In Defense of Materiailism

International Phenomenological Society
In Defense of Materialism
Author(s): Max Hocutt
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 27, No. 3 (Mar., 1967), pp. 366-385
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
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IN DEFENSE OF MATERIALISM
I. The Thesis to be Defended

As a philosophy of mind, materialism has been refuted or abandoned
in every age. But abandoned philosophies, like abandoned wives, fre-
quently make embarrassing returns under inconvenient circumstances.
Materialism has recently made such a return in the form of works by
Professors Smart, Place, and Feigl, among others.' This new materialism
has a new name, the identity theory, and new claims on our fidelity,
the recent successes of neurophysiology and electronic technology. Its
main argument is an application of Occam's razor: When entities verified
in one way are found to be perfectly correlated with entities verified in
a different, independent way, it is simpler to identify the two sorts of
entities than to suppose a parallelism between distinct sets of entities.2
Since neurophysiological research increasingly reveals a correlation be-
tween mental events and brain states, it seems a reasonable hypothesis
that mental events are brain states. Thus, not only has materialism
returned, but it has lost the discouragement Sir Charles Sherrington
feigned upon not being able to discover where in the brain the mind is
located. Materialists can now even accept with equanimity that it is not
in the pineal gland.
Having returned, however, the abandoned philosophy is once again
being refuted. Many of the old arguments have been revived and some
new ones have been invented to show that it must be false. Unlike the
arguments for the identity of mind and body, which are empirical and
methodological, the arguments against it are a priori and dialectical,
claiming primarily that the thesis is nonsensical. Many of these argu-
ments have been answered, some of them quite convincingly in my
opinion, by Professors Place and Smart. But because misunderstandings
on fundamental points persist and because some objections have not, in
1 See "Is Consciousness a Brain Process" by U. T. Place, and "Sensations and

Brain Processes" by J. J. C. Smart, both reprinted in The Philosophy of Mind,
ed. by V. C. Chappell, Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962. Also, H. Feigl,
Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, II, University of Minnesota
Press, 1957.
2 See E. G. Boring, The Physical Dimensions of Consciousness, New York:
Dover Publications, 1963, p. 14.
366
IN DEFENSE OF MATERIALISM 367
my estimate and owing partly to a lack of clarity in the thesis, been

satisfactorily answered, I want here to add to the defense and clarifica-
tion of the so-called "identity" account of mind and body.
The precise thesis that I want to defend may be put, using the term
"identity," as follows: Each member of the class of mental events (states
of awareness) is identical with some member of the class of brain (neuro-
physiological) states or processes. Another way of putting this thesis,
without using the term "identity," would be to say that every event
which has the property of being mental also has the property of being
physical, or more specifically, neurophysiological. Still a third way of
saying the same thing would be that the class of mental events i's a sub-
class of the class of neurophysiological events.
It will be noticed that this thesis differs from classical materialism in
that, instead of denying that there are mental events and thus denying
paradoxically and untenably that there are any such occurrences as
awareness, sensations, or thoughts, it admits the occurrence of mental
events but claims, contrary to Cartesian dualism, whether of the inter-
actionist, parallelist, or epiphenomenalist variety, that mental events are
physical. That is, it denies that there are two mutually exclusive classes
of events, the physical and the nonphysical or mental. Though it admits
two classes, they are the physical and the nonmental on the one, hand
and the physical but mental on the other.
This thesis is also to be distinguished from what has been called a
"strong form" of the identity theory, according to which the property
of being mental is identical with the property of being some (still to be
specified) kind of neurophysiological event.3 According to the weaker
form that I want to defend, whatever has the property of being mental
also has (is identical with something that has) the property of being
neurophysiological, and the question may be left open as to whether the
properties themselves are the same. On this latter question, my own
provisional view is that the two sorts of properties are not identical, the
chief reason being that they are not properties in the same sense of the
word "property." Mental properties may be, as it were, extrinsic or
relational properties of events, whereas neurophysiological properties are
intrinsic properties. If so, one should probably say, not that mental
properties are identical with certain brain state properties but that there
are no such things as mental properties in the sense of intrinsic proper-
ties. Or else one should say, what I think is equivalent, that of the two
sorts of properties, the only sort intrinsic to mental events are neuro-
3 This is Sellars' interpretation of Feigl's position. See Wilfred Sellars, "The

Identity Approach to the Mind-Body Problem," Review of Metaphysics, Vol.
XVIII, No. 3, March 1965, pp. 430-451.
368 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
physiological properties.4 But this is a separate question, and though I

shall say a bit more about it below, I am not concerned here to defend
any answer to it. My paramount concern is to answer objections to the
thesis that every mental event is identical with some neurophysiological
event.
Whether it is appropriate to call this view "materialism" or whether
it would be more accurately described as a form of "dualism" is a verbal
question. But I think it is clear that it is not a form of psycho-physical
dualism just because it admits a distinction between events that are
mental as well as physical and events that are merely physical, any more
than the assertion that every living organism is a physical being is a form
of organico-physical dualism just because it admits a distinction between
living beings such as amoebas and nonliving beings such as chairs.
Similarly, whether it is appropriate to call this weak form of the identity
theory an "identity theory" is a verbal question. Its peculiarity is that
it asserts an identity between the members of one class and those of
the subclass of some other class. But, in this sense, the proposition "All
men are mortal" is an identity thesis, since it is equivalent with the
assertion that every member of the class of men is identical with some
member of the class of mortals.5 Consequently, instead of being called
an "identity theory," the thesis might more properly be called an "in-
clusion theory."
Nevertheless, I think the thesis I have stated is the least questionable
point in the theories advanced by Professor Place and Professor Smart,
who have insisted that they are asserting a strict identity between mental
events and brain processes.6 For theirs is a strange sort of identity thesis
that consists in the assertion of a general and distributive identity be-
tween classes rather than, as is usual, a singular identity between par-
ticulars. And, although the identity relation is symmetrical, Smart and
Place are presumably not prepared to state the converse proposition that
neurophysiological events are identical with mental events, since not all
neurophysiological events are mental events, even if some of them are.
By way of symmetry, the best that could plausibly be claimed is that
every member of some still to be specified subclass of neurophysio-
4 This provides an answer, I think, to Stevenson's and Shaffer's charge that th

