Edited by Clademir Luís Araldi Flávia Carvalho Chagas Juliano Santos do Carmo NATURALISM Contemporary Perspectives

NATURALISM Contemporary Perspectives

Edited by Clademir Luís Araldi Flávia Carvalho Chagas Juliano Santos do Carmo NATURALISM Contemporary Perspectives Contributors Adriano Naves de Brito is the Dean of the Humanities School at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS), São Leopoldo, Rio Grande do Sul. A distinguished researcher in Philosophy, mainly Metaethics, Philosophy of Language and Philosophy of the Mind, he is the author of several important works on naturalism, including the book Ecos de Darwin (Echoes of Darwin, 2009) and is currently the leader of the "Grupo Chiron: Ética, Linguagem e Natureza Humana". Alberto Semeler is Associate Professor in the courses of Visual Arts and History/Art Theory and Criticism of the Department of Visual Arts at the Art Institute of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS). He is currently the coordinator of the Art and Technology Laboratories and of the Technopoetics, Neuroesthetics and Cognition Laboratory in the course of Visual Arts at UFRGS. Clademir Araldi is Associate Professor at Universidade Federal de Pelotas. He has worked in the field of Philosophy, mainly Ethics, History of Modern and Contemporary Philosophy, dealing with the themes of ethics, moral criticism, genealogy and naturalism. He is the author of several works on naturalism in morality, including the book Nietzsche: do niilismo ao naturalism na moral (Nietzsche: From Nihilism to Naturalism in Morals, 2013). Carlos Adriano Ferraz is Associate Professor at Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPEL) and has acted as the coordinator of the Master Program in Philosophy from 2007 to 2009. He is currently developing research in the field of Philosophy, mainly Ethics and ! Political Philosophy, working with the themes of ethics, philosophy of law, moral theology, teleology and contractualism. Carlos Alberto Miraglia is Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy of the Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPEL) and has been developing research on the role of "transcendental arguments" in the thought of Strawson. He works mainly with the themes of Proof, Intuition and Construction. Flávia Carvalho Chagas is Associate Professor at the Department and Graduate Program in Philosophy at Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPEL). She has published many articles in the field of Philosophy, mainly in the themes of Ethical Foundations, Moral Motivation, Moral Sentiments and Dispositions, Modern and Contemporary Ethics, Bioethics and Theories of Contemporary Justice. Juliano Santos do Carmo is Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy of the Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPEL). He has published extensively in the field of Philosophy, especially Philosophy of Language. He is currently developing research in Social Naturalism and on the problem of Following a Rule and other aspects implied in the idea of Semantic Normativity. Marco Antônio Oliveira de Azevedo is Professor of the Graduate Program in Philosophy of Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS). He develops research in the field of Philosophy, mainly Ethics, dealing with the themes of general ethics and metaethics, applied ethics, including bioethics and medical ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law and philosophical theory of human rights. In the field of applied philosophy, in addition to philosophy of medicine, he has also published in sports philosophy and ethics. Nythamar de Oliveira is Associate Professor at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS), Coordinator of the Reasearch Group in Neurophilosophy (Instituto do Cérebro, InsCer) and the Brazilian Center of Research in Democracy, created ! in 2009. He was the Coordinator of the Graduate Program in Philosophy and member or the Research Ethics Committee of PUCRS and has acted as a member of the Auxiliary Committee in Philosophy at Capes (triennial 2004-6). He has worked in the fields of Ethics and Political Philosophy and the fields of Hermeneutics, Phenomenology and German Idealism. Sofia Stein is Researcher and Professor at the Graduate Program in Philosophy and the Specialization in History of Philosophy and also the coordinator of the Philosophy Course at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS), the Social-Brains Research Group and the Laboratory of Experimental Philosophy and Cognition Studies, investigating in the fields of philosophy of language, epistemology and cognitive sciences. She has focused on problems related to semantics and ontology within the relationship between language and world and conducts deep studies on the reality attributable to objects instituted in science.

Contents PREFACE Clademir Araldi, Flávia Carvalho and Juliano do Carmo ................... 163 NATURALISM VERSUS PHILOSOPHY? Adriano Naves de Brito ........................................................................... 17 AESTHETIC EXPERIENCE FROM A NATURALISTIC PERSPECTIVE Alberto Marinho Ribas Semeler; Leonidas Roberto Taschetto .............. 31 DETERMINISM, FREE WILL AND RESPONSIBILITY: SOME NOTES ON DENNETT S NATURALIZATION OF FREEDOM IN "FREEDOM EVOLVES" Carlos Adriano Ferraz ............................................................................ 54 STRAWSON'S PROVISIONAL APPROACH WITH NATURALISM Carlos Alberto Miráglia .......................................................................... 62 IS NIETZSCHE'S GENEALOGY SPECULATIVE? Clademir Luís Araldi .............................................................................. 73 VIRTUE AND MORAL SENSE: NORMATIVITY IN HUME? Flávia Carvalho Chagas ......................................................................... 93 12 WITTGENSTEIN: AN EXPRESSIVIST APPROACH ABOUT EMOTIONS Juliano Santos do Carmo ...................................................................... 106 WHY ANIMALS DO NOT DEVELOP THE ARTIFICIAL VIRTUE OF JUSTICE Marco Azevedo ...................................................................................... 128 RECASTING NATURALISM AND NORMATIVITY: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM, REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM AND NORMATIVE RECONSTRUCTION Nythamar de Oliveira ............................................................................ 163 SENSE IN THE MIDST OF LIFE, LAWS AND NORMS Sofia Inês Albornoz Stein ...................................................................... 187! ! 13 Preface It is with great satisfaction that we present the collection of essays Naturalism: Contemporary Perspectives, a work whose aim is to foster the debate on questions relevant to naturalism in the contemporary philosophical scenery. The work originated in the "Research Group on Naturalism, Emotivism, and Normativity" from the Universidade Federal de Pelotas, who since 2012 has been advancing the research and disclosure of contemporary philosophy. This volume brings together some of the main studies proposed in the "I Workshop Understanding Naturalism," which took place in the same University in April 2013. The aim of this book is to foster high quality philosophical production by Brazilian researchers who have been influenced by naturalist authors and whose approaches may ignite deeper discussions. The ideas of "nature," "natural objects," "natural relations" or "naturalized investigative models" have been widely used for varied purposes since the beginning of the History of Philosophy. Contemporary philosophers mistakenly claim that naturalism is a recent philosophical development, having arisen perhaps with modern empiricism and has since then been defended against attempts to offer an essentially metaphysical model concerning ontology, knowledge, morality and language. However, that "naturalism" is a metaphysics-ridden theoretical position is not so obvious. The bone of contention in contemporary discussion is not the adoption or not of a naturalistic model, but deciding what should and what should not be included in our concept of "nature." There is no "consensus" on what can properly be considered within the scope of what is understood as "natural." There are at least two models of 14 naturalism, each corresponding to one model of investigation: (1) that which investigates the world as it is so and so, how things are or are becoming (typically known as "reductionist naturalism" or "metaphysical naturalism"); and (2) that which investigates what is so and so in the world (what we usually call "deflationary naturalism," "social naturalism" or "pragmatic naturalism"). In this last case, the investigation concerning "human nature" would be led so as to understand our relationship with the natural world. What allows us to classify both models as kinds of "naturalism" is the widely shared thesis that the natural world should be thought of in its totally independently from whatever supernatural characteristic or yet independently of forces somewhat untouched by the laws of the natural world. In other words, the "supernatural" is understood as that which cannot be considered as part of the natural world. Philosophical tradition is filled with examples of philosophers who ended up including "supernatural" elements in their theoretical systems. Descartes, for example, posited that our knowledge could not be considered without a supernatural element to ensure the truthfulness of what is "clearly" and "distinctly" perceived as truthful. Even John Locke, known for defending a peculiar kind of empiricism, ended up supposing a supernatural element in order to sustain our cognitive faculties (indispensable for human life and interaction). There are obviously many examples of philosophers who included in their systems elements that are beyond the natural world and, thus, it seems correct to say that naturalism in general tends to oppose all approaches resembling those of Descartes and Locke. If this characterization is correct, naturalism cannot be considered a totally contemporary theoretical model. Also, there does not seem to be such a thing as a contemporary "naturalistic turn." Naturalism does not necessarily imply a supposed "ontological turn," as it has been recently argued. Perhaps the most adequate comprehension for the growing interest in so called "naturalism" would be the substantial growth in recent years in the rejection of 15 "supernaturalism." Implicit is the thought that any satisfactory consideration about human beliefs and knowledge in general may not do away with processes and events pertaining to the natural world, whose intervention or reaffirmation of any supernatural element is totally deceptive or unnecessary. Metaphysical naturalism has been presented as an ontological thesis in which all things (objects, events, facts or properties – but also properties and the relationships that characterize them) are parts of the natural, physical world and that these things should be investigated under the light of natural science. Metaphysical naturalism, if thought of under this light, ends up irrevocably committing itself with some presuppositions very hard to be sustained. In an extreme case, the naturalist thinker should be able to analyze various types of discourses compatibly with the precepts of metaphysical naturalism, that is, not using explanatory entities that cannot be investigated by natural science. It is nevertheless certain that this model of naturalism is dependent on a not less problematic supposition: that of the existence of true and correct scientific theories. The basic assumption present in these articles is that naturalism is highly compatible with a wide range of relevant philosophical questions and that, regardless of the classical problems faced by the naturalist, the price paid in endorsing naturalism is lower than that paid by essentialist or supernaturalist theories. Yet, the reader will find a variety of approaches, from naturalism in Moral Philosophy and Epistemology to naturalism in the Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind and of the Aesthetics. On a last note, we would like to express our gratitude to the authors Adriano Naves de Brito, Alberto Semeler, Carlos Ferraz, Carlos Miráglia, Marco Azevedo, Nythamar de Oliveira and Sofia Stein for their valuable contributions. We would also like to thank our colleagues of the Study and Research Group in Philosophy of the 16 Graduate Program in Philosophy of UFPel for the free access of this volume in the Dissertatio-Filosofia series of e-books. And we add a special thanks to CNPq for making this publication possible and supporting the realization of the "I Workshop Understanding Naturalism". Clademir Araldi, Flávia Carvalho and Juliano do Carmo Organizers Pelotas/2013. 17 Naturalism versus Philosophy? Adriano Naves de Brito With regard to the relationship of philosophy and the empirical sciences, we have remarked that philosophy does not in any way compete with the sciences. It does not make any speculative assertions which could conflict with the speculative assertions of science, nor does it profess to venture into fields which lie beyond the scope of scientific investigation. Only the metaphysician does that, and produces nonsense as a result1. There seems to be something odd about being a philosopher and a naturalist, since if science can give an account of every aspect of the world, then what is the point of doing philosophy? And if philosophy is not concerned with giving an account of the world, what is the point of being a naturalist in philosophy? The formulation is paradoxical enough to make us suspect that it means more than it conveys at the first glance. But because each of its conditionals points to something generally accepted, the astonishing effect of the sentence remains. Indeed, on the one hand, science, for reasons irrelevant here – and probably impossible to exhaust – has become, in the twentieth century, the sole oracle for questions concerning the world and its furnishings. While of course not compulsory, this view entails a kind of naturalism which professes that everything in existence exists within the realm of nature, and that beyond nature there is nothing. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 AYER, 1936, p.168. 18 This thesis is the core of ontological naturalism. And since science, and its methods, laws, and descriptions provide our only access to nature – this is the core idea of methodological naturalism – no investigation could give an acceptable account of the physical world, or of life, human nature and suchlike beyond that of science. Accordingly, if philosophy was capable of delivering any useful answers to meaningful questions concerning the world, than it would have to be understood as science, and, as such, to be committed to ontological as well as to methodological naturalism. On the other hand, it is not unusual to take philosophy as a kind of discourse that is irreducible to a description of what there is. A discourse about discourses; a metadiscourse to which even science, and perhaps especially science, has to be subjected. In this sense, philosophy is not prima facie about the world, but is about our knowledge of the world. This does not place philosophy outside of nature, but does grant it a particular role in the acquisition of knowledge, or even in the organization of the knowledge science can deliver. In order to make this view more tangible, I want to give two defences of this conception of philosophy, both from philosophers of the analytical tradition and both very much committed to not opposing science and philosophy. The first comes from Ayer, in a passage that follows the one quoted above. Ayer clearly points out the special role played by philosophy, as he sees it, which regards the acquisition of knowledge: And we have also pointed out that it is impossible merely by philosophizing to determine the validity of a coherent system of scientific propositions. For the question whether such a system is valid is always a question of empirical fact; and, therefore, the propositions of philosophy, since they are purely linguistic propositions, can have no bearing upon it. Thus the philosopher is not, qua philosopher, in a position to assess the value of any scientific theory; his function in 19 simply to elucidate the theory by defining the symbols which accur in it2. Now, if philosophy is a kind of metadiscourse we can apply to elucidate theories and, therefore, to elucidate science itself, how can it make sense to use a naturalistic approach in philosophy? Would it make sense to try to "defin[e] the symbols which occur [in science]" by means of a naturalistic method? What exactly would it mean to do so? To define symbols empirically, for example, by merely describing the way people, especially scientists, use theoretical concepts? And if so, why shouldn't that task concern linguistics rather than philosophers? The second defence I want to present is related to the role philosophy could play in organizing scientific knowledge as a unified whole, as Dennett proposes in Freedom Evolves (2003) when declaring himself a naturalist: My fundamental perspective is naturalism, the idea that philosophical investigations are not superior to, or prior to, investigations in the natural sciences, but in partnership with those truth-seeking enterprise, and that the proper job for philosophers here is to clarify and unify the often warring perspectives into a single vision of the universe3. How could philosophy fulfil such a unifying task by means of a naturalistic approach? Let me ask again the question put to Ayer: is it by using some empirical procedure? By describing the way each "warring perspective" pleads its case? This, of course, would simply give us the theories again, not a unified version of them. Or should clarification and unification only be done with logical tools? Would that even be possible? And if not, why shouldn't scientist be also concerned with this task as much as philosophers? It is clear that hidden in the paradox of philosophical naturalism is a complex relationship between science and philosophy. The problem of articulating these two enterprises harmoniously has !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 AYER, 1936, p.168. 3 DENNETT, 2003, p.13–15. 20 obvious historical constrains and determinations, and is far less clear than it need to be to answer our questions. Debate over their relationship, however, has taken a more manageable direction since Quine published his essay "Epistemology Naturalized" (1969), where he defends the idea that epistemology succeeded metaphysics as the main philosophical contributor to science after the Vienna Circle criticized the latter as nonsensical, and claims that epistemology should be performed within the limits of psychology and, therefore, as a natural science. Quine does not deny philosophy a role in the acquisition of knowledge. Nevertheless, by analysing and assuming the failure of "deducing science from sense data"4, which was part of classical empiricism and logical empiricism, whose pinnacle was Carnap's monumental effort in Der logische Aufbau der Welt (1928) to reduce discourse about bodies to sense data, Quine has given up any philosophical desideratum of delivering in epistemology anything further than that which science can provide. He says: "We are after an understanding of science as an institution or process in the world, and we do not intend that understanding to be any better than the science which is its object"5. If, however, there is a role that philosophy and philosophy alone could play alongside science in the acquisition of human knowledge, what that role would be is not clear in Quine's essay. That there is or not such a role for philosophy is, as I hope will become clear in this paper, a crucial question regarding the relationship between philosophy and the sciences in general, and with naturalism in particular. The intense debate Quine's essay has provoked shows us that approximating philosophy to naturalism is, for many, to threaten the former inasmuch as it is to approximate philosophy to science, because the science under consideration is natural science, or science done experimentally. If there is a role with regards to human knowledge that is unique to philosophy, then we shouldn't identify !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 QUINE, 1969, p.84. 5 QUINE, 1969, p.84. 21 philosophy with the natural sciences, and would therefore avoid naturalizing philosophy. Naturalization of philosophy here means bringing philosophy and natural science close together and, therefore, committing philosophy to ontological and methodological naturalism in the same way that natural sciences are committed to these metaphysical principles. Natural science is committed to the belief that, first, all there is is immanent to the world, and, second, the means we have to access what there is are of the same metaphysical nature of the things we want to know, namely, they are immanent to the world and susceptible to the same constraints, laws, and mutual determinations. But this does not entail that science can be sure of its accomplishments. Of course science must be committed to certainty, but not to being certain of the results at which it arrives. Quite the opposite! This last principle, which we can call the principle of doubt, also holds for the formal sciences, regardless of how one chooses to interpret their connection to the world. David Berlinski, a critic of evolutionism who also criticizes the alleged scientific basis for atheism, describes scientific pretensions in a way that no longer corresponds to what science is entitled to seek. Interestingly, in doing so, he offers, unwillingly, a perfectly scientifically unacceptable attitude regarding science. In his book of 2009, The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, he asks: "What remains of the ideology of the sciences?"6. And answers: "It is the thesis that the sciences are true – who would doubt it? – and that only the sciences are true." Of course, it is the job of science to doubt that science is true, inasmuch as it is its job to be committed to certainty and to reject that certainty could be achieved by means of supernatural resources. There is no contradiction here, because science is performed collectively, so that assertion and doubt are performed by different players at different times – but still, all the time! Therefore, although it is crucial for scientists to doubt and to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 6 BERLINSKI, 2009, p.59. 22 challenge the truths of science, science is the activity of search for truth by immanent means, whatever they might be. The cartesian ideal of a science that would progress truth by truth may have had a model in the mathematics, but not even there could it be vindicated. This recognition is central to Quine's argument in "Naturalized Epistemology", and to his proposal that we ask philosophy to work more closely with natural science. The project of founding mathematics, which gained new impetus with Frege's logic at the end of the nineteenth century, collapsed through Gödel's work. As Quine puts it: Moreover, we know from Gödel's work that no consistent axiom system can cover mathematics even when we renounce self-evidence. Reduction in the foundations of mathematics remains mathematically and philosophically fascinating, but it does not do what the epistemologist would like of it: is does not reveal the ground of mathematical knowledge, it does not show how mathematical certainty is possible7. Quine classifies studies in the foundation of mathematics into two sorts: conceptual studies and doctrinal studies: "conceptual studies are concerned with meaning, the doctrinal with truth"8. The foundationalist project went wrong when conceptual studies in the foundation of mathematics, whose goal was to reduce mathematical terms into logical terms, failed, and the reduction of those terms into set theory terms did not give a higher degree of certainty. Reductions produced clarity, but no proof of mathematical certainty. Clarification by means of translating one theory into another (arithmetic to logic or to set theory), therefore, did not result in better conditions for deducting one truth from another in any discipline. This was the goal of the doctrinal part of foundationalism, as Quine defines it: "The doctrinal studies are concerned with establishing laws by proving them, some on the basis of others"9. The Cartesian !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 7 QUINE, 1969, p.70. 8 QUINE, 1969, p.69. 9 QUINE, 1969, p.69s. 23 ideal was in check precisely where it could have been most successful, namely, in mathematics. A similar bicephalous program, oriented to meaning and truth at once, can also be applied to natural science. Quine does just this, and the result is equivalent. His focus is Carnap's efforts in the Aufbau. While it is shown that translations from discourse about bodies into discourse about sense data can be partially successful, and can bring some clarity in the process, no similar progress in the generalization of sensory-based knowledge could be made. In the case of natural sciences, the goal of the doctrinal part would consist in "justifying our knowledge of truths of nature in sensory terms"10. Here, Quine argues, we are still where Hume left us. He states: "On the doctrinal side, I do not see that we are farther along today than where Hume left us. The Humean predicament is the human predicament. But on the conceptual side there has been progress"11. The conclusion is that in the theory of meaning some advances can be ensured, but when it comes to the theory of truth, none are assured. It is, however, important to specify what exactly is still missing on the side of the truth. We require neither a definition of truth, nor a semantical approach to it, but a way of warranting progress from one truth to another. The ideal of moving one certainty at a time, either by deductive procedure, or by some sort of induction, failed. Quine's conclusion that no Archimedean point could have been given by traditional epistemology (or by philosophy, for that matter), upon which one could evaluate and – in the best case scenario – drive progress in science, was later interpreted as an eliminativist program in epistemology, where elimination meant the elimination of normative aspect of epistemology. Naturalizing epistemology, this interpretation asserts, is tantamount to rejecting the very core of what gives epistemology any sense at all. Therefore, it is tantamount to rejecting epistemology altogether (and with it, philosophy!). !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10 QUINE, 1969, p.71. 11 QUINE, 1969, p.72. 24 Jaegwon Kim brings out this interpretation in his text of 1988, "What is 'Naturalized Epistemology"'. He tells us: Quine's stress in on factual and descriptive character of his program; he says, 'Why not see how [the construction of theory from observation] actually proceeds? Why not settle for psychology?'; again, 'Better to discover how science is in fact developed and learned than [...]' We are given to understand that in contrast traditional epistemology is not a descriptive, factual inquiry. Rather, it is an attempt at a 'validation' or 'rational reconstruction' of science. Validation, according to Quine, proceeds via deduction, and rational reconstruction via definition. However, their point is justificatory - that is, to rationalize our sundry knowledge claims. So Quine is asking us to set aside what is 'rational' in rational reconstruction. Thus, it is normativity that Quine is asking us to repudiate12. Kim wants us to conclude that, if this is what Quine is asking for, then he is asking us to give up epistemology altogether, since: "For epistemology to go out of the business of justification is for it to go out of business"13. But why should this be so? Why would normativity be inherent to epistemology and incompatible with Quine's naturalism? The problem, it seems, lies in the way normativity is thought to play a role in knowledge, rather than in Quine's refusal of the role of normativity in epistemology. Since normativity is a fact in our cognitive activities inasmuch as it falls within ethics, a comparison Kim uses in his favor (and a statement that Quine would have no reason to disagree with), the query seems not to be whether epistemology has to deal with normativity, but rather how it should do just that. If normativity is part of what it means to know anything, in the sense that the cognizer commits herself to what she knows, demands from others concordance, and does so in good faith, i. e. with a sincere attitude and on the basis of the best grounds known to her, which she may agree are not absolute, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 12 KIM, 1988, p.388. 13 KIM, 1988, p.391. 25 then epistemology, naturalized or not, should deal with the phenomenon of normativity. The disagreement, however, emerges regarding the way epistemology can fulfil the task of explaining knowledge, and in particular regarding the way a naturalized epistemology should deal with normativity. For Kim, Quine's path is unacceptable: The nomological patterns that Quine urges us to look for are certain to vary from species to species, depending on the particular way each biological (and possibly non-biological) species processes information, but the evidential relation in its proper normative sense must abstract from such factors and concern itself only with the degree to which evidence supports hypothesis14. The problem, which hopefully by now is obvious, is that a norm relative to the process by which the cognizer, whether human or another animal, acquiesces with it, is not a norm worth the name. A norm must be objective in the sense that it could not be, were it the mere result of a causal process. Let's turn to Kim once again: In any event, the concept of evidence is inseparable from that of justification. When we talk of 'evidence' in an epistemological sense we are talking about justification: one thing is 'evidence' for another just in case the first tends to enhance the reasonableness or justification of the second. And such evidential relations hold in part because of the 'contents' of the items involved, not merely because of the causal or nomological connections between them. A strictly non normative concept of evidence is not our concept of evidence; it is something that we do not understand15. Now, compare Quine's assertion, which we saw above, with what Kim is saying here. While Quine tells us that "[t]he doctrinal studies are concerned with establishing laws by proving them, some !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 14 KIM, 1988, p.390. 15 KIM, 1988, p.390s. 26 on the basis of others"16, and concludes that this is exactly what is hopeless in epistemology, Kim claims that "[w]hen we talk of 'evidence' in an epistemological sense we are talking about justification: one thing is 'evidence' for another just in case the first tends to enhance the reasonableness or justification of the second". Kim concludes just what Quine refuses, namely that the doctrinal part of epistemology is exactly what is essential to it. From this point of view, foundationalism about providing justifications for enforced norms, epistemic norms in this case, could even be compatible with naturalism, so long as naturalism could incorporate a justification, no matter whether on the basis of casual or nomological connections. Kim explicitly accepts this by discussing other naturalistic projects in epistemology. He maintains, for instance, that projects like that of Kitcher17, in which "[j]ustification is to be characterized in terms of causal or nomological connection involving beliefs as psychological states or processes, and not in terms of the logical properties or relations pertaining to the contents of these beliefs"18, should be seen as part of the Cartesian tradition rather under Quine's conception of a naturalized epistemology. Kim's move is not naïve. As I have pointed out, what he really has in mind and what really characterizes foundationalism is a kind of normative stance that Quine rejects. We can turn to Kim one last time: For, as we saw, the difference that matters between Quine's epistemological program and the traditional program is the former's total renouncement of the latter's normativity, its rejection of epistemology as a normative inquiry19. The query, therefore, it is important to emphasise, does not really concern the inclusion or exclusion of normativity as a proper matter !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 16 QUINE, 1969, p.69s. 17 Cfr. KITCHER, 1987. 18 KIM, 1988, p.396. 19 KIM, 1988, p.397, my italics. 27 of investigation by epistemology, be it naturalized or not, but rather the normative task the epistemologist considers herself committed to while doing her job. Once the epistemologist finds an evidential relation that holds, be it because of some causal or nomological connections or be it because an inferential justification, it is part of her job to take it as a norm and to use it as such, which means to derive consequences from it with the proper authority a norm demands. As such, hidden behind the defence of the normative in epistemology is not a plea for investigating the normative aspect of knowledge, but an impetus to exert normative authority on the basis of epistemological findings. But this is exactly what Quine was defending, and what is doomed to fail. Epistemologists should give up their impetus to be doctrinaires. To ask epistemologists not to be normativists, Kim holds, would be the same as asking ethicists not to derive norms from their work. This analogy may help Quinean naturalism when used the other way around, though. One could sustain, and I am willing to do so, that under a naturalistic perspective, ethicists, as much as epistemologists, had better give up the drive to being moralists. For the same reason that epistemology should give up its doctrinal part, ethics should do the same. A naturalized ethics does not eliminate normativity as an object of investigation, but must refrain from deriving from what it learns from the phenomenon of moral normativity among humans, and from other animal, prescriptions of a higher status than those generated by causal and nomological processes that could be investigated by sciences, from sociology, to psychology, and evolutionary biology. Politicians (in a broad sense) may like to use allegedly better-justified principles and values for their own goals, but what works in public dispute is politics, not the normative force we might naively think is anchored in the soundness of a system of moral beliefs. And while politics may work despite clearly justified bases, this might not be so bad after all, considering the degree of certainty that the human cognitive enterprise has achieved so far. 28 Now, if for the sake of argument we assume that things are the way a Quinean naturalism says they are, than a good question for science would be why the threat of chaos isn't realised, either in science or ethics, if epistemologists and ethicists give up the drive to create doctrine. Why is there are enough agreement between human beings concerning their representations of the world and their moral values that they have been able to develop, for instance, language, science, and societies? Quine's suggestion regarding how we might investigate such questions is the following: This rubbing out of boundaries [between epistemology and the natural sciences] could contribute to progress, [...] in philosophically interesting inquiries of a scientific nature. One possible area is perceptual norms. [...] there is probably only a rather limited alphabet of perceptual norms altogether, toward which we tend to unconsciously to rectify all perceptions. These, if experimentally identified, could be taken as epistemological building blocks, the working elements of experience. They might prove in part to be culturally variable, as phonemes are, and in part universal20. Quine finishes his essay by exalting the role evolution could play in helping to explain induction in terms of its survival value. Mutatis mutandis, a naturalized ethics, could benefit enormously from moving closer to the sciences, a move that has been taken by moral philosophers in recent years21. Now, to return to our starting point, normativity has proven crucial to understanding why naturalism is a hard bullet for philosophers to bite, even those from the analytic tradition22. A naturalism without a doctrinal part has no special role to award philosophy, no role better than that already played by science, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 20 QUINE, 1969, p.90. 21 Cfr. for instance: PRINZ, 2003; KNOB & NICHOLS, 2008; GREENE, 2002, 2003; HAID, 2012. 22 For a discussion on varieties of naturalism look on: COPP, 2012. 29 anyway23. If one accepts this and takes normativity as an object of investigation, naturalism is not opposed to philosophy and by solving the problem of normativity philosophy can only profit from playing a role alongside other sciences. References: AYER, A. Language, Truth & Logic. London: Penguin Books, 1936. BERLINSKI, D. The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. New York: Basic Books, 2009. BRITO, A. N. de. "Moral Behavior and Moral Sentiments: On the Natural Basis for Moral Values". In: Christen M, Fischer J, Huppenbauer M, Tanner C, van Schaik C (eds.): Empirically Informed Ethics. Morality between Facts and Norms. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy. Berlin: Springer, 2013. CARNAP, R. Der logische Aufbau der Welt. 4o ed. Hamburg: Feliz Meiner Verlag, 1928. CHURCHLAND, P. Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011. COPP, D. "Varieties of Moral Naturalism". In: Filosofia Unisinos, 13 (2-supplement), 2012, p.280-295. DENNETT, D. Freedom Evolves. New York : Viking, 2003. GREENE, J. "The Terrible Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Truth about Morality and What to do About it". PhD Dissertation, Princeton, 2002. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 23 Cfr. BRITO, 2013. 30 ______. "From neural 'is' to moral 'ought': what are the moral implications of neuroscientific moral psychology?" In: Nature, Reviews. Neuroscience. V. 4, October, 2003, p.847–850. HAIDT, J. The Righteous Mind. London: Penguin, 2012. KIM, J. "What is 'Naturalized epistemology'?" In: Philosophical Perspectives. Vol. 2. Epistemology. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company, p.381-405, 1988. KITCHER, P. Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology and the Quest for Human Nature. Mit Press, 1987. KNOB, J. & NICHOLS, S. Experimental Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford, 2008. QUINE, W. O. Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press, 1936. 31 Aesthetic Experience from a Naturalistic Perspective Alberto Marinho Ribas Semeler Leonidas Roberto Taschetto1 One evening, I sat Beauty on my knees, and I found her bitter, and I abused her2. Arthur Rimbaud, Une Saison en Enfer. Initial Considerations On this essay we propose a discussion about the possibility of a biological basis for the aesthetic experience considering some elements of Western aesthetic tradition and recent scientific discoveries in the field of neurobiology. Thus, we believe it is relevant to review old assumptions that conceived the aesthetic phenomenon from an innate/acquired dimension. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Psychologist. PhD in Education at Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Professor of the Postgraduate Programme in Education at UNILASALLE, Canoas, RS, Brazil. Coordinator of the Research Laboratory of Technopoetics, Cognition and Education (LAPTECE – Laboratório de Pesquisas em Tecnopoéticas, Cognição e Educação) – UFRGS/CNPq. Researcher in the Group for Research on Education and Discourse Analysis (GEPEAD – Grupo de Pesquisas sobre Educação e Análise do Discurso) – UFRGS/CNPq. E-mail: leonidas.taschetto@unilasalle.edu.br 2 Translated by the authors from the French original: Un soir, j'ai assis la Beauté sur mes genoux. – Et je l'ai trouvée amère. – Et je l'ai injuriée." Source: Arthur Rimbaud, Une Saison en Enfer, 1873. 32 If we restrict the visual direction to wave length receptors and edge detectors and, subsequently, approach this restriction as a mostly innate factor, we would have to consider the eye as a regulating and decisive dispositive in aesthetic perception. Nevertheless, human experience is something singular which allows the raw data collected by the eyes to be interpreted in an individual way. Therefore, our everyday lives (environmental conditions) and our cultural experiences (social, aesthetic and cognitive-sensorial experiences) end up influencing the way through which we interpret the world3. In Classic Antiquity Aristotle saw aesthetics as intimately related to the organic element, connected to the biological cycles of life. In contemporary thinking his thesis is being approached by different theoretical perspectives that connect biology and aesthetics, or by what we may call "naturalization of the aesthetic experience". This thesis of Aristotelian origin is reinforced by the advent of neuroaesthetics in the 1990s, which emerged as a radicalization of the naturalistic understanding of aesthetics. In other words, this thesis establishes itself addressing aesthetic experience as a cognitive-physiological act. First aspect to be highlighted: neuroaesthetics understands art as a by-product of the brain's evolutionary function which is emphasized once again in the context of scientific research. Such approach implies that mental processes start being investigated taking into account their neurochemistry and cellular physiology. Each day, more scholars have been attempting to understand cultural processes by the prism of neuronal activity. Thus, we have been witnessing a process of naturalization of the human being. So what was formerly interpreted as a purely abstract, immaterial mental action is presently reduced to neurochemical brain activity. This leads to thinking and investigating brain processes and, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 ONIANS, 2007. 33 consequently, the arts from their cellular physiology and neurochemistry. The naturalization of the aesthetic phenomenon shifts Western artistic tradition which starts being understood from a scientific and technological point of view in a process of feedback. Nevertheless, this contemporary process of naturalization of the aesthetic function does not deny some of the elements of Western tradition. Knowledge was initially seen as merely intuitive or theoretic-philosophical phenomenon can, nevertheless, be denied or legitimized through the monitoring of the visual cortex, reducing the distance between science and art. Brief Historical Introduction to the Process of Aesthetic Naturalization Aesthetic naturalization is an important programme in the vast agenda of contemporary discussions on the "naturalization of knowledge". The fast scientific and technological advances of the last decades have made it possible to observe in a non-invasive way the occurrence of cognitive-cerebral phenomenon. These observations, in turn, have contributed in a decisive way for the rearranging of several fields of investigation, whose main objective is finding physiological (natural) properties for some phenomena in human knowledge. This naturalistic tendency can be detected in the expanding dialogue that has been taking place amongst philosophers, artists, art theorists and neuroscientists. As a consequence new areas of investigation have been created, such as neurophilosophy and neuro-art. In general terms, the main characteristic of the philosophical branch known as Naturalism consists precisely of an attempt to substantiate epistemology, moral, language, and aesthetics by natural properties (submitted or subject to the laws of the natural world). This characteristic by itself allows us to perceive Naturalism in a way that is contrary to the philosophical models which presuppose the existence of any property that is not subject to the processes and 34 events of the natural world. Thus, any intervention or reaffirmation of "supernatural" elements (self-evident foundational properties, necessary properties which exist by themselves) will be interpreted by Naturalism as illusory and unnecessary. However, the term naturalism has been employed in a very flexible manner. On the one hand, many diverse theoretical positions are frequently denominated naturalistic. On the other hand, it is possible to classify naturalistic stands in two major groups: the reductionist naturalists and the pragmatic naturalists. The former aim at explaining certain phenomena in terms of physio-biological properties; the latter aim at explaining the same phenomena in terms of certain practical regularities (conventional patterns of activity). That in itself permits us to classify both groups in the naturalist category since both of them discard substantialized or "supernatural" conjectures which permeated the classic philosophical discussions. Thus, the multiple branches of bioaesthetics are robust versions of reductionist naturalism, especially because they aim at investigating the aesthetic experience through biological causal mechanisms. The amplitude of the term naturalism allows us to include theorists of various tendencies such as Gilles Deleuze (rhizomatic model), Semir Seki (biological basis for visual aesthetic pleasure), Ernest Gombrich (behavioural paradigms of biological basis), Ruth Millikan (proper function theory and selection of mechanisms in biological evolution). This naturalized aesthetics of a pragmatic bias endeavours to show that aesthetic experience is profoundly independent of our linguistic habits. In this sense, the approaches adopted by Arthur Danto and Nelson Goodman can be considered types of pragmatic naturalism (non-reductionist), since they at the same time avoid "supernatural" explanations for the aesthetic experience (refusing substantialized ideas of beauty, sublime, taste), and support the idea that semantic and pragmatic properties are enough to explain the aesthetic phenomenon (a kind of grammaticalization of the 35 experience). We could propose that Wittgenstein's position on the determination of meaning by use would be a type of pragmatic naturalism, since he adopts the conjecture that no element is a priori necessary for the explanation of linguistic practices. It is clear that problematic aspects of naturalization projects are far too vast to be addressed here, however, it is important to understand that this thinking tendency is practically irreversible and also dominant in the contemporary context bringing with it a series of new and old problems, most of them relating to methodological areas of art historiography and criticism. If the aesthetic experience originates from causal biological processes (dispositions), than what would be the role of art history? Wouldn't the role of the critic be particularly powerless to "guide" our brain mechanisms in the sense of guaranteeing some measure of aesthetic pleasure? Edmond Couchot, artist and art critic who studies the relationship between art and technology, in his book La Nature de l Art: ce que les Sciences Cognitives nous Révèlent sur le Plasir Esthétique (2012) analyses the process of naturalization in its several stages. His analysis focuses on cybernetics where the alive and the artificial find common ground. Instead of defining the cognitive process as the mere activation of pre-existing mental representations or as a mirror of the world around us, he understands it as an "incarnate action". The latter would result from multiple sensorimotor experiences with the environment, which would be the real trigger for cognitive processes. For Couchot, Norbert Weimer's cybernetics and Shanon's 1950s information theory were the inspiration for the first cognitivist thesis – the manipulation of symbols according to pre-determined rules. Thus, for him, connectionism is integrated with the notion of information, which lends permanence to the structures of living systems which, in their turn, self-organize towards an internal balance. Interconnecting natural and cultural phenomena, this interpretation of the world of information would imply naturalization. According to Couchot, naturalization is seen as a philosophical branch which aims at 36 defining what it is to be human, at times in a reductionist manner, addressing natural phenomena, submitted to the rules and laws of nature just like any other object in the world. Art, just as any other phenomenon of human culture, understood from a naturalized perspective, would be a kind of biological object as a singular means of existence which follows the rules of a particular bioaesthetics. Some Preliminary Questions on Aesthetics Continuing our discussion, Raymond Bayer's words are clarifying: Strictly speaking there is no such a thing as an aesthetics of Aristotle, just as there is no such thing as an aesthetics of Plato. But if the whole of Plato's philosophy is aesthetics, Aristotle is no artist. He is a naturalist and he expressed his ideas with the dryness and the precision of a sage. His aesthetic works comprehend, on the one hand, practical opinions on artistic creation, on the other, a chapter on the science of art in which he treated a certain problem in such as way that we always resort to him: a genius explosion of tragedy. Apart from that in Aristotle's metaphysics, it is necessary to look for anything that resembles aesthetics, an implicit aesthetics4. The "implicit" issue that we highlight in a first moment from Bayer's (1995) words refer to a fundamental characteristic of what we would call Aristotle's aesthetics, that is, the unmistakable presence of the Physis and of all the physiology that stems from it. As we know, Physis was something dear to Ancient Greeks and has to do with everything that refers to the body and organic matter. In contrast to the thoughts of Plato, Aristotle believed that the first form of knowledge is empeiria. Translated by experience, the latter focuses on the relationship between the human element and its surroundings through the body. For Aristotle experience is therefore the first form of knowledge and requires the senses and sensations !