Methodological Queries: Objections and Replies

Anthony Kenny points out that cognitive scientists often shrug off and defend their practice of ascribing psychological attributes to the brain as a harmless pedagogical device112. Indeed, in response to the claim that ascribing a psychological attribute to the brain makes no sense, cognitive scientists often respond by pointing out that actually they didn’t mean it like that or that such statements are to be understood in a metaphorical sense. That is to say that the words or expressions applied were used in a special sense as analogical extensions of their usual

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application. They must not be taken to have their ordinary meaning. Rather, the words or expressions in question, i.e. that the brain believes that…, has been given a

new meaning as the predicate is not used in the ordinary sense. Again, Antonio Damasio provides an excellent example of the kind of illusion and excuse alluded to here. In elaborating his neurobiological theory of consciousness he states that:

`looking back, with the license of metaphor, one might say that the swift, second order nonverbal account (=core consciousness) narrates a story: “that of the organism caught in the act of representing its own changing state as it goes about representing something else.” …This plot is incessantly repeated for every object the brain represents….´113

Such claims are problematic, however. What could it possibly mean to say that one adopts metaphoric licence when proposing a neurobiological theory of consciousness. Is this tantamount to saying that certain words adopt a new meaning? If it does then there is a problem. For there is no evidence that Damasio, or cognitive scientists in general, have really given new meanings to the words they use which would legitimise the ascription of psychological attributes to the brain or parts of the brain. Let alone render talk of second order neural representations, which narrate stories intelligible. When Descartes postulated that the soul sees images projected on the pineal gland, for example, he applied the verb to see in its ordinary sense (i.e. as applied in statements like, I see an English Bulldog chewing on my guitar case). Similarly, Damasio and other cognitive scientists, contrary to any claims brought forward, also continue to apply the psychological terms and expressions in question in their ordinary sense. Just like Descartes did. If that was not the case, cognitive scientists would not draw the kind of inferences from their research which they do draw. This is reflected in statements like

‘…the brain recognizes faces’ …It appears as though a special subsystem in the brain sees faces; it is triggered to produce the percept for our conscious lives by the configuration of elements. The special face processor does not know or care about what elements it is composed of; as long as they are in proper arrangement, a face is perceived. What could be more fascinating than to study how the brain does such things?’114

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See: Damasio (1999), p. 179. According to Damasio the story narrating core consciousness is what in his terms is a second order neural representation: core consciousness occurs when the brain’s representation devices generate an imaged, nonverbal account of how the organism’s own state is affected by the organism’s processing of an object, and when this process enhances the image of the causative object, thus placing it saliently in a spatial and temporal context.´ (see ibid: p.169)

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It is important to note that recognizing means ‘recognizing’ here, i.e. to identify something or someone as having been encountered before, and being able to make a discriminatory judgement as a result of the recognition. Furthermore, it is important that the special subsystem sees faces in the ordinary sense of to see. Only thus can it pick out or recognize the proper elements of a visual scene and contribute to the perception of a face (needless to point out that what is meant here is not that a human being perceives a face here, but his or her brain).

Yet, as the previous discussion showed, it makes no sense to say of a brain that it thinks, hears, sees, imagines, remembers, recognizes, perceives or believes as we do not know what would count as a brain thinking, hearing, seeing, imagining, remembering or believing. Furthermore, if the cognitive scientists really had given a new meaning to those kinds of expressions, they would have had to adopt a new conceptual framework with new rules for the application of certain familiar terms. Again, this is because the bounds of sense are drawn by the rules of language. If one wanted to change the rules for the use of certain psychological concepts, like believing or recognizing, for example, one would have to change a lot else as the rules for the application of certain concepts are part of an intricate and widely ramified network of conceptual connections which form an integral part of our form of life (see Chapter I, see also above).

Although perception is indeed a fascinating field of study, our understanding of this psychological phenomenon will not be advanced by explanations of the kind cited above. Rather, in cases like this cognitive scientists engage in a form of speculative metaphysics (or psychology) propounding seriously flawed explanations and theories. Thus, philosophy can not only add perspective to cognitive science but also make a real contribution to moving neuroscience forward, and help to put in on sure footing. And philosophy can do this contrary to the perceptions of some cognitive scientists:

’...to understand how a biological system works, a laboratory is needed and experiments have to be performed. Ideas derived from introspection can be eloquent and fascinating, but are they true? Philosophy can add perspective, but is it right? Only scientific method can move a topic along on sure footing.’115

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