differences in mental and physical terminology prove, if not a dualism of events,
a dualism of properties and laws. Jerome Shaffer, "Mental Events and the Brain,
Journal of Philosophy, LX, No. 6: March 14, 1963, pp. 160-165; J. T. Stevenson,
"Sensations and Brain Processes: A reply to J. J. C. Smart," Philosophical Review,
LXIX, 1960, pp. 505-10.
5 I owe this point to discussion with Professor James Oliver of the Univ
of South Carolina.
6 Smart, op. cit., p. 163.
logical events is identical with some member of the class of mental

events. Consequently, I shall call the view I am defending the "identity
theory," because I think it is the essential point in the views of Place
and Smart, though I am prepared to admit that the term is not perfectly
apposite and may even be slightly misplaced.
What I propose to do now is consider several objections which either
have been made or might be made against the identity theory, not in
the hope of proving the theory to be true, but in the hope of clearing
the way for consideration of the evidence in support of it.
II. The Objection that Mental Claims are not Meant to be Reports of
Brain States
Let such expressions as "I perceive X," "I have a sensation of blue,"
and "He feels sad" (that is expressions of occurrences of awareness or
sensation) be referred to by the neutral term "mental claims." Despite
repeated disclaimers on the part of identity theorists, one of the more
persistent objections to the theory is that, although mental claims do
not mention events, if mental events are brain states, mental claims
would have to mean that brain states have occurred - they would have
to be reports of brain events. This objection may be made from two
quite different points of view. From one point of view, mental claims
are not reports of brain events because those who make mental claims
do not intend to (or, as it may be put, do not use mental claims to)
report brain events and would not recognize statements about brain
events as adequate translations of mental claims. From a very different
point of view, it may be argued that mental claims are not reports of
brain events because they are not reports at all, whether of mental or
neurophysiological events, but merely symptoms of certain stimulus con-
ditions. Clearly these are two different objections and must be handled
separately. I propose in this section to consider the first and to reserve
the second for the next section.
Perhaps the clearest and most useful sense of an expression such as
"X means to report an event of kind K," or "X uses an expression Y
to report an event of kind K," or "The meaning of X's statement, Y.
is that an event of kind K has occurred" is that X is, by means of Y.
asserting the occurrence of an event that he consciously takes to be kind
K. Given this interpretation, the essential point of the objection is that
mental events cannot be brain states because those who make mental
claims do not consciously take the events they are reporting to be brain
states.
I think it must -be admitted that the premise of this argument is
generally true. There may be some persons who mean to talk about
what goes on in their brains when they make mental claims, but it is
certain that this is not usually the case. Usually, nothing could be further
from their intentions than to make such intracranial references. The
difficulty, then, is not with the premise but with the inference. As a
general rule, few of us would accept as a criterion of what a thing in
fact is, what it is consciously taken as being - yet this is what the in-
ference requires. It is, after all, possible that a man might, for example,
consciously take a stick in the road to be a snake and simply be mis-
taken. If he said, "There is a snake in the road," his assertion, though
it might call our attention to something and serve to give us some in-
formation, would not inform us of the presence of a snake, though that
is what he meant.
(a) What does the person making a mental claim intend to report,
assuming that he means to report something. These are the relevant
alternatives. Either (1) he conceives himself to be reporting a non-
physical event, or (2) he is not consciously committal about either the
physicality or nonphysicality of the event he is reporting. Suppose the
first alternative is the case. Does it then follow that the event the person
is reporting is in fact not physical? And, if he were a self-conscious
materialist who was prepared to assert that he consciously took the event
he was reporting to be a brain event, would it follow that the event that
occurred and to which he meant to call our attention was in fact a brain
event? Clearly, the answer to both questions is "No." It simply does not
follow, because the person who, making a mental claim, conceives the
event he is reporting to be nonphysical, that therefore the event he
succeeds in calling to our attention is in fact nonphysical. Indeed, if the
identity theory is correct, it only follows that he is mistaken.
To put the point in a sentence, the objection confuses the meanings
of mental claims with their truth conditions, their intensions with their
extensions. The identity theory merely requires the identity of the exten-
sions of mental claims with the extensions of a certain class of brain
state statements; it does not require their synonymy. It entails that a
mental claim is true if and only if some brain state or other has occurred,
but it does not require that the mental claim mean that a brain event
has occurred in the sense that it requires the person making the claim
to intend to say that a brain event has occurred - any more than the
thesis that tables are congeries of electrons, protons, neutrons, and so on,
requires the person who says there is a table in the next room to mean,
or even recognize, that there is a congeries of elementary physical par-
ticles in the next room.
(b) A somewhat more complicated answer must be given if we sup-
pose that, instead of meaning mistakenly that a nonphysical event has
occurred, the maker of a mental claim is (1) not mistaken, and (2) not
consciously committal about either the physicality or nonphysicality of
the event he intends to report. For example, suppose he says that he
has a sensation of blue. Suppose also that he really does have a sensa-
tion which is truly described, or characterized, by saying that it is a
sensation of blue. Suppose, finally, that he does not consciously take the
sensation either to be or not to be a state of his brain. He only takes it,
rightly, to be a sensation of blue.
Smart, it seems to me, has given a nearly adequate account of such a
situation by pointing out that a person who says "A physician came"
does not necessarily mean that Dr. Jones came, although it might in
fact have been Dr. Jones who came.7 (Similarly, we could modify our
snake in the road example, and have the person truly say. "There is
something long and slender in the road." This would leave open the
question precisely what is in the road.) Smart's suggestion is that, as the
original statement is noncommittal about the precise identity of the
physician, so the claim to have a sensation of blue may be noncommittal
about the full and precise description of the experience. It may amount
to the vague (or as Smart calls it "topic neutral") assertion that some-
thing is going on in me that is like what goes on in me when I see blue
things. In this case, it would not follow that what is going on in me is
not a brain process; nor would it follow that it is not, in addition to
being describable as a sensation of blue, also describable as a brain
process.
Smart's suggestion, however, raises some questions which need to be
answered, or at least asked. One difficulty is that it does not seem to
be quite true to call "I have a sensation of blue" a vague description.
What would be more precise? It surely would be misleading to suggest
that greater precision could be achieved by the use of brain state
predicates. We would have greater precision only if additional color
adjectives were included, as in "I have a sensation of bright blue." The
proper question, then, is not whether the description is vague, but "In
what sense is it a description?" For notice that to have a sensation of
blue is not to have a blue sensation any more than to have an image
of a square is to have a square image. If the statement "describes" the
experience, it is the full clause "sensation of blue" that describes it, not
merely the adjective "blue." But in what sense does the prepositional
clause describe the sensation?
One plausible suggestion is that it describes the experience extrinsi-
cally, not intrinsically. The difference between an intrinsic and an
extrinsic description may be illustrated by the difference between saying
that John is redheaded and saying that he is a father. The latter char-
acterizes John in terms of his relational properties; the former by
employing monadic predicates. Perhaps this is what Smart has in mind
when he says that mental claims characterize experiences by reference
to the sort of thing that usually produces them: "I have a sensation of
blue" says, if he is right, "Something is going on in me which is like
what goes on in me when I see blue things." (Talk of experiences is
"derivative of" thing talk.) 8
The difficulty in this account is that it seems to attribute to every
man who claims to have a sensation a conscious intention to compare
his present sensation with his past states. And, if such a man is saying
that the state he is in is like those former states, then he is presumably
saying that it is like them intrinsically. Also, if the intrinsic properties
of his experiences are brain state properties then it might seem that he
must be saying that his brain is in a certain state.
In order to deal with these difficulties, I propose to modify Smart's
original analogy of the doctor at the door. Let the original statement
be instead, a child's assertion that there is a man at the door wearing
a black suit, turned collar, and no tie. Let us assume that the child does
not mean that there is a clergyman at the door; that is, does not con-
sciously take the man at the door to be a clergyman. Consequently, the
meaning of his statement is not renderable or translatable at "There is
a clergyman at the door." His statement is not a report of the presence
of a clergyman - at least not in one sense. But notice that, in another
perfectly good sense of "report," the child has reported (and in another
perfectly good sense of "mean," his statement means) to anyone who
knows that clergymen and only clergymen wear black suits, turned
collars, and no ties, that there is a clergyman at the door. Notice also
that the failure of the child to mean that there is a clergyman will not
spirit the clergyman at the door out of existence.
What I am leading up to is a distinction between two senses of the
terms "report" and "meaning." One is "meaning" in the sense of the
intention of the speaker; the other is "meaning" in the sense of what can
be understood, or learned, or inferred by the listener. I propose to call
the first of these "meaning," or "intentional meaning;" or, for short,
"intention." I propose to call the second meaningg" or "significational
meaning," or, for short, "significance." Thus, I think we can say that,
whereas the intention of the child's statement is not that there is a

