An underlying project for many philosophers of mind is to form general theories about the nature of consciousness and mental states. One general theory of consciousness identifies mental states with physical states. In the philosophy of mind game, we call these “physicalist identity theories”. These theories basically assert that every type of mental state is identical to some type of physical state. A frequent example that is used to explore the soundness of physicalist identity theories is the mental state of pain. It would not be a small stretch to say that pain is the paradigmatic example of a mental state in philosophy of mind. If physicalist identity theories are true, then pain is identical to some type of physical state. Some philosophers of mind even use our experience of pain to tease out arguments for why physicalist identity theories are false. In an influential paper, Brie Gertler asks her readers to gently pinch themselves. She then presents the following argument against physicalism:
1. If I can conceive of a particular scenario occurring, the scenario is possible. (Gertler 2012)
2. I can conceive of this pain occurring while being disembodied. (Gertler 2012)
3. So, it is possible that this very pain occurs in a disembodied being.
4. If the identity thesis of physicalism is true, then (3) is false.
5. But, (3) is true. (by 1 and 2)
6. So, the identity thesis of physicalism is false.
The implication here is that experiencing pain can be generalized to an argument against physicalist identity theories. But what is it to be in pain? What is this thing we call “pain”? (Also, is pain really a “thing” we can identify with something else?) For Gertler, the concept of pain is best understood by thinking about its “essential features.” She compares pain’s essence to water and argues that water has a “hidden essence”, and its hidden essence is H2O. Pain, on the other hand, has no hidden essence. Gertler states, “[h]ere we have reached the fundamental, driving idea behind the Disembodiment Argument. As we conceptualize pain, pain has no hidden essence. If you feel you are in pain, then you are in pain; determining whether you are in pain does not require scientific investigation.” (Gertler 2012) Presumably Gertler has in mind an essentialist theory of mental states. To her, identity theories fail because they get the “essence” of pain wrong. They reduce pain to a type of physical brain state, and they identify pain with the wrong essence. A traditional essentialist theory asserts that the features corresponding to pain are essential and possesses definitional essences. So we define these features in terms of necessary and sufficient, intrinsic, unchanging, ahistorical properties. But it seems to me that when we think about more complex mental states, this sort of theory is just wrong-headed.
Consider the state of being romantically in love. Love is a complicated and multifaceted mental state that appears to lack anything like an essence, because it has many mental states and features associated with it. You can feel the rush and euphoric pleasure of first love, and at some other time you can be in love while feeling the pangs and cravings associated with heartbreak. An individual can be in a marriage, where the pleasure of first love has worn off, yet they can still be utterly and deeply in love. We can also have mental states associated with the reciprocity of love, and in other cases we can long for a beloved while our love is never returned. When trying to account for the cluster of mental states and relations that is involved when in love, one can begin to see why a traditional essentialist theory of love ultimately fails.
A better framework for understanding love may be a family resemblance framework, inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein. Members of the state resemble each other through a variety of features that are shared by some, but not all, members of the group of mental states associated with love. The family resemblance theory allows there to be a number of mental states associated with love and is a less rigid framework for characterizing love. Moreover this theory is a good way to validate the ontological status of mental states associated with love without having to erroneous identify one state that essentially and rigidly designates love.
But what about neuroscientific investigations of romantic love? Don’t they imply that physicalist identity theories are true? It is difficult to see how neuroscience implies that identity theories are true. In fact, I would argue that neuroscientific literature on romantic love reveals that complicated mental states require a different framework than identity theories can provide. Consider the neurochemical oxytocin -the neuropeptide that is frequently associated with love and pair bodniing. Although oxytocin research is still in its infancy, it seems safe to say that oxytocin and its effects do not involve one, but several areas of the brain including the hypothalamus, paraventricular nucleus, and the supraoptic nucleus. Moreover, there are several areas in both the brain and the body that contain receptors of oxytocin, suggesting love depend on both brain and bodily states. Finally, some recent and very interesting research by Jennifer Bartz and her colleagues reveal that oxytocin can be associated with both prosocial behaviour and antisocial behavior, depending on situational and individual differences (Bartz et al. 2011). Bartz concludes that “social context is crucial in shaping the effects of oxytocin on social cognition and prosociality.” (Bartz et al. 2011) This reveals that to understand love, we need to look at a brain, inside a body that is embedded in an environment (including a social environment). It is very difficult to reduce love to a type of brain state, since it involves a wide variety of mechanisms in the brain, body, and environment. Moreover, I wouldn’t even know where to begin with formulating an identity relation between such features.
