My Adaptation of the Causal Closure Argument for Idealism

P1) All events share one and the same irreducible ontological type.

“In the first place a relation, if it is to be a relation at all, must unite some terms. Secondly, most, if not all, kinds of relation presuppose a specific common character, usually or always of the type called by Mr. Johnson a determinable in the related terms, without which the assertion of the specific relation would be not merely false but absurd…” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 128)

“Spatial relations presuppose in this way the common determinable of extension….the relation of similarity presupposes some common determinable in the determinate value of which the objects are said to be similar, the relations of enmity or love the common determinable of emotional capacity, the relation of causality the common character of being events or continuants in time, and perhaps membership in some specific causal system…..[A relation] could not be present at all if its terms were not characterized by a certain determinable and if their determinate qualities within this and other subordinate determinables did not fall within certain limits….” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 129-130)

“There can be no experience of plurality, whether of beings, qualities or events, that are absolutely disparate and disconnected—that is certain. All experienced diversity implies some identity; and, for the matter of that, all experienced identity some diversity. All this is so much logical commonplace. From this it follows that to every known or knowable Many there will be some common term applicable to them all, which logically unifies them all.” (Ward, The Realm of Ends, 222) 

“Every relation implies an identity underlying the manifest difference in the terms…” (Carr, A Theory of Monads, 1) 

“Neither duality nor multiplicity is conceivable without that unity whereby the two engender that whole in which the two units are connected, even though they mutually exclude one another: without that unity which fuses and unifies every multiplicity determined in a number, which correlates among themselves the units which constitute the number. We could strip multiplicity of all unity only by not thinking it. But then in the gloom of what is not thought, multiplicity truly enough would not be unity, but it would not even be multiplicity, because it could not be anything at all. Or, if we prefer, it would be absolutely unthinkable.” (Gentile, The Reform of Education, 107)

P2) There is at least one event that has occurred that is irreducibly “mental” in ontological type. 

C1) Therefore, all events are irreducibly “mental” in ontological type. [From P1 and P2]

This argument is inspired by “The Argument from Mental Causation.” I would like to present several passages which render the premises more plausible:

“For our idea of causation is not derived from without, but from within, and what we call the evidence of physical causation is really only certain wholly mental modifications following one another in definite sequence.  Hence, we can have no evidence of causation proceeding from Object to Subject.  The mind, therefore, cannot prove its own causation from matter or motion, because all evidence of that must itself be mental evidence and nothing but mental, and hence it is as impossible for the mind thus to prove its own causation as it is for water to rise above its source.” (Thomson, Materialism and Modern Physiology of the Nervous System, 3-4) 

“Let us now consider Causality. This cannot, any more than Substantiality, be a sensation. Our senses, no doubt, can give us two sensations in succession, though it does not follow that the senses alone would render us conscious that they were in succession. But causality involves not only that B follows A, but that B is there because A was there before it, and that B would not have been there without A. Now this is not a matter for the senses. Can we see that the smoke which is before us would not be there if there had been no fire? We see what is, but we cannot see what is not, or what might have been. If we saw causality, then causality, like all other objects of sight, must be an extended and colored surface, which it is not. Nor would it be more possible to hear, or touch, or smell, or taste it. Causality, then, like Substantiality, is not a sensation but an idea. Whenever we say that A is the cause of B, the mind makes a judgment, and it is only through such judgment that we get the idea of causality at all. If the mind confined itself to receiving what the sensations bring it, causality would be unknown to it. And the conception of matter would be meaningless if causality were withdrawn. If the movement of one piece of matter did not cause the movement of another, if matter did not cause sensations in us, the whole of science would be upset. And with it would go all our reasons for believing in matter, since the justification of our belief in matter is the success of science in explaining the world by means of it. In particular, the attempt to explain spirit as a form of the activity of matter clearly implies causality. For it explains the transformation of activity into the form of consciousness as due to the particular conditions which it meets within in the human body, and thus makes those circumstances the cause of the transformation.” (McTaggart, Some Considerations Relating to Human Immortality, 160-161) 

“Causality is not an external relation—that is, a relation existing independently of consciousness….Now, if causality be mental, the facts connected by causality must be mental facts; in other words, the causal relation, being through and through mental, cannot extend beyond mind….If causality is a purely mental connection, it surely cannot be a bridge between the mental and the non-mental....Objects inferred to exist are…none the less objects of consciousness, objects “present to the mind.” But nothing which is present to the mind can possess an existence independent of mind. It is then a contradiction in terms to teach that the mind must infer (whatever be the principle of inference) the existence of external objects; for it is the nature of such objects to be independent of consciousness….Descartes and the other dualists had taught that matter, namely, reality independent of consciousness, must exist as cause of our perceptions. In reply to this…causality is a relation within consciousness and consequently cannot assure us of the reality of anything outside consciousness; and second, whatever the basis of the inference, inferred objects must be known objects, objects present to the mind, and cannot therefore be possessed of independent existence….Causality is no character or relation of things independent of consciousness, and that, on the contrary, causality is a transition of the mind, a mental connection…this mental transition [is] “thought”….Unity and causality are mental activities, ways in which we think.” (Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, 170-219) 

