Quine: On Mental Entities

In this essay I will examine Quine’s treatment of mental entities in “On Mental Entities,” and in “Mind and Verbal Dispositions.”

Part I:

Quine’s first paper, “On Mental Entities,” hinges on the notion that our ontology and epistemology should be based around a concern for the overall simplicity of the system, and it’s overall utility in relationship to experience. The question then becomes: if sense data exists, which Quine concedes prima facie (for convenience), then what advantage does it give the scientist?

If we look to memory we see sense data as a mere specter against the constant blare of present sensory input. To use an example, the table is not pictured in the memory as a brown, trapezoidal shape in the lower half of the visual field; but rather, it is pictured in the memory as a table. The memory is just as much an avenue for the positing of extra-sensory data (e.g. the notion ‘table’), as it is an avenue for the positing of sense data (e.g. a brown trapezoidal plane in the lower half of the visual field); namely, we cannot defer to memory, expecting it to be a clear, unalloyed account of an experience.

Enough with notions of memory as capable of positing pure sense data from the past, what about the present? If we look to the Gestalt Psychologist we see that even the present experience is marked with past concepts and present goals. Quine writes,

It is not an instructive oversimplification, but a basic falsification, to represent cognition as a discernment of regularities in an unadulterated stream of experience. Better to conceive of the stream itself as polluted, at each succeeding point of its course, by ever prior cognition (Q 310).

This passage is a philosophical tour de force for those who oppose the notion of sense data and mental entities as a pure foundation for science. The problem that is so nicely illustrated by the Gestalt diagrams is that it is impossible for the scientist to determine what is given immediately through sense impressions and what is imposed by our standing notion of the world. Indeed, the notion of sense data is no more tenuous than that of the external world (Q 310).

Finally, it is important to notice that Quine does not argue that the ontology that accepts the external world is superior to the ontology that accepts mental entities; instead, Quine argues that we are simply bound to the former. If we accept, with Quine, that as language learning creatures we are bound to an ontology that accepts external objects, then it is unclear what advantage the positing of additional mental entities would provide. From this essay, we find that the positing of mental entities as a pure foundation for science, is either moot or it is a hindrance. If the positing of mental entities is merely a tool to ease the austere epistemologist’s anxiety that sheep and tables are on the same epistemological footing as molecules and electrons, then all the worse for mental entities.


Part II:

In “Mind and Verbal Dispositions,” Quine begins by plotting out what mentalistic semantics is and why it is so regularly deferred to.

All of this begins with Descartes and the bifurcation of rational animals and automata. Man, Descartes held, is the only creature endowed with the mind, the rest are automata. A more widely held argument was presented by Watson’s “Muscular Theory of Meditation,” and states that the human being is the only creature who possesses language. The argument is that no appreciable mental activity can be had without linguistic aid, and no mindless creature would be equipped to navigate the complexities of language. Most thought is speech; namely, thought is accomplished through the flexes and twitches and pulls of the same muscles in the brain that account for speech (there are a few exceptions to this, e.g. geometric relationships).

The notion that language is what separates us from automata is, however, a misconception. Like the child, a dog is capable of language learning in his own way. At home, my family would often spell out the word ‘park’ when speaking in the presence of the family dog for fear of stirring her into a dither. Though at the crude early stages of language learning, the child actively learns words through their utterance, the dog paws at the door when it wishes to go outside, barks at the food bowls when it’s hungry, etc. As Quine so nicely puts it, “let us not arrogate to rationality what may be superior agility of lips, and tongue, and larynx” (Quine 315). Though there are many factors in contrasting human language with animal symbols (combinatorial productivity, unpredictable spontaneity), the difference is one of degree and not kind. However, it is the vast difference in degree that encourages mentalistic semantics.

Mentalistic semantics is founded on the unanalyzed notion of meaning. For the uncritical mentalist, as the child learns to assent to ‘ball’ while in the presence of a small spherical object and through the encouragement of his father, he learns the meaning of the word ball; a meaning that is shared by his father, and was passed down by his father’s father. This, of course, is a terrible confusion. Upon seeing a ball, and understanding the word ‘ball,’ the child is not being imbued with ideas, thoughts, or meanings; this is mentalistic semantics at its worst.

