讨论课 Week 5

Why Searle Considers Descartes a "Disaster"

While acknowledging the historical importance and influence of René Descartes' work in shaping the modern philosophy of mind, John Searle argues that his Cartesian dualism is ultimately a "disaster" for several reasons:

1. The Mind-Body Problem:

Descartes' substance dualism posits two distinct and independent realms of reality: the mental (res cogitans) and the physical (res extensa). This creates the seemingly intractable "mind-body problem" of explaining how these two realms interact causally. If minds and bodies are fundamentally different kinds of substances, how can mental events like decisions cause physical events like raising an arm, and vice versa? Searle argues that Descartes never adequately addressed this problem, resorting to unconvincing solutions like the pineal gland hypothesis (pp. 33-34).

2. Skepticism about the External World:

By claiming that we directly perceive only the contents of our minds ("ideas") and not the external world itself, Descartes opens the door to skepticism about the existence and nature of the external world. If our only access to reality is through mental representations, how can we be sure that these representations accurately reflect the world as it is? Searle argues that this move from perceiving real objects to perceiving only ideas is a "move of decisive importance" and the "greatest single disaster in the history of philosophy" (p. 23). He criticizes Descartes' reliance on God's non-deceptive nature as an unsatisfactory solution to this skepticism.

3. The Problem of Other Minds:

Cartesian dualism also leads to the "problem of other minds." If each individual only has direct access to their own mind, how can we ever know that other people have minds and conscious experiences? The argument from analogy, often attributed to Descartes, is deemed insufficient by Searle due to the lack of a non-inferential way to verify the existence of other minds. This leads to the possibility of solipsism, the view that only one's own mind exists.

4. Counterintuitive Solutions:

Searle further criticizes Descartes' solutions to other problems arising from his dualistic framework. For example, Descartes' denial of animal consciousness and his claim that we are never fully unconscious during sleep seem demonstrably false based on our everyday experiences and scientific understanding of animal cognition and sleep states.

5. Misleading Terminology:

Searle argues that the Cartesian vocabulary of "mind" and "body," "mental" and "physical," with their assumed mutual exclusivity, creates unnecessary philosophical problems and obscures the actual nature of mental phenomena. He advocates for abandoning these categories and adopting a more naturalistic approach that sees consciousness and intentionality as biological features of the brain, causally reducible to but not ontologically reducible to lower-level neuronal processes.

In summary, Searle views Descartes as a "disaster" because his substance dualism creates seemingly insoluble problems like the mind-body problem, leads to skepticism about the external world and other minds, and relies on counterintuitive solutions to explain mental phenomena. He argues that the Cartesian framework, with its misleading terminology and assumptions, has hindered our understanding of the mind and its place in the natural world.

为什么 Searle 认为笛卡尔是“灾难”？

尽管承认勒内·笛卡尔的工作在塑造现代心灵哲学方面具有重要的历史意义和影响，但约翰·塞尔认为，他的笛卡尔二元论最终是一场“灾难”，原因如下：

1. 心身问题：

笛卡尔的实体二元论假设了两个截然不同且相互独立的现实领域：精神（res cogitans）和物质（res extensa）。这造成了一个看似棘手的“心身问题”，即解释这两个领域如何相互作用。如果心灵和身体是根本不同类型的实体，那么像决定这样的心理事件如何导致像举起手臂这样的物理事件，反之亦然？塞尔认为，笛卡尔从未充分解决这个问题，而是诉诸于像松果体假说这样不令人信服的解决方案（第 33-34 页）。

2. 对外部世界的怀疑：

通过声称我们直接感知的只是我们心灵的内容（“观念”）而不是外部世界本身，笛卡尔打开了怀疑外部世界存在和性质的大门。如果我们对现实的唯一访问是通过心理表征，我们如何确定这些表征准确地反映了世界本来的样子？塞尔认为，这种从感知真实物体到只感知观念的转变是“决定性重要性的转变”和“过去四个世纪哲学史上最大的灾难”（第 23 页）。他批评笛卡尔依赖上帝的非欺骗性来解决这种怀疑主义是不令人满意的。

3. 他人意识问题：

笛卡尔二元论也导致了“他人意识问题”。如果每个人都只能直接访问自己的心灵，我们如何才能知道其他人有心灵和意识体验？通常归因于笛卡尔的类比论证被塞尔认为是不充分的，因为缺乏一种非推论的方式来验证他人意识的存在。这导致了唯我论的可能性，即认为只有自己的心灵存在的观点。

4. 反直觉的解决方案：

塞尔进一步批评了笛卡尔对他二元论框架中出现的其他问题的解决方案。例如，笛卡尔否认动物意识，以及他声称我们在睡眠期间从未完全失去意识，根据我们日常经验和对动物认知和睡眠状态的科学理解，这似乎显然是错误的。

5. 误导性的术语：

塞尔认为，笛卡尔的“心灵”和“身体”、“精神”和“物质”词汇，以及它们假定的相互排斥性，造成了不必要的哲学问题，并掩盖了心理现象的实际性质。他主张放弃这些类别，并采用一种更自然主义的方法，将意识和意向性视为大脑的生物学特征，在因果关系上可还原为较低级的神经元过程，但在本体论上不可还原。