Philosophy 224 Some Candidates Strawson on Individuals Individuals

Philosophy 224 Some Candidates: Strawson on Individuals

Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics The selection from Strawson is from the 1959 book that established his reputation. n “Descriptive metaphysics is content to describe the actual structure of our thought about the world” (Strawson 1959, 9). n It is to be contrasted with ‘revisionary metaphysics’, which “is concerned to produce a better structure” (Strawson 1959, 9). n

Strawson’s Philosophical Perspective Strawson is an analytic philosopher. n APs are the inheritors of the empiricist and (especially) naturalistic tendencies of the modern era. n Strawson belongs to the linguistic analysis/ordinary language wing of analytic philosophy. n A primary method of this approach is to interrogate the everyday senses of the philosophical concepts or terms at issue. n

Strawson’s Metaphysics So what did Strawson’s interrogations produce? n Strawson divides existence into particulars and universals. n Some of the particulars are “basic, ” which means that they are the experiential and conceptual building blocks of experience. n The table can be analyzed or deconstructed into parts, but that is not the way we immediately apprehend the table. n

So, what is a person? n. A person is a basic particular to which we ascribe consciousness. n These two modes of predication are coeval, • “a person…is a type of entity such that both predicates ascribing states of consciousness and predicates ascribing corporeal characteristics…are equally applicable to a single individual of that single type” (178 c 1).

Why is it ‘primitive? ’ Strawson offers his account as part of a rejection of other competing accounts, including the mind-body dualisms of the modern era. n From this perspective, ‘person’ is not logically primitive, in as much as it is definable in terms of more basic kinds (mind and matter; consciousness over time; etc. ). n We’ve seen the problems that come from this dualistic account. Strawson has the solution: the ‘person’ is logically basic and entities like “individual consciousness” are derivative. n • Cf. , 179 c 1

So what? In addition to resolving many of the issues arising in connection to the accounts of the person rooted in mind/body dualism, Strawson’s account of personhood also has some useful implications for the philosophy of mind. n Of particular importance is the distinction between M- and P-predicates. n

M- and P- predicates work in the same way (pointing out a specific, properly basic and primitive, entity), but P-predicates have an importantly different form when ascribed to oneself as opposed as being ascribed to others. n This difference implies that we must also ascribe selfascription to all of the others (181 c 2). n This in turn undercuts species of relativism and logical behaviorism (attribution is about behavior, not mental states). n

What about Life After Death? Strawson closes with a consideration of the implication of his picture for the belief in an immortal soul. n Such a soul would in effect have P-predicates but not m-predicates. n It’s not impossible (you can certainly think mpredicates without p-predicates). n The question is: “What would it be like to be a soul? ” n

Solipsism, of what? P-ascription without M-ascription would condemn the entity to solipsism, “…it must remain for him indeed an utterly empty, though not meaningless, speculation, as to whethere any other members of his class” (186 c 1). n At best a former person, in as much as Person = P-ascription and M-ascription. n One implication: ‘Argument from necessity’ for bodily resurrection. n