Robert asked:

Regarding the term ‘Concrete’ as opposed to ‘Abstract’. Does ‘concrete’ mean a sensible (detectable by the senses) thing, ie a corporeal sensible thing, or only a ‘particular’ thing. I can think of a nonmaterial particular thing such as the Angel Gabriel. Would this be an instance of a ‘Concrete’ thing.

Answer by Craig Skinner

One standard classification of what exists is as follows:

Entities (Existents) comprise Universals and Particulars.

Universals comprise:

* properties (e.g. redness)

* relations ( e.g. bigger than)

Particulars comprise:

* concrete particulars, in turn divided into Things (objects, physical items) and Events (e.g collisions, or my feeling bored, which we can regard as a mental Event or as a mental Thing if you wish).

* abstract particulars (eg numbers, propositions).

Universals have instances in Particulars. So, for example, the Universal property ‘redness’ has an instance in a particular post box.

Equivalently, Particulars are instances of Universals. For example, Birmingham’s relation to Gretna Green is as an instance of the Universal relation ‘bigger than’. 17 is an instance of the Universal property ‘primeness’.

So, some concrete particulars are indeed, as you say, ‘corporeal sensible things’ (Things), chairs for instance, others are not, being particular events (Andy Murray winning Olympic gold, say).

The Angel Gabriel, if he (it?) existed, would be a particular, not abstract, therefore concrete. Presumably not physical. Hence a series of concrete Mental Particulars, or if you think mental activity has to inhere in some immaterial substance, a concrete immaterial Thing. Not detectable by the senses, unless miraculously able to assume sensible form and appear to you. Gods, demons and devils would all be in this category. I must say I think it is an empty category (other than in imagination and fiction).

Not everybody agrees with the above classification.

Some deny Universals, holding that the redness of a particular post box is not an instance of anything, rather just a particular redness (a ‘trope’ or ‘mode’ of that box, not transferable without the box).

Others augment the Universals category to include Kinds (Substantial Universals, as opposed to Properties and Relations which are Non-substantial Universals). Thus ‘human being’ would be a Substantial Kind and you and I, being instances, are Substantial Particulars. A Substance, roughly, is something that can bear properties or relational instances eg a post box, me, an electron, Gabriel (he would be an immaterial substance of course).

Yet others deny Abstract Particulars, holding that numbers, say, are fictional entities (existing only in the story of mathematics, as Sherlock Holmes exists only in the stories of Conan Doyle), or even nonexistent entities that nevertheless have properties (like being prime).

I hope this has clarified rather than confused. I must admit that Ontological Categories is not the best choice of topic when you try to explain why philosophy matters to somebody who thinks it’s all probably a waste of time. This kind of metaphysics was big in Aristotle’s and in mediaeval philosophy, lost ground in modern times, but is looking up again in the 21st Century (E J Lowe’s ‘The Four Category Ontology’ is a good example).

Craig Skinner at PhiloSophos.com

Answer by Helier Robinson

Your question involves two classifications: concrete and abstract, and particular and universal. The concrete is often defined as ‘known through the senses’ but a better definition is simply ‘any sensation’, such as a colour, sound, taste, smell, or a tactile sensation such as hot or cold, hard or soft, heavy or light, rough or smooth, or penetrable or impenetrable. This is a better definition because we also know relations through the senses (for example: ‘This tree is taller than that one’) and relations are abstract: that is, they have no concrete qualities. Particulars are names or descriptions that apply to individuals; thus Socrates and Plato’s philosophy teacher are respectively a name and a description of one person.

Universals are names or descriptions that apply plurally; that is, to more than one individual. The problem of universals is the problem of what their meaning is. Traditionally there are three answers: nominalism, conceptualism, and realism (or Platonism).

Nominalism is the view that words for universals are their own meanings; this is best illustrated by the phrase that all thought is silent speech. We cannot think without language. This view is advocated by those, like Bishop Berkeley, who cannot discover abstract ideas in their own minds. It has several defects: it cannot explain synonyms, and it cannot explain how one abstract proposition can be stated in two different languages.

For those who can discover abstract ideas introspectively, these difficulties vanish. A concept is a combination of a word and an abstract idea and a proposition is a series of concepts that convey a structure of abstract ideas in language. Any language can convey any one proposition. This is conceptualism.

