Australia. He worked at Adelaide University from 1895 to 1940
primarily in the area of cognitive science. His major work: Structure
and Growth of the Mind is a treatise on philosophical psychology.
Mitchell anticipated the claims of Nagel, McGinn, and Chalmers and
their emphasis on the nonreductive character of subjective experience.
He also anticipated the themes associated with perceptual plasticity,
developmental accounts of modularity, and connectionism.
1. Biographical Sketch
William Mitchell was born in Inveravon in north Scotland in 1861, the
son of a hill farmer. He was one of six children. Before he died in
1962 at the age of 101, he had distinguished himself both as Vice
Chancellor (1916-1942) and later Chancellor (1942-48) at the
University of Adelaide in South Australia. He held the Hughes Chair in
English Language and Literature and Mental and Moral Philosophy, and
was the first (and to date only) philosopher working within Australia
to give the Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen. This he
did in 1924 and 1926. In 1927 he was knighted for his services to
South Australia (Miller, 1929, p. 248).
In South Australia, Mitchell is remembered as an important figure at
Adelaide University. He is certainly well-known for his contributions
to scholarly life: this included obtaining grants for the University;
founding the chair of biochemistry; spending large sums on library
acquisitions; making many administrative contributions (the neo-Gothic
Mitchell Building on North Terrace in Adelaide is named in his
honour). However, he was also a first-rate philosopher. He published
his first paper in Mind while still an undergraduate, and later, two
discursive and wide-ranging books with MacMillan; the first entitled:
Structure and Growth of the Mind (1907) ranged over issues in mind and
content, philosophical psychology and neuroscience; the second The
Place of Minds (1933) covered issues overlapping mind and the
philosophy of physics, including the then relatively new area of
quantum mechanics. The only copy of the third manuscript The Power of
Mind—part of the trilogy—is said to have been lost during the London
bombing raids. There are surviving manuscripts of this last book and
proceedings of it as the last in the series of Gifford lectures—none
of which, however, have ever reached print. There are also a number of
shorter papers including: "Nature and Feeling", "Universities and
Life", "Reform in Education", "Christianity and the Industrial
System", "The Quality of Life", and others, which were published as
monographs by the Hassell printing company in Adelaide. Mitchell was
also a regular contributor to the early editions of the Mind journal
and regularly wrote shorter topical pieces for the Murdoch paper, The
Advertiser, when it was a newspaper of some repute.
As a teacher and academic, Mitchell was highly regarded and something
of a polymath, being engaged to teach economics and education as well
as philosophy, psychology and literature. It might be disputed how
much teaching he actually did in economics and literature—though a
recent publication claims that he taught economics four evenings a
week in addition to his other duties as professor of philosophy and a
Vice Chancellor ("Economics at Adelaide", 2003, p. 15). There is no
doubt that he was a man of considerable energy. For this reason
perhaps he described his chair, not as a chair but a sofa. He was also
an unpretentious character. It is said, for example, that he didn't
have need for a room in his capacity of Vice Chancellor. If he wanted
to see someone on an administrative matter, Mitchell would see them in
his room. (Smart, 1962). Because of his considerable abilities as an
academic, administrator, and intellectual/social commentator, Duncan
and Leonard describe Mitchell as "the nearest approach to a
philosopher-king the academic world has ever seen" (Duncan and
Leonard, 1973, p. 78; Trahair, 1984, p. 52).
Mitchell always considered himself to be, first and foremost, a
philosopher (Smart, 1962). He was, arguably, Australia's first
significant philosopher. Yet, curiously, he is not remembered at all
as such. In academic terms, he is today a largely forgotten figure.
The last serious discussion known to appear in print on Mitchell's
work was probably in Blanshard's Nature of Thought in 1939; the last
review of his books appeared in 1934 (Harvey and Acton wrote reviews
in the same year; an earlier review by Hoernlé appeared in 1909); the
last postgraduate dissertation in 1984 (Allen, 1984, see also Allen,
1995). No mention is made of Mitchell in contemporary philosophical
writing (although see Boucher, in press). In Honderich's Dictionary of
Philosophy, Mitchell's main work, Structure and Growth of the Mind, is
described as the last remaining example of Australian idealism which
"still survives" (Honderich, 1995, p. 67). If it survives at all, it
certainly doesn't survive by very much.
2. Scottish and Australian Philosophy, The Background
Although much had been written on early Scottish philosophical
influences on the development of Australian philosophy, the focus of
this work has centred mainly on the Sydney connection—particularly,
the writing and influence of John Anderson, Challis Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Sydney (1927-58). (See Anderson, et
al., 1962; Anderson, 1980, 1982; Kennedy, 1995; Coombs, 1996; Baker,
1979, 1986; Mackie, 1962, 1977). In contrast to the Andersonian
influence, little scholarly work had been undertaken on what impact,
if any, Scottish traditions had on philosophical writing elsewhere in
Australia.
Western philosophical thought made an appearance in Australia long
before Anderson arrived in New South Wales, yet it may be forever
overshadowed by Anderson's legacy. From approximately 1850 a small
community of scholars—mostly of Scots origin—working against the
considerable difficulties of time and distance (both among themselves
and also between them and their colleagues in the northern hemisphere)
managed to bring together a philosophical community in Australia, add
to the then dominant idealist and quasi-religious debates which
occupied the intellectual scene in America and Europe, and leave
behind a number of manuscripts and assorted papers which provided the
basis for the metaphysical and epistemological work of those that
followed. These scholars included Barzillai Quaife, John Woolley,
Charles Badham and Francis Anderson in Sydney; M. H. Irving, H. A.
