THE MYSTIC NOTION OF THE SELF IN THE DILEMMA OF FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM BY Jungsik Um A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Philosophy 1980 ABSTRACT THE MYSTIC NOTION OF THE SELF IN THE DILEMMA OF FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM By Jungsik Um The dilemma of freedom and determinism concerns the mean- ing and interrelations of three basic ideas: freedom, causation, and moral responsibility. Traditionally, it has been said that there may be three possible positions that can be taken in this problem, First, the belief that determinism.is false and we are free. Second, the belief that determinism is true and we are free. Third, the belief that determinism is true and we are not free. The first position is called libertarianism, whereas the second is known as compatibilism.and the third as hard-determinism, In this dissertation, an attempt is made to show that the genuine solution of the dilemma must be preceded by an analysis of the concept of the self which is logically prior to an analysis of the concept of both freedom and determin- ism, Since both the libertarian's and the determinist's notions of the self are not adequate to solve the problem, I introduce the mystic notion of the self and mysticism,the fourth position, according to which the dilemma is illusory. In the first of four chapters, Schlick's soft-determinism is examined. His discussion of freedom as an opposite of complusion gives rise to his view that the dilemma is a pseudo- problem based on linguistic confusions. This view is evaluated in terms of Campbell's libertarianism and Edwards' hard-determin- ism, and credited as a solution of a considerable part of the dilemma, especially in connection with moral responsibility. Jungsik Um In the second chapter, in dealing with the metaphysical problem of freedom and determinism, the incompatibilitists' positions are closely examined in the light of both Campbell's notion of contra-causal freedom which is conceived only by introspection and the determinsts' objection to such an approach. to the problem, Because the controversy cannot be settled unless we are free from viewing one position from another posit- ion's point of view, it is pointed out that an analysis of their conception of the self must be required in order to provide an adequate solution of the dilimma. In the third chapter, the Cartesian substance theory of the self and the Humean bundle theory of the self are examined. First, it is argued that neither is adequate as a theory of the self to solve the dilemma of freedom and determinism. Second, the Kantian notion of a noumenal self is introduced as an alternative in connection with Ryle's notion of the elusive self and Wittgenstein's idea of the self as an extensionless point, which eventually lead us to the mystical realm of noumena. In the final chapter attempts by Kant to show how man can be noumenally free and phenomenally determined are presented first. Second, it is argued that Kant's solution has nothing to do with the dilemma unless one is actually equipped with intellectual intuition, by means of which Zen masters claim to have solved such a perennial problem as freedom and determinism, Finally, Zen Buddhism, a form of mysticism, is introduced and examined to see its philosophical relevance by an analysis of the key notion of "seeing into, or pointing to, thy self-nature." To Aeryun g ACKNOWEDGEMENTS I am.most grateful to my advisor, Lewis K. Zerby, for his enthusiastic and consistent support. His comments were most helpful in keeping the project focused and in faciliat- ing its completion. I also wish to express my sincere appreciation to Charles McCracken for his suggestions of the direction of my dissertation and his many constructive critic- isms on the earlier and the latter drafts of this work. I am also indebted to other members of my committee, Craig A. Staudenbaur and Albert Cafagna, for their prompt and detailed criticisms and for their availability and willingness to discuss the issues. For their encouragement and tolerance, thanks to professors George C. Kerner, Richard J. Hall, Herbert G. Bohnert, Herbert E. Hendry, Ronald Suter, John F. A. Taylor, Peter D. Asquith, Martin Benjamin, James E. Roper and my colleagues, Edward Ballard, David Boersema, Allan Hart, Robert Steinman, Ken Howe, Stuart warner, Gene Cline, Richard Buttny, Francine Kitchen, Etsuko Shinozaki, Donna Daniel, and Roy Sorenson. Special thanks are due to Bongkil Chung, Stephen Dickerson, Stan Werne, and Mike Pokriefka for their suggestions and for listening to my arguments and claims. The research and preparation of this dissertation was supported by a fellowship from Rotary International, Carl S. Abbott, the former President of Detroit Rotary Club, and Sang-kyu Shim, the director of the United Tae Kwon Do Institute. TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................... 1 Chapter I. THE DILEMMA OF FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM AS A PSEUDO-PROBLEM ................................. 8 1.1 Schlick's "Pseudo-Problem" Theory ......... 11 1.2 Campbell on the "Pseudo-Problem" Theory... 16 1.3 Edwards' Hard-deterministic View on the "Pseudo-Problem" Issue .................... 22 1.4 Two Ideas of Freedom.and Moral Responsi- bility .................................... 28 1.5 Freedom as Avoidability ................... 37 II. THE CONCEPT OF THE SELF IN LIBERTARIANISM AND DETERMINISM .................................... 44 2.1 The Self and Free Choice in Libertarianism 46 2.2 The Relation between the Self and Free Choice .................................... 52 2.3 The Self and Moral Responsibility in Determinism. ............................... 59 2.4 The Self in Determinism.as a Mechanical Process ................................... 68 2.5 Introspection: Its Epistemological Status. 83 III. TOWARD AN ADEQUATE THEORY OF THE SELF .......... 104 3.1 Setting the Stage for the Self ............ 106 3.2 The Cartesian Substance Theory of the Self 118 3.3 The Humean Bundle Theory of the Self ...... 131 3.4 The Kantian Noumenon Theory of the Self... 144 3.5 Wittgenstein's Metaphysics of Silence ..... 156 IV. THE DILEMMA OF FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM AS AN ILLUSION ....................................... 167 4.1 Mysticism and Its Philosophical Relevance. 169 4.2 The Buddhistic Version of the Dilemma ..... 180 4.3 Kant's Solution of the Dilemma and Its Implication ............................... 199 4.4 The "Inward Way" of Zen Buddhism. .......... 213 4.5 Hui-neng's "Seeing into, or Pointing to, Self-Nature ............................... 224 V. CONCLUSIONS: MOUNTAINS ARE MOUNTAINS ........... 245 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................... 253 INTRODUCTION The central purpose of this thesis is to show that the dilemma of freedom.and determinism cannot be solved without making somewhat far-reaching assumptions about the self. The purpose, put more succinctly, is to show how we can view the dilemma as a variation of the problem of the self-identific- ation, which is logically prior to both freedom and determinism, The principal thesis that will be examined is that the solution for the dilemma of freedom.and determinism is parasitic to the reconciliation of two apparently contradictory theories of the self--Cartesian substance theory of the self and Humean bundle theory of the self, in particular, which may be possible only by committing oneself to a form of mysticism as evident in Kantian solution of the dilemma in terms of noumenal self. Since the noumenal reality cannot be conceived by means of ordinary understanding, it is claimed, the genuine solution must be taken over by the mystics such as Zen masters who claim to have "seen one's own self-nature,‘ in which both freedom and determinism appear to be two forms of illusion. The argu- ment of my thesis could therefore be phrased more generally by saying that the controversy between freedom and determinism at the final analysis leads us to a view of the self and the world which is very similar to the view held by mystics of all ages and traditions. This dissertation on the self in the dilemma of freedom and determinism marks a stage in the development of my concern with the problems of the self. When I first become deeply interested in the free will problem, I was quite confident that I could find a satisfactory justification for the Campbell- ian libertarianism to which I rather unthinkingly gave my allegiance. Indeed, I had no trouble formulating the problem --roughly speaking, how the freedom which is presupposed in our moral responsibility can be made compatible with the meta- physical truth of determinism. I also had no trouble refuting a number of supposed solutions which had been put forward by various theorists of the determinism, But midway through the dissertation, I was forced to admit that I had failed to dis- cover an adequate solution in favor of libertarianism, At first, as I struggled with this dilemma, I clung to the conviction that a solution lay just around the next concept- ual corner. Little by little, I began to shift the emphasis of my exposition. Finally--whether from philosophical reflect- ion, or simply from chagrin--I came to the realization that I was really defending mysticism rather than libertarianism.or determinism, My failure to find any theoretical justification for the compatibility between freedom and determinism had convinced me that there was not justification. I had become an advocate for Zen Buddhism, for example. In the first chapter, I shall be concerned with the quest- ion: Whether the problem of reconciling freedom.and determinisn1 is a genuine problem? First, I shall discuss Moritz Schlick's position, according to which the problem is not a genuine problem, but a pseudo-problem that results from the confusion of causation with compulsion. I will then introduce Opponents of this view, who hold that to say that an action is caused is equivalent to saying that, given the antecedent state of the agent, the act that followed was causally necessary; but if an act is necessary, it cannot be free: so there is a genuine conflict between freedom and determinism, Among those, I shall choose C.A. Campbell and Paul Edwards, who agree that the problem is a genuine problem, while giving reasons for their positions which are contradictory to each other. After examining Schlick's soft-deterministic version of reconciliation, I come to the point that the problem may be regarded as a psuedo-problem.but only in one sense; it may be a real problem in another sense. That is, it may be a pseudo- problem in the sense that the controversy is merely verbal in character; by appealing to "ordinary" linguistic usage of such central terms as freedom, causation, and responsibility, to be sure, we can resolve the problem to a certain considerable extent. However, it may be pointed out, this would be a solut- ion of only one aspect of the problem.which is verbal; for example, one may claim to have solved the problem by defining freedom.in a way that it could be compatible with determinism, Thus, I shall point out that there is a metaphysical aspect in the controversy, which is most metaphysicians' concern who will not take ordinary linguistic usage as the ultimate court of appeal. In dealing with Campbell's 1ibertarianism.and Edward's determinism, who are not concerned with verbal disputes but flatly contradictory each other, in the second chapter, I make following points. First, the metaphysical problem of freedom and determinism is the question whether we are free to will or to set out to do those things that we do will or set out to do. Secondly, self-identification is logically prior to both freedom and causality. Thirdly, the dilemma cannot be settled UDIESS‘We are free from viewing one position from another positon's point of view. Finally, therefore, it is necessary to construct a metaphysical theory about the self which goes beyond but embraces both the libertarian's substance theory and the determinist's bundle theory of the self. Those claims are supported by following observations about the self. The determinist sees in each self just what he sees in any other receptive objects, a center where many mechanical forces cross, checking, intestifying, neutralizing or transform- ing one another with loss or addition, whereas the libertarian detects in that coordinating center a fresh creative power contrasted in kind with the other agencies which meet together there. This is, then, to say that the controversy between freedom and determinism seems to arise from.the fact that man has two contradictory ways of looking at himself. The third chapter takes up the possibility that we may be able to utilize Cartesian substance theory and Humean bundle theory of the self as a preliminary analysis toward an adequate notion of the self. On the former view, man sees himself as a unique and free individual, making choices and willing his own individual destiny. On the latter view, he also sees himself as a mere statistic, a historical ant, an atom in the gigantic flow of causal chain as a whole and completely dominated by his natural situation. It is argued that the alternative solution of the dilemma must be preceded by the reconciliation between these two contradictory views of the self. Indeed, there is no reason why either of them.must be correct. It may be the case that neither the substantive center theory of the self nor the non-center theory of the self may be adequate from.a certain point of view; what I have in mind is a mystic point of view. From the Zen Buddhist's point of view, for example, neither of them is an adequate theory of the self, if not incorrect ones. Before tackling the alternative view, or a breakthrough view, of the self, however, I encounter with Kant's notion of noumenal self, by means of which the Critical philosophy assumed to have solved the perennial problem of freedom and determinism in terms of a distinction between phenomenal appearance and noumenal reality; Kant's solution is summed up in the phrase that man is phenomenally determined noumenally free, the assertion which is accepted by very few contemporaries. Kant's solution of the antinomy in terms of noumena or the noumenal self was unfortunate mainly due to its unintellig- ibility; his solution is not intellible without acquiring "intellectual intuition." Thus, at the end of the third chapter, it is argued that we are inevitably led to the mystic notion of the self in the final analysis of the dilemma of freedom and determinism. In order to make the mystical nature clearer, Gilbert Ryle's mystical notion of the elusive self is discussed to the effect that the mystical nature of the self is logical- ly followed from the assumption that no description can properly contain reference to itself. For this purpose, Wittgenstein's idea of the self as hinted in his Tractatus is also introduced; according to this idea, the self is neither mental nor physical; it is, so to speak, metaphysical. Here, the self is considered as an extensionless point, or as a center of life, from which everything is seen, but which does not exist as an item in the state of affairs. How do we make the mystical notion of the self intelligible? We have a choice: either we may go on to discipline ourselves until we could achieve samadhi and acquire intellectual intuition, or we must be silent. Thus, in either case, we are inevitably led to a form.of mysticism; that is in our analysis of the concept of the self in the dilemma of freedom and determinism, silence prevails, and talking shows its limit. An examination of mysticism, or the metaphysics of silence, is inevitable. In the final chapter of the thesis an attempt is made to specify the relation of mysticism and philosophy in connection with such a perennial problem as ours; it is argued that mysticism is not something that analytical philosophers can continue to ignore, for a study of the mystical is necessary for a complete comprehension of the ordinary, particularly when we torture ourselves with the mystic notion of the self. In order to do this, I introduce and examine Zen Buddhism as a breakthrough view, or a third eye, as suggested by D. Suzuki, to see how our dilemma appears to be to such a Zen master as Hui-neng, the legitimate founder of Zen Buddhism, among others. Since Zen Buddhism is primarily a sect of Buddhism, the Buddh- istic version of determinism, or Anicca principle, and of free- dom, or Sunyata doctrine, is introduced and contrasted with our own versions. In particular, it is pointed out, from the Zen's, or the inward way's point of view, the libertarian has stopped his introspective journey at the point where the self as a free agent haS‘appeared, whereas the determinist has not gone far enough either by treating the universal causation as something inviolable, as if everything can be explained in terms of it. Thus for the mystic, they should have gone through the self, and beyond the causal necessity so that they could "see into, or point to, one's own self-nature." When this is accomplished, the dilemma of freedom and determinism appears to be a form of illusion. In short, from Zen's point of view, the problem of freedom.and determinism is raised only in a deluded mind. In a sense, we might say, the problem.has been solved in favor of mysticism; however, we are unable to confirm this sense, unless we can share the mystic experiences of emptiness with the Zen masters. From the fact that we are unable to confirm the mystic sense, it does not follow that there cannot be such a sense or that it is nonsensical. This is to call attention to mysticism, which may be unexpectedly valuable in dealing with the deluded mind's dilemma of freedom and determin- ism. CHAPTER I THE DILEMMA OF FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM AS A PSEUDO-PROBLEM Some philosophers say that the problem of reconciling freedom.and determinism is not a genuine problem at all, but a pseudo-problem.that results from the confusion of causation with complusion. Exponents of this view argue that the concepts of causation and compulsion are wholy distinct from each other and that to say that an act is free, while entailing that it is (in some sense) compelled, does not entail that it is not caused. Hence, there is no genuine conflict between freedom and deter- minism, This view is sometimes called "soft-determinism," a version of compatibilism, which goes back at least as far as Thomas Hobbes and was given its classic statement by David Hume and John Stwart Mill. There is something very attractive about soft-determinism, since it allows us to go on believing both in freedom and in determinism, This view has many adherents among recent philo- sophers including G. E. Mbore, P. H. Nowell-Smith, A. J. Ayer, Sidney Hook, and notably Moritz Schlick. However, it is far from universally accepted as we shall see. Opponents of soft-determinism hold that to say that an action is caused is equivalent to saying that, given the antecedent state of the agent, the act that followed was causal- ly necessary; but if an act is necessary, it cannot be free: so there is a genuine conflict between freedom.and determinism. Among those who share this view, there are "libertarians" who 9 simply do not regard determinism as tenable. Some philosophers have recently argued that the very nature of an action implies that it cannot be caused in the familiar sense in which the motion of a billiard ball is unquestionably caused. It has also been argued that the account offered by the reconcilers of what we mean when we call an action "free" is seriously defective. Historically, libertarianism.is most fully and clearly set forth by Thomas Reid, though he does not call his theory by that name. It has also been defended by G. W. Fichte and Samuel Clarke. Perhaps its best-known advocate among contemporary philosophers is Charles A. Campbell, who ascribes a "contra-causal freedom” to "selves"--that is, to minds or persons-~and argues that men are capable of originating their own actions in opposition to the inclinations of their formed characters. Libertarians are opposed to determinism, but the position of the compatibilists has also been attacked by some determin- ists as being in certain important respects evasive and super- ficial. The pseudo-problem theorists, it has been said, do not pursue the subject far enough. They stop arbitarily at the desires or volitions which are the causes of some of our actions. We must not stop there. we must go on to ask where our desires come from. For those who are sometimes called "hard-determin- ists," incompatibilism is true--either determinism or indeter- minism, and not both. Since determinism is true, it is claimed, no acts are in the final analysis avoidable. Hence we are ultimately not really free--at least in the sense required for moral responsibility. For them, thus responsible actions are 10 a matter of necessary laws of nature rather than good character or free choice. Rephrasing a famous saying of Spinoza's, they might say that both soft-determinists and libertarians believe themselves free because they are ignorant of the true causes ~ of their actions. Among contemporary philosophers, this view is most notably advocated by John Hospers, B. F. Skinner, and Paul Edwards. In this chapter, to begin with, I shall chose Schlick, Campbell, and Edwards, and examine their views to see how they deal with such crucial ideas as freedom, causation, and moral responsibility. While contrasting and comparing their posit- ions, my concern is less with the details of what they have said than with the best theories we can devise along the same general lines. At the end of the chapter, I want to make following points. First, the truth of Schlick's claim does not entail the falsity of both Campbell's and Edwards' assertions, because they are playing different games, in which such terms as freedom, caus- ation, and moral responsibility, refer to entirely different things. Secondly, Schlick's notion of freedom is more plausible than that of his opponents, if this notion meant freedom which may be required for moral responsibility in its proper or most usual sense. Finally, however, one cannot solve the dilemma by aribitrally defining the concept of freedom so as to be compatible with determinism; that is, there is a metaphysical problem in the dilemma which goes beyond Schlick's conceptual analysis. 11 1.1 Schlick's "Pseudo-Problem” Theory In order to appreciate fully the "pseudo-problem” theory of Moritz Sclick, one must understand its philosophical origins. These lie in the epistemological views of a very influential movement in twentieth-century philosophy, generally knows as logical positivism. Basic to the positivisitic view is the thesis that empirical science is the main source of knowledge even though they also allow as a source of knowledge mathemat— ics and logic which are recognized as non-empirical. The postivists formulate this thesis in the so-called "verificat- ion principle," which holds that if a synthetic proposition is to be cognitively meaningful, it must be capable in principle of being verified by an appeal to empirical evidence. Any statement that fails to satisfy the requirements of the prin- ciple as their chief weapon in a broadside attack against much traditional philosophy.1 According to them, a pervasive error committed by the great thinkers in the Western tradition is 1 The difficulties of the verifiability principle are notorious. An example is shown when we consider the question, "What is the status of the principle itself?" On the positivist view, all meaningful sentences are either analytic (i.e., tauto- 1ogies) or are verifiable by empirical means. Clearly, the principle is not analytic. Is it, then an empirical general- ization and, if so, how can it be verified? A. J. Ayer also admits the difficulty by say that "what they were in fact doing was to adopt the verification principle as a convention... It became prescriptive with the suggestion that...only statements which were capable of being either true or false should be regarded as literally meaningful." "Editor's Introduction," in Logical Positivism, ed. by A. J. Ayer (N.Y.: The Free Press, 1959), p. 15 12 is their attempt to construct metaphysical explanations of value and reality. These theories, which purport to convey knowledge about the world, are incapable of empirical verifi- cation. Hence they are only pseudo-theories, having no cognitive significance whatsoever. Actually, logical positiv- ism developed in the 19203 in Vienna with a group known as "the Vienna Circle,‘ whose leader was Schlick himself. In his Problems of Ethics, one of the earlier ethical works of the school, Schlick deals with a pseudo—problem which, he insists, was solved long ago by David Hume and others; it involves a misunderstanding of "freedom of the will" and obscures the genuine but simple problem of moral responsibil- ity.2 According to Schlick: The main task of ethics is to explain moral behavior. To explain means to refer back to laws: every science, including psychology, is possible only in so far as there are such laws to which the events can be referred. Since the assumption that all events are subject to universal laws is called the principle of causality, one can also say, "Every science presupposes the principle of causality." Therefore, every explanation of human behavior must also assume the validity of causal laws; in this case the existence of psychological laws.3 For him, it is unfortunate that it has been and still is argued that such determinism precludes free will and hence 2 Hume encounters the problem in his An Inquiry Concern- ing Human Understanding, Section 8, part 1; forwfiim, all men have alwaysbeen of the same opinion on this subject, believing both that men are free and that all their actions are causally determined. There is therefore no philosophical problem of freedom.and determinism, and the whole dispute, he claimed, has been purely verbal in character, involving only confusions in the meanings of words. Precisely, this is why Schlick thinks Hume has solved the problem already. 3 Moritz Schlick, Problems of Ethics, trans. by David Rynin, (N.Y.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1939), p. 144 13 responsibility. What Schlick attacks is then the following kind of argument. If determinism is true, then my will too is always determined by my innate character and my motives. Hence my decisions are necessary, not free. But if so, then I am not responsible for my acts, for I would be accountable for them only if I could do something about the way my decis- ions went. Therefore, "determflnism.and moral responsibility are incompatible. Moral responsibility presupposes freedom, that is, exemption from.causality."4 This conclusion, however, according to Schlick, confuses two meanings of "law": (1) compulsory rule and (2) description of events. To describe nature as governed by universal law means merely that events occur uniformly and are predictable, not that they are compelled in the sense of "forced against the will." Similarly, psychological laws do not compel decis- ions but merely describe those we do make. The problem then lies in the confusion of compulsory rule, which a prescription as to how something should behave, and natural law, a descript- ion of how something does in fact behave. The confusion between determinism.and compulsion breeds related confusion between their opposites, indeterminism and freedom, Schlick points out, so that the champions of "free will” proceed to confuse freedom with indeterminacy. For him, thus freedom means the opposite of compulsion. Schlick explains: 4 Ibid. p. 146 14 ...a man is free if he does not act under compulsion, and he is compelled or unfree when he is hindered from without in the realization of his natural desires. Hence he is unfree when he is locked up, or chained, or when someone forces him at the point of a gun to do what other- wise he would not do.5 With regard to moral responsibility, according to Schlick, morality requires both freedom and responsibility; the latter involves the possibility of changing motives, and hence implies causality. A particularly interesting feature in his account of moral responsibility is the question: "Who, in a given case, is to be punished?" He says: The "doer" is the one upon whom the motive must have acted in order, with certainty, to have prevented the act... we must find the person in whom the decisive junct- ion of causes lies. The question who is responsible is the question concerning the correct point of application of the motive. Thus responsibility is related to the degree of conscious self-determination or control by the individual. The cause of moral choices is settled later and by human character. Furthermore, responsibility is limited to what a person will choose, given the kind of person he is. In other words, we are responsible, for example, to the extent that we could have been a different kind of persons. Praise, blame, reward, and punishment are justified only to the extent that they change a person or his behavior. Schlick points out: The important thing, always, is that the feeling of responsibility means the realization that one's self, one's own psychic processes constitute the point at which motives must be applied in order to govern the acts of one's body.7 5 Ibid. p. 150. 5 Ibid. pp. 152-153. 7 Ibid. p. 156. Emphasis is mine. Here we may notice that he has the Humean conception of the self, 15 Schlick further points out against the libertarians that they fail to see that a decision without a cause would be a matter of mere chance and utterly irrational, and that it is quite consistent to admit both freedom.and determinism in the sense defined. To act from.cur own desires is not to act without a cause, and it is, for him rediculous and un- fortunate that these confusions have been perpetrated. He concludes his discussion on the "pseudo-problem" with the following remarks: one can prove determinism, but it is certain that we assume its validity in all our practical life, and that in particular we can apply the concept of responsibility to human conduct only in as far as the causal principle holds of volitional processes.8 To sum up, in following Hume, Schlick's crucial question is not whether all human actions are causally determined, since all men have always been sure that they are. His quest- ion was not whether any human actions are free either, since all men have always been of the same opinion on this, too. It is simply the question of how these two beliefs, so univers- ally shared, can both be true; and Schlick, with Hume, found the answer to this in analyzing what is meant by saying that one's action may be caused and yet also be free. Thus the crucial question is whether there is some sense in which we are free, even though determinism is true. His answer was to show that an act is not free only when it is compelled from.cutside; its freedom.does not entail its not being caused. Hence, for him, there is no genuine conflict 8 Ibid. p. 158 16 between freedom and determinism. In order to come to this conclusion, as we have seen, he gives a useful distinction; causation is a description of events, not a prescription as to how something should behave. Again, causality is a descript- ive and therefore empirical generalization about the world or a useful assumption for scientific investigation. It is not a priori or prescriptive. In short, causality is not compulsion, although compulsion is one kind of causality. And for him, the question of moral responsibility is taken to be the question of the usefulness of praise or blame; besides, his concern is not whether moral choices are caused but how. In the following sention, I shall introduce Charles A. Campbell's criticism on the pseudo-problem.theory in favor of his libertarianism. 1.2 Campbell on the "Pseudo-Problem" Theory In contrast with Schlick, Campbell stands on a traditional side both as a rigorous philosophical explorer and as a gladiat- or, fully aware of his present opponents: logical positivists and linguistic analysists on the one hand, and irrationalistic existentialism and phenomenalogy on the other. Yet he leaves us, as shown in his On Selfhood and Godhood, with a view of man, the universe, and God that reveals a greater concern for truth than for battle; for wisdom than for cleverness. His criticism of Schlick's view and his libertarian position on the dilemma of freedom.and determinism in general are of this kind in tone. 17 Campbell is one of the foremost libertarians of the twentieth century. Above all, it should be noted that he does not question the strength of the general case for determin- ism; rather he limits himself to arguing that the reasons for freedom are so strong as to require us to make an exception for our decision or choice. He even willingly accepts that most human actions are causally determined; but he insists on an exceptional status for those speical cases in which a person feels a conflict between an obligation and what he would other- wise be most inclined to do. He argues that, in such a case, the existence of human freedom is a fact demonstrated by intro- spection; that is, reflecting on our options we feel that we are free. By "freedom," Campbell, unlike Schlick, means un- caused, not merely uncompelled. Let us take a closer look at his position. First of all, it should be pointed out, for Campbell the crucial question is not whether there is some sense in which we are free, but whether we are in fact free in the sense required in order to find this sense, according to Campbell, we must analyse what he calls the "moral consciousness,‘ in which the existence of freedom is an empirical fact demonstrated by introspection. His primary task then is to explain exactly what he means in saying that there are instances in which "one could have done otherwise." Thus he seeks to give a positive account of those actions which he considers to be outside the causal realm. Campbell admits that the exercise of our free will is 18 limited, as we sense it to be, to a certain kind of actions. For him, human freedom.comes into play only in those cases in which there is a conflict between our instinct and acquired characteristics or nature on the one hand, and a moral precept on the other. For example, we return home each night by habit, not by conscious choice. But the man who is torn between returning home and running off with his best friend's wife must choose consciously; for better or worse, he is in the unenviable position of having to exercise his own free will. Such a situation Campbell calls "the situation of moral temptation." The analysis of moral consciousness, according to Campbell, shows us the following thinks: first, it shows that the crucial question is whether our choices and decisions, which are "inner acts," are free or not, because even if external circumstances prevent a morally wrong act, we may be responsible for having decided to do this act; in this respect, he is concerned with a different kind of freedom from Schlick's which is freedom from external constraint. On the other hand, for Campbell, we are not responsible for an action unless it is rooted in an "inner act," for we do not consider robots or animals respons- ible. "If moral responsibility is to be linked with punish- ment as Schlick links it, and punishment conceived as a form of education, we should surely hold the dog morally resonsible."9 He adds: 9 C. A. Campbell, "Is 'Freewill' a Pseudo-Problem?" in Free Will and Determinism, ed. by Bernard Berofsky (N.Y.: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1966), p. 114. 19 The plain fact, of course, is that we don't. We don't, because we suppose that the dog 'couldn't help it': that its action (unlike what we usually believe to be true of human beings) was simply a link in a continuous chain of causes and effects. In other words, we do commonly demand the contra-causal sort of freedom as a condition of moral responsibility.10 Campbell uses the phrase "contra-causal freedom” in order to express what he means by a free act: "A contra-causal freedom... posits a breach of causal continuity between a man's character and his conduct."11 This notion of freedom will be well contrast- ed with Schlick's idea of freedom which is necessarily causal. In his analysis of "moral consciousness," Campbell shows that in order to be responsible, we must be free in the sense that the two following conditions are fulfilled. First, the sole cause of the decision is the self, and not the self's character as formed by heredity and environment. Secondly, the self could have decided otherwise than it in fact did, in a contra-causal sense of "could". By the first condition, he meant that introspection reveals that in situations of moral temptation the self decides whether to follow our inclinations or to exert the effort needed to act in accordance with our sense of duty. By the second condition, he wants to deny that an individual's choices are caused only by his heredity and environment; it is in this sense that he denies the validity of determinism, In his own words, 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. p. 120. 20 ...in moral effort we have something for which a man is respbnsible Without qualification, something that is not affected by heredity and environment but depends soler— upon the self itself.1 In response to Schlick's criticism that a decision without a cause would be a matter of mere chance and irrational, Campbell points out that a free act is not an uncaused act, but rather an act caused by the "self" as distinct from the "character as so far formed" of an individual. This shows that he is not a metaphysical indeterminist either. He says: Rightly or wrongly, the agent believes that through his act of decision he can oppose and transcend his own formed character in the interest of duty... The act is felt to be a genuinely creative act, originated by the self ad hoc, and by the self alone.13 _—'—_— This is to show that the notion of the self is crucial in the analysis of moral consciousness; the self for Campbell is Cartes- ian mental substance, clearly distinguished from Schlick's Humean notion of the self, as we shall see in chapter II. Campbell's general conclusion is that it is an error to suppose that the problem of freedom.and determinism, when correct- ly formulated, turns out to be a pseudo-problem, In order to come to this conclusion, as we have seen, he mainly relies on "analysis of moral consciousness" in addition to Schlick's "logical analysis," for Campbell, which is empty without a consideration of the moral consciousness. 12 Campbell, On Selfhood and Godhood(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1957), p. 160. 13 Campbell, "In Defense of Free Will" in Philosophy for New Generation, ed. by A. K. Bierman and J. A. Gould (London: TheMacMillan, 1970), p. 520. 21 From the above observations, to sum.up, we may make a general point that Schlick and Campbell were playing a complete- ly a differently game based on their different usage of such crucial terms as responsibility, freedom.and causation, and self, not to mention they are differing in method of analysis. First of all, for Campbell, the notion of conta-causal freedom is essential in formulating the problem of freedom and determin- ism. Unlike Schlick, however, he appeals to introspection as a means of justifying his belief in conta-causal freedom, Furthermore, his concept of freedom is based on his distinction between the moral self and the formed character, which are identical for Schlick. For Campbell, again, from an inner stand- point, not from the standpoint of the external observer, it is meaningful to say an act is caused by a person's self and not by his character. It should be also noted that for Campbell moral responsibility is something more than Schlick's reform- ative or deterrent punishment; it must entail, again, contra- causal freedom, not merely absence of compulsion. And finally, we may point out that in Schlick's formulation of the problem the principle of universal causality is simply assumed without question, whereas for Campbell, the principle cannot find application in the moral self's decisions and choices; in fact, he points out that the nature of causation is itself a philo- sophical problem. For Campbell, indeed, methods of science and logical analysis are not enough to solve the problem of freedom and determinism, As we shall see later, epistemologically our 22 evidence for freedom is much more direct and stronger than the arguments for determinism. At this juncture, it may be reasonable to conclude that the truth of Schlick's "pseudo- problem" theory does not entail the falsity of Campbell's formulation of the problem; there seems to be no genuine dispute between them, because their terms are referring to essentially different subjects as we have seen. A real antinomy would be found only after verbal disputes are settled. In what follows, in this respect, I shall introduce Paul Edwards' hard-determinism, in which he argues against Schlick that the free will problem is not a pseudo-problem but a real problem, and at the same time gives reason for his position which are contradictory to Campbell's theory. Thus I shall be mainly concerned with his account that the perennial problem is a genuine problem which must be solved in favor of determinism rather than dealing with hard-determinism in general. 1.3 Edwards' view on the "Pseudo-Problem" According to Paul Edwards, a hard-determinist, the principle of causality is incompatible with moral responsibility, but we may be justified in holding people responsible in a non-moral sense. He does not deny Schlick's claim that the principle of causality is compatible with freedom.of action, if by calling an action "free" we mean only that "the agent was not compelled or constrained to perform it."14 He does not even deny that 14 Paul Edward, "Hard and Soft Determinism” in Determin- ism.and Freedom in the Age of Modern Science, ed. by Sidney Hook (N.Y.: Collier BoOk. I96I). n. 118. 23 we use the expression "moral responsibility" in such way that it requires freedom in this sense only. He says: When we judge a person morally responsible for certain action, we do indeed presuppose that he was a free agent at the time of the action. But the freedom presupposed is not the contracausal freedom about which indeterminists go into such ecstatic raptures. It is nothing more than the freedom already mentioned--the ability to act according to one's choices or desires.15 Edwards, however, maintains that this is an improper sense of "moral responsibility" and that if we take that expression in its "proper" sense, then the principle of causality implies that we are not morally responsible. The crucial question, then, are what Edwards means by "moral responsibility" in the "proper" sense, and why he holds this to be the proper sense. Edwards contends that the issue between Schlick and him is not whether we can sometimes fulfill our desires and choices, but whether we can be considered free and morally responsible if our desires are caused by factors that are outside our control. To illustrate this point Edwards uses an example of two people who are suffering from.a particular neurosis. There is a known therapy that can cure an individual if the person has the energy and courage to undertake a certain treatement. He goes on, Let us suppose that A has the necessary engergy and courage while B lacks it. A undergoes the therapy and changes in the desired way. B just ets more and more compulsive and more and more miserab e. Now, it is true that A helped form his own later character. But his start- ing point, his desire to change, his energy and courage, were already there.15 15 Ibid. p.119. 16 Ibid. p. 121. 24 That is, the energy and courage needed by A in order to undertake this therapy are due to factors that he did not create and could not control. A's desire to change is due to certain hereditary and environmental factors that he did not create. This is to point out that Schlick was right in main- taining that some of our actions are caused by our desires and choices, but that he did not pursue the subject far enough; for Edwards, Schlick arbitrarily stops at the desires and volitions, which constitute the Humean self. "We must not stop there. We must go on to ask where they come from." If determin- ism is true, he adds, ultimately our desires and our whole character are derived from our inherited equipment and the environmental influ- ences to which we were subjected at the beginning of our lives. It is clear that we had no hand in shaping either of these.1 ‘ In other words, there seems to be no dispute between Edwards and Schlick about the empirical facts, Schlick does not deny that an individual is ultimately the result of factors over which he has no control. However, they draw different infer- ences from these facts. Edwards infers that man is never responsible for his actions in the proper sense of responsi- bility, whereas Schlick does not make this inference. To put it in terms of the notion of the self, we may say that for Edwards, Schlick's bundle of characters cannot be taken to be a moral self which is responsible for its decision or choices. 17 Ibid. 25 In order to show what moral responsibility is in the proper sense, and to justify the inference of the hard-determin- ist, Edwards appeals to Campbell's distinction between two conceptions of moral responsibility. As we have seen, Campbell has pointed out that Schlick's account of moral responsibility is not adequate to solve free will problem, because he merely relies on the ordinary unreflective person's conception of moral responsibility.18 A reflective person, for Campbell, adopts a different conception of moral responsibility which requires not only that a person's behavior be uncompelled, but that the individual could have chosen otherwise under these circumstances. Edwards interprets the reflective sense of moral responsi- bility to include not only that an individual's behavior is uncompelled, but "that the agent originallychose his own character--the character that now displays itself in his choices and desires and efforts."19 Thus he basically agrees with Campbell's analysis, according to which, 18 According to Campbell, the ordinary unreflective person who is ignorant of advancements in science, religion, and philosophy, will consider an individual morally responsible if his behavior was not compelled. If his behavior is in accord- ance with his desires, he is considered morally responsible. If his behavior was compelled, then he is not considered morally responsible. He also points out that Schlick disregarded contra- causal freedom in favor of merely "freedom from external con- straint,"--a view which Schlick shares only with the less reflect- ive type of layman. Cf. Campbell's "Is 'Freewill a Pseudo- Problem?" p. 125. 19 Edwards, "Hard and Soft Determinism," p. 123. As we shall see, even some hard-determinists do not accept Edwards' view on this matter. 26 determinism is indeed compatible with judgements of moral responsibility in the unreflective sense, but that it is incompatible with jgdgments of moral responsibility in the reflective sense. However, he does not agree that unreflective people use one concept of moral responsibility and reflective people us another one. He maintains that the same person in one context will employ the unreflective sense of moral responsibility and in another situation will employ the reflective one. However, Edwards does not agree with him on this. Edwards maintains that, in analyzing these two concepts of moral responsibility, only one of them can be considered a moral concept. "Confining myself to judgments," he says, "I would say that a judgment was 'moral'only if it was formulated in a calm and reflective mood, or at least if it is supported in a calm.and refelctive.state of mind."21 That is, a judg- ment of moral responsibility based on violent emotions or simply upon a feeling is not considered moral. Thus he main- tains that: what Campbell calls the reflective sense of "moral responsibility" is the only one that qualifies as a properly moral use of the term.22 However, since Edwards does not reject determinism, his conclus- ion flatly contradicts Campbell's position. For him, from the fact that human beings do not ultimately shape their own 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid. p. 125. 22 Ibid. 27 character, it follows that they are never morally responsible. He concludes his article by pointing out that Clarence Darrow appealed to the reflective sense of moral responsibility in convincing jurors who were somewhat unreflective.23 To sum up, in Edwards' view, Schlick is right in maintain- ing that some of our actions are caused by our desires and choices, but he was wrong in claiming that some desires and choices are in our own power. Again, for him, Schlick did not pursue the subject far enough; if he did, the dilemma of freedom and determinism would not appear to be a pseudo—problem. It would be solved in favor of hard-determinism according to Edwards. That is to say, for him, since determinism is true, and we are not free in Campbell's contra-causal sense, it would be reason- able to conclude that we can never really be morally responsible in Campbell's sense. Thus, although he does not agree with Campbell in rejecting determinism and in allowing contra-causal freedom, Edwards maintains that the problem of reconciling freedom and determinism is not a pseudo-problem but a genuine one just as Campbell does. 23 Edwards also quotes following passage from Darrow's famous plea: "We are all helpless... This weary old world goes on, begetting, with birth and with living and with death; and all of it is blind from the beginning to the end... Nature is strong and she is pitiless. She works in her own mysterious way, and we are her victims... What had this boy to do with it? He was not his own father, he was not his own mother; he was not his own grandparents... He did not make himself. And yet he is to be compelled to pay." A Modern Introduction to Philo- so h , ed. by P. Edwards and A. Pap (N.Y.: The‘Free Press, 1966), p. 5. 