Necessity and Truthful Fictions Panenmentalist Observations
VIBS Volume 202 Robert Ginsberg Founding Editor Leonidas Donskis Executive Editor Associate Editors G. John M. Abbarno George Allan Gerhold K. Becker Raymond Angelo Belliotti Kenneth A. Bryson C. Stephen Byrum Harvey Cormier Robert A. Delfino Rem B. Edwards Malcolm D. Evans Daniel B. Gallagher Andrew Fitz-Gibbon Francesc Forn i Argimon William Gay Dane R. Gordon J. Everet Green Heta Aleksandra Gylling
Matti Häyry Steven V. Hicks Richard T. Hull Michael Krausz Mark Letteri Vincent L. Luizzi Adrianne McEvoy Peter A. Redpath Arleen L. F. Salles John R. Shook Eddy Souffrant Tuija Takala Emil Višňovský Anne Waters James R. Watson John R. Welch Thomas Woods
a volume in Philosophy and Psychology PAP Mark Letteri , Editor
Necessity and Truthful Fictions Panenmentalist Observations
Amihud Gilead
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2009
Cover photo: © Dani Simmonds Cover Design: Studio Pollmann The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN: 978-90-420-2541-7 © Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2009 Printed in the Netherlands
Philosophy and Psychology (PAP) Mark Letteri Editor
Other Titles in PAP Steven M. Rosen. Dimensions of Apeiron: A Topological Phenomenology of Space, Time, and Individuation. 2004. VIBS 154 Christine M. Koggel, Allannah Furlong, and Charles Levin, eds. Confidential Relationships: Psychoanalytic, Ethical, and Legal Contexts. 2003. VIBS 141 Sandra A. Wawrytko, ed. The Problem of Evil: An Intercultural Exploration. 2000. VIBS 90 Amihud Gilead. Saving Possibilities: A Study in Philosophical Psychology. 1999. VIBS 80 Jon Mills and Janusz A. Polanowski. The Ontology of Prejudice. 1997. VIBS 58
In memory of my brother Joel Gilead (1949–2007)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editorial Foreword Mark Letteri Preface ONE
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1 Metaphysical Modalities 1. Taking Modality Seriously 2. Possibility as Subject and Predicate 3. How is Self-Relationality Possible? 4. Existential Quantification 5. Why Are Pure Possibilities Necessary? 6. How Many Pure Possibilities Exist? 7. The Logical and the Actual: A Comment on Freud and Others 8. Logico-Mathematical Impossibilities and the Possibility of God 9. Actualization as an Aesthetic Failure 10. Relationality and Reality 11. Why Not Modal Fictionalism? 12. Why Not Meinongianism? 13. The Identity of Indiscernibles Under a Panenmentalist Light 14. Panenmentalist Primitives 15. Comments on Haecceitism 16. The Psychical as an Actual Nothingness 17. “In Madagascar There Must Be Some Gigantic Moth” From Ontology to Epistemology 1. Can a Panenmentalist Merely Entertain a Thought? 2. Empiricism, Innateness, and Singularity 3. Panenmentalism Between Platonism and Nominalism 4. Panenmentalism Under the Light of Idealism 5. Is Panenmentalism Leibnizian? 6. The Subject in Itself: Panenmentalism Contra Kant’s Philosophy 7. Hume’s Hypothesis, Kant’s Copernican Revolution, and a Dialogue by Means of Pure Possibilities
15 15 18 21 23 47 49 71 73 75 77 80 83 91 108 112 114 116
121 121 122 125 126 129 135 138
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NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS 8. Omnis Negatio Determinatio Est 9. A Panenmentalist Critical Comment on Putnam’s Externality of Meanings 10. The Explainable: Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Relationality 11. Holism
140 141
Necessities and Truthful Fictions 1. Necessity, Numbers as Individual Pure Possibilities, and Intrinsic Similarity 2. Is Illogical Albeit Aesthetically Necessary Mathematics Possible At All? 3. Artistic Necessities 4. Necessity, Beauty, and God 5. Free Necessity Contrary to Deus ex Machina 6. No Psychical Coincidence, Only Actual Coincidence Exists 7. Truthful Fictions and the Necessity of Life: How Does Literature Make the Contingent Necessary? 8. Philosophy, Pure Possibilities, and Truthful Fictions 9. Mind, Necessity, and Truthful Fictions 10. What Does It Mean to Discover a Necessity?
149 149
Mind and Body 1. The Lecturer’s Bodily Expression 2. Mind to Body Like Mathematics to Physics 3. A Panenmentalist Response to Novel Discoveries in Neuro-Psychoanalysis 4. Body in a Mental Reality 5. “A Sound Body in a Sound Mind” 6. The Meaning and Significance of Smells: A Paradigm-Case of Psychophysical Relationship 7. The Two Senses of Seeing: The Eyes of the Flesh and Those of the Mind 8. A Panenmentalist Comment on Tourette’s Syndrome and Zombies 9. Did Popper Solve the Psychophysical Problem?
183 183 184 187
144 145
157 162 165 166 168 170 176 179 180
200 205 206 208 209 215
Table of Contents
FIVE
Works Cited
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10. Difference Does Breed Relationality, Or a Panenmentalist Critique of David Bohm’s Psychophysical View 11. How Can Physical Similarity Actualize Psychical Singularity?
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Consciousness, Memory, Other Psychical Possibilities, and Some Values 1. Minding 2. What is Consciousness? 3. Weiskrantz’s View on Consciousness, Or What is Consciousness Again 4. Synesthesia, Memory, and Multiple Personality 5. Memory, Remembering, and Temporality 6. Socrates, Vincent van Gogh, and the Presence of the Dead 7. Dialogue and Possibilities 8. How Could Descartes Conceive a Non-Euclidean Triangle? 9. Inspiration 10. “The Static Mind” and Panenmentalism Against “Internal Time-Consciousness” 11. Consciousness and the Actualization of Memory 12. Free Choice and Singularity in Psychopathology, Crime, and Compulsion 13. Why Any Determination of Our Will Must Not Be Actual 14. Experiencing Our Free Will: Between Subjectivity and Objectivity 15. Inner Reality and the Illusion of Inner Space 16. Self-Deception and Secrets We Hide from Ourselves 17. Affinity, Intimacy, and Singularity 18. Real Love, Beauty, and Actualism 19. Equality
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229 229 232 238 245 252 253 255 257 259 265 266 269 272 281 289 291 293 299
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About the Author
317
Index
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EDITORIAL FOREWORD I assumed the editorship of Philosophy and Psychology several years ago from the highly capable Jon Mills (both a psychologist and a philosopher). He shaped this series into a topical, interesting, and constructive collection of contributions. I am indebted to him for the opportunity to continue the work of developing the series. I am pleased to present Amihud Gilead’s Necessity and Truthful Fictions: Panenmentalist Observations, the first book in the series that I have overseen from start to finish. In recent years, Gilead has produced two exceptionally original theoretical works for Editions Rodopi, Saving Possibilities: A Study in Philosophical Psychology and Singularity and Other Possibilities: Panenmentalist Novelties. Necessity and Truthful Fictions extends the intricacies and applications of his first two books, thus offering readers of the series a full range of philosophical insight into the vital concept of “saving possibilities.” Gilead’s work here is boldly global in intent—metaphysics, epistemology, psychology, and other foundational areas of inquiry fall squarely within his purview. He invites us to see reality, personal identity, the physical, knowing, and imagining through the lens of his elemental claim that “everything—all that is or all that exists—is comprised within the mental-possible.” Gilead’s arguments and speculations have prompted me to reflect more assiduously on my own work at the juncture of philosophy and psychology and reinforced my belief in the importance of understanding ourselves as beings of possibility. I am honored to be able to work closely with such a fine author. Mark Letteri Philosophy and Psychology Series Editor
PREFACE: BASIC PANENMENTALIST OBSERVATIONS Regardless or independently of any actualization, each possibility is pure. Our capability of referring or relating to pure possibilities makes us psychical and conscious beings. This capability is what distinguishes psychical subjects from physical objects. Panenmentalism identifies the purely possible with the mental, a special part of which is the psychical. The mental and the psychical are not the same. As an exclusive, singular category or domain of the purely mental-possible, the psychical consists of all possible psychical subjects or minds. Subjectivity, privacy, and singularity pertain exclusively to the psychical. The mental is independent of the psychical. Independently of the psychical, all pure possibilities are mental. Panenmentalism is a novel modal metaphysics, which I first introduced in a previous book (Gilead, 1999). The term “panenmentalism” or “panenpossibilism” means that everything—all that is or all that exists—is comprised within the mental-possible. The physical, which is the actual, is merely a part of the whole of existence. Each being, actual or purely possible, is possible, but not all pure possibilities are actual. The whole of existence, the realm of all pure possibilities, is wider or greater than the actual reality or world. Analogously, panentheism is the theological view according to which the world is a part of God, while God is wider and greater than the world comprised within God (to be distinguished from pantheism, according to which God and the world are identical). Pure possibilities are in the heart of panenmentalism in all its aspects— from ontology and epistemology to axiology or value inquiry. Traditionally, metaphysics has traded with what is beyond the physical or, in panenmentalist terms, beyond the physical-actual. Panenmentalism is a metaphysics in the strict sense, emphasizing that no actuality or actualization restricts or conditions the purely possible-mental. Yet, since the physical-actual is united with its identity-possibility, as we shall soon realize, panenmentalism as a metaphysics does not sever the physical-actual from the mental-possible. Instead, it maintains their unity, as it is especially displayed in the psychophysical unity. The panenmentalist “beyond the physical-actual” entails no transcendence at all. As in Spinoza’s metaphysics, no transcendence splits the panenmentalist realm, including the possibility of God. The panenmentalist realm of pure possibilities is endlessly open. It is metaphysically restricted by one condition only: No two possibilities can be indiscernible or identical. In the realm of pure possibilities any distinction, numerical or otherwise, necessarily makes a qualitative difference. The
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metaphysical principle of the identity of indiscernibles is absolutely valid for pure possibilities. To the extent that pure possibilities are concerned, “indiscernible” and “identical” are interchangeable; they denote one and the same thing. Since the panenmentalist realm is subject to one restriction only, this realm is wider or more comprehensive than the logical realm of possibilities, which is but a part within the panenmentalist whole. In addition to logical possibilities, this whole also comprises illogical and non-logical possibilities. Each possibility is different from any other possibility and, on the grounds of being different from, each possibility necessarily relates to all the others. Since no two possibilities can be identical, each possibility, as particular and different from any other possibility in the entire realm of possibilities, necessarily relates to all the other possibilities and bears a universal significance. As each pure possibility relates to all the others and to the entire realm of pure possibilities as well, this relationality is universal. Nothing in the discernibility of each pure possibility might weaken or qualify this relationality or its universality. Instead, difference and discernibility validate and strengthen universal relationality, not the other way round. Panenmentalist relationality relies upon the difference and discernibility of any pure possibility from all the others, whereas other metaphysical views rest similarity upon common properties. In contrast, panenmentalism has found a way to rest similarity on the difference that entails relationality, for “being different from” entails “relating to.” As the difference or discernibility under discussion is of pure possibilities, to realize that such a difference obviously entails relationality is easier. Pure possibilities necessarily relate one to the other, and each pure possibility contributes something novel and particular to the entire realm of pure possibilities. Because of this, to discuss the realm as well as the relationality of pure possibilities is easier or more obvious than to discuss those of actualities. Equally, to apply the principle of the identity of indiscernibles to pure possibilities is easier or more obvious than to apply it to actualities (consult Section 1.13 below). Singularity is the unique property of psychical subjects, each of whom has a private reality, inaccessible from without. As a psychical subject, each of us is a singular possibility in the entire panenmentalist realm of pure possibilities. Each of us is a singular subject who is, in itself or intrinsically, not even similar to any other subject or possibility. Each of us is wholly other than any other possibility, psychical or not. What can be similar about us is nothing but our inter-relationality. What makes us living in a common reality or world is the relationality of each singular possibility to all the others. Although wholly other than any other possibility, on the grounds of this absolute difference each singular possibility necessarily relates to all the others. This universal inter-
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relationality guarantees the possibility of universal communicability, in which solitude does not necessarily lead to loneliness. Singularity is a most difficult thing to grasp. We have to invest much of our intellectual and emotional capability to grasp singularity. For many of us, singularity entails being alone, and being alone often entails loneliness. For this reason, many of us are afraid of singularity, especially of our own. But the truth is that, as we shall see, loneliness and being alone are entirely different, and no real grounds exist for any fear of singularity. Yet this fear, like many illusions, is quite prevalent, so much so that we commonly use the word “idiot” in an extremely pejorative sense, even though “idiot,” like “idiom” or “idiosyncrasy,” may not be pejorative. As indicating differences, not in rank, degree, or grade but in essence, “singularity” and “idiosyncrasy,” which are beyond any comparison or measure, may have no pejorative sense at all. The readers may find much more information about the panenmentalist terms and principles in two of my previous books (Gilead, 1999 and Gilead, 2003). Since I should not assume that the present readers are familiar with my previous books, I have to represent basic panenmentalist principles and assumptions, which may help the readers understand and follow what I argue in this book. I have already presented them elsewhere under a different form (Gilead, 2003, pp. 1–14). The first panenmentalist principle is that the mental is the realm of the purely possible as a whole, whereas the physical is the realm of the actual. No pure possibility can serve as a cause of something and it cannot affect the actual; pure possibilities, however, do determine the mental and obviously affect the psychical. Just thinking of possibilities, even if they remain unactualized, affects us psychically. Only the psychical can be affected by pure possibilities. Only for psychical subjects do pure possibilities mean something. On these grounds, I will argue below that each mind, each psychical subject, is a singular pure possibility whose actuality is a body. By pure possibility I do not mean potentiality. Potentiality—such as the Aristotelian matter—entails dependence on the actual—such as the Aristotelian form, eidos—which is ontologically and epistemologically antecedent and prior. Existing independently of and prior to the physicalactual, pure possibilities are not potentialities, Aristotelian or otherwise. Nor are they dispositions, behavioral or otherwise. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, pure possibilities are a priori individuals, namely, particulars or singulars. In contrast, dispositions, especially behavioral, must have a general nature and must, at least epistemologically, depend on (or come after) a posteriori, actual facts, circumstantial or contingent. No pure possibility is dependent on any a posteriori facts or actualization. Possibilities, pure or otherwise, are by no means abstract or general. What is general or universal about possibilities can be only their relationality
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or significance, which is established only on the basis of the individuality of the interrelating possibilities. Generality has to do with specific relations, connections, or representations of individual possibilities. This holds for “general” concepts, paradigms, types, models, laws, and rules. All such “general” possibilities, serving as relationality or significance of individual possibilities, are meaningless unless entirely dependent on these individual possibilities. Hereafter, I use and mention “individual possibilities” or “possible individuals” synonymously or interchangeably. “Individuals” generally signifies hereafter particulars (whenever entities are concerned) or singulars (whenever psychical subjects or persons are concerned). I do not use or mention “individuals” to specifically signify people, persons, or human beings. Panenmentalism turns any paradigm or type into a paradigm-case or a type-token. Any model or type is a particular possibility relating to similar tokens. Similarity is a specific relation among individual possibilities sharing a generic or sortal relationality, relatedness, or significance. Since any word is general, having a general significance or meaning within a language (which cannot be private), each word generally represents individual possibilities, which as such are not general. For instance, the word “book” is general, yet we must have a particular possibility, or particular possibilities, in mind that this word generally represents or indicates. In reality, no book “in general” can exist, since no possibility of a book can be general but must be particular. Only the significance or meaning shared by the possibilities of all books can be general, and all these possibilities share a specific relationality relating them under a common, general concept. Panenmentalism maintains a unique kind of nominalism. Pure possibilities are as real as actualities, at least as regards the mental and the psychical. The purely possible and the mental as such make one and the same ontological realm that is independent of the actual-physical. Pure possibilities are ontologically prior and epistemologically a priori. We can know them by means of imagination and reflection alone, although in practice knowing or being aware of them may occasionally require experience or intersubjective means, such as dialogue. The apriority or innateness of pure possibilities is absolutely compatible with such a requirement, because the a priori or innate standing of any pure possibility is entirely independent of the way in which it becomes known to us. No matter how you know of any pure possibility, in itself it must be a priori and innate. You may imagine or think of pure possibilities about whose possible actualization you know absolutely nothing. As for the physical, it is undoubtedly actual, and not only possible. As actual, the physical is subject to spatial, temporal, and causal conditions, whereas no pure possibility is subject to any of these conditions. Since temporality, spatiality, and causality are necessary conditions for actualization,
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and since the purely possible, whether mental or psychical, is absolutely exempt from any of these conditions to which only the physical is subject, the only possible actualization is physical. By “physical” I mean strictly physical, material, energetic, chemical, or biological. The actual-physical makes the a posteriori realm, which can be known empirically only, by means of experience alone. To exempt the purely mental and the psychical from any spatial condition or localization may sound quite reasonable to you. But to argue that the mental and especially the psychical are exempt from any temporal condition appears to oppose most, if not all, accepted views about the psychical. Can we imagine our psychical life without time and temporality? By all means, provided that we realize that all the temporality about our psychical life is not of it as such but only of its actualization in the body. Time and temporality have to do with the physical realization, namely actualization, of our mind, not with our mind as such, as purely possible-psychical. Everything psychical as such, as purely possible, must be atemporal, and only the physical-actual is subject to time and temporality. Our sense of actuality consists in our acquaintance with the physical. By means of this acquaintance alone we acquire the experience of time and temporality. Without experiencing the physical-actual, we would have no temporal experience. Without the only possible actualization, the physical realization, of our mind as a body, time and temporality would remain merely ideas or pure possibilities for us. This is so, because our psychical life in itself, including our memories and recollections, is necessarily atemporal and not subject to temporal conditions. Atemporality is a necessary condition for remembering. Things remembered are quite different from actual things, which are inseparable from temporality. We do not experience things remembered as events in the past. To recall them we must first remove all temporal distance. Associations, undoubtedly psychically indispensable, may blur all temporal distinctions and fuse them into an atemporal mixture. Such is also the nature of imagination, fantasy, and dreaming, all the more so of anything unconscious. As for the unconscious, no temporal distinctions are applicable at all. The distinction between inner-psychical and external-actual reality brings back temporal distinctions to our awareness, also in remembrance. If someone asks you where you were at a particular moment when you were remembering something and at what time the remembering experience occurred, all such questions make sense only because they refer to your physical, bodily state alone. Your body, the actualization of your mind, is there and then in the place where you are at that moment, whereas your thoughts, memories, feelings, and experiences, and your psychical being as a whole, cannot be located at any place or time. Your psychical states as
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physically realized, as actualities taking place in your body, can be spatiotemporally located. But as psychical alone, as purely psychical, no spatial or temporal location or condition is applicable to them. No thought or experience takes time unless as an actuality in our brain. As an actuality, such a thought or experience is an event in our brain, occurring at a particular time in a particular place that can be precisely located. Yet this event is by no means our thought in its psychical being, namely, as a pure possibility. Panenmentalism leaves changes, processes, events, and occurrences to the physical-actual alone, whereas the mental and the psychical as such are exempt from all these. Since nothing of the mental or of the psychical as such, as pure, is temporal or temporally conditioned, the physical alone is actual. Nothing purely psychical can be actual but only purely possible, and the only possible actualization is physical realization. Since any actuality is also possible, though not every possibility is actual, panenmentalism allows no reduction of the possible to the actual. Actualism, in contrast, confines any possibility to an actuality or, at least, to a property or a state of an actuality, which cannot exist or have any sense independently of the actuality. Panenmentalism systematically opposes actualism of any kind. Just as the realm of the possible is wider or more comprehensive than that of the actual, so more exists to any possibility than its actuality. A pure possibility, say, b, comprises all the possible modifications or changes, actualized or not, that b can undergo while still keeping its identity. Hence, each pure possibility serves as an identity; it is a pure possibility-identity, say, pure possibility-identity b. The mental realm as a whole comprises all possibilities, actualized or not, which, regardless or independently of any actualization, are all pure. The actualized part of the mental-possible is the physical, which, as possible too, is necessarily comprised within the panenmentalist realm of possibilities, within the mental-possible. For, regardless or independently of any actualization, the actual-physical too, as purely possible, is necessarily comprised within the purely mental-possible. In this sense, the purely mental-possible comprises all that exists. Against this background, any actualization limits, confines, restricts, or qualifies the relevant possibility, although not as pure but only as actualized, and so subjects it to causal and spatiotemporal conditions. Whether something is actual or not, its pure possibility necessarily exists, independently of any actuality or actualization, and must be a priori thinkable and knowable. As you will see, panenmentalism associates necessity, necessary existence, and pure, a priori possibilities. This peculiar association is not a mistaken result of confounding epistemology with ontology. It reflects the way in which panenmentalism associates ontological and epistemological considerations. On panenmentalist grounds, I do not accept Kripkean a posteriori necessity (Gilead, 2003, pp. 209–210). Purity, necessity, and apriorism refer, each in its
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way, to the independence of pure possibilities, their independence of actual, contingent, empirical, or a posteriori matters. Thus, pure, a priori possibilities necessarily exist, and their independence is equally ontological and epistemological. Panenmentalism leaves contingency to the actual-physical alone (ibid., pp. 131–156), which is only a posteriori, empirically cognized. “Necessity” or “contingency” is habitually considered a modal-metaphysical term, while “a priori” or “a posteriori” is habitually considered an epistemological term. Associating these terms, panenmentalism does not blur the difference between them. The psychical makes a special domain within the possible-mental. Besides and independently of the psychical, the mental-possible consists of concepts, ideas, structures, theories, systems, meanings, significance, and values, unless subjective, private meanings, significance, and values are concerned, all of which are necessarily psychically dependent. Being psychical most closely relates to the purely possible. The only entity affected by pure possibilities is the mind; the only reality that can be determined solely by pure possibilities is the psychical or the mental one. Just to think of a pure possibility, which is not an actuality or of whose actualization we have no evidence, may be sufficient to transform our state of mind quite dramatically. Many of the objects of our willing, wishing, planning, fantasizing, of our fears, anxieties, hopes, intentions, or expectations are pure possibilities, actualizable or not, which affect our mind greatly. Yet pure possibilities change nothing about actualities; pure possibilities cause nothing in actual reality. What makes us psychical and conscious beings is our ability to experience, to be affected by, to conceive, and to be aware not only of the actual but, most of all, of the purely possible. Things are meaningful or valuable for us owing to their pure possibilities and the relationality, attachment, or association of these possibilities to our psychical possibilities. That the objects of our psychical attitudes can be pure possibilities is a received view. But a bold novelty of panenmentalism is that the psychical as such (in itself) is a pure possibility and not an actuality, and that our body is merely an actuality of our mind. Our psychical life is made of singular possibilities, partly actualized in our brain and nervous system. But our mind or psychical life is not identical with our brain and nervous system or with anything biological-physical pertaining to them—structure, organization, properties, potentiality, functions, operation, and activity. Our psychical being is irreducible to our actuality, which must be physical. Materialist-actualist reduction of any kind is entirely incompatible with our deep-rooted experience of psychical life, an experience that has nothing of the nature of illusion in it. To identify or characterize anything psychical as a biological being or activity makes no sense for no physical property can be attributed to anything mental or psychical. For instance, any mental thing, any pure possibility, cannot have weight, color,
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figure, dimensions, or any spatial, temporal, and causal properties, except metaphorically (in poetry, for instance). The psychophysical unity by its nature cannot be considered an identity. All that we are capable of finding in the brain and nervous system must be biological-physical alone, and no purely psychical factors can be considered causes, operations, and effects within the brain and nervous system. Psychical life is actualizable owing exclusively to the functioning or activity of the brain and nervous system. Yet no actualization entails identity. Possibility b, as pure possibility-identity b, is not identical with its actuality, because no actualization can exhaust its possibility: The actual case could always be different and not all the possible modifications or changes under the same possibility-identity are actualized. Equally, cerebral activity makes our psychical life actual and endows it with causal power and efficacy, but this life is not identical with cerebral activity. Analogously, a novel as a mental entity has nothing of the properties or characteristics of the physical-actual book, yet the printed book is the actuality of this novel. The case of our psychical life is analogous. As psychical subjects, we consist of psychical possibilities, not of their actualities, which are physical facts, states, events, or actions. Much more exists to a person’s being than what his or her body, including all its physical manifestations, actualizes or may actualize. In the causal chain actualizing our psychical life, no psychical factor can be found; only biological-physical factors exist there. This causal chain would be meaningless without our psychical life, yet no meaning and nothing psychical can be found within this chain. What unites mind and body into one being is not causality but only the actualization of the mind, which is a singular, psychical possibility. No causal connection can exist between mind and body, for causality is valid for actualities alone, for physical beings alone, all of which are subject to spatiotemporal conditions. Pure possibilities cause nothing, yet causes actualize possibilities and the relationship or connection attaching them together. Anything purely possible-mental is entirely exempt from spatial and temporal conditions. We cannot spatially or temporally locate anything purely possible, mental or psychical. Causality cannot do without spatiotemporal, or at least temporal, conditions and location. Only the physical, the actuality of anything mental or psychical, is spatiotemporally conditioned or located and causally conditioned. Contrary to this panenmentalist view, you may argue that psychophysical interaction or inter-causation is an incontestable fact. Innumerable everyday experiences, familiar to each of us, appear to indicate that our psychical factors or determinations cause bodily and behavioral changes and vice versa. But, in light of panenmentalism, this is only a matter of appearance or wrong interpretation. Besides temporal conditions, causation requires energy, power or force, and specific mechanisms, while causality implies subjecting all these
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to patterns or laws. Yet we can coherently envisage any causal mechanism, any energy, or any power or force only under physical terms, not under mental terms or an obscure or enigmatic mixture of both mental and physical terms. Any cause, effect, or event as temporally or spatiotemporally conditioned must be physical, whereas no event, cause, or effect can be mental (for anything purely mental is exempt from temporality and spatiality as well). Physical factors alone can cause events. Unlike events, actions are explicable and intelligible under psychical possibilities, but this does not render actions psychical or mental. As actualities, actions just like events can be only physical. Any causation or causality we veridically know, publicly observe, or can consistently and coherently conceive, is necessarily and exclusively under physical terms. We can intersubjectively, publicly, or objectively detect, follow, observe, and describe causal links only under spatiotemporal and physical terms or distinctions. Energy, power, force, and mechanisms of a mental nature are prevalent, although untruthful, fictions. They are prejudices or beliefs that cannot be rationally conceived or specifically, concretely detected or followed. We cannot put such fictions or beliefs to any valid or objective test, and we should commit them to magical thinking instead. The chain of causes, under which all that takes place in our brain and nervous system occurs, consists entirely of actual, spatiotemporal factors, none of which is mental or psychical. As a pure possibility, no mental or psychical factor can be temporally or spatially located or serve as a link in any causal chain. To argue to the contrary relies upon the wrong assumption that mental or psychical factors and physical factors (say, events) are identical (although under different descriptions). As a result of the above, panenmentalism cannot save the possibilities of psychophysical interaction, but this does not undermine psychophysical unity and interconditionality. All that causally takes place in our nervous system is an actualization of mental and psychical possibilities. Our actions as a whole and especially anything which occurs within our nervous system and muscles, which is relevant to these actions, are senseless or meaningless without these possibilities or without what is meaningful and significant for us. Although our motives, which are psychical possibilities, do not cause our actions, they make them possible, meaningful, and significant. Psychical possibilities, such as our emotions or feelings, can serve as causal possibilities, but not as actual causes. Our psychical possibilities constitute the identity, meaning, and significance of our actions, which are actualized by physical means alone. The causes of my writing this text are not my thinking, intention, or will, but only particular events in my brain, nervous system, or muscles. Yet my writing would make no sense at all, and would be utterly meaningless or reasonless, were it not an
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actualization of my thinking, intention, or will, all of which are psychical possibilities alone. Panenmentalism excludes psychophysical interactionism. Since psychical possibilities and their actualities are not identical, panenmentalism also excludes psychophysical identity of any kind. Panenmentalism entirely commits psychophysical unity to the dependence or supervenience of the physical-actual upon the psychical-possible in all that concerns identity, meaning, and significance, whereas the psychical-possible depends on the physical-actual only to the extent that actualization, causation, or activity is concerned. The causation of our actions derives from two sources: (1) It derives the possibility, identity, meaning, significance, motivation, intentionality, reason, aim, and value from the mental or the psychical alone; and (2) it derives the energy, power, mechanism, activity, and actualization as a whole from the physical-actual alone. Without the first source, no causal explanation for our actions can be found. The readers may now have an idea about the panenmentalist psychophysical view. The mind is a pure possibility, whereas the body is its actuality. The identity of the living body is the mind as a pure possibility. The mind is the pure possibility-identity of that body, and the body partly actualizes this possibility-identity. Since pure possibility-identity and its actuality are different and since no actuality is separable from its pure possibility-identity, the panenmentalist psychophysical view confirms the psychophysical unity side by side with the irreducibility of the mind to the body and vice versa. To show, as I have done above, that the mind is absolutely exempt from spatiotemporality and causality whereas the body is inescapably subject to them, is sufficient to demonstrate that mind and body are definitely irreducible one to the other. As a pure possibility-identity, the mind is “wider” and more comprehensive than the body. The mind comprises, under one and the same identity-possibility, more possibilities than those that the body has actualized and the actualization under discussion is inescapably partial only. A person could be born in another place and at another time and yet be one and the same person and not another person who has another identity. Although mind and body are quite different, they are not two substances or two separate entities. Both are possibilities united under one and the same pure possibilityidentity, under one and the same psychical being or personality. In this way, the panenmentalist psychophysical unity avoids psychophysical dualism, a dualism that poses an unsolvable problem and not a way out to any possible solution. Panenmentalism also avoids the difficulties and the inadequacy of the double-aspect psychophysical view. The major psychophysical difference is not merely of two aspects relating to one and the same thing, which, in itself, regardless of its two aspects, remains mysterious, entirely obscure, or possibly unintelligible. Much more exists to the
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psychophysical difference than the difference of aspects. The psychophysical difference, the difference between mind and body, is ontological as much as epistemological. Yet the double-aspect view is doomed to ignore the ontological difference and makes some justice only with the epistemological one. Because panenmentalism leaves causality to the body, to the physical entity, the psychophysical unity has a further solid foundation. I am the cause of my actions not because I am a psychical subject but because I am the actuality, the body, of that psychical subject, of that person. My mind is the source of my reasons or motives to act, but only the actualization of that mind as a body, as an actuality, endows these reasons or motives with causal potentiality and efficacy and makes me the agent of my actions. The same holds for temporality. As a pure possibility, the mind is entirely atemporal; only the actualization of pure possibilities, such as the psychical ones, gives rise to time in actual reality. Only as an actual being, as an agent in actual reality, am I a spatiotemporal and causal being. The identity of this being is a mind as a pure possibility. Although my mind and my body are different beings, they are not two separate beings: As a pure possibility and its actuality, they are necessarily united. I am a person, a psychical subject, actualized as a physical being, as a body. The panenmentalist ontology and epistemology concerning the psychophysical question is well compatible with and necessarily stems from the general ontology and epistemology concerning the entire panenmentalist realm of all pure possibilities and their actualities. Just as actual-physical reality is comprised in that panenmentalist realm, so the body is comprised in the mind, which comprises all the pure possibilities that are open to the body under one and the same pure possibility-identity. In sum, following the first panenmentalist basic principle, I attempted to render the psychophysical problem solvable, avoiding the unbearable cost of reductions, materialist or idealistic, without falling into the dualistic trap or impasse (Gilead, 1999, pp. 5–39). No less problematic are the approaches seeking some psychophysical identity. Although mind, as a pure possibility, and body, as its actuality, are undoubtedly united, they are not identical. In my view, contrary to Spinoza’s view or to the double-aspect view, mind and body are not “one and the same thing” under different descriptions or aspects. As being intimately and intrinsically united, mind or body cannot be a separate substance. Arguing that the mind is a pure possibility and that the body partly actualizes this possibility, panenmentalism sustains the real difference and distinction between mind and body, as much as it sustains their undeniable intimate unity. Mind and body are different yet necessarily connected or united, for the actual and the possible are united. The psychophysical distinction does not lead to psychophysical separation.
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I have no ambition to attempt a solution of the psychophysical problem or to answer the psychophysical question. Instead, panenmentalism keeps the road, possibly an endless road, open and clear, and renders the psychophysical problem solvable. We must look forward to innumerable empirical answers to this old question, but the possibilities of attaining the answers-solutions heavily depend on the antecedent assurance that from the outset no conceptual impasse blocks the way leading, however endlessly, to them. Panenmentalism makes a grand attempt to remove such a conceptual block whose roots are in the traditional philosophical categories in which the psychophysical question has been cast so far. What is so special about psychical possibilities is their singularity. Each psychical possibility exclusively, singularly pertains to a person, by no means to any other person. Each psychical possibility that pertains to one person cannot be even similar to any psychical possibility that pertains to another person. As singulars, two persons cannot be similar; each one of them is singularly unique. With no similarity to another psychical reality, each psychical reality is internal and not accessible from without. Only a person, who “has” or consists of an inner, private, personal, or subjective reality, “has” private access, from within, to this reality that is his or hers alone. No other person can experience the thoughts, emotions, feelings, or volitions of a person but s/he alone. Although no psychical reality is accessible from without, communication between all psychical subjects, between persons, is possible. As any singular possibility must also relate to all the others, from which it must be different, even an entirely idiosyncratic possibility, like any singular possibility, is communicable to all the rest. The primary means of communication is language, and no language is private but must be interpersonal or intersubjective. The interpersonal, intersubjective realm cannot do without similarity, which is yet perfectly compatible with singularity and private accessibility (Gilead, 2003, pp. 43–75). A widely prevalent assumption is that any relationship or relationality should rest on a common background, common denominator, or commensurability. Panenmentalism constitutes a major exception and precedence, for it shows that particularity or singularity is good enough to secure universal relationality and significance. Not to be identical—to be individual or particular—signifies difference; not to be even similar—to be singular— signifies absolute difference. Difference, diversity, or dissimilarity provides grounds enough and is sufficient for relationality or relationship. Since in the entire realm of the possible no two possibilities can be identical or, in the case of two persons, even similar, the difference, diversity, or dissimilarity in question bears universal significance, and the relationality under discussion is universal.
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Panenmentalism leaves singularity exclusively to psychical possibilities, not to physical possibilities such as the Big Bang or black holes. The “singularity” of the Big Bang or of black holes is meaningful and significant only under particular physical-mathematical theories. Not so is the genuine singularity of persons, which is altogether theoretically independent and ontologically primary. Everyday experience demonstrates repeatedly that persons are singulars, for no person can experience or “have” what exists in other minds, for each person “has” access to her or his mind alone. In contrast, the “singularity” of the Big Bang or of black holes is discoverable only under physicalmathematical theory, and the meanings and significance of this “singularity” are theory-dependent. This “singularity” has nothing of subjectivity, personality, or of any psychical reality. Being ontologically primary, the singularity of persons provides the grounds for any interpersonal relationality or relationship, whereas the status of anything “singular” under mathematical or physical terms cannot be primary. Mathematical or physical “singularity” draws all it has from, or against the background of, the mathematical or physical relationality under the relevant theories. This kind of “singularity” must be ontologically secondary or derivative. Since psychical subjects are singular, the singularity of each of them necessarily leads to inter-relationality, which embeds or nests them in a common realm of significance and meanings, in which universal communication between them is possible in principle. As an intersubjective or interpersonal relationship, any language necessarily relies on the singularity of each person who can be involved in utilizing the language. Yet no language is private, as no language can exist that is exclusively accessible to one person. Just as natural laws and patterns are not applicable to the “singularity” of the Big Bang or of black holes, so the intersubjective rules or patterns, for instance, logical or grammatical rules or patterns, psychological patterns or structures, do not determine any inner, psychical reality intrinsically. Instead, no intersubjective, interpersonal relationship is possible, unless singular beings—persons—each of whom consists of an exclusive inner reality, exist. Only the intersubjective or interpersonal significance, import, or implication of what privately exists within a person’s mind can be subject to patterns, structures, or rules. Language can capture this significance, endowing it with intersubjective expressions. Language can capture only the intersubjective, interpersonal, or universal significance or meanings of singular possibilities. I have chosen to introduce panenmentalism, which is a systematic metaphysics covering many philosophical fields and themes under one metaphysical roof, in different ways and under different appearances. In the first book (Gilead, 1999), I presented a metaphysical introduction to panenmentalism, applying its epistemological and ontological principles to the
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philosophy of psychoanalysis and other, quite different, areas. Yet it is a systematic view, as the readers can realize by themselves. My second panenmentalist book (Gilead, 2003) made other systematic applications or implementations of the same principles, although the themes and the areas were utterly different from those of the first book. The present book may appear miscellaneous or eclectic but it is systematic. It makes further attempts to realize how far we can go with panenmentalist principles and perspectives, or to what extent a further diversity of ideas is accessible to panenmentalism. In this book I discover novel areas for panenmentalist observations and investigations, the diversity of which is unified under one and the same metaphysical roof and rests upon the basis of the same metaphysical principles and assumptions. Each of the following Sections systematically relates to the others, and many of them contain cross-references owing to the systematic nature of the book. In what follows I will make observations about necessity and truthful fictions. Necessity and truthful fictions are the leitmotif of this book. I choose it to serve as the title for the following panenmentalist observations, some of which are quite long and others are short comments. Since, according to panenmentalism, fictions are pure possibilities and since such possibilities are as real as actualities, fictions may be considered real or truthful. Untruthful fictions are mere illusions, which can only mislead us. By means of truthful fictions we detect meaningful possibilities as well as their necessary relationality that otherwise could not be discovered. I have in mind especially the indispensable contribution of fictions and myths to the discovery of psychical possibilities and meanings and to make us conscious of what is hidden within the depths of our mind (Gilead, 1999, pp. 51–54). Untruthful fictions, in contrast, prepare the ground for mistaking pure possibilities for actualities and contingent, arbitrary connections for necessary ones. Necessity belongs to the a priori realm of pure possibilities and their relationality, which are discoverable by means of truthful fictions. I am grateful to my friends, Saul Smilansky and Meir Hemmo, for reading some sections of the manuscript and commenting on them. I am greatly indebted to Marion Lupu for stylistic improvements. Mark Letteri skillfully and devotedly checked the entire manuscript. I am also indebted to him for writing his kind Editorial Foreword to this book. The love of my wife, Ruthie, was indispensable in making the possibility of this book actual. I dedicate the book to the memory of my dear late brother, Joel Gilead. Joel was the best and the most reliable human being I have ever known. His untimely death has been the greatest loss that my family and I have ever had.
One METAPHYSICAL MODALITIES 1. Taking Modality Seriously Dealing with concepts such as “possibility,” “existence,” “reality,” “contingency,” “actuality,” and “necessity,” modal philosophy has had many varieties. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, pure possibilities are as possible and real as actual things, although other thinkers have not accepted this. Actualists have reduced or confined the possible as a whole to the actual, which, in their view, must be the only possible existence. Other actualists have confined all individual possibilities to actualities, though employing concepts such as possible worlds, namely, the universal “ways” or “modes” in which actualities exist and are perceived. Acknowledging the existence of individual possibilities alone, panenmentalism also considers actual things as possibilities but this by no means exhausts the realm of the possible, for pure or “mere” possibilities are as possible and as real as actualities. As a result, panenmentalism has enlarged the realm of the possible and, respectively, has changed the concept and domain of modality, especially in ascribing existence to pure possibilities no less than to actualities. Other enlargements have been made before, beginning with Kant’s modality. More recently, philosophers have included concepts such as “should,” “must,” and “ought,” in the domain of modality. At least as far as possibilities are concerned, panenmentalism asks for more: Possibilities are not only modes or “ways” concerning things; possibilities are also actual things, namely, actualities, or else purely possible things. All possibilities, however pure or mere, are possible as well as real under the metaphysical absolute condition that no two possibilities are identical. For two possibilities to be identical is both impossible and not real. Undoubtedly, actualities are possible, but why, according to panenmentalism, are they possibilities too? Enlarging or changing the domain, the meaning, and the significance of modality, panenmentalism reveals a new dimension of the modal nature of modality. Possibilities are not only “ways” or “modes” concerning things; they are also things, subjects, or objects. Panenmentalism also differently and originally treats the concepts of reality, existence, and necessity. As you will realize, it sheds quite a new light on the relationship between pure possibilities and necessity. As I will show in Section 1.14, pure possibilities are panenmentalist primitives, which means that panenmentalist modality is irreducible, let alone eliminable.
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So far, philosophers have been used to saying “it is possible that p” (or “p is possible”) or “it is impossible that p” (or “p is impossible), and panenmentalism leaves this fashion of talking intact but adds to it another modal dimension. A, actual or purely possible, is a possibility, which, if purely possible, is both possible and necessary or, if actual, is possible and contingent. For instance, this chair, on which I am now sitting, is a possibility, which is obviously possible, actual, and contingent. The point is that I refer to that chair as a possibility, as far as a possibility is a thing and not only a “mode” or a “way” ascribed to things or propositions. In other words, panenmentalism considers possibilities as referents, actual or purely possible. This does not render modal talking in the traditional sense redundant; on the contrary, taking modality more seriously, panenmentalism adds much to its numerous senses. This panenmentalist addition or enlargement appears not to be compatible with our ordinary use of language. Obviously, we do not say “sit down on this possibility-chair,” but we also do not ordinarily say “sit down on this possible chair,” which may be compatible with the traditional conception of modality. We also do not usually say “look at this possible chair,” although the actual chair, about which we are speaking, is obviously possible in the sense of the traditional modality. The common, ordinary use of language should not confine our philosophical thinking, let alone philosophical novelty or creativity. Philosophically dealing with pure possibilities, to follow the common or ordinary use of language means to put possibilities under actual or actualist restrictions, which panenmentalism strongly opposes. As to the existence of pure possibilities, this issue will concern us in the following Sections, for instance, while dealing with the quantification of pure possibilities (consider Section 1.4 below). But let me argue now that pure possibilities exist not only in a person’s mind, but no less without it, namely, in the realm of the purely possible-mental. A person may discover such possibilities independently existing in this realm. Pure possibilities are considered quite real for people. The pure idea-possibility of something entirely new is quite real although still not actual for the aspiring artist. So are the objects-possibilities of hope, fear, aspiration, and the like for any person. Such pure possibilities, of which no actualities yet indicate, may be among the strongest motives that conduct our life and, as such, they must be quite real for us, although not actual. Yet they are not in our mind only, they are discovered by it, and they are as real as our mind, which is also a pure possibility. Such possibilities exist independently of us, although they exist for us to be discovered. Equally independent is the existence of our mind—as a pure possibility it exists and is real no less than its actuality, namely, the body. The “gravitation” of actualities should not mislead or confuse us. Just as we have learnt how to set things free from the influence of gravitation, we
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should train ourselves how to avoid confinement or restriction of possibilities to actualities, to avoid the actualist fallacy. The modal term “existence” should not be confined to actualities alone, and panenmentalism is quite entitled to expand it also to pure possibilities. But what about the paradoxical result of all this? If everything exists, if any possibility exists (as long as it is not identical with any other possibility), and if, as we shall realize, any pure possibility is necessary (Section 1.5 below), what does not exist? Actualities exist contingently, and the case could be that no actualities would have existed. Undoubtedly, many pure possibilities do not actually exist, namely, they do not exist as actual. Second, that “paradoxical” panenmentalist result is intelligible, at least by way of analogy. Analogously, think of Spinoza’s philosophy, according to which anything real is eternal and necessary and anything possible actually exists, otherwise a possible cause would have existed that would have excluded its actual existence, which results in a self-contradiction. According to Spinoza, anything possible is actual, with which panenmentalism disagrees. Once you replace Spinoza’s actualities or real entities with panenmentalist pure possibilities, you inevitably come to the “paradoxical” conclusion that any pure possibility exists as real, necessary, and atemporal. No pure possibility could have been missing from the entire realm of pure possibilities, as much as nothing could have been missing from the absolutely infinite reality, which is the Spinozistic substance. Lacking anything, no absolutely infinite reality could exist. The entire realm of pure possibilities is as absolutely total as the Spinozistic substance. The major disagreement between panenmentalism and Spinoza’s philosophy is about actualism and logical limitations. Spinoza’s philosophy is entirely actualist, whereas panenmentalism is strongly against actualism of any kind. The panenmentalist realm lacks no possibility at all. Panenmentalism distinguishes between the existence of pure possibilities, which is necessary, and that of actualities, which is contingent. Reality must be complete as far as pure possibilities are concerned, but it could be without any actuality at all. The question of actual reality or existence remains open to experience and observation and cannot rely upon any a priori consideration. Second, Spinoza subjects the absolutely infinite reality to logical conditions, which means that, according to his philosophy, each possibility is logical, and the illogical is merely impossible; this is a dogmatic assumption that many philosophers share. For reasons that will be discussed below, panenmentalism does not confine the metaphysical realm of pure possibilities to that of logical possibilities. The question is whether such a view is intelligible at all. It is, because we are able to relate intelligibly to non-logical or illogical possibilities. These possibilities also relate to our logical possibilities and, on the basis of such relationality, intelligibility is secured. On
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the basis of any difference, including opposition, contrariety, and the like, the relationality of pure possibilities is secured. Absurdities, contradictions, and any illogical or non-logical possibilities are especially different from logical possibilities and necessarily relate to them. On the basis of such relationality, the intelligibility of all those illogical or non-logical possibilities makes sense. We can intelligibly relate to logical absurdities, which, in this way, make sense to us. For instance, we can intelligibly think and speak about a round square, although logic and mathematics currently exclude such a possibility. We are able to deal intelligibly with absurdities. Illogical or non-logical as they are, at least for the moment, we refer and relate to such absurdities in a way that makes sense for us. Likewise, logic makes use of contradictions and absurdities to demonstrate, test, or prove whether arguments are valid or invalid. As involved with a contradiction, any invalid argument is logically impossible. Yet to test whether an argument is valid or not, we make fruitful use of absurdities or contradictions whenever we test the argument by way of reductio ad absurdum. Even within the strict scope of logic we regularly refer and relate to possibilities that are illogical or logically impossible yet make logical sense, as long as they are indispensable to prove or test logical validity. In this sense, reductio ad absurdum arguments are possible even when observing the strict use of logic. Taking modality seriously, panenmentalism also takes ontology most seriously. Mentioning “merely possible entities,” Roderick Chisholm states, “surely, no one who takes ontology seriously would maintain that there are certain things that are merely possible and not actual” (1981, pp. 9–10). Taking ontology most seriously, panenmentalism challenges the dogma of Chisholm and many others, according to which pure or mere possibilities are not existents. 2. Possibility as Subject and Predicate Discussing possibilities, we may think about such propositions: (1) It is possible that a is the case. (2) A is possible. (3) Possibility a is not actual. (4) Possibility a is possible. Proposition (1) employs a modal operator, which is familiar to those who are used to modal logic. Proposition (2) employs possibility as a predicate, while proposition (3) employs it as a subject. In proposition (4), “possible” serves as a self-predicate. Actualists reduce (2), (3), and (4) to (1). If the actual case is such and such, it is still possible that the case is otherwise, say, a. Thus, reducing all the senses of possibility to the modal operator “possible,” such actualists exclude the possibility of pure possibilities and leave all which exists
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to the actual. They are entitled to speak of possible worlds, just because these worlds are the possible ways or variations of the actual world. According to them, a and the like are actual things or subjects that can be otherwise, that can be integrated into possible worlds. They do not consider any pure possibility as a subject or a predicate of such a subject, let alone a selfpredicate. Under such actualism, possibility is only a modal operator, operating on sentences, in which subjects and predicates serve not as pure possibilities at all. Problems with self-predication have haunted philosophers from Plato onward. Actualists have tried hard to get rid of not only (2) and (3) but also (4), and thus have confined the realm of possibilities to the utmost. Actualists have attempted to confine “possibilities” as much as possible, whereas panenmentalism makes a great effort to resist their attempts and to open the realm of pure possibilities much more widely. For another anti-actualist treatment of the possible, sincerely considering the “merely possible,” consult Timothy Williamson (2000). Distinguishing between predicative and attributive reading of possibility, Williamson suggests: “[A]s an adjective of individuals, ‘possible’ means possibly existent: ‘x is possible’ is equivalent to ‘it is possible that x exists’” (ibid., p. 201). He further suggests predicative and attributive readings of “x is a merely possible F” (ibid., p. 202). Contrary to other modal philosophies, panenmentalism assumes each possibility to be a subject, object, thing, existent, being, or reality. Each possibility is also a self-predicate. Thus, each possibility is both subject and predicate that is a self-predicate. Such is the case, as possibilities are obviously possible, and self-predication such as this raises no difficulties for panenmentalism. Nothing is wrong with a question such as “Is this possibility possible?” The question is sensible, for if this possibility were identical with another possibility, it would not be possible, since no two possibilities can be identical. Second, each possibility that we discover, conceive, imagine, or distinguish from others, must be real although the empirical question remains whether it is also actual. In any case, such a question is sensible. Also sensible is the question, “How is this possibility possible?” The question asks whether this possibility is psychical (namely, in our mind only), mental (or intersubjective), or actual. In each of these questions, possibility is a self-predicated subject. Given that reality has different meanings or senses (by and large, possible-mental, possible-psychical, or possible-actual-physical), the last question is equivalent to “In what sense is this possibility real?” As the reader may quite easily guess by now, panenmentalist modality is entirely incompatible with Russellian, Quinean, Davidsonian, or any other settheoretical philosophy. Thus, although “the present king of France is bald” is by no means actual, it is yet a sheer possibility, and to think or speak about, refer or relate to, such a possibility, now or at any other time is quite
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meaningful. Although no king or emperor has recently ruled in France, still this is a possibility, however actually quite improbable, a possibility that cannot be considered entirely and by all means unactualizable. Only the possibility of God can be considered as such (see Gilead, 2003, Chapter Eleven, pp. 213–224). Thus, “the present king of France is bald” is yet an actualizable, however improbably, possibility. Given all these, considering that France has had no kings or emperors since the fall of Napoleon the Third, to think or to speak about such a possibility under different meanings or significance is still quite intelligible; for instance, as a counterfactual possibility, in any literary or other fiction whatsoever, as a joke, or as a metaphor or symbol. The reader, quite aware of the currently actual state, in which no kings or emperors rule in France, can quite understand the sentence and can use it. The criterion for understandability or usability can be quite empirical: Since no language can be private, whenever I can communicate with other people by means of such sentences, whenever I share with them a common intersubjective reality, in which such sentences are not just nonsensical, meaningless, or entirely useless, such a criterion holds. It holds at the price that we truly reject Russellian, Quinean, or Davidsonian set-theoretical philosophy. Instead, we hold to quite another modal philosophy, according to which no sets as such are needed, for the entire realm of pure possibilities— the mental realm as a whole—is more than enough for all our needs concerning quantifiers or quantification. Instead of quantifying over sets, panenmentalism quantifies over all that realm of pure possibilities. In this way, we avoid, it appears, all the paradoxes with which the settheoretical philosophy has been afflicted so much. Panenmentalism appears to be exempt from all these ills. One of them is the aporetic problem of selfpredication, which is at least as old as Plato’s philosophy. If we treat possibilities as subjects and predicates, what about possibility as a modal operator? Modal operators are indispensable for any modal logic. Yet we should strictly distinguish between modal logic and modal metaphysics. One of the basic principles of panenmentalism is never to confine metaphysical possibilities or modal metaphysics to logical possibilities or modal logic. Since possibilities are possible as long as they are not identical, panenmentalism keeps open the widest realm of possibilities, in which alogical, nonlogical, or illogical possibilities exist side by side with logical possibilities. Possibility as a modal operator does not confine or restrict panenmentalism as a modal metaphysics. The realm of metaphysical possibilities is wider than that of logical possibilities, which occupy only a part within the metaphysical realm.
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3. How is Self-Relationality Possible? No two pure possibilities can be identical. Any two pure possibilities are different one from the other. On the basis of this difference, each relates to the other, for being different from leads to relating to. Since nothing can be different from itself or oneself, how can a possibility relate to itself? Not directly or immediately, but only by means of relating to other possibilities that, in turn, relate to it. In this way, panenmentalism avoids all the paradoxes stemming from self-referentiality. Exempt from set-theoretical restrictions, from those of sortal thinking, Platonic, Aristotelian, or any other, we need not face any of these paradoxes. A possibility may refer to itself by means of relating to other possibilities that, in turn, relate to it. No sentence can refer to itself unless by means of relating to other sentences that are different from it. Panenmentalism is constructed on the basis of relationality resting upon differences, not upon similarities within sets, groups, sorts, kinds, species, or genera, which sortal thinking usually requires. Panenmentalists do not begin with similarities; we begin instead with differences laying the ground for common realities and similarities due to inter-relationality. Because of this, panenmentalism is radically revolutionist. Its principles (archai in classical Greek) are quite much unlike those of the great majority of philosophies. Beginning with the difference, relationality paves our way. Plurality is not a problem to be faced, but a fruitful departure point, leading from one pure possibility to all the others. To refer to psychical possibilities, inaccessible from without but privately accessible, does not entail self-reference. Pointing out my psychical referents is not referring to myself as a whole but to my psychical possibilities, each of which is distinct or different from the others. Such a reference relies upon distinction and difference, whereas immediate self-referring does not rely upon any such difference but upon equality or sameness instead, which is the identity of the person in question as a whole. To refer to any of my psychical possibilities does not aim at myself as a whole but at distinct parts of my mind. The relationship between the mind and its parts (or the psychical possibilities within the same mind) is not that of a set and its members. The mind is not a set that includes or comprises itself too. Self-relationality under panenmentalism is entirely exempt from any set-theoretical considerations or commitments, and it is entirely exempt from the notorious paradoxes involved in self-reference. In Section 1.2 above, I briefly treated the self-predication of possibilities. Self-predication is a kind of self-relationality in which we make a special distinction and difference. Asking—“Is possibility a possible?”—we relate it to other possibilities to confirm that it is not identical with any other possibility. If a were identical with any other possibility, possibility a was excluded and should be considered impossible. Second, asking such a question, we make a difference—in what sense is this possibility possible, in the purely mental sense
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or in the actual one? Again, self-predicating a, we relate it to other possibilities, and thus avoid self-predicative classical difficulties. In panenmentalism, self-relationality is by no means Cartesian. You need the other(s) to relate to yourself, to “capture” or recognize your singular identity, and dialogue is an indispensable means to self-knowledge. Think of one of the most difficult phases in a mature person’s life, namely, the stage in which her or his mother no longer recognizes or identifies her or him, as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease eventually takes effect. Think, for instance, of the most beloved son whose mother no longer recognizes him. It is a monstrous crisis as the son is no longer at home; he is misplaced, since his first home on earth, his mother, no longer recognizes him. The primordial relationality, the relationship with the mother, established the first stage in recognizing his identity, which, because of the dementia, has been uprooted to some extent since she no longer recognizes her most beloved son. No two persons can be identical, yet the memory of the mother plays a crucial role in the memory, especially selfmemory, of the son. It plays this role by way of relationality, without which no self-knowledge is possible. No immediate intuition, Cartesian or otherwise, can provide us with such knowledge. Even the sense of self-identity is severely impaired due to the unbearable fact that the mother no longer recognizes her son. Self-esteem is also liable to suffer such harm, which, due to continuous and hard work on oneself, can be repaired by means of successful internalization of the mother’s love, memory, affection, recognition, and the like. Since our mothers endow us with the sense and worth of our singularity (see “Love and Singularity” in Gilead, 2003, pp. 19–41), the harm in question is quite understandable. The significance of any singular being consists of universal relationality, the primary part of which is the relationality of the mother to her children. If the mother no longer recognizes her offspring, the offspring’s name and memory are wiped out to some extent (“may his name and memory be wiped out” is one of the harsher curses in the Hebrew language). To some extent, the offspring thus become out of place, out of the primordial place that human beings have in this world. Obviously, pure possibilities have no place but metaphorically alone, and this metaphor of the mental “place” has strongly to do with relationality and selfrelationality. A person knows his or her place first and foremost in light of the recognition and worth with which the mother’s love endows that person’s singularity. Facing the mother, the forgotten, unrecognized, alienated offspring finds herself or himself in an alien realm, no longer “at home” (uncanny, unheimlich); this is the way Freud characterizes a psychopathological experience in which something of the unconscious strangely interferes with our conscious life. Undergoing such an experience, we must face difficulties in recognizing ourselves, as if something extremely strange for us arises out of our psychical depths. Losing her memory concerning her child, the mother’s lack of
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recognition makes her dearest offspring face his/her alienation or strangeness, although this strangeness belongs intimately to them. The great question—“Who am I?”—starts to bother the offspring again, as if his or her self-knowledge were no longer secure, as if his or her self-identity had become questionable. Especially threatened is the significance of the offspring’s singularity. If this singularity means nothing to the mother, the offspring may face a severe crisis of identity. 4. Existential Quantification In Section 1.2 (“Possibility as Subject and Predicate”) above, I maintained that the entire realm of pure possibilities is more than enough for all our needs concerning quantifiers or quantification. Of special interest is the panenmentalist status of existential quantifiers. At this point especially, panenmentalism is much at odds with any kind of actualism, such as that of Bertrand Russell or that of Willard Van Orman Quine. According to Quine, truth functions and quantification should be discussed separately from modalities and propositional attitudes (such as believing, wishing, imagining, and describing). Panenmentalism, in contrast, attempts to discuss them under one metaphysical roof or in one relational system. As mental objects, pure possibilities are the objects of what is inappropriately termed “propositional attitudes.” As real entities, pure possibilities are subject to quantification as well as to truth functions. Note that, unlike Russell (for instance, 1971, p. 165), I do not take “possible” for “sometimes true,” “impossible” for “never true,” and “necessary” for “always true,” because panenmentalism does not subject pure possibilities to temporality or to temporal conditions, to which the actualphysical alone is subject. Russell takes an actualist stance. Quine takes a similar stance, systematically attempting at dispensing with, even rejecting, all “possible concrete objects, unactualized possibles” (Quine, 1964, p. 245), considering them entia non grata. Russell calls them “unreal objects” (Russell, 1971, p. 169). Contrary to Alexius Meinong, Russell argues that objects such as “the golden mountain” or “the round square” cannot serve as subjects for true or meaningful propositions. Russell denies them any logical being and assumes that, for a want of the apparatus of propositional functions, many logicians, such as Meinong, have been driven to the wrong conclusion that “there are” such unreal objects (ibid.). Again, this view is confined by actualist assumptions that I find entirely wrong. Panenmentalism is entitled to rely on a strict apparatus of propositional functions no less than the logic of Russell or Quine. Maintaining that the “feeling for reality . . . ought to be preserved even in the most abstract studies” (ibid., p. 169), Russell confines abstract studies,
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such as logic, to concern only with “the real [actual] world.” Logic is concerned with the actual world “just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features” (ibid.). According to Russell, unicorns or Pegasus cannot logically as much as zoologically exist. Such is the case, according to him, since the realm of the possible, including the logicallyabstractly possible, is nothing but the actual. As he sees it, one reality exists— actual reality. Stating that “there is only one world, the ‘real’ world” (ibid.), Russell should also exclude the notion of possible worlds. What he entitles “feeling for reality” is nothing but “feeling for the actual.” All this makes an actualist fallacy, wrongly confining all possibilities to the actual and denying any existence and reality to pure possibilities. As if imagination, thoughts, literature, descriptions, pictures, and the like all exist within the confinement of the actual world alone. With Russell, nothing actually “exists” in “the world of Shakespeare’s imagination” (ibid.). With him, any existence or any reality can be only in the actual world. Thus Russell writes: When you have taken account of all the feelings roused by Napoleon in writers and readers of history, you have not touched the actual man; but in the case of Hamlet you have come to the end of him. If no one thought about Hamlet, there would be nothing left of him; if no one had thought about Napoleon, he would have soon seen to it that someone did. The sense of reality is vital in logic, and whoever juggles with it by pretending that Hamlet has another kind of reality is doing a disservice to thought. A robust sense of reality is very necessary in framing a correct analysis of propositions about unicorns, golden mountains, round squares, and other such pseudo-objects. (ibid., pp. 169–170) I would like to do such a “disservice” to our thought, and I intensively attempted to raise such a panenmentalist contribution in my previous books (Gilead, 1999, 2003). Had no person thought about irrational numbers, this would not mean that such numbers do not exist. Although irrational numbers, like all numbers, are pure possibilities, they really exist and, as such, are discoverable. Irrational numbers do not exist in the realm of the Pythagorean mathematical possibilities. As pure possibilities, irrational numbers are not treated as existing in the actual world. The actual exists in (within the realm of) the purely possible, not the other way round. In intersubjective realities, independently of any actuality, unicorns, golden mountains, round squares, and the like exist and make sense, and in this respect they are not pseudoobjects but real objects for thought, language, literature, and imagination. As for Hamlet, as a pure possibility, he is discoverable. Shakespeare had to discover, not to invent, it for Hamlet as a pure possibility bears necessities or a necessary relationality. Hamlet by Shakespeare is a truthful fiction by means
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of which alone we can capture or discover the pure possibility Hamlet. As a truthful fiction, Pythagorean mathematics is incapable of discovering or capturing irrational numbers. Other mathematical theories, other mathematical truthful fictions, are capable of discovering such numbers. In any case, irrational numbers, Hamlet, and all other pure possibilities are as real as actualities although in a different meaning of the concept “reality.” We are much in need of a sense of reality that is not confined to the actual. Mentioning the “sense of possibility” in The Man Without Qualities, Robert Musil entertained a similar idea (Musil, 1995, pp. 10–13). Our imagination needs such a sense to discover real possibilities-objects, for instance, by means of mathematics. A sense of necessity due to mathematics, logic, or other indispensable theories (which Russell entitles “abstract”) is very much with us, especially in all cases that are independent of actualities. Actualism has done a great disservice to philosophy and to thought in general, whereas possibilism has much more to contribute to them. Contrary to Russell (ibid., p. 170), I should say that in obedience to the feeling of reality that is not confined to the actual, we shall insist that, in the analysis of propositions, much more than the actual is to be admitted. What Russell wrongly entitles “unreal” is nothing but “not actual.” Yet the realm of the possible should not be confined to the actual, contrary to Russell’s philosophy in general and to his theory of descriptions in particular. Does Russell ascribe any significance to the proposition “I met a unicorn”? He considers the word “unicorn” meaningful or significant. The trouble is, according to Russell, with the combination of two words “a unicorn,” which entails that a unicorn exists although no unicorn exists. Thus, the combination “a unicorn” is meaningless or insignificant, whereas the propositions “no unicorn exists” and “no unicorn is real” are always significant and true. Combining the words “a” and “unicorn,” we have a problem to face: “How there can be such a thing [namely, a unicorn] in a world where there are no unicorns” (ibid.). As an indefinite description, “a unicorn” describes nothing, since “there is nothing to describe.” “A unicorn” does not make a subordinate group having a meaning of its own (ibid.). But is it true that “a unicorn” refers to nothing? Not at all, for it denotes a pure possibility, although not actual, which carries a definite meaning and significance in the context of some legends or myths. These legends or myths used to take part in an intersubjective reality of many people in the Middle Ages, and it is translatable into quite different, current intersubjective realities, although we do not share the beliefs about the existence of unicorns. “A unicorn examines itself in the mirror” describes such a reality that is intelligible for us nowadays, without causing any sane person to believe in the actual existence of unicorns. When a girl dreams at night of a unicorn, of which she is afraid, this unicorn of her dream is quite real for her, sometimes
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even after awakening. The dream troubles her, and some other persons may help her understand or interpret her dream to discover what is the real meaning of it for her, and what unicorns, or this particular unicorn in her dream, signify for her, for her psychical reality, to be distinguished from her actual, external reality. What a unicorn means to her is a good question, because a unicorn denotes some meaningful internal object for her, and this object is not a physical-actual one, as much as meanings and significance consist of psychical or mental possibilities and not of actualities. The same holds for witches as intersubjective objects, which by no means are actual. Russell must be blind to all this. “I met a unicorn” conveys something significant, something meaningful, about a person’s subjective or intersubjective reality, not about her or his actual reality. Russell is blind to the implications of the secured distinction between subjective, intersubjective, and objective-actual reality. More than one reality exists. “Existence” has different meanings; “actual existence” is merely one of them. Respectively, we need different kinds of sense of reality: A sense of psychical reality, that of intersubjective reality, and that of objective, actual reality. Each of these kinds of sense is indispensable and each of them is robust enough. To rightly distinguish between these different kinds is an indisputable sign of sanity. To distinguish between a possible and an actual existence (or “existence” and “actual existence”) on whatsoever grounds is extremely rare in the philosophical literature. Identifying nonexistent with merely intentional objects, Colin McGinn indicates “how the representation-dependence of nonexistence can be made consistent with the mind-independence of possibilia— namely, by recognizing that possibilia exist” (McGinn, 2000, p. 39, n. 26). McGinn distinctly states: [M]erely possible entities, such as the younger sister I might have had, really do exist, and did exist before I ever formed the concept of them— thought they do not actually exist. Such entities exist in the realm of the merely possible; their ontological deficiency consists just in the fact that their existence is not actual. When we think that they fail to exist we are confusing existence with actual existence, and it is their want of the latter that explains their difference from ordinary objects like the people around me. (ibid., p. 39) On quite different grounds, panenmentalism accepts a similar stance. Especially closer to it is the existence of possible entities “in the realm of the merely [purely] possible.” All the more so, since McGinn employs modal words not as quantifiers over worlds (ibid., p. 80), thus challenging the belief of the friends of possible worlds that without such worlds “there will be no necessities and too many possibilities” (ibid., p. 71), and switching from
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“world” to “state of affairs” or “maximal state of affairs” (ibid., p. 72). As panenmentalism also considers it, possible existence is by no means deficient in comparison with actual existence. No failure is involved in possible existence, and pure possibilities exist in the robust sense of the term. Pure possibilities are at least as real as actualities. As a matter of precision or truth, pure possibilities are more real than actualities, for they are not spatiotemporally and causally restricted or conditioned, and each pure possibility is “wider” or more comprehensive than its actuality. Thus, I cannot accept McGinn’s view according to which the modal is “strongly dependent” on the actual (ibid., p. 85). In contrast, panenmentalism considers the actual as dependent or supervenient on the purely possible and the necessary, not the other way round. Although McGinn is quite right in stating that only the actual can be causal (ibid., p. 86), which panenmentalism accepts on its grounds, I do not accept his statement that “from a causal point of view, modality is epiphenomenal” (ibid.). From a panenmentalist viewpoint, the identification of cause and effect as well as of the relationality that explains the causal relationship inescapably supervene on pure possibilitiesidentities and their relationality. A further moot point between McGinn’s view and mine concerns the metaphysical status of fictional entities as purely possible. Since panenmentalism considers such entities discoverable and not a matter of mere invention, stipulation, or contriving, they are no less metaphysically possible than other pure possibilities (see Section 1.6 below). Unlike Meinong, Meinongians, and McGinn, I consider unicorns, other mythical creatures, and fictional entities not as nonexistents but as existing pure possibilities, lacking no particularization, individuation, determination, and countability (see below in this Section and Section 1.6). Existence of pure possibilities entails mental or psychical determination, namely, any determination in intersubjective or subjective reality, whereas existence of actualities entails causation, namely, spatiotemporal, causal effectiveness. Existence of pure possibilities (as concrete beings) is entirely exempt from any actuality and from any spatiotemporal and causal conditions as well. Hence, panenmentalism is a possibilism that does not follow Alberto Voltolini’s combinatorial possibilism, according to which “possibilia are actual beings having a merely possible existence” or “when we speak of possible objects or possible entities, this is just a shortened formulation for possibly existing actual entities” (Voltolini, 2000, p. 211). Equally, I do not accept Voltolini’s (or most Meinongians’) distinction between particular quantifier (“there is a nonexistent x”) and existential quantifier (as restricted to actual beings only). The particular quantifier helps Voltolini in interpreting Barcan’s Formula as “there is (non-existentially) an item which might have Fed” (ibid.), allowing for “possible actually nonexistent entities” (ibid., p. 209). Voltolini’s combinatorial possibilism is compatible with a version of (“weak”)
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actualism, whereas panenmentalist possibilism is entirely incompatible with actualism. Also, answering the question, “How many pure possibilities exist?” (Section 1.6 below), panenmentalism does not follow Voltolini’s “relational individual essences,” but relies instead upon the principle that no two pure possibilities can be identical, and only because of their difference do they necessarily relate one to the other. All the more, panenmentalism dissociates itself from such a combinatorial possibilism, assuming that “in order for unactualized possibilia to have being, some actualia or other must have being as well. . . . the individuation chain which links unactualized possibilia with other unactualized possibilia must end up in some actualia” (ibid., p. 216). Finally, although combinatorial possibilism, which “makes possibilia the building blocks of states of affairs, which means that worlds are taken to depend on possibilia, and not the other way round” (ibid., p. 213), is a desirable stance, it does not dispense with the most problematic notion of possible worlds and with transworld entities-identities either. Rejecting all kinds of “unactualized possibles” or “possible concrete objects,” Quine mentions “perplexity over identity” (Quine, 1964, p. 245). Panenmentalism is not afflicted by such a perplexity: If properly carried out, referring to pure possibilities breeds no trouble, logical or metaphysical, unless you believe that actualism is the only possibility to be taken in these matters, which should not be the case at all (cf. Williamson, 2000, p. 204, allowing “to refer to the merely possible”). As an actualist, Quine appears to have no problem in situating, in specifying a position or location of, possible objects. He writes: “Even when a position is specified, as in ‘the possible new church on that corner’, ‘the possible hotel on the corner,’ the identity of position does not make the possible objects identical” (Quine, 1964, p. 245). It does not, for the identity of pure possibilities is not spatiotemporally determined or fixed. For instance, referring to numbers, which are pure possibilities (unlike Quine’s or Nelson Goodman’s “actuals”), we can easily identify any of them regardless of any actual conditioning, spatiotemporal or causal. The identity and identification of any number, as with any other pure possibility, is exempt from causality and causal conditions. With panenmentalism, unlike with actualism, modality, pure possibilities (also as the objects-referents of what is inappropriately entitled “propositional attitudes”), reference, identity, and truth functions go hand-in-hand without any trouble. As a pure possibility, number 3 is distinguished from number 4, and the proposition that 3 precedes 4 or that 4 is greater than 3 is true, and so on. Exempt from any actual conditioning, pure possibilities can also serve as truthful fictions, as long as the difference between actual and purely possible reality is kept in mind. Thus, with panenmentalism, truth and truth functions hold for fictions and pure possibilities in general no less than for actualities. Illusions consist of mistaking pure possibilities for actualities, and all
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propositions based on illusions are false. To consider pure possibilities actual must be mis-taking them. Concerning the realm of pure possibilities, solid differences exist between true and false propositions. We do not need to be actualists to see a clear difference between truth and falsehood. As actual, the hotel on the corner is possible too, but as pure possibility no hotel exists on the corner, for no pure possibility, although existing (as long as it is not identical with another possibility whatsoever), exists at any time or in any place; no pure possibility can be spatiotemporally located. Since no two pure possibilities can be identical, we have solid grounds to distinguish between all pure possibilities and to identify each of them. The context, to which we refer, is the relationality to other pure possibilities and not to any actual spatiotemporal situation. To identify a possible church, to refer, define, or describe it, we do not need an actual church. The modal operator of possibility can be applied to “possibles” no less than to “actuals.” The same holds for all other modal operators. As pure possibilities discovered by means of Euclidean and other mathematics, some relations between the numbers 3 and 4 are possible, others are necessary, others impossible, and so on. In case of eka-elements (in the periodic table of chemical elements), mathematical figures or numbers, and other systems of pure possibilities, we need no reference to actual facts of the matter. We can identify each of these pure possibilities, and we are quite able to make true and false propositions about them regardless of any actuality or actual state. Unlike the actualist views, pure possibilities exist not only regardless of actualities but also of any possible world. Actualists accept the notion of possible worlds (Loux, 1979, 9–11 and passim; and Bradley, 1989, pp. 16–19), and many of them adopt this notion quite willingly, but none of them accepts the notion of particular or singular pure possibilities, existing independently of any actualization or actual state. Quantification does not need the actual world. Quantification thus can be over the entire realm of pure possibilities, over the panenmentalist expanse. As much as “a such and such real number exists” may be true regardless of any actual state of affairs, existential quantification over the entire realm of pure possibilities makes sense. Contrary to Quine (1964, pp. 245–246), possible objects are not surrogates for actual ones. Although what Quine terms “propositional attitudes” has to do with “possibles,” I do not accept that we are “left with the problems of propositional attitude, but those, unlike the vagaries of unactualized possibles, are with us anyway” (ibid., p. 246). For years, I have found “propositional attitude” wanting in many respects (see, for instance, Gilead, 1999, pp. 31, 155), and graver in its deficiency than the blame that Quine assigns. For this term serves functionalists, misleadingly ascribing beliefs or desires to machines or automata. Also, it ignores the
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subjective and private nature of psychical possibilities. Using the notion of relationality instead, panenmentalism has all that we need in these matters. Quine writes, “Actually ‘unicorn’ and ‘Pegasus’ can be perfectly good terms, well understood in that their contexts are well enough linked to sensory stimulation or to intervening theory, without there being unicorns or Pegasus” (ibid., p. 246). A blindly actualist stance again. “Unicorn” and “Pegasus” can be perfectly good terms as long as we do not consider them actual. As pure possibilities, unicorns and Pegasus are real objects for our thinking, speaking, referring, and the like. Consisting of pure possibilities, their context should not be linked to sensory stimulation in order to bear meanings and significance. As for (intervening or not) theory, does it not possibly consist of pure possibilities alone, like any purely mathematical theory, for example? The sense, meanings, and significance of numbers or geometrical figures need not rely on any actual reality, causal relationships, or spatiotemporal conditions. Our imagination is good enough to discover these pure possibilities without relying on actual matters or conditions of any kind. We identify imaginary or fictional objects, for instance, by means of literary works of art without relying on actual matters. However actual our appropriation of language and the command of theories, mathematical and otherwise, may be, the meaning, significance, or sense of our terms depends on our accessibility to pure possibilities and to their relationality. Watching and observing the behavior of persons does not help us enough to comprehend the meaning or sense of their behavior, unless we have access to the relationality of the possibilities that are the grounds of their behavior and unless our psychical possibilities relate to theirs. Quine must have in mind the actual way in which we acquire languages, but this way is not the origin of the meanings, sense, and significance that we relate to them. Lacking imagination and psychical reality in general, each of us would be entirely incapable of speaking, listening to, or understanding other people. Lacking the access to pure possibilities, language would be just impossible, namely, senseless or meaningless. Our capability of referring to pure possibilities makes language possible. Bearing that in mind, existential quantification of pure possibilities, or of Quinean “unactualized possibles,” is not only possible but also necessary for us to make language possible, namely, meaningful and significant. Unlike actualism, panenmentalism existentially quantifies over the entire range or realm of pure possibilities. This kind of quantification maintains the crucial difference between actual and mental-possible reality. Not only in psychical realities, but also in intersubjective realities, witches, Pegasus, unicorns, and the like exist as pure possibilities, and they have meanings, sense, and significance as well. All sane, mature persons involved in such intersubjective realities, are well aware that no actual witch, unicorn, or Pegasus exists.
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“A pure possibility x exists” must be either true or false. Logically, we cannot separate existential quantifier from truth functions. The panenmentalist concept of truth, including truth functions, consists of the relationality of possibilities. This concept of truth is equally valid for correspondence and coherent theories of truth. If the relationality under question is to actual possibilities, the relevant truth or falsehood is a matter of correspondence; if the relationality is of pure possibilities only, truth is a matter of coherence. The proposition “a unicorn exists” is false if it relates to an actual possibility, but as relating to pure possibilities in myths, legends, or intersubjective realities (while employing, for instance, figures of speech in a particular language), it may be true and even necessary. By the same token, “Pegasus flies” is true under the relationality of pure possibilities in myths or legends concerning Pegasus, whereas “Pegasus floats” is false or senseless under this relationality. Relating to actual possibilities or reality, “Pegasus flies” and “Pegasus floats” are false. In Jules Verne’s time, “the submarine crossed the Atlantic Ocean” relating to actual reality was false or senseless, yet relating to pure possibilities in light of Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, it was true and made sense. In the same vein, a moon rocket, as a pure possibility, has existed independently of any actual existence of a rocket. Verne’s fictional rocket has been subject to descriptions and truth functions. Some propositions about the rocket have been false, others have been true, and any competent reader can distinguish between truth and falsehood about Verne’s lunar vehicle. Although fictional, as an object for thought, of the readers or of the author, Verne’s rocket has existed, regardless of any actual projectile or of its spatiotemporal and causal conditions. As pure geometrical possibilities, two parallel lines cannot share one and the same point, as far as Euclidean geometry is concerned. According to this geometry, the proposition “two parallel lines share a point” is false and does not make sense. Not so according to a non-Euclidean geometry. According to it, such a common point, as a pure possibility, necessarily exists. Equally, such points actually exist, shared by all the vertical lines on the surface of a ball or sphere. They are the poles of the ball or sphere. Relating to these actual or pure possibilities concerning the surface of a ball, such common points, shared by lines that in terms of Euclidean geometry would be considered parallel, undoubtedly exist. Also, they would exist, under the terms of a non-Euclidean geometry, in a possible reality in which no actual balls or spheres exist. The same proposition about parallel lines is true and false under different geometries. What exists according to Euclidean geometry may not exist according to a non-Euclidean geometry for, contrary to Russell, it is not true that only one reality exists. Much more exists to reality than the actual.
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But where or in what reality does a round square exist? No known geometry or logic admits such a possibility. Each known geometry or logic excludes it and considers it impossible. Yet, in the panenmentalist expanse or realm, such a possibility exists, as far as it is different from any other possibility, and as far as it relates to other possibilities and thus makes some sense (for instance, as absurd or as an instance of absurdity). Are we entitled to say, with panenmentalism, that each pure possibility that is not identical with any other possibility exists? Yes, for no other restriction is valid for the existence of pure possibilities. The essential questions are: In what way or under what relationality does each pure possibility exist? What significance does its existence bear on the entire realm of pure possibilities? In other words, to what truths does each pure possibility pertain? But no existence, significance, or truth blurs the distinction or the boundary between purely possible and actual reality. In sum, the existential quantifier, accompanied by truth functions, functions over the realm of pure possibilities at least as much as it functions over actual reality. The sense of actuality is not enough. We need two senses of reality and we need also two kinds of existential quantifier, each of which is indispensable for us. Two kinds of existential quantifier exist: (1) Spatiotemporally or actually existential quantifier, quantifying over the actual realm alone; (2) possibilist existential quantifier, quantifying over the purely possible realm as a whole. The first kind depends on the second one. If the pure possibility of x did not exist (or if it were impossible), x could not actually, spatiotemporally exist. In other words, following the relationship between pure possibilities and their actualities, the actually existential quantifier is a conditioned, limited, and partial version of the possibilist existential quantifier. Thus, Russell’s and other actualists’ existential quantifier is not only partial and incomplete, it is without a foundation: Its foundation is the existence of pure possibilities-identities for which the possibilist existential quantifier is valid. Kit Fine, Jaakko Hintikka, and William Lycan have already mentioned the term “possibilist existential quantifier.” Since Fine replaces the possibilist existential quantifier—“there is a possible individual x”—with “possibly there is an actual individual x” (Prior and Fine, 1977, p. 130), I find no merit in calling it “possibilist,” although Fine initially takes this replacement as only “a partial elimination of the possibilist quantifier” (ibid.). In the end, Fine converts the “external quantifier over possibles” into “an internal quantifier over actuals” (ibid.), concedes that “within the context of the translation, the equivalence will always hold” (ibid.), and, finally, concludes that “a complete elimination of the possibilist quantifiers” (ibid.) is achievable after all. This equivalence, replacement, conversion, or elimination is compatible with Prior/Fine’s modal actualism (ibid., p. 116), while actualism necessarily
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excludes any possibilism. Similarly, Lycan mentions the “possibilist quantifier” (1994, p. xv) just to eliminate it on the grounds of his actualism. Hintikka mentions the possibilist existential quantifier while discussing the possibility of interpreting Meinong’s view under a “possibilist interpretation of quantifiers, especially of the existential quantifier” (Hintikka, 1995, p. 40). Despite some minor similarities, panenmentalism is, in essence, quite far from Meinong and Meinongianism, as will be clarified in Section 1.12. For instance, neither Meinong nor Meinongianism could accept what I will argue in the next Section. Despite Meinong’s manifest rejection of “the prejudice in favor of the actual,” the panenmentalist treatment of the possible in general and the purely (“merely”) possible in particular differs from Meinong’s treatment of them (for a clear and concise account of his treatment, consider Findlay, 1963, pp. 195–217). As Hintikka enlightens us, Meinong’s conception of existence is at bottom . . . realistic rather than possibilist. The possibilist realm of nonexisting entities is a projection of the realist idea of a realm of forms actualizable in the mind. . . . Meinong has a pool of merely possible entities at his disposal, but he is not thinking of them in the first place as values of quantifiers ranging more widely than actually existing objects. The inhabitants of Meinong’s jungle are objects of thoughts, not values of bound variables. Their mode of existence cannot be captured by the existential quantifier. (1995, pp. 41–42) In contrast, according to panenmentalism, pure possibilities are existents, entirely independent of any actualization, “realization,” and possible worlds. Existential quantifiers thus may range over pure possibilities as much as over actualities, and the quantifiers, universal or existential, extend over the entire realm of pure possibilities dispensing with any idea of possible worlds. Over these matters, panenmentalism differs from any possibilist view known to me as well as from the views of Meinong, who did not acknowledge possible worlds (yet see Findlay, 1963, p. 217), and Hintikka, who acknowledges them. As modal actualists, Prior and Fine, in contrast, eliminate both possibilist quantifiers and possible worlds, for the “possible world analysis is incompatible with both modalism and actualism: For it analyses the ordinary modal idioms . . . and it admits possibles” (Prior and Fine, 1977, p. 117). In short, “for the modal actualist, possible objects do not exist; rather, the possible exists as a manner in which things happen. It exists as a mode, not an object. In the proper language for expressing modal truths, the modal primitives will be adverbial (sentential connectives) and the quantifiers will range over actual objects alone” (ibid.). Panenmentalism is closer to the view that Fine entitles “classical (or extreme) possibilism,” provided that it dispenses with the idea of possible worlds:
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Thus, the sentence “possibly some individual is not actual” is an “existential claim” for the possibilist “to the effect that some possible individual is not actual. Therefore there must be some specific individual who is not actual” (ibid.). As a panenmentalist, I endorse such a possibilist stance. Fine adequately characterizes the actualist stance as the following: “[F]or the actualist, this singularity [individuality or particularity] is spurious; there can be no instance in virtue of which the sentence is true. The sentence states an irreducible general possibility, and no matter how well the individual is described, he can have no specific identity” (ibid., pp. 117–118). In contrast, for panenmentalism, each pure possibility is an individual existent, particular (if mental) or singular (if psychical). Recently, Fine has discussed the view that pure possibilities cannot do without any actual “proxy,” without any reference to actualities, which the possibilities “represent” (Fine, 2003). The entire idea of the panenmentalist realm, which is entirely independent of actualities or any actualization, is incompatible with any supervenience on such “proxy.” In contrast, Fine has recently endorsed the view that discourse of possibilia is “reducible to discourse involving no reference to possibilia” (ibid., p. 162). Since panenmentalism endorses the principle that possibilist quantifiers are irreducible or cannot be eliminated, it does not accept the following: “Quantification over possibilia, be they worlds or individuals, is eliminated in favor of the corresponding quantification over actualia” (ibid., p. 172). Fine’s former insight is that, unlike the “middle” possibilist positions, a radical, “extreme,” or genuine possibilism deals with purely possible individual existents and that modalism, actualist or possibilist, can do without possible world analysis. If each possible world is a totality of what is the case, and if the domain is the totality of these totalities, Fine is quite right in concluding that “certain references to these or related totalities lead to the type of paradox that is familiar in set-theory” (Prior and Fine, 1977, p. 118). Thus, I deem panenmentalism advantageous by dispensing with both possible worlds and set-theoretical worries or strictures. Panenmentalist possibilist quantifiers concern the total realm of pure possibilities, which is an infinitely open realm as no restriction holds for this realm except that no two pure possibilities are identical. Against this background, panenmentalist quantification is entirely different from David Lewis’s “idioms of quantification” and their restriction
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(Lewis, 1990, pp. 24–25), whether his criticism of Richard Routley (Sylvan)’s noneism and Meinongianism (which I discuss in Section 1.12 below) is justified or not (as according to Witherall, 2000, which I find cogent). Like actualists, Lewis postulates that “there is only one kind of quantification” (1990, p. 24), restricted to “the here and now and actual” (ibid., p. 25). After all, Lewis’s realism of possible worlds is compatible with his argument that each possible world, spatiotemporally existing, is actual with its respect, although possible with respect to other worlds. Lewis’s possibilism is thus compatible with a special kind of actualism, whereas panenmentalism is entirely incompatible with any kind of actualism. Against this background, we should not be surprised that Lewis accepts William Lycan’s harsh actualist criticism of genuinely Meinongian quantification (ibid., p. 27 and note 7). Panenmentalism posits a possibilist existential quantifier that is by no means one of the “ways to simulate quantification, and thereby quantify without quantifying,” which Lewis mentions (ibid., p. 28). The two kinds of panenmentalist existential quantifiersover actualities and over pure possibilitiesare robust and consist of no simulation, let alone deceptive, of quantification. Again, pure possibilities really, truly exist. Otherwise, all our mental and psychical lives or realities as well as our knowledge would have been annulled. Lewis states, “if there are things that cannot be members of any class, and if some such things are among the satisfiers of a predicate, then that predicate has no extension” (ibid., p. 31n.15). But instead of sets and classes, panenmentalism quantifies over the realm of possibilities whose extension is of possibilities, pure or actual. “To satisfy a predicate” is a set-theoretical term, which panenmentalism does not endorse. Panenmentalism is extensional, not merely intensional, as far as the realm of possibilities, of which the actual is only a spatiotemporal and causal conditioned part, is concerned. Each of these possibilities really, truly exists. Following Meinong, Terence Parsons, and others in distinguishing between two kinds of existence, an intensionalist such as Edward Zalta (1988, pp. 102–104), treats possible but nonactual objects thus: Some philosophers find the very idea of such objects repugnant. These “actualists” are prepared to go to great lengths to reanalyze modal logic in order to avoid commitment to possible but unactual objects. We, however, find the idea of possible but nonactual objects perfectly intelligible. The definition is straightforward: x is a possible but nonactual object iff E!x & ~E!x. … Moreover, the hypothesis that there are such objects affords the simplest interpretation of modal sentences in natural language. (ibid., p. 67)
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The trouble is that the second “existential” quantifier—E!—bears no ontological commitment. It can be interpreted as aimed at “being” (logical or metaphysical existence) instead of “existence” (physical existence, ibid., p. 103). This is the way that many Meinongians, if not all of them, avoid ontological commitment prompted by their fear of overpopulating the realm of existence and thus breaking Occam’s razor. As an anti-Meinongian, Peter van Inwagen challenges such views (van Inwagen, 2003). He acknowledges only one kind of existential quantifier as well as one kind of universal quantifier. Yet he suggests the following interpretation of Quine’s strategy of ontological (or ontic) commitment: “The history of ontological debates in which all parties admit the legitimacy of Quine’s strategy shows that it is harder to avoid tacitly asserting the existence of things like numbers, sets, properties, propositions, and unrealized possibilities than one might have thought it would be” (ibid., pp. 144–145). Most intriguing, for Quine’s actualism is entirely incompatible with allowing any existence to pure possibilities. Yet, since van Inwagen mentions “strategy” instead of “thesis,” the case appears to be that Quine’s ontological commitment and his theses, especially his actualism, are not one and the same. Quine’s strategy does allow van Inwagen to assume the existence of fictional beings or characters (“persons”). The trouble is that, when applied to fictional beings, the existential quantifier is spatiotemporally unrestricted. If such is the case, what is the difference between such an application of it and a possibilist existential quantifier, which is also spatiotemporally unrestricted or unconditioned? As a result, we remain with two kinds of existential quantifier, which is quite against van Inwagen’s intention. In any case, I accept that fictional characters or beings definitely exist. Van Inwagen is thus perfectly right in concluding that to avoid ontological commitment to fictional characters is not a trivial undertaking; it is even an impossible undertaking (as he is inclined to conclude, ibid., p. 145). Yet fictional characters make merely one part of the entire picture for they are, first and foremost, pure possibilities subject to reference and quantification alike. Thus, panenmentalism, unlike van Inwagen’s stance, is ontologically committed to the existence of pure possibilities altogether. I see no escape from the distinction between pure possibilities and actualities, which entails subjection to either of two kinds of reference and quantification respectively. Over this matter, I disagree with van Inwagen, other non-Meinongians or anti-Meinongians, and Meinongians alike. Van Inwagen concludes his view thus: “[A]lthough there are good reasons for believing that there are such things as fictional characters, existent objects that bear some relation that is not ‘having’ to properties . . . , the question of the metaphysical nature of these objects (whether, for example, they are eternal and necessary existent) is quite far from having been given a decisive answer” (ibid., p. 155). In this book I attempt to give such a decisive
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answer. Metaphysically and epistemologically, fictional beings are pure possibilities, and pure possibilities are atemporal (eternal, if you like) entities, which are discoverable by means of, for instance, truthful fictions. The necessity concerning such possibilities is one of the main subjects of this book as a whole. Also I discuss in what ways panenmentalism is non-Platonic (see Section 2.3 below). As individual and immanent, no pure possibility should be considered Platonic. So much for the metaphysical nature of pure possibilities and fictional beings. A neo-Meinongian, who similarly disapproves of the “prejudice in favor of the actual,” is Dale Jacquette (2000): The existential quantifier in a Meinongian context signifies only that an existent, subsistent, or altogether beingless Meinongian object is included in the Meinongian semantic domain. It was necessary first of all to reinterpret the existential quantifier so that it says in effect only “There occurs within the semantic domain an object such that . . . etc.,” and not “There exists an object such that . . . etc.” The distinction makes it necessary to introduce a special existence predicate, such as “E!,” to predicate existence of an object, rather than relying on the extensional interpretation of the existential quantifier. (ibid., pp. 164–165) This allows Jacquette to have the semantics “adjusted so as to be even more economical than Quine’s most arid desert landscape ontology, by categorizing abstract objects like sets, in a way that Meinong did not propose, as beingless rather than subsistent” (ibid., p. 178). It allows him to free logic and logical thought from any ontological commitment in the spirit of the sublime Meinongian idea to set us “free in thought to assume whatever we like, unhindered by the facts of the world” (ibid., p. 166), to which I have much sympathy. I happily share that idea except that purely possible existents, to which our mind strongly relates, and not beingless objects, set us free in that sense. Instead of beingless or nonexistent objects, I assume pure possibilities, which are meaningfully referable and subject to true predication or are truly describable as much as Meinongian or Jacquettean objects are (for instance, meaningful and true propositions about Hamlet, whether he is considered nonexistent or a pure possibility). What I would like to correct is the following Meinongian innovation “to maintain the possibility of referring to a truly predicating properties of altogether beingless objects” (ibid., p. 175) by substituting “beingless objects” for “pure possibilities.” But what makes pure possibilities so significant and meaningful for our minds and mental lives are their being purely possible (or absolutely independent of anything physicalactual) and their existence as well.
