University Writings

PDF: Forgiveness sem pap 2014

Whatever forgiveness is, or whatever forgiving someone implies, it has to be clear, intentional, and uncompromisingly moral. It should also be free, unmerited, and gracious. Yet any account of forgiveness as simply ‘letting go’ cannot be sufficiently moral. There has to be some kind of reconciliation among persons. But in order for reconciliation to be possible, there must be a relatively clear state if affairs according to which forgiveness becomes possible. For in a situation where forgiving is appropriate as opposed to otherwise, there have to be at least two parties, one of whom has offended the other, where that offence is sufficient to bring about some kind of division between the two parties. That division may be expressed in terms of animosity between the parties, especially in terms of resentment, which we may take to be some set of negative reactive attitudes direct by the offended party toward the offender as its proper object and which causes the offended party to feel resentful toward the offender and perhaps to treat the offender in negative manner. Forgiving someone does seem to involve the offended party ‘letting go’ of his justified resentment somehow, but in such a way that is relational and reconciliatory.

But it seems difficult to think about how this may come about. If we propose, as Charles Griswold has, that there surely are some actions which the offender may do, where he may perform some activity or performative utterance (“I am sorry”) in order to mitigate or seek to appease him whom he has offended such that he may morally obligate the offended party to forgive him, then forgiveness is seen as the repentant offender’s due. But then it does rather seem, as Lucy Allais has pointed out, that the offender has earned his forgiveness. But the concept of earning forgiveness seems to defy the free, gracious nature of forgiveness. If I am obligated to forgive someone for something they have done, given those actions or speech-utterances they have performed, I feel I have been morally obligated to forgive them, and I do not feel to have forgiven them freely and graciously. This is especially pertinent in cases where ‘letting go’ of that resentment which grips me emotionally is difficult. For oftentimes, when we try to reconcile with somebody, it seems like we have entered into a process of attempting to forgive them, and when we have reconciled with them we believe that we have forgiven them ipso facto. Say that we do reconcile with them presently. Very well. However, sometimes in memory we inadvertently remember that person’s original wrongdoing, and we find that is conjures up old resentment we thought we had been rid of. This seems like a problem, for then it seems we may not have forgiven them after all.

This paper therefore seeks to explore the issue of forgiveness from a conditional angle versus an elective angle, especially with reference to Allais’ work on elective forgiveness in direct response to Griswold.[1]^{, [2]} I will argue that Allais’ account captures something essential about forgiveness—that is, its free and unmerited nature—but that there are certain highly intuitive situations which we can conceive that seem to illustrate situations in which it would just be crazy for an offended party not to forgive their offender. In such cases it would seem that offended party is obliged to forgive the offender. But then it turns out that at least something like Griswold’s conditional account would be true. But we don’t want to speak of forgiveness as one’s giving the offender “his due”. So it seems like a dilemma. We want to maintain that (A) forgiveness is gracious, unmerited and free, (B) forgiveness can be conditional in such a way that, under certain conditions, the offended party is somehow obligated to forgive the offender, but (C) the forgiveness is such that it is absolutely and completely gracious, and is not somehow earned, merited, demandable, and so on. Ultimately, it will be concluded that perhaps something like a hybrid of the conditional/elective accounts is possible so as to maintain (C) even given (A) and (B). I have chosen to call this a covenantal account of forgiveness, according to which individuals or groups of people can impose an agreement (a covenant) whereby they can freely choose to forgive under certain morally sufficient conditions that obligate forgiveness in the future in such a way that, were one not to forgive under those conditions, one would be doing something wrong, even though one is the rightly offended party.[3] It may even be the case that such agreements—or covenants—are imposed implicitly between morally relevant persons and communities. What should motivate such a self-imposition to forgive under the right conditions? I do not believe it is in giving the offender his due, as such. Rather, I will argue that our forgiveness of others should be couched in a morally virtuous character, namely, a character of grace motivated by love. I will argue this primarily with reference to Glen Pettrigrove’s virtue account of forgiveness in two chapters of his recent book on the subject.[4]

Let us begin by characterising a scenario in which forgiveness becomes possible. Say some person, P, has $50 that gets stolen by V. So V has offended P. Now, say P knows V stole the money. P would rightly be offended at V, and resent V for stealing her money. That is, P’s resentment would be morally justified. P’s resentment of V would be further compounded if P demanded the money back from V, and it turns out that V had spent the money and had no money left with which to repay P. Now the loss is irreparable: P permanently lacks $50 by virtue of the act of V. Thus P resents V, and P becomes divided from V, and so on. Such justified resentment is a necessary condition for forgiveness, and makes possible a situation where P can forgive V. Very well. But under what conditions or for what reasons should P treat V in such a manner other than negatively? According to Pamela Heironymi, forgiving someone involves something to do with mitigating resentment. Yet we do not want to avoid justified resentment, nor do we want to manipulate ourselves out of justified resentment.[5] For when V wrongs P, P has received from V some course of action for which P was not worthy; i.e., P ought to have been treated better by V. So in order for P to be able to forgive V, P must mitigate P’s resentment of V. P must forego her resentment of V, but not just in any way at all.[6] In forgiving someone, we want neither to retract the fact that there has been a wrong perpetrated, nor do we want to adjust our view of the other person so as to make it our as if they have not wronged us after all. For forgiveness to be possible, there really has to be a wrong, and that wrong must be worthy of genuine, justified resentment.

But if resentment against a wrongdoer is justified, then it seems like a necessary condition for forgiveness that this resentment be mitigated, or negated, somehow. But this is difficult as the offended party’s resentment is justified. So to mitigate this resentment, the wrongdoer has to do something which somehow overrides the justification the offended party possess in order to resent him. Griswold has argued somewhat in this regard. Griswold believes that forgiveness is a four step process.[7] First, the wrongdoer acknowledges responsibility for the wrong; he really did steal the $50. Secondly, the wrongdoer repudiates the action; he denies that his theft was a valid course of action for him to take, and that it really was wrong. Thirdly, the wrongdoer commits to a new way of life: he repents of the wrong and seeks to be a better person. Fourth and last, the wrongdoer expresses and acknowledges an understanding of the hurt wrought on the offended party by his wrongdoing and seeks reparation. Any resentment on part of the offended party has is said to be unwarranted in light of this penitent action, and forgiveness is required as a proper moral response to the situation, and it has now become the offender’s “due” to be forgiven by the offended party. So the offended party now ought to forgive his wrongdoer.

But something seems desperately wrong with this account. For Griswold’s forgiveness-conditions are wholly dependent on what the wrongdoer must in order to morally override the warrant or justification of the offended party’s resentment. But say there just are no conditions under which at least one of these four conditions can be fulfilled by the wrongdoer. Say the wrongdoer killed one of your close family members. This would surely bring about justified resentment in you. But then say, by some other completely unrelated freak-accident, this same wrongdoer gets placed into a comatose state out of which he shall never awake. Does it really follow that you are not able to forgive him? Must you be forced to carry around the burden of unforgiveness for the rest of your days? For if a person is in a comatose state, they cannot possibly fulfil any of the conditions Griswold has suggested. But it still feel like you could forgive them for the great wrongdoing—and that not on account of pitying them for being in an irreversible comatose state. It seems like you should be able to forgive them freely, without regards to any conditions being fulfilled on their part. It may even turn out that you are an extremely admirable person for being able to do so, in such a manner that you serve as a moral example for others. So there is intuitively something wrong with an absolutely conditional case such as this. It falters in situations where the wrongdoer simply cannot fulfil the forgiveness-conditions. So it seems Griswold’s account is false.