When we think about love, an identity theory may be the wrong relation to account for its multiple factors. It is extremely difficult to account for what it is like to be in love by appealing to philosophical views about essences or physicalist theories that reduce mental states to physical states in the brain. Moreover, it appears that there are a variety of mental states that are not like pain, and we may require different philosophical ontologies to account for these other conscious experiences. If the philosophers of mind’s primary goal is to understand consciousness and mental states in all forms, then perhaps we should encourage the philosopher of mind to broaden his or her taxonomy of mental states to additionally include complicated mental states like love. What do you all think? Does the study of romantic love reveal that identity theories are doomed for failure? Is there some redeeming qualities to physicalist identity theories? What else can philosophers of mind learn from thinking about love?
What’s your take?
Works Cited
Bartz, J.A., J. Zaki, N. Bolger, and K.N. Ochsner. 2011. “Social Effects of Oxytocin in Humans: Context and Person Matter.” Trends in Cognitive Science 15: 301–9.
Gertler, B. 2012. “In Defence of Mind-Body Dualism.” In Conciousness and the Mind-Body Problem, ed. T. Alter and R. Howell. New York: Oxford University Press.
A Philosopher's Take 
N Filbert
June 23, 2013
“The ego is a plurality of forces of person-like forces, of which now this one, now that one stands in the foreground and assumes the aspect of the ego; from this vantage-point, it contemplates the other forces, as a subject contemplates an object exterior to himself, an influential and determining outside world. The point of the subject is mobile.” (Friedrich Nietzsche). Then there’s that philosophy. A philosophy I feel affinity to and which you evoke – transversing, multi-modal, threading, fragmented, kaleidoscopic, “discontinuous (yet unabrupt)” (Barthes) – shot through with in and out (neither), brain/body/mind/word/molecules/weather/cosmos/all transductively influencing and informing whatever composes the perceived current context? Motion.
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rwaldred
June 23, 2013
Reblogged this on Thinking…..
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Justin Caouette
June 26, 2013
Nice post, Ray. I had a few questions. You say that identity theories are not the right sort of theories to understand the mind because they fail to account for complex mental states such as being in love. But, couldn’t a physicalist/reductionist claim that their view can account for each mental state individually? Further, couldn’t they also claim that a dualism is in no better a position (maybe even a worse position) to talk about romantic love than they are given how difficult it would be to posit a dualism that can account for causation in the physical world? Also, you mention our body and the environment as factors that identity theorists could not avail themselves to but surely both physicalists and reductionists can avail themselves to such views and eschew dualism. If this is true is it better to look at Gertler’s piece as a defense of physicalism and not a defense of dualism?
Lots going on here, sorry for the barrage of questions.
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rwaldred
August 24, 2013
Hi Justin, sorry it’s taken so long for me to reply.
I’m afraid I don’t understand how one can account for each mental state “individually.” Perhaps you mean that one can reduce love to each individual factor that is involved in love. The problem with this approach is that it still seeks to rigidly designate love with this cluster of factors associated with love. I think this approach is doomed for failure, and the reductionist still needs to say what love is to be rigidly designated with. And most of the accounts I have read ultimately fails at this task. They leave some crucial thing out, or they include some factor that has odd consequences for their view. If you are sympathetic towards a “family resemblance” idea, you need not burden yourself with such a task. Love can be many things.
I would argue that dualism is no better a position, because it too falls into the same trap: it rigidly designates love, and all the feelings of love to some non-physical thing. So I think I have no problem with the physicalist suggesting that dualism is in no better a position to understanding romantic love than the physicalist/reductionist.
Finally, I did mention environmental factors and the body in my account. While the reductionist might want to use these items to eschew dualism, it is difficult to bring multiple factors, that exist on multiple levels of reality, that have multiple directions of causation, into a reductionist account. However, in any case, I still strongly believe that Gertler’s piece should unequivicolly be understood as a defense of dualism. After all, the paper itself is named “In Defense of Mind-Body Dualism.” You can’t get much clearer about who she’s defending than that.
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Sreejith
September 1, 2013
Hello Ray,
You said: “While the reductionist might want to use these items to eschew dualism, it is difficult to bring multiple factors, that exist on multiple levels of reality, that have multiple directions of causation, into a reductionist account. However, in any case, I still strongly believe that Gertler’s piece should unequivicolly be understood as a defense of dualism”.
