how to succeed in being simple-minded

Review Discussion

How to Succeed in Being Simple-Minded*

Herman Philipse

University of Leiden

There is a view on how the problems in modern philosophy of mind

originated ± let us call it The View ± which runs as follows. During the rise of

modern science in the seventeenth century a new image of (material) nature

became popular, and this image made it dif ® cult to understand how the

mental aspect of human beings can belong to nature. The new image replaced

Aristotelean hylmorphism: an older image of nature into which the mind

could be integrated more easily. Most philosopher-scientists of the scienti® c

revolution took the modern image of nature very seriously: they considered it

to be the true image, while hylmorphism and many assumptions inherent in

common sense were deemed mistaken. As a consequence, these philosopher-

scientists had to argue that the mental aspect of human beings either does not

belong to (material) nature at all (Cartesian dualism) or is somehow reducible

to something that at ® rst sight seems to exclude it (materialism aÁ la Hobbes or

La Mettrie).

After Darwin and the downfall of religion ± so The View continues ± the

dualist alternative lost favour, and the remaining alternatives were re® ned.

Apart from reductionism, we now have token-identity theories such as

functionalism and Davidson’ s anomalous monism, and we have even more

extreme naturalist conceptions such as ® ctionalism as in Dennett or

eliminative materialism as in Churchland. However, all these philosophical

doctrines are unsatisfactory because the ultimate criterion for acknowledging

the mental which they implicitly assume is a criterion that in fact excludes the

mental: the new idea of nature which was introduced in the seventeenth

century. According to The View, there is but one viable solution to the

problems of the philosophy of mind: we have to see that Nature does not

conform to, or conforms merely in part to, the modern idea of nature. Surely,

people with minds belong to Nature, but they do not belong to `nature’ as it

was conceived of since the seventeenth century. So let’ s be simple-minded

Inquiry, 41, 497±507

*Jennifer Hornsby, Simple Mindedness: In Defense of Naive Naturalism in the Philosophy ofMind (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1997), xii + 265 pp., ISBN 0-674-80818-5. References in the text are to this work.

about minds and acknowledge our body-mindedness without feeling obliged

to locate minds in nature as it is conceived of by scientistic philosophers.

The View has many precursors ± Berkeley and Leibniz among them ± but

as a historical diagnosis of the problems in the philosophy of mind it became

popular in the ® rst half of our century only. It was promoted, for example, by

Husserl in Die Krisis der EuropaÈ ischen Wissenschaften and by Heidegger in

Sein und Zeit, and it had been put forward forcefully by Wilhelm Windelband

in his celebrated Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie (1891) , of which

an eighteenth edition appeared in 1993. A great many philosophers from the

phenomenological school, such as Merleau-Ponty in PheÂnomeÂnologie de la

perception , endorsed The View, and Gilbert Ryle came to accept it in The

Concept of Mind. Mediated by Wittgenstein, Ryle, and Strawson, I suppose,

The View ® ltered down to younger generations of Oxford philosophers, to

which belong Anthony Kenny and John McDowell (Mind and World).

Of course there are minor differences among those who endorse The View.

Whereas Husserl and Heidegger stressed that the culprit was the idea of

nature as a mathematical multiplicity, Windelband and Ryle preferred to

single out the conception of nature as a mechanical system ± the bogy of

Mechanism, as Ryle called it ± as the ultimate origin of the recalcitrant

problems in the philosophy of mind. Still others, such as McDowell, point to

the idea of nature as a realm of natural law, `bald naturalism’ in McDowell’ s

words, which excludes intensionality, rules, and norms. Yet all the advocates

of The View argue that the idea of nature which supposedly causes the

insoluble problems in the philosophy of mind is not essentially connected to

successful scienti® c theories. It is, rather, a philosophical picture, seductive

but misleading, which accidentally accompanied the rise of modern science.

The idea is that this picture holds us captive, and that the problems of the

philosophy of mind will be solved, or dissolved, if we relinquish it.

II

Such is also Jennifer Hornsby ’ s view in Simple Mindedness, a collection of

essays most of which were originally published between 1980 and 1993,

when Hornsby was at the University of Oxford, at Corpus Christi College. By

collecting the essays of the book together, Hornsby hopes `to encourage a

particular attitude to questions about ª the mind’ s place in nature,º and to

recommend a distinctive position in philosophy of mind’ , an attitude or

position which she calls `naive naturalism’ . The position is naturalistic

because Hornsby accepts that human beings are a product of the biological

evolution and in that sense are `simply elements of the natural world’ .