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 BAYER, 1995, p.47. Translated by the author. 37 which constitute the body, known as aiesthesis. On that account Bayer reminds us that "the Greek aesthetica is the world of sensations which are opposed to logic"5. Therefore, the etymological origins of the word refer to feelings: the Greek root aisth stems from the verb aisthanomai, which means to feel. Nevertheless, that same root restricts those feelings to physical perceptions, excluding any affectionate or emotional meaning6. Even considering this ambivalence, Classical Antiquity used two basic principles to define art: tekné and mousiké. The notion of tekné implied knowledge and expertise in the use of tools to produce objects. Painting and sculpture were thus included in this domain. The notion of Mousiké was employed to designate the so-called "true" arts: music, dance, and poetry, which according to Plato were divinely inspired7. The term art has its epistemological origins in the term ars, which has its genesis from the translation of the Ancient Greek word tekné, which until de 15th century referred to a set of activities related to expertise and to crafts that were essentially manual. It is nevertheless important to stress that the Ancient Greeks did not make any sort of distinction between art and technique. During the Middle Ages a distinction was established between the liberal arts8 which were taught in Universities, the arts of the spirit, the mechanical arts, and the arts for the hand9. Thus from the most ancient cultures to these days it has been difficult to dissociate aesthetics and art. Aesthetics (aesthetica) appears as a term and, therefore, as an autonomous discipline, in the middle of the 18th century with the publication in 1750 of the book Aesthetica Side Theoria Liberalium !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5 BAYER, 1995, p.180. 6 SANTAELLA, 1994. 7 GIANNETI, 2006. 8 The liberal arts were considered curriculum segments of the Trivium (logic, grammar and rhetoric) and of the Quadrivium (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy). 9 LACOSTE, 1986. 38 Atrium (aesthetics or liberal arts theory) written by the German philosopher and professor Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (17141762). In The Abuse of Beauty: Aesthetics and the Concept of Art, the North American art critic Arthur Danto (2006) states that the Ancient Greeks did not have in their vocabulary a specific term for what we call art nowadays. Nevertheless, that did not stop them from carrying out discussions on the concept of art and for that reason Greek culture is considered to have been the cradle of the philosophy of art. For Socrates, similitude with life, such as in sculptures and paintings that referred to everyday acts or objects, as well as tragedy, which told of heroic acts and historical episodes, were not part of the concept of art. His ideas were vastly accepted in his time. Danto (2006) states that the analyses of the platonic concept of art were characterized by a sort of gradation. From that perspective, thinking the concept of art would imply a similitude to life (or mimesis) which was partly a problem connected to taste and its function, therefore representation was merely a part of its definition. This Platonic afterthought on art is ratified by Danto who sees representation merely as a facet of the definition of art. Danto proposes two conditions to art: one of them semantic (internal and philosophical sense) and the other one pragmatic (involving in some way formal properties with the notion of beauty). Maybe for this reason he is considered one of the forerunners in the separation between philosophy of art and aesthetics, using analytic philosophy as a forceps to ban that which he considers to be toxic properties of art: beauty, the sublime and taste. From Danto's perspective it would not be appropriate to radically deny art the need for a pragmatic condition, according to him we should instead protect it and not justify or even endorse beauty as its pragmatic logic. For Plato beauty is never incarnate in works of art and exactly for this reason he opposes the "Fine Arts". Nevertheless, one can observe the use of platonic philosophy as a primary reference when 39 dealing with considerations on beauty in the 18th century, when beauty starts being defined from a vintage point of aesthetic pleasure, more or less pure, but radically subjective. Thus, since its birth in the Ancient Greek culture, after obtaining autonomy in the 18th century as a science and as philosophy of art and of beauty, until its emergence as a precept for 20th century art, aesthetics has generated controversy and offered itself to a myriad of interpretations. As theory and philosophy of beauty it stops making sense from modern art onwards, disconnecting itself from the idea of beauty with which it had been invested in the classical sense. On the one hand it starts to pursue ugliness obsessively and, on the other hand, it pursues a metaphysical and linguistic essence for the aesthetic experience. The notion of beauty starts suffering consecutive "abuses" since the 18th century. Danto states that nowadays beauty has become merely another option for art, losing its place as conditio sine qua non: "Nevertheless, it is not an option for life, but rather a necessary condition, without which we could not live"10. Contemporary art understands beauty as spiritual lust, thus it starts being systematically abused. The first abuse of beauty is of a religious order. It is associated to morals, goodness, truth and religion; thus it would not need to exist in a society which slowly becomes increasingly secular. The second abuse is of a political order. In this case beauty is interpreted as a bourgeois affectation, therefore originating from a state of alienation represented by the ideology of beauty which must be radically opposed. Last, but not least, beauty suffers a philosophical abuse. Aesthetics as a branch of philosophy is associated to the act of beautifying, to futility, to ornamentation and to superficiality, ceasing to have any relevance as a specific branch of philosophy dedicated to the study of beauty. Thus, art must be most and foremost a matter that belongs to philosophy and to language: it must make sense. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10 DANTO, 2006, p.160. 40 Beauty acquires a moral weight being seen merely as one of the many aesthetic qualities, such as truth and goodness, replacing religion in contemporary art. Beauty ceases to be essential to the work of art, since the contemplation of beauty becomes a moral act which must be banished and its removal becomes a political act. We believe that Danto's line of thought subscribes to contemporary art theories that aim at supporting the aesthetic experience from a linguistic perspective, circumscribing it from a sort of "grammaticalization of the aesthetic experience", i.e., as a phenomenon which allows itself to be described and experienced through language. This interpretation of the artistic object through pure language stems from Socratic thought, which saw human as the measure for all things. It will be opposed by the biologically based aesthetics: Man must conduct a retrospection of himself11. Thus, from a shallow interpretation of Wittgenstein's ideas which, in our point of view, ends up limiting aesthetic experience to a nucleus of pure language, being the latter seen merely through its aspects of pure grammaticality. Consequently, it would eventually work as a logic for "demonizing aesthetics and its derivatives", lending excessive emphasis to language. Biology Based Aesthetics We can approach aesthetics and its relationship to biology from the most elementary level, i.e., as an organizational force for living structures which precedes and supersedes humanity. Furthermore, as an element that makes itself present since the most basic principles of nature's formal organization going as far as more complex levels involving behavioural paradigms12. In the horizon of this relationship between aesthetics and biology (or biology based aesthetics) it is possible to identify two main !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 11 SIMODON, 2008. 12 GOMBRICH, 1984. 41 avenues of investigation, which does not exclude the possibility of hybridization of both. Let us start at first by briefly contextualizing the mimetic theories which originated from the thought of Aristotle and Plato, thus stressing the differences between the concept of mimesis in the works of both philosophers. Plato states that the painter is an imitator of reality, he corrupts reality since he builds his work not from its essence, but from what it appears to be: art is conceived as a degraded copy of the real world; painting distances itself from reality producing a simulacrum or an idol13. From Aristotle's perspective the concept of mimesis derives from a necessary adaptation between art, life, and nature, becoming therefore crucial for that concept. Art tries to imitate the productive faculty of nature, leaving behind its status as a mere copy, becoming a creation where the displacement of the concept of mimesis occurs giving way to the concept of representation. Art does not imitate concepts, ideas, or objects; it operates as an agent which shows itself directed towards formative principles of nature14. It is through this specific characteristic that naturalistic aesthetics stems from Aristotelian thought and develops itself throughout art history in a progressive-intuitive manner. Naturalistic aesthetics has always been present in discussions regarding art – sometimes being affirmed, other times being denied – with the aim of establishing a relationship of proximity between natural forces and aesthetic experience. We consider the philosopher Gilles Deleuze as an important representative of the branch that deals with naturalistic art in contemporary philosophy. He addressed concepts which originated from other fields of knowledge such as biology with the aim of amplifying, optimizing, resignifying old philosophical concepts. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 13 LACOSTE, 1986. 14 SANTAELLA, 1994. 42 There are numerous examples of these operations transposed into philosophical concepts that we could highlight here: ritornello, body without organs, rhizome, cartography, map, movement image, molar molecular, minor literature and major literature, to name just a few. The concept of ritornello, vastly used in the deleuzian philosophy in several occasions throughout his written work, was taken from musical notation. Body without organs is another well-known deleuzian concept which was taken from Antonin Artaud's theatre of cruelty. The way in which Deleuze seizes these concepts from other fields of knowledge, reverting the modus operandi historically adopted by philosophy and with which it secured its epistemological basis, generates methodological outlines which are very unusual within the field of philosophy, granting him with a certain originality, courage and daring. To a certain extent we can consider the Deleuze's work as being in tune with the process of naturalization of aesthetics. In his work, we find a sort of insistence in approaching men more through the logics of the sensation than of the intellect. That authorizes us to infer that his thought is in alignment with a "biological model" for both human and aesthetic experience. Therefore, at the beginning to A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari use a botanical term, rhizome, to demonstrate how nature can turn out to be wiser than men. It is possible that the use of this term will have other important effects. The term was extracted from botany and placed at the heart of philosophy and it could work as a sort of weed in the garden of well planted and deeply rooted ideas of philosophical thought. Therefore, rhizome would have a political effect, especially because it also has the important task of substituting the verticalized linguistic tree model – and its structure – presenting to philosophy a horizontalized and decentralised "rhizome model", eliminating the possibility of putting men in a position of superiority in relation to other living beings, animals and plants. In the authors' words: Evolutionary schemas would no longer follow models of arborescent descent going from the least to the most differentiated, but instead a rhizome operating immediately in 43 the heterogeneous and jumping from one already differentiated line to another15. Therefore the rhizome is an attempt of establishing an antigenealogy, giving way to the non-human becomings of man: Becoming animal, plant, molecular, becoming zero. [...] What terror haunts Van Gogh's head caught in a becomingsunflower? In each case style is needed – the writer's syntax, the musician's modes and rhythms, the painter's lines and colors – to raise lived perceptions to the percept and lived affections to the affect16. The authors refer to perceptions and to affections experienced as being the perception and affections that stick/cling/imprint in our human existence creating a sort of internalised image that gives man roots. It also becomes a personification of the world order, i.e., a whole "psychology" of affections and perceptions which keeps us captive, bound to human identities and to pre-established and ready structures, which stops us from experiencing other ways of existence, different from the already established human models. It is also in A Thousand Plateaus that Deleuze and Guattari affirm the existence of a sort of wisdom in plants. Man's becomingplant – or becoming-vegetal – is his possibility of a different experience that will grant him a possibility of increasing his territory by deterritorialization, a movement that would signal the emergence of a "spread" and deterritorialized existence. Nevertheless, becoming should not be confused with "being similar to", it does not mean a mimetic sort of experience in which a plant, an animal, a vegetable would be imitated. It also does not mean "doing as". Becoming has no connection with dreaming or with the imaginary, it is reality's own consistency, "becoming is a reality"17. Deleuze and Guattari address a passage from Carlos Castañeda's book, Teachings of Don !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 15 DELEUZE; GUATTARI, 1995, p.10. 16 DELEUZE, GUATTARI, 1994, p.169s. 17 ZOURABICHVILI, 2004, p.48. 44 Juan, in which an Amerindian called Don Juan signalises the path for the protagonist. This path is not merely a description, which is what the anthropologist and scholar wished to receive, but it is a path that should be fully experienced in his own body: Go first to your old plant and watch carefully the watercourse made by the rain. By now the rain must have carried the seeds far away. Watch the crevices made by the runoff, and from them determine the direction of the flow. Then find the plant that is growing at the farthest point from your plant. All the devil's weed plants that are growing in between are yours. Later [...] you can extend the size of your territory by following the watercourse from each point along the way18. Despite the fact that Deleuze's philosophical thought has a transgressive trait, which is critical towards the system and institutions, his theoretical work remained almost undetected by the field of the arts. Deleuze himself never directed his criticism towards radical aesthetic changes that happened in the art of his time. If on the one hand, he addressed a few elements of contemporary art, on the other hand, he writes extensively on painting and when he addresses contemporary movements the author directs a subtle criticism towards conceptual art. Would Deleuze be establishing painting as a paradigm for the visual arts? Is he merely a necrophiliac manipulating the already dissected corpse of the dead-alive painting predicted by Hegel? Or would he be searching for the new "painting flesh", a reincarnation still capable of affecting and causing "blocks of sensation"? In another one of Deleuze's books, Francis Bacon: the Logic of Sensation (1981, 2003) the author seems to wish to pursue this path towards a "biological model" addressing Francis Bacon's painting. Even the title of the book is a provocation, or better yet, a proposition. In choosing that title, Deleuze leaves behind a hint about which field of experience should we use to place visual arts in: the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 18 CASTEÑEDA apud DELEUZE, 1987, p.32. 45 "logic of sensation", acting in the expression and sensory field. His interpretation is opposed to the rationalist, linguistic and discursive approach to conceptual art. The work of art is a "being of pure sensation", and as a sensation it only exists in/by itself. According to Deleuze there are two ways to overcome figuration: the first one going towards the abstract (cerebral) form; the second, going towards the figure imprinted on the corporeal or carnal, acting directly from the nervous system, unleashing blocks of sensation, making its physiological strategy evident. According to him, art has the function of preserving, it is the only element in the world which endures, not in the same way that industry does it, adding chemicals, but through a block of percepts/affects sensations. That way, by placing art in the sensory field he is opposing the logic of conceptual art; art as an idea belongs to the order of the brain and the intellect, mostly because it ignores the affects and percepts that are connected to the nervous, to the organic. Art takes place in the composition. That which does not compose is not aesthetic and therefore is not art19. It is noticeable in What is Philosophy? Deleuze's attempt to consider an aesthetic that will get as close as possible to a biology based approach in the sense of avoiding the malefic and useless logic in artistic representation. In conceptualising figural, which according to him is a sort of bypass, or a reverse of representation, Deleuze resorts to a physiological strategy. He returns to Cezanne's point of view on sensation proposing that the abstract form acts in the bones through the brain's nervous system, while the figure acts in the sensation and in the flesh. In choosing Francis Bacon's work, Deleuze surprises and destabilizes the reader. English art critics classified the painter as part of the disgusting art movement, as a "sensation" painter. Bacon uses in his paintings some elements considered as quite traditional in the arts: maintenance of the canvas as a support medium, oil painting technique, illusionism, traditional perspective, use of the portrait and !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 19 DELEUZE, 1994. 46 self-portrait (works which are considered as being extremely authorial). Bacon was an artist whose work went against the grain in relation to his time and his contemporaries, maintaining painting as a field of experience. His choices marginalised him in relation to more politically "engaged" movements, which never tired of announcing the death of painting. He painted imprisoned figures, confined to rooms or lonely, in general showing suffering and terror, with crumbling bodies, corrupted and manifesting the sensation of pain. According to Deleuze, Bacon's painting is figural because the painter manages to "isolate" the figures stopping the establishment of the empire of representation: Isolation is thus the simplest means, necessary though not sufficient, to break with representation, to disrupt narration, to escape illustration, to liberate the Figure: to stick to the fact20. This Deleuzian definition of figural on Bacon's artistic work subscribes to the simulacrum category. Art should free itself from representation and from similitude denying any reference to an original, establishing a relationship of difference without, nevertheless, detaching itself from a series or an ensemble; establishing itself in the bodily element of the work, where the virtual element is actualized through art. Returning to What is philosophy?, written by Deleuze in partnership with Felix Guattari, art appears again as a theme to compose a harmonious triangulation with philosophy and science, a moment in which the authors address each one of them and differentiate their characteristics: thinking through concepts (philosophy), thinking through functions (science), thinking through sensations (art): "the frames of art are no more scientific coordinates than sensations are concepts, or vice-versa21. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 20 DELEUZE, 2003, p.3. 21 DELEUZE, 2003, p.202. 47 Abstract art seeks to refine sensation, to dematerialize it by setting out an architectonic plane of composition in which it would become a purely spiritual being, radiant thinking and thought matter, no longer a sensation of sea or tree, but a sensation of the concept of sea or of the concept of tree22. According to Deleuze and Guattari things would have happened somewhat differently in relation to conceptual art: Conceptual art seeks an opposite dematerialization through generalization by installing a sufficiently neutralized plane of composition (the catalogue that brings together works not displayed, the ground covered by its own map, disused spaces without architecture, the flatbed plane) so that everything takes on a value of sensation reproducible to infinity: things, images or clichés, propositions – a thing, its photograph on the same scale and in the same place, its dictionary definition23. Deleuze and Guattari are both adamant in stating that conceptual art cannot reach sensation, neither can concept, mostly because its plane of composition happens in a merely informative way and "sensation depends upon the simple "opinion" of a spectator who determines whether or not to "materialize" the sensation, that is to say, decides whether or not it is art"24. The French scholar Paul Ardene followed in Deleuze's footsteps proposing a sort of art which he calls contextual, in which the artist must represent his work in situ, seeking a close connection with the local ecology, whether it is of an urban order and potentializes micropolitics, or even literally placed in a natural environment – art is often a hostage of culture and its apparatus, nature allows art to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 22 DELEUZE, 2003, p.198. 23 DELEUZE, 2003, p.198. 24 DELEUZE, 2003, p.198. 48 disconnect from those principles offering in turn an unlimited context25. Deleuze and his interpreters go against the grain when they think about matters that refer to philosophy and, therefore, to art. They elaborate their concepts in an exogenous manner to debate matters that belong to philosophy of art. Such is the case with the appropriation and use of scientific terms such as rhizome or molar versus molecular. Some examples of this contrary movement would be some of the contemporary endogenous interpretations of art that use Wittgenstein's philosophy of language as a starting point. The latter interprets the world from what this branch of philosophy considers essential, i.e., language. We can also cite the biology based artistic experience originated from progressive scientific advances which are interested in understanding how the complex cortical processes involved in the mechanisms of perception, construction, and sensation of image occur. Currently, these investigations are being potentialized by the development of digital visual technology, through graphic interfaces of visualization in computers, making it possible for scientists to observe and investigate perceptive phenomena in real time, in a noninvasive way, as happens with tests such as PET (positron emission tomography), and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). In Neuroarthistory: from Aristotle and Pliny to Baxandall and Zeki, John Onians (2007), a British art historian, reviewed the history of art taking into account recent scientific discoveries about the way in which the visual cortex operates. Onians reinterpreted art theory considering scientific discoveries. An example would be the way in which he associated mimetic theory in art and a specific group of neurones, the mirror neurones, discovered by the Italian neurophysiologist Giacomo Rizzolati between the 1980s and the 1990s, allowing the pure observation of the learning process. Neurones present in the premotor cortex demonstrate how we learn !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 25 ARDENE, 2006. 49 through imitative processes, even if we do not understand the meaning of the actions we carry out, or without performing any movement. When we observe someone performing any task we activate in ourselves the same area of the cerebral cortex26. The British scientist Semir Zeki, who created neuroaesthetics as a new branch of aesthetics, is seeking a biological basis to the scientific understanding of visual aesthetic pleasure. Zeki taught neurobiology at University College London in the 1970s and he was the first scholar to apply scientific knowledge originated from neurobiology, neuroanatomy and such to the understanding of art. Thus, he became an international reference in the study and research of the visual brain. It can be said that neuroaesthetic, to an extent, addresses some matters from Aristotelian aesthetics, which associated mimesis to pleasure, investigating cerebral mechanisms involved in aesthetic pleasure27. In Inner Vision: an Exploration of Art and the Brain, essay published in 1999, Zeki addresses the results of his investigation on the brain, inferring that to a large extent the function of art and the function of the visual brain are the same. Visual arts are a function of the visual brain – every visual art is expressed by the brain and, therefore, follows its laws28. Zeki considers modern painters as a sort of neurologist, since when they produce their work they use singular pictorial investigations to achieve the desired effect and through that process they find personal pleasure and, thus, they gratify their brain. Finding pleasure in the production of their pictorial work results in gratification for themselves and for their spectators. And when they find visual brain pleasure in themselves and in other brains, they end up revealing most of the laws of neural organization as well as brain !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 26 ONIANS, 2007. 27 ONIANS, 2007. 28 ZEKI, 1993. 50 paths to obtain cerebral gratification, even if they completely ignore the details involved in this process or even ignore its existence29. From the perspective of Zeki's theory, human beings see so that they can know the world. Some of the species alive today have very little success in that enterprise, and their environments are defined by their rudimentary visual mechanisms, which makes their survival very difficult from an evolutionary point of view. Despite the fact that vision is not considered the only means for the acquisition of knowledge, some categories of knowledge such as the recognition of facial expressions or of a coloured surface are not apprehended without vision. Thus, it can be inferred that the brain would be more interested in constant elements, the permanence of properties inherent to objects and surfaces of the outer world. The sense of vision is an active process in which the brain tends to discard changes extracting whatever is necessary so that it can categorize objects in the environment. An example would be the constancy of colour which allows us to visualise objects under various conditions, angles and distances. An object should be categorized according to its colour, and for that reason we are capable of distinguishing a ripe fruit from an unripe one. Even with the occurrence of change in the environmental light objects will remain recognizable due to colour constancy. During the process of evolution of the human species, colour perception allowed us to experience an evolution that was significantly superior in relation to other primates. This evolution made it possible for us to recognize food in several shades and consequently permitted us to enrich our diet with nutrients, which in turn allowed us to evolve the cortical region of our brain30. Zeki's research reunite tradition and innovation in the sciences and in the arts, giving back to visual experience the importance it had lost in some contemporary art trends. In that sense, neuroaesthetics as a research field is not restricted to the arts. That happens especially because neuroaesthetics approaches the aesthetic !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 29 ZEKI, 1999. 30 ZEKI, 1993. 51 phenomenon as a function that evokes psychic states involving perception, sensoriality, cognitive and emotional states in both creator and observer, taking into account that these states have a neurobiological basis. References: ARDENNE, P. Un Arte Contextual: Creación Artística en Medio Urbano, en Situación, de Intervencíon, de Participación. Traducción de Françoise Mallier. Murcia: Cendeac, 2006. BAUMGARTEN, A. G. Estética a Lógica da Arte e do Poema. Tradução de Míriam Sutter Medeiros. Rio de Janeiro: Vozes, 1993. BAYER, R. História da Estética. Tradução José Saramago. Lisboa: Editorial Estampa, 1995. COUCHOT, E. La Nature de l Art: ce que les Sciences Cognitives nous Révèlent sur le Plasir Esthétique. Paris: Hermann Éditeurs, 2012. DANTO, A. C. The abuse of beauty: aesthetics and the concept of art. Chicago: Carus, 2006. DELEUZE, G. Francis Bacon – Lógica da Sensação. Tradução de Roberto Machado. Rio de Janeiro: ZAHAR, 2007. ______. Francis Bacon: the Logic of Sensation. Translated by Daniel W. Smith. London: Continuum, 1981, 2003. DELEUZE, G.; GUATTARI, F. O que é a Filosofia? Tradução de Bento Prado Jr. e Alberto Alonso Muñoz. Rio de Janeiro: Editora 34, 1992. 52 ______; ______. Mil Platôs: Capitalismo e Esquizofrenia (V. 1). Tradução de Aurélio Guerra Neto e Célia Pinto Costa. Rio de Janeiro: Editora 34, 1995. ______; ______. A Thousand Plateaus. Translated by Brain Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minessota Press, 1987. ______; ______. What is Philosophy? Chichester: Columbia University Press, 1994. LACOSTE, J. A Filosofia da Arte. Tradução de Álvaro Cabral. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 1986. MILLIKAN, R. Language: a Biological Model. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. ______. White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995. GIANNETTI, C. Estética Digital: Sintopia da Arte, a Ciência e a Tecnologia. Belo Horizonte: C/Arte, 2006. GOMBRICH, E. H. The Sense of Order: a Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art. London: Phaidon, 1984. ONIANS, J. Neuroarthistory: from Aristotele and Pliny to Baxandall and Zeki. London: Yale, 2007. SANTAELLA, L. Estética de Platão a Peirce. São Paulo: Experimento, 1994. ______. El Modo de Existencia de los Objetos Técnicos. Buenos Aires: Prometeo, 2008. ZEKI, S. A Vision of the Brain. London: Blackwell, 1993. 53 ______. Inner Vision: an Exploration of Art and the Brain. London: Oxford, 1999. ZOURABICHVILI, F. O Vocabulário de Deleuze. Tradução de André Telles. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará, 2004. 54 Determinism, Free Will and Responsibility: some notes nn Dennett s naturalization of freedom in "freedom evolves" Carlos Adriano Ferraz Already in his essay "Mechanism and Responsibility" (1971)1 Daniel Dennett held that the traditional problem between "determinism" and "moral responsibility" was replaced by another kind of problem, to wit, the problem between "Mechanism" and "moral responsibility". In other words, the problem regarding "moral responsibility" remained. However, the very idea of "determinism" should be abandoned. That is because since the 19th century the problem of "determinism" would be a "Scheinproblem". So nowadays we would not have to handle the problem of "determinism", with which some modern philosophers had to deal with. Leibniz as well as Kant, for instance, engendered sophisticated arguments in order to sustain the compatibilism between "free will" and "determinism". The point was that in this context the problem was to compatibilize "free will" with the conception of the World as ruled out by a "causal mechanism", which was advanced by the Newtonian view of the World. Anyway, especially with the progress of the biological sciences, above all since the 19th century, we would !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 DENNETT, Daniel. "Mechanism and Responsibility". In: Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998. 55 have another problem, videlicet the problem of the "mechanism". It would also, at first sight, offer a serious problem for the idea of a "free will" (and for the very idea of "moral responsibility" as well). So, in his essay of 1971 Dennett will argue that when we face the problem of "moral responsibility" we also face, necessarily, the problem of biological mechanism (but not, at least not necessarily, the problem of "determinism"). In effect, the problem regarding the relationship between mechanism and moral responsibility (as well as the freedom it presupposes) may be put this way: all human agency might be understood having as basis a mechanical explanation, which refers to muscles movements caused by electrical impulses generated by the brain's neural activity. That would leave aside, at first sight, any reference to the concept of intentionality (desires, volitions, intentions and so forth). Notwithstanding, intentional propositions give sense to our judgments, constituting both moral expressions and conditions for moral stances. The main difference between an intentional system and a mechanical one lies in the fact that the first achieves the whys and wherefores of a certain action. The mechanical system, on the other hand, is merely descriptive. It explains how something took place (and not why it did so). Anyway, it is important to make it clear, intentionality does not lie, according to Dennett, in a sort of Cartesian res cogitans. It lies in the matter itself, in consciousness in a functional perspective. In effect, Dennett s perspective is of an ontological reductionism, which means that rationality results from the material components of the mind (the only ones that, according to Dennett, exist). This is a way of explaining how agency occurs without calling upon principles alien to matter. Still, Dennett is a compatibilist. His model, in Philosophy of Mind, is a functionalist one. It is not an Eliminative materialism (like the one adopted by his friends Paul and Patricia Churchland). This is a relevant starting point, because compatibilism asserts that mechanism and freedom, free will, are not self-excluding. In other words, even in a mechanical World we may be free, that is, we may judge ourselves as free beings. It means to assume we are morally 56 responsible agents. So, we now may touch the underlying question: in a mechanical World, where does freedom reside (as well as responsibility and the imputability which we may infer from it)? Dennett advances an answer to this question especially in his Freedom Evolves2. In it he maintains that freedom, more specifically the free will, lies in the evolutionary process. His thesis, in this book, is the following one: evolution imposes over the behavior a cause which is distinct from the one imposed by the laws of physics. That is, through the evolved behavior we are, so to speak, able to make choices that would not be there if it was not by the process of natural selection. We see, then, his core idea of a "naturalization of the will". Dennett, in order to instantiate this idea, gives us a typical American example (among several), to wit: the ability (choice) an individual (a baseball batter) has of turning away from a pitch that is going to hit him. The baseball batter may choose between two courses of action: turning away from the pitch or allowing it to hit him. His choice will be made depending on which course of action is going to help his team. The point is that, according to Dennett, the batter s action is not determined by the previous history of the universe, but by his own analysis in that particularly moment (in that specific baseball match). Thus, in a different baseball match he might make a different choice. The idea underlying this example leads Dennett to his main thesis, namely, to the idea that the more we know, the more varieties and levels of freedom we may have. In sum, current man has more freedom than did, say, the Homo habilis. This is an example of an evolved behavior. Like happened to other kinds of behavior, it (this ability) secured, and still does, our survival. The individuals who did not develop this skill did not disseminate their genes. In an evolutive point of view, they have failed to spread their genes efficiently. So, we (as well as our ancestors) are uninterruptedly making decisions regarding problems such as: Do we need to turn away? Where do we find food? With whom we should mate? And so forth. The decisions concerning those questions were "imprinted" in our genes through !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 DENNETT, Daniel. Freedom Evolves. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. 57 the process of natural selection, so currently they are "innate", that is, they occur kind of spontaneously. This is, according to Dennett, the locus of freedom. Now let us consider a possible problem to that thesis. What about the other animals? Would they be also free? Here the problem become more complex, since Dennett asserts that non-human animals are not free, that is, free will is, according to Dennett, restricted to human beings (human animals). But we may ask: why is that so? Well, according Dennett s argument there is something sui generis regarding the human animal, to wit: the complexity of our social interactions, which involve kinds of relationships so far unknown to other animals. We are able to anticipate our actions, planning them, as well as to ascribe motivation and intentionality to the others. We also decide who we are going to treat well, knowing why we do so. Furthermore we have a plan of life (a "conception of good"), as well as plans for our own society and so on. Anyway, even this kind of behavior results, according to Dennett, from the evolutionary process. Therefore, given the manifoldness of possible choices, and because they are each one overly complex, we are free in a way that is simply unobserved in other animals. This is the argumentative line developed by Dennett in his attempt to reconcile causal determination (mechanism) with free will. Ultimately, all things are still physically caused. The point is that there is here another layer of complexity, added by biology, more precisely by evolution (in a Darwinian fashion3). But what about the moral responsibility? What about the imputability? After all, we are actually fated to live immerse in the worldly causal network, that is, in the natural mechanism. Well, this is, even Dennett recognizes it, a tough question. So far as I understood his argument, his answer runs like this: in order to take our place in the social order, as well as to be benefited by this same acquaintanceship, we ought to be morally !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 Regarding Dennett s own interpretation of Darwin s theory, see: DENNETT, Daniel. Darwin s Dangerous Idea. Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. 58 responsible. It is a sort of agreement whereby we assume we are free and consequently responsible. Obviously, although the evolutionary perspective offers us an alternative, perhaps the only one "worth wanting"4, it deviates from the classical perspective, especially from the idea according to which being free means to do otherwise at any time. In order to have it clear, we may retake the previous example gave by Dennett himself. So, when the hitter, in a baseball match, turns away from a pitch that is going to hit him, he is still subjected to the laws of physics (even if this action results from an evolutive process). Notwithstanding, Dennett is still a compatibilist (a kind of "soft determinist"): we live in a mechanical world and, simultaneously, we are endowed with free will. In fact, mechanism and free will are compatible because, in order to choose among possible courses of action, we must have in front of us safe and predictable choices among which we may choose one that is suitable for that specific occasion. Thus, if determinism (understood here as a sort of necessitarianism) were true, unpredictability could not be possible. But, on the other hand, if there were an absolute chance (indeterminism), then we could not be free at all. That is because we would not be able to foresee the results of our actions/choices. At least not in a trustable way. The point is that the universe has as many deterministic elements as unpredictable ones. So regarding to the evolutionary system, in order to it works it needs both elements: chance/ unpredictability and mechanism. We must stress, then, that mechanism does not mean "destiny", "fate". After all, a fatalist perspective suggests that something will happen independently of one s intentional action. Nevertheless, Dennett maintains a more mitigated idea of causal determination. It depends, at least in part, on what we actually do. Having Dennett s example as background, we may stress that the pitch may follow its trajectory towards the batter s head (if he does not turn away from it). It would be a kind of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 Here I have in mind his argument from Elbow Room: DENNETT, Daniel. Elbow Room. The varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984. 59 deterministic situation. But if the batter turns away from the pitch, another trajectory bounded by the mechanism would follow. Imagine the distinction nature/nurture: we might have the gene for the illness X. Could such a gene be necessary, determining our lives in an irreversible way? Certainly not! After all, depending on the choices we make along our lives it may or may not determine our lives. Notwithstanding, the point is that freedom evolves. And it evolves for the same reason any information system evolves, like language, arts, music, culture, DNA, memes, etc. Nowadays we are more free than we, as species, were in the past. We are more free than our ancestors, because free will involves information. And today we have more information than our ancestry. Dennett even suggests a kind of natural genealogy of freedom, which would have started in the early Eukaryotic Revolution, circa 2.5 billion years ago, when one prokaryote was invaded by another prokaryote and they joined forces, getting ever more complex as they built up their own genomes. Afterwards came colonies of ever more efficient, specialized, and cooperative cells, the first multicellular beings, prelude of those more complex organisms to come. Long after, with the advent of memes, came into existence the several human cultures. Today we have, for instance, political models such as the liberalism, the constitutionalism, the democracy, and so on, which promote autonomy of the individual towards a "conception of good". Anyway, free will, or freedom, emerged after the species. As a matter of fact, it was depended on the natural selection, and only could emerge in virtue of the evolution of our cognitive faculties. For this same reason we have here a "natural freedom", which Dennett clarifies especially in the first chapter of Freedom Evolves. In it he recognizes the fear there is about a scientific view regarding the human faculties, since such a view would put in risk the "human heritage". Yet Dennett asserts that this fear lies on a mistake. Such a mistake involves confusing mechanism with inevitability (fate). There is, according to Dennett, an "elbow room" amongst the various possibilities of choice available. And evolution (according with his own interpretation of it) would offers us an increasingly "elbow room". That is why Dennett, in the second chapter of Freedom 60 Evolves, gives us "a tool for thinking about determinism", arguing that, by and large, as well as mistakenly, we think about determinism as inevitability (absolute absence of alternatives). In his own words: Determinism is the thesis that "there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future (Van Inwagen 1983, p. 3). This is not a particularly difficult idea, one would think, but it's amazing how often even very thoughtful writers get it flat wrong. First, many thinkers assume that determinism implies inevitability. It doesn't. Second, many think it is obvious that indeterminism – that denial of determinism – would give us agents some freedom, some maneuverability, some elbow room, that we just couldn't have in a deterministic universe. It wouldn't. Third, it is commonly supposed that in a deterministic world, there are no real options, only apparent options. This is false. Really? I have just contradicted three themes so central to discussions of free will, and so seldom challenged, that many readers must suppose I am kidding, or using these words in some esoteric sense. No, I am claiming that the complacency with which these theses are commonly granted without argument is itself a large mistake5. In this same context, and tightly inspired by Conway s game Life, Dennett recognizes that all things get along according to simple rules. This is mechanism (determinism). But, in this very same World it is possible the evolution of life forms that, for instance, avoid the damage and search for food. Here we have a sort of "protoagency", a "proto-freedom": we have the preventability, the predictability. And exactly here lies the "elbow room", which in more complex life forms will become the room for agency, for free agency. Regarding these life forms, we may judge them as intentional, as having intentionality. Besides, as Dennett makes clear in chapter six of Freedom Evolves, human culture distinguishes us from any other life form. Thanks to it we today are the only creatures endowed with free will: it is taking us to an unremitting development of our cognitive faculties and, thereafter, to a state of more freedom. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5 DENNETT, 2003, p.25. 