Bewitched by Language

Towards the end of his life, the Austrian British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote: "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." In his earlier and perhaps most famous work, "The Tractatus Logico Philosophicus", Wittgenstein expressed the view that language is a kind of "picture" of the world that frames and encapsulates experience. He remarked: "The limits of my language are the limits of my world." Wittgenstein later rejected the metaphor of language as a kind of picture of the world preferring instead to focus on the ways in which different usages of language lead us into philosophical confusion.

One of the leading and certainly one of the most prolific scholars of the work of Wittgenstein is Peter Hacker. Hacker does an outstanding job of illuminating and elaborating on Wittgenstein's analysis and of exposing numerous conceptual confusions that continue to beleaguer not merely philosophy but cognitive neuroscience also. He is not without his critics of course, but having encountered his work after first arriving at several of the same conclusions through the theories of Donald Brook, I find a great deal of Hacker's theorisation to be extremely congenial. Nonetheless, there are times when I think his emphasis on language leads him astray. The following passage is from his book "The Intellectual Powers: A Study of Human Nature." (2013)

It is because we can think, that is reflect, that we can have an "inner life". Animals who lack language do not. They are conscious, and are conscious of features of their surroundings; they have and pursue ends; they feel pain and pleasure; but that does not suffice for an inner life. They cannot reflect upon their experience, cannot think thoughts and reflect upon them. They cannot dwell, in joy or sorrow, upon their past experiences. They cannot reason, reflect upon reasoning or weigh its conclusions. They have no imagination, and cannot fantasize, wonder about possibilities or imagine how things might have been. This is one kind of reason why we should not follow Cartesians in identifying having a mind with mere consciousness or conscious experience. Only if one can think thoughts and reason from what one thinks, imagine things and dwell upon what one imagines, enjoy and suffer experiences and reflect on one's joys and sufferings, can one be said to have a mind. Only creatures with a mind can be said to have an inner life.

Consider the following. Otto is a nonverbal human child who likes to play with toys and to act the part of different animals and individuals. Otto is a gifted mimic. He can draw and likes to watch animated cartoons. He also likes to play hide and seek and is very skilful in hiding himself in unexpected places. He likes to make things with Lego and modelling clay and commonly invents fantastical figures and participates in and understands sophisticated and elaborate forms of pretend play.

None of these skills requires language. Prior to the acquisition of language, many human infants show clear competence in many of these skills and it is implausible in the extreme to suppose that these could not develop further with practice and in the continued absence of language. In light of this evidence it is clearly mistaken to argue that an individual such as Otto has no imagination and cannot fantasize.

If it is true, as Hacker rightly acknowledges, that nonverbals can "have and pursue ends" then it falls on Hacker's shoulders to explain how these ends can be had and pursued in the absence of mind. If an end cannot be thought of, then how exactly can it be had? It makes no sense to say that a language user has her ends absentmindedly or mindlessly and that she cannot communicate them when appropriately prompted. Nor does it makes sense to say the same of a nonverbal. Hacker seems to be of the opinion not only that nonverbals are incapable of communicating their ends but that they are unaware of their ends too.

To pursue a goal is to be capable of calling it to mind, moreover, it is to be capable, at least in principle, of communicating it. If language were the only form of creaturely communication, then Hacker would be right to regard language as exclusive to mindedness. But language is by no means the only form of communication.

Ends and goals are typically things that we think of, that are "called to mind", that we "have in mind" or "on our mind." If we forget our goals we have to retrace our steps until we are reminded of them. These are not linguistic skills (although they may be assisted by language), they are procedural skills that presuppose memory and the ability to recall past events.

Hacker would probably want to point out here that many acquired efficacious behaviours need not be the result of having anything in mind. Such behaviours are not goal-directed and thus do not threaten to undermine Hacker's thesis. But if a nonverbal agent performs an action with the aim of eliciting a response on the part of another perceiver, then it is reasonable to suppose that it must have an end in mind and must, at least in principle, be capable of performing or otherwise publicly representing this anticipated outcome. Communicative actions are intentional precisely because they are driven by goals but not all communicative actions are verbal and nor are the goals that drive them.

