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OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Oswald Hanfling
Let us try the idea that where things are explicable, they
are always (except, again, in the case of consciousness)
explicable in a particular kind of way – that in which we
explain the behaviour of physical substances (including ‘sol-
ids, liquids and gases’, etc.). Consciousness might then
appear as an ‘odd one out’: perhaps it could never be ex-
plained in that way. But is it plausible to think that there is
one particular way in which everything (other than conscious-
ness) is to be explained? Think of the different ways in which
things are explained. There is biology, ethology, anthropol-
ogy, economics, history, art criticism, psychology, etc. Each
of these disciplines has its own terminology, methods of
enquiry and explanatory aims.
Consider also how we explain human behaviour in every-
day life. Why is Joanna laughing? Because she heard this
joke about... This is a perfect explanation: we now under-
stand why she was laughing. The other day I read that ‘sci-
entists have discovered what makes people laugh.’ But didn’t
we know what makes people laugh? Sometimes, it is true,
we can’t make out why someone is laughing. But what we
need in that case is not a scientific explanation.
Let’s see whether this makes you laugh: A man bursts
into a bank and rushes up to the counter shouting ‘It’s a
mess-up!’ – ‘Excuse me,’ says the cashier, ‘don’t you mean
a hold-up?’ – ‘No,’ shouts the man, ‘I mean a mess-up. I
forgot to bring my gun!’ I hope this joke didn’t need explain-
ing. But if it did, then what you needed was to be told the
point of the joke, and not a scientific account of what goes
on in your brain or body when you laugh.
Here is another attempt to introduce a problem of con-
sciousness. How, it may be asked, did consciousness
evolve? How did life without it evolve into life with it? Con-
sider the difference between an animal with eyes and ears,
etc. and its distant, primitive ancestors, which had no such
organs or faculties. The first, when awake, is able to be
conscious of its surroundings – food, predators, etc.; while
the primitive ancestors were not. What we have here is the
The most that one can say is that though the ani-
mals do not perform any action which shows that
they think, still, since the organs of their body are not
very different from ours, it may be conjectured that
there are attached to those organs some thoughts
[…]. (Philosophical Letters, p. 208)
Now according to Descartes, thinking, which he identified
with consciousness, is essentially a property of the mind;
and the latter, being distinct from the body, could exist in
separation from the body and be immortal. (By further argu-
ments he tried to prove that it is indeed immortal.) But would
this also be true of animals? And if it were true of some, why
not others? Having speculated (as we have seen) that ‘there
are attached to those organs [of animals] some thoughts’,
Houses of cards?
This article may have disappointed your expectations. You
may have expected me to give an exposition of the problem
and perhaps even do something towards solving it; but I
have not even been able to do the first, let alone the second.
The best I could do was to try to explain why there is thought
to be a problem. This treatment of the topic will not be to
everyone’s taste, but it may be the right way of treating it in
spite of that. My thoughts on this matter, as on many oth-
ers, have been influenced by Wittgenstein, and I shall close
with another quotation from his Philosophical Investigations:
References
John Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind (Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT, 1992)
D. J. Chalmers, The Conscious Mind (Oxford: OUP, 1996)
D. C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained (London: Pen-
guin, 1991)
Descartes, Meditations
Descartes, Philosophical Letters, ed. A. Kenny (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1981)
O. Hanfling, ‘Consciousness: “The Last Mystery”’, in S.
Schroeder, Wittgenstein and Contemporary Philosophy of
Mind (London: Palgrave, 2001)
L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations and Zettel