In trying to fill out the apparently Wittgensteinian idea that the conceptual order depends on some underlying contingencies – the ‘whirl of organism’ in Stanley Cavell’s phrase – and the contrast between such a thought and the idea of absolute representations, Gloria and I have been looking at Helen Beebee’s paper on a projectivist account of causation [Beebee, H. (2007) ‘Hume on Causation: A Projectivist Interpretation’, in R. Corry and H. Price, (eds.) Causation, Physics and the Constitution of Reality: Russell’s Republic Revisited Oxford: Oxford University Press: 224-49]. I must say, I’m quite confused at the moment both by the paper and by what I can recall of projectivism in Blackburn’s quasi-realism. I need to do some urgent revision.The part of Beebee’s paper that is darkest to me is her response to an objection to Hume from Stroud. (The following section of the paper, by contrast, is striking.) Beebee summarises Stroud’s objection thus:
Stroud wants to think of Hume as ‘holding that we do really think of objects as causally or necessarily connected…’. In other words, he wants to think of Hume as holding that we are capable of believing – and hence of thinking – that c caused e… But to be capable of having such thoughts, Stroud thinks, the relevant idea – of necessary connection… – must be capable of representing the world as being a certain way: the idea of necessary connection must be capable of representing c and e as bearing that relation to each other… But, given that the content of those ideas is given by something internal – an impression of reflection or a sentiment – it seems that they cannot be capable of representing the world as being a certain way at all. [226]
Thus Stroud objects that Hume lacks the resources to explain how we can have even the idea of objective or worldly causal connections when their source is merely our own tendency to infer e from c. Beebee’s solution seems to be to accept the negative aspect of Stroud (and Hume) but to suggest that there is a positive account that Stroud has not spotted.
What is it to ‘speak and think as though’ causation were a mind-independent relation? It is important to realise that, on a projectivist view, this does not involve our mistakenly assuming that there are mind-independent causal relations. The non-descriptive semantics of our causal talk would rule out the possibility of our even being capable of making this assumption: to think that there are mind-independent causal relations. in the representational sense, requires that the meaning of ‘causal relations’ is descriptive, which of course is what is being denied. [228]
So whatever phenomena projectivism aims to save, they do not include our thinking that causation is a mind-independent relation. We cannot think that. (This contrasts with the idea that we do think that, though falsely. But also, since – I assume - projectivism is supposed to contrast with an error theory, it suggests some potential tension with a pre-philosophical description of what we do think. Projectivism will have to sell us a suitable account of that.)
What of the positive account? Beebee suggests that projectivism can give an account of how, despite their basis in our (non-descriptive) attitudes, our sayings can take on ‘propositional behaviour’. This brings ‘the resources for thinking of those habits as susceptible to critical scrutiny’ [229]. I’ll return to this a little later. Still sticking with the mainly negative aspect, Beebee continues:
Care is needed here, for it might seem as though to say that we cannot so much as think that there are mind-independent causal relations, as I did above, is tantamount to giving up on the thesis that we ‘do really think of objects as causally or necessarily connected’ , when part of the point of a projectivist interpretation of Hume is precisely that it allows him to uphold that thesis. The two claims are not really incompatible, however. To say that we cannot so much as think that there are mind-independent causal relations means, in this context, to say that we cannot genuinely think of or say two events that they stand in a mind-independent relation of causation to one another. [230]
Given what we have had already read, I take it that ‘genuine’ does not here mean correctly or truthfully thinking about mind-independent causal relations. It means it is genuinely the case that one is thinking the thought, true or false. She continues:
As Hume says, we are ‘led astray… when we transfer the determination of the thought to external objects, and suppose any real intelligible connexion betwixt them; that being a quality, which can only belong to the mind that considers them’. By contrast, to say that we do really think of objects as causally or necessarily connected is to say that we are not led astray – we are not making any kind of mistake – when we ‘speak and think as though’ causation were a mind-independent relation, in the sense just described. [230]
Whilst the phrase ‘think that there are mind-independent causal relations’ is simply to be rejected as a philosopher’s error, the contrasting phrase ‘think of objects as causally or necessarily connected’ is what is to be saved via a projectivist account. (There is something a bit odd about the fact that Beebee quotes Hume saying that we are ever led astray. According to her account, we are not led astray in our everyday causal talk because that cannot be about mind independent causal features. So she must have to think of the ‘we’ as we-philosophers reflecting on everyday linguistic practice, not we-ordinary people engaged in it.)