To be "put in mind" of an earlier event or to "bear something in mind" is to have a memory but it is not necessarily to have a word, concept or utterance at the ready. And when sufferers of global aphasia lose their linguistic abilities they do not lose their ability to imagine or to fantasize (although these capacities may also be diminished as a consequence of the same affliction causing the aphasia). So whilst I agree with Hacker that it is impossible for a nonverbal to reason, to make judgements or to draw conclusions, I think it is mistaken to suppose that nonverbals are necessarily incapable of imagination or fantasy.

As we have already seen, acquired behaviours need not always involve mindedness. Hacker draws a line at the capacity to use language, but I hope the preceding evidence and arguments are persuasive in explaining why I think Hacker remains to some degree under the spell of language. If Hacker were to spread his net a little further to include nonverbal communicative practices, then I think his theorisation would benefit significantly.

Wittgenstein was right to give up on his notion that the limits of our language are the limits of our world. If instead he had claimed that the limits of our communicative capacities are the limits of our world, then perhaps this would have left us with a far more revealing and enduring picture of what it actually is to be a minded creature.

Acquisitions of Brain and Body

Like most adults I have a fair quantity of scars on my body, mostly on my hands. The majority of these marks and disfigurements are minor, nonetheless it often strikes me as surprising that so many of us manage to retain all of our fingers through life. Considering the many dangerous things we do with our hands, it is a testament to our skills and foresight (and no small amount of first aid and general hygiene) that our hands are often in such good shape.

We commonly speak of scars as acquisitions, as things we obtain through mishap and misadventure. Scars are additions, and sometimes, in the more extreme cases, evidence of subtractions from the body – from what we would otherwise have.

It is common also to speak of skills as acquisitions – as abilities we gain through practice and experience. Knowledge also, is a capacity we tend to think of as an acquisition.

To acquire something is to gain, or to form, a certain kind of possession, typically of an object or else a demeanour, attitude, disposition or tendency. In these latter cases the term “acquisition” is used in a technical sense that could just as easily be replaced with adopting an attitude, forming a disposition or developing a tendency.

In ordinary usage, acquisition most commonly pertains to objects or other forms of material wealth. To acquire a trophy is usually – trophy-scars notwithstanding – both to acquire an object as well as the admiration, acclaim or appreciation for which it stands. But to gain recognition is not actually to acquire anything so much as it is an increased likelihood to be treated preferentially by people in the know. It is very common for such social achievements to be recognised through the use of material tokens: trophies, epaulettes, titles etc.

So, like our less extreme scars, acquisitions are most commonly additions to what we already possess and whilst such possessions may take up little space, they do nonetheless need to be accommodated. Even digital information needs to be stored.

It is no surprise therefore that we tend to describe skills and knowledge in terms of content, as things we bundle away in our heads ready for later use. It’s as if our brains were vast repositories of information which we routinely access in the same way we retrieve books from a library or artefacts from a museum. If we acquire stuff, then it follows that we need somewhere to store it. And what better place than the brain? But what seems obviously the case is not necessarily the case.

Consider our hands again. When we learn to play the piano we do not speak of acquiring new additions to our hands. Our hands are not repositories. They do not store their capacities, even though they clearly have capacities, or at least they participate to a very large degree in the capacities of the person as a whole. When we learn a new technique requiring dexterity, we may develop the musculature of our digits etc. but there are no new hand acquisitions as such – not, of course, unless we inherit another scar or two. And if we are unfortunate enough develop carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis or ganglion cysts these are not strictly speaking acquired – they develop or arise. The capacity was already there.

Many critics of the notion of mental content continue to speak of “skill acquisition” or “knowledge acquisition” as if there were no ground to be lost as a consequence. I’m not so sure the term helps us. In fact I think it may be a hindrance. Perhaps it would make more sense to speak of knowledge and skills in the same way that we regard the changes that occur in our hands when we learn a new technique. Perhaps we should make a point of regarding skills and knowledge as developmental changes rather than as acquisitions. You cannot acquire a development but you can develop a skill and you can develop your knowledge. Organisms and organs are things that develop. There is no room in a brain for any acquisitions. All the space is already taken. Knowledge and skills are develop-mental.