61 Therewith we might conclude with another example. I do want to go to X, and, in order to do so, I take the path Y. But, while taking this path I realize that it is irrevocably blocked. There is an impassable hole just in the middle of the path. Given this situation we may then ask: Am I irreversibly determined to take, say, the path Z? According to Dennett, I am not. Why? Well, freedom (nonpredictability) here lies in the way I react (from my knowledge – based on information – about this same situation) to the environmental pressures in order to achieve my goals. In this sense, Dennett deflates the ideas of responsibility and free will. And, it is important to notice it, Dennett is an advocate of the "folk psychology", of what he understands as the "manifest image" of the World. And, according to it, we are actually free. In sum, freedom is a matter of controlling our future behavior. And such a control involves knowledge. The more we know the wider our "elbow room" become. References: DENNETT, Daniel. Elbow Room. The varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984. ______. Darwin s Dangerous Idea. Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. ______. "Mechanism and Responsibility". In: Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998. ______. Freedom Evolves. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. 62 Strawson's provisional approach with Naturalism Carlos Alberto Miráglia Introduction The objective of this paper is to examine the conceptual development of one of the most important philosophical debates witnessed in the latter half of the twentieth century: the dispute between Barry Stroud and Peter Strawson concerning the validity and status of transcendental arguments. In my opinion, the intellectual journey made by Strawson, in an attempt to meet Stroud's challenge, has different stages that reveal a first phase condescending criticism by Stroud, to finally rehabilitate the technical relevance of transcendental arguments. We will see that the first alternative for Peter Strawson was to rectify these epistemic limitations, subordinating them to the types of indubitable truths, in a manner inspired by naturalist doctrines such as David Hume's and, according to Strawson, also found in the thought of the later Wittgenstein. However, I believe it is possible to verify that Strawson further rehabilitated the cognitive force of Transcendental Arguments in a new explanation made by him of the significance of analysis and, consequently, of the philosophical proof. Concomitantly, this will bring a new understanding of the concept in the key dispute: the concept of "experience." The importance of this debate lies in the fact that transcendental arguments still seem to be the best candidates for philosophical discourse, providing this discipline with its distinguishing mark from all other forms of knowledge. Viewing the history of philosophy 63 easily leads us to perceive its unfolding in the world culture compelling it to resign areas to natural sciences, starting from metaphysics, understood as primary philosophy: the endeavor to provide the sectioning and multiplicity of human knowledge with an ontological groundwork of intelligibility under the indefectible sign of the universal and the necessary. We are aware that one of the greatest modern detractors of this ambition (not forgetting Hume, the greatest of all) is Kant, exactly the author who presents a thematic alternative that seems to be the only one that can preserve the maximal generality intended to philosophy. For such, he proposes (or perhaps invents) a distinction not until then observed, the one that allows acknowledging the well-known a priori synthetic judgments, an achievement which brings within itself, in their elucidation, what became known as transcendental arguments, although the naming ins not actually found in Kant's words. I What kind of argument, to start with, is a transcendental argument? What does enable its identification in such varied authors throughout history? In order to avoid excessive risk, I will employ the definition Charles Taylor provides in the article "The Validity of Transcendental Arguments," not for being particularly clear (maybe none can be), but because of its concision. After some digression, Taylor ascertains: "Transcendental arguments are, then, chains of apodictic claims concerning experience, consequently anchored in undisputable elements. That to which they show things to be indispensable cannot be disdained."1 Although some ambiguities emerge if, for instance, the necessary here referred includes not only the chain's constitutive elements, but also the chain itself, the main concept in this definition is that of experience and it has to be highlighted to tell transcendental arguments from other arguments presented in the philosophy whose structure equally demands conditioning bases to extract conditional !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 TAYLOR, C. Argumentos Filosóficos. São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2000. 64 conclusions. If that was not the case, its originality would go back into the origins of philosophy, as, for instance, is attested in Aristotle's proof for the universal validity of the principle of non contradiction, the suppression of which would destroy language's own capability of signifying. Transcendental arguments are the offspring of modernity. Indeed, they are committed with the new epistemological perspective proposed by Descartes, the one which establishes knowledge through a mostly subjective dimension. From then on, knowledge becomes the result of a consciousness immersed in the world in the act of experiencing it. It is a result from this scenery that opposing trends come forth to pay off what Cassirer calls the problem of knowledge, such as empiricism and modern rationalism. The Critique of Pure Reason emerges then as the colossal effort to amend the failures of these conflicting moves. Accordingly, Kant's global project inevitably brings forth the most impertinent skeptical question entangled in the Cartesian problematic: How to divide consciousness from the objective world it represents? Is its autonomous reference legitimate? In other words, is it possible, from the simple conceptual calculus, to obtain a conclusion that can guarantee the existence of the external world? Aware of the skeptical challenge, Kant presents an appendix to the second edition of the book with the title "The Refutation of Idealism." Due to the apparatus for the proof of the validity of pure principles of Understanding, Kant believes refutation is a direct effect of the transcendental strategy. In spite of the brilliancy and impact of the Königsberg's genius, from the start he was subject to strong objections (as well as the refutation of idealism) to the point of unwittingly, after his death, giving rise to defenses that, according to many, would irreversibly deform his critical project, mainly with the advent of German Idealism. Not touching upon the quality of this Germanic segment of thought, the despise it elicited throughout the history of thought in many authors who were in tune with the consecrated corollary of 19th 65 century empirical sciences is consensual. According to them, these sciences brought forth not only broader and more refined scientific representations of the world, but also an undisputed technological efficiency, whereas idealism resulted in mere wordplay at best. This rejection had its extreme manifestation in the qualifying of the intelligibility of philosophy as an elucidative parasite of what was obtained from the concrete world of natural sciences, equipped with the new post-Fregean logic. The synthetic a priori had been banned as well as, then, transcendental proofs. Thus, after a period of involuntary hibernation, the problematic of transcendental arguments surprisingly reappears in the mid 20th century within the very philosophical ambiance that sent it into an exile-analytical philosophy. The main character of this revaluation is Peter Strawson, a thinker who has been strongly influenced by the tradition that posited that logic (without metaphysics) was the main tool in philosophical investigation. In 1959, Strawson publishes Individuals, a book provocatively subtitled An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. This work, despite its solid grounding on the bold analytical instrumentation, rescues Kant's critical project, namely exhibiting the more general concepts (and their logical grammar) that allow capturing the world in the act of experiencing it. The vocabulary is clearly not that of Kant, but it is the same spirit. Finally the conclusion of Individuals can be summed up as follows: the minimum possible intelligibility in objective language about the sensory world is what allows viewing it in terms of concrete individuals adjusted in space and time. To exhibit this minimum, Strawson presents his version of transcendental arguments. Here we also have the presumption of a specific apparatus conditioning the possibility of experience. II The academia would not remain indifferent to Strawon's bold work. Almost one decade later, in 1968, Barry Stroud, the investigator of skeptical thinking, publishes the article that triggered 66 the controversy beyond these authors, and including them, becoming a contemporary classic, "Transcendental Arguments." Even if the text is focused on Strawson's work, it sustains a more general thesis: that each and every transcendental argument, mainly in their variant of proof of existence of the external world, suffers a fatal logical vice, namely the real revealed as conclusion is already assumed in the premises of the argument. Let us proceed to a summary of what is exposed in Individuals. As already said, the core of language able to represent the world is equipped with concepts that shape perception in individuals within space and time. The world can only be accessed if we are capable of identifying bodies in space and re-identifying them in time. Here lies the main difficulty. The possibility of re-identification only comes by if things keep their identity independently of the act of being perceived. In a more serious manner, the very experience is only actualized at the cost of things that do not depend on it. We then face an instance of begging the question- a classical logical fallacy. To prove the reality of the external world, we accept the truth of the very thesis as a starting point. If this observation is confirmed, then all the initiatives to respond to the skeptical CHALLENGE, following the strategy that what the skeptic dismisses as conclusion would collapse the signification of its own questioning, would then be annulled. He agrees that, once the truth of the main premise of the argument is accepted, we should submit to the conclusion. The point is that nothing, from the logical point of view, forces him to admit such truth. In order not to be unfair, it should be said that this kind of restraint appears in a very similar manner in one of the first critical appreciations of Kant's works. Jacobi, investigating the concept of thing in itself and clearly dissatisfied with the proof of the outer world added in the second edition of Critique of Pure Reason, posits that transcendental philosophy is nothing but a disguised idealism. The objective world is always internal to the game of 67 representations. However, what Jacobi particularizes in Kant is what Stroud says can vitiate any transcendental argument. Stroud's warning certainly weakened Strawson's proposition contained in Individual, leading him to suggest a more modest alternative for the weight of transcendental arguments. This uncomfortable assimilation of the stroke appears in lectures by Strawson during the 1980's and collected in the small book Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties, wherein Strawson accepts that the skeptic challenge may be indifferent to transcendental arguments and admits the inescapable dilemma between a world of verificationism and its foundational arbitrariness or the occurrence of a fatal logical failure in the circularity of the proof of external reality. Now it is suggested that transcendental arguments should no longer be seen as having the strength of a proof, especially one that engenders the conclusion of the reality of the external world. Motivated by David Hume's empiricist naturalism, Strawson thinks, then, that this stance is the best possible option for his analysis. Therefore, claims such as affirm the existence of external things as independent of the mind cannot be proved, but have to be assumed. They are like unavoidable facts, creeds deeply rooted in the tradition of any culture. There is a kind of ambivalence in Hume's thought: on the one hand, he is skeptic with regard to offering rational support for these creeds; on the other, rejecting them would be useless for genuine intellectual practices, such as those which prove empirical knowledge. Strawson is not as strict as Hume; for him, there is still room for philosophical investigations, such as in the detailed knowledge of logical relations among concepts involved, for instance, in knowledge through perception. Strawson says that once the unrealistic project of absolute validation is abandoned, naturalistic philosophy will be engaged in the real project of investigating connections between the main structural elements of our conceptual schemes. If connections as firm as those offered by transcendental arguments are available, all the better. 68 Therefore, even if transcendental arguments have a limited reach according to this naturalistic view, they will be useful since they appear as the minimal logic circuit in the qualification of the possibility of knowledge. This would lead us into regarding this as Strawson's final consideration on the theme. However, I suspect that years later the importance of transcendental arguments will be reaffirmed according to a new strategy in a short book with the misguiding title of Analysis and Metaphysics: An Introduction to Philosophy, wherein Strawon will return to the question, even if indirectly. In the second chapter, whose title is the question "Reduction or Connection? Basic Concepts," we find clues of a new attitude. There Strawson reflects about the research method in philosophy. Influenced by the tradition within which he was trained, Strawson puts into question one of the main tenets of the method of analytical philosophy. The tool is logic and, in general, it is seen as a means of splitting into simpler parts a more complex whole. Thenceforth comes the analogy with chemistry in the discovery of elements, be it in the division of the meaning of a concept into its constituent notes or in making explicit logically true sentences disguised within everyday language. This type of program, which Strawson calls reductive analysis, has its high points, but also its own demands and limitations. If we decide for another procedure, even if guided by logical rigor, we may overcome these limitations. The following passage of the chapter mentioned should be read: Let us abandon the notion of perfect simplicity in concepts; let us abandon even the notion that analysis must always be in the direction of greater simplicity. Let us imagine, instead, the model of an elaborate network, a system, of connected items, concepts, such that the function of each item, each concept, could, from the philosophical point of view, be properly understood only by grasping its connections with the others, its place in the system perhaps better still, the picture of a set of interlocking systems of such a kind. If this 69 becomes our model, then there will be no reason to be worried if, in the process of tracing connections from one point to another of the network, we find ourselves returning to, or passing through, our starting-point. We might find, for example, that we could not fully elucidate the concept of knowledge without reference to the concept of sense perception; and that we could not explain all the features of the concept of sense perception without reference to the concept of knowledge. But this might be an unworying and unsurprising fact. So the general charge of circularity would lose its sting, for we might have moved in a wide, revealing, and illuminating circle. This is not to say that the charge of circularity would lose its sting in every case2. The limitation highlighted above for the reductive method is exactly the same that allows Stroud to point out the fatal mistake in transcendental arguments, namely their logical circularity. With this in mind, analysis by connection may redefine not only the way we describe our argumentative circuits, but also the understanding of terms taking place within this circuit. Let us take as an instance the problem of proving the reality of the external world. For Strawson, the meaning of the main concepts involved does not allow complete isolation in a reductive or atomistic analysis. His elucidations may be complementarily interwoven, as well as, through analogy, we say we bring into the concave surface simultaneously its convexity in a spatial relationship. Let us examine this important passage of the same work: As well as the concepts (or at least those that are relatively trivial) acquire meaning in and from perceptive experience, so perceptive experience acquires its nature from the concepts we develop in originary perceptive judgments. The nature of our own perceptive experience, sensory experience, is entirely conditioned by the judgments we are willing to make on the objective world when we have that experience; it is, so to speak, entirely permeated-we !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 STRAWSON, P. F. Analysis and Metaphysics: An Introduction to Philosophy. Oxford: 1992. 70 could say saturated-with the concepts employed in these judgments. Conclusion We could bet, concluding that Strawson's reformulation about the reach of transcendental arguments, which is far from explicit, surpasses the idea, until then dominant, that the use of these arguments is limited to exhibiting the logical chain of concepts in certain important philosophical themes, mainly the clarification of the concept of knowledge through sensory experience. Indeed, the careful examination of transcendental arguments would clarify also the content of the concepts which are found therein. We think of the persistent problem of the reality of the external world, a proof resource that establishes and elucidates the main concepts involved in the question, a painfully abstract resource to legitimize the world independent of consciousness, even if begotten within language. Strongly abstract, but not actually new. I cannot but approximate Strawson to an author who is apparently opposed to Strawson's philosophical tradition: Heidegger, who is actually a careful reader of the Critique of Pure Reason. In his book What is a Thing, when he tries to explain the structure of the proof of pure principles of knowledge, he ascertains: This fact should be paid attention to, in case we want to perceive the characteristics of the demonstration of principles. Abstracting from the particular difficulties of content of these demonstrations, they have something strange, since we are always trying to say that all the moves of thinking go in circles. There is no need to begin by drawing attention for this difficulty of demonstrations. It is necessary, however, to explain the groundwork of the difficulty. It lies not only in the particular content of the principles, but in its essence. The groundwork of the difficulty is a necessary one. The principles should be demonstrated as being those determinations which, first of all, allow an experience of objects in general. How could it be demonstrated? Insofar as it is shown that they themselves are only possible on the basis 71 of mutual unity and belonging of pure concepts of understanding with what is intuitively found. This unity of intuition and of thinking is, itself, the essence of experience. Demonstration consists of it, too: the principles of pure understanding are possible through that which they themselves must enable, namely experience. This is an evident circle. Beyond doubt. And, for comprehending the movement and the character of the thing to be demonstrated itself, it is unavoidable not only to suppose this circle (which lead us into suspecting the value of the demonstration), but also to clearly recognize it and to go through it as such3. It is not difficult to recognize, therefore, that analytical and continental authors can be surprisingly similar when mediated by a classic author such as Kant. References: TAYLOR, C. Argumentos Filosóficos. São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2000. HEIDEGGER, M. O que é uma coisa? Lisboa: Edições 70, 1992. STRAWSON, P. F. Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics. London: Methuen, 1959. ______. Skepticism and Naturalism: Some Varieties. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985. ______. Analysis and Metaphysics: An Introduction to Philosophy. Oxford: 1992. STROUD, B. The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 HEIDEGGER, M. O que é uma coisa? Lisboa: Edições 70, 1992. 72 ______. Understanding Human Knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. 73 Is Nietzsche's genealogy speculative? Clademir Luís Araldi Brian Leiter has attempted to define the kind of naturalism which is properly justifiable in Nietzsche. Nietzsche's speculative methodological naturalism would be more promising from a scientific methodological continuity point of view. From this perspective, Nietzsche is (like Hume) a speculative M-naturalist, insofar as "their speculative theories of human nature are informed by the sciences and a scientific picture of how things work"1 (which has nothing to do with Hegel's Spekulation). Nietzsche also would have in mind a general and fundamental theory on human nature, devised from the most influential sciences at their time. It is in this sense that the word 'speculative' will be used in this text. A significant issue, the origin of Christian values, mainly the way it is presented in On the Genealogy of Morality I, questioning whether Nietzsche provides the naturalist burden of proof in his genealogy, will be analyzed. Where do Christian values come from? Nietzsche does not give a final answer to this issue in Beyond Good and Evil, but rather signals the course of his investigation: "In this inversion of values (in which is also included the use of the word 'poor' as synonymous with 'saint' or 'friend'), the significance of the Jewish people is to be !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 LEITER, 2011, p.80. 74 found, it is with them that the slave's revolt in morals commences"2. The author of BGE uses the word "transvaluation" in this paragraph to mean an inversion of noble values. In BGE 46, however, this transvaluation of values would be promised by Christianity3. In an explicit reference to BGE 195, he confirms its paternity in Genealogy: The Jews, as a people of priests, were the parents of this invention. The Christians inherited it4. It is relevant that Nietzsche resumes the task of investigating the origin of Christian values in On the Genealogy of Morality, as in Beyond Good and Evil he is more worried about the consequences of the "last great slave rebellion", which would have started with the French Revolution. In this sense, the modern "herd-animal morality", and particularly the "democratic movement" would be a legacy of the Christian movement of inversion of values5. In a restless way, the affirmative task on "transvaluation of values" is exposed to new philosophers6 – without an exhaustive genealogy of Christian values. Contributions "to the natural history of morals" are still vague, "speculative" in that they deal with "moral" within the generality of its temporal manifestations. But these are no sterile manifestations. The historical investigation of Christian moral values is one of the conditions to naturalize genealogical practices. The genealogical analyses of guilt (Schuld) and punishment (Straffe) notions in GM II are much more "naturalized". !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 BGE 195. The following abbreviations are used to refer to Nietzsche's works: D (Daybreak), BGE (Beyond Good and Evil), GM (On the Genealogy of Morality), TI (Twilight of the Idols), AC (The Anti-Christ), EH (Ecce homo) and PF for Posthumous Fragments, translated from Kritische Studienausgabe (KSA) by the author of this article. 3 In Twilight of the idols, Christianity (understood only as a an offshoot of the Jewish soil) is responsible for the full rebellion of the morally unsuccessful: "Christianity is the transvaluation of all Aryan values, [...] the general rebellion of the downtrodden, miserable and unsuccessful [...] TI, The improvers of mankind, 4). 4 GM 1, 7. 5 BGE 202. 6 BGE 203. 75 The methodological orientation expressed in BGE 186 is clear, determined, and has an empirical nature: the collection of material, the comprehensive survey and classification of an immense domain of delicate sentiments of value, and distinctions of value, which live, grow, propagate and perish". One would expect Nietzsche to have fully developed his method of exhaustive comparison among the many morals that existed over the long human past so as to state that, "finally" two basic types of morality were revealed to him: the master morality and the slave morality7. It is not at all clear in BGE whether the genealogist would have found "certain interconnected recurring traces" that regularly return from an exhaustive genealogical investigation. Preparations for the "typology of morals" in spite of its incipient nature and the scarce materials gathered, do not suffice to compare the basic difference between the ways of valuing of the nobleman and the slave. The burden of proof which is necessary for a naturalist philosopher is still missing. As to our specific problem on the origin of Christian values, we have to find an answer in On the Genealogy of Morality. It is in his First essay that the thinker who is dedicated to the genealogy of morals develops his hypothesis as to the origin (Herkunft) of these values. The rebellion of slaves in morals begins "when ressentiment itself turns creative and gives birth to values"8. It refers to "the ressentiment of those beings who, denied the proper response of action, compensate for it only with imaginary revenge". Although he refers extensively in this section to the characteristics of "the man of ressentiment", "a race of such men of ressentiment" the Jews with their spirit of revenge, had already been held responsible by the inversion of noble values. Christian love would have sprouted from the "great" revenge politics of the "trunk of the tree of revenge and hatred" of the Jew, for the same purpose: provide the victory of the mob. We now have an articulation of historical and psychological investigations. First of all, the genealogist wants to detect "the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 7 BGE 260. 8 GM I, 10. 76 reversal of the view that establishes values", particularly the way the priest is valued. Which values generate impotence and the spirit of revenge in priests? Precisely those opposed to the aristocratic equation of values: "good = noble = powerful = beautiful = happy = blessed"9. Only after an etymological analysis of the meanings of "good" in some languages will the genealogist investigate the interiorization and intensification of the opposition of values – and at a more primal level than that of linguistics: the physiological causes, whatever is sick in priests (neurasthenia, intestinal weakness), and their healing prescriptions10. The physio-psychology announced in BGE 23 operates within this genealogical context to diagnose sickness, the arts of healing, and the depth reached by the human soul through the priestly way of valuing. Upon 'saying no' to the hated nobleman, upon turning away from his unsuccessful existence, the priest does not properly generates, but rather reverses, values: Only those who suffer are good, only the poor, the powerless, the lowly are good; the suffering, the deprived, the sick, the ugly, are the only pious people, the only ones saved, salvation is for them alone, whereas you rich, the noble and powerful, you are eternally wicked, cruel, lustful, insatiate, godless, you will also be eternally wretched, cursed and damned!11. From this basic inversion of what is good, the values of slaves are defined. Historically, slaves, with their herd morality, have won. Again, physiology: this victory would be poisoning12. In spite of this, Nietzsche never grew tired of describing (with great admiration) the typical traces of the nobleman's character13 – whereas the opposite, the "man of resentment" is neither "weak, nor naïve, nor honest, nor righteous towards himself"; for the loves refuges, and will cultivate !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 9 GM I, 7. 10 GM I, 6. 11 GM I, 7. 12 GM I, 9. 13 GM I, 10. 77 revenge, intelligence... Nietzsche deals with "good" (gut) as a basic concept (not as a basic value) at this point. In the moral of resentment, bad (böse) is an original stance, insofar as it turns the bad enemy into a good one of noble moral. We need to find the values and virtues of the resented in the nobleman's opposites as determinations of good: "A good person is anyone who does not rape, does not harm anyone, who does not attack, does not retaliate, who leaves the taking of revenge to God, who keeps hidden as we do, avoids all evil and asks little from life in general, like us who are patient, humble and upright"14; it is a moral process that turns impotence into 'goodness'. Humbleness, obedience, justice and patience arise from a similar process15. The psychology of resentment is speculative when it is unable to effectively show how this psychological mechanism operates. There is a surprising articulation between aversion (physiologically stated) to "man" and the historical-universal metanarrative of nihilism which appears in GM I, 12. As opposed to the "blond beast" that lies at the bottom of all noble ascending races are the decadent slave descendants, especially the "pre-Aryan population". There lies the great danger of nihilism: the belittling and the leveling of the European. A therapeutic Nietzsche tries to reestablish "faith in man" against this nihilism tiredness of himself. The resumption of genealogical research in paragraph 13 of the First Essay cannot conceal the extremist and generalizing character of his nihilist interpretation of the history of morals. What naturalist evidence does he provide to declare that pre-Aryans are a setback to humanity? Nietzsche finishes the First Essay in Genealogy by describing the terrible and age-old struggle for power fought between two opposing values: the "gut und böse" of the morality of the slaves and the "gut und schlecht" of the morality of the noblemen. Not only does he describe this struggle historically (of Judea against Rome, cfr. GM I, 16), but he engages in it and demands engagement from his readers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 14 GM I, 13. 15 GM I, 14. 78 in this issue, or rather this moral opposition. He urges his readers to restart this struggle, to relight the "ancient fire" of this conflict of values, outlining the warring camps. Nietzsche takes a "Jenseits von Gut und Böse" stand. As a genealogist (or at least while attending the pre-school of genealogy), however, he finishes the first essay asking several still unanswered questions by using suspension points (at the end of paragraph 16, after Napoleon's indication, the synthesis of Unmensch (brute) and Übermensch (overman) ...", and at the end of paragraph 17), as well as considerable pauses (– – ). For the task of naturalizing genealogy, Nietzsche's final observation, in which he formally and publicly expresses "a wish", "that is, that some Faculty of Philosophy should do the great service of promoting the study of the history of morality (...)", is much more substantial. This would be another task for philologists, historians and "philosophers by profession" (Philosophie-Gelehrten von Beruf)16. But there is another wish that may be even more meaningful: (which points to a necessary task) that Nietzsche the philosopher expresses shortly thereafter: he wishes physiologists and doctors could devote themselves to the problem of finding the value of the valuations so far in existence. Specialist philosophers (FachPhilosophen) would be mediators so as to establish a fruitful relation between physiology, medicine and philosophy. Philosophy seems to take on the greatest relevance among sciences in this exchange (even over psychology) in order to help the philosopher solve the problem of value, differently from the end of the first chapter in BGE (23), in which psychology has been enthroned as "queen" of sciences. Psychology is not developed here into Physio-Psychologie, as stated at the end of the first chapter. The end of the First Essay reveals the meaning of the title: "Zur Genealogie der Moral" – contributions to the genealogy of morals or rather, to moral-historical studies, about which Nietzsche comments: "maybe this book will give a vigorous push in that direction"17. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 16 GM I, 17. 17 GM I, 17, note. 79 Nietzsche is not a naturalized genealogist yet, nor is he the Philosopher who is ready to solve this major issue, but the relation that is established between the sciences and philosophy is quite enlightening: "All sciences must, from now on, prepare the way for the future work of the philosopher". This philosopher of the future would be essentially therapeutic, a legislator, a creator of values. The problem is that Nietzsche's genealogy is no longer naturalist if it tries to explain the causes of the emergence of moral values, which are in conflict with the sciences of his time (and with our best sciences). According to the proposed division of labor at the end of his First Dissertation of Genealogy, the only task of the philosopher of the future would be "to establish the hierarchy of values". Why doesn't the philosopher of the future also take up the long and hard empirical investigation on how we evaluate, feel and think the way we do? If a weaker continuity of methods is proposed, juxtaposing methodological, artistic and rhetorical resources, and displays of affection to the methods of empirical sciences, would a casual naturalist explanation of moral values still be proposed? If we added to "natural", as suggested by Janaway, a variety of complex cultural phenomena, psychophysical states of both past individuals and projected future kinds, would we still be on the natural level? If we insist on the continuity of methods with sciences, then we have to omit many of Nietzsche's criticisms on modern natural science, which is mechanistic and empiricist, as well as the creative aspects of his late philosophy. In spite of being speculative, Nietzsche's moral psychology comes into conflict with many of the results and methods of the sciences of his day, and of ours. But it cannot be forgotten that the German genealogist made an effort to naturalize psychology, merging it with physiology, following in the footsteps of French and German empirical psychology (in this sense, there is also a continuity of results). The philosopher cannot, however, act without the sciences. And does the genealogist himself (even though he has to take on a more modest role) not undertake this task of articulating philosophy with 80 genealogy, medicine, psychology, ethnology, philology and history (as mentioned by Nietzsche) at the present moment by means of a naturalized genealogy? For now, let's leave the task of "determining the hierarchy of values" in the limbo of the philosophers of the future. We propose the following adaptation to the questions posed in paragraph 17: "Which explanations do the sciences provide to the emergence of Christian values?" A naturalized, non-speculative genealogist must provide the necessary information to answer this question. The statute of Nietzsche's naturalism must, thus, be rediscussed. Christopher Janaway disagrees with Brian Leiter on the sustainability of methodological naturalism in Nietzsche. According to Janaway, there is no scientific basis (both in relation to methods and results of science) for many of Nietzsche's explanatory hypotheses, such as a) that the praise of selfless acts stems from resentment and b) the explanation of nature as will to power: "On a straightforward reading, Nietzsche goes out of his way to reject Results Continuity with scientific biology – unless he believes that a perfected scientific inquiry would find that relations of overpowering and interpretation were indeed the best models for biological process. But in that case more recent science does not display Results Continuity with Nietzsche"18. Brian Leiter seeks a naturalist explanation of values and moral beliefs since the psychophysical formation of the individual (of type-facts). For Janaway, Nietzsche's naturalist philosophical investigation does not, in addition, fully use or emulate scientific methods of the understanding of things. If Nietzsche is a naturalist from Beyond Good and Evil, in which sense can we attribute "naturalism" to him? For M. Clark and D. Dudrick, Nietzsche's naturalism is empirical, insofar as he defends sensualism19, namely "an empirical hypothesis concerning the role of the senses in knowledge"20. However, Nietzsche would never accept that the methods of natural sciences were the only access to truth. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 18 JANAWAY, 2006, p.340. 19 Look on BGE 15. 20CLARK and DUDRICK, 2006, p.149. 81 Leiter, though, argues that the naturalist philosopher should only follow natural science methods, i.e. he should provide casual explanations to moral phenomena. As value and sense producers, natural human beings go beyond the science horizon21. In other words, there could be true descriptions in moral values outside the empirical view. If naturalism satisfies only half of Nietzsche's philosophical soul (the Humean Nietzsche), could we coherently insert the other half (the therapeutic Nietzsche) without destroying his naturalist project? This is also Christa D. Acampora's question. Acampora advocates a "narrower conception of naturalism" so as to allow the establishment of a more naturalized subject as a possibility of fulfilling action with freedom and certain notions of good. In doing so, she criticizes Leiter for attributing to Nietzsche an epistemological insight on the "relation between assertoric facts and their status as truth", which would be odd to him22. Empirical observation would be only one way of explaining reality, including human reality. Will to power would be a better description (from morphology studies), that is, the description of individuals in terms of a complex power struggle23 in a process of interpretation and appropriation. In "Nietzsche's artful naturalism", the subject would be naturalized and scientifically informed, but the subject's ultimate fulfillment would be broadened in the artistic domain in an ethos that could allow the creation of non-nihilistic values. Again, there is the problem in Nietzsche's naturalism of including too many things as "agonistic spaces" which ultimately refer to will to power. Janaway, advocates a "weaker naturalism" in which "the hypotheses that he (Nietzsche) uses to explain the changes in the differentiation of values would not be falsified by archeology, history, philology, psychology, biology or physics"24. However, would Nietzsche have been more naturalist if his explanatory !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 21 CLARK and DUDRICK, 2006, p.165. 22 ACAMPORA, 2006, p.316. 23 ACAMPORA. 2006, p.321. 24 JANAWAY, 2006, p.340. 82 hypotheses had been falsified by our best sciences? The naturalist should explain moral values from natural facts, or at least "physiological facts" (Physiologische Tatsachen). Janaway points out that there is a complex and circular relationship between moral values and likes and dislikes, from the customs imposed by culture in the way they influence the structuring of value estimates in response to certain emotional needs of individuals in previous cultural stages25. Thus, the naturalist explanation of values cannot be restricted to the individual's psychophysiology, but should also consider a gamut of inherited affections, impulses and rationalizations located in others. In addition, the genealogy of Nietzsche's moral would be a highly selective procedure by ignoring many historical processes and events, from which our current attitudes do not clearly stem26. Nietzsche, as seen, is reductionist upon stating that values are the expression of impulses and physiological needs. With this concern in mind (on the origin of value and on the value of origin), we turn to J. Prinz's text. II We will address Jesse Prinz's attempts to "naturalize", that is, empirically develop Nietzsche's genealogy of morals, persevering with current scientific methods (also aware of the results), not only of psychology, but also of anthropology, genetics, History and cognitive sciences. We consider The Emotional Construction of Morals to be a careful attempt to break the so-called "vertical approach of naturalism" which seeks in a sense to break Hume' s law so as to safeguard a coherent relationship between nature and morality27. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 25 JANAWAY, 2006, p.346. 26 JANAWAY, 2006, p.347. 27 Cfr. PRINZ, 2007; mainly chapters I and VI. 83 Since Nietzsche's speculative naturalism operates within the specific domain of ethics, what interests us in the genealogy of Christian values? As to Nietzsche's speculative psychology, there is a continuity of methods with respect to science. We agree with Leiter in the sense that scientific psychology after Nietzsche has confirmed some of his speculations (Nietzsche does not actually use methods of empiric psychology), but the resentment case is challenging. Within a broader framework of Nietzsche's speculative moral psychology, would resentment psychology also be speculative? To Leiter, Nietzsche calls for the psychological mechanism of resentment, whose empirical evidence (its "extensive explanatory scope") would enable to diagnose the origin of Christian values. Without going into the merits of the suggestive (and on many occasions debatable) etymologies of "good" and "evil", it is important to examine the evidence provided by Nietzsche himself that should confirm "the general historical fact that Christianity took root among the oppressed classes in the Roman empire"28. Leiter is an optimist in this regard. We shall now analyze J. Prinz' The Emotional Construction of Morals (2007), which Leiter believes to be "the best recent naturalistic work in moral psychology"29. Prinz is categorical: "Nietzsche's account of the origin of Christian values is highly speculative and probably mistaken"30. If we take the example of charity, there are simpler and more operating explanations than resentment. If we take the example of the genealogy of Christian values from the resentment perspective, we can understand Prinz' broader critique of Nietzsche's work: "Nietzsche's own historical analyses were speculative, inflammatory, and probably deeply mistaken. More plausible genealogies have been proposed by anthropologists and historians"31. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 28 LEITER, 2011, p.89. 29 2002, p.100. 30 PRINZ, 2007, p.217. 31 2007, p.215. 84 Prinz summarizes Nietzsche's explanation on the origin of Christian values: "In Rome, Christians were oppressed. They lived in poverty, and they resented their Roman oppressors (Nietzsche uses the French word, ressentiment, which also conveys feelings of hatred). To cope with their predicament, Christians began to demonize the values of their oppressors. They condemned power and domination, as well as wealth, freedom and health. They called these things evil. They also began to regard their own dejected state as good, and make a virtue of poverty, weakness, and sickness. These values – celebrated in the Sermon on the Mount – were revolutionary. They reversed the Roman ideals, transforming Roman good into evil and Roman bad into good. Nietzsche called this a slave revolt in morality. When Christians came to power, their moral system took a long and enduring hold. Nietzsche thought the values of nineteenth-century Europe were vestiges of early Christian resentment"32. The suspect that Nietzsche's genealogy is 'speculative' is thus confirmed. Prinz states that Nietzsche's genealogy of Christian values is not only speculative, but also "mistaken"33. The German philosopher would not have gathered enough empirical proofs for his explanatory hypothesis on the origin of these values. We can only partly justify that Nietzsche's naturalist moral psychology is speculative, due to the absence of a developed empirical psychology at the time of his writings. In GM I, the determining factor for Nietzsche is "the struggle for power". Up to which extent does Nietzsche's genealogy, in its two major axes (natural history and physio-psychology), bears the burden of proof of naturalism? For J. Prinz, 'cultural transmission' is a more effective factor than the 'struggle for power' in the explanation on the propagation of values and beliefs. The early Christians would not have conceived their values from resentment. Nietzsche himself knew that the practice of charity and the various ascetic movements emerged well !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 32 PRINZ, 2007, p.216. 33 PRINZ, 2007, p.215. 85 before Christianity. Prinz agrees with Stark's "convincing" explanations (1996) that the Christian movement "was driven largely by the middle class and even the affluent"34. Nietzsche's genealogy of Christian values, according to him, does not address main material, narrative and emotional factors which in fact acted not only in the emergence (Entstehung) but also in the dissemination of these values. We thus agree with Prinz, in the sense that Nietzsche neither provides empirical evidence nor does he convincingly explain that resentment determined the emergence of Christian values, let alone that it is the predominant factor in its spread. After these criticisms, what can be of use in Nietzsche's genealogy? For Prinz, "the basic tenet of his approach can be defended"35. He intends to show that "the genealogical method can be effectively used to investigate the origin of values. This helps confirm that some moral beliefs are products of social history"36. All values, including those which we cherish the most these days, have a history which is not exactly beautiful, soaked in a bitter struggle for power and "questionable psychological reasons" (greed, resentment, among many others). This is a very promising but still "highly speculative" starting point37. But Nietzsche's merits, from this perspective, end at that point. The objection is that "both his pessimism about existing values and his optimism about future values are misplaced"38. "Nietzsche's optimism" on the future task of transvaluation would be based on two assumptions. "The first is that, when we discover the historicity of our values, we will have reason and ability to reject them. Second, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 34 Apud PRINZ, 2007, p.218. 35 PRINZ, 2007, p.219. 36 PRINZ, 2007, p.215. 37 PRINZ, 2007, p.219. 38 PRINZ, 2007, p.217. 86 Nietzsche thinks we can replace historically constructed values with values that are, in some sense, natural"39. Without considering the merits of the proposals of the therapeutic Nietzsche here, we question as J. Prinz does whether the author of On the Genealogy of Morality would not be acting from a "natural transcendental instance" to devalue and relativize all the values of the morality of slaves from the nihilist sources of resentment. The values of the noble would be safeguarded in this case by the inexhaustible sources of will to power. Thus, Prinz tries to naturalize Nietzsche's genealogy without taking extreme stands: "Nietzsche's pessimism on current morality and his optimism on natural morality are both exaggerated, but he is certainly right to think that historical analyses can be valuable in moral revision"40. III Taking into account unreliable etymologies, the speculative psychology of resentment, and the scarce and biased investigations on the origin of Christian values, we still need to further investigate the status of the Physiology of the First Essay in GM. Prinz tries to purge all ontological (subjective) implications of physiology, insofar as they would be committed to 'the crazy metaphysics of the will to power'. He also raises serious objections: "Nietzsche can be read as supposing that there is a transcendental position from which we can assess morality and choose new values. He implies that we can base morality on human nature. Herein lies Nietzsche's optimism"41. Does Nietzsche mean to replace historically decadent values by 'naturalist' ones?' We think so, from a physiological perspective which is basically the physiology of the "will to power". This relation between physiology and the will to power, disqualified by both American authors, is what we intend to resume. