Herewith, some comments on and questions about Patrick Toner's fascinating paper, "Hylemorphic Animalism" (Philos Stud, 2011, 155: 65-81).
Patrick Toner takes an animalist line on human persons. Animalism is the doctrine that each of us is identical to an animal organism. A bit more precisely, "Animalism involves two claims: (1) we are human persons and (2) human persons are identical with animals." (67)
Animalism
Let's consider the second claim. Toner endorses Eric Olson's 'thinking animal' argument for (2). Based on Toner's summary, I take the argument to go as follows. I am now sitting in a chair thinking a thought T. There is also now an animal sitting in this very chair and occupying the same space. Is the animal also thinking T? There are four possibilities.
a. I am identical to the animal occupying my chair, and the thinker of my thoughts is identical to this animal.
b. I am not identical to the animal occupying my chair, but I share the space with an animal that thinks all my thoughts.
c. I am not identical to the animal occupying my chair, but I share the space with a nonthinking animal.
d. There is no animal in my chair; hence I am not not identical to it.
Of the four possibilities, Toner considers (a) to be actual. "It's the least ugly of the choices. Indeed, it's positively common-sensical, compared with the other rather nutty options." (70)
I agree that (b) and (d) can be excluded right away. But I don't see that (c) is 'nutty' and I don't see that (a) is "positively common-sensical." Common sense has nothing to say about abstruse metaphysical topics such as this one.
The Corpse Objection to Animalism
On (a), the thinker of my thoughts is numerically identical to this living human organsm with which I am intimately associated. But If I am (identically) my body, then me and my body ought to have the same persistence conditions. But they don't: when I die I will cease to exist, but (most likely) a corpse will remain. Now if a = b, then there is no time t at which a exists but b does not exist, and vice versa. So if there are times when I do not exist but my body does exist, then I cannot be identical to my body. On (a), I will not survive death, but my body will: it will survive as a corpse. Therefore I am not identical to my body.
Toner's Response to the Corpse Objection
The Corpse Objection, in a nutshell, is that I cannot be identical to my animal body because it will survive me. My body exists now before my death and it will exist then after my death. It is the same body dead or alive. Toner's response is a flat denial of survival. My body will not survive me. Death is a substantial, as opposed to an accidental, change. When I die the animal body that I am will cease to exist and one or more new bodies will begin to exist. So it is not as if one bodily substance undergoes an accidental change, going from being alive to being dead; one bodily substance ceases to exist and one or more others begin to exist. The change is not alterational but existential. This implies that the body itself did not exist while the animal was alive. As Toner puts it:
Neither the body itself, nor any of its atomic parts, existed while the animal was alive. This just follows from the account of substance I've given, according to which substances have no substances as parts, -- there is only one substance here in my boundaries, and it's an animal. When the animal dies, whatever is left over is not the same thing that was there before. (71)
Two Questions
1. One question is whether, assuming that I am just this living animal body, my dying is an accidental change or a substantial change. I will suggest that it is more plausible to think of it as an accidental change.
If my dying is an accidental change, then something that exists now in one form will exist post mortem in a different form. This something could be called the proximate matter of my body. This matter is organized in a certain way and its organs and various subsystems are functioning in such a way that the entire bodily system has the property of being alive. (For example, the lungs are oxygenating the blood, the heart is pumping the blood to the brain, the pathways to the brain are unobstructed, etc.) But then suppose I drown or have a massive heart attack or a massive stroke. The body then ceases to have the property of being alive. On this way of looking at things, one and the same body can exist in two states, alive and dead. There is diachronic continuity between the living and dead bodies, and that continuity is grounded in the proximate matter of the body.
If, on the other hand, my dying is a substantial change, and I am just this living body, then at death I cease to exist entirely, and what is left over, my corpse, is something entirely new, 'an addition to being' so to speak. I cease to exist, and a corpse comes to exist. But then the only diachronic continuity as between the live body and the corpse is prime (not proximate) matter.