"Perplexities of Consciousness" by Eric Schwitzgebel: A Critical Review

"I wish I could find my way through this morass. I can't. So I aim to drag you down into it with me."—Eric Schwitzgebel

Is introspection a skill? Could regular practice or disciplined training enhance our introspective acuity or is introspection impervious to all attempts at improvement? Why is the literature and research on introspection so riven with disagreement and is there the slightest hope of resolving even just one of the many conflicts that beleaguer the study of what for many of us is such a seemingly familiar and incontestable part of experience?

These, and many related questions are raised by Eric Schwitzgebel's provocative book "Perplexities of Consciousness" (2011) which seeks to thoroughly undermine any unjustified certainties we might harbour about our inner world. In seven chapters of scrupulous research and analytical enquiry, Schwitzgebel mounts a devastating case against introspection that should leave even the most stalwart of advocates baffled by the puzzles and bamboozled by the paradoxes.

Why, for instance, was it so common during the mid 20th Century for people to report only ever dreaming in black and white? Does a tilted circular coin look elliptical or simply circular and tilted. How can the lines in some optical illusions appear to be different lengths even when we know they are the same? What is the exact sequence of colours that comprise the fading of an after-image? Were you aware of your left foot before I just drew your attention to it? Are you aware of every sensation currently stimulating your body or of only the portions that you attend to? Reports gathered from numerous studies are radically at odds over these kinds of questions and the signs that some form of resolution can be found are—at least if Schwitzgebel is to be believed—vanishingly remote.

Much as I admire, Schwitzgebel's impeccable research and thought provoking inquisitiveness I have to declare a serious disagreement with his project as a whole and therefore the assumptions on which it stands. Schwitzgebel is by no means a fool but I would contend that the study of introspection is little more than a fool's errand, one that is guaranteed only ever to end up mired in incomplete and inconclusive findings for reasons that I hope to make clear.

Despite Schwitzgebel's attempts to remain objective in this study, one underlying assumption goes unchecked. He is evidently under the unshakeable impression that introspection is a skill that can be improved. From this seemingly innocuous assumption flow all of the perplexities that swell the pages of this book.

Introspection, like thought or mindedness more generally, is best conceived not as a skill in-and-of-itself but as an essential component in the exercise of skills. Several prominent philosophers have pointed this out already, most notably Gilbert Ryle or Norman Malcolm in his 1977 essay: "Thinking". If introspection were a skill, it would be a singular exception to the rule that improvement comes through practice. We can't improve introspection simply by regular and determined acts of introspection. You don't learn what horses look like by determined introspection. You learn what horses look like through the observation of horses (or images or models of horses)—preferably aided by the use of a representational medium of some kind.

The perplexities Schwitzgebel so assiduously uncovers are the consequence of extricating the mental from the performative. When the mental is considered in this way and scrutinised in isolation from what it enables, then of course the results will be skewed, contradictory and incoherent. Why should this route of enquiry be any more conclusive or revealing regarding our abilities than a corresponding study of the performative component of skills stripped of all dependence on mind? Are robots skilful?

Treating introspection in isolation from the skills of which it forms an integral part and expecting it to yield reliable results is like expecting a shaken bag of Lego to produce interesting constructions. Lego needs to be interacted with by minded creatures in order to realise its potential. The surprises to which Lego often leads are neither the result of random variation nor of intuitive foresight. They are the result of an interplay between expectation and unexpected discovery, of prediction and speculative experiment. This process is iterative, accumulative and reliant upon ongoing feedback. Without this indispensable interplay we are left either with impoverished introspection or unproductive random variation. Neither is of much efficacy on its own and hence the perplexities of trying to make sense of introspection divorced from the skills it both enables and in part constitutes.

"Perplexities of Consciousness" is a book to be ambivalent about. As a tool for understanding consciousness it is of doubtful value but as a body of evidence to challenge the idea that introspection is a skill, it could barely be more authoritative. It is curious though that Schwitzgebel is not led by the evidence he gathers to the realisation that there is something seriously amiss in standard accounts of consciousness, something that can only be resolved by radical reconceptualisation along the lines that I have sketched, lines that Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gilbert Ryle, J.L. Austin, Norman Malcolm, J.J. Gibson and Donald Brook have already mapped out but that seem to have been all but forgotten by contemporary philosophy. 

The morass of which Schwitzgebel speaks is simply a figment of unalloyed introspection.