One philosopher has also responded directly to Griswold conditional account (which she calls ‘over-moralized’) on account of its missing something intuitive about forgiveness, namely, its free and unmerited nature. Allais argues that “there is a central sense in which forgiveness can be undeserved” and this lies in forgiveness’ “elective” nature.[8] Forgiveness, says Allais, is something like a freely given gift; something given to the wrongdoer that is unearned by them: “It is something which the wrongdoer is not in a position to demand, something to which the wrongdoer does not have a right, and there is a central and crucial sense in which the decision to forgive is at the victim’s discretion.”[9] That is to say, the offended party—or victim, in Allais’ usage—may elect to forgive or not to forgive at will. For if something like Griswold’s account is true, then it seems that Allais’ objection to Griswold’s account is accurate that the wrongdoer could demand to be forgiven if he has done the right things by fulfilling the appropriate conditions. As Allais rightly puts it, “But why is what the offender is due not something she is entitled to ask for? Why should the victim have so much discretion with respect to giving the offender what is her due?”[10] Proponents of the view could bite the bullet on that one, but it seems they shouldn’t. Rather, it seems that Allais is right that if forgiveness is supposed to be a generous and praiseworthy thing, then it should be free and unmerited. It should be entirely up the offended party to forgive or not to forgive at will. This way forgiveness could be a gift of grace to the exclusion of all merit, or due: “forgiveness involves giving up resentment to which you are entitled.”[11]

So far so good. But there seems to be a glaring error in Allais’ account. For whereas it does seem that being able to forgive someone in a morally acceptable manner freely and wholly apart from conditions is a gracious and attractive feature of Allais’ account, it seems that Allais’ negation of conditions for forgiveness absolutely implies that unforgiveness is also just as morally acceptable in any situation whatever, again, wholly apart from conditions or actions undertaken by the wrongdoer. But that does not seem right at all. Imagine, again, that V steals $50 from P.  On Allais’ account, there just are no conditions under which P ought to forgive V. If P forgives V, P forgives V wholly of P’s own free will, apart from anything V has done or will do. P can forgive V freely when V decidedly chooses not to repent, or even when V does not think V has done anything wrong at all. But that implies that P may also choose not to forgive V under any circumstances whatever. But that seems crazy. Imagine V steals $50 from P. So P rightly resents V. But now imagine that V falls prostrate before P in dust and ashes, and pleads with V to forgive and restore and mend the broken relationship between P and V. Then imagine that V produces a valid $5000.00 check to replace the $50 which V will put into P’s bank account immediately. Then, imagine V offers to become P’s slave forever and ever! And so on. It would just seem crazy for P not to forgive V in this situation. But, then, is not P somehow intuitively obligated to forgive V in certain circumstances? V is, after all, truly repentant. Apparently not, on Allais’ account. Why? Because forgiveness is free. There are no conditions under which one is obligated to forgive. But that seems absurd. Yet this kind of morally absurd situation is just what Allais’ account implies. If there are no conditions whatsoever under which P is obligated to forgive V, then P can choose to forgive or not forgive V no matter what V does. But that seems insane. It also seems to make morally permissible the vicious characteristic trait of being unforgiving. But that is false; it is not morally permissible to be an unforgiving person. So Allais’ account is false.
It seems, then, that neither an absolutely elective account nor an absolutely conditional account of forgiveness will work. But there is something attractive on both accounts. On the conditional account, it is easy to avoid crazy and morally absurd counterexamples to elective accounts like the one just outlined. Such accounts also give a clear and concise account of how and when it is morally permissible or obligatory to forgive. But the elective account makes easy sense of how might have the freedom to forgive, and to be gracious, and selfless. Consider, again, the comatose state. One ought to be able to forgive a person like that. So perhaps something like a hybrid of these two highly intuitive yet mutually incompatible and independently problematic accounts probably makes the most sense. We need an account of forgiveness, according to which the mitigation of resentment is worked towards but is not absolutely necessary for forgiveness. We want to say (A) forgiveness is gracious, unmerited and free, (B) forgiveness can be conditional in such a way that, under certain conditions, the offended party is somehow obligated to forgive the offender, but (C) the forgiveness is such that it is absolutely and completely gracious, and is not somehow earned, merited, demandable, and so on and so forth. Furthermore, we do not want a fake solution, where the third, new account of forgiveness offers no new insights, and suffers from the weaknesses of both those accounts of which it purports to be a hybrid.

We may propose one such account: the covenantal view. A covenant, roughly, is an agreement that is imposed by one party upon another, either explicitly or implicitly. For example, when P is on the street with V, P implicitly agrees with V not to harm V only if V does not harm P, and vice versa. I will give you my pen, thinks the student to his peer, only if you do not use it to stab me in the eye, or whatever. These implicit agreements could be multiplied. In the moral case, it seems we can think about forgiveness through a covenantal point of view. For if a covenant is imposed by one party on another, then it may be possible for P to impose a conditional state of affairs on V in such a way that P was entirely free in imposing them on V, and those conditions now orientate the way P relates to V on whom P has posed this covenant or agreement. This may take place in various ways. But, fundamentally, it does turn out that the one making the covenant or agreement has full free will concerning the conditions he or she may impose onto his or her covenant partner. Think of the $50 theft scenario. Say V wrongs P in this regard. P therefore justly resents V, and if V wants to be forgiven it may simply just be that V has to do certain things towards P such that P may forgive V, such as are a P’s own discretion to impose on V the wrongdoer as the offended party. What might these things be? Well, on a covenantal view, they may be just anything at all such as are elected by P to serve as sufficient conditions on the basis of which V can now be forgiven, and V counts as being worthy of forgiveness insofar as V has fulfilled the conditions imposed by P.

But an objection immediately arises that this seems to make the conditions for forgiveness radically relative. For if P may impose the forgiveness-conditions on V, such that it is entirely free and up to P what those conditions are, then they would imply become the morally sufficient conditions for the forgiveness of V, such that V must act in accordance with them so as to be forgiven. But surely if the conditions chosen by P are freely chosen, then they conditions could be as strict or as lax as P wants. If V steals $50 from P, P may decide to forgive V free of charge, or force him to pay back $5000.00. But that seems wrong.

Perhaps, then, the imposition of forgiveness-conditions that may be imposed after the fact of the wrongdoing will surely have to be balanced by some other intrinsically good factor, such as fairness, where the conditions for forgiveness that are elected by P must be of such-and-such a degree of severity such that count as being the right kinds of conditions for the morally responsible forgiveness of V. Whatever conditions P freely chooses to impose on V in order to mitigate the resentment of P in such a way that unforgiveness on P’s part should become unwarranted on the completion of said conditions by V, these will have to be of such a severity such as is in keeping with the severity of the wrongdoing of V against P. In other words, P cannot just elect anything as conditions. The conditions for forgiveness will have to be kept within the bounds of fairness and justice. This ‘fairness principle’ implies that P cannot just set any conditions whatsoever in response to a wrong. It is not morally justifiable when V steals $50 from P that P simply declare that V pay back $5000.00 and be P’s slave forever and ever.  Something like the ancient Hebrew principle is probably true: “But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.”[12]

But then have we not negated entirely the freeness of Allais’ elective account of forgiveness? It does not seem so. All we have negated is absolute freedom—the freedom to impose just anything at all. Other moral virtues like fairness and justice seem to demand for this restriction. But it also seems right to argue that there are two morally admirable virtues, on the basis of which the imposition of forgiveness-conditions might be balanced as is in accordance with what is fair and just. The imposition of forgiveness-conditions by the offended party who has been wronged may be imposed freely after the fact of the wrong, but they have to be imposed as is in accordance with what is also morally acceptable.

Here, Pettigrove suggests two factors in terms of morally admirable and virtuous attributes as sources which ought to direct the conditions under which one chooses to forgive others. First and foremost is the attribute of love. Being a loving person, says Pettigrove, is a virtuous attribute to have. More precisely, biblical agape (pron. /‘agәpi/) implies a form of love that is generous, self-sacrificial and beneficial to its object. For one to love someone in an agape sense implies that one is concerned for the fundamental wellbeing of the other person. This kind of agape love is essential to a maximally morally upright character. It may even be directed toward a person who is completely unworthy of the honour. Love in this sense is closely related to Pettrigrove’s second attribute, which is the attribute of grace. Recall Griswold’s account where under specific conditions the offended party must give the wrongdoer his “due” of forgiveness. But grace, in contrast, implies giving unmerited favour such that the beneficial thing given to the wrongdoer is neither merited nor deserved by him.[13] Grace is related to other morally admirable virtues like kindness and mercy, and a graciousness of character is marked by one’s eagerness to see to the other’s good. Grace and love are related: a loving person will be a gracious person, and grace will motive some form of unmerited kindness toward the wrongdoer that will seek his good and restoration in right relationship with you, which is your mutual reconciliation. Insofar as justified resentment goes, Pettrigove is right: “love and the hostile attitudes forgiveness overcomes are unhappy bedfellows…”[14] But from this it does not seem to follow that “…love must in the end yield forgiveness.”[15] This modal claim ‘must’ does not follow. For in many circumstances, it may be more harmful to the wrongdoer if a loving person were simply to forgive without respect to any conditions at all. Part of the desired outcome in forgiving someone is that they learn not to act in the way that they did. It may be possible for a loving and gracious person to forgive freely in such a way that is morally admirable or permissible. But in most practical cases, simply forgiving a particular person freely and without conditions might actually be unbeneficial for them in the long run, and hence unwise. Wrongdoers will never learn how to be better people if we never hold them accountable for their actions, and require them to confess and commit to turning from their wrong course of action to a right course of action. Loving forgiveness may permit free forgiveness without conditions, but it is more likely than not that a loving and gracious person who is also wise will impose certain, fair conditions onto someone as prerequisite to their being forgiven as a way of teaching that person to do better and to live well. That would most certainly be the most loving thing to do.