“What, it will be asked, is a whole? It is defined ordinarily in some such fashion: the sum of the relations of distinct yet connected parts. What, then, is a relation? It cannot, in the first place, be external to the parts which it relates, else it would still be another reality and would itself need to be related with all the rest; and the new relation would again need relating, and so on ad infinitum. A relation external to the terms related would, in a word, be useless to them: it could not be their relation. As Hegel says, in “a unity of differents…, a composite, an aggregate…, the objects remain independent and…external to each other.” And yet, though a relation cannot be external to the terms which it relates, neither can it be a quality inherent in any or in every one of them. For the quality, or attribute, or function, which is in a particular reality, cannot be the bond between that particular and some other. In other words, if ultimate reality were a composite of completely related terms, and if the relations between the terms were qualities of the terms, each for each, then the relations would themselves need relating with each other, for each would belong to some particular reality. There is no escape from this difficulty except by the abandonment of the conception of ultimate reality as a composite, and the alternative conception of it as a whole which is also a singular, an absolute reality whose unique nature is manifested in the particular realities which form its parts. These parts, therefore, need no external relation; they are related in that they are alike expressions of the one reality.” (Calkins, The Persistent Problems of Philosophy, 380-381) 

“We ordinarily employ the category of causality to relate one part of experience to another, a change to an antecedent change. Thus in its very form causality presupposes distinction within experience, and accordingly this relativity within experience ceases the very moment that the part coincides with the whole.” (Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, 410) 

“Among the chief categories which are commonly regarded as applicable to experience, is the category of causality….The true meaning which causality has for us is rooted in the realization of our own efficiency, as active individuals. The active individual is the “cause.” The end which his (generally purposive) activity accomplishes is the “effect.” The scientific method, however, takes the sequences which occur in experience as they stand and determines what may truly be said of them per se. In the first place, it finds that sequences continually recur sufficiently similar in nature to admit of a considerable degree of general characterization. Secondly, it follows that a general proposition may be affirmed with regard to each recurring sequence, whereby the occurrence of one event may be inferred from the occurrence of another event. Thirdly, there is no guarantee (except the rather doubtful one of probability) that such propositions will continue to hold in the future. Finally, it is seen that we can go no further than this from the objective standpoint of science. It might also be pointed out that, strictly speaking, the term  “causal law” ought not to be applied at all to such propositions as we have been considering. For, in view of the concrete meaning which “cause” has for us, the word “causal” implies that the sequences to which the propositions refer, have their ground in the activity of individuals.” (Richardson, Spiritual Pluralism, 30-37)

Reading Notes: May 4th, 2022

“In the first place a relation, if it is to be a relation at all, must unite some terms. Secondly, most, if not all, kinds of relation presuppose a specific common character, usually or always of the type called by Mr. Johnson a determinable in the related terms, without which the assertion of the specific relation would be not merely false but absurd…” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 128) 

“Spatial relations presuppose in this way the common determinable of extension….the relation of similarity presupposes some common determinable in the determinate value of which the objects are said to be similar, the relations of enmity or love the common determinable of emotional capacity, the relation of causality the common character of being events or continuants in time, and perhaps membership in some specific causal system…..[A relation] could not be present at all if its terms were not characterized by a certain determinable and if their determinate qualities within this and other subordinate determinables did not fall within certain limits….” (Ewing, Idealism: A Critical Survey, 129-130) 

“Let it be assumed then that there is in the body a physical mechanism which produces the conclusions of the understanding and the senses, then we stand face to face with the questions: What is the Body? What is Matter? What is the Physical? And modern physiology, just as much as philosophy, must answer that they are all only our ideas; necessary ideas, ideas resulting according to natural laws, but still never the things themselves. The consistently Materialistic view thus changes round therefore, into a consistently idealistic view….The eye, with which we believe we see, is itself only a product of our ideas; and when we find that our visual images are produced by the structure of the eye, we must never forget that the eye too with its arrangements, the optic nerve with the brain and all the structures which we may yet discover there as causes of thought, are only ideas, which indeed form a self-coherent world, yet a world which points to something beyond itself….The struggle between Body and Mind is ended in favour of the latter, and only thus is guaranteed the true unity of all existence. For while it always remained an insurmountable difficulty for Materialism to explain how conscious sensation could come about from material motion, yet it is, on the other hand, by no means difficult to conceive that our whole representation of matter and its movements is the result of an organization of purely intellectual dispositions to sensation.” (Lange, The History of Materialism, Vol. III, 223-228) 