Philosophical Behaviourism - An Incomplete Project

Our earlier history, the part without writing or artifacts, can only be deduced from what we do and what our primate relatives do – the hieroglyphics of the chimpanzee’s whimper and the baby’s smile. -Alison Jolly (1937-2014)

During the heyday of psychological behaviourism a partially related school of philosophy emerged in Oxford, inspired by the later ideas of Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Philosophical behaviourism (also known as Analytical or Logical behaviourism) had no concern for the scientific study of stimuli and conditioned responses but instead sought to explain mental concepts through an analysis of the ways we use language: through linguistic behaviour. Although this emphasis on language-use was a central preoccupation amongst these 'Ordinary Language' philosophers, the implications for a broader understanding of the relation between skilled action and mind are not difficult to detect. Gilbert Ryle especially, sought to clarify that our 'inner world' - and all of the dealings we are inclined to say that we conduct there - is a manifestation of our various interactions with the physical world itself, not some occult realm that somehow brings the world to light for us. So, to extend Ryle's argument a little: the mind does not endow us with capacities but rather is a consequence of them, of actions we are capable of performing.

It might be worthwhile examining why Ryle never made this last point explicitly. Most obviously, if he had, he would have faced an immediate difficulty. If it is true that the mind is a consequence of our physical capacities, then what possible skill could correspond to - or rather constitute - our imagining a colour? Perhaps our capacity to name a colour could be sufficient? But if this is the case then consciousness is only possible if we are first capable of language. Surprisingly, many theorists persist in directly, indirectly and inadvertently arguing that language is indeed essential to consciousness (though Ryle was not among these 'intellectualist' thinkers). A more plausible contender then - as a skill constitutive of mind - might be thought to be embodied in the capacity for sensory discrimination. However, this explanatory route turns out to be extravagant in precisely the same way that the language-only route seems overly restrictive. If all that is required for the emergence of mind is a capacity to discriminate one thing from another, then we have no alternative than to count even some of the most primitive organisms as minded - if only in the most elementary ways.

It seems likely that Ryle was aware of these difficulties, yet I suspect that his (and others') overriding focus upon language may also have contributed to the lack of exploration of alternative explanations in this area. Going by the majority of philosophical theories developed and pursued during the 20th Century, you could easily be forgiven for thinking that the only field of interest worthy of serious investigation was to be found amongst the many sayings, signs, semes, signifiers and syntactical structures of language. And whilst the 'linguistic turn' in philosophy continues to exert a major influence upon a wide variety of fields of enquiry throughout the world, comparatively little attention has been paid to skills of nonverbal communication. Even with the recent upsurge of interest in theories of Embodied Cognition, there remains a general disregard for the evolutionary emergence of nonverbal skills of representation. 

Yet, if we fail to concern ourselves with the evolution of these rudimentary capacities we leave an unassailable mountain for anyone seeking to explain the evolutionary emergence of language. In spite of an absence of evidence and a dearth of reasoned argument, it is currently almost universally assumed that the symbolic practices comprising language sprang into existence unaided by other more rudimentary forms of communicative behaviour. 

With a more expansive view of representational practices than is currently on offer, it becomes significantly more feasible to discern the embryonic origins of language and even to formulate a speculative solution to Ryle's dilemma. If we propose capacities of nonverbal representation as significantly constitutive of mind, we avoid the excesses both of overgeneralisation and of restrictive limitation and situate the attribution of mind at a more plausible stage between basic organismic behaviour and the highly sophisticated symbol manipulations of which language users are capable. 

Innumerable animals are capable of basic forms of mimicry and countless creatures communicate through the use of sounds, gestures, scents, colour changes etc. We need no persuasion that our linguistic skills must have had more rudimentary origins. Symbolic practices must have, at the very least, evolved alongside non-symbolic skills, if not as a more sophisticated consequence of them.

The shift is one from a focus on “things”, such as representations, to a concern with “activities”, such as the act of representing. [...] The task is to understand a variety of representational practices, and wherein they are representational. The means we employ in doing so will be various: historical analysis of their emergence, sociological analysis of the conditions under which they operate, experimental psychological analysis of representational gaps and gluts, anthropological analysis of practices of symbolization, evolutionary analysis of social environments and our sensitivity to them. (Robert A. Wilson 2010)

Philosophers have barely even scratched the surface of these enquiries into the nature, variety and extent of representational practices, of behaviours and acts of non-verbal representing. But what should be clear is that animals do indeed have minds - if only simple minds - because mind is not dependent upon language but upon representational capacities that are functionally and procedurally distinct from language and that must have evolved long before these skills of symbol manipulation of which we are so fond but which so often cloud our understanding of other creatures and ourselves.

