Online research in philosophy

In “Honderich on the Consequences of Determinism” I argued that contrary to Ted Honderich’s thesis in his How Free Are You? determinism has no consequences, whether logical, moral, or psychological, about how we must view persons we beIieve to be determined. Honderich replied in “Compatibilism, Incompatibilism, and the Smart Aleck” that there is a sense in which our belief in determinism has consequences that any reasonable human being must recognize. My present paper examines Honderich’s reply.

The paper discusses Ted Honderich's ?Hypothesis of Psychoneural Correlation?, one of the three fundamental ?hypotheses? of his Theory of Determinism. This doctrine holds that there is a pervasive system of psychoneural laws connecting every mental event with a neural correlate. Various questions are raised and discussed concerning the formulation of the thesis, Honderich's concepts of ?mental? and ?physical?, and the possible grounds for accepting the thesis. Finally, Honderich's response to Donald Davidson's well?known arguments for psychophysical anomalism is discussed.

Two issues are raised with regard to Ted Honderich's A Theory of Determinism. First, regarding the relation between a token identity theory of mental and physical events and Honderich's ?psychoneural union theory?, it is suggested that a token identity theory would serve Honderich's purposes while securing a simpler ontology. Second, it is argued that there is a substantive philosophical issue dividing compatibilists and incompatibilists on the question of whether persons possess free will, contrary to Honderich's contention that the compatibilist and incompatibilist differ only in responsive attitude.

Ted Honderich's theory of consciousness as existence, which he here calls Radical Externalism, starts with a good phenomenological observation: that perceptual experience appears to involve external things being immediately present to us. As P.F. Strawson once observed, when asked to describe my current perceptual state, it is normally enough simply to describe the things around me (Strawson, 1979, p. 97). But in my view that does not make the whole theory plausible.

Professor Honderich presents his account of consciousness boldly and informally, and his presentation merits a response in similar terms. I conceive of this response as simply the first move in a conversation, in the course of which misunderstandings might be removed and, just possibly, criticisms sharpened, and positions modified. I want to concentrate on two questions that his very interesting paper prompts me to ask. The first question is; what exactly is the thesis about consciousness that Professor Honderich is proposing? The second question is; what are the main reasons he has for his proposal and are they persuasive? Although there are two questions, I shall mix considerations of them together in a way which I hope it is possible to follow.

It is hard not to sympathise with Professor Honderich's starting point. It is easy to feel pessimistic about philosophy's ability to throw light on the nature of consciousness. What, then, to do? One option is to persist with the various current approaches. It is clear that Honderich thinks this would be akin to putting more effort into trying to work out the temporal priority of the chicken and the egg. The thought of the orthodox is that an account of consciousness is going to be either fundamentally materialist or fundamentally dualist. The first of these is untenable as consciousness has other or more than neural properties. The second is untenable for various reasons, Honderich's favoured one being that it renders consciousness as out of space and of a mysterious nature. A second option would be to follow Colin McGinn's lead, and think that the problem is of such a nature that it is necessarily unsolvable (McGinn, 1989). Alternatively, we should be more radical and think creatively, not necessarily respecting our current conceptual boundaries between the mental and the physical, the inside and the outside. The solution, Honderich says, lies in the thought that `my consciousness now consists in the existence of a world' (Honderich, 2004, p. 130). I shall say a little about what I understand by this claim, by raising what I take to be three obvious questions, looking at Honderich's answers them, and inviting some further clarification. Throughout I will address only the question of perceptual consciousness.

If you want a philosophically diligent exposition of a theory, something that has got through review by conventional peers, go elsewhere (Honderich, 2004). If you want an understanding made more immediate by brevity and informality, read on. The theory is a Radical Externalism about the nature of consciousness. If it is not a complete departure from the cranialism of most of the philosophy and science of consciousness, it is a fundamental departure.