Strong, W. E. Hearn, Richard Hodgson, Alexander Sutherland and Henry
Laurie in Melbourne; William Mitchell and John McKellar-Stewart in
Adelaide; Elton Mayo and Scott Fletcher in Queensland; R. L. Dunbabin
in Tasmania; and P. R. Le Couteur and A. C. Fox in Western Australia.
Any systematic survey of the earliest Australian philosophers and
their ideas is beyond the scope of this article. For a comprehensive
review, see, Grave, 1984. However, it is necessary to mention the
background of those philosophers in broad terms before turning to the
subject of this article—William Mitchell. Mitchell spanned two groups
of philosophers having very different concerns: the idealist and
"common-sense" philosophers who worked from the mid to late 1850s
until the late nineteenth century; and, what might be called the
realist and materialist revolutionaries beginning in Australia in the
early twentieth century with fellow-Scot John Anderson, and later
dominated by the work of J. J. C. Smart, U. T. Place, D. M. Armstrong,
C. B. Martin, and others—a "school" now known internationally as
"Australian Materialism" (all except Armstrong were based in
Adelaide). Any understanding and appreciation of Mitchell's work, must
be understood in the context of these two very different traditions.
Mitchell was the product of an old and vibrant school of philosophy
which had its roots in the Scottish traditions of idealism and
"common-sense" philosophy. The dead hand of idealism and the
consequences it had for philosophical realism was one of the
influences which gave rise to Mitchell's work. Other early Australian
philosophers before, during and after Mitchell's time also owe their
foundations to these traditions. In brief, these influences can be
summarised as follows: from the common-sense philosophers such as
Thomas Reid (1710-1796), Mitchell accepts the arguments advanced
against solipsism and anti-realism, and the idea that the mind may
exhibit different information-processing hierarchies. From T. H. Green
(1836-1882), Mitchell derived the idea that an uninterpreted sense
datum was simply folly. From F. H. Bradley (1846-1924), Mitchell takes
the idea that experience—at least initially—is a seamless unity of
knower and known. From James Ward (1843-1925), Mitchell takes the
important idea that organisms grow, and that an adequate explanation
of mental activity must capture this. From William James (1842-1910),
Mitchell adopts a version of realism. Each of these ideas are
represented in one way or another in Mitchell's thought.
However, there was another influence on Mitchell's philosophical
development: the challenges forced by the growing relevance of the
physical sciences to philosophical speculation about mind.
Developments in physics, psychology and neuroscience, for example,
were considerable influences at the time Mitchell was working. Both
these influences conspired, not intentionally but effectively, to
bring about a materialist reaction to idealism that, for better or
worse, shared more of its idealist ancestry than the materialism we
know today. Consequently, this flavored Mitchell's work in Australia
during the same period. The implications of them for Mitchell's
thought are mentioned below.
a. Idealism
Mitchell is not an idealist in the strict sense, though he certainly
came from the idealist tradition. Some of his more shaky arguments
even turn on idealist assumptions. This should not be surprising.
Mitchell's views, after all, descend from the influence of the British
idealists, T. H. Green and F. H. Bradley, among others, who endeavored
to push the empiricist views of Locke and Hume closer to the views of
the German idealists. On the other hand, Mitchell was also impressed
by the arguments of his compatriots T. Reid, D. Stewart, J. Beattie,
W. Hamilton—the Scottish "common sense" theorists, who attacked
idealism and tried to outline a doctrine closer to what we would now
call "realism". While it should be acknowledged that idealism is a
broad church, and can encompass a wide variety of positions, on
balance, Mitchell's views are best placed at the beginning of another
tradition entirely.
Mitchell's views demonstrate cautious materialist and non-doctrinaire
realist themes—themes which have more in common with contemporary
philosophical work (for example, current work in cognitive science)
than with the idealist tradition; views which are also indicative of
the region of the world in which he worked. His writing is best
described as marking a transition between the idealist tradition which
arrived on Australian soil in the early part of the nineteenth
century, and the more radical materialist views which followed
(especially in Adelaide)—but, strictly speaking, he belonged properly
to neither tradition. There is no doubt that Mitchell wrote like an
idealist—sometimes argued like one—but there is an ambiguity in his
work which seems to indicate that he was attempting to stake out a
position that, for the time, was genuinely original. If he was an
idealist, he was only a methodological idealist.
b. Realism and Materialism
There is a light-hearted reason why Mitchell should not be seen as an
idealist: for were it so, it would stand as an anomalous case to the
oft-quoted remark of Armstrong (and quoted by Devitt, 1984, p. vii)
that realism is born only of dry countries with harsh landscapes and
strong sunlight, whereas anti-realisms are born of moist countries
with misty air and green landscapes where the mind is allowed to
wander. (Devitt even claims that a bastion of idealism still survives
in Victoria where the sun doesn't shine quite as much.) Since Mitchell
spent most of his philosophical life in Australia—and in the very
harsh climate of South Australia—it would be unfitting that, if he was
an idealist, he would remain one for long. J. J. C. Smart remembers
Mitchell regarding himself as a staunch realist. One recollection
recalls Mitchell in conversation with a solipsist: "You know, the
trouble with you, is that you think only minds exist", and adding
(under his breath) "and your mind at that." (Edgeloe, 1993). Not the
kind of remark an idealist would make. And, it is certainly not like
an anti-realist to make claims such as the following: "No object is
made mental, nor altered, by being felt, imagined, or known in any
way" (PMW, p. 33) and: "When your ideas quarrel with mine, and when
they agree, it is because they….grasp the same object as mine, and to
find it independent of our grasp" (PMW, p. 45). Or, finally, his
claim: "The room is….not affected by my perceiving it" (SGM, p. 60).
If Mitchell is an idealist, he is an unusual one indeed. However, if
he is a realist, as Mitchell himself claimed, we may see his
pronouncements to the contrary as mere epistemological lapses—perhaps
even forgivable ones given the preoccupation of early Australian
philosophers with the idealist curse.