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 39 PRINZ, 2007, p.217. 40 PRINZ, 2007, p.243. 41 PRINZ, 2007, p.243. 87 Nietzsche attributes the emergence of moral values to physiological causes. The positive aspect of this "physiology of morality" is the continuity of methods in empirical science. This, however, would also reveal the Substantive nature of Nietzsche's naturalism in the continuity of results with science. The influence of German Materialism is thus clear, mainly the results brought about by the advance of physiology, in Nietzsche's thought, in his ontological thesis that "the only things that exist are natural"42. The problem, according to Leiter, lies in the fact that, when Nietzsche takes his development of the 'metaphysics' of the will to power seriously, he surpasses the naturalist domain43. The importance of physiology to the First Essay in GM is indisputable, both to the criticism of the unsuccessful and the way of valuation of the noble. Nietzsche exposes "physiological facts" (physiologische Thatsache)44 of "human nature" to try to explain how Christian values originated in the resentment of the unsuccessful (die Missrathenen, Schechtweggekommene)45. Nietzsche explains the causes for the origin of the unsuccessful physiologically, in the writing of Lenzer-Heide, one month before he wrote GM I e II: "What do the unsuccessful mean now? Mainly physiologically. The most sickening kind of man in Europe (in all classes) is the basis of this nihilism"46. The physiological constitution of the unsuccessful is a determining factor both in the history of the moral of resentment and in the History of European nihilism. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 42 LEITER, 2011, p.82. 43 Rogério LOPES (2011, p.309-352.) has rigorously investigated the influence of German Materialism on Nietzsche, developing a careful and decisive approach on how materialists, from a reading of Lange, influenced Nietzsche's naturalism. 44 On the use of the expression Physiologische Thatsache. Cfr. KSA 11, PF 25[226] and KSA 10, PF 7[87]. 45 Also cfr. KSA 12, PF 5[71], 10, 11 and 12 in Lenzer-Heide Fragment. Moral prevented for a time that the unsuccessful succumbed to nihilism; but it was depreciated in the modern world, and nihilism would set in as a desire of not to, of the do-not. 46 KSA 12, PF 5[71]. 88 The physiology of morality47 is expanded in the "physiology of power" (Physiologie der Macht) in the context of the projects for "The will to power"48 by asking the question: "What kind of will to power is morality?"49, he investigates the physiological constitution of the sufferer and the unsuccessful.7 The articulation of the will to power, not only of physiology and biology, but also psychology, is important for the performance of this task in his late work. The 1888 posthumous fragment resumes the task of BGE 23: psychology is still briefly considered as "the morphology of the will to power", being connected to the "physiology of the will to power"50. By that time philosophers did not have the knowledge of physiology51. It would be necessary to purify the physiology of his time of moral prejudices, such as democracy, and of superfluous theological principles (such as the impulse of self-preservation in BGE 13). In addition, the metaphysics critic wants to "practice physiology with a good conscience" in the first chapter of BGE52. In that same spirit, he investigates physiology in the First Essay of GM. In GM II, 12, the articulation of physiology53 with the will to power is even more explicit from the "capital point of view of the historical method"54. As to the importance of history to the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 47 On the "Physiology of moral", cf. KSA 11, PF 27[37]. 48 It is in this sense that he users the expressions Schlechweggekommen and Missrathenen in KSA 12, PF 5[71] 9-14; KSA 12, PF 8[4] and AC 43. 49 KSA 12, PF 9 [159]. 50 KSA 13, PF 13[2]. 51 Nietzsche is not restricted to the physiology of the organs of the human body. He also proposes a "physiology of nihilist religions" (KSA 13, PF 14[13]) – and even the delusions of the great politics: "Great politics will turn physiology into a queen over all other issues" (KSA 13, PF 25[1]). 52 Cfr. BGE 15. 53 On the importance of physiology, cf. D 453; BGE 15, GM I, 4, 17, GM II, 12. 54 In spite of articulation efforts, Nietzsche does not build the physiology of the will to power by inference. The substantive and ontological nature of his naturalism is shown through definitions, such as "the will to power operating in every happening" (GM II, 12), life itself is will to power (BGE 13), "In a world whose essence is the will to power" (BGE 186), "there is nothing in life that is worth more than the degree of power" (KSA 12, PF 5[71].10 – Lenzer-Heide fragment. 89 genealogical method, we cannot take Nietzsche seriously when he states in EH (Why I write such good books, Human, all too human, 3) that since the end of the 1870's: "[...] in fact, I practiced nothing but physiology, medicine and natural sciences – I even returned to authentic historical studies only when the task imperiously forced me to do it"55. Nietzsche also wants to exercise his "physio-psychology", but he still lacks the methods and enough empirical data for such. However, there are analyses which can be isolated and become very promising, such as those of punishment56, of narcosis, of self-hypnosis57; the 'true' physiological causes of the malaise of the sick and the suffering, as "the sympathetic nerve disease"58; the importance of digestion and assimilation59. No doubt Nietzsche prepares the ground for the genealogy of morals. There is not, however, a well-explained empiricism in his genealogical works60. He barely operates in an empiric way with his genealogical method to investigate moral values in their historical effectiveness. Considerations The will to power which interprets and evaluates operates, it seems to me, both in the description of basic moral facts (or interpretations), and the proposition of a new naturalist basis for !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 55 It is necessary to analyze the influence of German, English and French empirical psychology in the second half of the nineteenth century in Nietzsche's thought (see FREZZATTI JR., 2010). Ribot is one of the pioneers in the empirical-positivist construction of psycho-physiology. 56 GM II, 3-5, 7. 57 GM III, I and 17, from studies of James Braid. 58 GM III, 15. 59 GM III, 16. 60 For Leiter, the brief mention in BGE 134: "All credibility, good conscience, and evidence of truth first come from the senses" would explain Nietzsche's empiricism. This maxim, however, does not hold in the context of the BGE themes (cfr. LEITER, 2002, p.14). 90 ethics61. If this is a new (meta-naturalist) criterion for the establishment of extra-moral values, would there still be a strictly ethical or normative justification in Nietzsche's thought? It is necessary, first and foremost, to clean the ground where Nietzsche's ethical naturalism can be developed, removing foreign perspectives which can paralyze the positive aspects of this naturalist in nuce. We suspect that Nietzsche is not entirely devoted to proving his "deep genealogical intuitions", for he interprets the History of moral as a block with the intention of making room for his affirmative (therapeutic) claims. Maybe Nietzsche's "optimism" (to quote J. Prinz) in relation to affirmative values of the future is expressed in an "ideal ground", a fertile soil, in the terrible homo natura text, a regulative fiction to cover up the alleged barren soil of modern values. The "natural transcendental instance of the will to power" operates alongside with the "historical-universal metanarrative" of nihilism, serving Nietzsche's prescriptivist and therapeutic purposes. Thus, the answer to the proposed question is: Nietzsche's genealogy is "speculative" while it does not further develop its interpretative hypotheses to favor its prescriptive purposes. Naturalizing genealogy from Nietzsche implies in interrupting the frightening diagnosis of nihilism and the creative promises of the philosophers of the future. Nietzsche himself gives us valuable and clearly defined information for the construction of a coherent ethical naturalism. Genealogical exercises demand a long stay in the "immense country of morality", with its multiple and transitional valuations. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 61 Contemporary naturalist approaches in the American and British context exclude, without further ado, what several authors (as B. Leiter and J. Prinz) call "the metaphysics of the will to power", without taking into account the efforts of one of Nietzsche's main interpreters to prove the plural, non-metaphysical nature of the will to power: Wolfgang Müller-Lauter. The insertion of the will to power, in its plural nature (though problematic), is decisive for Nietzsche's project of the naturalization of morals. In this sense, Müller-Lauter's immanent interpretation of the will to power is a very important support (see MÜLLER-LAUTER 1971, 1999). 91 References: ACAMPORA, Christa Davis. "Naturalism and Nietzsche's Moral Psychology". In: ANSELL PEARSON, Keith. (ed.) A Companion to Nietzsche. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, p.314–334, 2006. CLARK, M. & DUDRICK, D. "The Naturalisms of Beyond Good and Evil". In: ANSELL PEARSON, Keith. (ed.) A Companion to Nietzsche. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, p.148-168, 2006. FREZZATTI JUNIOR, Wilson Antonio. "Nietzsche e Théodule Ribot: Psicologia e Superação da Metafísica".In: Revista Natureza Humana, São Paulo, v.12, n.2, 2010, p.1-28. JANAWAY, Christopher. Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. ______. "Naturalism and Genealogy". In ANSELL PEARSON, Keith (org.) A Companion to Nietzsche. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, p.337-352, 2006. KNOBE, J. & LEITER, B. "The Case for Nietzschean Moral Psychology". In: LEITER, B.; SINHABABU, N. (ed.). Nietzsche and Morality. New York: Oxford University Press, p.83-109, 2007. LEITER, Brian. "O naturalismo de Nietzsche reconsiderado". In: Cadernos Nietzsche, n. 29. São Paulo: GEN, 2011, p.77-125. ______. Nietzsche on Morality. New York: Routledge, 2002. LOPES, Rogério. "'A ambicionada assimilação do materialismo'. Nietzsche e o debate naturalista na filosofia alemã da segunda metade do séc. XIX". In: Cadernos Nietzsche, n.29, São Paulo: GEN, 2011, p.309-352. MÜLLER-LAUTER, Wolfgang. Nietzsche: seine Philosophie der Gegensätze und die Gegensätze seiner Philosophie. Berlim: de Gruyter, 1971. 92 ______. Nietzsche. Sua filosofia dos antagonismos e os antagonismos de sua filosofia. Trad. por Clademir Araldi. São Paulo: Editora UNIFESP, 2011. ______. Nietzsche-Interpretationen I. Über Werden und Wille zur Macht. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1999. NIETZSCHE, Friedrich Wilhelm (1988). Sämtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe (KSA). 15 vols. Ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter. ______. Digitale Kritische Gesamtausgabe von Nietzsches Werken und Briefen (eKGWB). Digital critical edition of the complete works and letters, based on the critical text by G. Colli and M. Montinari, Berlin/New York, de Gruyter, 1967-, edited by Paolo D'Iorio. Disponível em: <http://www.nietzschesource.org/#eKGWB>. ______. Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGW). 36 vols. Ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1967-2001. ______. On the Genealogy of Morality. Ed. by Keith Ansell-Pearson. Translated by Carol Diethe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ______. Beyond Good and Evil. Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. Ed. by R.-P. Horstmann & J. Norman. Translated by Judith Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. PRINZ, Jesse J. The Emotional Construction of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 93 Virtue and Moral Sense: normativity in Hume? Flávia Carvalho Chagas1 This is, then, the only resource able to conduct our philosophical investigations to success: to abandon the morose and tedious method we have used so far and [...] to march directly to [...the] center of these sciences, to human nature itself. Treatise, Introduction. In his 2007 book, The Emotional Constructional of Morals, Jesse Prinz evaluates his work as a modest extension tributary of Hume's theory of passions.2 This modest extension referred to by Prinz is related to the defense of the broad thesis that our moral judgments are essentially related with the emotions, or better, that our moral judgments are based on emotions. If we go back into the contemporary rescue of Humean ethics, it does not seem problematic to locate it among the theories of moral sensibilities, as Prinz says. However, there is no consensus about this !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Associate Professor of the Department and Graduate Program of Philosophy at Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPel). The first version of this text was presented at the I Workshop "Understanding Naturalism," which took place in April of this year at UFPel, an event promoted by the Research Group: Naturalism, Emotivism and Normativity of the Department of Philosophy at UFPel. Here I use some of the conclusions of my PhD dissertation whose title is "O caminho crítico da Grundlegung à Crítica da Razão Prática" (The Critical Pathway from the Grundlegung to the Critique of Practical Reason). 2 PRINZ, 2007, p.8. 94 issue, namely what is the best model of justification adopted by Hume, considering that emotivism, the ethic of virtues and utilitarianism, to cite but a few, reclaim their 'origin' in the Humean moral conception. In addition, even among defenders of contemporary metaethics, some advocate for the thesis that Hume's ethics should be understood as an exponent of metalinguistic emotivism in Stevenson's mold, for instance, while others sustain that psychological emotivism would be closer to an explanation of the functioning of Humean sensualism. In relation to this debate, Prinz ascertains: Clearly, this use of 'emotivism' among empirical scientists is very different from the metaethicist's usage, for whom it is usually a synonym of 'expressivism'. The terms 'emotivism' and 'expressivism' in the metaethical tradition do not denote a thesis about the causal origins of moral judgement; they denote (as we have seen) a thesis about what kind of mental state is expressed by public moral judgements. It might be best if we distinguish 'psychological emotivism' (the kind advocated by John Haidt, for example) from 'metaethical emotivism' (advocated by A. J. Ayer and Simon Blackburn, for example). The crucial point is to note the logical independence of the two: even if the evidence were to demonstrate that every single moral judgement is caused by emotional arousal (i.e., demonstrate that psychological emotivism is true), this wouldn't imply anything about the function of moral language3. Contemporary metaethics' register consists of sustaining that moral judgments, according to Hume, are not liable to receive truth value, having in mind that they are not descriptions of reality and facts, but only express an attitude or perspective by the agent. In this direction, Humean ethics is known to be representative of the British school of 'moral sense', as Hutchenson, Shaftesbury, among others. Thus, it is significant that one of the most cited excerpts from the Treatise of Human Nature4 on this theme is that in which we read !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 PRINZ, 2007, p.27. 95 that "reason is the slave of passions," having in mind that passions are original existences and have no representative content that could be the copy of an X state of affairs. Indeed, Hume posits that "morality is more properly felt than judged" or that. It is obvious, that when we have the prospect of pain or pleasure from any object, we feel a consequent emotion of aversion or propensity, and are carryed to avoid or embrace what will give us this uneasines or satisfaction. [...] It is from the prospect of pain or pleasure that the aversion or propensity arises towards any object4. The question to be answered is what does it mean that sensibility is the foundation of morals? Does Hume advocate for a subjectivist moral conception insofar as moral approval would depend on an emotional answer by the subject? If so, how to eschew moral relativism? The path I intend to follow, not as a Hume specialist but as a sympathetic curious person, is to point out to other possibility of reading Humean ethics, namely that the advocacy of moral sensualism (in other words, the belief that our moral judgments only express our attitudes-the non-cognitivism thesis) is linked to anthropological principles constitutive of human nature; which would lead, then, to the belief that Humean moral conception could not be reduced to A. kind of subjectivism of the sensations, projectivist or perspectivist (Ayer, Stevenson, Blackburn); B. nor to a utilitarianist calculus of maximization of happiness; C. nor to a cultural-emotional constructivism (Prinz); But that Hume seems to be actually concerned with the justification of principles that may ensure some kind of intersubjective validity of morals, which means with moral justification from the constitutive principles of human nature. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 Treatise, Book II, Part III, Section III. 96 The problem with which Hume is faced is already clear: on the one hand, there is the intention of offering the ultimate moral foundation without deploying any rational principle, be it a priori or dogmatic-theological and, on the other hand, without indulging in emotivist relativism or moral skepticism. Therefore, it is necessary to resume to Humean description of reason and passions in relation to the epistemology and moral motivation to offer a defense of an argument based on a metaphysical naturalism. 1. Reason and Emotion: motivation and moral epistemology In the famous and notorious section, "Of the Influencing Motives of Will,"5 of the Treatise of Human Nature, reason is posited to act in demonstrative and probabilistic judgments, in other words, in analytical and mathematical judgments and in theoretical judgments on nature.6 From this follows Hume's thesis according to which reason cannot consist of a mobile or motive enable us to determine will in acting, since its task is restricted to the discovery of truth or falsehood, which Consists in an agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact. Whatever, therefore, is not susceptible of this agreement or disagreement, is incapable of being true or false, and can never be an object of our reason. Now it is evident our passions, volitions, and actions, are not susceptible of any such agreement or disagreement; being original facts and realities, compleat in themselves, and implying no reference to other passions, volitions, and actions. It is impossible, therefore, they can be pronounced either true or false, and be either contrary or conformable to reason7. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5Treatise, Book II, Part III, Section III. 6In the section cited above, we read that "the understanding exerts itself after two different ways, as it judges from demonstration or probability; as it regards the abstract relations of our ideas, or those relations of objects, of which experience only gives us information" (Treatise, Book II, Part III, Section III). 7 Treatise, Book III, Part I, Section I. 97 Whereas reason has a representational function for Hume, passion consists of "an original existence," which "contains not any representative quality, which renders it a copy of any other"8. This means that reason, in Humean practical philosophy, seems restricted to a theoretical and instrumental function; in other words, this faculty should determine the end-means relationship to ensure the realization of the willed object, considering that impulse actually does not originate in reason, but in the expectation of sensations of pleasure or displeasure originated in the reality of the object. Thus, if reason cannot be an impulse to will, "it can never oppose passion in the direction of the will"9, since, according to Hume, "[n]othing can oppose or retard the impulse of passion, but a contrary impulse; and if this contrary impulse ever arises from reason, that latter faculty must have an original influence on the will"10. In short, the task of reason within practical philosophy is to 'direct' or guide will as it determines the means to meet or satisfy will's ends, which is, in "excit[ing] a passion by informing us of the existence of something which is a proper object of it; or when it discovers the connexion of causes and effects, so as to afford us means of exerting any passion"11. If this argument is correct, the interpretation by Korsgaard12 and Marina Velasco are problematic, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8 Treatise, Book II, Part III, Section III. 9 Treatise, Book II, Part III, Section III. 10 Treatise, Book II, Part III, Section III. 11 Treatise, III, I, I. 12 At the core of this debate, Christine KORSGAARD distinguishes, in her wellknown article "Skepticism about practical reason," two forms of skepticism in relation to practical reason, namely motivational skepticism and content skepticism. According to her, whereas the first regards doubt of practical reason as mobile, the second consists of the doubt about whether practical reason can offer some content or principle for deliberation and choice. The debate found in this article moves according to the following question: is the problem of motivational skepticism a philosophically relevant one or is it important only insofar as moral psychology is concerned, that is, is this question a philosophical problem, and a relevant one, for the foundation of ethics? In other words, can moral skepticism "refute" the foundation of morals, i.e., whether and how does motivational skepticism depend, in a certain way, on content skepticism? KORSGAARD intends to show, in that article, 98 since both ascertain the inexistence or impossibility of conceiving of any type of rationality within Humean ethics. Let us draw attention to the fact that, although Hume accepts the influence of instrumental reason within morals, he affirms the impossibility of instrumental reason judging whether an action is good or not from the moral point of view (this faculty being reduced to the instrumental calculus of the means-end relationship in order to reach or actualize the willed object). In his article "Humean Sources of Normativity," Herlinde Pauer-Studer ascertains that interpretations that locate the "foundation" of Humean ethics in instrumental calculus are not only wrong, but insufficient. So Hume's remarks about the bewildering form our desires might take are, besides an affirmation of the wide variety of humans' wishes, a reminder of the limits of meansend reasoning: by itself, meansend reasoning does not allow an evaluative assessment of the desires; that would be beyond its scope. And Hume is correct to say so13. Then, from these two theses, namely 1) "[i]t is from the prospect of pain or pleasure that the aversion or propensity arises towards any object," "impulse arises not from reason, but is only directed by it"14 and 2) "[m]orality, therefore, is more properly felt than judged of; though this feeling or sentiment is commonly so soft and gentle, that !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! that motivational skepticism has no independent force, since it is always based on content skepticism. Therefore, according to her, motivational skepticism should always bring about a content skepticism. In order to demonstrate it, she uses the well-known Hume's argument exposed in the Treatise on Human Nature that practical reason is and can only be the slave of passions (Treatise, II, III, III). If Hume sustains that reason has no other function than to be the slave of passions, then whether Humean conception of morals posits, as points out contemporary emotivism, a moral sentimentalism and, then, reason cannot have any function in relation to the theoretical foundation of ethics, or this position of moral sense is a little more complex than imagined. 13 Cfr. PAUER-STUNDE, 2009, p.195. 14 Treatise, II, III, III. 99 we are apt to confound it with an idea"15, we can establish the following conclusions: 1. moral sense consists of the figure responsible for moral distinctions, in other words, the problem of moral epistemology is solved, according to the Humean conception, not through reason, but through this ability of the sense or conscience16; 2. distinguishing impressions, by which moral good or evil is known, are nothing but particular pains or pleasures17. A set of questions arise: why does Hume posit that pleasure and pain, which distinguish moral from immoral actions, manifest themselves in particular ways? How exactly can we have access to this particular feature of certain sensations? Would Hume be defending a sort of moral intuitionism in that some special type of morally good fruition would be necessary? In other words, what is actually the criterion that allows moral distinctions to be made, considering that it consists primarily of subjective feelings and sensations, therefore arbitrary and dependent on the agent, since "[t]o have the sense of virtue, is nothing but to feel a satisfaction of a particular kind from the contemplation of a character. The very feeling constitutes our praise or admiration. We go no farther; nor do we enquire into the cause of the satisfaction"18. However, in spite of sentiment playing a crucial epistemological function, Hume tries to eschew moral relativism by justifying that sentiments distinctive of morality are not reduced to one's own interest for happiness, since, according to him, "[w]e do not infer a character to be virtuous, because it pleases: But in feeling that it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 15 Treatise, III, I, II. 16 Treatise, II, III, I. 17 Treatise, III, I, II. 18 Treatise, III, I, II. 100 pleases after such a particular manner, we in effect feel that it is virtuous"19. Prinz draws attention to this point. Even if he does not consider in details what are the arguments used by Hume to eschew relativism, setting this theme aside for "specialists," affirming only that "Hume thinks that right and wrong are determined by an emotional response of a person of character," he himself openly tries to sustain a form of theory of moral sensibility (named "emotonism" by him-different from the contemporary moral emotivism) which ends up triggering, as he sustains, a relativism. Prinz is pointing to the fact that an adequate interpretation of Hume's moral philosophy should mind the theory of virtues involved in the question of ethical fundamentals in order for the necessary links with the figure of moral sentiments to be made. On the other hand, the problem remains for an advocate of Humean emotivism, having in mind that, if sentiment is the foundation of moral decisions and motivations, Hume could be thought of as sustaining a morality based on private interests or on the search for satisfaction of personal desires20. A possible hermeneutical tip consists of Hume's positing that human nature is constituted by certain fundamental anthropological principles, such as, for instance, general appetite for good and aversion to evil or sympathy and compassion; in addition to the necessity, according to him, of positing an impartial point of view when the subject judges morally. In short, such principles, dispositions and theoretical figures seem to point to a moral foundation that goes beyond mere descriptivism, on the one hand, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 19 Treatise, III, I, II. 20-In relation to the utilitarianist interpretation of Humean ethics, including the general principle of human good, cfr. G. SAYRE-MCCORD'S article "Hume and the Bauhaus Theory of Ethics". In P. A French, T.E. Uehling Jr. And H. K. Wettstein (ed.) Midwest Studies in Philosophy 20, Moral Concepts (Notre Dame, University Norte Dame Press), p.280-298. 101 and, on the other, to a search for a foundation for ethics that is neither dogmatically rationalistic nor relativistic and subjective. In her article "What Kind of Virtue Theorist is Hume?," Christine Swanton,21 in a discussion with Annete Baier, aims to sustain that "the status of a feature such as virtue, for Hume, is founded on a plurality of aspects." But my interest consists of thematizing her theses in relation to the question put forth by her in relation to in which sense do some virtues play an authoritative role, since this is where her discussion on the "condition of possibility of morality for Hume" starts, considering that, according to Swanton, this supposes "the existence of certain sentiments and emotional abilities that are part of our constitution as normal human beings"22. Thus, Swanton mentions five circumstances in which virtues are commanding/authoritarian: 1. The approver should satisfy the condition of possibility of a moral sense23; 2. The existence of genuine moral properties-vice and virtue, since man as species has benevolent sentiments24; 3. The approver should possess the moral point of view, that is, he or she should have the capacity for extensive sympathy25; 4. The moral point of view, to be appropriate, should satisfy the condition of stability and impartiality26; 5. To be authoritarian/commanding, moral sense should be educated; the approver should both obtain a comprehension of general tendencies of features from the view of their utility (EPM) and be sufficiently discerning27. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 21 SWANTON, C., "What Kind of Virtue Theorist is Hume?" 22 SWANTON, 2009, p.227. 23 2009, p.228. 24 2009, p.229. 25 2009, p.229. 26 2009, p.229 and Treatise, III, III, I, 15. 27 2009, p.229. 102 From these five circumstances put forth by Swanton, Hume's own theses on the subject should be resumed. Firstly, since for Hume the foundation of moral distinctions between right and wrong, between vice and virtue, consists of the experience of peculiar sensations, what enables them is the moral sense or sentiment as disposition or natural capacity of man insofar as "[t]hese sentiments are so rooted in our constitution and temper, that without entirely confounding the human mind by disease or madness, it is impossible to extirpate and destroy them"28. In relation to the second criterion, it is worth highlighting the fact that Hume does not seem prone to commit himself to some kind of realism or objectivism in relation to vice and virtue, having in mind that, according to him, actions in themselves cannot be considered as moral or immoral facts insofar as vice and virtue, right and wrong, moral good and evil are not qualities or properties of the facts and actions, but actually perceptions of the mind. Concerning this argument, many contemporary commentators and thinkers have drawn attention to Hume's bringing near moral properties and secondary qualities: Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You never can find it, till you turn your reflection into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards this action. Here is a matter of fact; but it is the object of feeling, not of reason. It lies in yourself, not in the object. So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compared to sounds, colours, heat and cold, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 28 Treatise,, III, I, II. 103 which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind29. Jesse Prinz, in his book on moral constructivism from emotions, suggests a possible approximation between realism and metaphysical emotionism based on Hume's conception of virtue: [...] Hume's theory of sensibility is also an example of another kind of theory: it is an ethics of virtues. Some versions of the ethics of virtues qualify as forms of metaphysical emotionism. Consider the following example. An action is good if and only if it is something that a virtuous person would do. A virtuous person is a person who possesses certain character traits. Virtuous character traits are or include emotional dispositions. It follows that an action is good only in case it is performed by an emotional agent30. Prinz intends to reject the view according to which our moral beliefs are based on metaphysical presuppositions, even those which suppose the reality or objectivity of traits, dispositions or capacities constitutive of human nature insofar as, for him, this affirmation would not have normative force. I resume this argument in the end. In addition, it is important to notice that the figure of the approver as endowed with this disposition to be affected and to judge morally from the moral sense is associated to the notion of impartiality and "character force" (or stability) since the realization of moral judgments by the approver supposes that he or she is not under a moral point of view in which he or she is "abstracted" from his particular condition in order not to influence his or her judgment. It is only when a character is considered in general, without reference to our particular interest, that it causes such a feeling or sentiment, as denominates it morally good or evil. It is true, those sentiments, from interest and morals, are apt to be confounded, and naturally run into one another. It !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 29 Treatise, III, I, I. 30 PRINZ, 2007, p.15. 104 seldom happens, that we do not think an enemy vicious, and can distinguish betwixt his opposition to our interest and real villainy or baseness. But this hinders not, but that the sentiments are, in themselves, distinct; and a man of temper and judgment may preserve himself from these illusions31. From these rapidly sketched readings, it is worth highlighting, with Swanton and against Prinz, that the condition of possibility for morality in Hume depends on taking the non deontologic, but evaluative, character that the notion of virtue carries from the treatment of anthropological principles that constitute and structure the human mind; and not, as Prinz suggests, from the foundation on emotions as they are culturally ingrained in us. Prinz seems to recognize that both the defense of the argument in favor of human nature as that of emotional constructivism seem to be little effective in the sense of offering and justifying a bold criterion of normativity as, for instance, the Kantian model. Its justification by the defense of cultural constructivism based on the emotions seems pragmatic enough, since, according to him, it is best to assume and follow already culturally accepted patterns if we want to live a better life in a certain culture. On the other hand, rejecting this model entails the risk of wanting too much, that is, wanting to find the "hard rock" of morality. To conclude, it is interesting to notice that the examples used by Hume to talk about vice and virtue, right and wrong, always refer to and consider man as a species, not as a member or subject under a certain culture, race etc32. We could obviously now ask whether he is right about this point or not. In any case, even if we cannot sustain that Hume advocates for a deontological moral principle, as Kant does, it seems that he aims to sustain, against the supposition of a sensualistic determinism based on passions, some deflationary kind of normativity. Since, beyond all these anthropological principles, that is, natural to man considered as a species, Hume, in speaking !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 31 Treatise, III, I, II. 32 Cfr. Treatise, III, I, II. 105 about the example of parricide, affirms that "[i]t is a will or choice, that determines a man to kill his parent"33, which means that it is necessary to solve the crucial problem, namely that "[i]t is one thing to know virtue, and another to conform the will to it"34, so that "this is, then, the only resource able to conduct our philosophical investigations to success: to abandon the morose and tedious method we have used so far and [...] to march directly to [...the] center of these sciences, to human nature itself." References: HUME, D. A Treatise of Human Nature. A. L Selby-Bigge, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896. SAYRE-MCCORD, G. "Hume and the Bauhaus Theory of Ethics". In: P. A French, T.E. Uehling Jr. And H. K. Wettstein (ed.) Midwest Studies in Philosophy 20, Moral Concepts. Notre Dame: University Norte Dame Press, 1996, p.280-298. PAUER-STUNDE, H. "Humean Sources of Normativity". In: Charles Pigden (Ed.): Hume on Motivation and Virtue. New Essays. New Zealand: University of Otago, 2009. PRINZ, J. The Emotional Constructional of Morals. New York: Oxford University Press. 2007. SWANTON, C. "What Kind of Virtue Theorist is Hume?". In: PIGDEN, C. (Ed.). Hume on Motivation and Virtue. New Essays. New Zealand: University of Otago, 2009. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 33 T, III, I, I. 34 T, III, I, I. 106 WITTGENSTEIN: AN EXPRESSIVIST APPROACH ABOUT EMOTIONS Juliano Santos do Carmo This paper aims to show that Wittgenstein's approach to the concepts of sensation and emotion can shed light on many philosophical dilemmas that remain present in the contemporary debate. My analysis will start by characterizing Jesse Prinz's approach to emotions (heavily influenced by the physiological theory of William James) and, then, it will proceed to show that Prinz is subject to the same criticisms that Wittgenstein expressed about James's theory. Finally, I will argue that Wittgenstein, in Philosophical Investigations, advocated for a peculiar kind of expressivism that, while having profound differences from traditional expressivism, is able to appear as a non-cognitivist position. I will argue further that James's error (and hence also Prinz's) is disregarding the multiple uses of psychological terms (that is, to think that psychological terms have a uniform use). 1. Jesse Prinz and the Non-cognitive Theory of Emotions In the early chapters of The Emotional Construction of Morals (2007), Jesse Prinz offers a brief overview of the extensive debate on the nature of emotions and on how the various theoretical positions include the role of emotions with respect to moral psychology. Prinz explicitly argues that a non-cognitive theory along the lines of the James-Lange theory of emotions would be most appropriate to his purpose, since it treats the emotional states as "immediate response" 107 for bodily stimuli: "Emotions are felt perceptions of bodily changes."1 The name "James-Lange theory of emotions" is due to the wellknown fact that William James (1884) and the Danish physiologist Carl Lange (1885) developed-allegedly independently-very similar theories about the nature of emotions. It is not surprising that the chapter on emotions of James's book Principles of Psychology begins precisely with a long quote from Carl Lange to show what he (James) thought about the phenomenon of "grief." In this emblematic passage, James describes grief in terms of expressive bodily behaviors, such as "walking slowly," the "wobble," the "dragging of feet," the "weak voice," and the "tendency to cry softly," for example. After listing a series of typical behaviors that accompany grief, James concludes: "It is clear that grief is a bodily phenomenon, with their tears, red eyes and so on"2. William James's theory also sought to account for the way in which we externalize emotions through typical behaviors, such as facial expressions, musculoskeletal changes and other conventional patterns of activities. "Fear,", for example, was regarded as an emotion often preceded by the characteristic behavior of "astonishment," that is, "eyes and mouth open," "raised eyebrows," "dry salivary glands," "cold sweat," "tremors," etc. In this respect, therefore, James's position seems much more comprehensive than Lange's, since Lange prioritized strictly physical aspects, such as the change in "blood vasculature,"3 for example. The emphasis in typical expressive behaviors, as we shall see, is a key element that allows us to consider a convergence between the positions of James and Wittgenstein. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 PRINZ, J. The Emotional Construction of Morals. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 2 JAMES, 2007, p.1059-60. 3 PRINZ, 2007, p.53. 108 James was convinced, however, that the traditional research about emotions had focused only on "cataloging emotions," but that no position sought to provide a kind of "generative principle" or the "source" of emotions.4 James's aim, therefore, was to offer this principle from a physiological perspective, endorsing a kind of reductionist naturalism. The great novelty consisted of the idea that primitive emotions (fear, anger and sadness, for example) do not cause bodily variations, but rather, bodily expressions or variations are causes of gross emotions. This is clearly apparent in the following passage from Principles of Psychology: Our natural way of thinking about these coarser emotions is that the mental perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My theory, on the contrary, is that the bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion. Common sense says we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says that this order of sequence is incorrect... [Which the correct order is] is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble.5 Clearly, this way of conceiving of emotions is extremely attractive for any naturalistic position, since it potentially reduces all expressive behaviors that denote emotions to stimuli and bodily processes. Moreover, it also seems to offer "the generative principle" that distinguishes James's position from the traditional positions. Another interesting aspect of this theory is the fact that it seems to involve a kind of exercise in mental subtraction,6 and it is precisely !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 JAMES, 2007, p.1064. 5 JAMES, 2007, p.1065-6. 6 In James's words, "If we removed all the bodily sensations of our consciousness of the intense emotion, we would not find anything that we left behind." "All that will be left," he adds, "is just a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception" 109 this aspect that the contemporary naturalists want to rescue, since it would represent a very promising type of non-cognitivism.7 Wittgenstein's criticisms of James's theory, however, were concentrated on two basic methodological aspects: (1) Although the body is the central aspect of James's theory, the introspective method (mental subtraction), which is used to arrive at such conclusions, is highly doubtful to Wittgenstein, since it is far from being an adequate scientific research method. (2) From a strictly philosophical point of view, James's theory seems to take a wrong type of access to the "inner experience" by not considering the logical connection between sensations and emotions. In this sense, I think that, by endorsing the James-Lange theory of emotions, Jesse Prinz seems to be creating the same difficulties for himself. Before, however, addressing the minute aspects of Wittgenstein's criticism, I would like to emphasize here some additional features of the James-Lange theory of emotions which are very favorable to Jesse Prinz's purposes. Insofar as emotional states are completely materialized (embodied), the James-Lange theory is a kind of non-cognitivism able to account for the immediacy of certain emotions, for instance, in cases where emotional responses are so immediate that it would be difficult to assume the intermediation of concepts, judgments or thoughts. There are many examples of this type of emotional responses, especially those that are triggered by visual perception, as a visual stimulus can trigger anger or compassion, for example. The James-Lange perspective, in this case, seems to corroborate Jesse Prinz's hypothesis that somatic signals are necessary and sufficient !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! [Principles of Psychology, p.1067]. "A heartless cognition that certain circumstances are deplorable and nothing else" [Principles of Psychology, p.1068]. 7 PRINZ, 2007, p.60. 110 for emotions, a hypothesis also endorsed by Paul Griffiths and Craig DeLancey. The immediacy of certain emotions is obviously one of the main challenges faced by cognitive theories of emotions. In contrast, the contemporary cognitivists, especially Robert Solomon, William Lyons, Martha Nussbaum, and George Pitcher, often claim that, in order to deny the cognitive nature of emotions, non-cognitivist philosophers fail to explain the "intentionality" inherent in them. In other words, the cognitivists cannot explain how cognitions may be involved in immediate emotional responses; the non-cognitivists, moreover, cannot explain the alleged intentionality of emotions. The non-cognitivist philosopher should also explain the cases in which cognition seems to be involved in emotional responses, especially those that do not seem immediate. Therefore, Jesse Prinz believes that the James-Lange theory of emotions must face at least two problems to be entirely non-cognitivist: (1) The first problem (which Prinz calls the "Rational Assessment Problem"8) consists precisely of dispelling the suspicion that our usual way of talking about emotions necessarily involves typically rational or cognitive "words" (i.e., we talk about "justified emotions" or "non-justified emotions," "adequate" or "inadequate," "warranted" or "unwarranted,"9 etc.). According to Prinz, this could suggest that emotions have a cognitive dimension while there is evidence that cognition is not necessary for an emotion. As suggested by Prinz,10 the solution to this dilemma involves adopting a naturalistic theory of representation, primarily along the lines of Fred Dretske's position, but which also finds support in the positions of Jerry Fodor and Ruth Millikan, for example. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8 PRINZ, 2007, p.60. 9 PRINZ, 2007, p.60. 10 PRINZ, 2007, p.64-6. 111 The general aim is to maintain that emotions are "natural representations" which, as such, are designed for a specific purpose (in this case, they would represent "concerns"), the same manner as smoke detectors are designed for the purpose, or function, of reliably indicating the presence of fire. In this point of view, "pain," for example, would represent "physical disease," insofar as physical diseases reliably trigger pain, but also because this device has been selected (evolutionarily) for this purpose. The idea of a natural representation (as a representation that occurs outside the mind) involves adopting a computational theory of the mind (with "mental files" and "calibration mechanisms," etc.), which, however, I will not present here.11 (2) The second problem (which Prinz calls the "Somatic Similarity Problem"12) consists of providing a satisfactory answer to the apparent lack of "bodily patterns" to account for the numerous "somatic signs," that is, "different emotions are often associated with the same somatic changes." For example, "anger" and "indignation" are different emotions, because someone might be angry and not be indignant, but usually they are associated to the same patterns of expressive behavior.13 If there was a single body pattern for each emotion, then we would expect that "anger" and "indignation" possessed different somatic signs. This, however, is also evidence that emotions and other internal process are multifaceted. The solution offered by Prinz for the "Somatic Similarity Problem" also involves the idea of "emotion-as-naturalrepresentation-for-a-particular-purpose," because, insofar as similar signals may represent different mechanisms, a somatic signal of the same bodily pattern can have different meanings in different occasions. The meaning of the somatic signal of a bodily pattern !