Philosophical Review

Sensations and Brain ProcessesAuthor(s): J. J. C. SmartSource:

The Philosophical Review,

Vol. 68, No. 2 (Apr., 1959), pp. 141-156Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/2182164

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SENSATIONSAND BRAINPROCESSES

SUPPOSE

thatIreportthat I haveat this moment a roundish,

blurry-edgedafter-image whichis yellowish towardsitsedge andis orange towardsits centre. What is it thatIamreporting?' Oneanswer to this questionmight bethat I amnot reportinganything, that whenI say that it looksto me asthough thereis aroundish yellowyorange patch of lighton thewallIamexpressingsome sort oftemptation,hetemptationtosaythatthereisaroundish yellowyorange patchonthe wall(thoughImay know thatthere is not sucha patch on the wall).This isperhaps Wittgenstein'sviewinthe PhilosophicalInvestigations(see paragraphs367,

370).

Similarly,whenI"report"apain,Iamnot reallyreporting anything (or,if you like,I amreportingin aqueersenseof"reporting"), butamdoingasophisticatedsortof wince.(Seeparagraph 244:"Theverbal expressionofpainreplaces cryingand does not describeit." Nor doesitdescribeanything else?)

I prefer most of thetimetodiscussan after- imagerather than apain, becausethe word "pain"bringsinsomething whichisirrelevantto my purpose:the notion of"distress."I think that"heis inpain"entails "heis indistress,"thatis,thathe is in a certainagitation-condition.3Similarly,tosay"Iaminpain"maybe todomore than "replacepainbehavior":itmaybepartlytoreport something,thoughthis

This paper takes itsdeparture fromarguments tobe found inU. T. Place's"Is ConsciousnessaBrainProcess?"(BritishJournalof Psychology,XLVII,

1956,

44-50).

Ihavehad the benefit of discussing Place's thesis in agoodmany universitiesin the United Statesand Australia,and I hope thatthepresent paperanswers objectionsto histhesis which Place has notconsidered,and presentshis thesis ina more nearlyunobjectionable form.This paper ismeant alsoto supplement "The 'Mental'and the'Physical'," by H. Feigl (inMinnesotaStudies in the PhilosophyofScience,II,

370-497),

which arguesformuch thesame thesisas Place's.

Some philosophersofmy acquaintance,whohavetheadvantage overmein havingknown Wittgenstein,wouldsay that this interpretationof him istoo behavioristic. However,it seems tome a very naturalinterpretation of hisprinted words,and whether or not itis Wittgenstein'sreal view itis certainlyan interesting and importantone.Iwishto considerithere asapossiblerival both to the "brain-process"thesis andto straight-outold-fashioned dualism.

SeeRyle, Concept fMind (NewYork,

1949),p.93.

'4'

J. J. C. SMART

somethingisquite nonmysterious,being anagitation-condition,and so susceptible ofbehavioristic analysis.The suggestion Iwishifpossibletoavoidis adifferent one,namely that "I am inpain" is a genuine report,and that what itreports is an irre-ducibly psychicalsomething.AndsimilarlythesuggestionIwishtoresistisalso thattosay"Ihaveayellowishorange after-image"is to report somethingirreducibly psychical.Why doIwishto resist this suggestion?Mainly becauseofOccam's razor.Itseemsto me that science isincreasingly givingusaviewpointwhereby organismsare able tobe seen asphysico-chemical mechanisms:4 it seems that even thebehavior ofmanhimselfwillone daybe explicable in mechanisticterms. Theredoesseemto be, sofar as scienceisconcerned, nothingintheworld but increasinglycomplex arrangementsofphysicalcon-stituents. All exceptfor one place: in consciousness.That is, forafulldescriptionofwhat isgoingon in amanyouwould have tomention not only thephysical processes inhis tissue, glands,nervous system, andsoforth, but also his statesof consciousness:hisvisual, auditory,and tactual sensations,hisachesand pains.Thatthese should becorrelatedwith brain processesdoesnothelp,fortosaythattheyare correlateds tosaythat theyaresomething"over and above."You cannot correlatesomething with itself.Youcorrelatefootprintswith burglars, butnot Bill Sikestheburglar with Bill Sikesthe burglar. So sensations,states ofcon-sciousness,doseemtobe the one sortofthingleftoutsidethephysicalist picture,andforvarious reasonsIjustcannotbelievethatthis canbeso. That everything shouldbeexplicableintermsofphysics (togetherof course with descriptionsof the waysin whichthepartsareput together-roughly,biologyis tophysics as radio-engineeringis to electromagnetism)except theoccurrenceof sensationsseems to me to befranklyunbelievable.Suchsensationswouldbe"nomological danglers,"to useFeigl'sexpression.5Itisnotoftenrealized how oddwouldbe thelaws

4On

this pointseePaulOppenheim and Hilary Putnam, "UnityofScienceasaWorking Hypothesis," in Minnesota Studiesinthe Philosophy of Science,II,3-36;alsomynote"Plausible Reasoning in Philosophy,"Mind,LXVI

(I957),

75-78.

Feigl, op. cit., p. 428.

I42