Philosoplticnl Itrvcsstigntioris 13:4 October 1990 ISSN 0190-0536 $1.50

Discussion: Must Thinking Bats be Conscious?*

Patricia Hanna, Utiivevsity of Utah

Thomas Nagel’s well known and provocative article, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?, ’’I raises several fundamental issues concerning the importance of consciousness to thought. He argues that any ascription of thought to an entity requires that the entity be conscious, and that an entity is conscious only if there is something it is like, for that entity, to be itself. In order to assess Nagel’s contentions, it is first necessary to sketch some features of the widely shared belief that any adequate theory of thinking or understanding cannot be explained in terms of mere behaviour or physical structure. This view typically goes on to claim that there is an inner “something,” accessible only to the subject, which is essential to thought; it is only by inference that one can attribute this “something,” and hence thought, to others. The word “consciousness” is used to signify this something-accessible-only- to-me.

Initially these claims strike one as so obviously true as to be unremarkable; but a closer examination shows them to be fundamentally flawed. The view, including Nagel’s version, is untenable because its adoption leads directly to a dilemma. O n the one hand, to maintain that consciousness is essential to thought requires an account of consciousness that applies equally to oneself and to others; but to give such an account is to abandon the claim that something yvivate is required for thought. If, on the other hand, one insists that there is some private feature essential to thought, no such account is possible; this means that one must accept solipsism.

The first part of my argument (section I) consists in demonstrating * I would like to thank Fred Hagen, William Whisner, T. M. Reed and Kirk Robinson for their helpful criticisms of earlier versions of this paper. Virgil Aldrich and Bernard Harrison merit special thanks for their unflagging efforts (and enormoiis patience) at helping me see Wit tp is te in aright. 1. In Morfal Qttrsfioiis, Cambridge University Press, 1979, pp. 165-180.

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this dilemma. The second part of the argument (section 11) consists in showing that solipsism is avoidable because we can give a public account of consciousness without Nagel’s heroic (and unwarranted) appeal to a forthcoming “objective phenomenology. ’” This is, of course, to abandon any claim about the essentiality of private “somethings, ” and is thus unavailable to Nagel.

Part of the original motivation for introducing a private feature into the discussion of thought is the desire to direct attention to the fact that thinking is something which imparts a certain uniqueness to the subject. This, in turn, is a consequence of thc often overlooked fact that discussions of thinking are quite simply discussions o fpersons . This fact shows us both how to avoid the dilemma and why Nagel’s discussion of bats is misguided.

Nothing as public as a person could possibly be accessed only by first inferring the existence of what is, by hypothesis, private. There is, of courso, something which makes persons unique,3 however, it is not some private (accessible-only-to-the-subject) phenomenon. Wittgenstein was right, our ascription of thought to others does not depend on any antecedent ascription of some private f ~ a t u r e . ~

I The gencral structure of the argument for the dilemma is quite simple; but it requires that we grant Nagel a rather large (and, in fact, incoherent) assumption, viz., there is such a concept as the-accessible- only-to-me-private-phenomenon-called ‘consciousness’; to signal this assumption, I shall use the term ‘p-consciousncss’ rather than ‘cons~iousness’.~ For the moment, then, we will cngage in some ultimately incohererit talk; in the end, however, it turns out to give us cnough rope to hang the theory.6 2. h f o t d Questiorrs, pp. 178-180. 3. We niay in fact call i t “ C O I I S C ~ O U S ~ I ~ S S ; ” but see note 5. 4. In this connection, TUittgenstein’s remarks in PI (1261) about the unavoidable confusions and implications introduced into a n y attempt to describe “alien” experiences in our own language as a result of using words which already have a “post” in our language are relevant. 5. Initially, “p-conscioirsness” can be read as “private co~~sciousness”; after the argument has been completed, it will he more appropriately read “pseudo- consciousness. ’’ 6. That Nagel holds thus view is shown by his claim that the only point of view from which any determination of consciousness can be made is that of the entity itself.

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Concepts require criteria of application; and if a concept is to be applied to others, one must be able to say from an objective standpoint whether these criteria are satisfied. If this cannot be done, there is no justification for such an application. T o persist in doing so puts one in the position of claiming to give a “subjective” justification, which as Wittgenstein notes (PI, I: 265), is no justification at all.

Thus, if a feature like p-consciousness is taken to be essential to the ascription of thought to others, an objective account of this feature is required. If no such account can be given, then the feature cannot be attributed to others; in the case of p-consciousness leaving solipsism as the only available option.

