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Questions of Category and Continuity In Derek Parfit’s “Reductionism and Personal Identity”

Steve Kemple

If Reductionism is true, then how is it that our direct awareness isn’t of neural or

subatomic entities? How is that we are (or at least I am) unaware of the minutia that I am told

comprises my being? These are questions that Derek Parfit does address in the latter portion of

“Reductionism and Personal Identity” (especially from Premise 9 on to the end) however, I am

unsure as to whether or not he succeeds. Rather than tearing down his argument, I am going to

meditate on some of the implications that may be drawn, to see where this leaves my stance on

Reductionism.

The fundamental question of Parfit’s essay, even more so than that of identity, is one of

continuity. The same problem that Gilbert Ryle posed against Cartesian Dualism in his essay

“Descartes’ Myth” can be equally applied to many Reductionist theories of mind. That problem

is one of improper categorization. In many of their respective incarnations, both theories have

repeatedly made this mistake, either disregarding or not comprehending at all, that things can add

up cohesively to a larger categorical thing. Parfit is well aware of this common mistake, and he

addresses it several times throughout his argument. In particular, he talks about a nation being

constituted of “groups of people, living together in certain ways.” He employs this metaphor as

a straw man argument, knocking it down when he writes, “In order to know the facts about the

history of a nation, it is enough to know what large numbers of people did and said. Facts about

nations cannot be barely true: they must consist in facts about people.” The implications of this

statement roughly mirrors what Aristotle wrote in Book IV of The Metaphysics, outlining the

first principle of non-contradiction:

...I say, it may be affirmed that neither the same things appear the same to all men, nor to
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the same person do the same things invariably appear the same, but frequently things

contrary at the same time; for the touch, in the alteration of the fingers, says that there are

two objects, but the organ of sight one; but neither to the same sense, at least, do the same

things seem the same, and according to the same, and in like manner, also, in the same

moment of time: wherefore this would be true. (1011a)

While this connection may not be explicit, I would like to show that is an implicit one. If we

look at what Parfit is saying, it seems to me that he is arguing along the lines of Frege in “On

Sinn and Bedeutun,” that disparate signs may correlate to a singular thing, without violating the

principle of non-contradiction. It is just as comprehensible to say, “The morning star is identical

to the evening star” as it is to equivocate particular facts about a group of people and the way

they live with the nation that they comprise. Confusion arises only when someone does not

grasp that the morning star and the evening star both in fact refer to the planet Venus, or that a

series of particular historical and anthropological facts about a particular group of people will in

fact refer to their respective nation. This person would be inclined to make the sort of

categorical errors made by Descartes. In short, Aristotle, Frege, and Parfit all affirm a theory of

language in lieu of metaphysical distinctions to empirically describe how we achieve continuity

in our dealings with the external world. It seems that Parfit is arguing that our ability to

formulate language acts as a mechanism toward achieving a continuative grasp of our own

identities and, by extension, the external world. His answer to my initial question (“if

Reductionism is true, then how is it that our direct awareness isn’t of neural or subatomic

entities?”) may be that Reduction is the case, and that we can successfully grasp continuity that

the Reductionist model lacks via linguistic categorization.

We must maintain a continuous knowledge of our selves by our ability to use language
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effectively. Thus far, I agree with him. But at the end of his essay, he arrives at a second

conclusion: because it is natural to find the problem cases he presents puzzling, then this must be

a case for a quasi-Dualist belief held simultaneously to the Reductionist model. I think that this

is both the case and not the case that he may have failed to draw out the implications of his own

argument. In addition to the argument for continuity via category mentioned above, the key to

resolving this issue lies earlier in his line of reasoning, in his discussion of Eliminative

Reductionism. He writes, “When the existence of an X just consists in the existence of a Y, or

Y’s, though the X is distinct from the Y or Y’s, it is not an independent or separately existing

entity.” Then he states (premise 5), “Though persons are distinct from their bodies, and from any

series of mental events, they are not independent or separately existing entities.” The key to

resolving the conflict he ends with lies in the difference between the terms distinct and

independent. His example of a bronze statue is case in point. Though the shape of the statue is

distinct from the material that composes it, it is not independent of it. To draw a line that perhaps

Parfit should have, we can talk about both the shape and the material of the statue separately, but

will find that it is difficult to talk about them as existing independent from one another. Even

though we can successfully think of them this way, imagining the same statue existing in a

different material, we are still making some substitution of substance or shape to make the

picture comprehensible.

A reinterpretation of the teleportation problem he poses might be to ask if a plaster cast is

the same as the original statue. The cast is, in the absence of the original, a facsimile of the

original work whose existence is both totally separate and independent; it may even be

destroyed. When a mold is cast, the statue’s ability to be replicated in a different material must

indicate that the shape does exist independently of the physical material, since it can be
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successfully transferred to the plaster. In such a way could one hold a Dualist view in regards to

plaster casts. But I am not so sure that this argument holds up, and here is why: in order to say

that the abstracted shape is the same, in both the marble and the plaster, requires an observer to

be present to make the analogy. Without an observer to make the comparison, no comparison

will be made. Using the same cognitive tools employed to successfully comprehend categories,

seeing the nation and its components as a unified whole, an observer will immediately intuit the

similarities between the marble and the plaster statues and declare that they are remarkably

similar. In both these cases, an analogy has been made between two entities that are completely

independent of one another. The shape exists on different terms, one in terms of marble and the

other in plaster. Our ability to grasp these similarities is the same that allows us to grasp

continuity in personal identities and in our dealings with the external world: our ability to intuit

continuity lies in our implicitly analogous assessment of the external world.