What does this all say about foregoing resentment as a necessary condition for morally permissible/responsible forgiveness? Well, Griswold’s conditional account of forgiveness makes it so that the offended party’s resentment is unwarranted and thus forgiveness is the repentant wrongdoer’s due. Allais’ elective account of forgiveness makes it so that you can resent a person wholly and completely but still choose to forgive them. The so-called covenantal account of forgiveness, however, seems to allow for something like Allais’ view, but which is restrained and directed on the basis of biblical agape love and grace. On the covenantal account, it seems implicit that a person who forgives another may, in love, commit themselves to trying not resent that person, and so forgive them freely, and incrementally mitigate that resentment to a stage where there no longer is any resentment.[16] For forgiving somebody in love and with grace implies that we do not treat them as their sins deserve. The wrongdoer may deserve to be paid back and punished. But the forgiver, freely and of his own will, decides not to punish them in that manner, and instead actively seeks restoration and reconciliation with them. The loving and gracious person will forgive a person under just and fair conditions, and in kindness seek the other’s good. Then he will commit himself, as the offended person, not to resent the person who wronged him.

In conclusion, then, we considered separate accounts of forgiveness. On the one hand, Griswold’s conditional view—according to which P is obligated to forgive V on the grounds that V has fulfilled some set of conditions which then undermines P’s resentment of V, which thus obligates P to forgive V—leads to the strange implication that, if P is wronged by V, and V is somehow placed in a situation where V cannot possibly fulfil the conditions, such as in a comatose state, then P cannot possibly choose to forgive V, and must carry around a burden of unforgiveness. On the other hand, Allais’ elective view—according to which no matter how much P resents V, and no matter what V does, P can still choose to forgive V—suffers from the strange implication that it would also be perfectly within P’s moral rights not to forgive V even if V did every conceivable thing to confess and make reparation towards P; i.e., it would become morally permissible for P to be an unforgiving person. Both seem wrong, but both have attractive features. Thus, we have proposed a hybrid account that attempts to combine the strengths and avoid the weaknesses of each view. The covenantal view states that, if V wrongs P, and P justly resents V, P may freely elect the conditions under which P forgives V. But not just any conditions will do. P will set conditions which are in accordance with both grace and agape love. With respect to resentment, it turns out that P need not immediately cease resenting V. Indeed, on reflection, this may be psychologically impossible. But P can choose to treat V in such a way that is gracious and undeserved, with the aim of ultimate reconciliation between both P and V.

WORD COUNT: 4588.
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[1] Lucy Allais, ‘Elective Forgiveness’ in International Journal of Philosophical Studies 21:5 (2013), pp.637-653.

[2] Charles Griswold, Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration (Cambridge University Press: 2007).

[3] I do not know if the term “covenantal” is used in the forgiveness literature. But for the sake of this paper, I am going to use the term idiosyncratically to refer to that hybrid view that forgiveness is both free and conditioned, where this third-way position is contrasted with an absolutely elective account, quasi-conditional, but is also opposed to certain essential key elements in Griswold’s conditional account.

[4] Glen Pettigrove, Forgiveness and Love (Oxford University Press: 2013).

[5] Pamela Heironymi, ‘Articulating an Uncompromising Forgiveness’ in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. 62 No. 3 (2001), pp.529-530.

[6] Ibid. pp.530-531.

[7] Griswold (2007), pp.49-51.

[8] Allais (2013), pp.638, 641.

[9] Ibid. p.642.

[10] Ibid. p.643.

[11] Ibid. Emphasis in the original.

[12] Exodus 21:23-24.

[13] Pettigrove (2013), p.126.

[14] Ibid. p.103.

[15] Ibid. Emphasis added.

[16] This is similar to Bishop Butler’s view, but with the added element of actually aiming to rid oneself entirely of resentment at the end of the process.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allais, Lucy. ‘Elective Forgiveness’ in International Journal of Philosophical Studies 21:5 (2013), pp.637-653.
Griswold, Charles. Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration (Cambridge University Press: 2007).
Heironymi, Pamela. ‘Articulating an Uncompromising Forgiveness’ in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. 62 No. 3 (2001), pp.529-530.
Pettigrove, Glen. Forgiveness and Love (Oxford University Press: 2013).

PDF: Seminar Paper [EModP&C]

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According to Alison Simmons (2012, p.3), René Descartes never defines the term ‘consciousness.’ Yet, throughout his writings, Descartes ascribes both thought and mental cognition to some things, such as humans, God and angels. Yet he denies the same attribution to other things such as automatons and animals. Things may have perceptions, sensations and physical, mechanistic functions, but Descartes does not believe one can derive consciousness from these kinds of non-thinking physical aspects alone. Whatever consciousness is, it is not reducible to physical, mechanistic functions and perceptions. Consciousness therefore must either depend upon or be related to thinking in some way. This paper seeks to provide an interpretation and analysis of Descartes’s doctrine of consciousness from a selection of key texts found in Descartes’s writings, in conjunction with certain key issues raised primarily by three separate recent works.

To do this, we shall work in three steps. First, special attention will be paid to Gordon Baker and Katherine J. Morris’ (2002) discussion surrounding the exegesis of the word cogitatio, where it has been suggested that this key phrase of Descartes’s may extend beyond mere thought to include all mental activity in its seventeenth century context. Secondly, we will assess Janice Thomas’ (2006) claim that Descartes’s may allow different kinds of consciousness in animals to try to discern the differences in the cognitive lives of animals and human beings, especially given the wide array of neuro-physiological properties shared in common between human and non-human animals. Thirdly, we will then extend the account of human consciousness and cognition in Descartes to include distinctive features such as second-order reflexivity, as Vili Lähteenmäki (2007) has suggested. Ultimately, it will be concluded that, for Descartes, the conscious thing simply just is the thinking thing: thought characterised by second-order reflexivity and awareness, which should be thought about in terms of what characterises human thinking in second-order reflexive terms.

First, Baker and Morris (2002) maintain the thesis that Descartes’s term cogitatio (French: pensée; trans. ‘thought’) may include all mental cognitive activity. Consciousness, in Descartes, is closely related to the conception of the mind and the mental. Thus in his Meditations, Descartes, by method of doubt, reduces a priori the human person to an Archimedean point of reference, whose essence is thinking (cogito) which, by axiom, requires its being or existence (sum).[1] For Descartes, the agent is, indubitably (CSM, II, p.19): “A thing that thinks… A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions.” I, the agent, am a thinking thing, and my thought is characterised by all kinds of phenomenal and cognitive phenomena. Notice how Descartes mentions only those kinds of activities which could only be performed by rational, intelligent agents: doubting, understanding, willing, denying, imagining and sensory perceptions.[2]

This intentional, reflective intelligence characterises Descartes’s conception of thought in general. In the Meditations (CSM, II, pp.50-51), ‘imagination’ for instance is the application of a cognitive faculty to an object of perception which is immediately present to a person by perception. Imagining is a reflective, intentional and intellectual activity of a person to an object of sense-perception, and is a reflective, intelligent activity by which the mind comprehends objects, which may be both internal objects like thoughts, and external objects like trees and bodies. If a person perceives a triangle through a sensory perception, one’s physical body captures the shape, which, being apprehended by the mind, is transferred by way of the imagination into the understanding so as to create a conscious, sense-perception of the triangle. This faculty of the intellect may require more personal effort given the complexity of the entity being perceived.

