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Originally published in 1971.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691647258 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/19/2016 |
| Series: | Princeton Legacy Library , #1486 |
| Pages: | 270 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.30(w) x 9.70(h) x 0.80(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Freedom of Mind and Other Essays
By Stuart Hampshire
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1971 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-07176-3
CHAPTER 1
Freedom of Mind
My thesis will be that, no matter what experimental knowledge of the previously unknown causes that determine a mans beliefs is accumulated, that which a man believes, and also that which he aims at and sets himself to achieve, will remain up to him to decide in the light of argument. Secondly, I want to point to a generally unrecognized consequence of asserting the doctrine that the physical states of the organism determine uniquely corresponding states of mind. I shall argue that when this causal dependence of states of mind upon physical states of the organism is known to hold, then the dependent states of mind become, in virtue of the knowledge of the dependence, a form of perception.
I shall not be trying to disprove, or to contradict, anything that could properly be called a thesis of determinism: e.g. the proposition "every event has a cause," or "every event is an instance of some natural law, which explains its occurrence by reference to some set of initial conditions." About these propositions I would only say that they seem to me to be illegitimately general, and for that reason vacuous. Because nothing would count as finding a negative instance to them, nothing would count as finding a good reason to believe that they are true or that they are false. Therefore they, and their negations, will play no part in my argument. But I am ready to agree that, given that we have any true statement of fact about a state of mind, e.g. that Jones believes that there is a lectern in the next room, then we can always look for, and may expect ultimately to find, an explanation of this fact by reference to some set of initial conditions, which will, in normal circumstances, constitute sufficient conditions of Jones having this belief. I am also ready to agree that this request for an explanation of psychological fact, if pressed far enough, and pressed successfully, will always include, as one element in the whole explanation, an experimentally confirmed covering law. I am ready to agree that there is no a priori reason why, given that a psychological fact is specified by a description, and given that we hold this description of the explicandum constant, we should not find an explanation under a covering law, experimentally confirmed.
Suppose my name to be Jones and I speak. I say "It is a fact that I believe that there is a lectern in the next room." I can give you my reasons for believing, which, in the normal case, I believe to be good reasons, or at least not altogether bad ones. I give you my reasons, and then say "Now you know why I believe that there is a lectern in the next room; you have the explanation of my belief." I have not told you all that you might conceivably have wanted to know when you inquired why Jones had this belief. I have not claimed to give you an explanation that amounts to specifying a sufficient condition of the belief. I have only claimed to mention one interesting condition which I take to have been a necessary condition for the consequence, or at least a cause, on this occasion. I have committed myself to the assertion that, had I not recently been in the room and seen something that looked like a lectern there (this being my reason), and if everything else in my situation had remained the same, I would have been more doubtful of the existence of a lectern in the next room than I in fact am, at least for some interval of time. When I give my reason for believing something, and claim to be accurate in this piece of autobiography, I state another belief, and a sketch of an argument which was in some sense present to my mind, or which would have come to mind, if I had been challenged; and I am committed to the hypothetical statement that, if this belief, and/or sketch of an argument, had been shown to be erroneous, I would in fact have reconsidered, or weakened, the belief which was their consequence. I am committed to no more than this by offering you the reason for my belief. But also I am committed to no less. I am therefore implicitly denying that sufficient conditions of my holding the belief at that time about the lectern in the next room can be found in states of the organism, or of the environment, which do not include the belief, and/or sketch of an argument, that constitute my reason. I am not committed to denying that there existed in the state of the organism, and of the environment, conditions that were necessary to explain my holding the supporting belief or my following the supporting argument to its conclusion. If, for example, you were interested in the causal explanation of an error of Jones' about the objects in the next room, you might find an adequate explanation in some state of his organism. Equally if you were interested in Jones' surprising ability to form true beliefs about objects in the next room, you might find some adequate explanation in the state of his organism and of the environment. By manipulating and changing the relevant states of the organism and of the environment, you might thereby change his true beliefs into erroneous ones and his erroneous beliefs into true ones. But if Jones' account of the reason for his belief was a true one, then the states of the organism and of the environment were necessary, but not sufficient, conditions for his belief.