As we said earlier, mentalistic semantics is based upon the unanalyzed notion of meaning, which is broken into two parts i) when we speak of knowing the meaning of an expression and ii) when we speak of sameness of meaning. To put it simply, we are said to know the meaning of an expression when we are able to produce a clearer expression that maintains the original meaning. This accounts for the most dangerous aspect of mentalistic semantics: the illusion of explanation. We understand an expression insofar as we know its meaning, and translations of that expression are accurate so long as they maintain the meaning of the original expression. The problems with the notion of meaning is evidently expressed through Quine’s example of ‘eighty-two’ and ‘ottantadue.'

I said to my small son, 'eighty-two. You know what I mean?' He said, 'No." Then I said to my small daughter, 'Ottantadue. You know what I mean?' She said, 'Yes. Eighty-two.' I said, 'See, Margaret understands Italian better than Douglas understands English' (Q 316).

Assuming that Quine’s children are both native to the English language and not the Italian language, it is strange to think that one would understand the meaning of Italian expressions better than the English ones. This sort of confusion is, according to Quine, symptomatic of poor concept building, and a clear example of the failures of mentalistic explanation.

In the line of explanation, there are three purported levels: mentalistic, behavioural, and physiological. Physiological, as he puts it, is the most ambitious and the avenue for causal explanation. Mentalistic explanation, if it can be called that, is the most tenuous. Behavioural is, according to quine, the area in which we ought to focus our efforts.

Part III:

In a way, both of these essays account for an almost Wittgensteinian approach to philosophy. In both essays, Quine begins by explaining the reasons for positing mental entities and why those reasons can be therapeutically resolved.

In the first essay, Quine purports that mental entities where originally deferred to in attempts to place the foundations of science just “me-ward” or the external world. Essentially, it was the epistemologists concern for what there is, and how those decisions would affect natural science. For the epistemologist, it is a matter of great concern that tables and sheep where are on the same epistemological footing as molecules and electrons. While molecules and electrons were posited in recorded history, the common sense positing of macroscopic external objects such as tables and sheep only varies by “degree of antiquity;” both factor in to our understanding of the world through the overall simplicity of their integration, and their explanative force. Macroscopic objects are given to us through common sense and are crucial to elementary language learning, and therefore can be expected to stick around. Microscopic objects, on the other hand, do not share the same link to fundamental human behavior and development; namely, while macroscopic external objects will continue to be a part of epistemology and ontology, microscopic objects will come and go as new and more efficacious scientific postulations are made. This, of course, is a pragmatic decision.

In the second essay Quine argues that the positing of mental entities is a residual symptom of Descartes’ bifurcation of man and beast as thinking things and automata. Though it is no longer commonly held that man is the only creature blessed with gifts of intelligence (language, etc.), it is the vast degree of difference between human intelligence and animal intelligence that encourages mentalistic semantics, and steers us away from the natural sciences. This, however, is a mistake.

What is central to both essays is the question, “what do mental entities contribute, if anything, to the natural sciences and our understanding of the world?” In the case of sensation, we have seen that memories of sensory experiences and even present experience offer nothing pure enough to be considered a solid foundation for science. And, in the case of mentalistic semantics, Quine’s abovementioned example nicely illustrates the awkward results of “knowing meaning,” and “sameness of meaning.” In both essays it becomes clear that mental entities can be filed away as unnecessary appendages to philosophy and science. Though philosophically, sensation was an ambitious attempt to prevent circularity in the field of science, it inability to produce ‘the goods’ so to speak, is reason enough to abandon ship. This is not the case, however, with mentalistic semantics. Instead, mentalistic semantics was the result of confusion. The point that Quine is making by distinguishing man from animal by degree and not kind, is that it is absurd to attempt to analyze language and physical object through a deferral to meaning, ideas, and thoughts. This only offers the illusion of explanation. Instead we much attempt to understand language naturally through gross behavior.

In both essays, Quine’s position on mental entities is clear: they are an unnecessary distraction. This is not to say, however, that we do not have sensations or ideas or thoughts, but rather, that such things should not factor into our ontology and epistemology.