For the view that mental claims characterize experiences intrinsically, thou
materially, see Wilfred Sellars, "Being and Being Known," Chap. 2, Science Per-
ception, and Reality, London, 1963.
clergyman at the door, the significance of the statement might neverthe-

less be that there is a clergyman at the door. This distinction, it seems
to me, clears up the whole question. Briefly, what it amounts to is this:
Although the intentional meaning of "I have a sensation of blue" may
never be "My brain is in a certain state," to a person who knew, if it
were true, of the identity of mental events with brain states, the signifi-
cational meaning of such a statement would or could be "My brain is
in a certain state" somewhat as the significance of "I have a pain here"
might be to a physician "I have appendicitis."
What conclusion are we to draw, then, regarding the question with
which we began: whether the identity theory entails the synonymy of
mental claims with statements asserting the occurrence of brain states?
The conclusion we may now reach is, I think, that although people
seldom if ever intend to report brain states when they make mental
claims, the significance of their reports may very well be that brain
states of a certain kind have occurred. Thus, Smart's contention that
the meaning of "I have a sensation of blue" is "Something is going on
in me which is like what goes on when I see blue," though not true in
the sense of meaning,, may be true in the sense of meaning2.
To those who know the way language is learned, the statement "I
have a sensation of blue" could have the significance "I am in the sort
of state I am in when I see blue things" because the use of "blue" is
learned first in connection with blue things and is, therefore, probably
implicitly, if not consciously, comparative. To those who also know (or
believe) that mental events are identical with certain brain states, the
mental claim would (or could) also signify that a state of a certain
neurophysiological description has occurred. In order to see that this is
possible, recall the case of John, the Father. The person who says "John
is a father" need not intend to ascribe sexual potency to him. Neither
must the person who hears the statement take it to signify that John
is sexually potent. But to anyone who knows that X is a father if and
only if he is (or was) sexually potent, the extrinsic characterization of
John could signify that John is (or was) sexually potent - an intrinsic
characterization.
In any case, the successful intention of a speaker to characterize a
thing or event as being of kind K and his failure to intend to charac-
terize it as being of kind C, or even to recognize that it is of kind C
does not entail that his statement cannot signify (and in this sense,
though not the other, "mean" or be a report) that it is of kind C. Nor
does it entail that the thing or event is not in fact of kind C. And, there-
fore, the failure of anyone to intend that his mental states are brain
states (or to mean to report brain states when he makes mental claims)
proves nothing at all about whether his mental states are in fact states
of his brain.
III. The Objection that Mental Claims are Not Reports