Platonism is the more elaborate view that all abstract ideas have a reference, so that, for example, the abstract idea conveyed by the word ‘two’ and the numeral 2, is the number two. This has difficulties also, because how can you distinguish the number two and instances of it? In the expression 2+2=2×2=2*2 there are six instances of two, but which is the number two itself?

One further distinction is between thought and imagination: thought deals with abstract ideas and imagination deals with concrete images of sensations: usually pictures, but also sounds for some people such as composers or tastes for chefs. So, to answer your question, the concrete is sensational and may be either particular or universal, and is perceived or imagined; and the abstract is non-concrete and is discovered introspectively by some people or is thought. And the Angel Gabriel is concrete and imagined, or possibly perceived.

Helier Robinson is Emeritus Professor in Philosophy, University of Guelph. His books are available from http://SharebooksPublishing.com.

Bryan asked:

Hey, I’ve been reading and researching a lot on Descartes and his views on the mind and the body. I’m have a bit of trouble differentiating how he feels about the mind and the body though. My questions are ‘Why does Descartes think you can never divide the mind? and ‘Why does he think you can ALWAYS divide the body?’ I would really appreciate if someone can clear those 2 things up regarding Descartes. Thanks!

Answer by Martin Jenkins

The work, Meditations On the First Philosophy is an attempt to find a secure basis for human knowledge. Once this is established then the world of material objects can be explained and accounted for by natural Science, particularly physics. Descartes was involved in this project of Natural Sciences, Natural Philosophy.

As part of his endeavour to discover such a secure basis, Descartes, as I’m sure you know Bryan, asked where it could come from. The senses? Well they can be misleading as perceived images are different from the objects themselves; self-evident images that declare he is sitting by the fire are also experienced in dreams yet dreaming is considered not to be ‘reality’. So the self-evidence of images, representations are far from conclusive.

Admitting that representations are dubious, the certainties afforded by mathematics and geometry cannot be doubted. Who can seriously doubt that 2+2=4?!! Even this is not immune from sceptical doubt. For the good God whom Descartes has believed in could, it is proposed, be a deceiver. So when Descartes concludes that 2+2=4, he could very well be deceived. If the good God is removed from creating and sustaining the creation, then the deceiving deity can commit unlimited deception with it. In sum, the truth of everything can be doubted-nothing can be known with certainty.

In the second Meditation, Descartes concludes that even if he is the subject of deception, this apparently hopeless situation yields one truth – that something must exist to be subject to deception. That something is himself, of the ‘I’. This possesses apodictic, a-priori certainty. For whilst everything can be doubted, it cannot be doubted that something is doing the doubting or being subject to doubt. This something is an I, and when it doubts, it is thinking. The existence and nature of the self-evident foundation for human knowledge has been secured by Descartes: Cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am. I am a thinking thing, thinking occurs in a Mind. So the existence of a Mind is also established by his meditation. The tides of doubt were halted.

Surely then, Descartes reasons, that the nature of an I as a thinking thing is established, then so too, objects before him in the world such as tables, chairs, mountains, the wax immediately before him and his body with which he is intimately involved must also exist? The wax is examined and although information conveyed by his senses tell him it changes shape, texture, smell, the judgement of his mind convinces him that objectively, something continues to exist beneath such superficial changes [I.e. substance]. Judgements of the Mind and not images from the body allow Objective Ideas to be formed. Yet the deceiver could still be deceiving him. So, he cannot conclude with equal certainty that along with mind, bodies – including his own, actually do exist. The existence of a thinking thing alone remains certain.

Mind and Body

This conclusion heralds not only an epistemological distinction – that existence of Mind is known more easily than the existence of the body, bodies in general; it also heralds an ontological distinction. Namely, that the existence and nature of Mind is separate, distinct from that of Body. The mind might not depend on Body for its existence – it may very well be able to exist without it. Mind does not possess physical, material extension – it cannot be observed out there in the world in the same way as a chair or any other body [still subject to doubt at this stage] can, it cannot be measured, weighed, dissected and divided as bodies can. Hence the nature of Mind is very distinct from that of Body. ‘I am not that assemblage of limbs we call the human body’ Descartes concludes. Whilst a Body is understood by Descartes as:

‘…whatever can be determined by a certain shape, comprised in a certain location, whatever so fills a certain space as to exclude it from any other body, whatever can be apprehended by touch, sight, hearing, taste or smell and whatever can be moved in various ways…’ [Meditation II]

None of these characteristics apply to the Mind as established by Descartes. Hence the distinction Bryan, between Mind and Body. If the Mind is not a body, then it cannot be dissected, divided-because it does not occupy space. It is immaterial and indivisible. What is immaterial cannot be treated as that which is material. A body, such as a plank of wood, occupies space and is physical, so it can be divided by the saw.