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 11 See: DRETSKE, F. Explaining Behaviour: Reasons in a World of Causes. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1988; MILLIKAN, R. White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995. 12 PRINZ, 2007, p.65. 13 GOODMAN, 2002, p.61. 112 would depend on the mental mechanism that generated the pattern. Nevertheless, it is not my purpose to outline in detail the solution to both problems detected by Prinz in the James-Lange theory of emotions, but my purpose is to show that his interest is reworking certain aspects of this theory so that it can appear as entirely noncognitivist. My hypothesis is that this commitment to rehabilitate James's theory makes Jesse Prinz subject (regardless of being successful in his venture) to the same criticisms that Wittgenstein expressed about James. 2. Wittgenstein's Expressivism in Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology The notes Wittgenstein composed during the years of 1946-1948, compiled and published in two volumes under the title Remarks on Philosophy of Psychology, admittedly attest that Wittgenstein felt very encouraged by the James's theory, particularly by the emphasis on expressive behaviors. Most of his criticisms, however, intended to show that James had confused the logical connection between emotions and sensations (studied by the philosopher) with the empirical connection between emotions and sensations (object of study of science). The references to Principles of Psychology are quite numerous and appear in several works by Wittgenstein14. In an important passage from a manuscript dating from the early 1930's, Wittgenstein says: How necessary is the work of philosophy is shown by the psychology of James. Psychology, he says, is a science, but James hardly discusses scientific issues. His movements are mere attempts to extricate himself of the webs of metaphysics in which he is stuck. He still cannot walk or fly, but only !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 14 At least in the Philosophical Grammar, in the Brown Book, in the two volumes of Remarks on Philosophy of Psychology, in the Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology and in the Philosophical Investigations. 113 move. Not that it is not interesting. Just is not a scientific activity.15 This passage gives us an interesting diagnosis of what Wittgenstein thought about James's approach regarding the nature of emotions. What James does, Wittgenstein says, is not "science," but something closer to philosophy. Moreover, as a philosophical position, it should take into account some important features regarding the use of psychological or emotional terms, especially about addressing the problem of so-called "privacy" of the internal or mental phenomena. In other words, a first objection to James's theory is that it is committed to a mistaken view about the access to the "subjective mental states." Indeed, James seems to endorse the description-expression dichotomy, where these categories are selfexclusive. As we shall see in the next section, there are strong reasons to believe that James's error was to assume a descriptivist position about the internal processes that completely exclude the possibility of considering the expressiveness of mental states. Considerations about the nature of the mind as if it were an "inner world" to which only the owner has access are commonly found in philosophical literature. Now, if only the "possessor" may have a given experience, it seems plausible that only he or she can know that experience, and thus someone else would logically be prevented from having the same experience or taking "a peek into other people's minds."16 The private ownership of the experience, however, is an illusion. The "epistemic privacy," as Peter Hacker says, "is equally illusory, but there are various props that keeps it standing, and each of these deceiver pillars must be removed"17. However, the access to "subjective mental states" is different from the access to common sensory data, such as when we have sensory !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 15 Manuscript 110: 196-7. Quoted in HILMY, S. The Later Wittgenstein. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987 Apud GOODMAN, 2002, p.63. 16 NEVES FILHO, E. O Paradoxo de Moore: Uma Análise de Diferentes Soluções. Pelotas: Edufpel, 2012. 17 HACKER, 1999, p.10-14. 114 access to an apple, for example. In addition, there are deep differences between the grammatical usage of psychological verbs in the first and the third persons that James seems not to have noticed. Psychological verbs are characterized by the fact that the third person of the present is to be identified by observation, the first person not. Sentences in third person of the present: information. In the first person present, expression. (Not quite right)18. It is possible to argue, therefore, that James's mistake was to think that we can (perceptually) observe the evolution of our pains (or fluctuation of our emotions), when in fact we can only report the way we feel. It follows that it is impossible for someone to state something like "He feels terrible pains, but unfortunately he is not aware of them" or "I feel terrible pains, but as I am not aware of them, it is very yummy feel them"19. According to Wittgenstein, emotions are conceptually distinct from "sensations" and "emotional dispositions" and can be divided into two groups: "direct emotions" (with object) e "indirect emotions" (without object), the common criteria being "genuine duration," "typical course," and "typical behaviors" (crying when you are sad, for example)20. Emotional concepts applied in the first person singular do not tell anything about the external world. Psychological words aim to report how we feel about something. The central idea is that subjective mental states are intersubjectively accessible in most cases by observing the characteristic expressive behavior. That is, we can have some access to emotional states of others from the way they behave and from the use of psychological terms that replace "primitive natural expressions." This point is directly related to the idea that, when it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 18 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. WileyBlackwell, 1991, Vol. II, §63. 19 GOODMAN, R. Wittgenstein and William James. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 20 WITTGENSTEIN. L. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. WileyBlackwell, 1991, Vol. II, §63. 115 comes to "psychological verbs" in the third person, "we have information," and therefore verification (i.e., they can be verified by facts), but when it comes to "psychological verbs" in the first person "we have expression,"21 and therefore no verification, but adequacy to habitual behaviors. In this sense, Wittgenstein seems to be closer to traditional expressivism, since he emphasizes the non-informative expressiveness of mental states. In the Philosophical Investigations, however, Wittgenstein is especially clear about what he thought about the linguistic private possession of experiences or internal sensations: A human being can encourage himself, give himself orders, obey, blame and punish himself; he can ask himself a question and answer it [...]. But is it also conceivable that there be language in which a person could write down or give voice to his inner experiences, his feelings, moods, and so on a for his own use? – Well, can't we do so in our ordinary language? – But that is not what I mean. The words of this language are to refer to what only the speaker can know – to his immediate private sensations. Therefore, another person cannot understand the language22. A private language would be what a speaker has and only he or she can have. However, if the psychological terms do not "describe" internal emotional states (in most cases) in the same way that we describe "an apple," then it would be a mistake to think that a philosophical approach (which is descriptive, and not explanatory) could explain any essential feature of emotions. James's misconception would be caught up in a common mistake of philosophers: "describe all internal events in the same way that science often describe external objects, or even, to think that emotional states can be analyzed atomically." The correct way of thinking that would be paying attention to expressive behaviors. As !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 21 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Zettel. London: Basil Blackwell, 1967, § 472. 22 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2009, §243. 116 Schulte says, "there is something that can be regarded as mediating between the subjective and the objective, between the inner and the outer, namely our typical expressive behavior."23 The typical expressive behaviors, according to Wittgenstein, are logically (or conceptually, grammatically, but not physically) connected to certain emotions. This might suggest that Wittgenstein was mistakenly advocating here for some kind of cognitivism about emotions. However, one must note that the conceptual element claimed by Wittgenstein applies only to the relationship between a characteristic expressive behavior and an emotion. There is no problem in considering emotions as fundamentally natural, or even in response to stimuli or bodily changes. The problem is the grammatical illusions to which we are subject when supposedly "describing" these phenomena. One of the most famous passages of Wittgenstein's work regarding the description-expression dichotomy is the comparison of "a cry of fear" with a statement in the first person such as "I'm scared." This important passage of the Philosophical Investigations is responsible, according to David Macarthur,24 for leading a number of influential commentators to consider the Austrian philosopher as an expressivist along traditional lines. The misconception of these commentators is, as we shall see, not taking into consideration the fact that traditional expressivism ends up endorsing some of the assumptions of his main opponent, descriptivism. Moreover, in the second part of the Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein explicitly defends the wide variety of uses of psychological terms in language games, something that both expressivists and descriptivists would be unwilling to endorse. On the other hand, we can consider this particular way of conceiving of the use of psychological verbs as a kind of naturalism. Contemporary philosophers generally agree that there are at least two !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 23 SCHULTE, 1995, p.36. 24 MACARTHUR, D. Wittgenstein and Expressivism. In Daniel Whiting (Eds.). The Later Wittgenstein on Language. London: Palgrave, 2009. 117 kinds of naturalism-reductive and the non-reductive. Wittgensteinian philosophers, such José Medina (2011), are convinced that there is in On Certainty a very promising form of non-reductive naturalism that is heavily focused on the social. Medina has argued that social naturalism (inspired by the idea of "second nature") has several advantages over other kinds of naturalism (such as Quine's, for example). The main advantage, Medina argues, is precisely the fact that social naturalism is based on a kind of methodological pluralism, rather than a methodological monism derived from the positivist thesis of the unity of science. The philosophy of the later Wittgenstein has inspired a naturalism that avoids the pitfalls of reductionism. The later Wittgenstein rejects the idea that there is a single method, or set of rules, that defines the study of human behaviour, thus advocating a methodological pluralism. He argues that our rule-following practices constitute a sui generis domain that is not reducible to causal regularities25. An interesting aspect of "Wittgenstein's social naturalism" about the use of "psychological verbs" is the fact that the concepts seem to be inextricably linked to the phenomena-they "emerge," so to speak, from our forms of life and are expressed in our languagegames26. This is especially clear in the famous passage of the Philosophical Investigations: "What we are supplying are really remarks on the natural history of human beings, not curiosities, however, but facts that no one has doubted which have escaped notice only because they are always before our eyes"27. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 25 MEDINA, 2011, p.81. 26 Medina also tries to show that, in his later writings, Wittgenstein sketches a provocative kind of social naturalism with his remarks on 'natural history'. See: MEDINA, J. "Wittgenstein's Social Naturalism: The Idea of Second Nature after the Philosophical Investigations". In: The Third Wittgenstein. Moyal-Sharrock, D., Brenner, W. (Orgs). New York: Ashgate, 2011, p.80. 27 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009. §415. 118 My suspicion is that it seems possible to show that Wittgenstein also endorses a kind of naturalism in the Philosophical Investigations, especially when he discusses the biological roots of our concepts and the crucial role played by the laws of nature. Many concepts depend on the laws of nature. What would be the concept of "weight," Wittgenstein asks, if the mass of the objects was inexplicably variable? The distinctive peculiarity of Wittgenstein's approach is the assertion that philosophy should not attempt to explain the formation of the concepts by facts of nature, but instead, philosophy should seek to emphasize the very "contingency of our concepts"28. Concepts are as "human tools" naturally developed within culture itself. The rules of language arise in the use of language, and not before it. The concepts are "rules" that express their own logic of articulation and license, so to speak, the necessary connections between them. While for James and Prinz everything is reducible to experience, for Wittgenstein, human life is inextricably linked to concepts, meanings and rules, or, to use one of Wittgenstein's favorite words, human life is inextricably attached to a "grammar." It is in this sense that grammar seems to determine "the kind of thing that some object is." Therefore, in a genuine philosophical research on emotions, we should focus on the inferential articulation of our concepts, that is, in what may or not "count" conceptually as an emotion. 3. A New Kind of Expressivism? The psychological terms used to denote feelings and emotions are connected with what Wittgenstein called "characteristic expressive behavior," including facial expressions. As we said before, the psychological terms replace "primitive natural expressions." The term "natural expressions," however, appears in a key context of the Philosophical Investigations: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 28 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009. §41, p.221. 119 Now, what about the language that describes my inner experiences and which only I myself can understand? How do I use words to stand for my sensations? – As we ordinarily do? Then are my words for sensations tied up with my natural expressions of sensation? In that case, my language is not a 'private' one. Someone else might understand it as well as I. – But suppose I didn't have any natural expression for the sensation, but only had the sensation? Now I simply associate names with sensations and use these names in descriptions29. The idea is that in public language (the language that we all understand), words used to describe sensations (pains, tickles, colors, etc.) are connected with "natural expressions of sensations." Such expressions are, obviously, bodily expressions, like groans and grimaces of pain, for example. The nature of the connection between words and expressive behavior is indicated by how we learn such expressions through training or by the acquisition of primitive language. A mother, for example, knows when her child feels pain- and she is able to convey the use of the word "pain" -when the child points to one of his or her members when the mother asks "where does it hurt?" It seems obvious that the child learns to use the word "pain" in these and numerous other similar situations. In this sense, the practices of the linguistic community, linked to natural expressions of pain, function as the background that ensures (licenses) that the word "pain" will play the role for which it was designed. Therefore, psychological and expressive terms such "pain," function as substitutes for "expressions of primitive and natural feelings." Psychological terms, as substitutes for natural expressions, acquire a new form of "expressive behavior," that is, they form what we call "second nature." The term "pain" acquires a new form of "pain behavior." This way of thinking about language does not imply the idea that "pain" signifies "cry," as James thought. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 29 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2009, §256. 120 The verbal expression of pain replaces the crying, but does not describe it.30 Of course, this could suggest that Wittgenstein is endorsing the descriptivist fallacy, according to which words show a uniform usage. However, this is certainly not the case, since, instead of considering the terms "description" and "expression" as mutually exclusive, Wittgenstein says, in the Philosophical Investigations, that they are members of the same inferential network. Traditional expressivism often argues that some sentences that superficially appear as descriptions are actually expressions. Expressions have two basic characteristics: (1) the target-sentences are lacking in truth-values and (2) the target-sentences "express," but do not "describe," mental states or processes. David Macarthur, however, draws attention to the fact that Wittgenstein does not identify the sentence "I'm scared" with a cry of fear, but rather compares the description of the mental state with a cry of fear. The suggestion is that sometimes this kind of "speech act" is closer to a scream (an expression) and sometimes it (the act) is far from a cry (a description). If I tell you "I have been afraid of his arrival all day long" – I could, after all, go into detail: Immediately upon awakening I thought.... Then I considered.... Time and again I looked out of the window, etc., etc. This could be called a report about fear. But if I then said to somebody, "I am afraid..." – would that be as it were a groan of fear, or an observation about my condition? – It could be either one, or the other: It might simply be a groan of fear; but I might also want to report to someone else how I have been spending the day. And if I were now to say to him: "I have spent the whole day in fear (here details might be added) and now too I am full of anxiety" – what are we to say about this mixture of report and !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 30 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009, §244. 121 statement? Well what should we say other than that, here we have the use of the word "fear" in front of us?31 The general idea seems to be that, instead of assuming the traditional description-expression dichotomy, where "being a description" naturally excludes "being an expression," Wittgenstein would have sought to show (in the second volume of Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, but more evidently in the Philosophical Investigations) that the error lies in trying to impose crystal clear grammatical limits to each of these expressions. According to Macarthur, the correct way of conceiving of Wittgenstein's treatment of psychological terms is through a line ranging from a spontaneous response to a given situation (a cry of fear) to the highly specialized response that can be evaluated in terms of truth-values (a sentence like "I'm scared"). This suggests that some uses of sentences with psychological verbs in the first person sometimes function as expressions and sometimes function as descriptions. It is likely that everyone agrees that a cry of terror in the night is not a description of a mental state, but a spontaneous behavior whose purpose is to express the feeling of fear. However, it seems more difficult to reach a consensus about the equivocal uses of a sentence such as "I'm scared." What corroborates Macarthur's exegesis is precisely the idea that the sentence "I'm scared" does not always work as a description, but, in some occasions, has a content that can be evaluated in terms of truth or falsity and therefore can function as a description of somebody's mental state. The error consists of not perceiving that in some cases the sentence "I'm scared" is used as a description of a mental state, and that, therefore, we are tempted to assume that it is always used as a description. When we are deceived by the surface grammar of psychological terms, we are subject to endorse, therefore, the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 31 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989, vol. II, §156. 122 descriptivist fallacy (the mistake of thinking that the term "description" has a uniform usage). According to Wittgenstein, when I use the sentence "I'm scared," I can be simply expressing my fear through a linguistic form of behavior, which can be evaluated in terms of truth or falsity. But I can also express my fear through something similar to an "Ouch!," which cannot be evaluated in terms of truth or falsity. Macarthur's aim, then, is to show that Wittgenstein conceives of the intersubjective transmission of mental states in both modes: the descriptive mode and the expressive mode. Nevertheless, in normal cases, where a sentence like "I have a headache" is used without any process of reflection and self-observation, a mental state is being expressed and, therefore, this is not a genuine description.32 In other words, the reports of my mental states have an assertoric dimension and an expressive dimension. On the far side of the scream (the assertoric dimension), it is possible to show that certain expressions of mental states function as descriptions. Suppose that John is part of a group of climbers and that at some point, with the proximity of the most dangerous part of the climb, the leader, worried about the safety of the group, asks "How are you feeling?" In this case, if John replies "I'm scared," then the expression of his mental state functions as a description, because the objective is to communicate to the leader how he is feeling with the proximity of the most dangerous section of the climb. In this example offered by David Macarthur, John's answer is more distant from the cry of fear. This is what Wittgenstein claimed to be the "difference of purpose" between the expression of fear "I'm scared!" and the description of fear "I'm scared"33. From a strictly Wittgensteinian point of view, the expressivist would be correct when he considers that the surface grammar of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 32 CHILD, 2013, p.178. 33 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989, vol. II, §735. 123 statements like "I'm scared" tends to lead us to the mistake of thinking that they always function as a description. However, the expressivist error is to assume that this kind of statement never functions as a description. By doing so, the expressivist is overlooking the deep grammar of the psychological terms and, therefore, tends to lose sight of the wide variety of uses that determine the meaning of certain expressions. According to Macarthur, the traditional expressivist seems to assume the dogma that to "be able to have a truth-value is equivalent to be a description, such that lose the descriptive functionality is to lose the possibility to have a truth value." Wittgenstein's position in the Philosophical Investigations, therefore, is slightly different from the traditional expressivist position because (i) it assumes that the description-expression dichotomy is inadequate and (ii) it assumes that a mental state can be described, even though in very specific contexts. It is obvious that, to assume that the expression of mental states always works in the same way (in the same way that expressions with no truth-value such as "Ouch" or "Aargh!" work) is to ignore the logical and grammatical differences between them and the limiting cases (non-declaratives) like the scream of fear. Therefore, Wittgenstein cannot be regarded as a traditional expressivist, since, although he recognizes the expressive dimension of statements about mental states, the traditional expressivist does not recognize the assertoric dimension of these expressions and ignores the descriptive employment of mental states. The traditional expressivist sees as a difference in kind what is actually just a difference in degree.34 Therefore, it is possible to show that Wittgenstein was not an expressivist in the traditional mold. However, this does not mean that Wittgenstein's stance is not expressivist in another sense. Expressions continue to have two basic characteristics: (1) some manifestations are lacking in truth-values and (2) some !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 34 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989, vol. II, §737. 124 manifestations "express," but do not "describe" mental states or processes. Provided that expressivism is also a kind of naturalism, it seems possible to show that Wittgenstein endorses a kind of naturalism (as suggested by Medina) about the use of psychological terms and how they are incorporated by replacing natural expressions (primitive behaviors) with language sentences. Given the preliminary discussion, we can now turn to consider the position of James and Prinz about the use of psychological terms. In Wittgenstein's perspective (in the last writings), James's , and consequently also Prinz's, error was thinking that all "inner experiences" can be "described," because in fact some are immediately "expressed" by psychological terms that replace "primitive or natural behaviors." Instead of "crying" because he or she "feels pain," an adult and competent user of language simply says "I feel pain," even though crying and pain are obviously physiological in nature. That is why, in cases of pain, our "languagegame" is an extension of a primitive behavior (it is an instinct).35 Therefore, emotions are not artificial devices for others to know our emotional states, but rather, emotions are natural devices. The centrality of Wittgenstein's approach in the various uses of psychological terms leads us to recognize the impossibility of developing a theory of psychological concepts, since it would always remain incomplete. However, the "logical" or "grammar" sense of Wittgenstein's research (in contrast to the empirical sense of James's research) can be seen in the fact that "pain" is not a mere behavior or expression of pain-because there are significant differences between "feeling a pain" and "pretending to feel a pain." Nevertheless, pain remains connected to its expression, grammatically or logically. Here is an important difference: Wittgenstein's purpose is to investigate the logical or grammatical connections between expressive behaviors and psychological terms used to denote emotions. The interest of James and Prinz is to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 35 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, V. II. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989, §151. 125 investigate the physical connections between expressive behaviors and emotions. The grammatical meaning of Wittgenstein's research marks a major methodological difference in relation to James's work . Indeed, the typical behaviors expressive of grief, such as "hiccups," "chest tightness," "tears," etc., are actually "criteria" of grief, but "grief" itself is not composed of such feelings or sensations, as James had asserted. This is what allows us to say that "hope," for example, is not the sum of different sensations. A person who feels "depression" has not depressive feelings in parts of his or her body, although some expressive behaviors typical of depression are quite apparent. This means that depression (and the same goes for hope) is not the kind of thing that could be strictly localized in the same way that a knee pain is located in the knee.36 The aim is to show what can be considered as an emotion or as a sensation. This aim, however, seems to be the same one found in the Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology and in the Philosophical Investigations. "Crying" is a criterion of sadness, but it is not a necessary or sufficient condition for sadness (someone can cry and not be sad or not be sad and cry). However, "crying" is logically associated with sadness, because the concept of "sadness" is necessary in contexts that include our natural propensity to cry in unfortunate situations. Bodily sensations are taken (grammatically) as criteria and not as parts that make up sadness. Prinz' difficulty (as a self-proclaimed heir to James) is linked to the fact that he confounds the conceptual aspects of emotions (from a purely philosophical point of view) with the physical aspects (from a scientific point of view). That is, when he takes a peculiar methodological monism (a peculiar kind of naturalism), he seems to be committed to a misconception about emotions. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 36 WITTGENSTEIN, L. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, V. II. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989, §§ 438, 448, 449, 451. 126 If Wittgenstein is correct, Prinz's misconception lies precisely in thinking that expressive behaviors are necessary and sufficient to determine or identify an emotion. In Wittgenstein's perspective, expressive behaviors are criteria, but not necessary or sufficient conditions. Moreover, if Prinz intends to advocate for a kind of noncognitivism to support the idea that emotional responses vary from culture to culture, so it does not seem necessary to endorse a kind of reductionist naturalism. Apparently "Wittgenstein's Social Naturalism" could serve equally well for this purpose, since a significant portion of the uses of psychological terms is entirely non-cognitivist. References: DRETSKE, F. Explaining Behaviour: Reasons in a World of Causes. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1988. GOODMAN, R. Wittgenstein and William James. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. HACKER, P. Wittgenstein: On Human Nature. New York: Routledge, 1999. HILMY, S. The Later Wittgenstein. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987. JAMES, W. The Principles of Psychology. New York: Cosimo, 2007. MEDINA, J. "Wittgenstein's Social Naturalism". In: The Third Wittgenstein. Burlington: Ashgate, 2004. MILLIKAN, R. White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995. PRINZ, J. The Emotional Construction of Morals. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 127 ______. Gut Reactions: A Perceptual Theory of Emotions. New York: Oxford, 2004. SCHULTE, J. Experience and Expression: Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Psychology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. WITTGENSTEIN, L. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2009. ______. Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, v.II. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989. ______. Zettel. London: Basil Blackwell, 1967. ! 128 Why animals do not develop the artificial virtue of justice Marco Azevedo A Primate Sense of Justice There is evidence that mammals other than humans have a concept of "justice". Some experiments conducted by Frans de Waal and Sarah Brosnan have shown that Capuchin monkeys display other-regarding behaviors that seem to depend on a sense of fairness. In one such experiment, these monkeys voluntarily shared better food-in this case, pieces of apple-with a partner in a separate cell, to whom scientists only fed cucumber1. In another famous experiment, a Capuchin reacted angrily in the face of unfair treatment (the famous cucumber-grape unequal experiment2). Economists labeled this unexpected reaction "inequity aversion". It is easy to agree that the monkeys behaved as though moved by a sense of unfairness, and were capable of demanding equal treatment. In spite of this, why do we insist on claiming that such animals do not have a moral sense like us? Why do we still think we are worlds apart from them? Well, in fact, there is something that sets us apart from other mammals: our morality depends on our ability to take responsibility for our behavior, and we have not yet found enough reasons to attribute moral and legal responsibility to non-human animals. We must clearly explain why this is. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 DE WAAL, 1997, p.147-50. 2 BROSNAN & DE WAAL, 2003. ! 129 Moral and legal responsibilities are the core of our morality. They are conceptually linked to the moral and legal concepts of right and duty, and these are central to our idea of justice. Notwithstanding, some thinkers believe that our concept of justice is rooted in ancient social practices. Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu, for example, figured that our concept of justice is in fact a "pre-cultural" concept3, just like our right-talk, since it can be traced back to behavioral dispositions exhibited by our tribal ancestors. Maybe they are right. It is plausible that our modern language of rights has only fully developed in societies endowed with complex legal systems4, but this is certainly compatible with the presence of some kind of right-talk in human tribal languages. So, if we interpret Brosnan and de Waal's Capuchin monkeys' acts of refusal as exhibiting mental reactive attitudes against unfair treatments, there wouldn't be any relevant moral difference between humans and primates. If we interpret the monkeys' acts as representing demands for equal treatments, couldn't we also say that the monkeys were making claims (perhaps moral claims) against their caretakers? In this case, what really makes human morality different, naturalistically speaking? Cooperation and fairness seem to be central to human political morality. Assuming that human political morality is a natural phenomenon, some philosophers have suggested that fairness and cooperation are products of an evolutionary dynamic process. It is not difficult to demonstrate that reciprocity is a predictable consequence of the tit-for-tat behavior of individuals that search for their own self-interest. But, as de Waal remarked correctly, even if it is impossible to have morality without reciprocity, reciprocity can exist without morality. It is possible that the very first step towards the Golden Rule was made by the first creatures that followed a reciprocity rule like "do as the other did, and expect the other to do as you did." The problem is that the Golden Rule involves reciprocal !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 PERSSON & SAVULESCU, 2012, p.34. 4 HAYEK 1982; HART [1961] 1994. ! 130 altruism, and the maxim "do as the other did, and expect the other to do as you did" is a straightforward tit-for-tat rule. It is not truly reciprocal altruism, for altruism is quite a bit more flexible and variable than mere tit-for-tat behavior. Regardless, De Waal argues that in this case we already have "the first hints of moral obligation and indebtedness"5. This helps to explain why some moral behaviors are also observed within primates, such as alliances for the sake of challenging the status quo, and tit-for-tat deals between leaders and their supporters6. Several naturalistic theories about the evolution of the so-called "social contract" were developed from the assumption that tit-for-tat is grounded in a (specifically human) rational decisional capability7. Are tit-for-tat and reciprocity essentially connected? Well, not if we accept de Waal's caveat that there can be animal or human reciprocity without morality. In this case, tit-for-tat is not the basic tenet of human morality. It is perhaps empirically decisive for the evolution of social cooperation, but the mark of human morality is not simply cooperation. Moreover, it is plausible that tit-for-tat evolved to make non-synchronic cooperation socially possible8, but it seems pretty obvious that non-human animals cannot cooperate diachronically like human beings.9 Diachronic cooperation involves responsibility; so tit-for-tat in isolation cannot explain the genealogy of promises and all the conventions of positive human moralities. Allegiance And The Capability To Obey Some philosophers (Natural Law theorists, but also modern philosophers of a naturalist bent, like Hobbes) consider that moral and legal behavior is substantially a matter of following and obeying !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5 DE WAAL, 1997, p.136. 6 DE WAAL, 1997, p.211. 7 SKYRMS 2003; BINMORE 1989, 2005, 2007; GAUTHIER 1969, 1986. 8 PERSSON & SAVULESCU 2012, p.36. 9 I will use "animal" to mean "non-human animals" for brevity from this point forward. ! 131 commands. In natural law theories, moral rules are seen as the commands of superiors that express the will of a transcendent sovereign (God). The conception that law (moral or legal) is command was commonplace in philosophy of law at least until the middle of the 20th Century; nonetheless, even after Herbert Hart's powerful objections, "commands" remain the core of the conceptual domain of contemporary moral theories and jurisprudence10. However, law does not consist entirely (and only) of commands11. And if Herbert Hart is correct12, a command is morally or legally binding only if there is a moral or legal claim-right of being obeyed that implies authority13. Hobbes and most of the modern command thinkers do not distinguish claim-rights (moral or legal) from mere orders or commands. This is faulty, for the capability to obey is not the same as the capability to recognize authority14. Following a command because of the recognition of a right of commanding is only possible for individuals with a complex psychology. Animals endowed with sufficient cognitive capacities can follow commands of their leaders or superiors; some animals even seem to manifest concern and respect for them. Obedience, nevertheless, cannot be simply reduced to respectfulness. We can say that a person who obeys an authority's command respects another's authority over them, but this does not imply cognitive recognition of another's authority. In fact, people can have different reasons to follow a command. They can conclude, for example, that it is sensible to follow the command (for example, if the command is backed by an effective and reliable threat). But one can react to a command with compliance because they recognize a valid claim to obedience; and, moreover, a person can, albeit !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10 POSTEMA, 2001. 11 AZEVEDO, 2013. 12 HART, 1994. 13 RAZ, 1988; AZEVEDO, 2013. 14 AZEVEDO, 2013. ! 132 incidentally, be a virtuous citizen who likes to view themself as a person committed to the law not from fear or from habit, but from respectfulness. Hence a duty to obey can be a reason to follow a command for at least those "rational individuals" that recognize the practicality of claims. Respectfulness implies a complex psychological interaction between the addresser and the addressee of commands. Rationalists suppose that this implies mutual recognition of personal dignity, and they are right in doing so, but naturalists usually object that appeals to concepts like "dignity" are bad explanations (we cannot explain something through unexplainable concepts). After all, what do we mean by "dignity"? Kantians stress the difference between the "realm of nature" and "the realm of freedom"15, but this is not a clear way out. Modern rationalists have thought that one decisive difference between human beings and animals is the supposedly special human rational capability to recognize their sovereign's right to command. However, humans do not only bow down to superiors in power and strength, they also sometimes fight them. Nevertheless, animals also recognize their superiors, and it is very plausible that there is some kind of rationality in their act of submission. Likewise, animals frequently engage in strife against those that happen to dominate the group. So, what is the actual difference between humans and animals? If the capability of defiance is typically human, there must be a qualitative difference in their act of "allegiance", for social animals also dispute dominance over their fellows and also knowingly obey and disobey. The attitude one has in bowing down to a superior-and even the capability, perhaps even more "humane", of dispute and fight for superiority-is hence not what makes the human realm different from the animal kingdom. Nonetheless, the rationalist-however vague-idea that animals are unable to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 15 BRANDOM, 1994, p.58. ! 133 mutually recognize dignity is certainly a clue in the mystery of the difference between us and beasts. Therefore, we should look at some of the most salient differences between human and animal societies. Human societies are characterized not only by hierarchical structures of power (that is, of submission to persons in positions of power); this is also ubiquitous in animal social colonies. What distinguishes human societies from animal is the fact that human societies are juridical. What we need to explain is why human societies alone are organized as evolved and complex legal systems (that is, with systems not only with, in Herbert Hart's terms, primary, but secondary legal rules). This relates to the fact that figures like surrogates, representatives and authorities (and not mere "superiors") only exist within human society. Human institutions depend on a more complex capability of rule following, certainly language-dependent, for their normal functioning. Moreover, specific human capabilities to follow commands and to obey human authorities depend on a more complex capability of trust. The problem here is that trust is, in general, a capability that animals also have. Social animals behave in colonies with complex hierarchical arrangements and relations of subordination where trust plays a functional essential part. What, then, distinguishes human forms of trust from the that which we observe in the animal kingdom? Human and Humean Conventionalism Contractualists of the Humean sort think that the difference results from the specific human form of acting by conventions, but this is not convincing, as demonstrated by the famous Stag-Hunt problems. Skyrms thinks that Hume saw that cooperation in the StagHunt story is consistent with the human specific form of rationality, as suggested by Hume's descriptions of acting by conventions16. Hume thought that the viability of cooperation depends on mutual !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 16 LEWIS, 2002. ! 134 beliefs based on trust17. Trust seems to be a form of dynamically evolved interaction. However, what kind of trust are we talking about, cognitive or emotional? It seems that Rational Decision Theories take tit-for-tat as a consequence of cognitive trust only. This seems to be initially (and mathematically) plausible, but animal behavior also manifests this form of trust. Animals display forms of cognitive trust, as domestic animals trust their owners, and, in the animal kingdom, cognitive trust is essential in the maintenance of animal colonies. If both human conventions and animal social habits depend on trust, but if human cooperation is distinct from animal social habits, then it is plausible that trust in human cooperative behavior is also different from the kind of trust among animals; hence, again it cannot be a matter of mere tit-for-tat, and neither a matter of pure cognitive trust. Cooperation evolves both in animals and humans connecting cognitive and emotional trust. Let's return to the Human notion of human justice as an artifice. Hume knowingly took justice as an artifice, a non-natural virtue, but a virtue motive nonetheless. According to Hume, it is not for any natural motivation that people engage in contracts, promises and the like18. Justice systems cannot be explained by our natural dispositions19. But what should explain those moral artificial engagements cannot be a mere rational calculation of personal advantages, since reasons are always a "slave of our passions". The problem is that the only passion that seems to be involved in promises and contracts is selfish passion, the self-interest in protecting our own lives and promoting our own personal desires. The presumed internal connection between justice and selfinterest is knowingly problematic. Justice understood as a kind of moral disposition (a virtue) does not only relate to personal emotional reactions against injustice to the person, but it also involves reactions against injustice to others. Justice is a virtue that !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 17 BAIER, 1991. 18 HUME, 1896, p.477. 19 POSTEMA, 1995, 2006; BAIER, 1991. ! 135 moves people to vicarious reactions. These vicarious attitudes are what make human beings capable of assuming responsibilities in respect to others. To take responsibility for our behavior is an otherregarding behavior that involves assuming a duty on behalf of another person or individual capable of wellbeing, and this also implies that this other individual is in a position to claim something from us. Plausibly, those complex reactive attitudes are what make human beings capable of recognizing themselves as duty-bearers, that is as individuals that owe something to others (the right-holders, respectively). Hume thought that the artificiality of justice involves rules and institutions; this implies the possibility of surrogates, representatives and responsible authorities. Duties of justice are artificial in the sense that they are connected with those complex institutions. If there is something that differentiates human morality from animals it is the salient fact that only mature humans can bear the artificial duties of justice. Legal institutions are only possible in human groups with individuals that can bear duties and can institutionally recognize positive moral and legal claims. Wouldn't Fairness be a Natural Virtue? Fairness and justice are sometimes taken as equivalent notions. John Rawls, for example, equated justice to fairness within his "political conception of justice"20. It is plausible that a certain notion of fairness is conceptually linked to the idea of justice that underlies the democratic legal systems. However, this does not mean that our sense of fairness is equivalent to the sense of justice that we (like Rawls) usually assume is shared by citizens of democratic societies; a sense that permits them to judge theirs and other citizens' behavior with at least an implicit general understanding of political ideas, including the "meaning and ground of constitutional rights and liberties, and the like"21. It is plausible that what we call a "sense of fairness" is a more primitive sense that is not dependent on any ideas about institutional legal concepts. If this is true, then the sense of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 20 RAWLS, 1979, 2001. 21 RAWLS, 2001, p.5. ! 