John Heil's Philosophy of Mind - Chapter 1: Introduction

This book is Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction, by John Heil, Fourth Edition, published in 2020. 

The author starts with the familiar puzzle of the tree and the forest. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear, does the tree make the sound? An obvious answer is: it depends. If by 'sound' we mean something physical—a burst of compressed air waves—then yes. But if by 'sound' we mean something experienced, then the tree cannot generate that unless there is a creature nearby capable of hearing and experiencing things.

That sounds simple enough. But it leads to a problem. If there is a real distinction between physical sound and mental, phenomenal sound, then we now have two distinct categories of things: physical things and mental things. This immediately gives us aspect dualism, the view that first-person properties and third-person properties are distinct and one cannot be reduced to the other. More than that, this bifurcated view of reality (pg 2) threatens to imply substance dualism, the view that there is a real mental substance separate from the physical substances we are familiar with.

The key problem that substance dualism runs into, the problem that has left the view largely unpopular in philosophy today (though not without its defenders), is the problem of mental causation. If mental substances and physical substances are two separate categories of things, then how on earth can my mind interact with my body and cause me to move when I command myself to move? All instances of causation appear to require space and atom-to-atom interactions involving the laws and forces of chemistry and physics. But if my mind is immaterial, then my mind is not beholden to those laws. By what mechanism, then, could my mind possibly interact with my body?

Besides the problem of mental causation, there is just a general "spookiness" or mysteriousness of the mind. It leaves open so many questions. Where is my mind? What is it made of? What grounds or causes or allows my thoughts, feelings, emotions, or experiences?

The author refers to what I call first-person properties 'secondary qualities' and what I call third-person properties 'primary qualities'.

Primary qualities = external, empirical, independent, public, third-person, investigable by science.

Secondary qualities = internal, non-empirical, dependent, private, first-person, not investigable by science.

It might be tempting to say that mental things reduce to the physical—we can locate the mental within the brain; there are only primary qualities. But if that's true then we should be able to learn about what it's like to see the color red or to attend an orchestra (all the sights, sounds, feelings) just by opening up a brain. We can observe all sorts of primary qualities of brains—shape, size, neurological activity—but we cannot see what you see just by testing your brain. My experiences are inaccessible to everyone except me, and there is, currently, nothing science can do about that.

While substance dualism is (allegedly) defeated by the problem of mental causation, reductive physicalism is (allegedly) defeated by the problem that all attempts (thus far) to reduce first-person properties to third-person properties have failed. The first- and third-person property distinction remains strong.

Notable quotes:

• Pg 3: "The idea that these qualities reside in your brain, so natural at first, appears, on further reflection, unpromising. But now, if qualities of your experiences are not found in your brain, where are they? The traditional answer, and the answer that we seem driven to accept, is that they are located in your mind. And this implies, quite straightforwardly, that your mind is somehow distinct from your brain.
• Pg 3-4: "In any case, you will have your work cut out for you. The best minds in philosophy—and many of the best outside philosophy, as well—have turned their attention to these issues, and there remains a notable lack of anything resembling a definitive, uncontested view of the mind's place in the universe. Do not conclude from this that it would be a waste of time for you to delve into the philosophy of mind. On the contrary, you can enjoy the advantage of hindsight. You can learn from the successes and failures of others. Even if you cannot resolve every puzzle, you might at least come to learn something important about your own picture of the universe and your place in it. If you are honest, you will be obliged to admit that this picture is happy and unsatisfying in many respects. This, I submit, represents an important stage for each of us in coming to terms with ourselves and our standing in the order of things."
• Pg 5: "Scientific practice presupposes observers and observations. In the end, however, the sciences are silent about the intrinsic nature of both. . . . Our best hope for a unified picture, a picture that includes the universe as described by the sciences and includes, as well, observers and their observations, lies in pursuing metaphysics, and, in particular, serious ontology. . . . You can, of course, turn your back on the metaphysical issues. This, however, is easier said than done. Often those who most loudly proclaim their independence from philosophical influences in fact embrace unacknowledged metaphysical assumptions. In considering the nature of the mind, the question is not whether you are going to engage in metaphysical thinking, but whether you are going to do so honestly and self-consciously."
• Pg 6: "Am I just conceding the point: philosophers agree only on questions, not on answers? Not at all. Progress in philosophy, like progress in any domain, can be measured in two ways. You can focus on some definite goal—the finish line—and ask yourself whether you are approaching that goal, drawing closer to the finish line. But you can also ask yourself how far you have come from your starting point. And, on this count, philosophy can be said to move forward. In any case, we have little choice. Philosophical questions about the mind will not go away."
• Pg 6: "Philosophy of mind, I contend, is applied metaphysics, but metaphysics, like philosophy generally, is itself continuous with science. In engaging in metaphysics, you do not compete with, but complement, the sciences. You could think of metaphysics as concerned with the fundamental categories of being. Sorting out these categories is not a matter of engaging in empirical research, but the categories themselves are shaped in part by such research, and the nature of entities falling under the categories is only discoverable empirically, only in the kind of systematic intercourse with the universe characteristic of the sciences."