On one side, this established other problems for Descartes’ view-for how can immaterial mind interact with material body and vice versa – the celebrated Mind-Body problem in Philosophy. On the other side, clear and distinct ideas which are logically irrefutable [a-priori] can be found and judged by the Mind. Such an Objective Idea, is that of a most perfect, powerful and good being-God. The existence of God is examined and in the Third and Fifth Meditations. In the Fifth, the nature of God necessitates his existence further concluding that God cannot not exist. The Ontological argument applied here entails that God’s most perfect nature entails his necessary existence. His perfection cannot countenance imperfection – such as deceit or deception. So, a world of bodies, objects exists because God creates it and would not deceive otherwise. Hence the sceptical doubts of Descartes are answered. Further, because the faculty of reason found in the Mind, can, if applied clearly and distinctly, conclude not only that it has been placed there by Him but that a-priori Reason can so understand this world by means of mathematics, geometry: natural physics. Theology is the handmaiden of natural science. Yet the distinction between Mind and Body remained, especially how they were to interact. Descartes proffered the solution that interaction occurred in the pineal gland although this failed to convince other, thinking minds.

I hope that answers your questions Bryan.

Martin Jenkins received the ISFP Fellowship for his dissertation ‘Aristocratic Radicalism or Anarchy? An Examination of Nietzsche’s Doctrine of Will to Power’. He is a Pathways Mentor.

Jessica asked:

What do you think of Mill’s ‘pig and Socrates’ argument for the difference between sensual and intellectual pleasures?

Answer by Geoffrey Klempner

J.S. Mill in Utilitarianism asserted that it is ‘better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.’ This is an excellent topic for classroom discussion, especially if the instructor takes the side of the pig and challenges the class to prove him/her wrong.

Mill’s point is one that seems fairly intuitive. There are ‘better’ and ‘worse’ pleasures. Other things being equal, you would prefer the better pleasures to the worse. In fact, when it comes to doing philosophy or pigging out at a burger bar, the pleasure of philosophy is SO much better that you would prefer the not inconsiderable pain of exercising your thinking muscle to the pleasure of a Happy Meal.

In making this point Mill is arguing against Jeremy Bentham who held the view that ALL pleasures should be counted the same in the ‘hedonic calculus’ that we use to determine the morally right course of action. The only difference between the pleasure of poetry and the pleasure of pushpin (a popular bar game at the time) was that poetry is more ‘fecund’ because it has the potential to produce pleasure in a lot more people who read and enjoy the poet’s work.

The problem is that once you discriminate between pleasures in the Mill wants to do you spoil any possibility of calculating ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number’. How do you quantify the pleasures of philosophizing and eating, for example? Do all foods count the same? Or all philosophy?

There’s a book by a French writer Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, La Physiologie du Goût 1848 (Published by Penguin as The Philosopher in the Kitchen) which has inspired generations of master chefs. Brillat-Savarin makes the case that cooking is one of the high arts, as well as being a science. If you don’t care about the best way to fry a fish, or how to bring out the flavour of a truffle, there’s no hope for you. You are not a civilized human being.

Where I live in Sheffield, most people appreciate a well fried fish. You’d have to go further afield to find fresh truffles. The sober point is that human beings are not pigs, nor should human enjoyment of food be denigrated in the way that Mill wants to do.

In the pantheon of great achievements of human culture, great chefs and their works will be up there along with great artists, poets, and philosophers – even if they are not necessarily standing on the top row.

http://www.philosophypathways.com/vita.html

Karan asked:

A) If we treat the ‘cosmic Egg’ state of the Universe as being at time=0 (that is when no time existed), do we have a negative direction of time in which events unfold in a very different way? That is, if we treat time to be like the number line with the ‘positive time’ that we experience leading to the rising entropy of the universe from its birth to its current state and further; could there also be ‘negative time’ in which we did not exist and neither did our universe?