I have not read the paper that you are reffering to. From the title of the paper it is clear that the author is attempting to defend Mind-Body dualism. As you have pointed out it is difficult to provide a reductionist account of mind in a scenario where we have to consider the social and environmental factors as well in providing an account of mind. Yes it is difficult and it makes the task a difficult one for the reductionists. It only means that it is not easy to give a reductionist account of mind since multiple factors are involved. But how does that help one to defend dualism? Arguing that a rival position has problem need not necessarily mean that the other position is true. Both can be false. And also, Physicalism and dualism need not exhaust all the possible accounts of mind; there can be other accounts.
Involvement of too many factors such as social and enviromental can pose only a practical or epistemological difficulty. It does not pose any problem for the ontological status of mind. I guess a physicalist who considers social and environmental aspects as constitutive parts of mind can say that, well, since there are too many factors to be accounted for, we do not have the details of thev theory of mind that we are proposing. The fact that it is difficult to provide an account does not pose any problem in principle for the philoosphical position; the problem is a practical one. To challenge the theory one has to show, I suppose, that it is impossible in principle to provide an account of mind which takes social and environmental features as constitutive of the mind.
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Ray
September 7, 2013
Hi Sreejith,
Thanks for the reply. I think we agree in some places, and I might be able to further elaborate on what I had said. The following will be my attempt to do so. When I said that Gertler was defending Mind-body dualism, it was a reply to Justin’s question as to whether Gertler’s piece could be a defence for physicalism. I don’t think it can, given the title of the paper and the argument structure.
I had suggested that when we incorporate environmental factors, as well as bodily conditions, multiple levels, and multiple directions of causation, then it will be difficult to give a reductionist account of the mind. By difficult, I was implying that at some point, we may be forced to give up reductionism or identity theories, or at least give up some tenant of reductionism. In other words, the difficulty is not simply practical, it’s a principled difficulty that threatens to undermine the basic claims of identity reductionist theories of mind. The critique I gave was largely against a physicalist identity theory that reduces the mind to some physical brain processes, and identifies some mental state to these physical brain states. I was not defending dualism myself. That being said, I don’t think it helps one defend dualism, except to deny one physicalist theory.
Moreover, I am not entirely sure there is a clean distinction between “principled” and “practical” problems in philosophy. Suppose I give you a principled argument for why it will never be possible to give a reductionist identity account of complex processes in the mind. We would then have a principled argument for why we can not ever overcome a practical problem. Is it now a principled problem or a practical and insurmountable problem for this approach to understanding the mind? Indeed, this is something close to what I would argue, and I think what some people are beginning to argue when they take multiple factors (like brain, body, and environment) into their accounts of mind. At the very least, reasons can be given about a “practical” problem, that can and should curb your philosophical enthusiasm towards a particular theory. I’ve also heard very similar arguments given for critical appraisals about the current state of cognitive neuroscience, but I’ll leave that for another blog post. I will reply to your other comments shortly. And thanks again for your input!
Cheers!
Ray
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Sreejith
September 9, 2013
Hi Ray,
Thank you so much for the clarifications. I appreciate it. Sorry to say that I need more clarifications. May be I am slow in following your thoughts; apologies for that. You said: “…I am not entirely sure there is a clean distinction between “principled” and “practical” problems in philosophy. Suppose I give you a principled argument for why it will never be possible to give a reductionist identity account of complex processes in the mind. We would then have a principled argument for why we can not ever overcome a practical problem.” I am having difficulty to understand the ‘practical problem’ that you are talking about in this example. How would the impossibility of providing a reductionist account of mind be a practical problem? Isn’t it a theoretical problem? What practical difficulty will it raise?
If you don’t mind I would also like to know that why do you think that perhaps there is no clean distinction between “principled” and “practical” problems in philosophy.
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Ray Aldred
September 12, 2013
Hi Sreejith,
I think we are in agreement, then. What I was replying to was the following claim made by you to my response: “The fact that it is difficult to provide an account does not pose any problem in principle for the philoosphical position; the problem is a practical one.” In response, I called into this distinction you made between problems in principle for a philosophical position, and practical ones. It seemed you made this distinction, although perhaps I am misreading you.
The practical problem that my thought experiment presented is that you can’t actually give a reductionist account of the mind. Perhaps it’s an argument based on computational limitations. The implications are practical, but it leaves open the logical possibility of a reductionist account of our mind. The truth is, I’m not sure what sort of problem this would be, but it’s not clear that it falls into a “practical” difficulty, or “principled” difficulty.
