By happy coincidence there has been an extended discussion about Moreland and Pratt over on LDS-Phil. Some of the discussion paralleled my comments, although a lot related to Kevin Winter's forthcoming paper on Moreland's article in The New Mormon Challenge. One of the big issues at LDS-Phil was over emergence. Specifically over whether Pratt's ontology has emergent minds or not.
Kevin makes the following argument in his paper:
In an early reference to emergentism, in his "Mormon Philosophy. Space, Duration, and Matter," Pratt argues that "intelligence.must be either a property of material atoms, or a result of the combination or contact of these atoms." If the latter, "then these atoms, though unintelligent, must have capacities to receive intelligence; for without intelligent capacities, combination or contact, could not be perceived or known; and it would be impossible to acquire these capacities by experience; therefore they must have been as eternal as the atoms to which they belong." In The Seer, the Pratt brothers argue, "the present qualities of our minds are not eternal, but are the results of the combinations of anterior qualities, which in their turn are again the results of the exercise of eternal capacities." In another article, titled "The Pre-Existence of Man," Pratt, in reference to "the original elementary capacities of the mind," states that "we are well aware that metaphysicians consider many of the qualities named to be of a secondary or compound nature, growing out of the combinations of qualities still more original. All this we are willing to admit; but these secondary qualities, if analyzed, will be found in all instances to be the result of the combinations of simple, elementary capacities."
Kevin thus takes Pratt's argument to entail that there are emergent properties. Yet I think the straightforward reading is quite the opposite. Rather Pratt argues that for a capacity to arise there must already be the capacity present. He is making a reductive argument which I take as opposing radical ontological emergence.
The second argument also seems flawed. When Pratt says that the present qualities of the mind are not eternal but arise out of prior qualities, I think he merely means there there are certain properties that are themselves the result of combination of simple properties. He doesn't, however, claim that mind itself is emergent. I went to find the original reference Kevin makes in The Seer but unfortuantely I think there is an erroneous page number in his text. His latter quote is near the reference he gives for the middle quote. The full quote, however, gives a different view than I think Kevin takes it to argue. Specifically he excludes a sentence after what he quotes:
The question is, whence originated these elementary qualities of the mind? We answer they are eternal. (The Seer, 102)
Put simply Pratt is simply saying that if some of the properties he uses as examples are secondary properties (emergent) that we need then only look at fundamental properties. However what is in question are properties out of which the mind emerges but "elementary qualities of the mind." That is Pratt asserts there to be mental properties that are fundamental and not emergent.
There is an other anti-emergence argument in Pratt which is what I suspect Moreland refers to. In "The Absurdities of Immaterialism" he says,
This division of the same kind of substance does not alter or change the nature or properties of the respective parts; if they possessed attraction when united, they also possess it when separated or else attraction is the result of union and ceases with it. So in relation to intelligent substance, without regard to its materiality or immateriality; if it is intelligent as a whole, it is intelligent in its respective parts after division, or else the intelligent power is the result of the union of unintelligent parts, and ceases when the union ceases. Therefore if the intelligent substance, called mind, is intelligent, as a whole, it is intelligent in all its parts
Now I think there a "kind" of emergence in Pratt. But it isn't mind as weak emergence out of matter or radical emergence. Rather it is the emergence we're all familiar with relative to the brain. As a collection I can have mental properties that wouldn't be possible if I were to not have my parts. For instance I can't have the experience of pain in my foot without there being a foot. I suspect Pratt wouldn't have much problem with other sorts of mental properties of this sort.
I think one further passage from "The Absurdities of Immaterialism" is key.
But who does not know that "thought, hope, joy, memory," and all other affections or qualities are not substances of any kind, but merely different operations or states of the mind? A material mind, possessing the power to think, to feel, to reason, to remember, is not the brain, nor secretions of the brain, nor any other part of the fleshy tabernacle; but it is the being that inhabits it, that preserves its own identity, whether in the body or out of it, and remains unchangeable in its substance whatever changes may happen to the body. This material spirit or mind existed before it entered the body, exists in the body, will exist after it leaves the body, and will be reunited again with the body in the resurrection.
Now one may be tempted here to say that this spirit Pratt talks about is a spirit body. But Pratt is careful to distinguish a spirit body from spirit or mental substance. Pratt's argument is very similar to Leibniz in the Monadology. There must be something permanent through change which we predicate as "us." This dominant spirit is the mind and is thus not the brain nor emergent from the brain. So all mental properties are properties of this atom or monad. As I've mentioned before, where Pratt differs from Leibniz is in thinking extension a fundamental property of these atoms of mind. Leibniz instead thinks atoms of mind or monads are immaterial and that space emerges out of relations between monads.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
and Theology
Number of unique visitors:
Blogged by Clark Goble