28 1.4 Two Ideas of Freedom and Moral Responsibility Traditionally, philosophers have made a distinction between freedom as an opposite of compulsion as used by Schlick and freedom in a contra-causal sense as advocated by such incompat- ibilists as Campbell and Edwards. Roderick M. Chisholm, using a pair of medieval terms, introduces a similar kind of dis- tinction. He says: the metaphysical problem of freedom does not concern the actus imperatus: it does not concern the qeustion whether we are free to accomplish whatever it is that we will or set out to do; it concerns the actus elicitus, the quest- ion whether we are free to will or to set out to do those things that we do will or set out to do. It is one thing 'to ask whether the things that a man wills are things that are within his power: this is the problem of the actus imperatus. It is quite a differenct thing to ask whether is w1 ing itself is something that is within his power: this is the problem of the actus elicitus. He adds, "And this 1atter--the problem of the actus elicitus-- is the problem, not of the freedom of the will, but of the freedom of the man."25 To put it still another way, we may say, the metaphysical problem of freedom is concerned with "freedom.to choose, or for being," not with "freedom to do, or for acting," and it is the former sense of freedom, not the latter, which has to be reconciled with universal causation. Indeed, if this is the real problem of freedom and determinsim, then Schlick, whose concern was the latter, i.e. actus imperatus, or freedom to do, has solved, with Hume and J. S. Mill, a 24 Roderick M. Chisholm, "Freedom and Action" in Freedom and Determinism, ed. by Keith Leher (N.Y.: Random House, p. 23 25 Ibid. 29 considerable part of the moral problem of freedom which is relevant to moral responsibility, although he does not even admit that there can be such an issue as the metaphysical problem of freedom, In this respect, he may be right in claim- ing that the problem of freedom and determinism is a pseudo- problem, if he refers to actus imperatus. However, as we have seen, neither Campbell nor Edwards have denied that such a problem is a pseudo-problem, In what follows, I shall make this point clearer by developing two distinct ideas of freedom. As we have seen in Schlick's account, soft-determinism claims (1) that the thesis of determinism.is true, and that accordingly all human action, like the behavior of all other things, arises from antecedent conditions--in other words, that all human behavior is caused and determined; (2) that an action is free, if it is not externally constrained or compelled; and (3) that, in the absence of such external conditions, the causes of voluntary action are certain states of affairs, events, or conditions within the agent himself; namely, his own acts of will, choices, decisions, and so on. A particularly inter- esting feature in soft-determinism is the idea of freedom as stated in (2). If such a freedom, as both Campbell and Edwards admit, is compatible with determinism, is it also one of the necessary conditions for moral responsibility? Schlick's answer is of course affirmative; in the following, I shall argue for him. This is to say that in order for one to be morally responsible, it is not the case that he has to be free in Campbell's sense, or that he has to originate his own character 30 as Edwards claims. In order to do this, I shall develop the two ideas of freedom first. Some philosophers have attempted to defend Schlick's use of 'freedom' as a standard use. Ayer, for example, maintains that if we analyze freedom in the ordinary sense, we will dis- cover that it is not to be contrasted with causality, but rather with compulsion. According to ordinary or common usage of freedom, Ayer claims, I would not be acting freely if someone compelled me to do something against my volition.25 Indeed, it is a little hard to imagine any sensible meaning of the term 'freedom' other than the soft-determinist's idea of it. How is it possible for a man to be really free if he is chained to the wall of a prison cell? How can I be free if I must obey? I am free to eat rice, drink a glass of wine, go to the grocery store, and perform many other activities. In all these cases, anyone would admit, my actions were caused, but I will still maintain that I was free. But the crucial question is this: Is this freedom as the opposite of compulsion is a necessary condition for our moral responsibility? Before we answer this question, let us consider another idea of freedom. It may be a little difficult, but not impossible to imagine the incompatibilists' idea of freedom, which does not have much to do with the soft-determinist's external compelling or the ability to enact what one wishes. For both Campbell and Edwards, there is such freedom which cannot be destroyed 25 A. J. Ayer, "Freedom and Necessity," in Philosophical Essays (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1954), p. 277. 31 or annulled by an type of external compulsion, that, in one way or another, prevents a man from translating his will into overt action. To use Mertimer J. Adler's term, the freedom which can be a necessary condition for moral responsibility seems to be "the acquired freedom of self-perfection," for the incompatibilitst.26 In other words, for them, man is free only when he has ability to act as he ought, not as he wishes, and only this kind of freedom can be morally relevant. Closely related to this definition of freedom is the notion that an intelligent, virtuous, rational, or wise, and reflective act is free, whereas an unintelligent, vicious, irrational, or foolish, and unreflective act is unfree. As we have seen, Campbell charges Schlick for disregarding such a freedom in favor of the less reflective type of layman. It is clear that Edwards also refers to that kind of freedom, when he claims that an action is free if it comes from "an unimpeded rational desire" on the part of the individual.27 Both Edwards and Campbell realize that rational desire is difficult to define. But they claim this does not interfere with our ability to distinguish between desires which are 26 Mbrtimer J. Adler, The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the conception of FreedOmTNTY.: Doubleday, 1958) Vol. 1, Chapt. 2. According to Adler, there are no more, no less than three freedoms--namely, (l) the circumstantial free- dom of self-realization, which is the freedom of being able to do as one wishes, (2) the acquired freedom.of self-perfection, or the freedom of bein able to will as one ought, and (3) the natural freedom of sel -determination, which is the freedom of being able to determine what one shall do or become. 27 Edwards, "Hard and Soft-determinism," p. 122. 32 rational and those which are not rational. For them, thus freedom is a matter of rational desire; it exists only in those situations of moral temptation where the self decides to act in accordance with our concept of duty or to follow our inclinations. In all other cases, the problem of freedom does not arise. Returing to our question as to what kind of freedom is necessary for moral responsibility, it may be useful to examine the conditions under which we normally excuse a person and do not believe he should be held morally responsible for an act he has committed. According to Paul W. Taylor, they are of four kinds: (a) excusable ignorance of the nature or consequences of an act; (b) the presence of a constraint which forced the person to do the act and which was of a degree of strength no ordinary amount of will power could overcome; (c) the circumstances in which the action was taken were beyond the person's control; (d) the absence of either the ability or the opportunity, or both, to perform an alter- native act that would be the right thing to do in the given situation.2 I think these conditions are fairly clear and accurate in describing necessary conditions for moral responsibility in its most ordinary sense. It may be particularly important to note that moral responsibility is concerned with a person's act; that is, it has nothing to do with a man qua man, or with his states of mind such as his choice and decision. If this is the case, the freedom which is relevant to moral responsibility 28 Paul W. Taylor, Principles of Ethics: An Introduction (Belmont, Cal.: Dickenson Publishér, Co., 1975), pp. 146-147. 33 must be also freedom of action, or freedom to do, not such things as freedom to be a certain kind of man, or freedom to choose; to refer to Chisholmis passage, moral responsibility has to do with the actus imperatus, and not with the actus elicitus. Still, to use Adler's terms, the freedom.which is necessary condition for moral responsibility is the circum- stantial freedom of self-realization, which is the freedom of being able to do. In other words, it has nothing to do with the acquired freedom of self-perfection, the freedom of being able to will as one ought, or with the natural freedom of self- determination, which is the freedom of being able to determine what one shall do or become. With regard to (a), one may easily admit, it is unreason- able to blame a person who gave a ride to a unknown criminal whom he has never met before. Similarly, on (c) and (d), it is fairly clear that in our usual moral practice no one is blamed for his action which was inevitably done in the situation that he could not control or he did not have an opportunity to do otherwise. However, the problematic one is (b), which occurs in a situation in which we say of a person, "He did not do the act of his own free will," or "He could not help it," or "It was not a matter of his own choice." According to Taylor, with regard to (b), there is "either some external coercion being exerted upon the person or he feels driven by an inner compulsion to do something he believes wrong but finds beyond his power to control."29 In particular, 29 Ibid. p. 147. 34 the second form.of constraint, the compelling element comes from "inside" rather than from someone else, is controversial. The problem.arises from the fact that we do not have a satis- factory criterion for a distinction between "inside" and "out- side.” It is often the case that many factors or causes that seem to be internal are really external. As we have seen in 1.3, there is no dispute between Edwards and Schlick about the empirical facts concerning that ultimately our desires and our whole character are derived from our inherited equipment and the environmental influences. From.this fact, Edwards inferred that there cannot be a distinction between external coercion and inner compulsion in that neither one is within our own power. In other words, in the final analysis, nothing can be regarded as internal, or within my_power; therefore, for Edwards, no one has freedom in its genuine sense. However, for the soft-determinists, this kind of freedom is not relevant to moral responsibility. Ayer, for example, draws a line between free and unfree acts by distinguishing between constrained behavior and non- constrained behavior. To illustrate this, he refers to the kleptomaniac and the thief. He says: A k1eptomaniac...does not go through any process of deciding whether or not to steal. Or rather, if he does go through such a process, it is irrelevant to his behavior. Whatever he resolved to do, he would steal all the same. And it is this that distinguishes him from the ordinary thief.30 30 Ayer, "Freedom and Necessity," p. 280 35 Ayer is thus maintaining that unlike the ordinary thief the kleptomaniac does not deliberate, or if he does, it does not ‘make any difference in his behavior. It seems perfectly clear that we have to make such a distinction between the klepto- maniac and the thief in order to talk meaningfully about moral responsibility at all. Edwards should not deny that there are grounds for making certain distinctions, although he may dispute over the acceptability of the grounds. At this juncture, we may point out, if he still claims that in the end all behavior, whether it be a k1eptomaniac's or a thief's, is caused, there- fore, they are not responsible, then he has shifted the ground of the argument. He has moved from an analysis of the distinct- ions we find useful in our moral experience to an analysis of metaphysical principles he claims to be operative beneath our moral experience. In this respect, we may say, the soft—deter- minists and the incompatibilists are really playing two different games. For the soft-determinists, no matter what it may be, there must be a distinction between some external coercion being exerted upon the person and an inner compulsion to do some- thing he believes wrong but finds beyond his power to control. This is implied by the soft-determinist's notion of the self which is a bundle of characters. Without having a certain conception of the self, one cannot meaningfully talk about freedom, responsibility, and a distinction between "inside" and "outside." How can we mention about freedom and responsibility, if there is no agent to whom they have to be ascribed? We 36 cannot make such a distinction between external coercion and inner compulsion without an agent, just as there cannot be inside or outside the box without a box. However, I shall come back to this point in the next chapter. In the above, I have shown that the soft-detenmflnist is concerned with freedom to do, while the incompatibilists main- tain that the freedom which moral responsibility requires is freedom to choose, or freedom of being able to will as one ought. In most ordinary cases, I have claimed with the soft- determinists that the freedom which is relevant to moral responsibility is of the former kind, and not of the latter kind. By this, however, I do not mean that Schlick's concept- ion of freedom as an opposite of external constraint is suffice to deal with the dilemma of freedom.and determinism. I did not even argue that his notion of moral responsibility is adequate to be used in moral context. I have merely attempted to show that the problem of freedom.and determinism as Schlick formulat- ed is not a genuine problem but a pseudo-problem; both Campbell and Edwards have admitted this. In fact it would be more reasonable to say that there were no real disputes between Schlick's soft-determinism.and such incompatibilists as Campbell and Edwards. If this is the case, it may be desirable to turn to the genuine part of the problem, the metaphysical problem of freedom and determinism, in which the determinist's view seems flatly to contradict the libertarians without having any verbal dispute. Before we encounter the real issue, however, I shall show why the soft-determinist's notion of freedom is not 37 adequate to deal with the dilemma as formulated on the meta- physical level. In order to do this, I shall refer to such linguistic analysts as G. E. Moore, Chisholm, and J. Austin who have made a remarkable contribution to this problem mainly by means of analysis of a question; Could I have done otherwise? 1.5 Freedom as Avoidability It is commonly accepted that the soft-determinist's notion of freedom, including that of Hume and Schlick, is a superficial conception for the reason that it does not at all correspond with the notion of freedom that men in fact have and that the conception of responsibility as accountability requires. A genuinely free action, it is pointed out even by some soft-determinists, is not merely one that is in keeping with one's preferences, desires, and volition, but one that is avoidable and can be accountable for in terms of free will. Thus, some soft-determinists have recently claimed that addit- ional criteria are needed in order to state the sufficient condition of freedom, In order for an act to be genuinely free, it must be not only voluntary and uncompelled, but also avoidable. That is, it is pointed out, the individual could have done otherwise in order to be free. Likewise, as to the notion of moral responsibility, many philosophers have claimed that to say that someone is morally responsible for having done an act is not merely to say that he did that act freely. As Paul W. Taylor points out, "It is to say something like, He is accountable for having done it; or, if it is a wrong act, He 38 is at fault for having done it and so deserves to be b1amed."31 In this connection, we may notice that moral responsibility is mainly applied to the agent, person, or self, rather than his action; thus, one's choice and decision turn out to be object of moral responsibility.. With this in mind, I shall examine the controversy on the question: "Could I have done otherwise?" It is thus generally agreed that in order for an act to be free, it must be true that, among other things, the individ- ual could have acted or chosen otherwise. Some philosophers have claimed that determinism is incompatible with the belief that an individual could have acted otherwise. To say that a given action was free means at least, according to libertarians, that the agent could have done otherwise given the very condit- ions that obtained, not just that he could have done otherwise if something within him had been different. For the hard- determinists, on the other hand, if the belief that a person could have acted otherwise is one of the criteria of a free and responsible act, then man is not free or morally responsible. G. E. MOore, however, contends that there is a proper use of gguld, in which we know from human experience that some things that did not happen could have happened. According to him, the expression, (a) He could have done otherwise, is properly understood as a hypothetical statement that means (b) He could have done otherwise, if he had so chosen. 31 P. W, Taylor, PrinCiple of Ethics(op, cit.), p. 166 39 In this sense, I could have done otherwise than I did, even if determinism is true. And it does not matter whether my choice itself was causally determined. In other words, it is argued that (b) is consistent with determinism, for even if all of man's actions were causally determined, the man could still be such that, if he had chosen otherwise, he would have done otherwise. Then (a), since it is equivalent to (b), must compatible with determinism. Moore says: It is, therefore, quite certain (1) that we often should have acted differently, if we had chosen to; (2) tEat similarly we often should have chosen differently, if_we had chosen so to choose; and (3) tfiat it was almost always possible that we should have chosen differently, in the sense that no man could know for certain that we should not so choose. All these things are facts, and all of them are quite consistent with the principle of causality.32 Thus, for Moore, the consequence is that the agent could have done otherwise, even though he was caused to do what he did so. Chisholm, however, argues that this argument is unsound because it is wrong to say that (a) means the same as (b). For (b) could be true while (a) is false. The agent might be such that, if he had chosen to do otherwise, then he would have done otherwise; for it might be that he could not have chosen otherwise. So, says Chisholm, we cannot make an inference from (b) to (a) unless we can also assert (c) He could have chosen to do otherwise. So if he could not have chosen to do otherwise, then the assertion of (b) will be justified without the assertion of 32 G. E. Moore, Ethics(N.Y,: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 94. ' 40 (a) being justified. Thus, (c) is the question at issue. That is, as Chisholm points out, the stratagem in question does not work. He says: If the man could not have done otherwise--even if he 'was such that, if he had chosen to do otherwise, then he would chosen to do otherwise, then he would have done otherwise.33 vTherefore, he rightly concludes, "the ascription of resonsi- bility conflicts with a deterministic view of action."34 In analyzing Moore's position, J. L. Austin also shows that the interpretation of statements expressive of our ability as either disguised or incomplete hypothetical statements has not been settled. He asks whether could have, if I_had chosen means the same as should have, 1:1; had chosen. Austin main- tains that statements involving the locution "I can" cannot possibly require, for their complete sense, the addition of some such hypothetical as "if I choose" but are, instead, to be understood in some categorical sense. That is, for Austin, "X could have done otherwise" is a categorical statement: for example, an expert swimmer, who is in good health, gag (i.e., has the ability to) swim the length of the IN pool many times, whether he chooses to or not. Austin admits that could have may be and very often is a part conditional verb. In this sense, of course, an if- clause is needed to complete the sentence. But could have is often a past indicative of the verb can. In this sense, it is 33 Chisholm, "Freedom and Action," p. 16. 34 Ibid. 41 equivalent to "I was in a position to" or "I was able to," for example, "I could have done it yesterday." From Austin's analysis, it is clear that gguld has a dual role. It sometimes has a conditional or hypothetical meaning but sometimes it has an indicative or categorical meaning; it does not always need an if-clause as Moore assumes. Against Moore, Austin summarizes his position as follows: (a) 'I could have if I had chosen' does not mean the as 'I should have if had chosen.‘ (b) In neither of these expressions is the if—clause a 'normal conditional'clause, connecting Efitecedent to consequent as cause to effect. (c) To argue that can always requires an if-clause with it to complete—EHe sense is totally different from arguing that ganfsentences are always to be analysed into sentences containing if-clauses. (d) Neither can nor any other verb always requires a conditiofial if-clause after it: even 'could have', when a past ifidicative, does not require such a clause: and in 'I could have if I had chosen' the verb is in fact a past indicative, not a past subjective or conditional.35 Austin thus has shown that there is a linguistic confirmation for the categorical interpretation of could have acted other- wise. What conclusions can we draw from.the lingusitic treat- ment of could have done otherwise? It may be true, as Nowell- Smith argues, that it is the use of could have in moral contexts that is at issue and that Austin has not shown his analysis of could have to be relevant to the problem of freedom and determinism.36 However, if it is the case that 35 J. L. Austin, "Ifs and Cans" in Free Will and Deter- minism, ed. by B. Berofsky (op. cit.), P. 307. 36 P. H. Nowell-Smith, Ethics(London: Penguin Books, 1954), pp. 273-81. 42 statements involving the locution "I can" do not need the hypothetical "if I choose," then they may not, as so many philosophers from Hume on have supposed, express the idea of a causal condition at all. Austin's linguistic anaysis, although not pursued with the explicit aim of supporting or disconfirming any theories determinism or freedom, nevertheless considerably weakened some of the strongest defenses of soft-determinism, which have relied on the notion of hypothetical freedom, the freedom which is essentially identical with Schlick's notion of free- dom as an opposite of complusion. Richard Taylor rightly points out the inadequacy of Moore's linguistic analysis when he says that the hypothetical rendition of could have acted otherwise is like arguing "though a man has died of decapitation ...he could have lived on--meaning only that he would have lived had he somehow kept his head on."37 From the above considerations, it may be reasonable to conclude that the soft-determinist's notion of freedom is not adequate to deal with the dilemma of freedom and determinism as a metaphysical problem, although it is quite satisfactory as a necessary condition for moral responsibility, which is ascribed to the indvidual's action. Indeed, we have seen that Schlick has defined freedom in a way that it can be compatible with determinism; the result was the claim that the dilemma was a pseudo-problem. We have also seen that Moore's 37 Richard Taylor, "Determinism.and the Theory of Agency" in Determinism and Freedom, ed. by Hook (op. cit.), p. 213 43 attempt to construct a compatibility thesis in the light of linguistic analysis was not successful either. Now, we may have to turn to the other kind of freedom, namely, freedom to choose, or for being, which is concerned with the question whether we are free to will or to set out to do certain things. By referring to freedom as a metaphysical notion, however, I do not mean that there cannot be any compatibility thesis between freedom and determinism, By means of dividing the world into two domains, one may attempt to solve the dilemma as Kant did; for him freedom and determinism are compatible in the sense that man is noumenally free and phenomenally determined. A. I. Melden also has made a similar attempt in terms of action theory by positing two domains, one subjected to causality, another beyond it, namely the domain of action, which can never have a causal explanation. We shall deal with this position later on; now, my concern is to see under what condition the categorical freedom, or freedom to choose, can be compatible with determinism. CHAPTER II THE CONCEPT OF THE SELF IN LIBERTARIANISM AND DETERMINISM According to Chisholm, we can summarize the metaphysical problem of freedom and determinism as follows: Human beings are responsible agents; but this fact appears to conflict with a deterministic view of human action (the view that every event that is involved in an act is caused by some other event); and it also appears to conflict with an indeterministic view of Human action (the view that the act, or some event that is essential to the act, is not caused at all.)1 In his brief essay, "Responsibility and Avoidability," Chisholm puts the follows: 1. 4. 5. To avoid above by self, so (5). He logical form of the dilemma into clear focus as If a choice is one we could not have avoided making, then it is one for which we are not morally responsible. If we make a choice under conditions such that, given those conditions, it is (causally but not logically) impossible for the choice not to be made, then the choice is one we could not have avoided making. Every event occurs under conditions such that, given those conditions, it is (causally but not logically) impossible for that event not to occur. The making of a choice is the occurrence of an event. We are not morally responsible for any of our choices.2 this dilemma, Chisholm suggests, we may deny (4) in means of constructing a metaphysical theory about the as to enable us to reconcile (3) and the denial of adds: 1 Chisholm, "Freedom and Action," p. 11. 2 Chisholm, "Responsibility and Avoidability," in Determinism.and Freedom. ed. by Hook (op. cit.), p. 157. AA 45 I say "Metaphysical" because it seems to be necessary for the theory to replace (4) by sentences using such terms as "active power," "the autonomy of the will," "prime mover," or "higher levels of causality"--terms designating something to which we apparently need not refer when expressing the conclusions of physics and natural sciences.3 However, Chisholm.admits, difficulty arises in showing the relation between the self or active power and the bodily events this power is supposed to control--"the relation between the 'activities' of the self and the events described by physics."4 In this chapter, I shall articulate the relations as shown in both libertarianism and determinism. The purpose of this chapter is in effect to show that there is no way of showing the relation between the self and the bodily events, unless we have a breakthrough view of the self and the world, in which they are one and the same. In order to do this, I examine the libertarian's notion of free choice and action, and point out that they are involved with an extraordinary conception of causation, or agent-causation, which is not acceptable in determinism. On the other hand, I shall discuss the determinist's notion of free choice and action as a part of causal chain, and dispute that there is no way of stopping the causal regress of choices and actions, by which we can also make a certain part of them "mine"; this leads them to a form of fatalism, In order to make determinism sensible, one may make a distinction between action and happen- ing, it is pointed out, but only if we should appeal to the 3 Ibid. p. 159. 46 self and its intention. Finally, I shall consider the concept of introspection to see its epistemological status, and come to the conclusion that there are two views of the self, through which one can also see the world--namely the libertarian self as a creative power and the determinist's self as a passive mechanical process, which apparently contradict each other. 2.1 The Self and Free Choice in Libertarianism As we have seen in 1.5, we are sometimes intuitively inclined to excuse someone's conduct on the ground that he could not have chosen to do otherwise, but what is it about these cases in which we excuse a man on the ground that he could not have chosen to do otherwise, that inclines us to render the judgement that he is not responsible? Sometimes "he could not have chosen otherwise" vindicates a person's conduct by indicating that what he did was not wrong. The person performed an action which instantiated one or more wrongdmaking features, in a situation in which his alternatives were even worse, morally speaking. In such cases we say "he had no choice," and this phrase serves to indicate this feature of the agent's situation--that he chose the best among a set of alternatives, all of which were morally undesirable. Hence, he did not do what was wrong. We have seen, however, that there is another conception of choice which might very well be relevant to responsibility, and which is inconsistent with the truth of any version of determinism, This is the conception of choice championed by 47 libertarians such as Campbell and Chisholm; here the liber- tarian's notion of self or agent is best depicted as well. They believe that man's will must be free in some contra-causal sense, if anyone is to be responsible for his actions. This is to say that the libertarian's notion of the self cannot be causally explained away, For example, Campbell has said that in moral effort we are responsible for something that is not affected by heredity and environment but depends soley upon the self itself. Chisholm also substitutes the metaphysical notion of the self that seems required if we are to save moral responsibility, regarding it as a prime mover unmoved. He says: If we are responsible, and if what I have been trying to say is true, then we have a prerogative which some would attribute only to God: each of us, when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what we do, we cause certain events to happen, and nothing--or on one--causes us to cause those events to happen.5 The view that these philosophers hold is that an agent's free choices are either those caused by the self, or actions which the self could have prevented. That is, they hold: If someone is morally responsible for an act x, then either (1) the self caused x to occur, or (2) if the self did not cause x to occur, the self could have prevented x from.occurring. Normally, actions are caused in the second way, but it is always open to the self to block the causal efficacy of those beliefs 5 Chisholm, "Freedom.and Action," p. 23. 6 The reason for the second clause is that libertarians think that there are two ways that a person's actions might be caused--the self can choose the action, or the action may be the causal outcome of a person's beliefs and desires. 48 and desire, which, if left unchecked, would lead the agent to perform a certain action. If an agent performs an action which was caused by his beliefs and desires, and the self could have blocked the causal chain and prevented the action, then this is an action for which the agent can be a candidate for responsibility. Sometimes, on the other hand, the self can act entirely on its own, can rise up and choose to perform an act- ion in opposition to the strongest desire. Thus Campbell sums up: ‘We may lay down, therefore, that an act is a "free" act in the sense required for moral responsibility only if the agent (a) is the sole cause of the act; and (b) could exert his causality in alternative ways... The doctrine which demands, and asserts, the fulfillment of both condit- ions is the doctrine we call "Libertarianism." This view of moral responsibility is inconsistent with any version of determinism, for if any version of determinism is true, then every event, in the world is caused by some previous event, but the libertarian holds that some events, the choices of the self, are not caused by previous events--they are caused or determined by the self, which is a non-event. For this reason, they are sometimes called "self-determinists."8 Chisholm, for example, says: 7 Campbell, "In Defence of Free Will," p. 595 3 Self-determinism is devised to overcome the great difficulty of indeterminism, in which it seems to imply that a "free" or causally undetermined action is capricious or random, If an action is strictly uncaused, then it is difficult to see in what sense it can be within the control of an agent or in any way ascribable to him, Thomas Reid's position may be best classified as self-determinism, although he did not use the name. 49 ...that the difference between the man's causing A, on the one hand, and the event A just happening, on the other, lies in the fact that, in the first case but not the second, the event A was caused and was caused by the man. There was a brain event A; the agent did, in fact, cause the bragn event; but there was nothing that he did to cause it. This requires a distinction between two kinds of causation, what we might call "event-causation," and "agent-causation." We may also call the two kind of causation "transeuent causat- ion" and "immanent causation" respectively as Chisholm does, for whom the distinction between the two is particularly important for "anyone who makes use of the concept of causation at all."10 Chisholm nicely illustrates these causation: If we consider only inanimate natural objects, we may say that causation, if it occurs, is a relation between events or states of affairs. The dam's breaking was an event that was caused by a set of other events--the dam being weak, the flood being strong, and so on. But if a man is responsible for a particular deed, then, if what I have said is true, there is some event, or set of events, that is caused, not by other events or state of affairs, but by the man himself, by the agent, whatever he may be.11 In other words, event-causation is one event's causing another event to occur under certain conditions; for example, the event of heating silver will, under certain conditions, cause the event of the silver's expanding. Agent-causation, on the other hand, is the self's causing some event to occur, the self being a substance, or "the prime mover unmoved," not an event. Hence, the causal chain of events is broken in the case of agent- causation. The self causes certain events to occur, but is not 9 Chisholm, "Freedom and Action," p. 21 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. p. 18. 50 itself caused by any previous events--antecedent events are never causally sufficient to determine the actions of the self under any conditions. It is important to understand as already pointed out in 1.3, the self does not include a person's beliefs and desires-- the self is a psychological agent which can operate in opposit- ion to the entire set of person's desires and his belief system. The self is not like a flood which causes the poorly structured dam to break. Chisholm says: ...if the flood of desire caused the weak-willed man to give in, then he, too, had to do just what it was that he did do and he was no more responsible than was the dam for the results that followed... It is true, of course, that if the man is responsible for the beliefs and desires that he happens to have, then he may also be responsible for the things they lead him to do.12 Then the crucial question is: Is he responsible for the beliefs and desires he happens to have? "If he is," says Chisholm "then there was a time when they were within his power either to acquire or not to acquire, and we are left, therefore, with our general point."13 The point is that the self is not causally determined to make one choice rather than another. Of course, a person, on the libertarian's view, has desires and beliefs, and these are what make up a person's character for the libertarian, but the self is something which they contrast with a person's character. Campbell, for example, distinguished between a man's self and 12 Ibid. p. 13 13 Ibid. 51 his character in the following manner: ...the very function of moral effort, as it appears to the agent engaged in the act, is to enable the self to act against the line of least resistance, against the line to which his character as so far formed most strongly inclines him, But if the self is thus conscious here of combating his formed character, he surely cannot possibly Suppose that the act, although his own act, issues from his formed character... From this, according to Campbell, it follows that the nature of the self is for itself something more than just its character as so far formed. He says: The 'nature' of the self com rehends, but is not without remainder reducible to, its character'; it must, if we are to be true to the testimony of our experience of it, be taken as including also the authentig creative power of fashining and re-fashioning "character."15 By distinguishing between self and character, Campbell also attempts to repudiate the indeterminism of "chance actions" as much as he rejects the determinism.of "actions determined by character" exclusively. Proposing, as a third alternative, the self's creative power, he argues again that actions can be determined by the self, as distinct from character. Campbell summarizes his position in the following passage: Reflection upon the act of moral decision as apprehended from the inner standpoint would force him to recognize a third possibility, as remote from.chance as from necessity, that namely, of creative activity, in which (as I have venture to express it) nothing determines the act save the agent's doing of it.16 14 Campbell, On Selfhood and Godhood (op. cit.), p. 177. 15 Ibid. p. 173 16 Ibid. p. 179 Campbell perhaps has in mind Epicurus who based his ethics on the atomistic materialism of Democritus, to which he added the important modification of indeterminism by' postulating a tendency of the atoms that make up the human body to swerve unpredictably from.their normal paths. 52 Thus, for Campbell, over and above a man's character, his self includes the authentic creative power of fashioning and refash- ioning 'character'. Though it comprehends the character, the self is not reducible to it, for it includes not only a man's formed character but his creative power to form or reform his own character. In the above, to sum.up, we have seen that for the 1iber- tarians the self is an angent with free will which transcends formed character and can act contrary to character or inclinat- ion in making moral choices. We have also seen that the libertarian's conception of choice involves an extraordinary conception of causation, according to which the self, which is a substance and not an event, can nevertheless be the cause of an event. In what follows, I shall examine the libertarian's position in terms of the relation between the self and free choice. 2.2 The Relation between the Self and Free Choice In this section, I wish to consider some objections to the libertarians' conception of free choice with regard to their notion of the self. In particular, I shall be concerned with the determinist's point of view on their notion of "agent- causation." First, if the self is characterless, having no desires of its own, then what determines what choices the self makes? How does the self decide whether to resist the strongest desire or not? Is the action of the self completely capricious--is 53 there no explanation of why it chooses one course of action over another? Are the choices of the self after all merely random events? If so, then why should a person be held respon- sible for these capricious events? Richard Taylor remarks that the concept of the self involves an extraordinary conception of causation. In this conception, he says: something that is not an event can nevertheless bring about an event--a concept, that is, according to which a "cause" can be something other than a sufficient condit- ion; for if we say that a person is the "cause" of his act, we are not saying that he is a sufficient condition for its occurrence, since he plainly is not.1 Therefore, for Taylor, we must not speak of an agent as causing an act, "but rather of his originating it or, simply, of his performipg it--in a manner in which things in the physical world...are never done or brought about."18 He may be right, in particular, if we note that "being a cause" ordinarily just means "being a sufficient condition." What the libertarian needs, at this point, seems to be some ViéW’Of motivation which would apply to the self, and which is not simply some version of causation. The self seems to be completely unmotivated or unmoved: its choices are just occurring willy-nilly; it seems to be nothing more than a roulette wheel causing actions. It is obvious, if we refer to some passages from.Chisholm's article. 17 Richard Taylor, "Determinism.and the Theory of Agency," in Hook's Determinism and Freedom (op. cit.), p. 288 18 Ibid. 54 No set of statements about a man's desires, beliefs, and stimulus situation at any time implies any statement tell- ing us what the man will try, set out, or understake to do at the time.19 Furthermore, There can be no complete science of man... There will be human actions which we cannot explain by subsuming them under any laws... For at times the agent, if he chooses, may rise above his desires or step aside, and do something else instead.20 There is thus no predicting what the self will do, but this is to say that the actions of the self are just random events; this amounts to a type of indeterminism, as a determinist would claim. But if the self operates randomly in bringing about some action, if it "was fortuitous or capricious, happening so to speak out of the blue, then presumably no one was responsible for the act."21 This description seems to apply to the choices of the self as well. ‘Without an adequate account of motivation as distinguished from causation, it may be difficult for the libertarians to construe the self as a kind of causation. In this respect, Nowell-Smith may be right, when he points out that it is difficult to construe Campbell's position "in such a way that the 'self' can be distinguished from the 'character' without lapsing into indeterminism."22 In response to such an objection, as we have seen, Campbell claims that the self comprehends man's character and has the creative ower to chan e man's character. He ar ues that, P 8 8 19 Chisholm, "Freedom and Action," p. 24. 20 Ibid. pp. 24-25. 21 Ibid. p. 16. 22 Nowell-Smith, Ethics(op.cit.), p. 281. 55 since the self is aware of its evaluation of the character, it cannot be derived or caused by the character. However, one may seriously ask: Why not? Even though the self is the author of deciding whether to accept one's character or to change it in a situation of moral temptation, from.this it does not necessarily follow that because man is capable of evaluat- ing his character, the decision he makes is not caused by some aspect of his character. The fact that an individual can decide whether or not to evaluate all his decisions does not mean that this decision is not caused by some decisions he has made in the past. Thus a determinist would maintain that a man's character is composed of all his beliefs, values, and attitudes, as well as many other factors. All mental processes, including the decision to change his character, are part of a man's character. In this sense, for a determinist, as we will see shortly, the self is part of man's character and is caused by an aspect of the character or by some environmental factors. It may be the case that there is no need to postulate the existence of the libertarian self in order to explain how we can decide about our decisions or how we can evaluate our evaluations. Both of these procedures might have been explained within a determin- istic framework without resorting to the belief in libertarianismn This may be even more convincing, if we examine the libertarian's notion of agent-causation, or imminent causation. My second objection is thus concerned with the extra- ordinary notion of causation. The libertarian thinks it 56 essential to moral responsibility that we could have chosen otherwise than we did, and he thinks this requires giving up event-causation as an explanation of all events. Some events such as the choices of the self are caused, not by previous events, but by the substantial self, an instance of agent- causation. But does the view that a substantial self causes an event to occur, make sense; that is, is it an intelligible view of causation? It would seem for the determinists that we can understand some event's having been caused, only in terms of some previous event. For example, when we say that some non- event, shoe, causes a blister to rise, what is meant is that the shoe's rubbing pp and down on the toe caused the blister to rise. What sense could be made of saying that the shoe caused the blister to rise, while denying that it was the rubbing up and down of the shoe that caused the blister to rise? R. Taylor points out that in such an expression, "A brick caused that window to break," a brick is often referred to as a cause. But, he says, "this.is simply a common manner of speaking, and not strictly true."23 He adds: It is not, for example, just the brick as such that causes the window to break. It is, rather, the impact of the brick against the window; and this impact is not itself a substance, but a change. Likewise, it may be the case that the cause of our action is 23 Richard Taylor, Metaphysics(Eng1ewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1974), p. 92. 24 Ibid. 57 not the self but the "impact" of the self which is an event, and not a substance. The difficulty here seems to be this. When some event is caused to occur, we must find some reason for explaining how it was that that event occurred at just the moment it did, and not at some earlier or later time or not at all. For example, if the 8-ba11 starts moving at t on a pool table, and we want to say that this event has some cause, then the causal explanation we give must make it clear why the 8-ba11 started moving £5 2' rather than at some other time, or not at all. Simply mentioning some non-event, for example, the 6-ball, and prevailing conditions Such as gravity, the weight of the balls, the conditions of the felt, the position of the balls, is not to provide this kind of explanation. The existence of the 6-ba11 and prevailing conditions is consistent with the 8-ball's not moving at all. To complete the causal explanation for the 8-ball's moving £2 E, we must mention some previous event, for example, the impact of the 6-ball on the 8-ball at the moment before t. The libertarian claims that the self causes events to occur, e.g. choices and actions. He must, then, provide some account of how it is that the self causes an event to occur at just the time it does. Why does the self cause a decision or choice at t, rather than at some earlier or later time, or not at all? Why at t? Ex hypothesis, the libertarian cannot mention some earlier event, as would be the case if we had an instance of event causation. I see no way the libertarian can 58 explain the self's causing a choice at the time it does, with- out at some point mentioning some previous event, which is ruled out in a case of agent—causation. Hence, it seems to me essential to any notion of causal explanation that it provide us with an account which explains why some event occurs at just the time it does, and I do not see how the libertarian's notion of agent-causation can meet this requirement. In this respect, Harald Ofstad seems right, when he comments on the role of the self. He says: Forgetting about the difficulties of interpreting the ‘meaning of this use of "self" or what kind of evidence would be relevant for or a ainst it, it is hard to under- stand the nature of the re ation between the substantial or transempirical self and such empirical things as decid- ing and acting. As long as this problem has not been clarified, it seems reasonable to remain sceptical toward this way of connecting action and self.25 From this, however, it does not follow that there cannot be such a thing as the libertarian's substantial self, nor that the self cannot be used as agent-causation; it simply means that such a notion of the self as a agent-causation formulated by Chisholm and Campbell, the agent theorists, is not adequate to solve the problem concerning the relation between the self and action at least from the determinist's point of view. There are then good philosophical grounds for rejecting agent- causation as a necessary condition for freedom and moral responsibility; an agent's free choices become capricious event, 25 Harald Ofstad, "Recent WOrk on the Free-Will Problem," American Philosophical Quaterly, Vol. 4, p. 194. 59 and the core conception of agent-causation as a creative activity itself cannot be made out as a special kind of causat- ion. This seems to me solely due to the libertarian's inade- quate account of what the 'self' is. We shall come back later to this topic. Nevertheless, this view of choice seems to carry a great deal of appeal because it seems accurately to reflect what goes on in our minds during practical reflection. It does seem as though we are independent of our desires, that we can distance ourselves from.them.and even thwart them if we choose. Some of this has perhaps worked its way into our ordinary conception of responsibility, but in so far as the ordinary concept relies on agent-causation, I wish to that extent, to leave the ordinary concept behind. As I have indicated, I think there are strong philosophical grounds for doing so. In the above, I have examined the libertarian's position, according to which the self is an agent with free will which transcends formed character and can act contrary to character. In what follows, I shall consider the determinist's notion of self, which is at most part of man's character and is caused by an aspect of the character or by some environmental factors. In doing this, I shall refer to such determinists as John Hospers and B. F. Skinner in addition to Edwards. 2.3 The Self and Moral Responsibility in Determinism In contrast with the libertarian's conception of the self as an agent-causation, or a creative power, which freely chooses 60 his action, the determinist's conception of the self, if any, is a product solely of forces over which we have no control. The man, in other words, is no more than a machine, or just another piece of software in a technological bank. Surely, this knells the beginning of the mechanistic phase of self conception. It is said that a damaging blow to the libertarians' notion of self was to be provided by Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, a Russian physilogist, and Sigmund Freud, a Austrian physician, whose works led unintentionally to a challenge of the foundation concepts of mind itself and of free will. The implication of Pavlov's and Freud's work were seen at once. B. F. Skinner showed that behavior could be 'shaped' by breaking down an act- ion into small parts rewarding the correct performance of each small section. In this way he could train pigeons to play a miniature piano. This applies to people as well as animals. The point at issue is no longer whether this is possible but as to how far this applies to the more complex behaviour of humans. He says: Man is a machine in the sense that he is a complex system behaving in lawful ways, but the complexity is extra- ordinary. 