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Jacquette mentions the “possibility of advancing a revisionary Meinongian logic that is even more austere than Quine’s desert landscape ontology” (ibid., pp. 178–179, note 39). Although I wholeheartedly accept the liberation from actualities and actualism as well as from set-theoretical ways of thinking, I do not find any mental or psychical lives, namely, mental or psychical existence, in such deserts, Quinean or Meinongian. What is the use of Meinongian or Jacquettean freedom from actualism and actualities, if we are not entitled to assume (better, to discover) the full existence of pure possibilities? As pure possibilities and their relationality, psychical and mental lives are free from the physical-actual. No such freedom and no such lives are possible, unless pure possibilities exist in the full sense of the word. Panenmentalism does not break Occam’s razor. To maintain psychical or mental lives, it is necessary to expand the realm of existence beyond the actual. Thus, as a panenmentalist, I do not share with those Meinongians the fear of overpopulating the realm of existence and of breaking Occam’s razor. Panenmentalism is committed to the absolutely indispensable existence of individual pure possibilities, and it follows Occam’s razor as far as actual existence is concerned. For me, to live in a Quinean ontological desert or in the Meinongian alternatives to it, to endorse one kind of existence in the complete sense of the word, means just to dispense with anything mental or psychical. Contrary to Brentano and many Meinongians or other followers of Brentano, I do not consider intentionality as a sufficient characterization of the mind. As a panenmentalist, I consider each mind a singular pure possibility relating to other pure or actual possibilities, all of which exist. For me, all pure possibilities exist and none of them is a nonexistent unless in the actual, spatiotemporal and causal, sense of the word “existence.” Nonexistent objects cannot determine or affect anything about the mind. They cannot make any difference as far as the mind is concerned. We often relate, intend, or refer to nonactual, pure possibilities. Items, objects, or possibilities that do not exist, in any sense of the word, are beyond any psychical capability of relationality, intentionality, or reference. Any ontology that does not allocate enough room for existing pure possibilities has to entirely dispense with the mental and the psychical. No intentionality has any room in such ontology. Intentionality toward nonexistent objects is merely a contradiction in terms. Criticizing some possibilists, Lycan examines an attempt to justify quantifying over “possibilia” on the basis of explanatory value or utility: We have no idea of how to go about doing modal semantics, decision theory, Montague Grammar, or any such thing without quantifying over possibilia; it is hard even to imagine what a competing approach would be like. For now, therefore (it is claimed), we must quantify over possi-
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bilia no matter what further aesthetic objections Quine has brought against them. Nor do we violate Occam’s principle in doing so, for that principle only forbids our positing entities beyond explanatory necessity. (Lycan, 1994, pp. 9–10) For his reasons, Lycan finds such justification to demonstrate “a bad misconception of the issue” (ibid., p. 10). Following Meinong and some others, he does not mention pure possibilities but “nonexistent possibles” instead (ibid., pp. 10–11; cf. pp. 4 and 8), which he considers “abstract entities” (ibid., p. 11). And, for him, the problem lies in positing the notion of nonexistent possibles or things, which inescapably leads to “overt selfinconsistency” (ibid.). In complete contrast, panenmentalism ascribes fullfledged existence to pure possibilities, which are concrete and by no means abstract. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, pure possibilities exist regardless or independently of possible worlds and actualities alike and, therefore, we are entirely entitled to quantify over pure possibilities. Explanatory necessity, utility, or value is not good enough to justify quantifying over such and such “items,” which requires an ontological commitment. Panenmentalism warns us that if we accept actualism on the one hand or any view that considers pure possibilities nonexistents on the other, mental or psychical existents must be excluded. For, according to panenmentalism, mental or psychical reality consists of pure possibilities alone. Panenmentalist quantifying is over purely possible existents. Thus, Lycan’s following demand is panenmentalistically inadmissible: “[W]hat I am implicitly demanding is a modal-theoretic semantics, done entirely in terms of actual objects and their propertiesfor what else is there really?” (ibid., p. 13). As Lycan characterizes it, the Ersatz approach construes possible worlds “as being actual objects of some kind . . . ‘other possible worlds’ have been construed as sets of sentences or propositions, set-theoretic recordings of the basic elements of our own [actual] world, types of mental act, and more” (ibid., p. 15). Lycan looks for an “Actualist understanding of possibilistic talk” which is “an Ersatzer analysis” (ibid., p. 19). According to Lycan, Actualism is a “one-world” construal of logical space. The actual, blooming, buzzing physical world of earth and fire and iron and concrete and flesh and blood is world enough; the “other, nonactual possible worlds” invoked by intensional logicians are only abstracta, either abstract objects or mental constructs of some sort. (ibid., p. 15) Russellian actualism and Rescher’s conceptualism or possibilism de dicto (Section 1.6 below) are both met by some or all of these characterizations of
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actualism. Nothing could be more remote from panenmentalism than actualism of any kindwhether Russell’s, Quine’s, Rescher’s, or Lycan’s. Possible worlds aside, to confine the whole realm of pure possibilities to the boundaries of the actual world is merely a philosophical confinement whose ramifications are disastrous, at least as far as philosophy is concerned. According to panenmentalism, pure possibilities are at least as concrete as actualities. To consider pure possibilities as abstracta or merely “mental [psychical] constructs” is nothing but to take an actualist stance of this or that kind. Since the mental and the psychical exist, the actual-physical world is by no means “world enough.” Only the entire realm of pure possibilities, comprising actualphysical reality as a confined and conditioned part, is world enough. As we well know, some possible-worlds semantics and different socalled “possibilist” views end in concluding that actual objects and their properties or states are all that there really is, which means that these views end in actualism, as much as Lycan’s does. In contrast, panenmentalism assumes that existence is not exhausted within the realm of the actual. As much existence pertains to pure possibilities independently of anything actual and of possible worlds alike, especially according to the set-theoretical approach. So far, all those who have attempted to discuss quantification over purely possible individuals have relied upon or referred to either Meinongian nonexistent possibilia or to the conception of possible worlds. For a recent example of the second, consider Divers’s defense of genuine realism, which he considers more credible than actualist realism (Divers, 2002, p. xii). Divers mentions the stance of “abstentionism about possible worlds” (ibid., p. 19), which he does not take. He attempts “to open up a new, neo-Fregean, line of investigation into the legitimacy of genuine realism quantification over nonactual individuals but I do not claim to have secured a conviction” (ibid., p. 85). The stance of possible worlds is always on the background of Divers’s arguments, especially whenever the quantification of such individuals has been discussed (ibid., pp. 60–61). How can a panenmentalist dispense with the idea of possible worlds and yet acknowledge possibilist existential quantifiers? Hintikka would say that such cannot be the case at all, for One just cannot quantify over possible objects without further ado. Everybody’s lover and nobody’s beloved are possible objects, but you cannot admit them into the range of one and the same quantifier. Hence an unqualified possibilist interpretation of quantifiers does not make any sense. Are we thereby committed to the actualist view of quantifiers? No, we are not. What follows is merely that each quantifier must range over the denizens of some one possible world. This is in fact the intended
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interpretation of the quantifiers of quantified modal logic. . . . Existence as expressed by the existential quantifier is not restricted to actual existence, but it is always restricted to some one possible world. (Hintikka, 1995, p. 43) Panenmentalism happily accepts a view that existential quantifiers should not be restricted to actual reality alone. Yet the entire idea of possible worlds is quite non-panenmentalist. If in the entire range of pure possibilities the possibility everybody’s lover exists, the possibility nobody’s beloved does not exist, unless we admit possible contradictions in that realm (but not in the panenmentalist theory itself). We have to admit them into one and the same realm, because the only restriction upon it is that no two pure possibilities can be identical. Hintikka, in contrast, would say that these two possibilities exist in different possible worlds, or under different scenarios, each of which is under different quantifying. Under logical restrictions or conditions, these two possibilities cannot coexist. Yet such restrictions do not construct a separate possible world. No separate world exists, for any pure possibility in the entire realm of possibilities necessarily relates to all the others. Actual reality also does not make a separate world; on the contrary, it is a confined or conditioned part within the realm of pure possibilities. The same holds for the known logical parts (or “realms”) of pure possibilities. Each of these parts is by no means separate from the others or from the entire realm. Hintikka alternatively uses “different scenarios” and “possible worlds” (ibid.). Panenmentalism avoids the Rashomon conundrum (Gilead, 2003, pp. 179–182) on the grounds of the non-separation as well as inter-relationality of pure possibilities and actualities. Different scenarios of the same actuality are possible. But we are capable of distinguishing between each of the scenarios as well as between any of them and the actual situation in question. We identify that situation and know for sure that the different scenarios describe, relate, and refer to one and the same actual situation. We identify the actual situation, because we have access of relationality to its (pure) possibilityidentity, existing independently of the actualities and the scenarios as well. No such scenario stipulates, constructs, or discovers a possible world; and the identity or pure possibility of the actual situation or actuality is independent of the scenarios or of any description, not vice versa. Despite all the epistemic difficulties involved, we are quite sure that the different scenarios or “narratives” are about one and the same actual situation or actuality. We are also capable of examining what of the possibility-identity has been actualized and what not. We know how to relate the different scenarios one to the other, to the possibility-identity of the actuality, and to it alone as an actuality. Each aspect of the relevant relationality does not lead to separation, let alone to separate possible worlds.
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The panenmentalist non-separation does not lead to non-distinctness. On the contrary, it necessitates distinctness because of the relationality, universal and particular, that each pure possibility, as a distinct being, necessarily bears. Each pure possibility is distinct from and, thus, necessarily relates to any other pure possibility. Contradictions, as excluding each other, necessarily relate one to the other. In the entire realm of pure possibilities, which does not exclude contradicting possibilities, everybody’s lover and nobody’s beloved are possibilities (or possible existents), each of which is differently referred. We cannot logically, consistently refer to both of them. Yet we can refer to both of them in the entire realm of pure possibilities, which is not restricted to logical possibilities alone and which, thus, bears contradictions. In the panenmentalist realm as a whole, as a metaphysical realm, contradictions are possibilities. An unqualified possibilist interpretation of quantifiers makes sense, because panenmentalism qualifies its interpretation as to contradictions by the only metaphysical restriction upon pure possibilities, namely, that no two pure possibilities can be identical. This qualification is sufficient for a panenmentalist-possibilist interpretation of quantifiers. Excluding some possibilities, such as thinking machines (Gilead, 1999, pp. 137–158), panenmentalism does not construct, stipulate, or discover a possible or actual world in which such machines cannot exist. With panenmentalist or other principles (or through their lens), such possibilities are excluded but this does not mean that they are excluded from the realm of pure possibilities as a whole. They are panenmentalistically impossible, not metaphysically absolutely impossible. Panenmentalism is one of many possible metaphysics. Hintikka possibilist quantification is over possible individuals with regard to possible worlds. He argues that we can individuate anything only by drawing “world lines” in functional terms, expressing “logical rather than causal or temporal relationships” (Hintikka, 1975, p. 33). I do not accept the first part of the sentence but willingly endorse its second part. Hintikka states that those world lines “come about . . . only through comparisons between . . . possible worlds. For this reason, we cannot start from individuals. We can only arrive at them as outcomes of transworld comparisons” (ibid.). On panenmentalist grounds, we can start from individual (particular or singular) pure possibilities-identities, each of which is necessarily different from any other. On the basis of such difference alone, each pure possibilityidentity necessarily relates to all the others. And thus, contrary to Hintikka, “all the possible individuals … can eventually be pooled into one big happy domain” (ibid., p. 27) regardless or independently of any possible world. The pure possibility-identity of any entity (“item”) fixes or determines all the possibilities that are open to this being, the possibilities in which it maintains its identity. No book, for instance, can turn out to be a poached egg, for the possibility-identity of any book is, regardless of any possible world, different
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from the possibility-identity of any poached egg. Likewise, the identity of any pure possibility or actuality does not require transworld or crossworld comparisons. I do not endorse Hintikka’s primacy of individuating functions, which have to do with comparing possible worlds, over possible individuals (ibid., p. 34). Identity is necessarily prior to any comparison between possibilities or possible world. The prior existence is of pure possibilitiesidentities whose relationality comes second. Hintikka is suspicious of “any facile postulation of a single unified domain of possible individuals, independent of people’s beliefs and other propositional attitudes” (ibid., p. 38). He considers such a domain “a completely unrealistic abstraction” (ibid.). In contrast, panenmentalism refers to the total mental domain that comprises all pure possibilities as existents, necessarily relating one to all the others. Each pure possibility and this domain as a whole are subject to quantification regardless of the notions of possible worlds, sets, classes, and their likes. Moreover, any of the individual pure possibilities (or merely possible individuals) and their realm as a whole are not abstracted, stipulated, assumed, or postulated but discoverable. Each pure possibility is a possibility-identity, realistically existing independently of any spatiotemporality, causality, or actuality. All mental pure possibilities exist independently also of anything psychical, such as our beliefs, any “propositional attitude,” and their likes. What could be more realistic and by no means an abstraction than the total realm of pure possibilities (the entire “panenmentalist realm”)? We have to challenge Quine’s and other actualists’ rejection of possibilia and possibilist quantification alike in a different way from Hintikka’s, assuming that the notion of a possible individual is “dubious” (ibid., p. 95). Quine’s attacks on possibilist quantification and identity have been cogently defeated on different grounds (for instance, Timothy Williamson’s view discussed in Section 1.6 below). Challenging Quine, Dana Scott distinguishes between virtual objects, which are stipulated, and possible individuals, which are not. Hence, quantification “should only be over the possible individuals” not over virtual entities (Scott, 1970, p. 147; for quantification over actual, virtual, and possible individuals see Lambert and Van Frassen, 1970, especially p. 14). Note that Scott distinguishes between “individual concepts” and “possible individuals” (ibid., pp. 165 and 168), which appears to indicate some realism about possible individuals, not a conceptualism or possibilism de dicto about them (contrary to Nicholas Rescher’s view, discussed in Section 1.6 below). Endorsing the primitive reality of possible individuals instead of the primitiveness of possible worlds, panenmentalism challenges Quine’s and other actualists’ views of identity and the rejection of quantification over possible individuals differently from Scott, Hintikka, and others.
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Numbers are indispensable for counting and quantification. Regardless of sets, classes, and the like, numbers are pure possibilities and their relationality, consisting primarily of intrinsically similarity (see Section 3.1 below). As pure possibilities, numbers are individual or concrete and not abstract. Second, with no individual pure possibilities-identities in mind, we could not identify and recognize the actualities over which we would intend to quantify. All “how many” questions require individual pure possibilities and their relationality for identification, counting, and quantifying. In sum, possibilist quantification renders actual quantification possible, not the other way round. Panenmentalism has all it needs to identify, quantify over, refer, count, or describe any individual on the grounds of individual pure possibilities (as our ontological primitives) and their relationality or actualization. Each pure possibility-identity comprises all the pure possibilities of modifications, conditioning, and restricting that an individual may undergo and still maintain its identity, and no two pure possibilities-identities can be identical. Each pure possibility is identical with itself alone. Following Frege, Hintikka is right in claiming that “there is more to meaning than reference” (Hintikka, 1975, p. 115) and that to refer we need also “meaning entities” (ibid., p. 114) or “intensional entities” (“senses”) which require considering also “unrealized [nonactual] states of affairs” (ibid., p. 115). As panenmentalism considers them, all these are merely pure possibilities (possible individuals) and their universal relationality, which does not require any possible-worlds semantics or theory. From my first panenmentalist book (Gilead, 1999) on, I have emphasized that meanings are individual pure possibilities whose significance consists of their relationality. Relating to the total realm of pure possibilities as a whole, the relationality of any pure possibility is universal. Such universal relationality does not require any possible world. The same holds for what Hintikka entitles “coreferentiality” (Hintikka, 1975, pp. 161–163). Instead of acknowledging that “in modal contexts more than one possible world is inevitably at issue” (ibid., p. 162), the panenmentalist de re modality definitely acknowledges that in modal contexts more than one pure possibility is inevitably at issue. Instead of speaking “meaningfully of coreferentiality . . . relative to the specification of some particular possible world or class of possible worlds” (ibid.), panenmentalism is entitled to speak quite meaningfully of some pure possibilities and their particular or universal relationality (namely, to the realm of pure possibilities as a whole). By the same token, instead of a person’s “doxastic alternatives to the world” (ibid.), panenmentalism refers to the pure possibilities concerning a person’s beliefs. Panenmentalism is thus free from the “looseness of ‘mental pictures’ and other similar largely metaphorical
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paraphernalia” (ibid.) at least as much as a proper possible-worlds semantics is free of them. On the basis of possible-worlds semantics, Hintikka clarifies how the sentence “John wants to catch a fish and eat it for supper” (ibid., p. 162) does make clear sense, “even when John is not assumed to be angling for any particular piece of seafood” (ibid., p. 163). Yet “it” in this sentence does not refer to any actual fish, but it refers to an individual pure possibility of fish (or a possible fish). Hintikka’s much more complicated and problematic solution is as follows: “[I]n each possible world compatible with John’s wants he catches a fish and eats that fish for supper” (ibid.). The obscure, complicated, and problematic notion of possible worlds is quite dispensable at this point too. For the pure possibility of “that fish” obviously exists in the realm of pure possibilities, and John refers to it as a mental possibility, not as an actual one. If no actualization has been achieved, the coreferability is still there, and “it” transparently corefers to “a fish.” The “a fish” in question refers to a possible fish, which is coreferable (by “it). But has John a particular fish in mind? Yes, whenever he chooses a particular fish instead of another. He would not take any kind of fish or any fish of a particular kind. After all, he wants to eat a fish, and if a particular fish of any kind were not considered edible or palatable enough for him (as John’s choice), he would not eat it but take it off the hook and throw it back into the water. If any edible or palatable fish will do, John still wants to eat a particular fish, however intrinsically similar it may be to other fish. Think of another example: If John were to draw a triangle on the board, such a triangle would be intrinsically similar to any other triangle yet, on the basis of the panenmentalist nominalism or possibilism de re, it would be a particular pure possibility. In any event, each chosen possibility of a fish should be compatible with John’s want, and no possible world is required for this purpose. Were John actually to catch a fish, the reference and the coreferentiality in question would be about the same pure possibility, which happens to be actual, an actual particular fish. Quantifying over pure possibilities, the panenmentalist referential reading or statement de re may consider several pure possibilities, instead of possible worlds, over and above the actual possibility, provided that they were open to John’s choice. John might have to choose from among several pure possibilities (that particular possible fish, this particular possible fish, or . . . ). This draws a picture that is entirely different from Hintikka’s (ibid., pp. 163–164). In any case, were such or other pure possibilities “outlandish entities,” as Quine believed, so would have been any mental or psychical reality as well as any of our choices. Employing spatiotemporally or actually existential quantifiers and possibly existential quantifiers, panenmentalism suggests a solution to the problem that bothered Meinong, Meinongians, Frege, Russell, and Quine. On
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the grounds of the distinction between possible and actual existence, panenmentalism has no difficulties with propositions such as “Odysseus does not exist,” “no golden mountain exists,” and the like. As pure possibilities, Odysseus and golden mountains do exist, whereas as actualities, they do not exist. As pure possibilities, they are as referable, discoverable, subject to predication, and describable as actualities are. For pure possibilities exist as much as actualities do, although in a different sense of existence. Against that background, consider what any panenmentalist would say about the following Meinongian view, as Terence Parsons phrases it: [S]ince you are thinking about a gold mountain, there is a gold mountain that you are thinking about, and it is gold, and is a mountain, and thus there are gold mountains, though not gold mountains that exist. If you are not shy about admitting nonexistent objects, this remains a viable option. (Parsons, 1995, p. 147) Since panenmentalism is quite against admitting nonexistent objects, we admit purely possible existents instead. Such possible objects exist, although not as actualities. As pure possibilities, gold mountains exist, they are possibly gold and they are possibly mountains. That is, the possible predicates “golden” and “being a mountain” are necessarily and truly attributed to these pure possibilities. As pure possibilities, they are not actually made of gold and they are not actual, physical mountains. Note that by “predicate” I have no set in mind; neither do I need any conception of possible worlds to use this term. A predicate, such as golden or being a mountain, is the relationality that some pure possibilities maintain each to the other, whereas other pure possibilities do not relate in this specific way one to the other. Panenmentalism is nominalistic through and through. Consider another example: “Some unicorn is possibly sitting here” (Parsons, 1995, p. 154), distinguishing between “things actually sitting here” and “things possibly sitting here” (ibid., p. 153). Parsons explicitly mentions “possible things that are unicorns (there are plenty of those)” (ibid., p. 154). Although “possibly,” according to Parsons, “ampliates” things by adding possible things to the actual ones, Parsons, like Meinong and the Meinongians, never mentions “existents” in this context. He mentions “conceivable things” and “possible things” but no possible existents. It becomes clearer that Parsons’s examples do not admit pure possibilities, let alone purely possible existents, for his theory of ampliation, presupposing an ontology like Meinong’s in several respects, “needs there to be things that are not actual, and even things that are not possible” (ibid.). At least implicitly, Parsons considers existence as actual: “Meinong made much of what he called the ‘prejudice in favor of the actual,’ the tendency to assume that in ordinary
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discourse we are discussing existing things” (ibid., p. 155). Parsons’s theory of ampliation shares this with Meinong’s view. As for the difficulties it must face concerning nonexistent, even impossible, objects (ibid., pp. 155–160), my response is as follows: Unlike such objects, you may seek, discover, or find out pure possibilities, such as eka-elements, but, obviously, you cannot own, borrow, loan, give, or take pure possibilities, for they are not actualities. This does not render pure possibilities less real. No real being or existent is good for all purposes; pure possibilities are real and good enough for all our psychical or mental purposes yet they cannot substitute any actuality. We seek them and may find them out by means of our imagination, calculation, conception, and the like but we cannot own, give, or take them. As pure possibilities, eka-elements exist, necessarily having their entire possible chemical traits, none of which is known as actual. Whenever the case turns out that these elements are observed as actual, their traits too are discovered as actual. Still, in such cases, nothing in their identitiespossibilities, including in their possible-necessary traits, has changed. As purely possible, they are as referable as their (possible) actualities. You are not entitled to say that eka-elements do not exist. Through the “frame” or lens of the periodic table we must realize that they necessarily, systematically exist. All you are entitled to say about their existence is that it is possible but not actual, at least not yet. The table cannot refer to or confirm such an actual existence, even wherever proper elements are mentioned. Only experience or observation can provide us with such reference or confirmation. 5. Why Are Pure Possibilities Necessary? A common assumption is that possibility and contingency are identical. Spinoza, for instance, does not distinguish at first between the two but only when needed later in the Ethics (compare 1p33s1 to 4def4). No wonder that, as an actualist, Spinoza holds to this identity of the possible and the contingent. According to the Spinozistic determinism, everything is necessary; contingency is just a matter of our ignorance of this or that sort. Thus, in such a view, contingency has no ontological status but only an epistemic or epistemological one. Not only Spinoza but many other thinkers and philosophers, actualist or not, strongly believe that necessity and possibility exclude one the other. Panenmentalism challenges all of them by pointing out a comprehensive viewpoint according to which the purely possible and the necessary go handin-hand, whereas contingency is by no means a matter of pure possibilities but only of the actual, and the actual is the physical. The necessity about pure possibilities has to do primarily with the following grounds: No pure possibility could have been missing from the
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purely mental-possible realm, each pure possibility is necessarily different from all the others, and each such possibility necessarily relates to all the others. All that is necessary about logic, mathematics, musical scales, and many other a priori patterns, relationships, or structures stems from pure possibilities and their relationality alone. If some necessity pertains to any actuality, this necessity necessarily stems from the purely possible alone, that is, it is an actualization of what is necessary about the identity of an actuality or about the relationality of that identity, which is nothing but pure possibility. Any actualization brings with it contingency. First, each actualization is spatiotemporally circumstantial and partial, as it is about only a part of the pure possibility-identity that the circumstances actualize. Thus, a thing may undergo a lot of changes and still retain its identity, just because its actualization cannot exhaust all that is in its pure identity-possibility. Second, actualization as such is contingent, because nothing exists that necessitates it. It could equally happen and not happen, whereas nothing purely possible could be otherwise. As atemporal, no pure possibility is changeable, whereas any actuality or actualization is changeable. Contrary to actualities, pure possibilities are ingenerable and indestructible. Exempt from changeability and entirely independent of actualization, the existence of pure possibilities including their inter-relationlaity is necessary. No two pure possibilities can be identical, which is a necessary trait of pure possibilities, and, thus, the relationality of each pure possibility to all the others, resting on the individuality, particularity, or singularity of each one of them, must be necessary too. Hence, everything about pure possibilities is necessary, namely, their existence, identity, individuality, particularity, or singularity (when it comes to psychical possibilities) as well as their relationality to each other— all are strictly necessary. In the realm of the psychical, which is a special realm in the purely possible-mental, nothing takes place by chance, randomly, or accidentally (see Section 3.6 below). Everything psychical is meaningful, significant, and, in a word, necessary, whereas everything physical, as actual, must be contingent. In sum, under panenmentalism, pure possibilities and all about them is a matter of necessity, whereas contingency is inescapably a matter of any actualization or actuality. Were the readers to ask me—“Why does something actual exist instead of nothing actual?”—I would answer that this fact is a sheer contingency, which is the fate of any actuality, whereas necessity has to do with pure possibilities, or with the purely mental, alone.
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6. How Many Pure Possibilities Exist? Although no person is capable of answering that question, it does not yet mean that it endangers or challenges the panenmentalist realism about pure possibilities (note that by “realism” I definitely do not mean “actualism”). Neither does it endanger or challenge other kinds of possibilist realism, notwithstanding Nicholas Rescher’s critique (Rescher, 1999; 2003a; and 2003b). To show that “the currently fashionable realism of possible worlds is deeply problematic and needs to be replaced by a suitable—and ontologically more modest—version of conceptualism” (1999, p. 403), Rescher raises the question of how many possible worlds are to be identified, individuated, and counted (ibid.). Although panenmentalism does not adopt the conception of possible worlds, and although, independently of possible worlds realism (such as David Lewis), possibilism is not at all fashionable, Rescher’s challenging question still does not endanger realist possibilism of any kind at all (and unfortunately actualism is in philosophical vogue instead). Thus, I do not accept Rescher’s suggestion replacing a possibilism that is substantively oriented (de re) by one that is proportionately oriented (de dicto). As I showed, pure possibilities— particulars or singulars—enjoy a complete ontological status and are directly referable and adequately describable as well (Gilead, 2003, pp. 55–61 and 65– 70). Yet Rescher argues that ostensive confrontation as regards possibilia is lost and that the purely descriptive individuation of nonexistent (that is, nonactual) individuals is an “altogether impractical project” (Rescher, 1999, pp. 403 and 411). As I will argue below, contrary to Rescher, individuation is independent of description. Whether identification is description-dependent or not, is the individuation of possibilia an altogether impractical project? Ekaelements are sufficient to indicate overwhelming examples of the practicality of the individuation of possibilia. To ignore such examples means to commit the “eka-fallacy” (Gilead, 2003, pp. 65–70). As solid counterexamples to Rescher’s arguments, eka-elements make these arguments quite groundless. The phenomenon of predictable, yet nonactual, chemical elements enabled Mendeleev and others to fully identify and to exhaustively describe possible, yet actually missing, chemical elements. Their places in the periodic table could or can, yet must not, be occupied by actual elements. Even today, chemists predict the existence of quite many possible chemical elements that so far lack evidence of actual existence. The list of eka-elements is not exhausted and it is still open, yet the identification and the description of any eka-element are quite practical, possibly useful, heuristic, and fully satisfy all we need from identification and description. The description under consideration is by no means schematic, and to consider it as a “mere scenario” is wrong, for it provides all the needed chemical details. This kind of
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possibilism thus obviously gains a scientific standing and yet is entirely incompatible with Rescher’s critique as above. Even when the predictability of any eka-element is rendered actual, the identity, reference, and description of such an element are entirely independent of any actualization. Having been found actual, the chemical properties of the element do not really change; the only change is of the name of the element. All eka-elements thus meet all the requirements needed for possibilities to be pure. Eka-elements are pure chemical particular possibilities, each of which has its particular place in the periodic table, however open and expandable (owing to that openness or expandability, radioactive elements, unknown at Mendeleev’s time, are arranged in rows later added to the table). This open nature of the table is entirely compatible with that of the realm of pure possibilities. In contrast, the particular, individual status of any eka-element as a pure possibility is incompatible with Rescher’s view about the ontological furniture of the world, possible or actual (ibid., p. 408). Eka-elements, particular fictions, or pure possibilities in general are not abstract objects, mere schemata for possible individuals, or mere thought-instruments (to borrow from ibid.). They can provide some ontological furniture, for instance, in chemistry as a realist scientific theory. What they cannot provide is the actual ontological furniture, which only experience and observation can provide. In other words, the actual ontological furniture is empirically acquirable alone. Yet other, no less real, ontological furniture exists, consisting of pure possibilities. As I see it, each ekaelement satisfies the condition that Rescher puts to particularity, namely, particularity demands identification (ibid., p. 409). Any eka-element qualifies as an identified particular and not as a general schema for an element. Hence, arguing that “hypotheses enable individuals to be discussed in the abstract but not to be identified in the concrete” (ibid.), Rescher commits what I have entitled “the eka-fallacy.” Suppose that we accepted Rescher’s stance according to which only a description that is saturated and complete could possibly manage to specify or individuate a merely possible particular individual. For any genuinely particular individual must be property-decisive, and a nonexistent possible individual can obtain this decisiveness only through the route of descriptive saturation. (Rescher, 2003a, p. 378) Eka-elements precisely meet even such a demand, for their decisive physical and chemical traits or properties are adequately provided to secure identification and endlessly recurrent re-identification as well. If the demand from any possible individual “cannot be vague or schematic but must issue a committal yea or nay with respect to every property whatever” (ibid.), each eka-element has met that demand perfectly. We have all the descriptive saturation we need from the
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periodic table to secure perfect identification of an element as purely possible or actual alike. At least from the epistemological viewpoint, such identification should not raise real problems. After all, identification and re-identification are epistemological issues. As for the ontological-metaphysical background, chemical elements, as taking part in the periodic table, are chemical pure possibilities, like notes in a musical scale, which are independent of actualization. If you assume that the periodic table is merely a picture or representation of the actual chemical reality, you are missing the whole point, especially as far as eka-elements are concerned. Like any natural science, chemistry has its theoretical basis, which consists of pure possibilities and their relationality. As much as the mathematical foundations of any natural science are pure possibilities and not actualities, so are the chemical possibilities arranged in the periodic order. The possibilitiesidentities and their relationality are completely there, in the table. As such, they are existents, they are obviously real, by no means Rescher’s nonexistents. They are not just “verbally or mentally intended referents” but real referents. They are not merely “de dicto” possibilia, but possibilia de re. Our thought and language do not invent or create them but capture them as discoveries of chemical pure possibilities. No eka-element has been invented or created; it has been merely discovered as a pure possibility. We are not entitled to compare any eka-element to, for instance, the philosopher’s stone, which is a “putative item” or a “suppositional being . . . the [linguistically engendered] artifact of an interpersonally projected supposition or assumption,” “a pseudo-object that is no object at all” (ibid., p. 379). The metaphysical-ontological status of any chemical element as a particular, concrete pure possibility is well established. These pure possibilities make a part of the ontological furniture of the world of chemistry as a scientific theory. Whether the chemical elements in the periodic table are merely eka-elements or actual elements, their well-established identification is beyond doubt. At least for the time being, their chemical and physical description is complete and saturated enough, quite sufficient for all the theoretical and practical needs of chemistry as a scientific theory and absolutely sufficient for any chemical identification. The qualifications “enough” and “for the time being” are needed because the future of chemistry, like that of any other science, is beyond our present knowledge. Yet at this point a serious, you might say unsolvable, problem arises for panenmentalism. Time and again, I exclude the possibility of multiple actualization of any pure possibility-identity. But any chemical element (eka or not) has innumerable actualities or “tokens.” Is an eka-element a pure possibility singly actualizable? The case appears to be just the contrary and, if so, we cannot meet Rescher’s demand of uniqueness: “[W]here only a single unique realization is possible” (1999, p. 413; under panenmentalism, it should be “unique actualization”). To solve this problem, we should distinguish between the
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particular chemical possibility-identity of an element (eka or not) and the chemical name, as a part of the language or terms of chemistry. Name and identity are by no means identical. Any name, as taking part in a language, is general, as no language is private. As the proper name “James” is general, serving as a common name for all persons named “James,” so Germanium is the common name of all existing atoms or pieces of Germanium, each of which has a single, unique possibility-identity. Under panenmentalist nominalism, every genus, species, kind, or type is merely a name, which is general, or a universal relationality of similar possibilities. Thus, the element of Germanium in the periodic table serves in a double meaning or significance: As a name and as an assemblage of possibilities-identities sharing an intrinsic similarity that all the atoms of Germanium have. Each actual atom of Germanium shares the same name with any other atom of Germanium, each of which has an exclusive pure possibility-identity. The periodic table secures for each of these pure possibilities-identities the common locus, serving as a general name, in the table. To recognize a piece of matter as Germanium is to entitle it with a general name, shared by all the Germanium atoms, but the identification, like any identification, is particular: This piece of matter, here and now, is a piece of Germanium. As for eka-elements, the distinction between name and possibility-identity is even simpler or more manifest. As long as chemists use eka-elements in the periodic table, no evidence appears to the actual existence of any of these elements, and only a single representative possibility-identity in each case of those eka-elements has to be referred to (or mentioned in the table), whereas the name in each case is general (even though no single actual case is known yet). Thus, prior to the actual discovery of Germanium, its pure possibility-identity was named as eka-silicium. The name, like any name, was general, yet the possibility-identity mentioned was single, indicating the locus of each identitypossibility of each atom of Germanium, all of which are intrinsically similar. And this locus has been secured, knowingly or unknowingly, since the advent of Mendeleev’s periodic table. In this way, each pure possibility-identity has only “a single unique” actualization (“realization” in Rescher’s wrong, actualist term). The pure possibility-identity of Germanium, known before its actual discovery by the name “eka-silicium,” satisfies all that Rescher demands of identification or individuation, although, under that name, it is merely a pure possibility! In any event, no eka-element can be considered abstractly general, for it could not be abstracted from anything actual. Finally, no eka-element can be considered ens rationis, a mere thoughtobject or thought-entity, such as the equator or the North Pole (which Rescher mentions on p. 414). Since the reality of each eka-element is necessitated by the periodic law, which excludes possible vacancies or gaps in the periodic order or system, no eka-element is treated as ens rationis, which is the ontological standing of sheer fictions or mere conventions, none of which is treated as real or
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truthful (though possibly useful). In contrast, the reality, necessity, and truthfulness of each eka-element are indubitable. Can the actualist argue against my counterexample of eka-elements that (1) eka-elements are merely actual unexemplified attributes, sets, or types? Or (2) that they are merely “actual objects but abstract, outside space and time”? The first possibility follows Roderick Chisholm’s actualism, according to which ontology is confined to actual individuals and attributes, some of which are exemplified, others are not (as represented by James Tomberlin, 2001, p. 422). The second possibility follows Michael Devitt’s portrayal of actualism (2001). As is well known, actualists can afford themselves possible sets, worlds, types, properties, and the like without contradicting themselves. They think that many ways exist in which the actual world might have been, and the total ways—world-states—are entitled “possible worlds.” Thus, mentioning Robert Stalnaker’s actualism, Alan McMichael writes, There are many “ways the world might have been” or “world-states,” and they are what we mean by the term “possible worlds.” These world-states are abstract entities distinct from this concrete universe. We might think of them as specially determinate properties. One of the world-states is actual in the sense that it is exemplified by our concrete world. This world state is “the way the world is.” None of the other world-states is exemplified. . . . [I]n constructing worlds as a kind of property, the actuality-nonactuality distinction collapses into the exemplificationnonexemplification distinction. (McMichael, 1983, pp. 50–51) If “been exemplified” or “been instantiated” replaces “actual,” and if “property” replaces “possible state” (both are abstract), no eka-element has any room within such actualist frame of mind. The same holds for Alvin Platinga’s “states-of-affairs,” whether they obtain or not, that are abstract. As I see them, eka-elements are not types, sets, properties, and the like; nor are they abstract. They are neither unobtained states-of-affairs and they need no exemplification or instantiation, for they are “instances” or “examples” enough. As far as their place in the periodic table is secured, they obtain. All they still await is actualization, rendering pure possibilities into actualities. Actualization has nothing of exemplification, instantiation, or obtaining in it. Each eka-element is a token enough. Eka-elements are by all means chemical elements. As long as they are eka, no chemist can carry out experiments with them, for they are not actual, but this is all the difference between them and actual elements. I liken eka-elements to geometrical figures or numbers, all of which are concrete or individual and not abstract. A triangle, for instance, is not a set of
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triangles, neither is it a property of geometrical figures nor of geometrical space. Each triangle is an individual that has an intrinsic similarity with all other triangles, each of which is a concrete being, an individual pure possibility. “Intrinsic similarity” means that what is valid for one triangle is valid for all of them. Mathematical proofs gain much benefit from intrinsic similarity. No abstraction is involved with numbers or geometrical figures, for they do not supervene on any actual beings or reality. They are not abstractions from actualities whatsoever. Unlike abstractions, they are entirely independent of any actuality. Were numbers or geometrical figures ways of what actual reality is, they would have been actuals. In this case, they must have been spatiotemporally and causally conditioned, like any actuality. Were eka-elements not pure possibilities but actualities, they could not have been abstract objects outside space and time, for no actuality can be outside space and time. After all, what is actuality about if not a spatiotemporal and causal entity? What does it mean to be actual outside of, or without, spatiotemporality and causality? “Actual existence without space and time” does not make sense at all. The same holds for actual unexemplified properties. Such properties must be abstract but, as such, they must supervene or depend on existing individual actualities; otherwise it would be senseless to call them “properties” or “attributes” at all. In any case, the actualists have still to prove that only individual actualities and their properties, sets, types, and the like exist. They are not entitled to assume such existence to exhaust all that exists; they have to prove it. Yet eka-elements serve as an overwhelming counterexample to any of their arguments. If no actual “instance” or “example” of an eka-element (below I will argue that such terminology is definitely inaccurate) actually existed, its place in the periodic table would still have been absolutely secured, for its place in it is of a pure possibility, which is independent of actual reality as a whole. Equally, mathematical entities are pure possibilities, existing independently of any actual reality. Mathematical objects, like eka-elements, are thus not actualities but pure possibilities. Euclidean geometry would have existed even if no actual instance of it existed. The truth, validity, meaning, significance, and identity of geometrical entities are independent of any actuality. The same holds for eka-elements. In the periodic table, each eka-element has its necessary locus. This locus signifies the intrinsic similarity of all the individual elements that has a secure common locus in the table. It is not a set, an attribute, or a type. Each ekaelement of this locus chemically or physically serves for all of them. Were properties, possible worlds, types, or sets actual, they should have been fully instantiated or exemplified. I do not see how an actualist can remain consistent while sustaining the view that actual properties, types, or sets could be unexemplified or uninstantiated. Although McMichael considers such an
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inconsistency merely a matter of appearance (1983, pp. 53–54), he shows that actualist possible worlds and states-of-affairs are not exempt from serious troubles, especially ontological. If a possible world W includes a general stateof-affairs S, say, that all lions can talk, but not any instance of S, no talking lion, merely possible or actual, such a state-of-affairs is merely a façon de parler (in Hebrew we have a special expression for it: ) or mere conception, which, in any case, makes no ontological difference. If no nonactual, pure possibility exists and if “there are possible worlds and possible states-of-affairs,” their status is never de re, only de dicto. All actualists and Rescher can live peacefully with such possibilities de dicto. But this is not interesting and metaphysically insignificant, for what interests us at this point is the ontological status of pure possibilities, not their status as concepts. As far as propositions or sentences are concerned, actualism does not contradict itself while assuming uninstantiated possible worlds and states-of-affairs, but once metaphysics or ontology is involved, the contradiction becomes apparent. Notwithstanding Russell’s warning to logicians, did Quine and other eminent actualists lose their robust sense of actuality while discussing possible worlds and their states-of-affairs? Are these not ontological monstrosities or, at best, mere conceptions without any ontological force or commitment? Is the actualist stance merely a formal calculus, a kind of formal logic, totally irrelevant to any robust sense of actuality, even of reality in general? How can extensional logic be possible at all with no actual instances for its variables? Only intensional or free logic can do without them. Contrary to such ontological monstrosities, each eka-element, like any pure possibility, could remain actually “unexemplified” or “uninstantiated,” and yet it would keep all it has as an individual pure possibility. Unlike actualist possible states-of-affairs, eka-elements have not only names (though temporary) but also definite complete descriptions, which no actualist possible state-of-affairs may have! Eka-elements are not properties, essential or otherwise. Relying upon the conception of individual essences or essential properties, actualists, such as Alvin Plantinga, discuss “unexemplified essences, essences which are not essences of anything. An essence is a property which could have been an essence of something” (McMichael, 1983, p. 56). Such is not the case of eka-elements. They are not essences or essential properties; they are pure possibilities-identities instead, bearing complete definite descriptions of chemical properties. For instance, no such an essence or property “being eka-boron,” which requires instantiation, exists. All we have are eka-elements as pure possibilities-identities, fully “instantiated,” better, “individualized.” No x or any other variable is thus needed. Accurately speaking, nothing should be exemplified or instantiated about eka-elements, for they are purely possible individuals, not attributes, properties, types, or sets, actual or purely possible. Against this background, perhaps the worse
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form of actualism is the “Platonic” or “realist” one, consisting of unexemplified or uninstantiated types or sets. Or, maybe, actualist unexemplified “essences” are even worse. Like actualist possible worlds, actualist possible essences are inventions, stipulations, or mere conceptions of our thinking, logical or otherwise, whereas eka-elements are discoveries by all means, as I have just argued. Mendeleev discovered some of these pure possibilities; he did not invent or stipulate them. They were not figments of his imagination, not a thought that chemical elements could be different. He discovered new chemical possibilities, like a mathematician or logician who discovers new mathematical or logical possibilities including the necessity about them. Mendeleev thus discovered not only those possibilities but also the necessity about them, especially, about their existence. The later discoveries of the actual elements have not diminished Mendeleev’s first discoveries of chemical pure possibilities-identities. Again, eka-elements posit an undeniable counterexample to any actualist stance. Could eka-elements be unexemplified haecceities? I will discuss haecceities in Section 1.15, showing that pure possibilities-identities are not haecceities. Haecceities are properties “which necessarily characterize single individuals but which are not reducible to general properties” (McMichael, 1983, p. 59). Are we entitled to say that the property of being identical with an eka-boron, for instance, is an unexemplified haecceity? No, for eka-boron needs no exemplification; it has the identity and all the qualities needed to exist as a real individual. Second, it is not a property of any kind. Third, McMichael convincingly proves that no unexemplified haecceities exist (ibid., p. 60). Haecceities are contingent existents, for instance “the set whose sole member is Socrates does not exist in worlds where Socrates does not exist” (ibid.). As contingent, haecceities could not have been pure possibilitiesidentities, which are necessary existents. Spelling out fully Plantinga’s haecceitism, McMichael realizes its striking resemblance to possibilist (!) theories, for “in place of every nonactual possible object, there stands an unexemplified haecceity” (ibid.). This is not compatible with what I will argue in Section 1.15, according to which no haecceity replaces pure possibilityidentity. McMichael argues that Plantinga’s haecceitist semantics is isomorphic to a version of Kripke’s semantics that is possibilist, “since we can identify within it a set of all possible objects, actual and nonactual” (ibid., pp. 60–61). If such is the case, Plantinga is having trouble with his actualist program (ibid., p. 61): “To introduce primitive properties each of which is specific to some nonactual object seems tantamount to acceptance of possibilism” (ibid.). Such kind of actualism must collapse. Panenmentalist possibilism has then much more to offer—pure possibilities-identities instead of the inescapably problematic haecceities. In any case, eka-elements are not
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haecceities, let alone unexemplified. I suggest eka-elements as fine examples of pure possibilities-identities, whereas Plantinga’s actualism has a serious problem to face: “Plantinga is in the unfortunate position of being unable to give a single example of an unexemplified essence” (ibid.). Philosophically, eka-elements are not constituents of any semantics but of ontology. Hence, another actualist “solution” for their nature must be also rejected. This alleged solution is to accept a possibilist semantics with no commitment to any possibilist ontology. On such a basis, McMichael suggests construing a semantics in which nonactual possible individuals—possibles— are included. Such semantics “may indeed prove adequate, in the sense of providing a correct distribution of truth-values, even though there really are no nonactual possibles” (ibid., p. 62). This is not a solution for the standing of eka-elements. First, for as I have just argued, they do not constitute a semantics for chemistry but an ontology for it. Second, pure possibilities play a role in panenmentalist semantics and axiology in a way that has a definite ontological commitment to the complete existence of nonactual possibles, of pure possibilities, which are real existents. McMichael is convinced that semantics of nonactual possibles that do not really exist involves unsolved difficulties. For instance, how the number of nonactual possibles and their interrelationship must be determined is not clear at all (ibid., p. 62). As we shall see shortly, Quine pointed out a similar possibilist difficulty. One of the greatest advantages of eka-elements as pure possibilities-identities is that their precise number as well as their complete relationships have been precisely determined in the periodic table. Unlike Quine’s conundrum as to the number of possible fat men in a particular doorway, the number of eka-elements, though pure possibilities, has been truly fixed. All the needed truth-conditions of eka-elements have been also provided in the periodic table. In sum, as far as eka-elements are concerned Quine and other actualists cannot avoid the ekafallacy. Eka-elements do not function in propositions, modal or not, about actual reality. Instead, they function in propositions concerning chemical pure possibilities-identities, which may be found actual. As such, eka-elements are referents enough. The truth or accuracy of the propositions about these referents is independent of the actual state of affairs. Only non-eka, “ordinary” elements function in propositions, modal or not, about actual reality. Ekaelements are not possible ways or possible states of affairs of the actual chemical reality. Only non-eka elements may serve as such states or ways. Thus, eka-elements serve as an overwhelming counterexample to any actualist arguments. All the elements that are non-eka but “ordinary” reflect the actual chemical reality. Not so any eka-element. The entire periodic table, as the systematic relationality of all chemical elements, is a system of pure possibilities-identities. The relationality of these pure possibilities-identities
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does not depend on actual chemical reality. On the contrary, this reality depends on the chemical pure possibilities in the systematic order and relationality that the table reveals. The actual chemical reality actualizes these order and relationality. The special status of the eka-elements accurately indicates the ontological standing of pure chemical possibilities-identities and their systematic relationality. As an atomistic actualist, Quine “construed worlds as certain settheoretic structures representing possible arrangements of physical particles” (McMichael, 1983, p. 52). Instead of worlds, let us consider the set-theoretical structure of all eka-elements. Assuming that Quine’s actualism allowed us actual chemical elements, not possible individual elements, are we entitled to say that such a structure represents possible arrangements of actual chemical elements? Not at all, for as long as they are eka-elements and not “ordinary” elements, we are not allowed to consider the structure to represent actual elements. The set of all eka-elements is thus not a possible arrangement of actual elements but a necessarily systematic arrangement of purely possible elements. In sum, the “set” of all eka-elements is by no means compatible with Quine’s or any other atomistic actualism including its possible-worlds mechanism. No eka-element is a possibility de dicto; each eka-element is a possibility de re. No eka-element is a function awaiting its variables to be instantiated. It is not the state of such variables either. Eka-elements, like numbers and geometrical figures, are not Platonic Ideas; they are not Aristotelian kinds either, for they are not forms awaiting some matter to make them concrete. Kinds, types, and the like have to do with intrinsic similarities, with unique relationality, not with the elements as such. Pure possibilities are not abstractions of anything actual. Instead, actualities are of their pure possibilities-identities. Actual chemical elements are of their pure possibilitiesidentities in the periodic order, not the other way round. Any element mentioned in the table, all the more any eka-element, is not a state, representation, picture, or image of something actual. Instead, actual elements are in the image of their pure possibilities-identities and they are the states, states of actualization, of the elements mentioned in the table. Actual chemical reality “imitates” the periodic order that the table reveals, not the other way round. Oscar Wilde’s happy idea of actual reality imitating artistic fictions (according to his insightful The Decay of Lying) finds perhaps some redemption in actual reality that imitates, embodies, portrays, or depicts what truthful fictions, as scientific theories, help us discover in the realm of pure possibilities. The periodic table is such a truthful fiction whose ingredients are pure possibilities. On the grounds mentioned above, no actualist, including Quine, can thus adequately explain how a natural science such as chemistry truly works, for
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this systematic science is not an abstraction from actual chemical reality. It is not merely a picture or representation of it. Even empiricism, having exempted itself of its dogmas, may lose all its advantages when it becomes actualist. Without pure possibilities-identities and their relationality, any empirical science would become almost (if not completely) blind, useless, and senseless. It could not even identify or recognize its objects, let alone detect the actualization or any of the instantiations of the laws concerning these objects or entities. Possibly, Francis Bacon, the father of modern empiricism, had a similar idea when he mentioned the right method of observation, which Kant accepted. This method does not allow the investigator of nature to let the observed facts lead or drag her behind. Instead, she should examine them like an interrogator, putting previously formulated questions to them. The questions or the test are not drawn from actual reality; they must have their origin in quite another realm. Call it the right method, Human Reason, the a priori, or the purely possible, the term makes no real difference provided that it does not mean any of the ways that the actual world might have been. Pure possibilities and their relationality are quite alive where knowledge and science prevail. The periodic table is one fine example among many others. Actualism does not hold water, whether you are a rationalist, an empiricist, or neither. So much for the “eka-fallacy” that actualism of any kind commits. For another fine example, consider Section 1.17 below, considering the predicta fallacy. Arguing that “the actual identification and introduction of … possibilia is effectively impossible” (ibid., p. 403), Rescher appears to commit another fallacy, especially that concerning the introduction of pure particular possibilities. I would like to expose that fallacy in light of some counterexamples taken from the writings of Jules Verne. In Paris in the Twentieth Century (written in 1863 but published in 1994), many years before the advent of some actual technologies, Verne introduced their exact pure possibilities without relying on anything actual (except for electricity, electromagneticism, the telegraph, Caselli’s “photographic telegraphy,” and calculating machines). He thus effectively introduced, identified, and described the pure possibilities of such technologies in ample detail, without relying upon actual devices, for no such devices actually existed at that time. In From the Earth to the Moon, Verne introduced another novel pure possibility—that of a moon rocket. He introduced, identified, and described that pure possibility quite independently of any related actuality. Such counterexamples, I believe, should be quite sufficient to render Rescher’s arguments against possibilism de re invalid or groundless. Many similar examples exist of the actual introduction and identification of pure possibilities, possibilia in Rescher’s term, which are practical and effective for many purposes.
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Could Rescher argue that such counterexamples are fictions? First, as truthful, fictions can do us a great service in searching for new discoveries, many of which are strictly scientific. Second, no matter how we discover novel possibilities, what is decisive at this point is that prior to their actual existence and quite independently of it or of anything actual, as pure possibilities alone, they were discovered by scientists, thinkers, writers, artists, and the like. Thus, Verne introduced, identified, and described a moon rocket or an airplane many years before its actual appearance. He referred then to such objects as pure possibilities, substantively oriented toward them. To characterize such a reference (or “orientation”) adequately, we need a possibilism de re, quite contrary to Rescher’s view. Another counterexample to Rescher’s view is the numerical series. Allegedly following Plato’s Republic VII, Rescher mistakenly considers numbers as abstract things (ibid., p. 404, note 1; cf. 2003a, p. 376: “abstracta such as numbers”). First, Plato does not consider Ideas, mathematical or metaphysical-dialectical, as abstract things, although they are exempt from processuality and from dispositional character. On the contrary, for Plato, sensible, tangible things are abstracta, which are copies or mere reflectionsparticipants of more real, substantial, concrete beingsIdeas. Sensible or actual things depend thus upon their Ideas, and not the other way round, which is the case of anything abstract. In Plato’s philosophy, numbers belong to the realm of the mathematical Ideas, which manifestly makes them non-abstract. Second, apart from Plato’s philosophy, as pure possibilities, numbers are not abstracta at all. Instead, they are concrete beings. To argue that numbers are abstracta, as if numbers were abstracted out of actual things, Rescher takes an actualist stance, despite his manifest efforts not to do so. Rescher leaves us one choice: “[A]ll or nothing: either a (distinctly problematic) metaphysical realism of self-subsistent possibilities or else a (somewhat unappealing) nominalism of mere verbal possibility talk, of possibility not as a matter of genuine fact but merely the product of an imaginative fictionalizing by linguistic manipulations” (ibid., p. 381). I entirely adopt the first alternative, yet my view is a nominalistic realism of individual pure possibilities in the following sense: What is general about pure possibilities is only their relationality. Our imagination is capable of utilizing different illuminating fictions (“truthful fictions”) to discover new pure possibilities, which are as real as actualities, although in a different sense. Truthful fictions thus do for us what no telescope can (to allude to Kripke’s metaphor mentioned ibid., p. 377, which Rescher mistakenly ascribes to David Lewis; cf. Kripke, 1980, p. 44: “‘Possible worlds’ are stipulated, not discovered by powerful telescopes”). Verne’s literary fictions make one kind of example, ekaelementsanother. Let us leave linguistic manipulations to rhetoricians, copywriters, propagandists, preachers, and the like. Owing to an insightful
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metaphysics, philosophers can be realistically possibilist without resignation to any linguistic manipulation. Since we regard numbers independently of any actualization or actual entities, and since their existence is exempt from any spatiotemporal and causal conditions, we should consider numbers as pure possibilities and not actual entities. This exemption commits us to consider numbers not as actual entities. Since any abstraction depends on actualities from which it is abstracted, numbers, as pure possibilities, which are independent of any actuality or actualization, are not abstractions. Although numbers are neither abstractions nor actualities, the identity, reference, and description of numbers are undoubtedly altogether practical. Though no end exists to the number of numbers, no philosopher is entitled to argue on the basis of this indisputable truth that numbers are not real enough. No realism about numbers is endangered by the argument that the question—How many numbers are there?—is unanswerable. Numbers can be considered quite real, although they are not actual entities but merely pure possibilities and although no end exists to their number. As pure possibilities, numbers are substantively oriented, practically referable, fully individuated, satisfactorily describable, and subsumable to ostensive confrontation. As opposed to Rescher’s view, possibilism concerning numbers is both quite meaningful and is committed to substantively oriented (de re) pure possibilities. No need exists to replace it with any version of conceptualism, let alone “more modest.” As for the more recent version of Rescher’s view (2003a and 2003b), the crucial problem that he confronts is what fixes the identity of an individual. Is this an actual factor or not? What appears to be Rescher’s answer is that it must be an actual factor that fixes the identity of an individual (2003a, p. 368). For instance, “the Hubert Humphrey we know and love” is an actual individual whose identity has been fixed or settled “irrespective of what worlds or what descriptions may be involved” (ibid., p. 367). Such is the case: Humphrey’s identity is independent of all these. The problem remains: What determines his identity? What secures its persistence or survival of contingencies and changes in his life? As I see it, the identity of any individual entity has not to do with possible worlds, transworld identity, or actual reality. We have to face the same problem whether we identify a pure possibility, say, an eka-element, or an actuality. To identify a member in a symmetrical mathematical group, which is altogether purely possible and not actual, or to identify the actuality of the subatomic particle omega-minus requires no recourse to anything actual. On the contrary: In both cases, the purely mathematical and the physical-actual, we rely upon theoretical criteria, which are purely mathematical or physical possibilities and not actualities. We have to face the same problem, the problem of reference and identification, while referring to a pure possibility and identifying it or to an
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actuality and identifying it. An ostensive identification is equally applicable to a pure possibility (“this member of this mathematical group”) and to actuality (“this is the trajectory of omega-minus” or “this is the mark of omega-minus”). Contrary to Rescher’s view (ibid., p. 374), spatiotemporal positioning is not a necessary condition for ostensive identification. We can ostensively identify pure possibilities, although they are exempt from any spatiotemporality and causality and are not actualities subject to experience, experiment, and observation. We can point to them as much as we can point to actualities. To identify or to refer to something, we can do without reference to actualities or to the actual world, just as we do while identifying numbers, members of mathematical groups, ekaelements, and so on. Equally to numbers, Rescher treats fictional objects as mere abstracta: “Fictional ‘objects’ are abstractions and not concrete possibilia” (1999, p. 408). Again, we are not entitled to consider Verne’s fictions as abstracta, for they are quite independent of actual reality and by no means abstracted from it. Second, they are not schematic but quite concrete possibilia within Verne’s texts. As for literary fictional characters, Rescher is also wrong. Hamlet, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, Swann, and many other fictional figures in classic literary works of art are by no means abstract objects, schemata, or pseudo-individuals. Such are the marks of literary failures or bad literature. Although we do not normally treat any of these characters as actual, we relate to them as concrete, as individual persons bearing the mark of singularity and genuineness. Their ontological status is no less than that of actual persons, although it is different. Fictions may affect us no less than actual beings, sometimes even more. They can be truthful or real, especially for us, and by no means as abstract but, on the contrary, as concrete and particular as much as possible. Moreover, the modal status of pure possibilities in general and fictional beings like those in particular is of necessity, whereas that of actualities is merely of contingency. A necessity pertains to truthful fictional figures in literary works of art, which no actual being can have. Necessity and Truthful Fictions is not merely the title of this book; it is a panenmentalist guiding principle. On quite different grounds, Aristotle’s Poetics (1451a25–b11, b34–35, and 1454a34–38) points out such a similar necessity in artistic tragedies, unlike actual history that has some contingency about it. Presumably, Rescher would not agree with this great Aristotelian idea or with the aforementioned panenmentalist principle. Rescher does not ignore meaningful discussions and reasoning of “merely possible states of affairs and scenarios” or stories (2003a, p. 380). Yet he leaves them to “abstract generality” alone (ibid.). Such is not the case as I see it. Literary masterpieces deal with concrete, particular pure possibilities as well as with the necessity about them. I will discuss below the necessity of pure possibilities in literary works of art. But the more problematical is just ahead of us. Rescher leaves “merely possible individuals and worlds viewed as particulars” without the “disposal of
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our latter-day modal realists” (ibid.). Instead, the infinite depth of the requisite details of such possibilities “confines them to the province of God alone” (ibid., p. 381). Thus, “only God can realize the idea of nonexistent particularism” (ibid.). Such is not the case at all. For many years, literary artists, theoretical scientists, mathematicians, and the like have discovered individual pure possibilities for the simple reason that no infinite depth of a complete description has been needed at all for this purpose. All they have needed has been their capability of discovering new individual pure possibilities, which leaves them to human beings who are imaginative enough, who are not enslaved to the actual. However confined or limited, the freedom from the actual is in our nature and at our disposal. Equally, the capability of relating to pure possibilities as existents, although obviously nonactual, is in our nature as psychical subjects. Possibilia are undoubtedly within the reach of our psychical and intersubjective or interpersonal life; such life consists of them. Would we confine all that exists to the actual alone, nothing would be left of psychical or intersubjective reality. As I see it, Rescher appears to miss the point of the identification of fictional characters. He asks whether the mysterious stranger in Chapter One of a novel is the same person whose corpse is mentioned in Chapter Five. They are one and the same person, he answers, “only if the author says sothere are no facts of the matter apart from those our novelist specifies. In the absence of such specification all that can be said about the issue of identity isabsolutely nothing” (ibid., p. 370). No actualities, no facts of the matter exist to provide us with an answer. Yet, and this is the missed point, if the novel is masterfully written, anything relevant is necessarily there and the relations between the specific details are as necessary as they are. Thus, even if the narrator says absolutely nothing about such identification, the reader, following the inner necessity of the novel, may find the answer by herself. Nothing is arbitrary about such identification, and no recourse to contingent actualities is needed to realize it. The reader may complete the missing parts for herself. Contrary to Rescher’s view, we are not to arbitrarily assume, postulate, or suppose pure possibilities as “objects that are projected in discussion” (ibid.). Although no facts of the matter determine the existence or reality of pure possibilities, they are not arbitrarily postulated or assumed. Just as in pure mathematics, in logic, in fine literature, nothing is arbitrary about pure possibilities. Contrary to Rescher’s view (ibid.), they have independent characteristics that we have to discover, as much as eka-elements have had. Panenmentalism attempts to show precisely this. An actualist fallacy is to assume that only given facts are discoverable and that “nonexistent [i.e., non-actual] possible . . . individuals are never given to us” (ibid., p. 376); pure possibilities are as discoverable and as given as actualities. They are given in a different way from the way that actualities or facts of the matter are given. For we discover actualities by empirical means, which cannot capture pure possibilities.
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In the final account, Rescher relies on the prominent manifesto of actualism, namely, Quine’s “On What There Is” (1999, p. 413, note 9; cf. Rescher, 2003a, p. 376). Undoubtedly, the following is an actualist view: “Thought and language move off in their way, and existence and reality go off on their way, and only where there is actual adequatio ad rem do they come together” (Rescher, 2003a, p. 379). Actual reality or existence does not exhaust reality as a whole. Thought and language have a special reality and they exist as much as actual reality exists, albeit in different senses. Thought exists psychically, subjectively, or privately; language exists intersubjectively or interpersonally; and actual reality exists objectively or publicly. To ascribe reality only to actual reality is what actualism is all about. To consider pure possibilities as nonexistents or to state “there is no way to identify and individuate nonexistent [nonactual] possible individuals” (ibid., p. 376) is a manifest actualism. To limit or reduce possibilism to conceptualism or conceivability is to limit and confine the endless realm of pure possibilities unnecessarily, which is contrary to the aim of panenmentalism—to save as many possibilities as possible. Possibilities, currently “impossibilities,” such as a round square and the 2 that is not a fraction, still exist beyond our practical conceivability. Yet, although we cannot conceive, at least yet, of such possibilities, which are incompatible with our current logico-mathematical knowledge and understanding, we can relate to them (see Section 1.8 below). I do not accept any restriction of the realm of pure possibilities to the limitations of our current conceivability or to those of our current logico-mathematical knowledge and understanding. For this reason, I do not accept the idea that metaphysical possibility is “less expansive than narrow logical possibility” (Gendler and Hawthorne, 2002, p. 5). Nor can I accept that conceivability or conception and possibility are coextensive or congruent. As I see it, conceivability, conception, imagination, employing fictions, and the like are the ways in which we discover pure possibilities, which are new for us. These possibilities are ontologically or metaphysically independent of the ways in which we discover them. The conceivable (or the like) and the possible are not identical. Rescher is right in arguing that the description of any real thing is in principle inexhaustible (ibid., p. 405), but this is all the more valid for pure possibilities. Dispositional characterization aside, the infinitude and inexhaustibility of the relationality of any pure possibility must be beyond any doubt. This especially holds for numbers. The open nature of the realm of pure possibilities as a whole is strictly compatible with infinitude and inexhaustibility concerning pure possibilities. As Rescher states, “Endlessly many true descriptive remarks can be made about any actual physical object” (ibid.), but this also holds for Verne’s moon rocket or airplanes. The readers of Verne’s fictions in the 19th century, long before the advent of actual rockets or
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airplanes, could endlessly imagine, truly describe, and refer to these purely possible objects. Each of such readers could imagine them under different conditions and circumstances, as much as the observers of the actual objects that Rescher mentions can do. In both cases, of pure possibilities and of actual things, no end exists to “the perspectives of consideration that we can bring to bear on things” (ibid.). The trouble is that claiming this, Rescher has only actual things in mind. Yet an endless variety of cognitive viewpoints equally holds for pure possibilities and actual things. Pure possibilities enjoy descriptive perspectives as much as actual things do. Hence, Rescher’s assumption “fictional particulars . . . are of finite cognitive depth” (ibid., p. 407) is groundless. Rescher’s precommitment to “description-transcending features,” essential to our conception of any real, concrete object (ibid., p. 406), is valid not only for actual objects but also for pure possibilities. Owing to the infinite relationality of any pure possibility, its description is never exhaustive. However fictional a figure in a novel may be, an infinity of ways of relationality to it exists and, hence, an infinity of possible descriptions. The more artistically rich and profound a novel, the more classic its nature, and we can realize more clearly that it is subject to more different interpretations or descriptions, the number of which has no end. Any fictional figure means or signifies different things for different readers. Novelties always wait for interpreting and describing the fictional as much as for the actual. Rescher claims identification on the basis of description and, given that no complete description of any individual is possiblegiven the descriptive incompleteness or inexhaustibilityhe concludes that we cannot distinguish any individual from all other possible or imaginable individuals (ibid., p. 410). As I see it, this is not the case. On panenmentalist grounds, we can distinguish any individual, as a pure possibility, from all the others independently of description or relationality. No matter how we conceive them, no two pure possibilities can be identical, which means that we easily distinguish between any one pure possibility and all the others. We need no description or relationality to distinguish any pure possibility, but the other way round. Distinguishing pure possibilities one from the other is the most primary act of the mind. Such is the mind’s accessibility to any pure possibility. The reference to pure possibilities is direct as much as the reference to actualities is, and both kinds of direct reference are independent of description (Gilead, 2003, pp. 56–58). Finally, since the panenmentalist identification of pure possibilities is independent of any world, possible or actual, I do not accept Rescher’s postulate that the “only feasible way to identify a possible individual would be with reference to the world to which it belongs” (ibid., p. 412). Panenmentalism does without the dispensable idea of possible worlds. Instead, I postulate the open realm of all pure possibilities, the panenmentalist realm.
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As a prior or primary mental act, identification of, or reference to, pure possibilities is also independent even of this realm. Direct reference—reference independent of description, interpretation, or narrative—is possible not only for actual referents but also, and even primarily, for purely possible referents, each of which is an individual, whether particular or singular. Ostension to pure possibilities is possible and practical like ostension to actualities, given that pure possibilities are discoverable as are actualities. As necessarily atemporal, pure possibilities are discoverable and, in the last account, cannot be created, contrived, or invented (contrary to Rescher, 2003a, p. 364). Each individual pure possibility exists independently of its discovery, descriptions, narratives, interpretations, or significance, but obviously not the other way round. We can point out pure possibilities, as much as actual referents, independently of any description. Literary works of fiction may begin with direct reference to, or with introduction of, pure possibilities that the reader can easily identify, understand, and follow. Anna Karenina begins with the following words: “Everything had gone wrong in the Oblonsky household. The wife had found out about her husband’s relationship with their former French governess and had announced that she could not go on living in the same house with him” (Tolstoy, 1969, p. 13). In these opening sentences, three direct referents are introduced and pointed out for the first time, all of which belong or relate to the same household: Oblonsky, his wife, and the governess. Given that the relations existing between the referents must not be confounded with descriptions of any sort, no description whatsoever is needed to refer to those fictional referents, which are not actualities but merely pure possibilities, entirely independent of their description and of any actualization as well. Equally direct or independent is the reference or the ostension at the very beginning of Kafka ‘s “Before the Law”: “Before the Law stands a doorkeeper on guard. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country who begs for admittance to the Law” (Kafka, 1961, p. 61). You can easily think of many other examples, not necessarily literary or fictional, including mathematical or theoretical examples. Writers can introduce, directly refer to, or point out fictional persons or objects and fix their names, independently of any description. Nothing needs to be schematic or hypothetical about these fictional figures; they can be entirely particular or concrete. Nothing of contingency is left about them in a genuinely literary piece of art. All we have to know about them is necessarily there. All other questions that have nothing to do with such a necessity should not be asked about these fictional objects. They are quite different from actualities, the nature of which is contingent, and the basis for answering questions about which is necessarily empirical.
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We can introduce or directly refer to fictional characters or objects, not only independently of any description but also of any narrative. Narrative may be the means to capture or discover these possibilities. Literary fictions serve us well in touring the land of pure possibilities, existing independently of our discovering them by narratives or by other means. Narrative, like description, may help us discover, capture, or find out pure possibilities, to which we may directly refer, on the grounds that each of them is an individual possibility, different from any other possibility in the entire realm of pure possibilities. Furthermore, you can directly refer to or point out any of your personal, private, subjective possibilities, with or without naming them. When naming them, you intersubjectively refer to your personal pure possibilities. In this case, you utilize language and other means of communication, which does not render this reference indirect, given that it remains strictly independent of any description, interpretation, or narrative and directly accessible to you. Asking, with Rescher, how many lumps of coal lay in Sherlock Holmes’s grate, we appear to have no fact-of-the-matter answer (1999, p. 407). Referring to the actual text only, the reader cannot answer such a question, for these lumps are not subject to his or her observation or experience. But this fact of uncountability does not render their reality less real, although they are real in a non-actual sense. As fictions, they are as truthful or real as actual things, otherwise they are senseless, meaningless, or insignificant for the readers. If Sherlock Holmes lights his pipe by means of a lump of coal, at least one such lump exists in his grate. If he had said, “No lump of coal remains in my grate, how can I light my pipe then?”—this would mean or signify something different for the reader, yet it would make sense as regards this text. As for property-decisiveness (ibid., p. 408), it depends on the significance or meanings that the particular item has in the text, in the interpretation, or under the description that the reader has in mind. Second, do no actual, concrete, or particular things exist that are not property-decisive? For instance, the spatiotemporal properties of subatomic particles are indecisive yet the existence of these particles is beyond any doubt. But the most significant flaw in this argument by Rescher is of not distinguishing between two kinds of description: That of actualities and that of pure possibilities. Description or interpretation of actualities decisively meets such questions that Rescher suggests, owing to the contingent nature of actualities. Because of this nature, we must rely upon experience and observation to answer such questions. The case of pure possibilities is quite different. Describing or interpreting them, we should relate to the necessity about them. In a good “piece” of pure possibilities, for instance, in a literary piece of art or in a scientific system such as the periodic table of elements, a necessity determines each detail that makes a difference. If the question about the number of the lumps of coal lying in Sherlock Holmes’s grate makes any
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sense as regards the text, if it has meaning and significance in the context of the story, we are entitled to ask it, and a decisive answer should be found in the text, given that it is artistically well made. If not, the question in this context is about an “external” contingent fact that is entirely irrelevant as regards this text, since it does not make a difference or bear significance in it, since no necessity about it can be found within this text. Necessity about pure possibilities is what I have entitled “determinism of pure possibilities” (Gilead, 2003, pp. 137–141, 146–147; and consider Sections 3.6 and 3.7 below), which means that nothing about such possibilities remains undeterminable or contingent, provided that we deal with their significantly relevant relationality. Within the context of a literary work of art or within a psychical reality each pure possibility and its relationality are necessarily determined. As a result, contrary to Rescher, no “ontology of schematically fuzzy, descriptively undetermined possible worlds and individuals” (ibid., p. 417) should have any room within such contexts. Within them, each pure possibility, which is a real individual (particular or singular), is necessary, determined, and descriptively decisive (contrary to Rescher’s “pseudo-individuals,” putative individuals, or fictional particulars). The panenmentalist view of fine stories or truthful fictions is quite different from Rescher’s or other actualists’ views of fictions and stories. Questions about actualities are quite different from questions about pure possibilities: The first deal with contingency and the second with necessity. As for practical uncountability, the number of all existing atoms, say, hydrogen atoms, is not practically countable, the same holds for the number of all existing electrons, subatomic particles, and the like. They are not practically countable as much as the lumps of coal in Holmes’s grate, although for different reasons. We cannot meaningfully discuss their numbers. Rescher himself mentions meaningful discussion concerning unanswerable questions about the number of human beings who lived thousands of years ago (ibid., p. 415). Though unanswerable in practice, such questions concern significant facts in the history of human evolution (ibid.). In contrast, the number of all existing atoms or that of the lumps of coal as above makes no significance, sense, or meaning, for it makes no difference as far as our knowledge or understanding is concerned. Such questions are as meaningless as left unresolved (contrary to Rescher’s idea of perfectly meaningful, yet unresolved, questions—ibid., p. 415). Like many other actualists (to begin with Quine), declared or in fact, Rescher has one kind of existence in mind—actual existence. Against this background, he wrongly employs the distinction between possibility de dicto (“it is possible for individuals”) and possibility de re (“there are possible individuals”). Discussing the proposition, “it is possible for spiders to weigh 80 lbs,” Rescher writes, “this does not mean that there is somewherein the
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‘realm of possibility’some there-actual spider that has achieved this weight” (ibid., 417). In the realm of possibilities no such actual spider exists, but a pure possibility of such a spider exists, since it is not identical with any other possibility, which is all we need to individuate it practicably. Unlike Rescher’s view, the concept of reality bears two sensesactual and possible. Equally, de re also bears two different sensesactual and possible, but Rescher, like any actualist, does not make such differences at all, on the contraryhe reduces them to the actualist alternative (the same holds for the distinction between the possible/contingent and the purely possible/necessary and for that of realization/actualization as well). As a pure possibility, such a spider exists de re, although obviously not in the actual sense. Possibilia are as real as actualities and, contrary to Rescher (ibid., p. 418), we have practicable ways of identifying or individuating particular pure possibilities, as long as they are not identical one with the other. Contrary to Rescher (ibid., p. 417), possible individuals are not “just like” actual individuals “in nature but merely different in content,” for pure possibilities are ontologically and epistemologically independent of actualities. The case of eka-elements demonstrates all this. Panenmentalism is absolutely entitled to commit itself to ontological realism of pure possibilities, possibilia, or possible beings, to possibilism de re, which Rescher explicitly excludes (ibid., p. 420). Panenmentalist possibilism is not conceptualism, which reduces possibility to conceivability. Pure possibilities are independent even of our conceivability of them. We discover them, not invent them. As far as pure possibilities are concerned, “invention” is a personal discovery. As a result, I do not accept Rescher’s de dicto possibilism or conceptualismthe “ontology” of conceptualizable possibilities (ibid.)for it reduces or limits possibilism to mere conceptualism. As I argued in Section 1.4, quantifiers should not be restricted to actual reality alone and to some possible world either, whereas dispensing with the actualist view of quantifiers, Hintikka restricts existence to some possible world (Hintikka, 1995, p. 43). Against this background, Timothy Williamson’s view is especially interesting (Williamson, 1999). Williamson defends the view that truths about the number of possible individuals are logically true. These truths “are not contingent logical truths, for it is not contingent what individuals there are” (ibid., p. 181). Williamson thus refuses the ban on unrestricted quantification and licenses such quantification as entirely intelligible (ibid., p. 191). Thus, his answer to the question “How many sets are there?” is “There could not have been fewer than absolutely infinitely many sets” (ibid.). In the same vein, his answers to similar questions“How many numbers are there?”, “How many possible worlds are there?”, and, more important, “How many possible individuals are there?”would consist of “There could not have been fewer
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than absolutely infinitely many of them.” Such intelligible answers are well established and Rescher would have nothing substantial to argue against them. Suggesting “the logical sense of exist (‘L-exist’),” Williamson states that “to exist is to be something” (ibid., p. 194). Instead of employing “pure possibilities,” he employs “mere possibilities” (also in Williamson, 2000, or “bare possibilia” in Williamson, 1998) and thus allows expressions such as “a possible table” or “a merely possible table,” which Quine, Rescher, and many others would not allow. Really, “merely possible tables need not occupy space; they need only be possible space occupants” (Williamson, 1999, p. 195). Williamson is not deterred from answering Quinean actualism thus: “There are infinitely many possible fat men who could have been in that doorway and only finitely many past fat men who were once in that doorway, although none of those possible or past fat men is in that doorway” (ibid.). Yet Williamson gives some examples that well demonstrate that “some counting questions about possible physical objects do have finite answers” (ibid.). All those examples follow the rule according to which what we count, we can quantify over (ibid., p. 196). Arguing that “necessarily there are infinitely many individuals,” Williamson does not relate to sets but to “possible physical objects instead” (ibid., p. 198). He rests the individuation of possible physical objects not upon actual physical properties and relations but upon “possible physical properties and relations” (ibid., p. 196). I believe that he would have said the same about eka-elements (which, unfortunately, he does not mention at all). At this point, he stands closer to panenmentalism and extremely far from Rescher. Defending the noncontingency of identity in the light of interpreting Leibniz’s law, Williamson, quite rightly, warns us against confusing identity with spatiotemporal location (ibid., pp. 197–198). What makes (actual) existence contingent is spatiotemporality, whereas the logic involved is free from any spatiotemporality and thus suggests necessary truths instead. Since “for each natural number n there are at least n possible physical objects, so at least n individuals, so necessarily at least n individuals,” the logical truth under discussion “does not depend on the existence of sets” (ibid., p. 198). If Frege and Russell took for granted the unrestricted interpretation of the quantifiers, Williamson adds to it “the accompanying metaphysical conception on which, even if sets are not treated as individuals, the unrestricted universe is noncontingent and infinite in membership” (ibid., p. 201). I wholeheartedly accept such a metaphysical addition although I would prefer it as a metaphysical foundation on which the relevant logic is established. Williamson suggests a “combination of logic and metaphysics” (ibid.), which I much prefer to that by Rescher. Nevertheless, in my view, metaphysics is prior to and more fundamental than logic, not the other way round.
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Panenmentalism does not confine itself to logical considerations. As a metaphysics, it attempts to discover metaphysical necessary truths about the existence of individual pure possibilities and their relationality independently or absolutely regardless of sets and possible worlds alike. Williamson demonstrates that possibilist logic is allowed to claim necessary truths about the existence and quantification of individual possibilia. What I have in mind is a metaphysical defense of such truths without relying upon any possibleworlds semantics or metaphysics. In sum, Rescher’s ironic question—How many possibilia are there?—is as senseless as the question—How many numbers are there?—unless we consider an absolutely infinite number of them. The inescapable uncountability (namely, the absolutely infinite number) of numbers by no means renders them unreal or lacking individuation or identification, and the same holds for possibilia or, under panenmentalism, for pure possibilities. What we cannot individuate we cannot count (and Rescher is right on this point), but we cannot count some of the things that we can individuate. 7. The Logical and the Actual: A Comment on Freud and Others Discussing the ego, as distinct from the id and the superego, Freud puts together the logical and the actual on the same footing. Under one and the same principle, namely, the Freudian reality test, the logical and the actual go hand-in-hand, especially in balancing the drives of the id and restraining an excessively severe, unrealistic superego. Actual reality, as indicated by the Freudian reality test in the service of the ego, is in the last account logical. Restraining or checking the id, as well as the unconscious wishes of the ego and the superego, is in the realistic, sober, and sane nature of the ego. And, thus, the ego functions also as a rational, logical, realistic censor. Yet censoring necessarily leads to restriction of possibilities. Panenmentalism challenges this idea. To equate the actual with the logical is to confine or restrict possibilities mistakenly, whereas the aim of panenmentalism is to open up possibilities and to enlarge their scope for our knowledge, awareness, consciousness, and imagination. Insisting on “a sharp dichotomy between logically necessary and empirical matters” (contrary to Routley, 1969, p. 130), logical necessity excludes contingency. Since, under panenmentalism, the actual is subject to spatiotemporal and causal conditions, and yet remains basically contingent, the actual is not logically necessary or necessarily logical. Besides being logical to some extent, yet not necessarily, the actual can also be quite illogical or non-logical. For the actual to exist and to act contrary to our expectations and anticipations, including the logical or rational ones, is quite possible. The contingency or the “suchness” of the actual may put it under illogical or non-logical possibilities. Some, including
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some philosophers, admit that actual reality occasionally happens to be paradoxical. From a human viewpoint, actual reality might be even absurd (consult, for instance, The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus). Undoubtedly, Freud was not a panenmentalist, although he occasionally came close to some panenmentalist ideas (especially in the case of psychical determinism). One of Freud’s persistent tendencies may be considered actualist. For instance, what Jonathan Lear characterizes as “the return of the seduction hypothesis . . . cultural neurosis is caused by an actual event in the infancy of civilization” (Lear, 2000, p. 148). This was a Freudian tendency or propensity especially at the very beginning of psychoanalysis (“the preanalytic period”) in his and Breuer’s Studies on Hysteria, which was relinquished in favor of the theory that fantasies, not only actual traumas, were sufficient to incite psychopathology, yet which were never abandoned as a psychoanalytic possibility. On this point, Lear is quite right. The actualist tendency of Freud is incompatible with the Freudian principle that indicates the birth of the mature psychoanalysis, to be distinguished from the pre-history of psychoanalysis, namely, the principle that inner, psychical reality is as real as actual, external reality. As distinct from actual-external reality, inner-psychical reality consists of pure possibilities. In some sections in his writings, Freud was not far from such a panenmentalist assumption (consider Gilead, 1999, pp. 46–70). When it comes to the psychical and to psychology, Freud argues, psychical possibilities have the upper hand. Fantasies consist of pure possibilities, not of actual facts of the matter. After all, when psychology and the psychical are concerned, the psychical possibilities that are relevant to an actual occasion, traumatic or not, are what really matters. The same actual event or state of affairs may mean and signify quite different things for different persons. When equating the actual with the logical, Freud thought like a Spinozist, not like a possibilist. In contrast, as a possibilist he ascribed necessity and determinism to psychical possibilities alone, not to actualities, which thus cannot escape contingency and even illogical or non-logical circumstances to this or that extent. Metaphysically speaking, possibilism or mentalism is fairly compatible with Freud’s independent theory of the mind (Gilead, ibid.), saving many psychical possibilities that actualism, even Spinoza’s logical actualism, would exclude or close for us. My conclusion is that Freud would be more consistent if he were to ascribe logical necessity not to actual reality but instead only to the ego and the superego as consciously functioning, whereas both the id and actual reality, though differently and to some extent, are also subject to the illogical, the non-logical, or the contingent. The same holds for the unconscious parts of the ego and the superego. Our sense of reality or, better, of actuality exposes us also to the contingent and absurd restrictions of actual reality. Or was Freud
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more a rationalist than an empiricist to the extent that actual reality concerned him? Be that as it may, panenmentalism is strictly empiricist, not rationalist, about actual reality. 8. Logico-Mathematical Impossibilities and the Possibility of God If the only entirely and absolutely unactualizable possibility is that of God (Gilead, 2003, pp. 213–224), we have to face some difficulties. For instance, is not a round square or the 2 that is not a fraction an entirely and absolutely unactualizable possibility? Or is a round square or the 2 that is not a fraction possible at all? Metaphysically speaking, a round square and the 2 that is not a fraction are possibilities of which we know nothing yet, possibilities that so far we could not conceive or comprehend. Under panenmentalism, only one kind of absolute impossibility exists, namely, for two possibilities to be identical is absolutely impossible. In both my previous panenmentalist books, I assumed that illogical or non-logical possibilities exist, since unlike Leibniz’s, Kant’s, and many other philosophies, with panenmentalism the realm of pure possibilities as a whole cannot be restricted to logical possibilities alone. To argue otherwise means to consider logic as metaphysically prior to metaphysics and, even worse, to believe that our present or current logical knowledge exhausts all logical possibilities. Such was the wrong assumption of logicians of the past, assuming that all logical possibilities were known to them. Nowadays, we are familiar with an impressive variety of logics (see, for instance, Beall and van Fraassen, 2003). Do we not laugh today at logicians, familiar only with a binary (two-valued) logic, who excluded the possibilities of any other, non-binary logic? The same holds for mathematical possibilities. From a Euclidean geometrical viewpoint, parallel lines sharing the same point(s) are just impossible, whereas a non-Euclidean geometry quite opens up such possibilities. Assuming impossibilities may lead other thinkers, or the same thinkers under different intellectual circumstances, or after an intellectual progress, to reconsider such impossibilities and to discover that they are eventually possible. Yet, you may argue, a round square and the 2 that is not a fraction are logico-mathematical impossibilities, an idea that logico-mathematicians so far have assumed and that all logico-mathematicians in the future should assume. Such is the case, the argument goes, since without the assumptions and the procedures demonstrating that these are sheer impossibilities, neither logic nor mathematics is possible at all. But such an argument relies on the tacit basis that the realm of pure possibilities as a whole is logical and that the illogical or the non-logical is impossible. Such an argument arbitrarily confines the realm of purely logical possibilities, which should not be confined to any current
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logical knowledge or awareness. In this confined spirit, Kant and many others assume that the law of contradiction is the necessary condition for each possibility. We explore the realm of pure possibilities through many different lenses. Each of these lenses has limitations, owing to which impossibilities are discerned or considered. Each lens is blind to some possibilities, considering them not existing or just impossibilities, whereas under another lens the same “impossibilities” would be considered possible, even indispensably possible. We do not know yet of a possibility of a round square or that of the 2 that is not a fraction, but this does not lead to the conclusion that such possibilities are absolutely or metaphysically impossible. Considering the realm of pure possibilities as a whole, they are possible. Since only the possibility of God is absolutely unactualizable, they are also actualizable, however absurd this may sound. Since each possibility necessarily relates to any other possibility, which must necessarily be different from it, this relationality may involve contradictions. Contradictions are not impossible under the panenmentalist sky. Each pure possibility may relate to “its” impossibility, namely, to the possibility that contradicts it. To relate to and to refer to are not identical. At least for the time being, we cannot refer to the possibility of a round square or to that of the 2 that is not a fraction, as we are not familiar or acquainted with any of these possibilities and as such we cannot even conceive of any of them. Since each pure possibility must relate to all that is different from it, including to what contradicts it, we can relate to the possibility of a round square or to that of the 2 that is not a fraction. As much as non-Euclidean geometries or modern kinds of logic do not cancel any of the Euclidean or classically logical possibilities but add some alternatives to them instead, and thus enlarge the scope of geometry or logic, we may use the known logical or mathematical laws or rules to relate to quite different logico-mathematical possibilities that are not under these laws or rules. By relating so, we do not cancel these laws or rules, but show their limitations and confine or limit their validity, which is a necessary outcome of acknowledging that the realm of metaphysical possibilities is wider and more comprehensive than that of logico-mathematical possibilities, let alone of the currently known ones. To keep the realm of pure possibilities open, we must reduce the number of impossibilities as much as we can. Panenmentalism, like any other metaphysical theory or “lenses,” has its limitations. On panenmentalist grounds, I have excluded the possibility that machines can think (Gilead, 1999, pp. 137–158). This exclusion is not absolutely valid for the entire realm of pure possibilities. Instead, it is valid on panenmentalist grounds in a way similar to that in which Euclidean geometry excludes the possibility of two
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parallel lines sharing the same point. Thus, through panenmentalist lenses, conscious or thinking machines are just impossible, as much as, through Euclidean lenses, non-Euclidean possibilities are impossible. We should not confine the entire realm of pure possibilities to any restriction of any of its parts or to what is confined to the range perceived by particular “lenses.” I have argued for one restriction only as metaphysically valid for that realm as a whole—no two possibilities can be identical. I believe that this absolute restriction holds for any possible metaphysics. In sum, the possibility of a round square and the possibility of the 2 that is not a fraction, though being considered impossible under the lenses of any currently known logic or mathematics so far, are actualizable pure possibilities. Although we cannot refer to any of these possibilities, by all means we can relate to them as contradicting the currently known logico-mathematical possibilities. At least to that extent, these “impossible” possibilities are meaningful and significant. Such relationality keeps the realm of logicomathematical possibilities open. Unlike the possibility of God, which is absolutely unactualizable, the possibility of a round square and the one of the 2 that is not a fraction may become actualized. Nothing in the whole realm of pure possibilities excludes this actualizability, whereas the contingency and the illogical aspect of actual reality do not exclude it either. 9. Actualization as an Aesthetic Failure Following Spinoza, Einstein believed that chance or contingency must have no place in nature, unless due to ignorance. In Einstein’s view, the simplest, most beautiful theory in physics, such as his theory of gravity, adequately describes the universe’s evolvement. Recently, astronomers have discovered new data, according to which “nature does not adopt the most beautiful version of the theory but prefers an ugly variant . . . and . . . the universe is not beautiful in the way Einstein supposed” (Graham Garmelo in The Daily Telegraph of 21 February 2003). Facing the question—“Will beauty prevail?”—Garmelo raises the following possibility: “Could it be that the version of Einstein’s theory with a cosmological constant is but part of a yet-to-be-conceived more encompassing, even more beautiful theory of the universe? My bet is that Einstein will have the last laugh and that beauty will prevail.” If beauty does prevail, the “great tragedy of science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact,” to put it in T. H. Huxley’s words, will not have the upper hand. Alas, recent astronomical observations have pointed out the need to add a cosmological constant that is not zero to Einstein’s theory of gravity. To add such a constant to the theory renders it not simple, less elegant, and even ugly.
