D.C Dennett (9-1) - Personal and Sub-Personal Levels of Explanation

8/8/2019 D.C Dennett (9-1) - Personal and Sub-Personal Levels of Explanation

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1,D.C. Dennett,"Personaland Sub-personalLevelsof Explanation"

The physiology of pain is relatively well understood. s7hena pain is felt, neuralimpulses travel from the area in which the pain is felt along an anatomicallydistinct neural network for the transmissionof pain stimuli. in -rrry instancesthere is a peripheral reflex arc that triggers withdrawal, but there are also otheras yet unanalysedeffects n the central areasof the brain.It is appropriate for an organism to heed the most pressing demands ofsurvival, and the imminence of injury or death is as pressingas a demand canbe, so it is altogether to be expected that a strongly entrenched pain network,essentially ncluding appropriate responses f withdrawal, should be inherited.Moreover, as personal experiencereveals, the behavioural reactions to painare more difficult to overrule than any other behavioural tendencies. Genuinepain behaviour is compulsive, involuntary, and only with great 'will power,or special training can man or beast keep from reactions to pain. \whelher ornot such inherited afferent-efferent networks are a sufficient condition for theexistenceof the 'phenomenon of pain', it is safe to say they are a necessarycondition. That is, it would be a very mysterious view that held that the barephenomenon of pain could occur on the evolutionary scenebefore there wereorganisms that reacted appropriately to stimuli that were harbingers of injury.Pain could not appear until organisms began avoiding it. The question beforeus now is whether pain is something (some thing) in addition to the physicaloperations of the pain-nefwork.An analysis of our ordinary way of speaking about pains shows that noevents or processes ould be discovered n the brain that would exhibit thecharacteristicsof the putative 'mental phenomena' of pain, because alk ofpains is essentiallynon-mechanical, and the eventsand processes f the brainare essentially mechanical. ril7henwe ask a person why he pulled his hand awayfrom the stove, and he replies that he did so because t hurt, or he felt pain inhis hand, this looks like the beginning of an answer ro a questionof behaviouralcontrol, the question being how people know enough to remove their handsfrom things that can burn them. The natural 'mental process' answer is thatthe person has a 'sensation'which he identifiesas pain, and which he is some-how able to'locate'in his fingertips,and this 'prompts'him to removehis hand.An elaboration of this answer, however, runs into culs-de-sacat every turning.

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D.C. DENNETTThe first unansweredquestion s how a person distinguishesa painfur sensa-tion from one that is not painful. It is no J.rr*.. to ,"y thut parrrf.rlsensationsare just those that hurt,_ or then the question becomesho* a person distin-guishes sensarions hat hurt from seniations that do not. If this question isseenas asking for a criterion for sensations hat hurt, a criterion used by theperson to distinguish these sensations, he question admits of no answer, for

one doe.snot distinguish the sensations h" l hu.t or are painful by appryingsome criterion; one simply distinguishes hem. Their only iistinguirlrirrg .'h".1acteristic is painfulness, an unanalysable quality that can orriy b. Jefinedcircularly. Moreover, a person'sability to distinguish this quality in sensationsis.ensured; one simply can telr when a sensatiln is painful (excluding caseswhere one's doubt is over whether the word 'pain, is too ,*or,g fo, the occa-sion). w_hen trying to explain the discrimination of painr, "pp."i,o the qualityof painfulness s no advance over the question; it tetts os ,rothrng we did notalready know. lfhen one is asked how one t.ir, ur, x from , y'^nd, answersthat r's have an indefinablecharacteristicwhich one is simply "b'l. ro recognizebut not describe,al l one is saying is : I can tell _ that's all. '. The mechanical question, how is it done? is blocked. It is blocked notbecause he reply is that one is in the dark about how one distinguishespainfulsensations rom others, but because he reply is that ,ro -e.liarrical answer11ould be appropriate in this context. pains or painful sensationsare .rhings,discriminated by people, ro.t, fo_rexample, by brains (although brains mightdiscriminate other things related to pains), and the q,r.rtiorr1r, lo* do you(the person) distinguish pains from otheruerrrations?The question admits ofno answer because the person does not do anything in order to distinguishpains; he just distinguishes hem. Distinguishing pains"isnot a personal aiuity,and hence no answer of the form, firsi I do A-and then I do n, *"k., "rrfenseat all. But if this is so, the appeal to a quality of these discriminatedsensations s gratuitous. A quality, to do any work in a theorg must be iden-tified, but this means it must either be described or osterrded.Descriptionpresupposes analysis, and in this instance anarysis presupposes personalactivity; where discrimination occurs without personal activit-g ,ro descriptiono. fa.discriminated quality is possibre.Then, ifihe quality i, ,o'u. ia.rrtified atall, it must be_ostended,bu i ostensioo of il[.',.n","i.a"ffiilst,i;g?,t#l#Ir;ffii;Wr::.1'ilH,il','d"lX'janalysable ersonii'a-ctivil|, ike discriminatinggood apples rom bad bychecking or colour and crispness, e can distiigiish tt. qu"titi., from thediscriminating f them,but in the case f distinguishing ensationss painful,theactof discriminationtself s theonly clue o-the ollization (in space ndt]me)of the presumed uality. nsisting har,aboveand beyondoo, "birity todistinguish ensatior-r,yWn$*Vther. i, tire quality of painfulness,s rhuslns strng^ n " n u,ntnjgjligJ9lexrra somethi g.rne nrst cur-de-sac'hen, s that a person's ower o discriminateainfulsensationssa brute actsubjecto no furtherquestions ndanswers. henextquestion oncernshe ocationof these ains,andmeetshe same ate. (e do