Just as Mitchell was no idealist or antirealist, it is also clear that
he was no anti-materialist. There are a number of passages which
indicate this. Here's one example (recall that is was written before
1907):
When you try to picture the structure and the action of the mind,
remember you are trying to picture the structure and action of the
nervous system. In this way you will avoid the usual confusion of
trying to picture a hybrid process consisting partly of visible
movements and partly of invisible feelings (SGM, p. 7).
It is not unreasonable, therefore, to look for evidence of realist and
materialist themes in Mitchell, given that he worked here and not in
the misty green landscape of Scotland, and given such pronouncements
as those above. It should certainly not be automatically assumed that
his views are similar to the tradition from which he descended. I
shall submit that Mitchell's work should be reconsidered in the light
of contemporary philosophical debates. Perhaps J. A. Passmore was only
partly right when he described Mitchell's work as articulating "an
introduction to an Idealist philosophy for which the mind is the
central ontological conception" (Passmore in McLeod, 1963, p. 146).
While it is certainly true that, for Mitchell, the role of the mind is
a pre-eminent consideration, this doesn't by itself make him an
idealist. The common qualification for being an idealist is that what
is real is in some way confined or at least related to the contents of
our minds (Honderich, 1995, p. 386). And the evidence for this in
Mitchell's writing is somewhat less clear.
c. Psychology
Aside from the Scottish idealist and common sense traditions, there
were other influences which complicate the picture further. These
influences indicate that Mitchell was a more sophisticated philosopher
than previously thought. These influences came from the discipline of
psychology. Mitchell was a near contemporary of the Swiss psychologist
Piaget, who argued for an epistemology which was both dynamic and
materialist—setting the stage for a later cybernetic approach to
epistemology. (Piaget published his first substantial works in 1923,
some 16 years after Mitchell's SGM). Mitchell articulated a kind of
early dynamic process philosophy of the structure and growth of the
mind which anticipated some of Piaget's account later to receive wide
acclaim in the philosophy of psychology. There are considerable
differences here, of course. Whereas Piaget aimed at a strictly
empirical developmental psychology underpinned by the influence of
some Aristotelian, Kantian and Hegelian philosophical conceptions
(with empirical work predominating), Mitchell aimed at—in Passmore's
words—"a psychology which is in turn an introduction to philosophy"
(Passmore, 1963, p. 145). That is, a psychology which leads to a new
way of thinking philosophically about the mind. Indeed, for Mitchell,
philosophy was a kind of psychology.
While there are differences between the two thinkers, there are also
similarities: unlike the focus of contemporary philosophy of mind
(which deals centrally with ontological questions such as what the
mind is—how a neural state can be a representational state, for
instance), both Mitchell and Piaget seemed more interested in how the
mind grows (how the mind of an infant is different from the mind of an
adult; a learned mind differs from one which exhibits "invincible
stupidity"; how the minds of lower animals differ from those of
primates; and so on.) It was, in other words, an entirely different
philosophical agenda. The issue of what minds are was, for Mitchell
and his contemporaries, subordinate to the issue of what minds do.
Structure and Growth of the Mind is, broadly speaking, an attempt to
outline the precise processes undergone by minds during different
stages of their growth, and under different conditions. It might be
considered a conceptual psychology—or an analytic phenomenology—of the
stages of mental growth. And, the central category of this
"psychology" was the category of experience. This way of looking at
things is currently out of favor among philosophers of mind, though it
does seem to be making a come-back (see for example, Karmiloff-Smith's
amalgamation of Fodorian modularity theory and Piagetian themes)
(Karmiloff-Smith, 1992).
Other psychologists to influence Mitchell were Wundt, Helmholtz and
Stumpf. Additional strong influences on his work come from ethology
and related disciplines. For example, Mitchell approvingly cites
Lubbock's work on the senses of insects (Lubbock, 1888, cited in
Mitchell, 1907, p. 39 passim) and Preyer's and Münsterberg's views
about the behavior of lower animals. These influences seem to
discredit the claim that Mitchell was an ontological idealist. He was
more interested in a naturalist account of mind and content. And he
was certainly more interested in evidence from emerging sciences than
the inchoate ramblings of British and German idealists (there are no
references to either in his books).
d. Neuroscience
Were Mitchell an antimaterialist of some conviction, we might expect
rather less of this material to feature in his writings. Yet Mitchell
devotes an entire chapter reviewing the then current work in
neuroscience, and much of the rest of his work is sprinkled liberally
with evidence from such sources. He looks at experiments involving
prosthesis and brain bisection, conjectures about differently weighted
neuronal paths in animals, and so on. He called this evidence the
"indirect" method of understanding mind—indirect because it relied on
evidence from the brain, not "direct" evidence from experience as it
seems to us, that is, not phenomenological content. Moreover, Mitchell
seemed to believe that any proper understanding of mind required an
analysis in which evidence from both sources was required. He didn't
think that one needed to be subordinated to the other. Mitchell "saw
in psychological and neurological inquiry alternative means of
explanation—the philosophical being the more "direct"—rather than
attempts to describe entities of a different ontological order"
(Passmore, 1963, 147).
3. Contemporary Philosophy of Mind
In contemporary cognitive science, philosophers refer to the "easy"
and the "hard" problem of consciousness. The "easy" problem consists
in how brains might do things such as represent perceptions in thought
in a neural or computational form. The "hard" problem consists in
explaining how things seem to us in experience (the "what it is like"
of consciousness) (Chalmers, 1996). Many contemporary cognitive
scientists believe one can't understand mind without an understanding
of the "hard" problem, as this requires an understanding of
"subjectivity", or experience "from the inside."