However, the adjective `naive’ is meant to qualify the substantive

`naturalism’ : it expresses Hornsby ’ s `opposition . . . to what is usually

498 Herman Philipse

defended in the name of ª naturalismº ’ (p. 2). In particular, Hornsby rejects

the idea that the nature to which conscious purposive subjects belong is

identical with the realm of natural law. By rejecting this scientistic conception

of nature, she ® nds herself in opposition to `the whole drift of the last thirty or

fourty years in philosophy of mind in the English-speaking world’ (p. 9).

With great eloquence Hornsby expounds her motives for being a naive

naturalist in the philosophy of mind, and she does so in the formal mode, by

talking about the status of common-sense psychology. Scientistic naturalists

not only underestimate the intricate complexity of common-sense psychology

and its interconnectedness with other subject matters that people engage with

in daily life, they also hold that common-sense psychology has to be

vindicated by invoking a standard from the outside, the standard of science.

Assuming that common-sense psychology is vindicated only if it conforms to

the patterns of explanation in science, they typically conclude that it lacks

such a vindication or try to construct vindications in far-fetched and

unconvincing ways.

The Churchlands, for instance, once considered common-sense psychology

as simply another false folk-theory, a `neolithic heritage’ to be replaced by

neuroscience. Functionalists suppose that there are projectible psychophysi-

cal correlations through which common-sense psychology is grounded in

science, and if it is not so grounded, they conclude that our use of common-

sense psychology is merely `® ctionalizing and contrivance’ . Similarly, Quine

said in Word and Object that the `intentional idiom ’ is practically

indispensable, although it cannot belong to the austere canonical scheme in

which we are `limning the true and ultimate structure of reality’ . Dennett’ s

® ctionalism expresses an analogous thought, and even Rorty endorses a

Cartesian notion of material nature that excludes the mind. They all assume,

Hornsby says, switching to the material mode, `that if we are to ® nd a place

for mind, it has to be a place for mind in the world conceived independent of

mind’ (p. 40).

But as Hornsby stresses, `there would be massive repercussions if someone

could demonstrate that commonsense psychology both required vindication

of a certain sort and lacked vindication of that sort. If we could not take

seriously the notions that we apply to one another in putting commonsense

psychology to work, then we could not take ourselves seriously ± as

perceivers, as cognizers, and as agents. . .’ (p. 5). Yet we have to take

ourselves seriously in this way in order to be able to accept beliefs at all or to

engage in a cognitive enterprise such as science. Consequently, `we have to

envisage a scepticism far more devastating than any with which we are

familiar’ . Whereas traditional scepticism called into question truths about the

world or about other minds, taking psychological truths about oneself for

granted, `a sceptical position . . . which overthrew commonsense psychology

would leave nothing assured; it would be a sort of nihilism’ (p. 6). For

Being Simple-Minded 499

example, `if you have to engage in dramatic ® ction in order to suppose that

someone is telling you that p (as Quine says), then how do you extricate

yourself from the drama so as to be in a position to feel assured that (really)

p?’ (p. 7).

If these points are well taken, and I think they are, then the philosopher of

mind faces a dilemma. Either a vindication of common-sense psychology in

terms of scienti® c criteria is forthcoming after all or such a vindication is not

needed. Hornsby considers the ® rst option hopeless, so she is bound to accept

common-sense psychology at face value and to be simple-minded about

minds. Hornsby thus proposes naive naturalism, a naturalism which makes

room for the mental by rejecting ideas of nature that exclude it.

Unfortunately, Simple Mindedness lacks a methodological chapter.

Hornsby discusses neither the burden of proof for the naive naturalist nor

the methods by which she might present her case. Perhaps this omission is due

to the fact that the book is a collection of essays, or to the modesty of

Hornsby ’ s of ® cial objectives: she merely `hopes to encourage a particular

attitude’ and `to recommend a distinctive position ’ in the philosophy of mind,

the attitude or position of naive naturalism. Yet we will only be convinced

that this attitude or position is the right one if and to the extent that Hornsby

succeeds in arguing her case, and we will not be able to assess her success in

doing so if we do not clearly perceive her burden of proof.