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not locate our pains with the aid of any independently describabte4qt'ilfifiTd*.'or 'local signs' provided us by the sensations; we just can locate them' l- \ /.Whatever the brain rnay be 'doing' when one locates a pain, the person doesf?weo


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D.C. DENNETTand the physical, mechanistic explanation can proceed with no worries aboutthe absence in the explanation of any talk about the discrimination ofunanalysablequalities. \7hat is the physical explanation to be?something likethis. when a person or animal is said to experiencea pain there is afferentinput which produces efferent output resulting in certain characteristic modesof behaviour centring on avoidance or withdrawal, and genuine pain behav-iour is distinguished from feigned pain behaviour in virtue of the strength ofthe afferent-efferent connections - their capacity to overrule or block out-otherbrain processeswhich would produce othir motions. That is , the compulsionof genuine pain behaviour is given a cerebral foundation. Now would thisaccount of pain behaviour suffice as an account of. eal pain behaviour, oris there something more that must be going on when a p.tror, is really inpain? It might be supposed hat one could be suddenly and overwhelminglycompelled to remove one's finger from a hot stove without the additional'phenomenon' of pain occurring. But although simple withdrawal may be thebasic- r central response o such stimulation, in man and higher animals it isnot the only one. could any sensebe made of the supposition that a personmight hit his thumb with a hammer and be suddeniy and overwhelminglycompelled to drop the hammer, suck the thumb, dance about, shriek, -oi.r,ry' etc.' and yet still not be experiencing pain? That is, one would notbe acting in this case,as on a stage;otr. -o.rid be compelled. one would bephysically incapable of responding to polite applause with a smiling bow.Positing some horrible (but otherwise indescribable) quality or phenomenonto accompany such a compelled performance is entirely gratuitous.l- In one respect he distinction between the personal and sub-personal evelsof explanation is not at all new. The philosoply of mind initiated by Ryle and'sfittgenstein is in large measure an analysis of the concepts we use at thepersonal level, and the lesson to be learned from Ryle's attacks on .para-

mec_hanical hypotheses' and s(ittgenstein's often startring insistence thatexplanations come to an end rather earlier than we had thought is that thepersonal and sub-personal evelsmust not be confused.The lessonhas occa-sionally been misconstrued, however, as the lesson hat the personal level ofexplanation is the only level of explanation when the subject matter is humanminds and actions. In an important but narrow sense his is true, for as wesee n the caseof pain, to abandon the personal level is to stop talking aboutpain. In another important sense t is false, and it is this that is often missed."The recognition that there are two levels of explanation gives birth to theburden of relating them, and this is a task that is not outside the philosophertprovince. It cannot be the case rhat there is no relation betwein paini andneural impulses or between beliefs and neural states,so setting the mechan-ical or physical questions off-limits to the philosopher will not keep thequestion of what these relations are from arising. The position that paini andbeliefsare in one category or domain of inquiry while neural eventsand statesare in another cannot be used to isolate the philosophical from the mechan-ical questions, for, as we have seen, different categories are no better than

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.PERSONAL AND SUB-PERSONAL EVELS"different cartesian substancesunle,sshey are construed as different ontolog_ical categories, which is to say: the terms are construed to be in different'ategories and only one categoryof terms is referential.The only way to fosterthe proper separation between the two levels of .rpl".r"tiorr,-io-prevent thecontamination of the physical story with .rna.r"lysaLrequalities or .emergentphenomena', is to put the fusion barrier between them. ilirre' this interpreta-tion it is in one sense rue that there is no relation between f"i^ ""a neuralimpulses, because here are no pains; 'pain' does not refer. rr.".. i, no wayaround this. If there is_tobe any relation betweenpains and neural impulses,they will have to be related by either identity or non-identity, and if we wantto rule out both theserelations we shall have to decide thui orr. of the termsis non-referential.Taking this step doesnor answer all the philosophical ques_tions, however, for once we have decided that .pain,-talf, i, ,roi_r"r.r.rrti"lthere remains the question of how each bi t of the'tark "b;;,;; i: rehted toneural impulses or talk about neural impulses. This and il;;ili quesrionsabout other phenomenaneeddetaired"nrrir.r, evenafter it rr'"gr; that thereare different sorts of explanation, different levels and ."r.gori"o-ihere is noone general answer to these questions, for there "r . -"rri different sorts oftalk in the language of the mind, and many different prr."o-."" in tt e b.ain.

Notescf. L. wittgenstein:'And yetyouagainandagain each he conclusionhat thesensationtself s a nothing."Not at all. lt is not a something, ut not a nothingeitherl he concrusion asonry hata nothingwourd erveusi asweilasa some_thingaboutwhich nothingcourdbe said.'piitosophticartivestigafions,rans.G.E. M. Anscombe, xford, 953, i 304.

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D.C Dennett (9-1) - Personal and Sub-Personal Levels of Explanation