Inner and Outer: Essays On a Philosophical Myth

262 Pages·1991·24.375 MB·English

by  Godfrey Vesey (auth.)

INNER AND OUTER
Essays on a Philosophical Myth
Also by Godfrey Vesey
THE EMBODIED MIND
PERCEPTION
PERSONAL IDENTITY
AGENCY AND NECESSITY (with Antony Flew)
DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY (with Paul Foulkes)
Inner and Outer
Essays on a Philosophical Myth
Godfrey Vesey
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
The Open University
Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN 978-1-349-21641-3 ISBN 978-1-349-21639-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21639-0
©Godfrey Norman Agmondisham Vesey, 1991
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1991
All rights reserved. For information, write:
Scholarly and Reference Division,
St. Martin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue,
New York, NY 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1991
ISBN 978-0-312-06174-6
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vesey, Godfrey Norman Agmondisham.
Inner and outer: essays on a philosophical myth/Godfrey Vesey.
p. em.
Essays originally published 1954-1990.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-06174-6
1. Dualism. I. Title.
B812.V37 1991
128' .2-dc20 90-28462
CIP
Contents
Acknowledgements
Vll
1 Introduction
PART I VOLUNTARY ACTION
2 The Princess and the Philosopher 17
3 Volition 29
4 Agent and Spectator-The Double Aspect Theory 45
5 Hume on Liberty and Necessity 65
6 Free Will 84
PART II PERCEPTION
7 Unthinking Assumptions and Their Justification 105
8 Seeing and Seeing As 114
9 Sensations of Colour 127
10 Of the Visible Appearances of Objects 144
11 The Location of Bodily Sensations 161
12 The World Without 173
PART III COMMUNICATION
13 Is Talk a Mode of Transport? 189
14 Self-acquaintance and the Meaning ofT 198
15 Wittgenstein on the Myth of Mental Processes 208
16 Wittgenstein on Psychological Verbs 215
17 Other Minds 229
18 Wittgenstein-A Dictionary Entry 243
Godfrey Vesey-A Chronological Bibliography 247
Name Index 253
Subject Index 256
Acknowledgements
The author and publishers acknowledge the first appearance in
print of the essays in this volume, as listed below, in the publications
named, and express their gratitude to all concerned in their publica
tion.
'The Princess and the Philosopher', in Godfrey Vesey (ed.), Philos
ophy in the Open (Milton Keynes: The Open University Press,
1974).
'Volition', Philosophy, 36 (1961).
'Agent and Spectator - the Double Aspect Theory', in Godfrey
Vesey (ed.), The Human Agent, Royal Institute of Philosophy
Lectures, 1, 1966-67 (London: Macmillan, 1968).
'Hume on Liberty and Necessity', in Godfrey Vesey (ed.), Philoso
phers Ancient and Modem, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures
20 (Cambridge University Press, 1986).
'Free Will', in A. Phillips Griffiths (e d.) Key Then res in Philosophy,
Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures 24 (Cambridge University
Press, 1989).
'Unthinking Assumptions and their Justification', Mind, 63 (1954).
'Seeing and Seeing As', in Proceedings of tire Aristotelian Society, 56
(1956).
'Sensations of Colour', in J. B. Schneewind (ed.), Mill (New York:
Doubleday, 1968).
'Of the Visible Appearances of Objects', in John Fisher (e d. ), Perceiv
ing Artworks (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980).
'The Location of Bodily Sensations', Milrd, 70 (1961).
'The World Without', in Godfrey Vesey (ed.), Pl1ilosophy in the Open
(Milton Keynes: The Open University Press, 1974).
'Is Talk a Mode of Transport?', The Gadfly, a Quarterly Review of
English Letters, 5 (1982).
'Self-acquaintance and the Meaning of "I" ', in George W. Roberts
(ed.), Bertrand Russell Memorial Volume (London: George Allen
& Unwin, 1979).
'Wittgenstein on the Myth of Mental Processes', The Philosophical
Review, 77 (1968).
'Wittgenstein on Psychological Verbs', in Donald F. Gustafson and
Bangs L. Tapscott (eds), Body, Mind and Method (Dordrecht,
Holland: Reidel, 1979).
vii
viii Acknowledgements
'Other Minds', in Godfrey Vesey (ed.), Understanding Wittgenstein,
Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures, 7, 1972-73 (London:
Macmillan, 1974).
'Wittgenstein', in Godfrey Vesey and Paul Foulkes, Dictionary of
Philosophy (London and Glasgow: Collins, 1990).
1
Introduction
PRELIMINARIES