Mental complexity is also demonstrated in Descartes’s May 1638 letter to Reneri (CSMK, III, pp.96-97), where Descartes defines ‘thought’ in terms of “all the operations of the soul.” In the Passions (CSM, I, pp.345-358), this soul is distinguished into two parts: ‘higher’ or ‘rational’ soul, which is the seat of the will, volition and intelligence; and ‘lower’ or ‘sensitive’ soul, which is the seat of the appetites and base desires, which are the receptible sensations and physical perceptions, these being apprehended by the higher or rational part of the soul to form an understanding of the world.  The mind features in the relationships between these distinctions in the soul in that the mind dictates between them to form rational behaviour in accordance with the will of the creature, either willingly restraining or being propelled by his appetites or base proclivities to act in certain ways. The mind, it seems, is in some kind of an active, higher state governing over these two aspects of the soul, and it has awareness over each one, both actively and intelligently moving the agent in relation to them.

In light of Descartes’s doctrine of the complexity of mental cognition, consider the claim made in Baker and Morris (2002, pp.13-14) that the Latin noun ‘cogitatio’ (French: pensée), often translated ‘thought,’ covers more than our ordinary modern English understanding and use of the word ‘thought’ naturally covers. Cogitatio, in its standard, seventeenth century usage, covers not only ratiocination, but also “any form of conscious state or process or activity whatsoever.” They continue:

            “The term ‘thought’—pensée, cogitatio—had in Descartes’s time a much wider meaning than it has now. It embraced not only ‘thought’ as it is now understood, but all mental acts and data. Indeed, on this basis, ‘cogitatio’ is sometimes translates as ‘experience’ or ‘consciousness.’ […] The idea that Descartes expanded the term ‘cogitatio’ to cover all (and only) ‘states of consciousness’ we will call the ‘Expansion Thesis.’”[3]

If Baker and Morris are right about the Expansion Thesis, it seems like Descartes’s doctrine of consciousness can be derived from his doctrine of thought, such that whatever characterises thought also characterises consciousness, and vice versa. For interpreting ‘thought’ as ‘consciousness’ allows consciousness to be characterised by whatever thought is characterised by. By implication consciousness would then have to be interpreted so as to exclude any form of physical basis for its existence, since, for Descartes, the essence of mind is thought and the essence of the physical body is extension. If consciousness simply just is thought, then its essence is also thinking, too. The body, then, could not be conscious, regardless of its complex physical arrangements; consciousness could neither emerge from nor supervene on any particular arrangement of material particles. Anything that is physically extended could be interpreted with reference to mechanical principles alone without thought and without consciousness. Baker and Morris (2002, p.17) call this the consciousness/clockwork distinction—Descartes distinction between the life of the mental and the mechanical functions of the body.

Baker and Morris cite two primary texts in support of the Expansion Thesis. Firstly, they cite the Principles (2002, p.31; cf. CSM, I, p.195) thus (emphasis original; square bracketing removed):

            “By the term ‘thought’, I understand everything which we are aware of as happening within us, in so far as we have an awareness of it. Hence, thinking is to be identified not merely with understanding, willing imagining, but also with sensory awareness. For if I say ‘I am seeing, or am walking, therefore I exist,’ and take this as applying to vision or walking as bodily activities, then the conclusion is not absolutely certain. This is because, as often happens during sleep, it is possible for me to think that I am seeing or walking, though my eyes are closed and I am not moving about; such thoughts might even be possible if I had no body at all. But if I take ‘seeing’ or ‘walking’ to apply to the actual sense or awareness of seeing or walking, then the conclusion is quite certain, since it relates to the mind, which alone has the sensation or thought that it is seeking or walking.”

Secondly, similarly from the Meditations (2002, p.31; cf. CSM, II, p.19):

            “But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, is willing, is unwilling, and also imagines and has sensory perceptions.”

Taken together, these two citations seems conclusive for the truth of the Expansion Thesis.[4] The first citation from the Principles shows that Descartes understands the word ‘thought’ (cogitatio, pensée) to include just those kinds of intentional, intelligent, reflective activities we have already mentioned. In particular, take note of sensory awareness. I may have a brute sensations from the sensitive part of the soul, my body has a certain reaction which causes my mind or rational soul actively and intelligently to apply the imagination to that mere sensation or physical perception, to form an understanding or comprehension of the object of my physical sensations, and thus I can be said to have a sensory awareness and understanding of the object of my sensations. ‘Thought,’ then, includes a kind of third tier where I, as an agent, possess an awareness of my sensing things, which provides me an ability as a thinking creature to reflects on my sensations, and to perceive that I perceive, to understand that I understand, and to bring about an awareness that I am aware (Lähteenmäki, 2007, pp.181-182, 183-186).[5] For it would just follow, given that I am a conscious, thinking thing, that to truly perceive in the higher, rational sense, I would be conscious that I do, when my intellect is applied in the right kind of way.

But what about nonhuman animal creatures? Let us briefly consider their cognition by way of comparison with human beings, to clarify Descartes’s understanding of human consciousness. For although animals, to all appearances, exhibit the same kind of neuro-physiological properties such as perceptual and sensory awareness that we humans do, yet Descartes did not believe that animals are consciously aware in the same way that we humans are, if at all. This does not mean that animals do not have neuro-physiological properties like physical perceptions and bodily sensations, or that their bodies cannot move in complex ways as ours do. But clarifying just what it is about animals that makes them able to move as machines and have perceptions but not be in possession of conscious thought will help us be able to refine just what it is about us mind-possessing human creatures that makes us conscious in a way that animals are not, and therefore to clarify Descartes’s doctrine of consciousness in general.

Janice Thomas’ (2006) research serves as a challenge to my view that animals are not conscious in Descartes. Thomas believes that Descartes essentially delivers a doctrine of different kinds of consciousness. To animals belong certain kinds of consciousness; to the humans, another and more special kind. She distinguishes between five different kinds of consciousness (2006, pp.246-356): (1) ‘Organism Consciousness,’ which is different degrees of functioning, like being awake or asleep; (2) ‘Perceptual Consciousness,’ a form of sensory awareness   which may allow an animal to navigate but without reflective, rational thought or reason; (3) ‘Introspective Consciousness,’ which is reflexive, self-consciousness; (4) ‘Access Consciousness,’ which is access to another agent’s intention to act in a certain way and a preparedness to respond to that potential activity; and finally (5) ‘Phenomenal Consciousness,’ which is mental qualia, i.e. the felt reality of conscious experience. “Clearly,” says Thomas, “Descartes’s opinion is that animals, including humans, have inner states of feelings which can be expressed in outward signs…” (ibid, p.343). And again (ibid. p.363), “My overall answer to my title question [‘Does Descartes Deny Consciousness to Animals?’] [is] that Descartes never denies organism consciousness, perceptual consciousness, access consciousness or phenomenal consciousness to non-human animals. The consciousness Descartes does deny to them is merely (not that this is a small thing) the capacity for self-conscious reflective receipt or awareness of one’s inner states which he [Descartes] believes belongs uniquely to the fortunate (and immortal) animals endowed with rational souls.”

The problem with this analysis (as Thomas herself seems tacitly to admit) is that this consequence of her research is not mere at all. What Thomas has just told us is that animals possess, inter alia, certain sensory, perceptual and phenomenal qualities which do not amount to the kind of consciousness Descartes also wants to ascribe to human beings who are endowed with rational souls (thinking things), which is a kind of self-awareness of the intelligent, deliberate, introspective sort. But Thomas never justifies her choice of the word ‘consciousness’ to describe these kinds of neuro-physiological properties ascribed to animals. She kind of just assumes it. But even if she could justify it, then it seems the properties she is attributing to animals to allow them to share in some sort of consciousness is just not the interesting sense of intelligent, self-reflective consciousness ascribable to human creatures with rational souls. Simmons (2012, pp.13-14) allows for the possibility for varieties of consciousness in Descartes, but I am not convinced that this supports Thomas on the basis of other, stronger, primary texts which seem to deny thought to animals altogether, and thus consciousness. Descartes surely takes very careful precautions to describe the functions of material bodies in relation to immaterial minds, so as to be able to explain how animals move and act in complex ways but without thought. In the final analysis, one is simply not convinced that Thomas’ attribution of the word ‘conscious’ to the kinds of bodily states ascribable to animals in the way that she does is quite accurate on a strict reading of Descartes’s primary text source material. However the properties she ascribes to the bodily operations of the animals are correct and helpful. My biggest concern with Thomas’ account here is that she never argues from Descartes himself that the particular kinds of properties exhibited in each case are describable as therefore being ‘conscious.’ Worse, Descartes himself seems to contradict Thomas in her attribution of consciousness to animals on the basis of these neuro-physiological properties, since Descartes does not even hold that animals have minds, strictly taken as non-extended, thinking things.