“We can assign no boundary to our experience without at once extending it in thought, and thought itself involves experience. Hence the phrase, “content of experience,” or “content of consciousness,” is apt to be misleading. The experience of one is not limited by the experience of another as one portion of time or space is limited by another portion of time or space. The continuity of experience is not then determined from without. Experience is rather an organic unity that we always regard as self-maintained.” (Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, 403) 

“We ordinarily employ the category of causality to relate one part of experience to another, a change to an antecedent change. Thus in its very form causality presupposes distinction within experience, and accordingly this relativity within experience ceases the very moment that the part coincides with the whole.” (Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, 410) 

“Experience is a unity, comprising a duality of subject and object, and we cannot fail to get more and more out of touch with its true inwardness, if we lay stress on one side of it to the exclusion of the other; for all separation of subject from object, though necessary to a certain extent for purposes of analysis, is to that extent artificial.” (Richardson, Spiritual Pluralism, 18) 

“Among the chief categories which are commonly regarded as applicable to experience, is the category of causality….The true meaning which causality has for us is rooted in the realization of our own efficiency, as active individuals. The active individual is the “cause.” The end which his (generally purposive) activity accomplishes is the “effect.” The scientific method, however, takes the sequences which occur in experience as they stand and determines what may truly be said of them per se. In the first place, it finds that sequences continually recur sufficiently similar in nature to admit of a considerable degree of general characterization. Secondly, it follows that a general proposition may be affirmed with regard to each recurring sequence, whereby the occurrence of one event may be inferred from the occurrence of another event. Thirdly, there is no guarantee (except the rather doubtful one of probability) that such propositions will continue to hold in the future. Finally, it is seen that we can go no further than this from the objective standpoint of science. It might also be pointed out that, strictly speaking, the term  “causal law” ought not to be applied at all to such propositions as we have been considering. For, in view of the concrete meaning which “cause” has for us, the word “causal” implies that the sequences to which the propositions refer, have their ground in the activity of individuals.” (Richardson, Spiritual Pluralism, 30-37)

Reading Notes: May 3rd, 2022

“All colour is spread out in space of two dimensions, and every coloured surface has a definite position relatively to other coloured surface. The same is true of tangible qualities, such as roughness and smoothness, hardness and softness, hotness and coldness. But the same place cannot be simultaneously occupied by different colours, and it cannot at the same time be both hot and cold, both hard and soft, both rough and smooth. These are mutually exclusive, because they are specific variations in the same respect of the same generic quality. On the other hand, specific variations of different generic qualities, or of the same in different respects, can occupy the same place. A body may be hot, hard, and smooth in the same place. In particular, visible and tangible qualities are capable of having an identical position in space, and, as a rule, they are actually apprehended as spatially coincident and co-extensive on the bounding surfaces of material things. The exceptions are confined to instances, such as that of the air, in which a thing is tangible but not visible.” (Stout, The Common-Sense Conception of a Material Thing, 34-35) 

“No combination of surfaces can constitute solid thickness; the solid thickness is always apprehended as lying between them; they cannot constitute it just because they have no solid thickness themselves, and, if they had, would cease to be mere surfaces. The surface is in space of three dimensions what the line is in space of two dimensions, merely a boundary. The line formed by the meeting of two coloured surfaces is no part of either of them. Similarly, the surfaces, disclosed by slicing an apple form no part of the solid content of either half of the apple.” (Stout, The Common-Sense Conception of a Material Thing, 35-36) 

“In ordinary language it seems strange to speak of sensations as extended. The reason is that they are not extended in the same sense as corporeal things. Bodies are extended in space. But touch and sight sensations do not occupy any part of the single, homogenous, infinite space which embraces all material things and their distances. They do not occupy any part of the space in which Cardiff or Oxford is so many miles from London, and in which bodies attract each other inversely as the square of their distance. None the less, touch and sight sensations have an intrinsic character correlated with spatial size and shape, just as the quality of sensations of yellow is correlated with the yellowness of buttercups arid oranges. We may call this intrinsic character sensible extension. Since in ordinary life we are interested in sensible extension mainly as an expression or manifestation of spatial extension, spatial extension may be called real and sensible extension apparent. Thus, we contrast the apparent size of a thing as seen at this or that distance from the eye with its real size as measured in feet or inches. Spatial or real extension is throughout homogeneous; sensible extension is of two kinds, the visual and the tactual. Their difference is perhaps comparable to that of the intensity of light sensations and the intensity of sound sensations.” (Stout, Primary and Secondary Qualities, 51-52) 

