The Conceivability Trap: Analytic Philosophy’s Achilles Heel

The possibility of objective knowledge is a contentious topic that continues to be debated. However, no reasonable practitioner will deny that, in practice, both science and analytic philosophy aim for objectivity: methods of data collection, analysis and synthesis that lead to conclusions at least largely independent of subjective perspective. Moreover, in practice most scientists and analytic philosophers implicitly believe that their conclusions are, by and large, objective; for this is often how they present their findings in the technical literature.

Since our empirical experiences are always perspectival—after all, each of us operates through a unique point of view or window into the world—the achievement of objective knowledge is contingent upon a procedure meant to distill objectivity out of perspectival subjectivity. In science, Karl Popper offered the following: “the objectivity of scientific statements lies in the fact that they can be inter-subjectively tested” (emphasis added). In analytic philosophy, however, issues often cannot be settled by experimental testing, so a different form of procedural objectivity is required. In this context, Bertrand Russell held that there are a priori principles of logical reasoning—not contingent on the idiosyncratic perspectives inherent to empirical experience—which, if properly applied, render objective conclusions possible.

Even philosophers of mind, whose object of study is that most subjective of all things, aim for objectivity. Expressions now common in the community—such as ‘what it is like to be (something or someone)’ to define the presence of experience—as well as words such as ‘phenomenal’ and ‘access’ to qualify consciousness, reflect an effort to objectify what is essentially subjective.

But can the ideal of full objectivity ever be realized? For as long as analytic philosophers are fallible human beings, instead of computers, it surely can’t. Their conclusions, too, are inevitably a function of the variety and metacognitive depth of their personal experiences. It is more productive to acknowledge this fact and respond accordingly, than to pretend otherwise.

For instance, the notion of conceivability—which is often appealed to in modern ontology and philosophy of mind to establish or refute metaphysical possibility—relies on the particular set of subjective experiences a philosopher has had in his or her life. Therefore, it is naïve—perhaps even pretentious—to assume that one’s personal inability to conceive of something entailed or implied by an argument positively refutes the argument. For not only in continental, but also analytic philosophy, one’s conclusions reveal perhaps as much about oneself as they do about one’s object of inquiry.

Indeed, even language itself—an indispensable tool not only for communicating, but also formulating our thoughts—is based on shared experience. Words only have meaning to us insofar as their denotations and connotations are experiences we’ve had ourselves. For instance, because you and I have experienced a car, the word ‘car’ has meaning for both of us, and so we can use it in a conversation. Similarly, because the word ‘color’ denotes an experience I’ve had, I can use the concept of color in my own meditations about the nature of mind.

As a matter of fact, the concept of a color palette occupies center stage today in philosophy of mind. Analytic philosophers who adhere to constitutive panpsychism use the concept to conceive—by analogy—of how a limited set of fundamental phenomenal states could be combined—like pigments in a palette—to constitute our ordinary experiences. The conceivability of this very notion rests on our shared experience of colors and how they can be combined to form other colors.

Now imagine Helen Keller as an analytic philosopher. Born deaf and blind as she was, she didn’t share with sight-capable philosophers the experience of having mixed watercolors in kindergarten. As a matter of fact, she didn’t even know what a color is. The very notion of a palette of fundamental experiences that could be combined to form meta-experiences wouldn’t be conceivable to her. And yet, the rest of us knows it is perfectly conceivable. Conceivability is thus not an objective notion, but an inherently subjective one.

The trap of conceivability in philosophy of mind can come in much more subtle, nuanced and elusive—yet no less perilous—forms than phenomenal palettes. To demonstrate it, I shall use an example very close to my heart, for it happens to be the reason why many of my colleagues hesitate about my own ideas regarding the nature of mind and reality.

Whereas constitutive panpsychism faces the so-called ‘combination problem’ (i.e. how can micro-level phenomenal subjects combine to form macro-level subjects such as you and me?) my formulation of idealism faces the so-called ‘decomposition problem’: How can one universal subject ground our personal, seemingly separate subjectivities? How can the one ground the many?

I address this problem with the largely empirical notion of dissociation: in psychiatry, we know that the mind of a person suffering from dissociative identity disorder can apparently fragment itself, leading to the formation of disjoint personalities or ‘alters.’ The reality of alter formation has been demonstrated with modern neuro-imaging research over the last decade (see, for instance, this and this). Therefore, even if we don’t know exactly how it happens, we do know that it happens.

Each alter is a seemingly separate subject within the host mind and can be conscious at the same time as other alters, even during dreams. These extraordinary clinical observations give us more than just a hint for how to solve the decomposition problem on empirical grounds, as opposed to theoretical abstractions. Yet, it can be very challenging for many of us to conceive of how one subject can seemingly break up and form disjoint but co-conscious sub-subjects.

Let me phrase this challenge in a clearer manner: as philosopher Sam Coleman put it, a subject “can be thought of as a point of view annexed to a private qualitative field.” Dissociation thus implies (a) the existence of more than one point of view within the same mind, (b) each point of view being annexed to a different qualitative field, (c) the qualitative fields being experienced simultaneously yet (d) separately. How are we to conceive of this?

Steps (a) to (c) can be easily conceived of by analogy to a simple phenomenological experiment I originally proposed in a book. Place your right indicator finger, pointing up, at an arm’s-length distance from your face, in the middle of your visual field (go on, have a go at it). Looking at it with both of your eyes, you see a single image: your indicator finger pointing up.