In the foregoing section, I considered the objection that mental events
cannot be brain events because the maker of a mental claim does not
intend to report brain events. It was assumed that mental claims are
reports, the only question being "What are they reports of?" That mental
claims are reports of something would seem to be a proposition about
which there could be little doubt: They are either true or false; they are
informative; they can be verified. Nevertheless, there are those who
seem ready to argue that mental claims are not reports of brain events
because they are not reports at all, whether of mental or neurophysio-
logical events.
Perhaps the most cogent basis for such an argument is the Wittgen-
steinian view that mental claims are expressive symptoms rather than
assertions.9 According to this view, a man who makes a mental claim,
say "I see a bright light," is only responding in somewhat the same way
as if he were to blink furiously. The sentence is a kind of surrogate for
the blinking, and asserts no more than the blinking - which asserts
nothing. This approach to mental claims has great appeal. The trouble
with it is that it does not cut deep enough. It is half-hearted behaviorism
that applies behavioral criteria to mental claims but not to other kinds
of verbal behavior - and yet fails to supply any justification for the
invidious discrimination.
Consider the whole-hearted behaviorist view Qf language.'0 On such
a view, every verbal act is a response to stimuli. The meaning of sen-
tences is explicated in terms of their stimuli. For the speaker, the
meaning is the occasion of its use (occurrence), the conditions that
result in its utterance. These conditions include, not only the immedi-
ately preceding circumstances, but the responses of past hearers, which
responses provide reinforcing or punishing contingencies affecting the
frequency of the emission of sentences of the same type. For the listener,
the meaning is a product of the association (pairing) of the instances of
the sentence (conditioned stimuli) and the contexts in which they have
been heard (unconditioned stimuli). The act of communication depends
on the fact that such and such responses will usually be made by the
9 I rely here on Norman Malcolm's account of Wittgenstein's "expression

theory" of sensation in "Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations," reprinted as
Chapt. IV in the Philosophy of Mind (See note 1).
10 For a lengthy and detailed account of language on behavioristic grounds,
see B. F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior, New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, Inc.,
1957.
listener to a specific speech act on the part of the speaker, an act which
will usually occur only under conditions socially defined as appropriate.
On this view of language, mental claims are indeed symptoms of stimu-
lus conditions - but then so is every verbal act a symptom. The mere
fact that a mental claim is a symptom cannot serve to differentiate
mental claims from reports. Consequently, if mental claims are to be
denied the honor of the expletive "reports," by the same reasoning so
must every other verbal occurrence. Perhaps the only difference between
Wittgenstein and less hesitant behaviorists here is that the latter are
more consistent.
How would such a view of language affect the identity theory? So far
as I can see, not at all. What such a view really does is either (1) deny
any use to the term "report," or (2) define a new use. That is, it really
either enjoins us against calling anything a "report," or else it requires
us to mean by it a certain sort of behavioral symptom. In the first case,
it is very misleading to say that mental claims are not reports, since it
can be significantly denied that they are reports only if it is significant
to affirm of something that it is a report. In the second case, the ques-
tion that arises, since symptoms are symptoms of something, is "Of what
are mental claims symptoms?" The new use of the term "report" would
be such as to make a symptom a report in the sense of being a sign of
its cause - as every effect is a sign of its cause. The meaning or signifi-
cance of the symptom would -be its cause. Symptoms are not, in the
usual parlance, true or false; they are only reliable or unreliable indi-
cators of their effects. But in this new way of speaking, we should be
able to say that symptoms are true or false - in the sense that they
are reliable or unreliable symptoms. (Otherwise we should also deprive
"true" and "false" of any legitimate use.) The question of the identity
theory would then be, "When a mental claim is a true (reliable) symp-
tom, of what is it a symptom?" But if this is the question, the identity
theory is untouched just in case a mental claim is true (or reliable) if
and only if it is the symptom of some brain state. Therefore, there is
nothing about a symptomatic theory of mental claims which is incom-
patible with the identity theory."
IV. The Objection: From Ignorance of Neurophysiology

An objection closely related to that discussed in Part II was once
presented by Professor Gilbert Ryle in this way: "The question whether
I have or have not seen a tree is not itself a question about the occur-
"1 This discussion does not, of course, affect the behavioristic or dispositional
account of mental terms. I have assumed throughout this paper that there are
mental occurrences.
3?6 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH
rence or nonoccurrence of experimentally discoverable processes or