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All this looks different from a panenmentalist viewpoint. Although theories and facts should correspond, theories, mathematical or physical, unlike facts, must be exempt from any contingency, chance, arbitrariness, and ugliness. They should be as simple as possible, elegant, or beautiful. Godfrey Harold Hardy’s happy idea that “beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics” (Hardy, 1973, p. 85), which I will analyze in Section 3.1, is quite relevant to our present discussion. But what necessarily holds for theories independently of actual reality, what holds for pure possibilities and their relationality must not hold for actual reality. Facts may be ugly, as their contingency goes hand-in-hand with arbitrariness, disorder, and ugliness, as seen from the theoretical viewpoint, whereas necessity and the purity of possibilities go hand-in-hand with beauty. No actualization can be perfect or complete. Something is always left to the purely possible, something that remains unactualized. Failures in actualization are always possible and expected. Facts, brute, arbitrary, and contingent as they are in themselves, fail to meet the beauty in the relationality of their identities-possibilities within the theoretical, pure realm. As a Spinozist, Einstein had to remain an actualist: For him, the possible and the actual were one and the same, and no gap could exist between the two. Facts could not be divorced from the relevant theory, unless due to the observer’s ignorance, mistake, or error. For panenmentalism, in contrast, beauty is in the purely possible, whereas the actual is short of beauty to some extent. Actualization implies some aesthetic failure, in which contingency, arbitrariness, and being merely an imperfect part of a whole are inescapable. The most beautiful of all possibilities is the possibility of God, the only absolutely and entirely unactualizable possibility. As such, the possibility of God is the most beautiful thing existing. We have always something to aspire for, to long for, to miss, for anything actual falls short of its pure identitypossibility, and no possibility is purer than that of God. Einstein’s God, like Spinoza’s, is an actual organizing energy or force acting in nature as a whole. As such, it is the source of necessity, order, and beauty (the last according to Einstein, not to Spinoza, who considered beauty merely an “entity of imagination”—Ethics 1App.). The panenmentalist God is merely purely possible, which makes it absolutely independent of the actual. No mundane beauty or freedom can reach God’s beauty and freedom. No actualization can exempt itself completely of ugliness or contingency. Something must be left for longing and aspiring, something that is at least as real as the actual. A cosmological constant that is not zero indicates to what extent the actual gravitation is contingent and partial, less beautiful than its pure, necessary possibility conceived through the lenses of Einstein’s simple and elegant theory of gravity. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, such expectedly is
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the actual case. In contrast, from a Spinozistic-Einsteinian viewpoint, such is not the actual case at all but merely an indication of our temporary ignorance or partial knowledge. As a value, beauty has to do with pure possibilities not with actualities alone. Actualities may be found or revealed beautiful due to their possibilities-identities as well as relationality. Regardless of their possibilities-identities, facts are not beautiful, which is yet compatible with the panenmentalist view that beauty is subject-independent (see Section 5.18 below, even though it deals with a person’s beauty and not with facts). Facts and values are not the same. Panenmentalism keeps the differences between these two kinds of reality intact. Necessity, beauty, and rationality pertain to pure possibilities and their relationality that actual reality may partly actualize. Fine theories reveal the beauty partly actualized in facts and thus redeem them from being brute, contingent, arbitrary, and ugly. 10. Relationality and Reality Each pure possibility exists independently of any other possibilities, actual or pure, and of relationality, whereas relationality entirely depends on the relevant possibilities. Especially significant is the ontological independence of singular possibilities whose substantiality or intrinsicality is the grounds for relationality, not the other way round. What is intrinsically or substantially valid for any pure possibility is that each possibility is identical solely with itself, which means that, independently existing, each pure possibility is different from any other possibility. Since no two identical possibilities exist and possibly being different is a sufficient condition for the existence of a possibility, the substantiality or intrinsicality of each possibility consists of its identity. This secures relationality, for in any case of identity-possibility “being different from” designates “relating to.” The substantial, intrinsic difference between any pure possibility and all the others necessarily implies universal relationality. Singularity or psychical-subjective reality exists independently of anything without it. Each singular being is a psychical pure possibility, a subject. Each subject exists independently of any other beings, subjects or objects. Since being singular means being entirely different—wholly other— from any other possibility, singularity secures the soundest relationality possible. On the other side of this, nothing is more ontologically substantial or independent than singular beings, than psychical-subjective realities. The novelty about this is that on these grounds panenmentalism rules out solipsism while holding to the view that nothing is as ontologically independent or substantial as psychical-subjective reality, the inner reality of psychical subjects or persons. Persons are conscious and self-conscious subjects.
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Two more kinds of reality exist: Intersubjective-interpersonal and objective-actual. Contrary to psychical, subjective reality, which is substantial and ontologically independent, intersubjective and objective reality are ontologically dependent or, more precisely, both are relationally dependent. No psychical-subjective reality is relationally dependent, whereas any other kind of reality, except the reality of each pure possibility, is relationally dependent. Intersubjective reality is absolutely dependent on the subjects, relating one to the others, and objective reality is dependent on the relationality of all the actualities that it comprises. No general reality exists. Panenmentalism is a nominalistic view according to which only individual possibilities, actual or pure, as well as their relationality exist. The general is merely the significance of this relationality. As to the reality of any pure possibility, it is panenmentalistically primitive; this means that this reality is primary and no pure possibility existentially depends on any other possibility, pure or actual. Otherwise, no possibility would have been pure. As for actualities, as contingent beings, they depend on spatiotemporal and causal conditions. Thus, unlike any pure possibility, no actuality exists independently. Physical-actual, namely, objective, reality thus consists of actual possibilities, of actualities, and of their relationality as well, which makes this reality relationally dependent. Each psychical subject or person is a reality in itself, whereas the intersubjective or the objective makes a mere relational reality. Intersubjective or interpersonal reality is what exists between us. This reality does not consist of us; it consists of our inter-relationality. Without us, without our interrelationality, no such reality could exist. Without the awareness of us and of our inter-relationality as well, intersubjective reality would be entirely meaningless or insignificant. Without actualities and their relationality, no objective reality would exist. Such reality also lies between its actualities, yet it also comprises them. A major difference thus exists between the intersubjective and the objective. Singular beings who construct or form an intersubjectiveinterpersonal reality are beyond that reality. Singular beings mark the boundaries of this reality. In contrast, actualities are part and parcel of objective reality, since it rests not only on their relationality but also on the actualities themselves. Considering a reality merely relational does not render it lesser or deficient, for the intersubjective is as real as the psychical-subjective. Yet to consider reality merely relational follows an ontological priority: The psychical-subjective is ontologically and epistemologically prior to the intersubjective. Similarly, the access to an intersubjective reality is epistemologically prior to the access to objective reality, for all our “conceptual schemes,” categories, and all the pure possibilities-identities and their
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relationality that objective reality actualizes (more precisely, that actualities and their relationality actualize), are intersubjectively accessible from the outset. In the same vein, private accessibility is prior to intersubjective accessibility and, in turn, the second is prior to objective accessibility and makes it possible (Gilead, 2003, pp. 43–75). We commonly share intersubjective realities and “the world,” namely actual-physical reality. The world is the actual, which is an actualization of a part of the mental realm. We know the world in which we exist owing to our accessibility to the mental realm, the realm of pure possibilities. Our access to it is possible due to the universal relationality of each of our psychical possibilities to those of other minds, to all the other minds as such, and to the rest of the mental, namely, to the rest of the purely possible as a whole. Such is the nature of our universal relationality. Under the restriction of panenmentalist nominalism, universality is valid for relationality alone, not for the pure possibilities in themselves. To universally relate means, to begin with, relationality to other psychical subjects, namely, persons, and, finally, to the entire realm of the mental, of pure possibilitiesidentities. Our first steps into the reality without are toward the first and most important “objects” “in” our realityour parents or those who raise us (“parental objects”). All the rest, all the material objects discovered in those steps were as though parts of the parental objects. These objects comprised the entire world for us. In those early days, the world for us consisted of ourselves, our parental objects, and all the rest, all of which were held together inseparably within the parental. Only after quite some time, did we learn to distinguish between and to separate from ourselves our most lovable persons, the intersubjective reality in which we live, and the objective reality. Yet the “gates” or “accesses” have remained for us: From the private-subjective to the intersubjective, from the intersubjective to the mental as a whole, and finally to the objective-actual. The consciousness of being in the world requires an expansion of our relationality: From persons who are close to us, to the rest of the community or the intersubjective reality in which we live, to the other intersubjective realities, to the purely possible as a whole, and finally to the actual reality, namely, the worldfirst to the part that is around us and then to the rest of it. What gives a form to any intersubjective or interpersonal reality that we may share are the special boundaries of this form (which may be “a common form of life”). These boundaries are marked by all the singular subjects, all the persons, sharing that reality. Each one of them is not a part of that reality, which consists of the inter-relationality that all the persons involved share. Each one is alone, existing independently of that common reality (but note, being alone and loneliness should not be regarded as the same). Each one delineates the form of that reality, which exists between us, interpersonally.
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We share the intersubjective significance of our thoughts, volitions, feelings, emotions, and sensations but we cannot share even one of them, each of which singularly takes part in the inner, psychical reality of each of us as a singular being. What is intrapsychical, which is inaccessible from without, is not interpersonal or intersubjective; the interpersonal or intersubjective depends on the intrapsychical and cannot do without it. Note that I am not dealing here with the world in which we all exist, the actual, objective, public world, but with intersubjective or interpersonal realities, the mental realities in which we live and to which languages belong. In my view, language is intersubjective or interpersonal, not public. Only one actual-physical world exists, but many intersubjective or interpersonal realities exist, the number of which depends on the different languages, forms of life, or kinds of intimacy that human beings intersubjectively share. What forms or shapes intersubjective or interpersonal realities is thus beyond any of these realities. Such is necessarily the nature of singularity (for a relatively good analogy, think again of the Big Bang, but only as an analogy, for I ascribe singularity strictly to the psychical alone). 11. Why Not Modal Fictionalism? From the 1990s on, modal fictionalism has paved its way in the province of the modal metaphysics of possible worlds (Nolan, 2002). Since some of the terms that I use and mention in this book may sound modal fictionalist to my readers, I would like to remove such a possible misconception from the outset. A modal fictionalist such as Gideon Rosen considers the language of possible worlds “a nearly indispensable tool” for the clear and vivid articulation of modal views as well as the precision of modal claims and the rigorousness of modal arguments that cannot be achieved by other means (Rosen, 1990, p. 327). Panenmentalism dispenses with that language, possibleworlds semantics, and set-theoretical considerations as well (Gilead, 1999, p. 10; Gilead, 2003, pp. 1–2 and 55–56; cf. Sections 1.2, 1.4, and 1.6 above). Instead of any commitment to possible worlds of whatsoever kind (real, robust, abstract, fictional, and the like), panenmentalism is committed to a realism of individual, concrete pure possibilities, particular or singular, a realism that should be distinguished from actualism. One of the possible interpretations of realism about possible worlds is that it is about alternative actual worlds that exist besides the actual world in which we are living. As I have emphasized already, actualists have adopted possible-worlds semantics or metaphysics, whereas panenmentalism challenges the idea of possible worlds and any sort of actualism. According to panenmentalism, pure possibilities exist not only independently or regardless of actualities but also of any possible world. No actualist has accepted the notion of individual pure
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possibilities existing independently or regardless of any actualization or actual state. Given that modal fictionalism cannot do without the idea of possible worlds, it is not compatible with panenmentalism, which dispenses of “according to the possible world . . .” operators. Modal fictionalism opposes realism of pure possibilities, whether possible worlds or individual possibilities (“merely possible objects”). In contrast, panenmentalism is a realism of individual, concrete pure possibilities and their relationality. Panenmentalism does not require any fictional operator (“according to the fiction y,” x is true or real) or a story prefix (“according to such and such a story…,” or “in the story…”), which David Lewis introduced (Lewis, 1978, p. 37; Rosen, 1990, p. 331, note 9; and Charles Crittenden, 1991, pp. 28–30, 108–110, who does not accept Lewis’s modal fictionalism, see pp. 132–133, footnote, and also does not consider literary fictions as possibilia—“unactualized possibles”—but instead as merely conceptual, see p. 74). Instead of “literal truth,” “literal existence,” or “strictly and literally speaking,” panenmentalism distinguishes between “actual truth,” “actual existence,” or “actually speaking” and “truth about pure possibilities,” “existence of pure possibilities,” or “possibly.” Fictional operators such as “in the fiction . . .” or “in the story . . .” do not serve panenmentalism to the extent that truthful fictions are concerned. Truthful fictions capture or discover pure possibilities that are independent of such fictions, however truthful. The captured or discovered possibilities are thus not in the fiction or in the story; instead, they are outside of it, in the realm of the purely possible. Truthful fictions render such pure possibilities accessible to us. As nonactual, such possibilities are accessible, by no means available, for availability has to do with spatiotemporality or actualities alone. I thus challenge Charles Crittenden’s following view: “[A] character is available as a referent only if it has been knowingly created to appear in a fictional situation . . . there is not an indefinitely large number of fictions out there awaiting reference; there are only the characters and other items actually created and explicitly introduced into stories by their authors” (Crittenden, 1991, p. 75). With panenmentalism instead, truthful fictions serve as detectors, lenses, or other means of discovery of pure possibilities that exist outside of them, independently of such means. These independent pure possibilities may belong to any of the following three realms or realities—inner-psychicalsubjective, intersubjective or interpersonal, and the purely mental as a whole. Each of these realms or realities exists absolutely independently of any fiction, however truthful. Yet many of these possibilities are undiscoverable unless truthful fictions are involved. Epistemologically speaking, truthful fictions are indispensable for detecting, discovering, or capturing some pure possibilities, which exist independently of such fictions. In all such cases, fictional
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operators are ontologically quite dispensable and even misleading. As for “according to the fiction” or “according to the story,” such “operators” serve only in the epistemological sense, by no means in the ontological one. Instead, I would prefer to say “by means of this or that fiction or story, we can realize that such and such pure possibility exists in such and such reality.” The discovered possibility in any of these cases is ontically independent of the fictions without which such possibility could not be discovered, captured, or detected. The same holds for the meanings and significance of pure possibilities that truthful fictions have opened our mind to realize. They too are discovered by means of truthful fictions but do not exist in them or according to them. Epistemologically speaking in non-panenmentalist context, fictions are either false or “truthful.” Many thinkers consider all of them false yet may distinguish between useful and useless fictions in different fields. In contrast, epistemologically speaking in the panenmentalist context, fictions are truthful or untruthful. Since in panenmentalism epistemology goes hand-in-hand with metaphysics or ontology, truth and reality are inseparable. Truthful fictions are illuminating or instructive: They open our eyes to realizing or to capturing some pure possibilities, and their discovery by us indispensably requires such fictions. Truthful fictions are also indispensable to discovering the meanings and significance of such possibilities for us. In contrast, untruthful or false fictions are deceptions, mistakes, illusions, and the like, which shut our eyes to realizing or to capturing all these (see the Preface). False fictions are necessarily false or untruthful, whereas truthful fictions are necessarily truthful, which follows the panenmentalist rule to ascribe necessity only to pure possibilities and their relationality. Since truthful fictions are indispensable for discovering some meaningful possibilities as well as their relationality and significance, they indispensably serve us in discovering or revealing parts of reality, subjective, intersubjective, mental, or objective. For this reason, I could term them “real fictions” instead of “truthful or veridical fictions.” On the grounds of its realism regarding pure possibilities, panenmentalism does not adopt any modally fictional operator (“according to the fiction” or “according to the fiction of possible worlds”) or any modally fictional expression (“x is true or real according to the fiction y”). Truthful fictions reveal to us pure possibilities that exist independently of these fictions. Contrary to some modal fictionalists, “what might have been” is not “a matter of what the fiction says about what goes on in other worlds” (Nolan, 2002, p. 20; cf. Rosen, 1990, pp. 351–352). Instead, as panenmentalism considers it, what might have been is a matter of the realm of pure possibilities, which comprises our actual world as a part within it. For this reason, we very much care or are concerned about what might have happened to us, although it has not actually happened. Such is my response to the “argument
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for concern,” which Kripke introduced (1980, p. 45, note 13). Possible-worlds semantics fails to show why we should care whether someone else, quite resembling us, would have been, say, victorious in another possible world. We care much about pure possibilities to which our personal reality especially relates. We should not be realists about possible worlds, and if we were modal fictionalists about them, the argument for concern still works. Rosen’s arguments for modal thoughts, namely, thoughts about pure possibilities, are as beautiful as convincing (Rosen, 1990, pp. 351–353). Really, “to be indifferent to the modal is to be incapable of regret” (ibid., p. 351). Nevertheless, all such arguments are much more valid for the panenmentalist realm of pure possibilities instead of for the fiction of possible worlds, which is entirely dispensable on panenmentalist grounds. We can, better, should, dispense with the problematical idea of possible worlds and yet keep all the benefits of truthful fictions, “modal thoughts,” creative imagination, moral possibilities, and many others. As a panenmentalist or as a realist about individual pure possibilities, I am quite concerned about what might have been with myself, for the relevant pure possibilities are as real as actualities for me. My counterfactual, fictional, or purely possible successes, for example, may occupy my mind as much as actual failures do. We may care for pure possibilities as much as for actual ones. As I have argued, truthful fictions serve us in discovering pure possibilities as well as their meanings and significance. The panenmentalist realism about pure possibilities opposes conceptualism. Rejecting possibilism de re, Rescher (1999) accepts possibilism de dicto, which is a kind of conceptualism. Interestingly enough, Rosen also points out the affinity of fictionalism to a sort of conceptualism or to conceptualist theories of possibility (Rosen, 1990, p. 353). Panenmentalism differs from both these views, each of which is quite different from the other. Rosen’s fictionalism permits talking about possible worlds without believing in them (Rosen, 1990, p. 354). As a panenmentalist, in contrast, I am entitled to talk about pure possibilities and to believe in them as well. 12. Why Not Meinongianism? According to panenmentalism, “Meinongianism” (“noneism”) and its characterization principle or postulate, as endorsed by Richard Sylvan (Routley), Graham Priest, and Nicholas Griffin (2003), are not valid for pure possibilities at least for several major reasons, some of which will be specified as follows. Any pure possibility really, although non-actually, exists. Mathematical objects are pure possibilities. Yet Meinongianism posits nonexistent
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mathematical and other objects that have characterizing properties. Thus Sylvan postulates as follows: For some sort of object-theory, not much is required . . . than a domain of ineliminable objects which, although they do not exist, do have distinctive properties. . . . Very many objects do not exist; and in many cases they do not exist in any way at all, or have any form of being whatever. . . . Nonexistent objects are constituted in one way or another, and have more or less determinate natures, and thus they have properties. (Sylvan, 1995, p. 49) Meinongianism is thus non-realist about such objects, whereas panenmentalism is definitely realist about them. Panenmentalism thus demands the real existence of pure possibilities, such as mathematical objects (numbers, for instance) or eka-elements. According to Meinongianism, we are entitled to ascribe properties to nonexistent objects too, which is not the case as panenmentalism sees it. The existence of pure possibilities precedes the relationality of which their properties consist. Pure possibilities are real existents, enjoying being or existence as much as actualities do, although in a different sense of “being” or “existence.” In contrast, Sylvan denies his nonexistent objects of any existence “in any way at all” and “any form of being whatever.” For him, only actual existence has sense. A neo-Meinongian, Dale Jacquette, reaches a similar conclusion: “The [neo-Meinongian] ontology consists only of actually existent spatiotemporal entities, a truly desert landscape” (Jacquette, 1995, p. 267), which is “more austere . . . than even the most economical materially adequate extensional semantic domain” (ibid.). At this point, repudiating the objections to Meinong’s Jungle and distinguishing between neo-Meinongian ontology and extraontology, Jacquette has Quine’s and other actualists’ ontological “desert” in mind (cf. Jacquette, 1996, p. 165). Assuming that only actual existence has sense, Sylvan’s noneism shares something with Rescher’s conceptualism despite the major differences between them. Rescher writes: What is the ontological status of nonexistent possibles? How, for example, can it be said without contradiction that “there are” certain possibilia when it is said in the selfsame breath that they are just possibilities, and so unreal and nonexistent? In what manner do such possibilities have the “being” that is claimed for them when it is said that “they are real possibilities,” since they ex hypothesi lack real being, i.e., existence? . . . But just exactly what can the existential status of such possible-butunrealized states of affairs possibly be? Clearlyex hypothesiʊthe states of affairs or things at issue do not exist as such: only actual things
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or states of affairs can unqualifiedly be said to exist, and not those that are possible but unrealized. By definition, as it were, only the actual will ever exist in the world, and never the unactualized possible. For the world does not have two existential compartments, one including the actual and another that includes the unactual. (Rescher, 1975, pp. 195– 196) The rest has also to do with Rescher’s conceptualism: Unactualized possibilities relatively exist as “the objects of certain intellectual processes” (ibid., p. 196), as conceived, as mind-correlative. Sylvan would not accept even such a relative, conceptual existence, for he explicitly denies the existence of purely mathematical objects even as “mental constructions” (Sylvan, 2003, p. 36). For Sylvan, pure mathematics is an existence-free science (ibid.). Yet he also ascribes objectivity to mathematical objects: “Mathematics is objective; for pure mathematics is concerned with the properties and relations of objects, objects which, though they do not exist, are objective, are in no way mind-dependent or tied to a thinking or perceiving subject or to human peculiarities or behavior or agreement” (ibid., p. 37). As realist about pure possibilities, panenmentalism is quite at odds with Rescher’s conceptualism as well as with Sylvan’s noneism. Pure possibilities are quite real existents, all of which are independent of actualities and many of which, for instance, mathematical pure possibilities, are also independent of any conception, psychical subject, or mind. Meinongianism allows us to ascribe properties arbitrarily to nonexistent objects. Thus, at least some of the properties ascribed to such objects are contingent. In contrast, panenmentalism ascribes necessity to pure possibilities and their relationality. And, as I argue time and again in this book, this a priori necessity is not only logical, for it may be mathematical, psychical, aesthetic, literary, musical, and the like. In any case, nothing is arbitrary about pure possibilities and their relationality. We have to discover their necessity. Truthful fictions may serve us well in discovering it. The problem remains how MeinongianismSylvan (Routley)’s noneismis capable of explaining what makes mathematical truths necessary. If all the necessity about mathematics stems from logical derivation or deduction alone, this should not satisfy noneists. For Sylvan explicitly and rightly rejects reduction of mathematics to logic (Sylvan, 2003, p. 34). The intensionality that he ascribes to mathematics means that mathematics provides its contents and meanings, independently of any existents. Formal logic is incapable of providing mathematical contents and meanings, yet it provides logical, formal necessity. What, then, does provide mathematics with necessity? Platonism, Kantianism, panenmentalism, or any realism about mathematical objects provides them with metaphysical necessity, since the a priori meanings, significance, and
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relationality of such objects is discoverable. As pure possibilities, mathematical objects exist independently of our assumptions, postulates, fictions, or conceivability in general. And so does their necessary relationality. Sylvan, in contrast, attempts to rest mathematical necessity partly upon the rejection of conventionalism and mostly upon semantics: “[N]ecessity is, semantically, truth in all possible worlds . . . [it] is the consequence of objects having their properties invariably over a suitable class of worlds. For example, it is in virtue of the properties of Euclidean triangles in all possible worlds that it is necessary that the sum of the interior angles of a Euclidean triangle is two right angles” (ibid., p. 45). According to Sylvan, though necessity is semantic and must rest on an invariability concerning all possible worlds, noneism does not posit the existence of possible worlds or any realism about them; instead, it assumes their objectivity or mind-independence. Under noneism, possible worlds do not exist, although they are meaningful and significant objects. As far as necessity is concerned, conventionalism and conceptualism (such as Rescher’s) are out of the question for noneism; nothing is left, then, to secure or establish noneist necessity but the objectivity, mind-independence, of its objects. If, as Kripke argues (1980, p. 44), possible worlds are not discovered but stipulated, necessity must be discovered by means (or through the “lens”) of such stipulation. If Euclidean triangles are merely constructed, the necessity about them is a matter of discovery, as a necessary result of the constructed objects. In contrast, if necessity were not subjectively independent (“objective”), all the properties of mathematical objects, for instance, would become arbitrarily posited. According to panenmentalism, we have to discover any necessity about the properties of Euclidean triangles and for this reason, contrary to noneism, they have to exist independently of our conceptions, theories, constructions, and the like. Noneism argues that these objects, as nonexistents, and their relationality are independent of our conceptions. But this does not make much sense. If mathematical objects are in such and such possible worlds, they exist in such worlds. If, on the other hand, they are outside of them, they exist without them although they are discoverable by means of them. Despite the intention of noneism, objectivity must thus lead to existence, and existence to discoverability. Contrary to noneism and as panenmentalism considers them, mathematical objects are necessary, pure possibilities, each of which is not identical with the other or with any other pure possibility. Euclidean geometry reveals the necessity about such objects not because they are in it. This geometry discovers such objects as well as their relationality and properties, all of which exist independently of that geometry as a theory about them. Such is ontologically the case. We need the theory for discovering and considering these objects, but such a requirement is epistemological alone, by no means ontological.
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Meinongianism does not refer to its objects, for it rejects the reference theory. We cannot refer to nonexistent objects. Yet, as subjects of discourse, they are signified or designated (Sylvan, 1995, p. 50). In contrast, panenmentalism definitely refers to pure possibilities as existents, and thus we are entirely allowed to refer to pure possibilities that are the objects of our fears, hopes, beliefs, and the like and to mention them in our intentional discourse without any difficulties. Equally, we are definitely allowed to refer to ekaelements, to describe, and to mention them without any difficulties. Rejecting Russell’s reference theory (Section 1.4 above), panenmentalism, unlike Meinongianism, does not posit nonexistent entities or objects. Instead, panenmentalism assumes that two kinds of reference are possible: (1) Of actualities and (2) of pure possibilities. Both kinds of reference are direct (see Section 1.6 above). Meinongianism, at least as Sylvan (Routley) puts it, ascribes abstractness to mathematical objects: Since the objects of pure mathematics are abstractions, never particulars, and since abstractions do not exist, only particulars do, the objects of pure mathematics, therefore, do not exist (Sylvan, 2003, p. 32). As I have argued several times above (especially in Section 1.6), pure possibilities are particulars and never abstractions. By the same token, as such possibilities, numbers, eka-elements, and fictions are particulars, not abstractions. Surprisingly enough, considering mathematical objects as abstractions, Rescher’s view and Meinongianism, despite all their differences, have much in common. It appears that they share with actualists the same view about a great number of mathematical objects because they conceive them under some set-theoretical considerations (those of Sylvan are existence-free and non-referential). Sylvan utilizes Zermelo-Fraenkel’s set-theory to reconstruct most of modern mathematics within that theory’s framework “without individuals” and to provide objects that are “entirely abstract, always sets in fact, and commonly complex set-theoretic constructions from the null set” (ibid.). As I have emphasized above (Sections 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, and 1.11), panenmentalism does not subject pure possibilities to set-theoretical considerations. Instead, it quantifies over the total realm of pure possibilities. Meinongianism is strongly devoted to the idea of possible worlds, which are considered nonexistent, which leaves only the actual world as existent. In this respect, Meinongianism happens to become compatible with actualism. Nothing about actualism excludes properties of nonexistent objects, as much as nothing about it excludes possible worlds as nonexistent possibilities. In contrast, panenmentalism necessitates the existence of pure possibilities altogether independently of actual reality and possible worlds alike. Instead of possible worlds, panenmentalism requires one total realm of pure possibilities, of which the actual is only a restricted, spatiotemporally and causally conditioned part.
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Endorsing possible worlds, Sylvan’s noneism is quite close to fictionalism. Mentioning a fictionalist-favored (as well as Rescher’s) example, Sylvan discusses the ways of “truly affirming, or reclaiming, the relational statement” “Sherlock Holmes rode into London” (2003, p. 44). The first way is holding “in the world its theory [or fiction, in this case] circumscribes” (ibid.). Thus, according to him, Sherlock Holmes, a nonexistent person in the domain of the real (actual) world, is an object in a fiction. That statement is true “according to the lights of its” fiction, “in the context of its” fiction. By the same token, a statement about mathematical objects is true “according to the lights of its theory” or “in the context of its theory” (ibid.). What I argued in the preceding Section against fictionalism over this matter holds for this noneist view of fictions by Sylvan. Panenmentalism is extremely far from Sylvan’s philosophy of mind in the following: According to the account of existence adopted, minds do not exist, because they do not (significantly) have spatial locations; the same holds for mental phenomena such as dreams, but the fact that they do not exist does not imply . . . that minds are physically reducible in one way or another to bodies, e.g., to behavior of bodies (behaviorism) or to states of bodies (e.g., central state materialism). Thus, it does not imply that mental objects such as dreams, images, thoughts, and desires are either nothing or else reduce in one way or another. (Sylvan, 2003, p. 34) Sylvan thus assumes that the mind or any psychical entity is something that does not exist, for existence must be at least spatial. Assuming thus, Sylvan obviously makes an actualist fallacy. Actual existence alone is spatiotemporal and causally conditioned. If we are not actualists, we should reject the actualist assumption that any existence is spatial. As panenmentalism suggests, mind or any psychical entity is a pure possibility that exists independently of any spatiotemporal or causal conditioned. At this particular point Sylvan is right: If no mind or psychical entity is spatial, any physical reduction, materialist or behaviorist, of the mind is impossible. But this by no means implies that mind or any psychical entity does not exist. Mind or any psychical entity is “something” that exists. Panenmentalism is entirely committed to psychical realism. What are the significance and meaning of something that does not exist at all? If minds did not exist, what would any materialism or behaviorism need more? If minds did not exist, any physical reduction of them would become redundant and materialism or behaviorism would prevail merely on noneist grounds. In its final stage, Meinongianism or noneism has been entitled “itemtheory” (Sylvan, 1995). As Sylvan defines it, an item is “whatever can be
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selected as a subject of discourse” (ibid., p. 50). Even contradictory or paradoxical objects may be items (ibid.). Equally, some items “are not even possible” (ibid., p. 51). According to Sylvan’s item-theory, no restriction or limit exists to items. “Everything, whether existent or not, possible or not, objective or not, even absurd or not, is an item” (ibid., p. 56). At this point panenmentalism is at odds with item-theory. Since panenmentalism does restrict pure possibilities by one restriction onlyno two pure possibilities can be identicalcontradictions are possible in the panenmentalist realm of pure possibilities but no pure possibility can be impossible. If any item, however negligible or neglected, can be selected as a subject of discourse, any item must be at least possible. We may include absurdities, contradictions, and the like in the realm of the possible, but what we consider purely “impossible” is “what is identical with another possibility” and thus it is excluded from the realm of the possible. We cannot refer to impossibility, but this will not deter item-theorists, for they dispense with any reference whenever they mention nonexistent subjects of discourse, namely, items. In any case, to subject the impossible to thinking and discourse is unintelligible or self-defeating. Following Franz Brentano’s intentionality, Meinong, Meinongians, and neo-Meinongians (such as Jacquette) have attempted to rest the psychical or the mental upon intentionality, which has proved to be one of the extremely fruitful ideas in philosophical psychology and philosophy of mind. Elaborating on the idea of intentionality, these philosophers have had nonexistent objects especially in mind. The trouble is, first, that if intentionality is reducible to some properties of material or physical objects (machines, for instance), as some functionalists (such as Daniel Dennett) have suggested or attempted to prove, we should not rest the mental or the psychical upon intentionality or propositional attitudes. Second, and more important, the objects of our psychical-subjective or mental-intersubjective lives are very much existents with us and they determine much of our psychical or intersubjective realities. Hence, we are not entitled to regard them as nonexistent objects, for such objects determine nothing, nor do they make any difference. Only existents may determine anything or make a difference. The same holds for our psychical states, which are existents although some of them are not subject to any intentionality. For instance, anxiety is undoubtedly a psychical state although no intentionality is involved in it. Anxiety is objectless, and a person in such a state has no intentions or intentionality concerning any object, existent or nonexistent, for his or her anxiety. In conclusion, first, intentionality cannot serve as a sufficient basis, if at all, for the psychical or the mental in many cases; and, secondly, all psychical states exist. Instead of relying upon intentionality, panenmentalism rests the psychical-subjective and the mental-intersubjective on singular pure possibilities, on purely possible existents, and their relationality. Our minds,
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our psychical and mental lives, consist entirely of pure possibilities of a special kind and their relationality. Only mental or psychical beings are determined by pure possibilities alone regardless or independently of the notion of possible worlds. In contrast, Hintikka (1975), who is not a Meinongian, rests intentionality upon propositional attitudes and possible worlds alike, seriously doubting the notion of possible individuals (not to mention individual pure possibilities). Hintikka states that “possible-worlds semantics is the logic of intentionality, and the intentional is what calls for possible-worlds semantics” (ibid., p. 195). He suggests a “thesis of intentionality as intensionality” (ibid.), and intensionality “involves a comparison between several possible states of affairs” (ibid., pp. 201–202). Following William Hazlitt’s idea that the human being is “the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be”—Hintikka clarifies that the gist of intentionality “lies in comparisons between several possible worlds” (ibid., p. 195). Much truth lies in this view, for the mental and the psychical cannot do without the possible, and I have a great sympathy with his view, “All aesthetic evaluations involve comparisons between the actual and the possible, and all artistic creation involves choices between alternatives” (ibid., p. 197). Yet panenmentalism dispenses with intentionality as essential for the psychical and with possible-worlds semantics as well. With panenmentalism, individual pure possibilities and their relationality are the grounds constituting the mental, the psychical, and intensionality. Pure possibilities are the foundations of meanings as well as values. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, in rejecting pure possibilia, especially possible individuals, philosophers actually eliminate minds and any psychical or mental reality. The reality of individual pure possibilities including their relationality goes hand-in-hand also with any intersubjective or interpersonal reality. Actualists thus cut the ground from under any psychical, mental, or intersubjective reality whatsoever. They leave us with the actual-physical alone. What would remain of us then? Merely “our” bodies, more precisely just bodies for, in absence of the psychical, “our” has no reality or truth in the actualist area. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, actualism renders all of us mere zombies, which is just absurd, for zombies are impossible (see Sections 4.2 and 4.8 below). The reality of anything psychical, mental, or intersubjective rests upon the reality of individual pure possibilities and their relationality, whereas nonexistence determines no reality at all. Instead of relationality and “reference” to nonexistents, panenmentalism thus considers our mind a singular pure possibility relating to other possibilities, pure or actual. In contrast, nonexistent “objects” determine nothing, let alone our psychical or mental lives, unless pure possibilities are nonexistent only in the actual sense. We are thus not entitled to rest such lives
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upon the intentionality toward nonexistent “objects.” Finally, panenmentalist philosophical psychology relies upon pure possibilities and their relationality; so do panenmentalist epistemology and axiology. In these respects too, panenmentalism suggests alternatives to Meinongianism. Liberating us from the bounds of the actual is a sublime objective, which I share with Meinongians and neo-Meinongians. The same holds for their efforts to show that nonactual objects are truly describable or subject to predication. Yet if “existence” bore one sense only, that of the actual, the liberation from those bounds would be less than enough or would even fail. On these grounds, postulating the existence of pure possibilities, panenmentalism suggests to us complete liberation in that sense. The complete liberation from the bounds of the actual requires ontological commitment, namely, to the existence of pure possibilities. Exemption from such commitment has not contributed much, if at all, to our freedom from the actual. Logic may be free from any ontological commitment, as Jacquette suggests, yet metaphysics must have such a commitment. Undoubtedly, an actualist commitment, Quinean, for instance, does not serve metaphysics well enough, if at all, whereas possibilist commitment allows metaphysics, such as panenmentalism, to flourish. Panenmentalism does not share the ontological nightmares of actualists or of Meinongians. In sum, panenmentalism and Meinongianism (“noneism” or “itemtheory”) are quite different on cardinal grounds. Meinongianism thus could not precede or anticipate panenmentalism. Finally, I have a comment to make about the last two “why not” Sections. I do not intend to exclude the possibilities that either fictionalism or Meinongianism open for philosophy. After all, panenmentalism is much closer to them than it is to actualism or Rescher’s view. “Why not” is meant to clarify the differences between panenmentalism and other possibilist views, especially those that are devoted to the idea of possible worlds or those that are closer to actualism than panenmentalism. We should not forget that differences in the same philosophical “family” can be no less, possibly even greater, than those between entirely different philosophies. In saving further possibilities for philosophy, panenmentalism stands side by side with fictionalism and Meinongianism against actualism and similar views, which attempt to exclude most significant philosophical possibilities. Even in this matter, panenmentalism differs greatly from those two related views. The last two Sections intend to clarify this point. 13. The Identity of Indiscernibles under a Panenmentalist Light Leibnizian identity relies on the assumption, known as Leibniz’s law, that an entity shares all the properties that another identical entity has. When it comes
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to self-identity, this law raises a well-known problem: Although I am identical with myself, many of my properties or traits have changed quite a lot during my life. Am I not then one and the same person even though many of my traits or properties are not the same? If identical entities share all their properties, another problem arises: A complete description of each entity is needed to determine whether entities are identical. Such kind of description is far beyond the cognitive capability of finite creatures such as us. In this Section I attempt to show that panenmentalism is capable of utilizing a revised Leibnizian identity without being involved in any such difficulties. Pure possibilities are subject to Leibnizian identity without any difficulty. No two pure possibilities whatsoever are identical, and even the slightest difference in the properties of a possibility is sufficient to secure that they are not identical. As atemporal, no pure possibility is changeable or mutable. This leaves us with the panenmentalist, mental reality in which each pure possibility is identical with itself alone. Such an identity is subject to Leibniz’s requirement of identity including complete description, although such description is definitely beyond our cognitive capability. Undoubtedly, each pure possibility has all its qualities or properties without any change, mutation, or modification. What about the identity of an actuality that has undergone many changes? Since the identity of the actuality in question is a pure possibility, no difficulty remains to bother us over this issue. No pure possibility is changeable, as it is not subject to any temporality, causality, or contingency. This implies the panenmentalist conclusion that no actuality is identical with its identity-possibility. Since spatiotemporal and causal conditions are valid for actualities alone, not for any pure possibility, and since each pure possibility-identity comprises more than its actuality, no pure possibilityidentity can share all the properties it has with its actuality. A great difference between them must hold. The pure possibility-identity of an actuality comprises all the possible properties of that actuality, which is capable of actualizing only part of them. The panenmentalist view is that the actuality is comprised within its pure possibility-identity, not the other way round, and thus the actuality is a part of the pure possibility-identity. Although no part is identical with the whole in which it participates, the part belongs to the whole. The actuality is not entirely identical even with the part of its pure possibilityidentity that it actualized, for the actuality is under spatiotemporal and causal conditions from which the pure possibility-identity and any of its unactualized parts are entirely exempt. Thus, we should always discern between the actuality and its possibility-identity. The difference of the discernibles under consideration is thus well maintained, which does not separate the actuality, as a part, from its identity-possibility as a whole. Distinction or discernibility
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does not necessarily lead to separation. Each actuality thus belongs to and is comprised in its pure possibility-identity. The connection or relation between them is necessary and by no means contingent. This necessary connection is not an identity. In this way panenmentalism adopts a revised Leibnizian identity but not at the price of its notorious difficulties. Even if any complete description is beyond our cognitive capability, we have no difficulty in subjecting pure possibilities to this revised Leibnizian identity and we are exempt from difficulties in considering any actuality, notwithstanding its changing and modifications, under one and the same pure possibility-identity. As for actualities, no two actualities can be identical, since the pure possibilityidentity of either is different. With no recourse to rationalism or the principle of sufficient reason, panenmentalism secures the endlessness or infinity of pure possibilities and their pluralistic nature. The panenmentalist view of identity, which I present in this Section, is a kind of possibilism de re, which requires no transworld identity, possible worlds, possible counterparts, or any haecceity (qualitative or nonqualitative “thisness,” such as Robert Adams’s), each of which appears to cause more problems and vagueness than providing us with some clear answers (see Section 1.15 below, in which I criticize the whole idea of haecceity, especially as combined with that of possible worlds). Identity over temporal modifications is possible owing to the atemporal stability of the relevant pure possibility-identity. The actuality of a pure possibility-identity is temporally successive. In different places or at different times the same actuality actualizes different parts of the same identitypossibility. “Parts” serves in this context in two different senses: (1) Parts as such; (2) as properties shared by some parts of that possibility or else by all of them. For instance, Ruth as a child had some properties that she has not as an adult. Yet, as an adult and as a child, Ruth has had some properties, all shared by different phases of her history. All these properties belong to the same pure possibility-identityRuth. As an actuality, Ruth is one and the same human being, because this being is under one and the same atemporal possibilityidentity. Each phase in the history of that actuality is a part of that possibilityidentity, which comprises all of its parts. Is the panenmentalist identity committed to essentialism? All the properties or qualities of a pure possibility necessarily belong to it, yet which of them has been actualized is a matter of contingency alone. Only in this restricted sense, the pure possibility-identity of an actuality serves as its alleged “essence.” But all the qualities or properties of the possibility-identity are necessary or “essential” and only the actualization has bestowed any of them with contingency. No actualization is essential to the possibility-identity and any actualization is merely contingent.
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The principle of the identity of indiscernibles has been supported as well as strongly attacked. Leibniz, Russell, Whitehead, F. H. Bradley, and McTaggart supported it, whereas Wittgenstein (the locus classicus is Tractatus 5.5302, criticizing Russell and arguing that two objects may have all their properties in common), C. S. Peirce, G. E. Moore, C. D. Broad, and Max Black are among its strong opponents. The support may adopt an idealistic stance, while the opposition is anti-idealistic or empiricist. Max Black’s attack (1952) on the identity of indiscernibles deserves special attention. His arguments have been discussed by Hacking (1975), Adams (1979), Casullo (1982, pp. 597–600), Denkel (1991), Landini and Foster (1991), French (1995), Cross (1995), O’Leary-Hawthorne (1995), Vallicella (1997), and Rodriguez-Pereyra (2004). But room enough still exists for alternative treatments of the problem on quite different grounds (especially different from those of fictionalism, the bundle theory, or haecceitism). As I will show, the identity of indiscernibles can be secured on a panenmentalist basis entirely regardless of any form of the principle of sufficient reason or any other Leibnizian arguments concerning that identity. It can be also secured regardless of Leibniz’s law, according to which two identical things share all their properties, which has given rise to unresolved difficulties to which I referred above at the beginning of this Section. Black suggests the following counterexample to the identity of indiscernibles: Isn’t it logically possible that the universe should have contained nothing but two exactly similar spheres? . . . every quality and relational characteristic of the one would also be a property of the other. Now if what I am describing is logically possible, it is not impossible for two things to have all their properties in common. This seems to me to refute the Principle. (Black, 1952, p. 156) This counterexample consists of a possible world (“universe”) in which no observer is present and exact duplicates, exactly similar objects, identical twins, and the like, all of which are indiscernible but not identical, may exist (ibid., pp. 160–162). I would like to show why on panenmentalist grounds no such possible world could exist. Thus, regardless of the question of common properties, relational or not, of bundles of properties as universals, or of “predicative functions” (the term that Russell and Whitehead’s theory of types employs), I would like to show why indiscernibles (or indistinguishables) that are not identical are metaphysically impossible. Even if Black’s aforementioned possible world is logically possible, it is nonetheless metaphysically or ontologically impossible.
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First we need a criterion of identification to denote or name something. To defend the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, I assume a criterion of identification that does not rely upon relational properties and spatiotemporal distinctions. Were such properties and distinctions inescapably required to establish the principle, Black’s view would have appeared to be more sound. Is Black right in stating that mere thinking is not enough to identify or name a thing (ibid., p. 157)? Black assumes that to identify or name anything we need a denotation of an actual object or a unique description of it (ibid.). This need not be the case at all. Think, for instance, of eka-elements in the periodic table. Each such element is not actual but is a predicted pure possibility (Gilead, 2003, pp. 65–70). Many mathematical theories, let alone all the pure possibilities that they comprise, were discovered only by creative thinking or imagination, while the identifying, naming, and describing of any of these possibilities have been quite practical with no recourse to actualities. To discover, refer to, identify, or name pure possibilities, thinking or imagination is more than enough. We are capable of denoting pure possibilities, each of which is uniquely describable, for no two pure possibilities can be identical. Second, pure possibilities-identities are necessary for identifying, denoting, searching for, detecting, and describing the relevant actualities, although we also need empirical means to do so. Two ways exist to interpret Black’s thought-experiment, which is a counterexample to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. First, the two spheres are merely pure possibilities. Second, the two spheres are actualities. In the second case, they must be subject to spatiotemporal and causal conditions, as no actuality is exempt from them. In the first case, they are exempt from such conditions altogether, for no pure possibility can be subjected to them. In both cases, the spheres are possible, for any actual thing is also possible. This means that in both cases we have two possible spheres with the following difference: In the first case, the possibilities in question are pure, whereas in the second they are actual. What is precisely the distinction between b as a pure possibility and b as an actual possibility? The pure possibility in question comprises all the pure possibilities that are open to b under one and the same identity, whereas b as an actual possibility comprises only some of them, namely, only those that have been actualized. The actualization of any of these possibilities does not change the pure possibility-identity of b, which is one and the same possibility. For instance, James Joyce could have not written Finnegan’s Wake and yet he would have been the same James Joyce under one and the same pure possibility-identity (namely, the only possible author of Dubliners, Ulysses, Finnegan Wake, or other masterpieces). No two pure possibilities might be indiscernible and yet not identical. Regardless of any properties, “monadic” or relational, any allegedly “two”
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indiscernible pure possibilities, discoverable by means of our imagination or thinking, are one and the same possibility. To think about or to imagine two pure possibilities necessarily means to distinguish between them, to discern one from the other, with no recourse to spatiotemporal distinctions at all. Any pure possibility is exempt from any spatiotemporal or causal conditions. No pure possibility is spatiotemporally located. If two of them exist, they are distinct because they are qualitatively different, not because they are in different places at the same time. They relate one to the other because they are different one from the other, not the other way round. Since any actuality is of a single pure possibility-identity, necessarily, according to panenmentalism, no indiscernible yet non-identical pure or actual possibilities exist. Could any actualist counter-argue that s/he has not the slightest idea how we could have any access to the pure possibilities-identities of the two exactly similar spheres in one of the above possible interpretations of Black’s thoughtexperiment? No, for all we need is something like such a thought-experiment to have access to the pure possibilities-identities of these two spheres. Black unknowingly “provides” these possibilities in his imaginary experiment or logically possible universe. All we need is our imagination, within the domain of logical possibilities (as Black assumes on p. 156) or without it, to be acquainted with pure possibilities such as these two. Even if no such spheres existed in our actual universe, Black could suggest his aforementioned thought-experiment because he, like any person endowed with imagination, has access to the realm of the purely possible. What makes such an experiment possible is our accessibility to that realm by means of our imagination, logic, mathematics, metaphysics, and other ways of thinking, none of which should be confined to the actual. My interpretation that the two spheres can be either pure possibilities or actualities that actualized these pure possibilities holds true for Black’s thought-experiment. Black would agree that no two possibilities can be identical, for “two” identical possibilities are really one and the same possibility. Like “two” identical possibilities, “two” indiscernible possibilities are one and the same. Two of them do not exist at all. In the case of pure possibilities, discernibility must be obvious. For in that case we have no recourse to actualities or to any of their conditions or terms. Can you think of, or imagine, two pure possibilities without discerning one from the other? No, since no two indiscernible pure possibilities exist. Indiscernibility of pure possibilities, if possible at all, would necessarily imply that there were no pure possibilities but only one. As far as pure possibilities are concerned, indiscernibility implies identity. If the two aforementioned spheres are pure possibilities, they must be discernible as well as not identical. As we shall realize, the same holds for the two spheres as actual possibilities. As far as actual possibilities are concerned, they too are
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necessarily discernible as well as not identical. Otherwise, the two spheres, as actual possibilities, would not have been considered two actual possibilities but only one. Yet Black could answer back on another basis. He would restate his claim that no way exists of telling the spheres apart (ibid., p. 156), which implies, to return to my view, that even if we had access enough to the pure possibilities-identities of the spheres, how could we ascribe possibility b, for instance, to one of the spheres, given that we are entirely incapable of telling the spheres apart? In other words, how can I identify one of the spheres as an actuality of possibility b instead of possibility c? In this case, my accessibility to the pure possibilities-identities of the spheres appears not to be helping me to identify any of the actual spheres. Which one is which if I cannot tell the difference? Yet this would not help Black at all. For the problem of identification or recognition of actualities is epistemological and empirical, not ontological-metaphysical. We have to distinguish between identity, which is ontic, and identification, which is epistemic. We have also to distinguish between identification of pure possibilities, which requires no empirical means, and that of actualities, which requires such means in addition to the identification of the relevant pure possibilities-identities. Supposing that I cannot know which actual sphere is which, I still know for certain that either sphere must be ontologically-metaphysically discernible, for each is an actuality of a different possibility-identity, whether I can tell the difference between the actual spheres or not. If the spheres in question are actual, they must be different one from the other, for no two actualities can be of one and the same pure possibilityidentity, which is a well-established panenmentalist postulate. As I argue time and again in my previous books (Gilead, 1999, pp. 10, 15, and 28; 2003, p. 94) and in this book (Sections 1.6 and 3.1), panenmentalism thus excludes any form of multiple actualization (“realization”). If actual, the spheres are also two instead of one. To be two actual spheres, two different pure possibilitiesidentities are inescapably required otherwise we would remain with one actual sphere only. As far as pure possibilities are concerned, numerical difference is also qualitative or “substantial.” Since actualities supervene on pure possibilities-identities, their numerical difference draws their qualitative difference from the difference between their pure possibilities-identities. Thus, even though actualities are subject to spatiotemporality, their numerical difference relies not upon spatiotemporality but on the difference between their pure possibilities-identities. The spatiotemporal difference reflects this difference actually, not the other way round. At this point, panenmentalism shares an insight with Leibniz, namely, numerical difference supervenes on qualitative difference.
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Panenmentalism apart, since any actuality is also a possibility (but not the other way round), and since any indiscernible possibilities are identical, are one and the same possibility, any two—namely, at least numerically different—possibilities cannot be identical and are discernible on ontologicalmetaphysical grounds. The epistemological discernibility must follow the ontological-metaphysical discernibility of possibilities, pure or actual, not the other way round. On the grounds of possibilities alone the identity of indiscernibles is metaphysically secured beyond any possible doubt. Even regardless of their properties, “predicative functions,” and relationality, absolutely no two possibilities can be metaphysically indiscernible, otherwise they would have been merely one and the same possibility. With possibilities, pure or actual, numerical distinctness and qualitative difference are entirely compatible. No spatiotemporality, any other possible principle of individuation, or property is needed for the discernibility of any possibility. No two possibilities can be indiscernible, let alone identical, whatsoever their properties, relational or not. The identity of each actuality is necessarily determined by its pure possibilityidentity alone. No two actualities can share one and the same possibilityidentity. Note that panenmentalism does not acknowledge any spatiotemporal principle of individuation (principium individuationis). All those, classical empiricists or Kant (according to whom space and time are the forms of intuition or the only factors of individuation), who endorse a spatiotemporal principle of individuation challenge the principle of the identity of indiscernibles in general or Leibniz’s law in particular. For they all assume the irreducibility of spatiotemporal differences to “more fundamental” or “primitive” factors of individuation. In this respect, Kant challenges that principle. Like Locke, according to Kant, indiscernibles sharing all their properties are not identical only because they exist in different places at the same time. This is sufficient to make indiscernibles numerically distinct. In contrast, my view, like that of Leibniz, is that numerical distinctness of actualities indicates qualitative difference. Since actualities differ qualitatively, they are numerically different, not the other way round. Black’s possible world in which indiscernibles—duplicated particulars or worlds—are not identical is a narcissistic nightmare: “A kind of cosmic mirror producing real images . . . except that there wouldn’t be any mirror” (ibid., p. 160). For a possible world in which “everything that happened at any place would be exactly duplicated at a place an equal distance on the opposite side of the center of symmetry” (ibid., p. 161) is a world in which no difference exists between an object and its mirror image. Suppose now that on epistemic grounds we cannot distinguish between two poles of a gravitational or magnetic field, two electrons, and the like (Black’s examples on p. 162). If
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Black’s possible world is a cosmic mirror, it is inferior to any world in which mirrors exist and in which we can distinguish between any object and its mirror image. Only due to some brain damage do adults become incapable of distinguishing between themselves and their mirror images or of recognizing these images as theirs. Nevertheless, suppose that we know for sure that two things (two poles, two electrons, an object and its mirror image, and the like) exist in Black’s possible world although no way exists to discern any difference between them, yet such indiscernibility carries no ontological commitment whatsoever. All we can say is that we do not detect any difference, which is an epistemological problem, but we are absolutely not entitled to conclude that no such difference exists at all. Unlike Black’s examples, in which the presence of an observer changes the possible universe (ibid.), pure possibilities-identities are discoverable by us yet their existence and the differences they “make” or bear are entirely independent of our knowledge. Think again of eka-elements, mathematical pure possibilities, and the like; these were all discovered, not invented. The two exactly similar or duplicated spheres that “exist” in Black’s possible world are not identical only because, contrary to his argument, they are discernible. For, first, if they are merely pure possibilities, they are necessarily discernible, as no two (“numerically distinct”) pure possibilities can be indiscernible. And, secondly, if the spheres are actual, either must be an actuality of a different pure possibility-identity, no matter what relations, spatiotemporal or otherwise, exist between the spheres or between any of them and any possible observer. Thus, contrary to Black’s view (ibid., p. 163), a way always exists, in which any thing, purely possible or actual, is different from any other. On these grounds, Black’s arguments should not convince the readers at all, contrary to the ending of the article (ibid., p. 163), in which interlocutor A in Black’s imaginary dialogue declares himself not convinced by B (Black)’s argument, while B responds, “Well, then, you ought to be” (ibid.). This is an excellent example of an “overwhelming” argument, which A is unable to refute and which is entirely blind to an illuminating insight about the ontological-metaphysical necessity or indispensability of the identity of indiscernibles (for some other instructive examples of blind arguments versus illuminating insights see Gilead, 2004a). I strongly recommend following that insight, which may open our eyes to realizing why that identity is a metaphysical necessity. In this Section I have attempted to support this insight with panenmentalist arguments. But suppose that Black rejects any possibilist view, let alone a panenmentalist one. Suppose that he argues against me that pure possibilities are merely nonsense (or that they are only de dicto, never de re), that only actual things can exist, and that his possible world or thought-experiment is not about pure possibilities but about actualities in the same actual world in
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which we live. I could answer him again that since any actual thing is also possible, and since two possibilities between which no difference exists are merely one possibility, the identity of indiscernibles is well secured. In other words, merely on modal grounds, actualist or otherwise, Black’s view against the identity of indiscernibles holds no water. On the other hand, if he did not take modality seriously, and if the possible, pure or actual, implied no ontological commitment whatsoever, Black could defend his view at some unbearable cost, that is, rendering modality and especially possibility ontologically insignificant. To attempt to persuade the actualist who accepts no possibilist assumption or principle, the argument that the two spheres are actual possibilities should be good enough. If the term “pure possibilities-identities” does not make sense for actualists they must consider the two spheres either as actual possibilities or as the possible modes (“ways”) in which the actual spheres might have existed. In either case, those spheres are also possibilities, and no “two” indiscernible possibilities that are not identical can make sense for actualist or possibilist metaphysicians alike. Let us reconsider the case of two actual “indiscernible” spheres from the aspect of spatiotemporality. In Euclidean space, to some opponents of the identity of indiscernibles, from Kant on, the case appears to be that indiscernibles are not identical for, sharing all their qualities, they are still “spatially dispersed, spatially distant from one another” (Adams, 1979, p. 14), which makes them numerically distinct. As far as the space in Black’s possible world is Euclidean, two spheres exist although no difference between them is discerned. Consider now these two actual spheres as actually possible, namely, as two actual possibilities. As possibilities, they are not spatially or temporally dispersed (at most they are spatially or temporally dispersible), for no possibility, pure or actual, is spatially or temporally locatable. As actually possible, the spheres are two, not because they are spatially or temporally dispersed but because they are two qualitatively different possibilities and, hence, numerically distinct. Temporally dispersed actualities (namely, events) must be qualitatively different first because their ontological grounds or “primitives”—their possibilities—are qualitatively different. The possibility of being spatially or temporally dispersed, which is not spatiotemporally conditioned, is metaphysically prior to any actual spatial or temporal dispersal. In the final account, the pure possibilities-identities, which are absolutely exempt from any spatiotemporality, are the metaphysical-ontological grounds of the qualitative difference as well as the numerical distinctness of any individual actuality. In any case, were the two spheres not actually possible in the first place, they could not be two actual spheres spatially distant from one another. They would have been one and the same sphere, namely, identical with itself. In this way too the identity of indiscernibles is necessarily
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maintained. Individual distinctness, such as numerical distinctness, is intelligible depending only on qualitative difference (contrary to Adams, 1979, p. 17). Black’s counterexample to the identity of indiscernibles is thus refuted even when actual spheres in Euclidean space are concerned. As for a non-Euclidean space or curved time, Adams has already shown that on the grounds of spatial or temporal dispersal two indiscernible actualities can be identical (1979, pp. 15–16, following Black, 1952, p. 161, and Hacking, 1975; cf., however, Denkel, 1991, pp. 213–214, footnote 3, Landini and Foster, 1991, pp. 55–60, and French, 1995, pp. 461–466). In such space or time, one and the same object may be spatially or temporally distant from itself. Yet the point is not to show that the identity of indiscernibles is possible but that on metaphysical grounds it is necessary, to show that no possible single example exists in which indiscernibles are not identical. Bearing in mind my arguments so far, I have shown that no such example exists; no such example can be found. As a result, the identity of indiscernibles is necessary, not only possible. Finally, because any pure possibility is discernible from any other, the possibilities in question do not share all their properties, relational or otherwise, and not the other way round. Because any two pure possibilities are discernible, they must also differ in their properties. Because any two pure possibilities are necessarily distinct and different one from the other, they necessarily relate one to the other, not the other way round. Hence, Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles should be modified on that panenmentalist basis. Every thing must differ from any other thing, not just because they do not share all their properties, but primarily because their pure possibilities-identities necessarily differ one from the other. Because of this difference, they cannot share all their properties. The apparent advantage of the panenmentalist treatment of the question of the identity of indiscernibles is, I think, that it holds equally for pure possibilities and actualities and demonstrates that for indiscernibles not to be identical is impossible. Both Leibniz’s illustration of the discernibility of each leaf of an actual tree and, considering all the differences, C. S. Peirce’s “no doubt, all things differ; but there is no logical necessity for it” are aimed at actual things (Peirce, 1961, 4.311, p. 251; cf. Casullo, 1982, pp. 595–596, and Landini and Foster, 1991, pp. 54–55). What I have shown above is that a metaphysical or ontological necessity holds for the identity of indiscernibles, which, I believe, renders any opposition to it entirely groundless. For those who oppose this identity and who also assume that metaphysical and logical necessity are one and the same, the case appears that I have also proven that the identity of indiscernibles is logically necessary. In sum, my arguments, panenmentalist or otherwise, show that the nonidentity of indiscernibles is impossible, logically, ontologically, and metaphysically.
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Yet the reader, following Black, may suggest that bosons, fermions, or other subatomic particles must be indiscernible but not identical. In what follows, discussing quantum possibilities and their discernibility, I will show that the principle of the identity of indiscernibles is valid for such particles. Like other mathematically or theoretically physical functions, quantum wave-functions consist of pure possibilities of probabilities. As such, they are not considered actual states but pure mathematical-physical functions. For instance, Max Born considers quantum wave-functions as waves of probabilities, which, I argue, render them pure possibilities. If quantum reality is a reality of particular pure possibilities, it must be deterministic for the determinism of pure possibilities is valid for it (Gilead, 2003, pp. 137– 141, 146–147; and consider Sections 1.6 above and 3.6 and 3.7 below). As many interpreters of quantum mechanics have argued, determinism is, to some extent, valid for quantum reality. In quantum mechanics, the Schrödinger equation for the time evolution of the wave-function is deterministic. This is sufficient to indicate that at some level the quantum reality is deterministic, even though the projection postulate (or the collapse of the wave-function) is indeterministic. If quantum determinism is of pure mathematical-physical possibilities and their relationality as well, panenmentalism is entitled to consider quantum reality as an excellent example of determinism of pure possibilities, whereas the contingency and indeterminism of quantum actualities (such as the aforementioned collapse) remain intact. As I mentioned in the Preface, by pure possibility I do not mean potentiality. Potentiality entails dependence on the actual. In contrast, existing independently of and prior to the physical-actual, pure possibilities are not potentialities, Aristotelian or otherwise. In my view, individual pure possibilities, not potentialities, maintain “fundamental ontic status.” My view differs considerably from Abner Shimony’s metaphysics of quantum mechanics (Shimony, 1978, following Werner Heisenberg), whose definition of potentiality as “a modality that is somehow intermediate between actuality and mere logical possibility” (Shimony, 1999, p. 6) is quite obscure. Nicholas Saunders suggests that “to mathematically single out one state at the act of measurement (or decide the fate of . . . [Schrödinger’s] cat) is to introduce idealike entities into the theory. These have the role of filling up all of the possibilities that exist in the superimposed wave-function” (Saunders, 2000, p. 527). As this approach asserts, “whenever a measurement is made, the universe branches out into as many varied versions as there are possible results to that measurement. At the end of the experiment there exists one universe in which Schrödinger’s cat is alive and one in which it is dead” (ibid.). An interesting interpretation, but I do not accept its tacit metaphysical basis that possible worlds exist. Instead of possible worlds, panenmentalism stipulates an infinitude of individual pure possibilities, each of which relates
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to all the others. No need exists to assume a possible world in which Schrödinger’s cat is dead and another in which it is alive. The pure possibilities of being dead or of being alive are open to that cat, whether it actually exists in our one, actual world or not. Finally, instead of questionable or suspicious “idealike entities,” panenmentalism refers to pure possibilities and their relationality. Panenmentalism can thus suggest a possibilist interpretation of quantum mechanics without relying upon the idea of possible worlds at all. John von Neumann’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, known as the orthodox quantum theory, also refers to “the multitude of possibilities” (ibid., p. 528). With von Neumann’s interpretation, “at the act of measurement, the wave-function, or mathematical description, of the quantum system collapses into only one of the possible outcomes that formed part of the initial superposition” (ibid.). Thus, the complete mathematical description of Schrödinger’s cat “maintains the dual dead-and-alive nature up until the point of measurement, at which it is collapsed from these two possibilities into only one” (ibid.). An event is “something that distinguishes between the different possibilities inherent in the superimposed wave-function and results in one particular possibility being selected” (ibid.). This is more lenient to panenmentalism. Yet, is a quantum event an actuality? If it is spatiotemporally and causally determined and if it is measurable or observable (indirectly, by means of the observed consequences or indications), the quantum event is an actuality; if not, it remains purely possible. In such a case, it should not be considered an event at all but merely a determination of a pure possibility. If it is a real event, it is an actualization or an actuality of a pure possibility. What determines which of the open possibilities under one and the same pure possibility-identity actually takes place must be an actualization. The act of measurement thus gives rise to the quantum event, which means that the actualization of either of the possibilities that are open for the cat—being alive or being dead—is eventually determined. Instead of being under either mathematical description, the event is an actualization of either pure possibility comprised in one and the same pure possibility-identity of that cat. An event deserving its name is an actuality, and, with panenmentalism, anything actual is contingent. As Saunders correctly writes, “orthodox quantum mechanics consists of two fundamentally different processes: Deterministic evolution under the Schrödinger equation and indeterministic collapse at the point of measurement” to which alone can the concept of “event” be applicable (ibid., p. 529). In panenmentalist terms, a quantum event too, if really an event and not a mere determination of a pure possibility, is contingent. For only its determination as a pure possibility is subject to deterministic necessity.
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Call the purely possible “non-actualized possible,” and you may find the following quite relevant to our discussion: . . . modal interpretations interpret quantum mechanics by slightly changing the standard understanding of the modalities “actuality” and “possibility.” . . . the terms . . . that refer to the non-actualized outcomes are not removed from the state of the device. This procedure of removing the non-actualized possibilities is, however, quite standard in statistical theories. . . . In modal interpretations the state is now not updated if a certain state of affairs becomes actual. The non-actualized possibilities are not removed from the description of a system and this state therefore codifies not only what is presently actual but also what was presently possible. These non-actualized possibilities can, as consequence, in principle still affect the course of later events. (Vermaas, 1999, pp. 26– 27) Although this modal interpretation of quantum mechanics is not a panenmentalist one, it is not very far from it. The “effect,” better, the significance of the purely possible has a prominent position in this description, which shares something of importance with the panenmentalist quantum metaphysics. If the actual is phenomenal, observable, and measurable, quantum mechanics, according to Vermaas’s modal interpretation, describes reality including its unobservable or immeasurable states of affairs, which Vermaas entitles noumenal (ibid., pp. 209–211), namely, not phenomenal, not perceived by the senses but conceived by the intellect. At this point, such a modal interpretation aims at the purely possible instead of the actual. One of the modal interpretations of quantum metaphysics that should be noted is Meir Hemmo’s (1996). The title of his thesis, Quantum Mechanics Without Collapse: Modal Interpretation, Histories and Many Worlds, is sufficient to indicate that much more exists to the purely possible as far as quantum mechanics and quantum reality are concerned. I cannot enlist his prudent modal interpretation for my panenmentalist interests, at least to the extent that “approximate properties might be used to describe the supervenience of the mental [namely, the psychical] on the physical” (Hemmo, 1996, p. 109), which is not compatible with my ideas of the psychical as purely possible. In my view, the physical is supervenient on the mental or the psychical, not the other way round. Yet when Hemmo writes, “the collapse is not a real physical process, nor does it have a physical process as an analogue” (ibid., p. 124), it may be understood in the light of pure possibilities, given that “not a real” means “not an actual.” In such interpretation, quantum reality is in any case a reality of “alternatives” or pure possibilities. Thus, Hemmo writes, “regardless of their measure [which entails actualization], all possible
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worlds corresponding to alternative histories within one set of histories coexist: there is no selection of a single world from a set of alternative worlds” (ibid., p. 233). If, in a different interpretation, “collapse” indicates reducing possible states of affairs to the actual state, still with no collapse, quantum pure possibilities remain intact. Hence, Hemmo writes, given that the quantum state is a complete description of the physics and that the Schrödinger equation is invariably true, “all possibilities co-exist,” to which panenmentalism may agree to some extent. Hemmo holds to sets of possible worlds with no hierarchy and with no collapse, all of which remain open, whereas none of them is an actual one. Panenmentalism, contrary to Hemmo, does not acknowledge possible worlds but individual pure possibilities within the total realm of the purely possible, which comprises all that exists. To the extent that panenmentalism is concerned, the most interesting point in Hemmo’s work lies in its ending as follows: Physics is contingent, and one need not argue from quantum theory to conclusions about the range of the possibilities. The set of worlds considered does not exhaust the set of all the logical, or even the physical, possibilities. The quantum worlds are identified with mathematical structures in quantum theory, and thus they form not only a subset of all the logical possibilities, but in fact, just a subset of the worlds that are compatible with current physics. However, correspondence with physics should help us answer important questions about the concept of possible worlds, and it can help us accept more liberal opinions about what possibilities there are. (ibid., pp. 240–241) Absolutely unaware of any panenmentalist idea and despite his acceptance of the concept of possible worlds, Hemmo expresses at this point a panenmentalist credo about the indispensability of saving possibilities as much as possible. He also appears to think that quantum reality is made of pure mathematicallogical possibilities. Finally, he recognizes, although on quite a different basis, the contingency of physics. Hemmo is undoubtedly a metaphysician and, thus, he shows a great sensitivity to metaphysical or ontological issues. None of the quantum modal views mentioned in this Section, including Hemmo’s, is committed to the panenmentalist principles. First and foremost, none of these views is committed to the panenmentalist concept of pure possibilities, namely, individual a priori possibilities existing independently and regardless of possible worlds, set-theoretical considerations, actualities, and actual reality as a whole. If indistinguishable quantum particles really exist and since the principle of the identity of indiscernibles is necessarily valid for pure possibilities, we have to reconsider the aforementioned idea that quantum
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possibilities are individual pure possibilities. Was I not wrong in my treatment of these possibilities in this Section above? Following H. Post, M. Hesse, and E. Schrödinger, who suggested that quantum wave-functions are non-individuals, Décio Krause points out the possibility of denying the status of individuals to quantum objects or entities (Krause, 2000, p. 162). In a private correspondence, Meir Hemmo argues that this possibility appears to throw out the baby with the bath water, since if quantum mechanics is considered a complete true theory of the world, then all physical objects are just quantum mechanical! And if so, we cannot escape the conclusion that quantum mechanics (in its standard formulation) explicitly violates the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. (Hemmo, 2007) As I will explain shortly, on panenmentalist grounds I consider the standard or current quantum mechanics as metaphysically or ontologically incomplete. If quantum entities are pure possibilities, each one of them is a discernible individual state or entity, and terms such as “identical,” “this,” “another,” “different,” and the like must be applicable to any pure possibility, quantum or otherwise. Pure possibilities are counted (see Section 1.6 above), for no two pure possibilities can be identical, whereas non-individuals cannot be counted (Krause, 2000, p. 162). Physicists can infer from the total mass of the system, which is subject to their observation, that, say, two electrons exist there, and yet, as Krause argues, nothing in quantum mechanics enables physicists to distinguish any one of these electrons from another (ibid., p. 163). At this point Krause is not aware of the crucial difference between ontology and quantum theory as an epistemological field. Ontologically or metaphysically, each electron is an individual, which must be discernible from any other, however similar, electron. If current quantum mechanics cannot provide us with devices to distinguish between them, this is merely an epistemic limitation or confinement, which should not exclude the relevant metaphysical or ontological possibilities. This leaves the principle of the identity of indiscernibles metaphysically or ontologically valid for quantum entities as pure possibilities. As for quantum entities as actualities, the principle of the identity of indiscernibles is still applicable to them, as each one of them actualizes a different and discernible pure possibility. The applicability of the principle to pure possibilities and actualities alike requires only reference to individuals, regardless of the question whether they are substrata or bundles of properties (a question that bothers Krause, ibid., p. 163). Bearing the panenmentalist principles in mind, suppose that we conclude that two quantum entities exist and yet we cannot tell the one from the other,
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even though we know for certain that there are two. As two indiscernible quantum entities, these particles appear not to be identical for two of them exist, not just one. Yet on the grounds of current quantum mechanics, we cannot distinguish the one from the other as far as their known properties are shared by both of them exactly. The indiscernibility in question is thus merely epistemic, by no means ontic or metaphysical. The current standing of physics and chemistry provides us with no information about the difference between the two. Only what is common to their properties has been known so far. In contrast, as pure possibilities, they are ontologically-metaphysically discernible. Logically-mathematically as well as physically, quantum entities are so far indiscernible but not identical, whereas ontologically, especially panenmentalistically, quantum entities are discernible and by no means identical. Given this in the first instance, I do not have properties in mind for the relevant properties supervene upon the discernibility of each of the relevant pure possibilities-identities, not the other way round. Our metaphysical story about quantum metaphysics has not yet come to its end. Whether the quantum-mechanical description of reality is complete or incomplete is still a moot point (Maudlin, 2003). The gap between the nonidentity of indiscernibles, with which the theory of quantum mechanics may leave us, and the identity of indiscernibles, to which the possibilist ontology or metaphysics commits us, strongly relates to the subject of this book. As I see it, quantum mechanics is merely a grand and most serviceable truthful fiction. With this grand fiction we have partly succeeded in capturing or grasping something of the realm of pure quantum possibilities. Given that, the case appears to be that the story of this grand fiction has, so far, not reached its end. Much more work is ahead of quantum mechanics in attempting to capture more and more quantum possibilities. We have much more to discover about these possibilities, and the pure possibilities that the theory provides us with are not sufficient for the complete discovery. Much more exists for us in the quantum reality, not only as actual but also as merely possible. Steven French and Michael Redhead (1988) argue that since the indistinguishable particles in quantum mechanics can (but not must) be treated as individuals, the principle of the identity of indiscernibles is violated both for bosons and fermions (ibid., p. 244). Yet, we should consider this conclusion in the light of two reservations. The first is: [O]ntologically speaking, “interference” is never strictly absent. . . . , so the involvement of every electron with the state of every other electron in the universe, although negligible for practical purposes, remains an ontological commitment of quantum mechanics, under the interpretation where the particles are treated as individuals. (ibid., p. 245)
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And the second reservation is: In that paper, French and Redhead are concerned with “conceptual possibilities, rather than what is most reasonable to believe about the ontological status of elementary particles” (ibid.), and they argue “not that quantum particles must be individuals but rather that it is possible for them to be individuals, despite the peculiarities of quantum statistics” (ibid., pp. 237–238), though it is “quite true that in quantum field theory . . . particles are not regarded as individuals. They are simply (quantized) excitations of a field” (ibid., p. 238). But if they are distinct excitations of one and the same field, are they, as modes, discernible? If not, are they identical? If possibilities are not merely conceptual but bearing ontological standing too, we are facing a most intriguing metaphysical problem. As pure possibilities, quantum particles must be, at least ontologically, distinct and different one from the other, no matter what the epistemological standing of quantum mechanics. In the light of panenmentalism, quantum metaphysics is committed to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles, even if quantum mechanics, as a theory under this or that interpretation, does not discern their individuality or, else, cannot apply the principle of that identity to the quantized excitations of the field. Finally, the non-causal involvement of each electron with the state of any other electron in the universe is beautifully compatible with the panenmentalist universal relationality of each pure possibility, which, owing to its difference, necessarily relates to all the others. Panenmentalist quantum metaphysics is thus committed to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Furthermore, according to this metaphysics, quantum possibilities, like any other pure possibilities, must be discernible individuals. This necessity is strictly metaphysical whereas the physical reality as actual is contingent. 14. Panenmentalist Primitives Pure possibilities are the panenmentalist primitives or ontological irreducibles. Keeping the Lycan/Lewis controversy over actualism and possibilism in mind (Lycan, 1994, pp. 87–90: “Lewis Against Us Ersatzers”), panenmentalist primitives are not possible worlds. Characterizing ersatz modal realism as “a popular and formidable alternative” to Lewis’s view, which stipulates “an incredible plurality of concrete worlds,” the “ersatzers” (namely, the actualists) allow us to “have one world only, and countless abstract entities representing ways that this world might have been” (Lewis, 1986, p. 136). On such actualist views, possible worlds are merely possible descriptions, conceptions, views of, or consistent systems of sentences or propositions about the only actual reality in which we live. Such actualist views are believed to be entirely compatible with our common sense. The trouble is the metaphysical
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and axiological cost that such views or our common sense demand from us. If any possible world is really of or about the actual one, possible worlds are not ontological primitives or irreducibles in the strict sense. For each actualist view, such possible worlds ontologically supervene on the actual one. Lewis does not and should not dispense with the notion of possible worlds, which are ontological primitives or irreducibles in his possibilist, antiactualist view (to compare with Hintikka, 1975, pp. 208–210, “The Primacy of Possible Worlds,” despite all the differences). As long as they are metaphysically indispensable, nothing is wrong with modal primitives. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, pure possibilities are metaphysically indispensable and fundamental. Existing regardless or independently of anything actual, they never supervene on actualities, whereas each actuality necessarily supervenes on a pure possibility-identity. Pure possibilities are the primitives or irreducibles of any panenmentalist domainontology, philosophical psychology, epistemology, and axiology. As such, pure possibilities are not abstractions. On the contrary, they are concrete entities, existing regardless or independently of any spatiotemporality or actual reality. In contrast, Lewis considers possible worlds as concrete entities, which are spatiotemporally individuated, whereas every actualist considers them abstracta, for they are abstracted out of the actual world. In any case, Lycan argues, “if every actualist [or ersatzer] is stuck with some modal primitive, so . . . is Lewis” (Lycan, 1994, p. 87). To stipulate that possibilities are “possible worldmates,” namely, “logically acceptable candidates for worldmateship” (ibid., p. 89), requires a wrong assumption. Sharing with many actualists and possibilists alike this wrong assumption according to which the bounds of possibilities are logical, Lycan actually confines the possible to the logical. Panenmentalism is quite at odds with that view. The illogical or the nonlogical is not impossible; it takes its part in the realm of pure possibilities. Nor is it nonexistent. As a result, being at odds with Meinongianism, Lycan’s ersatzism, Lewis’s possibilism, and other different adherents of possible worlds, panenmentalism dispenses with possible worlds altogether as well as with the consistency that makes each world possible (see, for instance, Lycan, 1994, p. 87). Instead of possible worlds and the consistency of each such world, panenmentalism relies heavily upon the idea of the universal relationality that each pure possibility maintains with regard to all the others in one and the same total realm. As a result, contradictions and other illogical or nonlogical possibilities have some position in the total realm of pure possibilities, each of which necessarily relates to all the others. Each pure possibility is thus a “reality-mate” (instead of a “world-mate”). What makes each pure possibility a “reality-mate” is not necessarily logical acceptability or consistency but being different from, not identical with, any other pure possibility. On this basis, each pure possibility
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necessarily relates to all the others. By the same token, what individuates each pure possibility is not spatiotemporality but the difference of any pure possibility from any other pure possibility in the entire realm of them all. I do not understand why philosophers still insist that the actual world in which we live is consistent, let alone entirely consistent. Undoubtedly, this world exists, but it is far from being consistent. We are definitely entitled to demand theories to be strictly consistent; not so actual reality, which by nature may deviate from any consistency. Being contingent, it stands, bears, or takes enough contradictions and inconsistencies. Any inconsistency and contradiction that actual reality exhibits or manifests cannot be dispensed with as a mistake or an error in our observation, experiment, or knowledge. Actual reality is unpredictable in many of its facets. When human actuality is concerned, inconsistencies and contradictions play even greater roles. Only when actualities actualize logically consistent possibilities are we able to detect or recognize an actual consistency. But such a consistency is due only to the relationality of pure possibilities; it does not stem out of anything actual as such or from its nature. Admitting contradictory or inconsistent possibilities, panenmentalism, unlike Meinongianism, does not admit impossibilia but only possibilities. Under panenmentalist terms, the only impossibility is one of identical possibilities, and such impossibility does not exist at all. According to panenmentalism and contrary to Meinongianism, no impossibilia exist in the total realm of pure possibilities. For this reason, panenmentalists cannot claim that “identical possibilities exist.” Dispensing with possible worlds, panenmentalism should not dispense with pure possibilities. Instead, it could not do without them, and that with complete justification. Anything actual is of that or this pure possibility, whereas no pure possibility is of or about anything actual, unless “of” or “about” signifies actualization of pure possibilities. For any ontological, epistemological, or axiological objective, anything actual cannot do without pure possibilities. Panenmentalism is not stuck with pure possibilities as primitives or irreducibles; instead, it heavily relies on them and considers itself fortunate because of them and their abundance. To dispense with pure possibilities is to dispense with everything, including anything actual, for anything actual rests upon actualization of pure possibility(ies). Whether they admit it or not, ersatzism, actualism, and possibilism cannot do, therefore, without pure possibilities. To acknowledge realism of pure possibilities, which exist independently of anything actual, entails repudiating ersatzism or actualism. If nothing actual can exist, be known, or evaluated without pure possibilities, ersatzism or actualism necessarily contradicts or repudiates itself. Logically speaking, ersatzism or actualism is not possible, whereas from a panenmentalist viewpoint each is obviously possible yet wrong. From this
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viewpoint, ersatzism instead of Lewis’s modal metaphysics is “wildly false” (contrary to Lycan, 1994, p. 87). Discussing some ways to reduce modality, Theodore Sider postulates: “Accepting necessity or possibility as a primitive feature of reality would be like accepting tensed facts as primitive, or accepting dispositions as primitive, or accepting counterfactuals as primitive” (Sider, 2003, p. 185). Suggesting a special reduction, Sider follows neither modal primitivism nor modal eliminativism. Thus, unlike eliminativists such as Simon Blackburn, Hartry Field, and Quine, he does not deny “that there is any such thing as modality” (ibid.). We should thank him for that yet I do not accept any modal reductionism. By “pure possibility” I do not mean potentiality, disposition, counterfactual, or supervenience, all of which, like “modes” or “modifications” and unlike “substances,” rely upon something else as substantial. Pure possibilities are not like any tensed facts, for they do not supervene on anything else, let alone anything actual. With panenmentalism, pure possibilities are not modes in any sense of the term but they are our “substances,” substantial beings, or the “matter” of which any being or reality is made. Actualities are thus modifications of pure possibilities. Unlike panenmentalism, Sider assumes metaphysical possibility to be narrower than logical and analytical possibility, “but exactly how much narrower is unclear” (ibid., p. 191). He considers this the “fundamental obstacle to the reduction of modality” (ibid.). Since, according to panenmentalism, metaphysical possibility is wider than logical and analytical possibility (see Sections 1.8 on), the obstacle to any modal reduction, at least to the extent that pure possibilities are concerned, is irremovable, which renders the reduction impossible. If pure possibilities are panenmentalist primitives, metaphysical or modal, what about other modal terms, especially necessity, contingency, and reality? Not one of them is primitive since they are derivatives or modifications of pure possibilities and their relationality. Necessity is one or more of the following: The existence of pure possibilities, each of which is different from (not identical with any of) all the others; the relationality of each pure possibility to all the others, as “being different from” necessarily leads to “necessarily relating to”; and the relationship between any pure possibility-identity and its actuality. Contingency is the existence of actualities; it consists of the actualization of pure possibilities. What makes pure possibilities actual or contingent is the subjecting of them to spatiotemporal and causal restrictions. Reality is first and foremost the existence of pure possibilities and their relationality and, secondly, of their actualities whose existence is restricted by spatiotemporal and causal conditions.