25 B. F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity(N.Y.: Bantam Book, 1972), p. 193. Pavlov approached the problem by saying that our internal environment included the concepts of self, free will, religious ideals, social responsibilities and duties, and that we could become conditioned to these just as easily as to the obvious features of the external environment. On the other hand, Freud had challenged the foundation concept of self-awareness and shown that it was impossible. On this concept had rested ration- al decision, motivation, choice, responsibility and all other factors that had provided the basis for self-control. 61 With this in mind, I shall try to trace what the determin- ist's notion of the self is. In order to do this, I will consider a further argument involving choice which the hard- determinist sometimes give in an attempt to show that determin- ism.is inconsistent with moral responsibility. As we have seen in 1.3, the hard-determinists hold that determinism.and freedom are incompatible; that determinism is true, and we are not free; and that therefore, no one can reasonably be held responsible for his act. They thus argue that a person has a choice only if he has alternatives to choose from, but if determinism is true, there are no open alternatives, since there is only one thing a person E§p_do. But if there was only one thing a person could have chosen, then he is not to be held responsible for making that choice. In particular, both Edwards and Hospers note that although one may have been free in a sense when he chose, he could not have chosen differ~ ently given his character. And since, according to psycho- analytic theory, one's character is determined by inherited traits, childhood upbringing, and other factors entirely out- side one's control, one cannot be held responsible for one's character. Whether or not one has a certain character--whether or not one acts in certain way-emay thus be just a "matter of luck." In Hospers' words: It's all a matter of luck. The least lucky are those who can't overcome them, even with great effort, and those who haven't the ability to exert the effort.27 27 John Hospers, "What Means This Freedom?" in Determinism and Freedom, ed. by Hook (op. cit.), p. 137 62 The hard-determinists thus maintain that our beliefs and desires are themselves the causal outcomes of previous events; in fact, our beliefs and desires are members of causal chains which extend indefinitely back into the past, if determinism is true. Like Edwards, Hospers also says: If he is not responsible for A, a series of events occurring in his babyhood, then neither is he responsible for B, a series of things he does in adulthood, provided that B inevitabl --that is, unavoidably-~follows upon the occurrence of A. That is, what we choose to do now, is simply the causal outcome of events which occurred even before we were born, and since we are not responsible for events which occurred before we were born, we are not responsible for the later events which they cause. Hospers also contends that if we were aware of the effect that unconscious motivation had upon our conscious and deliber- ate acts, we would not consider man to be free or morally responsible. In order to support this thesis, Hospers discuss- es a number of examples of conscious behavior that are motivated and determined by unconscious forces. He uses an example of a man who is addicted to gambling, to prove that conscious acts are motivated by unconscious forces.29 Against the soft-determinist in particular, in a similar way to Edwards, Hospers claims that if we examine this case, 23 Ibid. p. 135 29 John Hospers, "Free Will and Psychoanalysis" in W. Sellars and Hospers, eds., Readings in Ethical Theory(N.Y.: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1952), p. 364. 63 we will discover that the behavior of the gambler is voluntary. But his behavior is due to certain unconscious forces and is as inevitable as if someone were compelling them to behave in a certain manner. Therefore, even though their behavior is voluntary, they are not considered to be free or morally responsible. Like Edwards, he thus points out that the diffi- culty with defining free acts as those which are voluntary is that this analysis does not go far enough. ‘He says: In a deeper sense we cannot hold the person responsible: we can hold his neurosis responsible, but he is not responsible for his neurosis, particularly since the age at Which its onset was inevitable was an age before he could even speak.30 At this point, as I have mentioned in 1.3, the determinist has shifted the ground of the argument; he has moved from.an analy- sis of the distinctions we find useful in our experience to an analysis of principles he claims to be operative beneath our experience. That is, by appealing to a "deeper sense," Hospers has shifted into metaphysics. The determinist then will assert the following "metaphysical" principle of responsibility: If an earlier event E1 is the cause of a later event E2 and some person is not responsible for the occurrence of E1, then he is not responsible for the occurrence of E2. Since, if determinism is true, every human action is a member of a causal chain some of whose events occurred before a person was born, this principle entails that no one is ever responsible for anything he does. In Edwards' words, we cannot be responsible in "reflective sense," because no one "originally 30 Ibid. p. 571. 64 chose his own character--the character that now displays ' as shown itself in his choices and desires and efforts,‘ in 1.3. However, Sidney Hook, a soft-determinist, maintains that this principle of responsibility is vacuous and meaning- less. There are no possible conditions under which an individ- ual can be considered responsible in this sense. In particular, against Edwards, he says: Since every decision to shape or choose one's character, to be responsible, must be one's own, and therefore already an indication of the kind of person one is, the notion that one can ultimately and completely shape or choose one's character is unintelligible. It is also interesting to note that Hospers maintains that Edwards' position is self-contradictory: To cause my original make-up, I must first have existed, and to exist I must already have some "original make-up." I can't cause myself unless I'm already there to do the causing... To choose a character, we must already have a character. Being the cause of our own original make-up is, we see, a self-contradictory.32 He agrees with Hook that "the cause of our original character" does not describe any actual or possible situation. However, at the same time, one may note, he needs an account of the self in order to meaningfully assert that "I must first have existed." Let us first examine the determinist principle of responsibility. 31 Sidney Hook, "Necessity, Indeterminism, and Sentimental- ism” in Determinism and Freedom, ed. by Hook (op. cit.), p. 188. 32 John Hospers, Human Conduct(N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace, & WOrld, Inc., 1961), p. 516. 65 Why should anyone think that if his choices are caused by previous events over which he had no control, that therefore, he cannot be held morally responsible for his actions? The argument seems to be that if a person did not choose to have the character that he has, and which cause his actions, then he cannot be morally responsible for his actions. Let us lable this alleged requirement for responsibility "R". R asserts that: If a set of beliefs and desires causes a choice or action, then a person cannot justifiably be held to be responsible for that choice or action, unless he also chose to have that set of beliefs and desires. This requirement for responsibility, that we must have chosen our character at some point in the past in order to be respons- ible for any of our actions, is not at all plausible, as can be shown by the following argument. Ex hypothesis, our choice of character cannot be a causal result of beliefs and desires that we already have, since in that case, one set of beliefs and desires is choosing another set of beliefs and desires. But to be responsible for our choice of character, it will have to be true that who chose to have the beliefs and desires that resulted in our choice of character, i.e., character1--our present set of beliefs and desires, is the outcome of another character, characterz, then, given R, for us to be responsible for our choice of characterl, ‘we must have chosen our characterz. And if this choice of characterz was the result of yet a third character, character3, then, given R, to be responsible for our choice of characterz. 66 we must have chosen our character3, and so on. So we cannot say, given R, that the choice of our present character is the result of some other character, for this will lead to an infinte regress.33 But if the choice of my present character is not the result of some other character, then the choice of my present character was an event over which I had no control, for it is only in so far as my choices are the outcomes of beliefs and desires, that they are my choices, and not some random event disassociated from me. It seems obvious that the determinist should have a certain account of the self as something other than a part of characters or a collection of them, if he wants to stop the regress somewhere and make a certain choice mipg. To see this, let us consider a case in which my choices do not seem to be the outcomes of my beliefs and desires. Suppose I go into an ice cream shop on Grand River Ave., East Lansing, and after looking the flavors over, I decide upon chocolate fudge. I go to order three scoops of chocolate fudge from the attendant, but out of my mouth somehow come the words "Three scoops of strawberry, please." I don't like it, if not hate it. I try to correct myself, but I am just stand- ing there looking normal and smiling. The attendant hands over the cone to me--I try to reject it, but my arm reaches for it anyway. Against my will, my tongue starts to lick the cone. 33 For this argument, I am indebted to professor Richard Hall, Wayne State University. 67 I am recoiling internally from the taste, but my body continues on its merry way, and from all appearances, I am enjoying the cone. This is a clear, though somewhat unusual, case in which it is not up to me what I am doing, and were my body to do something accountable, I could not be justifiably blame for it. While this case is a step in the right direction, how- ever, it does not quite go far enough. What we wanted was a case in which my choices are not the outcomes of my beliefs and desires; what we have is a case in which my body does not respond to my choices, a case in which my action was not mine. Suppose in the above case, I decided to order strawberry, even though I have a strong dislike for strawberry, and I know this, and my favorite flavor, chocolate fudge, is the one I want most to order (I am.eyeing it through the glass). I imagine the puzzlement I will feel as I am busily eating the strawberry cone and hating it, desiring all the while that I had chosen chocolate instead. Somehow my choice has become disassociated from me. Furthermore, it seems to be capricious--simp1y occurring, with no basis in my preference structure. Remember that we are to imagine that my choice is completely unmotivated by my beliefs and desires. This rules out, for example, appeals to unconscious and neuroses as Hospers does; I don't have an unconscious desire to punish myself, for instance. Nor is it the case that I am taking up a dare, or trying to please someone. My choice has nothing to do with mg, and is not the kind of "choice" for which I 68 could be held responsible. It is only in so far as my choices are the causal outcomes of my beliefs and desires, that they are my choices. If this is correct, then the determinist who wants to maintain that we must have chosen our character at some point in the past in order to be responsible for the actions or choices which result from it, would seem to be dilemma: Either my choice of my present character was the causal out- come of my beliefs and desires, or it was not. If it was, then this will lead to a regress which can be stopped only by supposing that some choice is not motivated by our beliefs and desires. But if a choice is not the causal outcome of my beliefs and desires, then it is not my choice, and there- fore not something for which I can be held responsible, seems untennable. It may be necessary for the determinist to have an account of the self, if he wants to make "my choice" intel- ligible; otherwise, there may be only infinite series of characters or environments, whether it be inner or external. He might need a unity principle of characters, by which one may claim a certain series of choices "mine". In what follows, I shall examine the use, or role of the self in determinism. 2.4 The Self in Determinism as a Mechanical Process The determinist's position with regard to the dilemma of freedom and determinism as formulated on the metaphysical level is shown in Hospers' following passage: 69 if we can overcome the effects of early environment, the abiIity to do so is itself a product of the early environment. ‘We did not give ourselves this ability; and if we lack it we cannot be blamed for not having it. Sometimes, to be sure, moral exhortation brings out an ability that is there but not being used, and in this lies its occasional utility; but very often its use is pointless, because the ability is not there. The only thing that can overcome a desire, as Spinoza said, is a stronger contrary desire; and many times there simply is no wherewithal for producing a stronger contrary desire. Those of us who do have the wherewithal are lucky.34 This passage seems particularly important in that it shows, for the determinist, not only that no one is responsible, but also that there is no such a thing as the self to which responsibility can be ascribed. What there is is only 'characters', which are fixed at each stage, its growth depend- ing on the interaction between them and circumstances also fixed; here we have the self explained as mechanical, and actions looked on without regard to any real activity of the subject. What we find is a bundle, or an endless series, of characters no one of which or all of them together make the libertarian's creative substantial self. In the above passage, and else where, what bothers me is that the self thus banished is tacitly assumed in every state- ment by the determinist, although sensation, knowledge, and volition are all explained as if there were no subject to which they belonged. What we have here pictured for us is a conflict of motives acting nowhere--a choice without a chooser, and luck without a lucky one, The self has neither position 34 Hospers, "What Means This Freedom?" p. 138. 70 nor maginitude. If the self is a certain part of a mechanical process, in what sense, is that part rather than another part '1ucky'? In what follows, I shall articulate this point. Since the self is merely a mechanical process for the determinist, it is meaningless to make a distinction between internal and external causes; as we have seen, for him many causes that seen to be internal are really external; causes are external causes. Thus a person may feel that the cause is within him.and be ignorant or unaware of the fact that the cause is outside him. Since all men, in the ultimate analysis, are entirely the products of heredity and environ- ment, it must be admitted for the determinist that if we trace the causes for their actions sufficiently far back, we shall always arrive at outside causes. For this reason, What psychologists call "compulsive behavior" is as inevitable for us to do it as it would be if someone were forcing our hands under the tap. "In this," says Hospers, "it is just as little within one's conscious control"35 The fact that the self cannot be a mental substance but is instead a physic- al and mechanical process may be even better illustrated in B. F. Skinner's following remarks: Eventually a science of the nervous system based upon direct observation rather than inference will describe the neural state and events which immediately precede, say, the response, "No, thank you." These events in turn will be found to be preceded by other neurological events, 35 Ibid. p. 130. 71 and these in turn by others. This series will lead us back to events outside the nervous system and, eventually, outside the organism, It is obvious that in this view there is no room for Chisholm's notion of agent-causation and Campbell's creative substantial self, for instance. In determinism, the nerurotic and nonneurotic are similar in that they did not cause their own character, and that they are both the products of heredity and environment. According to Hospers, neurotics are not responsible, since their behavior is the result of causes they did not create and that are out- side their control. And concerning the non-neurotic, Hospers says: And if, unlike the neurotic's, his behavior is change- able by rational considerations, and if he had the will power to overcome the effects of an unfortunate early environment, this agains is no credit to him.37 More properly, we may put it, there cannot be a subject, or a self, to which any credit can be ascribed, if by the self we have meant a subject which should have any credit. How- ever, Hospers adds, "he is just lucky."38 What does he mean by "lucky"? If nothing can be credited to the self, then how one can be lucky? It may be necessary for a determinst to provide a world in which one can be lucky, if he cannot give an account on such a valuative term as "lucky" in terms 36 B. F. Skinner, Science and Human Behavior(N.Y.: Macmillan Co., 1953), p. 28. 37 Hospers, "What Means This Freedom?" p. 124. 38 Ibid. 72 of causal explanation. In the following, I shall examine whether the term "luck" can be sensible in determinism.where the self is merely a process, and also see whether such a conception of the self implies that determinism is a form of fatalism or necessitarianism. As we have seen in 1.3, Clarence Darrow appeals to the deterministic view of the world and the self in his famous plea, in which he tries to save the lives of the boy murder- ers, Loeb and Leopold, the human selves and situations. He particularly puts emphasis on the fact that we are all help- less, whereas nature is strong and she is pitiless. Thus no one makes himself; and yet he is to be compelled to pay. From this, Darrow infers that the boy murderers are unlucky, whereas the jurors are lucky. By "lucky", Hospers means that some people are fortunate in possessing the power to exert the effort necessary to change their behavior. "Some of us, luckier still, can overcome (deficiencies) with but little effort; and a few, the luckiest, haven't the deficiencies to overcome."39 But it seems a matter of effort as well, not merely a matter of luck. Hospers agrees that it is a matter of effort, but whether a person is capable of the necessary effort to change his behavior is a matter of luck. However, as S. Hook maintains, "It's all matter of luck" is no more sensible than saying: "Nothing is a matter of 39 Ibid. 73 luck"--assuming that "luck" has a meaning in a deterministic world of physical causation. When the determinist says "it's all a matter of luck," he may be referring to all causal factors. He may be said to be only referring to those causal factors that affect our behavior and that are outside our control. The parents we have, the culture we were raised in, and our native abilities are factors we did not create and over which we had no control. Thus for Hospers, Luck has to do with things outside one's control,such as native ability and favorable environmental circums- tances. But what is not outside one's control for Hospers? Since there is no way of distinguishing between factors that are outside man's control and factors that are not outside man's control, luck does not have meaning in a world of determin- ism. Indeed, 1uck cannot be applicable in a unbroken causal chain. For if the behavior of the criminal is the outcome of such causal factors as hereditary and bab hood environment, so is the behavior of the man who sits in the jury box. It may be the case that good deeds and misdeeds alike are causal consequences of things that happened in the remote past and were beyond the influence of the doer of the deed. It may also be true that we are the fortunate or un- fortunate result of a causal chain of events that began before any of us existed. As such, we may not then be responsible for our deeds; for the same reason then we may not be account- able for our luck either. Indeed, it would be wrong to 40 Hospers, Human Conduct(op. cit.), p. 517. 74 execute the boy murderers for a deed they have committed. If this is the case, then it would be also wrong to blame a juror for executing the criminal, Darrow did not hesitate to raise curious metaphysical questions to save the life of his client, but only at the cost of consistency as a deter- minist. At this juncture, he might need a criterion of individuation, by which we can distinguish a criminal from a juror, if he wants to meaningfully apply such terms as "lucky" and "unlucky" to a certain individual. In other words, he needs an adequate account of self-identity, which may also serve as a criterion for distinguishing two domains of the world--prescriptive and descriptive, action and happen- ing, including the domain of reason and causation. On the other hand, judging from the above observations with regard to the determinist's notion of the self as a mechanical process, it seems clear that determinism is actual- ly a form of fatalism, based on a number of unproved assumt- ions. Howard Hintz, for example, seriously asks: "How can the logic of Hospers' argument possibly escape the ultimate assertion of fatalism. He adds: If everything that a man chooses or decides or does-- includin the decisions he makes after reflection and d?lib§f§%ion--is entirely the result of the conditioning factors of his heredity and his environment, then what conceivable area of what we have traditionally called moral choice has not been predetermined? 41 Howard Hintz, "Some Further Reflections on Moral Responsibility," in Hook's Freedom and Determinism(op. cit), p. 178. 75 Is Hospers' position a form of fatalism? That depends upon what we mean by fatalism, In one sense, fatalism.denies that man's choices or decisions have any effect in the world. Hospers is not a fatalist in this sense. He claims that an individual's choice makes a difference in what will happen. But as we have seen, he fails to give an adequate account of individuation, without which "individual" choice would not have any meaning. In another sense, fatalism asserts that what happens is necessary and unavoidable; there is no human control. In this sense, he is a fatalist. He insists that the causes of our decisions are not something we have control over; and our decisions are themselves elements in the causal series. Therefore, we cannot control over our decisions. Indeed, a distinction between fatalism and a consistent determinism.is not clear. As Richard Taylor points out, "one who endorses the claim of universal causation, then, and the theory of the causal determination of all human behavior, is a kind of fatalist--or at least he should be, if he is consist- ent." He adds: For that theory...once it is clearly spelled out and not hedged about with unresolved "ifs," does entail that whatever happens is rendered inevitable by the causal conditions preceding it, and is therefore unavoidable.42 Thus one may think of verbal formulas for distinguishing two theories by appeals to the ordinary use of language, but if we take a fatalist to be one who has a certain attitude, and 42 Richard Taylor, Metaphysics(op. cit.), p. 59. 76 not a theory, then as Taylor points out, "we find it to be the attitude that a thoroughgoing determinist should, in consistency, assume."43 A determinist's descrption of man is then a fatalist, someone who believes that whatever happens is and always was unavoidable. The determinist, like a fatalist, thinks it is not up to him what will happen tomorrow, or the very next moment. He thus thinks of the future in the way we all think of the past, for all men are fatalists as they look back on things. We all think of the past as some- thing settled and fixed, to be taken for what it is. For the determinist, the future is also settled and fixed. Both my past and future are merely the products of my heredity and environment. In order to be distinguished from fatalism, the determinists might need a certain distinction, by which one can reasonably assert about his own luck, for instance. The determinists, it has been pointed out, by equating sufficient with necessary causes, demand that a statement of he causes for an effect be equivalent to a rational explan- ation of that effect. As the action theorists point out, they regard as a rational explanation one that shows that the effect follows from its causes necessarily from premises that provide its rational ground. To say what its causes are is thus to give the reasons why the effect must occur. If a free choice is a caused effect and not a matter of chance, it should be possible, according to the determinists, to give the reason 43 Ibid. 77 why this particular choice was made rather than that. It may be useful to refer to I. A. Melden, who makes a distinct- ion between "making something A happen" and "doing A."44 According to Melden, we explain a deliberate action by providing a reason for the act, and that reasons are not causes; hence, the correct explanation of a deliberate act is not a causal explanation. From this, he concludes that there can be no opposition between causal determinism and freedom of action.45 As Ofstad points out, Melden's view is similar to Kant's solution of the dilemma of freedom and determinism in that they divide the world into two domains--name1y, "one subjected to causality, another beyond it."46 However, opponents of the view, Donald Davidson, for example, argue that actions are explained by reason, but that reason them: selves either are causes or have causes, and therefore, the theory that actions are explained by reasons does not entail that there is no conflict between determinism.and freedom,47 In what follows, I shall briefly discuss Melden's position and its criticism, and point out this kind of controversy can 44 I. A. Melden, Free Action(New York: Humanities Press, 1961), especially Chapter 3. 45 R. S. Peters also defends this position in his The Concept of Mbtivation(N.Y.: Humanities Press, 1958) 46 H. Ofstad, "Recent WOrk on the Free-will Problem," p. 185. 47 Donald Davidson, "Actions, Reasons, and Causes," The Journal of Philosophy, LX, No. 23 (1963), pp. 693-694 €1327§ee his "Causal Relations," Journal of Philospphy, LXIV 78 be settled only after we can have an adequate account of the self which is logically prior both to reason and causation as well as to actions and happenings. I believe that this preliminary discussion of causation is worthwhile before we analyse the concept of introspection in order to move toward a theory of the self. I shall limit my discussion to two questions: (i) Why is that an action is "more than" a bodily movement? (ii) Why is the causal model inapplicable to actions? With regard to the first question, Melden points out, what is distinctive about actions is an implicit reference to some set of rules, norms, practices, principles, or standards in terms of which the action is described and can be evaluated. That is, for him, actions are typically done for reason, and reasons involve reference to rules, standards, norms, and principles. To illustrate this, Melden analyzes the example of a driver signalling at a crossroad. The driver moves his arm in a certain way, but "because of our familiar- ity with the rule of the road, we recognize...that he is signalling."48 Thus, signalling is understood in connection with social rules, whereas "moving the arm" or happening is not. However, it is often pointed out that Melden's distinct- ion between actions and happenings in terms of social rules is not adequate; furthermore, the concept of action remains 43 Melden, Free Action(op. cit.), p. 191 79 unexplained. As H. Ofstad points out: a person may act even if he is a nonconventional actor doing something which we have not been trained to under- stand. He may have to explain the nature of his action to the puzzled observers. 9 Thus if actions are typically done for reason, the reasons do not have to be limited to social reasons. It may be true that rules enter into the very description of large numbers of actions. But it may also be true that there are private reasons as well, which.may be better understood in terms of one's intention. Ofstad would be right when he says, Melden "puts the rules of society where he should have put the intent- ion of the individual."50 In particular, an individual's intention is more relevant when we try to describe those act— ions more complex than simply "moving the arm." Jerome A. Shaffer also points out: When it is a question of applying rules or norms in the description of an action, we must make sure that we apply the appropriate ones. And the appropriateness of the rules or norms will depend upon whether the agent intended £2 act in accordance with those rules or nonms.51 "The problem, then," he adds, "is to give an account of Intentions." But the point is that if intentions are mental states or events, then we are inevitably led to the notion of the self, which is sometimes referred as a mental cause or agent-causation. 49 Ofstad, "Recent WOrk on the Free-will Problem," p. 185 50 Ibid. pp. 185-186 51 Jerome A. Shaffer, Philosophy of Mind(Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1968), p. 95. Undérline is mind. 80 Concerning our second question as to whether the causal model is applicable to actions, Melden gives us following; here he shows that the relation between reasons and the act- ions they motivate cannot be causal. In order to individuate motives, intentions, and so forth we must describe them as reasons for something-- for example, for committing or abstaining from a certain act-éor intentions to do something--for example, to act or fail to act in a certain way. But the acts in terms of which intentions and motives are specified are precisely those acts that, Ex hypothesis, citations of the intent- ions, motives and so on, are supposed to explain causally. This means, in particular, that if reasons are causes, then the putative cause of an event is specified in such a way as to include a reference to event itself. And this, in turn, would appear to violate the Humean stricture that causessmust be logically independent of the events they cause. This argument is persuasive in that it seems to follow from the remark that causal relations are empirica1—-that is, not logical--and that remark appears, in turn, to be analytic. However, as it appears, it is unclear what the argument is supposed to prove on the nature of action. Many of the arguments adduced to show that explanation have been competent- ly criticised by Davidson and Pears. For example, Davidson points out that if X caused Y, then "is the cause of Y" is a true description of X to the effect that the argument, what- ever it may prove, could not provide grounds for objecting to this sort of logical connection between descriptions of the cause and of the effect.53 Indeed, Davidson's main concern is to establish the thesis that "A primary reason for an 52 Melden, Free Action(op. cit.), pp. 33-34 53 Davidson, "Actions, Reasons, and Causes," p. 693 81 action is its cause."54 One way to show the validity of the thesis is to prove that reason is also logically independent of action just as causes are logically independent of the events they cause. On this, Davidson makes two points: one is that to describe an event in terms of its cause is not to identify the event with its cause, nor does explanation by redescription exclude causal explanation. The other is that a cause cannot be logically distinct from the effect when they are "properly described."55 It does without saying that the thesis is based on his notion of cause and causal explanation which may be best illustrated in Davidson's following passage: Generalisation like 'If you strike a well-made match hard enough against a properly prepared surface, then, other conditions being favorable, it will light' owe their importance not to the fact that we can hope event- ually to render them.untendentious and exceptionless, but rather to the fact that they summarise much of our evidence for believing that fullfedggd causal laws exist covering events we wish to explain. This is his account of the central cause-effect relation. It 54 Ibid. p. 694. He gives a necessary condition for primary reasons: "R is a primary reason why an agent performed the action A under the descrption d_only if R consists of a pro attitude of the agent toward actions with a certain property, and a belief of the agent that A, under the description d, has that property." 55 Ibid. p. 692. By "appropriate description of an event," he seems to mean this: If I go to the store for bread, my reason is to get bread. But if we substract the reason (that is, for bread) from the description of the action, then there is no oddness in speaking of cause and effect. That I went to the store, Davidson says, does not even entail that I wanted to go to the store--I might have wanted to go to a bar and and mistook the store for a bar. 56 Davidson, "Causal Relations," p. 701 82 is obvious that he includes reasons in his notion of causes, which is sometimes called "broader" than Melden's. It may be important to note that their controversy rests on a different conception of causation, and also that the notion of intention- ality takes a central role in the discussion of reasons and causes. Shaffer points out in favor of Davidson: the existence of my reasons for doing some action in no way entails that the action will occur and vice versa. Like "expectation of," "reason for" is an "intentional" notion, containing internal reference to something, but it is logically independent of what it refers to, and can therefore by causally connected with what it refers to.57 On this account, indeed, reasons themselves either are causes or have causes; therefore, it follows that actions are explain- ed by reasons does not entail that there is no conflict between determinism.and freedom. It may be the case that reasons can be causes of actions without being mechanical causes, which are no longer thought to be the only sorts of causation even in physics. However, if we arbitrarily construe causes as reasons of action, then the notion of causation is not less mysterious than the agent theorist's agent—causation or imminent-causation, which is solely based on the mystic idea of the self. In the above, we have briefly examined action theorists attempt to solve the dilemma of freedom and determinism by an analysis of the notions of reason and causation. we have found out, however, that some verbal formulas for distinguish- ing between actions and happenings, or reasons and causes by 57 Shaffer, Philospphygof Mind(op. cit.), p. 104. 83 appeals to the use of ordinary language did not help us muCh in dealing with the problem of fatalism which is implied by the deterministic notion of the self as a mechanical process. It seems obvious that any attempt to solve the problem.of freedom and determinism without an adequate analysis of the notion of self would be fruitless. It may be reasonable to go back to encounter the self directly; one way would be to examine the notion of introspection. 2.5 Introspection: Its Epistemological Status The main objection to the deterministic view of the self is that they view the self from "the outside" where every event is causally determined. From the outside, it is pointed out, one cannot see the self but a mechanical process, in which such a distinction between action and happenings is not intelli- gible either. In order to make up its defective view, we may have to see the self from "the inside" as well. Experience, indeed, whether it be of freedom or causal chain, is always seen from the inside, and in the nature of the case can never be seen directly from the outside. It is primarily personal and individual. To deny this would be to deny the very possib- ility not only of freedom, but also of causation; in fact, to make the controversy between two beliefs itself meaningless. To admit it is to get a platform on which the question of freedom can be intelligibly discussed. In this respect, it may be necessary to examine the notion of introspection, an alleged way of experiencing the self and its freedom as the 84 libertarians have claimed. In this section, I shall discuss the status of introspection as an epistemologically signific- ant method in dealing with the problem of the self and the dilemma of freedom and determinism, and try to see whether Campbell is justified in appealing to it in order to defend his libertarian position. With regard to its epistemological significance, on the traditional account, introspection has been thought to be analogous to perception; it has been understood as a non- discursive process by which the mind contemplates its own acts. Just as one can distinguish between seeing an object and mak- ing judgements about what one sees, so one can distinguish between introspecting a mental state and making judgement about it. But perceiving involves the use of the sensory organs, the eyes, ears, etc. What is the organ of introspection? Traditionally, it has been regarded that there is no physical organ to do the job, so, it must be the mind or one of its parts. It would seem then that the standard account of intro- spection presupposes that the mind is a nonphysical entity capable of having quasi-sensory experience.58 58 Descartes, for example, assumed that critical inquiry reveals that the mind knows itself-~its own existence and its own characteristic--with a greater certainty than it knows any— thing else. .Following the introspective method of Descartes, Locke set himself to examine in detail the powers of the mind and its claims to knowledge, and came to conclusions which directly or indirectly touched off some of the most controvers- ial issues in modern philosophy. Berkely also had continued in adherence to the Cartesian principle that knowledge of our own mind or self is more direct and certain and basic than any other knowledge. 85 Introspection, at least in Cartesian tradition, was regarded as the starting-point of all deliberate inquiry. However, Hume, putting this introspective method to a critical test, found that it revealed no entity or substantial self, as we shall see later. Similarly, determinists such as behaviorists and materialists rejected the presupposition of the standard account of introspection that the mind is a nonphysical entity capable of having quasi-sensory experiences; they could be introspectivists only in the sense that the brain is capable of self-reflection. What, then, is introspection? It is usually defined as turning the mind inward upon itself, and is thus practically synonymous with self-consciousness or self-observation to that extent. It may also be distinguished from both external and internal events considered as a mere stream of experiences that are not held in the field of attention as phenomena of self. External events may occur in a series, or be a stream of facts in a sequential or a causal order, but they are not aware of this fact, nor of themselves as individual events. They simply occur and do not know. As R. F. Alfred Hoernlé points out, Self-consciousness is the name for all forms of experi- ence the structure of which exhibits the characteristic distinction of Self and Other. Such experiences are the source of, and furnish the data for, explicit self-know- ledgg.OtThey bear witness to the existence of self in a wor her than it, and containing other selves in various relations to it.59 59 R. F. Alfred Hoernlé, Studies in Contemporary Meta- physics(N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Howe, 1920), p. 255. 86 On the other hand, ordinary states of consciousness, such as sensations, memories, and thoughts, occur also more or less like outer events, but they also represent some kind of know- ledge. In one's waking states one is continuously conscious, perhaps usually conscious only of what is going on about one. One may not be inspecting the states themselves. But, at any moment in which one may wish to look at these states as one's own, one may turn the mind's attention to these internal events and distinguish them as mind and not outer facts. This is what we call an act of introspection. It is regarded as identical with self-consciousness in so far as it represents awareness of one's own states, but it also implies more persist- ency of attention than is necessary for an act of self-con- sciousness. More properly, we may take it to be self-observat- ion, in the sense that we thus contemplate our own action and its relation to the 'self', and become observers of our mental states as they pass, whether these states are the result of external stimuli or are the inner and spontaneous actions of the mind. On the part of libertarians, introspection has a special significance in that man is the only being that practises introspection, and it is one of the most important incidents in his intellectual and moral development. Without this power and habit of introspection man would be a mere passive spect- ator of outer events, and would take no voluntary part in his own development, but would be the blind result of his environ- ment. And it is this mode of self-observation that Campbell 87 appeals to as a means of justifying his belief in the exist- ence of the self and contra-causal freedom. He maintains that all people who experience a certain kind of moral conflict are aware of these. On his critics, he remarks: they are looking for it in the wrong way; or better, perhaps, with the wrong orientation. They are looking for it from the standpoint of the external observers...60 According to Campbell, one can never observe such a thing as "creative activity" from.the external standpoint. He adds: there is one way, and one way only, in which we can hope to apprehend it, and that is from the inner standpoint of direct participation... For suppose I make the effort and chose X (my 'duty'). Since my very purpose in making the 'effort' is to enable me to act against the existing 'set' of desires, which is the expression of my character as so far formed, I cannot possibly regard the act itself as the expression of my character.51 Campbell also asserts that we can conceive of the self as distinguished from character from.the inner standpoint of direct participation, namely by introspective method, not from the standpoint of the external observer. Thus he says: introspection makes it equally clear that I am.certain that it is I who choose; that the act is not an 'accident', but is genuinely m act. 0r suppose that I choose Y (the end of strongest esire'). The course chosen here is, it is true, in conformity with my 'character'. But since I find myself unable to doubt that I could have made the effort and chosen X, I cannot possibly regard the choice of Y as just the expression of my character. Campbell's argument is that we have introspective evidence that men believe themselves to be in possession of 60 C. A. Campbell, "Is 'Freewill' a Pseudo-Problem?" p. 132. 61 Ibid. p. 133. 62 Ibid. pp. 133-134. 88 contra-causal freedom on the basis of their inner experience of being able to make the hard choice against the predominant tendency of their character. It has been, however, customary on the part of a certain group of determinists such as scientific philosophers, in particular, to ridicule introspection as an organ of knowledge at all. Possibly, this attitude of mind was due to the habit of the opposing school of trying to assert certain truths which were supposed to be unanalyzable and unamenable to scepticism. Whatever the faults of a dogmatic method, however, it was easy to show that the very critic of introspection could not make any contention in his own favor without the use of introspective and analytic habits of thought and reflection. Thus, even such a radical behaviorist as Skinner asserts that man is distinguished from.the other animals mainly because he is "aware of his own existence." He remarks: He knows what he is doing; he knows that he has had a past and will have a future; he "reflects on his own nature"; he alone follows the classical injunction "Know thyself." Any analysis of human behavior which neglected these facts would be defective indeed. However, Skinner's concern is not the question whether a man can know himself by introspection but what he knows when he does so. "The problem arises in part from the indisputable fact of privacy," admits Skinner, and this small part of the 63 B. F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity(op. cit.), p. 181. 89 universe is enclosed "within a human skin." He adds: It would be foolish to deny the existence of that private world, but it is also foolish to assert that because it is private it is of a different nature from the world outside. The difference is not in the stuff of which the private world is composed, but in its accessibility.54 Thus skinner does not deny the possibility of introspection or self-observation and its possible usefulness, but he quest- ions the nature of what is felt or observed and hence known. In other words, he as a determinist restores introspection but not what such a philosopher as Campbell had believed he has "specting," from inner standpoint. The question at issue then is: What can we feel or observe by introspection, and how much can we rely on it? Skinner's own position is stated as follows: What is felt or introspectively observed is not some nonphysical world of consciousness, mind, or mental life but the observer's own body. This does not mean...that .introspection is a kind of physiological research, nor does it mean (and this is the heart of the argument) that what are felt or introspectively observed are the causes of behavior.65 ”An organism behaves as it does because of its current struct- ure, adds Skinner, "but most of this is out of reach of introspection." This position is well contrasted with Campbell's view as we have seen. In the following, I shall examine what 64 Ibid. pp. 181-182 55 Skinner, About Behaviorism(N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1974), p. 17. In a later passage, he mentions that his analysis rests on the assumption: "A person is first of all an organism, a member of a species and a subspecies, possessing a genetic endowment of anatomical and physiological characteristics,which are the product of the contingencies of survival to which the species has been exposed in the process of evolution."Cf. p.207. 90 Campbell wants to show by the introspective evidence and consider what kind of objections can be made against him. According to Campbell, again, he cannot doubt the introspective evidence that there is a moral self as distin- guished from.character, and that we can enjoy counter-causal freedom in the situation of 'moral temptation'. Against this claim, R. D. Bradley raises three objections concerning the epistemological status of introspection. Bradley argues, first, that conflicting reports are obtained by the introspective method, and this by itself rasises serious doubts about the validity of its findings. In other words, we know how to settle perceptual dispute, for example, but we do not know how we can settle introspective dispute. He claims: There seems to be nothing available even remotely resembling the elaborate system of checks and precautions that the laboratory experimenter demands for the success- ful conduct of his experiments. Nor is it possible, in this sort of case, to call in a third party to review, check or repeat the experiment, for clearly no one can either verify or falsify the private introspected findings of another.6 Secondly, Bradley points out that we can never observe that our decision in a particular case is not caused by our charact- er. We can only fail to observe, for him, that it is thus caused; and this is no basis for concluding that it is not thus caused. In his own words: . 55 R. D: Bradley, "Free Will: Problem or Pseudo Problem?" in Australa31an Journal of Philosophy, 36 (May, 1958), p. 41 91 We may, under certain conditions, be able to observe X, but we can never be completely sure that we have observed non-x: it is always possible that we have instead merely not-observed.6 "Thus, absence of an experience of causality," he adds, "is far from being the same as experience of an absence of caus- ality." Finally, Bradley denies that our-consciousness reveals the truth of such propositions as "My will is contra-causally free" and "The self has a power of absolute spontaniety." This, he argues, cannot be the case, firstly because the data of introspect- ion do not in fact include any propositions, and secondly, because such propositions cannot even be said to report such data, let alone report them correctly.58 In short, for Bradley, there is no epistemological signifi- cance in the findings of introspection; hence it cannot be used to refute the truth of determinism, and to show the evidence of the existence of the self and of contra-causal freedom. In his "Free Will: A Reply to Mr. R. D. Bradley," Campbell responds to Bradley's criticism, First of all, Campbell explains that he does not hold that by introspection "we can become aware of 'contra-causal' freedom (as it were) 'in act- ion.'" He says: What I do hold is that by introspection we can become aware of an experience in which a belief in 'contra- causal' freedom is an intrinsic element. On the former of these views, introspection, in so far as veridical, would of itself establish free will. But I have never dreamt of crediting introspection with such authority.69 67 Ibid. p. 42. 68 Ibid. 59 Campbell, "Free Will: A Reply to Mr. R.D. Radley," Ibid. p. 52. 92 Campbell's contention is that the introspective evidence does at least one thing. By showing the existence of a commonly held belief that we have free will, it brings us face to face with the problem whether that belief is true or false. In other words, it does not supply us with a full solution of that problem, but it should, Campbell thinks, stop anyone from dismissing the question as a pseudo-problem or from holding, as the soft-determinists do, that the contro- versy between freedom and determinism arises from mere 'verbal' confusion. He remarks: the real source of Bradley's confidence in the 'unanswer- ability' of the free-will question lies, not in any grounds he offers here, but in his belief that David Hume has shown once and for all that the question is at bottom a mere dispute about words.70 Campbell agrees, however, with Bradley's second criticism that propositions cannot be included in the data of intro- spection. But he feels that this does not affect his position. "But of course what we observe in introspection, for me, is not 'an interruption of the causal order'," Campbell says, "but a belief that one is bringing about such an interrupt- ion."71 He adds: Introspection (so far as veridical) establishes not a 'negative existential proposition,‘ but the positive existential proposition that there exists, in my experi- ence as a moral agent in the situation of moral temptation, a belief of a certain kind.72 70 Ibid. p. 47. 