“Consider first visual extension. On closing the eyes though we cease to see external objects or any part of our own bodies, there is still a field or expanse of visual sensation which may be entirely grey or variegated with colour. Each distinguishable part of this field or expanse has local relations of position and distance to other parts, and the whole is a single continuous extensive quantum. Yet the visual expanse thus presented for our attentive scrutiny does not occupy any part of space. If it is in space it must be here or there. But we cannot from the nature of the case say where it is. There is no room for it in the space occupied by bodies. Again, if the expanse of visual sensation occupies any portion of space it must be conterminous with other outlying portions of space. But in this sense, it is boundless though not of course infinite in magnitude. Parts within it are bounded by other contiguous parts, but in its totality,  it does not form part of a more extensive whole, and it has therefore no limits which are in any sense spatial. It has no shape. If you doubt this try to discover what its shape is. In the next place, if it occupied space, it would be commensurable with other spatial quanta. It ought to be possible to express its magnitude in feet or inches. But this is an intrinsic impossibility. We cannot, for instance, say that it is equal in extent to the total tract of the external world which comes within the range of vision when the eyes are open. For what we can thus embrace in one view may vary indefinitely in extent. It may include the expanse of the starry heavens or it may be confined to the walls of room. Again, a part of space may be conceivably empty; but the conception of a vacuum has no application to visual extension. There is no visual extension where there are no colour and brightness sensations.” (Stout, Primary and Secondary Qualities, 53-54) 

“There could be no knowledge without that antithesis between knowledge and the known; even omniscient knowledge could not transcend it, for it is implied in the very notion of knowledge. To demand of knowledge that it shall be one with the object known is tantamount to demanding that knowledge shall both be and not be knowledge….The activity of knowing throws no colour of its own upon that representation of the world of fact which through it is possible, simply because it has no colour of its own to throw.” (Hicks, Sense-Presentation and Thought, 153)\ 

“It makes no sense to ascribe psychological predicates (or their negations) to the brain, save metaphorically or metonymically. The resultant combination of words does not say something that is false; rather, it says nothing at all, for it lacks sense. Psychological predicates are predicates that apply essentially to the living animal as a whole, not to its parts. It is not the eye (let alone the brain) that sees, but we see with our eyes (and we do not see with our brains, although without a brain functioning normally in respect of the visual system, we would not see). So, too, it is not the ear that hears, but the animal whose ear it is. The organs of an animal are parts of the animal, and psychological predicates are ascribable to the animal as a whole, not to its constituent parts. Mereology is the logic of part/whole relations. The neuro-scientists’ mistake of ascribing to the constituent parts of an animal attributes that logically apply only to the animal as a whole we shall call ‘the mereological fallacy’ in neuroscience. The principle that psychological predicates which apply only to human beings (or other animals) as wholes cannot intelligibly be applied to their parts, such as the brain, we shall call ‘the mereological principle’ in neuroscience. Human beings, but not their brains, can be said to be thoughtful or thoughtless; animals, but not their brains, let alone the hemispheres of their brains, can be said to see or not to see, to hear or not to hear, to smell or not to smell and to taste or not to taste things; people, but not their brains, can be said to be decisive or to be indecisive.” (Bennett and Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, 83-84) 

“For while it may be harmless to talk of ‘maps’—that is, of mappings of features of the perceptual field on to topographically related groups of cells that are systematically responsive to such features—it is anything but harmless to talk of such ‘maps’ as playing ‘an essential part in the representation and interpretation of the world by the brain, just as the maps of an atlas do for the reader of them’ (our italics). In the first place, it is not clear what sense is to be given to the term ‘interpretation’ in this context. For it is by no means evident what could be meant by the claim that the topographical relations between groups of cells that are systematically related to features of the perceptual field play an essential role in the brain’s interpreting something. To interpret, literally speaking, is to explain the meaning of something, or to take something that is ambiguous to have one meaning rather than another. But it makes no sense to suppose that the brain explains anything, or that it apprehends something as meaning one thing rather than another. If we look to J.Z. Young to find out what he had in mind, what we find is the claim that it is on the basis of such maps that the brain ‘constructs hypotheses and programs’ – and this only gets us deeper into the morass.” (Bennett and Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, 91) 