The Cartesian legacy that thinking presupposes p-consciousness might be accounted for as follows. If some entity did exactly what we did but was not conscious it simply could not be thinking, however clever it might be. To imagine that it was thinking would, of necessity, altogether miss the nature of thinking.

And so far, this picture is correct. The mistake occurs when one draws the unwarranted conclusion that it is p-consciousness, not consciousness, which is central to thinking. This move is likely the result of the following sort of reasoning. How do we learn about consciousness? Well, one might say, we do so only by reflecting our own inner states, as Descartes did in the Second Meditation. And if this is so, then consciousness is essentially private, i.e., it is p-consciousness.

For these, and other reasons, Nagel attaches a great deal of importance to the role of p-consciousness in the philosophy of mind. He claims that it is “what makes the mind-body problem really intractable” (p. 165) and that it is “why current discussion of the problem give [p-consciousness] so little attention or get it obviously wrong” (p. 165). He sums up his position as follows:

Without consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting. With consciousness it seems h ~ p e l e s s . ~

This passage shows that Nagel feels the force of the dilemma (either make consciousness publicly available or accept solipsism)

7. I shall return to this passage in section 11, where I argue that while consciousness is indeed central to the philosophy of mind, this fact does not make questions in the area hopeless. This is so because coi~sc~ousness, unlike p-consciousness, is quite public.

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into which his position forces him. Unfortunately, his subsequent discussion offers no resolution, it simply obscures the real issue at the heart of the “mind-body problem.”

First, it is clear that Nagel has no interest in embracing solipsism. He maintains that thought occurs not only in humans, but that it also can occur in other creatures, including some which are “totally unimaginable to us” (p. 166). Moreover, in this same vein, he clearly wants to deny that it is p-consciousness which is the central concept. O n page 17‘1, he affirms that the point of view from which consciousness can be attributed to an entity “is not one accessible only to a single individual” (p. 171, emphasis added). In view of this, he should reject the reasoning behind the Cartesian legacy, take Wittgenstein’s side and provide an objective account of conscious- ness. Instead, he lets it go, remarking only that “it is very difficult to say in general what provides evidence of [consciousness]” (p. 166).8

The reason Nagel finds it so difficult to provide such an account contains the clue to the resolution of his problem. His difficulties stem from the fact that what he is trying to characterize is not consciousness, but p-consciousness. O n Nagel’s view, any objective account of “consciousness” must meet certain constraints. And the effect of these constraints rules out any attempt at explanation along the lines offered by identity theory, behaviourism or functionalism. According to Nagel none of these is an acceptable theory of mind, not simply because it docs not address the question of consciousness, but because it is incapable of addressing it since it pays no attention to the “inner side” of thought. In other words, these theories give no account of p-consciousness.9

But if thcse theories are ruled out, how are we to give an objective account of p-consciousness? No appeal to physical, behavioural or functional similarity is allowed, because such appeals go against Nagel’s conditions. But without access to such commonplace views as that natural expressions of thinking indicate

8. Nagel believes that in the long run, the most satisfactory approach to the problem lies in the development of an objective phenomenology. Something very like this approach is attempted by Jay Kosenberg in The ThItikiti‘q SeK Temple University Press, 19x6. Rosenberg’s work in this connection, while ingenious, makes clear the problems inherent in this approach. 9. The short way with this problcni is this: Nagel requires an objective (i.e., non- subjective) account of p-consciousness; but by hypothesis, p-consciousness is rubjective. It is, therefore, impossible to give such an account.

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p-consciousness, it is difficult, indeed impossible, to see how to account for p-consciousness.

And without an account of p-consciousness that meets his conditions, we must leave Nagel impaled on the other horn of his dilemma: solipsism. Although this is an untenable thesis, those who would defend p-consciousness as an underlying condition of thought have no other alternative.

But must we too remain thus impaled? Quite simply, no. The conditions which create the dilemma are themselves unjustified and incoherent.

Nagel is right when he says that it is not easy to say precisely what counts as evidence of consciousness; however, he does not identify the source of the difficulty correctly. What makes it so very hard to say what counts as evidence of consciousness is a desire to give a definitive (in the sense of necessary and sufficient) characterization of its conditions. However, it is not a t all difficult in practice to say what counts as evidence of consciousness, we see it all around us all the time; moreover, it is not at all difficult to say where to look for the evidence of consciousness, look to the faces, the bodies and the behaviour of those around us.

