by RICHARD MARSHALL
In a recent friendly dispute between philosophers of mind Dan Dennett and David Papineau, Papineau disputes Dennett’s denial that animals can actually think. Papineau writes to Dennett at one point the following: ‘Along with nearly all other philosophers and cognitive scientists, I take it that zebras harbour internal cerebral states that represent features of their environment, and which combine with other such states to guide zebra behaviour. Indeed recent work on “model-based learning” argues that such cognitive processing allows animals like zebras “to anticipate how certain means will achieve certain ends in advance of specific experience” – which you accept is the mark of understanding “in a strong sense”. All this seems to count against your insistence that zebras have nothing but “competence without comprehension”.
Papineau goes on to recommend a causal role for knowledge: ‘ If a zebra can represent the presence of a lion, and so work out how to respond appropriately, why isn’t that comprehension in a strong sense? Not only is there a reason for the zebra’s action – a lion is nearby – but the zebra knows the reason.’ Dennett denies this. Both these philosophers are intensely smart and knowledgeable. Both are materialists and think science must underpin any philosophical position they take. Dennett’s approach has been a kind of therapeutic one. He works to show us that many of our favoured views about the mind are held hostage by metaphors and images. He creates different metaphors and images to dislodge the old ones so that we can accept what he takes to be the way of understanding what science shows us. The trouble with his approach for some, including Papineau here, is that sometimes it appears that Dennett himself has bewitched himself with his own devices. It can sometimes seem as if Dennett is incapable of decoupling himself from his own ideas. He can write sometimes as if he thinks to disagree with him is to be unscientific. He can even write as if there couldn’t be an alternative. Dave Chalmers has answered back on the topic of consciousness, saying that dualism and pansychism, for example, are philosophical positions that may or may not be supported by science. And in computer science, there is an alternative to Dennett’s own approach to intelligence, his famous ‘intentional stance’ position.
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