Ray
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Sreejith
September 1, 2013
Hi Justin,
About Brie Gertler’s argument: Proposition 1: If I can conceive of a particular scenario occurring, the scenario is possible. Do you think that conceivability would entail possibility? I think this assumption is crucial for the argument to run.
Regards,
Sreejith
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Ray
September 7, 2013
Hi Sreejith,
I think you might be right. But the way you parsed the assumption might be more universal than what Gertler needs for her argument to turn out. Although I say that tentatively. In addition, she does give reasons for thinking that conceivability implies possibility. I don’t think she’s right, but she does give reasons. Chalmers also gives reasons for thinking that conceivability implies possibility, but some disagree. I could have elaborated on that, but I didn’t want to get too deep into a discussion about modality in this discussion.
Cheers and thanks for the input,
Ray
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Sreejith
September 9, 2013
That is fair enough
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Sreejith
September 1, 2013
Hi Justin,
One more worry about Gertler’s argument against physicalism. I was talking to a friend of mine about this argument. He has trouble with proposition 2: “I can conceive of this pain occurring while being disembodied.”. He says that he cannot conceive what the author claims we can conceive. I guess that there must be a point in his worry. One way to understand his worry may be as follows. Arguably, pain is closely related to body. Pain always has a location in the body. You can ask “where do you feel the pain?” As an answer to that question one can point to a particular part of the body. In some occasions we would not be able to tell precisely where the pain is . Nonetheless we can point to an area where we feel the pain. So pain is always a pain in some part of the body. To say this is to say that pian always more or less has a location. Pain has a location by virtue of the fact that body is extended in space. A disembodied is not extended in space. Hence the experience disembodied being will have has no location. Since the feature of having a location seems to be built into the notion of pain; a disembodied being cannot experience pain. Hence it is not clear that how proposition 2 ( “I can conceive of this pain occurring while being disembodied.”) can be true.
One might object that there is another kind of pain which does not include anything physical. For example, one might say that ‘I am in intense pain since I had a fight with my boy-friend last night’. If you aks to this person, where does she feel the pain, she cannot show you a location for that. So one might argue that pain does not necessarily involve a location as I argued above. My intution here is as follows. Here the word ‘pain’ is used metaphorically. When the lady in the example say that ‘I am in intense pain since I had a fight with my boy-friend last night’ she mean some/all of the following. She mean to say that she is undergoing stress, sorrow, loneliness, anxiety, regret etc. None of them are ‘pain’ in literal sense.
Regards,
Sreejith
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Ray
September 7, 2013
Hi Sreejith,
I agree with your friend: it is difficult to conceive of pain occurring without a body. However, the way you presented the worry is not without it’s problems. Here are my initial thoughts.
Firstly, you had argued that pain is always a pain in some part of the body. This might be problematic because of the way you defined pain. One might understand pain as occurring when and only when it is processed by the brain as pain. We then have the feeling of pain that depends on the brain processing some bodily condition, and both are necessary for an explanation of pain. We might be able to manipulate the brain so that some brain process that allows us to feel pain doesn’t occur, and then we never feel pain again. Hence, the bodily manipulations that usually results in pain is not processed or felt as pain. Hence, pain is not present, even when a normally painful bodily condition might be present. What makes pain pain is the FEELING of pain when we are in it. After we acknowledge that, we might argue that when we pinch ourselves and feel pain, then that same pain usually has some location in the body.
But what about people with intense amounts of physical pain that they cannot locate in a particular bodily location? At best, these people can give a general location, but not a specific location of pain. It’s an achy pain that they have all over their body. Persons who have received chemo therapy often report these sorts of pain experiences. So the idea that pain always has some specific location might need some qualification.
Finally, the largest problem for this account of pain is when pain occurs in persons who have amputated limbs, yet feel pain in limbs that do not exist. These individuals claim that they are feeling pain in some bodily location, yet that bodily location does not exist. They can’t point to an actual location on their body where they are feeling pain, yet pain is present. Hence, pain does not always exist in some bodily location. I think your friend is on to something, but with these considerations in mind, his position might need to be further refined.
Cheers,
Ray
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Sreejith
September 9, 2013
Hello Ray,
I agree with you that “What makes pain is the FEELING of pain when we are in it”. My argument was that this feeling of pain always has a location. I was arguing that this feeling has a location in the body. You have argued that it need not be the case.