This distinction approximates Mitchell's "indirect" and "direct"
distinction to this extent: While the "indirect" method offers a
potentially complete understanding of "the immediate physical
correlates" (SGM, p. 450) of experience, only the direct method offers
an understanding of what experience is like "from the inside". Both
approaches, according to Mitchell, are essential. While Mitchell did
not have the conceptual resources to understand features of mind that
we have today (courtesy of the modern computer and its binary method
of information storage), he did have enormous faith that the indirect
method would yield considerable insights; hence his emphasis on
neuroscience. In the final chapter of SGM, Mitchell even sketches what
an indirect account might look like—an account which has a startling
resemblance to recent "connectionist" models (McClelland, 1999;
McClelland and Rumelhart, 1986).
However, while he thought this important, he also thought that this
could only ever be a "correlate" of mind as it is experienced by us.
Thus, he argued for a cautious, non-reductive physicalism and rejected
materialist accounts which promised more. One certainly can't
understand mind without both the "direct" and "indirect" methods
according to him. Mitchell's account of mind, to the extent that it
makes a contribution to such views, is thus historically relevant to
the debates in present day philosophy of mind.
It could even be argued, that Mitchell anticipated the views of
contemporary theorists such as Thomas Nagel, Colin McGinn and David
Chalmers—the "new mysterians", as they are sometimes disparagingly
called. These theorists argue, in very different ways, for the claims
that: 1. the subjective quality of experience is essentially
dissimilar from objective descriptions of brain states; and 2. the
current brain sciences are limited in their application. They are
united in their view that, while the evidence from the neurosciences
is impressive, these results don't tell us anything about
consciousness properly so-called, even though they might tell us a
good deal about associated problems to do with mentality (how a
propositional attitude can be a representational state, and so on).
They are also united in their regard for the importance, and
non-reducibility of subjective experience.
None of the "new mysterians" are dualists by fiat (although many of
them openly espouse dualism); they are, rather, unconvinced that a
materialist theory of mind in its present form will do the job.
Materialism can't be said to be false—indeed, Nagel states this much
explicitly (Nagel, 1979, pp. 175-6). Chalmers, likewise, exhibits a
reluctance to say that materialism can't at present do the job
required, and advocates a monism which is "broader". So it seems that
the new mysterians are not hostile to materialism—only unwilling to
take it seriously as a complete theory of mind (this point is not
often stressed in the literature). The theory of mind they argue for
would have to offer an account of the subjective character of
experience without attempting to eliminate, reduce or otherwise
distort the "what it is like" of phenomenal experience. To paraphrase
Chalmers, the right theory of consciousness will have to "feel the
problem [of subjective experience] in its bones". One can, perhaps,
describe the new mysterians, in a very liberal mood, as very cautious
materialists (so cautious as to support dualism or panpsychism). And,
in this sense, Mitchell was one too—though he doesn't reach such
radical conclusions.
The other point worth noting is that Mitchell also anticipated the
views of some contemporary cognitive scientists, especially those
theorists who are somewhat sympathetic to the claims of the new
mysterians but who don't wish to be tarred with the same "new
mysterian" brush.
Where is the evidence that Mitchell anticipated such views? Briefly,
though not conclusive evidence on its own, some of his remarks about
mind do see him articulating a position which has similarities with
some of these more recent theorists:
A mind and its experience are realities that are presentable to sense
as the brain and its actions. In that respect the mind and experience
are not parallel with nature, but part of it. And, on the other hand,
the facts of nature, including the brain, whenever they are phenomena,
are not parallel with mental phenomena, but part of them (SGM, p. 23).
In one sense, it is easy to see why the American idealists in the
1930s embraced such comments (see Blanshard, 1939, for extensive
reference to Mitchell's writing). On one reading they seem to suggest
that Mitchell thought the brain might be a product of minds: whenever
brain states are "phenomenal" states, they are mental phenomena, he
seems to say. Given his outright rejection of idealism, and his own
insistence that he was a realist, other interpretations of his remarks
seem called for. Another, more benign reading is that Mitchell was
arguing a similar line to that of Thomas Nagel's "Dual Aspect" theory:
According to Nagel's account, "both the mental and the physical
properties of a mental event are essential properties of it—properties
which it could not lack" (Nagel, 1986, p. 48). This too can be a way
of interpreting Mitchell's assertion above. This reading makes no such
commitment to idealist doctrines and seems to suggest that Mitchell
was trying to outline a kind of non-reductive account in which mental
and physical states both feature in a more inclusive account of mind—a
"fundamental" theory incorporating both. This too is the emphasis in
the theories of Chalmers and McGinn (Chalmers, 1996; McGinn, 1983).
Mitchell's account also bears close similarities to Sellars'
articulation of the "manifest" and the "scientific" images (Sellars,
1963).
Gone are the days, it seems, of either being a realist and
materialist, or an idealist and/or dualist, and shunning the
possibility of intermediate positions. Now, it seems,
empirically-minded philosophers seriously entertain alternative
accounts; theories of which Anderson, no doubt, would have disapproved
(Cantwell-Smith, 1996; Marshall, 2001). Chalmers is an example of an
Australian who has attempted to stake out such an account, though
there are others: Keith Campbell and Frank Jackson are examples of
contemporary Australian dualists or qualiaphiles, as they are called;
though Jackson has recently undergone a change of heart. In any case,
a kinder face of Australian materialism can be seen emerging in the
late twentieth century, and this probably began with Mitchell. What
seems clear from Mitchell's work is that this trend began long before
Anderson's arrival in Australia, but was overlooked. It is certainly
true that Mitchell, unlike Anderson and those materialists that
followed him, took consciousness as a phenomenon to be explained in
its own terms, not reduced, eliminated or ignored.