Imagining Itself (Part IXX: Learning Skills)

If it were the case that imagination could initiate neural growth (learning) to the same degree as experience then the question arises: how could we ever distinguish between cognitive development drawn from experience and that drawn from entertaining but infeasible flights of fancy? If there were no difference between the ways we learn from experience and the ways we learn from imagination then how could our cognitive architecture ensure that imagination didn’t simply fill our minds with a deluge of impractical nonsense? To set too much store by the inventions and indulgences of the imagination would surely risk laying down all kinds of meaningless neural networks and worse still, this would probably happen without the slightest conscious awareness. But how is this not the case and how do our minds avoid such self-deception?

It might be suggested that there must be some kind of limiting mechanism or filter at work that inhibits neural development on the basis of imaginative thought, but this need not be the case. There need be no such mechanism because - as Sartre, Ryle and others have surmised - imagination is the exercise of already formed knowledge – of prior memories, ideas and beliefs. Just as perceptual experience leaves its most indelible imprint when it is most repeated, most profound or most surprising, so too, we might suppose, does  imagination. But unlike perception, which frequently presents us with the surprising and the unpredictable, our thoughts and imaginings are rarely truly unexpected. If imagination consists of the interplay of what we already know, then the only means by which we might encounter the unexpected – and from which we might learn – is through the previously untested recombination of this knowledge and the careful pursuit and resolution of incompatible ideas and beliefs. As it happens, we are not especially skilled at this - as research into Cognitive Dissonance clearly shows.

Skills are acquired either by genetic inheritance or by active engagement with the world and never simply by imagining. So for example, it is not possible to become capable of drawing something by the agency of imagination alone because a capability is not something that imagination can ever bestow or confer. Imagination is the means by which we sharpen our skills of representation but it is not the means by which we acquire such skills – or skills of any description. Indeed, imagination would be better understood as being nothing other than the means by which we contemplate, anticipate and refine our skills of representation.

It is because representation is so fundamental to learning that imagination plays such a vital role in the improvement of skills. To acquire a skill is to be able to demonstrate it - it is to be capable of representing it to others. And these capabilities of demonstration and mimicry - of teaching and learning - have been of inestimable use to us as a species. It might be argued that to carry out a learned action is not necessarily to represent it. This is true. However, to carry out an action in the presence of onlookers is for it to be available in representational terms; as the means by which an action is ‘performed’ and as the procedure by which something might be accomplished.

To watch an action is to become capable of representing it. But, crucially, it is not necessarily to be able to represent it either faithfully or fully. Why else would we ever ask: "Can I have a go?" if the capacity to represent something (to have committed it to mind so to speak) was sufficient in and of itself?

Despite the fact that imagination cannot enable skills it can, and frequently does, allow us to improve them. It has long been known that the use of visualisation techniques in sports training can bring about measurable improvements in performance. To imagine how you could better swing a tennis racket is to imagine how you would represent the motion as a performative act. It is to deliberately engage many of the same cognitive structures as would be exercised if you were to actually perform the action. And, as many studies have shown, repeatedly exercise of these cognitive structures through visualisation causes them to become increasingly consolidated and increasingly stable.

In 2011 the results of a study were published evaluating the benefits of a variety of visualisation techniques for the rehabilitation of stroke patients. The study found “No evidence of the benefit of mental practice with motor imagery in stroke.” In other words, no matter how hard or regularly the stroke patients tried to imagine improvement in their impaired motor skills they were unable to bring about any measureable improvement. On the other hand, when visualisation techniques were combined with physical therapy, then measurable improvements did occur and visualisation helped significantly. This research lends strong support to the idea that imagination is not an enabler of capacities but is instead an important means for reinforcing and focussing skills that have already been acquired.

Imagination is an enormously important capacity – not just for capabilities that we think of as being mental, like thinking for instance - but also for our abilities to act deliberately and skilfully in the world. In fact it might be said that imagination is the very precondition of our being able to act in such skilful ways.