predicate behavior.
Nevertheless, the skeptic hardly would be in the epistemic position attributed to him or her by Strawson. In other words, having denied P-predicates to others who manifest appropriate M-predicate behavior, there is no reason why the sceptic could not investigate whether the source of his or her own character to which P-predicate could be ascribed was that of a person-entity in Strawson's sense, or a function or expression of some other metaphysical possibility.
The very acknowledgment of the existence of an awareness of experience provides the sceptic with the means to ask the given question on personhood in relation to the framework of awareness or consciousness out of which the skeptical orientation arises. At the same time, the sceptic's uncertainty about the legitimacy of the inference in relation to others - that is, of going from the existence of M-predicates to, therefore, the presumed presence of P-predicates - stops the sceptic from asking the question on personhood (or answering it) in relation to "others".
The sceptic's doubts in the latter respect may or may not be justified ultimately. In either event, the question about personhood in relation to oneself is not inextricably tied to one's having to grant P-predicate status to "others" who exhibit the appropriate M-predicate behavior.
The sceptic has information or data in relation to the issue of personhood with respect to the framework of consciousness in which the sceptic's scepticism appears, that the sceptic does not have in relation to "others". The character of the inference for the sceptic in going from M-predicates to P-predicates in the context of his or her own framework of consciousness is different from the logical character of the inference for the sceptic in going from M-predicates to P-predicates in the context of "others".
The sceptic doesn't have access to the same sort of framework of consciousness in "others" (assuming the "others" do have such a framework) that the sceptic has in relation to himself or herself and through which the sceptic is able to tie M-predicates and P-predicates together in a manner that inferentially might support the notion of personhood with regard to himself or herself. The sceptic's lack of access to the framework of consciousness of "others" means he or she must infer such a framework in relation to "others" on the basis of indirect evidence and analogy concerning the possible significance of M-predicate and P-predicate associations as seen from the perspective of the sceptic's own framework of consciousness to which he or she has direct experiential access.
One might note, in passing, that the form of skepticism being examined in the foregoing was of a rather restricted or selective variety, focusing only on the problem of whether or not to ascribe P-predicates to others who exhibited behavior appropriate for M-predicate ascription. More thoroughgoing or radical skepticisms are, of course, conceivable.
However, one should not suppose the above sort of restricted sceptic is advocating (nor would he or she feel compelled to advocate) some sort of solipsistic position. The fact that a sceptic might deny to others the P-predicate ascriptions applied to himself or herself need not mean such a sceptic believes (although he or she could) the bodies to which the sceptic ascribes M-predicates are functions of the sceptic's being or state of consciousness - for example, the skeptic might believe that she or he was the only person in existence despite the similarities between the M/P-predicate correlations between the "others" that the skeptic observed and the skeptic’s own set of M/P-predicate correlations.
|