states some way behind my eyelids, else no one could even make sense
of the question whether he had seen a tree until he had been taught
complicated lessons about what exists and occurs behind the eyelids." 12
The essence of this argument is an appeal to ignorance. It amounts to
the contention that mental events cannot be brain events because anyone
who knew that he had perceived or felt or remembered or was aware
of anything would, if his experience were a brain event, necessarily also
know a good many esoteric facts about neurophysiology, and though
most of us are perfectly familiar with our own mental lives, few of us
know much about what goes on in our brains.
Stated in its most general form, the premise of this objection is that
if I know of the occurrence of an event e under a description D1, and
if e also has a description D2, then I necessarily know of the occurrence
of e under the description D2 as well. But thus stated, the premise is
obviously false. Let e be a flash of lightning. Then, since e is an elec-
trical discharge, if I know that it is a flash of lightning, according to
the argument I must know that it is an electrical discharge as well. This
argument, if valid, would also prove that it is false that all men are
mortal, since a person may know that X is a man and conceivably not
also know that he is mortal.
The objection has perhaps more initial cogency if we employ the term
"identity," saying that any event a known under the description D1 must
if a is identical with some event b having a description D2, also be
known under the description D2. Let a be a mental event having a
description M; let b be a neurophysiological event having a description
N; and let a be identical with b. Then, according to the argument, if I
know of the occurrence of a as an M, I also must know of the occur-
rence of a as an N. But this too is false. Consider an analogy: Mark
Twain is identical with Samuel Clemens. Therefore, by the argument,
anyone who knows of Mark Twain as the author of Huckleberry Finn
must also know that Mark Twain, the author of Huckleberry Finn, had
white hair, since Samuel Clemens had white hair.
Formally stated, the objection confuses questions of what is true with
questions of what is known to be true. It is quite true that, if a is iden-
tical with b, and if b possesses a property P, then a possesses P; but
it is not the case that the identity of a and b and the possession of a
property P by b and the knowledge on the part of X that a possesses
a property Q entail either that X knows that a possesses P or that X
knows that b possesses Q, for X may not know that a and b are iden-
12 Gilbert Ryle, "Perception," Dilemmas, Cambridge, 1964, p. 100 f.
tical. Applying this to the present situation, we see that, while I may
know a good deal about my mental life and the events in it, I need not
also know that my mental life is a neural life, that is, that the mental
events in my biography are each identical with some neurophysiological
event in my biography. They may, for all that, be identical. And sup-
posing even that I do know of the general identity of mental with
physical events, assuming that they are identical, it does not follow,
because I know something about some particular mental event in my
own biography, that I also know of its specific physical properties.
Presumably, of course, I will know that, whatever these properties are,
my mental events must have them, but if I do not know specifically
that these properties are say P, Q, and R, then I will not know that my
mental events have the properties P, Q, and R. They may, for all that,
actually have the properties P, Q, and R.
Ryle is right, then, to say that a question about whether a mental
event has occurred is not a question about whether a brain event has
occurred. And a man may know of the occurrence of one without also
knowing that it is a case of the other. But neither is the question whether
Mark Twain is the author of Huckleberry Finn a question about whether
Mark Twain had white hair. And a person may know that Mark Twain
wrote Huckleberry Finn without knowing that he is identical with some
person having white hair. Thus, as failure to mean that mental events
are brain processes does not prove they are not brain processes, so
ignorance of neurophysiology fails to prove that mental events of which
we have some knowledge are not in fact neurophysiological processes
of which we are ignorant. But this is not surprising. Nothing has ever
yet been deducible about the world from our ignorance, except that we
are ignorant, and nothing ever will be.
V. The Two-Languages Objection

The next objection I want to consider is that the identity theory com-
mits the category mistake of confusing the ordinary language of men-
tality with the very special language of neurophysiology. According to
this objection, it proposes that we substitute neurophysiological descrip-
tions of brain processes for the ordinary language of thoughts and
sensations. But the two languages will not mix, not because they are
incompatible with one another, but because they are not commensurate,
not of the same logical order.
It is a little hard to see just what the point of the objection is. It
should be clear from part II that the identity theory is not a proposal
to substitute neurophysiological language for ordinary language. The
identity theory does not commit a category mistake of this sort. Its point
is that what the two different "languages" describe in different ways is
the same thing. Thus the objection affects it only if the doctrine of "two
languages" is meant to imply dualism.
Actually, talk about two languages, the ordinary and the scientific, is
exceedingly loose and misleading. Perhaps what is meant is two vocabu-
laries, two distinct sets of descriptive predicates. But, if this is what is
meant, it is clearly a mistake to infer that mental events are not brain
events because the one sort of event is usually described by a different
set of terms than the other. Consider, as an analogy, a desk. It is
describable in the "language" of physics (in terms of mass, velocity,
extension, etc.) as well as in the "language" of anthropology (as an
artifact, cultural symbol, etc.) If we apply the two-languages theory to
this fact in the same way it is used as an objection to the identity
theory, we shall have to say that the desk is two nonidentical things,
a cultural thing and a physical thing. But the plain fact is that the desk
is only one thing described by two different sets of terms. It is true that
the cultural categories do not mean the same as the physical categories,
and it may also be true that what is expressed by the one set of cate-
gories cannot be fully expressed by the other. But to use the disparity
in meaning between the ordinary "language" of mentality and the tech-
nical language of neurophysiology as proof of dualism is merely to do
what Eddington did when he postulated his two tables. That, not the
identity theory, is the category mistake if there is one.
VI. The Objection from the Methods of Verifying Mental Events