Indeed, many primary texts from Descartes contradict the attribution of any kind of consciousness to animals, strictly taken, in short since animals are not thinking things, though they may be wondrously complex mechanical physical things. The main problem is that animals are not thinking things endowed with a rational soul, according to Descartes—they are not even intelligent creatures. But thought is a necessary prerequisite condition for consciousness in Descartes. In the first place, in his Discourse Descartes does not seem to think that any internal arrangements of our bodily organs could make any difference to the nature of the soul that we possess, whether it be rational or merely sensitive, vegetative, or animal. This implies that any functional arrangement of the material body cannot produce a thinking mind that is intelligent, rational and introspective; conscious, in a robust way. In physical bodies, things simply function like mechanical gears moving a clock, without need to refer to a thinking thing (CSM, I, p.134): “These [physical] functions are just the ones in which animals without reason may be said to resemble us.” This implies they do not actually resemble us internally, though they look like they do. Similarly, in the Passions (CSM, I, p.348), animals possess all the physical faculties from which arise the same kinds of sensations we have, but in lacking a rational soul they simply lack the intelligent ability as a thinking thing to determine between which passions to emphasise and which to supress and so are casually determined by “unreasoning instinct” (my emphasis) to do what they do, and so do not on free choice of a rational, acting agent choose to do what they do (Lähteenmäki, 2007, p.178). Again, in his May 1638 letter to Reneri (CSMK, III, p.99), animals are said to resemble humans in many ways such that we often think they have a rational soul as we do, implying they really do not. Yet most certainly the twin death-blow to attributing consciousness to animals on Descartes’s understanding is found in a positive argument against animal thought in his 5^th of February 1649 letter to More (CSMK, III, pp.365-367) and in his denial of the same in his 11^th of June 1640 letter to Mersenne and especially in his 30^th of July 1640 letter to the same (CSMK, III, pp.148-150; particularly p.149; see below).

In the letter to More, Descartes rejects the argument from analogy which says since animals move and behave like we do, therefore they must have some kind of soul just as we do. Descartes instead proposes that we distinguish between what he calls the ‘corporeal soul,’ which is the body and its mechanisms, and the ‘incorporeal soul,’ which refers to the mind which thinks and exercises volitions. There, Descartes thinks everything animals do can be reduced down to the former corporeal type of soul. Indeed, Descartes can only think of one reason possibly to attribute to animals incorporeal soul or a mind, and three reasons against attributing it. In favour, Descartes noticed animals have in them all kinds of sense organs just like us, and can have all kinds of similar sensations. However, against this, Descartes says three things: first, that bodily parts can often be arranged to form movement without thought, such as uncontrollable epileptic convulsions; second, that we can imagine that men might make automatons that are capable of movement without thought; and third, animals are incapable of forming complex languages and intentional speech—they merely mutter grunts and roars on impulse, and we have no evidence that they are thinking before communicating in this way. Indeed, in his Discourse Descartes is even more explicit about his opinions concerning the implications of animals’ incapacity for complex language acquisition (CSM, I, p.140; my emphasis): “This shows not merely that the beasts have less reason than man, but that they have no reason at all.” Again, animals have, according to Descartes (CSM, I, p.141; my emphasis) “no intelligence at all”. Animals, whatever they are, are not thinking things, and therefore cannot be conscious things, according to Descartes.

Similarly, in the former letter to Mersenne, cited above, Descartes makes clear that he does not explain what appears to be the conscious feeling of pain without reference to the soul, since pain properly understood exists only “in the understanding” which requires the kind of intentional, reflective intelligence found only in minds, that is, human creatures. Hence Descartes denies animals feel pain “in the strict sense” since they lack this intelligent understanding. And this is followed up most explicitly in Descartes’s latter letter to Mersenne, also cited above, where Descartes employs more forcefully his automaton thought experiment so as to think that the inference from complex animal behaviours to animal mindedness or awareness simply does not follow (CSMK, III, p.149):

            “As for brute animals, we are so used to believing that they have feelings like us that it is hard to rid ourselves of this opinion. Yet suppose that we were equally used to seeing automatons which perfectly imitated every one of our actions that it is possible for automatons to imitate; suppose, further, that in spite of this we never took them for anything more than automatons; in this case we should be in no doubt that all the animals which lack reason were automatons too. […] [T]he bodies of animals contain all the organs which an automaton needs if it is to imitate those of our actions which are common to us and the beasts…”

The plain reading of this passage suggests that Descartes desires that we rid ourselves of the opinions that animals feel in the same way that we do solely on the basis of observing their behaviour. He likens them to lifeless yet complex automatons which are mindless and unconscious, even though they have all kinds of complex physical and mechanical functional properties. Descartes’s thought experiment from automatons is simply to reject the argument from analogy, and to refute the concept that animals must have thought simply because they behave in complex ways just like we may. What seems to follow from this is that, for Descartes, in order to think and to be conscious, it takes more than merely having complex physical make-up as animals do. The conscious, thinking thing directs the mechanisms and movements of the body, such as directing the small animal spirits, which are those smallest, physical particles which move the limbs through the pores in the body (CSM, I, p.139; CSM, I, pp.331-332, 335). But the conscious thing neither emerges from nor can be inferred by the mechanisms and movements of the physical body, no matter how complex. One therefore feels inclined to agree with Lähteenmäki (2007, p.178) as he characterises it, that animals are conscious only if they have rational souls. But animals do not have rational souls. So animals are not conscious. Descartes most certainly rejected animal thought, and therefore any meaningful concept of animal consciousness in his writings.[6]

Citations such as these therefore seem sufficient to argue that Descartes did not believe that animals, strictly taken, are conscious. But they do have sensations and perceptions, and can move (or, rather, be moved) in complex ways. They simply lack an additional necessary property which is required for intelligent, self-awareness: a rational soul or mind. The impartation of an immaterial mind or rational soul by God is a necessary condition for what it takes for something to be conscious, and this seems to support my thesis that that Descartes’s doctrine of consciousness requires us to think that the conscious thing simply just is the thinking thing, that consciousness is therefore a property of human beings, and that consciousness in Descartes may therefore be thought about in terms of what characterises human thought.

So far we have argued that Descartes’s Latin term cogitatio (French; pensée) may be extended in its seventeenth century context so as to be able to include all the elements of human thought. We also considered elements of animal behaviour and concluded that they do not strictly imply animal consciousness in any interesting and robust kind of way. Yet my thesis not only requires that the conscious thing simply just is the thinking thing, but that this thinking thing also be characterised by a form of second-order reflexivity, so as to characterise a person’s cognition with an awareness of whatever occurs in himself—an awareness than one is aware, perceiving that one perceives, and thinking that one thinks.

Here, Vili Lähteenmäki (2007) has done some helpful work in this regard. As we have already demonstrated, consciousness requires as a necessary prerequisite condition that the thing that is conscious be a thinking thing. This thought cannot be reduced to the mechanistic bodily function and sensations in which animals also share. Indeed, for humans, in Descartes, thought has the property of having second-order reflexivity: thinking about thinking, and being aware of that second-order thought. Lähteenmäki (2007, pp.187-188) takes there to be a distinction in Descartes between ‘direct’ and ‘reflective’ thoughts, which seems somewhat related to Descartes’s disambiguation of the soul into two ‘higher’/‘rational’ and  ‘lower’/‘sensitive’ parts (CSM, I, pp.345-358). A direct thought would be a first, and simple thought related to a direct perception of an entity. A reflective thought would be a higher, intellectual recognition of that entity in relation to and distinguished from other entities, but would be simultaneous with the direct thought. This finds support in Descartes’s 29^th of July 1648 Reply letter for Arnauld (CSMK, III, pp.356-359; cf. esp. p.157), where Descartes distinguishes between direct and reflective thoughts in the same way one may make a distinction in vision between light’s hitting the retina of the eye of causing one to see objects, and one’s actual recognition of the fact that they do perceive: “[W]e make a distinction between direct and reflective thoughts corresponding to the distinction we make between direct and reflective vision, one depending on the first impact of the rays and the other [an agent’s actually seeing] depending on the second.” This is like unto an infant’s having a simple sensation (e.g. pain) and then goes no further, and an adult’s having that same sensation, yet simultaneously having a higher perception that one is in pain in contrast to not being in pain. This distinction seems directly related to the intellectual capacities of the agents in question, and their ability to reflect on their thoughts and feelings, as opposed simply to having thoughts and feelings.

