The Mind and Its Place in Nature
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International Library of Psychology Philosophy and Scientific Method The Mind and its Place in Nature The Mind and Its Place in Nature BY C. D. BROAD, M.A., LITT.D. Fellow and Lecturer in the Moral Sciences, Trinity College, Cambridge Author of Perception, Physics, and Reality, and Scientific Thought LONDON KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD. NEW YORK: HARCOURT, BRACE & COMPANY, INC. 1925 Tarner Lectures delivered in Trinity College Cambridge, 1923 To J. A. CHADWICK PREFACE MY duties as Tarner Lecturer and as Lecturer in the Moral Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, began together and overlapped during the Michaelmas term of 1923. It was therefore impossible for me to devote as much time to the preparation of the Tarner Lectures as I could have wished; and I was profoundly dis- satisfied with them. So I determined to spend the whole of the Long Vacation of 1924, and all my spare time in the Michaelmas term of that year, in rewriting what I had written, and in adding to it. However bad the book may seem to the reader, I can assure him that the lectures were far worse; and however long the lectures may have seemed to the audience, I can assure them that the book is far longer. I had no intention of inflicting another book on the public so soon after my Scientific Thought; and I should certainly not have done so had I not been asked to give the Tarner Lectures. I think I can promise that it will be long before I offend again. In the meanwhile I retire to my well-earned bath- chair, from which I shall watch with a fatherly eye the philosophic gambols of my younger friends as they dance to the highly syncopated pipings of Herr Wittgenstein’s flute. I am, as always, deeply indebted to the works of Mr Johnson, Dr M‘Taggart, Dr Moore, Mr Bertrand Russell, and Prof. Stout. I have to thank my friend, Mr J. A. Chadwick of Trinity, for kindly reading the proofs. I have also learned much from him in the many conversations which we have had together, and I am indebted to him especially for certain suggestions vii PREFACE which I have tried to work out in Chapter XIII. Part of Chapter II. and part of Chapter VIII. are based on papers which have been published in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. Part of Chapter III. is based on an article which appeared in The Monist; and part of Chapter XII. is based on an article which appeared in The Hibbert Journal. I have to thank the editors of these publications for kind permission to make use of the articles in question. I shall no doubt be blamed by certain scientists, and, I am afraid, by some philosophers, for having taken serious account of the alleged facts which are investi- gated by Psychical Researchers. I am wholly impeni- tent about this. The scientists in question seem to me to confuse the Author of Nature with the Editor of Nature; or at any rate to suppose that there can be no productions of the former which would not be accepted for publication by the latter. And I see no reason to believe this. I am only too well aware how inadequate the book is to its rather ambitious title. Many subjects which ought to have been discussed are not touched upon; and those subjects which are discussed are not exhausted, even if the reader be so. But it is the best that I can do at present; and I hope that some parts of it, at any rate, may form starting-points for fruitful controversies among philosophers, psychologists, biologists and psychical researchers. C. D. BROAD. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, January 1925 CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION — GENERAL REMARKS ON METHOD — PLURALISM AND MONISM ... 1 SECTION A Alternative Theories of Life and Mind at the Level of Enlightened Common-sense CHAPTER II. MECHANISM AND ITS ALTERNATIVES .... 43 CHAPTER III. THE TRADITIONAL PROBLEM OF BODY AND MIND .......... 95 SECTION B The Mind’s Knowledge of Existents CHAPTER IV. SENSE-PERCEPTION AND MATTER . 140 CHAPTER V. MEMORY ........... 221 CHAPTER VI. INTROSPECTION ........ 275 CHAPTER VII. THE MIND’S KNOWLEDGE OF OTHER MINDS .......... 317 SECTION C The Unconscious CHAPTER VIII. VARIOUS MEANINGS OF THE TERM “UN- CONSCIOUS” ........ 354 CHAPTER IX. THE ALLEGED EVIDENCE FOR UNCONSCIOUS MENTAL EVENTS AND PROCESSES . 401 CHAPTER X. THE NATURE OF TRACES AND DISPOSITIONS 430 ix CONTENTS SECTION D The Alleged Evidence for Human Survival of Bodily Death PAGE CHAPTER XI. ETHICAL ARGUMENTS FOR HUMAN SUR- VIVAL .......... 487 CHAPTER XII. EMPIRICAL ARGUMENTS FOR HUMAN SUR- VIVAL .......... 514 SECTION E The Unity of the Mind and the Unity of Nature CHAPTER XIII. THE UNITY OF THE MIND ..... 556 CHAPTER XIV. THE STATUS AND PROSPECTS OF MIND IN NATURE ......... 