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Instead of “existence” I could mention “truth” in the case of each of the modal terms mentioned above. Thus, necessary truths, contingent truths, and any truth about reality are all about pure possibilities and their relationality or about their derivatives or modifications, actual or not. In sum, necessity, contingency, and reality, and all other modalities are modifications or derivatives of pure possibilities and their relationality. The realm of the panenmentalist quantification is not of possible worlds but only of pure possibilities including their actualities (which are restricted or conditioned parts of pure possibilities). To operate panenmentalist quantifiers, we may need “detectors” of pure possibilities and their relationality. Such detectors are theories of whatsoever kind, conceptual schemes, truthful fictions, and the like, by means of which we may recognize pure possibilities. Thus, some pure possibilities may be considered impossibilities only because they are not detectable by this or that detector whereas, ontologically speaking, each pure possibility that is not identical with any other is possible. 15. Comments on Haecceitism Gary Rosenkrantz constructs an interesting possibilist view, which is a kind of Platonic haecceitism (Rosenkrantz, 1993). Haecceity, “thisness,” means “the property of being identical with a particular entity.” Thus, haecceities are properties, which, as abstract entities, serve as a principle of individuation for concrete entities. Rosenkrantz’s haecceitism is a special combination of Platonic realism, possibilism, and an Aristotelian ontology (ibid., p. xi). His view assumes nonexistent possible individuals while his modal semantics manifestly assumes possible worlds. Assuming that haecceities are properties, this view also assumes that properties have a necessary existence, hence, haecceities have a necessary existence (ibid., p. 151). In several respects, Rosenkrantz’s possibilism or haecceitism is different from the panenmentalist view. It assumes possible worlds without which his haecceitism cannot do, whereas panenmentalism dispenses with the notion of possible worlds and, thus, deals with all modal concepts quite differently from any possibilism that adheres to such a notion. Rosenkrantz’s Platonic realism is an anti-nominalistic view, assuming abstract, general entities whereas panenmentalism does not accept such entities and its realism is about individual pure possibilities and their relationality. Panenmentalist pure possibilities are possibilities-identities, our “individuating factors,” which are not general haecceities serving as a principle of individuation. Unlike Rosenkrantz’s possibilism, pure or mere possibilities are necessarily concrete beings (concreta), by no means abstracta. In this respect, panenmentalism challenges any Platonic realism (see Section 2.3 below), and the panenmentalist nominalism or its realism about individual pure possibilities is not
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compatible with haecceitism. Only individual possibilities, pure or actual, and their relationality exist. Finally, assuming nonexistent possible individuals or nonexistent possibilities, Rosenkrantz actually takes a Meinongian stance about this point whereas panenmentalism takes a realist stance about pure possibilities, which are obviously existents, existing independently of any actualities. On the other hand, panenmentalism shares with some possibilists, such as Rosenkrantz and Williamson, the correct view that identities are necessary. In a similar vein, pure possibilities-identities are necessary, by no means contingent. Analogous to Rosenkrantz’s haecceities, pure possibilitiesidentities are necessary existents. Yet, again, contrary to all the possibilists known to me, I define all modal terms regardless of the notion of possible worlds. Thus, all the modal terms of possibility, necessity, contingency, quantification, and identity function in panenmentalism with no reliance upon any concept or conception of possible worlds. Finally, my view on personal identity and the multiple personality problems is compatible with that of Rosenkrantz (ibid., pp. 236–240), yet our reasons and grounds are entirely different. Mine have to do with psychical possibility, singularity, and inner, privately accessible reality, not with any haecceity. Considering pure possibilities as the identities of actual entities, panenmentalism substitutes the odd and quite obscure notion of haecceity or thisness with much more adequate and economical a notion. No clear answer has been ever given to the question “What is haecceity?” yet the notion of haecceity has been meant to meet a real philosophical problem that should be seriously treated. I am convinced that pure possibilities-identities answer this problem quite adequately. Since any two pure possibilities cannot be identical, each pure possibility is an identity in itself. Nothing is more ontologically fundamental or prior than pure possibilities. Thus, pure possibilities are panenmentalist ontological primitives. No identities exist except pure possibilities, and the identity of each pure possibility is nothing but that possibility itself whereas the identity of anything actual is its pure possibility and nothing else. Since identity is pure possibility, it is not a predicate or a relation. In sum, pure possibilities are the genuinely fundamental “thisnesses” of all things. They are thus primarily referable. Owing to them we are able to realize, recognize, or identify actual entities. Owing to them we are able to refer to actual entities, not the other way round. Different other kinds of haecceitism exist. Believing himself to have a “cheaper” alternative to haecceitism (better, possible worlds haecceitism), David Lewis states that not all possibilities are possible worlds and that two possible individuals can be identical (Lewis, 1983; cf. 1986, pp. 220–248: “Against Haecceitism”). But he does not allow himself to exempt individual possibilities from the notion of possible worlds: “There are no free-floating
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possibilia. Every possibility is part of a world—exactly one world” (Lewis, 1983, p. 26). Since haecceity is the property of being identical with an individual, Lewis believes that he could have been Fred in one and the same possible world, for instance, in this world. Panenmentalism, in contrast, rules out such a possibility, exempts individual possibilities from the notion of possible worlds, does not follow any haecceitism, nor does it accept Lewis’s substitute for it. Individual pure possibilities are our modal or metaphysical primitives, not possible worlds or their parts. The universal relationality of any pure possibility is valid for the entire realm of pure possibilities, not for mere “worldmates.” Absolutely contrary to Lewis, no two identical possibilities could exist, and no reality contains twin identical “counterparts.” Absolutely contrary to him (ibid.), he could not have been one of identical twins or the other. He could be only David Lewis and not anybody else, namely, under this and not under any other pure possibility-identity. Each person is a singular pure possibility, consisting of an inner, psychical reality, inaccessible from without. No person is an alternative to the other. As a singular psychical possibility, each person, twin or not, is not even similar to any other possibility, psychical or not. Lewis could not be another person, and no twin can be identical with the other. Singular possibilities and such kinds of haecceitism or Lewis’s view are incompatible. 16. The Psychical as an Actual Nothingness In Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre considers the human subject as a sort of nothingness whereas objects are beings or existing entities (Sartre, 1969). Sartre relates his view to Heidegger (ibid., pp. 16–21), while discussing “distance,” “realities like absence, change, otherness, repulsion, regret, distraction,” and the like (ibid., p. 21), which have to do with negation and nihilism. In panenmentalism, in contrast, otherness is not a negation, let alone anything of nihilism, for otherness has to do with relationality instead. For panenmentalism, contrary to Sartre’s philosophy, the being of psychical subjects, which are singular pure possibilities, has nothing to do with nothingness. The following appears quite interesting from the panenmentalist viewpoint: With the possible as with value there is the greatest difficulty in understanding its being, for it is given as prior to the being of which it is the pure possibility; and yet qua possible, at least, it necessarily must have being. Do we not say, “It is possible that he may come.” Since Leibniz the term “possible” is usually applied to an event which is not engaged in an existing causal series such that the event can be surely determined and
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which involves no contradiction either with itself or with the system under consideration. Thus defined, the possible is possible only with regard to knowledge since we are not in a position either to affirm or to deny the possible confronted. (ibid., p. 96) For a moment, the reader might feel that we face an anticipated panenmentalist view, but such is not the case at all. What Sartre has in mind at this point is the possible under a Leibnizian-Sartrean interpretation. Under such a view, the possible is the contingent, and it has to do with the future, which is not actual yet. Finally, the possibility under discussion is logical. In these three respects, panenmentalism greatly differs from that view. And when Sartre mentions Spinoza’s view of the possible as a product of our ignorance and subjectivity, he follows the actualist fallacy: The possible “has only the reality of a psychical mode; as confused or curtailed thought it has a concrete being but not as a property of the world” (ibid., p. 96), which, alternatively, renders the possible as if conceptual only (like Rescher’s actualism discussed in Section 1.6 above). The second sense that Sartre ascribes to the possible is Leibnizian: “[I]t is also permissible, as Leibniz does, to make of the infinity of possible objects of thought for the divine understanding and so confer on them a mode of absolute reality; this position reserves for the divine will the power to realize the best system among them” (ibid., pp. 96–97). In this second sense, the possible is a Leibnizian possible world, and it is eventually actual, for its existence depends on the actual existence of God’s thought (ibid., p. 97). In Section 2.5 below, I will reject such a Leibnizian view of the possible and explain why panenmentalism greatly differs from Leibniz’s metaphysics. When Sartre mentions the possible as “a non-contradictory structure belonging to a world not realized and at the margin of this world” (ibid., p. 97), he has in mind an idea that is extremely remote from the panenmentalist sense of the term. According to panenmentalism, the purely possible is the entire reality whose limited part is the actual world! Undoubtedly, Sartre could not accept my view that the psychical is purely possible but in the singular sense of the term. Finally, even in the sense of the possible that Sartre endorses—“a concrete property of already existing realities” (ibid., p. 98), it is far from any panenmentalist stance. For although any possibility is concrete and specific, it is by no means a property of actual things. Again, at least a shred of actualism exists in such a view (hence, “in order for the rain to be possible, there must be clouds in the sky” [ibid.]). No wonder that Sartre reaches a conclusion that no panenmentalist would accept: “To suppress being in order to establish the possible in its purity is an absurd attempt” (ibid.). Sartre could not accept the panenmentalist view that the possible exists no less, even more, than the actual. Thus, according to him, the possible, let alone
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the “absurd” purely possible, is non-being, which panenmentalism opposes. The same holds for his statement that the possible “has the being of a lack and as lack, it lacks being” (ibid., p. 102). The purely possible is a lack of actuality, but this does not render it lacking a being, for the purely possible is the very being of being. On the other hand, I accept Sartre’s distinction, which is too frequently ignored, between the possible and the Aristotelian potentiality, which he considers “magical” (ibid., p. 98). I also accept Sartre’s view that we cannot capture subjects, for they escape any of our categories or conceptions. If you consider a woman only as a waitress, for instance, this captures nothing of her as a person, who is a unique (I would say, singular) being that no category can adequately classify or capture at all. Although some truth exists as well as some (yet pessimistic) humanism in this view by Sartre, it misses the ontological status of subjects, which is entirely real, no less real than that of objects. An obvious borderline exists, separating subjects from objects, but subjects are at least as real as objects, and they are beings as much as objects are. The very being of a subject is in our presence, and this being is undeniable. It is not the being of a mere object, for the person to whom I am referring right now is much more than a body. The body is an actuality of an unactual singular being, of a subject, who is a singular pure possibility. Any subject is a psychical being, not a physical one. Only the actualization of the subject is an object, a body. Still, the identity of this body is purely possible, not an actual one. As psychical, subjects are pure singular possibilities-identities. As such, they are not actual-physical beings. Their being as psychical is unactual, and whenever we consider it as actual alone, it is as if nothing. In this manner, which is entirely different from Sartre’s existentialism, panenmentalism ascribes actual nothingness to subjects as pure psychical possibilities. In sum, from a panenmentalist viewpoint, the psychical as such is an actual nothingness. Only its actualization as a physical being is an actuality. 17. “In Madagascar There Must Be Some Gigantic Moth” Describing one of the impressive and most intriguing orchids, Charles Darwin writes: The Angraecum sesquipedale, of which the large six-rayed flowers, like stars formed of snow-white wax, have excited the admiration of travelers in Madagascar, must not be passed over. A green, whip-like nectary of astonishing length hangs down beneath the labellum. In several flowers . . . I found the nectaries eleven and a half inches long, with only the lower inch and a half filled with nectar. What can be the use, it may be
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asked, of a nectary of such disproportionate length? We shall, I think, see that the fertilisation of the plant depends on this length, and on nectar being contained only within the lower and attenuated extremity. It is, however, surprising that any insect should be able to reach the nectar. Our English sphinxes have proboscides as long as their bodies; but in Madagascar there must be moths with proboscides capable of extension to a length of between ten and eleven inches! This belief of mine has been ridiculed by some entomologists . . . (Darwin, 1984 [1877], pp. 162–163) If such great moths were to become extinct in Madagascar, assuredly the Angraecum would become extinct. On the other hand, as the nectar, at least in the lower part of the nectary, is stored safe from the depredation of other insects, the extinction of the Angraecum would probably be a serious loss to these moths. (ibid., p. 165) As certain moths of Madagascar became larger through natural selection in relation to their general conditions of life . . . , or as the proboscis alone was lengthened to obtain honey from the Angraecum and other deep tubular flowers, those individual plants of the Angraecum which had the longest nectaries . . . , and which, consequently, compelled the moths to insert their proboscides up to the very base, would be best fertilized. These plants would yield most seed, and seedlings would generally inherit long nectaries; and so it would be in successive generations of the plant and of the moth. (ibid., p. 166) In Darwin’s time, no evidence existed as to the actual existence of such gigantic moths. Yet his theory of natural selection necessitated him to assume, to “believe,” that such strange, most unusual moths must exist to fertilize this kind of orchid (“it cannot, I think, be doubted that a large moth would thus act” [ibid., p. 164]). As in the case of the eka-elements in the periodic table, the lack of any evidence as to the actual existence of such moths did not prevent Darwin from following a modal ontological presupposition: “There must be” such moths, although no evidence to their actual existence existed at that time. Darwin’s natural science follows a metaphysical, as if a panenmentalist, presupposition, as much as chemistry has had such presuppositions concerning the eka-elements. “Must,” “would,” and “should” are metaphysical modal terms pertaining to the realm of the purely possible, not to that of actual facts. In the case of Darwin’s prediction of the moths that must fertilize the Angraecum sesquipedale, “must” does not designate any value, but it still designates a pure possibility, without which the structure of the Angraecum sesquipedale
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cannot be intelligible, at least in the light of natural selection. As a truthful fiction, natural selection points out the necessity of such pure possibility and of its relationality to the pure possibility-identity, and, as a result, to the actuality, of the Angraecum sesquipedale. Darwin was not aware of the metaphysical or ontological basis of his aforementioned belief, and yet this basis must be there, however implicitly or tacitly. More than that, this basis should be identified as panenmentalist, as it assumes the necessary existence of pure possibilities, at least the one of the aforementioned moth. Despite the ridicule of some entomologists, Darwin’s prediction concerning this moth was completely confirmed only a few decades after his death: Xanthopan morgani predicta was actually discovered. Instead of Darwin’s modal expression, “In Madagascar Angraecum sesquipedale must depend on some gigantic moth” (ibid., p. 282), we have been entitled since then to confirm that in Madagascar Angraecum sesquipedale actually depends on Xanthopan morgani predicta and vice versa. Darwin’s prediction regarding a nocturnal moth with a proboscis about eleven inches long pollinating the night-blooming orchid did become true, as the predictions concerning eka-elements proved to be actually true. In both scientific fields, a kind of a priori dependence (in terms of adaptation and function) or systematization consisting of the relationality of taxonomical pure possibilities, biological or chemical respectively, has led or conducted the relevant scientific observations and discoveries. As metaphysicians or ontologists, we should take upon ourselves the task of exposing such metaphysical or ontological basis in light of which natural sciences tacitly or implicitly pave their ways. This basis is indispensable for the actual achievements of these sciences. Those entomologists who ridiculed Darwin for suggesting the pure possibility of the gigantic moth fertilizing the Angraecum sesquipedale were, probably unknowingly, actualists, as they excluded that possibility on the grounds that there was no actual precedent for such possibility. Excluding it, they committed the predicta fallacy, a companion to other actualist fallacies, namely, the eka-fallacy and the fallacy exposed in the light of Verne’s counterexamples as mentioned in Section 1.6 above. In contrast, Darwin’s prediction rested, also unknowingly, upon possibilist grounds. Although natural theology, teleology, any idea of “Intelligent Designer,” and different metaphysical ideas are entirely incompatible with Darwin’s natural selection and natural history, this does not mean that he, however unknowingly, did not rest his theory upon some metaphysical or ontological presuppositions. As I analyze the text above, Darwin was, though unknowingly, a possibilist, quite opposed to the actualist entomologists of his time. Since he considered the possibility of the aforementioned moth as necessary, I conclude that he, unknowingly, even adopted a panenmentalist presupposition. Above, in
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Section 1.6 and others, I showed that similar metaphysical presuppositions characterize modern chemistry, at least as far as the periodic table is concerned. All the possible actualist objections to the predicta counterexample are defeated in the same way that I defeated the possible actualist objections to what I said about the eka-counterexamples and Verne’s counterexamples in Section 1.6 above. Actualism cannot help but commit such actualist fallacies with no sound justification.
Two FROM ONTOLOGY TO EPISTEMOLOGY 1. Can a Panenmentalist Merely Entertain a Thought? Following W. E. Johnson, R. Braithwaite, H. H. Price, Davidson, and Dummett and reflecting on Meinong and Fodor, Wolfgang Künne re-discusses the expression “merely entertain” serving for a “disengaged or non-committal way of thinking a thought” (Künne, 1995, pp. 367–368). Can a panenmentalist merely entertain a thought? No, for panenmentalism commits itself to the existence of its objects, including the objects of thought, whereas Meinong and Meinongianism exempt themselves from such ontological commitment because they assume nonexistent objects (such as fictional or mythical ones) or even “impossible” objects (such as a golden mountain, a round square). In contrast, pure possibilities are full-blown existents as far as panenmentalism is concerned. Panenmentalism thus suggests a substitute for “merely entertaining” a thought. Following Whitehead’s happy expression “the adventure of ideas,” instead of entertaining with pure possibilities, we adventure with or venture upon them. Since pure possibilities are not invented but discovered, our adventuring with or venturing upon them means detecting the necessary relationality in which one pure possibility necessarily relates to the others. In mathematics, such relationality has to do with the intrinsic similarity of some mathematical possibilities, which plays a crucial role in mathematical proofs and demonstrations. We detect that similarity, follow it, and thus commit ourselves to a mathematical adventure, in which many surprises, novel discoveries, amazement, and wonders will take place. You may call this “mathematical entertainment” but only in a metaphorical sense for detecting the necessity in which one pure possibility follows the others is far from being an entertainment with thoughts or ideas. By the same token, by means of theories, fictions, and the like we may thus tour the land of pure possibilities. These are plays and gamesthe hide and seek of pure possibilitiesthat are absolutely serious and strongly commit the adventurer-players of pure possibilities. These are mental journeys or tours carrying weighty consequences for us. Because of these inescapable consequences we, panenmentalists, cannot merely entertain with pure possibilities. Neither can we merely assume pure possibilities. If Meinongian assuming means “merely entertaining a thought” (Künne, 1995, p. 365), Meinongians of any kind allow themselves to merely assume mental objects, whereas panenmentalists discover pure possibilities and especially their necessary relationality. Panenmentalists are not involved with assuming pure possibilities
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but with discovering and exploring them. Adventurers in the mental domain are the greatest discoverers and explorers we can think of, for all great adventures begin with the pure possibilities that our mind can discover and explore. Mentioning “exploration” I have no analysis in mind. Our mental journeys in the realm of pure possibilities are always tracking the relationality of pure possibilities. Tracking it, we can find an abundance of novelties that no analysis can provide. Considering, for instance, numbers, dots, lines, or geometrical figures, as pure possibilities, we explore their relationality in synthetic a priori terms (to use the Kantian terminology), whereas analysis of pure possibilities is a matter of explication, not of exploration or discovery. Whenever novelties are concerned, we cannot do with analysis or explication, whereas our exploration of pure possibilities always leads us to novel discoveries. 2. Empiricism, Innateness, and Singularity If, before any experience, each mind is a tabula rasa, and if empiricism is also actualist, then persons, like any other actual beings, should be considered spatiotemporally individuated, which is precisely the view of a celebrated empiricist-actualist—P. F. Strawson (1964). But if spatiotemporality is the only basis on which to construct individuation, a far-reaching possibility is not excluded—two persons could be doubles, which is a possibility according to another actualist—Derek Parfit (1987, pp. 199 ff.). According to him, to make a facsimile or a duplicate of a person is quite possible, and thus the result may be that we would have two identical persons, although one is supposed to be the original, and the other “just” a copy. Such empiricist-actualist-materialist metaphysics, either by P. F. Strawson or Parfit, subscribes to what panenmentalism considers a sheer impossibility, namely, that persons can be doubled or cloned. Only under delusion, hallucination, some psychopathologies, and the like, can people believe that they meet doubles. To endorse the “possibility” of a double means to repudiate singularity as well as all the tenable beliefs that people are intrinsically different one from the other. Philosophically or theoretically speaking, one may argue for such an uncanny “possibility” under empiricistactualist-materialist assumptions, but this should not persuade us. If, as love opens our eyes to realize veridically, human individuality rests on the grounds of singularity, all these ideas, notwithstanding Parfit and other philosophers, turn out to be just barren games, bearing no real meaning or significance for us. At this point empiricism must be facing a dire problem. In contrast to rationalism, empiricism has traditionally attempted to avoid generalizations, Platonic realism, unification, and the like. Instead, empiricism has systemati-
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cally attempted to search for differences, however minute, diversity, variations, and the like. Classical empiricism, relying on the assumption, explicit or implicit, that inner reality exists, could accept human individuality on the basis of the inner experience of consciousness (Locke’s empiricism, for instance). Even though innateness has been excluded under empiricism of any sort, the empiricist could still argue that each of us, confined by his or her specific limitations, is a singular being, entirely different from other singular beings or persons. Even under the same circumstances, two persons may experience the same event quite differently, owing to the singularity of each of them, as each person as a tabula rasa is limited in her or his unique way. On these grounds room enough exists for differences in viewpoints, which are not spatiotemporally locatable. Alas, as I will show soon, singularity cannot be like that for it must be innate and not acquirable. Suppose, like P. F. Strawson, that what exclusively determines individuality, personal or other, are spatiotemporal grounds. Given that person a has one and the same experience as b has except at different times, what makes them two persons instead of one? Only the being of each one of them in different places at the same time or at different times in the same place. But this does not exclude the possibility that they will be doubles located at different times or places. The only difference would be that although a has precisely one and the same history as b, one and the same experience of the same places, the temporal acquisition of this experience is slightly different. Say, that what a experienced at second S1, b experienced one second later, at second S2, and the same holds for all the other moments in the life-history of a or b. Yet their life-histories as such would be so extremely similar that, as a matter of fact, they would be one and the same, and they are actually one and the same person. But if the individuality of each of them is not exclusively spatiotemporally based, resting also on the difference between a as a tabula rasa and b as another tabula rasa, different one from the other owing to different limitations, the subjective way in which each one of them experiences even the same external events is enough to make a great difference between them. The subjective experience of each one of them should be taken into account, and subjectivity cannot rest on the basis of external experience alone. It requires inner experience. Some materialists, such as Galen Strawson (1994), attempt, successfully perhaps, to keep subjectivity intact, and rightly so, but this makes their materialism radically different from that of P. F. Strawson and others, which is actualist-behaviorist. Instead, Galen Strawson’s empiricism rejects not only behaviorism but also neo-behaviorism. Our analysis ends with an interesting conclusion. If empiricism attempts to be coherent enough, it should endorse a principle of personal identity that is not only spatiotemporal. It should assume that each person as a particular
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tabula rasa must be different from any other person as a tabula rasa, not on spatiotemporal grounds alone but on quite another principle of individuation. Subjectivity is not acquirable but innate, which is obviously incompatible with empiricist principles. If the spatiotemporal differences between one person and another are reducible to other grounds, it also must be the end of one of the most basic principle of empiricism, both classical and modern, and it must open the way to some rationalism and innateness. Empiricism cannot evade the singularity of each person, but such singularity cannot rest on empiricist principles alone. Thus, if subjectivity, without which personality becomes meaningless, rests on singularity, which cannot be physical-actual but only psychical (Gilead, 2003), subjectivity cannot rest on empiricist-materialist grounds. At this point, not only must P. F. Strawson be wrong, but Galen Strawson too, attempting to rest subjectivity on materialist grounds alone. Can subjectivity rest on empiricist-mentalist (or empiricist-idealistic) grounds instead? Can Berkeley, for instance, save subjectivity? If such an empiricist coherently accepted the idea of singularity pertaining to psychical subjects alone, subjectivity would be saved under empiricist-mentalist principles. Assuming that of other persons we may have only notions and not ideas and that from such notions we infer other persons’ existence, having no direct acquaintance with it, Berkeley might appear to accept private accessibility. Yet I have not found any indication that he ascribes singularity to persons. Since the basis for private accessibility is singularity (Gilead, 2003), to assume the existence of inner, psychical reality inaccessible from without, namely, private accessible reality, is not sufficient to assume singularity. Private accessibility is a necessary condition for singularity, while singularity is a sufficient condition for private accessibility. Even if Berkeley could accept private accessibility, the case appears to be that it does not put any limitation on God’s omniscience. Exempt from such a limitation, Berkeley’s God has access to any mind whatsoever. If such is the case, in the last account, Berkeley is not devoted to the idea of private accessibility. As a result, he could not adopt the idea of personal singularity. I am unable to think of another empiricist who is capable of resting personal singularity on mentalist or idealistic grounds. Finally, I do not see how any philosopher can be an adherent of the idea of subjectivity, all the more of singularity, without assuming innateness of whatsoever kind, for any experience in itself, like anything acquirable, can be shared by different persons and, as such, has no subjectivity or singularity in it. Innateness is entirely incompatible with empiricism, and so are subjectivity and singularity. Both are innate; by no means are they acquirable.
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3. Panenmentalism Between Platonism and Nominalism Habitually, we think that Platonism, assuming the ontological, substantial status of universals, and nominalism, excluding such a status, are incompatible. As a radical innovation, panenmentalism does not admit such a dichotomy. Instead, panenmentalism shows that its unique modal nominalism is well compatible with the assumption that pure possibilities are concrete, non-abstract beings whose existence is entirely independent of actualities and, thus, primary. Avoiding transcendence, Platonic separation (chǀrismos), and hypostasized (“substantive”) universals, panenmentalism maintains a novel or revolutionary “mentalism” that endows mental beings, which are merely pure possibilities, with a complete ontological status. Panenmentalism gets closer to a unique sort of modal “Platonism,” better—a sort of “Platonic” possibilism or mentalism. Yet, quite unlike Platonic phenomena, actualities are comprised within the total mental realm and necessarily connected with it. This total realm of pure possibilities is panenontic, whereas the whole realm of the Platonic Ideas is but a transcendent part, albeit the fully ontic, “the really real,” part of reality as a whole. Finally, unlike the Platonic Ideas, pure possibilities are individuals, particulars or singulars, not general or universal. All these put panenmentalism quite far from any known Platonism, yet panenmentalism is much closer to Platonism than it is to actualism, materialism, behaviorism, and empiricism. Under the panenmentalist modal metaphysics, general concepts or terms, universals, and the like are merely the significance or relationality supervening on particular possibilities. Namely, the relationality of particular possibilities constitutes universals or general concepts. Unlike set-theoretical philosophy, panenmentalism does not rely upon any existence of sets. According to panenmentalism and contrary to Russell and his followers, predicates have not necessarily to do with any set. We are entitled to speak of sets, predicates, and the like, only because the relationality of a book, for instance, to any other book is evidently different from the universal relationality of any possibility of a book to all other possibilities whatsoever. In this way, panenmentalism, as a modal nominalism, has all it needs of generality or universality without resorting to universals’ realism or substantialism. The relationality of each pure possibility to all the others is necessarily universal: Since no two possibilities can be identical and each possibility is different from all the others, each possibility must relate to all of them. In such a way, panenmentalism shows that a novel modal metaphysics, excluding the separate, substantive, primary existence of universals and exempt from the notion of possible worlds, sets, and the like, is well compatible with a unique kind of modal nominalism.
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As for epistemology, panenmentalism shares with Platonism the idea that our epistemic accessibility to the primary entities, which are the fundamental objects of the metaphysical knowledge, is innate. At this point, they still differ, since with panenmentalism the primary entities and objects of knowledge are pure possibilities, which are immanent, whereas with Platonism such entities and objects are transcendent Ideas. This leaves the advantage to panenmentalism, since innate accessibility and immanence are more compatible than such accessibility and transcendence, which entails the separation (chǀrismos) problem, separating the human mind from the Ideas. 4. Panenmentalism Under the Light of Idealism Panenmentalism postulates that the actual-physical is included in the purely possible-mental. “Included” does not mean “located” for being located requires spatial distinctions, which are not valid for the mental reality of pure possibilities. How does this panenmentalist postulate look like in light of Berkeley’s statement, “the brain, being a sensible thing, exists only in the mind” (Berkeley, 1965, p. 172)? Is this not an anticipatory panenmentalist idea? Like Berkeley, I entirely reject the phrase that the mind (or the self and the like) exists in the brain for no mental or psychical being occupies any space nor can it be located. To use such an erroneous phrase is to reduce the psychical to the physical. In the brain we can locate the actualities of psychical possibilities but not the psychical possibilities themselves or the psychical in general. But what about the other way round? Can we say, following Berkeley, that the brain is in the mind? Not in Berkeley’s sense, according to which the brain is nothing but an idea and, as such, the brain must be in our mind. Since panenmentalism considers the brain as a physical-actual being, which does not render it into an idea alone, panenmentalism does not accept Berkeley’s idealism in general or this specific point in particular. If by “in” we mean a location or being a member of a class or set, we are not entitled to claim that the brain is in the mind. As has been emphasized already, unlike Russell, Quine, Davidson, and others, I do not subscribe to settheoretical philosophy, and panenmentalism can dispense with sets. Instead, panenmentalism posits that all possibilities, pure or actualized, make one, total, and yet open realm, to which all beings or entities belong, in which all things, all pure possibilities and actualities alike, exist and are included or comprised. In this sense, the body exists in the mind, since the body, as a partial actuality of a pure possibility, the mind, is only a part of the possibilityidentity that the body actualizes under spatiotemporal and causal conditions within the total realm of all possibilities.
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Can we say, then, that the brain exists or is included in the mind? Yes, we can in a panenmentalist sense because the brain is a partial actualization of the mind as its pure possibility-identity. The brain is a part of the body, which, in turn, is a part of the mind, limited or restricted under spatiotemporal and causal conditions. If such is the case, what is the difference between panenmentalism and idealism, such as Berkeley’s? Unlike Berkeley, I assume that the physical exists whether any mind grasps it, is aware of it, or not. Anything actual-physical necessarily exists within the mental realm of pure possibilities, as a limited part of this realm, but this does not mean that anything actual-physical must be grasped by a mind to exist. Like Berkeley, I believe that all we know about the actual-physical cannot dispense with experience. Panenmentalism shares something with empiricism: The actual-physical can be known by means of experience alone. In other words, we learn about spatiotemporal changes, events, causal connections or relations, and innumerable contingencies only by means of experience. In contrast, all we know about pure possibilities-identities and their relationality stems from an a priori source, not from any experience. No empiricist, especially Berkeley, can accept this innateness, without which panenmentalist pure possibilities cannot do epistemologically. According to Berkeley, nothing can exist without spirits or minds. Such is not a panenmentalist postulate. Instead, panenmentalism postulates that without minds, without inner realities, external reality exists. Under Berkeley’s philosophy, no external reality consisting of allegedly actual-physical things can be distinguished, unless by way of abstraction, from psychical reality whatsoever. For Berkeley, every object, which must be an idea, exists in a psychical reality. Ideas are thus only the modes of the only substances of which Berkeley acknowledges—minds. For him, only minds, only substances, exist independently, outside or without other minds, but no physical-actual thing, which is nothing but an idea, can exist outside or without the mind. Hence, for Berkeley, the brain exists in the mind, not the other way round. As for consciousness, Berkeley cannot accept the existence of the unconscious. For him, everything existing in the mind is conscious. In contrast, panenmentalism considers the existence of the unconscious as indispensable. Panenmentalism rests inner reality, inaccessible from without, on the singularity of psychical possibilities. Berkeley, instead, postulates the concept of “notion” to distinguish minds from ideas, which are merely modes or modifications of minds. Berkeley’s “notions” are quite obscure and vague, whereas the panenmentalist distinction between mental possibilities and psychical possibilities, which are singulars, is much clearer and definite. The relationality of one mind or person to the other is quite different from the inter-relationality of mental possibilities. The relationality of mental possibilities rests on the difference between any two possibilities, none of
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which can be identical with the other. In contrast, the relationality of psychical possibilities of different persons rests on the grounds that these possibilities are not even similar: Each of which is intrinsically wholly different from the other. Singularity, which is in the nature of psychical possibilities, constitutes what is inner or inaccessible about a person or a mind. Since Berkeley does not postulate such an inner reality, inaccessible from without, his idealism is found insufficient and greatly different from panenmentalism. Berkeley’s idealism is empiricist, whereas that of Leibniz is rationalist. Panenmentalism does not accept both kinds of idealism. I do not accept Leibniz’s idealism, because according to it, nothing can be irreducibly empirical. Second, according to Leibniz, each monad is unique, yet all monads perceive one and the same world; they are not different one from the other because of their content, but only because of the degree of clarity and distinctness in which each of them perceives the same content, the same world. Thus, accessibility to each monad is possible in principle. After all, the reason for what occurs in a lower monad is explicitly found, as conscious, in a higher monad. Second, God, the highest of all monads, and as the clearest and most distinct of them all, has access to any monad. In contrast, on panenmentalist grounds, such accessibility is impossible or excluded from the outset, for each mind is singular, and its inner reality is absolutely inaccessible from without. Even omniscient God, if He existed, could not have any access to other minds. I will soon return to these and other differences of panenmentalism from Leibniz’s philosophy (consider the next Section, 2.5). Although panenmentalism gives priority to the mental-possible, rejecting rationalist and empiricist idealism alike, it cannot be considered idealistic in the known or standard senses of idealism. This also holds for transcendent idealism, such as Plato’s. Panenmentalism obviously avoids the Platonic separation (chǀrismos) between the mental-spiritual and the sensuous-material and this separation is the necessary outcome of the Platonic transcendence. With panenmentalism, the sensuous-material—the actual-physical—is an immanent part of the mental-spiritual. In sum, the panenmentalist “idealism” is a unique kind, which should not be compared to any other known kind of idealism. Panenmentalism gives priority, ontologically and epistemologically, to the mental-possible, yet it absolutely opposes any reduction of the physical-actual to the possible-mental. The actual-physical is as indispensable as the possible-mental. These two ontic realms are by no means one and the same. Although united, they are distinct one from the other. The actual-physical is not separable from the mentalpossible, the source of any identity. In contrast, the mental-possible is separable from the actual-physical, for pure possibilities exist independently of any actuality. If such priority must end with a kind of idealism, panenmentalism makes a unique kind of idealism.
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5. Is Panenmentalism Leibnizian? As a novel metaphysics, panenmentalism may pose some difficulties for its new acquaintances or for those to whom it has been presented. To overcome such difficulties, the readers or listeners may search for similarities between panenmentalism and another metaphysics with which they are already acquainted. Puzzled, they may rely on their associations, which provide an illusion of familiarity. Some of my listeners and readers have claimed to detect alleged or apparent similarities, despite obvious differences, between panenmentalism and Leibniz’s metaphysics. I consider their reactions wrong for different reasons. Panenmentalism is by no means Leibnizian; it is even anti-Leibnizian in some of its first principles. While Leibniz’s metaphysics is idealistic and rationalist, panenmentalism is not an idealistic theory in any accustomed sense, nor is it rationalist. With panenmentalism and unlike Leibniz’s metaphysics, the physical-actual is not just a phenomenon of the mental reality, but it is a real, conditioned, and limited, yet indispensable and irreducible, part of it. As to its reality, the physical-actual is as real as the mental-possible. With panenmentalism, to know the actual-physical, we need indispensable empirical means, such as experience or observation. Unlike Leibniz’s rationalism, the physical is not reducible to the mental or the psychical, and the empirical way to know it is not reducible to any a priori knowledge. Contrary to Leibniz, the contingency of the physical-actual cannot be dispensed of by means of reduction to necessary truths, let alone to identities. Even more important, although no mind-monad has “windows” to let anything enter from without, Leibniz attempts to demonstrate how accessibility to other minds is possible. Although no monad can be causally influenced whatsoever by other monads (which may be analogous to the relations between panenmentalist pure possibilities), an “ideal influence” necessarily exists among monads. The reasons for what exists or happens in a lower, less clear and distinct, monad are accessible to a higher, more clear and distinct, monad. By the same token, as conscious monads, we are conscious and aware of what exists and happens within lower monads, including unconscious monads. According to Leibniz, each monad reflects, each in its particular degree of clarity and distinctness, the same, common universe. As a result, the reasons for what exists or happens in lower monads is accessible to higher monads, and absolutely accessible to the highest monad, the clearest and most distinct of them all, namely, God. In contrast, with panenmentalism, as a singular subject, no mind is accessible from without, not even to an omniscient subject. Were such accessibility possible, the singularity of each mind would have been entirely nullified.
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This implies a harsh criticism against Leibniz: Though he ascribes particularity to each monad, for each has its unique degree of clarity and distinctness (otherwise the principle of the identity of indiscernibles would be violated), he fails to provide any basis for its singularity. Just a degree of clarity and distinctness will not do for this purpose. In other words, while panenmentalism is absolutely loyal to this indispensable principle, Leibniz is not. If any monad is accessible to any higher monad, no monad is singular, and its particularity is a matter of degree alone. Each monad shares too much in common with the others to be singular. This puts a critical limit to Leibniz’s rationalism, attempting to discover the unique sufficient reason for each individual substance, namely, monad. The major debate that panenmentalism maintains with Leibniz’s metaphysics is over the psychophysical problem. Leibniz’s idea of the preestablished harmony considers the psychophysical relationship as that between reality and appearance, between the spiritual or psychical monad and its appearance as a body, which, as such, lacks any consciousness. Mind and body are thus different degrees of clarity and distinctness of the same individual. The body is the same individual as sleeping, as lacking consciousness, or as appearing only. Mind is a higher degree of clarity and distinctness, which is an “apperception” or consciousness, of what the body represents, perceives, or unconsciously conceives. Panenmentalism cannot adopt such a psychophysical view for, according to it, body is a partial, yet irreducible, actualization of the mind as a pure possibility. The difference between mind and body is not of any degree, epistemological or ontological. With panenmentalism, no reduction of body to mind is possible, especially not any idealistic reduction. Actuality is not an appearance of a higher degree of reality. The body is as substantial and real as the mind. The panenmentalist psychophysical view is thus quite far from Leibniz’s. “Degrees of reality” is a most problematic, even aporetic, notion. Ontologism, ontological proofs, and rationalist views in general naturally tend to adopt this notion. As if we could deduce actual existence, as a lower or higher degree of reality, from ideas or other mental entities. Like Kantianism, panenmentalism strongly opposes ontologism, to begin with the Cartesian cogito and to end with the ontological proofs of God’s actual existence. Opposing ontologism, panenmentalism, like Kantianism, rejects the notion of “degrees of reality.” Undoubtedly, different kinds of reality exist, unlike degrees of reality, which is a false fiction. This fiction relies on the rationalist assumption, to which Leibniz is devoted, that actual existence can be deduced or implied out of ideas or concepts, or that a priori sources of knowledge may be sufficient to acquire all the knowledge we need about facts or actual matters. With panenmentalism, all about actual reality has to do with empirical sources of knowledge, which are indispensable and irreducible. Leibniz’s idea
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regarding the possible reduction of factual truths to the eternal truths of reason, let alone to truths of identity, radically opposes anything that could even hint at such a panenmentalist view. Instead of the Leibnizian reflection, which pertains to each monad and the entire world (each monad is actually a viewpoint or a mirror, reflecting the entire universe with a particular degree of clarity and distinctness), panenmentalism employs quite a difference means—relationality. Each possibility relates to all the others, and such relationality does not rely upon the notion of possible worlds. In contrast, each monad is systematically also a possible world. The possibilism that panenmentalism adopts holds for the entire realm of pure possibilities without relying upon the notion of possible worlds, entirely dispensable for panenmentalist purposes. After all, rejecting the entire idea of unactualized individual possibilities, many actualists, if not all, have adopted the idea or notion of possible worlds. Not so panenmentalism. In his debate with Locke about the innateness of ideas (in New Essays Concerning Human Understanding), Leibniz takes an anti-actualist stance, while accusing Locke of actualism. Yet, in his monadological metaphysics, Leibniz considers the monads, albeit possible worlds, actual. As such, monads are not pure possibilities but actualities. Undoubtedly, panenmentalism opposes such an actualist stance. In his “Correspondence with Arnauld [1686–7],” re-relating the possible to the compossible, Leibniz mentions the “realm of possible realities” in the following words: In order to call something possible, it is enough merely to be able to form a concept of it when it is only in the divine understanding, which is, so to speak, the realm of possible realities. As concerns possibles, I am thus content that one can form true propositions from them; thus one can judge, for example, that a perfect square implies no contradiction, even if there has never been a perfect square in the world. If we wished absolutely to reject such pure possibles, we should destroy contingency and freedom, for if nothing is possible except what God has actually created, whatever God has created would be necessary, and in willing to create something, God could create only that thing alone, without any freedom of choice. (Leibniz, 1969, p. 336) Or, mentioning “possibilities or essences, whether prior to or abstracted from existence” (ibid., p. 488), Leibniz puts it thus in “On the Radical Origination of Things [23.11.1697]”: Neither . . . essences nor the so-called eternal truths about them are fictitious but exist in a certain region of ideas, if I may so call it, namely,
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First, “possibilities or essences [individual or singular possibilities] prior to existence” are what panenmentalism regards as pure possibilities. The same holds for “possibilities are possible before all the free decrees of God” (ibid., p. 333). Leibniz conflates the purely possible with the contingent, although contingency is one kind of the possible, and the necessary and the actual are as possible as the contingent. Second, and more important, the realm of pure possibilities is that of the divine thinking or will, which is undoubtedly actual and not merely purely possible. Since Leibniz assumes that “existing [namely, actual] things can come into being only from existing things” (ibid., p. 488), to realize any pure possibility and to render it into actuality, a cause or an actual agent must exist. Leibniz assumes that the idea of possibles necessarily implies the idea of the existence of a being who could produce the possible. . . . I make an exception of the supreme efficient cause, which must exist in fact. . . . nothing could be possible if the necessary being did not exist. This is because the reality of possibles and of eternal truths must be founded upon something real and existent. (ibid., p. 661) With this view, if God is the ultimate cause-agent of all pure possibilities and actualities as well, God must be actual and, radically unlike panenmentalism, not a pure possibility. As a result, Leibniz’s possibilism is finally anchored in the actual existence of God who is defined as an absolutely or metaphysically necessary subject. Thus, according to Leibniz, all “possibles” depend on the actual God, whereas, according to panenmentalism, no possibility could be considered pure at all whenever it depends on anything actual. Every pure possibility is absolutely independent of any actuality, let alone an allegedly actual God. These aforementioned points are sufficient to demonstrate that panenmentalist possibilism and Leibnizian “possibilism” are radically different one from the other. Leibniz assumes that We therefore have the ultimate reason for the reality of essences as well as existences in one being, which must necessarily be greater, higher, and prior to the world itself, since not only the existing things which compose the world but also all possibilities have their reality through it. But be-
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cause of the interconnection of all these things, this ultimate reason can be found only in a single source. (Leibniz, 1969, p. 489) That the realm to which all essences and possibilities belong “must necessarily be greater, higher, and prior to the world itself” may sound panenmentalist to you, but really it should not. For this realm, in Leibniz’s view, is God, whereas panenmentalism considers God as a concrete and unique possibility, one among all the others that are included in the total realm of pure possibilities. This realm, not God, is more comprehensive than and prior to the actual world. This makes a major difference. Since the possibility of God is the purest of all possibilities, by definition it can never be actual. In contrast, Leibniz’s God, as the ultimate cause, efficient as well as final, and as the reason for all things, possibles or actualities as well, is actual. Thus, according to Leibniz and contrary to panenmentalism, the realm of pure possibilities is in itself actual. Or, if you like, Leibniz’s view, at least in “The Radical Origination of Things [23.11.1697],” is panentheistic, whereas panenmentalism or panenpossibilism is by no means panentheism. In many places (such as ibid., p. 177), following Spinoza, Leibniz attributes perfection to existence. But, according to Leibniz, God has chosen the perfect or the best of all possibilities to exist, to be actual, thus “only the best exists but not . . . only the best is possible” (ibid., p. 662). Such is definitely not the language of panenmentalism; on the contrary, the purely possible is “greater” or “perfect” than the actual. Although Leibniz dissociates himself from the kinds of actualism that he ascribes to Spinoza and Hobbes, kinds that are incompatible with freedom of will or free choice but compatible with materialism (ibid., p. 273: “[N]othing is possible or conceivable which he [God] does not actually produce”), Leibniz endorses yet another kind of actualism. Finally, unlike panenmentalism (see Section 1.6 above), Leibniz associates possibility with conceivability: “I call possible anything which is perfectly conceivable and which, as a result, has an essence or an idea, without raising the question of whether the rest of the world permits it to become existent” (ibid., p. 662). The conceivability under discussion has to do with actualism: For a possibility to be, an actual perceiver is necessarily required; and the ultimate actual perceiver is God. On the grounds of the singularity of any psychical subject, a singularity to which no machine may pertain, panenmentalism excludes the possibility of thinking machines, whereas Leibniz mentions again and again the possibility and actual existence of spiritual automata. The monads are such automata. Leibniz considers psychical beings as incorporeal automata (Monadology, Sec. 18), which, unlike artificial, physical or corporeal machines, have no parts but are natural, “divine” machines (ibid., Sec. 64). Upon panenmentalist grounds, I criticized and rejected this Leibnizian idea as well as the pre-
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established harmony (Gilead, 1999, p. 138). On Leibnizian grounds, we are entitled to accept the possibility that in the future machines will think. If minds are accessible to the others and if, as a result, no mind is a singular being but similar to any other mind, the difference between parts-less machines and minds is quite easily dismissed. In contrast, relying on the singularity of each mind or psychical subject, inaccessible from without, panenmentalism excludes the possibility of thinking machines, mental, psychical, or physical (ibid., pp. 137–158). According to Leibniz, time and place are well-founded phenomena, unclearly and indistinctly reflecting or indicating real differences between substances-monads. Thus, Leibnizians can get rid of the apparent contingency of empirical facts by reducing in principle their spatiotemporal differences to substantial-monadic differences whose logical grounds are well secured. This is an essential aspect of Leibniz’s rationalism, which both Kant and classical empiricists strongly oppose. Panenmentalism takes part in this opposition but on its special grounds. With panenmentalism, the spatiotemporal is an indispensable, irreducible condition of the actual. This condition is irreducible to logical or any a priori grounds. On the other hand, contrary both to classical empiricists and Kant, panenmentalism accepts no spatiotemporal principle of individuation. Panenmentalist individuation or identity relies upon a priori, pure possibilities-identities alone. Such possibilities-identities have nothing of the Leibnizian monads. I explicitly apply Leibniz’s principle of the identity of indiscernibles to pure possibilities (see Section 1.13 above with my reservation as to the common properties). However, unlike Leibniz, Kant, and other philosophers, I do not confine the realm of pure possibilities as a whole to logical possibilities alone (see Section 1.8 above). In this respect, logic (or mathematical logic) is prior to Leibniz’s metaphysics, whereas, as metaphysical, panenmentalist principles are prior to logic. Establishing the first principles for thought, metaphysics, as a first philosophy, should be prior to, or more fundamental or basic than, logic. At this point, Leibniz as a metaphysician has a crucial problem to face. No wonder that in his early writings, Leibniz left ontological and epistemological priority to numbers or mathematical entities. At that time what he considered basic or fundamental was not metaphysics but the Universal Characteristics, in light of which propositions and arguments could be weighed or computed like quantities or numbers. Leibniz’s mature metaphysics leaves the ontological and epistemological priority to spiritual substances, monads, yet it subjects and confines them to the necessary, indispensable rules of logic. No contradictory monad is possible, whereas panenmentalism tolerates contradictions (although not in the panenmentalist philosophy itself as a truthful fiction) and considers them possible and meaningful. The only indispensable restriction applied to the existence of pure
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possibilities is under the principle or law of the identity of indiscernibles, which means that no two possibilities can be identical. As for Leibniz’s novel concept of the unconscious or the petites perceptions, we should keep in mind that though panenmentalism, like psychoanalysis and chaology, is strongly against ascribing insignificance, senselessness, or meaninglessness to “the negligible” and is resolutely for the existence of the unconscious, its views on these matters are un-Leibnizian. First, Leibniz ascribes unconsciousness to any monad, except God, including entirely inanimate monads, whereas panenmentalism ascribes both consciousness and unconsciousness to psychical, singular beings alone, namely, exclusively to those beings who are inaccessible from without. Second, accessibility from without does not prevent Leibniz from ascribing consciousness or unconsciousness to monads. This also makes a major difference between panenmentalism and Leibniz’s grand metaphysics, which still exerts its charm over me since I read it for the first time many years ago. Spinoza, Kant, Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Hume, and Leibniz have been the main interlocutors of the dialogues that for many years I have, in my imagination, maintained with them, no less since I have introduced panenmentalism. As interlocutors of metaphysical or philosophical dialogues, panenmentalism is indebted to them. Disagreeing with their ideas, I have attempted to find my way in philosophy, and because of this, panenmentalism was born. But any disagreement, opposition, or conflict relies on relationality, even a strong and intimate relationality, which results in some similarities. After all, despite all disagreements and conflicts, the philosophical or metaphysical dialogue requires common grounds, problems, ideas, language, and arguments. Yet we should not ignore the major differences between a new metaphysics and its predecessors. Novelty is a hard thing to take or to accept, since we always tend to stick to the familiar, accustomed, or habitual. I sincerely hope that I do not delude myself in considering panenmentalism a unique, novel metaphysics, not similar to any of its predecessors unless in the form of a dialogical relationality. 6. The Subject in Itself: Panenmentalism Contra Kant’s Philosophy Panenmentalism challenges Kant’s philosophy in different ways. Since any actuality actualizes its identity-possibility, which is accessible in principle to our mind, and since the actuality is entirely accessible to our experience, Kant’s distinction between phenomena and the Thing-in-itself is not valid for panenmentalism. For Kant (1970, pp. 443 ff.), the Thing-in-itself is the ultimate object, which is the unconditioned condition that is the total series of conditions to a given conditioned, which is the phenomenon. Thus, the system of relations, the total series of conditions, between the Thing-in-itself, as the
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ultimate object of knowledge, and our Reason inescapably comprises phenomena. We cannot penetrate through the phenomena to reach the Thingin-itself and, thus, our knowledge must remain conditioned and restricted, whereas the ultimate object of our knowledge is left unattainable. In contrast, on the grounds of the relationship between the accessible identitiespossibilities and their accessible actualities, panenmentalism excludes Kant’s distinction between phenomena and the Thing-in-itself. The case of the panenmentalist concept of singularity is quite different. Each person or subject is singular. No inner reality can be accessed from without but only from within. To access an inner reality, the subject must consist of this reality. The subject’s epistemic accessibility is partial, since no subject can escape or be exempt from his or her unconsciousness. Epistemic accessibility does not entail knowledge, only the universal relationality or significance of a possibility, however singular, provides knowledge. Such is the knowledge that psychoanalysis, as a dialogic, intersubjective, and empirical science, enjoys. Any knowledge of inner reality is not of the subject in itself (to be more precise, of the subject in herself/himself), but of the intersubjective significance of his or her psychical, inner reality. Only the relationality or significance of the subject can be known. Since the subject is singular, no subject, including an omniscient mind, can get to or reach the other’s inner reality from without. As singular, each subject or person is the “Wholly Other”—The Holy—to borrow from Rudolf Otto. Otto ascribes this term to God alone, whereas I ascribe it only to persons (Gilead, 2003, pp. 218–219). In any case, the subject-in-itself cannot be known, not by the subject herself or himself, not by others, and not even by an omniscient mind; only the significance or relationality of a singular, inner reality of a person or subject can be conceived and known. This is a “Kantian” side of my view. Yet Kant’s Subject-in-Itselfness is transcendent, namely, beyond any experience, which is not the case of subjects with panenmentalism. Panenmentalism relies only on immanent principles, not on any transcendence. The private epistemic access to the inner reality of each of us is ultimate; it concerns this reality in itself, not as a phenomenon alone. Each of us experiences her or his inner reality in itself. This makes a great difference between Kantianism and panenmentalism over this issue. The Kantian relationship between the knowing subject and the unknown Thing-in-itself is quite different from the panenmentalist relationality between the subject himself or herself and the significance or relationality of the subject as a possibility to other possibilities. Because of the difference, even an antagonism, between pure possibilities, they necessarily relate one to the other. Kantian relationship is different: It rests on the similarity, despite all the differences, between the Thing-in-itself and Human Reason. The Thing-in-
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itself is the total series of all the conditions to a given conditioned. As such a series, a similarity of the conditions and the conditioned must be. They all share one and the same series, despite all the differences between the two realms, the noumenal and the phenomenal. In sum, the Kantian relationship is based on similarity, not on differences, whereas the panenmentalist relationality relies on differences, even on the dissimilarity of wholly other natures in the case of the singularity of each person. Finally, according to Kant, the source of all lawfulness and order is Human Reason, whereas the source of all lawfulness and order is, under panenmentalism, the relationality of pure possibilities, discoverable by our reason, analysis, imagination, or reflection. Because of this, the difference between the panenmentalist relationality of pure possibilities and Kant’s view on the relationship between Things-in-themselves and phenomena, and between Human Reason or the knowing subjects and the ultimate objects, must be quite great. Note that the subjects under discussion are epistemic. Yet panenmentalism excludes the Kantian separation between the epistemic and moral subject. This dualistic separation between ethics and epistemology, each of which deserves a separate critique, is an obstacle to systematic thought, and Kant attempts to overcome it (Gilead, 1985a). As far as panenmentalism is concerned, such a separation is mistaken from the outset. Each subject exists in unison, holding together her or his multifarious facets, epistemic, psychical, moral, ethical, and the like, not in separation but in one and the same inner reality, inaccessible from without, yet accessible, however partly, to the subject alone. Under the moral or ethical aspect, this inaccessibility leads to holiness; under the epistemic aspect, it leads to quite another thing. But the subject must be one and the same, either according to panenmentalism or to Kant’s philosophy. Because of this, I argue that Kant’s view of the subject, splitting into a noumenal being and a phenomenal one, is not systematic. Criticizing and challenging classical philosophies such as Kant’s, I find myself still under their spell in some respects. I am deeply indebted to the philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, and Kant. For many years, I have devoted much of my intellectual energy to understanding, interpreting, or reconstructing these great philosophies, which I investigated in depth. I cannot imagine my intellectual, philosophical life without them. Yet only by realizing that each of these philosophies can have me merely as a guest, but not to serve as my philosophical home, I have tried to find or build such a home for myself. Owing to their great influence on me, I have finally discovered my philosophical home under the roof of panenmentalism.
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7. Hume’s Hypothesis, Kant’s Copernican Revolution, and a Dialogue by Means of Pure Possibilities From J. B. Jachmann’s letter (of 15 April 1789) to Kant, the reader is entitled to conclude that Kant could not read English. Jachmann wrote his letter from Edinburgh in which he had met a philosophical society whose members admired “Hume’s view.” In Edinburgh he also met “Hardley” (David Hartley whose name he misspelled). Of Hartley, Jachmann adds in parentheses: “I do not know whether his book has been translated into German” (Kant, 1967, p. 135). This parenthetical sentence draws the reader’s attention to the fact that Kant did not read English. The German translation of Hume’s Treatise appeared as late as 1790–1792, years after Kant had mentioned his debt to Hume who woke him from his “dogmatic slumber,” as Ernest Mossner mentions in his Introduction to Hume’s Treatise (Hume, 1969, p. 26). Note that the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason appeared in 1781 and the second in 1787. The Prolegomena appeared in 1783. Kant read philosophical comments, paraphrases, or descriptions in German about Hume’s philosophy, and by means of them he could grasp the idea or get an impression of what it was about. But he had no access, direct or indirect (by means of a German translation), to the following English passage at the end of the “Appendix” to the Treatise. Having discussed the two principles, indispensable to his philosophy yet contradicting each other, Hume writes: For my part, I must plead the privilege of a skeptic, and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my understanding. I pretend not, however, to pronounce it absolutely insuperable. Others, perhaps, or myself, upon more mature reflections, may discover some hypothesis, that will reconcile those contradictions. (Hume, 1969, p. 678) Like a mysterious echo, mentioning the Copernican Revolution, Kant responds: Copernicus . . . dared, in a manner contradictory of the senses, but yet true, to seek the observed movements, not in the heavenly bodies, but in the spectator. The change in point of view, analogous to this hypothesis, which is expounded in the Critique, I put forward in this preface as a hypothesis only, in order to draw attention to the character of these first attempts at such a change, which are always hypothetical. (Kant, 1970, Bxxii, p. 25n.)
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Suppose that no actual connection between Kant’s reading and Hume’s text had happened. Like any actuality, such a possible connection is also contingent. If the contingent circumstances did not allow Kant to read this text, could he fathom Hume’s ideas, especially in that passage, by other means? He could get some of Hume’s ideas indirectly through some German publications, yet, and this is the whole point, Kant could detect the necessary, systematic relationality of Hume’s possibilities leading to the pure possibility of Kant’s Copernican Revolution. As a skeptic, Hume declared that he could not exclude the possibility of a solution to the contradictory principles in his empiricism. Kant’s response is that such a pure possibility exists. Kant’s thought experiment makes an attempt to render this pure possibility into a referable one, whereas Hume could only relate to it (compare Section 1.8 above concerning relationality to “impossibilities”). Or Kant makes an attempt to turn this hypothesis into a well-established truth. We are witnessing a philosophical dialogue by means of pure possibilities. Hume’s hint paved the way to Kant’s Copernican Revolution. No actual indirect, let alone direct, contact by means of writing and reading occurred between these two great philosophers with regard to the above quotations. But Kant captured the necessity in Hume’s thought, as drawn from its empiricist assumptions or grounds, about which he knew enough. If Hume could have changed his assumptions and accepted the idea, the pure possibility, of Kant’s Copernican Revolution, he would have reached quite different conclusions from his actual ones. This revolution opened Kant’s eyes to realize quite different a necessity, leading one idea-possibility to the other, a necessity on the grounds of which Kant could build his revolutionary philosophical system. Constructing this great system of his, Kant turned the Copernican Revolution from a mere hypothesis to a truthful fiction, leading him to discover a novel philosophical necessity. Necessity has to do with the relationality of pure possibilities. The accessibility to such a necessity need not rely on actualities. This is precisely what happened to Kant’s thought. Not relying much on actualities, but mostly on necessary relations between pure possibilities of thought, revealed by thought experiment, which is a truthful fiction, he could respond to Hume’s challenge. The dialogue between them was not actual and, in a sense, it was a truthful fiction itself, helping Kant greatly to discover revolutionary philosophical possibilities. As truthful fictions, thought experiments need relationality of pure possibilities, by means of which a philosopher can discover new ways of necessity.
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Learned readers should believe their eyes: The above title does not commit a mistake in the order of the words. Instead of the famous philosophical saying, “any determination is a negation,” panenmentalism, considering the relationality of pure possibilities, states that “any negation is a determination.” The famous expression, omnis determinatio negatio est, suggests that whenever we determine something, we negate all the other things in reality as a whole, in the total reality. Thus, Spinoza states that whenever we determine—refer to or consider—something, whether it is a mode or an Attribute, we are negating all other modes or Attributes. Whenever we consider— determine—an infinite (total) reality “in its kind,” such as an Attribute or an infinite mode, we are negating something of Substance-God—other Attributes or other infinite modes. We actually determine then that “this is God, not as (quatenus) the absolutely infinite (total) being, namely Substance, but as merely an infinite being, as an Attribute or an infinite mode.” Being contained in God, any finite mode too is God, not as infinite or as another mode, but as a particular finite being, this and not that. Each Attribute too negates the others: The Attribute of Thought is not the Attribute of Extension or any other Attribute. Only the absolutely infinite being, namely, God, “whatever . . . involves no negation pertains to its essence” (Ethics 1def6ex.). Instead, panenmentalism leads or conducts quite another kind of thinking. Each pure possibility necessarily differs from or “negates” any other pure possibility to which it relates. The negation with which each possibility relates to all the others necessarily contributes to the determination of universal relationality. And, thus, panenmentalism rests universal relationality on the basis of relational negation, not the other way round. Panenmentalism thus conducts its way in negation and determination contrary to the ways of Spinoza and some other philosophers in these matters. Such must be the case since, with panenmentalism, individual— particular or singular—pure possibilities are, ontologically and epistemologically, prior to the entire realm of pure possibilities. In contrast, Spinoza and some others ascribe ontological and epistemic priority to the whole of reality, in which each entity is merely a variation or modification, in a way of negation, of the whole. With Spinoza, all things are variations on one and the same theme—Substance, which is Deus sive natura, God or nature. With panenmentalism, in contrast, no individual pure possibility is a variation or modification of the whole realm of pure possibilities, which primarily rests or relies upon all of the individual possibilities and, only secondly, on their universal relationality. With Spinoza and some others, each entity is a negation of the entire reality, whereas with panenmentalism, the entire realm of pure possibilities consists of all the individual pure possibilities whose mutual
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negation constitutes the universal relationality, which is the determination of the whole of reality, namely, the total realm of pure possibilities. 9. A Panenmentalist Critical Comment on Putnam’s Externality of Meanings For years, Hilary Putnam has held the view that meanings must have some footing in the external world. He writes: “[I]t has been argued (by myself, and by Tyler Burge, and by others since), that the very meaning of most of our words depends on features of our environment and not just on what is inside our heads, and most present philosophers of mind accept those arguments” (Putnam, 1999, p. 103). I have already critically commented on Putnam’s view (Gilead, 1999, pp. 154–155, and 31). With panenmentalism, the connection between our mind and the world, as far as meanings are concerned, is not causal or representational. For good reasons, Putnam rejects the representational theory, especially as to “the inner theater conception of the mental” (Putnam, 1999, pp. 100–102), sense-data, and the like. Yet he relies on the causal conception of meanings although in a way quite different from Davidson’s (which does not accept any direct or immediate conception, since Davidson considers experiential data undistinguishable and inseparable from their conceptual scheme). Adopting John Austin’s direct or immediate conception of perception, Putnam, unlike some classical philosophers, does not conceive appearances as “intermediaries between us and things external to the soul” (ibid., p. 100). Following Austin, Putnam rejects the traditional conception, according to which, what we are cognitively related to in perception is not people and furniture and landscapes but representations. These “inner representations” are supposed to be related to the people and furniture and landscapes we ordinarily claim to see and touch and hear, etc., only as inner effects to external causes; and how they manage to determinately represent anything remains mysterious in spite of hundreds of valiant attempts by both “realists” and “antirealists” to clear up the “mystery.” . . . I believe that it is only by giving up this picture of perception as mediated by a set of “representations” in an inner theater that we will ever be able to escape from the endless recycling of positions that do not work in the philosophy of mind (not to mention traditional epistemology and traditional metaphysics)—a recycling that has been going on for at least four centuries. (ibid., p. 102)
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In contrast, according to panenmentalism, our mind directly relates to possibilities in both of their senses—as pure and as actualized or actualizable. People, furniture, landscapes, and the like are possibilities whose identities are pure possibilities to which we directly refer and according to which we realize and identify their actualities, which are possible no less. To these actualities our sense of actuality refers, following the indications of spatiotemporality and causality. Instead of the psychological term “sense of reality,” I employ the term “sense of actuality,” since pure possibilities are as real as actualities. Any relationship between actual, external reality and our mind supervenes on the relationality of pure possibilities, relating one to the others. Since the mind as a psychical possibility necessarily relates to any other possibility, from which it must be different, the mind also relates to the pure possibilities that are actualized in the world. The mind has thus an innate access to these pure possibilities. In this way, the mind and the meanings in its possession relate to the actual, external reality, which is the actualization of the relevant pure possibilities. If our language and our mind hook on the world, as Putnam puts it, it is not for the reasons he has mentioned. With panenmentalism, mind and language hook from the outset not on actual reality, but on the relationality of pure possibilities, to which the mind belongs and whose actualization renders the world actual. This panenmentalist view, based on the universal relationality of possibilities, is quite different from the semantic externalism of Putnam and others. Such externalism relies upon actual reality. Panenmentalism, in contrast, rests on mentalist “externalism” and on psychical “internalism” as well. Putnam rejects the view of Jaegwon Kim and others that “there are internal psychological states” (Putnam, 1999, pp. 102–107) for, according to Putnam, psychological states are not mental properties “housed” in an immaterial soul, nor is the soul an independent thing that can be subtracted from the body without disrupting it (ibid., p. 98). On the contrary, Putnam attempts to show that mental properties are the brain’s (or the nervous system’s) abilities, which thus cannot be subtracted from the body without causing a great deal of change in it. As abilities of the body, the absence of mental properties would make a great difference to the physical reality, especially to our body. This view by Putnam is incompatible with some panenmentalist basic principles. First, inner, psychical reality should be distinguished from external, physical reality and, being ontologically independent of it, inner, psychical reality is not connected with it by any causal relationship. Second, as pure possibilities, psychical properties are not abilities of the brain; instead, the brain and the nervous system actualize some of these properties. Any lack of mental or psychical properties, of the relevant pure possibilities, would greatly
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alter actual, physical beings, for all that concerns their identity, possibility, and what has been actualized would be missing too. Some meanings that make sense for a person depend on that person’s inner reality alone. Such are the subjective meanings of that person’s psychical reality. Some other meanings depend on “external” possibilities that are not that person’s psychical possibilities. The views of Putnam and other contemporary thinkers regarding this matter (Putnam, 1999, p. 104) are wrong and, hence, belief is a purely internal possibility, whereas knowing is an intersubjective possibility. I, thus, do not accept the “externalist” picture in semantics (contrary to Putnam, ibid.), and the content of a belief depends on facts about the external, actual reality only to the extent that actualization is concerned. But all which concerns the possibilities-identities that are relevant to that actualization has to do with pure possibilities, independent of facts or actual matters. We have to identify facts of the matter or things in the actual environment and, for this purpose, we need pure possibilities to begin with. In any case, and at this point I fully agree with Putnam, no internal “state,” no inner possibility, represents something external. We have no “some internal representation of a tree” (Putnam, 1999, p. 105, citing Jaegwon Kim). Instead, according to panenmentalism, we have psychical possibilities relating to the external, independent possibility-identity of a tree. If that tree has been actualized then we, having identified that tree by means of its possibilityidentity, directly refer to that tree by our sense of actuality, concerning the tree’s spatiotemporal and causal traits. Panenmentalism does not accept any “mental or psychical causation” but leaves causation or causality to actualities alone. Thus, causality or causation is valid only for actualities. No pure possibility, psychical or mental, is subject to spatiotemporal or causal conditions. Yet causal possibilities are indispensable to identify and to explain causal relations and actualities and to render them intelligible. Identification or individuation of psychical “states” has to do with pure possibilities, not with actualities. This also cuts the ground from under Putnam’s arguments for his version of semantic or meanings externalism (ibid., pp. 104, 106, and 119). We may learn new words by referring to the actual environment at the state of learning them. But to do so we need, from the outset, access to the pure (mental) possibilities-identities that the new words communicate, capture, or designate. And such access is impossible without “what is in the subject’s mind,” without his or her psychical possibilities, such as beliefs, which relate to the possibilities-identities of actual referents. All this is not compatible with either Putnam’s or Kim’s views; especially with Putnam’s “semantic externalism.” On the other hand, what Putnam has to argue against functionalism and “internal psychological
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states” in the functionalist context (ibid., pp. 114–119) is quite reasonable also when viewed from a panenmentalist examination. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, Putnam is right in stating that “it is high time” to reject both reductionism (“identity theory” or reduction to physics) and dualism (ibid., p. 172). He is quite right in concluding that to say that science may someday find a way to reduce consciousness, reference, interpretation, counterfactual conditionals, and the like to physics is, here and now, to say that “science may someday do we know-not-what we-know-nothow” (ibid., p. 173). Also right is Putnam’s critique of the metaphorical nature of the “emergence” theory (ibid., pp. 173–174), according to which consciousness and intentionality “emerged” from a physical, biological, or chemical basis. Without consciousness and intentionality, physical nature would have been quite different, not to mention the reality under the basic natural sciences. But what does Putnam mean by “the physical basis of our mental life,” “the neurological basis of consciousness” (ibid., p. 174), or “a neural basis for the distinctive kind of self-consciousness” (ibid., p. 175)? As I see it, without such “basis” no actualization of any of our psychical possibilities existed at all. Such a panenmentalist stance, which leaves the physical only to actualization of pure possibilities, is better qualified and more adequate to challenge both reductionism and dualism and to dispense with the metaphorical emergence theory. “Neural or neurological basis” is a metaphor, not better than that of “emergence,” to portray the psychophysical relationship. In contrast, “actualization” is entirely free from such defects or failures. It avoids dualism, for the actual-physical is inseparably united with its pure possibilityidentity. It avoids reductionism too, for pure possibilities-identities are entirely irreducible to anything physical-actual. 10. The Explainable: Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Relationality Singular beings, persons, are incomparable or incommensurable, yet they necessarily relate one to the other. Incomparability or incommensurability thus does not imply non-relationality. In the open realm of pure possibilities different incomparable or incommensurable possibilities exist, yet each one of them relates to all the others. The more singular beings are incomparable one with the other, for each one of them is entirely different from the other, the more significantly they interrelate. To explain newly discovered possibilities, even if they are incomparable or incommensurable one with or to the other, consists of relating these possibilities to already known, clear, and intelligible possibilities. Explanation can do without commensurability or comparability. It can do with neither of them, as long as it
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consists of relationality. Relationality obviously opposes reduction, for reduction renders relationality redundant. We can relate something to quite a different thing, even something mostly or radically different from it, whereas reduction is an attempt to dispense with the difference, to render it redundant. In contrast to reduction, relationality requires difference, and any explanation relying upon relationality requires difference. Radical difference, difference to the utmost, excludes commensurability or comparability, yet it does not exclude explanation. Intrinsically, singular beings share nothing in common. Yet we may explain the psychical state of a person, as long as we are able to relate it to our psychical states. Singularity is thus explainable. Only the irrelational is unexplainable. 11. Holism It has been Quine’s happy idea, followed by Davidson, Putnam, and many others, that language is holistic by nature. Namely, language does not consist of separate, independent propositions, each of which bears its meaning and truth discretely. Relating to other propositions and to the language as a whole, each proposition derives its meaning and truth. This happy idea is not only anti-Cartesian in nature, namely, excluding the possibility of self-evidence (or of propositions that are immune to any elenchus or doubting), but it is also a logical consequence of the excluding of the possibility of private language. To utilize a language, we need other, possible or actual, speakers or users of the language. Equally, to construct a proposition, even the simplest one, we need the implicit or tacit relationality to all the propositions in the language, or to the language as a whole. Each meaningful sentence has to remain open to the possibilities of the entire language. As so open, each proposition is also open to doubt and is not immune to it; its truth is thus subject to revisions. One person cannot know anything, unless this person relates to and communicates with other persons. Knowledge, like language, is a common, shared thing, intersubjective in nature, resting on interaction, dialogues, and other means of communication. It takes at least two persons to find any truth. Plato, discussing dialectics and dialogues, showed this in detail. Panenmentalism, on the other hand, relying on the total, universal relationality of pure possibilities, especially of singular, psychical possibilities, shows this in a different way. Since both language and knowledge are possible on the grounds of the intersubjective relationality of possibilities, no person, as a singular being, can discover or reveal truth and knowledge by herself or himself without relating to other persons. Each person brings something unique and of universal significance with herself or himself. But as singular, her or his viewpoint, being totally different from any other viewpoint, requires the other viewpoints to be entirely explicit,
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let alone complete. Only all the other relevant viewpoints can construct a complete view, knowledge, or truth. Only against the background of subjective differences, however radical, can we construct language and knowledge based on the intersubjective commonness whose origin is the relationality of pure possibilities. No view “from nowhere” exists. A complete view, if exists at all, consists of the relationality of the views of all the relevant persons, speaking the same language or sharing the same intersubjective reality. View is a subjective or intersubjective thing. Knowledge and truth are intersubjective or objective. All the meanings and significance involved in using language are necessarily intersubjective and not objective. Since each pure possibility relates to all the others, a universal relationality determines the truth of each proposition, and such is truth as coherence. Yet correspondence is no less a necessary condition for truth, as far as actualities are concerned. Each true proposition in matters of facts and actualities has to correspond to these objective things. Yet the meaning and significance of such propositions stem not from these actual matters but from the relevant pure possibilities-identities and their relationality. As a result, the meaning and significance of each empirical proposition relies upon a holistic coherence, without which no truth at all can be revealed. Finally, the correspondence under discussion is between pure possibilities-identities and actualities and even truth as correspondence cannot do without pure possibilities, which, in turn, necessarily entails relationality leading to holism. Following Wittgenstein, we may consider language as subject to a “form of life.” Yet to detect a form of life, to recognize it, and to understand it, we need intersubjective relationality. The same holds even for the structures of formal, constructed languages. They are intersubjective discoveries of formal structures bearing significance and making sense for those who use them. By means of our “form of life” we can detect such formal structures, for an intelligible, logical form of life relates to other forms of life, logical or not. By means of our form of life we can communicate with each other, living in a common world. But, from a panenmentalist viewpoint, any form of life relies upon the relationality of pure possibilities, which the form of life actualizes. Note that any actualization first requires pure possibilities, including their relationality. Thus, to relate to a form of life means not only to relate to an actual form of life but, first and foremost, to a form of life consisting of pure possibilities relating one to the other. Form of life, language, knowledge, and communication necessarily rest on these grounds of pure possibilities and their relationality, which is committed to a panenmentalist kind of holism. Correspondence and coherence each thus plays its role in the panenmentalist theory of truth—as the correspondence between possibilities and their actualities and as the universal relationality of all possibilities. Yet the truth thus obtained in each of these parts is never final, nor can it be immune to doubts and
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exempt from interminable revisions. First, the fact is that our acquaintance with possibilities and actualities is practically partial, limited, and confined. Second, contingency is an ineradicable trait of actual reality, which makes our predictions about and orientation in it doubtful, tentative, and restricted. We should bear in mind that our observation and experience cannot exclude possible alternatives. And so the truth about actual matters can be always otherwise.
Three NECESSITIES AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS 1. Necessity, Numbers as Individual Pure Possibilities, and Intrinsic Similarity A well-known belief is that numbers can lead to troubles. To begin with, we first have to face the problem of the identity and the nature of numbers. What are they? Are they palpable or abstract? Mere fictions or necessary discoveries? These are quite old questions, perhaps even older than Pythagorean thought. Even in the same philosophical school, say, empiricism, the opinions are much divided over these questions, especially nowadays. Fine answers are given in Kant’s philosophy. As Kant well realized, numbers and geometrical figures are not abstract at all and have a kind of necessity about them. Even as constructions, they sustain a necessity that, although not logical, is still a priori. Obviously, numbers, according to Kant, are not sensible objects subjected to our observation, nor are they conceptual. Numbers are possible owing to our form of intuition, the form of our inner sense, which is time. This establishes that they cannot be abstract concepts, which are products of our intellect. As an outcome of the form of our intuition, which is the Kantian a priori condition of individuation, numbers are individuals or particulars, not general concepts, which characterize the activity of our intellect. Still, these individuals are not, and cannot be, objects of our experience. Only their material embodiments are such. As pertaining to the form of intuition, numbers must be necessary for, according to Kant, every transcendental form is a priori, and everything a priori must be necessary. Numbers, according to Kant, are thus individuals whose relationships are necessary, although not logically. Philosophers as well as mathematicians have longed for a way to discover the logical necessity concerning numbers. They attempted to reduce numbers’ mathematical necessity to the logical one. Because of many failures, to begin with Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica and other no less important attempts, the possibility of rendering this dream true is still quite far from us. Panenmentalism has something novel to suggest regarding numbers. They are individuals, particular pure possibilites, and by no means abstract or general. They have a kind of fascinating necessity about their nature and relations that casts a real doubt whether they are matters of fiction or
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constructions at all. Yet is it possible that numbers are discoveries made by means of constructions or truthful fictions? Numbers are obviously actualizable. In this respect, some truth still exists in what bothered the Pythagoreans and many other thinkers about the mysterious or fascinating nature of numbers. Although their actualization is obviously palpable, tangible, and material, numbers themselves, numbers as such, are by no means tangible. Thus, actualists have a major trouble to face: Either numbers are just abstractions of actual things, or they are actual, and nothing but actual. The second possibility appears to be unbearable. In any case, panenmentalism assumes anything actual to be physical. If numbers were only actual things, they would have been only physical, which sounds quite strange, almost Pythagorean. Incarnation of numbers aside, we are left with the questions with which we have just begun. If numbers are individuals or particulars and yet by no means tangible or actual, this may open a new horizon for our thought about numbers. If numbers were actual, they should have been contingent, as panenmentalism instructs us, and all the relationships between them would have turned out to be contingent too, which is really unacceptable. Only if numbers are pure possibilities, though actualizable, are we entirely entitled to attribute to them all these qualities that characterize them so well: Concreteness, necessity, being subject to discoveries by means of truthful fictions, constructions, stipulation, and the like, and, finally, actualizability in empirical reality. If numbers are actualizable pure possibilities, we can well understand how mathematical “fictions” have happened to anticipate actual phenomena, which are actualities of pure mathematical-physical constructions. The discovery of the subatomic particle omega-minus is a fine example of employing mathematical theory (in this case SU(3) symmetry) to predict discovery of actualities (Gilead, 2003, p. 68). By the same token, mathematics provides natural scientists with adequate possibilities to identify, capture, describe, understand, and predict the phenomena under their observation and research. Think, for instance, of Euclidean geometry and Newton’s physics; nonEuclidean geometry and Einstein’s physics; and Mandelbrot’s set or other nonlinear geometries and actual chaos phenomena. Mathematical necessity is a great riddle. Even those, such as Hilary Putnam, who do not allow mathematics any self-evidence, foundations, or immunity to doubts, do not close their sober eyes to the necessity that numbers demonstrate. Mathematicians as well as logicians have failed, at least so far, to rest mathematics on such foundations. But should these foundations be of the logical sort? Perhaps, despite all these failures and despite the eminence of figures such as Kurt Gödel, hope still exists that a solution must exist for any mathematical problem, and that in the end such a solution must be found or discovered. Why are such solutions found or discovered and not invented?
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Whether mathematics has foundations or not and whether such foundations are immune to doubt or not, if the relations concerning numbers and the nature of numbers as a whole are really necessary, the solutions to mathematical problems must be discoverable, not inventible. Inventions, mathematical creations, constructions, fictions, and the like are but nets to capture the predetermined solutions, which reflect the relationality of numbers as pure possibilities. The necessity conducting the order and relationship of numbers is not logical, as Kant already realized. I see no logical necessity in the truth that 5 must be greater than 4, or that 5 plus 4 must make 9. Yet like logical necessity or like any necessity, mathematical necessity too has to do with pure possibilities and their relationality. And these pure possibilities are not logical or merely logical. They have a special nature, strongly related to logic, but still not logical. At this point I quite agree with Kant, although he would not even dream of the panenmentalist idea that numbers are pure possibilities in the way I see them. He would say that numbers are possible for two reasons: The first is the necessary condition of any truth, namely, they are compatible with logical possibilities, and the second is that they are compatible with the conditions of the form of our inner intuition, namely, time. I do not accept either restriction. First, logic is not a necessary condition for every truth, let alone grand truths. Some great insights and truths are logically impossible. Some of the great absurd truths can enlighten us. Salomon Ibn Gabirol addresses God in the sublime phrase of his: I am escaping from You to You, which, however absurd, is a great religious truth, precisely expressing Ibn Gabirol’s profound religious experience and making it communicable to us. The same holds for many Zen expressions. When a friend asks about my state of mind, and I answer him “good and bad,” this is not just a logical contradiction but, primarily, an honest truth. We are also familiar with many mathematical paradoxes as well. Yet you would argue that, in the final analysis, paradoxes are not absurdities; they have some logical grounds. Still, what about truths by means of which we are really enlightened although they are absurd? What about Kafka’s writings? Or, are all the paradoxes in Alice in Wonderland logically possible, necessary, or explainable? Or may we find some charming absurdities indispensably pertaining to this masterpiece yet which have no logical basis? In any case, even if mathematics has to satisfy logical requirements first, a purely mathematical necessity is an indispensable addition, much beyond the logical necessity. Mathematics is as beautiful as it is logical. As G. H. Hardy reveals, “Beauty is the first test: There is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics” (1973, p. 85). For me, mathematics is first a great aesthetic achievement, more like music than logic. Discussing necessity, logic is not
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enough, not only from the mathematical viewpoint, but also from the philosophical viewpoint as well as from the aesthetic viewpoint, and mathematics has made sublime attempts to meet both aesthetic and logical standards. As for Kant’s second condition, namely, that time or space is a necessary condition for mathematics, I do not accept this either. Pure possibilities are not subject to temporal or spatial conditions, and if numbers and geometrical figures are pure possibilities, they should not be subject to any temporal or spatial conditions. Only the actualization of numbers or geometrical figures requires such conditions. The panenmentalist view of numbers as pure possibilities sheds a surprising light on some essential features of mathematical necessity. After 358 years, a proof has been finally found for Fermat’s last theorem. What Andrew Wiles achieved no person before had achieved, except perhaps Fermat himself, assuming that he had really found the right and adequate proof and not only believed himself to have found it. Many mathematicians wonder what could be Fermat’s proof, yet a universal assumption is that his could not be that of Andrew Wiles, who has the mathematical knowledge updated to the end of the 20th century, which Fermat could not have. But this is, however plausible it may sound, an actualist assumption. Wiles’s proof is a possibility, which as pure is atemporal, and since the realm of pure possibilities is, in principle, open to our imagination and creative reflection, Fermat could have discovered it, had he been lucky enough. Even in the 17th century, he could discover that proof under different names and descriptions but not under a different identity. All the rest is a matter of contingency alone. It just happened that Wiles found the proof toward the end of the 20th century, no matter on what actual grounds, since either actual discovery is contingent. The purely possible proof had been always open for Fermat, Wiles, or some other great minds. All the more so, as the proof rests on mathematical necessity, which is a matter of pure possibilities and their relationality quite independently of any actuality or actualization. Some examples in the history of mathematics and mathematical logic exist that show that creative or great minds in these fields anticipated new, much later discoveries. George Boole attempted to show in his Investigation of the Laws of Thoughts (1854) that the first part of Spinoza’s Ethics was not logically valid under Boole’s formalization of it, yet Joel Friedman’s employment of transfinite-set-theoretical formalization (1974) shows the contrary, as if Spinoza had followed a more modern logic than Boole had in mind. Jakko Hintikka (1973) showed that Kant intuitively and insightfully anticipated some later discoveries in modern mathematical logic. The difference between Spinoza’s logical insights and those of the settheoretical formalization, or between Kant’s insights and those of modern
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mathematical logicians, is not of the relevant pure possibilities-identities. The one and the same pure possibility-identity was discovered by different thinkers and by means of different truthful fictions. In other words, the difference is between the truthful fictions by means of which Spinoza or Kant, on the one hand, and the modern logicians, on the other, could capture the relevant pure possibilities-identities. I believe that the same may hold true for Wiles and Fermat. Undoubtedly their truthful fictions, by means of which they captured the desired proof, are entirely different but, if my surmise is correct, the pure possibility-identity of the proof is possibly one and the same. As pure possibilities, mathematical discoveries (“inventions”) are atemporal. I do not see why the actual history of mathematical ideas should be the utilitarian or tyrannical arbiter as to the horizons of pure possibilities. Reduction of pure possibilities to historical facts is a grave mistake. History of ideas actualizes just a part, even a small part, of the pure possibilities that are open to it. As pure possibilities, ideas are not actual things that history reveals to us. Atemporal, ideas are subject to discovery in any place and at any time whatsoever. Actual discovery, like any actual matter, is subject to contingencies, not to necessity. I do not see why we should think that Fermat could not reach the proof that finally was Wiles’s. As for the rest, time will possibly tell (or not). Incidentally, has someone thought about the possibility that Fermat’s proof has, after all, been facing all the readers of his famous declaration but under an epitomized encoded form? I wonder. One of the most fascinating things about mathematics in general and numbers in particular is that their necessity holds for what Spinoza would entitle adequacy: What holds for a particular holds for the whole case, for each of the relevant particulars, as parts of the same whole, are intrinsically similar. If a mathematician proves such and such to be the case for a triangle, it holds for all possible triangles, at least of the same sort. Panenmentalist possibilities are all individuals, yet each of them has a universal significance. No two possibilities can be identical, and since any possibility is an individual, particular or singular, it must be different from all other possibilities, and thus it must relate to them all. This universal relationality of each possibility is its significance. On these grounds, what mathematicians prove is of the universal significance of a particular triangle, a significance that holds for all similar possible triangles; and all the triangles of the same sort, say, right-angled triangles, are intrinsically similar. What you prove for one of them, you prove for them all. Thus, mathematicians illustrate a particular case to signify universally, and on these grounds the mathematical language proceeds. What they practically deal with is not the particular cases for their own sake but the universal significance of these cases. The same obviously holds for numbers. In this way we can explain how utilizing particular possibilities to prove something mathematically is quite obvious against the background of the
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panenmentalist realm of pure possibilities. What this clarifies for us in particular is the universal significance of numbers, which are necessarily particular possibilities, with which mathematicians deal. This universal significance is not a matter of logical necessity; it is the necessity that prevails in the realm of pure possibilities as a whole, and logic or mathematics reflects only a part of it. Under panenmentalist interpretation, relations between numbers as pure possibilities are the main concern of mathematicians. Each equation consists of a kind of relational possibilities. Algebraic equations are especially intriguing. They serve as nets to capture individual possibilities by means of specific relations. In panenmentalist terms, Fermat’s last theorem states that we cannot capture the pure possibilities that are integers, the relation between which is Xn + Yn = Zn, while any n>2. The theorem states that no such possibilities exist in the entire realm of numbers as pure possibilities. No integers can satisfy such a relation, and all that the mathematician has to do is to prove this. In contrast, integers that can satisfy the equation X2 + Y2 = Z2, or that can be captured by means of it, do exist in the realm of pure possibilities. Since no possible integer can satisfy X3 + Y3 = Z3, for instance, X3 + Y3 is not equal to Z3 and, thus, the equation is involved with a contradiction. Such equations lead to impossibilities whose logical dead-end signposts are contradictions. Numbers, as pure possibilities, are atemporal (or “eternal” if you like, provided that eternity and sempiternity are not the same). Atemporality, apriority, innateness, and necessity characterize numbers and their relations. This simple truth was clear enough to Plato’s Socrates. Plato also understood that mathematics relies on something higher, on the dialectics, which is what philosophy can achieve. For several reasons, I do not follow many of Plato’s ideas, yet I am convinced like him, though for different reasons, that mathematical truths are not empirical and that they are innate. I think that they rely on and pertain to a more comprehensive realm, which, unlike Plato, I consider the realm of pure possibilities, each of which is particular or singular. Plato would not accept this, as the Ideas are not pure possibilities and they are universal, general, or paradigmatic. Still, we have a crucial problem to face. If, contrary to Plato and many others, numbers are not general concepts, paradigms, types, and the like, then each number as a particular pure possibility has to be concretely actualizable. This must contradict the common view about the general, even abstract, nature of numbers. After all, we do not normally speak about “this 3” or “this 55” for we normally do not treat numbers as particulars, let alone as particular pure possibilities. In contrast, Kant’s view in his transcendental aesthetics treats numbers, like other mathematical beings, as particular entities, not as abstracta
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or general concepts (such concepts pertain to the intellect). Yet Kant did not envisage numbers as pure possibilities. Above, in this Section, I mentioned intrinsic similarity as a mathematical trait that helps to render the universal validity of mathematical proofs possible. Owing to the intrinsic similarity of all right-angled triangles, Pythagoras could validly and universally prove his theorem while relying on the intrinsic properties of any case of a right-angled triangle. As a panenmentalist and nominalist, I ascribe this universal validity to the particular relationality that any right-angled triangle relates with to any other such triangle. What I would like to clarify at this point is that the relationality under discussion is as particular as any individual pure possibility, say, that of a particular triangle of this “kind.” The intrinsic similarity of each of such triangles is particular and, as such, bears a universal significance concerning them all, especially relevant to the universality of the mathematical proof. The intrinsic similarity of all the “cases” or “instances” bearing the name “number 3,” for instance, is a particular possibility as much as each of such “cases” or “instances”—each number 3—is a particular possibility. This is a fine example of the way that panenmentalism, as a special nominalistic view, renders any paradigm or type into a paradigm-case or type-token. As a pure possibility, each right-angled triangle is a paradigm-case for all other triangles of this “kind,” namely, of any other triangle intrinsically similar to that one. Relationality of pure possibilities, intrinsic similarity, and mathematical proofs all share necessity, in this case—mathematical necessity. The general aspect of each paradigm-case or type-case has to do with the general significance of each pure possibility, of each “case.” Yet the general significance is of a particular pure possibility without which the significance conveys or bears nothing. The general or universal aspect of each pure possibility supervenes on the individuality—particularity or singularity—of this possibility and expresses or conveys its general or universal significance. That intrinsic similarity is a particular possibility is crucially significant. From now on, we are entitled to treat numbers as individual pure possibilities quite differently or in a novel way: Not only is each of their individual actualities a particular, so is their relationship, their intrinsic similarity. The same holds for colors, musical notes, and the like. Each actual “instance” of a color is particular, but so is the color itself, as a pure possibility. Particular is also the relationality of all the intrinsically similar possible colors. Red is a particular pure possibility, as much as any red actuality is particular. To tell red from green is to distinguish between two particular pure possibilities of colors, just like distinguishing any red actuality from any green one. Distinguishing red from green as pure possibilities is the particular relationality between them. We distinguish the musical note “la” from that of “re,” each of which is a particular pure possibility, not an abstraction of actual notes. The
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same holds for the relationality distinguishing these particular pure possibilities from other pure possibilities; it is particular too. In any of these cases, we distinguish between particulars, and the relationality distinguishing them is as particular as each of them is. At this point we have to face anew the problem of multiple actualization. Panenmentalism explicitly excludes multiple actualization (“realization”) (Gilead, 1999, pp. 10, 28; Gilead, 2003, p. 94), and I specified some reasons for this in Section 1.6 above. Are we not forced to say that, as a pure possibility, a number, geometrical figure, color, or note is actualized in multiple instances or cases? Not at all, for in each “case” or “instance” an individual pure possibility of the particular number, color, note, or the like is actualized. All the rest is left to intrinsic similarity and general names. In geometry, we refer to a concrete figure or construction, which we treat as an actualizable individual pure possibility. Referring so, we deal not with any multiple actualization but with intrinsic similarity, whenever we would like to prove anything about the individual possibility. This red, “la,” 3, or rightangled triangle is what we have in mind and, as far as intrinsic similarity is indispensable for any universal mathematical proof, each of such individual pure possibilities serves as a paradigm-case or type-token. Again, discussing such pure possibilities, we do not desert our commitment to the nominalistic spirit of panenmentalism. No pure possibility is general; each pure possibility is individual, namely, particular or singular. The significance of pure possibilities is general or universal, yet the relationality of which it consists is a particular relationship of individual pure possibilities. Such is the significance of mathematical proofs. Finally, I would like to relate intrinsic similarity to family resemblance, which has been a real philosophical riddle at least since Wittgenstein. Family resemblance is also, in each case, a particular, not a general, relationship. The family resemblance of all the members of family a is special to this family and it is not shared by any other family. It is an intrinsic similarity exclusive to all this family’s members, as families, despite any possible similarity between them, are not like triangles or other mathematical possibilities. Families make interpersonal realities, each of which bears its uniqueness. Contrary to both Tolstoy (see the opening sentence of Anna Karenina) and Nabokov (see the parallel opening sentence of Ada), each family is happy or else unhappy in its unique way. Thus, no case of a family can prove anything necessarily valid for another family (unless the significance of what happens with one is relevant to the other). Although a family resemblance is a common trait of all the members of a particular family, it is still particular. Equally, a particular possibility can be common to several, even many, possibilities, and its general significance does not diminish this particularity even slightly. This panenmen-
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talist view of a paradigm-case or type-token equally holds for relationality and significance of pure possibilities, intrinsic similarity, and family resemblance. 2. Is Illogical Albeit Aesthetically Necessary Mathematics Possible At All? Crazy philosophical questions should occasionally be asked, especially on panenmentalist grounds, for no convention or actual, familiar achievement confines the realm of pure possibilities. Crazy ideas are counter-conventional, counterfactual or counter-actual, yet they may still point out some precious insights. So far, what mathematicians have sought has been confined to logical possibilities or to some sorts of logical possibilities. As I showed in the preceding Section, in mathematics beauty or aesthetic necessity plays a role as indispensable as logical necessity. My present crazy question is whether illogical albeit aesthetically necessary mathematics is possible at all. On panenmentalist grounds I can show that such mathematics, although quite unknown and excluded, is still possible, however crazy such an idea sounds. In any event, I cannot exclude this possibility on panenmentalist grounds alone. This crazy idea is worth some serious consideration. What on earth am I talking about? Even though philosophers are skeptical about logical necessary foundations to mathematics, no sane philosopher so far has exempted mathematics from logic of any sort. Such appears the case, as far as I am adequately informed. But if, as I argued in the preceding Section, mathematics is as beautiful as it is logical, are we not able to think about a possible mathematics that is aesthetically necessary yet illogical? But, again, what on earth am I talking about? After all, in case the logical necessity in a mathematical achievement is not compatible with its aesthetic achievement, should we not prefer its logic to its aesthetics? No, we may prefer aesthetics to logic. But such an answer is incompatible with the generally accepted idea that mathematics cannot bear contradictions. This is an ancient truth, which is still alive and well. Contradictions make impossibilities in mathematics. So maybe logic as a whole, especially regarding contradictions, makes a necessary condition for any mathematics? I am still quite skeptical about it. As I argued in Section 1.6 above (compare with Section 3.3 below), within the context of a literary work of art or within a psychical reality each pure possibility and its relationality are necessarily determined. Why can our psyche and why can art, literary or musical, bear contradictions or absurdities of all kinds, and still display necessary relations? Without contradictions and absurdities, much of our psychical life, especially concerning the unconscious, would lose all its psychical meaning or significance. Without contradictions
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and absurdities many works of art would lose all their value. You are listening to a musical piece of art, and (almost) all that exists in it can be discovered to be necessary, including the contradictions in the forms of counterpoints, dissonance, and the like. An indispensable part of the beauty of Kafka’s writings, Samuel Beckett’s, or other masterpieces of the genre of the absurd consist of contradictions, absurdities, or of all that is logically incompatible, and yet all these play an indispensable role in the aesthetic necessity of these pieces of sublime art. So why cannot mathematics follow the aesthetic necessity of such works of art in its way? Why must we confine mathematics to logical possibilities? Cannot we have a sublime mathematics of absurdities or incompatibilities in the logical sense? Can we imagine a mathematical proof that is possible despite the contradictions in which it is involved? Can we save further mathematical possibilities on the grounds of logical sorts of dead-ends? This sounds unreasonable. Yes, but is this impossible too? After all, if a musical piece of art, maintaining a high level of aesthetic necessity, consists of logically incompatible opposites, and if a literary piece of art of a similar level consists of absurdities and contradictions, why not a mathematical piece of art? Like the literary art, mathematics tells us possible stories, narrates possible plots, or constructs truthful fictions in light of which mathematical possibilities play indispensable and necessary roles. Why cannot mathematical compatibility be illogical and yet possible as well as necessary? Coherence consisting of contradictions customarily appears logically impossible, but not aesthetically. So, why cannot we open such amazing possibilities for the mathematically aesthetic necessity? Although no such possibility has yet been discovered, could it not be discovered in the future? Actual matters cannot determine pure possibilities, unless actualism is right after all. But such is not the case, at least as I see it. Actualism is wrong, for the actual and the purely possible cannot be one and the same. If actualism is wrong, what mathematics has achieved so far does not exhaust the possibilities that are still open to it, including, possibly, absurdities and contradictions. So far, to the best of my knowledge, mathematics could not proceed without clearing away any logical contradiction from its path, but this is a contingent fact in the history of mathematics. Many classical literary genres have deemed contradictions of any sort unthinkable in constructing a plot or in narrating any story. Other, no less significant, genres have allowed contradictions and for good reasons. Could we think of the works by Kafka, Gogol, Beckett, and other such writers without their absurdities and contradictions? Mathematics with contradictions sounds impossible like Kafka’s or Gogol’s writings in Aristotelian eyes. Yet aesthetic necessities are the sublime achievements of their writings.