But what makes the corpse that comes to exist my corpse? Suppose I am just a living animal and that I die at t1. A moment later, at t2, two corpses come into existence. Which one do you bury under the 'BV' tombstone? Which is the right one, and what makes it the right one? Or suppose Peter and I die at the same instant, in the same place, and that dying is a substantial change. Peter and I cease to exist and two corpses C1 and C2 come into existence. Which is my corpse and which is Peter's? Practically, there is no problem: we look different and our looking different and having different dimensions, etc. is due to our different proximate matter, matter that is the same under two different and successive forms.
What this suggests is that dying is an accidental change, not a substantial change. It is an accidental change in the proximate matter of a human body. But if so, then the Corpse Objection holds and animalism is untenable.
There is also the very serious problem that substantial change requires prime matter, and prime matter is a very questionable posit. But I won't pursue this topic at present.
2. My second main question concerns how animalism is compatible with such phenomena as the unity of consciousness and intentionality. On animalism I am just a living human animal. The thinker of my thoughts is this hairy critter occupying my blogging chair. Is it the whole of me that is the res cogitans? Or only a proper part of me? Presumably the latter. If an animal thinks, then presumably it thinks in virtue of its brain thinking.
The animalist thus seems committed to the claim that the res cogitans, that which thinks my thoughts, is a hunk of living intracranial meat. But it is not so easy to understand how meat could mean. What a marvellous metabasis eis allo genos whereby meat gives rise to meaning, understanding, intentionality! It is so marvellous that it is inconceivable. My thinkings are of or about this or that, and in some cases they are of or about items that do not exist. I can think about Venus the planet and Venus the goddess and I can think about Vulcan even though there is no such planet. How can a meat state possess that object-directedness we call intentionality? Brains states are physical states, and our understanding of physical states is from physics; but the conceptuality of physics offers us no way of understanding the intentionality of thought.
And then there is the unity of consciousness. Can animalism account for it? At Plato's Theaetetus 184c, Socrates puts the following question to Theaetetus: ". . . which is more correct — to say that we see or hear with the eyes and with the ears, or through the eyes and through the ears?" Theatetus obligingly responds with through rather than with. Socrates approves of this response:
Yes, my boy, for no one can suppose that in each of us, as in a sort of Trojan horse, there are perched a number of unconnected senses which do not all meet in some one nature, the mind, or whatever we please to call it, of which they are the instruments, and with which through them we perceive the objects of sense. (Emphasis added, tr. Benjamin Jowett)
The issue here is the unity of consciousness in the synthesis of a manifold of sensory data. Long before Kant, and long before Leibniz, Plato was well aware of the problem of the unity of consciousness. (It is not for nothing that A. N. Whitehead described Western philosophy as a series of footnotes to Plato.)
Sitting before a fire, I see the flames, feel the heat, smell the smoke, and hear the crackling of the logs. The sensory data are unified in one consciousness of a selfsame object. This unification does not take place in the eyes or in the ears or in the nostrils or in any other sense organ, and to say that it takes place in the brain is not a good answer. For the brain is a partite physical thing extended in space. If the unity of consciousness is identified with a portion of the brain, then the unity is destroyed. For no matter how small the portion of the brain, it has proper parts external to each other. Every portion of the brain, no matter how small, is a complex entity. But consciousness in the synthesis of a manifold is a simple unity. Hence the unity of consciousness cannot be understood along materialist lines.
Conclusion
I tentatively conclude that option (c) above -- I am not identical to the animal occupying my chair, but I share the space with a nonthinking animal -- is, if not preferable to Toner's preferred option, at least as good as it, and not at all "nutty.' The Corpse Objection to Animalism seems like a good one, and Toner's response to it is not compelling, involving as it does the idea that dying is a substantial change, a response that brings with it all the apories surrounding substance and prime matter. Finally, it is not clear to me how animalism can accommodate intentionality and the unity of consciousness.
But perhaps Professor Toner can help me understand this better.
Bill,
If one is a Thomist-animalist holding that the animal is a soul-body compound, wouldn't that (prima facie) get around the unity of consciousness/intentionality objection? As well, perhaps I could exist as a bodily-animal and (upon dying) as (merely) a soul. One could then hold (a) by embracing relative identity. (Or maybe one could hold that being an animal is like being a teenager--it's a stage in one's existence but it's not essential to always be in that stage. I'm identical with the animal in the chair as well as the teenager in the chair.)