For to speak and think so [ie ‘of objects as causally or necessarily connected’] is merely for the expressed commitment to take on ‘propositional behaviour’. On the projectivist view, the propositional behaviour of our causal talk and thought does not amount to our genuinely representing the world as being a world of mind-independent causal relations, but it does amount to our really thinking of events as causally related. [230]
So as long we are happy that this phrase is all that does need saving and as long as the saving account is plausible, this seems to provide a way to sidestep Stroud’s worry.
Stroud presupposes that our ‘thinking of objects as causally or necessarily connected’ is a matter of our representing the world as being a certain way; and the problem is that of saying how it is possible for an idea whose origin lies in an impression of reflection to represent the world in any way at all. The projectivist interpretation resolves the problem by denying that Hume takes our thinking of objects as causally or necessarily connected to be a matter of representation in the first place. [230]
So if representing were the only form of words in play, Stroud would be right. Short of there actually existing causally necessitating features of the world to which we could stand in some sort of cognitive relation, there would be no way of even thinking about such features. Thus false thought about such connections would be impossible; falsity would rule such thought out completely. But there is another way of construing such talk (which might look to be as of such features) and that is all we ever took ourselves to be saying. Thus there is no ground level error.
My qualm is this. Because Beebee draws a sharp distinction between what is to be saved and thinking ‘that there are mind-independent causal relations’, the former cannot be interpreted as saying the latter. Given that, then it is not clear on the surface what it does mean. Outside this paper it would be reasonable simply to equate: thinking ‘of objects as causally or necessarily connected’ and ‘that there are mind-independent causal relations’. But the only other way of filling out what it does mean is via the projectivist account. That is, however, very sketchy. We are told what the purpose of such talk is - that by adopting a quasi fact stating form, our attitudes can be indirectly discussed and assessed [229] – but not what we are saying in it.
The move is further likened to teaching a novice speaker to adopt such quasi-realist utterances when expressing their colour experiences. The obvious interpretation of the colour case, however, is that the discipline a speaker learns to impose on his or her utterances is the discipline of aiming at descriptive truth about worldly colours. That may be false if an error theory of secondary qualities is correct but the case does not seem to help with the middle ground (between vindicating realism and an error theory of everyday talk) Beebee wants.
In fact, Beebee seems to say something more obviously implausible, at least in one sentence. By rejecting a representational interpretation of quasi-realist judgements of causation she says she is also rejecting an ‘intentional’ reading, in Stroud’s sense, of it. But Stroud seems merely to mean as if world involving. And rejecting that seems far too radical. Crucially, if the meaning of the utterance is not intentional in that sense, she has not so much sidestepped Stroud’s objection as conceded it whilst offering a kind of Kripkensteinian replacement (itself, of course, based on Hume). But a non-intentional meaning is surely not what we normally think we are saying in our causal talk. And thus we must be being led astray in the mismatch between what we think we are saying and what we are actually saying if quasi-realism is in fact correct.
Anyway, that is how it strikes me on an initial reading.
PS: a day later.
I’m not sure, today, about my summary. The passage that causes me most doubt, now, that I am at all following her line of thought is:
As Hume says, we are ‘led astray… when we transfer the determination of the thought to external objects, and suppose any real intelligible connexion betwixt them; that being a quality, which can only belong to the mind that considers them’. By contrast, to say that we do really think of objects as causally or necessarily connected is to say that we are not led astray – we are not making any kind of mistake – when we ‘speak and think as though’ causation were a mind-independent relation, in the sense just described. [230]
It’s the final words which seem to unpack the projectivism:
“when we ‘speak and think as though’ causation were a mind-independent relation, in the sense just described”
What I don’t get is how and whether we do speak as though causation were mind-independent. So is it that, although the semantics of our thoughts could never be of a mind-independent relation, slightly different words with totally different meanings (explained non-intentionally via their propositional behaviour) are still as though speaking of mind-independence? If so what gives them this appearance? Crucially, how can we say what the appearance is an appearance of, given our semantic predicament?