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If, following Aristotle’s Poetics (1451a25–b11, b34–35, and 1454a34– 38), literature or poetry is closer to philosophy than to history, this is because poetry consists of necessity and not of contingent particular facts. The necessity that I have in mind is yet different from Aristotle’s, for it is not of a general nature but of particulars, though not of contingent particulars. The aesthetic necessity that I have in mind is not necessarily a logical necessity. Art makes grand attempts to overcome the contingency with which human lives are abundant. The panenmentalist realm of pure possibilities comprises “all that exists.” The open nature of this realm allows all sorts of contradictions to exist, and this does not render it impossible. If, as comprising all possibilities including their contradictions, this realm is infinitely open, a purely possible solution exists for any mathematical problem, as far as the realm of mathematical possibilities is not closed, not even under logical limitations or restrictions. Contradictions do not exclude relationality, on the contrary, and, hence, contradictions bear significance, including logical significance. By the same token, contradictions may have mathematical significance that does not render a mathematical system or solution impossible, as long as the relationality of the contradicting factors has a mathematical significance and meanings beyond the contradictions themselves, a significance that may be mathematically constructive and not necessarily destructive. Such is the case with literary or musical works of art. Why not so with mathematical works of art? If such is the case, perhaps illogical though necessary possibilities are still open to the mathematical mind after all. On panenmentalist grounds alone I do not see why such a possibility should be excluded, let alone from the outset. Since the non-logical, even the illogical, may have a constructive function for mathematical thinking, as they have for works of art, perhaps the idea that one day a mathematics that consists of contradictions or is compatible with them will appear is not just a crazy idea. In such a dream-like mathematics, proofs may not be blocked or eliminated just because they will reach contradictions on their way to a solution. But how can contradictions pave the way to any solution? This sounds highly absurd. Does it make any sense? I believe so. If the significance of the relationality of numbers is what really interests mathematicians, then contradictions may help. Relationality reveals the ways in which pure possibilities—in this case, mathematical—are different or dissimilar one from the other, as much as it also reveals the ways in which they are similar and to what extent. Contradictions may thus help much in revealing dissimilarities between possibilities and, in so revealing, they help us to map them into the realm of possibilities as a whole. Contradictions thus may help us to orient numbers or other mathematical possibilities. They may help us to realize how close they are to some mathematical
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possibilities and how remote they are from others. Contradictions may thus serve as signposts in our traveling the land of pure possibilities, including that of mathematics. In ordinary mathematical proofs, such is the situation already. All reductio ad absurdum proofs do precisely this. They utilize absurdities to show where the way is blocked, the way that the mathematician cannot travel. Such proofs serve as indications of dead ends in our traveling the land of mathematical or logical possibilities. What I would like to add is that maybe a possible area exists in which contradictions may serve otherwise, namely, not as dead-end signposts but as quite another sort of signpost. How can a contradiction open the mathematical road? Again, in helping us to orient ourselves. Yet the case appears to be that of the dead-end signs. Not precisely. While those signs merely inform us that we have a dead-end ahead of us, the contradictions in the map of possibilities that I have in mind serve as indicators where we have to move further, to search for entirely new mathematical areas or even horizons. If you are looking for similarity, for Spinozistic adequacy (as a matter of truth, of equality), contradictions are of much help in a different sense. They are the most useful signposts we can have for this purpose. The signposts instruct us: “If you are looking for similarity or equality, use the other way round for this way leads you to dissimilarity.” Necessity owing to dissimilarity is as necessary as necessity owing to similarity, especially intrinsic. Since each pure possibility is different from the others, it necessarily relates to them. In case of intrinsic similarity, different pure possibilities necessarily relate one to the other. Yet the relationality of dissimilar, contradicting pure possibilities is as necessary as that of intrinsically similar possibilities. The whole difference between these two kinds of necessity lies within the nature of the difference between the relevant pure possibilities: The first kind of difference is compatible with intrinsic similarity whereas the second is compatible with dissimilarity or contradictions. Yet the necessity in each of these kinds is equal to the other. On these panenmentalist grounds, as-yet-unknown mathematics based on the necessity of the relationality of dissimilarities or contradictions is possible, however paradoxical or absurd it may sound. Dissimilar or contradicting mathematical pure possibilities necessarily relate one to the other. Such a necessary mathematical relationality is sufficient for constructing mathematical constructions. Since no possible integer can satisfy X3 + Y3 = Z3, X3 + Y3 is not equal 3 to Z and, thus, the equation is involved in contradiction. Such equations lead to impossibilities whose dead-end signs are contradictions. If, in contrast, contradictions had satisfied such equations without falsifying them, without denying them a mathematical necessity, these “impossibilities” would have been captured or discovered by the equations as novel possibilities. Although
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“would” and “could” counterfactually function (in this case, counter to the current mathematical knowledge), they still designate possibilities, not impossibilities. Thus, contradictions can be mathematically meaningful, not only as dead-end signs but also in other ways. Such is not, at least so far, the case with logic. With logic, contradictions make any argument meaningless. At least so far, the logical language has such a nature that contradictions signify meaningless sentences or arguments. Or else you may attribute to them any sense in the world, for whenever contradictions take place in your argument you can argue or prove anything. “If not-a and a, then b” is a valid argument, and instead of b, you can conclude by whatsoever you pick or choose, which makes the entire argument not only without any point or senseless but also contingent, and almost nothing is then left of the logical necessity. Logically speaking, this holds for any mathematical proof or argument that should be exempt from any contradiction. Yet what about the mathematical language of a proof or argument that is not exempt from contradictions? Is it mathematically meaningless? Is it necessarily mathematically meaningless? Perhaps not, however strange it may sound. If mathematics can achieve a kind of aesthetic necessity, similar to that of a literary masterpiece, tolerating logical contradictions, such would be the case, in which another kind of mathematical necessity is achieved and no room is left for contingency. Again, think of necessity in a literary work of art. Contradictions, absurdities, logical incompatibilities, and the like make a lot of sense and are extremely meaningful in Kafka’s writings. Understanding them deeply, insightfully, you can see the way in which their necessity takes place. Understanding them so is similar to the way you can understand a dream. Everything that appears senseless, meaningless, or possibly insignificant can be rendered meaningful and greatly significant under a profoundly insightful analysis. This means that the dream has its necessity, meaningfulness, and significance. Why not so in a mathematical work of art? What looks so far from commonsensical viewpoints and mundane life can bear deep meanings and significance under profound scrutiny or keen observation. After all, we need a lot of imagination to create mathematically, to create our dreams, or to create any work of art and, in each of these, the cooperation of our unconscious in which contradictions and absurdities prevail, is indispensable. In each of these we participate in a special sort of discovery, which concerns pure possibilities and their necessary relationality. In each of these, so I believe, contradictions can bear deep meanings and profound significance. If this analysis and understanding of mine is not wrong, I venture to say that mathematics, relying upon its creatively aesthetic necessity, has much benefit to obtain from contradictions. Note that I am not confining my argument to
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actual or current cases. Instead, I am speaking about the pure possibilities that are still open to mathematical thought. 3. Artistic Necessities The boundaries and definition of art became a puzzling question in the 20th century. In this Section, I attempt to show how panenmentalist possibilities can shed a new light on this problem, and can possibly contribute something to clarify it. As I have stated time and again, two possibilities cannot be identical and two psychical possibilities of two persons cannot be even similar. Yet any possibility must relate to all the rest. However idiosyncratic or “mad” a possibility may be, it is still not detached from all the others. Relationality, however tight, does not blur the difference between pure possibilities, on the contrary. Since no two possibilities can be identical, identification is just a matter of illusion, pathological or otherwise. Against this panenmentalist background, we can pass sound judgment as to whether something is a piece of art or not. To exhibit a chair, which ordinarily functions as a chair to sit on, in a museum does not turn it into any piece of art. If the ordinary, “functional” chair is identified as an alleged piece of art, such identification is merely an illusion, no matter what is the accepted standing of such illusion. No connoisseur, alleged or real, can turn such an illusion into something true or valuable. Conventions, however influential and prevalent, cannot fix the boundaries or definition of art unless relying upon particular pure possibilities, which cannot be identical with other possibilities. The pure possibility-identity of that chair is not identical with that of a chair as a piece of art. The two pure possibilities-identities should be distinguished one from the other, otherwise an illusion would be committed, trespassing the boundaries of art. But you might argue that once the artist puts the chair into “an artistic context” or “under artistic intention or interpretation,” the functional chair and the chair as an artistic object are no longer identical. It is as though the context has transformed the identity of that chair. I believe the case to be the other way round. No context can change or transform an identity. Identity is not a matter of convention alone or of whatsoever circumstances or contexts. Identity rests solely on the pure possibility that is the identity-possibility of that chair, for instance. As no pure possibility is dependable on circumstances or context, and as each pure possibility is independent of any actuality, the identity of that chair is not a matter of context, convention alone, nor the opinion of a connoisseur. That identity, like any identity-possibility, should be discovered; it is not a matter of invention of any sort. A piece of art is, to begin with, a pure possibility personally discovered by the artist. No other
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person could discover it and display it for the public. The possibility of a manufactured, not artistic, chair is not personally discoverable. Several people could manufacture the non-artistic chair whereas a chair as an object of art can be created only by a singular being—the artist. At this point you may raise another objection. Perhaps the aforementioned chair was mistakenly intended to serve as a functional chair, but the sharp eye of the artist or the connoisseur detected or revealed its “true,” artistic identity. The right place to put that chair was from the very beginning into the museum. But this will not do. If such is the case, and if it was just a mistake to treat that chair as functional instead of artistic, it was an identity mistake from the outset. We have to consider the case of a chair whose identity as functional is not mistaken and cannot be mistaken. Any good chair can function as such quite adequately whereas the artistic chair is irreplaceable by another chair. In the case of a piece of art, it has necessarily something of the significance of the singularity of the artist-discoverer in it (unlike mathematical or scientific discoveries, however grand). In the case of a piece of art, to some extent, the functional and the artistic chair cannot be even similar, although not on the scale of the dissimilarity among persons. Each piece of art necessarily reflects the singularity of the artist. For this reason, in such artistic matters no duplicates are possible, whereas numerous duplicates of a paradigm of a manufactured chair, for instance, can exist. Another problem is that of abstract art. How far can art be abstract and yet artistic? This is a major question, which is not easy to answer. Yet I would like to suggest a panenmentalist criterion. Genuine creativity, especially artistic, relies heavily upon relationality and communication, the origin of which is the singularity of the artist whose art is a genuine expression of his or her personality. The more singular is this genuine creativity, the more universal and profound is its significance. In other words, the more singular and unique is the artistic expression or creativity, the greater are the chances that it may deeply and significantly mean something to or “touch” more and more persons at different times and in different places. The more personal or singular is the artistic expression, the more universally it “touches” or means something to others. If a piece of abstract art does not “touch” or mean anything to its observers or audiences, its fate becomes similar to that of the functional object. It has no uniqueness or singularity about it but has more and more the nature of a duplicate which, from the viewpoint of non-reproductive art, is redundant. The more unique is the pure possibility that any piece of art, reproductive or non-reproductive, realizes, the more universal are the significance and values that it bears. You may challenge this view of mine. You may think of such art that challenges any view about the induplicability of art and attempts at investing in duplicates only. I, for one, do not deem such an attempt as artistic at all; as
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a matter of truth, it is an attempt to destroy or negate art. Artistic freedom licenses an artist to attempt to destroy art, but such destruction is not necessarily artistic in itself. Perhaps Rome burning looked marvelous and sublime in the eyes of Nero and other Romans, but this does not make the burning of Rome a piece of art. Analogously, a kind of art consisting only of duplicates has no artistic value in my view but signifies the destruction of art as a singularly personal expression. Or am I missing its artistic meanings or significance? Beauty cannot do without pure possibilities. As a value, beauty is beyond actualities; it consists of pure possibilities. Any artistic mind relies upon the sense that an actual thing could be otherwise, that something of great importance, which is beauty, is missing in the actual reality as such. No given fact, no actuality, is beautiful in itself. It can be beautiful only because it actualizes a beautiful pure possibility. Thus, if beauty is also subjectindependent (“objective”) and not just a matter of subjective taste, the objectivity of beauty is not that of any fact, but that of a pure possibility that should be personally exposed, revealed, or discovered. Beauty is thus not a matter of invention, convention, or interpersonal communication alone but has to do with pure possibilities, existing beyond the bounds of time and temporality as well as beyond those of convention or fashion. “I’ll show you beauty in a handful of dust,” implicitly claims the artist, which means: “I’ll reveal for you, expose and discover the aesthetic meaning and significance of this handful of dust; I’ll show you its possibility as a beautiful thing, for I identify it as such.” When Duchampt exhibits a lavatory seat in a museum, he intends to say to the potential audience: “Here and now, you are observing a piece of art, which in itself, without its artistic possibility, is just a lavatory seat.” He attempts to identify it as an object of art, to reveal its artistic possibility as a beautiful object, not as a manufactured device. The question remains whether Duchampt achieved his aim. This depends on the meaning and significance that the exhibited lavatory seat bears for the audience. As I see it, if such an object is duplicable, it should not be considered a piece of art. In contrast, T. S. Eliot’s “I will show you fear in a handful of dust” is a personal discovery, which only T. S. Eliot could reveal; it bears an artistic significance for us and is induplicable. Artistic significance must be of something induplicable, of something reflecting or signifying some of the artist’s singularity. The induplicability of any piece of art is the mark of its necessity. As far as the non-reproductive arts (painting, sculpture, musical performances, theatre acting, and the like) are concerned, duplicability, in contrast, bears the mark of contingency or dispensability. Nothing singular is duplicable, and any singularity and its significance bear the mark of necessity. With nonreproductive arts, in case that the distinction of the original from its
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reproduction or copy makes no real difference, art does not prevail. Only when the necessity—the indispensability and uniqueness—of the original prevails, then art speaks out. What about the induplicability in reproductive arts, such as the cinematic art? No doubt, in these arts duplicates, copies, or reproductions stem from genuine artistic creativity. Yet what is induplicable about all the copies of, say, a cinematic masterpiece is the particular pure possibility that is the intrinsic similarity that all of them share. As personally discovered by the singular artist, such an intrinsic similarity is a unique pure possibility, irreproducible and induplicable in itself. Thus, although innumerable actual duplicates, copies, or reproductions of the same cinematic masterpiece exist, the intrinsic similarity realized in each of them is induplicable or irreproducible. It bears the mark of the singularity of the artist. Only he or she could discover that pure possibility. To reproduce or duplicate the copies requires technical capability alone, not artistic talent. The copies as such are entirely contingent and dispensable, whereas their intrinsic similarity, as a pure possibility, is indispensable and necessary and, thus, adequately reflects the singularity of the artist. The difference between the intrinsic similarity of the reproductions, copies, or duplicates in reproductive arts and the mathematical intrinsic similarity is major. Artistic intrinsic similarity is personally discoverable, whereas mathematical intrinsic similarity must not be personal. Several mathematicians have independently discovered the same intrinsic similarity, whereas in reproductive arts this cannot be the case. The aesthetic significance of mathematics bears necessity but does not reflect singularity, whereas the significance of a pure piece of art, which is not mathematical, is singularly necessary. In both kinds of art, the reproductive and the non-reproductive, aesthetic necessity prevails, and the induplicability of the discovered pure possibility of the intrinsic similarity or of the uniqueness of each artistic detail or distinction is well maintained. 4. Necessity, Beauty, and God We say about a beautiful piece of art that anything about it is necessary. Each of its details is by no means contingent but necessary, meaningful, and significant, which points to the coherence and wholeness or integration of such a piece of beauty. Another sort of necessity that has to do with beauty is the necessary appeal we feel toward a beautiful piece of art. It attracts us because it reminds us of something that is not actual, of the beauty that only the purely mental-possible can shed upon actual beings. The artistic appeal, fascination, wonder, and the like have to do with the purely mental-possible of which
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actual beauty is merely a symbol. Any symbol consists of a physical-actual aspect and of a mental-possible one. Only the second aspect endows the symbol with necessity. We wish to know much about that beautiful piece of art and we seek some intimacy with it. This sort of attraction is a matter of necessity, not of contingency. The attraction is meaningful and significant; and meaning or significance has to do with the necessary relationship between pure possibilities. A confirmed atheist, or agnostic, such as G. H. Hardy, believed in a pure world of beauty and necessity that may remind us of a sort of belief in God. Possibly, the feeling that things are not contingent as they appear to be under spatiotemporal conditions or restrictions, but are necessary in another sense of the term, which is beyond the actual-physical, has much to do with religious feelings or experience. As Eddy Zemach mentioned many years ago, God’s answer to Job is wholly aesthetic. I would add that the necessity about that answer must be aesthetic. The beauty that we witness in nature may be experienced in the mind of some people as religious. Some believe that something of God or a God-like being must be in a reality to which necessary relations such as mathematical ones are applied. Not fortuitously, the Pythagoreans linked a religious form of life with their belief in the mathematical beauty and necessity of numbers of which reality as a whole is composed. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, God, as the only entirely and absolutely unactualized possibility, the purest of all pure possibilities, is the ideal of the mental as a whole (Gilead, 2003, pp. 213–224). As such, the possibility of God is strongly related to two of the typical interrelated traits of the mental—necessity and beauty, two marks of the independence from the actual, independence pertaining only to the purely possible. These sublime qualities also characterize mathematics, and mathematics plays a most significant role in the purely mental-possible, which brings it nearer to the ideal of the mental, to the possibility of God. 5. Free Necessity Contrary to Deus ex Machina An arbitrary, inartistic end to a dramatic piece is termed deus ex machina. It was a mark of the decline or degradation of classical drama. To solve the complicated dramatic plot involving human figures and to bring it to an end, the failed writer ended the plot by instructing the performers to pull down from the upper story, in which the loftier drama between the gods took place, a huge god-like puppet or piece of machinery, deus ex machina, which, due to its strength, put an end to the drama. In this way, deus ex machina has become a term or metaphor for an arbitrary, inartistic solution. Discussing necessity and truthful fictions, we should pay special attention to the significance of the failure termed deus ex machina.
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Repeatedly, in this and other panenmentalist works, I have emphasized the condition that is valid for any work of art: It should follow an inner, organic, unconstrained, or free necessity of itself. Nothing is arbitrary or contingent about it. Similarly to the mind or the psyche, nothing in genuine works of art can be arbitrary or contingent. Each detail in its given order is necessary within the unique possibilities that the work of art displays. As in every free choice, a possibility that panenmentalism adopts side by side with the sound idea of free will (Gilead, 2003, pp. 131–156), and as in genuine works of art, the determining and determined possibilities are free, never constrained and never excluding the alternative. Each of such alternatives is equally, though differently, necessary. The artist, like the free agent, is free to choose and to perform, yet each of the chosen possibilities necessarily stems from the singular personality of the creator, author, or agent. Morality, like art, cannot tolerate arbitrariness or contingency yet the freedom involved in moral decisions as well as in artistic activity is perfectly compatible with necessity, meaningfulness, and significance. Above, I have likened genuine works of art to the psyche. Think of free associations as classical psychoanalysis sees it. Nothing is arbitrary or contingent about free associations: Each leads to the other by means of necessary, meaningful, and significant relations, attachments, and connections. Yet nothing about these associations is constrained from without. When properly done, they are really free: Spontaneously expressing the inner, psychical reality and the personality of the person involved. These associations, like a piece of art, are that person’s free expressions. They are equally necessary and not arbitrary or contingent. In contrast, whenever the analyst suggests an interpretation to the analysand at an unsuitable moment, or in a compelling, arbitrary way, merely from without, the analyst actually employs a deus ex machina. Unless successfully rejected by the analysand, this may end in a failure in treatment and self-knowledge, since the analysand’s psychical necessity has not been revealed. Everything about the soul (psyche) or the mind necessarily makes a difference (see Sections 3.9 and 5.1 below). Each of the distinctions relevant to it makes such a difference. Each distinction has a value, meaning, and significance for the person(s) involved. The same holds for every detail in a genuine work of art. In contrast, as far as contingent matters are concerned, that is, actual matters regardless of their pure possibilities-identities, arbitrariness naturally takes place. In actual reality, coincidence, incidence, or chance currently occurs (compare Section 1.7 above), whereas in mental, psychical, or artistic matters no coincidence or chance combination happens for each detail, association, combination, or distinction has its special meaning and significance-relationality. As in a genuine piece of art, each psychical
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distinction makes a difference, which moves the person(s) involved, whose sensitivity and reactivity to it is empirically testable by intersubjective means. 6. No Psychical Coincidence, Only Actual Coincidence Exists Critically analyzing the allegedly necessary connection of cause and effect, in A Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, Sect. XIV, Hume goes deeply into its roots. Due to customary experience, based on the constant repetition of our impressions, following one another in the same order, we are subjectively, psychically determined to feel as if a necessary connection holds them together. Nevertheless, psychical necessity, the necessity in our associations, should not be transferred to external reality appearing as if causally determined. As Hume puts it: “This is the case, when we transfer the determination of the thought to external objects, and suppose any real intelligible connexion betwixt them; that being a quality, which can only belong to the mind that considers them” (Hume, 1969, p. 219). The necessity in question, Hume states, “is nothing but an internal impression of the mind, or a determination to carry our thoughts from one object to another” (ibid., p. 215). Necessity “is something that exists in the mind, not in objects” (ibid., p. 216). The so-called causal power and necessity are “qualities of perceptions, not of objects, . . . the mind has a great propensity to spread itself on external objects, and to conjoin with them any internal impressions, which they occasion . . .” (ibid., p. 217). Hume thus removes that power from all causes and bestows it on the perceiving mind instead (ibid., p. 218). Concerning the physical-actual, panenmentalism adopts a special kind of empiricism (Gilead, 2003, pp. 197–211). Nothing actual-physical as such is necessary but merely contingent. Yet Hume ascribes contingency to the mind no less than to external objects: “The uniting principle among our internal perceptions is as unintelligible as that among external objects” (Hume, 1969, p. 219). In contrast, panenmentalism, exempting the mental and the psychical from spatiotemporality and causality, leaves contingency to the actual-physical (“external,” “objective”) alone, and commits anything psychical to necessity. Still, Hume is quite right in ascribing at least the feeling of necessity to our associations and to internal, psychical grounds. His empiricism is especially correct in considering causality and other empirical connections and unity merely contingent. As for subjective, psychical necessity, Hume reveals, although not clearly and definitively enough, something of value about it, as well as about associations and projection or transference (“the mind’s propensity to spread itself on external objects”). Devoted to the idea of psychical determinism, panenmentalism ascribes necessity to anything psychical: Anything psychical cannot be contingent, meaningless, or insignificant. Nothing taking part in the mind can be
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fortuitous. In contrast, anything within actual reality and actual reality as a whole are casual or contingent, and causality, which panenmentalism leave s to the actual-physical alone, is also casual or contingent (Gilead, 2003, pp. 131–156). What about coincidence? Fortuitous events, such as coincidences, take part in the actual-physical and, contrary to Spinoza and many others, such events are not merely products of our ignorance or misunderstanding. As far as panenmentalism is concerned, determinism does not hold for actual-physical reality, but for the mental or the psychical alone. Thus, the coincidental is inseparable from the actual-physical. A sheer coincidence is that many good things happened to me in February 2003, some of which I had waited for for quite a long time. Were I superstitious enough, I would consult astrology or horoscopes to “explain” such a coincidence. But what all horoscopes attempt to do is to ascribe meanings or significance to such coincidences or fortuitous events, or to consider them symbolic. Using some symbols to explain the coincidence is an attempt to discover why it is meaningful or significant for our mind, and by no means because of the position or arrangement of the stars in February 2003. Symbols carry meanings and significance for the mind, not for the stars. Still, my mind reacts to such a coincidence not indifferently. Because it is meaningful for my mind, I feel as though a connection exists, even a necessary connection, between these events. But such is the case only because what unites them under the same significance or meanings is nothing but my mind. My mind, and my mind alone, connects them together, combines them, in its unique way. As one and the same person, I mind each of the events taking part in such a coincidence, and because I mind each of them, they are not random, casual, accidental, or fortuitous for me. Whenever I have the feeling or the belief that a necessary connection exists between the actual events that are merely coincidental, I, in a Humean-like transference, spread my associations and personal meanings onto external, actual things or events. I transfer the significance and meanings of my psychical possibilities to them or project these possibilities on them. Thus, to treat actual events, which are inescapably accidental or coincidental, as necessary is merely an illusion. In contrast, to consider them as mirrors reflecting psychical necessity, meaningfulness, or significance is the right thing to do. When we mind the meaningful or significant coincidence, the right thing to do is to consider this meaningfulness or significance merely as a transference or projection, which, although obviously reflecting nothing about actual reality, adequately, instructively reflects what has a grip on our mind. To treat actual coincidence as meaningful, significant, or necessary is to commit determinism to actualities whereas we are entitled to commit it to the mental or the psychical alone. Astrology, alchemy, and other pseudo-sciences
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are mere fictions. As fictions, they may still reflect or indicate truths about psychical or intersubjective life, not about actual, objective reality. In this respect, astrology, alchemy, and other symbolic fictions are like some popular literary works: If skillfully made, they may contribute something to our understanding of human psychology. Otherwise, to treat them as natural sciences, to treat them as if applying to actual reality and objective truth, we transfer or project human fears, hopes, aspirations, and the like on actualphysical reality. Such is the nature of illusion. In contrast, to treat these pseudo-sciences as symbolic fictions, psychologically instructive as indicating something true about our mind, does not commit us to illusion. By means of such fictions we may detect psychical possibilities that are meaningful and significant for us and, as such, they may contribute to our self-knowledge. They may serve then as stories about our psychical lives or intersubjective realities (reflecting “shared” beliefs, fears, anxieties, hopes, aspirations, and the like). No psychical coincidence, only actual coincidence exists. Physical-actual determinism has no foothold in reality. Only mental or psychical determinism exists. Nothing fortuitous has any grounds in psychical, inner reality. Whenever we mind any external coincidence, it becomes psychically significant and meaningful for us, which renders it not random but psychically or intersubjectively meaningful, that is, psychically or intersubjectively necessary. As a psychical or intersubjective possibility, such a coincidencecontingency ceases to be a coincidence. What bears meanings for us cannot be contingent for us. For the mind, no coincidence exists, and when inner, psychical reality is clearly distinguished from outer, actual reality, coincidence has to do with the actual-physical alone. Ascribing any coincidentality to the actual-physical alone subjects it to spatiotemporal and causal conditions. Like any actuality, causation is merely casual or contingent, and so is coincidence. 7. Truthful Fictions and the Necessity of Life: How Does Literature Make the Contingent Necessary? Philosophers have discussed issues such as “the meaning(s) of life,” “the value of life,” and “forms of life.” What about “the necessity of life”? I have in mind not only the indispensability of a person’s life, but the possibility of such a life as necessary, as a necessary possibility, without which the entire realm of possibilities, especially psychical possibilities although not only them, would lack some of its significance, meaning, value, and reality. This sort of necessity and indispensability sheds skeptical light on expressions such as “meaningless life,” “insignificant life,” “valueless life,” or “formless life.” If “forms of life” means “following rules shaping a person’s life,” this may point out a sort of necessity in a person’s life, a life that is not governed by
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randomness, casualness, or contingency. Such a life has a “shape,” “form,” or “style.” What may help a person to find out, not to invent or fabricate, the necessity in, as well as of, that person’s life are literary works of art as truthful fictions. Truthful fictions move us in such a way that through them, as if through indispensable lenses, we experience, conceive, and relate to our lives differently, in a way that not merely arouses some of our emotions but is palpable, intensive, integrative, comprehensive, or profound. The beauty, form, and style in literary works of art, in fine works of truthful fictions, or in works of art in general are real because they strongly relate to the hidden, as yet undiscovered, beauty, form, and style within a person’s inner reality. Reading and experiencing these fine works of truthful fiction, we gain indispensable assets, however fictional, such that we cannot imagine our life without them, and thus they serve as part and parcel of our very life. Without such fictions, our life would be quite different, as far as our consciousness is concerned. Without them, each of us would be left without a real sense of some most valuable meanings, significance, forms, and, most of all, of some of the necessity of a person’s life. Reading and experiencing fine literary works of art, we gain some sense of the necessity of our life. As a pure possibility, each human life is necessary, equally as each singular being is necessary. Each human life is indispensable, valuable, meaningful, and significant. Yet in most lives, people are not aware or conscious of the necessity of their life. They are not aware that each one of them is necessary, indispensable, irreplaceable, and the like, as each one of them is a singular being universally relating to any other being, especially any other singular being. Being quite sure about our feelings, we feel that what we deem great in truthful fictions is about us in a most personal sense. Reading and experiencing them, we recognize, capture, identify, and understand the significance of what exists within our souls. Reading about Marcel’s need for love in Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust, we may get much closer to our need for love, we may deeply touch this need and experience it in such a way that it brings tears of profoundness and understanding to our eyes. These tears are possibly the clearest lenses for our experience, recognition, knowledge, and understanding of our need for love. These lenses magnify our inner realities for us and make their conceivability much more clear and precise. Reading “The Dead” by James Joyce, we may differently, more fully experience, conceive, and understand the significance of the dead dear to us. We may differently, deeply experience, conceive, consider, and understand what intimacy really is. The special sense of reality, psychical and intersubjective, with which such lenses endow us, detects for us the necessity, meaningfulness, significance, and value of our lives. To detect a person’s story of life, to tell it, to
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share it with others is to convey the necessity of the life that is the subject of such a story, unlike history, which may divulge the contingencies in a particular history or in history in general. But what is a story? Every story is made of pure possibilities, for it is not like a photograph of any actuality, and even the actuality of a photograph is not the actuality of the life that it documents or depicts. The story discovers and displays the identity-possibility of a person’s life, its form and style. Reading Remembrance of Things Past, I have the confidence, as well as the accurate and undoubted knowledge and recognition, that this great piece of art is also about the inner core of my psychical life, about its singular possibility-necessity. In other words, this piece of art displays some significance, values, meanings, forms, and style concerning my psychical life. The possibilities that Proust’s masterpiece displays relate in a very special sense to some singular psychical possibilities without which I would have been quite a different person, which is impossible, since I could have not been another singular being. Thus, they relate to the necessity that has to do with the singularity of my psychical life. Self-knowledge cannot do without truthful fictions. As reflectors, mirrors, “telescopes,” “microscopes,” detectors, or sensors, truthful fictions are indispensable for self-knowledge. Without them, we would not have discovered many of our psychical possibilities and their relationality, namely, significance. As “telescopes,” such fictions receive what appears to be remote from us, alienated, or foreign as much closer or familiar; as “microscopes,” they magnify and emphasize what appears to be insignificant, negligible, tiny, or trifling but that truly is psychically significant or meaningful for us. Literary pieces of art consist of specific, concrete possibilities, not of generally theoretical ones. Literary truthful fictions can contribute even more than psychology or psychoanalysis to our self-knowledge. Owing to their specific, concrete nature, the literary possibilities are closer, more meaningful, and more significant for each singular psychical reality. The more concrete, specific, or particular a pure possibility, the stronger is its relationality to singular possibilities. Such relationality is indispensable to self-knowledge. To what extent are such fictions truthful? The more fictions affect the mind, the more they move or “touch” it deeply, the more they are meaningful for it. Personal or interpersonal experience attests to the truthfulness or reality of fictions. We psychically or intersubjectively react to fictions, as we react to pure possibilities. We cannot be indifferent to some of them. The more different we are, the more deeply we are moved, the more reality or truthfulness we should ascribe to the moving fictions. We can even “measure” or estimate our sensitivity to fictions. The more sensitive we are to them, the more truthful and real they are for or about us. They are trustworthy sensors of our psychical reality, which has greatly to do with their accuracy.
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Yet how can we really distinguish fictions relating to mere images, which, if not entirely false, are still superficial or shallow, from truthful fictions relating to the inner core of a person’s life? Popular fictions, films, and the like may touch the readers, viewers, or listeners quite impressively and effectively and may arouse strong emotions in them. They may react quite sensitively to these stimulating fictions. But such an effect does not make such fictions indispensable for a person’s self-knowledge and does not render them detectors or sensors of the necessity in or of a person’s life. Thus, we need a reliable criterion to tell fictions relating to superficial or false images from truthful fictions relating to the necessity in or of a psychical reality. The more concrete, specific, particular, accurate, and closer to singularity the truthful fiction is, the more necessity it may disclose in or of a person’s psychical life. Fictions concerning mere images, let alone false images, bear a general, common, unspecific, or inaccurate nature, far from any singularity. The more similar fictions are, the less they touch a person’s inner soul, the less they touch, or are relevant to, singularity. For instance, pornography may raise a person’s sexual desire, but it can never appeal to his or her erotic sense of life that must bear the signature of concreteness, exactness, and singularity. Pornography has to deal with sexual contingencies, not with erotic necessity; it deals with substitutes or surrogates instead of truthful, real, singular life. With pornography, nothing is left but the images. The images of the actual-physical, not of the psychical-possible that bears the mark of singularity, lie at the center of pornography. For this reason, each pornographic work is quite similar to the others of its kind and in this sense it is dispensable, while each piece of erotic art is different, even quite different, from the others, and each bears its indispensable, special, unique, or accurate being. The more unique and accurate is a truthful fiction, the more it possibly relates to the inner core of a person’s psychical life and can reveal its significance and necessity, which are deeply far beyond and independent of any image. Commonness, imagery, superficiality, and contingency go hand-in-hand. Since one of the views of this book is that beauty and necessity are quite close, as, for instance, in mathematics, pornography should not be considered beautiful, whereas truthful fictions, accurately relating to the necessity of pure possibilities and revealing it, have much affinity with beauty. Beauty moves us because it relates to the deep necessity and accuracy of the singularity of each of us. Pornography moves or stimulates its consumers, because it touches their images, contingent expressions of something valuable that is far removed from these images and contingencies. When likeness and commonness disappear, psychical reality, its significance, accuracy, and necessity grasped by means of valuable, truthful fictions enter the scene.
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The way Hamlet detects his uncle’s crime demonstrates to what extent truthful fictions, even if considered illusions, can serve as psychical sensors, detectors, mirrors, or traps. Only by means of a play, which is merely “a fiction, . . . a dream of passions” (Act II, Scene 2), can Hamlet “know his course.” To reveal the truth, to discover whether the ghost he has seen was a figment of his weak and melancholic mind (“imaginations”), the devil, or the real spirit of his late father, Hamlet needs the fiction of a play. This is the play of “something like the murder of my father,” “wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king” (ibid.). The purpose of the play is “to hold, as it were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature” (Act III, Scene 2). It represents reality and imitates and reflects it as a mirror does. Still, it is “but jest, poison in jest; no offence in the world” (ibid.), a fiction that does not touch “free souls” (ibid.). To let the play do its work, the King must be reassured that it is only a play, nothing but a fiction. When the King rises in alarm, Hamlet reacts: “What, frighted with false fire!” (ibid.). To the King, the fiction is allegedly a “false fire,” a mere fantasy and illusion because of which the frightened and offended monarch can no longer conceal his crime. To Hamlet and the readers as well, the fiction is quite truthful, a most useful means to reveal truths: Truths about actual reality as well as about the King’s psychical reality. The King unwillingly believes his eyes and psychically or emotionally mistakes the fiction performed in his presence for the actual crime he has attempted to forget, to hide even from himself, and to commit it to darkness, oblivion, and denial. To attempt this he calls for light (ibid.). This is the “light” of denial and evasion, a light by which the King attempts to show that the play is merely a shadow, an image, an illusion, of which nothing remains under the light. Since the King is eager to suspend his and others’ belief in the play, he demands a light, which, he hopes, will clearly draw the boundary between fantasy and actual reality. Yet the scene is a theatrical performance within a play, which, despite its potentiality to evoke disbelief, exposes the truth in Hamlet. In it, mistaking fiction for actual reality becomes an indispensable vehicle to reveal truth. Theatrical, cinematic, and different other kinds of illusion, say, transference, have the power to reveal truth, despite forgetfulness, denial, and repression. They serve to reveal truth owing to the truthful fictions they suggest to the viewers or readers. What the mind minds is meaningful or significant for it (see Section 5.1 below). What the mind minds is under a psychical determinism. Psychical determinism subsumes or subjects each psychical possibility to necessity and exempts it from contingency and arbitrariness. Since we genuinely mind truthful fictions, they reveal the necessity about our psychical realities. The discovery or revelation under consideration is indispensable for our self-knowledge. Truthful fictions have thus much to do with the necessity about and of our psychical lives, a necessity without which these lives would turn out to be meaningless or
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insignificant. Singularity, psychical necessity, and truthful fiction thus go handin-hand. Let us turn now to my question about literature, namely, how does literature make what is contingent in life necessary? I put the following answer to this question under the title “Necessity in literature: Between friends and foes.” Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past serves me again as an example of how literature reveals the necessity behind the “contingencies” of life. Nehamas’s Nietzsche: Life as Literature (1985) has aroused much attention, which the book really deserves. Richard Rorty (1989, pp. 98–107) and David Conter (1992) both challenge the way in which Nehamas compares Nietzsche’s writing to Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. Of special interest is Rorty’s view on the relationship between contingencies and the “realm of possibilities.” Although I do not accept the analogy Nehamas draws between Nietzsche and Proust, I find much truth, although for quite different reasons, in his view on the necessity that literary masterpieces maintain. On this matter, I side with Nehamas, not with Rorty and Conter who point out many examples of contingencies that allegedly have a place in literature in general and in Proust’s masterpiece in particular. From the panenmentalist viewpoint, this debate is of great interest. What should bother many genuine enthusiasts of literature is the creative freedom that it depicts. If anything about a literary masterpiece is necessary and nothing about it is contingent, what will remain then of the cherished literary freedom and imagination? These enthusiasts tacitly and dogmatically assume that necessity and literary freedom or imagination are incompatible “by terms” or “by nature.” As both a panenmentalist and a great admirer of literary works of art, I find no contradiction or incoherence at all in assuming them the necessity characterizing the relationality of pure possibilities. As I have shown, psychical pure possibilities, determinism of pure possibilities, and freedom of choice (even the “notorious” free will) are well compatible under panenmentalism (Gilead, 2003, pp. 131–156). The same holds for fine literature: Necessity, pure literary possibilities, and the freedom of the literary creativity and imagination are excellently compatible under panenmentalist terms. Creativity is a discovery of pure possibilities, which necessarily relate one to the other. Yet it is a personal discovery, which only the author can perform. She or he has to remove all the superfluous, all the contingencies about the materials of the work. In this way the author expresses her or his genuine personality, an expression of great freedom. Counterfactuals are pure possibilities. As I see it, Rorty and Conter, like many others, share a tacit modal assumption: Counterfactuals, pure possibilities, and contingencies overlap, whereas necessity and possibility are contraries. From a panenmentalist modal viewpoint, such is not the case. Actualities and contingencies overlap, whereas the relationality of pure
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possibilities and necessity are inseparable. No contingency has any place in a literary masterpiece. Relating to contingencies and counterfactuals, however ironically delineated, the narrator(s) of such masterpiece exclude anything unnecessary, meaningless, or insignificant and remove it from the literary piece of art. The relationality of the narrator(s) is like that of the mind: Everything a person minds necessarily bears meaning and significance for that person. In actual reality, many details are rightly considered insignificant, contingent, or fortuitous, while their pure possibilities are revealed by a literary masterpiece as meaningful and necessary. In this way, literature makes the contingent necessary or, to be more exact, the pure possibility of the contingent is discovered or revealed as necessary by literature or under its terms. The literary artist shows the necessity in a handful of dust. 8. Philosophy, Pure Possibilities, and Truthful Fictions You may often hear people who have no real knowledge of philosophy claiming that such and such is a philosophical question. For instance, they consider a question about human values or a worldview as philosophical. What they may mean to say is that such matters are theoretical, general, impractical, irrelevant, or nonactual, but more likely—that they are about pure or “theoretical” possibilities. Against such a background, those persons consider what is purely possible as too general or nonspecific to be practical or actual. In contrast, panenmentalism considers pure possibilities as particulars or singulars. Under the panenmentalist nominalism, general or universal terms consist of the significance of pure possibilities, all of which in turn are necessarily particulars or singulars. According to this nominalism, the significance of any pure possibility is finally universal. Such significance is the general or universal aspect of the relationality of any pure possibility. Contrary to the aforementioned popular or common ways of thinking, panenmentalism considers pure possibilities as relevant for our mundane life, actual reality, and practical matters. The grounds according to which we realize and identify actualities are pure possibilities. As for practical matters, we need pure possibilities-alternatives (as many as possible) to make rational, wellbalanced choices. We need them also to discover new ways to create, produce, or innovate. With panenmentalism, philosophical theory, pure possibilities, and life, including all the practicality involved in it, are inseparable. Saving as many pure possibilities as possible, bringing them to our consciousness, awareness, consideration, and choice, revealing their meanings and significance for us, all these are essential for our self knowledge and authentic ways of life. Philosophy, especially as metaphysics, is primarily about pure possibilities, and one of the main tasks of philosophy is to open for us as many pure possibilities as possible, possibilities that otherwise would have been closed to
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us. Lack of imagination or of creativity, prejudices, commonplaces, customary or prevailing ways of thinking, and the like may keep such possibilities closed. To follow the restrictions of the actual, as if they limited or conditioned the realm of the purely possible as a whole, is an especially harmful way of closing possibilities. To see and to consider beyond the confinement of the actual is an indispensable philosophical aim. To see and to consider thus is what any philosophical theory, descriptive or revisionist (to borrow these terms from P. F. Strawson, Derek Parfit, and others), is all about. Descriptive philosophy also requires pure possibilities, such as logical possibilities. Rejecting metaphysics, yet defining philosophy as “the science of the possible”, Bertrand Russell characterizes philosophy as “able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. . . . it greatly increases our knowledge as to what . . . [things] may be” (Russell, 1974, p. 91). Summing up his discussion of the value of philosophy, he writes that philosophical questions “enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination, and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation” (ibid., pp. 93–94). He claims that logic, instead of being, as formerly, the bar to possibilities, has become the great liberator of the imagination, presenting innumerable alternatives which are closed to unreflective common sense, and leaving to experience the task of deciding . . . between many worlds which logic offers for our choice. (ibid., p. 86). Much to admire exists in this Russellian attitude yet as a panenmentalist I would like to liberate our thought more, even beyond the logical possibilities, and to open the realm of the purely possible much more. Unlike Russell, panenmentalism attempts to show that metaphysics is a most promising, fruitful philosophical study. I also do not accept Russell’s actualism (see Section 1.4 above), which, despite his declared attempts, confines and restricts philosophical possibilities for no fruitful purpose. Curiously or intriguingly enough, even actualists, though unwillingly and unadmittedly and even deniedly, need pure possibilities for their inquiries. Obviously, panenmentalism challenges not their entirely justified use of pure possibilities but the limits or confinement that they put on the realm of the possible. Panenmentalism limits or restricts the purely possible only under the postulate that no two possibilities can be identical, which by no means confines it to logical or actual possibilities. In the panenmentalist expanse, non-logical and illogical possibilities also exist side by side with logical possibilities. Unlike Russell, I do not consider experience or experiments as the sole arbiter between logical possibilities. To commit pure possibilities to such an arbiter is an empiricist stance. In contrast, thought experiments are not
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empirically conditioned. A possible way in treating pure possibilities is the critical employment of thought experiments. Immanuel Kant suggested that the readers of the Critique of Pure Reason consider by way of a thought experiment the novel possibility of the Copernican Revolution. Suggesting it, he considered a possibility that was not yet actual at that time. To discover it, Kant and his readers need a thought experiment. They have to attempt a revolutionary way of thinking: Instead of assuming that the mind has to adjust itself to its objects, let us try to assume the other way round—the objects have to adjust themselves to the forms and principles of Human Reason. The necessary result of this thought experiment is that the objects in question are phenomena, not things-inthemselves. In light of panenmentalism, a Kantian Copernican Revolution is a truthful fiction detecting the necessary consequences of its assumption (“hypothesis”). In this case also, truthful fictions or fruitful thought experiments reveal the necessity relating pure possibilities including necessary consequences. Considering the possibilities of phenomena, we have to take into consideration the conceiving subject or the mind to which the phenomena appear. The existence of such a subject or mind is necessary to the existence of any phenomenon, for a necessary relationship exists between their pure possibilitiesidentities. The case appears to be that Hume and other classical empiricists excluded the possibilities that the thought experiment of the Copernican Revolution captures. All the more, classical empiricists excluded the necessary relationality of these possibilities. They were not aware of the revolutionary significance of these possibilities and excluded them on quite dogmatic grounds. We make such exclusions quite often. One of the primary aims of panenmentalism is to open our eyes to realize that and to save possibilities as much as possible. Thought experiments consist of fictions by means of which we capture pure possibilities, especially new possibilities for thinking and philosophizing. Whenever such an experiment is successful, and fruitful new pure possibilities are discovered, it consists of truthful fictions. A most fruitful possibility such as Kant’s Copernican Revolution is a truthful fiction indispensable for the discovery of many essential possibilities without which Kant’s metaphysics would have been just impossible. Thought experiments have proven themselves philosophically useful or fruitful since then. Recently, Derek Parfit has become known for employing them to revise philosophical thinking (Parfit, 1987). Advocating for philosophy without thought experiments, Kathleen Wilkes challenges Parfit but she does not sever the bond that strongly attaches philosophy to the discovery of new possibilities (Wilkes, 1988). Yet what she considers real is quite different from what I consider real. As I see it, pure possibilities may be as real as actualities and, in a sense, even more real (for any pure identity-possibility comprises more than its actuality, which is necessarily partial, and since the purely possible is
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“wider” or more comprehensive than the actual). Wilkes attempts to save possibilities that Parfit ignores or excludes. Knowingly or unknowingly, any philosophical debate must proceed, among other things, over the question of opening and closing pure possibilities, over the decision of which pure possibilities to accept and which to exclude. In many cases, including many philosophical discussions, the thinkers, however able and expert, are not at all aware of the possibilities they exclude. Such unawareness should be considered a grave philosophical failure. Reduction, especially any actualist reduction, necessarily implies closing or excluding possibilities, many of which are indispensable for insightful, fruitful, and profound philosophical thinking. 9. Mind, Necessity, and Truthful Fictions In each case in which any distinction makes a difference, in which any distinction bears significance, necessity emerges; this entails determinism. Since each psychical distinction makes a difference and thus is necessary, each psychical distinction is subject to determinism, which means that each such distinction is also meaningful and significant (see Sections 3.6 and 3.7 above). Truthful fictionsthose that are entirely exempt from contingenciesare subject to the same principle: Each distinction in them makes a difference. This principle or mark of distinction makes the difference between truthful and untruthful fictions. Literary works of art are truthful fictions, and each distinction in a truthful fiction makes a difference, makes a necessary determination. The positive answer to the question “Do you mind?” refers to distinctions that make a difference. Panenmentalism postulates that anything pertaining to the mind is a distinction that makes a real difference, which also makes it necessary. Popular art may make a difference that is not real, for it does not really touch the singularity of a person but instead makes the illusion that it really touches it. Note that the distinction under discussion does not lead to separation. On the contrary, it bears relationality to a wholethe whole mind or the whole truthful fiction. “To be different from” entails “to relate to.” This relationality is necessary: Any psychical distinction necessarily leads to the other as much as any distinction in a truthful fiction leads to the other. In the end, each of them necessarily leads to the whole. As I will conclude Section 5.3 below, grasping the distinction that makes a difference means to relate in the end to the realm of pure possibilities as a whole. To ask about distinctions that do not make any difference is the best way to spoil a good story, a witty joke, or any excellent fiction. It may also be one of the marks of stupidity. Think, for instance, of Kafka’s “Before the Law,” which begins with the well-known words: “Before the Law stands a doorkeeper on guard. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country who begs for admittance to the Law” (Kafka, 1961, p. 61). This concise fable is entirely free
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from any superfluous detail and does not give rise to any distinction that does not make a difference. Suppose that the reader may ask about distinctions and details that the fable does not mention. For instance, given that it mentions the fleas in the doorkeeper’s fur collar, which the man from the country begged to help him to persuade the doorkeeper to change his mind and to allow that man admittance to the Law (ibid., p. 63), should the reader ask how many fleas are there? Or, how many fleas the man has asked for help? As with my treatment of Rescher’s ironic question, “How many possible worlds are there?” (Section 1.6 above), the answer to the present question must be negative. Such questions make no sense, as far as truthful fictions are concerned. To raise such a question means to ask for a distinction that makes no difference, at least as far as the fable is concerned. That is, such a distinction is not necessary and, as far as the fable goes, is merely contingent, playing no role or bearing no meaning and significance within it. The number of fleas makes no difference to the fable’s significance and meanings. The reality that the fable depicts is not physical-actual, whereas such questions make sense and are valid or legitimate only when we address them to actualphysical reality in which contingencies naturally occur. 10. What Does It Mean to Discover a Necessity? Necessity is not stipulated, invented, or constructed; necessity is discoverable. In geometry you may construct some pattern or object as a truthful fiction, but the necessity it displays, the necessity concerning a pure possibility or the relationality of that possibility, is subject to discovery alone. You have to realize the necessity, which otherwise would not be discovered to you. It exists “already” (the inverted commas are due to the atemporality of the purely possible), ready for its discovery. Considering pure possibilities, necessity is given in them and in their relationality as well. We have to find necessity out. We do not contrive it. Instead, we may contrive truthful fictions or thought experiments by means of which we are capable of discovering the necessity about pure possibilities and their relationality. How can we discover a necessity? Whenever we attempt, by means of thought experiment, to change something about the discovered pure possibilities and their relationality, whenever we attempt to change their order, to take one or more of them out, to replace one of them by another, to add something to them, and the like, the necessity about them disappears and we can no longer realize it. An alternative necessity may appear then, but this will be another necessity, not the first one. In this way we detect necessity in works of art, in a person’s psychical determinism, in mathematics, in logic, and the like. The more necessary each of them may be realized, the more impossible it is to change anything about them without making a difference for us concerning the whole piece or, at least, its meanings or significance. Necessity makes a real difference.
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Nothing is contingent, arbitrary, conventional, or factual about it. To discover it, anything superfluous should be removed first. What is not superfluous about it cannot be removed, unless by way of deception, blindness, or insensitivity. When we attempt to remove anything out of it, a sense or feeling of spoiling or mutilation grips us. Any attempt to spoil or mutilate it will change nothing about the pure possibilities themselves and their relationality. It makes a difference only for us. The necessity is “there” regardless of our regard of it. Necessity is thus referable. Its referability implies an existence. Discovering the necessity, we discover something about existence. We discover something meaningful and significant about the existence of pure possibilities and their relationality. Meanings and significance are discoverable as much as all pure possibilities and their relationality. Fixing or determining meanings and significance, by means of convention, stipulation, or any truthful fiction, we, as a matter of truth, discover these meanings and significance. In some cases, we could not discover them without such conventions, stipulations, or truthful fictions. But their existence is independent of us, or of our conventions, stipulations, conceptions, truthful fictions, and the like. Anything actual is possible, and the identity of anything possible is purely possible. As atemporal, the purely possible is discoverable and absolutely cannot be invented or stipulated. Inventions or stipulations are merely means to discover pure possibilities or their relationality, existing independently of the inventions or stipulations. The same holds for constructions in mathematics: They serve as truthful fictions, as a means to discover mathematical pure possibilities and the mathematical necessity about them. They serve as a means to discover also the significance and meanings of these possibilities.
Four MIND AND BODY 1. The Lecturer’s Bodily Expression A student of mine, a most busy and restless person, addressed me with a bothersome request: Could I duplicate my lectures and provide students like him with the copies to save their attending the lectures? After all, do they not need some decent sleep after long and sleepless nights of hard working for their living? Although anxious to help my students as much as I could, I declined his request. “Why?” he continued to insist. “Because I have done my best to make each of my lectures indispensable, namely, induplicable, and the most of each lecture, if not all of it, would get lost in any attempt to duplicate it and circulate the printed copies among the students.” Still, he did not give up: “Suppose that your lectures are like a piece of art, say, an unforgettable concert for instance, yet even such a piece of art is duplicable, and one is well able to make recordings of it. Isn’t it?” My answer was in the negative. First, I rejected the analogy. Much of the merit of a decent lecture in philosophy gets lost when recorded. Second, a musical recording is by no means the same as the live musical performance. The performance is unique and, as such, is induplicable, whereas the recording is well duplicable. You are not entitled to say that while listening to the record you experience the performance or hear it at all. What you are listening to is just the record, which is like the echo of the “real thing.” You are not entitled to take the record or the “echo” for the “real thing or event.” You should not mistake the one for the other. Quite another student, a brilliant young lady, looked quite embarrassed at one of our meetings. “You see,” she confessed blushing, “I have a videotape of your last lecture, but since I did not really attend it, I am sure that I lost the most of it. Although I can hear your recorded voice and see the image of your bodily expressions, I was not really there at all; I did not attend the lecture. I expected even less from the written notes though taken devotedly by my friend. So I have some questions to ask you.” Realizing her sincerity and integrity, which were obvious to me, I tried to analyze in my terms what that wise young lady told me. Competent lecturers should be actors too, otherwise they cannot do their job properly. If they are short of such theatrical capability, their lectures would turn out to be redundant, and printed copies circulated among the students would take their place. In contrast, competent lecturers invariably use their
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bodily expressions, movements, gestures, and the like. This is not unlike Kafka’s “In the Penal Colony,” where he delineates a horrible scene in which a verdict is printed on the body of the convicted person. I sincerely hope that the fate of competent lecturers is not like that, having nothing of torture in it, yet the analogy in question is valid. An adequate lecture should be “written” or “printed” on the body of the lecturer, performed by her or his bodily expressions, movements, gestures, postures, and the like. The contact between the lecturer and the students relies not only on verbal communication but also on the message that only bodily expressions can convey in an actual situation in which all persons concerned attend. The genuine situation is “live,” never recorded. In other words, the actual lecture is a physical event, inescapably unique, single, and induplicable. This event entirely rests on the actualization of ideas, frames of mind, attitudes, and approaches, which, in turn, take part in one and the same pure possibility. Attending the actual lecture, the audience experiences its physical manifestations, without which the lecture is not an actual lecture at all but merely a pure possibility. As a mental experience, the lecture is definitely not a record, a videotape, or a printed paper, none of which can replace the lecture itself. As a pure possibility, the lecture is never subject to multiple realizations, for each realization has its pure possibilityidentity. In sum, neither the lecture as a pure possibility nor the lecture as an actuality is duplicable. The lecture itself, especially a philosophical one, is a sort of dialogue. Even in the case of lectures in which the audience is silent through the whole session, and only the lecturer makes her or his points, still the dialogue is there. For the audience reacts to the words and to the bodily manifestations, the lecturer responds to this reaction, and so on. You may feel this in the atmosphere of the room. You can sense whether the audience is interested, tense, relaxed, enjoying the lecture, bored, or experiencing a great hour. Competent lecturers sense all this, if, as the case should be, they are sensitive enough. The dialogue is there, and nothing can take its place. No other way exists to make such a contact. In the event that the words do not fit the bodily expressions, the expressions outweigh the apparent words, and any competent lecturer or sensitive audience can feel this quite clearly. Such is the case, for the bodily expressions play an indispensable role in any actual dialogue between the lecturer and the audience. 2. Mind to Body Like Mathematics to Physics Even materialists, eliminativist or not, reductionist or not, cannot ignore the explanatory function or capability without which physical events or actions are just meaningless or senseless. The basis of this function or capability is not
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physical; it is mathematical. Consisting of pure possibilities and their relationality, mathematics is mental, not actual-physical. Can you even imagine a total (infinite) physical world lacking any mental reality, psychical or otherwise? Can you likewise imagine a living body without a mind? You can, if you can dispense with explanation, understanding, intelligibility, meaning, relationality, and, most important, necessity. The possible-mental alone, including the psychical, is the source of all possibilities, meanings, values, and relationality, without which no explanation, understanding, and intelligibility can exist. As the physical-actual is inescapably contingent, all that is necessary about it stems from the mental-possible alone. On all these grounds, the physical-actual cannot do without the mental or the psychical. A vast current literature about the psychophysical problem has attempted to challenge it in discussing the possibility of zombies—active living human beings that lack any consciousness, mind, or phenomenal reality and yet are entirely identical with conscious human beings. As a panenmentalist, I cannot even imagine such zombies. The point is that I cannot imagine them as I cannot imagine natural sciences, especially physics, lacking any kind of mathematics. Before explaining this astonishing analogy, I would like to make the following qualification: Psychical possibilities are singulars, whereas mathematical possibilities are only particulars, many of which share intrinsic similarity. Mathematics is the “soul” of physics; it is the mental basis for physics, without which physics would become senseless, meaningless, unintelligible, and “mute,” namely, deprived of its indispensable language. No physicalist is entitled to deprive physics of its mathematical language. But could any physicalist or materialist argue that mathematics is physical-actual and does not consist of a relationality of pure possibilities? S/he could argue so upon the grounds that all mathematical entities are merely abstractions of actualphysical reality. But this would deprive mathematics of all the necessity and noncontingent nature it undoubtedly enjoys. Yet Putnam and other neoempiricists discovered the possibility, if not the truth, of “mathematics without foundations,” namely, of mathematics susceptible to doubt and open to revisions or alternatives. But even mathematics without foundations, the panenmentalist argues, has a necessity and such mathematics is not contingent. Could neo-empiricists accept contingent mathematics or logic? They could not, unless blindly or dogmatically following actualist presuppositions. If neoempiricism becomes dogmatically actualist, it may adhere to the false idea of the contingency of mathematics. Susceptibility to doubt does not render mathematics contingent. As necessary, any mathematics, as panenmentalism views it, consists of pure possibilities, not of actualities.
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Could any physicalist or actualist argue that the mind is merely an abstraction of the body? I do not see how anybody could argue so. Unlike psychical traits, bodily shapes, colors, and other physical or material traits may be abstracted of the body. Could the materialist or the physicalist argue that thinking, or any other psychical trait, is an abstraction from the human brain? Absolutely not for, under meticulous analysis, any such argument would be found entirely groundless. No modern physics, from Galileo onward, can be intelligible or meaningful without mathematics, which, in turn, is not physical or actual but pure, namely, consisting of pure mathematical possibilities and their relationality. Or, would you argue that pure mathematics is not a priori but empirically grounded? Such is not the course that both physics and mathematics have actually taken: Euclidean geometry, analytic geometry, infinitesimal calculus, non-Euclidean geometries, non-linear mathematics, settheoretical mathematics, and many more, however physically significant, were discovered absolutely independently of experience or actual matters. Historically speaking, we are not entitled to argue that any of these mathematics consists of abstractions from actual reality, as a result of empirical knowledge, induction, experience, experiments, or observation. Any pure mathematics thus consists of pure, a priori possibilities. We may reveal or discover them by means of reflection, imagination, analysis, reasoning, calculating, and the like, not by means of empirical evidences or experiments. To discover mathematical possibilities we need thought experiments, not empirical devices. By definition, thought experiments belong to the mentalpossible not to the physical-actual. Since Galileo, mathematics has been regarded as the indispensable language of nature, that is, of modern physics. Without this language, physics would lose all the meaningfulness, significance, intelligibility, or sense it has owing to its mathematical language. Similarly, without the mind or the psychical, the meaningfulness, significance, and intelligibility of our physical life or activity would become merely impossible. On these grounds, I conclude that zombies do not exist. Since without the mental-possible no necessity would exist, owing to its pure possibilities and their relationality, mathematics endows nature or physics with logico-mathematical necessity. Equally, the mental endows the physicalactual with all the necessity it can have despite all the contingencies that it also must have. At least, as far as meaningfulness or necessity is concerned, so the mind is to the body as mathematics is to physics. Whenever you ask—What does it all mean?—you are asking either about the mental meanings, logico-mathematical or otherwise, all of which are pure possibilities of the physical-actual or about the pure possibility-identity of the body.
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Yet a possible challenger to panenmentalism would argue: The analogy you have just made—mind to body like mathematics to physics—must fail to overwhelm functionalists, for they argue that what we call “mind” is nothing but the program, the software, or the functional aspects that the body, as hardware, realizes. Similarly, the aforementioned analogy must fail to overwhelm any physicalist or functionalist and does not rule out the actual existence of zombies. My response is that the “software” in functionalist terms is a state of actualization, in which the “software” is the potentiality or capability built into the actual hardware, and no functionalist considers such “software” as consisting of pure possibilities and their relationality. No physicalist or functionalist even considers mathematics as consisting of pure possibilities and their relationality. This is a point over which panenmentalism debates with functionalism or physicalism. Since, in dealing with the physicalactual or the body, any attempt to dispense with the purely possible, mental or psychical, must fail, functionalism or physicalism also must fail. Finally, mathematics provides the physical-actual also with mathematical pure possibilities-identities. Similarly, singular, psychical possibility provides the embodied, actual person with personal identity. The mental or the psychical is the only source of identities-possibilities. A “nature” devoid of mathematics is a nature devoid of identity. A living body without a mind is a body without an identity. Such an entity would have not been identified even as a live body. 3. A Panenmentalist Response to Novel Discoveries in Neuro-Psychoanalysis A paper by Yoram Yovell recently introduced a novel discovery, the importance of which cannot be exaggerated (Yovell, 2001). Yovell is a neurobiologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst; quite a rare and exciting conjunction. In his neuro-psychoanalytic paper, Yovell demonstrates and clarifies why under posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients are unable to remember anything declaratively, or almost anything, of the actual event that caused their trauma. Yet at the same time they emotionally react to anything that may “remind” or be associated with the event (Yovell, 2001). As a matter of fact, neuro-psychoanalysis has succeeded in showing what Freud hoped psychology to achieve but in vain (Freud, 1940a, 1950a). It has revealed the neurobiological mechanism of one of the most intricate problems for psychotherapy and especially for psychoanalysis, at least to the extent that posttraumatic stress disorder is concerned. From Charcot on, PTSD patients have been recognized as extremely suggestible, and many attempts to retrieve their conscious memory have so far been doomed to failure. Due to their suggestibility, PTSD patients have been
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quite susceptible to implanted, false memories. Yet they have been found to react immediately to some unconscious memories on emotive or “procedural” grounds. Whenever they meet something that unconsciously touches the emotive traces or associations of their trauma, they react as though to the trauma itself. This also appears to be true of dreams and of events in their everyday life. As Yovell elaborates, the hippocampus mediates declarative memory to a large extent, whereas the amygdale mediates emotional or procedural memory at least in part. While the declarative memory can be impaired during our life, this is not the case with our emotive or procedural memory, which retains its ability throughout our life. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other tests have demonstrated that PTSD patients suffer from a shrinking of the hippocampus, while the amygdala is left intact. The two cerebral organs are independent of each other. Note that “the amygdala is a central coordinator of fear and anxiety in the brain, and that it is required in order to make an association between a frightening experience and a neural one” (Yovell, 2001, p. 175). Thus, a person does not need to have a conscious recollection of the traumatic accident to be frightened because of that accident. Even if nothing is left of the declarative memory of the event, the emotional trauma is there, as the amygdala functions independently of the hippocampus. Once “the neural connections that mediate a traumatic association are made in the brain, they remain intact for the lifetime of the organism” (ibid.). Also under this description we learn that PTSD patients are victims of their recollections, not the conscious ones but the unconscious, emotive or procedural ones. And the traumatic event must undoubtedly recur, since it has left its mark on the emotive memory of the traumatized person. Not so is the conscious recording-recalling of the event. And if, as is the case of many PTSD patients, their declarative memory does not fully function due to the cerebral effects of the trauma, no chance exists to reconstruct or retrieve their declarative memory of the traumatic event. As Yovell shows, in this case, psychotherapy in general and psychoanalysis in particular are useless, whereas medication can greatly relieve the patient by blocking the cerebral stress. From a Freudian or classical psychoanalytic aspect, neuropsychoanalysts have contributed much to meet what bothered Freud so much toward the end of the 19th century, namely, what were the neurological grounds for psychopathology as well as for psychotherapy. Until the end of his life, Freud found no solution to this most intricate psychophysical problem. I believe that neuro-psychoanalysis has now made the first crucial step toward a possible solution. From the panenmentalist viewpoint, the matter is even more exciting. As a psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, Yovell is a great believer in his discipline or art. Yet he knows quite well that a mind without a body is not
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actual or causally effective and is unable to act in any way at all. If he or other neuro-psychoanalysts can accept the panenmentalist metaphysical grounds, I believe that they may gain more for their intellectual achievement. Yovell writes time and again that the emotional memory is mediated by the amygdala, while the declarative memory is mediated by the hippocampus. I believe that such a language, philosophically speaking, is obscure or metaphoric, and should be replaced or clarified. I suggest the required replacement or clarification under panenmentalist principles. Instead of employing “mediation,” I would say that the hippocampus actualizes or takes part in the actualization of the declarative memory, while the amygdala actualizes emotional memory or takes part in its actualization. If, owing to the traumatic event, which is a contingent incident, the actualization of the declarative memory has been irreversibly impaired, this memory must remain a pure possibility instead! Memory as a whole creates a complicated problem. Infantile memory can be considered declarative as well as procedural, although the hippocampus becomes mature and can completely function only after the age of three or four. Yet some important aspects of the memory function much earlier, even when it has to do with what appears to be declarative or inferential memory. According to the present state of neuroscience, the actualization of memory does not end with the amygdala and the hippocampus alone. For this reason, Yovell employs the concept “mediate.” I feel, however, that this cannot do, at least, not sufficiently. Undoubtedly, without these two cerebral organs, no mature declarative and procedural/emotional memory can be actualized. As such, these two organs are at least necessary conditions for the actualization of these two kinds of memory. Second, without either of them the respective memory, according to Yovell, is “not accessible.” I would prefer to term it “unavailable,” for it is not an issue of accessibility but of availability, and availability has to do with temporality, which is a necessary condition for any actualization. In sum, when it comes to the functioning of the hippocampus and the amygdala, I much prefer the panenmentalist term of actualization to Yovell’s “mediation.” More exists to the function of the amygdala. As Yovell points out, the emotional memory is kept intact, and even increased, due to the trauma. One of the principles of panenmentalism as a philosophical psychology is that emotional bonds are the grounds for the cohesive nature of our personality. I employed this principle to cope with the problem of multiple personality as well as with the problem of akrasia (Gilead, 2003). Neuro-psychoanalysis has discovered the neurobiological basis for the actualization of this basic bond of which personality consists: “The amygdala is also richly connected to many other parts of the brain, and is believed to mediate the emotional experience of fears” (Yovell, 2001, p. 175). Many of the PTSD patients suffer from “the
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disconnection between memory of facts and memory of feelings, which was so typical of hysterics hundred years ago [sic] and is still typical of trauma victims today” (ibid., p. 176). Thus, neuro-psychoanalysis begins to discover the cerebral grounds or the actualization of what I describe as dissociation due to the lack of a conscious emotional bond, as in the case of akrasia. Yovell is right that “repression of traumatic memories can no longer be maintained as a psychological concept independent of the brain” (ibid.). Yet this obvious dependence is valid only to the extent that actualization is concerned. The same holds for Jacobs and Nadel’s suggestion as to “neurological mechanism for repression and dissociation of traumatic memories which is based on the action of another stress related hormone: cortisol” (ibid.). Cortisol increases activity in the amygdala, although it first increases the activity in the hippocampus and “then dramatically decreases it as cortisol levels increase” (ibid., p. 177). Neuro-psychoanalysis succeeds in demonstrating that “neurobiology may account for the clinical phenomenon of dissociation, a pathological disconnection between facts and feelings” (ibid.); this, in panenmentalist terms, means that neurobiology accounts for the actualization, or physical realization, of dissociation. Since “only true memories were associated with increased activity in the left temporoparietal cortex, where verbal auditory information is processed” (ibid., p. 178), we have, therefore, a medical indication by means of which we can distinguish between the actualization of false memories and that of true ones, as “they are associated with different patterns of cerebral activity” (ibid., p. 177); this can be demonstrated by means of MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). In PTSD patients, the “amygdala remembered vividly what their hippocampus barely recalled” (ibid., p. 180). PTSD patients “have an eight percent reduction of the volume of their right hippocampus, and have a worse declaration memory overall” (ibid., p. 178). They also suffer from a hypersensitive amygdala. Relying on MRI tests, therefore, we may eventually make a clear distinction between the actualization of true and false memories, as well as between implanted and genuine memories, at least in case of PTSD patients. Under psychotherapy, according to Yovell, PTSD patients are incapable of retaining even the best interpretation, and “excessive negative affect during a session may lead to nothing more than a traumatic repetition of the original insult” (ibid., p. 179). This last point may lead us to another issue: The relationship between the unconscious and the phenomenon of acting-out. Yovell and other neuropsychoanalysts have enlightened us about this relationship. To the extent that the patients are declaratively, consciously incapable of remembering their repressed memories, they are doomed, as Freud mentioned, to acting them out, in a way that does not transparently reveal the hidden meanings and
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significance of the act. The sharp difference between the declarative memory, which the hippocampus actualizes, and the procedural memory, which the amygdala actualizes, helps us immensely to see how unconscious memory is actualized in acts, procedural or emotional. As Yovell illustrates, a female patient whose declarative memory has been entirely traumatized, could not remember the name of her doctor or identify him, yet after he once, while shaking her hand, slightly injured her hand by means of a pin hidden in his hand, she never shook his hand again, and just his attempt to do so caused her to jump and to distance herself from him. This acting-out by her demonstrates what happens when the declarative memory has been “silenced” and yet the procedural, emotive, or “associative” memory is still intact. The acting-out by the neurotic patients that Freud so brilliantly diagnosed is a sort of actualization of their unconscious memories of traumas and, as panenmentalism demands, this actualization is physical. That is, the patients are incapable of verbalizing their repressed memories but are capable only of acting these memories out, and thus they show and demonstrate them by means of acts, action, behavior, and other physical appearances and performances. In this way, neuro-psychoanalysts help us immensely to put an end to the futile debates, especially among some philosophers, on whether the unconscious exists or not, and to clarify in many scientifically proven details of how the unconscious, repressed memories, ideas, wishes, and the like are actualized. They are contributing much more to our understanding and are employing ways to decipher what the body, bodily expressions, and actions of the patients mean and signify psychoanalytically. I consider differently what Yovell calls “two distinct vantage points,” namely, first, the difficulties of PTSD patients to reconstruct their past due to conflict-driven repression of emotionally painful memories (ibid., p. 180), and, second, due to the “result of a damaged hippocampus coupled with a hypersensitive amygdala” (ibid.). As I see it, the psychical repression, which Yovell entitles “the first vantage point,” is actualized as a damaged function of the hippocampus cum hypersensitive amygdala, which is Yovell’s second vantage point. “Vantage point” is an expression suitable for another psychophysical approach, quite different from mine. It suits the double-aspect approach (such as Donald Davidson’s), or even that of Spinoza, whereas panenmentalism attempts to construct quite a different approach, according to which the physical is the actualization of the mental-possible, and, in this case, of the psychical-possible. Given that psychoanalysis is entitled to be considered as “the most coherent and intellectually satisfying view of the mind,” as Eric Kandel sees it (ibid., p. 180), Yovell believes that it “rests on solid foundations, discovered in current biological research” (ibid.). Yet under panenmentalism, it is not a
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matter of foundations but of actualization, which current biological research discovers and deciphers. A panenmentalist assumption is that natural sciences provide the most important and reliable source of our knowledge of empirical, actual matters. Neuro-psychoanalysis exemplifies this brilliantly. So far we have been lacking much of the understanding of what actually takes place in the brains of PTSD patients. Neuro-psychoanalysis shows us the way to such a most desired understanding. Could Freud witness this achievement, he should be quite satisfied. It is a victory of psychoanalysis as well as of neurobiology, and I hope that in its humble way panenmentalism may provide the metaphysical framework to see more deeply into this achievement. Another point to be made is that in my first panenmentalist book I have shown that the body, especially owing to the death-drives, draws the boundaries of psychoanalysis and must limit it (Gilead, 1999, pp. 64–65). You cannot psychoanalyze the drives themselves, let alone the body. In his way, Yovell reaches the same conclusion: No room exists for any psychoanalysis of the missing declarative memory. PTSD victims lack it not because of repression or other psychological reasons, especially their psychical defenses. Instead, they lack the actualization of their declarative memory owing to physical, biological causes, which must draw the boundaries of their effective response to psychoanalysis. Another contribution by neuro-psychoanalysis is, in panenmentalist terms, about the actualization of the unconscious, to be more precise—of the procedural, emotive memory. Discussing the role of unconscious emotions as well as cognitions in the problem of akrasia (Gilead, 2003), I take issue with Eddy Zemach (Zemach, 1992, especially pp. 174–194). Zemach, among others, attempts to replace the “problematic” unconscious with the “double consciousness” (double conscience), following Pierre Janet and other eminent neurologists in Charcot’s circle. Freud and Breuer mention this “alternative” in their Studies on Hysteria (Freud, 1895d), as the splitting of consciousness, which, according to their “Preliminary Communication,” is present “to a rudimentary degree in every hysteria.” This splitting is “a dissociation” involving “the emergence of abnormal states of consciousness,” under the term “hypnoid,” and it is “the basic phenomenon of this neurosis,” as we can learn from “A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis” (1936a). Freud manifestly rejected the alternative of double consciousness in favor of the splitting to the conscious and the unconscious, which has been considered one of the most important contributions by psychoanalysis, especially the classic-Freudian one. Yovell accepts this as a valuable contribution and succeeds in demonstrating how precisely it functions in PTSD patients, as it takes into consideration their mind and their brain. Thus, in panenmentalist terms, neuropsychoanalysis contributes greatly to establish further our acceptance of the
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unconscious as well as its cerebral actualization, at least to the extent that procedural, emotive memory is concerned. As Solms and Turnbull (2002) write, “mainstream cognitive scientists today agree with Freud on this point: consciousness is attached to only a very small part of our mental life” (p. 84). Karl Popper and Sir John C. Eccles made another attempt to avoid the unconscious. It should amaze us to read today what Eccles had to say about it and in what an awkward way he put it. Quite striking is to compare Eccles— mobilizing awkward terminology and an obscure metaphysics, borrowed from Popper, just to circumvent the very idea of the unconscious—with Yovell’s clear argumentation and presentation. Discussing the well-known phenomenon of “paradoxical sleep,” following by rapid eye movements (REM) when dreaming, Eccles challenges the problem of the unconscious (Popper and Eccles, 1974, pp. 371–372). His argument is as follows: Sleep doesn’t mean cessation of activity, but it is something much more like disordered activity. . . . When this happens, I would say that the selfconscious mind finds there is nothing to read out. All modules are closed to it. Suddenly it is deprived of data and this is unconsciousness. … But every now and then during the night, . . . the self-conscious mind finds again an ability to read out from active modules a dream with strange and even bizarre conscious experiences, but always recognizably its own dream. . . . the self-conscious mind has probably been, as it were, probing over or scanning over the cerebral cortex all through the sleep, searching for any modules that are open and which can be utilized for an experience. . . . These findings give important information about the way the self-conscious mind is related to the brain. . . . Finally, of course we come to the ultimate picture, what happens in death? Then all cerebral activity ceases permanently. The self-conscious mind that has had an autonomous existence in a sense in World 2 now finds that the brain that it has scanned and probed and controlled so efficiently and effectively through a long life is no longer giving any message at all. (Popper and Eccles, 1974, pp. 371–372) Relying on Popper’s bizarre, dualistic metaphysics, Eccles mobilizes a whole world, World 2, and a bizarre conclusion according to which the conscious mind may exist independently of the dead brain, which renders the still existing mind incommunicable. What we have here, besides a brilliant neurology of its time, is a bizarre metaphysics, the dualism of which is quite hard to accept. Such dualism prevents any possible progress in treating the psychophysical problem or the problem of the splitting between the conscious and the unconscious. The probing and scanning by the conscious mind while in a deep sleep or in all states of unconsciousness and even after death, is so
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bizarre, awkward, and absurd, that at best it has to do with the notorious homunculus, rightly rejected by now. I do not know of any serious, sober philosophy today that still accepts this philosophical impasse. In sharp contrast, Yovell’s presentation points out the neuropsychoanalysis’s contribution not only to relieving us from such a bizarre metaphysics but also from the warning by his eminent grandfather, Yeshayahu Leibovitz, that the psychophysical dualistic trap should be always there. For many years, Leibovitz insistently rejected the entire idea of the unconscious; it was his grandson, Yoram Yovell, who finally made him accept this great idea, at least in their personal disputes. Unfortunately, the eminent grandfather was not lucky to live long enough to see how neuro-psychoanalysis challenges one of the most difficult problems in the history of psychology, neurology and, first and foremost, philosophy. As I understand him, Eccles attempts to show that no unconscious in itself exists, but only states of the conscious, states in which no contents, no modules that are open and can be utilized for an experience, exist “for” the conscious mind. This makes no sense, at least for me. Cartesian dualism, even the mysterious “Ghost in the Machine,” appears to me preferable to such a strange conscious mind or homunculus searching for contents, cerebrally ordered activities, “open modules,” and the like. I cannot accept such a hard, heavy dualism. Neither can I take the aporetic dualism by Janet, Zemach, and others. They have not offered any way out of the problem but end with aporia, an obvious impasse. Yovell provides quite a different example. Using much clearer and more reliable tools, conceptual and otherwise, he puts under a new light both the psychophysical problem and that of the unconscious. He avoids the dualistic trap. In panenmentalist terms, declarative memory, actualized by the hippocampus, is obviously conscious, whereas procedural or emotive memory, actualized by the amygdala, is unconscious though full of content and “free modules.” Independent, the amygdala can operate and influence us quite dramatically, although the hippocampus may be not active at the same time. While I am locking the door of my house, my procedural, unconscious memory is active and alive, whereas, at the same time, my declarative memory may be inactive (“sleeping”) or occupied with quite other matters, distracting it from the act of locking my door. Thus, I may lock the door without consciously remembering anything about it. Similarly, I may drive to my home automatically without remembering at all that I had done so but then, suddenly, I find myself at home. Neuro-psychoanalysis shows us how our conscious and unconscious memories in such cases are actualized in the brain. Neuro-psychoanalysis thus puts an end to any philosophical, psychological, or neurological attempts to deny the very existence and activity of the
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unconscious. Assuming this existence and activity is one of the basic principles or foundation stones of panenmentalism. Finally, neuro-psychoanalysis contributes to our understanding of infantile memory as well as amnesia. Since the hippocampus is not developed until the age of three or four, nothing of our declarative memory before this age can be accessible or available. Not so our procedural or emotive memory, which has been actualized by the amygdala since the time of our birth. Unlike the hippocampus, the amygdala is fully mature from birth and even before. The amygdala has actualized the memory of our recognition of quite simple objects, circumstances or situations, and emotions. Let me give two striking personal examples. When my son was about two years old, not yet able to speak properly, I took him to the most beautiful street in our neighborhood. As soon as we arrived there, he became terrified and pointed out with both his hands the other direction. I saw no reason for his strange and quite unusual behavior but, after a short reflection, I realized that this was the street on which my son’s first doctor had her clinic. I vividly remembered that he disliked our visits to the doctor. We stopped these visits when he was about nine months old. Reading Yovell’s clear and convincing description, it dawned on me that such a situation was not strange at all, if we understand how such a memory can be well actualized since birth. My son realized where he was, the situation of his early fear or anxiety, and this realization was strongly associated with the painful experience that he did not forget. The second example has to do with me. My first memory was about my infancy at the age of about two, from the siege of Jerusalem in 1948. Those were extremely tough days for all the Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem. Lack of water, food, and many other indispensable items was quite common. But above all, there was the ever-present fear of bombs as well as that of Arab snipers. One of these snipers, a Jordanian legionnaire, directed his rifle toward the heads of myself and my mother carrying me in her arms. Fortunately, he missed both of us; the bullet hit the wall behind us. When I was about six years old, I was exposed to an X-ray examination of the chest. Since my mother was pregnant with my sister at that time, she was not allowed in the room, and I was left alone there, quite terrified. Something frightening must occurred to me there, for immediately afterward, I ran hysterically to my mother’s arms. “What happened there?” she asked me. My answer was “Mommy, it was the red bulb.” At first, she did not understand what I was talking about but, after a short while, it dawned on her, and she told me the whole shocking story. The facts are these: At the moment when the shooting took place, we were standing near the red bulb of the boiler in our apartment. The red bulb was showing “on” at that moment, and its image was indelibly impressed on my memory, together with the shooting. No one had mentioned
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this red bulb before, as it was insignificant for my parents, although extremely significant for me as a quite young child. It was my authentic, emotional memory, actualized by my amygdala. Thanks to neuro-psychoanalysis, we are now able to leave some of our most significant memories intact as well as to understand their actualization in quite a satisfying way. Yovell’s presentation heavily relies on Mark Solms’s discovery of the domain of neuro-psychoanalysis. Solms and Oliver Turnbull (2002) “locate” the Freudian superego, id, and the function of repression “in” the brain as it is known so far. They actually suggest a map of the psychoanalytic agencies and functions. For instance, the superego “resides in” the frontal lobe; the id or the drives “in” the hypothalamus and periventriculum, while the right hemisphere may accommodate a form of repression. Except for the emergent or spatial terminology, which I deem wrong as far as the psychical is concerned, nothing in Solms’s neuro-psychoanalysis appears incompatible with the panenmentalist psychophysical view. For, even on the basis of the neuro-psychoanalysis discoveries, I am entitled to argue that some cerebral regions and functions actualize psychical, inner reality. Yet panenmentalism opposes Solms and Turnbull’s question, How does our immaterial consciousness—our very sense of existence and identity—emerge from the cell assemblies and other base processes of the brain, whose cells and processes are not fundamentally different from those of other bodily organs? (ibid., pp. xiii–xiv) For the psychophysical relationship is by no means the emergence of the psychical out of the physical. From the outset, such a terminology obstructs any way leading to a possible solution to this old metaphysical problem. In the same vein, contrary to their view (on p. xiv), the neural mechanisms do not generate our awareness of ourselves but actualize it. Solms and Turnbull are aware of the conundrum involved in such terminology for they note: Throughout this book, for convenience’s sake, we will use loose phrases like “the part of the cortex that generates visual consciousness.” What we mean by such statements is that activation of the part of the brain in question generates neural activity that is the physiological correlate of the type of consciousness in question. (ibid., p. 80, note) Although such terminology, which does not involve a psychophysical causation, is better than the preceding loose phrases, parallelism leaves the psychophysical problem as hard and aporetic as it used to be. Actualization, in contrast, should be the best term to articulate the psychophysical unity. Contrary to Solms and Turnbull’s loose term (on p. 1), the brain does not
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“produce” our subjective mental life but actualizes it instead. Equally, instead of discussing the “neurological basis of something like, say, ‘repression’” (ibid., p. 6), we should ask, What are the neurological factors that actualize repression? Mentioning the outstanding feature of brain tissue, Solms and Turnbull write, while the basic plan of the brain’s organization is, as it were, predetermined by our genes . . . , the overall plan is dramatically modified by environmental influences during life. The brain comes into the world with innumerable potential patterns of detailed organization, as reflected in the infinite combinations through which its cells could connect up with each other. The precise way that they do connect up, in each and every one of us, is largely determined by the idiosyncratic environment in which each brain finds itself. . . . In short, the fine organization of the brain is literally sculpted by the environment in which it finds itself—far more so than any other organ in the body, and over much longer periods of time. (ibid., pp. 10–11) This paragraph is of great interest for panenmentalism. I assign pure possibilities to the psychical and actualities to the physical. The paragraph is nicely subjected to that conceptual distinction. If the brain can be described as the organ of the mind, we are entitled to relate its potentiality to the nature of pure possibilities of which the mind is made. Instead of the metaphorical term, “sculpted,” panenmentalism employs “actualized.” The idiosyncratic, better, contingent, environmental circumstances thus actualize the potentialities of the brain, which are the actualization of the pure possibilities pertaining to the mind. Obviously, Solms and Turnbull are not panenmentalists at all. As a matter of truth, they follow, however unknowingly, some actualist ideas. To put the mind-body problem as “trying to understand . . . how matter becomes mind” (ibid., p. 45) is a wrong, actualist idea, for the brain actualizes the mind and to think that matter becomes mind is wrong. Mind cannot evolve or emerge out of matter whatsoever, contrary to the way Solms and Turnbull put it (ibid., p. 46; cf. pp. 47–48, concerning what David Chalmers calls “the hard problem,” which is “the question of how consciousness . . . actually emerges from matter”). Contrary to Francis Crick and many others, our mental life is by no means the behavior of our nerve cells and their associated molecules (as quoted ibid.). Neither is our mental life reducible to “the activity of a group of cells” (contrary to ibid.). Yet the tacit metaphysical foundation of the views of Solms, Turnbull, and Crick is amendable in light of panenmentalist distinctions or clarifications. Although panenmentalism, like any other
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metaphysics, does not suggest a solution to the old metaphysical mind-body problem, it leaves, instead, the way leading to possible solutions clear and not obstructed by conceptual barriers from the outset. Solms and Turnbull suppose that the “hard” psychophysical problem “is now being treated as a scientific one—one that might be addressed experimentally” (ibid., p. 50). They phrase the problem as “how the process started as something physical . . . somehow ended as something mental” (ibid.). Panenmentalism, however, puts the question quite otherwise, namely, How does a physical process actualize something psychical? This is a legitimate metaphysical question that is perfectly compatible with neuro-psychoanalysis. The question and the pure identities-possibilities are also metaphysical, whereas the answers are neuro-psychical, on the one hand, and subjective as well as intersubjective, on the other. Thus, each of us experiences her or his psychophysical unity and shares with the others the intersubjective or interpersonal implications or reflections of that unity. If “most neuroscientists working on the mind-body problem today . . . endorse a materialist-monist position,” if “they assume that mental life is the product of a vast assembly of neurons” (ibid., p. 55), panenmentalism shows that their assumption is entirely groundless. Showing thus, panenmentalism does not refute their assumption but exposes its metaphysical arbitrariness and futility instead. Solms and Turnbull endorse dual-aspect monism and prefer it to the prevailing materialist monism (ibid., pp. 56–58), but this theory leaves the problem as aporetic as it has always been. For what is precisely the nature of the being, “stuff,” or “essence” whose “aspects” are mind and body? Solms and Turnbull put “the big question that dual-aspect monists ask of science,” namely, “What . . . are we actually made of?” (ibid., p. 56). No answer exists to that question, which leaves us with “the artificial mind-body dichotomy” (ibid., p. 57). The dichotomy is by no means artificial and its conceptual aspect has ontological grounds too. Spinoza’s psychophysical view is more sophisticated and promising yet, in turn, it requires us to endorse all the Spinozistic principles, which leaves the problem without that system as aporetic as ever. What Solms and Turnbull truly ignore is the metaphysical basis of the psychophysical problem. For they write, “the mind-body problem . . . boils down to a problem of observational viewpoints, and the distinction between your self and your body (between mind and matter) is therefore merely an artifact of perception” (ibid., p. 57). Contrary to their wrong empiricist (?) view, such “boiling down” does not evaporate the “hard problem” at all. But, first, the problem is not mainly the question of viewpoints referring to the “human mental apparatus,” which Solms and Turnbull assume the essence behind the two aspects to be (ibid., p. 57) and which appears to generate them both (following ibid., p. 58). “Human mental apparatus” begs the question,
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and what makes the psychophysical problem so hard is the conceptual as well as the ontological duality with regards to the phenomenological and ontological unity of mind and body within one and the same person or personality. After all, when Nora enters the room, Nora as a psychophysical unity is in our presence. We cannot separate her mind from her body. Thus, mind and body are inseparable, while they are irreducible and the real distinction between them is both epistemological and ontological. As I explained in the Preface, the panenmentalist distinction between the purely possible-psychical and the actual-physical side by side with their necessary unity render the problem solvable and safeguard the psychophysical unity. It does not evaporate the perennial psychophysical problem. Instead, panenmentalism clears the road for possible solutions with which natural sciences as well as subjective and intersubjective experiences may jointly provide us. Solms and Turnbull have to pay quite a heavy price for their theory according to which mental functions and the mental apparatus as a whole are “virtual entities” (ibid., p. 64). To consider anything mental “virtual” means to reduce it to the physical-actual. One of the advantages of panenmentalism is that it avoids any psychophysical reduction. Solms and Turnbull argue that “we did not mean that the chemicals literally generate the emotions. It is more correct (but perhaps too cumbersome) to say that neuroscientists have discovered the specific neurochemical processes that correlate with the subjective experiences of specific emotional states” (ibid., p. 65). As a panenmentalist, I can accept these two sentences except for one verb “correlate with” that I would substitute with “actualize.” Solms and Turnbull correctly admit that “finding the chemical correlates of the different emotions does not solve the hard problem” (ibid.). In contrast, finding out how neurochemical processes actualize the emotions, which, in turn, are pure psychical possibilities, which are subject to our personal and intersubjective experiences, opens a clear road leading to possible solutions to the “hard problem.” Such a panenmentalist approach directly aims at the classical question, What is precisely the psychophysical relationship that maintains the psychophysical unity? Solms and Turnbull assume that “dual-aspect monism may be the only sensible philosophical position for those who accept that there is more to the mind than consciousness” (ibid., p. 72, note). Panenmentalism explicitly suggests another philosophical position that whole-heartedly acknowledges the reality of the unconscious. As in the case of dual-aspect psycho-physicality (such as Freud’s, according to Solms and Turnbull, ibid.), panenmentalism clearly distinguishes between the perception of what exists in the mind and what actually exists in the brain, including the actualization of unconscious processes and states. While perception is a psychical pure possibility, what actually exist are physical-brain processes and states. This is one of the main
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reasons why we may misperceive our motives, memories, attitudes, and emotions. Panenmentalism shares with Solms and Turnbull’s neuro-psychoanalysis an idea of great importance, namely, the idea of private accessibility. For they write: “[W]e perceive the mind (as opposed to matter) by looking inwards. . . . it is impossible to enter the consciousness of another being; we can only experience our own minds” (ibid., p. 67); or “we cannot enter the consciousness of another being to determine directly if it is like our own, and indeed if it exists at all” (ibid.). Since they are not metaphysicians, they do not explicitly anchor private accessibility in singularity, which is what I have done elsewhere (Gilead, 2003). Instead, they incidentally mention with no further explication, let alone elaboration, thus: “[S]ubjective experience . . . is singular and unique, and it is only observable by the subject himself or herself. . . . two observers of a subjective experience . . . are literally unable to observe the same thing” (Solms and Turnbull, 2002, p. 295). To the best of my knowledge, all psychoanalytic schools share or should share the assumption that the psychical is privately accessible; and they share the following: “The inner world of subjective experience, as we experience it, is as real as are apples and tables” (ibid., p. 297). Finally, I agree with the following: “[S]ubjective data should not be despised: it provides evidence that cannot be gained from any other perspective. . . . linking the invisible world of subjectivity with the visible tissues of the brain deepens immeasurably what we can discern with our ‘objective’ scientific eyes” (ibid., p. 78). Panenmentalism shares this too with Solms and Turnbull’s neuro-psychoanalysis. I have already discussed the indispensability and veridicality of the subjective and the intersubjective experience (different discussions in Gilead, 1999 and 2003). Closer to the tacit panenmentalist assumption is the following: “When the mind is observed externally, as a physical object, then the agent of the mind is literally invisible. But the external perspective allows us to study its physical correlates objectively” (ibid., p. 280). Instead of “physical correlate,” I would prefer “actuality” and “actualization.” The brain actualizes the mind. The sense of agency is part of the mind, and so is the self. If, following Solms and Turnbull, the sense of agency is synonymous with the sense of the self (ibid.), both senses belong to the mind as invisible, inner, psychical reality, which, according to panenmentalism, is a singular reality. 4. Body in a Mental Reality Jaegwon Kim’s Mind in a Physical World would oppose panenmentalism. To begin with, the title of the book demonstrates this. Kim discusses minds in a physical world, whereas panenmentalism assumes the physical world within the mental reality, consisting of pure possibilities. The mind and the physical-
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actual reality are different parts, differently conditioned or restricted, within the totality of mental-possible reality, which is the total reality, reality as a whole. As I see it, the physical-actual supervenes on the mental-possible, not the other way round. Another version of this fallacy concerning “mind in a physical world” appears in the anthology entitled Conscious Experience. The editor, Thomas Metzinger, begins the introduction with a typical question: “How can consciousness arise in a physical universe?” (Metzinger, 1995, p. 3). From a panenmentalist viewpoint, this question is based on the emergence fallacy (of which many are the authors; John Searle is perhaps the most noted of them). Further in the introduction, Metzinger writes As philosophers we also want to know how it is possible that a phenomenon as complex as consciousness could arise in a physical universe: we are looking for a conceptually convincing analysis of the phenomenon and its relationship to the objective world. The first aim, therefore, is conceptual clarity and freedom from contradiction. As empirical researchers, on the other hand, we want to know how all this actually happened: we are interested in the history of the phenomenon in our own world. (ibid., p. 5) Distinguishing between consciousness as possible-conceptual and the history of the phenomenon of consciousness as actual is a good way to begin. Yet the point here is not the history of consciousness, for consciousness, as psychical, does not take time and does not “occur” at any time or place. As psychical, consciousness cannot be spatiotemporally conditioned or located. On top of all, Metzinger does not question, test, or doubt his emergence assumption, which he shares with many others nowadays. He does not consider the possibility that the mental, including the psychical, is prior, ontologically, epistemologically, or both, to the physical-actual. Panenmentalism as a whole relies on this possibility and on the assumption that the relationship between the possible-mental and the actual-physical is that of actualization, namely, the actual-physical actualizes the possible-mental under spatiotemporal and causal conditions. Thus, neither consciousness nor anything mental or psychical can emerge out of, or be caused by, anything physical-actual. Causes, which must be physical-actual factors, can cause only physical-actual effects and nothing, absolutely nothing, else. Note that by “physical-actual” I mean anything energetic, material, physical, chemical, or biological. Thus, physical or chemical factors may cause biochemical or biological effects but nothing mental or psychical. Under panenmentalism, the mental or the psychical does not make any evolutionary step or stage, even though a special or particular
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cerebral and nervous development is needed to actualize consciousness, and such a biological development is an evolutionary stage. As possible-psychical, consciousness is by no means under temporal or historical terms, whereas evolution and anything actual is necessarily under these terms. The same holds for causality, which conditions and restricts anything actual but not anything mental or psychical. In sum, consciousness is not an evolutionary stage at all. Neither it is placed or located in a physical universe. Finally, our world is not only physical. Contrary to Metzinger, it is first and foremost possible-mental, and only a section of it is physical-actual. “To be in” means either to take a place in a space or, metaphorically, to be included in something “wider” or “more comprehensive,” which refers to ideas, concepts, categories, and the like. In both senses, mind cannot be “in” a physical world, universe, or reality. First, mind cannot be located or placed at any space or time for, as a psychical being, as a pure possibility, mind is not under spatiotemporal and causal terms or restrictions. Second, conceptually and ontologically speaking, the possible-mental is wider and more comprehensive than the physical-actual, which is nothing but a “part” or section within the possible-mental. Thus, the possible-mental contains all that exists, the real as a whole. As a section, the physical-actual is confined or limited under spatiotemporal and causal conditions, which cannot limit or confine the purely possible-mental. Hence, to argue that minds are in a physical reality makes a sheer fallacy. The panenmentalist truth is just the other way round. Bodies exist in the mental-possible realm, the realm that contains all that exists, the realm that comprises reality as a whole. Metzinger raises some excellent questions: [I]s there a point of contact between the inner world of consciousness and the outer world of physics? We all want scientific psychology to take our consciousness seriously. But can it really do this? If already simple phenomenal properties like the consciously experienced blue of the book cover appear to elude the objective grasp of science, what would a theory of phenomenal consciousness be like, which took this really seriously and offered convincing explanations for what we have declared to be the defining characteristic of subjective states—their qualitative character? (ibid., p. 15) Although anything consciously experienced eludes the objective grasp of science, it by no means eludes the intersubjective grasp, say, of psychoanalysis, which is empirical self-knowledge, deserving the title of intersubjective science. Sciences can flourish not only on objective grounds but also on intersubjective grounds, on which languages and other means of communications rest. Metzinger is perfectly right that the “consciously experienced
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‘blueness’ . . . cannot be retrieved from the [mathematical] . . . theories . . . which . . . offering a precise description of the relevant patterns of neural activity” (ibid.). But no phenomenal, subjective, or private experience should be retrieved at all from natural, mathematical scientific theories. For such theories are meant to define, describe, and explain objective not intersubjective, let alone private-subjective, reality. In contrast, psychoanalytic language is meant to discuss intersubjectively and to communicate the significance and meanings of what exists in a person’s inner reality, accessible only to that person. Thus, much more than “a point of contact” exists between inner and outer reality. Both kinds of reality share one and the same total realm of pure possibilities, which physical-objective reality has partly actualized within the restrictions of time, space, and causality. Subjective, inner reality should not be grasped by objective, natural sciences but, at least under panenmentalism, it relates to objective reality and to natural sciences as well. What exists in our mind, as a pure possibility, relates to, and it is united with, the actuality of this possibility, an actualization that must take place within objective, physical reality, which natural sciences legitimately try to grasp objectively. No fear exists that our mind would remain solipsistically detached from objective, outer reality. Universal relationality guarantees that each possibility necessarily relates to all the others. Objective reality, as an actualization of pure possibilities, necessarily relates to subjective, private reality, and vice versa. Psychoanalysis, for example, must not be detached from what neuroscience has to say and reveal about the mind, and ample room exists for the new science of neuro-psychoanalysis. Since inner and outer reality strongly relate one to the other, the question “What is the meaning of such and such event in my brain?” is absolutely legitimate. Cerebral events in my brain necessarily relate to, and are united with, my thoughts, feelings, emotions, wishes, intentions, and the like, all of which are pure psychical possibilities. All such cerebral events have meanings and significance only because they relate to their pure psychical possibilitiesidentities. The meanings and significance of all physical data are drawn from the realm of pure possibilities, and the same holds for their identities. Do not ignore the fact that the universal language of all natural science is mathematical, and mathematics is not drawn from the actual, but naturally belongs to the realm of pure possibilities. Hence, natural sciences, referring to actualobjective reality, must take quite seriously the mental or spiritual world of pure possibilities, which is the source of all identities, meanings, and significance of all objective data. On top of all this, natural sciences should take most seriously our accessibility, by means of our consciousness alone, to the whole realm of pure possibilities.