71 Ibid. p. 53. 72 Ibid. p. 53 93 The positive existential proposition that introspection can establish is, for Campbell, the proposition: "I am the only cause of this decision,’ in which "I" is perhaps regarded as agent-causation, and not event-causation in Chisholmis sense. He repeats: it is not a belief that one's moral decision is, without qualification, 'uncaused'. For my experience, "1" cause it; but by a creative causality which is incompatible with causal continuity.73 Campbell's critics do not always deny the belief in the moral self and contra-causal freedom, but rather they find it difficult to accept this belief because of a lack of positive evidence as Bradley points out. Thus one may ask: Can we kppg that such propositions as 'I am contra-causally free' are true, if we examine that contents of our own consciousness by introspection, or inner perception, or self-observation? Campbell's response is: That introspection can provide us with valuable positive evidence for the proposition's truth, I do claim... But I do not contend that it establishes the proposition in question.74 While he also admits that the belief may be illusory, he claims that is not at present the point. The point is whether beliefs of this sort are in fact discoverable in the moral agent in the situation of 'moral temptation' in which I could have done otherwise. Campbell further claims that the onus of proof rests upon those who reject this factual belief, if they undeniably 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. p. 54. 94 experience it. As this juncture, one might say, Campbell goes too far. If I, for example feel that 'I could not have 'moral temptation', then done otherwise' in the situation of does that experience imply that I am determined? As C. Shute points out, "the hardest decision has not come accompanied by a feeling of self-exertion but rather by a feeling of being overcome ("I cannot do otherwise"). This is a well recogniz- ed phenomenon..." He adds: The Christian appeals for explanation to the grace of God, the Freudian to the super-ego, and the psychologist to the modifications of one 8 total personal organization. But the feeling of being not the victor but the vanquished in the hour of what objectively is a moral triumph, is quite possibly as common as the feeling to which Campbell appeals. The question at issue is then: Is it the case that beliefs derived from.introspection are unreliable, while beliefs derived from external perception are always reliable from the epistemological point of view? From a determinist's point of view, beliefs derived from introspection are notoriously deceptive. According to Skinner, the defect mainly comes from the limitation of the organs a person uses in observing himself. His concern here is "the anatomy and physiology of the inner eye." For him, all that a person comes to know about himself with its help is just more stimuli and responses. This is so, because we do not make contact with that vast nerve system that mediates 75 C. Shute, "The Dilemma of Determinism after Seventy- five Years," Mind, vol. 70, 1961, p. 337. 95 our behavior. we do not because we have no nerve going to "the right places."75 In other words, we do not know yet what the organ of introspection is. For Campbell this mode of viewing the self as a subject and contra-causal freedom is look for them from "the stand- point of the external observer." This standpoint not only does not help us in introspecting the self and freedom, for Campbell, but it also raises all the defects and problems which are inherent in our perceptual observation. From an external observer's standpoint, Skinner thus describes the difficulty of introspective observation as follows: Trying to observe much of what is going on in one's own body is like trying to hear supersonic sounds or see electromagnatic ra iation beyond the visible range. The brain is particularly lacking in sense organs (its re- sponses to stimulation are not really sensing); it plays an extraordinary role in behavior but not as the object of that special behavior called knowing.77 Thus he says, "We can never know through introspection what the physiologist will eventually discover with his special instruments."73 It may also be the case, however, that we can never know through the physiologist's special instruments what we eventually discover with our inner eye; this may be the case in principle, not due to the defect of scientific 76 Skinner, About Behaviorism(op. cit.), p. 216. 77 Ibid. pp. 216-217. 73 Ibid. According to Skinner, "self-observation must be confined to the three nervous systems.. an introceptive system going to the viscera, a properioceptive nerverous system going to the skeletal frame, and an exteroceptive system bring- ing a person mainly into contact with the world around him." 96 technology. From the external point of view, Wilder Penfield, a neurosurgeon, says that "the highest brain mechanism," as shown in Figure 1, is essential to the existence of conscious- ness, and there is no recording of a stream of consciousness, even though other mechanisms in the brain can continue to function and the person can continue to exhibit certain behav- ior. CENTRAL GRAY MATTER of ( HIGHEST BRAIN-MECHANISM Thalamus & 7 ? ? 7 r basal ganglia { 3..; -1.1.} HIGHER < :_’. .33., BRAIN {7 ~ ." Pulvinar STEM '.- " ’ -—-7 ‘ t . "1"" :-"\ k Optic n. jffrff \ Lateral & medial ._ ??? geniculate bodies Midbrain ‘ PONS LOWER Superior & inferior BRAIN ' ’ Q coliculi STEM Acoustic n. '» Medulla \ \ Brachium pontis oblongata H \\~Spina1 cord Figure 1. The Highest Brain-Mechanism. The site of the central gray matter of this brain- mechanism, the normal action of which constitutes the physical basis of the mind, is shown by the dotted lines. The question marks indicate only that the detailed anat- omical circuits involved are yet to be established, not that there is any doubt about the general position of this area in which cellular inactivation produces unconscious- ness...(Panfield, p. 38). 97 Panfield says that such inactivization of the highest brain mechanism occurs in an attack of epileptic automatism.where "the patient becomes suddenly unconscious, but, since other mechanisms in the brain continue to function, he changes into an automaton."79 He adds: He may wander about, confused and aimless. Or he may continue to carry out whatever purpose his mind was in the act of handing on to his automatic sensory-motor mechanism.when the highest brain-mechanism.went out of action. Or he follows a stereotyped, habitual pattern of behavior. He makes no record of a stream of conscious- ness.30 He also points out that whether one adopts a dualist or a monist hypothesis, the mechanism is essential to consciousness. "It comes between the mind and the final integration that takes place automatically in the sensory-motor mechanism.and it plays an essential role in the mechanism."81 From the above oberservation, can we then infer that it may be theoretically possible that my highest brain mechanism is all that needs to function in order for me to have intro- spection, or self-consciousness? Or, as Panfield puts it, "Can reflex action in the end, account for it?"82 His answer is "No". He says: Mind comes into action and goes out of action with the highest brain-mechanism, it is true. But the mind has energy. The form of that energy is different from that of neuronal potentials that travel the axone pathways. There I must leave it.33 79 Wilder Penfield, The Mystery of the Mind(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press,’l975), p. 39. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid. p. 47. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. 98 Indeed, it would be essential to understand that the validity of beliefs from.introspection cannot be shown in terms of the criteria by which the validity of beliefs from perceptual evidence is proved. From the external standpoint, beliefs in the self and freedom.are unreliable; they are unreliable, not only because they may be deceptive, but also because there is no objective method of determining whether or not they are deceptive. To be sure, the introspective method does not provide us with a means of evaluating our beliefs or of check- ing for possible deceptions insofar as the physical world is concerned. However, it would be also important to note that the method of the external observation does not provide us with a means of evaluating our belief in the self and freedom; we have not seen it yet. As Keith Lehrer pinpoints, we have as good a reason for accepting a belief in free will based on introspection as we have for believing there is a physical world. Against such determinists as Carl G. Hempel and Adolf Grflnbaum, Lehrer maintains that although such experiences as physical objects, other minds, past events, or free will may be deceptive, "it simply does not follow that they do not provide adequate evidence for believing in the existence of physical objects, other minds, past events, and freewill."86 That is, it may be possible that the evidence that we have for accepting any 84 Keith Lehrer, "Can we Know That we have Free Will by Introspection?" in Journal of Philosophy, 57 (Mar. 3, No. 5, 1960), p. 153. 99 hypothesis is deceptive, unless the evidence entails the hypothesis. He remarks: ...to argue that because an experience may be deceptive it does not provide adequate evidence for accepting a hypothesis is to be committed to the untenable position that no inductive evidence is adequate evidence for accept- ing any hypothesis, for we may be deceived if we accept any hypothesis on any inductive evidence; that is, the hypothesis that we accept on the basis of the evidence may be false.85 It seems reasonable to say that we have just as good a reason for accepting introspective evidence as we have for believing in a physical world. In both cases, these beliefs are un- verifiable in the sense that we are not able to show the absolute certainty which the sceptic might require; this is so, because they are corrigible in the case of beliefs about the outer world, whereas they are incorrigible in the case of beliefs about the inner world. On this respect, the findings of introspection and the findings of perception cannot have epistemological priority over one another.86 It seems unreasonable to deny that we shall be convinced by introspection that we can choose to perform some action other than the action we do in fact perform. However, we may 85 Ibid. 35 It may be useful to refer to Thomas Reid, for whom "our belief in the existence of physical things, other person, pase events, and free action provide their own justification." Of the belief that we are free, he says: "It resembles, in this respect, our belief of the existence of the material world, our belief that those we converse with are living and intelligent beings...and our belief that we continue the same identical per- son." Cf. The Philosophical work of Thomas Reid, ed. by Sir ‘W. Hamilton (London: James Thius PubliSher, 1932), p. 617 100 have to be careful about the relevance of this datum, I think Campbell is perfectly justified in claiming that the introspective method is the only way of observing our inner world, where the moral self and freedom properly dwell. From.this, however, it does not follow that he is also just- ified in claiming that the moral self can block the causal chain of the physical world and can enjoy counter-causal freedom. Carl G. Hempel's argument is formulated to point out the limit of introspective data; indeed, it would be irrelevant to the question of causal determination, if it has to do only with physical events. In order to decide whether a given act of choice is causally determined we have to judge, for Hempel, "whether there is an antecedent event with which the choice is connected py_§_general law of simple form. He continues: And surely the data obtainable by introspection, especial- ly the "stubborn feeling of freedom," have no bearing on this question. The timid man in a hypnotist's audience, for example, who gets up to make a speech, may truthfully protest a feeling of complete freedom in choosing to do so: this is quite compatible with the possibility that his choice was causally determined (viea general laws concerning the effects of hypnosis) by the instructions he received earlier under hypnosis. Thus, as Hempel points out, the datum of introspection has no bearing on the question of whether our choice is connected by a general law with some antecedent event. This is so, however, not because the datum.of introspection is more 37 C. G. Hempel, "Some Reflections on 'The Case for Determinism'," Hook's Determinism.and Freedom(op. cit.),p.l6l 101 deceptive than the datum of perception, and therefore not providing adquate evidence for believing that we sometimes can choose to perform an action and also can choose not to perform it because we may be deceived by introspection; but because introspection and its findings have nothing to do with the causal chain of external world,.just as external observation has nothing to do with freedom.and the substant- ial self. Accordingly, I think Campbell is not justified in claim- ing that the findings of introspection such as freedom.and the self are counter-causal in character which might block the causal chain of external events of physical world. If he is justified in claiming that the inner landscape cannot be viewed by means of the external observation through the physical eye, one may equally be justified in maintaining that the external physical phenomena should not be observed and judged by means of the inner eye through introspection. By this, I mean that unless we have criteria, or an eye, by which both the inner world and outer phenomena can be equally verified and observed, we are not entitled to deal with the problem of determinism.and freedom in the same universe of discourse as that within which we consider external phenomena. That is to say, but for the criteria, we are not able to claim that either determinism is true or freedom thesis is false; we may have to have a faculty which goes beyond both intro- spection and external perception. Spinoza may be right when he says that "No individual things are felt or perceived by 102 us excepting bodies and modes of thought."88 We may need a breakthrough view which does not rest entirely on either thought or a extension, taken separately. These are two parallel attributes of the one substance, God, who is the unity of the two--and of an infinity of other attributes. By means of a third eye, such as mystics seem to possess, it may also be possible to view the world and I as one and the same, in which case the dilemma of freedom and determinism appear to be illusory. Of course, as Alan W, Watts points out, this is a strange view of freedom.and determinism. But the strange feeling, I think, arises from our assumption that 'I', as a subject, am distinct from the world as an object. In order to find a genuine solution for the dilemma, indeed, we have to be free from an assumption about the self that the determinists and the libertarians would have accepted respectively. In the following chapter, I shall discuss the seemingly contadictory views of the self--the libertarian self as an active and creative mental substance and the determin- ist's self as a passive bundle or a mechanical passive process of characters. After examining these views, I shall introduce a notion of the self as a transcendental entity which is identical with the world. As an example of the view I shall 83 Baruch Spinoza, S inoza, ed. by John Wild (N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 19585, p. 145. For Spinoza, the self is essentially a rational self and, in so far as truly conceived, is on mode in the infinite nature of God. In this respect, he differs from.other determinists such as Hobbes, Holback, and Hume, including contemporary ones. As we shall see, I would rather classify him as a mystic. 103 encounter, consider watts' following i11ustration.: The meaning of freedom can never be grasped by the divided mind. If I feel separate from my experience, and from the world, freedom will seem to be the extent to which I can push the world around, and fate the extent 'to which the world pushes me around. But to the whole mind there is no contrast of "I" and the world. There is just one process acting, and it does everything that happens. It raises my finger and it creates earthquakes. Or, if you want to put it that way, I raise my little finger and also make earthquakes. No one fates and no one is being fated.39 In this chapter, we have seen that the dilemma of freedom and determinism primarily arises from the fact that man has two contradictory ways of looking at himself. Accordingly, the solution of the dilemma must be preceded by a breakthrough view of the self, which supercedes both the libertarian's and the determinist's notion of the self. The following chapter will be concerned with a search for such an idea of the self. 89 Alan W, watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity(N.Y.: Random House, Inc., 1951), p. 122. CHAPTER III TOWARD AN ADEQUATE THEORY OF THE SELF In the previous chapters, we have seen in some detail that the notion of the self takes an essential role in the dilemma of freedom and determinism, We have found out that there are some determinists who do not accept the Cartesian substantial self; we have also examined the libertarians who reject the Humean bundle theory of the self as inadequate to solve the dilemma at issue. From this, of course, we can- not infer that Humean bundle theory of the self is incompatible with libertarianism, or that Cartesian substance theory of the self is properly the libertarian's notion of the self. One may say, for example, that there is an enduring or serial self and all its states are determined to be what they are by the causes that act on it. In fact, there are determinists like Thomas Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, and Schopenhauer, who do not subscribe to the theory of Humean bundle self. On the other hand, thinkers like Bergson, William.James, and C. S. Peirce are indeterminists and libertarians, yet it is not at all clear that they do not hold something more like the theory of the "serial self." However, from.the above considerations, we can infer that there are two incompatible views of the self--one is the deterministic view of the self as a mechanical process, whether the process is of mental substances or physical events, and the other is the indeterministic view of the self as an 104 105 agent which exists and functions over and above that process, again, whether the agent is a mental substance or a part of physical events. Thus the determinist sees in each self just what he sees in any other receptive object, a center where many mechanical processes cross, whereas the libertarian detects in that coordinating center a fresh creative power contrasted ippkipd_with the other agencies which meet together there. In fact, this is rather a truism. Therefore, from this trivial fact, it follows that the dilemma of freedom and determinism derives from.the problem of the self, which may be best depicted in the controversy between the Cartesian substance theory of the self and the Humean bundle theory of the self. This is not merely to transform the dilemma of freedom.and determinism into a form of the problem of the self, but an attempt to see the dilemma from another perspect- ive, namely, through the channel of the self, so to speak. From.an analysis of the seemingly contradictory theories of the self, I come to the conclusion that there is no reason why we have to take either a deterministic view of the self or a libertarian view of the self, not to speak of merely the Cartesian or the Humean theory of the self. This considerat- ion leads us to examine the Kantian view of the self as a noumenon as well as his solution of the dilemma in terms of the distinction he makes between phenomena and noumena; i.e., for Kant, man is noumenally free and phenomenally deter- mined. 106 However, since we have no such a faculty as "intellectual intuition" as Kant admits, I suggest, we must refer to mystic- ism in order to make the Kantian solution of the dilemma more persuasive. Thus, I point out, in a final analysis of the dilemma, we must admit that Wittgensteinian silence prevails, and an examination of mysticism is inevitable. 3.1 Setting the Stage for the Self In his introduction to Descartes, Ralph M. Eaton describ- es the importance of the self in philosophy as follows: Cartesianism give to subsequent thought, not only a general setting for the mechanical view of nature, but something very different-~a strain of subjectivism. The axiom, "I think, therefore I am," places the self in high relief as the primary datum of philosophy. It sets the fashion for philosophizing outward from the inner world of self-consciousness. Other selves and a common realm of objects are no longer taken for granted but must be proved to exist. A strange new problem enters philosophy --"Is there anything in existence beyond my own mind and its thoughts?" Indeed, to regard the self as a foundation for metaphysics or ontology appears, at least, to be a possibility only for the modern mind mainly due to Descartes' contribution. Not until the breakdown of the medieval synthesis could the self become the center of metaphysical consideration, since this synthesis was a fusion of the Greek reflection about the cosmos and Christian reflection about God. It is true that the self was long an important topic since Plato's tri-particte soul in the Republic and Aristotle's 1 Ralph M. Eaton ed., Descartes Selections(N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1955), pp. xxix-xxx. 107 De Anima, but only with Descartes did the analyis of the mind become the starting point for epistemology and metaphysics. This may be the reason why Gilbert Ryle takes Descartes' theory to be ”the official doctrine" in dealing with the origin of the "category-mistake." He says: It would not be true to say that the official theory derives solely from Descartes' theories, or even from a more widespread anxiety about the implications of seventeenth century mechanics. Thus he also mentions the importance of Scholastic and Reform- ation theology, Stoic-Augustinian theories of the will, and the Calvinist doctrines of sin and grace in addition to Platon- ic and Aristotelian theories of the intellect which shaped the orthodox doctrines of the immortality of the soul. He adds: Descartes was reformulating already prevalent theological doctrines of the soul in the new syntax of Galileo. The theologian's privacy of conscience became the philosoph- er's privacy of consciousness, and what had been the bogy of Predestination reappeared as the bogy of Determinism. Indeed, we may reasonably see that the problem of man and consequantly the problem of selfhood was obscured and virtual- ly lost in the great cosmological and theological speculations of ancient and medieval times. Descartes' discovery of the "I" is often said to be pointed to as a distinguishing mark of modern philosophy; man takes the place of cosmos and of God as the center of thought and the world. The importance 2 Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind(N.Y.: Barnes & Noble Books, 1949), p. 23. 3 Ibid. 108 of the self in the dilemma of freedom and determinism is obvious. The liberation which man ahcieved as a result of the disolution of the medieval synthesis, however, was not im- mediately accepted in philosophical circles. On the continent, Leibniz and Spinoza, and Descartes himself, continued with cosmological and speculative questions. In England, the newly found freedom occasioned empirical study which was man-centered, but the self became an object of psychological and scientific investigation rather than the basis for meta- physical reflection. When Immanuel Kant, confronted by the insoluble difficulties of Continental rationalism and British Empiricism, produced his Critique of Pure Reason, one might say, the full impact of the new world was felt. The self assumed the center of the stage; men became the critic of his own reason. The "Critical Philosophy" was born to save the whole of modern philosophy which had threatened to collapse in solipsism and skepticism.4 At that time, the dominant philosophical school was a form of metaphysical and episte- mological dualism, according to which there are two sorts of entities in the universe: minds and material objects. Despite differences on many points, the Lockeians and the Cartesians agreed that the mind is directly acquainted only with its own states; Hume, however, pointed out that if the mind knows only its own states, its own states are all that it knows. It was at this point that Kant came on the scene. 4 Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was published in 1781. 109 After Kant, a metaphysics based upon selfhood developed. Fichte was the first philosopher to construct such a system. For him, the self became the point at which the creative activity of the Absolute emerges in the individual conscious- ness; the worldmeant nothing of itself. In Hegel, a meta- physics of selfhood burst into full bloom, but the human self was swallowed up in the Absolute. Meanwhile, other philoso- phers pointed out that if things-in-themselves are unknowable, there can be no evidence that they exist; Herbert Spencer belonged to that group. F.H. Bradley replaced the Unknowable with "Absolute" again. On the other hand, S¢ren Kierkegaard attempted to emanci- pate the self from the Hegelian Absolute, and transformed it from the concrete universal into a living and dynamic reality over against the world. It is realized, however, that the supreme paradox of all thought is the attempt to discover by thought something which thought cannot think. This attempt seems to be a recurring theme in all thinking insofar as in thinking man participates in something transcending himself; and this paradox is fundamental as a presupposition for a metaphysics of selfhood. This paradox can be restated in the form of a question: Do we have a "positive idea" of the Thing- in-itself, or the Absolute? Bradley was forced to admit that "fully to realize the existence of the Absolute is for finite beings impossible."5 He also confessed that the idea of the 5 F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality(0xford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1930), p.*140. 110 Absolute, though "true as far as it goes,‘ inevitably remains "abstract and incomplete."6 Thus by the end of the century the Kantian strategy of substituting a human center, or the self, for the old external and objective center was increasing- ly perceived by philosophers as a failure. At the turn of the century a vigorous counterattack was launched. It was based on a theory of the nature of conscious- ness advocated by Brentano and Meinong. G.E. Moore's "The Refutation of Idealism" appeared to claim that, instead of being a product, experience is the simple juxtaposition of two radically different sorts of elements:the object of experience (what is experienced) and the act of experienceing this object. Thus there is no problem, Moore thought about the nature of the element blue as it occurs in experience: blue is just blue, no more or less, one item among the millions of items in the universe, but the item of which we happen, at this moment, to be aware. But what about consciousness, the other element in experience? For Moore, it merely selects blue, and holds it before the mind. He says: Whenever I have a mere sensation or idea, the fact is that I am then aware of something which is equally and in the same sense not an inseparable aspect of my experience.. There is, circle of our own ideas and sensation." Merely to have a sensation is already to be outside that circle. It is to know something which is as truly and really not a part of my experience, as anything which I can ever know. 5 Ibid. This book first published in 1893, that is, ten years before Moore's publication of "The Refutation of Idealism,' 7 G. E. Moore , "The Refutation of Idealism," in Philoso hi- cal Studies(Patterson, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams & Co.,19595, p.27. 111 This, then, was Moore's mode of escape from the solipsism and skepticism, his response to Hume who had pointed out that if what we know are only our own ideas, then we can never "get out of the circle of our own ideas." Mbore was not able to help Bertrand Russell, for example, who had been disturbed by subjective idealism, Russell "came to philosophy through.... the wish to find some reason to believe in the truth of mathe- matics."8 The difference between them is fundamental. Russell's philosophy is often said to a ”quest for cer- tainty" as strong as Descartesi a quest which can never be satisfied with Moore's common sense. Although Russell's view evolved over time, he had never given up the desire, in the interest of simplicity and certainty, to reduce as much as possible the numbers of inferred entities. He eliminated even physical objects, and then acts of consciousness itself from the universe, until the self appears to be a "logical fiction." He says: If there is a subject, it can have a relation to the patch of colour, namely, the sort of relation which we might call awareness... The subject, however, appears to be a logical fiction, like mathematical points and instants. It is introduced, not because observation reveals it, but because it is linguistically convenient and apparently demanded by rammar....The funtions that (nominal entities of this kind appear to perform can always be performed by classes or series or other logical constructions, 8 B. Russell , "Logical Atomism," in Lo ic and Knowled e ed. by Robert C. Marsh(N.Y.: Capricorn Books, I9715.The essay was originally published in 1924, when he preferred to call his philosophy "logical atomism" rather than "realism." p. 323. 112 consisting of less dubious entities. If we are to avoid a perfectly gratuitous assumption, we must dispense with the subjec as one of the actual ingredients of the world.9 This passage shows what Russell has found in a search for an absolutely secure basis for the world that science describes and that we experience in ordinary perception. To return from logic to ontology, words like matter, physical object, electron, Russell held, are treated as descriptive phrases, that is, as terms which can be eliminated. What are these entities? For Russell, they are "particulars" and not physical objects; they are to be conceived, "not on the analogy of bricks in a building, but rather on the analogy of notes in a symphony." He adds: The ultimate constituents of a symphony (apart from re- lations) are the notes, each of which lasts only for a very short time. We may collect together all the notes played by one instrument: these may be regarded as the analogues of the successive states of one "thing." But the "thing" ought to be regarded as no more "real" or "substantial" than, for example, the role of the trombone. In this account, each observer's sense-data fall into a pattern, or "perspective,” like the pattern of notes that constitute the role of the trombone. But can Russell's program be completed? He had wanted, with Descartes, to vindicate the claims of physics; in the end, he confessed that he believed in the world of physics ”without good grounds." As I have briefly mentioned 9 B. Russell, The Analysis of Mind(London: George Allen & Unwin, 1921), pp. 141:142. 10 B. Russell, " The Ultimate Constituent of Matter," in Mysticism and Logic(London: Penguin Books, 1953), pp. 124-125. 113 in 1.1, the Vienna Circle under the leadership of Schlick took over Russell's enterprise, but only with the difficulties of the ”verification principle." On the other hand, Husserl, the father of phenomenology, also has started from.Brentano's and Meinong's assertion that consciousness is directional, or intentional, in nature.11 But his concern was not similar to such realists as Moore and Russell, who concluded that consciousness can be ignored, from the fact that consciousness is always consciousness gf_and that there is no mediating idea between the mind and its object. However, Husserl shared Russell's quest for certainty, without ending up with his scepticism. He held that what transcenden- tally reduced observation accomplishes is precisely the stripp- ing away, progressively, of presuppositions brings one into the presence of reality itself, and a science starting from such a presuppositionless confrontation with reality will in- deed be objectively valid. First of all, he asks us to shift from the "natural standpoint." He says: Instead of now remaining at this standpoint, we propose to alter it radically...we set it as it were"out of action," we "disconnect it," "bracket it.” It still 11 It was Brantano's claim that consciousness is not merely constrasted with unconsciousness; we also speak of being conscious of this or that, as in "He was conscious of the tingling in his scalp." His statements can be found in Chisholm, ed., Realism and the Background of Phenomenology (N.Y.: The Free Press, 1960), pp 39-61. Thus eaCh mental act had an immanent object--what Brentano called an intentional object--reviving scholastic terminology. These objects were a kind of internal accusative to the relevant act, as a judg- ment is to be act of judgement. They provide the content of act. 114 remains there like the bracketed in the bracket, like the disconnected outside the connexional system.1 What can remain over when the whole world is bracketed? Husserl's answer is that no content is lost; everything re- mains. Yet, as a result of bracketing, everything is differ- ent. He says: Let us suppose that we are looking with pleasure in a garden at a blossoming apple-tree, at the fresh young green of the lawn, and so forth...Between...the real man or the real perception on the one hand, and the real apple-tree on the the other, there subsist real relations.. Let us now pass over to the phenomenological standpoint. The transcendent world enters its "bracket."... Together with the whole physical and psychical world the real subsistence of the objective relation between perception and perceived is suspended; and yet a relation between perception and perceived (as likewise between the pleasure and that which pleases) is obviously left over, a relation which in its essential nature comes before us in "pure immanence." As a result of bracketing, my attitude has become wholly dis- interested; I observe that which I never before observed, the essential nature of "pure" consciousness. This is strikingly similar to Zen master's description of his enlightenment. What- ever it may be, our concern is that Husserl came increasingly to incline toward a Kantian type of solution to the problem of a priori knowledge and reality: the findings of phenomenologi- cal description were to be guaranteed by the activities of a transcendental ego. o 0 ' H While Heidegger was converting Husserl's "rigorous sc1ence 12 Edmund Husserl. Ideas: A General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology, trans. ‘WTR. Boyce Gibson(N.Y.: The Macmillan Co., 1931), sec. 31. 13 Ibid. sec. 88. 115 into something hardly distinguishable from mysticism,14 Sartre was subjecting it to the effect that Husserl's transcendental ego is unnecessary, since every consciousness of an object is also a consciousness of self. However, Sartre's real conclu- sion is that man is in fact "a useless passion."15 the con- clusion which follows from the fact that not only is man not God; God does not, and cannot, exist. This is so, because God must be wholly in-itself—for-itself, which is absurd. In the above, we have briefly seen that the supreme para- dox of all reflection was to discover something thought cannot think. It may appear to be a challenge of tradition to establ- ish a nonspeculative metaphysics upon this presupposition but the Kantian "Copernican Revolution" in philosophy makes it necessary if the peculiar contribution of modern times is to be preserved. However, as we have also seen in the above ob- servation, with Russell and Husserl and others, it seems to be reasonable to say that we still live in the era of Kantian "paradigm," to use Thomas Kuhn's term. In this respect, it may be meaningful to refer to the Kantian philosophical system, where the supreme paradox of the self was born and assumed to be solved, the paradox on which the solution of the problem of freedom and determinism is also parasitic. 14 M. Heidegger, "A Dialogue on Language," in On the way to Language, trans. P.D. Hertz(N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1971), p. 52. Here his concern is silence about silence. . 15 Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. by H. Barnes(N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1956), p. 615. 116 In order to fully appreciate the notion of the self as a foundation for metaphysics and the significance of the concept of the self in the dilemma of freedom and determinism, it seems necessary to examine what kind of theory of the self can pro- vide us with a solution of the dilemma. It is particularly important if we realize that self-identification is logically prior to both freedom and determinism; that is, I cannot con- ceive of my freedom without identifying myself as a free agent, nor conceive of causality without conceiving my existence and the self as causally determined. In this connection, we may even say that both freedom.and determinism are not primary but derivative notions; as Frithjof Bergmann rightly points out, they would be "functions of identification of the self and stand in a relationship of dependency to that with which a man identifies." He adds: ‘If an identification is present, the corresponding free- dom appears. The primary condition of freedom is the possession of an identity, or of a self--freedom is the acting out of that identity. Tell me its limits and I will tell you when he is coerced.l6 We may go even further; one could be either a libertarian or a determinist depending on what kind of conception of the self one has. Likewise, one may be called a mystic, if he identi- fies the self with the world. It may be the case that we must no longer suppose that the self is something that we ever simply find, as Bergmann points out: 16 Frithjof Bergman, On Being Free(London: Univ. of Notre Dame, 1977), p. 37. 117 We have to free ourselves not just from the idea that it is a peculiarly baffling core--entity, which is always still one step beyond our grasp, but we must also abandon the notion that it is any special entity at all-- and saying this is easy, but really thinking it is hard. 7 This point would be clearer as we proceed in tackling the pro- blem of freedom and determinism.in terms of various theories of the self such as the libertarian's substantive theory, the determinist's bundle theory and the transcendentalist's noume- non theory of the self. According to C.D. Broad, one may adopt either a center theory or non-center theory to account for the unity of the mind, which is a necessary condition for freedom.and necessity. He explains the difference between the two as follows: By a centre-theory I mean a theory which ascribes the unity of the mind to the fact that there is a certain particicular existent-a centre-~which stands in a common asymmetrical relation to all the mental events which would be said to be states of a certain mind, and does not stand in this relation to any mental events which would not be said to be states of this mind. By a non-centre theory I mean one which denies the existence of any such parti- cular cular centre and ascribes the unity of the mind to the fact that certain mental events are directly inter— related in certain characteristic ways and that other mental events are not related to these in the articular way in which these are related to each other.1 Hume's "bundle" theory of the self is the calssic example of a non-center theory, which is adopted by many determinists; whereas Cartesian substance theory of the self is the most authentic version of the center theory, which is commonly 17 Ibid. p. 80. 13 C.D. Broad, The Mind and its Place in Nature(Paterson, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams & Co., 1960), p. 558. 118 employed by most libertarians. In what follows, I shall briefly examine the Cartesian substance theory of the self as adopted by Campbell and the Humean bundle theory of the self; my concern is less with the details of what they said than with the best theories we can devise along the same general lines. It is essential to understand, again, that the Cartesian substance theory of the self is neither the only theory of the self for the libertarians nor the most typical one; neither is the Humean bunlde theory of the self the only theory of the self for the determinists. Neverthe- less, I believe the study of Descartes' and Hume's theories is important in understanding the relevance of the self in the dilemma of freedom.and determinism, because they represent the rationale of two opposite camps and a study of them will lead to a more adequate theory of the self. 3.2 The Cartesian Substance Theory of the Self As we have seen in the previous section, Descartes is the one who made the topic of self of first importance in Western philosophy and cultural consciousness. Adrift in a sea of doubt, the one anchorage he finds is in the self; the one thing he cannot doubt is that he as such a self exists. From a consideration of the nature of the self which follows the discovery of his anchorage, he believes he can deduce other beliefs that will eliminate his painful, debilitating doubts. But what is this existing self? Descartes' answer was that the self was a "thing which thinks, or a mental 119 substance." It is a thing which doubts, understands, con- ceives, affirms denies, wills, refuses, which also imagines and feels freedom.as well as necessity. Thus that our many thoughts are related to each other in certain ways provides a means of unifying them and distilling them into a unit self. That we have memory of our thoughts provides the continuity to preserve the self's identity through time, the self who is free and responsible. Descartes' substance theory is considerably advanced by Thomas Reid, and best summarized in his following claims: (1) Every man has the conviction "of his identity, as far as back as his memory reaches." (2) This conviction is indubitably correct. (3) "Identity supposes an uninterrupted continuance of existence." (4) Personality, which has no parts, cannot be partitioned. (5) I am not action, feeling, thought; I am something that thinks, acts, and feels. (6) "The self...is permanent, and has the same relation to all succeeding thoughts, actions and feelings which I call mine." (7) Personal identity admits of no degrees.19 The claims are taken by Reid as self-evident, and adopted by Campbell. It is the center theory that Campbell maintains in deal- ing with the problem of freedom and determinism. As we have seen, for him the mental substance is typically depicted as an entity which has mental experiences. The substantial self, Campbell maintains, can be thought of as having certain attributes: "To deny that the self is reducible to its 19 Thomas Reid, Essays on the Intellectual Powersgf Man, Essay III, Chap. 5 and Essay VI, Chap. 5, ed. by B. Brody (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1969). 120 experiences is by no means to deny that the self manifests its real character (in whole or in part) in and through these experiences."20 Thus he contends that the self is distinct from.either a collection of characters or any part of them. However, it is often doubted, as Nowell-Smith does, whether an intelligible account of what the self is, as distinct from.character, can be given. Taking up this problem of the self and the character, Nowell—Smith, a determinist, undertakes to maintain that the conception of actions which "issue from the self, and yet not from the self regarded as just the unity of its existing conative tendencies" cannot be sustained. It must turn out, he claims, either to be the repudiated doctrine of indeterminism.or to be a doctrine in which the 'self' is identified with the whole or a part of what the determinist calls the "character."21 Thus for Nowell-Smith, if we try to isolate the self from the character, there is no way of establishing either the identity or the continuity of the self, although this is essential in the problem of freedom and determinism” "What are the criteria of its identity?" he asks: Is there any way of deciding whether two or more acts are acts of the same self except by showing that they display some sort of consistency or continuity of attriubtes, that they are 'in character“?22 20 Campbell, On Selfhood and Godhood(op. cit.), p. 82. 21 Nowell-Smith, "Determinists and Libertarians" in Mind, Vol. LXIII, No. 251, p. 329. 22 Ibid. 121 With Nowell-Smith, we are thus left with the question of the identity and continuity of the self as distinct from the self's character. On this point, Campbell refers the reader to Lecture V, On Selfhood and Godhood, in which he discusses "the relation of self-identity to personal identity," which most determinists, including Nowell-Smith, treat as indistin- guishable. In what follows, I shall examine Campbell's Cartesian account of self-identity in terms of the centre- theory of the unity problem” According to Campbell, selfhood is required if there is to be cognition. Only when "green" as experienced becomes for a subject "green as characterizing" the objective world does cognition take place. The act of cognition thus involves judgment, in which objective reality is the subject and the predicate is affirmed by a mind as qualifying the subject. Even though any judgment claims to characterize independent reality correctly, it may be true or false. Yet since know- ledge is from the beginning the characterizing of reality, the view that the mind begins with its ideas, which are then affirmed of an external world, stands condemned. According to Campbell, the "ideal contentf in his judgmental theory of knowledge, is not "an object" of cognition but of the meaning predicated of reality. He says: Accordingly, if all cognition involves judgement, an objective reality 'beyond' or independent of our ideas is presupposed in all cognition. And it clearly does not make sense to treat as problematic, and in need of 122 independent justification something which in all our cognitions we presuppose.é3 In his judgmental theory of knowledge, the question of a real world beyond ideas never comes up, because, at the outset, reality is the subject of the judgment. Campbell goes on to argue that this theory of cognition implies a self-psychology which posits an identical self over and above its experiences, a self which is never to be found in any of its experiences, and yet is always aware to some degree of its identity. Here is Campbell's summary of the argument: What is cognized...is never bare A, but always A in some sort of relationship to B [C, D, etc.]. But unless the subject to which B [C, D, etc.] is present is the same subject as that to which A is present, no relationship, obviously, could be apprehended between B [C, D, etc.] and A. To take the very familiar example of our cognition of succession in time, perhaps the most basic of all cognitions--if event B is cognized as sequent upon event A, clearly A must, in some for, be present to the same -subject as that to which B is present. Otherwise A and B would simply fall apart into separate worlds of experi- ence, and no discerned relationship--not even that of apartness let alone that of temporal sequence—~would be possible.24 Campbell points out that this does not merely imply an identical subject existing through different cognitions, but a subject conscious of its identity in different cognitions. Campbell also resists every attempt to define the self as a unique kind of relation between experiences. Another argument for the existence of the substantial self, one which 23 Campbell, On Selfhood and Godhood(op. cit.), p. 58. 24 Ibid. pp. 75-76. 123 is closely related to the first, is the every mental experi- ence must have an owner and that can be none other than a substantive center. His argument which seems to him.conclus- ive against "all attempts to exercise from cognition a subject distinct from.the actual cognizing" goes something like this: Let x be the psychical operation of cognizing or appre- hending, and y be the object that is cognized or appre- hended. Now presumably the apprehendgd implies an appre- hender of some sort. What then is the apprehender of y? Accofding to those who deny a distinguishable subject, it can only be x, the actual operation of apprehending. But this is surely absurd. An apprehending cannot be that which apprehends. What is 'know' cannot be known to the operation of knowing. It can be known only to a subject which, while en a ed in the knowing, in the knowing, is not itself identical with the knowing.25 Campbell's view is that "I" is not reducible to experi- ences of thinking, feeling, or emotion; is nevertheless mani- festing itself in these operations of thinking, desiring, and feeling; and may thus be characterized by these operations. 25 Ibid. p. 71. It is interesting to note that W. James who is often classified as a libertarian flatly rejects that thinking implies a thinker who does the thinking. The passag- es may be condensed and paraphrased thus: The passing thought then seems to be the thinker; and though there may be another, say, nonphenomenal thinker behind that, so far we do not seem to need him” As os cholo ists we need not be metaphysical; the passing thought itselé is the only verifiable thinker. My final conclusion then about the substantial soul is that it explains nothing and guarantees nothing. Its successive thoughts are the only intelligible and verifiable things about it. Thought is itself the only thinker which the acts require. Cf. The Princi le of Ps cholo (N.Y.: Henry Holt and Co., 1945), o . , p . - . Herepit may be important to note that he is a psycholog- ist, not a metaphysician, and he did not prove that there is no such a thing as mental substance; but merely says that he does not need it as a scientist. Furthermore, it is essential to remember that James advanced the moral argument, not as an absolute proof of freedom, but rather as a belief to be freely embraced. 