How does Jones know what the reason for his belief that there is a lectern in the next room is or was? Sometimes of course he does not know, and particularly in these perceptual cases; but sometimes he does know. In one simple type of case he knows the reason for his belief, just because he gives his assent to a proposition, under a certain condition or proviso, and this condition is that which he gives as his reason when he is asked. When asked whether there was a lectern in the next room, he might have answered "Yes, there is, if the room which I have just visited is the next room to this one, as I believe it to be, and if that tall thing which I saw in the corner is a lectern, as I believe it to be." Here he has spelt out in conditional form his belief together with its ground. In general we form beliefs which we are ready to revise if other beliefs that we hold are shown to be false. One belief is conditional upon another and upon a reasoning process of some kind, which at each step involves a belief. I could for some purposes present my beliefs as a chain of beliefs connected by reasoning, and therefore in conditional form, and without detachment. When I am forming my beliefs in conditions of uncertainty, they present themselves to me with some of their conditions attached. When I am asked to give my reason for a belief that I hold, and that I have detached, I am asked to reconstruct some of the chain of conditions upon which it depends. In this reconstruction I do not need to appeal to a general covering law in order to assure myself that I have found a necessary condition of my detached belief. For I know that this belief was formed conditional upon others. Exactly the same may be true when I form an intention or adopt an aim. I may form it, or adopt it, subject to certain conditions, which I could either specify in conditional form, or produce as my reasons for forming that intention or having that aim. In cases where I have the conditional intention of leaving early if it rains, the rain may be my reason for leaving early, if this is what I finally do. Similarly in cases where I will only believe something if certain observations were actually made, then these observations can be given as my reasons for believing. These are the simple cases, which illustrate the possibility of knowing the implied singular hypothetical proposition to be true without appeal to a covering law.
I am not arguing that a man cannot be mistaken in giving his reasons for a belief or for having a certain aim. He can, and often he is mistaken. An argument from parallel cases may lead to the conclusion that his alleged reasons ought to be regarded as rationalisations, which do not at all explain his belief or his intention. The argument from parallel cases might be sufficient to convince us that the supporting belief, and/or reasoning, was not a necessary condition of the ensuing belief: that he would not in this case for a moment have suspended or weakened his ensuing belief, if the supporting belief and/or reasoning had been shown to be erroneous. I am only arguing that we do not need inductive, experimental argument in order to be assured justifiably that so-and-so is the reason for a belief or an intention.
This rough outline of an account of "being my reason for believing p" can be generalized, and applies equally to my reasons for wanting, my reasons for doing, and my reasons for having a certain attitude towards an object, or for feeling a certain emotion about it. Whenever I state "This is my reason, and it is my only reason," there is a singular hypothetical proposition entailed. Suppose that my reason for an action is specified by a belief about some features of the action, e.g. its consequences: "I am doing it because it would help my friend." Then the entailed hypothetical is "If I did not believe that it would help my friend, I would become, at least for a time, more uncertain about doing it; I would reconsider." If this is given as my reason in the past ("My reason for doing it was ..."), then the implied proposition is the hypothetical "If I had not believed that it would help Jones, I would have reconsidered doing it; that is, I would have been more uncertain, at least for a time, whether I was going to do it." This hypothetical proposition can be relevantly challenged by an appeal to inductive evidence; but the subject may be justified in claiming to know that it is true merely in virtue of his memory of his calculations at the time. So "x is his reason for φ-ing" entails the hypothetical "If he was shown that x includes a false belief, he would become more doubtful whether to φ or not," or "he would reconsider whether he would φ or not."
My becoming doubtful whether I would φ or not, during deliberation, and when reasons are in place, amounts to the same as reconsidering. For my becoming sure that I will do so-and-so, that I believe so-and-so, that I am frightened of so-and-so, amounts to deciding; deciding, in the sense that, if I have first been uncertain whether I will do so-and-so, believe so-and-so, want so-and-so, fear so-and-so, and then consider the matter, my becoming sure, for some reason, brings it about that I intend to do so-and-so, want so-and-so, fear so-and-so, believe so-and-so. So we get the sequence of hypotheticals: if I lose some confidence in the validity of the reasons that explain my belief, intention, desire, attitude, or emotion, I lose some confidence that this is my intention, desire, attitude, or emotion. While I lose confidence, I cease to intend, want, believe, fear, etc. The reasons for intending, wanting, fearing, believing can be entered, in these cases of deliberation, into the full characterisation of the intention, the desire, the fear, or the belief. The reason is in this sense internal to the state of mind, although it may also be a partial explanation of the state of mind. To classify my state as fear about so-and-so, or anger with so-and-so about so-and-so, is already to imply a partial explanation of the perturbed state of mind.
The claim that explanation of states of mind by reasons is a distinct kind of explanation from explanation by causes, is unclear, and, insofar as it is clear, undemonstrated. But there is a distinction between two kinds of hypothetical proposition which may be involved in explanation; the first kind does not require the support of a covering law whenever someone claims to know that there is a true explanation, although it may be challenged by an appeal to a well-confirmed covering law. The second kind of explanation does require the appeal to a covering law, or at least to the evidence of parallel cases, if a claim to knowledge is to be justified at all. Consider the following:
1. "I would not like that person, if he did not have that particular quality."
2. "I would not want to go there, if they took the casino away."
3. "I would not have gone to the opera last night, if Callas had not been singing."
4. "I would not have believed that, if I had not had his eye-witness account."
5. "I would not be frightened of going up in the elevator, if it were larger."