136 fairness is not "artificial" but "natural"; fairness, in effect, cannot be a "political concept", at least not in the more general understandings that citizens supposedly could share. Hume, in fact, thought that fairness is a virtue besides justice, but fairness is not, following Hume, an artificial virtue. See Annette Baier's remark: "In Hume's story, it is inequity as well as injustice that drives people to respond to fraud with official force. Equity and inequity in this sense could be displayed by parents towards their children, perhaps even among friends. As Hume uses it, it is closer to fairness than 'justice' is." She afterwards thought that "[i]t is a pity that [Hume] did not say more about the link between artificial justice and natural equity"22. In Postures of the mind, Baier remarked that Hume thought that animals couldn't have a sense of property or right. Hume would also reject any attempt to give sense to a concept of rights in animals, since rights arise from artifice. Nevertheless, says Baier, "Hume significantly says not that animals have no sense of virtue or vice, but that they have 'little or none'"23. It is still disputed as to which is the better characterization of the kind of artificiality involved in the social habit of justice for Hume. Justice certainly is an artifice that results from certain empirical circumstances and constraints. The empirical constraints can be thought of as natural constraints, but the circumstances of justice seem to be cultural and social. The natural constraints usually cited are related to individual self-interests, the conflictive individual personal desires people usually have. Sympathy could be thought of as a countervailing natural force, but sympathy is in fact limited and parochial (we sympathize more with our relatives and friends, that is, with our nearest and dearest than with people we don't know or have ever met). The circumstances of justice are the "normal", that is, the common empirical conditions under which human cooperation is thought to be both possible and necessary24. On the one hand, there !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 22 BAIER, 1991, p.260. 23 BAIER, 1985, p.147. 24 RAWLS, 1979, p.109. ! 137 are several common interests in living in a cooperative form of society, since, as Rawls noted, it "makes possible a better life for all that any would have if each were to live solely by his own efforts". But, on the other hand, there are several conflicts of interests in this enterprise, since people differ in opinion about how the benefits should be distributed, and all people seem to be biased by the tendency of preferring a larger to a lesser share25. The difficulty is enhanced by the fact that the resources are scarce. Rawls wisely called it the "circumstances of justice". Some could conclude that those empirical circumstances and constraints, natural or social, make human societies very different from any other form of animal or social life. But the fact is that the social forms of life in the animal kingdom seem to share those same general characteristics. Individuals in animal societies also live in colonies just because this is generally better (in terms of their general fitness) than living alone, even though they have different desires and interests, and experience conflict. Scarcity of resources is also ubiquitous, and it is not by chance that animal colonies have hierarchies alongside some kind of discipline in the division of "social work". The passage from some simple form of social living to a more complex and institutional (and juridical) society is then the passage from a primitive (perhaps "natural") society to the artificially complex form of social life we see in the history of the human species. We could call this the genealogy of human politics, and a natural genealogy would be a proper explanation of what makes human beings so different from the other social animals. This certainly encompasses a genealogical explanation of the emergence of duties in the natural history of human social forms of life. Let's return to our main question: what is special in human justice? Some people think that what is distinctive is the human invention of "property". It makes sense, but property is one along !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 25 RAWLS, 1979, p.109. ! 138 with other "conventional practices" marked by the idea of what we owe to others, and the related notion of duty. It is conventional duty that makes justice systems different from what we observe in animal politics. Animals have societies with some political arrangements, and in their relationships animals show conflicts of interests and desires, besides an implicit, albeit non-linguistically and nonconceptually articulated sense of common interest. Social animals undertake cooperative schemes and punish those individuals that do not contribute to the maintenance of the products of their cooperative efforts. Their behavior seems to express a clear sense of fairness, as shown by Brosnan and de Waal (2003), but this is not the same as saying that animals also display a sense of justice, at least not in the special conventional or more artificial sense as stressed by Hume. The key-concept is the concept of duty (that is, positive duty, or "conventional", that is, non-natural duty), the concept Hume labeled as an "artificial virtue". Hume's view is knowingly controversial and rather opaque. Let's try to clear it up. Hume suggested a simple division between natural and artificial obligations. Justice involves artificial obligations just because agents cannot see themselves obliged to follow moral or legal rules of justice by any emotionally driven direct impulse. Agents see themselves as being obliged to act only after being inculcated by their fathers, teachers or fellows to follow rules, which vary according to cultures and places. The path to the emotions seems to be indirect, the via agent's interests. The convention must be recognized (explicitly or not) as a mutual cooperative undertaking but positively instituted. As Annette Baier remarked, for Hume nothing is "due" to anyone until a cooperative scheme is successfully launched (Hume, hence, was a kind of positivist). All our dues are dues to and from "co-ops" of one kind or another. Some dues are duties arising from the basic cooperation of family members and friends, but even these duties not only depend on motives driven by natural dispositions, but also on motives conditionally displayed by some specified "mutual according-to-fact" clauses. So the sorts of dues that justice involves rely upon very general "cooperative schemes", which are not merely instinctive or ! 139 natural (like that of parent and child or friend and friend)26. The difference between the human virtue of justice and the natural dispositions we observe in humans and animals cannot rest on cooperation alone. Animals also cooperate, and they also live in colonies tied by general "cooperative schemes". The difference seems to rest on the social fact that human cooperative schemes are convention-dependent. My bet is that Hume is broadly right; but observational evidence from animal behavior seems to contradict some simplistic versions of Hume's story. Mammals live in colonies under several norms of social organization, including habitual norms about distribution of powers and privileges. There are several similarities between apes and primitive human social structures27. Some habits that seem to involve distributive norms of goods are also observed in other species. Capuchin monkeys usually distribute food following intuitive norms of equity. As remarked above, these animals react angrily to unfair treatments, exhibiting perhaps a sense of "justice," at least in a primitive form. It is also claimed that some animals (baboons, for example) can understand the meaning of "property"28. But if this is true, why did animals not evolve those complex forms of cooperation enforced by positive social rules and institutions, as we did? One problem here is that there is a huge misunderstanding on what we should mean by "justice" and "rights", as well as "fairness". This is not a matter of pure empirical science, yet it involves semantic clarification. If we say that animals (apes, monkeys, dolphins or elephants) exhibit dispositions that constitute evidence that they have a sense of "fairness", and if we continue to state that they do not have a proper sense of justice, it is advisable that we make the semantic difference between the concepts of fairness and justice explicit. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 26 BAIER, 1991, p.232. 27 DE WAAL, 1997, 2001. 28 DE WAAL, 1997, p.156. ! 140 What, then, should we mean by a "sense of justice"? Let's begin by assuming that a sense of justice involves the capability to deal with concepts like property and normative capabilities including power and autonomy. If social animals are capable of behaving functionally according to this conceptually informed "form of life", grasping the concepts that normatively inform their behavior under that even only implicitly, we would likely see animals dealing with each other, making promises and contracts, and we would see in their social behavior at least the rudiments of legal or juridical-like systems. But since we don't see that, it is plausible that Hume is right: justice is a special human creation. But since animal societies have similar empirical constraints and, at least in general, exhibit the same "circumstances of justice", and since animal psychology exhibits the selfish motives that Hume thought to be the primary motive for justice, the difference between animals and humans must be in another part of human psychology. Hence, there must be something unique in human neurophysiology that can explain our capacity to manifest the assumed, qualitatively different sense of justice exhibited in human behavior within modern human "forms of live". In fact, even de Waal recognizes some substantial differences between humans and animals: "Even if animals other than ourselves act in ways tantamount to moral behavior, their behavior does not necessarily rest on deliberations of the kind we engage in." It seems implausible, says he, that "animals weigh their own interests against the rights of others, that they develop a vision of the greater good of society, or that they feel lifelong guilt about something they should not have done"29. In fact, it is a common remark in political philosophy that what makes humans especially different is our "capability for deliberation". But since animals also guide decisions by "mediate inferences"30, that is, by what we should call a "natural reasoning", what makes human deliberation different is not the fact !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 29 DE WAAL, 1997, p.209. 30 MILLIKAN, 1995, p.192. ! 141 that our decisions are guided by reasoning as such, for animals also coordinate behavior by internalizing normative behavior and roles. The Neural Basis of Normative Behavior In her approach on the "proper functions" of representations, Professor Ruth Millikan argued for the hypothesis that besides the "directive" and "descriptive" representations (that is, roughly, the first one being representations that guide the organism-or the organism's mechanisms that use it-to produce its own "satisfaction condition", and the second being representations whose satisfaction conditions-in this case, their truth conditions-adapt their users to the proper function of the representation)31, there is a third (albeit more primitive) kind of representation she creatively entitled "pushmi-pullyu representantions"32 (PPR). PPRs are both directive and descriptive. She states the hypothesis that PPRs fulfill their proper function without being consciously disentangled in their directive and descriptive parts. When a hen makes a certain clucking to her brood, the chicks spontaneously interpret that there is something of their interest nearby (say, food). Hearing their mother's call, the chicks automatically go to the food. It seems that the effect of the call on chicks' minds is not "filtered through an all-purpose cognitive mechanism" by means of which a descriptive representation with some content (that there is food where the mother is) is firstly formed in their minds (supposedly in a distinct area of their brains), for only after "retrieving a relevant directive one (the desire to eat)" (supposedly in another brain area), "then performing a practical inference", that is, a reasoning (supposedly with the help of other groups of neurons) do they eventually act on the conclusion33. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 31 This is similar, albeit more sophisticated, to a more usual view that descriptions are "mind adaptive to the world", whereas prescriptions are "world adaptive" (or that the function of descriptions is to adapt the mind to the world, whereas prescriptions aim to adapt the world to the mind). 32 Pushmi-pullyu is the name of the conjoined or siamese animal, a gazelle-unicorn cross, met by Doctor Dolittle in one of his trips to Africa (from the Hugh Lofting stories). 33 MILLIKAN, 1995, p.190. ! 142 What happens is probably different, for the representation (that is, the hearing of the call) seems to discharge an action without other mediations. The call seems to translate a shape of the environment directly into a shape of a certain kind of conforming action: "where the hen finds food, there the chick will go". Perhaps non-human animals employ PPRs only, and this fits perfectly with a popular view on how animals think "instinctively". But Millikan also suggests that the same mechanism is plausibly at work in humans, as in, for example, human "intentions". As Elizabeth Anscombe remarked, intentions are not a couple of perfectly decoupled separated representations, one descriptive and another purely directive34. Millikan suggests that the same applies to social norms and roles. When one grasps a norm like "Drive on the right side of the road", or a social role, like the role-behavior of a Sea Captain35, the person does not grasp two separate representations, one descriptive and another directive, and then conjoin them as two premises in an argument, but rather grasps a unique representation that is both descriptive and directive in a single shot36. If Millikan is right (as I am persuaded she is), then both animal and human brains were likely furnished by certain neural structures with appropriated modes of functioning to produce those particular mental states. This is just what can be inferred from Rizzolatti et al.'s (1988) famous findings about the so-called "mirror neuron" activities37. A mirror neuron is one that fires both when an animal (human or not) acts and when he or she observes the same action performed by another animal. Some cognitive neuroscientists think that this explains the link observed of perception and action in animal and human behavior !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 34 ANSCOMBE, 1957. 35 MaCINTYRE, 2007, p.57. 36 MILLIKAN, 1995, p.190. 37 Discovered in experiments with monkeys, but soon demonstrated in children- see: MELTZOFF and MOORE, 1983. ! 143 in neurological parlance (in other words, the PPR phenomena pointed out by Millikan)38. Social coordination can be viewed as a form of normative behavior (mainly) mediated by PPRs. Respectively, Millikan talks about two basic sorts of norms: common norms (those that apply to all members of a society equally) and role norms (that apply to groups, that is, to a person so far as they are filling a social role). Notwithstanding, she cautiously remarks that some common as well as role norms do not serve any coordination plan; people follow them by mere custom or cultural inculcation (not eating peas with one's fingers is a cultural rule of etiquette that does not serve any coordination scheme or plan). Common and role norms that do not serve to coordinate actions are plausibly more common between human beings than with animals. They are cultural side-effects of mechanisms evolutionary selected: "A mechanism whose biological function is to transmit coordinating norms might well have as a mostly benign side effect the transmission of a good number of noncoordinating norms as well"39. Human norms seem to be clusters of both kinds of norms, albeit some of them do not serve any coordination scheme. However, both kinds of norms are embedded in conventional practices, and this complex mixture is perhaps one big difference between human norms and those we can observe in higher social animals. Political behavior is a kind of behavior guided by common and role norms (norms of hierarchy in power involve both kinds). Nevertheless, in humans normative behavior involves not only the capacity to follow rules or a mere capacity to obey rules, capacities cognitively mediated by Millikan's PPR and neurologically linked with those mechanisms that make animals and humans capable of imitating and coordinating one's behavior regarding what is observed in others. Human normative behavior also involves the capacity to judge, to criticize, to refine and redefine rules within reflective !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 38 PRINZ, 1984. 39 MILLIKAN, 1995, p.193. ! 144 considerations. Human political reasoning involves (or at least can involve) diachronic planning through issues of social utility, and it also deals with issues of rights and duties conventionally established, albeit continually disputed, questioned and politically recreated.40 Those capacities certainly involve PPRs, but it is plausible that some representations in humans are related to more complex neural mechanisms (as I will argue bellow, neural mechanisms that make us able to assume others' moral perspectives). Therefore, I suggest that human ideas of justice are PPRs, and they differ substantially from the PPRs employed by animals in their "politics" and probably from the PPRs related to political ideas in primitive human societies. The Emergence of Legalistic Behavior It is usually argued that the question of whether animals have morality is related to the question of whether they have culture, politics or language41. Let's consider politics. Aristotle introduced the idea that human beings do not live for enjoyment only, for a life of enjoyment is a life "only fit for cattle"42. Human beings, being endowed with rationality, are fitted to two other kinds of life, the life of politics and the life of contemplation. According to Aristotle, animals' happiness is limited only to enjoyment; they cannot live lives of politics, nor pursue lives of true wisdom. Nevertheless, social animals live in communities or colonies politically structured. Perhaps animals cannot "live" the life of politics Aristotle envisaged; after all, for Aristotle, the masses do not actually live this kind of life (only individuals like Pericles and "good" politicians probably live it). But this does not imply that politics are not displayed by social animal behavior. If we presuppose that politics is the kind of life people have in civil societies (that is, "cities"), animals are not !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 40 As Cinara Nahra remarked, typical human minds are deontoutilitarian (NAHRA 2013, GREENE et al. 2001; GREENE 2008), but animal minds certainly are not. Animals are capable of obeying commands and following common and role rules, but they do not do this for utilitarian and deontological "reasons". 41 DE WAAL, 1997, p.210. 42 ARISTOTLE [EN 1095b] 2000, 6-7. ! 145 political beings for their social lives are not "civil" (that is, a social life informed and regulated by the kind of norms that structure the so-called "civil society"). So, let's follow the belief, currently widely shared by biologists, that social animals live (albeit "naturally") in groups politically structured (colonies or "communities"), albeit not displaying a "civilized" politics (that is, the norms of a civil society). Assuming this, what makes us different from them cannot be the mere fact of the political activity as such; for what makes us different is that we, humans, are capable of a different kind of politics than animals. The difference, though, is not in the fact of living under or submitting to mere power relations. Social animals live in families, groups and colonies with clear divisions of roles and intricate power relations. This is remarkable in the case of apes. As Desmond Morris remarked in the Foreword to the first edition of Frans de Waal's Chimpanzee Politics (1982), apes have a social life full of "takeovers, dominance networks, power struggles, alliances, divide-andrule strategies, coalitions, arbitration, collective leadership, privileges and bargaining", all example of power relations. Power (political dominance) is hence not a human invention. Nevertheless, civil power is a distinct form of power relation that is ubiquitous in modern human cultures at least. Civil power is also related (perhaps conceptually) to another concept that is justice. I'm actually talking about "justice", the idea of justice; what I have in mind here is the ubiquitous fact of justice systems in all modern human societies. Justice systems are not, however, ubiquitous in all communal forms of human living. Only civil societies have justice systems. Some sociologists emphasize the difference between two distinct forms of social living: communities and societies. In 1887, Ferdinand Tönnies suggested the Gemeinschaft-Gesellschaft dichotomy, the distinction between those small-scale, kinship and neighborhoodbased social organizations and the large-scale competitive market ! 146 societies. Tönnies also took human beings as an animal species; so his problem was also about what makes us socially different from the other animals. In communities, social bonds reflect a "real organic life", in spite of the fact that in societies the relationships between individuals reflect a "purely mechanical construction" that only "exists in the minds" of the individuals43. Therefore, Tönnies recognizes that animals (that is, social animals) can (by a necessity of their nature) live in communities (albeit not in "rational" communities like humans). "Community in general", so says Tönnies, "exists among all organic beings", but "rational [...] Community [only] among human beings"44. Hence, the most salient difference between human social life and the animals is that it is only we that can live in societies. One remarkable consequence is in the kind of social norms that guide behavior. Natural lawyers thought that human law differs from natural law; but, as Tönnies remarked wisely, even Ulpian thought that natural law is an embodiment of arrangements "which are also found among animals"; only the arrangements of the 'common law' are peculiar to mankind45. Civil society is, hence, a human "invention". Then, the norms that guide human behavior in civil society reflect a kind of normative behavior that we cannot empirically find in the animal kingdom. Well, since animals also engage in political struggles, coalitions and power relations within their groups, colonies, or communities, the conclusion is that what marks human moral behavior from the animals' is the ubiquitous fact that human social behavior is normatively backed by positive norms, that is, legal or legal-like norms (including "common-laws", but certainly not mere "natural" laws).46 This explains why promises are the preferred institution !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 43 TÖNNIES, 2001, p.17. 44 TÖNNIES, 2001, p.38. 45 TÖNNIES, 2001, p.215. 46 Moral philosophers usually think that morality and law comprise different and separate systems. But today the majority of them think that both systems are "man- ! 147 studied by almost all genealogists of morality (Nietzsche is perhaps the main figure). Promises are legal-like conventional practices in fact, and are rooted in common law practices. Contracts seem to be special human social instruments, and in turn are fully juridical (contracts are legal practices, even within primitive societies-it would be weird to talk about "moral contracts"). It is, nevertheless, implausible that the capacity to make promises could be evolved independently of any legal or juridical-like social practices. Moreover, promises and contracts depend on an ability to take responsibility for one's future behavior. This obviously explains why animals cannot develop societies with legal systems, for this necessarily involves attributing responsibility to representatives and authorities (as Tönnies also recognized). This novelty seems to depend also on more complex symbolic linguistic devices. Is language a condition for the emergence of contracts and social institutions, or perhaps both capabilities developed at the same time? Several thinkers emphasize the importance of language in the separation of the human species from the natural kingdom. See Persson and Savulescu: "When human beings acquired language, they could use their familiarity-with the phenomenon of feeling gratitude when somebody has rendered them a favour-as a model for a certain kind of promise, namely a promise to offer to benefit somebody in return if they have been benefited"47. Language was (and is) certainly instrumentally important for the development of our distinct sense of justice. Communication made some natural virtues and vices apt to become artificially reinforced. See, for instance, the case of ingratitude. Hume famously said that ingratitude is the worst of vices, and gratitude strengthens the trust of benefactors. But perhaps this is only a part of the history. In fact, if someone simply does you a favor, the benefactor may be taken as !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! made"; and they are semantically very similar, since even "moral norms" are "legallike" norms. By "positive norms" I mean just norms that are "man-made" (DWORKIN, 2011, p.401), even though those norms can be made conventionally, that is, without any previous planning or "design". 47 2013, p.35. ! 148 deserving a good return, by reciprocity. This is primitive; animals also expect reciprocity, even without the convention of promises. What makes the convention of promises special is the fact that promises create rights. Hence, if you promised to do something for another's benefit then they have taken a right from you48; so, if before receiving a favor you in fact promise to pay for the benefit, the benefactor has taken a right from you and this strengthens your reasons to pay them49. Promises are instrumental devices by means of which human beings not only enhance reciprocity. Through this institution human morality has assumed a new form of normativity represented by the introduction of the new requirements of rights and positive duties in the sphere of human social life. But this new creation would never be raised if human beings were not endowed with some complex cerebral capacities. Hence, the capability to use "language games" like promising is not a consequence of the invention of language, for any cultural invention could arise given some appropriated neurological backgrounds. Comparative Neuroethics Assuming that the capacities that make us deal (cognitively and practically) with the conceptual domain of justice are functional brain capacities (of course, a substantive dualist would not be willing to assume that), animals are neurologically different from us, but which functional differences are we talking about? One of them is plausibly what Uta and Christopher Frith (2003) prefer to call "mentalizing" capacities, that is the capability others call "theory-ofmind" (ToM) or "mindreading", in broad terms the mental ability to attribute and explain others' behavior by their beliefs, desires, thoughts and feelings, so taking them as different mental states of one's own (Gallagher & Frith 2003). Or, in a rather "epistemological" version, ToM is one's cognitive ability to interpret and/or infer the mental states of other individuals based on evidences or previous beliefs of our own. This is actually the capability that the philosopher !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 48 THOMSON, 1990. 49 PERSSON & SAVULESCU 2012, p.36. ! 149 Daniel Dennett identified as attributed to the intentional states to others50. Robert Brandom called this capability "stance stance"51. In spite of some studies reporting an incipient (but not very robust) theory of mind in the chimpanzee and other great apes52, only human beings seem to be capable of developing the full ability to attribute mental states to other individuals with the "far-reaching consequences for social insight"53. Uta and Christopher Frith also ask if potentially innate components, like preference for conspecifics, predisposition to detect agency (associated with mirror neurons) and predisposition to understand actions, contribute to the development of mentalizing. They tentatively answer that they might be necessary prerequisites; "[h]owever", they conclude, "by themselves they are not sufficient for the development of mentalizing". This follows if we assume that the full ability of mentalizing is not observed in animals. In this case, the preference for conspecifics, the ability to detect agency and even the ability to understand actions are necessary but not sufficient to mentalizing simply because we are assuming that those abilities are in fact "shared with a great many other species"54. But this is not convincing (and even perhaps an invalid reasoning); after all, do we have evidence that mentalizing needs to develop more than those abilities, even in an animal mind? A popular view in comparative neuroscience is that since primates exhibit mirror self-recognition (MSR) they also possess self-awareness, which in turn makes it possible for them to infer mental states in others, that is to develop mentalizing abilities. But, as was convincingly remarked recently by Morin, MSR does not !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 50 DENNETT, 1981. 51 BRANDOM, 1994. 52 CHENEY & SEYFARTH, 1990. 53 FRITH & FRITH, 2003, p.459. It is plausible that deficient ToM or mentalizing abilities contribute to the development of psychopathologies, like schizophrenia (BRÜNE 2005; SANVICENTE-VIEIRA, BRIETZKE & GRASSI-OLIVEIRA, 2012). 54 FRITH & FRITH, 2003, p.463. ! 150 imply genuine self-awareness. Moreover, mentalizing and selfawareness are relatively independent and thus should not be taken as equivalent concepts55. It is very plausible that inner speech is necessary for genuine self-awareness, and we do not have any evidence that animals have this special linguistic ability. Morin argues that self-face recognition (that is MSR) most likely involves a kinaesthetic, as opposed to a genuine mental form of self-knowledge. It is very plausible that self-awareness and mentalizing are linked, but this does not imply that they can be equated. On the contrary, it is more likely that they are relatively independent. This is more plausible for it is compatible with what we descriptively know about the emergence of mentalizing in children. For example, there is a time gap between the emergence of MSR (between 18 and 24 months in children) and the effective establishment of mentalizing skills (at around 6). So, Morin asks, if introspection naturally leads to ToM, how could self-aware individuals navigate their social world for 4 years or more without spontaneously thinking about others' mental states56? The conclusion, hence, is that MSR, self-awareness and mentalizing are different mental abilities, and plausibly express different, albeit interrelated, mental functions. Therefore, mentalizing is different from MSR and also from selfawareness. This is related to the observations that full mentalizing is related to the full development of another important mental ability, that is empathy. Empathy, however, is not an ability (or a mental process) that occurs only in humans; it is plausible that the empathetic mechanisms qualitatively change in the course of the psychological development of individuals (or species) capable to mentalize, contributing decisively to the creation of more complex forms of mental behavior. In this connection, mentalizing seems to be evolutionarily decisive. Nevertheless, some forms of empathy related to the evolution of mentalizing are also forms of empathy that infants and animals can manifest similarly. I suppose, for example, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 55 MORIN, 2011. 56 MORIN, 2011, p.373. ! 151 that what Hoffman calls egocentric empathic distress57 can also be manifested by social and domestic animals (but I don't know any empirical studies employing Hoffman concepts regarding other species). Notwithstanding de Waal's correct conclusion that animals are truly concerned with others58, Hoffman's veridical empathic distress seems to be fully manifested only by beings capable of mentalizing, so it is likely that mature forms of empathy are restricted to the human species. Primatologists like de Waal do not seem to agree in the existence of a peculiar form of empathy restricted to human species. De Waal's conception of empathy is complex. He mentions three different levels, but thinks that none of them are observed in humans only. The three levels of empathy are: (1) Emotional Contagion (EC); (2) Sympathetic Concern (SC); and (3) Perspective Taking (PT). According to de Waal, monkeys and apes display the first two levels at least. There is doubt about the third. EC is the process by which an emotion immediately arises in one individual through the mere observation of what happens emotionally with another. Hoffman suggested that newborns manifest a very primitive form of EC in nurseries59. When a newborn starts to cry the others begin to cry too. This phenomenon was not actually systematically studied; it is rather a folk belief of nurses and pediatricians, based on uncontrolled empirical observations. However, it is without doubt that humans and animals are subject to emotional contagion, and this is well documented in animals. De Wall cites a famous experiment showing that rats manifest an (albeit fugacious) distress after immediately seeing other rats in pain-they even stop playing if their activity causes pain to another rat (Church 1959). A similar behavior was observed in pigeons (Watanabe & Ono 1986). !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 57 HOFFMAN, 2001, p.6. 58 DE WAAL, 2008, p.283-4. 59 HOFFMAN, 2001. ! 152 Nevertheless, EC is only a reactive response in one's mind to distress observed in others. One individual (animal or human) can display EC without being concerned with the other, and one can feel oneself personally distressed for the other's distress without being concerned with their welfare. Being concerned with other's welfare involves more than mere EC; genuine concern involves sympathy, an affective response of sorrow or concern for a distressed or needy other60. Agreeing with Nancy Eisenberg's approach, De Waal calls this second attitude sympathetic concern (SC). Sympathy according to Eisenberg involves compassion, which presupposes an altruistic motivation to help or comfort the other. A third evolutionary step is represented by the attitude of perspective-taking (PT). "Psychologists", says de Waal (one of them is probably Nancy Eisenberg), "usually speak of empathy only when it involves perspective-taking". That form of sensitivity to others with an explicit other orientation requires a shift in perspective. This is what happens in the empathetic perspective-taking form of PT. As de Waal correctly remarks, mere PT is a cognitive affair, so there is a big difference between the mental states of simply imagining the other's perspective and their empathetic correlate, which involves emotional engagement. It is plainly possible that individuals that lack empathy can imagine themselves seeing or perceiving through another's senses or perceptual position-consider the case of autism and sociopaths. Moreover, it is plainly possible to assume another's perspective without sharing their sentiments and emotions (sometimes it is even necessary to not be influenced by another's emotions to take their perspective of the circumstances in an unbiased manner). So the state of perspective-taking that interests us here is that de Waal calls "empathetic perspective-taking" (EPT). In EPT, the emotional state must be induced in oneself through the emotionally influenced contemplation of another's situation. But what kind of "situation"? If the situation were only her suffering, EPT would not itself be different from mere sympathetic concern. So !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 60 EISENBERG et al. 1989; 2000. ! 153 it seems that in EPT the individual that contemplates must be capable of perceiving or perhaps even concluding (inferentially or not) that the other needs something. This is not, hence, the mere reflective perception of suffering (which as such seems to depend only on emotional contagion or even a kind of sympathetic concern). The state of mind in the perceiver must be aroused by a complex ability of not only standing imaginatively in another's shoes, but also in the mental act of recognizing that the other individual is in a particular state of need. De Waal mentions that current consensus "seems to be" that apes, "but probably not monkeys", show "some level" of perspectivetaking61. The evidence seems to suggest, says De Waal, that MSR and PT are combined capabilities, as they appear concomitantly in ape development and phylogeny. But, as Morin remarked (see above), MSR is not the same as ToM or mentalizing; both seem to be related, but are in fact independent mental capabilities62. If mature forms of perspective-taking involve mentalizing, professor Darwall is right in saying that animal "sympathy" is qualitatively different from the kind of empathy Adam Smith described, that is the human emotional reaction triggered by the imaginative act of putting oneself in another's shoes63. Animals are capable of emotional contagion, and they can also react not only to another's suffering (though with different related-species engaged forms of empathetic concern), but also to others' feelings (so they can be animated by others' highs and joys); but what we mainly observe is that primitive forms of empathy (in the form of EC or SC) display only immediate reactions in animals (and even in apes) without much ulterior consequence for their future behavior. Animals do not intentionally change their behavior in response to other's necessities and demands, so they are incapable of making commitments, and this can be very well explained through their !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 61 DE WAAL 2008, p.285. 62 MORIN, 2011. 63 DARWALL, 2006. ! 154 incapacity to empathize with another person's feelings and emotions beyond the immediate situation. Therefore, if human empathy is psychologically related to the development of an ability to form a more complex theory of other's minds than animals could, then we would expect that human beings would be capable of developing a qualitatively different attitude to other subjects. Professor Stephen Darwall calls it the secondpersonal attitude, and this is explored below. Rights, Duties and the Evolution of Human Moral Uniqueness It seems almost obvious that contracts, rights and duties, and surrogate representations depend on a capability for taking secondpersonal standpoints. This is absent in the evolutionary dynamic naturalistic approaches of Binmore and Skyrms64. However, the empathetic capability to assume a second-personal standpoint is not an ability we can reduce to mentalizing. Human mentalizing is a cognitive capability. The capability characterized by the secondpersonal standpoint is a moral capability, and so it depends heavily on our emotions. Darwall points out that the concept of the second-personal stance has origins in Adam Smith's approach on empathy in his Theory of Moral Sentiments [1759]. He claims that Smith went substantively beyond David Hume's approach. Hume presented a problem that he did not solve properly. The problem is that what makes justice artificial in Hume's view is that there is no natural motive (including self-interest besides sympathetic benevolence) that commends fidelity to promises or respect to another's property. If moral obligation rests on sentiment and not on reason, but if sentiment takes motives as its object and acts are only signs of them, then what motivates the agent to justice65? Vicarious moral disapprobation of injustice cannot also be explained (at least not solely) by self- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 64 BINMORE, 1989, 2005, 2007; SKYRMS 2003. 65 DARWALL, 2006, p.188. ! 155 interested reasons. Even Hume's response to the problem of the sensible knave cannot explain why we feel and react against injustice to others (Hume's response is rather Socratic, that is, that the knave misses the invaluable satisfaction of a life of integrity, and that this involves a "peaceful reflection on one's own conduct", that is, the value of an examined life). Hume seems to present a view by means of which a life of justice can coincide with self-interest, the internal feeling of self-satisfaction. Darwall replies saying: "[I]f that is so, the motive of justice of which moral sentiment approves cannot itself be self-interest, since, without the gap being closed already by moral approbation, self-interest does not invariably recommend justice"66. This supports the interpretation that sympathy for Hume is characterized mainly by "third-personal responses", emotional responses evinced by emotional contagion (like those we have when we feel distress or joy simply as bystanders) or sympathetic concern only. This, claims Darwall, is different from what figures in Smith's approach to justice, where reactive emotions and attitudes like resentment and indignation take place. These reactions are secondpersonal in character, directed to a subject taken as duty-bearer. If this subject is the own agent, one emotional reaction can be selfblame; if the subject is another, the paradigmatic reaction is indignation67. Darwall calls the second-personal standpoint the "perspective you and I take up when we make and acknowledge claims on one another's conduct and will"68. This helps to explain the human type of authority recognition. Darwall contends that second-personal reasons addressed to others presuppose a relevant authority relative to the addressee (Idem, 4). This means that a right-holder should also be taken as an individual in a position of "authority" over her respective duty-bearer. This is a new approach to the subject of rights recognition, and it is a better explanation than the traditional versions backed by old and new command theories. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 66 DARWALL, 2006, p.189. 67 STRAWSON, [1962] 1974; DARWALL, 2006, p.189-190. 68 DARWALL, 2006, p.3. ! 156 Rights-recognition depends on a mature form of empathy. This notable difference between full-blown empathy and the other more primitive forms also helps to explain why resentment is so peculiarly linked to human morality69. This is because the "internal-sanction" (that is, resentment) is a product of the internalization of another's claim. In Smith's view, injustice can be judged only by projecting ourselves into the affected parties' points of view impartially. Injustice committed to others requires resentment precisely because it is possible for the author to take this perspective70 - of course, psychopathy, autism and individuals with borderline personality disorders are exceptions71. This phenomenon also helps to explain some traits of human moral psychology, like the so-called "moral-conventional distinction". Humans become capable of different emotionally reactions in the face of norms that are conventional (that is, whose meanings are defined by the system in which they are embedded) and norms that stem from concepts of welfare, justice and rights and are taken as obligatory in an unconditional sense72. Resentment is a moral feeling usually exhibited in the face of personal transgressions of non-conventional norms. Indignation is also a vicarious reaction we feel and manifest only if harm or disrespect were caused to persons; the mere act of breaking a conventional rule is not sufficient to cause it. Well, this can be explained by the second-personal standpoint approach. Conventions matter morally only if they are second-personally related. Arbitrary conventions are followed only by first-personal reasons. They should be useful to the agent in some way. Justice, nevertheless, cannot be arbitrarily grounded. In Smith's account, says Darwall, the "individual-patient regarding character of justice leads Smith to oppose utilitarian tradeoffs and to hold that resistance to injustice is warranted not by considerations of overall utility but by concern for the 'very individual' who would be !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 69 DARWALL, 2006, p.178. 70 DARWALL, 2006, p.179. 71 BARON-COHEN 2011. 72 TURIEL, KILLEN & HELWIG, 1987, p.169. ! 157 injured"73. In this approach, deontology becomes psychologically non-mysterious and naturalistically plausible. Through this approach, we can also explain the apparent paradox that some animals can exhibit a sense of fairness without being capable of developing the politics we associate with the emergence of civil society. The sense of fairness is not equivalent to the sense of justice, and only the latter involves a full ability to assume a second-personal standpoint. It is also plausible that rights are PPRs. Rights are descriptivedirective representations. When a person grasps another's claim-right against them, the person (if they grasped it appropriately) immediately recognizes a correlated duty and a deontic reason to act. Respect and rights recognition are intentions with a cognitive and emotional content; rights are signs embedded in statements that present facts and direct activities appropriate to those facts in an undifferentiated manner. Therefore, the second-personal attitudes inherent to acts of respect are intentional stances displayed not by reasoning processes (as an empirical fact, the attitude of rightsrespecting is not inferred from facts plus normative premises, as is usually thought by moral philosophers), but those forms of intentionality depend on capacities distinct from those that permit animals to exhibit reactions of anger in front of unequal treatments. Recognition of unfairness does not necessarily involve recognition of a claim-right, neither moral nor legal. This approach of the two distinct moral attitudes of fairness and justice is also compatible with Ferdinand Tönnies' remarks that distributive justice is not what distinguishes human societies from the human primitive and even from the animal communal arrangements74. It is commutative justice that is the mark of civil societies, and commutative justice is not possible without positive justice. Distributive justice is primitively related to a sense of fairness, so it is not, hence, exclusive of civil social arrangements. It is not at all impossible that animals could exhibit reactions against !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 73 SMITH, 1982, p.90; p.138. 74 TÖNNIES, 2001, p.196. ! 158 unfair treatments, as de Waal's experiments with monkeys have in fact shown us. Finally, it should be remarked that what differentiates human moral history from the animals is not the emergence of the capability to make moral judgments, at least not "judgment" in a broad sense. Animals have moral behavior and it is plausible that they can make judgments, perhaps moral judgments (albeit not linguistically articulated); but animals do not have the concept of duty, specially the right-based one. Therefore, I conclude that the moral human uniqueness is, or purports to be, distinctively rights-based. Human distinct morality is underpinned by empathetic (second-personal) attitudes capable of sedimenting social practices grounded on the recognition and respect for rights. References: BAIER, Annette C. A progress of sentiments. Reflections on Hume's Treatise. Harvard University Press, 1991. ______. Postures of the mind. Essays on Mind and Morals. University of Minnesota Press, 1985. BARON-COHEN, Simon. Zero Degrees of Empathy. A new theory of human cruelty. Penguin Books, 2011.. BINMORE, Ken. Natural Justice. Oxford University Press, 2005. ______. "Social Contract I: Harsanyi and Rawls". In: The Economic Journal, Supplement: Conference Papers 99 (395), 1989, p. 84-102. BRANDOM, Robert. Making it Explicit. Harvard University Press, 1994. BROSNAN, Sarah F. & DE WAAL, Frans B. M. "Monkeys reject unequal pay". In: Nature, n.425, 2003, p.297-299. ! 