124 The real character of the self, for Campbell, is thus mani- fested in and through these experiences but it is never identical with them, He is led to posit a self "which is something 'over and above' its particular experiences; some- thing that has, rather than is, its experiences are all different, While it somehow remains the same. It is, in short, what would usually be called a 'substance',....”25 When the conscious substantiaval self is charged with self-contradiction on the ground that a changing "I" cannot be identical, Campbell simply appeals to the "datum.of self- conscious experience, that sameness includes difference. He explains: I as a self-conscious subject cannot doubt that I who now hear the clock strike a second time am the same being who a moment ago also heard the clock strike, even though I must have become different in some respects in the interval. It can hardly be accepted as an irrefutable prinicple of philosophic criticism that sameness excludes all difference, when it is adatum of self-conscious ex- perience that it does not.27 For Campbell, thus I am changing, yet the same: I am one amidst the plurality of changing experiences, even though I cannot understand how. This indubitable awareness has "mean- ing," however, even if it is not intelligible in the sense of 26 Ibid. p. 77. A similar argument is also seen in A. M. Quinton's "The Soul." He says: "In other words, the soul, defined as a series of mental states connected by continuity of character and memory, is the essential constituent of personality. The soul, therefore, is not only logically dis- tinct from any particular human body with which it is associat- ed; it is also what a person fundamentally is." Cf. Philosophy for a New Generation(op. cit), p. 503. 27 Ibid. p. 83. 125 how, He does not claim that the self is, even in principle capable of being 'understood'. He adds: We are aware of our self as of such and such a nature, not of how it is what it Is. But awareness of the former i: 3&1 Ehat is necessary for it to have 'meaning' for One may ask, however: Granted that how is beyond us, why can that which is active in activity not be the activity itself, especially if the ”I" is experienced as an activity more complex than any one of its experiences? The only "I" experi- gnggd is the subject of activities, and not a self-identical substance manifesting itself in them. The experienced "I" is never identical with any one moment of its continuous experienc- ing, but it is nothing if not identical with its activities. If Campbell replies: But how can "that which is active be the activity itself"?, or Can the runner be the running?, or Can the sleeper be the sleeping?, one may urge what he replies to those who ask him how an identical "I" can be different: This is not intelligible in the sense of "how", but it still has meaning. But one may also urge that we find that the unity in activity is sustained in a new form as it moves from.moment to moment, maturing and learning at it selectively organizes its experiences. It is at this point that Campbell makes a dis- tinction betwen self-identity and personal identity and dis- cusses the relation betwen them which determinists such as 28 Ibid. 126 Nowell-Smith treat as indistinguishable. In his "A Reply to Mr. Nowell-Smith," he summarizes the conclusion of the argument advanced in Lecture V: a man's self-identity can be retained even where there is loss or suspension of personal identity--which latter is for me tantamount to identity of character, of the self'ggdominant cognitive, conative and emotive disposit- ions. Then, what is Campbell's account of the self-identity? How is the identity of the self related to personal identity? Campbell starts by considering what is implied in such an expression as 'I was not myself when I did that'. As he points out elsewhere, the self here is being thought of as essentially "the bearer of a specific 'character'. The bearer does feel constrained to admit that in some sense it was 'he' who acted--'I was not myself' he says 'when I did that'. However, Campbell says, "while thus allowing that in some sense his self-identity was retained in the act, he will vigorously dispute that it was his self-identity as a 'person'.30 He goes on: For 'personal identity' seems to him to lose its essential meaning if there be not preserved the salient features of that relatively stable set of dispositions which constitutes a man's haracter and marks him off as a distinct individual.3i But why is it that in spite of the strong tendency to iden- tify one's self with the 'personal' bearer of a specific character-~why is it that one does nevertheless refer to 29 Ibid. p. 219. 30 Ibid. p. 86. 31 Ibid. 127 the author of the 'contra-personal' act as I? The reason, for Campbell, is that in the case where one remembers his acts "the ontological identity of the subject of the remember- ing experience-~that I who remembers--with the subject of the remembered experience is part of the very meaning of what we call 'remembering'." He adds: Remembering may be an illusion; but for the man who even thinks he remembers, that ontological identity is implied, and finds its natural expression in the verbal form 'I remember I did that'. Thus in the case of my remember- ing having performed a 'contra-personal' act, I cannot avoid regarding the author of it as 'I'--the being that now remembers-~at the same time as I may indignantly reject any suggestion that the remembgred :I' and the remembering 'I are the same person.3 Thus by an analysis of such an expression as 'I was not myself when I did that' Campbell maintains that personal identity consists essentially in identity of 'character', but the self can retain its identity in acts that are 'contra-personal'. Here it may be important to notice that, for Campbell, self and person are not ontologically different entities; the person is the self, but the self gua functioning in its 'normal character. "It is the same self 'ontologically', not 'personally'," he says, "that is acknowledged to have committed the contra-personal act. He concludes: When a man says 'I was not myself when I did that' the self-identity that is being accepted is identity of the self as what...we may perhaps venture to call the same spiritual entity; whereas the self-identity that is being denied is the identity of that same spiritual en— tity considere only in_respect of its manifestations as 3"person'. 32 Ibid. p. 87' 33 Ibid. 128 Campbell goes on to claim that it is logically possible to suppose that "the contra-personal act is the work of some intruding spirit, some alien 'self."34 From the above consideration, one may realize that Campbell's account of the self-identity leaves us midstream with a spiritual, unitary, enduring subject which manifests itself in its experiences, and is free to choose in accord- ance with an objective moral order revealed to it in moral experience. At more than one point, however, Campbell reminds us that the self is a mystery for itself because it never knows "how it is what it is." It may be on this note of mystery that we may move in our consideration of the problem of freedom.and determinism from.the metaphysical level to the mystical region. The mysteriousness of the self must be taken seriously, I believe, and this, as we shall see, is a controlling factor in the remaining discussion of the self in the problem of freedom and determinism. In the above, we have seen that Campbell's account of self-identity is basically a species of Cartesian substance theory of knowledge. For him, this theory does not merely imply an identical subject existing through different cog- nitions, but a subject conscious of its identity in different cognitions. A particularly interesting feature with regard to the freedom.problem.was that the real character of the self is manifested in and through various experiences of 34 Ibid. p. 85. 129 thinking and feeling, etc., but it is never identical with them. He also makes an important distinction between "mean- ing" and "intelligibility" to be used in accounting for his assertion that "I am changing, yet the same,‘ which has meaning even though he could not understand h9g5 i.e. even though it is unintelligible. Besides, to make this point clear, he distinguishes self-identity from personal identity to the effect that the former can be retained even where there is loss of the latter. I have pointed out that Campbell was repeatedly mentioning that the self is a mystery for it- self, again, because it never knows "how it is what it is." It seems to be that Campbell also realizes the supreme para- dox, that is, the attempt to discover by thought something which thought cannot think, when he asserts that "I am s5 lssss a 'spiritual substance'."35 In order to come to this conclusion in his account of the self, Campbell uses both introspective methods and logical analysis just as Descartes did. Descartes arrived at the pro- position "I think therefore I am" by applying methodological doubt. He wanted to reach a proposition it was logically impossible to doubt and from this proposition to deduce other true propositions. But although the proposition is immune against methodological doubt it has nevertheless tran- scended the logically permissible by adding an "as-clause." He maintained that he existed ss a thinking being. And it 35 Ibid. 130 was by help of concepts he ascertained he possessed that he thought he was able to make any further progress. Likewise, Campbell, by means of conceptual analysis, shows that a cognizer cannot be identical with the actual cognizing; and, by the introspective method, he asserts that the subject of cognizing must be a thinking or spiritual substance. One may either accept or reject Campbell's introspective method and his use of the term 'introspection' to include 'immediate retrospection'.36 However, it may well be the case that he would not accept the self as a spiritual sub- stance, one of findings of Cartesian introspection. Nowell- Smith illustrate this point as follows: If I asked a friend to tell me what he saw in a room into which I could not see and he told me that he saw so many tables and chairs, it would be presumptuous and impertinent in me to doubt his word. But what if he claimed to see a piece of unpunctuality or even a couple of round squares? I could only reply that either he could not (not 'did not') see these things or that he was using very peculiar words to describe what he saw. He adds, "And it is the same with the introspective findings of philosophers." For Nowell—Smith, it seems obvious both that Campbell could not see the substantial self and that he 36 Campbell admits that controversial points, with regard to intospection, remain which have close bearing on question of possibility of authentic self-knowledge. In dealing with this problem as to how do we directly intro- spect our own introspecting, he asks us to understand intro- spection as 'enjoyment lived through with a scientific interest'. where 'living through' is, at least generally, of a past enjoyment. (ibid. p. 112). 37 Nowell-Smith, "Determinism and Libertarians," p. 322. l3l 'misused the term.'introspection.' However, it seems also obvious that Campbell was able to see a center which stands in a common asymmetrical relation to all the mental events which would be said to be states of a certain mind, and does not stand in this relation to any mental events which would not be said to be states of this mind, a center which is also cre- ative and free, the libertarian conception of the self. It is the libertarian's self, whether it be a substance or a mental series, that can act entirely on its own, rise up and freely chose to perform an action in opposition to its strong- est desire. This conception of the self is inconsistent with any version of determinism. including Nowell-Smith's. Histor- ically, Hume may be the most famous philosopher who Will support Nowell-Smith's criticisms 3.3 The Humean Bundle Theory of the Self In this chapter, we have started with the assumption that self-identification is a necessary condition for one's claim for freedom or one's belief in determinism. In the above, we have seen that some libertarians appeal to the Cartesian center theory of the self in order to account for self-identification. That is, the unity of mind is to be accounted for by the exist- ence of a mental substance which remains unchanged through the history of a single self, and thus preserves its continuity. Same substance, same mind: it is that thing which feels pain, perceives, thinks, has images etc. The continuity of a single 132 ‘mind through time will be accounted for by the persistence of numerically the same ego, hence self-identity is also secured, the self—identity which is the basis for contra-causal free- dom and responsibility. Unlike the determinists, in each self, the libertarians see something more than what they see in any other receptive object. They detect in the self a fresh creative power contrasted is_kisg_with the other agencies which meet together there. In what follows, I shall briefly examine Humean bundle theory of the self to see how the determinists would account for self-identity and why they see in each self just what they see in any other receptive object, a center where many forces cross. This effort may be meaningful, not because all deter- minists adopt the Humean bundle theory of the self, but be- cause in it we find the strongest criticism against the liber- tarian's account of self identity, a denial of any substantial mental agent. Such a denial may be tacitly assumed by all determinists. This is to see the self as a mechanical process. It is often said that the most famous argument against the existence of a substantial self is found in Book 1, Part IV, sections 5 and 6 of Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature. According to Hume, when one introspects all one sees is a bundle of perceptions, feelings, thoughts, etc.--never any subject of the perception, feelings, thoughts etc.. Hume challenges not only the substantial self theorist, but any center theorist to name the impression from.which we get 133 our idea of an entity or a substantial subject. His view is best Thus Thus, self stated in his own words. There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self; that we feel its existence and its continuance in exist- ence; and are certain, beyond the evidence of a demon- stration, both of its perfect identity and simplicity.... For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call m self, I always stumble upon some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch m self at any time without a perception, and never can oEserve anything but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep, so long am.I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist.... he comes to conclusion: [The self is] nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement....The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make thier appearance; pass, repass, glide away, and mingle in a infinite variety of postures and situations....The comparison of the theatre must not mislead us. They are the successive perceptions only, that constitute the mind.... 3 Hume suggests that we can have no idea of a substantial for two reasons. First, our experience is composed exclusively of impres- sions or ideas. So we do not experience a self distinct from our experience. "Self, or person," again, Hume says, "is not any one impression, but that to which our several impressions and ideas are supposed to have a reference."39 Secondly, waiving the first objection and concentrating on the continuity 38 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. by L.A. Selby-Bigge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), pp 251-260. 39 Ibid. p. 251. 134 rather than the distinctness of self, there is no impression that remains invariably the same, through the whole course of our lives."40 But "since self is supposed to exist after that manner," it follows that there is no impression from.which the idea of a self can be derived. Hume's argument may be summa- rized in the following fashion: 1. It must be an impression that gives rise to an idea. 2. If an idea B is derived from an impression A, B can- not have any property no possessed by A. 3. There is no impression which is constant and invariable. 4. Hence, there can be no idea that is constant and invariable. 5. But any idea representing a self would have to be constant and invariable. 6. Therefore, there is no idea representing a self. A similar arguement is also given by Bertrand Russell: ‘It is supposed that thoughts cannot just come and go, but need a person to think them. Now, of course it is true that thoughts can be collected into bundles, so that one bundle is my thoughts, another is your thoughts, and a third is the thoughts of Mr. Jones. But I think the person is not an ingredient in the single thought: he is rather constituted by the relations of the thoughts to each other and to the body.41 Two remarks may be made about these arguments. One is that Hume and Russell report no introspective awareness of anything other than impressions and ideas, or thoughts, whereas Descartes and Campbell report awareness of a substantial self. As we have seen, these divergent reports by many philosophers 40 Ibid. p. 253. 41 B. Russell, The Analysis of Mind(op. cit.), p. 18. 135 as to what can be known by introspection or noninferential or infallible experiences raise a question concerning the philosophical value of appeals to direct awareness as a way of settling philosophical disputes. But whether this question can be answered in such a way as to show that appeal to non- inferential experience is sometimes philosophically decisive, it is clear that Humean basic epistemological principles make impossible the sort of self-awareness that Cartesian substance theorists claim. Either the latter's claim.or the former's principles or both are mistaken. Secondly, we may point out that it is logically impossi- ble for us to be aware of ourselves as subjects--it would contradict the definition of what it means to be a subject (i.e., it would not longer be a subject but an object)--so it is no wonder that the self as a subject is not found among one's introspective inventory. I cannot even try to apprehend myself as "I”, as a subject, for the "I" is what is doing the apprehending, and nothing can be both the subject and object in a single act of apprehension. As Campbell has shown in 3.2, there is a logical, not an empirical, reason for there being a subject in apprehending. Indeed, in the most ordinary sense, such mental acts as "thinking," "perceiving," "knowing," etc., are binary relations and, as such, take two terms--a subject as well as an object--not just one. In this connection, Sydney Shoemaker gives us even a stronger argument than Campbell's. He says: 136 in order for there to be something that is observed there must be something that observes. If pains, images, and so on are not observed then the bundle theory is no more "empirical” than the view that a person is a "substantial ego", and is completely without a point. If they are observed then surely there must be something that observed them, and what can that be if not the subject which the bundle theory wants to reject.42 That is, if there is such a thing as an observation, and observation is a binary relation, which takes two terms, name- ly, a subject that observes and an object which is observed, then it follows that there must be a subject, the self. One ‘may attribute mental substance to it as Campbell does, or one 'may call it a "logical fiction" as Russell does. However, we are not entitled to say there is no self as a subject as far as there is such an event or phenomenon as observation.43 With regard to this consideration, we may ask: "How can we have the concept of a self at all?" In fact, Hume raises a similar question: What gives us so great a propension to ascribe an iden- tity to these successive perceptions and to suppose ourselves possessed of an invariable and uninterrupted existence through the whole course of our lives?44 His answer is complex and we can deal with it only briefly. We experience sets of closely resembling impressions. This experience activates a propensity to take resembling percep- tion. We also unconsciously posit an object distinct from 42 Sydney Shoemaker, Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1963), p. 77. 43 From this, we may infer that there may be two different ways of seeing the self, rather than assuming that either one of them must be true or false. 44 Hume, Treatise(op. cit.), p. 253. 137 all impressions but represented to us by impressions, which closely resemble one another. Even if it explains in some sense belief in a self, there is no answer to the question as to hOW'On Hume's principles the concept crucial to the belief could ever arise. At this point, Hume invites us to examine another sense of identity, not identity of substantial self. In the second sense of identity, the unity of the self at any ghnn1moment and through time is constituted by some relations such as resemblence, contiguity, and causation, which hold among the various mental states of that mind. For Hume, the two prominent factors in human nature are change and complexity, neither of which is conducive to belief in the self as an immutable simple substance. It is a mistake, therefore, to ascribe numerical or absolute identity to chang- ing complex things. Hume says: The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one, and of like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies...In a very few years both vegetables and animals endure a total change, yet we still attribute identity to themT—WEile their form, size, and substance are entirely altered.45 In other words, unity is like the unity of a particular boy scout troop: over a period of time, the troop may be in con- tinuous existence, yet the membership may have entirely changed over the ten year period. Nevertheless, it is still 45 Ibid. It may be important to note that Hume uses the term 'substance' to mean something which is essentially the systema- tic or coherent organization of the specific qualities of ex- perience. As such, it does not exist or is unknowable. In contrast, for Descartes, substance is that which exists in- dependent of any other being. 138 the same scout troop. Similarly, a particular mind may contain a totally different set of mental states at some later time, than it had at some earlier time, but it is still the same mind. Thus Hume contends that a measure of identity is main- tained throughout the process of change by means of uniform relations, which are for him causal relations. Hume remarks: the same person may vary his character and disposition, as well as his impressions and ideas, without losing his identity. Whatever changes he endures, his severz% parts are still connected by the relation of causation. Thus, for Hume, self-identity need not be identity of a con- tinuing substance; it is the same kind of identity which may be applicable to vegetables and animals. ‘With regard to the problem of freedom and determinism, a particularly interesting feature is that, for Hume, like other determinists, the self has to be understood in terms of the causal relation. The identity we attribute to the human mind "is not able to run the several different perceptions into one, and make them lose their characters of distinction and difference, which are essential to them."47 Thus, personal identity can be understood only through causation, and this is a matter of belief and not the result of introspection or immediate experience. According to Hume, it is possible for us to discover personal identity in the sense of causal relation by our memory "shewing us the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions" but unity of being is provided for 46 Ibid. p. 260. 47 Ibid. 139 finally by causal dependence. Mamory, however, cannot account for the notion of identity since it presupposes something that is capable of remembering. Selves have continuity and unity of being through causal relation.48 Hume's problem arises from.bis assumption that the self is the name of something,an impression or entity. He seeks the entity which relates to the notion of consciousness or ego; and when he fails to find it, he is puzzled. In his Appendix, he writes: In short there are two principles, which I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz., that all our distinctperceptions are dis- tinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real connexion among disfinct existences.49 These are two principles, in his own words, "which I cannot render consistent, nor is it in my power to renounce either of them."50 Therefore, he adds: For my part, I must plead the privilege of a sceptic and confess, that this difficulty is too hard for my under- standing.51 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. p. 636 In this respect, we may understand Hume's as the problem of reconciling his theory--which left him with a self as an object that had been broken up into perceptions-- with the inner feeling of self-identity, the self as a subject. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. For T. Penelhum, Hume's discussion is nothing but "an excellent example of how complex and far-reaching the consequences of a mistake in linguistic or conceptual investi- gation can be." A detailed discussion is found in his "Hume on Personal Identity" in Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind ed. by H. MOrick (Scott, Foresman and C., 1970), p. 57. 140 Thus, the unsatisfactoriness of Hume's theory is best shown by himself. In short, he could see clearly that bundles of perceptions could never account for perception of bundles. For all of this, Hume knows that I believe I am the same per- son as the one born to my parents on a specifiable date, that a man committed a crime is the same man who serves the sentence, and that the man who feels free in the morning is the same man who would severely suffer from fatalism in the evening. Is there any way, in Hume's view, in which these beliefs can be made both intelligible and consistent? As I mentioned earlier, Hume's answer was in terms of the relations that exist between a person's perceptions. They may be related in any of three ways: resemblance, contiguity, and causation. Contiguity, he decides, "has little or no influence in the present case."52 That leaves resemblance and causation. If we were unable to forget anything, then, since memory is "a faculty by which we raise up images of past per- ceptions" and since "an image necessarily resembles its ob- ject," there would be a great deal of resemblance in "the train of perceptions." But we do forget things, so resem- blance cannot be the relation that makes the different per— ceptions ”seem like the continuance of one object." Thus the only remaining possibility is causation: The true idea of the human mind, is to consider it as a system of different perceptions or different existences, which are link'd together by the relation of cause and effect, and mutually produce, destroy, influence, and modify each other.5 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. p. 261. 141 In terms of causality, thus one may ask Hume "Does the fact that two perceptions are causally linked explain their being the same person's perceptions?" To answer this question is to give an explanation of the cause of our belief in personal identity. Even though he conceives the self as a bundle of perceptions, he recognizes that man believes in personal iden- tity; and he observes that it is necessary to seek for the origin and cause of his belief. In the Humean system, to be sure, the self is treated as an object, which is an item in the causal chain, not as a subject; this is a typical way of seeing the self from an ex- ternal and deterministic point of view. As we have seen, the weakness of the deterministic view of the self is revealed when it tries to explain itself; then it either forgets it- self or contradicts itself, or, as is almost always the case, it admits consciousness or perception as a reality and tries to explain it on deterministic grounds. What we find is a bundle of impressions, feelings, and characters, no one of which, nor all of them.together, make the self. Indeed, the fact is that the self thus banished is tacitly assumed in every statement, although sensation, knowledge, and volition are all explained as if there were no subject to which they belonged. Thus, consciousness becomes a stream, or a display in a theatre at which no one is looking. The concept of causation, which is the foundation of determinism, in one sense, is a reflection of activity of the self as it exists in the realm of nature--a metaphorical explanation of nature in 142 terms of human action. Thus, natural laws are symbolic formulae of explanation, not ontological dogmas. This off- spring, then, of the active self cannot be used to discredit its parent.54 This must be the real conclusion we can reach from an analysis of Humean account of the self, an example of deterministic notion of the self. When we say that the self cannot be defined in terms of determinism, and that self—identity cannot be explained by appeals to causation, we do not mean that the self therefore must be explained in terms of freedom.and moral consciousness, which are findings of introspection. Freedom, like determin- ism, is an offspring of the self. From the above consideration, it may be reasonable to say this: the determinist sees in each self just what he sees in any other receptive object, a center where many forces cross, checking, intensifying, neurtralizing or transforming one another with loss or addition, whereas the libertarian detects in that coordinating center a fresh creative power contrasted is_k§sd with the other agencies which meet together there. 'We have seen an example of libertarians account of the self in the Cartesian substantial self, and a typical determinist's notion of the self in Humean bundle theory of the self. 54 A. Castell examines the self either as an agent or as process, then concludes that neither doctrine does justice to the self as object of philosophical concern. Cf. The Self in Philosophy(N.Y.: The Macmillan Co., 1965), pp. 37-79. 143 The metaphysical problem of freedom and determinism perhaps arises from the fact that man has two contradictory ways of looking at himself. On the one hand, he sees himself as a unique and free agent, making choices and willing his own individual destiny. On the other hand, he also sees him- self as a passive, mechanical process, a historical ant, an atom in the gigantic flow of the causal chain as a whole and completely dominated by his natural environment. From these two contradictory modes of self-identification, it seems that the dilemma of freedom and determinism arises. If this is the case, the alternative solution of the dilemma must be preceded by the reconciliation between two contradictory theories of the self, namely, the libertarian's free agent theory of the self and the determinist's mechanical process theory of the self. Indeed, there is no reason why either of them must be true. Furthermore, we are not able to evaluate or criticize one from the other without taking an opponent's position; that is, both libertarians and determinists view each other as they stand from.juxtaposed positions. We have seen many examples in Campbell's criticisms of soft-determinism and Nowell-Smith's criticisms of libertarianism among others. To be sure, some kind of synthesis may be required, a synthesis in which both views must be superseded by a breakthrough view, or a third eye view, so to speak. Here comes again, the crucial question: What theory of the self can do this? 144 3.4 Kantian.Nbumenon Theory of the Self It is said that people believed that either the earth or the sun must be the center of the universe; now, it appears that neither of them is the center of the universe. Likewise, it may be the case that neither the determinist's process theory nor the libertarian's agent theory must be correct from a certain point of view. One may thus maintain that the self is a Transcendent Ego, i.e. an entity which necessarily always must be outside our experience. This view of the self may be best depicted by Kant's notion of noumenal self, which is rejected by Campbell as 'characterless'. As Campbell under— stands it: For Kant...the subject self has its reality beyond the space-time world of mere phenomena; and while we can know in self-consciousness that it is, we can say nothing at all about what it is. Cognition of the character, the 'what', of the self through introspection is not, for Kant, discernment of the nature of the self as sub'ect-- i.e. of its real nature gua self--but only of the self as object, which is mere appearance in time of the time- less real' self. However, he adds: Kant's noumenal ego is, from.the point of view of theoretical cognition at any rate, as character-less as Locke's substratum of material things.55 As we have seen, however, we could not be satisfied with either the Cartesian substance theory or the Humean bundle theory of the self. If our analysis is consistent, we are thus led to 55 Campbell, On Selfhood and Godhood(op. cit.), p. 81. 145 a third alternative, namely, the Kantian theory of noumenal self, which is supposed to go beyond both Cartesian substance theory and Humean bundle theory without discarding them but embracing them. Through an examination of the Kantian theory of noumena, it may even be possible to find a more adequate theory of the self, in terms of which the dilemma of freedom and determinism would also be seen in a new light. In this section, I shall be concentrating on the trans- cendental nature of the self which is well shown in Kant's "subject of thought" as a formal condition for the identity of the transcendental 'I'. In this connection, I shall also refer to Ryle's "the systematic elusiveness of 'I'" and Wittgenstein's concept of the self as an extentionless point which is to be found in the Tractatus. However, these will be preliminary studies for Kant's theory of the self as a noumena, which is a key concept for the solution of the dilemma to the effect that man is noumenally free and pheno- menally determined, as we shall see in the subsequent section. In Kant's critical philsophy, we may find an instructive example of a viewpoint that within the framework of an origin- al approach seeks to profit from.the world of men like those we have mentioned. For Kant there exists a real world absolutely independent of human minds; it cannot be known by us as it is "in itself." All we can know is the world that is created when the real world sets our machinery of structur- ing or ordering in operation. The outcome of this structuring 146 is what we call "experience." The knower is supplied by the real world with the matter for experience, whereas the knower supplies the form for experience; and without this form experi- ence would not be experience. We cannot experience things- in-themselves as they are. This follows from the very meaning of "experience." The forms contributed by the knower--e.g., space, time, the cause-effect relation--are necessary condi- tions for any experience and any understanding. Substance in Kant becomes one of the forms with which judgment organizes its data; he makes substance a form of order, one of the conditions of experiencing being that qualities co-exist in this or that order. Kant described his hypothesis about the knower and his relation to the objects of his knowledge as a Copernican revolution.56 Thus we know only what we can experience, and what we can experience is determined by the conditions which the knowing process permits as limits and possibilities. The world of experienceable things Kant calls the world of pheno- msss or appearances. The real world, unknowable, is the world of noumena or things-in-themselves. In this account, the Cartesian substantial self, insofar as it is knowable 55 Just as Copernicus had shifted the frame of reference from the earth to the sun, so Kant shifted the frame of reference from.the object to the mind. Kant may be correct in calling his own hypothesis "Corpernican," but, paradoxically, his epistemological hypothesis brought man, the knower, back to the center, whereas Copernicus' astronomical hypothesis had demoted the earth (and with it man) from the center to the periphery. 147 even by introspection, turns out to be an empirical self, which is an item in the causal chain, whereas a Humean bundle of perceptions can never be a subject or a knower, as far as it can be understood through the cause-effect relation, one of forms which are contriubted by the self.57 Kant's argument, in his treatment of the First and Second Paralogisms in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, is for a 'subject of thoughts' only--a knower, not something to be known; i.e., the self as a subject only. He says: It is obvious that in attaching "I" to our thoughts we designate the subject of inherence only transcendentally, without noting in it any quality whatsoever--in fact without knowing anything of it either by direct acquaint- ance or otherwise. 3 Any briging together of data form knowledge, 'synthesis', requires the identity of that which does the synthesising, but nothing follows, from the existence of this transcendental unity, about a self that could be introspected and found to have self-identity. "Now in all our thought the 'I' is the subject, in which thoughts inhere only as determinations; and this 'I' cannot be employed as the determination of another 57 In his "The Second Analogy of Experience" of Criti ue, Kant shows, among others, that Hume failed to recognize the distinction between consciousness of objective change and sub— jective succession, upon which his own position rested; for Hume, determination of causal laws can be obtained through observation of those sequences which remain constant, like any empiricist who holds that causal relations are discovered by a comparison of items in a given sequence. 58 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. by N. K. Smith (N.Y.: St MartifiTs Press, 1965), p. 337. 148 thing." He adds: Everyone must, therefore, necessarily regard himself as substance, and thought as (consisting) only (in) acci- dents of his being, determinations of his state...That I, as a thinking being, persist for myself, and do not in any natural manner either arise or perish, can by no means be deduced from.it.59 In his treatment of the "Third Paralogism," on the other hand, Kant writes that the identity of the transcendental 'I' at different times is "only a formal condition of my thoughts and their coherence, and in no way proves the numerical iden- tity of my self as a subject. He continues: Despite the logical identity of the 'I', such a change may have occurred in it as does not allow of the re- tention of its identity, and yet we may ascribe to it the same-sounding 'I', which, in every different state, even in one involving change of the subject, might still retain the thought of the preceding subject and so hand it over to the succeeding subject.60 He explains this possibility by an analogy. If one elastic ball hits another in a straight line it communicates its whole state, so far as motion is concerned, to the second. He says: If, then, in analogy with such bodies, we postulate substances such that the one communicates to the other representations together with the consciousness of them. we can conceive a whole series of substances of which the first trasnmits its state together with its con- sciousness to the second, the second its own state with that of the preceding substance to the third, and this in turn the states of all the preceding substances together with its own consciousness and with their consciousnesses to another. Kant thus comes to the conclusion: 59 Ibid. pp. 333-334. 60 Ibid. p. 342. 61 Ibid. 149 The last substance would then be conscious of all the states of the previously changed substances, as being its own states, because they would have been trans- ferred to it together with consciousness of them. And yet it would have been one and the same person in all these states.62 For Kant this was a purely empty speculation, to drive home the point that nothing about the identity of a 'subject' could be inferred from the logical identity of the '1'. However, whatever this analogy may illustrate it also illus- trates this: Since it is presupposed that the balls have consciousness it follows that each ball necessarily must be able to conceive of himself as an 'I' and consequently refer to one and the same 'I'. Here it would be essential to under- stand that the succession of "I's"--like the succession of balls--is made up of different things; it would not be one and the same substance. It is also important to note that the illustration not only implies the identity of the self; it implies the unknowability of the 'I' as a subject, re- presented only as a thought, and not as an intuition. With regard to the notion of the self as a subject represented purely as a thought, it is interesting to ob- serve what Ryle says about the elusive self. He speaks of "the systematic elusiveness of 'I'”: a review may be a review of a book. This review may itself be the object of 52 Ibid. As professor Charles McCracken points out, there is a striking similarity between Kant's analogy and the Buddhist analogy of the self with a succession of candles where the light passes from.one to another: the candles (i.e. substantial selves) are different, but the light (i.e. present awareness plus memory and habits) is the same. Perhaps, Hume would also allow this. 150 still another review, and so on. But no review can be a review of that very same review, i.e., no review can be a review of itself. I may comment, criticize, and pass judge- ment not only on other people's thoughts, sayings and pro- positions, but also on my own sayings, thoughts, and pro- positions; and just as a review cannot be a review of that very same comment; it may be a comment on the preceding comment or thought. The thought I have just now cannot be the object of my thinking before I have the next thought. Ryle thus says: So my commentary on my performances must always be silent about one performance, namely itself, and this performance can be the target only of another commentary. Self-commentary, self-redicule and self-admonition are logically condemned to eternal penultimacy. Yet nothing that is left out of any particular commentary or admonition is privileged thereby to escape comment or admonition for ever. On the contrary it may be the target of the very next comment or rebuke. Indeed, there is no limit to how long this process can con- tinue except that of patience and talent fot this sort of activity. In sum, any thought of mine can be made the object of another thought of mine. According to Ryle this systematic elusiveness of thoughts explains the supposed existence of a transcendent self. But the so-called transcendent thought, still according to Ryle, may be object of the next thought, and thereby be known. Although this no doubt is correct it is not an answer to the question what the self means. Because it is true of every 63 Ryle, The Concept of Mind(op. cit.), p. 195. 151 thought of a certain person, i.e., a person who can use the 'to think' in the present tense, first person singlular, namely 'I'. What Ryle is speaking about is the content of thought-—the intentional object of thought--but not about the subject of thought, or the self as a subject. For him, the self as a subject is mysterious, too, but not for onto- logical reason as it was in Cartesian and Humean as well as Kantian theories of the self. He has a logical reason. He says: 'I' is like my own shadow; I can never get away from it, as I can get away from your shadow. There is no mystery about this constancy, but I mention it because it seems pgssngzw 'I' with a mystifying uniqueness and adhesive- Thus it seems obvious that Ryle has presupposed the concept 'I', or the self as a subject, and not explained it; he says such things as that the child learns the trick of directing higher order acts upon his own lower order acts. What the 'his' means is not explained. It may also be important to note that there is an assump- tion in Ryle's argument for the systematic elusiveness of the self—-namely, that no description can properly contain refer- ence to itself. From the fact that any thought of mine can be made the object of another thought of mine, it follows that I could never in principle give a complete description of myself since the very description that I give would necessarily not include the further fact about me that I was 64 Ibid. p. 198. 152 giving that description of myself. But there is no analogous reason why I cannot in principle give a complete description of someone else, or why someone else could not give a complete description of me. we can put this difference by saying that I cannot give a complete description of someone else for reasons of ignorance; I do not know all the relevant facts. But I cannot give a complete description of myself for logical reasons. Here it is assumed that no description of myself could include the fact that I was giving that description. Of course, it is also true that I cannot give a complete description of myself for reasons of ignorance, which is empirical, because I do not in fact know all the facts about myself either. In this respect, one may say, G. Ryle adds a logical aspect of mysteriousness to the ontological trans- cendence of the self as a subject.65 We seem to be in a dilemma. On the one hand,the use of the word 'I' seems to be a necessity in the problem.of freedom and determinism. On the other hand,we are puzzled about what the word means. It can be neither a proper name which refers to a spiritual substance, nor a propositional-function, the self merely being a bundle of perceptions; and to let it refer to a Transcendent Ego will not only violate the morals of all 65 Thus the logical mysteriousness of the self is derived from the assumption that no description can properly contain reference to itself. Since this assumption raises the fairly complex issue as to whether all self-referring statements are logically objectionable, we merely note that the assumption is made. Dealing with it would take us far afield. 153 epistemology, but it will not in any way solve the problem. However, the reason why the word 'I' does not refer to any thing might be that it is not an ontological word; it may not be a word which refers to anything which exists. It may be merely a condition of all existence. Ludwig Wittgenstein once remarked that the "eye" never sees itself in the perceptual field; of course, it can see itself in a mirror, but then it is not really seeing itself but, rather, an image of itself. The "I" may be very similar in that it can never "see" itself by a mental act of appre- hension, whether it be introspective or logical. Wittgenstein says in his Tractatus, The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world--not a part of it. (5.641)66 In order to come to this view, he speaks of solipsism, which can be understood as follows: That the world is my_wor1d, shows itself in the fact that the limits of Language (which is the only language I understand) mean the limits of my world. The phrase 'the limits of language' can be interpreted in this way: since the limits of language are the transcenden- tal limits of the world and since language is my language the limits of language are the limits of my world. The self to which the word 'my' refers here is the metaphysical subject, 66 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus trans. by D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuiness (New York: The Humanities Press, 1971), p. 119. 154 which in a sense, does not exist, because it is transcen- dental, it "does not belong to the world but it is a limit of the world"--thus it is like the eye in relation to the field of sight; the eye cannot see itself as we have seen in the above. And the metaphysical subject is to be distinguish- ed from the empirical self. Wittgenstein remarks: If I wrote a book called The WOrld as I found it, I should have to include a report on my body, and should have to say which parts were subordinate to my will, and which were not, etc., this being a method of isolat- ing the subject, or rather of showing that in an impor- tant sense there is no subject; for it alone could not be mentioned in that book.(5.631)57 For Wittgenstein, the world is my world if the word 'my' refers to the subject, or the metaphysical self, and that this is so implies that 'solipsism' understood as a form of mysti- cism rather than idealism.can be considered true in a sense; that is, what solipsism intends to say is quite correct, but-- since we cannot speak of the metaphysical self--this cannot be said. Thus he comes to assert: Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implica- tions are followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of solipsism.shrinks to a point without extension and there remains the reality co- ordinated with it.(5.64)58 According to J.O. Urmson, this appears to be the "cold comfort of being consoled for having no friends by the fact that I have no transcendental ego either." He adds: At first people neither understood Wittgenstein very well nor saw how hard it would be to eliminate the solipsistic element from atomism. But they came to be 67 Ibid. . 117 68 Ibid. 155 more and more worried by it. In a theoretical way, solipsism.was a live issue at this period.59 As we have seen in 3.1, however, solipsism is not a live issue only at that period; it was a recurring theme since Descartes' discovery of the 'I'. Besides, Wittgenstein's solipsism.is peculiar in that it is not distinguishable from realism; it follows from his notion of the self as an extensionless point. As Anscombe points out, indeed, it is difficult to think of ways out of solipsism, particularly when it is indistinguish- able from realism. She comments: In Wittgenstein's version, it is clear that the 'I' of solipsism is not used to refer to anything, body or soul; for in respect of these it is plain that all men are alike. The '1' refers to the centre of life, or the point from.which everything is seen.70 When solipsism is not only a form of idealism.but also in- distinguishable from realism, mainly due to the fact that the self is reduced to an extensionless point, not a dot, then it also appears to be a form of mysticism, in which the self and the world are one and the same. ‘With the solipsistic notion of the self, Wittgenstein believed that his Tractatus had solved all the problems of philosophy, including the problem of freedom.and determinism. A brief examination of the book will show why he thought so. As we shall see, his approach is so similar to Kant's that we may even call Wittgenstein's 69 J.O. Urmson, Philosophical Analysis: Its Developement Between the two WOrld Wars(Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1976): p. 136. 70 G.E.M., Anscombe, An Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus(London: Hutchinson Univ. Library, 1963), p. 168. 156 version a "Critique of Language" to use Erik Stenius' term. In particular, they are similar in that they both implicitly refers to mysticism. 