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Metzinger raises doubts as to the transparency of consciousness. Some neuropathological cases exist in which, so he argues, consciousness is not transparent, while the patients believe they are quite conscious of something of which they are actually not. For instance, in Anton’s syndrome, the patient is actually blind but does not know anything about it, and is convinced that s/he still sees. These patients suddenly lost their sight owing to a lesion in the visual cortex, but they still insist that nothing is wrong with their sight, as if they were still seeing. Metzinger writes that these patients collide with furniture and other obstacles, and show all symptoms of functional blindness, yet behave as if they are not consciously aware of the subjective disappearance of the visual world. Thus they produce false, but consistent, confabulations in response to questions about their surroundings: They seem to believe the tales which they tell about nonexistent phenomenal worlds, and they deny any functional deficit in their faculty of seeing. (Metzinger, 1995, p. 19) Metzinger argues that this and many other empirical phenomena “have given rise to strong doubts at the philosophical level as to whether our subjective field of consciousness, experienced as transparent, really is transparent” (ibid.). Is this really so? Think about phantom pains. Are they not real pains? They are, although by no means do they reflect the actual state of affairs but, as psychical phenomena, they are obviously real as well as transparent. No unconscious pain exists. As a conscious psychical possibility, any pain is transparent to us. Only the judgment as to actual limbs is wrong in the case of phantom pains. I suspect that, at this point, Metzinger does not distinguish well enough between mind and body and tends to reduce mind to body. He commits a functionalist reduction. Mentioning repeatedly the term “functional,” Metzinger reduces, as a matter of truth, the psychical to the functional, which, with panenmentalism, is not the case at all. He ignores the ontological status of inner, psychical reality, to which fantasies and illusions also belong. Even though these psychical states do not reflect actual reality, still their ontological status as psychically real is beyond doubt and, thus, they leave their marks on the mind and really determine it. As psychical, perception is independent of actual states. Thus, even if, as in Anton’s syndrome, the ability of sensual or actual perception has been lost, this does not entail the loss of perception as psychical capability. As we all know, sense deprivation paves the way for perceptual fantasies, illusions, delusions, and hallucinations, all of which enjoy psychical reality in full. More important, as a psychical, subjective, private experience, the consciousness of patients like those suffering from Anton’s syndrome is
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transparent enough; no Cartesian malignant spirit can fool them about this experience as such. The trouble lies in the actualization of their consciousness that does not function in the actual field of visual sensation. But this failure in actualization that requires a normal brain, free from such disastrous syndromes, is an outcome of a cerebral trauma. By no means is it a psychical failure or a psychical pathology. This is a physical, cerebral pathology alone. Like psychotic states caused by alcohol, drugs, hyponatremia, and the like, which are not psychical but organic, the patients afflicted by Anton’s syndrome suffer from physical failure, failure in actualization, and not from psychical failure of any sort. All these examples refute Metzinger’s conclusion that attempts to cast doubt “upon the transparency of our conscious space, and thus question the authority of the first-person perspective altogether” (ibid.). Not at all, the authority of the first-person perspective is quite alive and well, for what such syndromes prove has nothing to do with the psychical reality of the first-person experience or perspective, but only with its physical realization, namely, actualization, in the body. 5. “A Sound Body in a Sound Mind” “A sound body in a sound mind” is a panenmentalist reversal of the Latin “mens sana in corpore sano.” In Section 2.4, I mentioned Berkeley’s view, in Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous, according to which “the brain, being a sensible thing, exists only in the mind” (Berkeley, 1965, p. 172). As the reader has realized, I do not follow Berkeley’s idealism, yet some idealistic balm may be found quite useful for our body. In many cases, for a sound mind to exist “in” an ill, even a terminally ill, body is actually possible. Failures in actualization have nothing to do with the actualizable pure possibilities themselves. Quite possibly, a perfectly sound mind would be actualized in an ill body, not because of psychical reasons but only because of contingent causation, which has to do with actualization alone. On the other hand, for a sick mind to escape the fate of actualization in a body that thus becomes unsound is impossible. Ontologically speaking, psychical illness (colloquially, “mental illnesses”) must be actualized as a nervous or brain state, whether we can identify or diagnose the physical symptoms or not. To identify or diagnose them has epistemic, not ontic, sense. If such is the case, at least some psychical illnesses should be treated both psychically and physically. The physical treatment aims at the actualization or the actual-physical symptoms whereas the psychical one aims at the psychical possibilities that are the grounds of the illness. In many cases of psychopathology, the psychical treatment is enough, for it eliminates the psychical determination or state, the grounds of the pathology. But if those physical factors (namely, causes), whose possibilities-identities are not
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psychical (namely, not assuming singularity at all) but merely mentalconceptual, are involved in the actualization of the illness, the therapy must be also physical. Only in cases in which the possibilities-identities concerning the pathology are psychical alone (namely, having singular grounds), is psychical therapy sufficient to cure the patient as a psychophysical being. In case the readers have to be reminded: The panenmentalist distinction between (1) the mental (“spiritual”) and (2) the psychical is between (1) pure possibilities-identities that cannot be identical but, at most, only similar, and (2) pure possibilities-identities that pertain to, or constitute, singular, psychical subjects and thus cannot be even similar. As for physical illnesses, the identities-possibilities of all the relevant causes are mental; some of them, or all the cases in which internal factors function, are also psychical, whereas in cases in which external causes alone are involved, the relevant identities-possibilities are merely mental, none of which assumes singularity. For instance, all the illnesses that have to do with a failure or dysfunction of the immune system must have also psychical grounds, not merely mental grounds. Any actualization necessarily depends on actualphysical factors, but the identity-possibility of each of these factors must be either mental or psychical. In concluding, a sound body “in” a sound mind is a panenmentalist truth, for in any case in which the mind is ill, no actualization of such an illness can escape the fate of some physical state. However, the reverse, namely, that while the mind is sound the body is ill, is possible due to failures in actualization or to some physical, external factors whose grounds are not psychical at all. The body is only a partial actualization of the mind whose actualization is not exempt from failures. The body is “in” the mind in the panenmentalist sense that the actualization, namely, what is actual of the mind, is merely a part of the mind as a pure possibility. As such a part, the body is conditioned and restricted under spatiotemporal and causal conditions, and, as such a part, it is “in” the mind, sound or ill. 6. The Meaning and Significance of Smells: A Paradigm-Case of Psychophysical Relationship “I could smell that he was lying,” “I smell your fear and your shame as well,” “I smell your suspicion”—must all these be just metaphors? Not at all. As well known and familiar to many, our emotional or psychical state may be reflected by our actual, bodily smells. The behavior of dogs demonstrates that, but so does that of human beings, albeit most of the time only unconsciously. To smell our emotional or psychical state as physical-actual is thus not only a metaphor, it can be quite literal.
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For many years, libido has been used as a paradigm-case of the psychophysical unity or relationship in general. I think that smells too can be used as paradigm-cases for the psychophysical unity, relationship, or association. Such is possibly the case, for smells most strongly bear meanings and significance, and thus they affect not only our brains but, even more, our minds. Smells can be the first steps in a great love affair. Lovers can be “mad” over the smells of their loved ones. In contrast, the first sign of a change in our psychical attitude, for instance, the dying of love, can begin with our quite different reaction to a familiar smell of a person. For instance, smells that did not repel us in the past, begin to irritate us with our change of heart, from love to hate, or from love to indifference, or to other feelings. Undoubtedly, the meanings and significance of smells have psychical grounds. Take, for instance, allergy. Human beings may be allergic to smells, which have no psychical significance or meanings. Not so vice versa, that is, even though no allergen exists, yet it is enough for an allergic patient just to think that s/he may be exposed to the allergen, even very slightly, and the physical symptoms appear (especially when it comes to smells). This wellknown fact, familiar to many doctors and allergic patients, may open our eyes to see something of importance about the psychophysical relationship, which, according to panenmentalism, is a unity and by no means an identity. The conclusion I draw from this fact is that the psychical possibility is actualizable. In this case, just the idea, as a psychical pure possibility, of the allergen is actualized and becomes an actual allergy. And yet an actual allergy may not bear any psychical meanings for the patient, just a physical outcome (although, s/he is not indifferent to the allergy, as long as disease or suffering is involved). Even the mere idea of a smell can be associated with psychical possibilities, such as meanings and values. The psychical possibility of intimacy has much to do with smells. We can quite easily stand bad, even disgusting, odors of ourselves, whereas just the slightly bad odor of a stranger, let alone a hateful person, may disgust us in such an unbearable way that we must distance ourselves from that person. In contrast, while in love or enjoying an intimate relationship, the persons involved may feel attraction even to the smells of the secretions (of all kinds) of the other(s). For an extraordinary example, consider the following lines in which James Joyce reminds his wife, Nora: “I think I would know Nora’s fart anywhere. I think I could pick hers out in a roomful of farting women. . . . I hope Nora will let off no end of her farts in my face so that I may know their smell also” (Ellmann, 1975, p. 185). This demonstrates quite well what I argue above. An odor or smell that is “bad,” “dirty,” or “disgusting” in itself turns to be a distinctive mark of a lover. Because the smell bears such connotations, meanings, and significance, it manifests the intimate connection between
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James and Nora. More significantly, it also manifests the intimate connection, indeed unity, between mind and body. The different faces of spiritual love mentioned in Joyce’s letters to Nora are accurately actualized in bodily manifestations, in which even the most “foul” of them bears the marks of such an elevated, spiritual feeling. Nora’s farts are by no means those of another woman, and they signify her singularity as Joyce’s greatest love. As in making love, no gap should exist between mind and body, as they make one, intimate unity. In this case, what may open our eyes to realize this unity are the meanings or the psychical possibilities-identities of smells. Smells may actualize the relationality or connotations of psychical possibilities. When it comes to intimacy, smells actualize significant and meaningful psychical possibilities. The same bodily odors or smells, attracting James intimately and powerfully to Nora, might cause immensely different effects in him in their later, bad times, in which he felt absolutely bored in her presence, just sitting with her in the same room, both completely silent for long periods of time. When we wish to get closer, more intimately to our beloved, no smell, however foul, could repel us. The opposite is our state whenever we wish to distance ourselves from our beloved ones owing to our disappointment from them. As such, smells are excellent indicators of our psychical state and relationship concerning these persons. 7. The Two Senses of Seeing: The Eyes of the Flesh and Those of the Mind Spinoza writes, “the eyes of the mind, by which it sees and observes things, are the demonstrations themselves” (Ethics 5p23s). Unlike Cartesian intuition, Spinoza’s two kinds of true knowledge—ratio and scientia intuitiva—are not immediate but require reasoning. The reasoning of ratio is about the common or universal properties of things, whereas scientia intuitiva’s reasoning is about the essences, the factors of individuation and uniqueness, of each thing (because of this individual nature of its objects, Spinoza considers scientia intuitiva as “immediate,” namely, relating to individuals such as our sight that catches individual things and not general properties). Both kinds or grades of knowledge necessarily require demonstrations or proofs, which, according to Spinoza, are the eyes of the mind. Thus, according to him, nothing can be more “direct” or “immediate” than demonstrations or proofs. No room is left in Spinoza’s view for any immediate, Cartesian intuition or evidence. What interests me here is when and why we save possibilities for our seeing and recognizing, and when and why, in contrast, we close and eliminate such possibilities and render our mind blind, though nothing is wrong with our physical sight. We may not see or recognize what is just standing in front of our eyes. To see and recognize, we should first open our mind to some
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possibilities-identities by means of which we can realize, recognize, and identify actualities that we meet and see owing to their actual presence and our perceptions. We cannot see with our physical eyes, the eyes of the flesh, unless we open the eyes of our mind to see the pure possibilities-identities whose actualities we meet. By means of the eyes of our mind we detect the relationality of such possibilities. Opening up possibilities naturally leads to something much greater—to their relationality, which is universal. In contrast, closing the eyes of our mind to possibilities necessarily leads to closing these eyes to the relationality of these possibilities and this may lead to some blindness about the entire realm of possibilities and the entire world in general, actual or purely possible. The eyes of our mind have to do with insights and viewpoints as well. Viewpoints and insights have nothing to do with the eyes of the flesh, which are spatiotemporally and causally conditioned, but with pure possibilities. Insight makes us see, understand, and realize beyond what meets the eyes of the flesh, beyond the actual. The same holds for viewpoints—they consider or refer to anything actual through, by means of, its identity-possibility, which is pure and thus free of spatiotemporality and causality. A viewpoint is not a depiction or photograph of the actual as it is seen from a spatial point at a particular time. As mental, a viewpoint, like insight, has to do with pure possibilities and their relationality. A viewpoint is, hence, exempt from spatiotemporal and causal conditions. Insight is our guide in relating to and recognizing the identities-possibilities of what the eyes of the flesh meet. Perceiving the actual alone, these eyes are blind to the purely possible. Insight also opens the eyes of our mind to realize the relationality of pure possibilities in which their significance and implications consist. 8. A Panenmentalist Comment on Tourette’s Syndrome and Zombies The difference between voluntary actions and mere events, occurrences, or episodes caused unintentionally by our body is extremely important. Think of Tourette’s patients whose involuntary, unintentional movements and obscene exclamations bear no intentional psychical meanings or significance (Sacks, 1985, Chapter 10; and 1994, Chapter 3). All the explanations for these “actions” and all the causes of this behavior must be neurological, for no intentions, conscious or not, exist behind these bizarre “actions” or behavior. For this reason, Tourette’s syndrome does not react to psychotherapy, nor has it any psychological explanation. Voluntary or intentional actions, in contrast, draw their identity, meanings, and significance from the purely psychical, which is entirely exempt from causes, effects, and events. Such actions must
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have a psychological explanation, and they may be successfully treated by means of psychotherapy. Tourette’s syndrome, one of the most interesting phenomena initiating psychophysical questions or wonders, may thus serve as a clear example of the panenmentalist claim that everything psychical as such, anything purely psychical, bears meanings and significance. The obscene exclamations made by patients suffering from Tourette’s syndrome cannot serve as expressive or communicative means, whereas anything bearing something psychical can serve communicatively or expressively. Movements, gestures, and exclamations due to Tourette’s syndrome are comparable to those of zombies, for they are automatic and bear no intention or any other psychical meaning or significance. In Section 4.2 above, I excluded the existence of zombies—active living human beings lacking any consciousness—on panenmentalist grounds. Had zombies existed, and had they something of the mind, it must be in the subsidiary sense—the automatic appendix of the mind, not its very core or essence. In this sense, zombies were mere automata, by no means real psychical beings. Suppose that zombies were provided with a nervous mechanism and operation, similar to those of Tourette’s patients. Such a nervous mechanism would not be sufficient condition for a psychical life, at least to the extent that such a mechanism operates automatically only. Computers can achieve many automatic calculations, but this does not render them psychical beings. Automatic movements, gestures, and articulations do not signify anything psychical, and this equally holds for zombies, Tourette’s symptoms, and machines, whether such machines may be endowed with a sort of “nervous system” or not. In sum, the automatic aspects of the nervous system or reflexes bear no psychical meanings or significance. What actualizes our psychical being is not the automatic aspects of our nervous system or its reflexes. I use Tourette’s syndrome as a synecdoche of the pure possibility of the zombie, which, in turn, is a paradigm-case of the completion or expansion of the reduction of the psychical to the nervous, of the mind to the body. In other words, the relationship between the two cases is synecdochic, a case in which the part adequately serves as a representative of the whole, namely, that of the alleged psychical reduction of the mind to the body. I associate Tourette’s syndrome with the ambition of the materialist, reductive physicalist, or any psychical reductionist to reduce the mind to some functioning of the nervous system, whereas in the purely possible case of the zombie, the ambition under question is about the complete reduction of the mind as a whole to the body. If my argument concerning Tourette’s syndrome is valid and sound, so must be its extrapolation to the pure possibility of the zombie. This possibility is the subject-matter of a thought-experiment.
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The following is thus my Tourette/zombie argument against materialists, reductive physicalists, behaviorists, or psychological reductionists, namely, all those who attempt to reduce the mind to the body. Below I will shorten their names or labels to “MPhBPs.” The argument goes thus: (1) Behaviors or reactions exist whose grounds are nervous alone, not psychical. Such behaviors or reactions are due to the actual Tourette’s syndrome or to the zombie as a subject-matter of a thought-experiment, as a pure possibility. (2) “MPhBPs” argue that no difference, ontic or epistemic, exists to distinguish between behavior or reactions whose grounds are purely “psychical,” distinctly from anything physical, and those whose grounds are solely organic. According to “MPhBPs,” we cannot tell the ontic or epistemic differences between these two kinds of behavior or reaction. (3) The fact is, however, that a trained and experienced neurologist can distinguish between symptoms of Tourette’s behavior, such as echolalia, obsessive behavior, vocal tics, or obscenity, and an exactly alike behavior whose grounds are purely psychical, distinctly from anything physical. (4) Only some of the behavior or reactions of the Tourette’s patient are due to neurological grounds, whereas all of the zombie’s reactions and behavior are due to such grounds; if, therefore, zombies actually existed, a trained and experienced neurologist could distinguish between their behavior and that of psychical cases. Hence, the distinction between the pure possibility of the zombie and that of any human being is all the more safe and sound. (5) Although some behaviors whose grounds are not psychical but purely nervous may be exactly like behaviors whose grounds are purely psychical, we cannot yet ascribe Tourette’s behavior or the zombie’s behavior to any psychical motive or to the mind. In panenmentalist terms, Tourette’s behavior or that of the zombie has some causes but no reasons or motives at all, whereas any behavior or reaction due to psychical factors has reasons or motives, which are pure possibilities. Only pure possibilities determine psychical behavior or reaction. (6) Since, according to (2), no “MPhBP” can distinguish between Tourette’s or the zombie’s behavior or reaction on the one hand from any behavior or reaction due to purely psychical grounds on the other, even though such a distinction is ontically and epistemically quite real, no basis exists to the psychophysical views of any “MPhBPs” and such views should be dismissed.
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This argument aims against any reduction of the mind to the body, but what about different “supervenient” materialists, neo-behaviorists, and physicalists who allegedly distance themselves from any psychological reductionism? A similar argument is valid for any attempt to consider the mind as supervenient on the body. Undoubtedly, Tourette’s behavior or reactions are entirely due to the malfunctioning of the nervous system, whether they supervene on it or are strictly identified with this malfunctioning, and we are perfectly entitled to expand this to the zombie, whereas psychical states are entirely different from Tourette’s or the zombie’s states, strictly because no psychical state is either identified with the functioning of the nervous system or supervenes on it. The difference thus between Tourette’s syndrome or the zombie and any psychical state is not between non-supervening states and those that supervene on the physical-actual. The difference between the psychical and the physical is not between different physical states or stages; it is, instead, between different ontic categories. According to panenmentalism, no psychophysical reduction is possible and nothing psychical supervenes on the physical. The physical, as the actual, supervenes on the mental or the psychical, as the purely possible, not vice versa (see Section 4.4 above). The argument against “supervenient MPhBs” goes thus: (1) Behaviors or reactions exist that entirely supervene on nervous, not psychical, grounds. Such behaviors or reactions are due to the actual Tourette’s syndrome or to the zombie as a subjectmatter of a thought-experiment, as a pure possibility. (2) “Supervenient MPhBs” argue that no ontically categorial difference exists to distinguish between behaviors or reactions whose grounds are purely “psychical,” independently of anything physical, and those whose grounds are solely organic or which entirely supervene on it. According to “supervenient MPhBs,” we cannot tell the ontically categorial differences between these two kinds of behavior or reaction. (3) The fact is, however, that a trained and experienced neurologist can categorially distinguish between symptoms of Tourette’s behavior, such as echolalia, obsessive behavior, vocal tics, or obscenity, and exactly alike behaviors whose grounds are purely psychical, independently of anything physical. (4) Only some of the behaviors or reactions of the Tourette’s patient are due to neurological grounds, whereas all of the zombie’s reactions and behaviors are due to such grounds; if, therefore, zombies actually existed, a trained and experienced neurologist could categorially distinguish between their behavior and that of
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human beings. Hence, the categorial distinction between the pure possibility of the zombie and that of any human being is all the more safe and sound. (5) Although some behaviors whose grounds are not psychical but purely nervous or which entirely supervene on them may be quite similar (“very much like the same”) to behaviors whose grounds are purely psychical and do not supervene on the nervous system’s malfunctioning, we cannot yet ascribe Tourette’s behavior or the zombie’s behavior to any psychical motive or to the mind. In panenmentalist terms, Tourette’s behavior or that of the zombie has some causes but no reasons or motives at all, whereas any behavior or reaction due to psychical factors has reasons or motives, which are pure possibilities. Only pure possibilities determine psychical behavior or reaction. (6) Since, according to (2), no “supervenient MPhB” can categorially distinguish between Tourette’s or the zombie’s behavior or reaction on the one hand from any behavior or reaction due to purely psychical grounds on the other, even though such categorial distinction is ontically quite real, no basis exists to the psychophysical views of any “supervenient MPhB” and such views should be dismissed. Suppose now that we ask a trained, gifted actor to perform the role of a Tourette’s patient or a zombie. The necessary conditions for such acting have to do with the actor’s consciousness, deliberation, intention, memory, and the like. Suppose also that we have some means to cancel the conscious factors, the intention, the deliberation, and the like on the part of the actor. We may use some strong narcotic drug or other means to achieve such a state of mind. Could s/he act the zombie or the Tourette’s patient without relying upon his/her consciousness but only upon some biological or automatic factors? Obviously not. No actor can perform a role without relying upon his or her consciousness. If we may sedate the actor to such a degree that s/he may be considered a zombie, s/he could not act the zombie let alone any other role. Acting is a capability of some conscious beings and no one, even the most radical or harsh materialist, is entitled to reduce such capability to biological or nervous factors or to consider it as supervenient on such factors alone. Much more exists to acting than automatic responses or biochemical reactions. Think now about two kinds of Tourette’s behavior. The first is of a genuine Tourette’s patient, the other is of an actor who is not. Suppose that no audience can tell the difference between the two kinds of behavior. If a doctor were to administer anti-dopamine medication to both these persons, the syndrome of the genuine Tourette’s patient would disappear or become quite
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mild after a short while, whereas the behavior of the actor would not change like this, though the actor may develop some Parkinsonism due to the antidopamine drug (such a reaction may appear while Tourette’s patients have an excessive dose of the anti-dopamine medication, all the more so if one is not suffering from Tourette’s syndrome). Much more than biochemistry, nervous mechanism, or automatism exists to those whose psychical lives are much more than the functioning and construction of their nervous system. We are not entitled to argue that their psychical lives supervene in whatsoever way on their nervous system. Hence, the materialists, other reductionists of the psychical to the physical, or those who attempt to consider the psychical as supervenient on the physical must fail. Let us return for a little while to the thought-experiment concerning the zombie. Could you imagine any zombie who reacts to psychotherapy? Who can be treated or cured by the psychoanalytic “talking cure” of whatsoever kind? I believe that the right answer must be “no.” In contrast, any zombie may be treated by means of what Freud entitled “causal therapy,” namely, a therapy concerning the causes of what is considered psychopathology, and such treatment is a biochemical or physical one, namely, treatment by means of medications or other physical means alone. Such treatment was supposed or intended to replace psychotherapy by means of analytic dialogues. Words cannot cure any “miserable” zombie, whereas they may cure psychopathological human beings. Supervenient MPhBs are entitled to argue that Tourette’s syndrome or the zombie entirely supervene on nervous causality, but they are definitely not entitled to argue this about the behaviors and reactions of persons whose nervous system functions normally. As pure possibilities, reasons and other psychical grounds do not supervene on physical or causal grounds. As for “our” future knowledge, we are not entitled to consider it reliably, if at all, since we know nothing about it. If our ontology radically changes in the future, we know nothing about it at the moment. Given this limitation, no materialist or physicalist has any advantage over the panenmentalist. What does not depend at all on our present state of knowledge is that no pure possibility could supervene on anything actual-physical but anything actual-physical depends or supervenes on its pure possibility-identity. This ontic or metaphysical truth is by no means contingent to our state of knowledge, present or future. Materialists or psychical reductionists may still argue against my arguments that doctors and other experts can distinguish between Tourette’s patients and other persons on a materialist-physicalist basis but not on the basis of the psychophysical distinction. But this argument will not do, for what doctors and other experts diagnose in this case is the behavior or reaction due to the malfunctioning of the nervous system and not due to quite different,
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namely, psychical, grounds. The only way to explain the difference is on the basis of the psychical ontic category on the one hand and the physical-nervous one on the other. Thus, the distinction in question cannot pertain to the physical-material realm alone. Again, the materialist or the psychical reductionist must fail. The same holds for the psychical supervenients. The psychophysical distinction is a categorial one. No theory is entitled to blur or delete such a categorial difference. 9. Did Popper Solve the Psychophysical Problem? While many serious thinkers believe that the psychophysical problem is unsolvable, other thinkers believe that although no solutions exist, the ways to solutions in the future are open, despite all the difficulties. In contrast, Popper explicitly intended “to outline a solution of this problem” (Popper, 1994, p. 105; cf. p. 47: “[T]he problem for whose solution I am trying to provide some ideas”). Any claim to solve the grand, genuine metaphysical problems must be based merely on illusion. Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, or early Wittgenstein each in his way believed that he had the solutions to the grand metaphysical problems, and each one of them was entirely wrong. In the case of Popper, it is not only a false ambition but, alas, a sort of intellectual narrow-mindedness or blindness. Popper dogmatically assumes that mind and body interact, thus he writes, All of our actions in World 1 [the physical world, including organisms, a part of which is the body] are influenced by our World 2 [mental (conscious) experiences] grasp of World 3 [products or discoveries of the human mind, for instance, problems, solutions, and the like]. (ibid., p. 142) According to Popper, interactionism undoubtedly works. Yet some great philosophers point out the unsolved problem, actually the aporia, concerning psychophysical interactionism. Spinoza demonstrates how such interactionism is just impossible, for mind and body are entirely different links in totally different causal chains, each of which negates the other. These chains cannot interact: Body determines body, and idea determines idea; but no idea can determine any body, and vice versa. On the grounds of the real psychophysical distinction, which enjoys a complete ontological status, interactionism does not hold water. After all, you cannot detect any meaning, value, significance, or pure identity-possibility in the physical causal chain. On panenmentalist grounds, only one kind of causal chain exists, namely, physical causes alone. Descartes points out the impossibility of the interaction between the substance of Thought and that of Extension, unless a third substance, namely, God, interferes. The failure to
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rely upon the pineal gland as a mediator between mind and body shows again why interactionism must fail, for the pineal gland belongs to the body, which, in turn, still needs a link of another sort with the mind. Challenging Plato, Aristotle argues that the Platonic separation (chǀrismos) makes it impossible to link mind with body. Aristotle suggests that another solution should be found. He thought that mind and body are not two separate beings but two phases in the development of one substance, in which the mind is an entelechy, namely, a completion of the material, potential phase, which has been actualized and become a full-blown actuality. In our time, philosophers strongly try to combine Aristotelian psychophysical view with some of the ideas of Darwinian evolution. And the case appears to be that Popper shows some sympathy with their views. Time and again in his book under discussion, he mentions that consciousness emerges out of the brain or the body and that psychical (“mental”) states emerged out of physical states (see, for instance, Popper, 1994, pp. 112, 115). I have sharply criticized emergentism in general (Gilead, 1999, pp. 12, 143, 153, and see comments above). First, pure possibilities cannot rise out of actualities, unless actualism is right, which is not the case at all, as actualism wrongly reduces or confines possibilities for no good reason. Second, if mind and body belong to two different kinds of reality that are not causally interacted, how can mind arise from body? After all, they cannot make one and the same causal chain or system. To assume an evolution of the psychical out of the physical (Popper, 1994, p. 120) is to assume a miracle, a sort of unexplainable, sudden revolution or “jump,” which is not evolutional. Popper postulates that “we cannot help but see the body-mind problem in evolutionary terms” (ibid.), which holds no water. Emergentism shares many faults of the Aristotelian psychophysical theory. The psychical is not merely a property of the physical or a phase of it. From the physical only other physical things can emerge. Assuming the existence of three Worlds at least, Popper declares himself a pluralist (although, as far as the psychophysical problem is concerned, I consider him a dualist, as in Section 4.3 above). He shows sympathy for Descartes’s dualism or interactionism (Popper, 1994, p. 109), as Popper believes that mind and body belong to two different realities, namely, World 1 (of bodies) and World 2 (of minds). Yet he adds a third World, World 3, to which human products and discoveries, such as problems, solutions, theories, inventions, and the like, belong. Obviously, an interconnection between World 2 and World 3 exists, since these two are mental, but what about the relationship between World 1 and World 2, which the psychophysical problem challenges? To this crucial question Popper appears to have no answer. He points out that World 1 is not complete (to which panenmentalism agrees), and thus it requires World 3 for completion. For instance, as psychical subjects, we
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solve problems, which are not physical facts, and whose solutions are never given facts. Thus, problems and their solutions are discoverable only in World 3, and they are discoverable by means of World 2. All this is quite nice, but the need for completion does not provide us with any “solution” to the psychophysical problem, not even with an answer or response to the psychophysical question. Popper’s assumption is that such interconnection not only exists but should be so. If World 2 mediates between World 3 and the body, as Popper assumes, this does not solve our problem. As such a mediator, World 2 in turn requires a mediator between itself and World 1, between the psychical and the physical, and such a mediator is beyond Popper’s pluralism, which I consider dualism. Popper ascribes consciousness to the mind, and unconsciousness to the body as such (ibid., pp. 114 ff. cf. 124). In this way, he remains loyal to his harsh criticism of Freud. Contrary to Freud, he does not assume psychical unconsciousness but only physical unconsciousness. Popper assumes full consciousness (is it actually possible? I do not think so!) to control the unconscious part of a person, which is that person’s body, brain, nervous system, and the like. Thus, Popper rests mind-body distinctions on controllingcontrolled categories (ibid., pp. 114 ff.). I find this extremely unsatisfactory. Again, if such controlling and being controlled existed, the consciousness should control the bodily unconsciousness and, to do so, the mind should have first a causal influence on the body, which must be proven from the outset. Alas, so far it has not been proven, which is a real challenge, especially for dualism. Periodically, Popper points out the affinity of World 3 with possibilities (pp. 112–113, 125–128, and 141: “[T]he discovery of new . . . possibilities, by way of trying out possibilities conceived in our imagination”). Unfortunately, having a commentator challenge him by arguing that “from the beginning all these possibilities existed and the only thing that may have changed is which of these possibilities have entered into our knowledge” (ibid., p. 40), Popper’s disappointing answer is as follows: “[T]here is a trivial sense in which we can say that our possibilities exist, but this is only a very trivial sense” (ibid.). At this point, Popper misses one of the most crucial matters for panenmentalism. Instead, Popper explicitly mentions “the tentative trying out of possible movements or of possible reactions, without at once carrying out the actual movements themselves” (ibid., p. 113), or “various possible lines of behavior, and their fittingness to the situation, may be tried out, up to a point, without undergoing the risk of making the actual movements. . . . this would have to involve a kind of imagination: the imagined anticipation of the expected result of movements” (ibid.). Most unfortunately, he relates these possibilities to behavioral dispositions (especially at pp. 125 ff., cf. 118–119), actually rendering allegedly pure
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possibilities into actualities or actual behavior, because behavioral dispositions must rest on behavior, which is actual. After all, we cannot define behavioral dispositions without first pointing out actual behavior. Thus, Popper unfortunately misses the entire point of the pertaining of the mental-psychical to pure possibilities. He totally misses what enables panenmentalism to break through the psychophysical impasse. In sum, he has no solution to this impasse. Defining his interactionism, Popper writes, Since physical states are located in space and time, the question arises at which place the interaction takes place. Descartes’s answer was: “In the brain, in the so-called “pineal gland.” This answer of Descartes has been much ridiculed. But I will here propose a very similar answer. (ibid., p. 109) I find this no less ridiculous than Descartes’s answer. If it existed at all, such interaction could not be located at any place. No psychical being or state can be spatially located. The same holds for any interaction, if it existed, between mind and body. Thus, we cannot locate psychical states in the brain. All we can locate are physical-actual events or facts. This holds also for Popper’s conjecture that “the interaction of the self with the brain is located in the speech center” (ibid., p. 115). At most, all the experimental tests of this conjecture show only where and how the actualization of the self might be located, if at all, and by no means the “interaction” itself between psychical and physical states. Again, Popper attempts to bridge over the “separation” between the Worlds, a separation that I reject from the outset; he completely forgets that, being categorially different, the Worlds cannot be reduced one to the other, or that the “interaction” between them cannot be thus reduced as spatiotemporally located. Such location belongs to Popper’s World 1 alone. Let me end this Section by emphasizing that panenmentalism by no means attempts to suggest a solution to the psychophysical problem. Panenmentalism paves or clears the way for answers to the psychophysical question by leaving the road leading to solutions clear and open. The solutions lie on the horizon, and these solutions must be composed of many answers to the psychophysical questions, answers of many kinds, physical-scientific as well as psychical (those based on our analyzed, interpreted experience and awareness, or those based on psychoanalytic or other achievements in the attempt to construct veridical self-knowledge). The psychical answers indispensably rest also upon subjective experiences, and each one of us can and should contribute a lot to our shared knowledge. The combination of all these answers, physical-scientific as well as psychical or psychological, may lead us further along the way to solutions under the united categories of the
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purely possible-psychical and the actual-physical. Popper appears to contribute too little, if at all, to these mutual efforts. 10. Difference Does Breed Relationality, Or a Panenmentalist Critique of David Bohm’s Psychophysical View Suggesting “the general outlines of a new way of thinking . . . which does not divide mind from matter, the observer from the observed, the subject from the object” (Bohm, 1990, p. 271), David Bohm challenges the Cartesian psychophysical dualism. Challenging that dualism, Bohm characterizes it as follows: “[T]he natures of mind and matter are so different that one can see no basis for a relationship between them. . . . Yet, experience shows that they are closely related” (ibid., p. 272). This appears to be a fair description of Descartes’s psychophysical dualism. Yet the description relies upon a wrong assumption, according to which each major difference or distinction necessarily excludes relationship. Thus, Cartesian psychophysical distinction implies division or separation. Surprisingly enough, both Cartesians and Bohm, though for quite different reasons, share this wrong assumption. It is a wrong assumption because “to be different” or “to differ” necessarily means “to be different from” or “to differ from.” If such is the case, then such expressions necessarily imply relationality or lay the basis for it, which makes a relationship possible. “To be different from” implies that something relates to something different and, thus, that these things maintain some relationship between them. Cartesians thus are not allowed to argue that distinction implies separation and that mind and body being extremely different one from the other excludes any relationship between them. After all, even according to Descartes, as mind and body are so different one from the other does not logically exclude the possibility that a third factor, itself entirely different from both mind and body, is capable of relating, connecting, and unifying them both. This third factor is the Cartesian God. The Cartesian conundrum is that we know nothing about the nature of the psychophysical relationship, a difficulty that is not eased owing to the Cartesian God, who is much beyond our intelligibility. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, “being different from” necessarily implies “to relate to.” All the more, relationality and difference, however major, are panenmentalistically compatible. Singular beings-persons are wholly other, wholly different, one from the other and yet, on this basis, each of them necessarily relates to other singular beings, from which each singular must be extremely, wholly different. Analogously, since mind and body are so different one from the other, as different possibilities, they necessarily relate one to the other. Unlike Descartes, panenmentalism does not need a third factor, such as God, to relate mind and body one to the other. Each of their
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differences is sufficient for their relationality. Consequently, for different reasons, I criticize both Descartes and Bohm for mistreating “difference” and “relationality” alike. Panenmentalism relates mind and body as united. The psychophysical unity greatly differs from other kinds of relationality. As the spatiotemporally and causally conditioned part of the pure possibility, which is the mind, the body is undoubtedly united with the mind, which, in turn, is the pure identitypossibility of the body. This pure possibility comprises the body as its actualized part, an actualization which never exhausts its pure possibilityidentity as a whole. Such a modal-ontological way to consider the psychophysical unity is the unique contribution of panenmentalism for the perennial attempt of tackling the psychophysical problem in the long history of metaphysics. Rightly rejecting the Cartesian use of God to “solve” the psychophysical problem, Bohm concludes, “this leaves us with no explanation of how mind and matter are related” (ibid., p. 272). “Being related” or “relatedness” and “relationality” are not identical expressions or terms, but since Bohm aims at a non-reductive psychophysical or psychomaterial relationship (ibid.), we, considering Bohm’s view, may take “being related” for “to relate” and “relatedness” for “relationality.” Yet relationality and relatedness are not identical, and one of the novelties of panenmentalism is that relationality, unlike relatedness, rests on the difference of one thing from another. Again, I reach the conclusion that any difference, let alone any psychophysical difference, does breed relationality. Bohm attempts to show that, under his interpretation of the quantum theory, “particles of physics have certain primitive mind-like qualities which are not possible in terms of Newtonian concepts” (ibid.). But this would not dissolve the psychophysical conundrum, for the question still remains, how mind-like qualities, which are categorially or conceptually different from any physical qualities, under Newtonian or quantum theory’s terms alike, can be of, can belong to, physical or material particles. Such is the problem that Bohm and others have to face. Does Bohm’s novel approach really lead us to “the possibility of a real relationship” between mind and matter (ibid.)? Bohm argues that, contrary to Descartes and many other philosophers, mind and matter “never have the absolute distinction of basic qualities” (ibid.). This leads not only to rejecting the Cartesian treatment of the problem but also to dissolve or eliminate the very problem itself. As if no real psychophysical problem has remained to bother us, at least since the quantum physics under Bohm’s interpretation has opened our eyes to realize that physical particles are not radically different from psychical entities. Such is not the case, for the psychophysical problem is a real problem that we have still to face. Categorial or conceptual psychophysical differences exist committing us to ontological
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differences. Fully acknowledging these differences, panenmentalism attempts to treat this old problem on a new basis. I will return to some of these differences below. Even a radical change, such as Bohm’s, in our conception of matter will not lessen these categorial differences. Realizing that the Cartesian concept of extension is much less than enough, for it lacks any activity or causal efficacy and thus is actually inert or passive, Spinoza suggests quite another concept of extension. But this does not blur the differences between mind and body, which, according to Spinoza, are quite different modes under two quite different Attributes, Thought and Extension. Spinoza is not so remote from Bohm’s ideas of the field-particle’s unity, of particles’ interaction or connection by indivisible links constituting a single whole (ibid., p. 274), or even from Bohm’s novel idea of quantum wholeness, “which implies that the world cannot be analyzed into independently and separately existent parts” (ibid., p. 275). Yet such a radical change, as radical as that of the quantum theory under Bohm’s interpretation, of the terms to which our comprehension of matter may be subject, should not change or eliminate the categorial difference between psychical and physical terms and beings. Fields are as extended as particles, and extension is categorially different from thinking. Bohm’s shift in originally conceiving matter or in a novel conceptual framework does not appear to eliminate this difference and does not dissolve the psychophysical problem. The way leading to any possible solution must keep this difference as it really is and at the same time show how, despite the real differences between them, mind and body are united. In spite of his remarkable and impressive efforts, Bohm is incapable of subjecting the mind to the “laws of matter” (ibid. p. 272), if subjecting it to laws at all. Subject to spatiotemporal and causal conditions and to many other exclusively physical properties, Bohm’s “enfolded or implicate order” (ibid., p. 273) is purely physical. It is subject to size, weight, dimension, measurement, numbers, shapes, and the like, all of which have nothing to do with the psychical. On the basis of such an order alone, we are not entitled to conceive mind or psychical life. From this order “it follows that each thing is internally related to the whole, and therefore, to everything else” (ibid.), provided that each such thing is physical or material, not psychical. In spite of Bohm’s intention and efforts, the observer, participating in the observed process itself, is not a psychical but a physical being. In contrast, panenmentalism ascribes relationality to each thing as a possibility, pure or actual-physical. Since no two possibilities can be identical and each possibility is different from any other, each possibility must relate to all the others. The psychophysical unity is of singular pure possibility, which is the mind, and its actuality, which is the body. The actuality in question is a part, an actual part, of the mind as a pure
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possibility. The panenmentalist mereology (a theory of the whole-parts relationship) is quite different from Bohm’s mereology. Yet Bohm shows that the enfolded or implicate order is necessarily fashioned by subjective or personal traits and the observer’s viewpoint. It is fashioned in such a way that these psychical traits are inseparable or indivisible from that physical order, which, at the same time, is thus both physical and psychical. To argue so, we do not need Bohm’s new way of thinking; we may get all we need to accept this view just on the basis of the Kantian Copernican revolution. If, on this basis, the enfolded or implicate order is merely a phenomenon, it consists of the inseparability of the observer and the observed. The phenomenon consists of both subjective-psychical and “objective”-physical traits or conditions. If Bohm would not accept the Kantian distinction between phenomenon and the Thing-in-itself, and if he would assume that the enfolded or implicate order is the Thing-in-itself, all the subjective or personal traits ascribed to it would become internal conditions side by side with the physical conditions. Yet this, again, falls under a Kantian interpretation, according to which the complete series of conditions to a given conditioned is the Thing-in-itself. Can we know, according to Bohm, the complete series of conditions? This must be impossible for us, and the Thingin-itself is beyond our intellectual reach, and if it is beyond our reach, the subjective or personal traits condition the enfolded or implicate order from without and not from within the Thing-in-itself. This leaves mind and matter quite distinct and, according to Bohm’s (or the Cartesian) wrong assumption, separable. Finally, on any Kantian basis, if Bohm would accept it at all, he cannot exempt the psychophysical problem from its dualistic fate. The psychophysical dualism and any Kantian approach make an inseparable package deal. Basically, no categorial difference exists between Bergson’s, Whitehead’s, or Bohm’s dynamical view of the ever-changing reality in process, in both its psychical and physical aspects. All these views are committed to the temporal nature or essence of reality as a whole, which panenmentalism opposes, restricting time and temporality to the physical-actual alone. From Bohm’s viewpoint, mind and matter both fall under similar sorts of description (ibid.). I do not accept this view, according to which “the general implicate process of ordering is common both to mind and to matter” (ibid.). In contrast, panenmentalism leaves process, any activity, and change to the physical-actual alone, not to the psychical as such, as purely possible. This difference alone is enough to oppose Bohm’s view, according to which “ultimately mind and matter are at least closely analogous and not nearly so different as they appear on superficial examination” (ibid.). Instead, with panenmentalism, they are profoundly different, for the mind is exempt from any spatiotemporal and causal condition, whereas the body is necessarily subject to them. Yet, as
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different possibilities under one and the same possibility-identity, mind and body are not only related but also united. As panenmentalism sees it, causation or causality is applicable to the physical-actual, by no means to the psychical. In contrast, in Bohm’s view, his causal interpretation of the quantum theory provides “a basis for the nondualistic theory of the relationship of mind and matter” (ibid., p. 276). This too appears to be under Spinoza’s spell for both known Attributes, Thought and Extension, are one and the same total, self-caused causal chain, differently expressed or appearing under each of these Attributes. Another point of great interest is Bohm’s connotation regarding fields, potentialities, and possibilities (ibid.). Bohm writes, “In physics, a potential describes a field in terms of a possibility or potentiality that is present at each point of space” (ibid.). Yet we should very carefully distinguish between pure possibility and potentiality: Pure possibility is absolutely independent of any actualization and exempt from any spatiotemporal or causal condition, whereas potentiality must depend on actualities and must be subject to their conditions. Bohm entirely ignores this crucial distinction, and for this reason he ascribes presence and spatiality to “possibility or actuality,” whereas he should not mention possibility in this context of fields, in which the right term must be potentiality alone, whether in classical or in quantum physics. The main problem with Bohm’s new psychophysical approach is his arbitrary leap from “the form of the wave function manifests itself in the movement of the particles” (ibid., p. 281) to “a similar mind-like quality of matter” (ibid.). The same holds for the analogy he draws between electrons moving together without scattering, because a common form fashions their movements, and a ballet dance. The “common pool of information in the form of a score” (ibid.) in the case of a ballet is by no means identical with the wholeness, non-locality, and organization of movement “through common pools of information” (ibid.) concerning material or physical particles. The great difference is that no material or physical particle has the meanings, understanding, awareness, intentions, aims, or significance that the behavior of the dancer must have. This is an essential, categorial difference, and not merely a matter of degree or level. The particles do not react to the meanings or the significance of the form of the field, but only to its energy. Nor might they have any awareness or understanding of it. Thus, the possibilities to which Bohm refers here are not psychical. They are only physical and they have to do with physical energy alone. While reading, we do not just react to the form and order of the letters on a printed page (Bohm’s example, ibid.). We must be aware of and understand the meanings and significance of these words or symbols. At this point, Bohm’s approach appears to become functionalist. As a theory of mind, functionalism fails (Gilead, 1999, pp. 137– 158). Since meanings, significance, and awareness have to do with mental or
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psychical possibilities alone, I do not follow Bohm’s idea that “the movement of the particle unfolds the meaning of the information that is implicit in the quantum field” (ibid., p. 284). At most, this movement actualizes this meaning as a pure possibility. Writing about “a similar mind-like quality of matter reveals itself strongly at the quantum level, in the sense that the form of the wave function manifests itself in the movements of the particles” (ibid., p. 281), Bohm does not refer to any “mind-like quality” at all but merely to a material or physical quality that is not psychical at all. And, mentioning that “a major significance of thought is just the activity to which a given structure of information may give rise” (ibid.), he appears to adopt an actualist or behaviorist approach, which I cannot accept, for a psychical state can exist with no activity or behavior at all. The form and information fashioning the “behavior” or movement of physical or material particles is categorially different from the information, thinking, emotions, feelings, and the like fashioning, guiding, and directing our psychical attitude or behavior and responses. Bohm’s analogy regarding these points (ibid.) thus appears to be groundless. In sum, contrary to Bohm (ibid., p. 282), active information cannot serve as a link or a bridge between the psychical and the physical, for in each of these realms information serves in an entirely different sense. It is not the same information “at the same time.” Although the physical is inseparable from the psychical, they are yet distinguished one from the other and by no means identical. According to Bohm, on the psychical side, the information is potentially active, while on the material side, the same information is an “actual activity that operates to organize the less subtle levels” (ibid., p. 282). In contrast, panenmentalism considers the physical-actual the actualization of the purely possible, and these two types of reality are not the same. Again, we should distinguish pure possibility from potentiality. Contrary to Bohm (ibid., p. 283), there is no “basic similarity between the quantum behavior of a system of electrons and the behavior of mind.” Any quantum reality is subject to spatiotemporal and causal conditions (especially under Bohm’s interpretation), whereas, as panenmentalism conceives it, the psychical, as a pure possibility, is entirely exempt from these conditions. Hence, they cannot be identical. With Bohm’s view, in contrast, they are “essentially the same” (ibid.). And, contrary to Bohm’s intention, on the basis of his psychophysical view, the “unbridgeable gap or barrier” between the psychical and the physical must remain without any solution. Bohm fails to show that “there is no real division between mind and matter, psyche and soma” (ibid., p. 284), even though the Cartesian dualism and psychophysical interaction have failed no less and even though the psychophysical distinctions do not lead to separation.
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Bohm suggests a sort of a double-aspect psychophysical view, according to which “the deeper reality is something beyond either mind or matter, both of which are only aspects that serve as terms for analysis” (ibid., p. 285). His causal interpretation of the quantum theory and its additional concepts have originated a great novelty, not so the double-aspect psychophysical theory. This theory has exhausted its contributions with no or little progress in our understanding of the psychophysical problem, much less in the attempts to solve it. 11. How Can Physical Similarity Actualize Psychical Singularity? This question is crucial to panenmentalism as a systematic metaphysics. Each psychical subject, each person, is a singular being, intrinsically unlike or entirely different from any other being, whereas the body, the actuality, of any singular being is similar to or like any other body. How can such actualization be compatible with psychical singularity? Is panenmentalism coherent at this crucial point of philosophical systematization? By the same token of the mental-possible and the physical-actual in general, mind and body also differ in their relationality. The relationality of the mental-possible is based on difference or diversity, whereas that of the physical-actual—on similarity, commonness, or likeness. As a special part of the mental-possible, psychical relationality is based upon singularity, upon intrinsic difference or “wholly otherness.” The only singularity that panenmentalism assumes—psychical singularity—is actualized as a body, sharing similar or common properties with other bodies. Owing to the panenmentalist view that mind and body are united (though not identical), this appears to raise a major problem. Anything physical-actual, especially the body, is subject to spatiotemporal and causal conditions, which, in turn, consist of similarity, likeness, commensurability, or commonness. More basically, homogeneity is essential to spatiotemporality and causality, whereas diversity or heterogeneity is essential to anything mental-possible, especially psychical, each of which is exempt from homogeneity, especially from any spatiotemporal or causal condition. All this appears to increase the psychophysical conundrum we have to face in this Section. Although no singularity as such, as pure, is physically-actually realizable, uniqueness maintains its standing within the physical-actual. In Section 3.3 above, discussing artistic necessities, I mentioned the ways in which artistic singularity is reflected in the uniqueness and induplicability of any genuine work of art, each of which is a product of an actualization of a singular pure possibility. Thus, physical-actual uniqueness sufficiently reflects psychical singularity (in this case, the artist’s singularity) although anything singular
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must be psychical alone and cannot be physical-actual. Similarly, we can detect fingerprints, unique DNA combinations, and the like, each of which exclusively characterizes a single person (to be more precise, the body or the bodily properties or indications of a person). Such uniqueness in itself is by no means a singularity. These physical indications are commensurable, comparable, and maintain common properties, physical, biochemical, mathematical, and the like. Such is not the case of anything singular, which is intrinsically different from, by no means similar to, anything else. Second, uniqueness consists of properties belonging to a single being, and no property or belonging in itself bears any singularity. Third, none of these unique properties has to do with personality as such, only with physical, bodily realization, namely, actualization of the person in question. No fingerprints bear the nature of a person as a singular being, although they may physically indicate that person’s singularity, not as such, not as pure, but as uniquely actualized. The pure possibility-identity of anything is actualized in a single, unique actuality. Yet, as actualized, that person’s singularity does not appear, for it is beyond any actualization, beyond anything physical. What remains of the singular in actual reality? Nora’s bodily odors (Section 4.6 above), Marcel’s knocks on the wall as his grandmother immediately recognizes them in Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past (Gilead, 2003, pp. 20–22), or any physical-actual indication of our beloved. All these are unique signs, physical reflections of what is much beyond them, of psychical singularity. Yeats’s poem “Easter, 1916” demonstrates this beautifully, revealing how “a terrible beauty is born,” for love reveals the significance, value, and profound meanings of what may be deemed insignificant or negligible through other eyes, failing to see the uniqueness, singularity, and worth of a person. Failing to love such a person, we may be blind to the meaning and significance of many of her physical properties as well (see Section 5.18 below). All these and many other physical or bodily manifestations may adequately signify the singularity of a loved person. Significance, like any relationality, necessarily bears the quality of similarity, commonness, or generality. Thus, the bodily manifestations, bearing mental or psychical significance, are all the more general, not singular. Like words, which are always general and never particular, such manifestations may precisely and uniquely express, even embody or depict, the entirely singular, because they bear a significance, which is a general or common relationality of singular, psychical possibilities. Like poetry or poetic embodiment-depiction to spiritual experience, like physical or bodily manifestations to psychical singularity. Words, general by nature, may express most adequately and precisely what the mind has to convey. The body, however similar, common, or general its properties are, is such a precise expression, embodiment, or depiction of the mind.
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In conclusion, the difference of physical relationality from psychical relationality is systematically compatible with the actualization of the psychical by the body. At this point also, the panenmentalist psychophysical view is proved to be consistent as well as coherent.
Five CONSCIOUSNESS, MEMORY, OTHER PSYCHICAL POSSIBILITIES, AND SOME VALUES 1. Minding “I don’t mind,” “Mind the step,” “Mind you,” and the like are expressions in which we say whether something is or should be meaningful, significant, or making any difference for us. Anything can be meaningful or significant for us only as mind-endowed beings. As such, if we do not mind something, it does not “touch,” move, or determine our mind at all. It makes no difference as far as our mind is concerned. Undoubtedly, it does not participate in our mind or pertain to it. What we, consciously or unconsciously, do not pay any attention to or “invest” anything of our mind in, we do not mind. What we, consciously or unconsciously, do not mind has nothing to do with our mind and does not pertain to it. What pertains to our mind we necessarily mind. In other words, it means something for us, it signifies something to us as mind-endowed beings, and it makes a difference for us. Can we not mind what pertains to our mind? No, unless merely consciously. We may only consciously not mind what pertains to our mind, but by no means unconsciously. Otherwise, the concept of mind would become empty, namely, would mean or signify nothing. Minding necessarily bears some psychical integration and unity, which means that everything conscious or unconscious in the mind necessarily relates to and determines the rest of it. Thus, anything psychical is psychically determined, and psychical determinism is valid (see Section 3.6 above). Even the split or multiple mind necessarily enjoys some basic integration and unity, otherwise it would not be considered mind at all. 2. What is Consciousness? Under panenmentalism, mind—soul, spirit, or psyche—whether conscious or unconscious, consists of determinability or affectability by pure possibilities. Only minds can be determined or affected by pure possibilities alone. Determinability or affectability means the ability of being subjected to what makes a difference. Following Section 5.1 above, the concept of mind has to do with “What difference does it make?” as far as meanings and significance are concerned. Meanings and significance consist of pure possibilities and
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their relationality. Asking someone—“Do you mind?”—we ask that person whether something is meaningful or significant for her, whether that thing makes any difference to her as a person, as a mindful being. Without mind, whether conscious or unconscious, such a question would turn out to be null and void, just meaningless or insignificant. Pure possibilities thus bear significance, meanings, and differences only for minds. Determinability or affectability due to pure possibilities alone is valid for minds only. Such determinability or affectability signifies that pure possibilities alone are sufficient to make a difference as far as minds are concerned. Since panenmentalism ascribes private accessibility to the conscious and unconscious parts of the mind alike, we are not entitled to rest consciousness alone on the basis of private accessibility as a distinguishing mark. Both the unconscious and the conscious cannot be accessed from without. Only the subjects, the singular beings, in question have access each to his or her inner reality. Unconsciousness, not just as bodily but as an inherent part of the mind, is not enough to make the mind a person. To be a person means to have consciousness. But what is consciousness from the panenmentalist viewpoint? Consciousness is the psychical ability of a person to differentiate and distinguish, to make differences and distinctions, which are meaningful and significant. Even though many things exist that make differences for our minds, not all of these meaningful and significant things are conscious to us. What makes our mind conscious is first the ability to make such differences, to refer to them, and to consider them as pure possibilities that are quite meaningful and significant. Without consciousness we cannot consider them at all, even in cases in which we are still different to them, although just unconsciously. Owing to some psychical defenses, we may be consciously indifferent to something although we may be unconsciously different to that thing at the same time. Indifference, conscious as well as unconscious, signifies that something is not meaningful or significant for us. To make distinctions and differences requires consciousness. In the unconscious no distinctions and no differences are made or exist. By means of the unconscious alone no distinctions and differences can be made at all. The integration of the unconscious rests on a given, wellestablished truth, namely, the unconscious is a part of an inner reality, which is privately accessible only. This in itself is enough to establish personal identity as well as psychical integration. But when the consciousness enters the scene, distinctions and differences are made. We need consciousness of emotions, feelings, and other means of integration to make each of us feel as a psychical whole. We need such a consciousness to be aware of, or to experience, our unity and personal identity though not as an impression or idea, which Hume rightly rejected, but as a sense of psychical unity and integration. Cognitions,
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emotions, and feelings all play major roles in our feeling or experience of psychical integration, yet the emotive consciousness plays a crucial part in our sense of psychical integration or unity. If a person feels lonely just because s/he is alone, this is a clear sign of the lack of the consciousness or the sense of integration. Because such a person does not feel or is not aware that s/he is well connected with her/himself as an integrative whole, s/he must feel lonely whenever s/he is alone. Such a miserable person does not experience the joy and advantage of solitude, which, for instance, is so essential to creativity. Since no two possibilities, all the more pure possibilities, can be identical, distinctions necessarily exist between any two possibilities. When it comes to psychical reality, personality, or singularity, such distinctions make crucial differences for, intrinsically, two persons cannot be even similar. Consciousness is the awareness of, as well as the capability to make, such crucial differences as well as the experiencing of them. Consciousness is not only the capability of making distinctions and differences but also of relating to pure possibilities-identities as well as to actualities. To grasp the relationality of things—first, of pure possibilitiesidentities—is a capability that only conscious beings can have. Whenever we are unaware of the relationality of things or of possibilities-identities, we are unaware of their significance. Language is entirely impossible without consciousness. No usage of language can occur unless an interrelationship between conscious persons is established. No language-game exists by means of which we may address any unconscious subject with the question: “Do you mind?” To address an entirely unconscious subject with such a question, or to attempt to communicate with such a subject, necessarily contradicts any possible language-game. In other words, it makes no difference whether you linguistically address an entirely unconscious subject or not. In contrast, linguistically addressing any person may make all the difference in the world. No person exists who has no self. As Naomi Eilan puts it, “the concept of self [is] needed for explaining what it is to be a subject of experience” (Bermúdez et. al., 1998, p. 337). First, consciousness is inseparable from experience. Second, Eilan is quite right: Without the psychical subject, no experience exists, and without the concept of self, no explanation for being a subject of experience is possible. Under panenmentalism, six elements are needed for a psychical subject, a person, to be: (1) singularity; (2) inner reality, which is privately accessible, exclusively from within; (3) a viewpoint; (4) subjectivity; (5) selfhood or individuality in relationality (that is, selfconscious individuality or full-blown subjectivity); (6) reflection (as far as self-consciousness is concerned). The last two elements are indispensable for personal consciousness whereas the first four elements are necessary for being a psychical subject. As for element (1), singularity as such is essential for
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being a psychical subject, whether consciousness or unconsciousness is concerned. Yet, selfhood or individuality is not explicit enough or “fullblown,” unless its relationality is being explicit, which entails selfconsciousness and self-awareness. Experience, too, requires consciousness. Only conscious subjects are capable of experiencing anything. Experience cannot be a trait of beings lacking any consciousness. 3. Weiskrantz’s View on Consciousness, Or What is Consciousness Again Being aware of philosophers’ views as to the problem of consciousness (especially the views of Daniel Dennett and David Rosenthal), Lawrence Weiskrantz suggests an intriguing philosophical, as well as neuropsychological, idea: Consciousness is possible since the ability to report is possible, whether externally actualized or not (“externally” here means reporting to other person[s]). For instance, in case of blindsight, the patient, G. Y., having been asked to describe his experience, responds: “You do not actually really sense anything. . . . the difficulty is the same that one would have in trying to tell a blind man what it is like to see” (Weiskrantz, 1997, p. 66). Such patients know that a movement, “as pure movement” (ibid.) occurs, and they have an awareness of its direction, “but in the complete absence of any identity of what it is that is moving—an awareness of contentless, directional movement” (ibid.). Such patients “cannot . . . think about their inputs in relation to other inputs or contexts,” and they have lost the ability “to represent the content of their inputs to themselves” (ibid., p. 71). Weiskrantz states that nothing of the “Cartesian Theatre” or the homunculus’s conundrum, which Dennett rightly opposes, must be involved in this issue, for “[i]n talking to oneself rather than to someone else, one does not have to invent a new talker or new listener” (ibid., pp. 71–72). What Weiskrantz does not accept about Dennett’s view is the wish to leave “the folk psychology mine-field” (ibid., p. 72), for Weiskrantz’s happy insight is that such a mine-freeness entails a mindfreeness. He wishes instead to utilize this mine-field a little more, because “it does at least provide a unifying metaphor for describing the problem in all of the ‘disconnected awareness’ deficits” (ibid.). Such deficits have to do with disconnections or blockades between first-order and second-order (or higherorder) process (ibid., p. 73). These disconnections or blockages in turn lead to alterations in the states of awareness or consciousness (ibid.). The ability to report, suggests Weiskrantz, is the ability to comment. Thus, he succumbs to the temptation to “link higher-order thoughts to the operation of the commentary system, especially with reference to blindsight but also of wider application to other unconscious residual process” (ibid.). Having thus succumbed, he then maps brain architecture onto logical structure
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and vice versa (ibid.). At this point, he, unknowingly, comes slightly closer to some panenmentalist ideas. First, logical or other structures of psychical possibilities are indispensable to identifying, studying, and understanding such neuropsychological deficits concerning a lack of awareness. Second, consciousness is also a matter of relationality, integration, and connections between different “parts” of the mind, as well as of their actualization in cerebral connections. Weiskrantz’s insight is that consciousness has to do with the ability to self-comment upon which the ability to comment to other persons must rest (ibid., p. 74). This is a new opportunity to realize again how clever and insightful was Bertha Pappenheim’s characterization of “the talking cure.” Bringing up some repressed content to the conscious means not only to remember it declaratively, but also to express it in words. To bring up something to consciousness is a key both to psychotherapy and selfknowledge. Challenging Wittgenstein’s Tractatus 5.62, Weiskrantz does not identify consciousness with the use of language. Language does not endow us with consciousness, and the case is not that only Homo sapiens is conscious; other living creatures, he argues, are endowed with consciousness, although they do not use any language (ibid., p. 167). Indebted to David Rosenthal’s view that consciousness entails a thought about a thought (a view with which I am familiar first because of Spinoza’s concept of reflection, namely, idea of idea), Weiskrantz, having set consciousness free from language, mentions again his view that “being aware means being able to make a commentary” (ibid.), which, again, does not mean that consciousness and using language are identical. Similarly, commentary and communication are not identical. Therefore, as he rightly concludes, “while a commentary entails communicative power, communicative power does not require awareness” (ibid., p. 168). For instance, sensitivity to “body language” means that “communication has taken place without the communicator knowing that it has” (ibid.). As to many animal signals, which are essential for communication, they “may be elicited automatically” (ibid.), namely, not consciously. In sum, Weiskrantz states, “it clearly does not mean that a commentary necessarily leads to communication as such—it can remain private—nor that communication always entails awareness” (ibid.). Some of these significant points are compatible with panenmentalist ideas, especially as to the independence of consciousness or thinking from language. As with anything private, a private commentary, which, according to Weiskrantz, is indispensable to awareness, cannot be subject to language, for no language can be private. On this matter, Weiskrantz’s view and panenmentalism are in agreement. Another point of some similarity is the categorial difference between the human mind and machines, especially computers. Weiskrantz writes that the
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ability to reminisce freely and uninstructedly, among other capabilities, “separates human thought from any computer that has yet been designed” (ibid., p. 190), which is compatible with one of the panenmentalist basic principles (Gilead, 1999, pp. 137–158). But the following is greatly incompatible with that principle: “[A]lthough this is not to say that, in principle, no such machine could ultimately be designed” (ibid.) for, under the panenmentalist principles, designing such a machine is impossible from the outset. On the other hand, I am quite pleased to read the following: “The distinction between hardware and software may be essential in computer technology, but I believe it can be seriously misleading in neuroscience. As a matter of fact, the software itself often implicitly reflects the hardware technology of the age . . .” (ibid. p. 192). Under panenmentalist terms, instead of considering pure possibilities, in this case, psychical possibilities, independently of any actualization, some cognitive scientists have committed the actualist fallacy: They have reduced the mind (the so-called software) to the so-called hardware; they have created the “software” in the image of the “hardware.” Weiskrantz again raises the well-known questions, “How does the brain generate conscious awareness?” (ibid., p. 192), “In fact, is ‘generate’ the right word?” (ibid.), and “How can visual awareness be generated—if that is the right word—by the nervous system?” (ibid., p. 199). Under panenmentalism the first and the third are wrong questions to ask, whereas the second is in place. Awareness, like any other cognitive or psychical state, does not emerge from nor is it generated by the nervous system; such states are psychical possibilities, which the nervous system actualizes (Gilead, 1999, pp. 8–12). When considering “the brain mechanisms that allow commentaries of awareness to be made” (1997, p. 229), Weiskrantz steps closer to such a view. Yet this is not enough, for these brain mechanisms actualize the ability, not just “allow” it. When philosophical awareness, identity, or position is concerned, Weiskrantz declares himself a non-eliminative materialist (ibid., pp. 232–233), namely, “a materialist determined to give due regard to the phenomena that make some people dualists” (ibid., p. 232), for “[i]t is obvious that states of awareness are radically altered by brain damage and, therefore, that this leads directly and swiftly, if not inevitably, to a materialistic position” (ibid.). From a panenmentalist viewpoint, the obvious fact that some kinds of brain damage deny a person cognitive or emotive capabilities does not lead, let alone inevitably, to a materialist position, eliminative or non-eliminative alike. Undoubtedly, with panenmentalism, cognitive or emotive possibilities may be rendered unactualized, even unactualizable, owing to some kinds of brain damage. The causal connection under discussion is not between the brain damage and the psychical incapability, but between that damage and the actualization of the psychical incapability or between the damage and the
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incapability to actualize some psychical capabilities. On these grounds too, panenmentalism excludes psychophysical materialism, both eliminative and non-eliminative. In concluding, Weiskrantz can dispense with his declared philosophical materialism, without losing any of his neuropsychological points and novelties. Finally, I should remind the reader that panenmentalism is not a dualistic stance; it is an anti-reductionist stance. As for Weiskrantz’s criticism of the psychoanalytic unconscious (for instance, ibid., p. 237), it is under the influence of his materialist stance. The unconscious capabilities he mentions are identical with the brain functions he discusses in his book; they have to do with the actualization of the capabilities, not with their pure possibilities. The lack of mentation or of thinking, which he mentions (ibid.), has to do with actualization, not with psychical possibilities as such, as pure possibilities, with which psychoanalysis and the psychoanalytic unconscious have much to do. As Freud himself already realized, if mentation or thinking or anything psychical could be considered on materialist terms only, psychoanalysis would have become redundant and would have given way to “causal therapy,” namely, pharmacological or biochemical therapy. Weiskrantz’s materialism is thus incompatible with psychoanalysis but this does not means that psychoanalysis is wrong. On the contrary: According to panenmentalism, materialism in all its forms is wrong whereas psychoanalysis provides us with plenty of insightful contributions and with veridical knowledge (Gilead, 1999, pp. 41–99). Weiskrantz relates unconsciousness or unawareness to dissociation (for instance, ibid., pp. 220–221 or 258–259). Such a relation logically puts a restriction on his view that being aware is the ability to make a commentary. People may be in a position to comment about what they do, and they may comment about it at the same time that they do it, yet they are not aware or conscious of the required connection between the two. At that time, their mind is subject to dissociation. For instance, a doctor may explain to her patient that his blood pressure is relatively high just because he is afraid or tense due to the examination itself, which is the case. At the same time, the doctor tells the patient how dangerous hypertension may be, especially for him. This is sufficient to raise his blood pressure much more. “You see,” comments the doctor, “it is dangerously high, and we should do something about it as soon as possible, although these measured values right now may be only because of this examination and not due to a real hypertension.” The doctor knows quite well about “white-coat hypertension” (hypertension due to the tension or stress caused by the examination alone), but she is not aware or conscious of the causal relation between her behavior and the patient’s hypertension found in the examination. A clear dissociation exists between what she knows and what she does, between her comments and conclusions. She is able to comment knowledgeably about “white-coat hypertension” but, at least at the moment,
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she is unaware that it is still possible that the very case under her examination is actually a case of white-coat hypertension only, which requires no physical treatment. Weiskrantz sums up, [A] commentary is a sine qua non for awareness. In the weak form of the hypothesis, awareness is enabling of the commentary, that is, allows it to occur. . . . the commentary provides a critical, even essential, criterion for deciding on the status of awareness. This means that awareness always requires a parallel and separate response to the discrimination itself for it to be identified and acknowledged as such by the subject. (ibid., pp. 75–76; italics in the original) First, although the parallel response is distinct, it is not separate from the ability to comment. If this response exists, it must be coupled with the ability to comment. After all, awareness and consciousness go hand-in-hand with connection or integration, not with separation. Second, the ability to comment, although a necessary condition, is not sufficient for awareness. For instance, people (some say the British only) can comment on something (in Britain—on the weather) without being aware at all that they have done so (for instance, BWCS—the British Weather Conversation Syndrome). Third, Weiskrantz does not forget that subjectivity is essential to awareness as to all psychical states. He reiterates that “it is the very achieving of the ability to make a commentary of any particular event that is what gives rise to awareness and it is what we mean by being conscious. . . . the achieving of the commentary is the awareness” (ibid., p. 76). Weiskrantz does not restrict this to actuality at all, as he states, “what matters is the state of ‘comment-ability’” (ibid.). Even “phenomenal awareness itself, in our view, results from the delivery or potential delivery of a report” (ibid.). Weiskrantz’s neuropsychology “is also linked to a philosophical position that attaches importance and meaning to thoughts about thoughts; and even more, it provides a skeleton on which to hang our consideration of the neural events that underlie awareness” (ibid.). This view may fit the panenmentalist stance according to which pure possibilities that philosophy or metaphysics discovers may provide a skeleton on which neurobiologists or neuropsychologists can hang their considerations of the neural events, namely, the actualities, actualizing awareness and consciousness. Reflection (“thoughts about thoughts”) is quite essential for attaching Weiskrantz’s view of awareness to the ability to comment and report, while the subjective experience must be there; it goes through the ability to reflect, which is necessary for awareness and for making comments or reports.