But then [on the animalist view] the only diachronic continuity as between the live body and the corpse is prime (not proximate) matter.
One could also hold that there are no corpses; perhaps "corpse" doesn't pick out a substance. Same thing with my "body". There is me existing as a material animal and then--upon dying--either me not existing, or existing as an immaterial animal, or me existing as an immaterial non-animal (in this last case I wouldn't be a rational animal essentially).
Posted by: Tully Borland | Saturday, May 31, 2014 at 02:59 PM
Thanks, Tully.
>>If one is a Thomist-animalist holding that the animal is a soul-body compound, wouldn't that (prima facie) get around the unity of consciousness/intentionality objection?<<
Are you suggesting that if the thinking animal is a unity of form (soul) and matter (body), that this unity suffices for the unity of consciousness? If you are, then I don't understand.
For one thing, if something material thinks when I think, this material thing is not my entire body but a proper part thereof, the best candidate being my brain. But thinking (in the broad Cartesian sense) often involves synthesis. I see a bird on a branch; I hear it tweet. The unified perception involves the synthesis of visual and auditory data. As explained above the unity of consciousness cannot be located in the brain due to the partite nature of the brain.
Posted by: BV | Sunday, June 01, 2014 at 11:43 AM
Bill,
No, I'm not suggesting that that unity suffices for the unity of consciousness.
As I'm sure you know, Aquinas (e.g.) holds that Socrates is an animal. But Socrates has an immaterial soul; the intellect is also immaterial. The activity of the intellect isn't activity of the brain.
It sounds like you're assuming that animalists must be full-on materialists about human persons. There are some (Aristotelians,Thomists,etc.) who hold that a human person is an animal (at least for part of its existence) but that animal has an immaterial intellect.
Of course, there may be plenty of problems with such a view, but I'm having trouble seeing how your particular objection applies.
So here is my question: why couldn't an animalist hold that one is an animal but that no material part grounds consciousness/intentionality?
Posted by: Tully Borland | Sunday, June 01, 2014 at 12:41 PM
Tully,
Your question is a good one. I think I have an answer but it would take a separate post to develop it. But for now I will concede this much to you: it does not straightaway follow from animalism that one must be a materialist about human persons.
Posted by: BV | Sunday, June 01, 2014 at 03:25 PM
Dear Bill,
Thanks very much for the discussion of my paper! Here's an effort at a reply. I'm not sure how coherent it is, though I've done my best to try to make it make sense. (Sense-making, for me, is generally a very long-term matter, involving many layers of edits. That's one of the main reasons--along with sheer technical incompetence--that I do not have a blog of my own.) On previewing the post, I see that my painstaking attempts at marking out quotations, and adding italics and such, have failed. I hope it remains somewhat readable.
[quote]…I don't see that (c) is 'nutty' and I don't see that (a) is "positively common-sensical." Common sense has nothing to say about abstruse metaphysical topics such as this one.[/quote]
Guilty. That was an abuse of the term “common sense.” I won’t try to offer an apologia for that abuse here, since it would take us off the more substantive issues.
[quote] One question is whether, assuming that I am just this living animal body, my dying is an accidental change or a substantial change. […] What this suggests is that dying is an accidental change, not a substantial change. It is an accidental change in the proximate matter of a human body. But if so, then the Corpse Objection holds and animalism is untenable.[/quote]
If death is an accidental change, then (as you point out in some of the text I’ve snipped) that implies that the same body can exist at one time as alive, and at another time as dead. If so, then I wonder if you believe in substantial change at all. If [i]death[/i] doesn’t make the cut, then what [i]would[/i] count as a substantial change?
Your brief remarks (again, including some I’ve snipped) suggest that you’re taking ‘body’ to mean something like ‘parcel of proximate matter.’ Is that correct? If so, what is its relationship to the animal that matter constitutes/composes/is? It sounds to me like you’re saying the relationship is one of numerical identity. But then, the animal currently in my chair shares no matter whatsoever with the animal born lo these many years ago of this animal’s mother, dubbed with this animal’s name, etc. So the proximate matter here now shares no matter with the proximate matter that was present when I was born (I use “I” for convenience’s sake here, and don’t mean to load it with any metaphysical significance). Are those parcels of proximate matter nevertheless numerically identical? Given the transitivity of identity, I take it you can see how my concern here shapes up.
Let me change the case a bit. I apologize for the gruesomeness of the example to follow, but the material at hand seems to demand this sort of thing. So imagine a human animal executed via hanging. This leaves a corpse that is more or less intact. And on your view, I take it, that corpse (or the matter that composes it?—either way, I’ll call this “The Matter”) is identical with the animal that died via hanging. Now imagine the corpse is quartered. No one of these pieces, obviously, is numerically identical with The Matter. Are they all, taken together, identical with The Matter?
(a) Yes. If so, then I wonder whether you believe in substantial change at all. (Or, at least, do you believe in substantial change in the material world at all?) And if you don’t believe in substantial change in the material world, then I think you have no motivation for asserting that The Matter is a substance. You’d be better off either accepting radical atomism, or else accepting monism (again, just at the level of matter, along Cartesian lines). Either way, I would think you’d lose the ability to take any shots at the notion of prime matter on the grounds that it is a very questionable posit! :-)
(b) No. But if not, then I would pose for you the problem you posed for me: what makes these pieces of matter parts of The Matter? Imagine two animals hanged, drawn and quartered this same day. Some of the resulting chunks presumably have some continuity with The Matter, and some have continuity with the other animal’s matter. But which?
I think you can avoid facing your own objection simply by saying the parcels are marked out in virtue of their parts. So one of the final parcels belonged to The Matter in virtue of that final parcel having atomic parts A,B, C and D—where The Matter also had atomic parts A, B, C and D. But another of the final parts did not belong to The Matter, because that final part has atomic parts E, F, G and H, while The Matter had none of these parts. Etc. But if you avail yourself of this, then this seems to lead straight back to the trouble I mentioned earlier about transitivity of identity. If a particular parcel of matter is individuated through the identity of its constituent parts, then the parcel of matter here in my chair now is simply not identical with the parcel of matter that composed this animal ten years ago. (Or five minutes ago, for that matter.)
So although I’m afraid that was rather unclear, my first response is to simply say things are tough all over. There are no easy solutions to these matters, and even if it’s granted that your first question about hylemorphic animalism leads to difficulties, I think the same is true no matter what view on human beings one turns to.
But, with that said, I don’t think there’s a particular problem with your first question. What makes it the case that my corpse is my corpse, and not someone else’s? Continuity of matter. Your challenge seems to suppose that since my corpse’s continuity with me is based solely on continuity of prime matter, that this leads to trouble: your corpse’s continuity with you is also based merely on continuity of prime matter, and hence we’d have no way to distinguish the two corpses (not epistemologically, perhaps, but metaphysically). Am I understanding the objection right? If so, I just deny the fundamental supposition. There is at least this difference: the matter in question is [i]designated[/i] matter, and I don’t share that matter with you. Yes, in order to get this view to work out one would need to buy into the whole Thomistic notion of matter and form. I do. That’s the main difference between hylemorphic animalism and latter-day animalism. I’ve tried to make the benefits of hylemorphic animalism over latter-day animalism clear, precisely because the need to accept form and matter is generally seen as, shall we say, a liability. But if form and matter make themselves philosophically invaluable, then this liability is overcome.
[quote]My second main question concerns how animalism is compatible with such phenomena as the unity of consciousness and intentionality. On animalism I am just a living human animal. The thinker of my thoughts is this hairy critter occupying my blogging chair. Is it the whole of me that is the [i]res cogitans[/i]? Or only a proper part of me? Presumably the latter. If an animal thinks, then presumably it thinks in virtue of its brain thinking.[/quote]
Nope, it’s the whole of me, and don’t forget that this whole includes the [i]morphe[/i]—in this case, the rational soul. Some objections from David Hershenov led me to see that I was too quick on this issue in “Hylemorphic Animalism,” and I revisited the material in a piece in the Modern Schoolman called “St. Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Too Many Thinkers,” where I stressed the point that thinking really is a unitary act of the organism, and not the action of the soul (or, for that matter, of the brain). In fact, latter-day animalists such as Olson simply deny that there is such a thing as a brain, in part because they want to avoid precisely what you suggest here: that it’s the brain that’s doing my thinking. If it’s the brain that does my thinking, then by all modern Lockean standards, I [i]am[/i] the brain. Which animalists, of course, reject. Therefore, etc. (Olson points out—and this is important—that the denial of the existence of brains is not some desperate ad hoc maneuver, but is independently motivated along well-known lines as developed by Peter van Inwagen and my Master, Trenton Merricks. I would also point out that hylemorphic animalists [i]do[/i] believe in the existence of brains, which is another lovely advantage of hylemorphism over latter-day animalism.)
The unity of consciousness business is addressed by Aristotle and St. Thomas by way of the vis cogitativa (or in non-human animals, the vis aestimativa), and I will confess to not having done any real thinking about it. (Although in “Emergent Substance,” one of my arguments in favor of my view is that it solves the unity of consciousness problem, at least as that problem is presented by Hasker.) One of the most serious weaknesses in my published work to this date is that I’ve never addressed such fundamental matters as, say, the nature of the soul. To this point, I’ve simply tried to present a kind of basic defense of the Thomistic metaphysic, within the context of contemporary analytic philosophy. I’ve had no reason to delve too deeply into the details of the view, since I’ve been so occupied with just trying to give some reasons for people to take the view seriously enough to maybe start to care a little bit about the details. However, I think I’ve now done more or less all I can do along those lines. And I’ve just gone on leave, during which I mean to write a book on hylemorphism, wherein I plan to address such fundamental questions. I pray it will be a fruitful endeavor, and I thank you for the stimulating questions!
Posted by: p toner | Monday, June 02, 2014 at 09:09 AM
Patrick,
Thanks for the detailed response. You realize, of course, that my post was merely an attempt to work my way into your paper and understand the issues. My remarks were more questions than criticisms. You know this subject much better than I do.
>>If death is an accidental change, then (as you point out in some of the text I’ve snipped) that implies that the same body can exist at one time as alive, and at another time as dead. If so, then I wonder if you believe in substantial change at all. If [i]death[/i] doesn’t make the cut, then what [i]would[/i] count as a substantial change?<<
Well, annihilation would count as substantial change and so would creation ex nihilo (exnihilation) even if an animal's being born and dying did not. I am pretty sure a scholastic would agree with what I just wrote, though a scholastic would insist that being born and dying are substantial changes.
The problem of change is insanely difficult as I'm sure you would agree. Prima facie there are existential changes and alterational changes. Making coffee versus the coffee that's been made cooling.
But working out the details of a theory of change is not easy.
I was arguing for a very modest proposition, namely, that (a) is not obviously preferable to (c), and together with that, that the Corpse Objection is not obviously mistaken.
(c) is not "nutty" and if we consult common sense it won't help us decide between (a) and (c). So I think we agree since you conceded this point.
Is it reasonable for you to be a hylomorphic animalist? I would say yes, just as it is reasonable for me to have serious doubts about it.
On the question of common sense, I have heard it said by prominent presentists that presentism is the common sense position, where presentism, roughtly, is the view that the present alone exists. More precisely, abstract objects apart, only that which is temporally present exists: past and future times and events and individuals wholly at those times do not exist at all.
Now while presentism is plausible, the claim that it is common sense strikes me as preposterous. For it implies that wholly past individuals and events do not exist at all, that Kierkegaard's break-up with Regine Olsen and his marriage to her are equally unreal.
More later.
Posted by: BV | Monday, June 02, 2014 at 11:34 AM
Patrick writes,
>>But, with that said, I don’t think there’s a particular problem with your first question. What makes it the case that my corpse is my corpse, and not someone else’s? Continuity of matter. Your challenge seems to suppose that since my corpse’s continuity with me is based solely on continuity of prime matter, that this leads to trouble: your corpse’s continuity with you is also based merely on continuity of prime matter, and hence we’d have no way to distinguish the two corpses (not epistemologically, perhaps, but metaphysically). Am I understanding the objection right? If so, I just deny the fundamental supposition. There is at least this difference: the matter in question is [i]designated[/i] matter, and I don’t share that matter with you.<<
I think one of us is laboring under a serious misunderstanding of Aristotelian-scholastic doctrine. It could easily be me. I don't claim to be an expert in A-S doctrine. But I have assiduously studied quite a lot of it. Would you count Ed Feser as an expert? In his latest book, *Scholastic Metaphysics,* he explains the matter as follows. I will paraphrase closely rather than quote exactly.
Hylomorphism is necessary if we are to account for the reality of change. There are two kinds of change, substantial and accidental, corresponding to the difference between substantial and accidental forms. There is substantial change where there is generation and corruption. In both kinds of change there is an underlying matter. Prime matter underlies substantial change; secondary matter underlies accidental change. Prime matter is matter lacking both substantial forms and accidental forms. It is indeterminate, the pure potency for form. Now the money quote: "It is the subject of substantial change."
Now this seems to contradict what you say above. You said that designated matter underlies the substantial change which is the dying of an animal. But designated matter is secondary matter. I said, consistently with Feser's explanation, that it is prime matter that underlies the substantial change which is the dying of an animal.
Now unless I am badly mistaken, you are misrepresenting the A-S doctrine.
Posted by: BV | Monday, June 02, 2014 at 01:19 PM
Such a good discussion! Good to see this getting the attention it deserves.
Posted by: Adam Omelianchuk | Monday, June 02, 2014 at 06:02 PM
Hi Adam,
I have you to thank for sending me Patrick's paper.
It was good meeting you back in March.
Posted by: BV | Monday, June 02, 2014 at 06:35 PM
Bill,
A quick response on matter: I have Ed's new book right near the top of my pile, but I haven't read it yet. I'm glad to say I'll be reviewing it for the ACPQ, and I'm looking forward to that! I just took a quick look at the relevant section, and I think it looks like an excellent discussion of the matter. So to speak. Let me add here--along those lines I mentioned before, about my not having gone into some of the fundamental ideas of the Thomistic view with sufficient rigor yet--that I am an analytic metaphysician trying to figure out St. Thomas, and there's an awful lot I misunderstand or am simply ignorant of. This may be one of those areas.
That said, I have found Bobik's commentary on the De Ente to be just incredibly helpful. The notion of "designated matter" that I deployed above was drawn from Bobik, though bear in mind I may well simply be misunderstanding him. I will quote at some length:
"When we talk about quantified matter ... we are not talking about anything other than the matter which is part of the intrinsic constitution of an individual composed substance, that matter which can also be described as prime, as designated, and as nondesignated... Thus, to talk about prime matter, quantified matter, nondesignated matter, and designated matter is to talk about the same thing, but to say four different things about it, to describe it in four different ways. To speak of quantified matter, or perhaps better of matter as quantified, is to speak of what the matters of all individual composed substances have in common, namely, that in their matters which accounts for the possibility of their matter's being divided from the matters of other individual substances; it is to speak of that which makes it possible for individual composed substances to have matter in common as part of their essence. Matter as designated presupposes, and adds to, matter as quantified; and what it adds is actual circumscription so as to be just so much. To say that matter is quantified is to say that it is three-dimensionally spread out, and nothing else. To say that matter is designated is to say that it is three-dimensionally spread out and circumscribed to be just so much, just so much as is in Jack or Paul or any given individual composed substance." (148)
So my quick take would be that I completely agree with Ed, since he speaks of prime matter and as Bobik says, when we speak of prime matter and designated matter, we're speaking of the same thing. It looks like Ed leaves out some of the layers of complexity that Bobik includes, but that is the only sensible thing to do in an introductory book like Ed's.
My thought is quite simple: if my matter is considered as designated, then it is being considered as three-dimensionally spread out and just so much. In a peaceful death, that same parcel of three-dimensionally spread out matter--and the same 'just so much' amount--remains present. But the designated matter three-dimensionally spread out and circumscribed here (mine) is quite different from the designated matter three-dimensionally spread out and circumscribed over there (yours).
Put five Thomists in a room, you'll get five different takes on all this, of course. :-) Sorry to be so quick. I can't write much tonight, but wanted to give at least a brief reply. Perhaps this will serve as a reply to the new post on matter, too.
Posted by: p toner | Monday, June 02, 2014 at 07:39 PM
Patrick,
Thank you for the Bobik quotation which I will mull over later in the day. It advances the discussion, at least for me.
Posted by: BV | Tuesday, June 03, 2014 at 05:09 AM