Still another objection to the identity theory concerns the difference
in the methods of verifying or knowing about mental occurrences and
those of verifying or knowing about brain events. It is sometimes
objected, for example, that we do not use an encephalogram to deter-
mine whether we have a certain experience, though such an instrument
would be perfectly appropriate for verifying a report of brain events.13
(a) The operative assumption of this objection seems to be that where
two different methods of verification are involved, there must be two
distinct occurrences verified. But as a general rule this is false. I can
verify the presence of acetic acid in a bottle by means of a piece of
litmus paper, by taking its spectrum, or by tasting it, but it does not
follow that if I use all these methods, I have verified three different
things.
(b) Nor is the argument strengthened by emphasizing the contrast
between the ordinary ways of knowing about mental events and the very
special and technical ways of knowing about neurophysiological proces-
ses. The mere fact that we do not ordinarily learn about our mental
13 Ibid.
events by measuring, say, the electrical activity of the brain does not
prove that we could not do so. There is no a priori reason why, in
verifying mental claims we should restrict ourselves to ordinary layman's
criteria. It is simply false that the ordinary method of verifying an event
Is the only legitimate method. We do not ordinarily verify the existence
of hunger by measuring the amount of acid being secreted into the
stomach, but perhaps we could. We do not ordinarily determine whether
someone is lying by attaching a polygram which yields a GSR, respira-
tion rate, heart beat, and so on, but we can. The police now do it rather
regularly, and, in fact, find it a more reliable means of determining
whether someone is lying than asking him. Verbal behavior, the ordi-
nary criterion of lying, as of mental events, is voluntary and subject to
self control. By contrast, the variables that the polygram measures are
not, being reflexes, subject to direct voluntary control - it is hard to
fake a GSR. Similarly, if mental events are brain states, it is entirely
conceivable that, although we do not usually verify them by the use of
instruments such as the encephalogram, we could some day so verify
them. (In fact, the instrument is already in profitable use in experiments
on perception.) As a matter of fact, identity of mental states with brain
processes is not a desideratum for such verification to be possible. All
that is needed is a close correlation. Observation of smoke is verification
of fire, as hearing a certain rumbling sound in the street is verification
of a passing truck. Such verification would be possible, then, even on a
parallelist or epiphenomenalist view of the relation of mental events to
brain states.
(c) But it has been objected that, whereas the mental is private, brain
events are public. According to this objection, if mental events are
verifiable by the same procedures as are brain events, then since brain
events are publicly verifiable, so also should mental events be publicly
verifiable. But this would mean that private events are public.14
This objection confuses having an experience with knowing that one
has it, the occurrence of the experience with the conceptualization and
classification of it. An experience is private only in the sense that no
one but the person having it can have it; my experience is not yours.
That it is private in this sense is a tautology. But it does not follow that
it is also private in the sense that only the person having it can know
that he has it. The identity theory, by implying that an occurrence of
a sensation can in principle be publicly known does not imply that it can
be publicly had, and therefore it does not eliminate the privacy of a
sensation.
14 Robert C. Coburn, "Shaffer on the Identity of Mental States and Brain

Processes," Journal of Philosophy, LX, No. 4, Feb. 14, 1963, pp. 89-92.
(d) If these considerations do not dispel the objection it can only be

because some implicit appeal is being made to such questionable notions
as knowledge by acquaintance and privileged access. As to the first, it
is often said that we have a direct knowledge of our own experiences,
but an inferential knowledge of what is in our brains. If we admit the
distinction between direct and indirect knowledge, however, we might
still argue in the fashion of Feigl, that the two ways of knowing triangu-
late on the same thing, that they are just two different ways of knowing
the same thing.'5 Still another alternative would be to question what is
really a very questionable distinction. Could it be that what is called
knowledge by acquaintance is not really knowledge of an experience,
but only a case of having it, an experience?
(e) As to privileged access, I do not doubt that there is privileged
access to our own experiences in some sense of the term. By virtue of
the simple fact that I occupy the space of my body, I am aware of
things that you are not aware of because you do not enjoy the same
situation. But this is true of my awareness of the public table before
me, which is not before you. And it is a fact that can be explicated
without resort to Cartesian dualism. No doubt, we react in certain dis-
criminatory ways not only to what goes on outside us but also to what
goes on inside us. Presumably, I know about what is going on inside
me by means of the causal nexus of my inner physiological parts; my
knowing is a response to occurrences in other parts or to earlier occur-
rences in similar parts. The causal net is different in the case of your
knowledge of what is going on inside me, since the causal nexus of
which my knowledge of my own inner states is a part is different from
the causal nexus of which your knowledge of my inner states is a part.
One is, if you like, causally more direct than the other. But there is no
reason, since the same event may be part of many causal nets, that what
I know by virtue of my physiological connection with it is not the very
same thing as what you can know by the use of some instrument such
as an encephalogram, or by more ordinary means.
If it be objected that the two knowings are qualitatively different, the
only thing one can say is, "So they are; but is it not possible for there
to be qualitatively different knowings of the same thing?"
VII. The Objection from the Substitutability of Identities

The final objection I wish to consider is of a quite different sort than
those which have preceded. This objection is based on the Liebnitzian
principle of the identity of indiscernibles, or at any rate, its more
modern version, the substitutability of identities. According to this prin-
15 Feigl, op. cit., p. 401.
ciple, if a and b are identical, and is any function F is true of a then

it is also true of b and vice versa, that is, (a = b) -> (F)(Fa = Fb).
A great deal has been made of this principle in discussions of the iden-
tity theory, although if I am right to think it is really an inclusion theory,
the discussion may be somewhat misplaced. 16 Even so, however, the
question of identities can legitimately be raised if we choose some par-
ticular mental event, a, and say that it is identical with some particular
neurophysiological event b. Then, according to the objection, every such
identification must be wrong, because what is true of a ought to be true
of b and vice versa. For example, it makes perfectly good sense and is
often true to say that a brain process is located in some place and takes
up so much space, although it makes no sense at all to say that a sen-
sation of blue is extended or located in any space.17 Similarly it makes
good sense to say that a brain process is fast or slow, but no sense to
say this of, say, a sensation of blue.'8
There are two things that need to be said about objections to the
identity theory that are based on the principle of the substitutability of
identities. The first is that the principle is not unrestrictedly true.'9 It
does not hold in intensional contexts. To allow substitution in such
contexts is often to turn a true statement into a falsehood or make of
a perfectly consistent proposition a paradox. We have already encoun-
tered some examples of this. The difficulty in the Mark Twain example
(see section IV) is just that of substituting in an intensional context.
Consider the following argument: "Mark Twain is identical with Samuel
Clemens. X knows that Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn. There-
fore by substitution, X knows that Samuel Clemens wrote Huckleberry
Finn." Obviously, the inference is invalid. Bertrand Russell once got
himself into the following sort of puzzle as a result of substituting iden-
tities in intensional contexts: Suppose a man wonders whether Mark
Twain is Samuel Clemens. Then, since Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens,
the principle of substitution of identities would mean that the man is
wondering whether Mark Twain is Mark Twain. Other examples of
intentional contexts in which similar paradoxes result from the substitu-
tion rule are the following: (1) "X is seeking the holy grail. The holy
grail is this cup of mud. Ergo, X is seeking this cup of mud." (2) "You
16 See Stevenson's comments, op. cit.