I previously outlined the Scottish traditions and Australian
traditions which helped to shaped Mitchell's work. In a later section,
I shall suggest that Mitchell's work has surprising application to
current trends in cognitive science. His work thus deserves serious
study by contemporary philosophers of mind. I shall briefly outline
the central elements of Mitchell's ideas here before continuing.
4. Mitchell's Philosophy of Mind
Mitchell's philosophical contributions have, as their focus, the
nature of mind and experience. Particularly, he is interested in the
growth of the mind; and, to a lesser extent, its ontology. He does
make contributions to the philosophy of science and education; but
these fall naturally out of his philosophy of mind. It remains to
introduce in general outline what these contributions are and how they
differ from present-day theories.
The key elements of Mitchell's thought are easy enough to state in
general terms: experience is the crucial element of our mental lives;
or, to put it another way: "mental activity is central in experience"
(Miller, 1929, p. 249). As I have suggested, Mitchell is a forerunner
of what we now call the "New Mysterians", who regard conscious
subjective experience as a crucial, ineliminable feature of our lives.
For Mitchell, it was no different. We are happy or depressed; we worry
and at other times we are elated; we feel pains and pleasures. This
kind of experience is fundamental to our mental and physical lives,
and cannot to be reduced or eliminated.
However Mitchell is not merely interested in such conscious
experiences. He recognizes that not all experience is conscious, but
is nonetheless important to the growth of the mind. Experience, for
Mitchell, covers everything from qualia to high-level intentional
content at various levels. There is no principled epistemic divide to
be drawn between these levels on Mitchell's account. One learns about
the mind primarily by studying experience directly as we live it (the
"direct" approach); and secondarily, by studying the mind indirectly
by means of the emerging sciences of the mind, for example,
neuroscience (the "indirect" approach). Knowledge acquired by means of
the direct approach aids in directing attention to relevant features
of the indirect approach (thus, an adequate neuroscience might be
directed to features of interest by means of contentful phenomenal
experience).
The action of mind is always action on an occasion. The occasion is
the moment and conditions under which an experience happens and the
content that such conditions bring about. The occasion is a stimulus
property (either mental, physical or environmental). Experience is
what the mind, the "reacting structure", does in reaction to its
environment (a definition which is sufficiently vague to cover all
aspects of content). Not everything about the mind is always involved
on an occasion, only the activity which the occasion calls forth (so,
for example, low-level modular-type processing, which do not seem to
involve higher level concepts, is consistent with the concept of an
occasion).
The organism aims to resolve occasions in order to achieve pragmatic
and experiential ends. Thus, we focus our eyes to achieve a better
view, etc. However this also occurs at higher levels. So, for example,
our concepts are deployed in making sense of more complex experiences.
Organisms start off by resolving low-level instinctual experiences,
and then move to higher, more satisfactory levels of experience,
though this is not so for all creatures on which there might be
evolutionary and experiential constraints. As the idea of resolving
experiences is a key to Mitchell's account, this leads to an account
which demands levels of experiential content.
There are three main levels of content according to Mitchell: sensory,
perceptual and cognitive intelligence. These levels are represented in
this diagram.
The sensory level is roughly equivalent to instinct. Some organisms
remain at this level and advance no higher. As Mitchell defines it,
the course of instinctive action is: "the power of pursuing an
infinite variety of courses, directed throughout by present sensation"
(SGM, p. 194). Thus, we resolve our eyes to focus; cup or fix our
ears; sniff with our noses. The next level is perceptual intelligence
or "interest" which is equivalent to content which already comes with
the power to anticipate further experiences (for example, we simply
"see" a display of objects and know how to react; we don't have to
infer our course of action). This has a number of levels (feeling,
practical and cognitive interests). Some organisms—some humans—even
remain at these levels. The last level is cognitive intelligence which
is influenced by rules, language and principles, and it helps
differentiate the expert from the non-expert. Thus, in Hanson's sense:
There is a 'linguistic' factor in seeing….Unless there were this
linguistic element, nothing we ever observed could have relevance for
our knowledge. We could not speak of significant observations: nothing
seen would make sense, and microscopy would only be a kind of
kaleidoscopy. For what is it for things to make sense other than for
descriptions of them to be composed of meaningful sentences? (Hanson,
1975, p. 25).
Mitchell differs from Hanson in regarding the higher level conceptual
intelligence as containing features of the lower levels as well. Thus,
while at higher levels there is a "linguistic factor in seeing", this
is not all there is. Cutting across this tripartite division of forms
of intelligence, which constitute broad bands or levels of content, is
a distinction between the functions and forms of experience: feeling,
interest and action. Each of these typify the kinds of content that
organisms are interested in at particular moments.
On the metaphysics of mind, Mitchell has an interesting case to put.
He believes the capacity to experience allows an inference to the
notion of mind (Allen, 1984, p. 7). This is rather different from some
current approaches which regard to the capacity to experience as a
reason to deny the existence of mind (for, example, Dennett's 1988,
1991, and Churchland's views, 1979, 1984, 1986). By complete contrast,
Mitchell thinks that the very structure of experience is evidence that
mind exists (otherwise there would be no evident structure).
However, he does not argue for a faculty-based account of mind, nor
the notion of "self" as an ontologically legitimate entity. This, to
Mitchell, is an invalid inference. Rather, the working of the mind is
a process due to various faculties, but they themselves are not
processes and not an experience; rather, the relationship defines
nominal entities which stand for what experiences are produced on an
occasion. A faculty means, for Mitchell, merely the capacity to
produce or the capacity to have, an experience of a certain kind
(Miller, 1929, p. 249). Thus, Mitchell is no defender of a literal
faculty-based psychology—unlike Fodor, who has recently tried to
resuscitate the idea (Fodor, 1983). Rather, his account more closely
resembles a defense of some kind of early dynamic process account,
recently featured in the literature as "interactivist-constructionist"
models (Christensen and Hooker, 1999; van Gelder, 1998, 1999; Port and
van Gelder, 1995).