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In Section 5.2 above, I attempted to tackle the question of consciousness on the basis of making distinctions and differences as well as responding to differences. I would like to tackle it on a complementary basis, namely, linguistic holism. On this basis, Weiskrantz’s efforts are close to what linguistic philosophers such as Quine have achieved and to what panenmentalism has to add of its own. Without making distinctions and, mainly, differences, no consciousness can be. But no less essential is the ability to refer to the entire realm of pure possibilities, to which our accessibility makes us minding as well as conscious beings. To grasp the picture as a whole, to grasp a whole, against the background of which distinctions are grasped, is the work of consciousness. Grasping this whole, we can make inferences, we can deduce, we are able to think logically, to see beyond the given. To see beyond the given is undoubtedly what only consciousness can do. To see so, we need much more than instincts, reflexes, or even our feelings or sensations, which are the first steps in awareness. Thus, we need a higher phase of consciousness to achieve such a seeing beyond the given. Following Section 5.2 above, this achievement relies heavily on relationality. Given that pure possibilities relate one to all the others, consciousness grasps this relationality and follows it step by step. Following possibilities obviously requires consciousness (as an analogy, following a rule too, to take an example from Wittgenstein, requires consciousness). No one but persons or conscious beings can follow pure possibilities or can react or respond to them. The holistic nature of the universal relationality of pure possibilities is excellently reflected in the holistic nature of language, a nature that Quine and his many followers have judiciously emphasized, despite their actualist prejudices. I am convinced that holism is the right way to grasp the nature of language. To use even one sentence properly inevitably leads to relating to the language as a whole. And the meaning of each word or sentence relates to the language as a whole. The same holds for the truth or justification of any proposition. Though the linguistic holism is a sound view, it lacks a metaphysical basis, and panenmentalism attempts to provide us with such a groundwork, which also reveals what makes consciousness possible. As a possibilist metaphysical groundwork, panenmentalism is remote from any actualism, Quinean or otherwise. As for our mind, splitting is the basis of the unconscious, whereas relating, integrating, and connecting establish the basis of consciousness. Psychical disconnection, disintegration, or splitting, actualized in the operation or the structure of the brain, leads, in the first place, to the emergence of the unconscious or to repression. In other words, if in the beginning of the psychical development the unconscious is much more comprehensive than the conscious, then, by means or in the light of integration, connections, relations,
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and the like, the extensive realization of the conscious has been achieved. I believe that this is similar to the way that psychoanalysis has realized this development or growth. Analytic psychodynamics does not rest on any reduction to the primitive grounds of the psyche (or the soma-psyche). Instead, it rests on the complexity of these grounds and on the development arising out of them. To bring something up to the conscious means a development in complexity, association, integration, relating, connecting, and the like, in which the simple and the isolated turn out to be connected, complicated, and integrated. After all, Freudian determinism heavily relies on this complexity, integration, association, or being connected. The integration of what I have to say about consciousness in Section 5.2 and in this Section just falls into place. To make a distinction and a difference is to put a possibility in relation to all the others. To grasp a distinction that makes a difference entails relating to the realm of pure possibilities as a whole. Both ways of reference or relationality are needed to have a more complete picture of what consciousness is about. 4. Synesthesia, Memory, and Multiple Personality Synesthesia is a rare nervous phenomenon. The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines it as “the production of a mental sense-impression relating to one sense by the stimulation of another sense.” Another definition of synesthesia is in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary: “A concomitant sensation; especially: a subjective sensation or image of a sense (as of color) other than the one (as of sound) being stimulated.” For instance, a synesthetic person—a synesthete—may see a color and simultaneously feel it as a sound, even though no actual sound is there to be heard. Thus, the synesthetic experience has something of the hallucination or delusion in it. The synesthetic images are so vivid that the synesthete experiences them as actual impressions. This bizarre and rare phenomenon has hardly been investigated. Two accounts of it should be especially mentioned (Luria, 1969 and Cytowic, 1993). Of special interest is Alexander Romanovich Luria’s study of the mnemonist S., a man endowed with an unusually vast and detailed memory, who was also a synesthete. For S., “the bell not only summons up a direct visual image, it also has qualities of touch, is colored white, and has a salty taste” (Luria, 1969, p. 81). My impression is that S., whose identity—Solomon V. Shereshevskii (1886–1958?)—was disclosed after the publication of Luria’s study, also had a kind of multiple personality, although not in the psychiatric sense of multiple personality disorder (MPD). Quite feeble in making abstractions, S. had an unusual memory for details, however senseless, insignificant, and arbitrary. As Luria puts it, “the advantages S. derived from
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his graphic, figurative manner of thinking were bound up with distinct limitations; where a wealth of thought and imagination were curiously combined with limitations of intellect” (ibid., p. 96). Luria stresses S.’s vivid imagination, verging on hallucination: “S. could actually see what other people think or only dimly imagine to themselves; vivid images would appear to him that were so palpable as to verge on being real” (ibid.). Due to his visualizing capability, S. could solve mathematical problems that other, ordinary people had difficulty with “because their use of verbal ‘calculations’ cuts off the possibility of visualizing a solution” (ibid., p. 100). Never thinking in abstractions, S., I believe, employed the sensible way in solving such mathematical problems: Not by abstract, logical means but, to use Kantian terms, by employing his “intuition” (“inner vision” in Luria’s term [ibid., p. 104]) instead of his intellect. In this way, S. made a Kantian “sense” of such problems and their solutions instead of considering their meanings. Since S. could not ignore minor, insignificant, or peripheral details but ascribed an independent value to each of them, his images “tended to scatter meaning” (ibid., p. 130). Yet this served him well in solving some mathematical problems, and Luria is correct in commenting “how often we are misled because we rely exclusively on calculations not based on any image of the problem” (ibid., p. 103). S. successfully rendered mathematical objects concrete. But this visualizing capability was also his severe intellectual limitation. He could understand only what he could visualize (ibid., p. 130). He was unable to grasp any idea, however abstract, [U]nless he could actually see it, and so he tried to visualize the idea of “nothing,” to find an image with which to depict “infinity.” And he persisted in these agonizing attempts all his life, forever coping with a basically adolescent conflict that made it impossible for him to cross that “accursed” threshold to a higher level of thought. (ibid., p. 133) As S. testified of himself, while listening to works of music, I feel the taste of them on my tongue; if I can’t, I do not understand the music. This means I have to experience not only abstract ideas, but even music, through a physical sense of test. . . . If it’s simply a matter of learning a phone number, though I can repeat it, I won’t really know the number unless I’ve tasted it. Otherwise I have to listen to it again, to let it penetrate. (ibid., p. 134) This synesthetic capability of S., despite its above-mentioned disadvantages, had some advantages. First, he employed his synesthetic capability to integrate experience, thinking, memories, and so on into (“to let it penetrate”) his mind
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to learn, understand, and record something new. Second, owing to his synesthetic capability, he could remember quite a long list of details arranged in an arbitrary or meaningless order. Recalling them, even many years after hearing or seeing the list, he used his synesthetic capability to visualize or to imagine them so vividly as though he sensed or felt them at the very time of recollection. Although S.’s vast memory reached back as far as his quite early childhood and although no indication was found in his case for any infantile amnesia, Luria could not decide whether S.’s memories of childhood went back to actual experiences or not (Luria, 1969, pp. 79–80). What characterized S.’s recollections as an adult and his recollections of childhood had something significant in common. Just as his early childhood thinking was not subject to any dividing lines between images or sensations and actual reality, so almost every sensation S. experienced as an adult had the same nature because of which “it was so difficult in his case to locate any dividing line between . . . sensation and actual experience of events” (Luria, 1969, p. 80). As I see it, since S. could not distinguish between the two kinds of reality—inner-psychical and external-actual—his mind maintained something typical of a child’s mind. Because of this psychical nature, S. enjoyed the capability of recalling memories that infantile amnesia usually dooms to oblivion. Persons who are not synesthetic are usually incapable of enjoying this; for them, reality is divided into inner and external reality, and they have not the visualization capability of synesthetes. Does the symbiotic connection between the child and the mother bear the nature of synesthesia too? Although a theory exists that all human neonates before the age of about four months have synesthesia (Baron-Cohen, 1996, following D. Maurer, 1993), we have no clear answer, if any answer at all, to that question because the symbiotic nature of such connection is beyond our linguistic competence, which requires a sort of symbolization. Although S.’s capability of symbolization was quite limited, while concrete sensation replaced much of it in his mind, he used a sensual language that was sufficient to communicate what he had to say. He could make use of symbols, even quite abstract ones, provided that he could make them sensual or visual in his mind. Luria believed that for S. figurative thinking was a particular hindrance whenever he attempted reading poetry (Luria, 1969, p. 120). S. did not grasp the figurative meanings of poetic words. All he got was the literal sense of images (ibid.). Each word he read “produced images that distracted him and blocked the meaning of a sentence” (ibid., pp. 128–129). He could not grasp complex relationships, formulations of rules, or explanations of causal connections (ibid.). As I see it, the replacement of symbols by sensual images enabled him to recall memories of his early childhood, saving them from infantile amnesia. For him, childhood remained
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tangible all his life. Something of his mind remained forever childish. Throughout his life, he did not depart from his childhood. Although S.’s language, like any other language, was not private, he used it quite idiosyncratically. While reading about S.’s zhuk, “an expression he had used in childhood. . . . , which when he first used it meant ‘beetle’ but which later took on such a broad range of meaning” (ibid., p. 83), I cannot help but recall Wittgenstein’s “beetle” (1968, sec. 293, p. 100; see Section 5.15 below). For S., this word denoted many things, all of which were associated synesthetically. This condensation of several, quite different, meanings into one word reminds me of the phenomenon of condensation in our dreams, a phenomenon to which Freud devoted much attention. What Freud shows us is that the language of dreams, the language of which is partly repressed into our unconsciousness, is not private at all and, thus, is decipherable. S.’s language bears some traits of the language of dreams, of hallucinations and delusions, a language in which no clear-cut borderline divides reality into inner and external realms. Note that a multiple personality may also “gradually crystallize from many sources. . . . This is the process of superimposition and fusion described by Fairbairn . . ., which so much resembles Freud’s explanation of condensation in dreams” (Berman, 1981, p. 296). All of S.’s recollections were extremely vivid. Owing to his synesthetic images, S. could remember the relevant details so well and vividly. Hallucinations or delusions were quite common in his psychical life. When, as a boy, he wished to stay in bed instead of getting up early for school and, having looked at his clock, he “saw,” in his wishful hallucination, that the time was much earlier than it really was (Luria, 1969, p. 144). Undoubtedly, his synesthetic experiences carried the nature of hallucination or delusion in them. To hear a sound but to experience it also as a color, although no actual color is there, is partly a hallucination (I say “partly,” because at least the sound is actually there to be heard). In the case of S., memory and imagination, or producing images, were intimately intertwined. In such a case, the Humean distinction between idea (image) and impression is impossible (sometimes this took place at S.’s will but in most cases it was involuntary). As Luria characterizes it, in S.’s case the borderline between imagination and actual reality “had broken down, for the images his imagination conjured up took on the feel of reality” (Luria, 1969, p. 144). Rendering every thought into images, S. had extreme difficulties in handling abstract thinking. He visualized abstract concepts as concrete things surrounded by haze or fog (“It’s the fog that has to do with the abstractness of the word” S. said of his figurative way of thinking [ibid., p. 134]). As for S.’s multiple personality, consider the following analysis by Luria:
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NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS This kind of split between the “I” who issues orders and the “he” who carries them out (whom the “I” in S. visualized) persisted throughout his life. “He” would go off when it was necessary; “he” would recall things; the “I” would merely instruct, direct, control. If we had not been aware of the psychological mechanisms behind those vivid graphic “visions” of S.’s which we have examined in such detail here, we might easily have been led to take him for one of those “split personalities” psychiatrists deal with, and with whom S.’s particular kind of “cutting himself off” had so little in common. His ability to “see” himself in this way, to “cut himself off,” to convert his experiences and activity into an image of another person who carried out his instructions—all this was of enormous help to him in regulating his own behavior. (ibid., p. 154)
Even if S. was not a psychopathological multiple, afflicted by multiple personality disorder (MPD), we cannot ignore the possibility, which I discussed in another book (Gilead, 2003, pp. 77–95), of a multiple personality that can serve as a source of creativity, especially artistic. S. was not an artist, and “poetry was probably the most difficult thing for him to read” (Luria, 1969, p. 120), but he creatively used his synesthetic capability for his impressive achievements as a mnemonist as well as for a contrived defense mechanism of cutting himself off from embarrassing situations. A person has to have a multiple personality to be in the following situation. Employing his “magical” thinking (“If I want something to happen, I simply picture it in my mind. I do not have to exert any effort to accomplish it—it just happens” [ibid., p. 139]), S. could avoid painful situations, actually eliminate pains, just by imagining himself that it was not really him but someone else instead sitting in the patient’s chair and undergoing painful dental treatment. As his testimony goes, “I, S., would merely stand by and observe ‘him’ getting his teeth drilled. Let him feel the pain. . . . It doesn’t hurt me. . . . but ‘him.’ I just do not feel any pain” (ibid., p. 141). If the images that his imagination conjured up took on the feeling of actual reality (following ibid., p. 144), then he experienced, in this as well as in many other cases, the psychical reality of a multiple person. S.’s vivid imagination “broke down the boundary between the real and the imaginary” (ibid.). As he himself testified, “to me there’s no great difference between the things I imagine and what exists in reality” (ibid., p. 146). Some of his behavior as well as some of his reports delineate a psychical reality in which no difference exists between things imagined and actual reality. Luria does not ascribe to S. a creative imagination, such as great inventors have, but a kind of imagination that is “nourished by desire and becomes a substitute for action by making action seem pointless” (ibid., p.
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153). What Luria describes at this point inevitably leads us to a description of a case of multiple personality, even if not a case of multiple personality disorder or psychopathology (about this disorder consult Gilead, 2003, pp. 81–86). S.’s unstable grasp of reality, the realistic overtones of his fantasies, which “had a far more profound effect on his personality development” (ibid., p. 157), must be of the nature of multiple personality. His life was by no means simple and clear, and he always waited for salvation. He perceived his actual life, including his fine wife and a son “who was a success,” “as though through a haze” (ibid., p. 159). And Luria ends his moving description thus: “[O]ne would be hard put to say which was more real for him: the world of imagination in which he lived, or the world of reality in which he was but a temporary guest” (ibid.). Just before that Luria reminds the reader of S.’s Jewish identity by mentioning his knowledge of Hebrew and Aramaic. To think of S. as a wandering Jew, a temporary guest in the world of actual reality, is quite interesting. S. was not a creative artist. The life-story of a great writer, Vladimir Nabokov, is the different story of another synesthete, whose earliest childhood memory fares as far as the age of four (Nabokov, 1989, p. 21). Nabokov’s identification with his mother relies heavily upon their sharing of synesthetic experiences (ibid., p. 35). He especially mentions his fine “colored hearing,” saying that “the color sensation seems to be produced by the very act of my orally forming a given letter while I imagine its outlines” (ibid., p. 34). This reminds me of S.’s testimonies about his synesthesia. The ability to visualize things so vividly that they become entirely actual for Nabokov is most beautifully depicted in his memories (ibid., pp. 37–39). In this artistic depiction, inner-psychical reality and the external-actual one are entirely diffused, as if no border divides them at all. This especially relates to his subjection to hallucinations: “As far back as I remember myself . . . , I have been subject to mild hallucinations. Some are aural, others are optical, and by none have I profited much” (ibid., p. 33). Such hallucinations, mild or severe, are quite typical of multiples. At least on one occasion, Nabokov reports of recurrent experiences bearing the nature of multiple personality (without defining it as such): Just before falling asleep, I often become aware of a kind of one-sided conversation going on in an adjacent section of my mind, quite independently from the actual trend of my thoughts. It is a neutral, detached, anonymous voice, which I catch saying words of no importance to me whatever . . ., not even addressed to me, and so trivial that I hardly dare give samples, . . . This silly phenomenon seems to be the auditory counterpart of certain praedormitary visions, which I also know well. . . . They come and go, without the drowsy observer’s participation, but are
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In sum, an obvious synesthesia, a subjection to mild hallucinations, and indications of multiple personality’s experiences (in this case artistically or creatively insignificant) play a meaningful role in Nabokov’s psychical life. The same holds for S. in spite of all the major differences between his case and Nabokov’s. Neither case is necessarily pathological; I do not consider these cases as multiple personality disorder (MPD). First, because both S. and Nabokov experienced themselves as cohesive, integrative persons (owing to their synesthesia and unique remembrance exempted from infantile amnesia, as I will shortly explain). Second, no mutual amnesia of the personalities involved occurred in either case (of MPD’s mutual amnesia see, for instance, Berman, 1981, p. 297). How can synesthesia and multiple personality converge? Synesthesia is a bizarre way of attaching, integrating, blending, or diffusing different senses. It leads also to blur the distinction between inner-psychical and external-actual reality. The phenomenon of multiple personality relies heavily upon such blurring or blending. The splitting of the conscious personality desperately needs an integrating anchor, which the multiple can have at least unconsciously. Unconsciously, no split exists in a person’s mind, for all there “belongs” to the same inner reality, ontically accessible only to the person consisting of this reality, singularly “belonging” to that person alone. What the multiple consciously lacks may have a conscious substitute: Blending the senses, which synesthesia provides, and blending the differences between psychical and external reality. This double infusion serves as a conscious integrating anchor for the multiples who cannot consciously belong to themselves, but feel instead belonging to such a reality in which they cannot really distinguish between the purely possible and the actual. In this way, the splitting in the multiple personality is rendered as though insignificant. All the self’s divisions finally converge into one whole that in turn converges into reality as a whole. In this way, the multiple accomplishes an old infantile dream—to be reunified with the mother who is fantasized as reality as a whole in which no division exists. If babies cannot distinguish between inner and external reality, between themselves and their mothers, we can reasonably assume that, at this early developmental stage, synesthesia, especially its hallucinating dimension, is part and parcel of the infantile experience. To become mature, we need to leave behind that synesthetic stage, otherwise no real distinction between inner and external reality, between the purely possible and the actual, can be achieved. Infantile amnesia and weaning from the synesthetic stage thus go hand-in-hand. On the other hand, infantile recollection during a person’s
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adulthood may go hand-in-hand with synesthesia, as the cases of S. and Nabokov show. If such is the case, synesthesia makes saving early childhood reminiscences or recollection possible. D. W. Winnicott demands of the analyst to let the analysands, at an early stage of the analysis, create the analyst in their imagination, like babies creating the images of their mothers (Winnicott, 1971, pp. 86–94). This insightful discovery about the grand infantile illusion of omnipotence, according to which babies believe themselves to create their mothers as if illusions or hallucinations can be rendered into an actual reality, may help me to substantiate my conclusions stated above. Such an infantile illusion of omnipotence does not acknowledge any border between the baby and the mother, between inner-psychical and external-actual reality. But what babies believe themselves to achieve—to create the entire reality solely out of their imagination—S. and Nabokov partly achieved by means of their synesthetic capability. S.’s imagination rendered his wishes as if actualities, at least as actual sensations, as his images became sensations. Nabokov’s fantasies became no less actual, as if they were not just pure possibilities. When Nabokov’s mother brought him the magically huge pencil, it was his fantasy becoming true. Some pure possibilities in Nabokov’s mind were thus rendered truly actual. This magical way of thinking solely relied upon his synesthetic capability owing to which his memory, however early, still speaks to us. 5. Memory, Remembering, and Temporality As purely psychical, as consisting of pure psychical possibility, memory is atemporal whereas remembering, as the actualization of memory, is necessarily temporal. The act of remembering, to be distinguished from memory, is an act of the brain and, as such, is an actuality, necessarily subject to spatiotemporal conditions. In contrast, memory, as purely psychical, is necessarily exempt from any of these conditions. As I see it, this panenmentalist distinction holds for Freud’s concept of mind, although he explicitly mentions the atemporality or timelessness of the unconscious alone. Yet external, public reality provides our consciousness with the sense of time (for references to Freud’s texts consult Gilead, 1999, p. 56). The awareness of time is introduced to the ego by the perception of actual reality, which is the external world. Temporality stems from acquaintance with actual reality, not from inner, psychical reality. Hence, I argue, free associations are not temporal or causal. By nature, associations are subject to atemporality, even when temporal proximity plays an associative role. Free associations tend to blur all temporal distinctions and to fuse them into a temporally seamless mixture. Such is the nature of imagination, fantasies, dreams, and anything psychical. Memory, too, is based on the possibility of atemporality. Things
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actual, inseparable from temporality, are different from things remembered, which are experienced not as events in the past. While remembering, the distinction between inner, psychical reality and external-actual reality brings back the temporal distinction. Yet memory, as purely psychical, is not temporal at all. Mine is a panenmentalist interpretation of Freud’s text, which certainly allows other interpretations of it. Jan Campbell (2006) and Marcia Cavell (2000), for example, treat this text quite differently. Cavell ascribes to Freud the view that “temporality is constitutive of the mind” (ibid., p. 85), which I must oppose on the grounds indicated above. Claiming that remembering as an act “is not only about time; it takes place in time” (ibid.), she is quite right, yet I would like to clarify again that remembering is in time due to actualization only, not owing to the psychical possibility of memory. Memory is about time, but it does not take any time, since it does not exist in time at all. Yet, under psychical trauma, patients confuse the past and the present and tend to repeat past traumas (ibid., p. 89). Could we infer from this that pathological, traumatized memory confuses the past and the present, while normal memory must be kept within the correct temporal order and obey its conditions? Not at all, for to confuse temporal order is quite different from atemporality. Atemporality does not entail any temporal confusion. Instead, it is an exemption from any temporal condition. Our memory clearly distinguishes between different episodes in time, as long as it is aware of the actual order of things. As a psychical possibility, memory relates one remembrance to the other in an atemporal way. This psychical order consists of meanings and significance, of pure possibilities and their relationality, and not of actual episodes. The meanings and significance of these episodes construct their memory in its psychical order. This order itself, even when considering and relating to temporal distinctions, is atemporal in nature. The psychical meanings and significance of temporal or historical order should not be confused with the psychical order in itself. In contrast, mnemonists, such as S. (Section 5.4 above), remember many insignificant, meaningless, or senseless things, which is not typical of the ordinary memory as a psychical possibility. Such appears to be the case with mnemonists, but do not let what meets the eye mislead you. As in the case of S., the unusually vast memory of mnemonists bears hidden significance or meanings. For instance, unlike the ordinary memory, their memory may function as an integrative device to strengthen the frail integration of the mind due to multiple personality or other kinds of psychical dissociation. In such cases, the memory of mnemonists bears a psychical significance and meanings. At this point too, we should not confuse memory with remembering. Many instances of mnemonists’ memory are of remembering, which is the actualization of memory, not memory as a pure, psychical possibility. As actuality, as remembering,
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memory is subject, like any other actuality, to contingency, which, as such, does not necessarily bear meanings or significance. In this respect, mnemonists’ memory, like synesthesia, is a nervous phenomenon, not a psychical one. Synesthesia can be investigated not only as a psychical phenomenon but also as a physical, nervous one. Psychical traumas have much to do with the confusion of psychical reality with the actual one. Traumatized memory confuses the past and the present. For this memory, all the relevant remembrances belong to the present, not to the past. Thus, even traumatized memory challenges in its way actual temporal distinctions, whereas normal memory proceeds similarly but in a different way— by following not the actual temporal order in itself but the order of its psychical meanings-determinations and significance instead. Memory substitutes temporal order with psychical determinism, which consists of pure possibilities, meanings, and significance (Gilead, 2003, pp. 136–152). That is what we mind about our remembrances, not their temporality as such, which has to do with actualities— events, actions, and facts. The panenmentalist concept of the atemporal mind has another difficulty to face. Neuroses and other psychopathologies are thought to put obstacles in the way of the normal psychical development. Marcia Cavell rightly puts it: “Neurotic strategies tend to preserve the conflicts of the past much as they were, and so keep that part of oneself which is an anxious child from developing” (ibid., p. 93). The psychical past, the childhood’s self, thus becomes congealed in the mind of the patient, who is acting out this past or self (ibid.). Yet, even in light of Cavell’s interpretation, the psychical “past,” as confused with the psychical “present,” is better understood as pertaining to “a kind of multiplicity within what we call ‘the self’”(ibid.). This is sufficient to exchange temporal distinctions for the atemporal personality’s distinctions or multiplicity. After all, in an entirely non-pathological sense we may retain the child in us. We may thus maintain that part of our personality that refreshes and invigorates us, urging us to cherish curiosity, to imagine and fantasize, to keep playing, discovering, trying again, falling in love, keeping the sense of wonder and innovation alive, and to hope despite everything. As such, this inner child within any sound person is not something or somebody of the past, but an integrative side or part of such a person’s psyche. Psychotherapy and self-knowledge as well are integrative in nature (and I believe that Marcia Cavell accepts this willingly), and such an integration overcomes temporal distances and disintegrative differences. The personality as an integrated whole is our aim in psychotherapy and selfknowledge. Such integration is the opposite of the temporal confusion involved in psychopathology. Yet psychical integration is exempt from temporality. This integration leaves the temporal distinctions to actual, external reality alone, clearly distinguished from the inner, psychical one.
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Two more comments about the inner child. First, as an inner child within us, our psychical childhood does not belong to our past but is an integrative part of our personality, though clearly distinct from other parts of it. Only as actual, does our childhood belong to the past. In any case, to mistake the inner, psychical child in us for actual childhood or an actual child is grounds for psychopathology based on illusion (namely, on mistaking the psychical-possible for the actual-physical, the atemporal for the temporal). Age is an actual matter, not a psychical one. From a panenmentalist viewpoint, psychical age is merely an illusion, mistaking pure possibility for actuality. On many occasions, you may rightly address in the present the child within an adult, without ignoring the age of the adult person as an actual human being. Second, the inner child serves panenmentalism as a truthful fiction, capturing or discovering a profound truth and necessity about the atemporality of our psychical life. Ignoring this necessity inevitably leads to self-ignorance and impedes self-knowledge. Still, how can psychodynamics do without temporality? How can psychical developments do without it? Actualization aside, what is dynamical and developmental about the psyche is but the awareness of psychical relationality. For what we have to ask ourselves is as follows: Have we succeeded in integratively relating our psychical possibilities or not? As actualities, possibilities have a temporal sense, whereas as purely psychical possibilities, they have no such sense. Psychodynamics and psychical development are matters of psychical integration and integrative complexity, entailing more and more open possibilities for the person involved, not matters of temporality and actuality, which are what the physical must have. As for the psychical “change,” which is the aim of psychotherapy, it is, too, not temporal, unless as an actuality or physical event. As psychical, this “change” is really a transformation of psychical pure possibilities. Mentioning affect, determination, and transformation of pure possibilities, I meticulously distinguish between change, which requires at least temporality and causality, and the determination of pure possibilities, which is entirely exempt from temporality and causality. Think of purely logical transformation or determination, which, too, is exempt from temporality and causality. A chain of reasoning constructs a logical transformation but it actually changes nothing. It can neither proceed in time nor construct a causal chain. Only its actualization, as a process in our brain, takes time and requires causation. Logical or mathematical transformation consists of a determination of pure possibilities, not of actualities. Equally, as distinct from change, purely psychical transformation or determination consists of psychical pure possibilities, by no means of any actuality. Rigorously speaking, our change of mind is a change in the actualization of our mind. It is the actualization of some psychical determination or transformation. This actualization is a
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physical (neural or cerebral) event. Change, events, and causes pertain only to the physical-actual, not to the purely possible-psychical. Psychical transformation, which is the aim of psychotherapy, consists of the opening of possibilities for the psyche; it is the capability to open and reopen its personal realm of possibilities, some of which were buried, repressed in the unconscious and thus were lost for consciousness or dissociated from it. In any case, all these possibilities are accessible only to the person who has to discover them. To bring unconscious materials to the conscious does not change the psyche except in revealing its possible integration and in opening it to the conscious. The transformation under discussion is a stage-part in a mature psychical integration, which, as a whole and in each of its parts, must be considered atemporal. The repressed is not brought back to the past, and it does not remain with the present either; instead, it is explicated as an integrative part of the psyche as a whole in which past, present, and future are integratively mingled, not confused. The integration involved does not blur the distinctions (including temporal distinctions though not as actual but as pure psychical possibilities). Only the actualization of the possibility of change is, necessarily, temporal. The actualization is merely physical and can be judged from the overt behavior of the person or the analysand involved. Discussing “the static mind” (Section 5.10 below), I will elaborate on similar issues. Marcia Cavell insists on the temporal sense of psychical integration thus: The process Freud calls working through is not just a matter of integrating one’s discrepant beliefs. It has a temporal meaning. It involves linking psychic past and psychic present so that one transcends the psychic past, informing it with what one has learned in the meantime. It is what makes remembering possible and defeats repeating. (ibid., p. 94) Still, as I see it, no psychical integration is temporal in nature. Transcending the past means overcoming temporality, since transcending so does not mean to transform the past into the present, which is nothing but mistaking the past for the present. Transcending the past by way of psychical integration endows what was just temporal with a psychical meaning. By this token, temporal meaning, like any other meaning, is a pure possibility, not an actuality. The temporality in question has turned out to be psychical meaningfulness, integrated in a psychical, personal determinism. Under panenmentalism, remembering and “actively maintaining relationships” (ibid.) have to do with actualization, whereas “a new level of organization” must not bear any temporality at all, for it holds for organization of purely psychical possibilities, of atemporal possibilities. As I will argue in Section 5.19, time is homogeneous, whereas singularity relies upon entire difference or otherness. Time and singularity are thus incompatible, whereas singularity and the psychical are inseparable. Time or
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temporality is a common condition or feature of all actualities. Actualities can be similar whereas as singular, no psychical reality can be similar to the other, let alone to other kinds of reality or being. For this reason, too, temporality and the psychical are incompatible. When Cavell mentions a “relation to a present activity and a present love object” (ibid.), as I see it, she must refer to psychical relationality, which instead of temporal relations, such as temporal confusion, seeks psychical integration. The same holds for the following beautifully phrased question: “How can one use the past in such a way that it helps one to notice, rather than obscure, what is peculiar about this object in the present?” (ibid.). Using “the past” that way means to integrate it into the “present” atemporally, and thus also meaningfully. Perhaps paradoxically, to leave things of significance and meaningfulness to the actual past and thus to “forget” them, is what repression or dissociation is all about, and repression means to render the consciously significant or meaningful into something insignificant, meaningless, and alien. To leave our meaningful or significant past behind means to deny its meaningfulness and significance and to attempt to exclude it from our mind. To relive or to refine the psychical meaningfulness of the past means to exempt it from temporality and actualization and to bring it back to where it really belongs—to the psyche, which is an atemporal reality. The same holds for Cavell’s following idea: “It is mourning that acknowledges what it is one has lost and that one has lost it, and that it is possible for old desires to be shaped by the present” (ibid.). Again, what the analysands discover is the meanings of this loss for them, and since they still mind, namely, take heed of, these meanings, they are capable of actualizing their possibilities in the present. The meanings under discussion are atemporal, which is what bridges past and present actualities for that person as a psychical being. A person may accept a loss, but this does not entail denying its atemporal meaning or significance for that person. The actual process of mourning takes time, but the meaning of the loss does not take any time. The psychical meaning is in the psyche, existing in it atemporally; only the actual revelation or discovery of it takes time. Citing H. Loewald about the genetic approach to mental life, the history of mental development, and “the importance of time as being somehow the inner fiber of what we call the psychical,” Cavell categorically states, “Freud’s real insight about the temporal character of mental life is untouched” (ibid., p. 95). This, too, is untenable to the extent that the panenmentalist interpretation is concerned. Unlike actual actions and events, the psyche has no history. Any history, like any story, has a beginning, a middle, and an end, all bearing temporal significance. In contrast, nothing about the psyche has a beginning, a middle, and an end, unless in an actual sense. Beginnings, middles, and ends are temporal properties of the body, of an actuality alone. Contrary to the psychological hermeneuts, the psyche is not a text or a story. Psychical
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relationality is quite different from temporal relationality. Time marks the boundary of the psyche, the crossing of which leads directly to the physicalactual. History consists of actualities in temporal order, not of pure possibilities. The psyche consists of pure possibilities singularly relating one to the other in a way absolutely exempt from temporality. Memory is a personal, psychical possibility referring to or designating psychical possibilities or meanings, whereas remembering refers to or denotes actualities. Psychical memory and historical remembering are quite different from each other. Stating that “remembering is an activity that links past and present; it is the activity through which all the pieces acquire their significance” (ibid.), Cavell does not distinguish between the two. We should bear in mind that psychical significance is a matter of atemporal integration, whereas historical significance has to do with indispensable temporal relations. What makes psychical life meaningful, significant, and intelligible to us is an atemporal integration, cognitive, conative, and emotive. In contrast, historical orientation and intelligibility rely heavily upon temporality. To temporalize the psychical is to commit it to contingency for temporalization means to render something actual-physical, which is inescapably contingent. To commit the psychical to temporality is to dispense with the meaningfulness, significance, and necessity that psychical determinism is all about. Freud’s explicit commitment to psychical determinism (Gilead, 1999, pp. 54–65) thus implies psychical atemporality. Also according to Freud but contrary to Marcia Cavell and others, the psychical must by nature be atemporal. Cavell insists that “Freud calls the refusal or the inability to keep time, neurosis” (ibid., p. 96). In what sense could Freud call it neurosis or psychopathology? The refusal under discussion is, again, mistaking the possible-psychical, the inner, for the actual-physical, the external. It is the refusal, which is an illusion about omnipotence, to recognize the boundaries or borders distinguishing the inner-psychical from the external-actual. To deny or ignore these borders is an illusion, not only cognitive but mainly psychopathological, leading to selfignorance, distancing us from self-knowledge. A sound person has to acknowledge the limitations and borders of her or his psychical reality to achieve self-knowledge as well as psychical health and integration. To keep time is to keep the sense of actuality, without which sanity is jeopardized. In panenmentalism, time has not to do with the psychical, with inner reality. Time takes part in our sense of actuality, guiding us in the actual reality, which is publicly accessible. To ascribe temporality to the psyche as such necessarily leads to ascribe public accessibility to it, which means to abolish singularity and to abolish the psychical itself. To ascribe time or temporality to the mind is no less a mistake than to ignore time and actuality for in such cases we mistake the actual for the purely possible or the other way round. To lose either the sense of
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actuality or that of psychical, inner reality, as atemporal, inevitably leads to neurosis or other psychopathologies. Instead of recalling, neurotics act out. Instead of being conscious of their memories, as psychical possibilities, neurotics actualize them without recognizing or being aware of their possibilities-identities. Neurotics thus lose both their sense of actuality and that of psychical reality. Mistaking consciousness and awareness for acting-out means temporalization or externalization of psychical possibilities. In this way, the child within the neurotic is mistaken for an actual child, for a child existing in the present. As you can easily realize, as a panenmentalist, I have to treat this issue quite differently from Marcia Cavell and others. 6. Socrates, Vincent van Gogh, and the Presence of the Dead Visiting an exhibition at Fondation Van Gogh in Arles, Provence on 8 October 2000, a work by Gerard Fromanger, Van Gogh, Airport 2, 1987, in the series “Cythera New Town,” caught my eye. Each of the artists taking part in the exhibition conveyed some words describing his or her debt to Van Gogh’s art. Gerard Fromanger’s were the following: Why Van Gogh? Because he’s every painter’s best friend: Vincent helps me to portray the beauty of the tragedy of this world; when I am alone, I am my sole admirer, Van Gogh is always present; when I lose my way, Vincent is there to guide me. At that moment nothing could touch me more than these words. They moved me profoundly. Solitude or being alone must not lead to loneliness. On the contrary, to be alone is a necessary condition to think in a novel way, to create, and to compose on the basis of the integration of the creative mind. To be lonely is not only to be detached from others, but also from something of personal importance, something personally meaningful and valued within ourselves. Artists and other creators, original philosophers, for instance, need solitude to create and recognition or reception in order not to be lonely. Such creators always need some companionship, either internal or external, in order not to feel lonely, even dead. Van Gogh’s loneliness led him to an unbearable tragedy. Tragedy rests on the distance between the actual and the purely possible, between the is and the ought or the should. Yet tragedy may serve as a source of artistic creativity or discovery. Because of the distance between the actual and the purely possible, the artist or creator feels the need to do something creative about it. Many pieces of art have been brought to actualization due to the distance between the ugliness of the actual world and its possible beauty portrayed or discovered by art. It has been discovered
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through the artistic pure possibilities, serving as lenses to see about actual reality that otherwise could not be seen as beautiful. An inner, personal Van Gogh, actually dead but quite alive as a pure possibility, helps Gerard Fromanger to “portray the beauty of the tragedy of this world.” He accompanies Fromanger from within, keeping his company, not letting him feel lonely. This inner Van Gogh, this pure possibility, shows him the way, whenever Fromanger loses it. At the birth of a new idea or new work, when the thinker, the artist, or the creator is admiring herself or himself, an inner Van Gogh, Socrates, or other great mentor-guide always exists to serve as a witness to our achievements. Many, if not all, of these mentorguides, are actually dead. Yet they are quite alive within the inner reality of the artist or philosopher. As James Joyce portrayed the dead in his eminent story “The Dead,” our dear dead are living within our souls, keeping our company, showing us the truth about ourselves, guiding us, or staying with us. The reality, yet non-actuality, of the dead is analogous to that of truthful fictions and their contribution to our most intimate, meaningful experience: “For us, the readers, Joyce’s art of writing renders these fictional characters unique and real. They may affect, deepen, and enrich our experience . . . no less than actual persons may do” (Gilead, 1999, p. 30). Each genuine philosopher has her or his inner Socrates with whom to converse, to create a new dialogue, to think of a possible refutation or of counterexamples, to make a profound investigation, to examine life and ideas more deeply. Each of us philosophers needs an inner, private Socrates to put new ideas to test, to subject them to profound elenchus. The presence of the dead, as purely psychical possibilities within us, is a further solid indication of the atemporality of our memories as well as of our psychical life as a whole. 7. Dialogue and Possibilities Plato’s philosophical dialogues posed crucial problems for many philosophical scholars. Plato did not write papers or books. He preferred to write dialogues, all of which maintain their open nature. Even those of them that are not aporetic but end with some answers or solutions, even those Platonic dialogues, as philosophical dialogues, are always open to the response, comments, criticism, elaboration, and the like of the readers, whatsoever their times and places may be. This openness lies at the heart of the Platonic sublime achievement, and it emphasizes the open nature of genuine philosophical questions or problems. As philosophical or metaphysical, these problems must be unsolvable in a way, or, in other words, they are doomed to some aporetic fate. Following Diotima’s speech in Plato’s Symposium, all the answers and “solutions” to these questions may be found unsatisfactory in the
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long run (Gilead, 1988). We have always to begin again. This great philosophical idea appears in Jewish scholarly tradition in a most interesting way. The Hebrew word (hadran), literally “our glory,” appears at the end of Talmudic tractates, means “once more!” or “repeat!”, namely “you should start now to learn from the very beginning of the tractate.” Like Jewish learning, Platonic philosophy is an endless assignment. No end exists to Platonic philosophy. As philosophers of any kind, analytic or otherwise, being engaged in the ongoing history of philosophy, we must always start again and again, never rest on the glory of our philosophical achievements, answers, or “solutions.” We should always be restless about them, doubt them, asking again, looking for some other possibilities, and, first and foremost, open up more and more philosophical possibilities for us. “For us” is a key phrase, which means that, while discussing philosophy or philosophizing, we should never close or confine the philosophical possibilities within the limited scope of the philosophical present or past. We should not turn philosophical possibilities into actualities. Nor should we confine these possibilities to any actuality. These grand possibilities are not facts, let alone historical facts. History should not be considered a total discipline. Many things exist, especially those that pertain to creativity, which are not subject to historical inevitability or to historical conditioning in general. For us, philosophical matters are pure possibilities, real objects or subjects for our thinking, analysis, criticism, imagination, and any philosophical activity. If I am right about this matter, pure possibilities, instead of actualities or facts, are the stuff of which philosophy is made. These pure possibilities should be kept open, otherwise they cannot be used as philosophical. Dialogue is the soul of philosophy, without which philosophy becomes dead or useless. Dialogues necessarily take into consideration the open possibilities to which other, possible (not necessarily actual) interlocutors may refer or relate. Pure possibilities are not confined to actual matters, circumstances, place, time, causal connections, contingencies, and the like. Philosophical dialogues should not be confined so. Although the Platonic dialogues are portrayed as taking place at particular places and times, centering round specific interlocutors existing within their particular histories or circumstances, the dialogues, as consisting of pure possibilities, are timeless and by no means local, contingent, or circumstantial. Their nature is a-historical. They mean something for all times, they are possibly even eternal or perennial, as are genuine philosophical problems. These dialogues stimulate us to start philosophizing again and again. They urge us always to wake up our philosophy, to relive it again and again. Philosophy, due to the pure, open possibilities upon which it rests, should be liberated from historical confinement and from history in general. What philosophy has achieved is not
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merely history, namely something that “belongs” only to the past; it is instead a live philosophical continuity, weaving a dialogue between the past, present, and the open future of philosophy and philosophizing. It also opens and reopens the past philosophical possibilities for us and never keeps them closed. Philosophical grand achievements are possible due to pure possibilities that should be kept timelessly and universally open for all philosophers. 8. How Could Descartes Conceive a Non-Euclidean Triangle? Descartes would say that only a malignant spirit or a malicious God could repudiate his conviction that the sum of the triangle’s angles must be exactly 180 degrees, no less and no more. On no other grounds would he doubt this clear and distinct, that is, evident, idea of a triangle. Suppose that we could refer him to a possible triangle whose sum of the angles is less or more than 180 degrees, and suppose that we would argue that he must have a clear and distinct idea of such a possibility. We would say to him: “Draw a triangle on the convex or concave side of a ball; you will find out that the sum of its angles is either more or less than 180 degrees.” To draw so and to realize that, to realize even the necessity of that result, is elementary and quite easy. Descartes, as a revolutionary philosopher and the discoverer of analytic geometry, could be aware of such a clear and distinct idea if there were no obstacle in the way that his thought would have taken. Such an obstacle has to do with excluding or “eliminating” some pure possibilities. Analytic geometry saved and opened many mathematical possibilities for mathematicians and philosophers, whereas the visualization that Euclidean geometry demanded actually limited the horizons of mathematical possibilities. Analytic geometry expanded the geometrical possibilities by means of the algebraic ones. Before the advent of algebra (by medieval Arabic mathematicians), geometry and geometrical possibilities were the grounds for mathematics as a whole. Thus, the advent of algebra has opened many more mathematical possibilities for our knowledge and imagination. Descartes’s advent of analytic geometry achieved no less than that. But his mathematical imagination did not take him much further. He did not dream of non-Euclidean geometries or of any non-Euclidean mathematical possibilities, such as non-Euclidean triangles. To doubt the known or received mathematical possibilities, he required the assumption that mathematics should not be confined to the limited boundaries of the human mind; what appeared to be beyond any doubt from the human viewpoint should not be immune from any doubt from quite another viewpoint, one not confined by human bounds. Such must be God’s mind or any other mind that is more capable than any human mind and not confined to human limitations.
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Descartes did not envisage the idea that within human limitations there was room enough for mathematical possibilities that were quite different from the Euclidean ones. Within such limitations he did not find any room for the possibilities of non-Euclidean triangles. I can quite easily imagine a situation in which Descartes could think about such a possibility and yet consider it impossible or inadmissible. No impediment would stop him from drawing any triangle, but he would refuse to draw it on the convex or concave side of a ball. Nothing was wrong with the triangle itself; the blame was on the plane or space. In his eyes, it was impossible for a plane or space to be convex or concave; only the lines, figures, or bodies on a rigidly straight plane or in a rigid space were admissible. Thus, implicitly or explicitly, Descartes excluded a possible curved plane or any possible plane that was not straight. For this reason he did not even imagine a possibility of a non-Euclidean triangle. What would stop him from considering any possibility of a non-Euclidean triangle is merely the excluding of some mathematical possibilities that since the 19th century have proven to be most fruitful. For Descartes, unlike Spinoza, extension must be inert. There was nothing energetic or dynamic about the Cartesian extension or space. For Descartes, the idea of an electromagnetic field, as an extended entity, would be quite impossible. Not so for Spinoza, who would not reject such a possibility at all; he would gladly adopt it as an excellent idea. Such a field illustrates quite adequately Spinoza’s conception of extension. Thus, Spinoza’s philosophy saves or opens up such a possibility whereas that of Descartes excludes it. Yet Spinoza, the actualist, stated that it must be a veridical truth that the sum of any triangle’s angles must be 180 degrees. For him, this was the paradigm-case for the veridicality of truth that is beyond any doubt. Actually, he did not make the step that his theory of extension made possible for him. He had in mind only one possible geometrythe Euclidean one. Yet, according to his philosophy and contrary to that of Descartes, numbers and geometrical figures are merely entia rationis, even entia imaginationis, by no means entia realia (Gilead, 1985b). For him, they were merely fictitious means to represent entities in some order and under some classification, like meridians on the map. They were not the building blocks of the real world. On the other hand, for Spinoza the Euclidean geometry was a logical paradigm. More geometrico demonstrata should be nowadays interpreted as “formally logical valid.” For Spinoza to state that no triangle can have as the sum of its angles more or less than 180 degrees means to shun a logical contradiction or absurdity. What he excluded was the possibility of a logical validity that is involved in contradiction. How could Descartes conceive a possible non-Euclidean triangle? Had he not implicitly excluded the possibility of a non-Euclidean plane or space, had he not assumed that extension was not inert, he could accept the possibilities of nonEuclidean triangles. Implicitly or unconsciously, we exclude different
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possibilities. Mostly, we tend to exclude any possibility that is not actual. Such is the actualist prejudice to which we are naturally prone. Were Descartes skeptical radically enough, he would not exclude many possibilities, including those of non-Euclidean triangles. Blind to the pure possibilities of non-Euclidean triangles, he could not recognize one even if he encountered it as a drawing on a ball. Descartes was blind to such possibilities although he theoretically distinguished between natural light and prejudice. Saving possibilities is a matter of “natural light” or insight, whereas closing them is mostly due to prejudices. Insights have first and foremost to do with pure possibilities. 9. Inspiration Inspiration has much to do with saving creative possibilities for us. Yet you may think that your pencil is cleverer than you, for the effort to write something new brings new ideas to your mind that otherwise, without the attempt to write them down, would not have been raised in your mind. Wittgenstein, to name one, writes: “I really do think with my pen, because my head often knows nothing about what my hand is writing” (Wittgenstein, 1980, p. 17e). Such a view, quite common, confines or restricts possibilities unnecessarily, especially because it rules out any inspiration (even the so-called “automatic writing” is in the service of inspiration, free from any confinement). As a matter of truth, such a view is actualist, for it restricts creative possibilities to actualization in the way of praxis, which, in turn, rules out inspiration. On many occasions in his writing, Wittgenstein is an actualist, to be more precise, a neo-behaviorist (to follow Galen Strawson, 1994, pp. 215–226, 234). What we do and can do in writing with our pens—he appears to believe—determines what we may have in mind, not the other way round. Our writing behavior determines which possibilities are open to us and which are closed. Panenmentalism conducts itself the other way round: What is in our minds, or what our minds discover and relate to in the realm of pure possibilities, determines the identity or nature of our writing. A great difference lies between Wittgenstein’s view—“Practice gives the words their sense” (1980, p. 85e)—and the panenmentalist idea that meanings have first to do with pure possibilities, on which practice and its senses, including practice with words, depend, not vice versa. Much has to do with what is manifested in a person’s life (as mentioned ibid.), in that person’s “form of life.” Wittgenstein is right in emphasizing the difference that words make “at various points in your life” (ibid.). I accept this, given that pure possibilities determine and identify forms of life or the significance of life. Finally, even if praxis may discover new possibilities for us, which is quite common, they are independent of the way we discover them. Pure possibilities are discoverable by different means, which does not diminish even slightly their independence, both ontically and epistemically. In other words, as a priori, pure
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possibilities are discoverable independent of any empirical means or praxis. To discover even one new pure possibility may lead to many others owing to its necessary relationality to them. On this basis, the holistic nature of discovering new possibilities is well secured. Artists, scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers can report, in terms of a holistic experience, on their inspiration, which, due even to the discovery of one new possibility, led them to conceive a whole range of pure possibilities. They conceived all of them, in which all the necessary details were contained. In their mind’s eye they could follow each detail, for each pure possibility leads to the others. I am sure that, quite often, some, even many of them, have not needed any device, such as Wittgenstein’s pen, to conceive the entire picture in their mind. No device and no praxis could serve them instead of their mind’s eye and of their inspired insights. To see, consider, or realize things-possibilities differently or in a novel way, they have needed much more than praxis or devices. For their novelties have been different from what praxis, current knowledge, habits, and expectations could provide. They need even more than their mind’s eye and insights. To see, realize, or consider what their mind’s eye reveals they have first needed open-mindedness and relationality to new pure possibilities-identities. And, again, even one of these possibilities is enough to provide us with a novel holistic view. No pen, even Wittgenstein’s, can do this. Even the most indispensable device, needed for a new discovery, cannot make us see or realize that to which our mind’s eye is blind. If we do not consider new pure possibilities-identities and their relationality, we have nothing new to see or realize. No device alone can discover anything. To discover, a discoverer is needed. No device can serve as such a discoverer: No telescope can discover new stars or galaxies. Human eyes and awareness, behind the telescope or its findings, must first exist to do so. With no access to pure possibilities-identities, these eyes would not recognize any new discovery. Yet you would remain unsatisfied. If the holistic nature of the relationality of any pure possibility is sufficient for inspiration, why must the discoverercreator be introduced first to particular or specific possibilities and not to just any of them? What makes the relevant relationality specific instead of universal? After all, the relationality of any pure possibility is universal, for it is different from all the other pure possibilities. My answer is that what determines the specific relationality in any case of inspired discovery-creativity is only what makes a difference for the discoverer-creator. The pen is capable of making many distinctions, but what makes a difference requires a mind for which the difference is made. Not all pure possibilities are meaningful and significant for the creator-discoverer with respect to the discovery-creativity. The relationality under question is thus of pure possibilities that makes a difference for the discoverer-creator.
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From a panenmentalist viewpoint, inspiration is not mysteriously transcendent. Inspiration has to do with psychical, inner integration, including integration with the unconscious, and this integration relies upon the relationality of psychical possibilities within one and the same psychical, inner reality. As is well known, to solve problems, to discover new possibilities, to create and so on we may invest a lot of our efforts and attempts. We calculate, we think “with” our pens, we make thought and other experiments, and the like. Yet occasionally, what we need to break through those difficulties and obstacles or to be “inspired” is a good, peaceful sleep or rest. In the morning, just in the middle of some everyday routine, the inspired solution will dawn on us. The reason for this is that our unconscious did much of the integrative and relating work for us to give birth to the solution that had been hidden within our mind. When we concentrate enough and are open-minded, relaxed, and tuned to ourselves, such an inspiration can take place. The integrative achievement reveals for us novel possibilities, hitherto hidden from our consciousness, awareness and overt activity. Inspiration thus saves possibilities for us, notwithstanding the neobehaviorist or actualist attempts to dispense with it and to leave all possibilities to our practice, activities, and tools or devices. People, also Wittgenstein, are much cleverer than their pens. 10. “The Static Mind” and Panenmentalism Against “Internal Time-Consciousness” Panenmentalism leaves changes, development, evolution, and dynamics to the physical-actual alone. For many, this would be considered too heavy a price to pay. For, they may argue, what about psychical development or growth? Does not panenmentalism unjustly ignore it? After all, no serious, solid psychology can afford such a price. Could the soul be exempt from history and growth under psychoanalysis, for instance? So they may argue against panenmentalism that such “a static mind” is psychologically groundless or an obstacle that must be immediately removed from our way in understanding and knowing the human mind. A “static” psyche thus sounds unpsychological, all the more so dispensing with terms such as “psychical events.” Instead, panenmentalism employs psychical states, possibilities, factors, determinants, and the like. According to it, no purely psychical event, process, or change exists. Any original philosophical stance has a price to pay. Considering any invention or creation as a discovery of pure possibilities, panenmentalism pays a price. Treating anything mental or psychical as pure possibility, panenmentalism pays a further price. I am quite sure that the price in question is reasonable enough; paying it willingly, panenmentalism gains something most valuable and indispensable in return: Maintaining the psychophysical unity as
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well as keeping both mind and body irreducible. To consider the mind dynamic, entails either (1) psychophysical dualism and splitting into two kinds of causality—psychical and physical—or (2) psychophysical monism, which eventually cannot escape reductionism. If the mind could evolve, change, and “move” like the body, mind and body would be either identical or separate realities. Freud, aspiring to find the physical-biological basis for his analytic metapsychology, could not avoid the dualistic impasse. Quite unwillingly, he had to adopt two kinds of causal chains—psychical and biological-physical, whose relationship or connection still remains mysterious or quite unknown. While he considered the psychical change qualitative, the physical-biological change was considered quantitative. Freud exerted some effort to consider psychical determinism as consisting of meanings and even of possibilities (Gilead, 1999, pp. 54–65), but still he employed temporal and causal terms to describe, understand, and explain human psychology. Psychological terms are entirely different from physical-biological terms concerning causality and temporality. By “causal therapy” Freud meant pharmacotherapy, a possible psychiatric successor of psychoanalysis but not as an analytic psychotherapy (ibid., pp. 49, 59). Materialist stances subsume anything psychical to spatiotemporal and causal conditions. Although considered non-reductionist (for instance, Searle, 1994), such stances must end in reductionism. If the mind is an evolutionary stage, the mind must be biological, while one and the same causal chain, in one and the same spatiotemporal reality, comprises psychical and physical causal links, events, states, and the like. Such stances are not dualistic but they are monistic, whether we consider them as reductionist or not. Panenmentalism attempts to avoid such stances at all cost, for monism of any kind treats reality and possibilities as greatly less and as much more limited and closed than they really are. Leaving changes, events, causes, and dynamics to the physical-actual alone, panenmentalism does not render psychical reality less real or inadequate. For panenmentalism keeps all psychical changes, events, dynamics, and causes intact upon the condition that all these should be considered actualities of pure psychical possibilities and their relationality. Any psychical actualization must be thus bodily-physical. In this way, the psychophysical necessary unity is strictly kept, reduction is avoided, and nothing psychical can be lost. In this way, psychophysical dualism is avoided without dispensing with anything psychical or physical. Each finds its right place within an adequate conceptual system. As actualized, as a body, no mind is static. Panenmentalism keeps intact psychical dynamism and evolvement but as actual alone, not as purely psychical-possible. The psychical thus does not lose its identity and essential
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traits, as much as it does not lose its necessary, indispensable relationship or connection, namely, unity, with the body. Panenmentalism excludes the possibility of internal, psychical time or temporality. Time or temporality has to do with external, actual reality alone; and, as such, time and temporality cannot be internal. Neither can consciousness be temporal or restricted to temporal conditions. Husserl’s phenomenology adopts the Kantian idea that the psychical, consciousness, and inner reality inevitably require time or temporality. Following Kant, Husserl subjects inner reality not only to temporality but also to natural scientific investigation, as he mentions “the time of nature in the sense of natural science including psychology as the natural science of the psychical” (Husserl, 1964, p. 23). Subjecting the psychical to natural scientific investigation must rely first on subjugating the psychical to time and causality. As panenmentalism exempts the purely psychical from time as well as from causality, it exempts it from natural scientific investigation. In contrast, the actualization of the psychical as a physical being or event is subject to spatiotemporal and causal conditions and to natural scientific investigation as well. According to panenmentalism, pure psychology deals instead with the intersubjective, interpersonal meanings and significance of the psychical, for the psychical in itself cannot be intersubjectively transparent. It must be opaque except to the person who consists of the relevant inner, psychical reality, and even this holds true only to some extent. For no person can know herself or himself totally. Each person is conscious only of a part of her or his inner reality. Numerous indications suggest that Husserl’s concept of temporality is under the direct influence of Kant. Husserl mentions repeatedly the “intuition of time” as the subjective conditions of its possibility (for instance, ibid., p. 23). Yet what is Husserl’s proof or grounds for assuming that the “objects of perception, memory, and expectation” share definite “temporal character” with all psychical objects (ibid.)? None exist, for Husserl states that “time and duration . . . are absolute data which it would be senseless to call into question” (ibid.). Senseless or not, panenmentalism calls all this into question; more precisely, panenmentalism challenges the entire idea of the temporality of the psychical as such. I challenge what Husserl entitles “the immanent time of the flow of consciousness” (ibid.). Undoubtedly, the consciousness of a tonal process, for example, is of the succession, but this does not mean that an evidence exists that “consciousness of a tonal process, a melody, exhibits a succession” (ibid.). The consciousness of actual succession must not be temporal by itself, just as the consciousness or perception of actual process, which is inescapably temporal, is not temporal by itself. At this point, I would like to remind the reader of the panenmentalist grounds for rejecting the idea that the psychical is temporal, which I
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represented in surveying some panenmentalist principles in the Introduction and Section 5.5 above. I believe that these grounds undoubtedly suffice to cut the ground from under Husserl’s assumption as to the temporal nature of consciousness. Although we are definitely conscious of changes and temporal events or successions of events, our consciousness of all these is by no means temporal. On the contrary, to perceive all these changes and succession, our consciousness must be exempt from temporality and temporal conditions. To record all these, to remember, and even to give our attention to them, we need atemporality, a frame of reference that is exempt from any temporal conditions. Thus, the grounds or the transcendental conditions of the phenomenology of time and temporality lie in atemporality. Something of this idea can be found in Kant’s refutation of idealism but in a greatly different way. Kant shows that the awareness of time and changes requires a stable space, against the background of which we can recognize changes, succession, and any temporal distinction. My idea is to replace space, which is a condition of the actual and by no means of the purely possiblepsychical, with the atemporality of the purely possible, mental as well as psychical. Husserl relates “primordial temporal field,” which he considers not as a part of “Objective time,” to “the lived and experienced [erlebte] now” (ibid., p. 24). This means that he cannot separate such a “now” from temporality for, as he sees it, the lived and experienced “now” cannot be but temporal. But must it be temporal? Cannot we conceive it without time at all? We can and should! The “now,” to begin with Plato’s Timaeus and to continue with some neo-Platonists, has raised a lot of difficulties for philosophers, since in a sense it is temporal, in the other—atemporal, even “eternal.” All these philosophers understood that the “now” should be an experience “transcending” time and temporality, an experience that has an atemporal nature. How can you measure the time that a “now” experience has taken? You cannot measure it at all. All you can measure is the actualization of that experience by your body. Your experience in itself, as psychical, has nothing to do with time and temporality. Nothing about your thoughts, feelings, emotions, or volitions can allow you to measure them against any temporal scale. We can measure and follow your heartbeat, temperature, blood pressure, and other bodily states and to locate them in the spatiotemporal, actual reality. But, absolutely, nothing psychical can be so located or located at all. The actualities of your experiences can be located, temporally or spatially. Following Kant, Husserl mentions “one infinite Objective time in which all things and events—material things with their physical properties, minds with their mental states—have their definite temporal positions which can be measured by chronometers” (ibid., p. 26). Mentioning this, Husserl implicitly endorses an actualist viewpoint, which panenmentalism must reject. Only
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physical, actual reality is subject to time and temporality. Only physical things, actualities or events, can be measured by chronometers. But, following the anti-actualist stance by panenmentalism, how can we consider experience as not only atemporal but also not actual? Undoubtedly, such view is far away from any commonsensical stance. We all customarily believe that experience and life are temporal and endure in time. Yet this belief is nothing but about the actualization of life and experience, an actualization that cannot be but physical realization. As psychical or mental, life and experience are atemporal and must belong to the realm of pure possibilities. The life and experience of the dead are no longer actual, yet they are quite real for us. We share our life and experience with those of the dead, most of all with those who are intimately close to us, but also with those who left their distinguished marks on documents, literary or historical. In this sense, their life and experience are still very much with us, although not as an actual, physical presence. After all, reality and realization are not limited to actualization and actualities alone. Reality is also made of pure possibilities, regardless and independently of any actualization. Since Husserl cannot follow the Kantian solution to the stable background against which the succession, transience, and the past as a whole are recognizable and even preserved, for instance, in memorizing, he must find another solution. As Husserl accepts that “I do not hear the melody but only the particular tone which is actually present” (ibid., p. 43), what does make memory possible? How can we follow the melody as a whole, if the actual tone has passed away? Again, Husserl acknowledges that “I hear at any instant only the actual phase of the tone” (ibid.), and he has to argue that “the Objectivity of the whole enduring tone is constituted in an act-continuum which in part is memory, in the smallest punctual perception, and in a more extensive part expectation” (ibid., pp. 43–44). But this is much less than satisfactory. Even less satisfactory is his conception of retention: “[A]s long as the retention persists the sound has its own temporality” (ibid., p. 44). But, again, this would not do. The actual sound is no longer heard, and the retention of it is of the sound that was actual in the past, but not now. We require an atemporal dimension of apprehension to have the retention. Without this atemporality no such retention or apprehension is possible. Husserl should not ignore the atemporality of consciousness and that of the psychical as such. Without atemporality, any actual event would be doomed to pass away without leaving any trace on our consciousness or memory. To return to Kant, as every transcendental principle or factor, the unity of consciousness must be atemporal. My consciousness that any of my images is mine and belongs to one and the same consciousness is not just a consciousness at a particular moment, but it is necessarily common to all the moments of my consciousness of the unity of my consciousness. Thus, this consciousness,
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as a transcendental condition of any consciousness of mine, transcends time and temporal conditions. Yet Kant did not realize that consciousness as purely psychical must be atemporal, which goes against Kant’s assumption that everything in the mind must be temporal. Panenmentalism solves this intricate problem by assuming that consciousness, like the purely psychical as a whole, is atemporal because it is a pure possibility, which, as such, is entirely exempt from any temporal conditions. As a priori and constituting identities, pure possibilities may serve well as transcendental conditions, even better than the Kantian transcendental conditions. I can recognize the sound as a part or moment of the melody as a whole, because my mind has access to the pure possibility of the melody as a whole and to the possibilities of all its moments in a due order. This order is musical and does not need to be temporal. Analogously, logical order of the premises and the conclusion in any argument is not temporal at all. Recognizing that each of the ordered possibilities of the melody is actualized, I recognize the actualization of the melody as a whole and the actualization of any of its moments as parts of the whole melody. When Husserl states, “The object retains its place; even so does the sound retain its time. Its temporal point is unmoved, but the sound vanishes into the remoteness of consciousness” (ibid., p. 45), he appears to ignore what he already has said on the nature of time and temporality. If the temporal points are unmoved as spatial points are, they lose all their temporality and turn out to be space-time or spatial time (as in Kant’s theory of time, as in the Critique of Pure Reason B 50, 274–279, and 291–294, or under Einstein’s conception of time). Such spatial time goes against Husserl’s conception of time. The recourse Husserl still has is again, not surprisingly, actualism: The actual . . . tonal now is constantly changed into something that has been; constantly, an ever fresh tonal now, which passes over into modification, peels off. However, when the tonal now, the primal impression, passes over into retention, this retention is itself again a now, an actual existent. While it itself is actual (but not an actual sound), it is the retention of a sound that has been. (ibid., p. 50) Could he refer to, say, Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto as an actual tonal now constantly changing? Not at all! However many are the leitmotifs in a piece of music, an actual tonal now is never modified in a succession of musical moments. And is the retention actual? It is the retention of actual moments, which in itself is not actual at all. The retention under discussion, like any other psychical matter, is a pure, atemporal possibility. The whole piece of music is not recorded in my brain as if it were a tape recorder, and
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recalling, remembering, or memorizing is absolutely not a kind of recording in our mind. It is much more a matter of recovery or reproductivity, creative in nature. What follows in Husserl’s presentation inescapably faces too many difficulties and quandaries (from p. 53 on), much beyond the scope of this Section. Husserl himself is forced to acknowledge that “retentional sound is not actually present” (ibid.), which renders the entire theory of retention into an actual void. His curious assumption that a present sound reminds us of the other by way of (re)presentation or symbolization (ibid.) begs too much from the reader. A present sound may not represent the preceding sounds, neither can it symbolize them, and yet it participates in the melody or piece of music all the same! 11. Consciousness and the Actualization of Memory Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of dementia imperil many elderly persons nowadays. These diseases lead to the decline of or destroy the actualization of the patient’s memory. If the patients are partly conscious of their present state, they are still incapable of relating to other psychical possibilities concerning their past and present though these possibilities are necessarily relevant to their life. Thus, their demential amnesia consists of their incapability of relating to other psychical possibilities of theirs that relate to the psychical possibility of which they are aware or to which they actually refer. In short, demential amnesia has to do with the failure in the actualization of the relationality of the relevant psychical possibilities. Above, in Section 5.3, I related consciousness to the relationality of psychical possibilities. In this sense, what is the difference between consciousness and memory? Memory and consciousness are closely related, yet we have to distinguish between them. Memory can be conscious, as the declarative memory is, or unconscious, as the procedural or emotive memory is (see Section 4.3 above). This is the first distinction. The second is that while memory has to do with relationality of psychical possibilities, consciousness further endows memory with integration, unity, and identity, and thus with personal meaning and significance. Consciousness employs the relationality that memory provides to discover the mind’s integration and unity. A person should be conscious that “this memory is mine” and, as such, in what way it is meaningful and significant to that person; in what way it makes a difference for his or her mind as a whole that is subject to personal identity. The declarative, conscious, or reportable memory contributes its indispensable share to a person’s sense of psychical integration in a way that is not merely associative, whereas the emotive or procedural memory contributes its share in an entirely associative way. Associations cannot endow us with a
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sense of a whole or identity, for one association leads to the other and so on indefinitely, which does not lead to an integrative whole subject to personal identity. The self, the “I,” or the personality does not consist of mere associations, which are able to constitute at most a bundle of psychical possibilities. For the sense of personal identity, relationality to each of the psychical possibilities and to the whole of them, as a cohesive unity, is required. Emotions play crucial roles in any psychical integration, but we have to distinguish between conscious emotions—feelings—and unconscious emotions. Unconscious emotions affect us by way of associations, which may be conscious, whereas feelings affect us in the manner of holistic integration, which affects the personality as a whole. Failure in the actualization of a person’s memory thus affects, even destroys, that person’s sense of personal identity and psychical integration. This failure has primarily to do with the actualization of that person’s relationality of psychical possibilities. 12. Free Choice and Singularity in Psychopathology, Crime, and Compulsion With panenmentalism, free choice is a metaphysical possibility, real, sensible, practical, and not an illusion at all (Gilead, 2003, pp. 131–156). We have to choose between psychical possibilities, each of which is subject to determinism of pure possibilities, which is not causal (Sections 1.7, 3.6, and 3.7 above). Under such determinism, each choice does not exclude the other but keeps it real, open for that person’s choice. We are really free to choose and wholly responsible for our choices and their consequences. Yet each of our choices is necessarily determined within the singular psychical reality of each of us. Each of my choices is necessarily mine and not of another person. But what about psychopathologies or compulsions on whose grounds persons perform criminal acts? Are we entitled to consider such persons free singulars at all? Yes, despite their compulsion, psychopathological or not, they are singulars who are free to choose otherwise. Psychopathologies may disable a person from knowing herself or himself, but no psychopathology or compulsion may entirely deny any person of his or her singularity and freedom of choice, however limited this freedom may be. The panenmentalist nominalism commits us to ascribe psychopathology, compulsion, and crimes to individuals, each of whom is a singular subject, a singular psychical possibility, for whom particular possibilities are open to choice. Psychopathology, crimes, and compulsion have general features, but to ascribe any of them to a person entails “singularization,” entails treating them as characters or traits of a singular subject, treating them as psychical possibilities of that person and not of any other person.
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Since a person is a psychical subject, considered as a singular pure possibility, subject to a non-causal determinism of pure possibilities, what determines each person’s choice is a pure possibility that keeps that person’s other possibilities of choice equally real (Gilead, ibid.). If that person is a criminal, acting under a psychopathological compulsion, that person is still responsible for the consequences of his or her decision. That person’s individuality or singularity makes her or him a subject who is free to choose otherwise. This does not mean that I deny or ignore that person’s compulsion or psychopathology. This means instead that the person under discussion has the capability or the freedom to make something else of the compulsion or psychopathology in question. For instance, that person can express it in many other ways of expression that should not be considered crimes or even actions at all. Psychopathological or compulsive psychical possibilities should not be causal possibilities or motives only of crimes or acting-out; they can find their adequate, personal expression in quite different ways, such as verbal expressions or works of art. Think, for instance, of The Thief’s Journal by Jean Genet. Following this example, a thief may write artistic pieces instead of stealing. The author, under one choice, and the thief, under another choice, are one and the same person, susceptible to one and the same criminality or psychopathology, and yet free to choose: To be a thief or to be a creator or artist who expresses his or her psychopathology, criminal propensity, and the like in quite a different way that should not be considered criminal or psychopathological after all. Many works of art, literary and otherwise, have provided outlets for compulsion. Rhythm, rhyme, and the like may serve as artistic outlets to compulsion. In this case, compulsion is in the service of freedom—the freedom of art. Persons are free to do what they freely want with their psychopathology, criminal propensity, and compulsion. They are always responsible for their choices. Even under compulsion, psychopathology, or any criminal propensity whatsoever, persons are still themselves—psychical subjects or singular beings. We cannot predict their choice, which they are free to make. The psychical reality of each of them as a singular is not subject to causal determination, laws of whatsoever forms, or any prediction. However mentally ill or invalid, a person is a singular subject free to choose from the possibilities that are still open for that person. I consider “irresistible compulsion” as a mere fiction, not as a truthful one. Any compulsion is resistible, otherwise compulsive persons could not be considered or treated as responsible for their deeds and as free to choose otherwise. Only within some courts (“asylums”) of law, juridical fictions, such as “irresistible compulsion,” “temporary psychosis on one occasion,” and the like are accepted as truthful fictions even though they should be considered
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mere fictions, the reality or truthfulness of which is nothing outside such courts (“asylums”) of law. Unlike truthful fictions, such juridical or psychiatric fictions, such mere fictions do not refer to the singularity of the persons in question. We are not entitled to consider or treat people as completely lacking in will or voluntariness, some sort of autonomy, and some freedom of choice. Even under severe insanity, “irresistible” compulsion, and the like, persons do not lose all the personhood, singularity, basic integration, and freedom of choice they have. Each person keeps something of any of these, for no person can lose his or her singularity as a psychical subject-possibility under whatsoever circumstances. No illness, physical or psychical, of persons exists that is lacking any personality’s, that is, singularity’s, trait. If some mental diseases are devastating or destructive as far as personality is concerned, they must be of a person, however elementary or minimal the personality of that person may still be. Even when coerced or compelled, however strongly or powerfully, we are still free to resist. To be a singular, to be a person, means to keep always the possibility of opposing or resisting. Only persons can say “no.” No personality’s disease or illness can do without some personhood, singularity, freedom of choice, and some psychical integration. Obviously, the liberty and freedom of the obsessed, “irresistibly” compelled or coerced, the psychotic, and the like are much less than that of “ordinary” persons. “Much less” is a comparative term, whereas singulars are beyond any comparison or ranking. Singularity is absolute and maintains its reality under any circumstances. We are entitled to ask to what extent a person is liberated, free, obsessed, compelled, or coerced, but not to what extent s/he is singular. The singularity of a baby is as real as that of a mature person. Being intrinsically beyond any comparison or ranking, each singularity is absolutely equal to the other, not intrinsically yet as far as relationality, universal significance, being an end-in-herself/himself, and rights are concerned (see Section 5.19 below). However lacking, the core of the personality is indispensable to make a coercion or compulsion individually or personally. Each coercion, compulsion, insanity, psychopathy, or psychopathology of a person bears its individuality and singularity, which means that some unpredictability, spontaneity, and freedom of choice must be always about it. Any personal reaction, even if coerced or compelled, is inseparable from such freedom and spontaneity, however limited it may be. We should not be blinded by juridical or psychiatric untruthful fictions. Such fictions may make us not realize, recognize, or accept the singularity of a person, however psychopathological or criminal. As far as persons are concerned, singularity is ontically ineradicable. Yet suppose that the absolute singularity of any person was a panenmentalist fiction, it would then be an absolutely truthful fiction, owing to which we are not blind to what persons
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really are under whatsoever circumstances. Under whatsoever circumstances, persons, however criminal or psychopathological, are subjects, each of whom is a singular being. As a singular, each person deserves to be loved (Gilead, 2003, pp. 19–41). Love, in any of its aspects, cannot be without freedom of choice. We are never compelled to love a person. We freely choose to realize or accept our love to her or him, to follow this love or not. Responsibility, which a panenmentalist truthful fiction ascribes to any person, bears different significance in each case and under different circumstances. The responsibility of a psychopathological person, of the psychotic, the compelled, or the coerced is different from that of other persons who are exempt from all these defects. For instance, for punitive purposes, we should make a difference between each case and the others. Judges put criminals or psychopaths in jail but they may order hospitalization coupled with medical treatment for psychopathologically coerced or compelled persons. In any case, each such person is responsible for his or her deeds and reactions, whatsoever penal or medical significance they have. 13. Why Any Determination of Our Will Must Not Be Actual Panenmentalism sheds a new light on the problem of determinism. Since any actuality must be contingent, no room is left for determinism of actualities, yet determinism must be of pure possibilities alone, to which necessity pertains (Gilead, 2003, pp. 131–156, and Chapter Three above). Such determinism is entirely compatible with freedom of the will or free choice (Gilead, 2003, ibid.). Psychical determinism means that anything in a person’s mind makes a difference for that mind and, thus, is personally meaningful and significant. Since psychical determinism consists of pure possibilities alone, as psychical, any choice and decision is a pure possibility, not anything actual. At this point a crucial question has to be raised: How can the will motivate or determine us in a way that is not actual? Can we “make up our mind” without actualizing anything? How can such a decision be not actual? To answer these questions we have to answer the following questions first—How does the will determine or motivate us? What determines the will itself? I answer both questions on the grounds of the panenmentalist idea of saving possibilities. The will determines or motivates us by way of opening possibilities for our wishes, desires, choices, decisions, or actions, possibilities that otherwise would be or would remain closed, repressed, or eliminated for our consciousness or choice. The will is determined, and thereby determines us, by suggesting, showing us, or pointing out the possibilities that are personally meaningful for us. Each of these possibilities makes a difference for us. As interested or different, our will is determined and motivated by pure possibilities. We are then shown what can or may be actualized under our will
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and voluntary choice in general. More than one possibility is always open for making up our mind; at least an alternative always exists or remains open for our choice. How is the will capable of motivating us though not causing our actions? The will does not actually make us do something but really opens possibilities for our choices and voluntary actions. Pure possibilities, including meanings, are not causes, and the determinism by which they determine our will is by no means causal. The pure possibilities that determine a person’s will are personally meaningful for that person and move or touch her or him. Serving as motives, these possibilities are not causes of any action or behavior. Causes are actualities, and nothing but actualities can cause anything. By definition, pure possibilities, including meanings, should not be considered causes in whatsoever sense. We should return now to our earlier questions: How can determinism free from any actualization be possible? Especially, how can determination of the will, which is not actual, be possible after all? What is personally meaningful for a person determines his or her will. Since personal meanings are pure possibilities, we are entitled to speak of determination by, or determinism of, pure possibilities. Whenever we or our will eliminates or excludes possibilities for us, our will is not determined by them, whereas relating to meaningful possibilities, which are not eliminated or excluded thus, implies a specific, personal determination by them. Any relating to psychical possibilities that are personally meaningful for a person reveals how they determine that person’s will. Regardless of circumstantial, spatiotemporal and causal terms or conditions, any determination by pure possibilities is actualizable yet must not be actualized at all. Determination of or by pure possibilities is thus possible, although no actualization must be involved in it. All this may not satisfy the reader. After all, determination of the will, motivated will, making up our mind, any choice, decision, and the like appear to suggest the contrary to the above discussion. They appear to suggest a determination that excludes other possibilities, whereas my view as stated above refers to the inclusion of all the possibilities that are personally meaningful for a person’s will, to which that person is not indifferent. The exclusion of the other possibilities enters the will’s arena only when we make up our mind what to do at a particular time, in a particular place, and under particular circumstances. In other words, the exclusion enters the arena once the spatiotemporal and causal possibilities—the pure possibilities as to the terms or conditions of the possible actualization of the decision or choice—are involved in the decision. Since to actualize two contrary decisions or choices at the same time and in the same place is a priori impossible, I have to make up my mind which of them I want to perform at that time, in that place, and under those circumstances. Yet, as psychical, my decisions or
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choices are only pure possibilities, not actualities. Under some conditions or terms—for instance, spatiotemporal or causal—possibilities may exclude one another. But if no such conditions or terms are relevant to our choices or decisions, the possibilities “not taken” under those conditions or terms are still possible and psychically quite real for a person. Thus, all the pure possibilities that are personally meaningful or significant to that person’s will inclusively determine it with no actuality or actualization involved. Once all of them except the chosen one are excluded merely as not chosen (but, as included in my inner reality, they are still open for me), the chosen one has been subjected to particular spatiotemporal, circumstantial, and causal pure possibilities-terms, which keeps the chosen possibility pure as well as actualizable (yet, as such, unconditioned by actual spatiotemporal, causal, or circumstantial factors). Independently of my choice, these pure possibilities-terms have been included in the chosen possibility under one and the same identity, but they were not fixed “before” I had made up my mind, “before” the choice (under a more precise panenmentalist phrasing, independently of my making up my mind or my choice, for no psychical determination, like any pure possibility, is subject to temporal distinctions such as “before” and “after”). Hence, my chosen possibility also includes the determination of those particular pure possibilities, whereas the unchosen possibility has not been subjected to such determination. For instance, choosing to visit Paris instead of London during a particular week, I have chosen between two pure possibilities both, as meaningful for me, motivate my will. Before any actualization, my choice determines or fixes the particular pure possibilities of the spatiotemporal, causal, or circumstantial terms of the possibility of actualizing the pure possibility of visiting Paris, whereas none of these pure possibilities-terms should be fixed or chosen as far as the pure possibility of visiting London is concerned (although they are included in it, among other pure possibilities, under the same identity-possibility, and their state is not fixed or determined). The possibility of visiting London is still open to me, but since I have not chosen it, the spatiotemporal, causal, or circumstantial pure possibilities-terms that are included in it under one and the same identity-possibility (of the pure possibility of visiting London) are not fixed or determined. As pure possibility, any choice is implicated in determining or fixing some of the pure possibilities of the spatiotemporal, causal, or circumstantial terms included in it. I have to choose these terms, among other possible terms included in the chosen possibility, and to fix them. In sum, as psychical, any decision, choice, determination, or making up the mind is not actual; only its actualization as physical makes it actual.
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14. Experiencing Our Free Will: Between Subjectivity and Objectivity Not a few philosophers have been convinced that free will is merely an illusion. The most notable is Spinoza, especially in the Ethics, according to which the fiction or illusion of free will is a result of ignorance or mistake (for one of the recent examples consider Smilansky, 2000). In this Section I make a metaphysical comment challenging the possibility of such illusion altogether and explain why we should be ontologically committed to free will. Some psychical states—such as being in pain, feeling well or unwell, comfortable or uncomfortable, stressed or relieved, calm or agitated, and experiencing our will as free or our desire as compelled—cannot be illusions. To experience any of these states is what its reality is all about; all its esse is percipi. The experience alone is sufficient for constituting the fact or state of a person’s psychical, subjective reality. The fact or state that such experience constitutes is one and the same with the experience itself and it must not rely upon anything else. Such is not the case of any illusion. Illusion is psychically, subjectively real as far as the psychical state of the person who is under it is concerned, but it inescapably refers to something else that is not the experience in question. This makes two things: (1) The existence of the illusion and (2) its referred object (which may not exist). The illusion must be about something else, distinct from the illusion itself. In contrast, to experience our will as free is a fact or state of our psychical, subjective reality, and it does not refer to any other fact, psychical or otherwise, existent or nonexistent. The experience and the fact are one and the same. The percipi of free will alone makes all that exists about it, its esse as a whole. Equally, to experience any pain is to be in pain. The percipi of any pain alone is its esse. No other esse, alleged or real, must be involved with the experience of free will or with that of pain. To experience or feel our will as free we must not refer to something else but only to the experience itself. To experience it is not a reflection about something, as much as pain is not a reflection about something. Neither involves any introspection. Above all, no room is left for illusion or mistake about such psychical states as such, for none of them is a belief or knowledge. Finally, none of them is a representation of a psychical state; it is instead the psychical state itself. Our experience of free will does not represent free will as a psychical fact; it is instead our psychical fact itself. Equally, our experience of pain does not represent any pain as a psychical fact; it is instead the reality of our pain. To experience free will makes a psychical reality of free will. In contrast, quite different psychical states, whose esse is not only percipi, are both subjective and cognitive. To experience or have such states does not constitute any psychical reality or fact to which the experience refers. Thus, each of such states is fallible and can be merely an illusion. If James
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believes himself to be omniscient or omnipotent, this does not constitute any fact about his real capability or about the reality to which this illusion refers and which is different from the illusion. If he is absolutely incapable of writing an excellent paper in philosophy, for instance, even though he considers himself capable of doing so, his belief is by no means sufficient to render him capable of achieving that. All the psychical states of this kind are subjective, cognitive, and absolutely fallible. All of them refer to some fact or reality that is beyond them. Each of the aforementioned examples is merely an illusion about our state or capability. As such, they erroneously represent such a state or capability to which they refer. The percipi of the illusion does not constitute the esse of the referent, of the psychical capability or any other capability of the person under that illusion despite his or her strong belief, “knowledge,” conviction, or self-consideration. In contrast, the case of the experience or feeling of free will or of pain is entirely different. No fallibility has any room in any such states. As I will argue below, their subjectivity bears intersubjective and objective veridical standing or truth, and to commit illusion or selfdeception is absolutely impossible for any of them. Galen Strawson rightly rejects any possibility that pain is illusion or mere seeming, for “the seeming is itself and ineliminably a real thing” (1994, p. 51), and argues that to consider pain as illusion is just irrational (ibid., p. 53). As he shows elsewhere (1986, pp. 222–225), the esse of pain is percipi or “pain just is pain-experience.” For reasons that will be further explicated below, I do not see how such an understanding of pain is compatible with the assumption that “there is no such thing as free will” (ibid., p. v). No person, however capable or knowledgeable, is entitled to disavow or deny any of your pains. Such denials or disavowals should be considered totally irrational or groundless. All the more, absolutely no person is entitled to argue that the pain in question is merely illusion. We are entitled to disbelieve or discredit a person’s complaints or claims about his or her pain, since his or her behavior, reaction, looking, and the like indicate, to our best judgment, that this person is not in pain and that the case is of imposture. But we are not entitled to disavow the reality of pain or being in pain, even if its reflection on the relevant objective or intersubjective reality is not recognized. Even if an able physician finds no grounds for the patient’s complaint about pain, the physician is entirely incapable of denying the reality of that pain or of diagnosing it as a mere illusion. The patient may be in pain even if no external, objective or intersubjective, indications or grounds for it are recognized at all. The reality, the very existence, of pains or other subjective states cannot depend or supervene on objective-impersonal or intersubjective-interpersonal reality. Subjective experiences, such as being in pain, do not require a command or a use of language for language rests upon intersubjective reality. No private or objective language exists; only intersubjective languages exist.
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We need knowledge and language, both of which are intersubjective, to characterize, define, or name our psychical states; but to experience or realize them no language or other intersubjective devices are needed. Infants are subject to pains, stress, pleasure, relief, and the like quite early in their life, well before any command of language. Equally, we must not rely upon language, knowledge, belief, or any other intersubjective means to feel free, coerced, relieved, and the like. Our experience of inner freedom does not require knowledge, belief, or language. What is it like to experience or feel free will? Whenever I independently, uncompulsorily, or unforcedly follow my volitions, I feel or experience the freedom of my will, entirely exempt from any coercion or constraint. I feel “like it,” I freely want it as it is, and I fully (“integratively”) stand by my will. Under compulsive or addictive desires, no person can feel his or her will as free, unless s/he decides not to follow them. We feel whether any coercion, compulsion, addiction, or constraint is involved in whatsoever way with our volition, and we can distinguish between free will and coerced or compelled desire. To experience or feel free will does not mean to have or consider it unmotivated, undetermined, or without cause. Having free will is entirely compatible with being determined or motivated, for only coercion or compulsion is incompatible with free will. I will return to this point below. Under hypnosis, patients may experience their will as free. Could this serve as a counterexample to the argument that the experience of free will must be exempt from any illusion? No, for hypnosis consists of self-suggestion in which the patients help themselves to become exempt from their inhibitions, to be relieved from some constraints. The patient’s self-suggestion mobilizes or utilizes the aid of the hypnotist to get such a desirable effect. No person can be hypnotized against his or her free will. Experience or a feeling of free will under hypnosis is as real as in normal life except for the capability of hypnosis or self-suggestion to relieve the patients of some inhibitions that constrain or confine their sense or experience of free will. This experience, sense, or feeling in itself cannot be unconscious just as no unconscious pain exists. Inhibitions or constraints may eradicate or suppress, not repress, our experience of free will. In conclusion, also under hypnosis, the patients’ experience of free will, like their experience of pain, cannot be illusion. What about unconscious grounds such that if we were conscious of them, we would have not felt our will as free? In such a case, are not we under an illusion of free will? As far as effectiveness is concerned, no difference exists between conscious and unconscious grounds. In either case, the effect, namely, feeling our will as free or coerced, must be conscious or felt. Consequently, if we feel or experience our will as free, no grounds, conscious or unconscious, exist for us to feel otherwise. The same holds for our feeling ourselves under coerced desire. Rendering any unconscious grounds conscious would not
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change our feeling of free will or that of compelled desire. In either case, the freedom or coercion must be felt or conscious. In conclusion, whenever we feel our free will, no illusion about it due to unconscious grounds can take place. To feel exempt from any coercion, compulsion, addiction, or constraint is as infallible as being exempt from any pain or being in pain. Everybody can recognize the infallible distinction between being in pain and being exempt from any pain, of being coerced, constrained, or compelled and of being exempt from any of these, of having free will. We are capable of taking our will as free, whereas no person is capable of mistaking his or her will as free, as much as we cannot mistake ourselves as being in pain or as being exempt or relieved from any pain. Whenever you feel your will as free, no doubt exists about it. Whenever you feel yourself to have free will, absolutely no mistake or doubt about it exists. I may be mistaken about some of my emotions and misidentify them. For instance, I may feel angry about something or somebody, although what I really, truly have “deep down” is quite another emotion, say, fear or jealousy. To recognize that, my experience is not sufficient, and introspection as well as knowledge or other intersubjective means are required. Similarly, could I have a strong sense of free will although “deep down” I might unconsciously have something quite different? Could not my sense of inner freedom be then merely an illusion? Fear, jealousy, and the like may appear or be experienced as anger, and in a sense I may be under the illusion or self-deception of being angry. Unlike being in pain or having free will, emotions can be unconscious (Gilead, 2003, pp. 160–162, and Sections 4.3 and 5.11 above), and the percipi of any emotion can be different from its esse. We may be wrong about the unconscious emotions behind our feelings but not about the feelings or experiences themselves, all of which are conscious. Having free will cannot appear, be experienced, or felt as a different psychical state, just as pains cannot appear or be experienced as other feelings or sensations, for the esse of pain or of free will is percipi. Consequently, unlike some of my emotions, I could not misidentify or be mistaken about my free will. While in pain, you are incapable of mistaking your pains for other pains, sensations, or feelings, and undoubtedly you are not self-deceived or under illusion. Some of your “physical” pains may have no physical grounds, and an expert may suggest that you are experiencing some distress or psychical stress as if it were a physical pain, although no physical grounds for this pain exist. Yet you are undeniably experiencing “physical” pains then (since any pain is psychical, I use “physical” qualifiedly), and no illusion exists about that experience as painful. No painful situation is an illusion or mere appearance (whereas being angry may be merely the appearance or experience of another emotion); its esse is percipi. You are capable of mistaking or misidentifying
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the significance or the grounds of your pain, not its nature or identity. This is also the case of phantom pains, which are pains by all means. Being in phantom pain, a person believes it to indicate or signify some occurrence in a nonexistent, amputated limb. The pain as such involves no illusion; only the belief or judgment as to the origin, grounds, or significance of the pain is fallible. No person, however omniscient or omnipotent, can deny the reality of his or her pain, phantom or not. Equally real is the infallible experience that some of our volitions are entirely free or that our will is free in such cases. As Richard Griffith puts it, we “cannot do away with the compelling reality of the experience of free will” (1962, p. 232; but we should do away with both his “as-if” and “no metaphysics” concerning free will). However motivated, determined, conditioned, manipulated, coerced, or compelled persons may be, their feeling or experience of free will should be unquestionable, no matter to what extent they are either hetero-determined or self-determined. However compelling, forcing, or constraining may be the circumstances under which they are acting, behaving, reacting, feeling, or thinking, whenever they feel free to choose or decide, such inner experience of freedom is infallible. No introspection or selfknowledge is required to experience or identify such freedom, however determined or motivated, just as no introspection or self-knowledge is needed to be in pain, namely, to experience pain, regardless of the grounds that determine it. Suppose that some chemical factors are the grounds for our actual feeling free or experiencing free will. Whether we know of such grounds and of their actual impact on us or not, the feeling or experience of such freedom is infallible and should not be deemed illusion at all. Equally, feeling well, comfortable, relaxed, and the like by virtue of such chemical factors should not be considered illusion at all. The feeling or experience is real; it is not about another reality except for that of the feeling or experience itself. Contrary to Spinoza and others, we should not ascribe the alleged “illusion” of free will to our ignorance of the causes that have allegedly determined our volition and thus allegedly made it not free at all. The question of the relevant grounds and reasons for the determination or motivation of the will is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether its freedom is real or merely an illusion. The experience or feeling of inner freedom, of the freedom of our will, is absolutely not subject to any illusion, self-deception, or fallibility, just as being in pain is not subject to any of these, regardless of the reasons or grounds for such experiences. Suppose that, like phantom pains, “phantom experiences” of free will exist, which means that such experiences have no grounds in external, intersubjective or objective, reality. Yet such experiences are as real as any experience of free will that has grounds enough in external reality and that is not considered “phantom” at all. Like pain, the
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experience or feeling of free will is an inner, psychical reality; it is not about external reality. “Inner reality” involves no “ghost in the machine” or anything of a similar fallacy. By “inner” I mean something psychical or subjective, which is irreducible to any other kind of reality. Once you acknowledge psychical reality, you have to acknowledge subjectivity too. Thomas Nagel has contributed greatly to our understanding of that (especially in 1986). But, again, I do not see why the case of pain and pleasure (ibid., pp. 156–162), in which “no objective view we can attain could possibly overrule our subjective authority in such cases” (ibid., p. 158), should not equally hold for our experience of free will. Be that as it may, without subjects and subjectivity, no psychical reality exists at all. I use “reality” in the irreducible sense of the term, which means that psychical-inner-subjective-personal reality should be considered or acknowledged as real from any possible perspective: Personalsubjective, interpersonal-intersubjective, or impersonal-objective. The reality of pains, volitions, emotions, feelings, and other psychical states is, inescapably and irreducibly, subjective; yet it bears intersubjective or objective significance, which is as real as the subjective one. Feeling myself psychically free is as real and infallible as feeling myself well, bad, in pain, relaxed, calm, peaceful, comfortable, uncomfortable, excited, tense, strained, and the like. Any adult is capable of distinguishing between such states of mind. Who on earth can repudiate my answers to the questions—“How do you feel? “Do you feel free to decide . . . ?” “Did you do it out of your free will?” and the like—whenever no suspicion exists that I do not inform about my feeling bona fide? The experience of inner freedom must be infallible, whatsoever the grounds or reasons for it, and nothing can disavow it as real. Unlike illusion, delusion, or hallucination, such experience is both real and infallible intersubjectively or objectively. As far as experience such as having free will or being in pain is concerned, the only authority is the person who has it. No intersubjective or objective authority can overrule it. Is not James, whose cerebral damage has permanently paralyzed his left hand, under an illusion or self-deception whenever he feels or experiences himself free to raise it after all? He is under an illusion as to his physical capability. Yet, despite his physical state that does not allow him to raise his left hand, James’s free volition or decision to raise it (or to attempt to do so) is by no means an illusion. Such a wish or decision is a “phantom” experience taking part in his psychical, inner reality and, as such, it is absolutely real, not for James alone, but also for anyone else, since James’s psychical reality as subjective should be intersubjectively and objectively acknowledged (as in the case of phantom pain). Nobody can rationally or intelligibly challenge the reality or infallibility of such an experience. James denies or disavows his physical state, which is quite common in some cases of cerebral damage, but
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he does not deny or disavow his conscious volition or decision whose reality is of psychical freedom. James’s awareness of this inner freedom is infallible. Were he compelled or coerced to want or to decide to raise his left hand, he would be aware or conscious of such compulsion or coercion. He has no illusion about his will as psychically real and free. The experience of free will is not any kind of knowledge. The question, “How do you know that your will (or choice) is free?” is as absurd as the question, “How do you know that you are in pain?” The experience of either pain or free will does not depend on any knowledge. It is subjective, personal, and private. Knowledge, in contrast, is an intersubjective or objective matter. Since my experience or feeling of free will reflects on the intersubjective and objective reality that we share, the intersubjective or objective bearing or significance of my experience is subject to knowledge. Since no knowledge is infallible or beyond any possible doubt, we can be mistaken about the meaning or significance of our feelings or experience, as far as intersubjective and objective reality is concerned. But such fallibility, such capability of mistaking, does not hold for the subjective reality, yet reality by all means, of our experience or feeling of free will. As in cases of phantom pain, persons may mistake and be wrong as to the objective or intersubjective significance of their truthful experience or feeling. The objective significance is about a person’s physical state and behavior; the intersubjective significance is about a person’s attitude, language, expressions, and relationships. In intersubjective or objective reality some persons may not appear free at all despite their feeling or experience. But, just like their sense of pain, their sense of inner freedom, unlike their sense of objective or intersubjective reality, is free from any illusion or self-deception. I deem that all those who have considered freedom of will merely illusion or non-reality, have actually referred to belief or knowledge about our will. But this must not be the case at all. First and foremost, freedom of will is an experience whose reality is the reality of that experience, in which the perceived reality and the perception of it are one and the same. Any belief or knowledge cannot be free or exempt from fallibility, deception, doubts, or illusions; not so pain or any experience of free will. Neither is conditioned by belief or knowledge; only its intersubjective or objective implications or significance, if recognizable, are subject to belief or knowledge, and, hence, to fallibility and illusion. In other words, our sense, experience, or feeling of free will has nothing to do with our self-knowledge, which, like any other knowledge, intersubjective or objective, is not a subjective or private matter. A person’s free will is subject to that person’s self-awareness or selfconsciousness, which is privately accessible to that person alone, not to the intersubjective reality in which s/he lives.