3.5 Wittgenstein's‘MetaphysiCs of Silence There are, it may be said, two lines of thought in the Tractatus. The first is a result of his study of Russell and Frege. There would be no point in trying to summarise this aspect here, but his conclusions can be stated briefly. All significant propositions, he maintains, are 'truth functions' of elementary propositions. This led Wittgenstein to define 'logical truth' as tautology. However, this aspect of the Tractatusisrnot important here, and I mention it only for the sake of completeness. What is more important about the Tractatus, concerning such a perennial problem as the dilemma of freedom and determinism, is that it sets limits to philo- sophy; as C.A. van Peursen points out, he is similar to Kant in this respect. Peursen says: To formulate as lucidly and logically as possible what can be said is at the same time to signify what cannot be said. To show as exactly as possible what are the structures of language is, on the one hand, to dispel the musunderstandings and pseudo-problems of metaphysics as a system, but, on the other hand, to extablish that in some indirect way the metaphysical or the mystical does properly manifest itself.7 Thus, Wittgenstein's whole philosophy bacomes itself a kind of 'cipher', as Peursen remarks, because "it frequently comes 71 C.A. van Peursen, Ludwig Wittgenstein(N.Y.: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1970), p. 71. 157 up against something that really cannot be said, but which nevertheless shows itself."72 He thus sets limits to philo- sophy by defining language as a picture of reality. He then asks: What is real? And answers: All the facts of the universe. He begins the book "The world is everything that is the case," (i.e., the world is everything of which one can say "This is true"--the world is all the facts in the universe). He goes on: The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value... Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions cannot express anything higher. It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed... Of the will as the subject of the ethical we cannot speak.(6.41)73 In other words, language has no business trying to express propositions about ethics, the free will, or life and death, and God. In this respect, as Peursen points out, Wittgenstein is more radical than Kant; for Wittgenstein, it is impossible to formulate such concepts as 'God', 'freedomi and 'immortal- ity' which were formulated in the indirect language of 'requirements' or 'postulates' by Kant. If the meaning of the world lies outside the world, then it cannot be expressed in language, which only expresses what is in the world.73 72 Ibid. Here Peursen refers to Karl Jaspers' term. 73 Wittgenstein, Tractatus(op. cit.), p. 145. 74 Peursen, Wittgenstein(op. cit.), p. 72. Peursen adds; he placed "the constitufive operations of the will, the con- sciousness of moral and practical life, wholly outside the scope of philosophy and in the world of common activites. For this reason he gave up philosophy and became a gardener and a village school teacher." 158 Wittgenstein goes on to express certain thoughts about death, immortality, and kindred subjects: Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through. If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eter- nally who lives in the present.(6.43ll)75 With these last words, the Tractatus moves into the realm of the mystical. "Living in the present" does not mean Epicureanism; it means those moments experienced by Zen Buddhists, as we shall see, when a single moment seems to be a million years. Wittgenstein goes on to deny the concept of the immortality of the soul in the Christian and Cartesian sense, and asks: "Is a riddle solved by the fact that I survive for ever?" He is, of course, attacking only what can be called 'naive Christianity', the spiritualist notion that life goes on unaltered in another world after death. Wittgen- stein also asks: Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time... Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is. (6.4312776 This is the mysticism of Chuang-tzu, the Taoist: the mere existence of anything is a mystical fact-~a leaf, a grain of sand. Wittgenstein goes on: The feeling of the world as a limited whole is the mystical feeling. For an answer which cannot be expressed the question too cannot be expressed. 75 Wittgenstein, Tractatus(op. cit.), p. 147. 76 Ibid. This is my translation for "Nicht vie die Welt ist..." 159 The riddle does not exist. If a question can be put at all, then it can also be answered ..... _—_ We feel that even if all' Ossible scientific questions be answered, the problems—3f life have still not been touched at all. Of course there is then no question left and just this is the answer. The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem. (Is not this the reason why men to whom...the sense of life became clear, could not then say wherein this sense consisted?) There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical. Thus he comes to conclusion, which is strikingly similar to a Zen master's assertion. The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science--i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy--and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person--he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy--this method would be the only strictly correct one. My propositions serve as elucidations in the follow- ing way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them--as steps-- to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend the propositions, and then he will see the world aright. What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.77 This is the last sentence of the Tractatus. I have quoted the last three pages fairly fully, but omitting to number the paragraphs. Let me briefly examine Wittgenstein's point illustrated in these paragraphs. Language is a picture of reality; it can 77 Ibid. pp. 149-151. 160 only picture what actually is. And what 'is'? All the facts in the world; that is, not just all the things in the uni- verse, but every possible combination of those things. If there is a meaning of life, it must lie outside life; there— fore, all metaphysics (which talks about God, purpose, good and evil, freedom and necessity, and so on) is meaningless; it cannot be expressed in language. This does not mean that "There is no such thing as freedom,” for instance. It only means that if one uses the word 'freedomi in what is a logical sentence, it promptly takes the logic out of the sentence, and renders it meaningless. The sentence 'The riddle does not exist' (i.e. the 'riddle of life' including the free will problem) has been seized on with delight by logical positivists like Schlick as being a justification for considering all questions about the meaning of life as nonsense. They are ignoring the fact that two paragraphs earlier, Wittgenstein speaks of the riddle quite plainly: "Is this eternal life not as enigmatic as our present one? The solution of the riddle...lies outside space and time." And his last sentence implies that, as Oriental ancient mystics might typically say, a point comes where one cannot use words any more. A logical positivist, as we shall see, has quoted this last sentence "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence," and added: "That's all right-- provided we're agreed that there's nothing to be silent about. Now Wittgenstein has stated very straightfowardly that there 161 is something to be silent about. The logical positivist was ‘merely making a statement about his own temperament and was trying to assert that it ought to fit the whole world. The logical positivist's interpretation of the Tractatus, then, insists on ignoring Wittgenstein's plain statement that the 'mystical' does exist; again, for him, it is mystical psss the world exists. It is obvious that the positivists mis- understood as shown in Otto Neurath's following passage: The conclusion of the Tractatus, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent," is, at least grammatically, misleading. It sounds as if there were a "something" of which one could not speak. We should rather say: if one really wishes to avoid the meta- physical attitude entirely then one will "be silent," but not "about something."78 On the contrary, again, there is something, about which we cannot meaningfully speak, something which is similar to Kant's noumena or things-in-themselves. Erick Stenius points out: The 'things' of Wittgenstein's logical atomism belong to the framework of a world description, and could therefore be called 'transcendenta1'--and this would actually confirm with one aspect of Kant's own view.79 It seems obvious for Wittgenstein that there is something like the unreachable transcendent, although it is not neces- sarily identical with Kant's noumena. Wittgenstein's paragraph about 'throwing away the ladder' 73 Otto Neurath, "Sociology and Physicalism" in Lo ical Positivism, ed. by Ayer(N.Y.: The Free Press, 1959), p. 234 79 Erick Stenius, Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus'(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1960), p. 223. 162 is also an attempt to anticipate a controversy. According to Neurath, the passage suggests that: One must as it were undergo repeated purgations of meaningless, i.e., metaphysical statements, that one must repeatedly make use of and then discard this ladder. Only with the help of elucidations, consisting of what are later recognized to be more meaningless sequences of words, is one able to arrive at the unified language of science. But in other context, one may ask: if all statements about the meaning of the world are nonsense, are not Wittgenstein's statements in the Tractatus also nonsense? His admission that this is so does not ring true. If a statement is really non- sense, it is like a ladder with no rungs, and one could not climb up it in any way. And if one can climb up it to some higher state of wisdom.then it is certainly not nonsense in the sense that Wittgenstein says metaphysics is nonsense. Hence, it is wrong to say with Neurath that "We have no need of any metaphysical ladder of elucidation."81 Instead, Wittgenstein's statement bears some resemblance to the Buddhist doctrine of repeating the Sutras until their meaning is quite clear, and then no longer having to repeat them, merely being silent. As we shall see, it is not diffi- cult to see why his methods as a teacher have been compared to the whacks on the back delivered by Zen Buddhist masters; As Morton White points out, his effect is often compared with "the liberating experience of Satori of which Zen Buddhists 30 Neurath, "Sociology and Physicalism",p. 284. 31 Ibid. 163 speak."82 However, there are differences as much as resemblences, according to White; this is well portrayed in his disagree- ment with Wittgenstein. He says: in the first place he seems to me to be inconsistent in what he does. He tells us that one cannot state philo- sophical propositions and that whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent; and then instead of keeping silent, he writes a whole philosophical book. Secondly, I do not agree with his statement that all his proposi- tions are quite as much without sense as metaphysical propositions are. On White's first point, we might say, instead of dwelling on consistency, Wittgenstein should have gone on from the Tractatus to discipline himself until he achieved samadhi like Ramakrishna; he probably knew, as clearly as Zen Buddhi- sts, that the only purpose of knowledge is to pstore. Wittgenstein expresses this sense in his Philosophical Investigations, where he refuses to 'philosophize,‘ but instead conducts a long and painstaking examination into language, the official instrument of philosophy.84 In this respect, one might say, Wittgenstein himself failed, because he could never resist the temptation of intellect. It is obvious that intellect never wholly satisfied him, and he was always restless; yet he had to return to philosophizing, to 32 Morton White, The Age of Analysis(N.Y.: Mentor Book, 1956), p. 225. 83 Ibid. pp. 224-225 84 As John V. Canfield points out, in Investigations, for Wittgenstein, language has a mystical base; and this base is ”exactly the Buddhist ideal of acting with a mind empt thought." 164 analysing, anyway, because it was the path of least resistance for his mind. Intellect on its own is a triviality. Wittgen- stein never completely surrendered to that triviality; but he never had the strength and insight to put it behind him. After admitting that the really important things cannot be talked about, he went on talking about them for the rest of his life. By this, however, I do not mean that I agree with White, because I do not want to accuse Wittgenstein of in- consistency. My claim is stronger; Wittgenstein did not fully accept the conclusion of his own analysis, namely, mysticism, or 'the metaphysics of silence" as Peursen put it. For this reason, his approach to the dilemma of freedom.and determinism is not Zen Buddhistic, but rather soft-deterministic, which does not go far beyond Scholck's account of the dilemma as pseudo-problem.35 On White's second point, we may also argue that Wittgen- stein did not fully understand the implications of his own book either. Consider, for instance, his sentence about the meaning of life lying outside life and being, therefore, un- knowable. What does this really mean? One could say, with perfect truth, that the shsps of a hermitage is only visible from.outside the hermitage. The shape of the hermitage 35 Wittgenstein advances his position on the dilemma of freedom.and determinism in the "Notes taken by W. Smythies of a Lecture by Wittgenstein on Freedom of the Will," delivered in Cambridge 1945-46, or,according to the cover of v. 99, 1946-47; here, he tries to show that physical events cannot be said to be inevitable or compelled.(This material was used in Prof. C. McCracken's Seminar in Winter, 1971) 165 cannot beis the hermitage. Neither can the meaning of life be in life. This is true enough. But this does not mean that a Buddhist monk in his hermitage would have to go outside to see the shape of the hermitage. Indeed, the sssps_of the hermitage does not mean anythign important to him. All he would have to do therefore would be to turn on the light inside. The shape would be as visible from.inside as outside. So the meaning of life can be discerned, by mystical intuition or radical introspection, from the inside. In other words, the true implications of Wittgenstein's Tractatus appears to be this: If there is such a thing as the meaning of life, and it is unknowable to us if we merely rely on the logical atomistic method, then it follows that we need a breakthrough view, which is similar to the Buddhist monk's mystical in- tuition, in order to discern the meaning of life from.both inside and outside. In this view, causality would appear to be an inner necessity, and the freedom problem would be also solved, as Wittgenstein suggests: The freedom.of the will consists in the impossibility of knowing actions that still lie in the future. We could know them.only if causality were an inner neces- sity like that of logical inference.--The connexion between knowledge and what is known is that of logical necessity.(5.l362)35 However, one cannot blur such a distinction between causality and logical necessity without shifting his ground for argu- ment as pointed out in 2.3. But to shift one's ground for 36 Wittgenstein, Tractatus(op. cit.), p. 79. 166 argument in this situation is to appeal to one form of mys- ticism or another. In the above, in some detail, I have examined the implica- tion of the last several pages of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, in which the self has shrunk to an extensionless point; my conclusion was that if he had been consistent and fully accepted what he has said there, then he would have had to go on to discipline himself until he achieved samadhi, rather than to have kept talking about the use of language falling into the temptation of intellect, assuming that the logical positivist's interpretation of silence has gone wrong. Thus, in our analysis of the role of the self in the dilemma of freedom and determinism, silence and intuition prevail, while talking and intellect show their limit; indeed, an examina- tion of mysticism, or the metaphysics of silence, seems in- evitable. By an examination of mysticism, however, we should not expect to solve the dilemma on the philosophical level, be- cause mysticism would not appeal to any philosophical dis- tinction; above all, it consists in personal experiences that are ineffable. For this reason, our concern would merely be to see the possibility of its relevance on the dilemma of freedom and determinism. CHAPTER IV THE DILEMMA OF FREEDOM AND DETERMINISM AS AN ILLUSION Mysticism is said to be a word derived from the Greek Mssis, "to shut the mouth," and musteis, "one who is initiated into the mysteries." In its general connotation it signifies an emotional aspect of religious life, marked by a nameless transport and the shutting out of the material world. It re- jects reason in favor of intuition and revelation, and reaches toward an ecstatic union between the self and the world, or God. The personal communion that the mystic requires is often conveniently supplied within a pantheistic view as shown in Spinoza's philosophycal system. All religions are in some degree mystical. Nevertheless, mysticism, because of its ten- dency to overthrow dogma, has frequently come into conflict with orthodoxy. Philosophically, it is subjective contemplation applied to the attainment of a knowledge of reality and perfection. It has also been popularly applied to speculations on, or observations of, psychic and occult phenomena, and indeed to obscure and vague speculation of any kind. Wittgenstein may be right, in this respect, when he took the mystical to be that about which one could not speak. If that is so, one may question, how can the mystic's experience of the self help us with any of our philosophical problems? If his experience is 167 168 so unique and incommunicable and obscure that it always eludes the rest of us, it would seem to provide no basis for our instruction about the self or its causation. This would un- doubtedly true. However, if we have been on the right tract in dealing with the dilemma of freedom and determinism, we are inevitably led to mysticism about which one cannot meaningfully speak. Here we are left with a choice; we may either stop discussing the problem at issue and simply declare that the controversy is perennial in character, or challenge a form of mysticism and attempt to conquer it so as to make philosophical use of it. I shall choose the latter alternative, because by doing it we may loose nothing whereas there may be something to gain. Furthermore, if John Findlay's view is correct, mystic- ism is not something that analytical philosophers can continue to ignore, since he contends that a study of the mystical is necessary for a complete comprehension of the ordinary. For him, it is not an adjunct that can be comfortably bypassed.1 Indeed, although we may not follow his "phenomeno-dialectical method" in doing philosophy, a study of mysticism would have shown to be helpful to us in comprehending the dilemma of 1 See Douglas P. Lacky's article, "Findlay's Neoplatin- ismV in The Monist, Vol. 59, No. 4, October, 1976. Findley's argument goes something like this: The proper method of philo- sophy is phenomenalogical and dialectical, which reveals that the world of ordinary experience is absured de re; a rational teleological Absolute subsists, and thereforE—thE world of ordinary experience must have a complement, which is a world different in logical type, the possible object of extraordinary experience. 169 freedom.and determinism. In this chapter, I shall be mainly concerned with Hui-neng's account of Zen Buddhism, according to which to be free means to be enlightened, and to be enlightened means means to see into, or to point to, one's "self-nature.”' By means of analysing the phrase "seeing one's own nature," I shall attempt to show how our dilemma would appear to, and be solved by, the mystic. For doing this, I shall often refer to Kant and Wittgenstein, not to evaluate them, but to make the mystics' account more comprehensible. 4.1 Mysticism and its Philosophical Relevance As mentioned above, we shall boldly challenge a form of mysticism and attempt to conquer it so as to make philosophical use of it. But with what kind of mysticism shall we be con- cerned? With Joseph Campbell, we may distinguish the the mystical foundations of Eastern and Western religious thought. Accord- ing to him, the basic myth of the East is what he describes as 'eternal return" in contrast, the fundamental myth of the West is what he terms 'cosmic resporation'. Each myth carries with it an interpretation of man's place in the cosmos and of his resultant predicament. The fundamental difference between the two myths, for J. Campbell, is most apparent in their diverse conceptions of time, which is indispensible to the notion of causation. According to Campbell, the Eastern mysticism makes the 170 process of change and becoming a purely phenomenal reality and hence, illusory. Thus, in the East the great aim of the religious man is to find that overall cosmic unity that is hidden behind the veil of temporal succession and cosmic change. He says: There is therefore nothing to be gained, either for the universe or for man, through individual originality and effort. Those who have identified themselves with the mortal body and its affections will necessarily find that all is painful, since everything--for themr-must end. But for those who have found the still point sf eternity, around which all-including themselVes--revolves, everything is acceptible as it is; indeed, can even be experienced as glorious and wonderful.2 In the East, he goes on: The first duty of the_indiVidual, consequently, is simply to play his given role--as do the sun and moon, the various animal and plant species, the waters, the rocks, and the stars--without resistance, without fault; and then, if possible, so to order his mind as to identify its consciousness with the inhabiting principle of the whole.3 In this kind of myth, although time ought not to be, man, caught up in the endless process of repetitive cycles, is necessarily conditioned by time. Hence, for Campbell, there grows up in Eastern thought an aversion to time and a sustain- ed effort to escape the cycle of birth, decay, death, and suffering, a cycle that is regarded as illusory. In the West, on the other hand, the dominant myth of "cosmic restoration," according to Campbell, has the effect 2 Joseph Campbell, "The Dialogue in Myth of East and West" in Issues in Religion, ed. by Allie M. Frazier (N.Y.: Van Nostrand Reifihold Co., 1969), p. 183. 3 Ibid. 171 of drawing mankind to an engagement in time for commitment and to labor in the hope of restoring himself and his world to a proper relationship with the Divine Creator. Thus, for J. Campbell, the key concepts of most Western religious thought, since all are variations of one primal myth, is revelation, relationship, recognition, and community. In the East, the key concepts of religious thought are recognition, realization, release, and reunion. I shall be mainly concerned with the Eastern mysticism, in which the Divine Creator, or God, as a final cause does not have any direct explanatory power. It seems to me that Eastern mysticism is less religious and more philosophical than the Western mysticism in the sense that it does not mainly rely on the existence of God, which, as Ayer points out, does not offer an explanation of the world's existence and of its nature. "Considered logically," Ayer says, "it is no explanation of anything merely to say that a god designed it." He adds: it would be an explanation only if there were some way of testing the deity's intentions independently of the actual course of events, for in that case the religious hypothesis would have some predictive power; but a hypo- thesis which is consistent with anything that happens, or could conceivably happen, is altogether vacuous. Ayer's criticism may be applied to any kind of mysticism in its strict sense. However, it may appear less critical to Eastern mysticism.because it does not directly appeal to the 4 Alfred Jules Ayer, "A Comment on Supernaturalism" in Philosophic Problems(N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1967), ed. by ML‘Mandelbaum.and others. p. 781. 172 existence of the personal god in order to justify the exist- ence of the world and the self, or its freedom. Here, of course, by Eastern mysticism, I am mainly referring to Buddhism and Taoism, which have been dominant in China, Korea, and Japan during last twelve hundred years. In particular, I am mostly concerned with Zen Buddhismr-a synthesis of Indian Buddhism and Chinese Taoism. Zen may well serve our purpose, because, it is often said, it stands between a religion and a philosophy; it seems too religious to be a philosophy and too philosophical to be a religion. John M. Koller well pinpoints its dualistic character, when he says: Zen does not fit neatly into any of the popular definit- ions of a religious way of life, for it knows no gods, seeks no immortality, and has nothing to do with sin or soul. On the other hand, it does not seem to be philo- sophy for it is not concerned with reasons or arguments.5 Indeed, Zen like other mysticism has nothing to do with reasons or arguments. It does not constitute an argument for the correctness of any philosophical point of view. As Koller points out, however, the intellectual way is neither the only nor the best way of approaching reality. He says: The rational and philosophical approach, so well known to the West, is one approach. The existential meditative way of Zen is another. The two do not exclude each other unless such exclusion is founded within a point of view assumed by one or both of these ways. 5 John M. Koller, Oriental Philosophies(N.Y.: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1970), p. 181. 6 Ibid. p. 190. 173 If such exclusion is not founded within a shared point of view assumed by both philosophy and Zen, we have a good reason to examine Zen's point of view on the problem.of freedom.and determinism, particularly when we realize that we do have no intellectual way out as we have seen above. Another reason why I am interested in mysticism such as Zen in dealing with our dilemma is that mysticism, far from being inarticulate, is hardly mere non-sense. The genuine mystics themselves can hardly stop talking, and reveal in startling images drawn from virtually every domain of life. W. Earle points out: ...mystics are not simply playing with words for the sake of poetic effects, nor simply trying to outrage common logic by an act of effrontery. They are all, clearly, trying to say, are saying what really is. He even goes on to assert that we are obliged to examine the mystics' claim: ...since there are other disciplines and interests of mind which also concern themselves with this question, in fact. it would be difficult to name one interest of mind which was not concerned with reality, the claims of t e mystic must be adjudicated in their abstract essence. "It is," therefore, he claims, "an obligation of philosophy least, to examine those claims, even when what remains may look more like a skeleton than the living experience itself.9 The philosophical interest in mysticism may be also en- couraged by discussion on the nature of contradiction, for 7 William Earle, "Phenomenology of Mysticism” in Mbnism, Vol. 59, No. 4, Oct. 1976, p. 519. 3 Ibid. 9 Ibid. 174 Esample. The principle of contradiction is traditionally regarded as one of exactly three fundamental or basic laws of thought which are necessary and sufficient for thinking to follow if it is to be "correct."10 But if one maintains that rational or "correct" assertions are not merely made by reason alone, as it is often the case, then the role of the principle of contradiction cannot be always dominent. In fact, modern logic does not take it that there must be just three laws of thought. It is interesting to note, as Earle points out, that "rational assertions...are not made by reason which can literally gs_nothing at all, but by the wiii; it is the will out of its freedom, which asserts what it asserts in the iigss of reason."11 Furthermore, indeed, the rejection of the con- tradictory is an act of will, affirming or denying, and not of reason. Earle remarks: But no matter, looking now at the will, it is clear,... that in our transcendental will, we have the absolute freedom to affirm or deny anything whatsoever, and in- deed to will anything whatsoever, whether we can do what we will or not being beside the point. Anyone can always say either yes or no, ppd also both, at the same time and in the same respect. In mysticism, the supernatural, so to speak, turns out to be reality, the reality which can be conceived by the attainment 'l of enlightenment involving the radical going beyond” or the "opening of the third eye." From Zen's point of view, for 10 Further discussion of these matters is shown in Part Three of Readings on Logic, ed. by I. M. Copi and J. A. Gould (N. Y. : The Macmillan Co. ,1964). ‘ 11 Ibid. , '12 Ibid. 175 example, thus the principle of contradiction is not flatly denied but an instance of viewing the world and the self, which are valid only if its application is limited in the boundaries of the "normal" life of the self and its experienced world. If we realize this, B. Russell's so-called scientific point of view does not touch the heartstrings so much as one might expect. According to Russell, "from a scientific point of view," we can make no distinction between "the man who eats little and sees heaven" and "the man who drinks much and sees snakes." He argues: Each is in an abnormal physical condition, and therefore has abnormal perceptions. Normal perceptions, since they have to be useful in the struggle for life, must have some correspondence with fact; but in abnormal perceptions there is no reason to expect such correspondence, and their testimony, tpgrefore, cannot outweigh that of normal perception. This contention, as William P. Alston points out, raises some important issues. First of all, we must notice that mystic experiences should not be regarded as a kind of mental ill- ness, simply because both are unusual. There may be some apparent similarities between a mystic's experience and a kind of mental illness. But, as Alston argues, this in it- self does nothing to show that mystical experiences are delusory. He goes on, they are not delusory: 13 Bertrand Russell, Religion and Science(N.Y.: Oxford Univ. Press, 1961). p. 188. He adds, “I believe myself that the assertions are inessential, and that there is no reason to believe them true. I cannot admit any method of arriving at truth except that of science..." (Ibid. p. 189) 176 anymore than the fact that persons suffering from delirium tremens have experiences similar to those in- volved in the ordinary seeing of snakes proves that experiences of the latter sort are delusory or that there are no such things as snakes. we must get below pheno— 'menological similarity to similarity in the actual determining conditions if we are $2 have a criticism that is even initially plausible. To be sure, if the mystic's experience is abnormal, it is abnormal only in the sense, as Alston suggests, that it is ”in a condition which is relatively unconductive to efficiency of interaction with one's environment, or which is such that it hampers one's attempts to achieve one's aims."15 Other- wise, Russell's argument in the above passage could not be pursuasive, for, as Alston puts it again, "in that case the ideas of the genius would be deemed less likely to be correct than those of more ordinary people.”16 At this juncture, it may be important to note that the scientific view is one view, and that scientific knowledge does not simply supply man with new information; it provides him.with a world-view in terms of its methods and imagery. Frederick J. Streng rightly points out: The crucial distinction in a scientific method is its intention to define the world in terms of empirically measurable forces and conditions that produce given consequences, and to self-consciously limit man's understanding of life to these identifiable factors and processes... 14 William P. Alston, ed., Religious Belief and Philo- sophical Thought(N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1963), PP. ’ - 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid. 17 Frederick J. Streng, Understanding Reli ious Man(Bel- mont, Cal.: Dickenson Publishing Co., Inc., 196 ), p. 109. 177 Thus, from the scientific perspective, there is no other realm than the realm which emprical data expose to us. In contrast, for the mystic, the scientific perspective is tri- vial and idle, although it should not be ignored. It may be the case that the mystics' experience and their expressions must be taken seriously, if we want to properly retain and appreciate intellectual and scientific perspectives. The all-engulfing sense of oneness, the loss of distinction between self and object, the apparent violation of the prin- ciple of contradiction, is frequently asserted in any form of mysticism, as we shall see, to be of essence of the experience of enlightenment. If we are not cautious in dealing with thier expression, indeed, one might easily come to the con- clusion that mysticism.has nothing to do with the dilemma of freedom.and determinism, just as for the blind a description of a certain color does not make any sense. Analogously, our lack of mystic experience does not imply that the mystic's claim for reality is simply false, just as the blind's lack of color perception does not tell anything about reality being full with a various colors. Unless we can prove the non-existence of the mystic reality, we are not entitled to ignore the mystic experience; hence we are philosophically obliged to examine at least some implications of mystics' expressions by means of analysis of theis language, although such an analysis would be far from being satisfactory in understanding the mystic reality. 178 In concluding this section, I shall introduce H. Fingarette's "analogous situation," which, I think, may help us to understand the relation between our ordinary experience and the mystic's abnormal experience, and even the philo- sophical significance of their experience and expressions. According to Fingarette, the mystic's experience may not be merely an illusion, just as the experience of "three- dimensional space" in a painting is not an illusion, although both experiences are not experiences of physical three dimens— ional space. In the case of the experience in a painting, it is not an illusion, for we are not deceived by it, as long as we are aware of the perceptual situaion. Fingarette argues: It is an obviously different experience from.that of three dimensional physical space. Still, it is suffi- ciently reminiscent, in certain limted ways, of the physical space expereince so that we borrow physical space language in talking of it.13 Fingarette calls it "esthetic space," analogous to our ordinary three-dimentional space. Certainly, esthetic space exists; however, as he contends, "it is no more a mystery than any other perception." He adds: To call it an "illusion" or "subjective" is to attack a straw man--as if the artist had even said or intended us to think that it was literally the same as three dimensional physical space! If one takes it to be physical space, one is deluded, of course. But taken as it is, it is a genuine and distinct phenomenon in nature having for some prsons its own intrinsic and special value.19 18 Herbert Fingarette, "The Ego and Mystic Selflessness" in Identity and Anxiety, ed. by M.R. Stein and others (Glencoe, Ill: The Free Press, 1960), p. 580. 19 Ibid. 179 "Just so,‘ concludes Fingarette, ”the mystical experience... is illusion only if it is taken naively to be what the mystic constantly insists that it is not: a logically impossible, quasi-physical or mental union with a quasi-substantial being who has quasi-human traits."20 We may go even further with regard to our problem of freedom and determinism. Suppose, in "esthetic space," or E-space, one has claime that no one can be genuinely free because everything (in E-space) is causally determined, where- as the other maintains that (even in E-space) there is an exception, i.e., man is free unlike other creatures (in E- space). If they could not settle their dispute within the level of esthetic space, it may be useful to think about what "esthetic space" would be for them at all. Of course, it may not be possible to define "esthetic space" for those who have never experienced our physical three-dimensional space; how- ever for us, it is no difficult matter to tell what is actual- ly going on in E-space mainly due to our extended range of perception. Analogously, I believe, it may be the case that such a perennial question as freedom and determinism.would not find any solution unless we are able to share the mystical experiences. 20 Ibid. Fingarette also provides a significantly amplified theoretical psychoanalytic analysis of mysticism in this article. 180 In the following section, I shall introduce a Buddhistic account of freedom.and determinism, and contrast it with the Kantian solution of the dilemma; this is a preliminary study for an examination of Zen Buddhism, which is primarily a sect of Buddhism and shares the Kantian notion of noumena. 4.2. The Buddhistic Version of the Dilemma Zen Buddhism is essentially a practice of Buddhism, hence it accepts the fundamental principles of Buddha's teach- ing, which presuppose a certain philosophical theory of the self and the world. In what follows, I shall briefly examine this. When Buddha was their five years old, immediately after his enlightenment, he expounded the fundamental principles of his philosophy. The first principle was "anicca"--the doctrine that all things are impermanent. The second principle was "sunyata”--the doctrine of void, that is, all manifested things when analysed and taken to pieces, are found to lack continuous form or unchanging substance. From these two principles, it follows that all things are compounds, and all compounds are void of ultimate content. The third princple is the doctrine of compassion; he believes hatred ceases only by love, and this is an eternal law. The fourth principle is the doctrine of the conquest of instincts; for him, the one who conquers himself is greater than the one who conquers in battle a thousand men. From a philosophical point of view, we may call the first principle the Buddha's metaphysical theory, the 181 second his theory of knowledge, and the third and fourth, his theory and practice of value respectively. .With regard to our metaphysical issue of freedom and determinism, I shall be mainly concerned with the first two principeles, which seem to be more relevant to Zen than the latter two. The anicca, or impermanence, principle is the Buddhistic version of determinism as applied to things in the world. It presupposes the theory of "dependent origination," or paticca samuppada, which may be called the Buddhist's account of universal causation. From this theory, it also follows that the individual has no permanent substantial self, i.e., the doctrine of no-self, or anatta. Thus it is essential to understand the theory of dependent origination in order to deal with the Buddhist's problem of freedom. In Buddhism, freedom is a basic image used to express the new reality experienced through spiritual insight. It is espeically meaningful where the basic image of man's problem is suffering; to be free means to be free from.suffering. The Second Noble Truth indicates that suffering is caused.21 21 For the purpose of conquering onself, Buddha expounded the essence of his doctrine—-The Four Noble Truths. His doctrine of causation applied to the individual character is expressed in the Four Noble Truths, viz: the omnipresence of our suffering; its causes, selfish desire; its cure, the elimination of that separative desire, and the way to its removal. The Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism is also genral- 1y acknowledged; it is the means of obtaining this destruction of desire and the noblest course of spiritual training yet presented to man. They are: Right Belief; Right Thought; Right Speech; Right Action; Right Means of Livelihood; Right Exertion; Right Remembrance; Right Meditation. This was pre- scribed because it was what was needed to uproot the its cause. 182 The recognition that suffering is caused reflects an under- standing of the relations between events and things in the world. And, for the Buddhist, it was the theory of dependent origination that reflects these relations, according to which things in the emprical world are devoid of "the essential nature." In other words, it says that all things in the empirical world depend for their existence on something else as their cause. In terms of Kssms, the idea can be also expressed thus: all states and conditions in this life are the direct results of previous actions, and each action in the present determines the fate of the future. Life is the working process of Karman, the endless series of cause and effect.22 With Koller, we may put the Buddhist's version of universal causation as holding that ”whatever is, is dependent upon something else.‘ The formulation of the theory is as follows: (1) If this is, that comes to be; (2) From the arising of this, that arises; (3) If this is not, that does not come to be; (4) From the stopping of this, that stops.23 Apparently, such a formulation seems to be a typical thesis of metaphysical determinism. However, we may point out the following as characteristic to Buddhism. First, if whatever is, is dependent upon another, then any kind of "straight line” causality is ruled out. By this, 22 Karma is a Sanskrit noun in the nominative case derived from the verh, Kar, meaning to do; in the objective case it is Karman. Kamma and Kamman are the Pali equivalents. 23 Koller, Oriental Philosophies(op. cit.), p. 129. 183 as Koller points out, the Christian version of determinism is ruled out as well, because the theistic notion that one absolutely independent being--God--created the rest of what exists, and that this created universe depends for its existence upon God, makes no sense in the Buddhist view of dependent origination.24 "Rather," Koller adds, "whatever creates is also created, and the processes of creating and being created go on simultaneous- ly without beginning or end." If we understand that infinite series without a beginning and an end have been successfully treated in mathematics, we may also find that there is nothing paradoxical in this kind of causation. Hans Reichenbach also contends that there need not have been a first event. He remarks that "we can imagine that every event was preceded by an earlier event, and that time has no beginning. The infinity of time, in both directions, offers no difficulties to the understanding."25 According to Reichenbach, to object that there must have been a first event, a beginning time, is "the attitude of an untrained mind." He adds: Logic does not tell us anything about the structure of time. Logic offers the means of dealing with infinite series without a beginning as well as with series that have a beginning. If scientific evidence is in favor of an infinite time, coming from infinity and going to infinity, logic has no objection. 24 Ibid. 25 Hans Reichenbach, The Rise of Scientific Philosophy (Berkely: University of California Press, 1951), p. 207. 26 Ibid. p. 208. 184 Secondly, in the theory of dependent origination, as a consequence of the mutual dependence of all beings, it follows that all are mutually self-creating, because no beings are solely "other-created." Thirdly, the Newtonian notions of space and time are also ruled out by the theory. For Newton, space had been a passive arena in which bodies moved, because forces, such as gravity, acted on them. Time was unchangeable. But according to the theory of dependent origination there are no beings independent of each other. As Koller points out, in Buddhism; There are only ongoing processes of mutually dependent factors. Reality is of the nature of process; thin s are merely abstractions..There are no beings; there are only becomings. And since a completion of becoming is never attained, being is never reached. According to Fritjof Capra, the Buddhist's notions of space and time are similar to the notions of modern physics.28 He remarks: Being able to go beyond the ordinary state through meditation, they have realized that the conventional notions of space and time are not the ultimate truth. The refined notions of space and time resulting from their mystical experiences appear to be in many ways similar to the notions of modern physics, as exempl- ified by the theory of relativity.29 27 Koller, Oriental Philosophies(op. cit.), p. 129. 28 A comprehensive account of modern concepts of space and time is shown in Richenhach's From Copericus to Einstein (N.Y.: Philosophical Library, 1952), pp. 49-84. 29 Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics(N.Y.: Bantham Books, Inc., 1977), p. 150. 185 It is said that, in his genral theory of relativity, Albert Einstein changed the foundation concepts of time and space as thoroughly as he had changed the concepts of energy and matter. For him, space and time were no longer distinct but became a part of four-dimensional arena. Moreover this arena was not passive but was curved by the presence of matter. Time itself was no longer unchangeable. If the observer moved fast enough, time could be slowed down so that after such a journey the observer would have 'aged"much less than the person who stayed at home.30 Finally, according to the theory of dependent origination, adequate definitions are impossible. From the claim that the universe is of the nature of process, it follows that whatever might be defined would belong to past stages of the process and never to the present reality of the process.) 'The Buddhistic version of causation can be summarized as followings: This being so, that comes to be... this ceas- ing to be, that ceases. In other words, existence is caused by the unceasing accumulation of ksims; existence involves all sorts of suffering; freedom means putting an end to the suffering by putting an end to the accumulation of karma when one realizes that every mental or physical action has its proportionate result and that karma is, in fact, the sum of these results. Our karma-producing actions are caused by 30 Richenbach, From Copericus to Einstein(op. cit.), pp. 85-105. 186 the delusion that we are real selves, that the ego is a permanent identity--and therefore this self or ego is dominat- ed by egoistical desires or attachments. Thus, the theory of dependent origination is essentially connected with the Buddhist's theory of the self, which is central in "Sunyata" principle. Let's consider the Buddhist's theory of the self. According to the Buddhist teaching, the untutored or ‘misinformed or ignorant might regard the self as consisting of the skandhas, is either to show lack of acquaintance with the dharma, or teaching, or to be misinformed concerning it. In a Buddhist scripture, we can find the following dialogue concerning the notion of the self: 'Now, what do you think, brethren, is form, or any other constituent of the "personality," permanent or impermanent?‘ 'Impermanent, O Lord!‘ 'Does then impermanence conduce to suffering, or to ease?‘ 'To Suffering, O Lord!‘ 'But is it fitting to consider that which is imper- manent, linked to suffering, and doomed to reversal, as "this is mind, I am.this, this is my self"?' 'No, indeed not, O Lord!‘ 'Therefore, brethren, whatever form, or other skandha, there may be--past, future, or present, inward or outward, gross or subtle, low or exalted, near or far away--all that should be seen by right wisdom as it really is, i.e. that should be seen by right wisdom as it really is, i.e., that "All this is mine, I am not this, this is not myself."'31 The Buddhists propound the so-called "anatta theory" in the context of a general belief in the Hindu notion of the self, 31 Edward Conze, Buddhist Scriptures(Baltimore: Penguin Book, 1959), p. 188. 187 or spmss.32 They see the impossibility of postulating an unchanging substantial self in a realm of momentary exist- ences where everything is subject to anicca, or change, as shown in the theory of independent origination. The anatta doctrine is further illustrated by the encounter of King Milinda with the Venerable Nagasena. As the close of a discussion on the nature of the self the King is made to see that as a 'chariot' is so designated in dependence on the pole, exle, wheel, and other constitutent parts, so 'Nagasena' is designated in dependence on the five skandhas. The discussion is summed up thus: Where all constituent parts are present, The word "a Chariot" is applied. So likewise where the skandhas are, The term a "being" commonly is used.33 Thus, according to anatta theory, the self must be seen as a causally linked combination or aggregate of interdependent physical and mental skandhas working together in a stream of becoming orin.the Heraclitan flux of momentary existences. Apart from this there is no 'I', no 'self', no 'person' who acts and feels freedom or suffering. This is to say that there is no such a thing as Cartesian substantial self, which is essential in Campbell's treatment of the issue of 32 Variously conceived in Indian philosophy, atom- istically, monadically, etherially, as the hypothetical carrier of Karma, identical with the divine or different from yet dependent on it, or as a metaphysical entity to be dissolved at death and reunited with the world ground. 33 Ibid. p. 149. 188 freedom and determinism. The Buddhist claim about anatta, or no-self, as Koller rightly observes it, "the non-existence of the self as a being is_addition is, or apart from, the various factors that are ordinarily said to belong to the self."34 He adds: -The anatta theory denies the existence of a self only when the word "self" is taken to refer to some thing in addition to the groups of actors making up a person. The anatta theory does not deny the existence of a self when the word "self" is taken to refer to only the five groups of processes constituting the person. Thus, it is the view that the self is a substance independent of the processes making up a person that is denied by the doctrine of anatta.3 In this respect, the anatta theory is strikingly similar to Hume's account of the self as a "bundle of perceptions." Then how does the Buddhist solve Hume's unity problem of finding the principle of connection between the skandhas? For the Buddhist, the unity problem does not arise; he considers the notion of the self to be compatible with complex- ity, momentariness and flux. He simply gives the name self to the aggregate of skandhas and leaves it at that. As Glyn Richards points out, for the Buddhists, "there is a psycho- physical organism and that is what we designate the self." He says: It is the name for a physical presence among other physic- al presences, and for an experiencing 'subject' among other experiencing 'subjects'. Clearly the Buddhist could not conceive of the applellation 'self' apart from the psycho-physical organism.36 34 Koller, Oriental Philosophies(op. cit.), p. 132. 35 Ibid. p. 133. 36 Glyn Richards, "Conceptions of the Self in Wittgenstein, Hume, and Buddhism," The Monist(Vol. 61, no. 1), p. 52. 