What of Mitchell's position regarding the metaphysical relation of
subject and object? Mitchell claims that in every experience there is
differentiation of subject and object. But it does not follow that
there is always an experience of difference between two subjects of
experience (for example, we can be so absorbed in an experience we can
forget the object) (Jackson, 1977). Rather, this differentiation is a
product of the mind's growth. Nor can we infer from one entity to the
other qua self-subsistent entities (Miller, 1929, p. 249). For
Mitchell, experience involves an implicit two-factor relation:
experience helps in the analysis of the two factors in relation, and
experience would be impossible without these factors. But, at the same
time, experience begins as mere feeling or sensation without the
division into subject and object; i.e., as an undifferentiated whole.
In this sense, and only this sense, Mitchell follows Bradley.
Experience does not, at least initially, consist of ourselves feeling
something (for this involves higher-level thought—thought which is
part of the later growth of the mind); rather, it is feeling as such,
or—as Mitchell calls it—mere sensation; not somebody's feeling or a
feeling of something. Experience contains diversity, but a diversity
which is prior to relations (Passmore, 1984, p. 62-3).
Why develop this apparently bizarre idea of mere experience as a
non-relational whole? The answer to this is possibly the same as why
others, such as Bradley, developed it. Mitchell was writing at a time
of considerable Humean influence. Hume, of course, took the opposite
assumption to that of Bradley and Mitchell. Instead of regarding
experience as an undifferentiated whole, from which distinctions
between subject and object arise, Hume took the opposite assumption, a
skeptical attitude. He thought of experience as comprising a
disconnected "bundle" of sensations on which we impose conventions of
regularity and association. On Hume's account, the "self," and the
subject of experience and action, disappears.
Mitchell, like his Scottish forebears, rejected this assumption as
irrational and counterintuitive. Like Bradley, he attempted to ground
an account of experience which more closely mirrored the unity,
coherence and completeness which we really do find in our conscious
lives. Unlike Bradley's Hegelian musings about the Absolute, however,
Mitchell was more interested in an account of the growth of the mind
from its undifferentiated feeling to the stock of mental constructions
and concepts which we know in experience. In other words, he aimed to
construct "a psychology which is in turn an introduction to
philosophy" (Passmore, 1984, p. 145).
Thus, Mitchell's metaphysics is complex, descended from the Scottish
common-sense views, British empiricism, and idealist metaphysics. He
has idealist sympathies in so far as objects can only be understood or
known as the subject of experiences. However, he does not confine
objects as mental products in our heads, and he sees objects qua
objects as part of a dynamical exchange between organisms and the
world which makes experience possible (for a recent account that is
similar, see Cantwell-Smith, 1996). In this latter sense, Mitchell can
be understood as a die-hard realist. Though if "idealism" is
interpreted generously enough to allow for the existence of
independent external material objects—as perhaps it should be—he could
also be considered an idealist of some conviction.
This point is often confused in the literature. E. M. Miller points
out the confusion, and Mitchell's attitude to it, very clearly indeed:
An idealism that denies external reality is no true idealism. The
experience of the real is admitted. What the idealist wants to know is
the nature and meaning of reality; and as to its nature and meaning
there may be and is a great variety of opinions. No one in his senses
doubts the existence of material objects. What brings about endless
trouble is the confusion of material existence with the assertion of
the existence of a material reality independent of mind. We cannot be
conscious of something which is out of consciousness, and if we are
conscious of anything, we know somewhat of it. This fact is a
necessity of knowledge, and to assert its independence of the
relations under which it is experienced as an object of consciousness
is to assert nothing. We are not aware of anything to which
consciousness does not testify. In a like manner we know mental facts
as distinct from physical facts or processes. We may speak of mental
processes as internal and of physical processes as external; but
neither internality nor externality is applicable to mental processes
as such. They are entirely different from the physical. They are not
coordinate, to use Mitchell's words….and "their correlation does not
mean identity of nature" (Miller, 1930, p. 10).
The latter remark, that the mental is defined in terms that are
neither internal nor external, captures the point that, for Mitchell,
the exchange between subject and object is crucial to the nature of
mind. For convenience, we refer to the "internal" and "external" (or
subject and object), but the mental is not coordinate with either; and
though they are often correlated, this does not amount to a
relationship of identity. (Compare, the onset of spring and bees: they
are coordinate facts, and there is a high correlation between them,
but they are certainly not identical.)
5. Contemporary Cognitive Science
Now let us look briefly at the kind of environment current in
contemporary philosophy of mind. I shall make a few points about how
Mitchell differs from the contemporary discussions, and where he has
sympathies. Obviously in an article of this length I can only gesture
in the direction of Mitchell's position on the issues.
1. Contemporary accounts of mind have no account of how and why minds
grow. With few notable exceptions (Karmiloff-Smith, Piaget, Vygotsky)
this is true. Most philosophers are more interested in ontological
questions: What is consciousness?; What is a representational state?;
What is a pain?, Are representations computational states?; and so on.
They are less interested in the developmental question. Mitchell, by
contrast, is concerned with the growth of the mind as the primary
metaphysical issue.
2. Contemporary accounts assume that the computational processes of
mind are central. The computational account, or—as it is known—the
representational theory of mind (RTM) is dominant in the current
literature. Computations performed over amodal, structured symbolic
expressions tokened in a neural form is considered to be the main
processing mechanism for cognitive states. There are a number of
variations on how this is supposed to be achieved, but the metaphor of
the mind as a computational system is widespread. Contemporary
accounts which stress the processing of non-symbolic, modal,
perceptual information is now making an appearance in the cognitive
science literature, but this is a minority view (Barsalou, 1999).