What, then, is happening here? We can, for the moment, leave the argument between

Reductionism and Non-Reductionism behind, according to this theory, because what we are

encountering are not the noumenal entities, but rather are reprehensive of our linguistic reality in

which we comprehend the external world. But can we truly say that this model represents is

truly a linguistic question? I think we can take it further. What happens when we categorize two

things, in the case of forming a linguistic concept, or simply apply organization to them? As in

the observer, who can astutely discern the plaster cast as being a replica of the marble statue

while simultaneously intuiting their similarities, despite their being in reality completely

independent of one another, metaphoric analogies are being made between seemingly disparate

things, so that these disparate entities can be understood in terms of one another. Our observer,

because of this intuition, can talk about the shape of the statue as if it exists independently of the
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material from which it is formed, even though it may be formally bound to it. This

understanding one thing in terms of one another is what seems to happen whenever a category is

created. At the rudimentary level of our perception, these sorts of translations are made without

conscious effort, allowing the world to be effortlessly understood as a comprehensible

continuum, rather than a chaotic jumble of discontinuous microcosmic information.

If this is the case, then it is appropriate to speak both on the higher terms of our

perceptive plane of experiences (i.e. perceived categorical things rather than components), as

well as on the terms of the microcosmic, or what we can rationally ascertain is the components of

things. However, one must proceed with caution in speaking (or thinking) in terms of reduction.

If this model is correct, and we really do understand everything in terms of our own metaphoric

analysis (I am aware this model flirts with Transcendental Idealism), then I am inclined to ask,

“How do we understand what we observe to be the grounds for such reductive theories?” Unless

a Reductionist is under the impression that the model is a priori, a view I take he or she is not

likely to hold, then they must admit that the evidence supporting such claims are ultimately

grounded in empirical investigation. While Parfit makes some convincing arguments for

Reductionism, which I am inclined to accept, Noumenal Mysterianism and Behavioralism are

more plausible, if only due to the tentative caution of their claims. This model, which I

tentatively am calling Metaphoric Noumenalism, adopts a Mysterian notion of cognitive closure

to things that lie outside of our comprehension, while citing Gilbert Ryle’s criticism of Cartesian

Dualism.

Reductionism may be the case, as the Metaphoric Noumenalism model (MN) concedes

that it may be, however MN relies on a certain epistemic skepticism regarding the external world.

As I mentioned before, MN flirts with Transcendental Idealism (if not whole heartedly declaring
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it to be the case), in so far as it holds the external world to be incomprehensible to us, to a certain

extent. I say to a certain extent, to indicate MN’s position that total knowledge of any extensible

object is impossible. By total knowledge, I mean total unequivocal omnipotence regarding a

particular external object. While Jorge Luis Borges implicitly explores in his short fictions what

this sort of knowledge might be like (most notably in his famous 1949 work The Aleph), it

remains, at least in our current evolutionary stage, beyond our scope of conception.

To articulate my point more precisely, MN holds that since we can only view any external

object from one (biopic) point of view at a time, and all observable non-abstract (extensible)

objects existing in the physical world (having more than one dimension), then it is impossible for

us to gain total (omnipotent) insight regarding any external object. And yet, we do seem to have

reliable knowledge of external objects, incorporating more than just a singularly point-of-view.

Objects seem to conform to our spatio-temporal orientation (MN has asserted that the external

world may or may not conform to it), and we have the remarkable ability to retain information

about an object as our point of view in regards to that object is shifted in space and time. To

illustrate this in more concrete terms, MN asserts that if I am looking at an object, a chair, for

instance (forgive my resorting to the ultimate philosophical cliché), then what I will not ever be

able to know everything there is to know, perceptual or otherwise, about that chair. Less

remarkable, though much more interesting, is the claim that as I continue to gaze at the chair

while my point-of-view shifts (never mind the Heraclitean remarks I am tempted to make), I am

only viewing a particular point-of-view at any given moment. I must rely on something else to

make coherent this shifting information, to align it into a discernable continuum. MN asserts that

the chair and I exist on radically different terms, but can understand one another (or at least I

understand it) by means of cognitive devices.

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The nature of these cognitive devices are far beyond the scope of this paper, or this

theory, and even if it were within its scope, I believe it would be tangential to a secondary,

perhaps covert, purpose of MN. This purpose is to unite poetic disciplines with scientific ones.

While metaphor itself is typically regarded to be within the domain of poetic endeavors, I believe

that it is equally dominant, though often covertly, within scientific modes in inquiry. I hope to

flesh out these ideas in future papers, to provide a more coherent description of MN, toward

providing a more unified theory of mind.