Lähteenmäki wants to make an analogy between these cases. Just as there is a difference between simple seeing with regards to light’s reacting on the retina in the right way and seeing in regards to an agent’s seeing one thing as opposed to another given that sense of sight, so there is a difference between, on the one hand, merely thinking or being conscious, and, on the other hand, thinking that one is thinking, or being consciousness that one is consciousness. My thinking that I am thinking, and being aware of that second order relationship, is what characterises second-order reflexivity. Consciousness, in Descartes, must therefore be characterised by this kind of second-order reflexivity in order to be consciousness in the fullest, most robust sense Descartes wants to give to humans.

Despite the wealth of textual evidence in this direction, two prima facie counterintuitive consequences provide legitimate caution for heading in this direction. Firstly, with respect to Descartes own example corning the consciousness of human infants CSMK, III, p.157), they should count as not wholly-conscious on this view. This may seem unacceptable, since it would seem that human infants should be able to count as just as conscious as adult are, since human infants are thinking things just like adults are. But it seems to me Descartes should simply say that the thinking thing can learn to engage in higher forms of more complex thought, given the kind of experiences it undergoes, and the higher forms of intelligence it obtains. Maybe another way to look at it would be that the human infants really are as conscious after all, but it simply takes more experiences and intelligence for human infants to able to fully realise the capacities of their human consciousness that they already possess. As Lähteenmäki (2007, p.188) says, “[W]e can be conscious by having direct thoughts and having reflective thoughts.” So human infants are still conscious, even if on a lower level or capacity than an adult.[7]

Secondly, by virtue of a conscious thing’s being a thinking thing and requiring this second-order reflexivity as a property of that consciousness, the human person would have to be in perpetual thought about something. Lähteenmäki notes this in his paper (2007, p.188): “By maintaining that the mind always thinks in one manner or another, Descartes subscribes to the view that there are varieties or degrees of consciousness between which we constantly vacillate […] [.]” So by virtue of being a thinking thing, the person must always be thinking, and this sounds counterintuitive if we think of things such as sleep, or the perception of objects in our peripheral vision. But we could imagine a sliding scale on which to place all human thoughts: {0, 0.1, 0.2 … 0.8, 0.9, 1.0}, where 0 designates something completely out of one’s thought and 1.0 being something’s being in the fullest, most robust attention it could possibly have from someone. All Descartes’s view commits us to is that there be at least some single object which, at all times, lies somewhere from 0.1 to 1.0 on the scale. And that’s not at all difficult to imagine.

In conclusion, then, we have argued the following: First, Descartes’s phrase cogitatio extends to all mental acts and data, and therefore also to consciousness, so as to establish that consciousness is at least related to if not dependent upon thought; second, we have seen that Descartes denies consciousness to animals, regardless of their complex neuro-physiological similarities with human beings, implying that consciousness is neither reducible to nor emerges from complex physical arrangements; and finally, we say that human thought is characterised by complex, second-order reflexivity, by which we mean an awareness about one’s thinking about thinking. Therefore, my argument suggests we interpret Descartes’s doctrine of consciousness thus: Consciousness is that second-order reflexive awareness had by thinking things (humans).

WORD COUNT: 5060.
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[1] There is some dispute in Descartes scholarship whether or not Descartes’s famous Cogito phrase is strictly an invalid syllogism, which has as its first premise “I am thinking” leading to the conclusion “Therefore, I exist.” Scholars who criticise Descartes on this point simply find it to be invalid to make this inference from the premise. But I think stronger scholarship agrees that a more charitable reading of Descartes takes the Cogito to be the statement of an axiom from which we then start to build an infallible epistemology. We do not have time to delve into this subject here. Suffice it to say that I find Descartes’s Cogito both valid and coherent.

[2] Only one—having sensory perceptions—is possibly passive. But not probable since, as we shall see later in greater detail, Descartes distinguishes between mere physical sense-perception and actually perceiving rationally as an agent.

[3] Baker and Morris cite three scholars in support of their point in the citation: Williams 1967:347; Koyré 1954:xxxvii; Rée 1974:94ff. (Their citations.)

[4] Baker and Morris do provide some reasons against being too hasty in saying these two passages support the Expansion Thesis. But it seems to me that they ultimately conclude that the passages do support it, and for that reason, and for sake of space, I will be working as though their opinion is correct.

[5] It’s possible that this may regress infinitely. So if I am aware, consciousness suggests to me that I am aware that I am aware. If I become aware that I am aware, then on reflection I may become aware that I am aware that I am aware… and so on, ad infinitum, potentially. (One need not reflect past one or two levels of that kind of awareness to get the picture.)

[6] Thomas seems to recognise these points at the beginning of her (2006), p.341. She notes that Descartes rejects argument by analogy, and that he employs the automaton argument against physical consciousness.

[7] The idea that things can possess consciousness on different “levels” or “capacities,” to me, raises questions similar to Janice Thomas concerning the coherence and legitimacy of Descartes’s denial of animal consciousness. But we do not have space to go into that.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baker, Gordon; Morris, Katherine J. Descartes’ Dualism (Routledge: London and New York: 2002).
Descartes, René. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge: 1985), Vol. I, trans. eds. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff & Dugald Murdoch.
Descartes, René. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge: 1984), Vol. II, trans. eds. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff & Dugald Murdoch.
Descartes, René. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge: 1991), Vol. III, trans. eds. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch & Anthony Kenny.
Lähteenmäki, Vili. ‘Orders of Consciousness and Forms of Reflexivity in Descartes’ in Sara Heinamaa, Vili Lähteenmäki & Pauliina Remes, Consciousness: From Perception to Reflection in the History of Philosophy (Springer: 2007), pp.177-202.
Simmons, Alison. ‘Cartesian Consciousness Reconsidered.’ Philosophers’ Imprint Vol. 12 No. 2 (2012), pp.1-21.
Thomas, Janice. ‘Does Descartes Deny Consciousness to Animals?’ Ratio Vol. 19 No. 3 (2006), pp.336-363.

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SECTION A.

Question 4: What were David Lewis’ reasons for positing a multiplicity of concrete possible worlds, and do you agree with them?

David Nolan defines a ‘possible world’ as a maximal description of what exists; a sum total of all reality. In his famous (1986) work, David Lewis posited a theory of modality which made use of such a concept of possible worlds. Controversially, however, Lewis also claimed that “for every possible world there is, there is such a world that exists.” In other words, for each possible world we can think of from the infinite set of all possible worlds, there really is such a world that actually exists, and it is just as tangible and concrete as our world. There is a world with cities made only of doughnuts. There is a world where everything is the same except for a subtle difference in the shade of a single colour of a single section of a particular carpet in a particular room somewhere. However, for any one particular world from the infinite set of all possible worlds, that world is both spatiotemporally and causally unrelated to any of the other worlds. This essay provides two reasons to suggest that David Lewis’ Modal Realism suffers from epistemological and metaphysical problems, and that we therefore ought to prefer another theory. The first argument will bear on Lewis’ epistemic justification for his theory as presented in his original work.  The second argument will retain Lewis’ possible worlds intuitions but postulate that a divine conceptualist view that serves Lewis’ purposes better but without ontological inflation—if one is willing to pay the ‘cost’ of theism[E1] .

According to Nolan (2005, Ch. 3), modality is a real phenomenon in the world. We are interested in not only what does happen, but also in what might have happened, or what must happen. Metaphysically, we intuit the idea that we want to be able to explain the modalities of possibility and necessity in such a way as to retain most of our common-sense intuitions about what is real, in a clear and logical manner, and without maximum costs to our theory such as ontological inflation (the postulation of too many entities). David Lewis takes just this line.[E2]  In his (1986, p.3), Lewis talks of concrete modal realism as “serviceable” to our theories. On Lewis’ view, these worlds give us the metaphysics we want, how we want it. For him, the cost of ontological inflation (infinite concrete entities) simply does not outweigh the benefits[E3] . Lewis calls this a “reason” to believe in concrete possible worlds, even though it is not a conclusive reason, he says.