159 BRUÜNE, M. "'Theory of mind in schizophrenia: a review of the literature". In: Schizophrenia Bulletin, n.31, 2005, p.21-42. CHENEY, D. L. & SEYFARTH, R. M. How Monkeys See the World: Inside the mind of another species. University of Chicago Press, 1990. CHURCH, F. "Emotional reactions of rats to the pain of others". In: Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, n.52, 1959, p.132-134. DARWALL, Stephen. The Second-Personal Standpoint. Harvard University Press, 2006. DE WAAL, Frans B. M. (Ed). Tree of Origin. What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us about Human Social Evolution. Harvard University Press, 2001. ______. Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes. Harper & Row, 1982. ______. Good Natured. The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals. Harvard University Press, 1997. ______."Putting the Altruism Back into Altruism: The Evolution of Empathy". In: Annual Review of Psychology, n.59, 2008, p.279-300. DENNETT, Daniel C. Brainstorms. Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology. Bradford Books, 1981. EISENBERG, Nancy; FABES, Richard A.; MILLER, Paul A.; FULTZ, Jim; SHELL, Rita; MATHY, Robin M.; RENO, Ray R. "Relation of sympathy and personal distress to prosocial behavior: A multimethod study". In: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, n.57, (1), 1989, p.55-66. ! 160 EISENBERG, Nancy. "Empathy and sympathy." In: Lewis, Michael & Haviland-Jones, Jeannette M. (Eds). Handbook of Emotions. Second Edition. New York: Guilford, p.677–91, 2000. GALLAGHER, Helen L. & FRITH, Christopher D. "Functional imaging of theory of mind". In: Trends in Cognitive Science 7 (2), 2003, p.77-83. GAUTHIER, David. The Logic of Leviathan. The moral and political theory of Thomas Hobbes. Oxford University Press, 1969. ______. Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986. GREENE, Joshua; Sommerville, B.; NYSTROM, L.; Darley, J.; COHEN, J. "A fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment". In: Science, n.293, 2001, p.2105-2108. GREENE, Joshua. The Secret Joke of Kant's Soul. 2008. Available at: <http://www.wjh.harvard. edu/~jgreene/GreeneWJH/GreeneKantSoul.pdf>. Accessed on: 10/09/2013. HART, H. L. A. The Concept of Law. Second Edition. Oxford University Press, Clarendon Law Series, 1994. HOFFMAN, Martin L. Empathy and Moral Development: Implications for Caring and Justice. Cambridge University Press, 2001. HUME, David. A Treatise of Human Nature [1739-40]. L. A. SelbyBigge Edition. Oxford University Press, 1896. MELTZOFF, N.; MOORE, K. "Newborn Infants Imitate Adult Facial Gestures". In: Child Development, n.54, 1983, p.702-7. NAHRA, Cinara. "Our deontological-utilitarian (deontoutilitarian) minds". In: Filosofia Unisinos 14 (2), 2013, p.139-151. PERSSON, Ingmar & SAVULESCU, Julian. Unfit for the Future. ! 161 Oxford University Press, 2012. POSTEMA, Gerald. "Morality in the first person plural." Law and Philosophy 14, 1995, p.35-64. ______. "Law as command: the modern of command in modern jurisprudence". In: Noûs 35 (Supplement: Philosophical Issues 11, Social, Political and Legal Philosophy), 2001, p.470-501. ______. "Whence avidity? Hume's Phychology and the origins of justice". In: Synthese, n.152, 2006, p.371-391. PRINZ, Wofgang. "Modes of linkage between perception and action." In: Prinz, W. & Sanders, A. F. (Eds.). Cognition and motor processes. Berlin: Springer, p.185-193, 1984. RAWLS, John. A Theory of Justice-Revised Edition. The Belknap Press of Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1979. ______. Justice as Fairness: a Restatement. The Belknap Press of Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2001. RAZ, Joseph. The Morality of Freedom. Oxford University Press, 1988. SANVICENTE-VIEIRA, Breno; BRIETZKE, Elisa & GRASSIOLIVEIRA, Rodrigo. "Translation and adaptation of Theory of Mind tasks into Brazilian Portuguese". In: Trends in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, n.34 (4), 2012, p.178-185. SKYRMS, Brian. The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure. Cambridge University Press, 2003. SMITH, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments [1759]. Raphael, D.D. & Macfie, A.L. (Eds). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982. ! 162 STRAWSON, Peter. "Freedom and resentment" [1962]. In: Strawson, Peter. Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays. London & New York: Routledge, 1974. THOMSON, Judith Jarvis. The Realm of Rights. Harvard University Press, 1990. TURIEL, E; KILLEN, M. & HELWIG, C. "Morality: Its structure, functions, and vagaries". In: Kagan, J. and Lamb, S. (Eds). The Emergence of Morality in Young Children. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987, p.155–244. UTA and FRITH, Christopher. "Development and neurophysiology of mentalizing". In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society n.358, 2003, p.459–473. WATANABE, S; ONO K. "An experimental analysis of 'empathic' response: effects of pain reactions of pigeon upon other pigeon's operant behavior". In:Behavioral Proceedings n.13, 1986, p.269–77. ! 163 Recasting Naturalism and Normativity: social constructionism, reflective equilibrium and normative reconstruction∗ Nythamar de Oliveira In this paper, which reflects an ongoing interdisciplinary research in Cognitive and Social Sciences, I recast the normative claims of a political constructivism (Rawls) and of a formal, pragmatic reconstruction (Habermas) as instances of a weak social constructionism, so as to investigate how social, evolutionary processes, in both semantic and normative terms (Brandom), may be said to pursue universalizable, valid normative claims that could be justified from an externalist standpoint, generated through reflective equilibrium without reductionism. 1. In an ongoing research, I have tried to investigate in what sense social, political constructivism (Rawls) and formal, pragmatic reconstruction (Habermas) may be taken as defensible instances of a weak or mitigated methodological social constructionism to the extent that both preserves the idea of objectivity and that is articulated in terms of cognitive moral normativity. By exploring the Rawlsian idea of "reflective equilibrium" and Habermas's program of "normative reconstruction", I have been arguing for naturalism !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ∗ I should like to thank Juliano do Carmo for his generous invitation to take part in the First Workshop Understanding Naturalism, at the Federal University of Pelotas, in April 2013. ! 164 and cultural relativism without giving up on a conception of normativity, albeit not absolutist, with the help of new interfaces that can encompass the differences between mitigated conceptions of naturalism and normative, empirical takes on culture1. In the final analysis, the problem of striking a balance between mitigated conceptions of naturalism, normativity, and social constructionism helps to consolidate a sustainable view of neuroethics that refers back to the practical-theoretical articulation of ontology, language, and subjectivity. From a strictly ontological perspective, nature has to do with all real things that exist, inorganic, organic, and living beings that can be investigated by –to employ Husserl's terminology- "regional ontologies" such as physics, chemistry, biology and natural sciences overall –given the parts-whole problems in formal ontology and logic2. Thus, natural ontology deals with real, natural beings, what things are and how they come into being, become, evolve and cease to be. Hence, ontology deals grosso modo with being and beings as they exist, necessarily, possibly or contingently, very much as traditionally and broadly conceived, as the study of what there is. In analytic philosophy, the ontological dimension has been aptly evoked to call into question essentialist, culturalist, and historicist definitions of nature and naturalism, as "methodological (or scientific) naturalism" assumes that hypotheses are to be explained and tested only by reference to natural causes and events. Thus Willard Quine's "naturalized epistemology" and metaphysical naturalism (or ontological naturalism) refer us back to the question "what does exist and what does not exist?" as the very existence of things, facts, properties, and beings is what ultimately determines the nature of things. In the continental camp, Quentin Meillassoux (2006) has articulated a radical critique of correlationism, which has dominated post-Kantian antirealism from German idealism through phenomenological and hermeneutical interpretations of reality and nature (esp. Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, Derrida), as well as in !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 OLIVEIRA, 2011; 2012c, 2013. 2 SMITH, 1982. ! 165 contemporary analytical critics of realism (esp. Putnam, Davidson, Blackburn). Accordingly, correlationism holds that one cannot know reality as it is objectively or in itself, but only insofar as it is posited for a (transcendental) subject, pro nobis ("for us," as in the Lutheran formulation), as a correlate of consciousness, thought, representation, language, culture or any conceptual scheme. To be sure, Meillassoux's critique of antirealism fails to account for causation, chance, and necessity in natural phenomena, as his mathematicalontological presuppositions remain in need of justification, although claiming to wholly abandon the principle of sufficient reason. In other words, it is not enough to assume that things are just like mathematical objects are accounted for (say, in set theory), without relapsing into some form of correlational circle. In effect, it seems that both language (as it was assumed in the very beginnings of analytic philosophy) and subjectivity (as it has been the case with continental philosophy since Kant) remain bound up with any tentative account of ontology. To my mind, this is precisely what makes the Husserlian semantic correlation (Bedeutungskorrelation), in light of Husserl's intuitive noematic-noetic differentiation between Gegenstand and Objekt, so important for a better grasp of the conception of Lebenswelt, avoiding thus a post-Hegelian historicized correlation of alterity (being-other) and objectification (being its other) of Geist vis-à-vis Natur or the natural becoming of beings overall. As I have tried to show elsewhere, both Habermas and Honneth sought to go beyond the noetic-noematic correlation inherent in Heidegger's takes on reification and formal indication, precisely to rescue the normative grounds of sociality that were missing in the latter3. I sought then to explore such a semantic correlation in social and political philosophy, as social, political ontology inevitably refers back to subjectivity (moral or social agency, hence intersubjectivity) and language (articulation of meaning, social grammar, language games, shared beliefs and practices). Following Foucault, Apel, and Habermas, three paradigm shifts of ontology, subjectivity, and language (e.g. in natural law, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 OLIVEIRA, 2012a, 2012b. ! 166 positive rights, and legal hermeneutics, respectively), can be shown to be co-constitutive and interdependent, insofar as they account for the problem of the social reproduction of the modern, rationalized lifeworld through the differentiated models of a sociological descriptive phenomenology, of a hermeneutics of subjectivation, and of a formal-pragmatic discourse theory. Just as a Kantianinspired "transcendental semantics" accounts for the articulation of meaning ("Sinn und Bedeutung," in Kant's own terms) in the sensification (Versinnlichung) of concepts and ideas as they either refer us back to intuitions in their givenness (Gegebenheit) of sense or are said to be "realizable" (realisierbar) as an objective reality (since ideas and ideals refer, of course, to no sensible intuition), a formal-pragmatic correlation recasts, by analogy, the phenomenological-hermeneutical signifying correlation (Bedeutungskorrelation) between ontology, subjectivity, and language without presupposing any transcendental signified, ontological dualism (Zweiweltenthese), or fundamental relationship between subject and object, theory and praxis. And yet the very irreducibility of the hermeneutic circle, together with the incompleteness of its reductions inherent in such a systemiclifeworldly correlation, seems to betray a quasi-transcendental, perspectival network of signfiers and language games. Habermas's wager is that his reconstructive communicative paradigm succeeds in overcoming the transcendental-empirical aporias and avoids the pitfalls of a naturalist objectivism and a normativist subjectivism through a "linguistically generated intersubjectivity"4. It would be certainly misleading and awkward to oppose "ontology" to "language" and "subjectivity" as if these were "regional" ontologies or mere subfields of the former. Both Husserlian and Quinean models face meta-ontological problems that remain as unaccounted for as their ontological commitments and axiomatic presuppositions5. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 HABERMAS, 1987, p.297. 5 HOFWEBER, 2013. ! 167 2. Since August 2012, I have been committed to pursuing interdisciplinary research in the philosophy of neuroscience, neuroethics, and social neurophilosophy, especially focusing on the relation between naturalism and normativity, so as to avoid the reduction of either to the other, by stressing the inevitability of bringing in the two other poles of the semantic correlation whenever dealing with ontology, language, and subjectivity. As Prinz's takes on transformation naturalism and concept empiricism allow for an interesting rapprochement between social epistemology and critical theory, his critical views of both naturism (i.e., reducing the naturenurture pickle to the former's standpoint) and nurturism (conversely reducing it to the latter) not only successfully avoid the extremes and reductionisms of (cognitivist) rationalism and (noncognitivist) culturalism –such as logical positivism and postmodernism-, but turns out to offer a better, more defensible account of social epistemic features and social pathologies than most social epistemologists (Goldman et al.) and critical theorists (Habermas, Honneth et al.) have achieved thus far6. After all, one cannot speak of naturalist normativity or normative naturalism without a certain embarrassment. And yet, as over against traditional conceptions that regard naturalism as merely descriptive, as opposed to prescriptive accounts of normativity, it has become more and more common nowadays to challenge such a clear-cut division of labor, as naturalists like Millikan (1989) assign normative force to the biological concept of function and normativists like Korsgaard tend to assume that human psychology is naturally normative: "whatever confers a normative status on our actions – whatever makes them right or wrong – must also be what motivates us to do or avoid them accordingly, without any intervening mechanism"7. To be sure, both views could be regarded as simply recasting the externalistinternalist debate over the problems of teleology, intentionality, motivation and carrying out an action supposed to be moral. Still, inflationary and deflationary views of both naturalism and !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 6 PRINZ, 2012, p.840-842. 7 KORSGAARD, 2010, p.16. ! 168 normativity are to be contrasted with stricter, conservative views, such as the ones espoused by Derek Parfit's non-naturalist cognitivism and correlated irreducibly normative truths: "Words, concepts, and claims may be either normative or naturalistic. Some fact is natural if such facts are investigated by people who are working in the natural or social sciences. According to Analytical Naturalists, all normative claims can be restated in naturalistic terms, and such claims, when they are true, state natural facts. According to Non-Analytical Naturalists, though some claims are irreducibly normative, such claims, when they are true, state natural facts. According to Non-Naturalist Cognitivists, such claims state irreducibly normative facts"8. Having been deeply influenced by Davidson's anomalous monism, as Hornsby was, other critics of naturalism and of Quine's Naturalized Epistemology program have argued that one cannot conceive of belief without some appeal to normative epistemic notions such as justification or rationality, assuming that all beliefs are susceptible to being rationally assessed or, in Kantian terms, to being reflexively judged (beurteilen). The upshot of this account is that mental events are not identical to physical events precisely because they are instantiations of mental properties, but are realized by them. Jaeguon Kim (2004) goes as far as to argue that "the concept of belief is an essentially normative one" so as to inflate normative claims in beliefs and especially within a certain conception of epistemic normativity. We can realize that classical epistemology has come under attack on two fronts, namely, in naturalist criticisms raised against a priori assumptions and in normative claims that led to the emergence of social epistemology, as the collective dimension of cognitive processes and interpersonal relations -already anticipated by Habermas's discourse ethics- could provide conditions for normative justification within a given community or social lifeworld, so as to accommodate naturalist inputs for social evolution. Furthermore, Habermas's theoretical and practical approaches to normativity and objectivity are subtly combined within a research program of Kantian pragmatism that !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8 PARFIT, 2011, p.10. ! 169 remains somehow susceptible to dualist interpretations. All in all, Habermas's weak naturalism holds that nature and culture are continuous with one another, hence an upshot of his conception of social evolution is that societies evolve to a higher level only when learning occurs with respect to their normative structures. According to Habermas, "in questions of epistemic validity the consensus of a given linguistic community does not have the last word. As far as the truth of statements is concerned, every individual has to clarify the matter for himself in the knowledge that everyone can make mistakes"9. Accordingly, epistemic agreement or disagreement among peers does not solve the problem as in traditional, correspondence theories of truth: in Quinean terms, all beliefs and intuitions can be constantly revised in light of empirical findings, evidence, and observation. As opposed to scientist, positivist dogmas, mitigated versions of naturalism meet halfway –to paraphrase Habermas- with mitigated conceptions of normativity in weak social constructivism, insofar as social evolutionary processes are guided by normative claims, in both reflexive and social terms, with a view to realizing universalizable, valid claims that are justified from the normative standpoint precisely because they are fit for the survival and preservation of the species. I have thus proposed that Habermas's pragmatism could embrace Prinz's transformation naturalism ("a view about how we change our views") and its cultural relativism without adopting moral relativism as long as the universalist, moral premises of its formal pragmatics are ultimately understood as part of ethical learning processes. Habermas (and Honneth, for that matter) never ceased to stress a certain commitment to moral realism, but the pragmatist turn adopted by discourse ethics and critical theory (as well as in Honneth's theory of recognition) embrace a mitigated version inherent in their normative, reconstructive approaches to history, materialism, and human social psychology. We can then make a case for a neuroscientific and neurophilosophical research program that revisits Quinean naturalism, just like Churchland and Putnam did, and goes further in !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 9 HABERMAS, 2003, p.142. ! 170 a mitigated version like the ones independently espoused by Searle, Damasio, and Prinz, as they respond to the phenomenological, normative challenges (esp. when dealing with intentionality and consciousness in social life) that avoids trivial conceptions of normativity. Indeed, a programmatic definition of naturalism might trivialize the sense of normativity, as in Jennifer Hornsby's (1997) conception of Naive Naturalism, according to which in order to avoid both physicalist and Cartesian claims about the mind-body problem, we ought to return to common sense and folk psychology as they implicitly endorse normative and first-personish beliefs. The semantic-ontological correlation comes thus full circle vis à vis its networking with language and subjectivity. As Prinz felicitously put it in his neoempiricist, reconstructive theory of emotions: "Moral psychology entails facts about moral ontology, and a sentimental psychology can entail a subjectivist ontology"10. 3. Human beings have evolved throughout the times within the complex evolutionary, biological processes that took place on this planet. Social evolution and whichever pertaining moral "progress" are to be understood within psychology and biology, so that their specifically cultural, historical underpinnings should not dissociate intersubjective, subjective and linguistic traits from their ontological milieux. It seems that normativity itself must follow this same kind of correlational rationale, as ethical-moral normativity ultimately fails to be taken for the most fundamental among other forms of normativity –legal, linguistic-semantic, economic, epistemic etc. Unless one assumes from the outset that ethical-moral normativity is prescriptive in a way that radically differs from "weaker" forms of normativity which can be somewhat reduced to descriptive or constative statements. As Prinz put it in Kantian-like terms, "morality is a normative domain. It concerns how the world ought to be, not how it is. The investigation of morality seems to require a methodology that differs from the methods used in the sciences. At least, that seems to be the case if the investigator has normative !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10 PRINZ, 2004, p.8. ! 171 ambitions. If the investigator wants to proscribe, it is not enough to describe"11. And Prinz goes on to propose that "descriptive truths about morality bear on the prescriptive," so that "normative ethics can be approached as a social science" and can also –at least to a certain extent- be "fruitfully pursued empirically"12. This means that moral norms are also social norms, and these emerge out of neurobiological configurations which do not allow for oversimplifying reductionisms. Hence, when a social scientist observes the behavior of, say, Brazilian drivers failing to stop at a STOP sign, she may speculate about different "reasons" why most drivers simply ignore that traffic sign (the intersection is quite slow, there is no cop around, it seems ok to simply slow down and keep going, there is a risk of getting mugged, nobody stops here anyway) –but all forms of rationalization and self-deceptive conditioning fall short of accounting for the legal, moral normativity implicit in the normative expectation that all drivers ought to stop at STOP signs. At any rate, conjectures on reasons for behaving in such and such way are different from a normative account of the meaning of the sign itself, namely, what does "P-A-R-E" stand for? Answer: "Stop"! If drivers are supposed to stop (and they know what that sign stands for) why on earth most drivers in this country fail to stop at the STOP sign? To be sure, practical rationality is very tricky precisely because it cannot be merely reduced to a theory (to be put in practice), or at least there is no ethical theory that satisfactorily justifies how people ought to behave or act without taking into account that people actually might fail to do so. In this sense, philosophers have traditionally grouped together ethical-moral, legaljuridical, and social-political norms within the same sub-field of socalled practical rationality, as opposed to theoretical rationality and aesthetic rationality. Authors like Husserl and Habermas tried to conceive of normative grounds in different areas of inquiry or regional ontologies. Besides the trivial division of labor between the observation of actual, social behavior and its empirical !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 11 PRINZ, 2004, p.1. 12 PRINZ, 2004, 1f. ! 172 underpinnings, on the one hand, and the normative claims and expectations about some idealized, desirable behavior, on the other, we are faced with the Humean-inspired problem of justifying the relationship between the descriptive and prescriptive thrust of both camps. In post-Humean terms, saying that there is a normative expectation that water will boil at 100 ° C means for a naturalist that the laws of nature, in given circumstances, allow for such an expectation just like effects that are normally observed in a causalitystructured universe, in which the boiling point of H2O molecules happens to be 100 degrees Celsius or 212 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level etc. Many philosophers, following Popper's post-Humean approach to induction and Frege's concept-use and rules of logical reasoning, would stick to the classical nature-nurture opposition in order to distinguish empirical, natural laws from legal, moral or social norms regarded as conventions, as the latter could be challenged or broken without losing their normative status, while any violation or exception to the former results in a falsification of the law. And yet all these apparently clear-cut distinctions have come under attack in both philosophy of science and theories of normativity –unless of course one is content to start from axioms or presupposed assumptions, even by invoking such hypotheses for the sake of terminology. Now, prior to assuming, like Korsgaard and normativists do, that ethical-moral normativity (N1) is to be regarded as the paradigm of the philosophical problem of normativity par excellence, we may try experiencing with different accounts such as legal, economic, epistemic, and semantic. N2 : (Legal Normativity) Normativity comes down to what we are obligated to do, act or behave in given circumstances. We might think of legal normativity in the binding force and prescriptive dimension of everyday rule-following practices such as the example above of stopping at STOP signs or red lights, following traffic rules or handing a prescription to the pharmacist to buy medicine in a drugstore. Whatever is regarded as prescriptive is said to be normative in a regulative, law-like common sense of anything prescribed in regulatory environments of lifeworldly, everyday ! 173 practices (taking a medication and attending to traffic signs). This meaning of normative is also socially construed, hence its legal, institutional sense. Already in the beginning of the last century, as they set out to investigate what legitimizes and justifies one's ordinary practice of holding people responsible and its institutional implications in legal codifications, legal theorists such as Kelsen and Hart sought to avoid traditional contractualist and positivist dogmas by viewing Law as a set of procedural standards imposed by the State and governmental, administrative institutions, through rules, basic principles, and laws. According to Hart, Law can only be justified in the practical-normative terms that define the institutional arrangements themselves and the sources of obligations, duties, rights, privileges, and responsibilities of social relations in a constitutional State13. By rejecting the traditional conception of law as divine or as absolute commandment to legitimize coercion, Hart offered a sociological critique of traditional conceptions of legal normativity, such as they had been already advanced by Kelsen and Austin. Whether legal and political conceptions of legitimacy, sovereignty and authority come down to secularized theological concepts or not, legal normativity quite naturally exerts its prescriptive, social function of binding force that demands respect and obligation of applicable laws. Certainly, the problem of "normativism" (namely, that rules always refer us to other more basic norms) had been introduced by Kelsen much earlier as he made the intriguing remark that Law can be taken both in a descriptive sense (positive norms, for example, in different legal codifications of the constitution and legislation) and in a prescriptive sense, which ideally would inevitably take us back to a primordial, basic norm (Grundnorm), focusing solely on the formal aspect of rulefollowing14. N3: (Economic Normativity) Value judgments (normative judgments) can be particularly articulated in terms of economic !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 13 HART, 1994. 14 KELSEN, 2009. ! 174 fairness, what the economy ought to be like or what goals of public policy ought to be. As Amartya Sen pointed out, speaking of economic behavior and moral sentiments, "the impoverishment of welfare economics related to its distancing from ethics affects both welfare economics (narrowing its reach and relevance) and predictive economics (weakening its behavioral foundations)"15. Commenting on this text, Hilary Putnam –who shares in with Habermas that sameness of reference turns out to be a formal pragmatic presupposition of communication (Habermas sought, must be said en passant, to repair the misleading reception of a discursive or consensus theory of truth, but remains unconvinced about Putnam's critique of Kant's deontological view of normativity, as opposed to objectivity in the natural sciences) - remarks that judgments of reasonableness can be objective and they have all of the typical properties of value judgments so that "knowledge of facts presupposes knowledge of values"16. Putnam is ultimately seeking to blur the division of labor between naturalism and normativity by pointing to this tricky ambiguity in economic normativity, as economic values can be as descriptive as prescriptive. N4: (Epistemic Normativity) Epistemic normativity is "a status by having which a true belief constitutes knowledge." According to Sosa, epistemic normativity is "a kind of normative status that a belief attains independently of pragmatic concerns such as those of the athlete or hospital patient." Hence, we "must distinguish the normative status of knowledge as knowledge from the normative status that a bit of knowledge may have by being useful, or deeply explanatory, and so on"17. From epistemic normativity we may as well infer that epistemic logic, as it has been proposed by Alchourron and Bulygin, explores the possibility of a logic of norms, which is to be distinguished from the logic of normative propositions. Roughly, the distinction is that the former are prescriptive whereas the latter are descriptive. In the second sense, the sentence "it is obligatory to !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 15 SEN, 1998, p.28. 16 PUTNAM, 2002, p.134. 17 SOSA, 2010, p.27. ! 175 keep right on the streets" is a description of the fact that a certain normative system (say, of social norms) contains an obligation to keep right on the streets. In the first sense, this statement is the obligation of traffic law itself18. N5: (Linguistic Normativity) "Normative" in a linguistic, semantic sense pertains to the binding sense of patterns or standards of grammar (linguistics) or meaning (semantics and pragmatics), inevitably allowing for a structural opposition between what is (said, written, displayed in a sign) and what ought to be effectively inferred, understood, meant or constructed as an acceptable meaningful word, phrase, sentence or expression. Both Husserl and Quine provided us with some of the first insights into a theory of meaning intertwined with semantic, linguistic normativity. When dealing with "phonetic rules" in his seminal text against the logicalpositivists' normative epistemology, Quine inaugurated a naturalist program that does justice to what actually happens when we use words to refer to states of affairs. So when someone utters the word "red," there is a linguistic-semantic normativity that allows, in everyday practices of conversation and communication, a certain determination of the intended meaning, despite indeterminacies or variations of what is sensuously perceived, spoken and heard in terms of pronunciation, accent or sounds, regardless of analyticity and meaning19. Both Habermas and Robert Brandom conceive of inferences as social practices, as they embrace pragmatism as a third way between the empiricist, objectivist linguistic turn of analytic philosophy and the phenomenological, hermeneutic turn of continental philosophy. According to Habermas, "the most salient and striking difference between the hermeneutic and the analytic tradition" is that the latter does not engage in cultural critique vis à vis "looser and larger issues of a diagnostics of an era"20. In the opening paragraph of the third chapter, Habermas goes on to assert that "Brandom's Making It Explicit is a milestone in theoretical !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 18 ALCHOURRON and BULYGIN, 1981, p.179. 19 1960, p.85. 20 HABERMAS, 2007, p.79. ! 176 philosophy just as Rawls's A Theory of Justice was a milestone in practical philosophy in the early 1970s"21. To make a very long story short, Habermas and Brandom succeeded in renewing the theorypraxis problematic that was recast by Kant's semantic turn, and the contemporary analytic and continental approaches to the linguistic turn, especially by revisiting traditional understandings of practical normativity as giving reasons for acting. In Brandom's case, "inferring is to be distinguished as a certain kind of move in the game of giving and asking for reasons"22. Brandom's normative, inferentialist pragmatism is evoked here just to signal the holistic attempt to take seriously the late Wittgenstein's contention that the meaning of an expression is its use and furthermore this meaning is fixed by how it is used in inferences, in contrast with regulist, intellectualist rule-following23. As opposed to sentience –which we humans share with nonverbal animals-, our linguistic, sapience capacities allow us to reflexively master "proprieties of theoretical and practical inference" so as to "identify ourselves as rational" and ultimately effect a "complete and explicit interpretive equilibrium exhibited by a community whose members adopt the explicit discursive stance toward one another [as] social selfconsciousness"24. As the most important representative of Conceptual Role Semantics, Brandom is regarded, like Habermas, as a meaning normativist, as opposed to naturalists (like Block, Harman and Horwich), insofar as "norms do not merely follow from but are rather determinative of its meaning"25. Like Habermas's normative reconstructive appropriation of speech acts theories, Brandom's pragmatist inferentialism set out to reconstruct "the way implicit scorekeeping attitudes of attribution of performances and statuses [that] can be made explicit as ascriptions"26. As over against Platonism, Brandom defines pragmatism as the view that discursive !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 21 2007, p.131. 22 BRANDOM, 1994, p.157. 23 BRANDOM, 1994, p.15-23. 24 BRANDOM, 1994, p.643. 25 WHITING, 2009. 26 BRANDOM, 1994, p.543, p.643. ! 177 intentionality (sapience) is a species of practical intentionality: "that knowing-that (things are thus-and-so) is a kind of knowing-how (to do something)"27. According to Brandom, "One way of putting together a social normative pragmatics and an inferential semantics for discursive intentionality is to think of linguistic practices in terms of deontic scorekeeping. Normative statuses show up as social statuses"28. According to inferentialism, rule-following must adopt a normative attitude that transcends the individual, psychological or subjective mental states, in that it takes into account all social, institutional dimensions of her own language and community of speakers. This semantic-pragmatic meaning was appropriated by Brandom and Habermas, independently, in their respective conceptions of pragmatist inferentialism and formal pragmatics. I myself remain quite convinced that such semantic, pragmatic versions of a normative theory of meaning do address most of the problems raised by the different levels of normativity, especially when combined with an ontological correlate. Even as we go back to normativist claims such as the ones proposed by Korsgaard, as she revisits the later Wittgenstein, on a classic passage: 1. Meaning is a normative notion. 2. Hence, linguistic meaning presupposes correctness conditions. 3. The correctness conditions must be independent of a particular speaker's utterances. 4. Hence, correctness conditions must be established by the usage conventions of a community of speakers. 5. Hence, a private language is not possible29. With Korsgaard, we come full circle in our quest for normative justification, keeping in mind that most moral philosophers and normativists overall assume that ethical-moral normativity (N1) must be regarded as the paradigm of the philosophical problem of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 27 BRANDOM, 135f. 28 BRANDOM, 183f. 29 KORSGAARD, 1997, p.136-38. ! 178 normativity par excellence. On this view, "moral standards are normative. They do not merely describe a way in which we in fact regulate our conduct. They make claims on us: they command, oblige, recommend, or guide. Or at least, when we invoke them, we make claims on one another. When I say that an action is right I am saying that you ought to do it; when I say that something is good I am recommending it as worthy of your choice"30. Ethical-moral normativity (N1) and theological normativity (N0) have been, more often than not, formulated as complementary variants of absolute normativity or of some divine command theory, as if they claimed to provide the "ground zero" for all foundationalist theories. Classical and modern realist theories (esp. Platonic, Neo-Platonic, Thomist and some versions of Aristotelian and Kantian ethical theories) have indeed betrayed some form of theological realism, as attested by different versions of philosophical anthropology and philosophy of history. At the end of the day, however, these "Patterns of Normativity" show the aporetic situation of foundationalist theories of normativity that end up falling back into absolutist dogmas of normativity, such as those of religious principles established by the standpoint of God's eye view, preserving an aporetic stance as a selfdefeating hypothesis inevitably obtains: (N1 v N2 v N3 v N4 v N5) → N0 ~ N0 . Hence, ~ (N1 v N2 v N3 v N4 v N5) [modus tollens] It would be thus useless to seek to replace N0 with any of the imaginable candidates, say, to assume that ethical normativity or semantic-linguistic normativity is the most fundamental way of establishing the normative force of rationality. It seems equally aporetic to replace N0 with any idea of nature or any imaginable form of "natural" normativity. On the other hand, it seems plausible that, as Rawlsian reflective equilibrium and subsequent accounts of the biological, social evolution of game-theoretic equilibria and fairness norms have shown, an antifoundationalist, coherence theory of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 30 KORSGAARD, 1996, p.22. ! 179 normativity can be fairly combined with naturalized versions of ethics, law, language, epistemology, economics etc. By recasting a weak social constructionist correlate to a mitigated naturalism, it is reasonable to recognize that, although socially constructed, moral values, practices, devices and institutions such as family, money, society and government cannot be reduced to physical or natural properties but cannot function or make sense without them. 4. In conclusion, we may recall that moral decisions, broadly conceived, can be defined as those to be sorted by rational agents, that is, according to the most reasonable criteria for such persons, under certain conditions (to be more useful, more efficient, leading to the best way of life or simply out of duty as some kind of categorical imperative). Certainly, there is no agreement among philosophers as to what would be "good" or "better", even as to what we call "moral intuitions", which could be constantly subjected to a "reflective equilibrium", in that judgments and intuitions can be revised. Thus, a major challenge to normative theory in ethics, law, and politics nowadays is to articulate a justification that meets rational criteria, both in ontological-semantic and pragmatic terms, taking into account not only issues of reasoning but also interpretation, selfunderstanding, historicity and language features inherent in a social ethos. In phenomenological or hermeneutic terms, it is said that normativity must be historically and linguistically situated in a concrete context of meaning, inevitably bound to constraints, prejudices and one or more communitarian traditions, receptions and interpretations of traditions. The ongoing dialogues between neurosciences and different traditions of moral philosophy allow thus for a greater rapprochement between analytical and so-called continental philosophy (esp. phenomenology and hermeneutics). Now it is against such a broad, normative background that we have outlined our quest for "patterns of normativity." Moral, ethical, and legal questions relating to normative justification find some of their best practical test in their applicability in social, political philosophy. As Pettit aptly pointed out, contemporary analytical political philosophy has been caught up in a naturalist-normative cul de sac, ! 180 following the logical positivist dismissal of metaphysics and noncognitivist criticisms of value theories. On the one hand, "since there are few a priori truths on offer in the political arena, its only task in politics can be to explicate the feelings or emotions we are disposed to express in our normative political judgments." On the other hand, there remains the question of "how unquestioned values like liberty and equality should be weighted against each other"31. Although most analytical thinkers saw that question as "theoretically irresoluble," the publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in 1971 inaugurated a renewed interest in reconciling a priori claims that "may be relatively costly to revise" with the dense, changing flow of human experience, reminiscent of the practical-theoretical bridging pursued by the normative, emancipatory claims of Critical Theory, beyond positivist and instrumentalist approaches to social reality. In effect, Rawls conceived of an original position (ideal theory) as an attempt to model the considerations that determine the principles of justice for a well-ordered society, in which public criteria for judging the feasible, basic structure of society would be publicly recognized and accepted by all (nonideal theory). Hence the procedural device of rules or public criteria which parties in the original position would endorse prudentially is to be constructed from behind a veil of ignorance, so that the parties know nothing specific about the particular persons they are supposed to represent. Beyond the essentialist views of natural law and contractualist traditions, Rawls's normative conception of the person accounted for the ingenious strategy of resorting to a reflective equilibrium, conceived as a procedural device between a nonideal theory (where we find ourselves, citizens with considered judgments or common sense intuitions) and an ideal theory, in which a public conception of justice refers to free and equal persons with two moral powers (sense of justice and conception of the good). Reflective equilibrium belongs thus together with the original position and the well-ordered society, so as to carry out the thought-experiment of an ideal theory of justice which ultimately meets nonideal needs and capacities. To !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 31 PETTIT, 2007, 8f. ! 181 be sure, Rawls's original conception of "justice as fairness," following the Dewey Lectures, was recast into a "political liberalism" which resorted to a wide reflective equilibrium as a constructivist methodology of substantive justification, whose goal was certainly not to account for metaethical problems inherent in the ideas of justice and equal liberty, but to justify specific principles as a reasonable basis for public agreement in particular areas of social life. Baynes32 has shown that Habermas's program of "normative reconstruction" in political philosophy explicitly refers to the Rawlsian idea of reflective equilibrium and his procedural conception for two reasons: "First, he [Habermas] claims that the fundamental ideal that forms the 'dogmatic core' of his theory is not itself simply one value among others, but reflects a basic norm implicit in the very idea of communicative action. Second, he claims that this ideal can in turn be used to describe a set of (ideal) democratic procedures. It is because the procedures sufficiently mirror this basic ideal, however, that we are entitled to confer a presumption of reasonableness or fairness upon them." According to Habermas, the normative grounds for reconstruction are implicit practices or cognitive schemas –and not unconscious experiences to be revealed by a reflective method (like psychoanalysis)-, whose reconstruction refers back to system-based rules as a general reference for all subjects in the process of identity formation and whose intuitive systems of knowledge and competencies depend on previous reconstructions (in empirical sciences like linguistics and cognitive psychology). It has been argued that John Dewey's conception of reconstruction in moral and political philosophy33, as it has been critically appropriated by Rawls, Habermas, and Honneth, not only serves to account for the affinities between reflective equilibrium and normative reconstruction among pragmatists, but may also be brought in with a view to better understanding why proceduralist versions of political constructivism remain a reasonable response to the ongoing challenges of cultural relativism and ever- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 32 2013, 489f. 33 DEWEY, 2004. ! 182 changing pluralist, globalized societies34. Insofar as they both preserve the idea of objectivity in terms of a cognitivist view of moral normativity without falling back into intuitionist realism and reductionist versions of naturalism, I argue that nature and culture are continuous with one another, hence an upshot of such a reconstructive conception of social evolution is that societies evolve to a higher level only when learning occurs with respect to their normative structures. Weak naturalism allows thus for social evolutionary processes guided by normative claims, in both reflexive and social terms, with a view to realizing universalizable, normative claims that are justified from the moral standpoint, always generated through reflective equilibrium, broadly conceived, and naturalized in a democratic ethos in the making. Like Rawls and Habermas, Benhabib and Honneth also resort to reflexive, reconstructive conceptions of critical theory, but by radicalizing the pragmatist turn vis à vis first and second generations of the Frankfurt School, they also succeed in unveiling thick-thin problematizations within the very sought-after normativity in social, concrete experiences of freedom, recognition, and claims of cultural, political identities. Normative claims in cultural identities share in the same justificatory difficulty that can be found in other claims, say, theoretical, if we are to avoid any facile resort to religious dogma or reductionist naturalism. For instance, even when we assert that "it ought not to be the case that p and not-p" (say, to exemplify the principle of noncontradiction or that contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time), there is a certain "normative surplus of practice" as the assertion could be taken in an ontological, a psychological or a semantic sense –or all of them-, as pointed out by Ernst Tugendhat (1986), that favors Habermas's and Brandom's takes on semantic externalism. Intentional content does depend on how the world is objectively and first-personish accounts may (be complemented by and) give way to third-person stances (as in Brandom's pragmatic, inferentialist approach): "Norms come into the story at three different places: the commitments and entitlements !