Mitchell is sympathetic with the modal-format account, which makes him
rather contemporary.
3. Contemporary accounts subordinate the phenomenal features of mind
to their representational/computational features. Many cognitive
scientists are principally interested in how brains represent the
world in thought. Phenomenological features of experience are an
infuriating problem for computational accounts because they seem to
resist explanation in the terms of the RTM. If qualia occur at all—and
there is much dissension on the question—they are considered to be
another form of representational capacity. Thus, the RTM allows for a
variety of representational formats. However, it is not clear how
neurally encoding—regardless of format—can capture the "what it is
like" of phenomenal experience. Mitchell's account attempts to outline
a variety of representational formats employed by the organism at
various stages of its cognitive growth.
4. Contemporary accounts assume the "indirect" (neurophysiological)
approach to be the best, or only, approach. Contemporary accounts
generally assume that the advancing neurosciences will eventually shed
insight on questions of consciousness, representation and cognition.
There are some who claim that there is an "explanatory gap" and that
we are cognitively prevented from crossing it (McGinn, 1991; Levine,
1983). Mitchell agrees that the indirect approach is essential but
only in conjunction with the direct approach. This is in line with
others who, while they regard the direct approach as valuable, claim
that it plays a subordinate role to first person experiential
perspectives (Nagel, 1974; Jackson, 1990; Chalmers, 1996). This kind
of position is now gaining currency again, long after Mitchell
originally proposed it (Edelman, 1992; Flanagan, 1992, 1995;
Overgaard, 2001; van Gulick, 1993; see Davies, 2003).
5. Contemporary accounts assume that an epistemology of content is
subordinate to an ontology of mind. Contemporary accounts are less
interested in epistemological concerns; when they are, it is usually
expressed in terms of how minds represent the world in thought in
computational terms. However, this already assumes an ontology of
mind. Mitchell's approach is to construct an epistemological account
from which an ontology of mind is derived as an inference. The central
issue is not what minds are—the key question is how we have the
experiences we do. Since experience has structure there must be minds.
From the epistemological agenda an "indirect" account of the nature of
mind follows.
6. Why Mitchell has been Forgotten
The reasons for the lack of interest in Mitchell's philosophical work
are fourfold: first, Mitchell's work is historically badly poised. As
I have already mentioned, he dealt with themes and ideas at the
cross-over point between the death of idealism and "common-sense"
philosophy, and the rise of Australian materialism and realism. This
virtually ensured that his work sat uncomfortably between scholarly
periods, but belonged properly to neither.
Second, his style of writing was poor. Even taking into account the
stylistic conventions of the time—and allowing for the difficulty of
the philosophical concepts he was engaged with—his work is badly
written, often divorced of clear central themes, lacking in detailed
exegesis and often ponderous in delivery. (A professor of classics at
Adelaide at the time "used to say that he could never understand
Mitchell's books until he had translated them into Latin".) (Duncan
and Leonard, 1973, p. 19; Grave, 1984, p. 22). True enough, obscurity
of style is no barrier to greatness (e.g., Wittgenstein). But in
Mitchell's case there were other factors in addition to stylistic
obscurity that conspired to defeat him. Moreover, this estimation of
Mitchell's writing was not an individual complaint, but, by and large,
consensual: reviewers of Mitchell's first book complained about the
difficulty "in focussing to a definite view the central conceptions
upon which the work as a whole rests" (Kemp-Smith, 1908, p. 333). It
was also criticized for its "obscurity", its "somewhat oracular style"
(Acton, 1934, p. 245) and even its "undeniable dreariness". One
reviewer pointed out that, while reading it, one always has to
"retrace one's steps and grope for the context". The same complained
that, because of "no contour or difference in emphasis", reading the
book was like "swimming under water with never a chance to come up and
look about" (Perry, 1908, p. 45). Norman Kemp-Smith, a philosopher
later famous for his extremely clear exposition of Kant's Critique of
Pure Reason, even had the audacity to suggest that Mitchell's work
could have been "condensed to half its present size" without loss, and
complained about his "obscurity" and "constant digression into….side
issues" (Kemp-Smith, 1908, p. 332). Everybody, except Mitchell
himself, found his work virtually impenetrable.
Third, Mitchell's perspective on the issues of the day was
unconventional and is hard to understand even with the hindsight of
trends and developments in the late twentieth century. A number of his
views are simply unfashionable: for instance, the emphasis taken in
both his writing and his classes was that psychology "is the proper
introduction to philosophy"; a view certainly not popular today
notwithstanding recent interest in a return to "philosophical
psychology" (see Gold and Stoljar, 1999).
Fourth, Mitchell made no allowances for the reader: his second book
was premised on the reader having read and digested the first; however
the first book assumes an acquaintance with the themes and concerns of
nineteenth century thought not merely in philosophy, but also in
developmental psychology, neuroscience, physics and biology. Thus, for
the contemporary reader Mitchell's writing is now almost beyond reach.
His second book, universally regarded as harder to read than the
first, presupposes a detailed knowledge of quantum mechanics and other
areas of physics very fresh for the time. Not only this, but Mitchell
makes no attempt to connect his ideas with the debates which were
current at the time in the literature and "never ties his reflections
to a specific philosophical controversy" (Passmore, 1962; 1963, p.
145). To make matters worse, Mitchell never provided indexes to his
books, and gives no summaries, recapitulations of points, nor
linguistic "signposts" to aid the unwitting reader. It is this kind of
inconsiderate authorship which helps explain V. A. Edgeloe's cryptic
remark that Structure and Growth of the Mind was, "for more than a
quarter of a century….a textbook over which university students, in
Adelaide at least, sweated" (Edgeloe, 1966, p. 536).