“It is true that we do, in casual parlance, say that computers remember, that they search their memory, that they calculate, and sometimes, when they take a long time, we jocularly say that they are thinking things over. But this is not a literal application of the terms ‘remember’, ‘calculate’ and ‘think’. Computers are devices designed to fulfil certain functions for us. We can store information on a computer, as we can in a filing cabinet. But filing cabinets cannot remember anything, and neither can computers. We use computers to produce the results of a calculation, just as we used to use slide-rules or cylindrical mechanical calculators. Those results are produced without anyone or anything literally calculating—as is evident in the cases of a slide-rule or mechanical calculator. In order literally to calculate, one must have a grasp of a wide range of concepts, follow a multitude of rules that one must know, and understand a variety of operations. One must view the results of one’s calculation as warranted by the premises. Computers do not and cannot.” (Bennett and Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, 93) 

“An illustration of [the intentional fallacy] would be to argue that a sensation is not a brain process because a person can be talking about a sensation and yet not be talking about a brain process. The verb “to talk about” might be called an “intentional” verb, and this fallacy committed with it might be called “the intentional fallacy”. Other intentional verbs would be “to mean”, “to intend”, “to know”, “to predict”, “to describe”, “to notice”, and so on….The verb “to explain” is also an intentional verb….I wonder if Smart has not reasoned fallaciously, somewhat as follows: If a sudden thought is a certain brain process, then to explain the occurrence of the brain process is to explain the occurrence of the thought. Thus there will be just one kind of explanation for both thoughts and brain processes….If a thought is identical with a brain process, it does not follow that to explain the occurrence of the brain process is to explain the occurrence of the thought. And in fact, an explanation of the one differs in kind from an explanation of the other. The explanation of why someone thought such and such involves different assumptions and principles and is guided by different interests than is an explanation of why this or that process occurred in his brain. These explanations belong to different systems of explanation. I conclude that even if Smart were right in holding that thoughts are strictly identical with brain processes…he would not have established that there is one and the same explanation for the occurrence of the thoughts and for the occurrence of the brain processes. If he were to appreciate this fact then…he would no longer have any motive for espousing the identity theory. For [Smart’s theory] would not advance us one whit towards the single, homogeneous system of explanation that is the goal of Smart’s materialism.” (Malcom, Scientific Materialism and the Identity Theory, 178-179)  

“Could a brain have thoughts, illusions, or pains? The senselessness of the supposition seems so obvious that I find it hard to take it seriously. No experiment could establish this result for a brain. Why not? The fundamental reason is that a brain does not sufficiently resemble a human being. What can have ked Smart to suppose that a brain can have thoughts? The only explanation which occurs to me is that he thinks that if my thought is in my brain, then my brain has a thought. This would be like thinking that if my invitation to dinner is in my pocket, then my pocket has an invitation to dinner. One bad joke deserves another.” (Malcom, Scientific Materialism and the Identity Theory, 179-180)

Reading Notes: May 2nd, 2022

“From the moment we wake we are bombarded with stimuli….But something else happens too. We have conscious experiences. We see a bright light, hear a scream, feel the roughness of a surface. There is something it is like to detect the stimuli; each experience has a distinctive qualitative aspect—a quale in philosopher’s jargon (plural qualia). Such experiences constitute what we call consciousness. But what is consciousness for? What do qualia do?” (Frankish, Consciousness is a Life-Transforming Illusion, 1)  

“Cognitive science sees the mind as a representational system….On this view, for us to be aware of anything, our brains must represent it….Even if our brain states did have qualia, our brains would have to represent these qualia in order for us to be aware of them. Unrepresented qualia would be no more to us than unheard sounds.” (Frankish, Consciousness is a Life-Affirming Illusion, 3)  

“Maybe qualia are a sort of illusion. Evolution couldn’t set it up so that brain states really have qualia, so it did the next best thing. It set things up so that they seem to have qualia when we attend to them (when we introspect). Consciousness is, as Humphrey puts it, a sort of inner magic show, in which brain states are the actors and introspection the audience.” (Frankish, Consciousness is a Life-Affirming Illusion, 3)

“Illusionists deny that experiences have phenomenal properties and focus on why they seem to have them. [Illusionists] typically allow that we are introspectively aware of our sensory states but argue that this awareness is partial and distorted, leading us to misrepresent the states as having phenomenal properties. Of course, it is essential [to the illusionist approach] that the posited introspective representations are not phenomenally conscious ones. It would be self-defeating to explain illusory phenomenal properties of experience in terms of real phenomenal properties of introspective states….[Illusionism holds] that the introspectable qualities of experience are merely quasi-phenomenal ones.” (Frankish, Illusionism as a Theory of Consciousness, 3)