17 This objection is as old as Descartes, but was recently made by Norman
Malcolm, The Journal of Philosophy, LX, No. 22, Oct. 14, 1963, pp. 662-663.
See also Shaffer, op. cit.
18 Smart's response to this objection cannot, in my opinion, be regarded as
fully satisfactory.
19 See P. K. Feyerabend, "A Note, on the Paradox of Analysis," Philosophical
Studies, Vol. VII, pp. 92-96.
believe in God. God is the most widespread fiction. Therefore, you

believe in the most widespread fiction." Much as atheists and agnostics
might approve of the last inference or be amused by the first, I think
it must be admitted that there is clearly something peculiar about both.
I propose to call all such situations "intensional contexts" and I think
that what such examples show is that we must not, on pain of paradox,
allow substitution of identities in intensional contexts.
The second thing that needs to be said, admitting now that the rule
of substitution of identities is true in non-intensional contexts, is that it
does indeed follow from the identity theory that whatever property is
possessed by a brain event is also possessed by the identical mental
event. What, then, about the claim that it makes sense to say of a brain
event that it is fast or slow but not to say this of a mental event?
I think we must admit that, if the identity theory is right, then either
it is meaningful to say that a sensation is fast or slow or else it is mean-
ingless to say that a brain process is fast or slow. Actually, both alter-
natives are defensible. Consider a horse race, or better, a race track.
We often hear such expressions as "This is a fast race" and "This is a
fast track." There is clearly something odd about these expressions:
the race does not run fast, nor does the track. It is the horses that run
fast. The race may be said to be fast only in the sense that the horses run
it in a comparatively short time, and the track is said to be fast only
when it is dry so that the horses run faster than otherwise. In the sense
in which a horse is fast, a race or a track is not. But a race is fast if
it takes up a short period of time. Now, a brain process takes up a
certain amount of time, and, in that sense, is fast or slow. But the
process does not proceed quickly or slowly, for it does not proceed at
all. It is only the impulses along the nerve paths that can be said to
move quickly or sluggishly, if they can. A brain process is made of these
impulses somewhat as a race is constituted by running horses. Conse-
quently, a brain process, qua process, can no more be said to be moving
fast or slow than can a race; for as a race does not move, neither does
a brain process. Only its constituent parts move. It is only in the sense
that a brain process has a more or less definite duration and is either
over quickly or not that it can be said to be fast or slow. But a sen-
sation takes up a certain amount of time and is either over quickly or
not. Consequently, in the sense in which a sensation is not either fast
or slow, neither is a brain process, and in the sense in which a brain
process is fast or slow, so is a sensation.
Let us now consider the second example, the claim that events of
mentality are not spatially extended whereas brain processes are. The
proper answer to this objection is, I think, that it begs the question.
For if mental events are brain events they do have spatial location and
extension, since brain events have spatial location and extension. The
proper answer is not, I think, the one given by Professor Feigl, who
maintains that, because what is seen and felt is seen and felt as located
in space and as occupying space, therefore, the seeing and feeling is
spatial.20 The fact that I see a tree in front of me does not mean that
my seeing of the tree is in front of me; and, in fact, it is not, or it could
probably be seen along with the tree. Nor does the fact that my sen-
sation of blue is a sensation of a three feet wide blue expanse mean that
my sensation is a three feet wide blue expanse. To put the point in a
way which is not my way, Feigl confuses the mental event with its object
and mistakenly attributes to the mental event properties which properly
belong only to its object. (What is wrong with this way of putting it is
that there are times when my mental events have no objects. But this
raises separate problems, and whatever may be the solution to them, it
seems clear that Feigi has made a mistake.)
But if one cannot legitimately argue in the fashion of Feigl one can
point out that, if the identity theory is right, mental events do have
spatial location, since they occur in the nervous system, and spatial
extension, since the nervous system and its constituents have spatial
extension. Mental events are, if the theory is right, spatial for the simple
reason that they are physical. In short, the very question at issue is,
whether mental events have spatial properties. It is, therefore, a petitio
principhi to assume against the identity theory that they do not.
VIII. Summary and Conclusions