Hornsby ’ s precursors such as Heidegger and Ryle were more explicit about

their philosophical task and method. In the introduction to Sein und Zeit,

Heidegger distinguished between a positive or constructive and a negative or

destructive task. Negatively, the philosopher had to show that human beings

(Dasein) cannot be conceived of ontolog ically within the framework of nature

or world as de® ned by, say Descartes or modern science. Heidegger argued

that the very concepts with which the philosophical and scienti ® c tradition

conceived of human beings were inadequate, precluding an understanding of

daily human life. Positively, Heidegger thought that he had to develop a new

framework of ontolog ical concepts, the so-called existentialia , in order to

spell out a more adequate conception of human life and of the world in which

human beings are living .

Whereas Ryle’ s conception of the negative task resembled that of

Heidegger, his view of the positive task was somewhat more modest.

According to Ryle, we already possess concepts which are adequate for

understanding our daily life ± the concepts of common-sense psychology ± so

that no new concepts are needed. What is needed, however, is to rectify the

logical grammar or `logical geography’ of the concepts of common-sense

psychology. What Ryle tried to show is that these concepts are not used to

refer to a series of `mental events’ that are hidden from view by the body,

accessible only to the subject that `has’ them. Rather, many concepts of

common-sense psychology are typically used for characterizing speci® c ways

500 Herman Philipse

of acting or behaving, or for describing human capacities of acting and

behaving; the relevant terms are predicated of persons, their capacities, and

their actions, not of a separate series of mental events.

If we ask what is Hornsby ’ s conception of the positive and the negative task

of a naive naturalist in the philosophy of mind, we do not ® nd a clear answer

in Simple Mindedness. Most of the essays are predominantly negative in that

they criticize speci® c assumptions of the scientistic naturalist, such as the

assumption that nature is the domain of natural law, or that if reasons can

function as causes within the context of a psychological explanation, this

must be because reasons are speci® c `mental events’ that are token-identical

with brain events. Hornsby stresses at least once that in her book `naive

naturalism emerges as a positive position ’ (p. 13). But how can naive

naturalism emerge as a positive position if one is not clear about the

philosophical methods needed for constructing such a position?

At some other places in the book, Hornsby appears to be rather charmed by

a more Wittgensteinean notion of philosophy, according to which philosophy

should not construct positive positions at all, but merely dissolve

philosophical problems by disentangling the conceptual confusions which

supposedly cause them (pp. 87±92, 157±60). More speci® cally, she says on

page 142 that à philosophical question’ is a question àbout how common

sense and talk operate’ . Should we suppose, then, that according to Hornsby

naive naturalism can èmerge as a positive position ’ in her book Simple

Mindedness without explicit constructive labour on her part, simply because

naive naturalism is the very `position’ we already possess by having acquired

the intricate conceptual system of common sense to which common-sense

psychology belongs?

If this is Hornsby ’ s view, we would all have been naive naturalists before

we started to do philosophy, and our naive naturalism would have been

submerged or suppressed by scientistic varieties of naturalism learned in the

classroom. Once these scientistic conceptions are destroyed by philosophical

criticism, our naive naturalism would emerge automatically, like a ¯ oat

emerges when we fail to catch a ® sh. In other words, once the negative

philosophical task has been ful ® lled, there would be no positive task left.

However, it is questionable whether we have any distinct views on nature at

all before we start doing philosophy and science, and surely we would like to

learn what the positive position of naive naturalism consists in.

Hornsby claims that the adjective `naive’ quali ® es `naturalism’ . What

meaning does the term `naturalism’ acquire, then, in the label `naive

naturalism’ ? Apart from saying that nature in the new sense must be able to

host human beings, Hornsby does not give us much of a clue. In Mind and

World , McDowell argued that we should re-think our conception of nature

along Aristotelian lines and reject the bald naturalism inspired by modern

science. Hornsby confesses in note 7 on page 224 that she has become


`endeared’ to the premodern conception of nature as well. But if naive

naturalism consists in a return to Aristotle’ s notion of nature, it will not be

attractive to philosophers such as myself, who think that the philosopher-

scientists of the scienti ® c revolution had very good reasons for rejecting the

Aristotelian notion . Perhaps we are all craving a simple-mindedness which

would consist in laying to rest the philosophical worries concerning the

mental that modern science inspires? The question is, then, how we can

succeed in being simple-minded. A return to Aristotle will not do the job, at

least not for those who take modern science seriously.