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 34 BENHABIB, 1986, 1992. ! 183 community members are taken to be attributing to each other; the implicit practical proprieties of scorekeeping with attitudes, which institute those deontic statuses; and the issue of when it is appropriate or correct to interpret a community as exhibiting original intentionality, by attributing particular discursive practices of scorekeeping and attributing deontic statuses. It is normative stances all the way down"35. References ALCHOURRON, Carlos and Eugenio Bulygin, "The expressive conception of norms." In: Risto Hilpinen, ed. New Studies in Deontic Logic: Norms, Actions, and the Foundations of Ethics. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1981. BAYNES, Kenneth. "Rawls and Critical Theory." In: Mandle, Jon and David A. Reidy (editors). Blackwell Companion to Rawls. Oxford: Blackwell, 2013. BENHABIB, Seyla. Critique, Norm and Utopia. A Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. ______. Situating the Self. Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics. Polity Press, 1992. BRANDOM, Robert. "Intentionality and Language: A Normative, Pragmatist, Inferentialist Approach". In: N. J. Enfield, Paul Kockelman, Jack Sidnell (Editors), The Cambridge Handbook of Linguistic Anthropology. Cambridge University Press, 2014. ______. Making it explicit: Reasoning, representing, and discursive commitment. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 35 BRANDOM, 1994, 637f. ! 184 DEWEY, John. Reconstruction in Philosophy. Dover Publications, 2004. HABERMAS, Jürgen. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Translated by Frederick Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987. ______. Truth and Justification. Trans. B. Fultner. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2003. HART, H. L. A. The Concept of Law. 2nd edition with Postscript. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. HOFWEBER, Thomas. "Logic and Ontology". In: Edward N. Zalta (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2013 Edition). Avaiable on: <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2013/entries/logic-ontology/> HORNSBY, Jennifer. Simple Mindedness: In defense of naïve naturalism in the philosophy of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. KELSEN, Hans. Pure Theory of Law. The Lawbook Exchange, 2009. KIM, Jaegwon. "What is 'Naturalized Epistemology'?" In: E. Sosa and J. Kim (eds.), Epistemology: An Anthology. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishing, p.301-313, 2004. KORSGAARD, Christine M. "Reflections on the Evolution of Morality." In: The Amherst Lecture in Philosophy n.5 (2010), p.1– 29. Avaiable on: <http://www.amherstlecture.org/korsgaard2010/>. ______. "The Normativity of Instrumental Reason." In: Garrett Cullity and Berys Gaut (eds.) Ethics and Practical Reason. Oxford: Clarendon Press, p.215–254, 1997. ! 185 ______. The Sources of Normativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. MEILLASSOUX, Quentin. Après la finitude: Essai sur la nécessité de la contingence, with a Preface by Alain Badiou. Paris: Seuil, 2006. OLIVEIRA, Nythamar de. "Habemus Habermas: O universalismo ético entre o naturalismo e a religião". In: ethic@ 8/1, 2009, p.31-50. ______. "Gadamer, a hermenêutica e a crítica ao naturalismo: Antirrealismo moral e construcionismo social". In: Ernildo Stein e Lenio Streck (orgs), Hermenêutica e Epistemologia. Porto Alegre: Livraria do Advogado, 2011. ______. "Heidegger, Reification and Formal Indication." In: Comparative and Continental Philosophy v.4, n.1 (2012), 2012a, p.46-65. ______. "The Normative Claims of Brazil's Democratic Ethos: Bourdieu's Habitus, Critical Theory, and Social Philosophy". In: Civitas v.12, n.1, 2012b, p.70-87. ______. "Breves Observações sobre Normatividade e Naturalismo". In: Epistemologia Social. Orgs. Felipe Müller & Tiegüe Rodrigues. Porto Alegre: Edipucrs, p.145-161, 2012c. ______."Recasting the Naturalism-Normativity Debate: Neuroscience, Neurophilosophy, Neuroethics". In: Principios v.20, n.33, p.79-103, 2013. MILLIKAN, Ruth. "Biosemantics". In: Journal of Philosophy n.86, 1989, p. 281-297. PARFIT, Derek. On What Matters, vol. II. Oxford University Press. ! 186 PETTIT, Philip. "Analytical Philosophy." In: Goodin, Robert, Philip Pettit and Thomas Pogge (editors), 2007. A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy. 2ed. Oxford: Blackwell. PRINZ, Jesse. Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape Our Lives. Penguin UK Kindle Edition, 2012. ______. The Emotional Construction of Morals. Oxford University Press, 2004. PUTNAM, Hilary. The collapse of the fact/value dichotomy and other essays. Harvard University Press, 2002. QUINE, Willard V. "On what there is". In: Review of Metaphysics, vol. 2, 1948, p.21-38. ______ . Word and Object. Boston: MIT Press, 1960. SEN, Amartya. On Ethics and Economics. Oxford University Press, 1998. SMITH, Barry (ed.). Parts and Moments: Studies in Logic and Formal Ontology. Munich and Vienna: Philosophia Verlag, 1982. SOSA, Ernest. Virtue Epistemology. Oxford University Press, 2010. TUGENDHAT, Ernst, mit Ursula Wolf. Logisch-Semantische Propädeutik. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1986. WHITING, Daniel. "Conceptual Role Semantics". In: Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2009. Avaiable on: <http://www.iep.utm.edu/conc-rol/> ! 187 Sense in the midst of life, laws and norms Sofia Inês Albornoz Stein If it is asked: "How do sentences manage to represent?" - the answer might be: "Don't you know? You certainly see it, when you use them." For nothing is concealed. How do sentences do it? - Don't you know? For nothing is hidden. But given this answer: "But you know how sentences do it, for nothing is concealed" one would like to retort "Yes, but it all goes by so quick, and I should like to see it as it were laid open to view." Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations , §435. I. Overview I will show why one of the main sources of antagonism between Ruth Millikan (1993) and John McDowell (1999) concerning the naturalization of rationality is how Millikan uses the concept of representation (1984, 2004, 2005). That is to say that one of the central questions raised by the naturalization of philosophical discourse in Millikan's semantics lies in her emphasis that representations as vehicles of meanings are something that could be explained by science, by biology and by psychology. If we expect, like McDowell does, that representations are a kind of proposition, at first glance there would be no problem in speaking about them from a traditional point of view. But when they are transformed in an ! 188 empirical phenomenon, they lose the kind of quality necessary for meaning in a classical sense: they are linked to empirical phenomena or by laws or by norms. That humans actually have representations, thoughts and beliefs about how the world is, and that their fundamental source of content is socially mediated experiences of facts and objects, isn't the matter in the debate between Millikan and McDowell. The core of the disagreement is the nature of representation and viz. of meaning, of what representing consists in, and, consequently of which should be the method chosen as to achieve an understanding of it. One has, at least, two choices if one wants to maintain oneself still in a pragmatic Wittgensteinian spirit, even if in a broad sense: a) Trying to understand meaning as in a very special sense mental but detached from biological determinations, as McDowell does; b) Overcoming Wittgenstein's restrictions to a scientific enterprise in semantics and explaining meaning from a biological point of view, which admits the talk about representations as vehicles of meaning, as Millikan does. Notwithstanding some recent interpretations of Quine's (1969) naturalistic proposal, if one sustains semantic naturalism so as to admit a investigation of the mind1 with the purpose of clarifying what meaning is, one seems to be committing the worst crime in the lights of Quine's own semantic proposal: to say that one can find in the mind what isn't there. View in that light, McDowell would be right in saying that Millikan is looking in the wrong direction when she speaks about biological brain functions so as to explain what meaning is. But, again, if we agree that much with McDowell, we are left with the option of maintaining a behaviorist view or brought to admit the idea of a second nature, as he does with the purpose of showing how the mind's propositional contents can be socially established. My final purpose in this paper will be to sustain that if one weakens the notion of representation so as to retrieve it from the center of the discussion about meaning and focus on social behavior instead, although admitting the value of scientific explanations of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Or admit an investigation of the brain. MILLIKAN speaks about 'the head'. ! 189 mind and brain, there seem to be more hope in achieving agreement about what meaning is. II. Meaning and Nature As McDowell claims,2 one of the basic distinctions we must make in epistemology is between the realm of reason and the realm of law. Perhaps we can establish this distinction by saying that what one must do is to distinguish between norms and laws, and between rules and causes. What does this mean? It means that we are not able to describe human nature accurately just by describing its biological attributes. We also need to describe the results of human tradition and culture. According to McDowell, it is not essential to our description of human nature to tell the story of how evolution resulted in culture, but it is essential to show how human beings preserve the realm of reason, which is also the realm of meaning. Biology and epistemology have in common the search to explain normativity. One of the points of agreement between the views of McDowell and Millikan is that epistemology and semantics must worry about norms and not about laws.3 Thus, when we describe human behavior and its results (including meaningful action), what we are doing is not describing laws, but mainly how human beings follow rules. Even if we use a naturalized perspective such as Millikan's teleological semantic to explain linguistic behavior, we are not !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 I am extremely grateful to John MCDOWELL for his generosity in agreeing to meet me in 2011, and for establishing an unexpected regular dialog with me about my philosophical worries, sometimes on issues related to his own thoughts concerning naturalism and meaning. 3 In his paper, "The Two Natures: Another Dogma" (2006), Graham MACDONALD tries to establish a new and extensive teleosemantic proposal about how to explain meaningful language so as to prevent a counterpoint between this and McDowell's space of reasons. However, in his response MCDOWELL does not consider the mere fact of using biological norms, which include different types of functional norms, such as rational capacities, as a satisfactory alternative to the distinction between first and second nature. ! 190 reducing language and meaning to the physical laws of nature. Millikan describes natural human behavior as something which is linked to cooperative purposes, and which has resulted in complex kinds of linguistic representations, which can be viewed as conventional. Therefore, even if these representations are the result of biological evolution and biological necessities, and are determined by the relationship between living organisms and the physical environment, they produce a conventional result, partly because they are the response of living beings, which make choices in how to act, to environmental demands. Among the capacities developed by this living being are those which are rational, including the capacities to think and rationalize in order to solve problems created by their interaction with external conditions.4 Thus the semantic problem about what meaning consists of also belongs in Millikan to a sphere of life that is not immediately reducible to mere physical causal relations, and this is because biological beings follow norms, not laws. Living beings in general have options concerning how they behave, i.e. they can decide between alternatives. Human living beings act in a more complex way, which is the result of their neurological system and the cultural interactions that include the communication of linguistic representations. Therefore, human language, which, in Millikan's view, is similar to more primitive forms of language, is one of the tools used by human beings to interact with others for various purposes, not all of which immediately aim at survival, but are part of a global organization, which has as its main goal (even if in a very broad sense) the preservation of life. Cooperation is essential in Millikan's view of human culture. Human beings establish trough language cooperation !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4 It is important to note that MCDOWELL, inspired by GADAMER, establishes a distinction between the notion of environment and the idea of a world. The "human environment" should not be considered as an environment merely because the interactions, which human beings establish there with, are the result of rational decisions and the exercise of conceptual capacities. ! 191 a very special cooperation that is crucial for their survival as social beings. II.1 Language At the end of "John Locke Lectures", McDowell states that: The feature of language that really matters is rather this: that a natural language, the sort of language into which human beings are first initiated, serves as a repository of tradition, a store of historically accumulated wisdom about what is a reason for what. The tradition is subject to reflective modification by each generation that inherits it. Indeed, a standing obligation to engage in critical reflection is itself part of the inheritance. [...] But if an individual human being is to realize her potential of taking her place in that succession, which is the same thing as acquiring a mind, the capacity to think and act intentionally, at all, the first thing that needs to happen is for her to be initiated into a tradition as it stands5. McDowell's notion of tradition should not be measured in terms of Millikan's notion of a natural and cultural history which has led to modern forms of communication. At the same time, however, both notions can be viewed as possible answers to the question of how language came to exist in human history, and what it consists of. In spite of McDowell's claim that the most important point is not to establish the origin of the space of reasons particular to human nature, his discourse on tradition explains and enlightens in some measure how we should understand the evolution of language from his perspective. This is clearly not the precise origin of human language, but shows how it is inherited and how it evolves culturally. Millikan's intentions when speaking about natural and cultural history are very specific, in the sense that what she is aiming to do is !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5 1994, p.126. ! 192 to understand not just how human language came into being, but how its origins determine its very nature. Thus human language is part of biological history, which is explained by Millikan as the result of biological needs, and as something permeated by biological norms, including those of language. All the mental capacities that permit us to establish communication and act with certain purposes follow, from a bio-naturalistic perspective, biological norms. Therefore linguistic structures are also part of the way life evolves. The complex-articulated linguistic structures that mediate social behaviors and permit cooperation and survival would be that what McDowell calls "natural language", that are the "repository of tradition". However similar their discourse can be, there is obviously a important difference in reasoning between McDowell and Millikan that cannot simply be ignored in relation to human language, and this starts to become clear when we discuss the primary purpose of language, i.e. that of expressing meaning. II.2 Semantic naturalisms The problem of the place of meaning in nature and in the human world is the source of the chief contentions between McDowell and Millikan. We read in McDowell's Mind and World that: If we acquiesce in the disenchantment of nature, if we let meaning be expelled from what I have been calling "the merely natural", we shall certainly need to work at bringing meaning back into the picture when we come to consider human interactions. But it is not just in our comprehension of language, and in our making sense of one another in the other ways that belong with that, that conceptual capacities are operative. I have urged that conceptual capacities, capacities for the kind of understanding whose correlate is the kind of intelligibility that is proper to meaning, are operative also in our perception of the world apart from human beings. The question is how we can take that view without offering to reinstate the idea that the movement of the planets, or the fall of a sparrow, is rightly approached in the sort of way we ! 193 approach a text or an utterance or some other kind of action6. In the above passage, we can identify implicit references to three different perspectives related to the role of meaning in nature. The first of these, which sees nature as enchanted, understands meaning as part of a non-natural world, free from the determinations of the laws of the physical world, that is, as the product of non-determined human capacities in a sphere where freedom reigns. The second perspective, which he calls elsewhere "bald naturalism", regards meaning as part of the natural physical world, as a part of the world governed by causal laws.7 From this second perspective one should be able to reduce what is called meaning to causal relations present in the physical world, because the physical world would be all there is. Life is part of this world, as is meaning. The third perspective, which is McDowell's own proposal, is to avoid not only bald naturalism but also rampant Platonism in relation to meaning, and to explain meaning as something still natural. This concept wouldn't be part either of a world governed by physical laws or of a world governed by biological norms, but of a world regulated by the norms of reason, maintained by tradition and Bildung, which McDowell !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 6 1994, p.72. 7 Once again, Millikan's teleosemantics does not, at first glance, fit in exactly with this second perspective, due to the difference between physical laws and biological norms. Our meaningful beliefs, for example, follow biological norms, and biological norms admit exceptions: "Doubled up beliefs, empty beliefs, confused and ambiguous beliefs, and hence irrational thought on the part of intact, undamaged, nondiseased (sane), intelligent persons, are not statistically rare. [...] Because the biological science deals with biological norms, not universal laws or statistical norms [...], the White Queen's claims pose no problems for psychology. The job of psychology is to describe the biological norms and so explain their mechanisms. It is irrelevant how often or how seldom these norms, these ideals, are actually attained in nature." (MILLIKAN, 1993, p.286). However, McDowell objects to Millikan's claim that psychological investigations of mind are not determined by physical causal laws, but biological norms, by affirming that accepting this "does not remove the biological, as she conceives it, from what I introduced as the realm of law" (MCDOWELL, 1999, p.271). Thus McDowell's arguments against restrictive naturalism would also include Millikan's biological investigations of semantic phenomena. ! 194 refers to as "second nature". III. Meaning and representation according to Millikan In her book Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories: new foundations for realism (1984), Millikan gives us an example to illustrate the contraposition she observes between "stimulus meaning" and "sense". "Hubots" are an organism that evolves and are genetically programmed so as to produce sentences in an "internal language". This language is a "representational system" that works with "intentional indicative symbols" with their own syntax. The resulting sentences have functions that have been determined during a long evolutionary process and serve to "adapt" the internal mechanisms of the organism, which interpret them, to specific conditions of the world. What they mainly do is mapping events of the world according to definite projection rules8. In that way the Hubots are fit to give responses to patterns of sensorial stimulation. They are also programmed to use sentences in predetermined ways but are not capable of forming new concepts during their lives.9 This is, as Millikan claims, a "correspondentist" description of language. It is important for Millikan that the "sense" of the terms these organisms use do not correspond to their "stimulus meaning". With the purpose of showing that this is the case, Millikan demands us to imagine another organism called "Rubots", with a very different sensorial apparatus from that of the "Hubots". Even if the sensorial stimulations between them were very different, both organisms would be able to understand the sense of certain sentences, i.e. their "real value", because this sense would be the set of rules through which a term is projected on to the world in order that the interpretation mechanism can operate normally. What matters is that !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8 1984, p.128. 9 HUBOTS are also able to translate external and public language, and to understand other Hubots by translating what they say into their own personal language, whilst believing everything they hear. ! 195 both organisms understand what they hear when one of them says "It is raining", even though their internal sentence production systems are different. Human beings, Millikan explains, think through internal intentional signs and the operations performed by them, and beliefs correspond to something physiological that has to carry out biological functions. These biological mechanisms contribute to the proliferation or survival of the species that develops beliefs10. This biological function of beliefs can only be implemented if they are projected on to something else according to rules. Because human beings do not inherit internal sentences, each individual has to develop their own program of sentence formation, probably by trial and error, in accordance with the use of terms in the public language of the community they live in. This shared sense in the community is, according to Millikan, what links a term to its referent11. Thus beliefs are internal intentional symbols with normal projection rules, and the conjunction of intentional symbols and projection rules are beliefs' senses. III.1 Representations and proper functions In her paper "Biosemantics" (1991), Millikan inquires about what representation means in order to explain a communicative act from a teleological point of view. She sustains that a teleological perspective is necessary for developing a theory about the content of language. For her, the most important factor in communication, or in the transmitting of information, is that the natural system, besides producing an external representation in the form of a linguistic sign which corresponds to the world, also ensures that the "consumer" represents internally this relationship with the world. It is also important, even if not always the case, for a representation, for example, that "The water flooded New York during the super storm Sandy", in order for it to carry out its proper function, that the water, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10 1984, p.138. 11 1984, p.141. ! 196 in fact, flooded New York during the super storm Sandy. Millikan concludes that an internal or external representation with a subjectpredicate structure was the solution found by nature to adapt our cognitive system to our survival needs, and to our needs to transmit information, in order to share this information with whoever shares the same life goals. Thus it is evident that her view of a meaningful language is both a pragmatic and an externalist one. In all primitive human representation there is both a "producer" and a "consumer". Millikan calls this representation "pushmi-pullyu" because both participants are destined not just to understand each other, but also to cooperate with each other. It is simultaneously descriptive and directive. So "the producer produces a sign that will be true or satisfied only if it maps on to some affair in accordance with a definite mapping function determined by a history of joint successes of producer and consumer (or their ancestors)"12; which should help the consumer to achieve specific practical goals. When representations are at work, according to Millikan, we have a producer who has access to local information, who represents this information internally, and who communicates it through a sentence, such as, "It is starting to rain". If the consumer of the information understands the conventional sign, he/she is able to perceive the natural domain of the information. In order to do this, the consumer needs to represent internally the directive event, i.e. he/she must have an internal representation, which is isomorphic to the external event represented by the sentence, and, at the same, he/she should understand what would be possible to do or not to do to face the event. Millikan (2004) uses, in addition to the notions of intentionality and representation, the expression "tracking a natural domain". Understanding a conventional sign means tracking its natural domain, i.e. first of all "determining what reproducing family it has !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 12 2004, p.79. ! 197 been copied from"13. For example, the general capacity to track a squirrel can be transformed in the capacity to track Scamper, a specific squirrel, if we restrict ourselves to a certain domain. What we do when we track what the word represents in a specific domain is to interpret what the sign would normally represent. Being able of tracking a natural domain means also knowing what needs to be observed in the context of the utterance: who is talking, what is the relationship with the speaker, what is the speaker's origin, what is the domain to which the speaker belongs, what is the speaker looking at, and so on14. We follow the speaker's perspective, the perspective from which he/she speaks, and from which he/she represents for us. This, added to the conventional aspects of the signs used, allows us to understand what is being said. IV. Forming senses: rules and identification Millikan focuses on the structure of language and on proper functions that establish via an evolutionary history a mental correspondence between representations and facts. There is no place in her picture of human language for something that would not be an identifiable biological mental mechanism for establishing communication between humans when they are socially cooperating with each other. The mechanism of proper function allows us to establish a relationship of correspondence between mental states and facts, and this mechanism is evolutionarily determined and inherited, genetically and/or socially. There is no exact scientific description of how proper function works internally in a biological being, but the explanation of how this proper function permits communication is a philosophical hypothesis that is presupposed to be part of a biological explanation of communicative behavior. Millikan rejects the common sense perspective that what we share when we communicate are meanings as propositions, which are uniquely identifiable. Therefore, the primary target of McDowell's !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 13 2004, p.127. 14 2004, p.134. ! 198 criticism of Millikan is her denial of the Fregean senses. Despite McDowell's Wittgensteinian compromises with a pragmatic and externalist view of language, which Millikan also shares, McDowell's readings of Wittgenstein's later works do not follow interpretations which view Wittgenstein as refuting Fregean senses. Thus, there is a fundamental dissent between McDowell and Millikan about the "place" of meaning, because McDowell accepts the Fregean distinction between the exercise of rational capacities in a realm of reason and non-rational psychological processes. Thus, McDowell agrees with Frege that: Ein drittes Reich muss anerkannt werden. Was zu diesem gehört, stimmt mit den Vorstellungen darin überein, dass es nicht mit den Sinnen wahrgenommen werden kann, mit den Dingen aber darin, dass es keines Trägers bedarf, zu dessen Bewusstseininhalte es gehört. So ist z. B. der Gedanke, den wir im pythagoreischen Lehrsatz aussprachen, zeitlos wahr, unabhängig davon wahr, ob irgend jemand ihn für wahr hält. Er bedarf keines Trägers. Er ist wahr nicht erst, seitdem er entdeckt worden ist, wie ein Planet, schon bevor jemand ihn gesehen hat, mit andern Planeten in Wechselwirkung gewesen ist15. This means that one of the major contentions between McDowell and Millikan is about how the mind is related to the environment, because McDowell considers Millikan's description of the system "head-world" incapable of apprehending rationality and meaning. Rational capacities and activities aren't just a specific interaction with environmental conditions. McDowell interprets Millikan as committing herself with something fundamentally mistaken, i.e. confusing the mechanical rationality with the genuine rationality. In contrast with Millikan's scientific view, McDowell claims that in order to maintain the notion of "apprehending a sense" we don't need more prove "than a perfectly reasonable insistence that such !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 15 1919, p.43s. ! 199 patterns really do shape our lives"16. In "Intentionality and Interiority in Wittgenstein" (1991), McDowell interprets Wittgenstein's later thought (1953) as not denying that meaning is something that the subject can mentally grasp and that is identifiable. He claims that: Wright's obsession with keeping meanings out of the occurent phenomena of consciousness now looks like the upshot of not seeing all the way through to Wittgenstein's ultimate target. Once we understand what the target is, we can see that an insistence that that conception of the mental cannot make room for meanings to come to mind does not amount to a denial that meanings can come to mind. And now there should be nothing against allowing meanings to come to mind: for instance, when one grasps a meaning in a flash; or - differently - when one visualizes something; or - differently again - when it suddenly occurs to one that one has forgotten to mail a letter. (1991, p. 158) What seems at first glance paradoxical, is just a way of saying that we can imagine at least two ways to relate meaning and mind processes: a) in one way these are natural processes, maybe images or sense data; b) in another way these are "thoughts" that are "grasped" trough mental processes17 or that occur through mental processes. This wouldn't mean that Wittgenstein would be, if the last interpretation would be correct, equating meanings to some mental content, but just that we can "meaningfully thinking" as something equal to "meaningfully speaking", without distinguishing ontologically "meaning" from "thought", that is: 329. When I think in language, there aren't 'meanings' going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions: the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 16 1999, p.272. 17 This way of expressing it would be more compatible with a Fregean interpretation of Wittgenstein's aphorisms, similar to McDowell's own interpretation. ! 200 language is itself the vehicle of thought. [...] 332. While we sometimes call it "thinking" to accompany a sentence by a mental process, that accompaniment is not what we mean by a "thought". -Say a sentence and think it; say it with understanding. -And now do not say it, and just do what you accompanied it with when you said it with understanding! - (Sing this tune with expression. And now don't sing it, but repeat its expression! -And here one actually might repeat something. For example, motions of the body, slower and faster breathing, and so on.)18. It seems to remain at least one problem for the Fregean interpreter of Wittgenstein (1953) to deal with: Wittgenstein is equating "meaning" to language use and also "thought" to language use. If that is right, thought and language are the same and Frege's third realm would have been transformed in something very concrete and not anymore enigmatic. The rules of thought would be the rules of language and nothing more. Would that be what Frege meant by 'senses' and 'thoughts'?19 To give an example, the requirement for identifying an intention, which depends on our capacity of grasping senses and act rationally on them, is, according to McDowell: [...] once again, common sense: an intention is exactly something that can be, in some sense, all there in one's mind before one acts on it. [...] The concept of an intention has its life in the context of the concepts of successful execution, failed attempt, change of mind, and so forth; it would be !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 18 WITTGENSTEIN, 1953. 19 Another problem for MCDOWELL (and for MILLIKAN) is to justify a strong externalism that should be compatible with a pragmatic view close to that of Wittgenstein's (1953). In this paper I won't even try to give a definitive answer to these two challenges of McDowell's Neowittgensteinian point of view: the challenge of bringing together the Wittgensteinian notion of language rule to Frege's notion of 'thought' and to Wittgenstein's own externalist view in the Tractatus (1921). ! 201 absurd to suppose that someone who had no suitable connected thoughts involving concepts like those -which would require a play of thought over the future- could be identifying an intention, in himself or someone else20. What I am claiming is that pointing to the right deep contingency should leave us with no problem about how an intention can be fully identifiable -all there in one's mind- in advance of being acted on. I insist that the observational model of self-knowledge is not in play here. Of course it is not by inner observation that one knows one's intentions. It would be more nearly right to say that one knows them by forming them21. Thus the common sense view should avoid the temptation of speaking of intentions in such a way as to hypostasize them, transforming them into objects that we could, then, supposedly, identify as concrete or abstract. If forming an intention is an act of mental activity, there is no need to transform it into an identified object by a third person in the same way as everyday spatial objects are identified. But of course McDowell affirms the need to presuppose identification of thoughts in the space of reasons, including the thoughts we have when we form intentions, when we are acting mentally on them22. The heart of McDowell's semantics is his belief in the irreducibility of meaning to physical laws or to biological norms. This is related to his vision of meaning as a human phenomenon, which is formed and developed in the space of reasons and experienced as such. Therefore, Millikan's attempt to explain meaning through natural history, the biological evolution of cooperation patterns, conventions and purposes, and, more specifically, through proper function, i.e. projection functions (which !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 20 1991, p.164. 21 1991, p.167. 22 This seems to be a core aspect of McDowell's discussion about the Fregean senses, and deserves further study. ! 202 presuppose a notion of correspondence), is not in principle acceptable from McDowell's perspective. But there are, despite this, some points in common between the two parties. Inter alia, both of them believe in the possibility of identifying senses, notwithstanding their dissent regarding our power of knowing consciously about the rational relationships between them. Obviously the identification is not explained in the same way, since for McDowell identifying senses is something that a subject is able to do in the space of reasons, and for Millikan it is something which, besides being less transparent to the subject, can be assisted by naturalized semantics to describe how it works. It is very important to emphasize that the main purpose of denying a strictly naturalist view of how to understand meaning is related to the belief that meaning is irreducible to physical laws and scientific explanations. Thus no scientific explanation of meaning would achieve the goal of making McDowell's common sense view of meaning compatible with a scientific semantic explanation, because any scientific explanation would have to explain meaning as submitted to laws or natural norms, and, according to McDowell, it is intrinsic to meaning that it is formed by an act of freedom, that is, that it is not determined by a natural causal chain but by an act of spontaneity23. V. A Quinean tradition From a semantic point of view there seems to be no need to uphold the view that in order to understand what other people are saying one must presuppose a common "sense", a sense shared by all those who understand a particular sentence. This is not because we !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 23 Thus meaning would never be explained by insisting, like pure naturalists, on a scientific investigation of what happens internally to a human brain, nor by affirming that there are still mysteries concerning human minds that science will probably be able to solve in the future, in other words that the conceptual link between inner states and performances is a "merely empirical mystery" (MCDOWELL, 1991, p.162). ! 203 have no evidence for its existence, as demanded by, for example, a possible ontological principle such as Quine's,24 but because it does not seem necessary to presuppose this in order to explain human communicative practices. It may be that what Wittgenstein (1953) says about human communicative practices is not incompatible with (a) a presupposition of a shared sense, and (b) that we all also share similar perspectives of facts. But it is still doubtful, in my view, that we should be obliged to presuppose a shared meaning so as to be able to explain social communicative practices. I am not saying that we should establish an alternative scientific theory concerning how communicative skills evolve, or to what extent they depend on similar mental states between individuals. We must, obviously, presuppose (c) similar biological capacities of recognition, re-identification, tracking objects, perceiving, sensing, moving, acting, expressing, and thinking in a general sense -such as the capacity of having intentional mental states and of establishing coherent relations between them. But why should we need to assert (b), i.e. that what we do when communicating is to transmit representations which help other human beings to establish a standard representative correspondence between their mental states and a particular state of affairs? Why should we presuppose (a), i.e. that what happens in communication is a sharing of representational states, as sustained by Millikan, or of senses, as sustained by McDowell? There is a similar idea behind the Fregean view of a shared sense and Millikan's biological explanation of how we share representations, namely that there is a need to establish common ground between speakers in order to have a truth theory of human communication. It may be that there is something important in maintaining that we share intentional states and meaning, in the broad sense that we understand what other people say and intend. It seems to be also important claiming that we act in similar ways when !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 24 "No entity without identity." ! 204 we communicate. But why presuppose that we understand the same when we hear a sentence? Or why presuppose that we represent facts as biological beings in the same way as others do in order to understand and communicate with each other? I see as an pragmatic alternative to both Millikan's and McDowell's views to sustain that we can understand meaning as the phenomenon that takes place when people know how to act when hearing a sentence, that is, as the phenomenon of understanding what can be done, in a very broad sense. That would mean to avoid a strong externalism related to a view of meaning, which is part of both perspectives, Millikan's and McDowell's. Both believe that there is a need, so as to explain how language works, to say that representations or thoughts are related to facts so as to be really meaningful. I want to suggest we return, at some degree, to a stronger pragmatic perspective, for which there is no need of speaking about facts related to representations or thoughts. For example, if a physician understands what it means when a patient has an iron deficiency, he/she knows how to act in accordance with this information. Therefore, I suggest we view the phenomenon of language not from the perspective of what happens in human minds when they understand a sentence, or what human beings represent when they understand a sentence (i.e. which rules of projection they follow), but focus rather on what they understand they can do when they understand a sentence. Nothing should prevent us from trying to comprehend the mental phenomena that occur during communication, in order that we may increase our knowledge in this area. But my view is that a scientific investigation of the mental processes of the brain cannot explain entirely what meaning is, since "meaning", as I understand it, is a social phenomenon which is observed in open behavior, something which happens when individuals learn from each other what is possible to do. Therefore, when scientists are speaking about atoms ! 205 or subatomic particles, what they are doing is not, strictu sensu, "describing what it is to be an atom, or where this atom is". Rather, they are describing to us how other scientists may behave in relation to something that can be perceived, even if indirectly, in a similar way. If they say the atom is a carbonic atom, they know what to expect when it collides with a wall. They do not need to have the same Fregean understanding of what a carbonic atom is, nor do they need to represent (in an objective sense) a carbon atom in the same way. However, they certainly need to know what to do -what includes what is permissible to be said in the circumstances, in relation to what is called a carbon atom. This alternative pragmatic perspective does not reject the view that the way we speak presupposes a language related to internal states of mind. In addition, it does not reject the view that some sentences seem to represent states of affairs, and that this is established through a correspondence between signs and objects. I believe, however, that it is misleading to assert that thinking about a singular state of affairs is an identifiable state of affairs which would have the same feature in all humans, not even if that would be something not physical, nor strictly mental, but a kind of function or a kind of capacity. There is no one single meaning that can be attached to a particular sentence. Knowing how to use a sentence is the result of the history of how a person has learned to use the sentence and the concepts included in it in different circumstances of utterance. She/he can succeed in applying it in other circumstances following rules, but not necessarily rules of representation. It seems more plausible so as to achieve a clear understanding of what meaning is to follow the latter Wittgenstein and focusing on social practices and observable rules of the use of phrases instead of focusing on a correspondence of sentence and states of affairs, which would be presupposed both by McDowell externalist rationalism and by Millikan's externalist biosemantic view25. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 25 I won't develop here this third pragmatic perspective. My interest in this paper is restricted to mention it so as to show that there seem to be no need to sustain a ! 206 This alternative, that returns to a more conventional interpretation of the latter Wittgenstein, does not reject in principle a naturalistic investigation of human mind26, but it does reject the need to presuppose a single identification of sentence meanings27, either by a subject or from a third person perspective, in order to explain communication28. References AUSTIN, J. L. How to do Things with Words. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. FREGE, Gottlob. "Der Gedanke". Beitr. zur Philos. des deutschen Idealismus 2, p.58-77, 1918-1919. Repr. in G. Frege (1986), p.30-53. ______. Logische Untersuchungen. Göttingen: Vanderhoeck und Ruprecht, 1986. MACDONALD, Graham. "The Two Natures: Another Dogma?" In: C. Macdonald and G. Macdonald (eds.), p.222-239, 2006. ______; MACDONALD, Cynthia. McDowell and His Critics. UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!! correspondentist semantic view, nor a Fregean one, according to which a truth thought is a fact, nor a Tractarian one, according to which a thought is a expression of a possible state of affair that, if also real, would be called a fact. Thus, I am challenging the need of a representationalist view of sentences and of thought, even if this representationalism would not express itself as a view of meaning as an image or as an afiguration of the world, that is, even if meaning would be defined in it as the rules that govern the relation between thoughts and facts or symbols and objects. 26 Because this could help to understand mental processes that run with understanding. 27 Here I am presupposing that both, MCDOWELL and MILLIKAN, are searching for criteria of identification of representations, even if different in kind. 28 Which is a perspective I will develop in further studies. ! 207 MCDOWELL, John. "Intentionality and Interiority in Wittgenstein." In: K. Puhl (ed.), p.148-169, 1991. ______. Mind and World. Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press, 1994. ______. "Naturalism in the Philosophy of Mind". In: Neue Rundschau, 100, 1999, p.48-69. Repr. in J. McDowell (2009), pp. 257-275. ______. The Engaged Intellect: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge, MA; London, UK: Harvard University Press, 2009. MILLIKAN, Ruth Garrett. Language, Thought, and other Biological Categories: new foundations for realism. Cambridge; London: The MIT Press, 1984. ______. "Biosemantics". In: Journal of Philosophy 86, n.6, p.281297, 1989. Repr. in R. G. Millikan (1993), p.83-102. ______. White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice. Cambridge; London: The MIT Press, 1993. ______. "White Queen Psychology; or, The Last Myth of the Given." In: R. G. Millikan (1993), p.279-363. ______. Varieties of Meaning: The 2002 Jean Nicod Lectures. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. ______. Language: A Biological Model. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005. PUHL, Klaus (ed.). Meaning Scepticism. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1991. QUINE, Willard. V. O. "Epistemology naturalized". In: W. V. O. Quine (1969), p.69-90. ! 208 ______. Ontological Relativity & other essays. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969. WITTGENSTEIN, L. "Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung". In: Annalen der Naturphilosophische, XIV (3/4), 1921. Repr. In L. Wittgenstein (1990), p.7-85. ______. Philosophische Untersuchungen. In: L. Wittgenstein. (1953). ______. Philosophical Investigations, English and German. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1953. Repr. in L. Wittgenstein (1990), p.225-580. ______. Werkausgabe. Band I. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1990.