607 INDEX ............... 667 CHAPTER I “She’s a rum ’un is Natur’,” said Mr Squeers. “Natur’ is more easier conceived than described.” (DICKENS, Nicholas Nickleby) CHAPTER I Introduction. General Remarks on Method. Pluralism and Monism Introduction. The aim of the Tarner Benefaction is to found a course of lectures on “the relation or lack of relation between the various sciences.” Dr White- head, who gave the first course, dealt with applied geometry and chronometry, dynamics, and the Theory of Relativity. He left to his immediate successor a delicate and invidious task. Dr Whitehead’s Concept of Nature is an epoch-making book by a man who is a complete master of the technical part of his subject and an original philosophic thinker of the highest order. Taken in conjunction with its predecessor, The Principles of Natural Knowledge, and its sequel, The Principle of Relativity, it forms the most important contribution which has been made for many years to the philosophy of mathematical physics. For me to attempt to cover the same ground again in these lectures would be to expose myself to the most unflattering comparisons. Moreover, I have lately dealt with these matters to the best of my ability in my Scientific Thought; and, whilst I am well aware how much room there is for improve- ment in that book, my readers must be as tired of seeing my views on this subject as I am at present of writing them down. I therefore determined to choose a problem which should be supplementary to Dr Whitehead’s work and should overlap it as little as possible. Now the limitations which the first Tarner Lecturer deliberately imposed on himself at once suggest a subject for discussion by his immediate successor. He 3 4 MIND AND ITS PLACE IN NATURE quite explicitly confined himself to the study of Nature as an object of Mind. He refused to complicate his problem by dealing with the stuff and structure of mind as such, or with its place within the physical world which it contemplates and acts upon. And, beside this, Dr Whitehead confined himself to the most general characteristics of the physical world, to those which are shared by stones, trees, and animal or human bodies. He did not consider in detail the very great apparent differences which there are between such objects as these. In these self-imposed limitations he was, I think, wholly justified. The problem of the external world as such is a terribly hard one, and it has certainly been made harder in the past by being mixed up to a needless extent with psychological and physiological questions. I found it necessary to follow much the same course, so far as I could, in my Scientific Thought. Nevertheless, it seems clear to me (and I do not suppose that Dr Whitehead would seriously dissent) that all sharp divisions of Reality into water-tight compart- ments, and all confinement of our attention to the common characteristics of things which also differ pro- foundly, are practically necessary rather than theoreti- cally satisfactory. Minds do arise, to all appearance, within the physical world; and they do remain, to all appearance, tightly bound to certain special physical objects, viz., living animal organisms. And, having arisen and being connected with such organisms, they do then proceed to perceive, think about, act upon, feel emotions toward, and approve or disapprove of things and events in the physical world. Nor do they confine their attention to such objects. A mind may perform all these acts towards itself and towards other minds as well as towards physical things and events; and the minds which we know most about are concerned almost as much with themselves and with other minds as with matter. Nor does even this exhaust the objects with which minds are apparently concerned from time to INTRODUCTION 5 time. Some minds, and especially Dr Whitehead’s, seem to spend a good deal of their time in contem- plating, reasoning about, and feeling approval or disapproval towards objects which are, on the face of them, neither material nor mental, e.g., numbers, propositions, and the formal relations of such objects among themselves. And it is certainly arguable that a mind could go little if any distance in cognising objects which are physical or mental if it did not have the power of cognising objects which are neither. Now these are vitally important facts which must presumably shed some further light on the stuff and structure of the world as a whole, and even on that part of it which consists of physical things and processes and is called “Nature.” When we treat any one part of Reality in isolation from the rest, or when we con- centrate on the common features of things which also differ profoundly, it is certain that our results will not be the whole truth and probable that they will not be wholly true.