The essays in this collection are on a philosophical myth. I call
it 'the myth of the inner and outer'. It is behind what Gilbert Ryle
calls 'the myth of the ghost in the machine'. 1 But it is also behind
what might be called 'the myth of a machine with a ghost in it',
or, more generally, 'the myth of the world as external'. In brief,
the myth divides what, to the philosophically unindoctrinated (and
even to the indoctrinated in their non-philosophical moments) is
undivided, into two distinct things - one inner ('mental') and one
outer ('physical').
The myth manifests itself in philosophical theories of voluntary
action, perception and communication. In regard to voluntary
action, the myth finds expression in the theory that my raising
my arm is really two distinct things, one of them inner (my perform
ing a mental act of willing, a 'volition') and one outer (my arm
rising). In the case of perception, the myth finds expression in
the so-called 'representative theory': I do not really see physical
things; instead I apprehend inner things ('ideas' or 'sensations')
that represent outer things (things in the 'external' world). In the
case of communication, there is what Jonathan Bennett called 'the
translation view of language':2 my saying something involves my
translating inner things (ideas or thoughts) into outer things (aud
ible sounds), and my understanding what someone says involves
my translating outer things (audible sounds) into inner things (ideas
or thoughts). Such is the power of the myth that we fall over our
selves to embrace it when we first start philosophising about volun
tary action, perception and communication.
How is the myth to be combated? One way is the 'ordinary lan
guage' way. We draw attention to how we ordinarily talk about
voluntary action, perception and communication, and we try to
show that anyone under the spell of the myth has distorted ordinary
talk and thought. For example, suppose someone asserts that what
1
2 Introduction
he is immediately aware of when he perceives something is really
only an impression made on his mind by an external object. We
can say, with Thomas Reid (1710-96):
There is a figurative meaning of impressions on the mind
but this meaning applies only to objects that are interesting. To
say that an object which I see with perfect indifference makes
an impression on my mind is not, as I apprehend, good English.
If philosophers mean no more but that I see the object, why
should they invent an improper phrase to express what every
man knows how to express in plain English? ... When I look
upon the wall of my room, the wall does not act at all, nor is
capable of acting; the perceiving is an act or operation in me.
That this is the common apprehension of mankind with regard
to perception, is evident from the manner of expressing it in
all languages.
:1
Reid himself did not rest content with making the ordinary lan
guage response. He wanted to combat John Locke (1632-1704) and
David Hume (1711-76) on their own, metaphysical, ground.
Someone who embraces the myth of the inner and outer thereby
lays himself open to the question 'How can we be sure that the
inner things, our ideas or concepts, conform to the outer things?
In other words, how can we be sure that our concepts are real,
and not fantastical or chimerical?' Locke's answer, in the case of
our simple ideas of whiteness and coldness, was that we can be
sure because the ideas are the effects in us of powers in things
without. Different ideas or sensations in us correspond to different
powers (qualities) in external things. In the case of secondary quali
ties, correspondence does not mean resemblance, but resemblance
is not needed for ideas to be real. The reality of simple ideas lies
in the steady correspondence they have with their causes, the dis
tinct constitutions of real beings. In short, simple ideas are real
because they have a foundation in nature ... As might be expected,
Locke's answer was entirely in accord with the representative
theory of perception. By 'nature' he meant the external world. Reid
accepted the question about the reality of our concepts as a proper
one to ask, but rejected Locke's empiricist answer to it. The only
'nature' that matters, he said, is our own nature, our God-given
constitution.
The difference between Locke and Reid can be brought out with