III

The strength of Jennifer Hornsby ’ s book, then, lies not so much in her

developing naive naturalism as a `positive position’ , but rather in a series of

sophisticated criticisms of non-naive varieties of philosophical naturalism.

The nine essays of the book are grouped into three sets of three essays each:

(1) ontolog ical questions, (2) agency, and (3) mind, causation, and

explanation. Let me now discuss some of her main criticisms of scienti® c

naturalism in the philosophy of mind and try to decide to what extent these

criticisms are valid.

As far as ontology is concerned, Hornsby takes the irreducibility of the

mental more or less for granted, relying on Davidson’ s arguments for

anomalousness (p. 11). But she objects to Davidson’ s monism, that is, to

token identity theories in general. According to token-identity theories, there

are mental states or events as tokens, and these tokens are in each case

identical with physical states or events as tokens, even though we will not be

able to ® nd type identities between mental and physical states or events. The

idea behind token-identity theories is ultimately that `the goings on which

make up a person’ s mental life are to be seen as activities of her brain’ (p. 44).

It is this idea which Hornsby rejects.

She could have relied here on the notion of a `homunculus fallacy’ as

developed by Anthony Kenny. It is a fallacy to attribute activities and

properties that are typically activities and properties of persons to sub-

personal parts of persons, and the result is sheer nonsense with no explanatory

value. It is nonsensical, for instance, to say that your brain is generous or that

his brain solved an equation, even though without brains humans cannot be or

do these things. But of course, being an able philosopher, Hornsby develops

arguments of her own.

One of her arguments for rejecting token identity is concerned with

mereology, the theory of parts and wholes, which was sketched by Edmund

Husserl in his third Logische Untersuchung (1901) and further developed by

Twardowski, Lesniewski, Nelson Goodman, and others. Token-identity

502 Herman Philipse

theories rely on the assumption that all mental wholes ultimately consist of

submicroscopic parts (states, events, entities) that are physical. Surprisingly,

the assumption which Hornsby attacks (chapter 3) is a much stronger one,

namely its converse:

(A) (x)(y)( $ !z) (z is a fusion of x and y).

Hornsby has no great dif ® culty in attacking A, both for the domain of

physical continuants and for the domain of events. Surely, there is no

continuant `composed from the Bodleian Library and some carrot’ (p. 49),

whereas the uniqueness clause may be falsi® ed by examples such as a gold

ring and the quantity of gold from which the ring is made (pp. 50±51). And

surely there is no `event composed from the death of Julius Caesar, the Battle

of Hastings and a recent speech by Edward Heath’ (p. 53), for events typically

have causal roles whereas (A), if asserted for the domain of events, is

incompatible with any plausible account of the causal relation (pp. 52±55).

But one wonders why a token-identity theorist would accept (A). What he

says is not that any microphysical entity or event combined with any other

microphysical entity or event constitutes a physical whole or `fusion’ ; what

he says is rather, conversely, that each and every whole is constituted of

microphysical parts. At ® rst sight, Hornsby ’ s argument seems to be an

ignoratio elenchi.

The reason why Hornsby thinks that the token-identity theorist has to

presuppose (A) turns out to be the following. In order to state that a and b are

identical, the token-identity theorist has to be able to single out a and b

separately. If a is a mental state or event and b is the complex of physical

submicroscopic states or events with which a is identical, we have to be able

to single out b without relying on our identi ® cation of a. But according to the

token-identity theorist, b typically will not be an interesting physical

complex, which, as such, plays a role in causal explanations based upon

causal laws. For this reason, the token-identity theorist must assume that any

two or more microphysical entities or events might constitute a unique fusion

which may be singled out via its parts, and this is the axiom (A), which

Hornsby criticizes.

In terms of Quine’ s distinction between ontolog ies (stocks of items) and

ideologies (ways of characterizing items) we might say that it is a substantial

question whether one and the same thing or event can be singled out in two

different ideologies, such as common-sense psychology and physics (p. 53).

If the physical event b with which a mental event a supposedly is identical is

not one physical event, that is, if it cannot play a role in causal laws of physics,

then to say that mental events are token identical with physical events is a

statement devoid of sense. At least, this is what Hornsby seems to argue.

