I’ve been reading Raymond Tallis’s book Aping Mankind: Neuromania,Darwinitis and the
Misrepresentation of Humanity. The author’s background is in medicine, specifically
clinical neuroscience. The book is a fierce criticism of two currently predominant
modes of thinking about human behaviour, uncritically adopted by many scientists
and cherished in popular culture: what Tallis calls neuromania (“the appeal to
the brain, as revealed through the latest science, to explain our behaviour”)
and Darwinitis (the idea that “unsentimental honesty ... requires us to acknowledge
that we are just like animals in all respects”).
I
believe the author has undertaken some urgent tasks: for while brain research and
evolutionary psychology may undoubtedly have something to contribute to an understanding
of human affairs, all parties ought to welcome a sober look at the uncritical
and reductive way in which conclusions tend to be drawn and results from these
disciplines to be presented in contemporary public debate. This is what Tallis
offers: thus, he brings incisive and detailed criticisms to bear on several experimental
studies in neurology.
I
do have some reservations, though. For one thing, his rhetoric seems too harsh
and unrelenting; this will encourage his adversaries to become defensive (or, more
likely, given the current intellectual climate, tempt them to ignore his arguments
altogether), rather than invite them to a fruitful dialogue.
This, after all,
is just a tactical consideration. However, as far as his argument goes, I was
disappointed by the extent to which Tallis rests his case against reductionism on
classical, “we-know-from-our-own-case” dualism, with all the problems attendant on that position. (After all, if I
only know from my own case, what
grounds do I have for claiming that it’s the same thing as you know from your own
case?) Concerning intentionality, i.e. the fact that perceptions, beliefs,
hopes, fears, wishes, intentions, etc, are “about” things in the world, he
argues persuasively that it cannot be accounted for in physiological terms; but
then he goes on to say: “How ... should we ascribe [intentionality] to anything
else unless it was something we had experienced in the first place in our
selves?” (p. 110.)
In trying to get
clear about muddles about the mind, it is important to acknowledge the
interplay between first person expressions and third person ascriptions. Reductive
accounts tend to ignore the first person perspective altogether. Dualists, like
Tallis, go to the other extreme and present third person utterances as derivative
from first person expressions. To strike a balance, it is important to reflect
on the fact that we learn to express what we perceive, feel, believe, etc in
interacting with others: hence the fact that we have this kind of comprehensibility
to others is indispensable to our acquiring this vocabulary. But on the one
hand, we acquire the ability to use these words as spontaneous self-expression,
and not, say, on the basis of observation of our own behaviour. So the first
person perspective too is an inevitable ingredient in this use of words, and is
not derivative from the third person.
(I shall comment
on Tallis’s discussion of perception in a future blog.)