As for the metaphysical theories and notions Lewis believes possible worlds explain most clearly and cleanly, Brian Weatherson (2006, Sec. 6),  presents the proposed benefits as follows. First, concrete possible worlds provide us a clear-cut theory of modality. Possibilities such contingent existence modal comparatives and supervenience theses can be described as quantification across possibilities. So saying that I possibly exist for example would be like saying that I (and my relevant transworld counterparts) actually exist in a certain subset of concrete possible worlds much in the way of indexical phrases. I exist “here” (the actual world), and I exist “there” (some other possible world W), multiplied n times. This possibility also captures the idea of my existing “not-there” (not at some other possible world Wʹ). Again, modal comparatives are relations across worlds. If I could have possibly been taller that simply means at possible world W I am a certain height and in another possible world Wʹ my counterpart is a certain height. Secondly, concrete possible worlds provide a clear definition of closeness. Counterfactuals (what would have been true were a certain set of circumstances the case) on modal realism are comparisons [E4] between worlds. The reasons we can make counterfactual claims in the actual world is because there is a possible world W (take it to be the actual world—our world) that is different from another possible world Wʹ. Modal realism allows us to compare conditions in both worlds W and Wʹ and see that in a world sufficiently local or close to us (that is, not too wildly different in any major way) the conditions were a certain way such that if the conditions of the actual world were like the conditions of the second possible world then the actual world would have been like the second world. That’s easy to think about. Thirdly, Lewis believed concrete possible worlds informs content. Mental and verbal content could now be analysed in terms of sets of possibilities. And lastly, Lewis thinks possible worlds retains clear explanation about our intuitions about properties  as quantification of sets of possibilia. If I say ‘There are no blue swans in the whole world’ I am implicitly quantifying over my world alone. It says absolutely nothing about whether or not blue swans exist in some other possible world. Maybe they exist abundantly in another possible world. And, in fact, they do. Just not here, in the actual world. That is a face-value description of properties.

The only severe problem Lewis seems to have found with his own theory is that it massively inflates our ontology. Many—indeed an infinite number of—things exist. But, he says, the vast benefits of the consequent systematic metaphysical coherence and explanation far outweighs this cost of ontological inflation. However, that implies that if there were another conceivable way of thinking about possible worlds which did not require this kind of ontological inflation, [E5] then that theory of possible worlds would be better than Lewis’ theory on Lewis own grounds. I will offer that alternative possibility after a brief note on some epistemological issues I think David Lewis fails to address at least in his (1986) work.

Epistemically, a person knows that P iff that person believes that P, P is true, and P is justified in the right way.[1][E6]  Consider Lewis’ case. According to Lewis, concrete possible worlds are things which are entirely useful in that they explain things well with a whole lot of coherence. But how can Lewis justify the inference from the usefulness of a particular postulation to its epistemic justification, which is to say, the way how we know that the thing is there? Since (to my knowledge) Lewis made no attempt to address this in his (1986) work, it may be charitable to interpret Lewis as being a kind of pragmatist. [E7] On epistemic pragmatism, a thing is justified iff is it useful to believe that it is. However, I simply do not share this intuition at all. Consider the case where it is useful for University of Sydney student 311202969 to pass his PHIL2600 philosophy exam. Does it therefore follow that student 311202969 is epistemically justified in thinking that he really will pass his exam? That is not at all obvious. Rather it seems like if student  311202969 thinks that way, and has no other reason to think he will be justified (such as having studied sufficiently well and written a cogent couple of essays with valid premises and sound arguments respectively…), then student 311202969 will not be justified in the right way[E8] . His justification is just not robust enough. In the same way, modal realism, so justified, has insufficient justification and is therefore not strictly known, under our definition. But if David Lewis does not strictly know that modal realism is true on our definition (assuming it holds), why postulate concrete possible worlds in the first place?

A second, metaphysical, issue confronts Lewis on his own grounds. As previously stated, Lewis thinks that severe ontological inflation is the only cost of his theory, but that the benefits far outweigh the cost. Let us grant the usefulness justification despite our immediately preceding epistemic criticism. Now it becomes possible to craft a new theory of possible worlds whilst retaining all of Lewis’ intuitions about how possible worlds work and not having such inflation. This comes from theism, specifically, divine conceptualism about possible worlds. One of the more amusing criticisms that has been launched against modal realism by its critics is that Lewis’ theory implies that theism is true. Lewis grants this, but only with respect to a subset of all possible worlds— and the actual world is not one of those worlds. We can therefore truly say ‘God does not exist’ in the actual world just because, relative to the actual world, God does not exist. But then it also seems maximally obvious if we grant Lewis’ own theory for sake of argument that we could think of a possible world extremely close to our world. Everything in this new possible world is this same as the actual world, except for one different, namely, God exists. God would be a being with a particular set of properties of personhood, will, power, knowledge, and rationality. He would be timeless, immaterial, and spaceless under the relevant conditions. In short, God would be a single immaterial being with many ideas that one would expect a maximally knowledgeable, intelligent and wise conscious being to have. But now let us make a new assumption. Let’s suppose for sake of argument that the world in which this divine being exists is the actual world. On this view, there is therefore a mind in the world with a multiplicity of concepts—concepts about possibility and necessity, properties, instantiation, and universals, content and closeness, etc. Moreover, this being would also know and perhaps be able to think about different ways the creation could have been. In other words, this kind of being would have ideas about the actual world and the possible worlds. But in that case, the thoughts of this being could serve as the placeholders for all the relevant functions Lewis attributes to his concrete possible worlds. Except now, in the divine conceptualist case, there is no ontological inflation. Instead there would be a single divine mind—a relatively simple concept—with complex ideas, indeed. But the ontology is relatively simpler and neater than modal realism[E9] . If ontological inflation counts as a cost of Lewis’ theory, and we can craft a new theory that does the same thing but without that cost, the new theory ought to be preferred. The only ‘cost’ of the new theory of divine conceptualism is that it commits its holder to theism. I, however, would not see such an implication as a ‘cost’ but as a feature. That, of course, depends on one’s prior metaphysical commitments.[E10]

In conclusion, then, we have provided two reasons to think that modal realism is not the best solution for systematic metaphysics.  It suffers from epistemological issues and metaphysical issues. We firstly saw that modal realism is plausibly not justified in the right way, and secondly that divine conceptualism about possible worlds (possible worlds as complex divine ideas) plausibly provides all the benefits without the costs of Lewis’ theory if we want to take the line of possible worlds functioning the way they do as truth-makers for various metaphysical theories as Lewis explains it.

SECTION B.

Question 6: What does Putnam’s Twin Earth thought experiment really teach us about reference? You may wish to discuss variations on the experiment, and the different things they may teach us?

In his Twin Earth thought experiment, Putnam (1973; 1975a) seeks to show that how our terms refer to things is a causal-historical matter about how the external world is, not a matter of our psychological states alone. Contextually, in large part, it is a critique of Gottlob Frege and his famous “intension determines extension” dictum from his paper Sinn und Bedeutung (Sense and Reference) and his/Bertrand Russell’s classical descriptivist theory of reference where the meanings (semantic contents) of names are identical to the descriptions associated with them by speakers, while their referents are determined to be the objects that satisfy these descriptions. This essay first seeks to characterise the thought experiment properly, and then tries to offer two interesting criticisms from the philosopher Ǻsa Wikforss concerning the internal coherence of the thought experiment. Finally, we consider a form of causal-historical theory of reference exemplified in the writings of David Lewis, Frank Jackson, and David Chalmers, among others, which the thought experiment brings out in the history of the discussion about reference. We shall call this new theory ‘neodescriptivism.’