There is no excuse for such obscurity these days, but in the colonies
during the late nineteenth century, things were different. Another
reason for Mitchell's obscurity is the factor of academic isolation to
which I have already alluded. J. A Passmore has highlighted this point
in relation to his two works Structure and Growth of the Mind and The
Place of Minds:
Both books are, very obviously, the products of a solitary thinker.
When Mitchell went to South Australia, contacts between Adelaide and
the eastern states were rare, voyages to Europe or America even rarer.
Few Australian philosophers as much as met Mitchell, and his influence
in Australia has not been extensive (Passmore, 1963, p. 145).
There were yet further reasons for the neglect of Mitchell's work. At
around the time Mitchell's work was beginning to be discussed, a new
philosophical star was on the rise. Wittgenstein had emerged on the
scene and, along with the influence of Rylean behaviorism, this
presented a potent philosophical cocktail. Subjective states and
discussions about sui generis conscious states fell into philosophical
abeyance. Under the influence of Wittgenstein and behaviorism, issues
concerning mind and consciousness began to be seen as no longer topics
for fruitful philosophical discussion, but rather avoided or smothered
under linguistic analysis. This remained the case well into the latter
half of the twentieth century.
7. References and Further Reading
Acton, H. B., (1934), "The Place of Minds in the World. Gifford
Lectures at the University of Aberdeen 1924-26," (Review), Mind, Vol.
43, No. 170, pp. 243-245.
Allen, H. J., (1984), Mitchell's Concept of Human Freedom. Masters
Dissertation: University of Adelaide.
Allen, H. J. (1995), An Exposition of Selected Aspects of the
Philosophy of the Late Sir William Mitchell. Unpublished manuscript:
University of Adelaide.
Anderson, J., Cullum, G., Lycos, K., (eds.) (1962), Studies in
Empirical Philosophy. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
Anderson, J., (1980), Education and Inquiry. (ed.) D. Z. Phillips.
Oxford: Blackwell.
Anderson, J. (1982), Art and Reality: John Anderson on Literature and
Aesthetics. Marrickville, NSW: Hale and Iremonger.
Baker, A.J., (1979), Anderson's Social Philosophy. Hong Kong: Angus
and Robertson Publishers.
Baker, A.J., (1986), Australian Realism: The Systematic Philosophy of
John Anderson. U.K.: C.U.P.
Barsalou, L. W., (1999), "Perceptual Symbol Systems", Behavioral and
Brain Sciences, 22, pp. 577-660.
Blanshard, B., (1939), The Nature of Thought. London: George Allen and
Unwin Ltd. (Two Volumes).
Boucher, D. (in press) "Sir William Mitchell" in Dictionary of
Twentieth Century British Philosophers. Bristol, UK.: Thoemmes Press.
http://www.thoemmes.com/dictionaries/20entries.htm
Cantwell-Smith, B., (1996), On the Origin of Objects. A Bradford Book.
Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press.
Chalmers, D., (1996), The Conscious Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Christensen, W. D. and Hooker, C.A., (2000), "An
Interactivist-Constructivist Approach to Intelligence: Self Directed
Anticipative Learning", Philosophical Psychology, 13, pp. 5-45.
Churchland, P. M., (1979), Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of
Mind. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Churchland, P. M., (1984), Matter and Consciousness. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press
Churchland, P. M., (1986), "Some Reductive Strategies in Cognitive
Neurobiology", Mind, 95, no. 379, pp. 279-309.
Coombs, A., (1996), Sex and Anarchy: The Life and Death of the Sydney
Push. Ringwood, Victoria: Viking.
Cussins, A., (1992), "Content, Embodiment and Objectivity: The Theory
of Cognitive Trails", Mind 101: pp. 651-688.
Davies, W. M., (1996), Experience and Content: Consequences of a
Continuum Theory. Aldershot, UK: Avebury.
Davies, W. M (1999) "Sir William Mitchell and the New Mysterianism",
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 77, No. 3, September 1999:
pp. 253-257.
Davies, W. M (2001) "Sir William Mitchell", SA's Greats: The Men and
Women of the North Terrace Plaques. J. Healey (ed), Historical Society
of South Australia Publication.
Dennett, D. C. (1988), "Quining Qualia", Consciousness in Contemporary
Science. A. Marcel and E. Bisiach, Oxford, New York: Oxford University
Press.
Dennett, D. C. (1991), Consciousness Explained. Boston: Little, Brown and Co.
Devitt, M., (1984), Realism and Truth, UK: Basil Blackwell.
Duncan, W. G. K., and Leonard, R. A., (1973), The University of
Adelaide, 1874-1974. Rigby, The Griffin Press, Adelaide. See
especially Chapter 7, "The Mitchell Era".
"Economics at Adelaide" (2003), Lumen magazine, University of
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Edelman, G., (1992), Bright Air, Brilliant Fire, NY: Basic Books.
Edgeloe, V. A., (1966), Australian Dictionary of Biography. Volume 10,
1891-1939, "Sir William Mitchell", Melbourne University Press:
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Edgeloe, V. A., (1993), Servants of Distinction: Leadership in a Young
University 1874-1925. University of Adelaide Foundation: Educational
Technology Unit.
Flanagan, O., (1992), Consciousness Reconsidered. Cambridge, Mass: MIT/Bradford.
Flanagan, O., (1995), The Science of the Mind. 2nd Ed., Cambridge,
Mass: MIT/Bradford.
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Psychology. Cambridge, Mass: MIT/Bradford.
Franklin, J., (2000), Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in
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of Neuroscience", Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, pp. 809-869.
Grave, S., (1984), A History of Philosophy in Australia. Hong Kong:
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Conceptual Foundations of Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University
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Lectures at the University of Aberdeen 1924-26," (Review), Journal of
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