189 However, it may be important to note some significant differ- ences between Hume's account and the Buddhist's anatta theory. One difference between Hume and the Buddhist is that, for Hume, the self as a fiction was necessary, as Terence Penelhum.points out, whereas, for the Buddhist, it is un- necessary. For Hume, as we have seen in 3.3, there is no such an abiding entity as a substantial self, because, as an empiri- cist, he is not able to discover it by means of introspection, hence, it is a fiction. According to Penelhum, Hume has 'mistakenly conceded that there is a contradiction between saying a person has changed and remains the same, while there is no paradox, since the changes are characteristic of the person. Thus, for Penelhum, for Hume's skepticism.cou1d "arise only if the (substantialists') doctrine were thought to be both false sss_necessary." He adds, "But it is only false."37 In contrast, for the Buddhist, a substantial self is not only illusory, but also unnecessary. This is so, not because he is unable to introspect himself as an identical subject, but because such an experience cannot be real with regard to the anicca principle, according to which the definition of the self is not possible, for whatever might be defined would belong to past stages of the process and never to the present reality of the process. Indeed, for the Buddhist, it is 37 Terence Penelhum, "Personal Identity," The Encyclopedia of Philoso h (N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. & The Free ress, , ed. by Paul Edwards, Vol. V, p. 100. 190 unnecessary to conceive the self even as a continuing bundle of perceptions, which may also become a cause of suffering or bondage. Thus, in Buddhism, Hume's notion of the self likened to a succession of actors on a stage is also ignored as an illusion. This point is illustrated in the following occasion. A wandering monk puts the quest on to the Buddha, 'Is there an Atman?‘ The Buddha makes no reply. 'Is there no Atman?‘ askes the wanderer. Again, the Buddha is silent. The monk departs and the disciple Ananada questions the Buddha on this silence. The Buddha's reply is parapharased by W. Rahula as following: 'Had I replied "there is a self" I would have been called an eternalist. Had I replied "there is no self" I would have been called an annihilationist. It is as wrong to maintain that I have a self as it is to claim that I have no self; both are inaccurate, and both derive from a false notion of "I".'38 The notion of the self which the Buddha is neither affirming nor denying in this context is not only the Cartesian sub- stance but also Humean bundle; in this respect, the anatta theory must be understood, if any, only in connection with Sunyata, or the Void, principle in general as we shall see shortly. Another important difference between the anatta theory and Hume's bundle theory is that the former is concerned with individual freedom.from the samsaric world, whereas the latter is merely a logical conclusion which is derived from the 33 walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught(N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1959), pp,62-64. 191 empiricist's premise. As Richards points out, the purpose of the anatta theory is to cut at the very roots of grasping which binds man to the cyclic world of suffering. Therefore, the anatta theory cannot be adequately understood without presupposing the notion of the "wheel of becoming(bhavacakra)," which represent the cycle of life depicted by the wheel.39 Indeed, without understanding this process, we cannot under- stand the point of the anatta theory, which has a religious purpose. As Richards explains: To understand the anatta doctrine in Buddhism.is to be liberated from samsaric world; to have a Humean insight iggslpgazothe self is not, produces no such liberating Thus, for the Buddhists, there is no significant difference between the self as a mental substance and the self as a bundle of perceptions insofar as they are equally sources of suffering and ignorance. In other words, the conviction that there is a self is the root—cause of suffering, or non-freedom, for it is desire, passionate attachment, caused by ignorance as to the truth about this so-called self, that shackles us to the ever-revolving wheel of birth-life-death-rebirth, through the continuously replenished motive force of accumulating karma. Therefore, the key to release from this wheel and to the understanding of the essence of the anatta theory is not 39 In this cycle man is caught up, being born, suffer- ing, and dying; being born, suffering, and dying, ss dukkham. Life brings death and death brings life, as these are no more than phases in the eternal process. 40 Richard, "Conceptions of the Self" (op.cit), p.53. 192 only the understanding that there is no self, whether it be a substance or a bundle of perceptions, but also the accept- ance of the fact that there is no self, and consequently the fact that desires and the satisfaction of desires are the illusory products of ignorance. Furthermore, it is essential to understand that with this attitude toward the self the Buddhist moves beyond the dilemma of freedom.and determinism. Although the anatta theory is simple and consistent with the anicca principle, the problem of just what the ignorant self was, and the relationship of this to Sunyata principle, according to which the ultimate reality is the void or empti- ness, bothered the philosophically oriented Buddhists, and the answers proposed gave rise to a number of schools. Here the crucial question is this: If anyone is to be enlightened, should it be the case that somehow, somewhere, within the empirical world there must be that which is not of the nature of the compounded and is not that which is inseparable from suffering? As Koller puts it, ”it would be this--whatever it is--that would constitute the nature of the enlightened persons."41 To put it still another way, the question is: How the enlightened self, or the no-self, can be conscious of himself as a selflessness? These questions may be taken to be Buddhistic versions of self-identity problems. In the context of the problem.of freedom.and determinism, I shall be mainly concerned with the views of Ashvaghosa and Nagarjuna, which 41 Koller (op.cit), p. 142. 193 provide the chief basis for the practices constituting the Mahayana Buddhist way of life; Zen Buddhism is one form of Mahayana Buddhism. The Buddhists' task concerning self-identity in general was to seek other ways of solving the problem of personal continuity and enlightenment without invoking a theory of substances. According to the Personalists, or Pudhalavadins, for example, the "person" must be recognized as something real in its own right something that an enlightened person experiences. They illustrate the nature of person, or pudhala, by an example: the "person" is like the fire that is correlated with the fuel and the flame; though they are always found together, fire has a reality of itself, evident in its nature as heat; firzzis not the same thing as fuel or a series of flames. It is the "person" that provides the element of connection between the ignorant and the enlightened individual. This "person" is the substance of activities, and is responsible for coordinating the activities of the various mental pro- cesses involved in knowing and acting. However, their problem was to show the relationship between dharmas and pudgala, that is, between the impersonal groups and the "person", which is similar to the mind-body problem. In a sense, the Personalist's problem was similar to P.F. Strawson's problem. For Strawson it is not the case 42 Ibid. p. 141. 194 that persons are things which just happen to have bodily attributes, nor is it the case that they are things which just happen to have mental attributes. It is essential to persons, or Strawson, that they be entities which necessarily have both mental and bodily attributes. He defines "person" very simple as a type of entity such that both predicates ascribing states of consciousness and predicates ascribing corporeal characteristics, a physical situation, etc. are equally applicable to a single individual of that single type. 3 But such a definition, like the Personalist's analogy of "fire," does not help us very much. By giving an illustration or a simple definition, neither the Personalist nor Strawson proves the point. As a result, as Koller points out: the Personalist theory...is really nothing more than a rather dogged insistence that since we ordinarily talk and act as though there were a "person" in addition to the groups of processes constituting the individual, that "person" must exist, even though it is not possible to say what it is or how it is related to the processes.44 According to Ashvaghpsa, the "person" must be replaced by tathata, or suchness. For Nagarjuna, it was sunyata, it is important to note here that "suchness and emptiness were not postulated as theories to explain the empirical continu- ity of an individual."45 As pointed out in the above, the. question is about the connection between the empirical or ignorant self and the enlightened one. Again, there is no 43 Strawson, Individuals(London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1959), p. 102. 44 Koller, (op.cit), p. 141. 45 Ibid. 195 problem in connection with empirical identity and continuity, because it was universally accepted that what was empirical was compounded; was unreal; was transitory and so on. Now it is clear that our original question cannot be answered both for Ashvaghosa and Nagarjuna, because the question was compounded by the fact that it is the ignorant self who is trying to understand the enlightened self. Thus Ashvaghosa says: Suchness is empty; because from the beginning it has never been related to any defiled states of existence, it is free from all marks of individual distinction of things, and it has nothing to do with thoughts conceived by a deluded mind.46 To be sure, if the nature of the enlightened self is beyond the empirical and conceptual, as Ashvaghosa says, we cannot say anything meaningful about the enlightened, or true self, it may be better just to refer to it by using the non-name "suchness"rather than trying to specify it. Nagarjuna, on the other hand, was not satisfied with the Hinayanist's view that the enlightened self consists in realizing that self was merely a temporary association of dharmas and skandhas. Because he was completely in accord with the principle of dependent origination, for him, not only did self not exist, but the hypothesized dharmas and skandhas did not exist either. It was just as illogical to posit the existence of numerous components that would come together to 46 Ashvaghosa,The Awakeningof Faith,trans. by Yoshito S. Kakeda (N.Y.: Columbia Univ. Press, 1967), p.34. 196 form a temporary individual as it was to think that the individual was a thing-in-himself. Nagarjuna's View, or the Middle Way of Madhymika, thus by a relentless dialectic, destroys completely the illusion that anything exists. The non-name the Madhymika philosophers used for the enlightened self was sunyata, or emptiness, or void. For them, the self is empty of reality. Koller points out: The argument behind this claim was supported by the position that whatever is determined perceptually and conceptually is of the nature of mind and not of reality. Perceptual and conceptual claims are based upon a cutting up of reality, and thus do not represent reality 2§ it is. Hence these claims are empty of reality. To say that the enlightened self is sunyata is to say that there cannot be any adequate theory of the self. Indeed, Nagarjuna shows that any theory of the self will be one-sided and incomplete; he avoids clinging to one theory as true and another as false. This also implies that there cannot be a theoretical solution to our dilemma, in which both freedom.and determinism are conceived as functions of self-identification. In the above, we have seen that the Madhyamika philo- sopher's own view about the nature of the enlightened self is really a "nonéview," Thus, from the anicca principle, the Buddhist version of causation, and the anatta doctrine, or the view of "no-self," via the "non-view" of the self, the Buddhist comes to the sunyata principle, according to which all manifested things when analysed and taken to pieces, are 47 Koller (op. cit), p. 142. 197 found to lack continuous form or unchanging substance. In short, the Madhyamika dialectic destroyed any ultimate "reality" to which one could cling, and in this sense it carried the mission of the Buddha to its logical conclusion, the conclusion which provides the most adequate foundation for the Zen Buddhist way of life. Here, so-called existence is equated with nonexistence; in the last analysis, they are identical. As one looks at the phenomenal world, one observes the "existence" of "things,' and such observation has a relative validity. In this sense, the law of causation also has only a relative validity. But when one attains enlighten- ment, one understands that from the level of absolute truth it is equally meaningless to think of any "thing" as either existing or nonexisting. In this context, Nagarjuna's "Treatise on Relativity" must be understood: -What neither is released, nor is it ever reached, What neither is annihilation, nor is it eternality, What never disappears, nor has it been created This is Nirvana. It escapes precision.48 He goes on: The Buddha has declared That Ens and non-Ens should be both rejected. Neither as Ens nor as a non-Ens Nirvana therefore is conceived. Thus, Nagarjuna comes to conclusion: There is no difference at all Between Nirvana and Samsara. There is no difference at all Between Samsara and Nirvana.49 v— 48 T. Stcherbatsky, The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana (The Hague: Mbuton and Co., 1965), p. 74. 49 Ibid. pp.77-78. 198 In the Heart Sutra, or the Prajna-Paramita-Hrdaya Sutra, he expresses the same idea; "...form(rupa) does not differ from the void(sunya), nor the void fromform."50 Just as any distinction, the difference between form and void, between Nirvana and Samsara can be meaningful only to the deluded mind. In this respect, Karl Potter may be right when he says that the difference between the two worlds is epistemological rather than ontological.51 For the same reason, we may also say that freedom and determinism are merely two different forms of illusion, which arise from the ignorance of two basic principles, namely, anicca and sunyata. This is exactly what Zen Buddhists have asserted. In order to make their claims more comprehensive, however, it may be useful to refer to Kant's "Transcendental Idealism." In Kant's account, we can find such a distinction between the empirical self and the noumenal self, as well as the distinction between phenomena and noumena, by means of which a compatibility thesis between freedom and determinism is also provided. After examining Kant's solution of the metaphysical problem of freedom, in which there are epistemol- ogically different two worlds, but not intellectual intuition, we may be more sympathetic to Zen master's approach to the problem, in which by the exercise of "prajna-intuition" the identity of phenomena and noumena is actually, or is assumed . 50 Shing-yun Shih, ed. Bilingual Buddhist Series, Vol. One(Taipei: Buddhist CulturehService, 1962), p. 134. 51 Karl Potter, PreSuppositisns of India's Philosophies (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1963), p. 137. 199 to be, "experienced." 4.3 Kant's Solution of the Dilemma and Its Implication Kant seems to have tortured himself with the problem of reconcilation of freedom and determinism. Hoe does not agree with soft-deterministic solution, according to which the controversy is merely verbal; his emphasis, instead, is on the independence of the self. The self is the principle of freedom only in that realm of acts in which it is sovereign and autonomous--dependent on nothing but itself, even for the law it obeys. Thus, unlike the libertarians' self, Kant's self does not block the causal chain of events. For Kant, our understanding, convinces us that all phenomenal events are a series of causes and effects; every one knows that every event is caused. But we cannot go on infinitely with this series. There must be, it is said, the beginning of the series, or the first member of the series. Otherwise, there cannot be the last effect we have now. But then the first member of the series must be self-caused. Now Kant seems to apply this argument to human action. Let us see how Kant has solved the problem as shown in his "the antinomy of pure reason" of the Transcendental Dialectic section of the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant states the third antinomy as follows: Thesis: Causality in accordance with laws of nature is not only causality from which the appearance of the world can one and all be derived. To explain these appearances it is necessary to assume that there is also another causality, that of freedom. 200 Antithesis: There is no freedom; everything in the world takes palce solely in accordance with laws of nature.52 In his observation on the thesis, Kant explicitly ‘states that he had in mind the origin of the world. But he then goes on to say that if there is a free cause of the total series ‘of phenomenal causal sequences, we are justified in admitting, within the world, free causes of different series of phenomena. He says: since the power of spontaneously beginning a series in time is thereby proved (though not understood), it is now also permissible for us to admit within the course of the world different series as capable in their causal- ity of beginning of themselves, and so to attribute to their substances a power of acting from.freedom. 3 As for the antithesis, on the other hand, Kant maintains that it is natural to understand it as referring to human freedom; here he introduces the idea of free cause existing ourside the world. "Even if a transcendental power of freedom be allowed, as supplying a beginning of happening in the world," he claims, "this power would in any case have to be outside the world." Kant adds: But to ascribe to substances in the world itself such a power, can never be permissible; for, should this be done, that connection of appearances determining one another with necessity according to universal laws, which we entitle nature, and with it the criterion of empirical truth, thereby experience is distinguished from.dreaming, would almost entirely disappear.54 52 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason(N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1965), trans.by N. K. Smith, p. 409. 53 Ibid. p. 413. 54 Ibid. pp. 413-414. 201 Accordingly, the thesis, that causality 'according to the law of nature' is not the only kind of causality, can be true, though we cannot prove that this is the case. The antithesis, on the other hand, that there is no freedom, is also true if it is taken as referring solely to the phenomenal world, though it is not true if it is taken as referring to all reality what- soever. For Kant, if we adopt the standpoint of the critical philosophy then we can sift out what is true from.what is false in thesis and antithesis and rise above the flat contra- dictions. That is, the antinomy between the thesis, which represents the standpoint of dogmatic rationalism, and sssi; thesis, which represents the empiricist standpoint, can be resolved only by adopting the standpoint of the critical philo- sophy, which depends on a highly speculative bifurcation of the universe into the world of "noumena" and the world of "phenomena," and the self into the noumenal self and the empirical self. The way is therefore left open for Kant to say that man is noumenally free and phenomenally determined. How do we understand this? According to Kant, freedom is "the intelligible," which belongs to lthe noumenal world where temporality does not exist. This freedom is the cause of action in such a way that the action is the effect to the cause which is the free- dom. This freedom, again, is not caused by anything else, but it causes human action. But one may be puzzle with the relation between non-temporal noumena and causally determined 202 specio-temporal phenomena. So we are left with the mystic wonderland of noumenon by Kant, the hoary world which is reminiscent Nagarjuna's sunyata. ‘What is a noumenon for Kant? As mentioned in 3.4, for Kant, correlative to the idea of things as appearing, there is the unknowable real world, or things-in-themselves. Let us take a closer look at it. According to Kant, the categories of the understanding taken by themselves give us no knowledge of objects. And the schematized categories apply only to the data of sense intuit- ion, i.e., appearances. The use of categories such as causat- ion is thus limited and that they are valid only for objects of sense. Our knowledge of object is thus restricted to phenomenal reality and are unable to kpsy what lies beyond these bounds, we have no right to assert that there are only phenomena; Kant introduces the idea of noumena. Kant's point may be rephrased something like this: Let's call appearances 'phenomena' insofar as they are thought as objects according to the unity of categories. The idea of appearance involves the idea of something which appears. Correlative to the idea of a thing as appearing is the idea of thing as not appearing. But if we try to abstract from all that is the object which has reference to the s priori conditions of knowledge, we arrive at the idea of an unknown "something," which is completely indeterminate; it is merely something in general. To transform it into a "noumenon," we must assume an intellectual intuition, in which the 203 transcendental object can be given. In otder words. while the concept of the transcendental object is a mere limiting concept, the noumenon is conceived as an intelligible, a positive reality which could be the object of an intellec- tual intuition. However, Kant asserts, we possess no faculty of intellectual intuition; therefore, he concludes, we cannot conceve even its possibility in the positive con- cept. Two senses of noumenon and the impossibility of its positive concept is shown in the following passage: If by 'noumenon' we mean a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensible intuition, and so abstract ffom.our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon is the negative sense of the term. But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensible intuition, we thereby presuppose a special mode of intuition, namely, the in- tellectual, which is not that which we possess, and of which we cannot comprehend even the possibility. This gpuld be 'noumenon' in the positive sense of the term. For Kant, the concept of noumenon is indespensible: for it is bound up with his whole theory of experience. He says: The doctrine of sensibility is likewise the doctrine of the noumenon in the negative sense, that is, of things which the understanding must think without this refer- ence to our mode of intuition, therefore not merely as appearances but as things in themselves. If we were prepared to say that the self is creative in the full sense of the word as used in solipsism, we could drop the distinction between phenomena and noumena; but if the self contributes only the formal elements of experience, we can- not abandon the distinction. For the idea of things conform- ing to the striori conditions of experience involves the idea 55 Ibid. p. 268. 56 Ibid. 204 of things in themselves. Indeed, as remarked in 3.1, it may be reasonable to say that Kant attempted to_escape from both solipsism and scepticism solely by his appeal to the notion of noumenon. Furthermore, it may be noted, though the idea of a nou- menon as a thing in itself does not contain a logical contra- diction, we cannot see the positive possibility of noumenon considered as a possible object of intuition. Hence the di- vision of objects into phenomena and noumena is not to be admitted. In Kant's own words: The division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and the world into a world of the senses and a world of the understanding, is...quite inadmissible in the posi- tive sense, although the distinction of concepts as sensible and intellectual is certainly legitimate.57 This is so, because, Kant adds, "no object can be determined for the latter concepts, and consequently they cannot be asserted to be objectively valid."58 The distinction between phenomena and noumena, in this respect, just like the differ- ence samsara and nirvana in Nagarjuna' system, seems to be epistemological rather than ontological. Now, as I mentioned earlier, for Kant, the self is the principle of freedom only in that realm of acts in which it is sovereign and autonomous. According to Kant, we have to assume the transcendental or noumenal self, in a similar fashion as he posits the noumenal world, in order to exercise freedom of choice through its faculty of election, which he calls 'elective will." Otherwise, morality is impossible 57 Ibid. p. 272. 58 Ibid. 205 since empirical self, which is in the phenomenal world, is subject to the laws of nature. Thus, for Kant, there are two kinds of selves; one is an empirical one, and the other is a noumenal self. He tells us that men have empirical selves insofar as they have bodies and psychic functions--for example, sensation, imagery, feeling, purposes--which depend on embody- ment. Such selves can be known by inner sense, and their manifestations can be investigated empirically. This is simi- lar to Hume's notion of self and the Buddhist's ignorant self which is shown in the anatta theory. On the other hand, Kant's concept of a rational being as a noumenon which is somehow related to a phenomenal embodied self is a metaphysical model that dramatized difficulties connected with the mechanical explanation of thought and ra- tional action. He says: Man,...who know all the rest of nature solely through the senses, knows himself also through pure apperception; and this, indeed, in acts and inner determinations which he cannot regard as impressions of the senses. He is thus to himself, on the one hand phenomenon, and on the other hand, in respect of certain faculties the action of which cannot be ascribed to the receptivity of sensibility, a purely intelligible object.59 The causality of these actions lies in him as intelligence and in the laws of the effects and actions following principles of an intelligible world. In his Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Mbrals, Kant also says, "to exempt man's causality (that is, his will) from all the natural laws of the sensible world would, in one and the same subject, give rise to a 59 Ibid. p. 472. 206 contradiction." He goes on: The contradiction would fall away if they were willing to reflect and to admit, as is reasonable, that things in themselves (although hidden) must lie behind appear- ances as their ground, and that we cannot require the laws of their operations to be identical with those that govern their appearances.60 Of this world man indeed simply knows that in it reason alone gives the law, a reason pure and independent of the senses. Since in this world alone he, as intelligence, is his real self, whereas as human he is only appearance of his self, he knows that the laws of reason concern him immediately and cate- gorically, so that the laws of his volition as intelligence cannot be impaired by that to which inclinations and impulses impel him. Kant's notion of noumenal self is strikingly similar to the Madhyamika philosophers' notion of the enlightened self in the sense that they both stand over and above bodies and psychic functions, or skandhas, and that their manifestations cannot be investigated by ordinary empirical means. The tran- scendental and supersensible subject is only recognized as the unity of apperception or as the point to which all experi- ence relates, which is the ultimate condition of experience, whether it be of thinking of willing. In this respect, merely as a formal condition, the noumenal self is also empty, or sppys, just as the enlightened self. This may be even clearer if we refer to "Analytic" section of the Critique, in which 60 Immanuel Kant, Groundworks of the Metaphysic of Morals,(N.Y.: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1956), trans, by H.J. Paton, P. 127. 207 he deals with the representation '1' which is completely empty. Thus Kant maintains that what he calls the "I think," or the unity of apperception, in "Analytic," is the ultimate con- dition of experience, in the sense of being the logical sub- ject of experience, or the psiss_to which all experience re- lates. Like Campbell, for Kant, all experience is experience for a subject; whatever thoughts or feelings I have I must be capable of recognizing as my thoughts or feelings. But the subject here referred to, unlike such a Cartesian substance as Campbell maintains, is not something substantial; it is merely a logical requirement, from.the fact that I say "1 thin ." In this respect, as we have seen in 3.4, it is strong- ly reminiscent Wittgenstein's Tractarian self. On the other hand, against Hume, Kant maintains that the self is not something like "an abiding and continuing intui- tion," the sort of thing Hume vainly sought in the flow of his inner consciousness or introspection. For Kant, the represen- tation 'I' is simple, and in itself completely empty. He says: We cannot even say that this is a concept, but only that it is a bare consciousness which accompanies all concepts. Through this I or he or it (the thing) which thinks, nothing further is represented than a transcendental sub- ject of the thoughts=X. Kant continues: It is known only through the thoughts which are its pre- dicates, and of it, apart from them, we cannot have any concept whatsoever, but can only revolve in a perpetual circle, since any judgement upon it has always already made use of its representation.61 61 Ibid. p. 331. 208 In earlier passage in the Critique, he also expresses the same idea : ...in the synthetic original unity of apperception, I am conscious of myself, not as I appear to myself, nor as I am in myself, but only that I am. This representation is a thought, not an intuition.62 To be sure, this seems to be a perfect description of the en- lightened self, as we shall see shortly; in Zen, to be en- lighted, or to see one's own nature means to be conscious only Esss I am.63 Before we see what Zen masters do in order to show and actually "experience" the compatibility of freedom and deter- minism, it may be useful to consider some implications of Kantian solution of the dilemma, mainly concerning the limit of "reason." This may be significant, particularly when we realize that we still live in the era of Kantian paradigm as indicated in 3.1. In his "The Dilemma of Determinism after Seventy-Five years," Clarence Shute reviews what has been done since William.Jame raised the issue again in his essay, "The dilemma of Determinism," which was published in 1884. Of the indeter- minist, Shute remarks that the indeterminist's fatal weakness is that "he cannot make conceptually clear to himself or to others the meaning of genuine alternatives." He continues: 62 Ibid. p. 168. 63 It may be interesting to compare it with Kant's notion of enlightenment as "man's release from his self-incurred tute- lage," which is "man's inability to make use of his understand- ing without direction from.another.", Foundations of the Meta- physics of Mbrals and What is Enli htenment?, trans. by L.W1 Béck(N.Y.: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1959), p. 85. 209 He can distinguish between causes which are nonrational and causes which are reasons, and it is clear that a person may be more or less rational; but it is not at all clear that we can make intelligible the assertion that one could be more or less rational than in fact he is. We must think causally or not at all. we can feel the reality of genuine alternatives, with Campbell, or we can pqstulate it, with Kant, but we cannot conceive it.54 "This makes it impossible for the indeterminist to argue his case,‘ says Shute, ”or to show what he means by his assertion." Accordingly, he claims that the indeterminist should, rather, declare his "faith" and sing an "anthem” in its praise. In this respect, to an ignorant self, or empirical self, what we are going to do with Zen Buddhism would amount to singing in anthem or declaring one's faith, or at most analyzing a poem. Shute, however, wisely enough, does not stop here; by what he says in the above passage, he does not mean that the determinist has made his case. Of the determinist, he com- ments : He has the distinct advantage of being able to make his meaning clear and precise. That is a necessary but not sufficient condition for establishing its truth. What it establishes is a logically consistent instrument which may or may not be fruitful when applied to matters of fact...the theory of causal determinism is a useful regu- lative ideal for science. This is only a tautology, since science is belief that all events are so ordered is logi- cally, not empirically founded. There is no justifica- tion for excluding the possibility of genuine alternatives in types of situation whose understanding requires this concept.65 Thus, he concludes, "the question is not, in either case, whether we can have a clear conception of the concept, but 54 Clarence Shute, "The Dilemma of Determinism after Seventy-five Years," in Mind, vol. 70 (1961), p. 337. 65 Ibid. pp. 338- 339. 210 whether the sss of the concept is or is not necessary for understanding the specific area of experience being examined."66 But since we have seen that the problem of freedom and deter- minism is not merely a matter of use of concept, or a verbal dispute, in Chapter I, we shall see how Zen Buddhism attempts to solve the problem not in terms of the use of a concept within the scope of rationality and logic, but by means of a personal experience,‘ or in their own terms, by "seeing one's own nature." This may be justified, however, only by admitting that there are limits to reason in dealing our dilemma. As we have seen above, what Kant did was to attempt to show that there were ineluctable limits to reason; for example, it is impossible to solve such a perennial problem as freedom and determinism without introducing a mystic notion of the noumenal world and self, which it is not possible to conceive unless one has "intellectual intuition." But since we have no such mystic faculty, it follows that in its genuine sense, we are not able to solve the dilemma. Indeed, if I am right, this is what Kant wants to show us in his Critique of Pure Reason, by which man becomes the critic of his own reason. However, as William Barrett, a famous recent advocate of Zen, points out, "the Western mind, positivistic to the core, could be expected to take such a conclusion seriously only when it showed up in science itself." He adds: Well, science in this century has at last caught up with 66 Ibid. p. 339. 211 Kant: almost simultaneously Heisenberg in physics and Gddel in mathematics, have shOwn ineluctable limits to human reason.67 The same idea is also expressed in O.V.W. Quine's "On what there is" in terms of "the analogy between the myth of mathematics and the myth of physics," which are for him strik- ingly close. He says: Consider, for example, the crisis which is precipitated in the foundations of mathematics, at the turn of the century, by the discovery of Russell's paradox and other antinomies of set theory. These contradictions had to be obviated by unintuitive, ss’hoc devices; our mathematical myth-making became deliberate and evident to all. But what of physics? An antinomy arose between the undular and the corpuscular accounts of light; and if this was not as out-and-out a contradiction as Russell's paradox I suspect that the reason is that physics is not as out- and-out as mathematics. Quine adds in a way similar to Barrett: the second great modern crisis in the foundations of mathematics--precipitated in 1931 by Gadel's proof II that there are bound to be undecidable statements in arithmetic--has its companion piece in physics in Heisenberg's indeterminacy princile. Indeed, the effect of the critical philosophy of Kant in the West, and Nagarjuna in the East, was to draw attention to the limitations of reason. In our own generation, faith in the power of reason was severely shaken when it was discovered in mathematics, notably by Kurt GBdel that the completeness of mathematical systems could not be attained. And Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, although it cannot be used for the 67 D. T. Suzuki, Zen Buddhism, ed. by William Barrett (N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., Inc., 1956), p. x. 63 O. V. w. Quine, "On What There Is," Review of Meta- physics, Vol. 2, 1948, pp. 27-28. 212 the proof of freedom.and indeterminism, was indeed unpleasant news for those confident that modern physics would completely lay bare the organized structure of the universe.69 In short, as Koller puts it, "the universe shows no signs of being the completely rational structure in which reason would feel completely at home."70 A sbmilar idea is also expressed by Wittgenstein, not only in his Tractatus as we have seen in 3.5, but also in his Philosophical Investigations, when he declares a battle against "the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language," but admitting that language has a mystical base.71 Indeed, Wittgenstein ‘was right when he took the mystical to be that about which one could not speak but must keep silence, and when he was merely concerned with the "use" of language in the Investigations. It seems that philosophers can have noth- ing to do with such a perennial problem as the freedom- determinism controversy, unless they expand the scope of understanding. 59 Both Barrett and Quine refer to GBdel's "Incomplete- ness Theorem” and Heigenburg's "Uncertainty Principle." An informal exposition of G8de1's proof by E. Nagel and J. R. Newman can be found in Contemporary Readings in Logical Theory, ed. by I. M. Copi and J. A. Gouldi(op. cit.), pp. 51-71. A comprehensive account of Heigenburg's principle and its philo- sophical implications are discussed in N. R. Hanson's "Quantum Mechanics, Philosophical Implications of," in Encyclopedia of Philosophy(op. cit.), Vol. 7, pp. 41-49. 70 Koller, Oriental Philosophies(op. cit.), p. 182. 71 John V. Canfield, "Wittgenstein and Zen," p. 383. 213 Is there an alternative way to the intellectual way? Koller's answer is affirmative. For him, Zen is "a way of approaching reality that constitutes an alternative to the intellectual way," which is one but not necessarily only one approach to reality. He says: ...just because there is nothing more for the philosopher to say it does not follow that there is nothing more for the Buddhist to do. Faced with these antinomies, he can resolve to practice Zen. The silence forced on the philosopher can be the beginning of a seeing into a real- ity that goes beyond thoughts and words, and that does not leave behind any aspects of the person.72 By means of the practice of Zen, one might even acquire Kant's "intellectual intuition,‘ and, if he is lucky, he might also fulfill Wittgentein's wish to "uncover the bumps that the understanding has got by running its head up against the limit of language."73 Let's turn to Zen practice, in which the treatment of a question is like "the treatment of an illness," as Wittgenstein suggests.74 4.4 The "Inward Way" of Zen Buddhism According to Diasetz T. Suzuki, a Japanese authority on Zen, there can be two ways of approaching reality; one is the ' "outward way" and the other is the "inward way,‘ which are roughly equivalent to our ordinary intellectual way and the mystic's intuitive way respectively. In Suzuki's opinion, 72 Koller, Oriental Philosophies(op. cit.), p. 190. 73 L. Wittgenstein, Philosgphical Investigations(N.Y.: The Macmillan Co., 1968), trans. by G. E. M. Anscombe, p. 48 74 Ibid. p. 91. 214 the inward way leads through self-knowledge to different forms of consciousness. He says: The way to transcending possessive individualism lies not in the immediate denial of self but rather at the end of a path that leads through the self--the inward way.75 What then is the "inward way"? For Suzuki, the outward way may be called intellectual and objective, but "the inward one cannot be called subjective or affective or conative."76 Thus, Schlick's conceptual analysis, Edwards' appeal to modern psychology, and Russell's scientific point of view--all fall under the category of the outward way, including even Campbell's analysis of moral consciousness, or intrOSpection. Suzuki cautions us here: ...as long as the inward way is to be understood in opposition to the outward way,--though to do otherwise is impossible because of the human ability to go beyond language as the means of communication--the inward way after all turns out to be the outward way. The really inward is when no contrast exists between the inward and the outward. This is a logical contradiction.77 The inward way perfects itself, he says, when "the ten thousand things" are reduced to an absolute oneness which is an absolute nothingness; thus in the inward way, the one is an absolute one, that one is all and all is one. What is an example? According to Suzuki, Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism as it 75 Diasetz T. Suzuki, "The Awakening of a New Concsious- ness in Zen," Self and WOrld, ed. by J. A. Ogilvy (N.Y.: Harcort, Brace Jovanaovich, Inc., 1973), p. 581. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. Suzuki in fact remarks that unfortunately he could not find any better word than "inward way," although the way is not really "inward." 215 developed in China, is rich in expressions belonging to the inward way. He say, "in fact, it is Zen that has effected, for the first time, a deep excavation into the mind of the inward way."78 iss, or Meditation, is the Japanese pronounciation of the Chinese word "Ch'an¢§§)," and Ch'an is abbreviation of the original phrase "Ch'an-Nacfigjn)"--a corruption of the pronounciation of the Sanskrit word "Dhyana" or the Pali, "Jhana." But Zen Buddhism is so Chinese or Far Eastern in style and in mentality that an Idian origin seems improbable. In particular, an influence of Taoism is evident, when Bodhi- Dharma, the Indian originator of Zen Buddhism, refers to Tao-Teh-Ching: In response to a question as to how one can reject attachment to any form, he says, "If you have Zen, you should not see a thing. The Tao-Teh-Ching says, 'The most firmly established in the path appears the most remiss."79 Bodhi-Dharma came to China, A. D. 520, with a special message which summed up in the following lines:80 A special transmission outside the scriptures; No dependence upon words and letters; Direct pointing at the soul of man Seeing into one's nature and the attainment of Buddhahood. 78 Ibid. p. 582. 79 Bodhi-Dharma, "Fragmentary Notes" in Buddhism.and Zen (N.Y.: The Wisdom Library, 1953), ed. by Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless, p. 77. Bodhi-Dharma here refers to the 4lst section of the Tao-Teh-Chipgfiifléé) It is reported that early in the twentieth century A. A. Stein excavated some manuscripts from Tung Huang, among which were some notes gather- ed by Dodhi-Dharma's disciples. 80 Suzuki, Zen Buddhism(op. cit.), p. 61. 216 in a sense,to understand Zen is to correctly interpret what the above lines have meant. Suzuki understands it to mean as follows: In a word, they mean that Zen has its own way of pointing to the nature of one's own being, and that when this is done one attains to Buddhahood, in which all the contra- dictions and disturbances caused by the intellect are entirely harmonized in a unity of higher order.81 Still more briefly, with Suzuki, we may define Zen as an "art of seeing or pointing to one's own nature." But how do we see or point to one's own nature? And what is one's own nature, anyway? These are crucial questions. It is easy to give an answer to these questions, but it is difficult or even impossible to understand what the answers would mean. The answer to the question as to hOW‘We see or point to one's nature is: we can do that by means of the inward way, or the prajna-intuition, to use Suzuki's another term. The answer to the question as to what one's own nature is: it is sunyata, or emptiness. Indeed, it is difficult for Zen Buddhists, and impossible for Kant to understand the meaning of these answers. Now, we can see the crucial difference between Kant and Zen masters; for the latter, the inward way can be acquired by self-discipline, whereas, for Kant, again, we possess no faculty of intellectual intuition. In terms of Kant's Transcendental Idealism, Zen Buddhist's claim is that ‘we can positively experience the noumenon by means of intellet- ual intuition, which can be acquired by the inward way. 81 Ibid. 217 On the Zen master's part, for whom doing philosophy is to do something more than to show the limit of reason, it is the most important thing to acquire the inward way. Let us try to get a better idea of the way. we may do this by comparing it with the outward way, as Suzuki suggests. According to Suzuki, the essential characteristic of the outward way consits in "its never-ending procession, either forward or backward, but mostly in a circular movement, and always retaining the opposition of two terms subject and object." He continues: There is thus no finality in the outward way, hence the sense of insecurity, though security does not necessarily mean "standing still," "not moving anywhere," or "attached to something."82 In contrast, although there cannot be a contrast between these two ways, roughly speaking, for Suzuki, "the inward way is the reverse of the outward way." He adds: Instead of going out endlessly and dissipating and exhausting itself, the mind turns inwardly to see what is there behind all this endless procession of things. It does not stop the movement in order to examine what is there. If it does, the movement ceases to be a move- ment; it turns into something else. This is what the intellect does while the inward way refused to do 30.33 In this respect, from the inward way's point of view, one may legitimately say, the libertarians did not go far enough; in particular, Campbell has stoped his introspective journey at the point where the substantial mental self has appeared, and his movement ceased to be a movement; he should have gone 82 Suzuki, "The Awakening of a New Consciousness in Zen," p. 582. 83 Ibid. 218 further until he could "experience" the self as suchness, or as an extensionless point, to use Wittgenstein's expression, I mean literally, an not metaphorically, or as "that I am," or noumenal self to use Kant's term. Suzuki remarks on the notion of the self: As to "the Self" it has never even attempted to know, because the Self cannot be conscious of itself insofar as it remains dichotomous. The self is know only when it remains itself and yet goes out of itself. This contradiction can never be understood on the level of the outward way.84 "It is absolutely necessary," he says, "to rise above this level if the meaning of self-consciousness is to be realised to its full depths."85 If Suzuki is right, then Campbell failed to see what the genuine self is, due to his sole reliance on the introspective method, which is still a mode of the "outward" way. For Suzuki, however, only by means of the inward way, one can go beyond the libertarian's substant- ial self, or a free agent with moral responsibility. On the other hand, from this inward way's point of view, the determinist did not go far enough either; this is also pointed out by Wittgenstein in his Tractatus: The whole modern conception of the world is founded on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature are the explanations of natural phenomena. Thus people today stop at the laws of nature, treating them as something inviolable, just as God and Fate were treated in past ages... modern system tries to make it look as if every- thing were explained.86 84 Ibid. p. 588. 85 Ibid. 86Wittgenstein, Tractatus(op. cit.), p. 143. 219 If, as C. Shute has pointed out, the belief that all events are so ordered is logically, not emprically founded, Wittgen- stein's above passage could be interpreted as a criticism not only against empricism, but also against rationalism, insofar as they rest on the outward way. Indeed, the determinists should not stop at the laws of nature, if they really want to make their asertion significant; for example, the meaning of the laws of nature cannot be found by merely appealing to these very laws of nature. This point was elaborated by Morris Ginsberg. According to Ginsberg, the very process of scientific inquiry would be undermined if every judgment of the mind were causally necessitated, as the determinists maintain. If it is held, he says, that a man's judgments are themselves completely determined, that he cannot help making the judg- ments he makes, the answer is that this would make nonsense of all knowledge." For, he explains: ...if all judgments were causally necessitated, they would all be on the same level and it would be impossible to distingusih some as true and others as false. Sense and nonsense would lose all its meaning, if in forming a judgment we were completely unable to resist the violence of present desire, the effects of past habits, the presistence of ancient prejudices or the forces of the unconscious.37 Forthermore, Ginsberg points out, there could be nothing like a rational debate of this issue, for "there would be no 37 Morris Ginsberg, "On the Diversity of Morals," Essa s in Sociology and Social Philosophy(N.Y.: The Macmillan Co., 1957), Vol. I, p. 82. 220 sense in arguing about determinism or indeterminism if all our arguments were rigidly determined in advance."88 That is, we should be determined by our character and antecedents to be either determinists or indeterminists, and all our arguments would be a pretense at rationalization, rather than an offer of genuine reasons. Ginsberg concludes; however, (unfortunately I think) if we admit that we can sometimes eliminate bias, that we can sometimes act on the basis of a judgment we form of the facts and of the relative value of the alternatives between which we have to choose, we have the minimum freedom required for moral accountability or responsi- bility.8 Instead of asking the determinists to allow a little freedom with a meager face, I would rather require them to admit that the law of nature is only applicable to the phenomenal world, not to the noumenal world which does not exist for them any- way, and about which they know nothing. This is to say that even for preserving the truth of determinism, it is necessary to allow a certain range of application and accept the exist- ence of the noumenal world. But by doing this, one may real- ize that the determinism which equipped with "meaning” turns out to be a Buddhist version of determinism, namely, the theory of dependent origination, or paticca samuppada, which can acquire a meaning only on the basis of the validity of the sunyata priniciple, as we have seen in 4.2. