Posted by alexandra_k on July 21, 2005, at 18:55:16
In reply to A Realist Aspect to the Interpretation of Selves, posted by alexandra_k on July 21, 2005, at 18:48:10
The Reaction to Realism
The notion of a Cartesian Realist self as an entity to be found located within the subject has largely been discredited for two main reasons. The first problem arises with Descartes’ notion of the non-physical soul-stuff that is said to comprise the self. It is problematic because it is postulated as an entity that is forever beyond the reach of objective scientific investigation in principle. It is considered to be a non-physical object that cannot be studied by science, yet it is also held to be influenced by and to effect changes to the physical realm. It thus violates the scientific assumption that the physical world is causally closed (that only matter can cause changes to matter). This belief is foundational to science because the methods for testing hypotheses involve manipulating independent variables to measure resulting changes in dependent variables [I think I got that the right way around...] to either falsify the hypothesis or to lend it support. If the physical world is not causally closed then it seems that there are variables and ‘outside influences’ that would interfere with and confound experimental testing. Given the track record of scientific progress over the past few centuries, we may say that this lends support for the assumption that the physical world is causally closed. Dualism thus seems to be contra-indicated. Dennett, (1991) claims that accepting a dualistic conception of the mind (self) is therefore ‘giving up’. It is giving up on the notion of a scientific understanding of our world. Most theorists now claim to work within a broadly naturalistic or materialistic framework, and so the notion of a Cartesian immaterial self is now held in disrepute. Dualism does not offer us an alternative explanation; rather it seems to preclude any possible scientific explanation.
The second reason for the reaction to Cartesian Realism (or Cartesian Materialism) is that the notion of the self as a concretely existing, unified, and simple entity to be found localised within the subject’s brain does not seem to correspond to reality. The self, mind, or ‘place where it all comes together’ has eluded the best efforts of neuroscientists to pinpoint the area of localisation. Feinberg, (2001) writes that there is no place in the brain in which ‘all the brain’s activity converges on ‘one pontifical cell’. He goes on to propose a nested hierarchy theory of self where diverse areas of the brain contribute to the consciousness and selfhood that are seen as emergent properties of the normally functioning human brain. He shows us through a series of case studies that the self is not an all or none affair. It can break down or malfunction to differing degrees, and it cannot be the sole product of any one localised region. It seems that the homunculus that is the self is not to be found in a localised region of the brain at all. No neuron, mental module, or pattern of activation seems to constitute a self. These varieties of realism are thus held in disrepute.
The materialistic intuition that there must be a physiological basis to the self is not disputed, all agree that the self is (somehow or other) a product of the brain. No one wants to deny that physiological changes are the physical causes of behaviour. Non-realists just want to deny that the self will turn out to be identified with those physiological changes. Accounts of how the behaviours that constitute the disorder arise have thus been offered in terms of competing mental modules (physical structures within the brain), or patterns of activation with respect to neurotransmitter levels. While there is little empirical evidence at this stage attempts have been made to show both that there is a physical basis that gives rise to the presence of the behaviours that constitute the disorder (which none but a dualist would deny), and to show what that physical basis is. Non-realists just part ways with realists in denying that the self will turn out to be a particular part of the brain; a view that seems to be supported by science. Non-realists tend to emphasize the social and cultural aspects of the process of self-construction. These notions form the basis of their subsequent accounts. Non-realism about the self has thus emerged as the dominant position within psychology and indeed philosophy today.
The current emphasis on non-realism with respect to the self may be seen as a reaction to these discredited varieties of realism outlined above. Because the everyday term ‘self’ is taken by most theorists to refer to one of these realist selves, and seeing as it turns out that these realist selves do not exist, some theorists have concluded that this shows us that selves do not exist at all. Most go on to construct a theory of what the self ‘really’ is, though regard themselves to be non-realists in that (a) they want to divorce themselves from the above varieties of realism, and (b) they believe that the self that they go on to talk about is contrary to our commonsense way of using the term. We may instead take the line that the everyday term ‘self’ does not refer to a thing to be found within the brain (or even an immaterial thing not to be found within the brain). This seems the most plausible line to account for the everyday term ‘self’ because the brain must be irrelevant to what we mean by ‘self’ as most of us do not have the opportunity to look inside the individual’s brains that we attribute self-hood to. Yet we can and do consider individuals to have selves. What we do have access to, and what therefore seems the most plausible to consider with respect to self-hood is the behaviour (especially the verbal behaviour) of subjects. This is not to say that the self just is a collection of behaviours, but it is to say that behaviour must surely be more significant to our everyday usage of the term than the inner workings of the brain, or even the presence of an (invisible) soul. At this stage it is enough to note that one can allow an aspect of realism with respect to the self - and not just the funny kind of ‘realism’ claimed by those who maintain that it is okay to go on talking about selves even though they don’t really exist . The behaviour is real, and so realism may be able to get a toehold if it is plausible that behaviour is a necessary part of self-hood, and with respect to the everyday usage of the term ‘self’ I think that it must be.
Here what is of interest is given that subjects with typical psychology have one self (in that we typically attribute one self to them); is it then the case that individual’s with MPD (or as it is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder) have more than one self? Or alternatively, do they not even exhibit one until they are fused? Or, is there but one all along? Even if it turns out that different alters are correlated with different transmitter levels, or different mental modules that gain control of the motor cortex or language production areas, this does not show us that alters are selves for the same reasons that data on brain activity cannot show us the one self in the brain. The data will not help us with that ‘decision’, it can only provide a physiological account of how the phenomenon occurs; it may be able to tell us the neurophysiological cause of the behaviours that constitute the disorder. But it cannot show us the neurophysiological self or selves in the brain; and thus it cannot tell us what the phenomenon amounts to.
Whether the phenomenon amounts to an individual’s having more that one self or not is not going to just emerge from the physical facts. We have the physical facts that show us that the phenomenon occurs, the physical facts that even the most ardent sceptics about the disorder do not deny - and now a decision needs to be made on theoretical grounds as to what the phenomenon amounts to; it is this that has been the main subject of dispute, and this is what I will be concerned with here. The phenomenon usually seems to be interpreted as not implying that the subject has more than one self (usually because of some assumption that necessitates a one-one correlation between selves and brains / bodies), or as showing the fictional side to selves because there turns out to be more than one. I will go on to argue that whether there are one or many selves is largely a matter of interpretation, though in order to maximize rationality it may be more charitable to view these subjects as having more than one self - and to see alters as selves with equivalent metaphysical status. Just because it is indeterminate how many selves there ‘really’ are, this does not imply that selves / alters are purely fictional; there is a realist aspect to them that needs to be emphasized in this current climate where non-realism prevails.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:531091
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20050621/msgs/531096.html