B) Could time be a more fundamental dimension which contains the space dimensions? That is, could time have been there before the formation of the universe, with a value equal to zero at its formation (leading us to think that time started with the Big Bang), and increasing values ever after?

Answer by Jürgen Lawrenz

Time is not a number, nor a dimension, nor a direction. Time does not move. What you need to appreciate in the context of your question is that science employs a rigorous theoretical conception which has nothing to do with your and my experience of time. In the framework of this theory, you can play with numbers, dimensions etc., but you cannot simply conclude from the numbers and the games you play with them, that there is a ‘thing’ or ‘state’ or actual ‘dimension’ that does something independently of your theory.

Yes, you can give time a number, like we do with our clocks. But consider this: You can also draw a map of the world, but that’s not the world. Someone once said, ‘don’t confuse the map with the terrain’, and that’s exactly what you are doing here.

In many countries in the world daylight saving is introduced in summer. We all turn our clocks back. Does it change anything about time? Of course not. The time is still the same. We just change the number on the clock. Time is not ‘moving backward’ or anything of the sort. Time is doing nothing. And none of us grows a day younger or older just because we changed a number on our clocks.

In the theory of relativity, where events seems to change time (maybe this is what you are alluding to?), time is relative to an observer. It is not much different from the example of daylight saving. Observer A observes an event relative to his/her self, while to another observer who is watching the same events pass much more quickly. But this has to do with the physical dimension in which both observers are enclosed. You can understand this better if just stay on earth and think about you and flies. The reason why they’re so hard to catch, is because for them, the time it takes for your hand to approach is much slower than for for yourself. Because they are so small and short-lived, their sense of time is different from yours.

What this boils down to is this. Don’t confuse the scientific conception of time with real time. In science, there are exact and unambiguous instrumental and operational definitions. In science, time is treated as an independent existent, which can then be manipulated mathematically. In some circumstances, e.g. in quantum mechanics, this involves time moving forward and backward relative to the events which are being timed. But once again this depends on the observer. A particle which – mathematically – is moving backward in time, does not move backward in its own time, only in that of the observer or the equation.

So to come to a conclusion: ‘Real time’ is objective and constant; it does not move, bend, twist or anything of the sort. All these are human ideas. Time is nothing you can grasp with your hand, only with your mind. If you don’t have life, then time is not a meaningful word. Time is something that arises from a consciousness that needs to organise its own processes into past, present and future. Things like rocks and water and stars don’t have time, because they cannot be aware of it. So the universe does not give birth to time, nor time to the universe. Remove consciousness from the world and time disappear.

In one word: Time is the human idea of time. There is nothing you can find anywhere in the universe that answers to the clause ‘time in itself’.

Jürgen Lawrenz at PhiloSophos.com

Bryan asked:

Hey, I’ve been reading and researching a lot on Descartes and his views on the mind and the body. I’m have a bit of trouble differentiating how he feels about the mind and the body though. My questions are ‘Why does Descartes think you can never divide the mind?’ and ‘Why does he think you can ALWAYS divide the body?’ I would really appreciate if someone can clear these 2 things up regarding Descartes. Thanks!

Answer by Craig Skinner

Descartes wishes to convince us that there is a ‘real’ distinction between body and mind. Here, ‘real’ is a technical term of mediaeval philosophy meaning that body and mind are distinct substances. Furthermore, he thinks body and mind are not just distinct substances of the same kind (like two chairs for instance), but of different kinds having no properties in common (apart from those needed for existing, like duration). Thus the body is made of matter (substance extended in space, ‘res extensa’, which cant think), the mind is immaterial (thinking substance, ‘res cogitans’, which has no extension).

He has three arguments to support his position (none good).

1. Argument from doubt (Discourse on the Method; 2nd Meditation).

2. Argument from clear and distinct separation (6th Meditation).

3. Divisibility argument (6th Meditation).

I won’t deal here with 1. and 2. except to say that 1. is nicely rebutted by Arnauld in the 4th Set of Objections to the Meditations, using, aptly for Descartes, a geometric example.