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In conclusion, from any of the aforementioned possible perspectives (subjective, intersubjective, or objective), each person is the only authority regarding her or his sense of free will. The significance of such authority is intersubjective and objective. Whenever persons experience or feel themselves as having free will, no person, however capable or knowledgeable, can disavow such feeling or experience and consider it merely an illusion or selfdeception. That our feeling or experience of free will is not an illusion does not deem our will unmotivated or undetermined. How to render determinism, responsibility, and the necessary connection between a person and her or his volitions or decisions coherent or compatible with free will is one of the most intricate philosophical problems, if solvable at all (Kane, 2002, pp. 3–41). Peter van Inwagen, for one, highlights the unsolvable mystery of free will (1993, pp. 184–199, and in Kane, 2002, pp. 158–177). He concludes that free will remains a mystery: Though it “undeniably exists, . . . there is a strong and unanswered prima facie case for its impossibility” (ibid., p. 159), given that free will is considered incompatible with determinism and indeterminism alike. But the philosophers’ incapability of adequately solving such intricate problems, if solvable at all, does not repudiate or disavow the reality of free will. We still lack understanding of the phenomenon of pain, but this should not make any of us question the reality of pain. Analogously, the assumed failure or inadequacy of any known explanation for the reality of free will does not repudiate this reality. Undoubtedly, reasons or grounds exist for the motivation and determination of any responsible person’s will, yet the will can be both free and motivated, even necessarily or inescapably motivated. If no philosophy can explain this, at all or adequately, the reality of free will is yet undoubtedly in the heart of the psychical life of each of us. Elsewhere, I have suggested a panenmentalist approach to that problem (Gilead, 2003, pp. 131– 156), but even if no adequate solution exists, the reality of free will should not be repudiated or disavowed. My view on the reality of free will opposes any “free will subjectivism,” such as Richard Double’s (in 1991 and in Kane, 2002, pp. 506–528). Given that psychical, subjective reality is irreducible, and given that it has room enough side by side with intersubjective or objective reality, free will is unquestionably real. This means that, metaphysically or ontologically speaking, persons really have free will, and the reality of their free will should be acknowledged from any possible perspective, notwithstanding difficulties or unsolved problems it may raise for philosophical or scientific thinking. In other words, to consider free will as an illusion, mistake, or self-deception is itself an illusion, self-deception, or mistake, for the full-fledged reality of free will is an undeniable fact about persons or psychical subjects, just like pains and other psychical, subjective states. As much as the reality of pain is essential to our survival, the reality of free will, not an illusion of free will, is
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essential to our human reality and life as well as morality. We should be ontologically committed altogether to this reality. In the case of free will or pain, objective or intersubjective reality supervenes on subjective reality, for the latter is the ultimate authority as far as the reality of free will and pain is concerned. Being real from the subjective or personal perspective, they should be treated as real from the other perspectives, for no illusion of pain or free will is possible. They exist side by side with intersubjective and objective reality, independently of the standing of our knowledge or beliefs. In sum, any denial or disavowal of the reality of free will is as irrational or groundless as any denial or disavowal of the reality of pain. The experience of free will is by no means an illusion. Such an illusion is merely impossible. No proof is needed for the existence of a reality of freedom within us; we are aware of it “clearly and distinctly,” with immediate evidence, which no doubt can repudiate. What subjectively exists within us is beyond any doubt, as long as we keep subjectivity within the boundaries of our inner, psychical reality. To doubt subjectivity is just like doubting our inner, psychical reality as a whole. Note that, with panenmentalism, subjectivity is the basis for intersubjectivity, without which no access to objectivity is possible. Objectivity necessarily relates to subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Would objectivity have any sense at all unless in relating to the subjective and intersubjective? Intersubjectivity has access to the objective, and subjectivity to the intersubjective. Employing language, conceptual schemes, and the like, all of which are intersubjective, we are capable of relating to the objective and capturing it. Only because subjects and subjective experiences exist does intersubjective reality also exist. Since knowledge is intersubjective, the subjective is a prior condition for knowledge. We cannot be wrong about our experience of free will, which is part and parcel of our inner, psychical reality and subjectivity. Free will is quite real with us, and no way exists to repudiate or to doubt its reality from without, however “overwhelming” the attempted arguments against its reality may appear. The reality of our freedom is, hence, firmly secured on the grounds of any subjective, psychical reality. Also, it is secured on the grounds of the inescapable contingency of the actual-physical. On these grounds, more than room enough remains for the reality of our freedom, including free will and free choice. No doubt exists to repudiate the psychical reality of our freedom, which must be reflected on intersubjective and objective realities. Subjective as this reality is, it still reflects so, and thus it has objective consequences in the actual reality in which we live. Our inner, psychical freedom leaves its marks both on intersubjective and objective reality. This freedom is definitely compatible with our responsibility for our decision, with its intersubjective and objective significance. It thus has much to do with our actions, actualized in physical, objective reality. As a result, the reality of our inner, psychical freedom, the
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reality of our free choices or our free will, has a lot of significance “between subjectivity and objectivity.” As far as external reality is concerned, doubts, which other people may have, regarding our sense of freedom as well as pains may arise. Namely, people may not believe that we are in pain or feel ourselves free. As much as the distinction between painful and painless experience is “clear and distinct” in any person’s mind, so must be the distinction between inner, psychical freedom and bondage. To doubt our experience of free will implies doubting the whole idea of private accessibility, inner reality, and subjectivity. If this idea is sound, so must be the inner sense of our free will. Experience of pains and that of inner freedom are not subject to knowledge but only to private epistemic accessibility, which makes them infallible. In Section 2.6 above, I mentioned epistemic accessibility, as distinct from knowledge. Against the above background, questions such as “How do you make sure that you are in pain?” and “How do you make sure that your will is free?” are equally absurd, and for the same reasons. As the phenomenon of phantom pain demonstrates, the connection between my pains and physical-actual reality, to begin with the body, is contingent. The same holds for our experience of free will. Whether the intersubjective or objective significance of a personal or subjective experience of inner freedom is also of intersubjective freedom is a contingent matter and strongly depends on the circumstances. A person may experience his or her decision as free, which is absolutely beyond doubt, although no intersubjective or objective indications for a free action or behavior of that person appear. The inner experience is beyond any doubt, just as a person’s inner, psychical reality is beyond any doubt as well as beyond intersubjective or objective accessibility. In other words, experience of inner freedom, pain, and anything psychical is inherent in the singularity of the relevant person, a singularity that is absolutely independent of anything external. No external doubt can affect the conviction of a person’s inner experience, which is in the domain of her or his singularity. This definitely holds for our experience of inner freedom. That the connection between freedom of the will and external, intersubjective or objective, reality is contingent is compatible with the panenmentalist view about casual causality and the reality of freedom (Gilead, 2003, pp. 131–156). This view attempts to secure the coherent combination of the idea of psychical determinism or the determinism of pure possibilities with our freedom of choice as well as with the contingent nature of actual reality, in which causality and causation take place. 15. Inner Reality and the Illusion of Inner Space The concept of inner reality plays a crucial role in panenmentalism. As ascribed to the psychical, “inner” or “internal” has nothing of the physical-spatial in it,
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and it does not serve as a metaphor for anything spatial. With panenmentalism, any space, literal or metaphorical, has to do with the physical-actual alone, not with the mental or the psychical. Anything mental or psychical is entirely exempt from spatiotemporal and causal conditions, especially from any spatial condition. Inner reality has to do with the psychical-singular alone, not with the physicalactual, which is externally or publicly accessible. Designating anything psychical “inner” or “internal” does not designate anything spatial. To treat anything psychical, “inner space” is an entirely wrong metaphor. As such, “inner space” is a most misleading illusion, mistaking the psychical for the physical-actual. Thoughts, emotions, wishes, introspection, and anything psychical need no space in which to exist. With the psychical, “in” serves as “included,” “being or taking a part,” “pertaining,” “belonging,” even “being a member in” a realm. With the psychical, “in” thus has nothing of location or spatiality in it. Like many others who employ the spatial metaphor, Thomas Metzinger commits the recurrent mistake as follows: “[W]ith the emergence of consciousness, private worlds—spaces of inner experience—are opened up” (Metzinger, 1995, p. 6). This mistake or misleading metaphor is what Wittgenstein’s “beetle” is also about (Wittgenstein, 1968, sec. 293, p. 100). No space, literal or metaphorical, can serve as a private world, for any space is publicly accessible, accessible from without. No space is privately accessible. At this point, Wittgenstein is right, whereas Metzinger and others are, in my view, wrong. As a metaphor for anything psychical, space is misleading (consult Jim Hopkins, 2000a, pp. 26–32, and 2000b). Hopkins criticizes the distinction between “public physical space inside the body” and “internal space” as an “introspective quality” (Hopkins, 2000b, p. 288), and he considers the nonphysicality of the inner, psychical space as a “cognitive illusion” (ibid., p. 295). On the wrong premise that the mind and its cerebral and nervous “realization” are identical or, at least, phenomenally overlapping, Hopkins wrongly concludes that “nothing which is both real and non-physical actually comes into question” (ibid.) and that to ascribe non-physicality to any psychical, inner space is a cognitive illusion. But this is not an illusion at all, on the contrary. Instead, the real illusion consists of ascribing anything physical or spatial to any psychical, inner reality, which, as a pure possibility, is quite real though not physicallyactually. Yet I share something of importance with Hopkins over this issue— spatiality has to go with physicality and cannot do without it. Space, external or internal alike, must be physical in nature and we should not consider any space non-physical. Contrary to Hopkins and many others (ibid., pp. 297–298), I see the psychically inner as undoubtedly real, clearly distinct from the physical and not identical with it, though the bodily-physical as external is united with the psychical as internal. Panenmentalist psychophysical unity avoids dualism.
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Were introspection or anything psychical “internally” spatial, it would have become publicly accessible, which would have reduced it to a merely physicalactual phenomenon. In such a case, introspection would have not been psychical at all. No introspection and nothing psychical can be publicly accessible. In short, anything psychical is privately, singularly accessible (Gilead, 2003, pp. 43–75), while anything spatial is publicly accessible; nothing psychical can be spatial. Thus, with panenmentalism, inner, psychical space does not exist. Any spatialization, metaphorical or literal, of the psychical is a grave mistake— mistaking the psychical for the physical-actual. A similar mistake is interestingly and pleasingly discussed by Colin McGinn (1995). The first section of his article is entitled “The Location of Consciousness.” With no Cartesian-dualistic assumptions or prejudices at all but on panenmentalist grounds alone, I too, though for different reasons, reject the idea that consciousness has any location, that consciousness is spatially conditioned at all. The trouble is that McGinn believes himself (and his readers as well) compelled to conclude that even though consciousness is “something essentially non-spatial,” it “emerged from something purely spatial” (ibid., p. 154). McGinn assumes the emergence of the psychical from the physicalmaterial as a given fact (ibid. p. 158), without putting it to any questioning or doubt. Such is not the case. Since its very beginning, panenmentalism has attempted to refute emergentism—the psychophysical view that assumes the emergence of the psychical from the physical (Gilead, 1999, pp. 8–9, 12, 22, 44, 143, 153–154; and consult Sections 2.9, 4.3, and 4.9 above). As panenmentalism sees it, the case is entirely contrary to the emergence theory: No mind can emerge from the body; instead, the body actualizes the pure, a priori possibilityidentity that is the mind. As a pure possibility, as purely psychical, consciousness is, contrary to classical materialism, including functionalism and “allied doctrines” (McGinn, 1995, p. 156), inherently non-spatial. Classical materialism ends in stating, quite wrongly, that “conscious states are just as spatially constituted as brain states, since they are brain states—neural configurations in all their spatial glory” (ibid.). Yet I cannot accept McGinn’s view, which is a third option after classical dualism and classical materialism. This third option attempts “to preserve material emergence while not denying the ordinary non-spatial conception of consciousness” (ibid., pp. 156–157). To admit the non-spatiality of consciousness is entirely right but to preserve the “material emergence” of consciousness is absolutely wrong. Such an emergence necessarily assumes a psychophysical causal chain, in which the physical is allegedly the cause of the emergence of the psychical. Yet no coherent psychophysical causal chain possibly exists. We cannot refer to any such a causal chain as we cannot detect psychical links in any physical causal chain, nor physical links in any allegedly coherent psychical “causal” chain (and
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since causality is not valid for the psychical, no such chain exists at all). The pure possibility of any psychophysical causal chain is necessarily excluded, for the psychical and the physical do not share common intrinsic features nor are they under the same conditions. While the physical is entirely spatiotemporally and causally conditioned, the psychical or the mental is entirely exempt from such conditions. Nothing mental or psychical can emerge from the physical-actual, as no pure possibility can emerge out of the actual, from which it is necessarily independent. To lay the grounds for his third option, McGinn has to perform [A] conceptual revolution, in which fundamentally new properties and principles are identified . . . in order to solve the mind-body problem we need, at a minimum, a new conception of space. . . . That which we refer to when we use the word “space” has a nature that is quite different from how we standardly conceive it to be; so different, indeed, that it is capable of “containing” the non-spatial (as we now conceive it) phenomenon of consciousness. (ibid., p. 157) This view is entirely incompatible with panenmentalism, which sees the “containing” in question quite differently—the body is in the mind, not the other way round (consider Section 4.4 above about this). Second, I use “containing” in such a context in an entirely non-spatial sense, whatsoever the meanings of space may be. Not so McGinn, for he suggests a revolutionary concept of location or spatial containing. He suggests an anomalous concept of space: “Conscious phenomena are not located and extended in the usual way; but then again they are surely not somehow “outside” of space, adjacent perhaps to the abstract realm. Rather, they bear an opaque and anomalous relation to space, as space is currently conceived” (ibid., p. 159). Such opaqueness and anomalousness obviously shed little light, if at all, on the psychophysical problem. Furthermore, the mental or the psychical does not make an abstract realm. On the contrary, it makes an entirely concrete realm. As panenmentalism considers it, the mental or the psychical is more ample and concrete than the physical-actual, which is but a part of the mental-possible. Like many other philosophers, McGinn attempts to avoid the absurd possibility of creating something out of nothing. For this reason, he has to speculate about some aspects of nature that existed “before” the Big Bang (yet, given that no time existed before the Big Bang, “before” does not make much sense at this speculative point): According to our earlier speculation, these aspects may be connected to features of the universe that played a part in the early creation of matter and space itself—those features, themselves pre-spatial, that characterized the
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universe before the Big Bang . . . some pretty remarkable properties of matter are going to be needed in order to sustain the assumption that consciousness can come from matter. (ibid., p. 158) Besides the problem of any actual existence before the existence of time (which I exclude on the grounds that nothing actual can be exempt from temporality), this speculation raises quite problematic possibilities (such as the creation of space and time out of nothing or out of something entirely mysterious), most of which are quite obscure, if conceivable at all. Instead, I suggest quite a different way out of the problem in question. Given that pure possibilities are not abstracted from any other things, but are prior to any of them and being particular, specific, or concrete, we need nothing actual to exist before the Big Bang. Instead, we need pure, absolutely atemporal possibilities-identities. Unlike McGinn’s view, no temporal or causal relations exist between the physical and the psychical. In this panenmentalist way, consciousness, as purely psychical, is united with the brain and the nervous system. We thus avoid the dualistic trap as well as the materialist or reductionist one. In any case, consciousness does not exist “in” the abstract. As a psychical pure possibility, it enjoys all the concreteness, particularity, and singularity it needs. As actualized, consciousness is united with the physical, with the brain and the nervous system. The panenmentalist alternative renders thus McGinn’s most problematic conception of anomalous space quite redundant. He himself entitles it opaque (ibid., p. 159) and honestly qualifies it by mentioning that “to suggest that we need a radically new conception of space is not to imply that we can achieve any such conception, even in principle” (ibid., p. 160). In the end, McGinn coherently distances his view from the materialist stance along the lines of P. F. Strawson’s philosophy. According to this stance, “we are, cognitively speaking as well as physically, spatial beings par excellence: our entire conceptual scheme is shot through with spatial notions, these providing the skeleton of our thought in general” (ibid., p. 161). I entirely reject such a stance. Cognitively speaking, we are, first and foremost, persons consciously relating to innumerable pure possibilities-identities. Consciousness consists of our relationality to pure possibilities. Contrary to P. F. Strawson, to facilitate space to play a role in our practices of identification, we must capture or discover pure possibilities-identities first. Space and time are indispensable to recognizing the actualization of any possibility-identity, but to recognize it, we must have first, we must first relate to, the pure possibility-identity of any actualization or actuality. To recognize objects in space, each of which is “severally arrayed” (ibid.), we must identify them first as objects, we must relate them to their pure possibilities-identities as well as to the pure possibilities of their actual positions in space.
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McGinn is right in criticizing P. F. Strawson, as the non-spatiality of consciousness presents an insolvable problem for Strawson’s view (ibid., p. 161). Similarly to Hopkins, McGinn mentions the use of spatial metaphors and the exploiting of “relations to the body in making sense of numerically distinct but similar conscious episodes” (ibid.). He mentions the embedding of “the mental in the conceptual framework provided by matter in space” (ibid.). I do not accept Hopkins’s view or that of McGinn about this. In embedding the mental in the conceptual, our conceptual framework must primarily be of the purely possible. We need no space or anything material-physical to capture or to refer to the possibility-identity of anything. Space and time have to do with the actualization of any possibility-identity, not with that pure possibility in itself. As for numerically distinct but similar episodes, the possibility-identity of each of them also comprises the pure possibilities of the spatiotemporal circumstances of each episode. Comprising them is an indispensable part of the identity-possibility of each episode. Thus, actual spatiotemporal location is the partial actualization of that part, which in itself is purely possible. Like any pure possibility, the pure possibility of a spatiotemporal location is ontologically and epistemologically prior to the actual location, not the other way round. By this token, relations to the body must also be first identified as relations to the pure possibility of the body in question. McGinn is, quite rightly, prudent enough to avoid and to oppose any reduction of consciousness to the spatializing conceptual scheme (ibid.). Not to impose upon conscious events “a conceptual grid that is alien to their intrinsic nature” (ibid.) rightly concerns McGinn most. At this particular point, I support his view although for quite different reasons. Yet his view that we know that consciousness “isn’t just extended matter in space” (ibid.) is not enough, since as pure possibilities, mind and consciousness do not exist in any space at all. This need for space, this need to locate the mind is just a philosophical prejudice, and the sooner we can get rid of it the better. Second, contrary to McGinn, we are able to represent the mental or the psychical in an absolutely non-spatial way but on the basis of pure possibilities to which we are able to relate without relying on the actual-physical or on a spatial conceptual framework (unless this framework consists of pure possibilities of space quite independently of its actualization and prior to it). Panenmentalism suggests a unifying theory linking consciousness to the “world of matter in space” (to use McGinn’s phrase for quite a different purpose). Unlike both Hopkins and McGinn, in discussing the psychical, I regard “inner” or “internal” as designating “inaccessible by others,” for I consider private accessibility as pertaining to inner, psychical reality alone. No spatiality of any kind is involved in the sense of innerness that I ascribe to the psychical. Contrary to Hopkins and others (possibly including Wittgenstein), no
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internalization, as a psychical phenomenon, entails spatiality of any kind. Inner reality is absolutely exempted from any spatiotemporal condition. To consider inner, psychical reality as an inner space is a highly misleading illusion. Spatial metaphors cannot serve us at all in making any sense of psychical reality. Each such reality, inaccessible from without, is singular. Nothing spatial is singular. Spatial things are actualities, some of which are intrinsically similar to others. No psychical subject or reality can be intrinsically similar to other beings, psychical or not. Each psychical reality is personal, private, and singular. If psychical reality were spatial, it would be accessible from without, which could not be the case. Otherwise, the psychical and the physical would have been identical. Since the distinction between the psychical and the physical is irreducibly real, we must bear this in mind and shun any spatialization of the mind or of anything psychical. We should resist the temptation, Freudian, Hopkinsean, or otherwise, to use spatial metaphors in treating the mind or anything psychical. Whenever the psychical is concerned, such metaphors are not truthful fictions but merely misleading illusions, mistaking the psychical for the physical, the purely possible for the actual. Thus mistaken, we cannot conceive or realize the necessary unity of body and mind—the unity of an actuality with its pure possibility-identity. Unity is by no means an identity. Mind and body, although necessarily united, are not identical, let alone in the reductive sense. Panenmentalism opposes any kind of psychophysical reduction, idealistic or materialist alike, as much as it opposes dualism. To spatialize anything psychical is merely to reduce the psychical to the physical-actual. In contrast, the necessary unity of body and mind strictly maintains the irreducible nature of each of them, whereas spatializing the psychical entails an attempt to annul that unity or to ignore it entirely by rendering it into a false identity. Such is a psychophysical illusion, the grounds of which deserve some attention. Many of us, professional philosophers or laypersons, believe that only physical-actual things are individual or concrete beings, whereas pure possibilities are merely abstractions from actual reality. This wrong belief is actualist in nature. Thus, the main grounds for the psychophysical illusion under discussion pertain to that actualist belief, which is overwhelmingly recurrent. P. F. Strawson’s view adopted that belief, assuming that the only grounds for individuation must be spatiotemporal. At this point, Strawson shared something of significance with classical empiricists as well as with Kant. Panenmentalism challenges them all over this issue (consult Section 1.13 above). To individuate pure possibilities, we do not need spatiotemporality at all. As individuals or singulars, no two possibilities can be identical, and no possible way exists to mistake the one for the other, or to confound the two. Individuation of pure possibilities thus exists. Conceiving, discovering, capturing, or referring to any pure possibility, we can easily tell the difference between it and any other pure
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possibility. No space or time is needed to do so. Moreover, no actuality or actualization is needed to do so. An actualist fallacy is to assume that pure possibilities are abstractions of actualities or that only actualities are individual or concrete beings. Are numbers, for instance, abstractions of actualities? Are geometrical figures abstractions of actual figures? You may think of many other counter-examples. Numbers and geometrical figures are as concrete and individual as actual-physical entities. Nominalism of pure possibilities is as possible as nominalism of actualities. Panenmentalism makes a special kind of nominalism. With panenmentalism, the body exists in the mind, not the other way round. Contrary to the misleading “ghost in the machine,” contrary to any psychical spatialization, I consider the body as a conditioned, restricted part of the mind, which is the identity-possibility of the body including all its possible variations or changes, some of which are non-actual, remaining in their purity. As actual, the body is a possibility too, though not a pure possibility. The possible-actual is a part of its pure possibility-identity, a part that is spatiotemporally and causally conditioned and bounded, whereas the mind is entirely exempt from any of these boundaries or conditions. The existence of the body in the mind has no spatial or local sense. We cannot and should not locate anything psychical. To ask where the mind is involves us with a crucial mistake, though quite prevalent and common. The mind does not exist in the brain, but the other way round—the brain exists in the mind, though not in the Berkeleyan sense (consider Sections 2.4, 4.4, and 4.5 above about it), obviously neither in the spatial sense. We may locate the actuality of anything psychical, an actuality which must be spatially conditioned, restricted, and located within the actual-physical as a whole. To be or to exist in the mind bears thus no spatiality and, less trivially, no idealistic significance. Unlike Berkeley and other idealists, I consider the actual-physical/material as undoubtedly real although, as partial, it is comprised in the mental or the psychical-possible. Panenmentalism insistently sticks to the principle that the mental-possible is, epistemologically and ontologically, wider or more comprehensive and fundamental than its actual-physical part, which, in turn, is possible too, though not purely. The relation under discussion of “being or existing in” bears no spatial sense at all, for the mental as a whole is not confined to the conditions or properties of its part—the actual-physical. Only the actualphysical is spatially conditioned, and only anything within it is spatially located, whereas the actual-physical as a whole is not spatially located, for it is comprised in the mental-possible, which is entirely different in nature, especially in its nonspatiality. Being in the mental-possible does not have any spatial sense. It has instead the sense of being a part of a whole as well as of the priority, epistemological and ontological, of the mental-possible to the actual-physical.
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16. Self-Deception and Secrets We Hide from Ourselves Self-deception or secrets that we hide from ourselves confronts philosophers with a serious problem. In what conceivable way we can deceive ourselves or hide something from ourselves? Does self-deception or self-concealment require psychical splitting like some psychopathologies? I am not enthusiastic about explanations that use psychical splitting to enlighten the nature of psychopathologies, unless no other explanations are conceivable. As I see it, no substantial splitting can hold for the mind, for inaccessibility from without and the existence of inner reality are more than enough to secure personal identity endangered by no splitting. Still, disintegration or dissociation to this or that extent is applicable to the psychical-personal. When I mentioned above “the splitting between consciousness and unconsciousness” or “the split or multiple mind,” it was with the intention that some integration must exist in any mind, however pathological. The term “dissociation” better suits psychopathologies. Though I do not accept substantial psychical splitting; I do accept intersubjective or interpersonal splitting or detachment instead, for instance, when being alone turns into being lonely. Self-deception and hiding secrets from ourselves are possible not in the intrapsychical realm as such but in its intersubjective or interpersonal relationality. In deceiving ourselves, hiding secrets from ourselves, we are doing something in the intersubjective or interpersonal realm between other people and ourselves. Self-deception or such concealment is an intersubjective or interpersonal reflection aimed at ourselves. Language, which is intersubjective or interpersonal, plays an essential role in deceiving ourselves or in hiding something from ourselves. Like anything either truthful or false, deception pertains to knowledge and knowledge is not a personal or subjective matter but just an intersubjective or interpersonal thing. Since knowledge, including self-knowledge, is intersubjective, our conclusion that self-deception/concealment is also intersubjective is not surprising. Deception and keeping secrets are cognitive or epistemic and, as such, they pertain to the intersubjective. Secrets are not intrapsychical; they are intersubjective or interpersonal. Inner, psychical reality is not “hidden inside” each of us. No veil or curtain exists to draw in order to reveal the hidden secret, which is not there. All these are spatial, wrong metaphors, if applied to psychical reality. Psychical privacy is not a secret to be revealed, exposed, or divulged, for that privacy is inaccessible from without. What people hide from us are not their inner referents but the intersubjective or interpersonal significance or meanings of what they “have” in their mind. The mind is not a box or a safe, holding its “secrets” that can be extracted by cracking or breaking the “safe” from without (contrary to the distorted, wrong-headed idea of torturers and their like). No
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mind is a place into which we can break and observe or experience what may be “there.” In principle, any message can be revealed and any encoded secret is decipherable, whereas inner, psychical reality cannot be revealed from without. Like language, secrets thus have to do with intersubjective or interpersonal reality, not with personal, private, psychical reality. Secrets are intersubjectively or interpersonally accessible for they are involved with the meanings and significance pertaining to a shared interpersonal or intersubjective reality, not with what is psychically within each one of us. Thus, no secret is intrapsychical; any secret is intersubjective or interpersonal. Secrets are between us, not within any of us. Psychical singularity is beyond any deciphering or decoding, which is applicable to language and other intersubjective matters, while no language is private. In sum, the domain of secrets, hidden information of any kind, codes, and the like is not a private, psychical reality but an intersubjective or interpersonal one. Hiding something from ourselves, we must thus turn to an intersubjective or interpersonal reality. This is an arena for playing, for games, for information, language, communication, codes, secrets, hidden possibilities, and the like. When I play games with myself, I act intersubjectively or interpersonally in a way that is aimed at myself, a way of self-reflection. I thus relate to myself intersubjectively or interpersonally. Deception is an intersubjective reflection on or relationality of ourselves to ourselves. In such ways, we deceive ourselves or hide something as a secret. Self-deception or self-hiding is thus a game, following such and such rules, that a person can play only in an intersubjective or interpersonal reality, whether s/he plays it with herself or himself or with other players. Utilizing language plays an indispensable role in deceiving ourselves or hiding something from ourselves. Self-deception or self-hiding is thus intersubjectively or interpersonally dissociative. The abuse of language for such purposes attempts to sabotage communicativeness, linguistic lucidity, coherence, intelligibility, and rationality. It is between us as much as between a person and himself or herself. “Between” is an indispensable term in this context, for it designates the essential intersubjective nature of self-deception or self-hiding. Even if James deceives himself without the knowledge or attention of any other person, James does so as participating in an intersubjective reality and not as a psychical, private subject alone. Self-deception/hiding is thus essentially relational. Without intersubjective relationality, it becomes null and void. Like any language, game, following rules, and the like, self-deception/hiding is decipherable and universally translatable. It necessarily reflects on the intersubjective or interpersonal reality in which we live. This reflection is intersubjectively dissociative, detaching, or splitting.
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17. Affinity, Intimacy, and Singularity The more a pure possibility is different from other pure possibilities, the more necessary is their relationality. Singularity, which is the greatest difference possible, entails the strongest relationality or relationships. This appears to end in a severe conundrum: Given that any singular being, as a pure possibility, necessarily relates to any other singular being in the strongest way possible, the result appears to be that each singular being necessarily maintains intimacy, affinity, and the like with all the others. Such is not the practical case at all, for intimacy and affinity are exclusive relationships, characterizing only those particular singular beings involved in such relationships. In practice, no person feels intimacy, closeness, or affinity with all other persons. Such interpersonal relationships cannot be but free, cannot be but a fruit of free choice, under no compulsion or confinement. Hence, affinity, intimacy, and closeness are exclusive relationships, which should remain so. As a result, we have to face a conundrum. You cannot force any person to experience affinity, intimacy, or closeness with persons who are complete strangers, psychically remote from that person. In the absence of an awareness of a shared interpersonal reality of intimacy, they share nothing of conscious affinity. Intimacy is entirely different from strangeness. The two terms indicate different sorts of intersubjective significance. Note that affinity is not a likeness shared by mental possibilities. It is not the likeness or similarity that possibilities of the same kind have. Since singular possibilities intrinsically share nothing in common, affinity is not a matter of similarity or likeness. As intersubjective, interpersonal relationality or relationship, affinity relies on a shared reality that is the significance that the persons involved maintain between themselves, without allowing any access one to the other. This shared significance relies on the absolute difference between them, not on anything intrinsically common, which is entirely excluded whenever singular beings—persons—are concerned. Affinity, intimacy, or closeness is up to singular beings, and it is not a contingent matter. It is a necessary, though by no means a compelled, relationship existing between them. To be “up to” is a matter of choice, responsibility, and freedom. Even if the possibility of maintaining such a relationship with another person exists, we have first to be aware of it and to choose to maintain it. Thus, open possibilities exist of maintaining a unique relationship with any other person in the entire realm of pure possibilities, but this is entirely up to us to maintain it practically or not, namely, to discoverreveal such a relationship or not. Affinity, intimacy, and closeness are pure possibilities to be discovered; they are not given in any other way. To experience any intimacy toward a complete stranger, just because you have happened to meet her or him, is a sheer illusion (usually quite narcissistic in nature). You
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have to discover, step by step, the possibility of affinity existing between you. In discovering or revealing it, you have to invest much of your effort in the long run. Only such conative, emotive, and cognitive efforts will give way to the feelings and experience of intimacy and closeness. Affinity or intimacy is the translation of a radical difference of personalities, each of whom is a singular that most strongly relates to the other. And this translation is the product of mutual efforts of discovery or revelation. To invest in a discovery is up to persons, subject to the free choice of each of them. Yet many couples may feel that I must be wrong at this point. They undoubtedly feel that they make, build, or create their intimacy. Such a feeling is not illusory at all, yet it is not accurate, for it really reflects something much deeper—discovery of possibilities, meanings, and significance concerning the unique relationship of the persons involved. Bit by bit, for the entire span of their lives, they may discover this to its depth. Their feeling about their relationship is of creating or making, but what they creatively invest is the revelation or discovery of the possibilities, meanings, and significance of their unique relationship. Creatively, because for each of them the discovery is necessarily personal, and, at least according to panenmentalism, personal discovery is what creativity is all about (Gilead, 2003, pp. 151–154). Each free choice is subject to determinism of pure possibilities, which means that each free choice is not contingent but has necessary meanings and significance (ibid., pp. 131–156). Each such choice exists among the possibilities that necessarily and exclusively belong to that person. Even if it were purely possible for me to discover an intimacy or affinity between (inter) me and any other singular being, I would have to choose first which relationship I want to discover and which not, or with whom I want to discover a common intersubjective reality. In other words, I have to choose those I would approach—those with whom to get closer and to share a common, intimate reality. It is similar to an acquisition of languages. Learning a new language, I choose to share a common intersubjective reality with the users of that language. With some of them I may share even more—an intimate, interpersonal reality in which we may maintain an intimate dialogue, really accessible to us alone (although universally translatable to any other language, which means that any intimate intersubjective, namely, interpersonal, reality necessarily has a universal significance existing among all pure possibilities intersubjectively shared). But such an accomplishment requires choice, investment, and efforts. We have to discover the possibilities that any language may suggest us. Similarly, we have to discover the significance, intimate or not, of other singular beings for each of us. Strangeness means to ignore interpersonal relationality, really existing as a relationality between pure possibilities. Not to ignore it is a matter of free choice. Most of the time, we ignore many possibilities of interpersonal relationality and practically even exclude them, because otherwise we have to choose, invest, and
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discover. We must invest much effort to realize that the stranger facing or avoiding us is as real, necessary, singular, and loveable as each of us really is. Nothing can be more difficult than this. We do so quite rarely, only when we love other persons on the basis of the singularity of each one of them. The relationality-significance of each singular being is absolutely universal, and so is the affinity and intimacy concerning that being. Each singular being may maintain a unique intimacy and affinity with that being, each in his or her unique way. When we genuinely love a person, and this love is mutual, an interpersonal reality of intimacy and affinity is revealed. Such a revelation is a great achievement, which requires genuine effort and investment, conative, emotive, and cognitive. Mentioning conative investment, I have free will and free choice in mind. 18. Real Love, Beauty, and Actualism You can obviously see how deeply Gideon loves his wife, who is physically quite an ugly, old lady. Nothing about her physical appearance or gait appears to be beautiful, at least to the extent of what meets your eye. Physically, we doubt if she can be considered beautiful at all. Still, Gideon is quite sure that his beloved wife is the most beautiful woman in the entire world. He cannot fathom why other people do not realize that obvious truth: Mira is a real, fascinating, unique beauty. “But, dear Gideon, you cannot deny a simple fact, Mira is a most beautiful person, and to know her is a great fortune, all the more so to know her intimately. Still, physically judging, she is not beautiful at all. It is an undeniable, objective fact.” Gideon’s answer is plain enough: “Well, those who are blind to her physical, actual beauty, should discover it. Like the Michelangeloean sculptor who must reveal and disclose the sculpture hidden in the marble, those people should expose and realize Mira’s physical, actual beauty.” For Gideon, beauty, physical or psychical, is a subjectindependent (“objective”) matter, which should be discovered, not invented. For him, beauty is not only in the eye of the beholder, but it lies there waiting to be exposed and revealed to the world. For Gideon, those whose eyes see Mira as ugly are not ready or fit to remove the superfluity that covers her beauty, whether psychical or physical. Likewise, to remove all that is superfluous in the marble is necessary for giving birth to the sculpture. The artistic gaze gives birth, and this gaze is not only the property of artists, but also of lovers. To love means to reveal, to create or discover beauty. I believe that William Butler Yeats expressed this in the most adequate words: “All changed, changed utterly:/ A terrible beauty is born.” The lover’s gaze exposes such a beauty, even as regards the husband of the woman that the poet loved for so many years but in vain: “This other man I had dreamed/ A drunken, vainglorious lout. / He had done most bitter wrong/ To some who are
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near my heart,/ Yet I number him in the song; / He, too, has been changed in his turn,/ Transformed utterly:/ A terrible beauty is born” (Yeats, “Easter, 1916”). The artistic, poetic gaze redeems the “direct object” of his love, but also redeems what is so ugly, like the “drunken, vainglorious lout,” about her. After all, her choice to keep her miserable marriage going instead of accepting the poet’s love is quite ugly or contemptuous, to say the least, in the eyes of the poet. But this is the strength of his poetic, artistic revelation: To give birth even to the hidden beauty of that vainglorious lout, who unfortunately happened to be her husband. All the more so, to reveal the real beauty of the loved woman, “the loveliest woman born” (Yeats, “A Prayer for my Daughter”). Another gaze, by those who do not love her or are indifferent to her, could not realize her beauty at all, physically as well as psychically. Yet you would argue against me, we can love somebody who is physically ugly, even the “ugliest woman born,” but as a person she may be considered “the loveliest woman born.” I would like to challenge this commonplace. In the eyes of the artist-lover she is physically beautiful, no matter how ugly or not beautiful she may be in the eyes of others looking at her quite indifferently, as though nothing has happened, nothing exists to stay with, and nothing has left its impression. Gideon’s love reveals that Mira is physically beautiful no less than psychically. Her gaze, gait, even clumsiness, all her physical “flaws,” and other traits are considered beautiful in the eyes of Gideon as a lover-artist. To be more precise, all of them as a whole are so considered. The person as a whole, physical as well as psychical, is considered beautiful. We may long for our love, for her flaws, “bad” odors, some crazy, stupid things, her funny behavior, childishness, and many other traits that under different circumstances would be deemed annoying, ugly, repulsive, or just petty or vain. Love reveals the significance, value, worth, and deep meanings of what may be deemed insignificant or negligible through other eyes, failing to see the uniqueness, singularity, and worth of a person. Failing to love such a person, we may be blind to the meaning and significance of many of her physical properties as well. In such a case we would be blind to their beauty and would not esteem them as beautiful. Something that is meaningless or insignificant for us cannot be considered beautiful for us, however remarkable it may be physically. At least as far as persons are concerned, beauty is not only a matter of structure, proportion, or combination of colors. Physical beauty appeals to the beholder’s mind, since this beauty bears meanings, which are undoubtedly mental or psychical, for the beholder. The beautiful object embodies, materializes, or actualizes what is aesthetically meaningful and significant to the beholder. No beauty exists without a mind to discover, reveal, or realize that beauty. This consideration necessarily leads us to the psychophysical question.
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Although the psychical and the physical should be distinguished from one another and not eliminated or reduced one to the other, they are still most intimately connected. Do not misunderstand me at this point: The psychophysical distinction is both epistemic and ontic. Yet a distinction does not necessarily lead to, or mean, a separation. Thus, the psychical and the physical are epistemically and ontically distinct but not separate, which makes the psychophysical problem so intricate, and some believe that it is even insoluble (see, for instance, McGinn, 1989). The psychophysical unity (to be distinguished from identity) is, both epistemically and ontically, an undeniable fact. Mira as a physical being and as psychical being as well is one and the same person. Her personhood is the unity of her mind and body as an integrative whole. We can ask about her, “Is this woman beautiful?” Suppose that she is an extremely nice person, good-hearted, moral, benevolent, modest, courageous, and wise, having other mental and psychical merits, yet physically she appears quite ugly to most people. However, because of her many psychical and moral virtues, which do not immediately meet the eye, many persons, in the long term, have grown to love her and to seek her friendship and love. These persons have revealed her hidden beauty as time passes. For them, she is not only beautiful, she has become a real beauty, both psychically and physically. These persons have grown to reveal her psychical beauty as actualized or embodied in her physical appearance and behavior. They have studied her in depth, and realized that what met the eyes in the beginning should not be the truth about her, psychically and physically alike. Real beauty in depth should be discovered, revealed, and even deciphered. With such a beauty, their eyes should be opened to realize and reveal what is new as well as true and real about her. Against this background, my view as above has much to rely upon. We cannot identify anything actual, unless we assume, conceive, or grasp its possibility-identity first. To realize physical beauty as such, we must first assume or know its identity-possibility and not exclude it from the outset. As everyday experience, say, of parents and children, shows, love displays the singularity of the loved person. Singularity is one of the differences between “pornographic” attraction, aiming at actual persons and not at imaginary characters, and erotic attraction based on real love to singular persons. “Pornographic” attraction rests on repetitions, common traits, similarities, and the like. Any “pornographic” attraction is indifferent to its objects, as long as they are physically attractive and arouse the subject’s libido. In contrast, love is aimed at singular objects, namely, persons who are absolutely irreplaceable. Not so are the objects of “pornographic” attraction: Each of them is absolutely replaceable by others, as long as they share some similar traits appealing to the subject. “Pornographic” attraction separates, actually abstracts, some physical traits from any of its objects, ignoring his or her personality entirely. Under
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“pornographic” attraction the object is not identifiable as a subject or person at all. In this matter, “pornographic” attraction is blind or totally ignorant. Furthermore, “pornographic” attraction aims to cause sexual arousal, which can be satisfied in quite a short time. The arousal and its almost immediate satisfaction are the aim of any pornography. Not so is real love. Real love may do with sexual arousal and its satisfaction, but the erotic and psychical attraction in such cases is not satiable. No end exists to this love and attraction, and it can survive even the (actual) death of the loved one. Under real love, we always long or yearn for our loved ones. Even in their actual presence, we still miss them, for we miss what is still possible about them. “Pornographic” attraction identifies what is possible about its objects with their actual being. In contrast, real love always realizes the difference between the actual being and the possibilities concerning the loved ones. Finally, under “pornographic” love, no difference is made between the object and his or her image, even when attraction to an actual object is concerned. Images are enough to cause an arousal in the subject. Not so is real love, which needs much more than mere images. With it, we distinguish between the loved one and his or her images. We love the persons themselves, not their images. Because of this, we cannot compare any of our loved ones to any other person. Each singular loved one is incomparable. Each real love is aimed at a singular person. Love is our only way to know about the singularity of the loved person. No other way exists to reveal her or his singularity and to know anything about it, including its significance and meanings. To get to know the beauty of the physical realization, namely the actualization, of a person, we thus have to love her or him as a person first. Otherwise, we cannot come to realize her or his physical beauty, which would leave us entirely indifferent, as if it were not beautiful at all. Revelation is not a foreign phenomenon where love is concerned. Falling in love with someone, we have the feeling that this person is unique, a singular human being who bears a universal significance, since in the whole world no other person like her or him exists. The same holds for the beauty of this person. Falling in love with her or him, we reveal a new beauty, a beauty is born before our eyes. Such a beauty may be either terrible or wonderful. But in any case, it is most significant. In contrast, in the absence of love we may not realize at all how beautiful that person is. The hidden beauty of that person should be a genuine innovation for us. It could change the entire world for us. “Making love” means rendering a person beautiful, or, better, discovering or revealing how beautiful this person is. Love is thus the capability to make what appears to be ugly really beautiful. The singular possibility thus becomes actual. Actuality must in turn be physical. The beauty of the person, or the beauty of the person’s soul, becomes realized and
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recognized as physical too. Like the religious grace or benignity, love endows the loved person with the grace of redemption or salvation—the salvation from ugliness, desertion, negligibility, insignificance, triviality, ignorance, indifference, and the like. Love is a sort of knowledge, the knowledge about the singularity of a person, the knowledge about her or his real beauty. Despite the common view that beauty is only subjective, namely, a matter of personal taste, for many years, some have argued that real beauty is subject-independent or “objective” (for a recent argument consider Zemach, 1997). I tend to agree with the objectivist view concerning beauty but on different grounds. Does my objectivist-realist view necessarily force me to admit that any person can be loved by any person? Not at all. Although beauty is subject-independent (“objective”) and its meaning and significance are universal, still the discovery of beauty is personal and must be within the restrictions of psychical singularity. Just as the sculpture by Michelangelo is really or objectively hidden in the marble, the beauty of the loved person really or subject-independently exists, waiting to be discovered by the loverartist. Yet in both cases the discovery can be only personal. Only Michelangelo was capable of revealing or exposing the sculptures that he, and only he, could make. Equally, only the singular lover is capable of revealing or discovering the particular beauty, “this and not other beauty,” of the loved person. Thus, love is a profoundly personal matter, although the beauty of the lover is subject-independent (“objective”), universal matter. Love is a kind, a special kind, of art. Real beauty exists, and the objectivist-realist view concerning aesthetics holds much water. But much more exists to it. Beauty is not only subjectindependent, intersubjective, or real, but also necessary. Mathematical necessity has been well acknowledged. Also acknowledged, especially with Pythagoreans and Platonists, has been the intimate link between mathematics and aesthetics. As Hardy pointedly put it, “Beauty is the first test: there is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics” (Hardy, 1973). Ugly mathematics, if possible at all, must be transient. If beauty is really the first test of valid mathematics, beauty should relate to the necessity that is so essential for mathematics (see Section 3.2 above). This necessity is well compatible with the realistically ontological status of beauty. Equally, the object of love is the beautiful person as a whole, psychically and physically, and a sort of necessity must be about the singularity of that person and, as a result, about her or his physical realization, namely actualization. The lovers know for certain that their loved ones are necessary as well as indispensable (at least for them). For the lovers, to surmise anything contingent about the being or existence of their loved ones is impossible. The loved ones must be there, and no other person can replace them. No other person, in the entire world, can be identical with any of them, not even similar to her or him. Under
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love, singular beings, beauty, and necessity or indispensability are inseparable. In this way, love transforms what is ugly, aesthetically insignificant, or contingent into something beautiful and necessary. Michelangelo’s “excluding or removing the superfluous” leads to the same conclusion. To expose the beautiful or the necessary the artist must remove or exclude all that is superfluous, which entails transforming the contingent into the necessary. According to the ontological postulate as above, the purely possible, namely the mental or the psychical, is necessary, whereas the actual-physical is just contingent. Identity has to do with the purely possible. As far as art relates the beautiful to the necessary, art enlightens us about the possibility, identity, and meaning of the loved person. No less, the art of love reveals the significance, that is, the beauty, of the physical realization of the loved person as a whole. The art of love, therefore, makes the physically ugly beautiful, by revealing its meanings and significance. The great difference between “pornographic” attraction and real love reveals to us that while real love is possibilist, “pornographic” attraction identifies the possible with the actual, and, hence, it must be actualist. Since such is the case, “pornographic” attraction is incapable of conceiving the necessity or indispensability of the desired objects. From the “pornographic” viewpoint all that exists in them must be contingent. Pornography is an actualist approach to its objects, all of which are merely contingent, and by no means singular. Beginning to feel a genuine love toward a new person we have just met, everything, or almost everything, looks new and novel for us, and the significance of everything is really changed for us. We have to study again, to know again, from the very beginning, the entire world. The a priori meanings and significance of the loved singular begin then to be revealed for us. The singular loved subjectively “becomes” universally necessary for us. “For us” because it is a singular revelation, a most personal revelation, which must be singular as far as the discoverer is concerned. Obviously, the meanings and significance of the singular loved for you are not, and cannot be, the meanings and significance of her or him for someone else. Several, even many persons, can or may realize the uniqueness, novelty, and necessity of the same and one loved singular. Yet the interpersonal, intersubjective relationship between two particular persons is not one and the same as that between two other particular persons. Still, the loved person is singular, necessary, and universally meaningful, although differently for different persons. Loving the loved singular, we know ourselves. Love is an epistemic, cognitive revelation too. As such too, love bears a universal significance. Acquainting with the loved singular, we are getting to know something of utmost importance about all persons, something intrinsically universal. Thus,
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loving a person, we discover or rediscover an entire universe of relationships. Love thus bears a universal novelty. Love makes a viewpoint from which the world as a whole is differently enlightened, enlightened anew. Witnessing a new love, we are re-witnessing the “creation” of a universe: “All changed, changed utterly:/ A terrible beauty is born” (William Butler Yeats, “Easter, 1916”). An utterly new universe is born, more precisely, revealed, and that universe is intersubjective, as all of its possibilities are within the purely mental-possible as a whole. Being within it, they are atemporal and necessary, ready to be discovered from personal as well as intersubjective viewpoints. Discovering the new loved singular, we discover a whole new universe. Each individual possibility, particular or singular, bears a universal significance and, thus, to discover or reveal, by means of love, the singularity of a person makes the entire world different for us (following Gilead, 2003, pp. 19–41). Having been acquainted with the singularity of a person, we know, experience, or feel the entire world differently, as a new universe. Under panenmentalism, universe in the final sense is the relationality of any pure possibility, relationality that covers the entire realm of pure possibilities. Thus, no universe is an actual reality. It is only a mental reality. It is the relational nature of each pure possibility, a nature that is the universal significance of each pure possibility over the realm of pure possibilities as a whole. Such significance consists of the universal inter-relationality of pure possibilities, a mental reality that is open to our knowledge and self-knowledge as well. Thus, our knowledge reveals the universe for us, though what opens our eyes to acquire the knowledge about a person’s singularity is an emotion—love. In any case, with no knowledge or awareness of the universal significancerelationality of a possibility, and with no aware relationality of ourselves to a possibility as universally significant, no universe would have existed for us. No actual reality can make a universe. 19. Equality Singular beings—persons—are incomparable or incommensurable, for no way exists to compare beings that are intrinsically not similar. Only on the basis of similarity can we compare distinct beings. Yet panenmentalist ethics endeavors to defend persons’ equality as an indispensable universal value. For instance, as far as human rights are concerned, all persons are equal, even though each person is singular, unique, and incomparable to other beings or persons. How can personal, human rights be comparable, commensurable, and equal despite the singularity of each of the persons involved? Rights are intersubjective possibilities-values, whereas persons are personal or subjective possibilities-beings, each of which is a singular. As
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involved in intersubjective reality or as involved in objective, physical reality, the relationality of persons facilitates comparability and commensurability, which do not hold for each person intrinsically but only as intersubjectively or objectively-actually relating to other persons. Common or equal rights are thus of intersubjective relationality or, more precisely, inter-relationality. Equality is a possible way in which persons relate one to the other. Thus, equality cannot be an intrinsic quality or trait of any person as s/he is in herself/himself. Equality is thus a relational quality or trait of persons. Each person is intrinsically beyond any comparison. Each person is universally, entirely, and absolutely unique. Nothing similar to any person exists. Yet the universal significance of any person leads to the equality of each person to any other persons, at least as far as human or personal rights are concerned. If each person is singular or unique, all persons share common intersubjective or interpersonal reality, in which they are equal at least in their human rights. Human or personal rights do not exhaust human equality. Each of these persons, as singular, is lovable, dearly signifies to other person(s). As singulars, each of whom, to borrow from Kant, should be considered or treated as an end-in-herself/himself, which makes another indispensable aspect of human equality. As an end-in-herself/himself, each person is singular or unique, yet as a member of the Kingdom of Ends, to borrow from Kant again, each person is equal to any other person. Kant did not mention singularity in this context, which is a panenmentalist contribution or novelty (Gilead, 2003, pp. 25–35). Yet I am quite sure that the idea of personal singularity can find room for itself in that sublime Kantian idea, in a way that grasps this aspect of Kant’s ethics more deeply or insightfully than his way. Moral universality and equality go hand-in-hand with the singularity of each human being, of each person. This entails that no Human Reason alone but something deeper or more profound makes us members of the Kingdom of Ends—the singularity of each of us, which bears universal relationality or significance, especially moral. Human Reason is but one aspect of this basic relationality. Intrinsically speaking, each person cannot be equal to any other being, let alone other person. Persons “in themselves” cannot be equal, for they are entirely incomparable, each is wholly different one from the other (“wholly other”). Yet, as relating to each other in the common, sharing intersubjective or interpersonal reality, persons are necessarily equal. The value of each person is wholly other than that of any other person, but, intersubjectively or interpersonally, these values are equal. They stand on an equal basis, which is the universally intersubjective plane of reality. Equality of objects is entirely different from equality of subjects-persons. Equal objects are intrinsically similar, whereas equal subjects-persons are intrinsically different. By the same token, commensurability is the trait of objects or non-personal possibilities.
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When it comes to bodies, the physical realization—actualization—of our minds, each of which is singular, equality wins again. Some of Shylock’s speech should persuade the readers about human equality on the grounds of human flesh and blood: Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions . . . ? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? (William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1) No categorical difference exists at least between one human flesh and blood and another. As bodily realizations—as actualities—all human beings may be considered as equal. Similarity is typical of the actual-physical, in which each entity or event is subject to spatiotemporal and causal restrictions and conditions. Under similar circumstances, human beings suffer from the same diseases and illnesses, living under the same physical threats, and treated by the same means. A universal medical science and treatment should equally exist for all human beings. Racial medicine can gain no scientific or pragmatic standing whatsoever. From the physical-actual viewpoint, human beings are similar. From the purely possible one, each human being is singular, which implies a universal relationality on the basis of which all human beings are equal. As far as panenmentalism is concerned, a crucial question arises: How is it possible for any psychical singularity to be beyond any comparison or commensurability, while the actualization of the same singularity must be comparable and even equal? I have answered this question in Section 4.11 above. Physical, actual properties are all comparable and common, for (1) they are all universally subject to spatiotemporal and causal conditions, which, in turn, are homogeneous, and (2) nothing singular can be found among such properties. However different one person’s physical being may be from another’s, no physical singularity, only uniqueness, can pertain to any such being. Even if a particular physical property exclusively belongs to one person and not to another, such a property is not singular (at most it can be unique), for it is comparable with physical properties of other human beings. Ownership, possession, or belonging, however exclusive, cannot be a matter of singularity, which is beyond comparability, commensurability, or commonness. Singularity stems from the psychical alone, and only singularity is beyond any comparison, commensurability, or commonness. Yet in relationality, which singularity necessarily bears, lie the grounds for commonness and comparability, which the actualization of pure possibilities,
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including psychical, entails. As explained in Section 4.11, psychical relationality is entirely different from physical relationality, although it actualizes the first relationality. With panenmentalism, in sum, the concept of equality has to be radically changed. With panenmentalism, equality relies upon the basis of singularity, which is intrinsically incomparable and incommensurable and on which, owing to the relationality of the singular possibilities involved, common, intersubjective or objective, reality arises. Bodily existence or realization takes part in a common, objective reality. Since each person is a singular, entirely different from any other possible being in the whole realm of possibilities, each person bears a universal significance. Under the panenmentalist sky, no dwarf, no insignificant, worthless person, can exist. Only owing to prejudices, ignorance, stupidity, blindness, lack of sensitivity, and, first and foremost, lack of love, can we not discern the uniqueness of each human being but consider him or her merely a dwarf. Nevertheless, a Nietzschean untruthful, deceptive fiction attempts to teach us quite otherwise. It is the fiction about the human dwarves, which are the majority of humanity. In the Nietzschean world, many alleged dwarves exist. The same holds for different political views, especially fascist. In The Will to Power, Nietzsche states, [T]here is nothing to life that has value, except the degree of power— assuming that life itself is the will to power. Morality guarded the underprivileged against nihilism by assigning to each an infinite value, a metaphysical value, and by placing each in an order that did not agree with the worldly order of rank and power. (1968, 55, p. 37) Even more than morality, love, which illuminates the cosmic value and significance of each singular loved person (Gilead, 2003, pp. 19–41), entirely opposes regarding ordinary people as “the underprivileged,” such as the Nietzschean “dwarves” or the rest of humanity that does not consist of the Nietzschean Supermen. If any human being may be a loved one, love opposes any rating of human beings, let alone according to rank and power. Love is the right answer to the Nietzschean arrogance, nihilism, and contempt for “common” humanity as a whole. You cannot dispense with ordinary people, as if they were faceless creatures in the multitude, “mob,” or “herd,” without dispensing with any human being, since each member of the multitude is a singular human being. Spinoza’s intellectual love of God teaches us such a lesson. Each of the objects of this love, namely, human beings, is singular, and this view by Spinoza is truly consistent with his devotion to the liberally democratic demands. Nietzsche’s amor fati is thus entirely different from
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Spinoza’s intellectual love of God. As a Dionysian affirmation of the “eternal circulation” (Will to Power, 1041; 1968, p. 536), that amor fati entails the mechanical, duplicating eradication of the singular, whereas Spinoza’s intellectual love of God aims at singular beings, strengthening and invigorating them as singulars. In either Spinozistic or my panenmentalist view on love, Nietzsche’s amor fati should not be considered as love. What is the stuff of which “dwarves” are made? “Illusions” is both the nature and the name of it. Only under illusions may we consider any person as a dwarf, entirely ignoring her or his uniqueness or singularity, which entails her or his universal, cosmic significance. Some of these illusions are extremely dangerous; some of them are just a matter of ignorance, insensitivity, or indifference. The source of the ignorance or insensitivity that is the root of the illusions creating dwarves is a lack of love. We consider or treat as dwarves only those persons for whom we feel no love at all. Yet our hatred of some persons may divulge our considering them not dwarves at all. To consider persons as dwarves requires a sort of indifference that refers to the alleged insignificance of these persons for us. Such indifference consists of illusions owing to self-deception or self-ignorance, for each person, as singular and different from any other person, should mean something for us. Each person, as a singular psychical possibility, relates to all the others. This psychical relationality makes a difference and significance in a reality in which no dwarves exist at all.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amihud Gilead was born in Jerusalem in 1947. He is married to Ruth and is the father of Amir and Inbal. Gilead is Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, Israel. He has published books and papers on Spinoza, Kant, Plato, metaphysics, philosophical psychology, and philosophy of literature. His previous books, The Platonic Odyssey: A PhilosophicalLiterary Inquiry into the Phaedo, Saving Possibilities: A Study in Philosophical Psychology, and Singularity and Other Possibilities: Panenmentalist Novelties, appeared respectively in 1994, 1999, and 2003 in the Value Inquiry Book Series (Volumes 17, 80, and 139). The last two books and the present one are devoted to Gilead’s original metaphysics, panenmentalism, a part of which is a panenmentalist philosophical psychology.
INDEX accessibilit(ies)(y), 30, 65, 79, 96, 97, 126, 128, 129, 135, 137, 139, 189, 203, 237, 281, 289 intersubjective a., 79 private (subjective) a., 12, 79, 124, 200, 230, 281, 286 public (objective) a., 79, 251, 281 actor, 183, 213, 214 actualis(m)(t)(ts), 6, 7, 15–19, 23–25, 28–30, 32–36, 38–40, 43, 47, 49, 52–60, 63, 64, 68–70, 72, 76, 80, 84, 87, 88, 90, 91, 96, 100, 108–110, 115, 118, 119, 122, 123, 125, 131, 133, 150, 152, 158, 177, 179, 185, 186, 197, 216, 224, 234, 237, 256, 257, 259, 262, 264, 287, 288, 293, 298, 306, 310, 313 Adams, Robert M., 93, 94, 100, 101, 305 aesthetic(s), 39, 75–77, 85, 90, 151, 152, 154, 157–162, 164–166, 294, 297, 298 a. necessity, 85, 157–162 amygdala, 188–196 Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 62, 66, 156, 313 apriorism, 6 Aristotle, 62, 135, 137, 159, 215, 216 art, 16, 30, 58, 60, 62, 63, 65–68, 90, 157–159, 162–167, 171, 173, 175, 176, 179, 180, 183, 225, 242–244, 252, 253, 267, 293, 294, 297, 298 reproductive a., 163–165 availability, 81, 189 automat(a)(ic)(ically), 29, 133, 210, 213, 214, 233, 257 spiritual a(a)., 133 Bacon, Francis, 59 Baron-Cohen, Simon, 240, 305 Beall, J.C., 73, 305
beauty, 75–77, 151, 157, 158, 164– 166, 171, 173, 226, 252, 253, 293–299, 315 Berkeley, George, Berkeleyan, 124, 126–128, 205, 288, 305 Berman, Emanuel, 241, 244, 305 Bermúdez, José Luis, 231, 305 Black, Max, 94–102, 305, 306 body, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11, 16, 116, 126, 127, 130, 142, 183–188, 191, 192, 197–200, 204–206, 208– 212, 215–223, 225–227, 233, 247, 250, 260–262, 275, 277, 281–284, 286–288, 294, 295, 305, 309–311 Bohm, David, 219–225, 305 Boole, George, 152 Bradley, Raymond, 29, 305 Campbell, Jan, 246, 305 Cartesian, 22, 130, 145, 194, 205, 208, 219–222, 224, 232, 256, 283 Casullo, Albert, 94, 101, 305 causal(ity), 4, 6, 8–11, 27, 28, 30, 31, 35, 38, 42, 43, 54, 61, 62, 71, 78, 87, 88, 92, 95, 96, 103, 108, 111, 114, 126, 127, 129, 141– 143, 168–170, 189, 201–203, 206, 209, 214–217, 220–225, 234, 235, 240, 245, 248, 254, 260, 261, 266, 267, 270, 271, 281–285, 288, 301 cause(s), 3, 7–11, 17, 27, 93, 132, 133, 141, 168, 192, 201, 205, 206, 209, 211, 213–215, 235, 249, 260, 270, 274, 276, 283 Cavell, Marcia, 246, 247, 249–252, 305 Chisholm, Roderick M., 18, 53, 305 choice, 45, 90, 131, 133, 167, 175– 177, 266–271, 278, 280, 281, 291–294 clone, 122
320
NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS
conscious(ness), 1, 5, 7, 14, 22, 71, 72, 75, 77, 79, 123, 127–130, 135, 144, 171, 176, 185, 187, 188, 190–197, 199, 200–206, 209, 210, 213, 215–217, 229–238, 241, 244, 245, 249, 250, 252, 259, 261–266, 269, 274, 275, 278, 282–286, 289, 291, 308, 310, 314 Conter, David, 175, 306 contingen(cies)(cy)(t), 3, 7, 14–17, 47, 48, 56, 61–63, 66–72, 75– 78, 85, 92, 93, 102, 103, 105, 108, 110–113, 115, 127, 129, 131, 132, 134, 139, 147, 150, 152, 153, 158, 159, 161, 164– 176, 179–181, 185, 186, 189, 197, 205, 214, 247, 251, 254, 269, 280, 281, 291, 292, 297, 298, 312, 314 creativ(e)(ity), 16, 83, 95, 152, 161, 163, 165, 175, 177, 231, 242– 244, 252, 254, 257, 258, 265, 292 Crittenden, Charles, 81, 306 Cross, Charles B., 94, 306 Cytowic, Richard E., 283, 306 Darwin, Charles, 116–119, 306 Darwin’s Predicta, 118, 119 Predicta fallacy, 59, 118 Davidson, Donald, Davidsonian, 19, 20, 121, 126, 141, 145, 191 death, 14, 118, 192, 193, 296, 309 Denkel, Arda, 94, 101, 306 Descartes, René, 215, 216, 218–220, 255–257 Determinis(m)(t)(tic)(ts), 47, 68, 72, 102, 103, 168–170, 174, 175, 179, 180, 229, 238, 247, 249, 251, 260, 266, 267, 269, 270, 279, 281, 292 causal d. 267 d. of pure possibilities, 68, 102, 175, 266, 267, 281, 292 psychical d., 72, 168, 170, 174,
180, 229, 247, 251, 260, 269, 281 Deus ex Machina, 166–168, 320 Devitt, Michael, 53, 306 discover(able)(ability)(ies)(y), passim Divers, John, 40, 306 Double, Richard, 279, 306 double, the, 122, 123 dualis(m)(t)(tic)(ts), 10, 11, 137, 144, 193, 194, 216, 217, 219, 222– 224, 234, 235, 260, 282, 283, 285, 287 duplicab(ility)(le), 163–165, 183, 184, 225 Eccles, John C., 193, 194, 311 Eilan, Naomi, 231, 305 Einstein, Albert, 75–77, 150, 264, 306 eka-element(s), 29, 47, 49–58, 60–63, 69, 70, 84, 87, 95, 99, 117, 118 eka-fallacy, 49, 50, 57, 59, 118 Ellmann, Richard, 207, 306 emergen(ce)(tism), 144, 196, 201, 216 237, 282, 283 empiricis(m)(t), 59, 73, 94, 98, 122– 128, 134, 139, 149, 168, 177, 178, 185, 198, 287, 307 equality, 21, 160, 299–303 esse is percipi, 272, 273, 275 essentialism, 93 Euclid(ean), 29, 31, 54, 73–75, 86, 100, 101, 150, 186, 255–257 Euclidean geometry, 31, 54, 73, 74, 86, 150, 186, 255, 256 Non-Euclidean geometries, 31, 74, 150, 186, 255 externalism, 142, 143 Fermat’s theorem, 152–154 fictionalis(m)(t)(ts), 80–83, 88, 91, 94, 311, 312 Findlay, J. N., 33, 306 Fine, Kit, 32–34, 311 Foster, Thomas R., 94, 101, 309 Frege, Gottlob, Fregean, 40, 44, 45, 70
Index French, Steven, 94, 101, 107, 108, 306 Freud, Sigmund, Freudian, 22, 71–73, 187, 188, 190–193, 196, 199, 214, 217, 235, 238, 241, 245, 246, 249–251, 260, 287, 305, 306, 308 Friedman, Joel, 152, 307 Fromanger, Gerald, 252–253 Gendler-Szab, Tamar, 64, 307 God, 1, 20, 63, 73–76, 115, 124, 128– 133, 135, 136, 140, 151, 165, 166, 215, 219, 220, 255, 302, 303, 307, 312 Gödel, Kurt, 150 Griffin, Nicholas, 83, 308 Griffith, Richard M., 276, 308 Hacking, Ian, 94, 101, 308 haecceit(ism)(ist)(y), 56, 57, 93, 94, 112–114, 312 Hamlet (Shakespeare), 24, 25, 37, 62, 174 Hardy, G. H., 76, 151, 166, 297, 308 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 215 Hemmo, Meir, 14, 104–106, 308 Hintikka, Jaakko, 32, 33, 40–45, 69, 90, 109, 152, 308 holis(m)(tic), 145–147, 237, 258, 266 Hopkins, Jim, 282, 286, 287, 308 Hume, David, 135, 138, 139, 168, 169, 178, 230, 241, 308 Husserl, Edmund, 261–265, 308 idiosyncra(sy)(tic), 2, 12, 162, 197, 247 illogical, 2, 17, 18, 20, 71–73, 75, 109, 157–162, 177 illusion(s), 3, 7, 14, 28, 29, 82, 129, 162, 169, 170, 174, 179, 204, 215, 245, 248, 251, 266, 272– 282, 287, 291, 303, 307, 308, 313 implicate order, 221, 222
321 impossibilia, 110 impossibilit(ies)(y), 64, 73–75, 89, 110, 112, 122, 139, 154, 157, 160, 161, 215, 279, 307, 314 incommensurab(ility)(le), 144, 299, 302 individual(ity)(s), 3, 4, 12, 15, 19, 28, 32, 34, 37, 38, 40, 42–45, 48– 50, 53–58, 60–71, 78, 80, 81, 83, 87, 90, 100, 102, 105–108, 112–114, 117, 122, 123, 125, 130–132, 140, 149, 150, 153– 156, 208, 231, 232, 266–268, 287, 288, 299, 312, 313 individuation, 27, 28, 49, 52, 70, 71, 98, 112, 122, 124, 134, 143, 149, 208, 287, 306, 310 induplicab(ility)(le), 163–165, 183, 184, 225 innate(ness), 4, 122–124, 126, 127, 131, 142, 154 inner reality, 13, 77, 123, 127, 128, 136, 137, 143, 170, 171, 196, 203, 230, 231, 244, 251–253, 259, 261, 271, 277, 281, 282, 287, 289 inner space, 281–288 inspiration, 257–259 integrati(on)(ve), 165, 171, 229–231, 233, 236–238, 244, 246–252, 259, 265, 266, 268, 274, 289, 295 intelligib(ility)(le), 9, 10, 17, 18, 20, 25, 35, 69, 70, 89, 101, 118, 143, 144, 146, 168, 185, 186, 219, 251, 277, 290 internalism, 142 intima(cy)(te)(tely), 11, 23, 80, 135, 166, 171, 207, 208, 241, 253, 263, 291–293, 295, 297 intrinsic similarity, 44, 45, 52, 54, 58, 121, 149–157, 160, 165, 185, 287, 299, 300 irrational(ity), 24, 273, 280 i. number(s), 24, 25
322
NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS
Jacquette, Dale, 37, 38, 84, 89, 91, 308 Joyce, James, 95, 171, 207, 208, 253, 306 Kafka, Franz, 66, 151, 158, 161, 179, 184, 309 Kane, Robert, 279, 309 Kant, Immanuel, Kanti(an)(anism), 15, 59, 73, 74, 85, 98, 100, 122, 130, 134, 135–139, 149, 151– 155, 178, 215, 222, 239, 261– 264, 287, 300, 307–309, 317 Kantian Copernican Revolution, 138, 139, 178, 222 Kim, Jaegwon, 142, 143, 200, 309 Krause, Décio, 106, 309 Kripke, Saul, 6, 56, 60, 83, 86, 309 Künne, Wolfgang, 121, 309 Lambert, Karel, 43, 309, 312 Landini, Gregory, 94, 101, 309 Lear, Jonathan, 72, 309 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Leibnizian(ism), 70, 73, 91–94, 97, 98, 101, 114, 115, 128–135, 309 Leibovitz, Yeshayahu, 194 Lewis, David, 34, 35, 49, 60, 81, 108, 109, 111, 113, 114, 309, 314 life, form(s) of, 79, 80, 146, 166, 170, 257 psychical, l, 5, 7, 8, 157, 172, 173, 210, 221, 241, 244, 248, 251, 253, 279 literature, 24, 62, 63, 159, 170–176, 311, 317 logic, 75, 85, 90, 91, 94, 96, 101, 102, 105, 107, 109–111, 115, 134, 145, 146, 149–154, 157–161, 177, 180, 185, 186, 219, 232, 233, 235, 237, 239, 248, 256, 264, 305, 308–310, 312, 314 Loux, Michael J., 29, 306, 310, 313, 314 love, 22, 122, 171, 207, 208, 226,
247, 250, 269, 293–299, 302, 303 Luria, Aleksandr Romanovich, 238– 243, 310 Lycan, William G., 32, 33, 35, 38–40, 108, 109, 111, 310 machine(s), 29, 59, 74, 89, 133, 166, 194, 210, 233, 234, 277, 288 thinking m., 42, 74, 75, 133, 134, 233, 234 materialis(m)(t), 7, 11, 88, 122–125, 133, 184–186, 198, 210–215, 234, 235, 260, 283, 285, 287 mathematic(al)(ian)(s), 13, 18, 24, 25, 29, 30, 48, 51, 54, 56, 60–64, 66, 73–76, 83, 84–88, 95, 96, 99, 102, 103, 105, 107, 121, 134, 149–163, 165, 166, 173, 180, 181, 184–187, 203, 226, 239, 248, 255, 256, 258, 297, 307, 308, 311–313 Maudlin, Tim, 107, 310 Maurer, D., 240, 310 McGinn, Colin, 26, 27, 283–286, 295, 310 McMichael, Alan, 53–58, 310 meaning(ful)(fullness)(less)(s), passim memor(ies)(y), 5, 22, 187–196, 200, 213, 238–247, 251–253, 261, 263, 265, 266, 307, 310, 314 mereology, 222 mind, passim minding, 229, 237 Meinong, Alexius, Meinongianism, 23, 27, 33, 35–40, 45–47, 83– 91, 109, 110, 113, 121, 306 neo-Meinongianism, 37, 84, 89, 91 Mendeleev, Dimitri, 49, 50, 52, 56 metaphysic(al)(an)(s), xiii, 1, 2, 7, 13– 15, 17, 20, 23, 27, 28, 36, 37, 42, 51, 55, 60, 61, 64, 70–75, 80, 82, 85, 91, 94, 96–102, 104– 109, 111, 114, 115, 117–119, 122, 125, 126, 129–132, 134,
Index 135, 141, 176–178, 189, 192– 194, 196–198, 200, 214, 215, 220, 225, 236, 237, 253, 266, 272, 276, 279, 302, 306, 307, 310, 312–315, 317 Metzinger, Thomas, 201, 202, 204, 205, 282, 310 mnemonist(s), 238, 242, 246, 247, 310 modal(ity), 1, 7, 15–20, 23, 26–29, 32–35, 38, 39, 41, 44, 57, 62, 63, 80–83, 100, 102, 104, 105, 108, 109, 111–114, 117, 118, 125, 175, 220, 305, 308, 310–314 m. eliminativis(m)(t)(ts), 111, 184, 234, 235 moral(ity), 83, 137, 167, 280, 295, 300, 302 multiple, 51, 97, 156, 184, 229, 289 multiple personality, 113, 189, 238– 246, 305 Musil, Robert, 25, 310 Nabokov, Vladimir, 156, 243–245, 310 Nagel, Thomas, 277, 311 Nehamas, Alexander, 175, 311 neuro-psychoanalysis, 187–200, 203, 314 Nietzsche, Friedrich, Nietzschean, 175, 302, 303, 311 Nolan, Daniel, 80, 82, 311 nominalis(m)(t)(tic)(ts), 46, 60, 78, 112, 155, 156 noneis(m)(t)(ts), 35, 83–86, 88, 91, 310, 314 Occam’s razor, 36, 38, 39 O’Leary-Hawthorne, John, 94, 311, 314 ontolog(ical)(ically)(y), passim Otto, Rudolf, 136 panenontic, 125 panentheism, 1, 133
323 pantheism, 1 Parfit, Derek, 122, 177–179, 311 Parsons, Terence, 35, 46, 47, 311 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 94, 101, 311 personal identity, xiii, 113, 123, 187, 230, 265, 266, 289, 314 personality, 10, 13, 113, 124, 163, 167, 175, 189, 199, 226, 231, 238, 241–244, 246–248, 266, 268, 295, 305 “phantom” experience, 277 phantom pain(s), 204, 276–278, 281 physics, 75, 105, 107, 144, 150, 184– 187, 202, 220, 223, 306, 310, 313 physicalis(t)(ts)(m), 185–187, 210– 212, 214 Plato(nism), 19–21, 37, 56, 58, 60, 85, 112, 122, 125, 126, 128, 135, 137, 145, 154, 216, 253, 254, 262, 297, 307, 311, 317 Popper, Karl R., 193, 215–219, 311 possibilism, 1, 25, 27, 28, 33–35, 39, 43, 45, 49, 50, 56, 59–61, 64, 69, 72, 83, 93, 108–110, 112, 125, 131–133 possibilia, 26–28, 34, 38, 40, 43, 49, 51, 59, 62, 63, 69–71, 81, 84, 90, 110, 114, 306, 314 possibles, 23, 28–30, 32, 33, 39, 57, 81, 84, 131–133 possible world(s), 15, 19, 24, 26, 28, 29, 33–35, 39–46, 49, 53–56, 60, 61, 65, 68, 69, 71, 80–83, 86–88, 90, 91, 93, 94, 98–100, 102, 103, 105, 108–110, 112– 115, 131, 180, 306, 309, 310, 312 posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 187–192, 314 predicate(s), 18–20, 23, 35, 37, 46, 113, 125 Priest, Graham, 83, 311 Prior, A. N., 32–34, 311 Proust, Marcel, 171, 172, 175, 226
324
NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS
psychoanaly(sis)(tic), 14, 72, 135, 136, 167, 172, 187–192, 194– 198, 200, 202, 203, 214, 218, 235, 238, 259, 260, 305, 307, 308, 314 psychophysical, 10, 11, 130, 144, 191, 194, 196, 198, 199, 206– 208, 210–215, 219–225, 227, 235, 260, 283, 284, 287, 294, 295 p. identity, 10, 11 p. interaction(ism), 8, 9, 10, 215, 224 p. problem, 11, 12, 130, 185, 188, 193, 194, 196, 198, 199, 215–218, 220–222, 225, 284, 295 p. unity, 1, 8–11, 196, 198, 199, 207–219, 220, 221, 259, 282, 295 Putnam, Hilary, 141–145, 150, 185, 311 Pythagorean(s), 24, 25, 149, 150, 166, 297 quantum mechanics, 102–104, 106– 108, 308, 313, 314 quantum metaphysics, 104, 107, 108 panenmentalist q.met., 104, 108 quantum possibilities, 102, 107, 108, 312 Quine, W.V.O., Quinean, 19, 20, 23, 28–30, 36–40, 43, 45, 55, 57, 58, 64, 68, 70, 84, 91, 111, 126, 145, 237, 311 Rashomon conundrum, 41 rational(ity), 9, 59, 71, 73, 77, 128– 130, 176, 277, 290, 307 rationalism, 93, 122, 124, 129, 130, 134 realism, 40, 43, 49, 60, 61, 69, 80, 81, 83, 85, 108, 110, 125 Platonic r., 112, 122 possible worlds r., 35, 49, 80, 86
psychical r., 88 Redhead, Michael, 107, 108, 306 reductionis(m)(t)(ts), 111, 144, 184, 210, 211, 214, 215, 235, 260, 285 Reeves, Sandra, 311 referen(ce)(t)(tiality)(ts), 16, 21, 28, 44, 45, 51, 57, 66, 81, 87, 143, 273, 289 direct r., 49, 65–67, 87, 142, 143 relational(ity), passim Rescher, Nicholas, 39, 40, 43, 49–52, 55, 59–71, 83–88, 91, 115, 180, 312 Rodriguez-Pereyra, Gonzalo, 94, 312 Rorty, Richard, 175, 312 Rosen, Gideon, 80, 312 Rosenkrantz, Gary S., 112, 113, 312 round square, 18, 23, 24, 32, 64, 73– 75, 121 Routley (Sylvan), Richard, 35, 71, 83, 85, 87, 312, 313 Routley, Valery, 71, 312 Russell, Bertrand, Russellian, 19, 20, 23–26, 31, 32, 39, 40, 45, 55, 70, 87, 94, 125, 126, 149, 177, 312 Sacks, Oliver, 209, 312 Sartre, Jean-Paul, Sartrean, 114–116, 312 Saunders, Nicholas T., 102, 103, 312 Scott, Dana, 43, 312 Searle, John, 201, 260, 312 self, 126, 176, 198, 200, 218, 231, 244, 247, 266, 305, 311 self-conscious(ness), 77, 144, 193, 231, 232, 278 self-deception, 273, 275–279, 289, 290, 303 self-hiding, 290 selfhood, 231, 232 self-ignorance, 248, 251, 303 self-knowledge, 22, 23, 167, 170, 172– 174, 202, 218, 233, 247, 248, 251, 276, 278, 289, 299
Index set-theor(etical)(y), 19–21, 34, 35, 38, 40, 58, 87, 105, 125, 126, 152, 186 Shakespeare, William, 24, 301, 313 Shimony, Abner, 102, 313 Sider, Theodore, 111, 313 similar(ity)(ities), 2, 4, 12, 21, 45, 94, 96, 99, 106, 114, 123, 128, 134, 135, 137, 159, 160, 162, 163, 165, 173, 206, 213, 224, 225– 229, 231, 233, 250, 286, 291, 295, 297, 301 singular(ity), passim Smilansky, Saul, 14, 272, 313 Socrates, 56, 154, 252, 253 solipsis(m)(tically), 77, 203 Solms, Mark, 193, 196–200, 313 spatialization of the psychical, 283, 287, 288 spatiotemporal(ity), 6, 8–11, 27–33, 35, 36, 38, 43, 45, 48, 54, 61, 62, 67, 70, 71, 78, 81, 84, 87, 88, 92, 95–100, 103, 109–111, 122–124, 126, 127, 134, 142, 143, 166, 168, 170, 201, 202, 206, 209, 218, 220–225, 245, 260–262, 270, 271, 282, 284, 286–288, 301 Spinoza, Baruch, 1, 11, 17, 47, 72, 75, 76, 115, 133, 135, 137, 140, 152, 153, 169, 191, 198, 208, 215, 221, 223, 233, 256, 272, 276, 302, 303, 307, 313, 317 Strawson, Galen, 123, 124, 257, 273, 313 Strawson, P. F., 122, 177, 285–287, 313 supervenien(ce)(t), 10, 27, 34, 104, 111, 212–215 Sylvan (Routley), Richard, 35, 83–89, 312, 313, 314 synesthe(sia)(te), 238–245, 247, 305, 310 temporal(ity), passim temporaliz(ation),(ing) of
325 the psychical, 251, 252 time, passim Tolstoy, Lev N., 66, 156, 313 Tomberlin, James E., 53, 313 Tourette’s Syndrome, 209–215 transcenden(ce)(t), 1, 125, 126, 128, 136, 259 transcendental, 149, 154, 262–264 Turnbull, Oliver, 193, 196–200, 313 unconscious(ness), 5, 22, 71, 72, 127, 129, 130, 135, 136, 157, 161, 188, 190–195, 199, 204, 206, 217, 229–238, 241, 244, 245, 249, 256, 259–266, 274, 275, 289, 305 unique(ness), 2, 4, 12, 51, 52, 58, 95, 116, 123, 125, 128, 130, 133, 135, 145, 156, 163, 165, 167, 169, 173, 183, 184, 200, 208, 220, 225, 226, 244, 253, 291– 294, 296, 298–303 Vallicella, William F., 94, 314 value(s), 1, 7, 10, 77, 90, 114, 117, 158, 163, 164, 167, 168, 170– 172, 176, 177, 185, 207, 215, 226, 229, 239, 252, 294, 299, 300, 302, 314 Van Frassen, Bas, 43, 309 Van Gogh, Vincent, 252, 253, 324 Van Inwagen, Peter, 36, 279, 314 Vermaas, Pieter E., 104, 314 Verne, Jules, 31, 59, 60, 62, 64, 118, 119 Voltolini, Alberto, 27, 28, 314 Weiskrantz, Lawrence, 232–237, 314 wholly other, 2, 77, 136, 137, 219, 225, 300 Wilde, Oscar, 58 Wiles, Andrew, 152, 153 will, 7, 9, 10, 115, 131–133, 241, 268– 272, 302, 303, 311
326
NECESSITY AND TRUTHFUL FICTIONS
free w., 167, 175, 272–281, 293, 306, 308, 309, 313 freedom of the w., 133, 269, 278, 281 Williamson, Timothy, 19, 28, 43, 69– 71, 113, 314 Wilkes, Kathleen V., 178, 179, 314 Winnicott, Donald W., 245, 314 Witherall, Arthur, 35, 314 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 94, 146, 156, 215, 233, 237, 241, 257–259, 282, 286, 305, 314 worth, 22, 226, 294, 302 Xanthopan morgani predicta, 118 Yeats, William Butler, 226, 293, 294, 299 Yovell, Yoram, 187–196, 314 Zalta, Edward N., 35, 311, 314 Zemach, Eddy M., 166, 192, 194, 297, 315 Zombies, 90, 185–187, 209–212
VIBS The Value Inquiry Book Series is co-sponsored by: Adler School of Professional Psychology American Indian Philosophy Association American Maritain Association American Society for Value Inquiry Association for Process Philosophy of Education Canadian Society for Philosophical Practice Center for Bioethics, University of Turku Center for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Central European Pragmatist Forum Centre for Applied Ethics, Hong Kong Baptist University Centre for Cultural Research, Aarhus University Centre for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire Centre for the Study of Philosophy and Religion, University College of Cape Breton Centro de Estudos em Filosofia Americana, Brazil College of Education and Allied Professions, Bowling Green State University College of Liberal Arts, Rochester Institute of Technology Concerned Philosophers for Peace Conference of Philosophical Societies Department of Moral and Social Philosophy, University of Helsinki Gannon University Gilson Society Haitian Studies Association Ikeda University Institute of Philosophy of the High Council of Scientific Research, Spain International Academy of Philosophy of the Principality of Liechtenstein International Association of Bioethics International Center for the Arts, Humanities, and Value Inquiry International Society for Universal Dialogue Natural Law Society Philosophical Society of Finland Philosophy Born of Struggle Association Philosophy Seminar, University of Mainz Pragmatism Archive at The Oklahoma State University R.S. Hartman Institute for Formal and Applied Axiology Research Institute, Lakeridge Health Corporation Russian Philosophical Society Society for Existential Analysis Society for Iberian and Latin-American Thought Society for the Philosophic Study of Genocide and the Holocaust Unit for Research in Cognitive Neuroscience, Autonomous University of Barcelona Yves R. Simon Institute
Titles Published Volumes 1 - 164 see www.rodopi.nl
165. Matti Häyry, Tuija Takala, and Peter Herissone-Kelly, Editors, Bioethics and Social Reality. A volume in Values in Bioethics 166. Maureen Sie, Justifying Blame: Why Free Will Matters and Why it Does Not. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 167. Leszek Koczanowicz and Beth J. Singer, Editors, Democracy and the Post-Totalitarian Experience. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 168. Michael W. Riley, Plato’s Cratylus: Argument, Form, and Structure. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 169. Leon Pomeroy, The New Science of Axiological Psychology. Edited by Rem B. Edwards. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 170. Eric Wolf Fried, Inwardness and Morality 171. Sami Pihlstrom, Pragmatic Moral Realism: A Transcendental Defense. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 172. Charles C. Hinkley II, Moral Conflicts of Organ Retrieval: A Case for Constructive Pluralism. A volume in Values in Bioethics 173. Gábor Forrai and George Kampis, Editors, Intentionality: Past and Future. A volume in Cognitive Science 174. Dixie Lee Harris, Encounters in My Travels: Thoughts Along the Way. A volume in Lived Values:Valued Lives 175. Lynda Burns, Editor, Feminist Alliances. A volume in Philosophy and Women 176. George Allan and Malcolm D. Evans, A Different Three Rs for Education. A volume in Philosophy of Education 177. Robert A. Delfino, Editor, What are We to Understand Gracia to Mean?: Realist Challenges to Metaphysical Neutralism. A volume in Gilson Studies
178. Constantin V. Ponomareff and Kenneth A. Bryson, The Curve of the Sacred: An Exploration of Human Spirituality. A volume in Philosophy and Religion 179. John Ryder, Gert Rüdiger Wegmarshaus, Editors, Education for a Democratic Society: Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume Three. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 180. Florencia Luna, Bioethics and Vulnerability: A Latin American View. A volume in Values in Bioethics 181. John Kultgen and Mary Lenzi, Editors, Problems for Democracy. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 182. David Boersema and Katy Gray Brown, Editors, Spiritual and Political Dimensions of Nonviolence and Peace. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 183. Daniel P. Thero, Understanding Moral Weakness. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 184. Scott Gelfand and John R. Shook, Editors, Ectogenesis: Artificial Womb Technology and the Future of Human Reproduction. A volume in Values in Bioethics 185. Piotr Jaroszyński, Science in Culture. A volume in Gilson Studies 186. Matti Häyry, Tuija Takala, Peter Herissone-Kelly, Editors, Ethics in Biomedical Research: International Perspectives. A volume in Values in Bioethics 187. Michael Krausz, Interpretation and Transformation: Explorations in Art and the Self. A volume in Interpretation and Translation 188. Gail M. Presbey, Editor, Philosophical Perspectives on the “War on Terrorism.” A volume in Philosophy of Peace 189. María Luisa Femenías, Amy A. Oliver, Editors, Feminist Philosophy in Latin America and Spain. A volume in Philosophy in Latin America 190. Oscar Vilarroya and Francesc Forn I Argimon, Editors, Social Brain Matters: Stances on the Neurobiology of Social Cognition. A volume in Cognitive Science
191. Eugenio Garin, History of Italian Philosophy. Translated from Italian and Edited by Giorgio Pinton. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 192. Michael Taylor, Helmut Schreier, and Paulo Ghiraldelli, Jr., Editors, Pragmatism, Education, and Children: International Philosophical Perspectives. A volume in Pragmatism and Values 193. Brendan Sweetman, The Vision of Gabriel Marcel: Epistemology, Human Person, the Transcendent. A volume in Philosophy and Religion 194. Danielle Poe and Eddy Souffrant, Editors, Parceling the Globe: Philosophical Explorations in Globalization, Global Behavior, and Peace. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 195. Josef Šmajs, Evolutionary Ontology: Reclaiming the Value of Nature by Transforming Culture. A volume in Central-European Value Studies 196. Giuseppe Vicari, Beyond Conceptual Dualism: Ontology of Consciousness, Mental Causation, and Holism in John R. Searle’s Philosophy of Mind. A volume in Cognitive Science 197. Avi Sagi, Tradition vs. Traditionalism: Contemporary Perspectives in Jewish Thought. Translated from Hebrew by Batya Stein. A volume in Philosophy and Religion 198. Randall E. Osborne and Paul Kriese, Editors, Global Community: Global Security. A volume in Studies in Jurisprudence 199. Craig Clifford, Learned Ignorance in the Medicine Bow Mountains: A Reflection on Intellectual Prejudice. A volume in Lived Values: Valued Lives 200. Mark Letteri, Heidegger and the Question of Psychology: Zollikon and Beyond. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 201. Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo and Mary K. Bloodsworth-Lugo, Editors, A New Kind of Containment: “The War on Terror,” Race, and Sexuality. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 202. Amihud Gilead, Necessity and Truthful Fictions: Panenmentalist Observations. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology
