I've gotten a couple of messages lately, asking why I keep criticizing Harry Binswanger's Direct Realism, when so many other theories of mind are much more problematic. Curiously, the answer is contained in the question. A theory of mind that is full of mistakes does not make for a good comparison, if the goal is to pinpoint very specific mistakes. It is precisely because Direct Realism is mostly based on correct premises that it can be used to illustrate very specific mistakes. Today, I will discuss its subtle adoption of the mind-body dichotomy.
The mind-body dichotomy is the belief that our physical bodies and our minds are two distinct existents, often with opposing natures, and contradictory needs. As Ayn Rand identified, Man is an integrated being, and both our bodies and minds are aspects of the same thing. We are able to abstract one from the other conceptually, and deal with their specificities, but metaphysically, they are one and the same.
Direct Realism claims that consciousness starts at the level of perception. There is no such thing as a sensation, qua mental existent, but only physical interactions between our sensory organs. According to Binswanger, it is the integration of those physical interactions by the nervous system that gives rise to perception, and consciousness itself. Upon a closer look, we can identify the mind-body dichotomy in the context of metaphysics, as well as epistemology.
In the context of epistemology, this view ignores the hierarchy of knowledge involved in identifying the consciousness of beings other than ourselves. We only experience our own consciousness. We infer that other beings possess it by observing their behavior. We observe that their actions are similar to ours, and as such, that their nature must be somewhat similar to our own. We observe that other people are able to formulate sentences, and convey complex ideas, so we must infer that they share our conceptual faculty. We observe that dogs engage in specific interactions with particular entities, instead of broad interactions with their environment as a whole, so we must infer that they share our perceptual faculty.
Whether they are independent beings or part of a larger whole, we can observe that single cells shape their interaction with their environment in response to certain stimuli. Because of that, we must infer that they share our sensory faculty. This is not the same as claiming their consciousness is essentially similar to ours, but that they must possess some form of consciousness, whatever its specific nature might be. Since science has given us both the knowledge that our species gradually evolved from single-celled organisms, and that human beings are composed of them, there must be some sort of continuous development from one form of consciousness to the other.
In the context of metaphysics, Direct Realism treats the physical and the mental processes involved in maintaining life as two distinct existents, when they are actually aspects of the same thing. Our neurological system does not "create" our perceptual experience out of its physical reactions - it mediates them. Both the physical actions actions of our bodies and the mental actions of our consciousness are aspects of the same indivisible process, and one cannot postulate the existence of one without the existence of the other. This points to a misunderstanding, not just about consciousness, but causality as a whole - which will be the next post's topic.
1888.356 SRY