First, we must characterise the thought experiment in an appropriate way.   In his Twin Earth thought experiment, Putnam (1973; 1975a) asks us to think about ordinary, Earth-water. Water is a natural kind substance on Earth with a certain set of macroscopic emergent properties S – e.g. colourlessness, odourlessness, tastelessness, and thirst-quenching abilities. If an Earthling, called Oscar_E, sees the relevant substance and observes properties S, his psychological state would correspond to the S properties such that he would refer to the natural kind by use of the natural kind term ‘water.’[2] Call this substance ‘water_E’. So Oscar_E’s psychological state captures the meaning of ‘water’ in the right way. Call this psychological grasp of the meaning capturing ‘S-wise.’ We are then invited to imagine that there exists a planet somewhere in our very galaxy that is exactly similar to Earth: a Twin Earth. However, Twin Earth is different in a single way. Twin Earth possesses a substance with an identical set of macroscopic emergent properties S to water_E. Call this substance ‘water_TE’. This substance is also referred to using the natural kind term ‘water’ by speakers of the English language on Twin Earth—people such as Oscar_E’s real Twin Earth counterpart Oscar_TE. Oscar_TE also captures meaning of ‘water’ S-wise as he refers to water_TE. So the psychological states of Oscar_E and his real-world counterpart Oscar_TE are exactly similar, since they both capture the meaning of the term ‘water’ S-wise. However, there is a difference between water_E and water_TE. Water_TE has an entirely different microscopic molecular arrangement to water_E. Whereas water_E is microstructurally H₂O at the molecular level, water_TE is not H₂O but is rather another complex chemical arrangement, abbreviated XYZ. The externalist intuition then follows that, whereas Oscar_E and Oscar_TE are thought to be in exactly similar psychological states (capturing the meaning of ‘water’ S-wise), their respective usage of the term ‘water’ nevertheless means different things, because their respective usage of the term ‘water’ picks out different objects in the world. Oscar_E’s term ‘water’ picks out water_E which is H₂O but Oscar_TE’s term ‘water’ picks out water_TE which is XYZ. On Putnam’s view, natural kind terms serve as rigid designators of objects in the world. So if ‘water’ refers to H₂O, it refers to H₂O in every possible world. Therefore, if Oscar_E was on Twin Earth, pointed to water_TE and said ‘water’, he would be saying something false, and so too for Oscar_TE in the relevant alternative scenario, because their respective usage of the term ‘water’ did not correspond to the object required to be referred to by the term[E11] . Therefore, externalism about semantics is true, because there was something about the external world that determined the meaning of the referent ‘water’ in both contexts for both speakers. As Dale Jacquette explains (2013, p.74), Putnam’s Twin Earth thought experiment tries to show that thought-content or psychological states (what is ‘in the head’) is insufficient to determine the referent of our thoughts, and that falsifies semantic internalism, the thesis that all meanings and referential phrases [E12] just are psychological states.

Wikforss (2008, pp.168-171) raises some interesting concerns about Twin Earth scenarios. According to her, Twin Earth style thought experiments depend on examples of the ambiguity of common speech descriptions to provide conditions for something’s falling under a term. It is ambiguous if the phrase ‘Water is H₂O’ is predicative or numerical identity. Putnam’s thought experiment critically depends on the point that we intuitively agree with the Kripkean claim that the statement ‘Water is H₂O’ expresses a numerical identity claim, such that having the H₂O molecular structure is a necessary and sufficient condition for being water in every possible world. This is because, for Putnam (1973, p.710), natural kind terms serve as rigid designators. [E13] But this claim is invites very intuitive Twin Earth style counterexamples to the claim which render it more plausible than not that the Kripkean thesis (regardless of its truth or falsity) is jointly unsatisfiable with Putnam’s thought experiment, even though the experiment depends on it. For instance, we could easily imagine another possible world where a substance on Earth both looks and feels like what we might call ‘tar’ with the relevant set of macrostructural emergent properties Sʹ  but which also has the microstructural molecular structure H₂O. After all, Putnam’s own thought experiment about allows for situations such as this. But, according to Kripke (and, a fortoriori, Putnam), this kind of a substance ought to meet the necessary and sufficient conditions for being the natural kind water and being able to be referred to by the natural kind term ‘water’. But, apparently, water_TE as XYZ does not meet similar conditions, despite having all the relevant emergent properties S exactly similarly to what we ordinarily call ‘water’ on Earth, water_E. That seems extraordinarily counterintuitive. [E14] Perhaps the (FE) semantic externalist could say that being H₂O is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for counting as the natural kind water. Water must also exhibit the relevant macrostructural emergent properties S and not Sʹ. Granted. But then it seems impossible for the thought-experiment to launch the assertion that water_TE is even able to emerge into properties S to be captured S-wise by both Oscar_E and Oscar_TE, since the claim now sounds like saying that whenever H₂O is present, properties S are present[E15] . But H₂O is not identical to XYZ. Therefore, whenever XYZ is present, properties S are not present. But then the thought-experiment does not work on its own merits, because there is no possible state of affairs where Oscar_E and Oscar_TE can be in exactly similar psychological states S-wise about H₂O and XYZ respectively. So the thought experiment fails if the externalist advocate of the thought experiment takes this alternative route in response to criticism. Otherwise he should just bite the bullet and accept the incredibly implausible claim that the tar-like H₂O substance really is water after all, and that our term ‘water’ really refers to that tar-like thing ins some possible world. But that just seems crazy and should be rejected.[E16]

However, even if the externalist advocate of the Twin Earth thought experiment and its conclusions should disregard my arguments against the thought experiment above as misconceived and false so presented, it does not seem as if semantic externalism would go through in every instance of kind terms even if the thought experiment works. At most, Putnam’s semantic externalism about meaning and reference would only be true in specific local instances. As Wikforss (2008, p.177) explains, “The Twin-Earth argument, if accepted, supports a thesis within foundational semantics… This, again, suffices to accomplish what Putnam set out to accomplish, i.e., [to] reject the idea that the meaning of kind terms is always determined ‘internally’. However, it does not support his grander claims, such as the famous dictum ‘meanings just ain’t in the head’… What follows is that in the case of some terms (and we may not know which, prior to scientific investigations) external factors sometimes (when the speaker is not very knowledgeable) play a role in the determination of meaning and content[E17] .” Whereas it is true that facts about the external environment play a role in fixing the reference of some of our terms, it may still be true that there do exist some terms whose descriptive referents are completely internally determined, and are therefore psychological states[E18] . All the semantic internalist would need to do is to adjust his formal thesis to accommodate local instances of externally-derived referential content, even though perhaps a great number of meanings are entirely internally derived.

Since the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, there have been a growing number of philosophers such as Frank Jackson (2004) and David Lewis (2007) who have tried to revive something akin to (but not identical to) the old classical descriptivism of Frege and Russell. These so-called neodescriptivists have tried to hold onto the externalist intuitions about what fixes the referents of our terms, but in a different way to Putnam. When Oscar_E goes onto Twin-Earth, points to water _TE and says ‘water’, neodescriptivists still think Oscar_E has said something wrong, but not for the kinds of reasons given by Putnam in his own thought experiment. Rather what neodescriptivists think is that, for Oscar_E and Oscar _TE respectively, there has been a causal-historical chain of acquaintance for each respective person has had in the world, such that acquaintance with a particular substance has fixed the reference of each one’s respective usage of the term ‘water.’ Whatever a term refers to, it refers to it in virtue of the context in which it is spoken, and the causal-historical chain of understanding obtained by the individual in each respective context[E19] . For Oscar_E, he is acquainted with H₂O, such that a story about his use of the term ‘water’ and therefore its referent can be traced back to interaction with this substance. Therefore whenever Oscar_Esays ‘water’ he refers to H₂O. This is why when he says ‘water’ on Twin Earth, he makes a mistake. However, one seeming implication of this kind of a view is that, if Oscar_E began to study and to see how Twin Earthlings spoke their language and then learned about Twin Earth XYZ molecular arrangements emerging in properties S, Oscar_E  might justifiably and understandably begin to think of this XYZ as a different or new kind of water, and baptise XYZ ‘water.’ Then, in the alternative Twin Earth context, Oscar_E  would begin to use the term ‘water’ to refer to this new thing, XYZ, but if he went back to Earth he would use the same term to refer to H₂O. The same term now has two different referents because of context and acquaintance.  (Of course, one could always craft an exactly similar scenario in reverse for Oscar_TE on Earth.)  So the causal-historical account of reference has an interesting and seemingly plausible explanation of how terms obtain their referential content, and the Twin Earth externalist intuitions probably push us in this direction.

What we plausibly really learn about reference then, if Putnam’s Twin Earth scenario circumvents Wikforss’ and my criticisms, is probably something akin to what the neodescriptivists were getting at: that terms refer to different things in different contexts, and obtain their referential value from my causal-historical acquaintance with particular substances in the world. This is an attractive view since it allows room for linguistic development and change, whilst providing a robustly cogent account of its occurrence[EE20] .