In each case the condition stated in the if-clause gives a reason which will serve as a partial explanation. At the same time the condition stated can be viewed as specifying more fully the intention, the desire, the fear, the belief, the state of mind. I may simply recall that my intention to go to the opera was in this way conditional. But the reason and the partial explanation may be shown to be a mere rationalisation. Inductive arguments from parallel cases may lead me to doubt whether the statement of my reason is acceptable, that is, whether the implied hypothetical is true; just as inductive argument from parallel cases may lead me to doubt whether an unconditional statement of intention is true, even though I do not need to support a statement of intention with inductive evidence that I will in fact try to perform the action when the time comes. The question "How do you know that this was your reason?," and even more, the question "How do you know that this is your reason?," are odd and require a special context; but the questions "Are you sure that this was your reason?" and "Are you sure that this is your reason?" are normal. It is worth noticing that in this context I may give what would be my reason for doing something in advance, and before I had decided whether to do it or not; and similarly for belief. Balancing the several reasons for believing or disbelieving the story that I have been told, I may say that these would be my only reasons for believing the story, even when I am not sure whether I do believe it or not. In cases of this kind the reasons for believing, or for acting, or for feeling, are incomplete explanations; we can always ask why those reasons actuated you at that particular time, while they did not influence others relevantly like you, or why they did not influence you on relevantly similar occasions.
Consider the situation of someone who has a belief when there is evidence that sufficient conditions (with the ordinary reservations that must always be attached to this phrase) exist in the state of the physical organism for his holding this belief. There are two possibilities: first, that he does not know that his belief can be adequately explained by the physical state of the organism: secondly, that he comes to know that his belief can be adequately explained by the physical state of the organism. Of the first case, a belief explicable by hypnotism would be an example, if we knew of a physical mechanism upon which the success of hypnotic suggestion depends. Let us suppose that we acquire this knowledge. Any reasons that the victim offers in partial explanation of his belief under hypnotism will be rationalisations. The reasons will be no part of the explanation of his belief, and it will not be true that, if his reasons are shown to contain error, he will for a moment reconsider, and be for a moment more doubtful about his belief. He will simply substitute another reason, clinging all the time to the suggested belief. I will leave aside the suggestion that all our beliefs, and all our intentions, might rest on rationalisations in this way, without asking whether this is a coherent suggestion. At least we know of some clear cases of rationalisation.
Turn to the case where the subject comes to know the adequate explanation of his belief. Then the question is unavoidably raised for him of whether there is a correlation between the physical state of the organism and his belief in the specific proposition in question being true; that is, he must ask himself whether there is a rational connection between his organism being in a certain state and there being in fact a lectern in the next room. In other words, he has to evaluate the discovered causes of his already formed belief as evidence of the truth of the belief. While he is evaluating the causes of his former belief as evidences of truth, his belief is suspended, and becomes only an inclination to believe. For if he says (to himself or to another), "I now know why I have believed this, but I don't yet know whether the causes are reasons for believing or not," he is not expressing a present belief. Suppose that he finds that there is indeed a correlation between the operation of these causes and his holding a true belief; then he has learnt how he knows, or why he believes, that there is a lectern in the next room, in the sense that he has learnt the mechanism which is at work. So a man might all his life have been able to judge the distances and sizes of objects seen from a great height, without knowing the mechanism that was at work, and in this sense without knowing how he knew, or why he believed, that one object was further away than another on a particular occasion. He previously was unable to give his reason for believing that the tower was further away than the bridge, and, because he was unable to give the reason, there is a sense in which he had no reason for the belief; namely, that there was no true hypothetical proposition present to his mind, or specifiable by him on request, of the form "I would have reconsidered whether the tower was further away from the bridge, if I had not believed so-and-so." We have a choice here: the language allows us to say both that he just had the belief without a reason, and also allows us to say that there was a reason which he did not know and which he has now learnt. So the connoisseur who can tell on sight the date of certain works of art, but cannot say how he tells, may be said to have a reason, which might be disclosed by interfering with clues. By suppressing some information which he was receiving, without his being distinctly aware of it and of its efficacy, we may discover the clues which he is "using," without his knowing that he was "using" them. Or he may be said to tell without having any reason at all.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Freedom of Mind and Other Essays by Stuart Hampshire. Copyright © 1971 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
- Frontmatter, pg. i
- Contents, pg. v
- Preface, pg. vii
- Sources and Acknowledgments, pg. xi
- Freedom of Mind, pg. 1
- Subjunctive Conditionals, pg. 21
- Multiply General Sentences, pg. 28
- Dispositions, pg. 34
- Fallacies in Moral Philosophy, pg. 42
- Ethics: A Defense of Aristotle, pg. 64
- Ryle's The Concept of Mind, pg. 87
- The Analogy of Feeling, pg. 114
- On Referring and Intending, pg. 129
- Feeling and Expression, pg. 143
- Disposition and Memory, pg. 160
- Spinoza and the Idea of Freedom, pg. 183
- A Kind of Materialism, pg. 210
- Sincerity and Single-Mindedness, pg. 232