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. p. 87. 221 In the above, we have seen that the necessity of the inward way is evident and that the acceptance of noumenal reality is required both for the libertarians and the determin- ists. However, one may note that we don't have much to do with a Zen master's inward way, unless we can actually practice such mystic faculty; at most, we may have to examine and appreciate some fragments of Zen Buddhist's poetic metaphors and paradoxical assertions. Before doing this, to sum up, we may illustrate the situation something like this: from the inward way's point of view, the libertarians are like those who claim that the causal chain can be blocked by a free agent, which is discovered by the "microscope" of introspection, whereas the determinists are like those who insist that there cannot be such a thing as the libertarians' self or freedom; this can be conceived by means of the "telescope" of causal explanation. Then the Zen master would say: "Your instruments are not good enough to see the reality; you must use my instrument 'micro-telescope' of ra'na- intuition, by which you can see beyond what both of you have seen. I mean, be serious, now. Libertarians, what you are seeing or pointing to is suchness; and determin- insts, what you are seeing or pointing to is also suchness. Thus both the nature and the self have turned out to be suchness; they are identical. I hope both of you have realized in what sense what you have said is wrong land in what sense what you have said is right." It is repeatedly said, however, that the practice of Zen is no easy matter. First of all, it is pointed out, instead of striving for something to be added to our nature, which is common practice is the outward way, we are required to get rid of all unnecessary opinion, prejudice, pride and the hundred 222 other things that hamper and fetter us. Even our desire toward the inward way, for enlightenment will be an obstacle. Otherwise, one cannot experience sunyata, or the void. Senzaki remarks: True emptiness cannot be included nor excluded. When you count you inhalations and exhalations, contending thoughts will gradually disappear leaving no trace. Meditation? Forget it. Emptiness? Forget it. Realiz- ation? Forget it. Buddha? Forget that fellow. Your everyday life will become calm and contended, making you less talkative, less worried, and less excitable. At a glance you will recognize your true self.90 He also introduces the following episode to ShOW’What a proper attitude toward the inward way, or "the third eye view" is like. Nan-in, a master during the Mei-ji era, received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and he kept on pouring. The professor watched the over- flow until he could no longer restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!" "Like this cup," Nan-in replied, "you are full of your own opinions and specula- tions. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"91 It is also emphasized in Zen that the inward way must be accomplished by self-discipline which is characterized by deliverance and purification. Then natural tendency of every man is toward ease, comfort, and the "good" things of life, whether they be moral or not, but if he wants to climb the upward path, it is said, he must toil hard; that is, one's aspiration for perfection must be accomplished by self-disci- pline. The discipline is most dramatically portrayed in the 90 Senzaki, Buddhism and Zen(op. cit.), p. 38. 91 Ibid. pp. 30-31. 223 story concerning Shen-kuang(Hui-k'e), the successor of Bodhi- Dharma. One day Shen-kuang visited Dharma and most earnestly implored him to be enlightened in the truth of Zen, but Dharma paid no attention. One evening he stood in the midst of the snow waiting for Dharma to notice him.when at last the fast- falling snow buries him almost to his nees. The story goes on, as Suzuki introduces it: Finally, the master turned back and said, "What do you wish me to do for you?" Said Kuang, "I have come to receive your invaluable instructions; pray open your gate of mercy, and extend your hand of salvation to this poor suffering mortal." "The incomparable doctrine of Buddh- ism," replied Dharma, "can be comprehended only after a long hard discipline and by enduring what is most diffi- cult to endure, and by practising what is most difficult to practise. Men of inferior virtue and wisdom are not allowed to understand anything about it. All the labours of such ones will come to naught." Kuang at last cut off his left arm with the sword he was carrying, and presented it before the teacher as a token of his sincerity in the desire to be instructed in the doctrine of all the Buddhas. Said Dharma, "This is not to be sought through another." "My soul is not yet pacified. Pray, master, pacify it." "Bring your soul here, and I will have it pacified." Kuang hesitated for moment but finally said, "I have sought it these many years and am still unable to get hold of it." "There! it is pacified once for all." This was Dharma's sentence.92 The point is clear; one's aspiration for the inward way must be accomplished by self-discipline, and not by arguments. Thus, we are able to understand how it would be difficult for one to get rid of not only the Cartesian substantial self but also the Humean bundle self to get into the realm of sunyata. Now, I think we are ready to meet Hui-neng, the father of Zen. 92 Suzuki, Zen Buddhism(op. cit.), p. 65. Suzuki adds,. there must have been once in the history of Zen some "necess1ty to interweave imagination with facts." 224 4.5 Hui-neng's "Seeing into,0r Pointing to, Self-Nature” Hui-neng(gfa"é) is often regarded as the most important figure who founded the Southern school of Chinese Zen Buddhism, which was built on the central idea of Sudden Enlightenment; he discarded all the scholastic verbalsim, which was represent- ed by Shen-hsiu's conceptualism, the slavish ritualism, and even the minute practices of meditation. For him, Buddhahood was within us, hence we should not worship the Buddha, for the Buddha means the enlightened One, and the Enlightenment is within us. He also asserted not to be made to abide by the Law, for the Law simply means Righteousness, and Right- eousness is also within us. Notably, he taught his fellow monks not to be abide by the Sangha, or the brotherhood of the monks, for the brotherhood simply means purity in life, and purity is within them. This amounts to saying that enlightenment is a sufficient condition for morality. But what is enlightenment? According to Hui-neng, it is to "see into, or point to, self-nature." In what follows, I shall atempt to make the key phrase intelligible as much as possible. In order to do this, I shall first examine Hui-neng's priincipal message that dhyana, or meditation, and prajna, or wisdom, are one and the same.93 Indeed, this 93 Dh ana is referred as meditation or the full accord of thinker an thought without interference and without being merged as yet, the last but one stage in the attainment of the goals of Yoga. In contrast, prajna is realization, insight into the true and abiding nature 0 the self. 225 is another way of describing the enlightened state of mind, in which the dilemma of freedom and determinism.appears to be problem only for the deluded mind. According to Suzuki, in the history of Zen, Hui-neng comes foremost, and his message was so revolutionary, that he should have deserved the first patriarch of Zen in China. What Suzuki refers to is Hui-neng's message that dhyana and prajna are one. He reports: Before Hui-neng the two were regarded as separate; other- wise, their identity was not clearly affirmed, which resulted in the practice of more or less emphasizing dhyana at the expense of prajna. Buddha's all-important enlightenment-experience can to be interpretated stati- cally and dynamically, and the doctrine of sunyata(empti- ness), which is really the cornerstone of Buddhist thought-structure, became a dead thing.94 Thus, Suzuki adds, "Hui-neng revived the enlightenment experi- ence." From the historical point of view, as Chang Chen-chi points out, there are at least seven types of meditation practices which are generally employed by Zen Buddhists: they are (l) meditation through breathing exercises; or (2) medita- tion by concentrating one's mind on a point; or (3) meditation through visualization; or (4) meditation through reciting mystic words; or (5) meditation by absorbing one's mind in good will, or devotional thoughts; or (6) meditation by identi- fying the mind essence, or finally, (7) meditation through 94 Suzuki, "Zen: A Reply to Hu Shih," Philosophy East and west, Vol. III, No. 1, April 1953, p. 78. 226 movement. Chang says: But Hui Neng' conception of meditation...was not the art of tranquilizing the mind...One-sided meditation is sure to tend toward quietism and death...Meditation has nothing to do with mere sitting cross-legged in contemp- lation, as is generally supposed by outsiders...it is, rather, acting, moving, performing deeds, seeing, hearing, thinking, remembering... 5 In other words, for Hui-neng, by means of actually engaging in ordinary life, but not indulging in it, or being disturbed by it, one can truly experience dhyana and prajna as one and the same. Suzuki quotes Hue-neng's following remarks: When, outwardly, a man is attached to form, his inner mind is disturbed. But when outwardly he is not attached to form, his mind is not disturbed. His original nature is pure and quiet as it is in itself; only when it recog- nizes an objective world, and thinks of it as something, is it disturbed. Those who recognize an objective world, andgyet find their mind undisturbed, are in true Dhyana For the reason that Zen is primarily concerned with our ordinary lives, it is clearly distinguished from other kinds of mysticism, or religious practices, including other schools of Buddhism. As w. Barrett puts it, Zen has "matter-of-fact- ness," Which may give some light on the dilemma of freedom and determinism. According to Barrett, in Zen, nothing is denied, everything is given back. And so in a sense we return to square one, an idea beautifully expressed by Ch'ing-yuan, a Zen master: 95 Chen-chi Chang, Thepractice of Zen(N.Y.: Harper, 1970), pp. 159-160. 96 Suzuki, Zen Buddhism(op.cit.), p. 167. 227 Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw moun- tains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not'mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters.97 In this passage, Barrett observes that "this matter-of-fact spirit of the Zen masters is not a thing easily come by." He adds: They are indeed awesome figures who have crossed the mountains and rivers, floods and fires of the spirit in order to come back sole and whole to the most banal things of daily life.98 Suzuki, on the other hand, takes it to be a perfect descrip- tion of experience of both prajna and dhyana as one and the same; i.e., they are identical in the form of sunyata. He interprets it first in terms of timelessness assuming that identity belongs in spatial terminology. He says: In terms of time, it is timelessness. But mere timeless- ness does not mean anything. When Nature is seen as confronting me there is already time, and timelessness now turns itself into time. But time- serialism makes sense only when it goes on in the field of timelessness, which is the Buddhist conception ofs sunyata("emptiness")9 He adds, In this sunyata the mountains are mountains and I see them as such and they see me as such; my seeing them is their seeing me. It is then that sunyata becomes tathata(suchness); tathata is sunyata and sunyata is tathata.100 In other words, according to Suzuki, when we come to this 97 Allen watts, The way of Zen(N.Y.: Mentor Books,1958), p. 127. 93 Suzuki, Zen Buddhism(op. cit.), p. xvii. 99 Ibid. pp.240-241. 100 Ibid. 228 stage of thinking, pure subjectivity is pure objectivity, or to use the existentialist's term, the en-soi is the pour-soi; he remarks: There is perfect identity of Man and Nature, of God and Nature, of the one and the many. But identity does not imply the annihilation of one at the cost of the other. The mountains do not vanish; they stand before me. I have not absorbed them nor have they wiped me out of the scene.101 That is, the dichotomy is there, which is suchness, and this suchness in all its suchness is emptiness itself. Thus Suzuki remarks, "the mountains are mountains and yet nor moun- tains. I am.I and you are you, and yet I am you and you are 1. Nature as a world of manyness is not ignored and Man as a subject facing the many remains conscious of himself."102 In this account, indeed, nothing is flatly denied; that is, Schlick's soft-determinism.comes to have a more vivid sense, while Campbell's libertarianism and Edwards' hard-determinism are also clearly recognized with a fresh significance. In Zen, meaningful assertions become more meaningful, whereas nonsensical statements are made less nonsensical; it accom- plishes this function by discovering "new“ consciousness, or prajna-intuition. In the end, everything is given back as 101 Ibid. As mentioned in 3.1, for Sartre, it is absurd to say that the en-soi is the pour-soi; therefore, God cannot exist. He says, ”The first phenomenon of being in the world is the original relation between the totality of the in-itself or world and my own totality detotalized; I choose myself as a whole in the world which is a whole." Being and Nothingness (Op. cit.), p. 437. 102 Ibid. 229 Wittgenstein puts it.103 Those who are familiar with Plato's third analogy, i.e., the cave analogy, in the Republic, should not be, I believe, uncomfortable with the Zen Buddhist experience of "mountains." In the analogy, we are to imagine prisoners chained in a cave in a way that all they can see is a wall in front of them. On the wall, shadows appear cast from.a parapet behind them where a fire burns and where bearers carry all sorts of ob- jects. Miraculously, a prisoner, just as a Zen master was to be enlightened, frees himself and sees the cause of the images and the light that casts them; he is in the world of belief. Noticing an opening which leads out of the cave, he crawls into the sunlight, the world of forms, and is so dazzled that he is blinded, again, just as a Zen Buddhist sees the world and the self as sunyata. But gradually he adjusts to the light, sees the true reality, the realm of Ideas, and is tempted to remain forever. But he is compelled by a sense of obligation to return to the cave and instruct the chained. No wonder, they disbelieve, as we do not accept what the Zen Buddhists would say, for all those who are changed know is the world of gloom and shadows, and they would jeer him, or worse, tear him to pieces. Plato describes the freed prison- er's experience thus: 103 According to Wittgenstein, "depth analysis" is concerned to discover what is actually given. He says, ”What has to be accepted, the given, is--so one could say--forms pi life." Philossphical Investigation(op. cit.), p. 226. 230 Last of all, he would be able to look at the Sun and contemplate its nature, not as it appears when reflected in water or any alien medium, but as it is in itself in its own domain.104 The story goes on: The prison dwelling corresponds to the region revealed to us through the sense of sight, and the fire-light within it to the power of the Sun. The ascent to see the things in the upper world you may take as standing for the upward journey of the soul into the region of the intelligible; then you will be in possession of what I surmise, since that is what you wish to be told. Heaven knows whether it is true; but this, at any rate, is how it appears to me.105 For the prisoner, the traditional problem of freedom and determinism would appear to be an endless dispute among the prisoners chained in the cave; if this is the case, among them, one may imagine, Kant declared that there must be a real or noumenal world outside the "cave." One may also imagine, among them, Wittgenstein took the "enlightened" prisoner's expressions seriously, and tried to understand him by means of examining the use of the prisoner's language. If we as the chained are not ready to free ourselves from the cave yet, we may have to try to understand the fellow prisoner's language at least; as w. Earle rightly points out in 4.1, it is an obligation of philosophy to examine his claims. In doing this, it may be useful to follow Wittgenstein's "depth analysis." It is said that Wittgenstein's latter work can be seen 104 Plato, The Republic of Plato(London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973), trans. by Francis MacDonald Cornford, p. 230. 105 Ibid. p. 231. 231 as a description of "forms of life" or rather, our "form of life." This is quite in a line with what he says about the way he goes about philosophy. For him, "form of life" can be taken as "the limit of language."106 In terms of the "cave" analogy, one may say that Wittgenstein's latter philo- sophy is concerned with the form of life in the cave, which can be taken as the ”hidden" limit of the prisoners' language. With regard to his effort to go beyond the phenomena, that is, to free himself from the cave, Wittgenstein does not seem to have changed his position; the cave of logic in the Tractatus became the cave of language in the Investigations; hence the self as on extensionless point, which was a logical point in the Tractatus, has now become a "gramatical" point. As C.A. van Peursen points out, for Wittgenstein, ”philosophy is merely an activity, that of clarification. One must not expect it to solve the problems, only to give a clear view of them." He adds: what he had earlier called the mystical, the inexpress- ible now permeates speech...So much so that speech becomes extremely elastic, interwoven with action and attitudes to life, and yet able to give expression to the mysterious questions of the soul, the 'I', attitude, sympathy and hope-~though not in the form of a descrip- tion or theory. 07 106 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigation(op. cit.), p. 88. It is something’hidden because our agreement on it goes unnoticed. Our agreements are hidden because of their familiarity. Shelley also speaks of the veil of familiarity which hides things. 107 Peursen, Wittgenstein(op. cit.) p. 110, As he points out, Wittgenstein still fights against "the bewitchment of in- telligence through language and tries to find some way through the labyrinth of language. His position in this respect remains unaltered." 232 Wittgenstein's attitude toward "doing philosophy" seems quite similar to a Zen master's approach to the way of life, in that both try to free themselves from the "cave" by mean of purifi- cation or clarification, which is the mode of their "solution" to the problem. However, it may be noted that, for Wittgen- stein, clarification means the clarification of grammar, which is concerned with "language game,‘ whereas the Zen master's concern is the purification of mind. Furthermore, it may be also pointed out, just as Kant has failed to show the positive concept of noumena within the limit of reason, Wittgenstein may be doomed to failure in making "the character of depth" comprehensive mainly due to his appeal to "ordinary language." Nevertheless, in what follows, I shall refer to Wittgenstein's depth analysis to see hOW”mUCh we can grasp the meaning of what Hui-neng and other Zen Buddhists have said, in which their concern is not to give, but to have,a clearer view of reality. One of Zen Buddhist's common practices is "Koan"(4iég_), a problem given by the master to the student for solution. The student must solve it himself, although a master will occasionally give him some help. According to Senzaki, to solve it, one must face it with eagerness, but without think- ing of it. He says: The more you pound it in cognition, the more difficult its solution will become. Two hands brought together produce a sound. What is the sound of one hand? This is a koan. If you think that there is no such sound, 233 you are giving up your privilege.108 Such a problem.seems to be nothing but nonsense to outsiders, or "grammatical joke," but for a Zen student it is a gate to Zen.109 Let us examine an example of koan, which is very much analogous to our dilemma of freedom and determinism. In a koan, one monk says, (1) "The flag is moving." Another replies, (2) "The wind is moving." Hui-neng answers them, (3) "The flag is not moving, The wind is not moving. The mind is moving." With regard to Zen realization, which is manifested in two ways--rejection of the self as a sub- stance and recognition of the voidness of all forms of ob- jectivity, Senzaki interprets it as follows; the first monk clings to the entity of the flag, whereas the second one has a broader view, but does not understand true emptiness. But he cautions us, "If you think the Patriarch mentioned mind as a psychological phenomenon, you are entangled in self-limiting ideas."110 He seems to point out that Hue-neng was warning them by mentioning that their minds were still disturbed either by substantial entities or causal phenomena; 103 Senzaki, Buddhism and Zen(op. cit.), p. 20. He also remarks that "intellectual gymnastics, no matter how superior or refined, can never solve a koan in fact, it is given to force a student beyond intellection." (ibid.) 109 Cf. for the notion of "grammatical joke" in Wittgenstein's Investigation(lll), p. 47. 110 Senzaki, Buddhism.and Zen(op. cit.), p. 38. To understand the scheme of thought conceived by Hui-neng and his school, refer to Suzuki's "an interpretation of the Zen unconscious," in his Zen Buddhism, pp. 210-226. ‘ .4» 234 thus, he was urging them to recognize the emptiness of all forms of objectivity. In order to understand Hui-neng's remark in the above koan in a more sensible way, it may be useful to discuss it in connection with the ”mountain" example. Chi-Tsang inter- prets it in terms of three stages; namely, duality, non-duality, and finally, neither-duality-nor-non-duality, which is similar to Nagarjuna's account. According to him, ordinary people say that things possess being, without realizing that they possess nothing. Therefore, the Buddhas propound to them the doctrine that things are ultimately empty and void, which is "worldly truth," after all. He says: Next comes the second stage, which explains that both being and nonbeing belong to worldly truth, whereas nonduality (neither being nor non-being) belongs to absolute truth...Next comes the third stage both duality and non-duality are worldly truth, whereas neither- duality-nor-non-duality is the highest truth.1 1 Thus, the above koan indicates that sunyata, or emptiness can be conceived only if one can go beyond the stages of existence and non-existence, or of duality and non-duality; and only in this final stage, one may properly understand what Hui-neng has meant. So says Suzuki: Technically speaking, the Koan given to the uninitiated is intended "to destroy the root of life," "to make the calculating mind die," "to root out the entire mind that has been at work since eternity," etc...the ultimate intent is to go beyond the limits of intellection, and these limits can be crossed over only by exhausting 111'Wing-Tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philo- sophy(N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1973), P. 360. 235 oneself once for all, by using up all the psychic powers at one's command. In this situation, he adds, "Logic then turns into psychology, intellection into cognition and intuition. What could not be solved on the plane of empirical consciousness is now trans- ferred to the deeper recesses of themind."113 Thus the dilemma of freedom and determinism, insofar as it is conceived as a genuine problem, must be treated as a koan, which cannot be solved on the plane of empirical consciousness. With this in mind, let us go back to Hui-neng's koan which is somewhat similar to our dilemma. In (1), if we take the flag to be the self, or an agent with free will which transcends formed character and can act contrary to character or inclination in making moral choices, and stop our introspective power right there, then our view of the self and the world is similar to that of libertarians. The self stands over and above our own body and the world, which may or may not be causally determined, just as the flag stands aloof in the flow of the wind. In contrast, (2) shows that the fIOW'Of wind appears to be more real important than the entity of the flag, just as the determinist emphasizes the universal application of causal chain to the world, of which the self is a member. Thus, the movement of the flag is explained in terms of the wind, just as the self could be explained in a causal manner. 112 Suzuki, Zen Buddhism(op. cit.), p. 138. 113 Ibid. 236 (3), on the other hand, seems to say that in reality nothing whatsoever is moving, but it appears that either the flag is moving or the wind is moving dependipg pp how the mind perceives is. This is obviously a mystic's position, accord? ing to which the self is identical with the world. On the level of (l) and (2), there seem to be two realities--the flag and the wind, or the self and the world. But in (3), they become only two aspects of the Mind, or Kantian noumena, or Spinoza's Substance; here, both freedom and determinism appear to be only two perspectives of one reality.114 How much could we make sense out of what (3) says? Can we be successful in reducing both the self and the world to an ex- tentionless point, from.which both the self and the world can be seen again with a new sense of reality? The mystic's solution of the problem that both freedom and determinism are merely two forms, or perspectives, of illusion, would make sense only if we could accept their view of the self and the world as one and the same; or, in Hui-neng's phrase, only when one could "see into, or point to one's self-nature." Our final task then would be to make this phrase sensible as 114 For Spinoza, nothing can be understood in isolation, and all adequate understanding involves locating the particu- lar events and their immediate causes with the larger scheme of a substance absolutely infinte; every phenomenon is to be seen as a part of God and is to be explained on a part-whole analogy only in terms of attribute, by which Spinoza under- stands "that which the intellect perceives of substance, as if constituting its essence." Ethics(op. cit.), p. 94. 237 much as possible. For doing this, it maybe useful to refer to Wittgenstein's latter philosophy, where he was concerned with "depth-analysis." Wittgenstein had declared that he wanted to help the fly escape from the fly bottle. That is, he wanted to help man free himself from the "bewitchment" of language. He wrote as if he thought that the way to escape from the fly bottle is to get back to ordinary language. But it may be difficult to simply take the Zen Buddhist's koan to be an example of be- witchment of language. For example, consider the following koan of Basho, the Korean monk of ninth century. He says: "If you have a staff, I will give you one; if you have not, I will take it away from.you."115 Without knowing the point he makes, can we be entitled to correct his use of language? Does he mususe the ordinary terms 'give', 'take, or 'staff'? With Stanely Cavell, do we have to blame him because he did not mean what he said?116 According to Suzuki, Zen has a standard of its own, which, to our common-sense minds, consists just in negating every- thing we properly hold true or real or correct. "In spite of these apparent confusions," says he, "the philosophy of Zen is guided by a thoroughgoing principle whose topsy-turviness, when once grasped, becomes plainest truth." Suzuki adds: 115Suzuki, Zen Buddhism(op. cit.), p. 116 116 A detailed analysis on this subject is found in Cavell's "Must we Mean what we Say?" and "The availability of Wittgenstein's later philosophy." in Philosophy and Linguistic, ed. by C. Lyas(London: The Macmillan Press, 1971), pp. 131-189, 238 Language is with the Zen masters a kind of exclamation or ejaculation as directly coming out of their inner spiritual experience. No meaning is to be sought in the expression itself, but within ourselves, in our own minds, which are awakened to the same experience. There- fore, when we understand the language of the Zen masters. it is the understanding of ourselves and not the sense of the language which reflects ideas and not the experi- enced feelings themselves.117 Indeed, it would be impossible to understand any koan without having Zen experience, just as it is impossible for the people to realize the sweetness of honey who have never tasted it before. Suzuki remarks, "with such people 'sweet' honey will ever remain as an idea altogether devoid of sense; that is, the word has no life with them."118 With this in mind, let us try to grasp the meaning of the central core of Hue-Neng's account of Zen Buddhism, i.e., the phrase, "seeing into, or pointing to, thy self-nature." If we are lucky, we might get at least an idea of its 'sweetness'. According to Wittgenstein, language requires rules, and following a rule implies a customary way of doing something; he says, "To obey a rule, to make a report, to give an order, to play a game of chess, are customs (uses, institutions)."119 An expression has a meaning only if there is a regular connection between using the expression and certain circum- stances. When we call something seeing, or pointing, for example, a part of the uniformity we require is a constancy 117 Suzuki, Zen Buddhism(op.cit.), p. 125. 118 Ibid. 119 Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations(op. cit.), p. 80. 239 in the results of seeing, or pointing. Thus the meaning of an expression is its "use"--that is to say, the language game in which it occurs, or the uniform relation of the expression to certain circumstances. The conception of the use of language as a form of life and shared activity also enables Wittgenstein to point to the senselessness of the notion of a private language where words are related to thoughts and ac- quire meaning by reference to private inner self. He says: And hence also 'obeying a rule' is a practice. And to think one is obeying a rule is not to obey a rule. Hence it is not possible to obey a rule 'privately': otherwise thinking one was obeying a rule would be the same thing as obeying it.1 Then how does Hui-neng use the term.'seeing' in the expres- sion, "seeing into thy self-nature"? Does he obey a rule? As one may readily admit, in Hui-neng's case, the "seeing" cannot be regarded as mere perceiving, mere knowing, mere statically reflecting on self-nature, which is pure and undefiled, and which retains this quality in all beings as well as in all the Buddhas. Suzuki tells us: The "seeing," expecially in Hui-neng's sense, was far more than a passive deed of looking at, a mere knowledge obtained from contemplating the purity of self-nature; the seeing with him was self-nature itself, which expresses itself before him in all nakedness, and func- tions without any reservation.121 From the above passage, if Suzuki's interpretation is correct, we may notice that the term 'seeing' was used neither literally 120 Ibid. p. 81. 121 Suzuki, Zen Buddhism(op.cit.), p. 175. 240 nor figuratively; Hui-neng did.not follow the rule at all. In order for the term 'seeing' to be correctly used, it must be used as a necessary condtion for a visual perception of an object, which is a minimum condition for the use of the word; for Hui-neng, however, "seeing" was not only a necessary condition for experiencing self-nature, but also a sufficient condition. In "seeing thy self-nature, there is neither a seeing subject, nor an object to be seen; unlike S. Shoemaker's analysis, as pointed out in 3.3, "seeing" is not a binary relation, hence two terms are not involved here. For Hui—neng, "seeing" is identical with "self-nature." For this reason, the term 'seeing' was not used even in a figurative, or meta- phorical sense, not to say in any of literal senses. Indeed, it is nothing more than a sentential function such as, "X is identical with Y." Thus, in the phrase, "seeing into, or pointing to, thy self-nature," there is nothing to be corrected or clarified; a language game is not played at all in its ordinary sense. We are left like a blind man with merely an idea of ”seeing" all devoid of sense. What does Hui-neng mean by what he has said? Suzuki remarks: So long as the seeing is something to see, it is not the real one; only when the seeing is no-seeing--that is, when the seeing is not a specific act of seeing into a definitely circumscribed state of consciousness--is it the "seeing into one's self-nature."122 122 Ibid. p. 163. 241 "Paradoxically stated," he adds, ”when seeing is no-seeing there is real seeing; when hearing is no-hearing there is real hearing. This is the intuition of the Prajanaparamita."123 By no means, then, for Hui-neng, "seeing" is any kind of sense- perception. Does the expression "pointing" help us to under- stand what Hui-neng has meant? In a dictionary, we may easily find some definitions of "point": it is defined, for example, as a distinguishing mark or quality; or a physical characteristic or feature of an animal; or the main idea or purpose, important or essential thing; or a particular aim, end, or purpose. As a verb, it is sometimes used as synonymous with see ; this is the case in Hui-neng's phrase. In order not to repeat what we have already seen in the above, it may be useful to refer to the mathematical notion of "point", which seems perfectly analogous to Hui-neng's use of the term. In fact, Wittgenstein implicit- ly suggests that we follow this line, when he say in the end of Investigation: An investigation is possible in connexion with mathematics whi ' entirely analogous to our investigation of psychology. It is just as little a mathematical investi- gation as the other is a psychological one. It will not contain calculations, so it is not for example logistiET It might deserve the name of an investigation of the 'foundations ofmathematics'J2 With regard to the mathematical notion of 'point', we may say that even an elementary-school child has some notion 123 Ibid. 124 Wittgenstein, Investigations(op. cit.), p. 232. 242 of what a point is. He may think of it as a dot on the chalkborad or on a piece of paper, or perhaps as the location of such a dot. This latter idea of a point being a specific location in physical space, it is said, is the one from which the intuitive concept of a point is derived. A point may be represented by a dot, althought it is not a dot, because a dot has a size while a point has only position or location. For mathematical purposes, we may accept the child's notion of a point being an exact specific location in space. From the above considerations, we may find there are at least two senses of the term 'point'. One is the mathematical, or logical sense, and the other is psychological, or perceptual sense. For the argument's sake, let us call the former sense of the term "M-point," and the latter sense, "P-point." The term 'P-point' can be used as a verb sometimes to mean see, whereas the term 'M-point' cannot be used as a verb; no one can M-point to anything. For example, in Tractatus, Wittgen- stein used the term 'point' to mean M-point, when he defines the self as an extentionless point, whereas, in Investigations, he used it to mean P-point when he examines the term 'point' in terms of aim, goal, purpose, service, referring, and so on. One example is: One can refer to an object when speaking by pointing to it. Here pointing is a part of the language-game. And nOW’it seems to us as if one spoke si_a sensation by directing one's attention to it. But where is the analogy? It evidently lies in the fact that one can point to a thing by looking or listening. 125 Ibid. p. 169. 243 To be sure, one cannot confuse two very different senses of "point," if one intends to engage in a language-game at all. However, it is my intention to show that perhaps Hui-neng uses the term 'point' to mean "Mepoint" in his phrase "pointing to thy self-nature." In other words, although it does not make any sense in our language game, what Hui-neng actually has said would be "M-point-ing to they self-nature,‘ which is absurd. We may illustrate what Hui-neng said in terms of the difference between point and dot, which is analogous to the distinction between M-point and P-point, if we imagine that P-point has a size whether it be mental or physical. That is, from Hui-neng's point of view, when we P-point to some thing or event, we are actually "dotting,' so to speak. This may be clearer, if we examine A. Oldenquist's follow remarks: If Jones extends his arm from the car, then whether he stretches, points, or signals often depends on which of these he intends to do. Intending to point is usually a necessary condition for pointing, and if we assume the applicability of a convention as well as the correct bodii smovement, it is a sufficient condition for point- ing. In the above passage, it goes without saying that Oldenquist is using the term 'point' to mean P-point. He adds: If this is true, then there are actions which, at least in certain specific contexts, cannot possibly be done unitentionally but one cannot point out something_un— intentionally.127 126 Andrew Oldenquist, ”Choosing, Deciding, and Doing," The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. II (op. cit.), p. 103. 127 Ibid. Underline is mine. Cf. Anscombe's discussion on the question as to whether "movement-+‘I'" guarantees an 1ntentional action. Intention(Ithaca: Cornell, 1957), pp.28-29. 244 Indeed, it may be trivially true that one cannot "P-point" out something unintentionally, because by "P-point" we have meant any conscious act, insofar as it has a mental dot, among others. In contrast, one can Mjpoint out something unintentionally, since in "M-point" conscious acts are not involved, provided that "something" is self-nature which is reduced to an extionless M-point, or suchness. In this sense, if any, I think, we should understand Hui-neng's expression, ”pointing to thy self-nature," in which both subject and object become one and the same by means of reducing the dot with g extension to a point without any extension whatsoever. By an anlaysis of Hui-neng's phrase, we may have a better idea or understanding on the identity of seeing or pointing and self-nature, although our understanding would be like one's having an idea of sweetness without ever tasting any sweet stuff. At most, I may imagine mayself staring at an object, a simple object, not with a question I wish to put to it, nor a use I wish to put it to, but as though I am only my eyes, or act of seeing and pointing, bodiless, even mind- less. And I find I want to say, "isss(suchness)--that thing there--is what it is (emptiness). It is, in itself, none of the things we ssy it is (M-point). It escapes language in the end.” After all, I am trying to say: "That is that," or tathata--such as it is, and make those words say something informative, which appears to be a koan, in effect, which asserts that freedom is compatible with determinism. CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS: MOUNTAINS ARE MOUNTAINS Wittgenstein wanted to help the fly escape from the fly bottle, suggesting that the way to escape from the fly bottle is to get back to ordinary language. However, our examination of misticism.indicates that an analysis of ordinary liguistic usage has little to do with the Zen Buddhist's koan; it now looks as if this may itself be a linguistic illusion. Though the fly may escape from this or that fly bottle, he only lands in another: perhaps there is no common ground, no common world, outside all fly bottles, or perhaps there are no fly bottles at all. Now, we are left with a choice. Either we may choose the former position and claim that there is no reality outside all fly bottles; this is a positivistic position, or a naive realism, in which the dilemma of freedom and determinism appears to be a genuine problem, which cannot be solved within the scope of our understanding. Or else we may choose the latter position and declare that the belief in the existence of the fly bottle is itself an illusion; this is the mystic's position, in which the problem of determinism is desolved as an illusory question. However, this position must be dis- tinguished from the soft-deterministic solution, which says that the problem arises from a verbal confusion between causation and complusion, on the one hand, and freedom and 245 246 chance, on the other, and corresponding opposites, namely between indeterminism and determinism. The soft-determinist's position, if any, is a linguistic realism, and therefore, belongs to the former category. In contrast, the mystic's solution of the dilemma that both freedom.and determinism are merely two perspectives, or forms of illusion, would make sense only if we could accept the view of the self and the world as one and the same. The choice we have to make, I think, is a matter of temperament. Thus far, we have seen the Zen Buddhist's position, if it is a position at all; indeed, it does not make a choice but embraces any alternative. In Zen, we find a synthesis of realsim and idealism, including solipsism and mysticism. As shown in the "mountain" example, a Zen Buddhist's project begins by supposing that objects are simply identical with our way of describing them; there, the world and the self are H seen from.the "natural standpoint, to use Husserl's term. Later we see that, for the Zen Buddhist, these descriptions are simply our own mind's projections and this leads to the idealist's denial that there are any mountains and the like in reality. For the Zen Buddhist, this position appears to be only one-sided, in which the mind's contribution in experi- ence was realized but exaggerated; that is, it is not the case that there are not any mountains and the like in reality. So the Zen Buddhist leads us to a final assessment which neither accepts nor rejects, but simply notes the interpretive nature of thought and language. As H. Gene Blocker rightly 247 observes, for the Zen Buddhists: Natively mountains just are mountains. But this native view is wrong. Mountains are not simply mountains; that is, reality is not exhausted by but overflows our concept of a mountain, and in this sense mountains are not moun- tains. But one we have got beyond this native view of things, we are free once again to say that in the sense that ”mountain" does illuminate a perceptible aspect of the world from a certain human point of view, mountains sis-mountains.1 Thus, Blocker adds, in the Zen Buddhist's account, "we are brought back to the everyday world of sense experience, though our attitude toward this everyday world and its givenness is radically altered."2 As we have seen, in the Zen Buddhist's personal experi- ence, not in his theory or arguments, both the eixtence and non-existence of a mountain is embraced; in this respect, Hui—neng's solution is radically different from.Kant's. For Kant, since he merely sticks to the method of "outward way" in Suzuki's sense, noumena appears to be a negative and limit- ing idea, while, for Hui-neng, who appeals to "inward way," sunyata turns out to be a positive object of pisisa-intuition. Hence, to those who insist that the ”outward" way is the only legitimate way for the philosopher, Hui-neng's solution is basically Kantian. However, to those who admits that "the inward way" must be employed by an philosopher, if he wants to do philosophy at all, Hui-neng's solution is a genuine solution; it goes beyond what Kant has concluded. In other 1 H. Gene Blocker, "The Language of Mysticism” in The Monist, Vol. 59, No. 4, Oct. 1976, p. 561. 2 Ibid. 248 words, in Zen Buddhism, it is not only affirmed but also experienced by intellectual intuition that man is phenomenally determined and noumenally free. Again, we must be cautious here; unless we are able to reduce the self to an extension- less point so as to make it identical with the world, we are not entitled to claim that the dilemma of freedom and determ- ism is an illusory question. Otherwise, we might "mistake the finger for the moon" in pointing to the moon as a famous Zen Buddhist epigram says. It is not pointing to the moon with the finger which is wrong, but only confusing the finger which points with the moon to which it points. Indeed, the key to the solution seems to understand Hui-neng's phrase, "seeing into, or pointing to, they self-nature, in which the self and the world are mutually defined to be one and the same. .In what follows, to sum up, I shall introduce Richard Taylor's description of the mutual reduction, which seems to be most comprehensible. In the concluding chapter "Being and Nothing" of his Metaphysics, R. Taylor invites us to the reality of nothing- ness, in which the self and the world are identical. For doing this, he does not ask us to deny anything commonsens- ical, but allows us two realities--namely, myself and the world, or all the rest. He says: This rest, this verything else, all that is outside, other, is perpetually changing, never two moments the same. But at that point which is the metaphysical center of my reality, is that self, that which is something 249 else. It remains one and the same, throughout all the changes, it undergoes, preserving its identity through an ever elapsing and growing time.3 Here we are left with the Cartesian substantial self and the world which is in a flux. Taylor now begins with things that are manifestly not the self, things that are most clearly other, as distant from the self as possible. So the heavenly bodies, the oceans and mountains and drifting clouds are excluded from me. Through loved ones, things near at hand such as one's own house, table, bed, and so on, he comes to our own body; but he still goes through limbs, senses, organs, internal and external parts, nerves. He mentions: We are very close now; but these are all, still, other these do not constitute the self I am seeking, whose destruction I dread, except insofar as the destruction of these threatens myself. §s_nOW'ws take final step, from all that is other, from all that I merely know, or see, or that merely pertains to me; we take that last step, from all this, and to my self, to that which perceives all the rest, to that in relation to which all these things are called other. And lo! We step precise- ly to nothingnessl4 Thus he clearly indicates that we must go beyond the Cartesian substantial self, on which Campbell's freedom.thesis based, in order to confront nothingness. Now he speaks as if he were a determinist: It is't there. Imagination creates it. Intellect dis- tingusihes it. Metaphysics builds intellectual fortress- es upon it. Religion guarantees its salvation-~always, of course, on certain terms--and promises to push back the nothingness that approaches it. And all the while it is itself the most perfect specimen of nothingness!$ 3 Richard Taylor, Metaphysics(op. cit.), p. 125. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. pp. 125-126. 250 However, Taylor does not stop here. Instead of start- ing with the heavens and mountains, and instead of withdrawing inward, he tries to proceed outward, and see heaven and earth, mountains, and so on. Thus remarks Taylor: You will be momentarily astonished to find yourself and nature in one and the same; and far from dreading nothing— ness, which now seems like sickness, and hardly worthy of anyone, which is how you began all this, your state of mind will be just the opposite. He continues, and announces that we are thus invited to the mystic wonderland of Spinoza, in which, we might say, Kant's phenomena and noumena, or Nagarjuna's samsara and nirvana, appear to be merely two aspects of one Substance, or Sunyata. He says: You will rejoice in being, in nature, in your self, which will now have ceased to be any mystery, and you will finally understand without seeking further what Spinoza meant by the intellectual love of God.7 With Richard Taylor, we may reasonably say only this much. It may be essential to understand that we are not entitl- ed to claim that the dilemma of freedom.and determinism is thus resolved. Though insisting on the oneness of reality, mysticism attempts to transcend the usual metaphysical dis- tinctions of monism, dualism, and pluralism for the reason that it believes ultimate reality, which is variously expressed by such terms as Oneness, Absolute, Sunyata, Noumena, Sub- stance, and so on, to be ineffable. Mysticism attempts to identify the subject with its world in terms of such an 6 Ibid. p. 126. 7 Ibid. 251 ultimate reality. Interest then lies in the experience of a union with the ineffable rather than in knowledge of it in the usual sense. Hence, the solution of the dilemma of freedom.and determinism which can be provided by Zen Buddhism is a matter of personal experience, not of theoretical justification. In other words, strictly speaking, the solu- tion cannot be expressed due to the limits of language which has itself a mystical basis, as Wittgenstein points out, but can be experienced in silence. Thus, we may conceive the dilemma to be either verbal in character or of silence in nature; here, again, the choice seems to be a matter of temperament. W. T. Stace also points out: To deny or doubt that it [a mystical experience] exists as a psychological fact is not a reputable opinion. It is ignorance. Whether it has any value or significance beyond itself, and if so what--these, of course, are matters regarding which there can be legitimate differ- ences of opinion.3 The argument of my dissertation could then be phrased more generally by saying that the controversy between freedom and determinism in the final analysis leads us to a view of the world which is very similar to the view held by mystics of all ages and traditions, the view, which is well summarized by Lewis Zerby in the following passage: I find mysticism with its emphasis on the oneness of all things, the fact of suffering caused by plurality and separation, and the overcoming of evil by meditation and appreciation, to be a very practical philosophy for 8W. T. Stace, The Teachings of the Mystics(N.Y.: The New Americal Library, 1960), p. 14. 252 the troubled world of 1975. The ethics which follows from.mysticism recognizes that the good life is that life which has overcome suffering by the immediate insight that reality is one. If the aim of life is to overcome desire and suffering, to achieve Nirvana for all mankind, then any causing of suffering is evil. To cause any living thing to suffer unnecessarily is evil. To relieve the suffering of any living things is good. Separation andgplurality are causes of suffering and to be minimized "Mysticism," adds Zerby, "condemns egoism, selfishness, pride, and struggle." It is hoped that this will not be a voice in the wilderness. 9 Lewis Zerby, "Implications of Eastern Thought and Traditions for The West," University College Quaterly, Vol. 21, No. 2, Jan. 1976, p. 31. BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY Adler, Mortimer J. The Idea of Freedom; A Dialectical Exami- ' nation of the ConceptiBn offFreedom(NTY.: Doubleday’ ' Press, 1958).V61. I and II. Alston, William P. ed. 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