As regards 3., the subject of your questions, Descartes is brief, and we can quote him pretty well in full:

‘…there is a great difference between mind and body, inasmuch as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible. …when I consider the mind, that is to say, myself inasmuch as I am only a thinking thing, I cannot distinguish…any parts…and although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, yet if a foot, or an arm, or some other part, is separated from my body, I am aware that nothing has been taken away from my mind. And the faculties of willing, feeling, conceiving, etc. cannot be…said to be its parts, for it is one and the same mind which employs itself in willing and in feeling and understanding.’

So, to your questions.

Why does he think you can ALWAYS divide the body?

He says it is ‘by nature always divisible’. Clearly he means its extended nature, which obviously allows cutting it at any point or points along its extension thereby dividing it. I think ‘always’ simply means that any and all extended bodies can be divided. We could speculate that by ‘always’ he implies that you can keep on dividing a part, and then a subpart, indefinitely, so long as the subsubpart has finite size, at least in imagination (eg dividing an atom into its left and right halves), if not in practice. I think we can accept that bodies are divisible. Whether indefinitely divisible maybe depends on whether space is quantized or continuous, but that’s another story that starts with Zeno and still runs.

Why does he think you can never divide the mind?

Clearly the mind, unlike the body, cant be divided in the physical sense. This is true whether we think,with Descartes, that the mind is an immaterial substance, or we think, as I do, along with many others, that the mind is the mental activity of the brain.

So, if the mind is to be divisible, this would have to be in the way that, say, 12 is divisible into 7 and 5, or philosophy divides into metaphysics, epistemology and ethics.

But Descartes thinks the mind is not divisible in any sense.

He has two reasons:

1. Although the whole mind seems united to the whole body, we can remove a bit of the body (a foot, say) without removing anything from the mind.

2. His mind feels whole to him, faculties being features of the whole mind rather than being mind parts.

Certainly a foot could be removed with little or no effect on the mind, but removing half a brain would remove a lot from the mind. Indeed, Descartes’ argument implies, absurdly, that the whole brain could be removed without removing anything from the mind.

As regards faculties being features of the whole mind, not parts, this may just be a verbal dispute. But there is no doubt that targeted brain damage can cause selective loss of a faculty, or even more strange changes to the mind, that I feel can count as showing mind as divisible.

Examples:

Hippocampal damage destroying existing long-term memories and the laying down of new ones.

Speech centre damage leading to lack of (understanding and/or producing) speech. Common in stroke.

Commisurectomy (cutting the connection between left and right brain halves, a treatment for intractable epilepsy) leading to each half having its own semi-autonomous self, truly a mind divided.

Schizophrenia where, among other features, emotion is cut off from cognition, again a mind divided in a different way.

In summary, Descartes’ arguments for mind/body real distinction (Cartesian dualism), including the Divisibility Argument, are implausible. And that’s without going into his (and every body else’s) failure to explain how mind and body could interact if they were distinct substances.

Craig Skinner at PhiloSophos.com

Chap X asked:

What is difference between reality and illusion?

Answer by Helier Robinson

Illusions are either contradictions between the senses, as in the half-immersed stick which is bent to the sight and straight to the touch, or between what is perceived and well established belief, as in the railway lines seeming to meet in the distance. A contradiction cannot be true, so illusions must be false perceptions and so unreal.

Reality has a number of definitions: it is all that we perceive around us which is not illusory; it is all that exists regardless of whether it is perceived or not; it is what makes statements true or false; and it is the genuine, as in real leather, real flowers, etc. These definitions are not necessarily equivalent, and careless use of them can lead to confusion through equivocation: for example, an argument I once heard was that illusions are real (genuine) illusions and therefore part of reality and so should not be distinguished from reality.

A further difficulty is that empirical objects are made up of sensations (colours, tactile sensations, etc.) and these exist only as long as they are perceived, so do not exist independently of being perceived, so are unreal. Philosophers have argued about such difficulties with perception throughout history. The almost universal view these days is that philosophy should conform to common sense, but this is a view that I deplore: philosophy exists just because of the inability of common sense to solve various problems.

Helier Robinson is Emeritus Professor in Philosophy, University of Guelph. His books are available from http://SharebooksPublishing.com.