I have not in this paper set out to prove the identity theory. If t
theory is, as its defenders maintain, a scientific hypothesis, any atte
at proof would be inappropriate. Instead, I have tried to answer some
a priori objections against the theory, objections which have been made
from the point of view of those who think it is not a scientific hypothesis
but a philosophical muddle. If the objections I have considered are
important and typical, as I believe they are, what I have accomplish
is to reinforce Smart's contention that there are no important a priori
objections to the identity theory. The result is that, if the identity theory
has not been proved, it may now at least be possible to consider it in
the light of the evidence.
What ncw stands in the way of the acceptance of the identity theory
are only certain semantical and logical puzzles. I have tried to show that
many of these puzzles are either soluble or misplaced. The semantical
puzzles arise from the assumption that the identity theory is a thesis
20 Feigl, op. cit. p. 407.
regarding the meanings of mental claims, and from the feeling that it
would require those who make mental claims to intend to report neuro-
physiological events. But the theory only requires that what such persons
report, if their reports are true and have their usual meanings, be neuro-
physiological events. It is thus a thesis regarding the truth conditions of
mental claims, rather than a theory of their meanings. That critics should
have supposed otherwise may perhaps be attributed to the prevalent
dogma that everything a philosopher says must be in the "formal mode,"
even if he avows otherwise.
Perhaps the semantical puzzles also arise because the identity theory
seems, at first glance, to be in the curious situation of employing the
very categories it wishes to revoke or to be confusing them with other
and very different categories.2' But the theory simply denies that two
semantically distinct sets of descriptive predicates entail two extensionally
distinct sets of entities. Biological terms do not mean the same as physi-
cal terms, yet biological entities are physical. Why then should distinct-
ness of meaning between mental terms and neurophysiological terms
entail psychophysical dualism? Nor is the fact that statements in which
the one sort of term occurs are usually verified in a different way than
statements in which the other occurs a proof of dualism or a disproof
of the identity theory. It is simply a mistake to suppose that different
methods of verification entail distinct entities.
The logical puzzles standing in the way of the identity theory are
mostly identity paradoxes. If it is true, as I have argued, that the iden-
tity theory is an identity proposition only in the sense that all inclusion
statements are identities, much of the discussion of identities is slightly
misplaced. But because Smart and Place have insisted that their thesis
is the assertion of a strict identity and because it is possible to express
the proposition that mental events are a subclass of neurophysiological
events by saying that every mental event is identical with some neuro-
physiological event, it is possible and even appropriate to raise questions
of identity. The chief mistake we must avoid when we raise them is that
of substituting in intensional contexts. Things can be identical without
our recognizing the fact. It is true that identities may be substituted in
non-intensional contexts, and because it is true, it follows from the iden-
tity theory that mental events have physical predicates. But to argue
21 Perhaps because of this Feyerabend may be right to argue that, instead of

employing the terminology of the mental and the physical, and thus raising the
specter of Cartesianism, materialists would do best simply to abandon the termi-
nology. Paul Feyerabend, "Mental Events and the Brain," Journal of Philosophy,
LX, No. 11: May 23, 1963, pp. 295-296. But then they would be accused of
ignoring the mental.
against the identity theory that this is false is to beg the very question
at issue.
In the end, of course, it may be that begging of the question is in-
evitable on both sides. It has often been charged against psychophysical
dualists that they are eager to prove the separate existence of the psyche
only because of hope for eternal life in heaven. Perhaps the materialist
is as eager to disprove the psyche in fear of eternal life in hell.
There are several questions which I have not touched. One that per-
haps ought to be mentioned is the problem of reductionism.22 I, unlike
Feigl, and like Sellars, am very doubtful that reductionism is true if it
is taken to mean that the laws of behavior of complexes or of the simple
constituents of complexes are deducible from the laws describing the
behaviors of the simple constituents in isolation from the complexes.
I am also doubtful of reductionism if it is taken to mean that the de-
scriptive predicates of psychology are explicable in terms of the predi-
cates of neurophysiology. But, unlike Smart, I am not convinced that
materialism or the identity theory must be reductionistic in either of
these senses.23 Perhaps nonreductionistic materialisms or identity theo-
ries are, as Sellars says, true but uninteresting. 24 I suspect they may
be intrinsically uninteresting, but I also suspect that Sellars is wrong to
think that this means no one will take any interest in them. There are,
despite Sellars' optimism, still too many psychophysical dualists around,
many of them in disguise, for there to be any worry about that. In any
case, interesting or not, it is enough if the theory is true.
MAX HOCUTT.
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA.
22 This problem is Sellars' main concern, op. cit.

23 Perhaps, however, my tentative denial that there are any intrinsic mental
properties could be construed as a kind of reductionism and the only kind to
which identity theorists need be committed.
24 Op. Cit.

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International Phenomenological Society

International Phenomenological Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve

I. The Thesis to be Defended

1 See "Is Consciousness a Brain Process" by U. T. Place, and "Sensations and

my estimate and owing partly to a lack of clarity in the thesis, been

3 This is Sellars' interpretation of Feigl's position. See Wilfred Sellars, "The

physiological properties.4 But this is a separate question, and though I

4 This provides an answer, I think, to Stevenson's and Shaffer's charge that th

logical events is identical with some member of the class of mental

7 Smart, op. cit., p. 167.

8 Smart, op. cit., p. 167.

clergyman at the door, the significance of the statement might neverthe-

III. The Objection that Mental Claims are Not Reports

9 I rely here on Norman Malcolm's account of Wittgenstein's "expression

IV. The Objection: From Ignorance of Neurophysiology

rence or nonoccurrence of experimentally discoverable processes or

12 Gilbert Ryle, "Perception," Dilemmas, Cambridge, 1964, p. 100 f.

V. The Two-Languages Objection

VI. The Objection from the Methods of Verifying Mental Events

14 Robert C. Coburn, "Shaffer on the Identity of Mental States and Brain

(d) If these considerations do not dispel the objection it can only be

VII. The Objection from the Substitutability of Identities

15 Feigl, op. cit., p. 401.

ciple, if a and b are identical, and is any function F is true of a then

16 See Stevenson's comments, op. cit.

believe in God. God is the most widespread fiction. Therefore, you

VIII. Summary and Conclusions

20 Feigl, op. cit. p. 407.

21 Perhaps because of this Feyerabend may be right to argue that, instead of

22 This problem is Sellars' main concern, op. cit.

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