Now close one of your eyes while keeping the other open. Then alternate between the two eyes, so you always have only one eye open at a time, looking at your finger. You will notice that the image from each eye is only slightly different from that of the other.

But if you slowly bring your finger closer to your face, while continuing to alternate between your eyes, you will notice that the difference grows. When the finger finally touches your nose, you get very different images when looking at it with your left or your right eye; so different, in fact, that the part of your finger visible to each eye is not at all visible to the other. This gives us (a) two points of view within the same mind (your mind), (b) each annexed to a different qualitative field.

If you now open both of your eyes with the finger still touching your nose, you will see an overlay of both images: an attempt by your mind to merge them together. In other words, you are now (c) simultaneously conscious of two different qualitative fields, each experienced from a different point of view. However, the respective experiences aren’t (d) separate, because your brain tries to merge the corresponding fields in a single image.

Full dissociation is what would happen if, instead of merging the two qualitative fields, there were one ‘you’ experiencing the world through your right eye, and another, separate but concurrently conscious ‘you’ experiencing the same world through your left eye. This would give us (d) and complete the exercise in conceivability.

Alas, conceiving of (d) explicitly and coherently is contingent upon one’s idiosyncratic life experiences: for some it is straightforward, whereas for others it is so difficult they consider the whole notion of co-conscious alters fundamentally incoherent. The psychiatric evidence that these alters, however they form, somehow do form isn’t sufficient to the latter group, so indispensable conceivability seems to be.

And now we’ve come full circle: to be able to conceive of dissociative processes leading to seemingly disjoint but co-conscious subjects, one must have had the experience of dissociation oneself; at least in a mild, non-pathological form. Insofar as this experience isn’t widely shared across the analytic philosophy community, consensus about dissociation being the solution to the decomposition problem shall remain elusive. So much for objectivity.

It is impossible for me or anyone else to directly talk about the felt qualities of dissociation, because they are not common enough to be part of our culture-bound, shared dictionary of experiences. But I can try to talk around them, in the hope that you pick them up with your peripheral vision.

More than once in my life, after my 35^th year, I became suddenly cognizant of certain feelings and emotions—even thoughts—that I had been experiencing for most of my life but hadn’t been explicitly aware of. When this kind of realization occurs, you tell yourself, “I’ve always known this,” or “I’ve always felt this way, but wasn’t aware of it.” You realize retroactively that there was a disjoint part of you, separate from the executive ego, which experienced feelings, emotions and thoughts inaccessible to the ego due to lack of associative bridges.

Let me be clear: at the moment of the realization, you know that the dissociated feelings, emotions and thoughts in question were being experienced continuously and therefore concurrently with the executive ego, by a subject dissociated from the ego. After this subject is reintegrated with the ego, you realize that both were you, all along. And it is by virtue of this reintegration—which includes the memories of each of the subjects—that you know, retroactively and with absolute clarity, that you had been two: you can now experience the memories of both subjects as your own memories, including the memory that each of the subjects couldn’t access the other’s phenomenal field for as long as the dissociation lasted.

Anyone who has had this experience can conceive of dissociation leading to subject decomposition. As a matter of fact, those who have had this experience know that subject decomposition isn’t merely theoretical; it actually happens.

Although presumably not a typical experience for analytic philosophers—perhaps due to the character traits, dominant cognitive functions and innate dispositions that lead them to select their profession in the first place—what I described above is often recognizable among practitioners of mindfulness, depth psychology, non-dual self-inquiry and a few other related fields in which much attention is paid to the metacognitive representation of one’s own phenomenal states. The metaphysical possibility of subject decomposition through dissociation would be more easily accepted there.

There is, thus, an important sense in which analytic philosophy is epistemically handicapped by a degree of structural disregard for phenomenology and self-reflective introspection (at least beyond the abstract and objectifying conceptualizations that constitute its day-to-day practice). This self-imposed and unnecessary limitation results from the somewhat naïve belief that analytic philosophy can be done in a fully objective manner: to preserve the mere illusion of full objectivity, we dismiss important subjective sources of knowledge. Indeed, even science may have something to gain from not holding as tightly to the phantasm of full objectivity: “attempts to rid science of perspectives might not only be futile because scientific knowledge is necessarily perspectival, they can also be epistemically costly because they prevent scientists from having the epistemic benefits certain standpoints afford,” said Julian Reiss and Jan Sprenger.

In philosophy of mind, lack of attention to phenomenology and self-reflective introspection carries a particularly high cost. For if we turn the study of mind into a purely abstract conceptual process—in which concepts are deliberately separated from our lived experiences, like cards on a table—we will lose touch with the very target of our inquiry. By trying to objectively inquire into mind—that most subjective of all things—we fall into a fundamental, epistemically confining contradiction. After all, isn’t it self-evident that, to properly study the mind, one must try to know one’s own mind? Not only continental but analytic philosophy too, whether it recognizes it or not, is fundamentally dependent on personal, direct experience to make progress, for conceivability is a function of the life we’ve lived, the richness and depth of the experiences we’ve had. As the love of wisdom, philosophy—like wisdom—grows out of lived experience, not mere abstraction.

Bernardo Kastrup

Website

Bernardo Kastrup has a Ph.D. in philosophy (ontology, philosophy of mind) and another Ph.D. in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence). As a scientist, Bernardo has worked for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories. His focus is on Idealism, and his work has been published in Scientific American, the Institute of Art and Ideas, and Big Think, among others.