However, the token-identity theorist might reply that his position is not a

generalization from individual cases, as if he would have to discover


contingent identities between speci® c mental events and speci® c complex

physical events in order to substantiate his case. On the contrary, the token-

identity theorist will admit that such speci® c identities cannot be stated,

because of the very reasons which Hornsby adduces. If he had though t that

speci® c mental-physical identit ies were expressible and that the very same

items which we pick out by our psychological predicates can also be picked

out by our physical predicates, so the token-identity theorist might continue,

he would have become a type-identity theorist. The token-identity theory is

not based on speci® c identit ies but rather on general philosophical arguments,

such as the argument that all living beings that exist are produced by the

evolution of the universe and biological evolution (cf. p. 73, where Hornsby

admits this point) .

In this respect, the token-identity theorist is like a seventeenth-century

rationalist who held that all truths were necessary. Although the rationalist

philosopher could prove this only for cases such as `7 + 5 = 12’ but not for

`Ceasar crossed the Rubicon’ , so that his view could not be justi ® ed by

induction from individual cases, he allegedly had general reasons for thinking

that all truths are necessary. Likewise, the token-identity theorist might admit

that speci® c mental-physical identit ies cannot be stated and yet believe that

his view is substantiated by general considerations.

There is a similar dif ® culty with Hornsby’ s argument against token-

identity theorists in the philosophy of action. Like Ryle, Hornsby rejects the

view that `we can always draw lines between the mental things in the world

and the physical things there’ (p. 83). Actions are not sequences of observable

behaviour caused by unobservable mental events, but things people do.

Philosophers of action are led astray, she claims, by a series of subtle

equivocations. For instance, actions in common parlance are things people

do, but in philosophical parlance there is an àction’ when there is an èvent’

which is someone’ s intentionally doing something. If we mix up these two

senses of àction’ , we might think that what people do is caused by mental

events which are identical with physical events in their brains, because

actions as events allegedly are so caused. But this is confused, because people

do not do events (p. 88).

Likewise, the terms `bodily movement’ and `behaviour’ equivocate

between someone’ s body moving and someone intentionally moving his or

her body. When we act, we move (parts of) our body in order to do something,

but such an intentional movement should not be identi ® ed with a movement

of our body in the sense in which parts of our body are moved when, for

instance, the wind blows through our hair. If one blurs the distinction between

these two senses of `behaviour ’ or `bodily movement’ , one might think that

where there is action, there is bodily movement in the second sense, and

conclude that the causes of bodily movement as discovered by (neuro)science

504 Herman Philipse

are identical with the causes of moving our body, that is, with our decision to

act (pp. 102±10; 120±4).

Pointing out these confusions is not yet an argument against token-identity

theories in the philosophy of action, for it is not clear that a token-identity

theory cannot be formulated without them. Hornsby ’ s main argument appears

to be the following. Seeing a bodily movement as an action requires the

identi ® cation of a person who is doing something. If we wonder what caused

the action, we will typically explain it by saying that the person though t and

wanted certain things. Now suppose that we study the same human being at

the level of neurological processes and physical movements. If we try to

decide which sequence of these processes and movements is identical with

(the causes of) the action, we can only come up with rather arbitrary answers

(pp. 70±72; 141). But `if nothing establishes that some one claim of identity

between an action (or a pain, or a perception) ’ and a speci® c neuronal event or

series of events `recommends itself more than all the others, then we should

do better not to assert any claim of identity’ (p. 71).

According to Hornsby, it will not do to reply that these identities hold

indeterminately. For if a is not determinately, but only indeterminately, the

same as b, a has a property which b has not, namely the property of being

determinately identical with a. Hence it follows from the indiscernibili ty of

identicals that a is not identical with b. Hornsby concludes that `truth-

preserving steps take us from the indeterminacy of the identity statement to its

falsehood, and we cannot rest with the claim that identities themselves are

vague’ (p. 72).

A token-identity theorist might reply that `being determinately identical

with a’ is not a real property of a, ± surely there is not a real property which

everything in the universe has, the property of being identical with itself ± so

that the argument from Leibniz’ s law does not settle the matter. Alternatively,

the token-identity theorist might avoid the consequences of having

indeterminacy attach to identity itself by saying that actions are identical

with sequences of physical events even though the boundaries of these

sequences are vague, as clouds are identical with fusions of water molecules

even though the boundaries of these fusions are not precisely determined. As I

argued above, Hornsby ’ s mereological considerations do not refute this type

of constructionalism (cf. p. 73). The token identity theorist will not be

impressed by Hornsby ’ s thesis that the token identities cannot be stated

precisely, because he never assumed that they can, and because his position is

based on general considerations.