As Wittgenstein points out in PI (I; 281-285), “ ‘pain’ has a place in our language only because its use is associated with and tied down by natural expressions of pain. Imagine a group of people who occasionally utter the words ‘I’m in pain,’ but who never exhibit any natural pain behaviour; they would be an enigma to us. We could not treat their use of the words ‘I’m in pain’ as meaning what they would mean if used by us; but what other sense might we ascribe to them? Anyone who solemnly, but disinterestedly, announces, ‘I’m in pain,’ may be many things, but one thing slhe is not is in pain. Likewise, any account of consciousness (and, it turns out, thinking) which requires us to take it out of the context of its natural expression is one which simply is not an account of consciousness.

Consciousness and thinking are closely related, but distinct, activities occurring in the real world. When we say that someone is thinking about a problem, we quite naturally take it to be the case

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that s/he is conscious; the attempt to move from consciousness to thinking is a bit more complicated, and not always warranted. It may be appropriate to say that someone is conscious (for example, s/he is not asleep or comatose or . . . ), but it might not be appropriate to say that s/he is thinking. Simply being awake is not the same as thinking, despite Cartesian claims to the contrary, as each of us knows from reflecting on hidher experience when the alarm rings at 6:OO a.m.

In this context, to say (as Nagel does) that there is something it is like for that being to be itself is perfectly reasonablc. We undoubtedly do hold this view, or something very like it; it is Nagel’s interpretation of the thesis which is mistaken and misleading. We do notjrivst see whether there is something it is like for a being to be itself, and then (conclude (with or without other evidence) that the being is conscious, and then draw yet another inference to the conclusion that it is thinking.

The correct account is to say that we see that the entity is thinking or conscious. If asked whether there is something it is like for it to be itself, we would surely say that there is. If then asked to describe what this is like, our answer depends on how “close” to us the entity is. If it is sufficiently distant (unlike us), we might have to defer such an account until we are able to gain some access to that being’s experiences; in other cases, we might simply offer an approximation, with the caveat that the account is given in human language, with all its presuppositions, implications, etc. (See PI, I: 261). The difficulties here are practical not theoretical though some of them may indeed be incapable of solution.

Seen in this light, Nagel’s remark that “[w]ithout consciousness the mind-body problem would be much less interesting . . . [and with consciousness] it seems hopeless” (p. 165) takes on a new meaning. When Nagel says that it is only the mind-body problem with consciousness that is interesting, what he says is (more or less) true. However, it is only the problem of thinking construed so as to include ordinary coiisciousness, i. e., the consciousness that we observe everyday, that is of any interest to us. Where Nagel goes badly wrong is in saying that consciousness makes the problem hopeless; this claim is true only if what is at issue is p- consciousness.

If we had to give an account of p-consciousness in order to explain or understand thinking, there would indeed be no hope of

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ever reaching such an explanation or understanding. The questions in philosophy of mind would be unanswerable because they could not be asked. Fortunately, we do not have to account for p- consciousness; in fact, the very demand that we do is literally nonsensical.

As Wittgenstein showed (see PI, I: 256-257), detached from its natural expressions, ‘pain’ is not a word, it has no role to play, there is nothing it could refer to or name. So too, there is nothing that ‘consciousness’ could refer to, no role it could play in a language, nothing it could name, if picking out p-consciousness were its aim. Like ‘pain’ in PI, I: 271, p-consciousness is “a wheel that can be turned though nothing else move with it,” thus it “is not part of the mechanism.” But what this means is that p-consciousness is, as we suspected all along, nothing: like the beetle it divides through (PI, I: 293).

But this neither commits us to solipsism, nor does it in the least make the philosophy of mind impossible, for we never wanted p- consciousness in the first place. It was consciousness that was at stake; and we have had that all along.

And we can now lay Nagel’s question about what it is like to be a bat to rest. If experiencing what it is like to be an entity is suigeneris, then there is no answer to the question. But this is so because the qucstion is nonsensical. If, on the other hand, it is not sui xeneris, then we can try to piece together an answer insofar as it is possible for a human to comprehend a bat’s experiences and to give their character expression in human language. What seemed at first an impossibly deep question turns out to be another Cartesian confusion.

Dept . of Philosophy, University of Utah, 338 Orson Spence Hall , Salt Lake C i t y Utah 841 12

10. In The Blirr Book (Harper 8( Row: 1958). Wittgenstein comments on the Cartesian legacy and concludes I‘ . . . there is no more point in posfrrlafiri<q the existence of a peculiar kind of mental act along side our expression. This, of course, doesn’t mean that we have shown that peculiar acts of consciousness do not accompany the expressions of our thoughts! Only we no longer say that they must accompany them” (p. 42). This is closely related (indeed essentially identical) to the point being made in this paper.