1. You said that in the case of patinece who have undergone chemotherapy, the kind of pain they feel does not have a precise location. But my point is that, though it does not have a specific location it is located somewhere in the body. It is true that they are not able to tell us where exactly they are feeling the pain, nevertheless aren’t they feeling it in somewhere in their body? Would they say that “ I can’t tell you where exactly in my body am I feeling the pain” or would they say that “I don’t know where does I feel the pain, but defintely it is not in my body”? I do not know. I am sure that you must be knowing the details of it.
2. You cited the exmaple of “Phanthomb limb” and “phanthomb pain” to show that pain always does not require a body as I was claiming. You are right, I overlooked that possibility. But even in such cases there is a sense of body in the experience of pain. The pain is occuring somewehre in the body schmema. When you are asking the person who has an amputed limb that where does (s)he feel the pain, (s)he would point towards the place whre his/her leg used to be. Even here the FEELING of pain has an external direction. My intuition is that this feaute of having an external direction is a constituitive feature of the feeling of pain. So, let us consider the example of a disembodied being. Obviously, a disembodied being cannot have a body. I suppose that it cannot have a body schema either. Now:
1. Disembodied being cannot have a body.
2. Disembodied being cannot have a body schema
3. Having a direcion towards a body or body schema is a constitutive feature of the feeling of pain.
4. Hence, Disembodied mind cannot have the feeling of pain. (From 1, 2 and 3)
Cheers,
Sreejith
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Ray Aldred
September 19, 2013
Hi Sreejith,
Indeed, I do think the relation between pain and the body is interesting, and something like what you describe might be correct, but not without further clarification and modification.
You had claimed that pain always has a location in the body. I have problems with this claim. While I think that pain requires bodies and neurological events, I don’t think it needs to have a location on the body. For me, pain is a result of some complex processes involving the brain, body and/or environment, and that is enough to call Gensler’s argument into question. However, I do not think pain needs to have a location in the body, or always has a location in the body.
1) The chemotherapy case was supposed to be against the claim that pain has a specific location on the body. Indeed, if it is felt all over the body, or is an achy pain with no specific location, then it might have several locations on the body. So we have a single pain, felt all over the body. If pain always has A location on the body, this might seem strange. In the chemotherapy case, it is not entirely clear that this is true, on the basis that there are several areas of the body that the pain is felt in. You further specify that pain has SOME location on the body. This seems to a better representation of what you were after, so thanks for the clarification. Indeed pain does seem to depend on the body, but it is a different claim entirely to make assertions about actual locations of that pain, and understanding pain as necessarily located on that body. I am just not sure if that’s the correct understanding of pain.
2) The phantom-limb case is more problematic, I think, to the account that you present. I am not calling into question whether pain actually requires a body, but just the understanding that pain always has some location in the body. In the case of phantom limb the statement, “I feel pain in my arm,” is false or without truth content. While the person feels pain, the referent is missing. Indeed, if pain has a location in space and time then you should be able to claim where exactly the pain is, and if you can’t, then you are having a delusion or hallucination about the pain you are in. Indeed, for x to have a location, it seems to me that x needs to exist in time and space, else it does not have a location. The delusion, in this case, appears to be that you are actually having a pain in some part of your body. The pain is there and feels like it has a location in the body, but, in fact, it doesn’t have a location in the body.
The idea that a person suffering with phantom limb-pain can point to his pain seems wrong. I suspect that this is a difficult part of feeling phantom-limb pain, because they can’t do this. They have the feeling of pain, and they think that it’s in a missing limb, but when they go to point to the pain, they can’t. Indeed, this might be part of the reason why this sort of pain is so persistent. It literally has no location on the body. The brain thinks it does, but, in fact, it doesn’t.
You clarify that the feeling of pain has an “external direction.” And you further claim that this is a “constitutive part of pain”. I’m not entirely sure how to unpack this statement. But I do think phantom-limb pain is a good counter example to the initial claim that your friend made about pain always having a location or some location on the body.
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Sreejith
September 2, 2013
Hello!
I was adreesing Justing by thinking that he is the one who made the post. I am sorry about that. I understand that rwaldred made the post. I overlooked the fact that Philosophers other than Justin is writing here. My apologies for this overlooking. I understand that Justin is going to change the name of the blog from ” A Philosopher’s take” to something else. I hope I will not make this mistake again once he change the name of the blog 🙂
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Justin Caouette
September 2, 2013
No worries, Sreejith. It is for this reason that I want to change the name. I’m still mulling over if in fact I will change it up.
Thanks for your comment, I’m sure Ray will get to it sooner than later.
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Sreejith
September 3, 2013
Hello Justin,
Cool. Looking forward to your blog in its new shape.
Regards,
Sreejith
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