One of these considerations is the idea, shared by Davidson and many

others, that nature is the realm of causal laws, and this idea of the

Nomological Character of Causality is an indispensable premiss in

Davidson’ s argument for monism. In effect, Davidson employed three

premisses: (i) there are psychophysical causal interactions; (ii) there are no


psychophysical laws; (iii) wherever events are causally related, some law

covers those events. Davidson argued that if some mental event causes some

physical event (by [i]), then there is no psychophysical law that covers that

case of causal connexion (by [ii]). But some law must cover that case (by

[iii]), and it must be a physical law, hence the mental event is subsumed by a

physical law, so that it must be physical itself (pp. 60, 136).

Hornsby not only tries to cast doubt on the relevant notion of `mental

events’ , she also rejects the Nomological Character of Causality, or rather,

she dismisses the idea that all causal explanations must rely on causal laws

(pp. 10, 60±62, 73±74, 78±80, 109, 125±6, 135±40, 152±3). In explaining

why a person did something, we typically refer to that person’ s reasons for

acting. Distinguishing between actions and èvents’ , Hornsby says that àn

action explanation is not a reply to a question about why some event occurred

. . ., Rather, it shows a person’ s doing something to make sense by seeing her

as (at least approximately) rational - as conforming (more or less) to norms of

consistency and coherence in her though t and practice’ (p. 139). Hornsby does

not want to deny that such a reason explanation is a causal explanation. What

she denies is rather that this type of causal explanation in common-sense

psychology warrants the idea that causal laws are operative universally. On

the contrary, the irreducibility of the mental and of norms of rationality to

causal laws suggests that persons and their reasons for acting are outside the

realm of causal law. The reader is then free to choose between two

alternatives: either `to accept the principle of the Nomological Character of

Causality provided that its domain is restricted so that we (humans) are

outside it in the rational realm ’ , or `to carry on asserting the usual ª purely

causalº statements about beliefs and desires. . . provided that she now denies

that there is any principle of Nomologicality having application wherever

statements of a ª purely causalº kind can be asserted’ (p. 153). Either of these

alternatives blocks Davidson’ s argument for monism.

Hornsby ’ s considerations on Agency, Mind, Causation, and Explanation

may be summarized in terms of two points of view . From the personal point of

view, àn action is a person’ s doing something for a reason, and her doing it is

found intelligible when we know the reason that led her to it’ . From the

impersonal point of view, àn action would be a link in a causal chain that

could be viewed without paying attention to people, the links being

understood by reference to the world’ s causal workings’ (p. 129). It is often

thought that the impersonal point of view threatens the personal point of view,

because the former is complete in itself and excludes the latter. Scientistic

naturalism assumes that the personal point of view is legitimate only to the

extent that it can be integrated into the impersonal point of view. Hornsby

argues, on the contrary, that the two points of view are not in competition

because, even though the impersonal point of view is complete in the sense

that there are no pieces missing where people and their actions should be, its

506 Herman Philipse

completeness cannot mean that every aspect of reality is present to it (p. 150).

Actions and persons cannot appear as such from the impersonal point of view,

and yet we cannot deny that they exist.

In other words, we cannot reduce the personal point of view to a mere

`stance’ as in Dennett. Because propositional attitudes could not be

accommodated in a homogeneously materialistic causal world, Dennett

regarded possession of the propositional attitudes as a matter of the success of

a certain stance . The property of being a believer would be grounded in the

property of being interpretable as a believer, but being so interpretable would

not imply that the relevant item really is a believer. However, in taking the

intentional stance, the stance taker himself has at least to be able to take a

stance, that is, to have beliefs, hence `we can no longer suppose that it is only

because people are interpretable as believing things that they do believe

things’ (p. 182).

Hornsby ’ s arguments against the many varieties of scientistic naturalism

form an intricate web of interrelated considerations which mutually support

each other. Even though some of these arguments, such as the mereological

argument, are inconclusive if considered separately, their fusion is a powerful

contribution to the philosophy of mind which encourages a particular attitude

to questions about `the mind’ s place in nature’ , an attitude that we might call

the naively naturalist attitude. We may hope that this attitude becomes more

fashionable and that, as a result, naive naturalism will once emerge from the

philosophical debates as a `positive position ’ .

Received 11 August 1998

Herman Philipse, Faculty of Philosophy, Leiden University, P.O. Box Postbox 9515, 2300 RALeiden, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected]


how to succeed in being simple-minded

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