Richards' Short Argument Against Materialism

Students are sometimes confused by the fact that in describing the worldview called naturalism three different terms are often used interchangeably.

Naturalism (the view that nature is all there is, there's no supernatural, at least insofar as it impinges upon the physical universe) is often used synonymously with materialism (the view that everything that exists is reducible to matter and energy) and physicalism (the view that everything can be explained, at least in principle, by the laws and processes of physics and chemistry).

The term materialism is often used when writing for a popular audience and physicalism is usually employed when writing for a more philosophically sophisticated readership.

At any rate, on materialism there's only one substance, matter/energy. There's no immaterial mind or soul, or if there is it is somehow generated by the material brain. Materialism is not exactly the same as naturalism, but most naturalists are materialists.

There are a number of arguments against the materialist view that all of our mental experience is reducible to the workings of the brain and that there is no such thing as an immaterial mind. One such argument is based on what philosophers refer to as intentionality. Intentionality is the phenomenon that various conscious states are about or of or for something.

For example, a belief is about something (e.g. an approaching storm), a desire is for something (e.g. pizza) and a sensation is of something (e.g. redness). These are called intentional states.

Philosopher Jay Richards explains how intentional states are an argument against materialism in a short piece at MindMatters. He writes:

Imagine a scenario where I ask you to think about eating a chocolate ice cream sundae, while a doctor does an MRI and takes a real-time scan of your brain state. We assume that the following statements are true:

1. You’re a person. You have a “first person perspective.”
2. You have thoughts.
3. I asked you to think about eating a chocolate ice cream sundae.
4. You freely chose to do so, based on my request.
5. Those thoughts caused something to happen in your brain and perhaps elsewhere in your body.

Notice that the thought in question—your first person, subjective experience of thinking about the chocolate sundae—would not be the same as the pattern in your brain. Nor would it be the same as an MRI picture of the pattern. One glaring difference between them: Your brain pattern isn’t about anything. Your thought is. It’s about a chocolate sundae.

We have thoughts and ideas—what philosophers call “intentional” states—that are about things other than themselves. We don’t really know how this works, how it relates to the brain or chemistry or the laws of physics or the price of tea in China. But whenever we speak to another person, we assume it must be true. And in our own case, we know it’s true. Even to deny it is to affirm it.

Points (1) through (5) above are common sense. In other words, everyone who hasn’t been persuaded by skeptical philosophy assumes them to be true. But it’s not merely that everyone assumes them. They are basic to pretty much any other intellectual exercise, including arguing.

That’s because you have direct access to your thoughts and, by definition, to your first-person perspective. You know these things more directly than you could conclude, let alone know, any truth of history or science. You certainly know them more directly than you could possibly know the premises of an argument for materialism.

That matters because (1) through (5) defy materialist explanation.

The materialist will want to say one of three things to avoid the implication of a free agent whose thoughts cause things to happen in the material world:

A) Your “thoughts” are identical to a physical brain state.
B) Your “thoughts” are determined by a physical brain state.
or C) You don’t really have thoughts.

And if any one of (A), (B), or (C) is true, then most or all of (1) through (5) are false.

So here’s the conclusion: What possible reason could we have for believing (A), (B), or (C) and doubting (1) through (5)? Remember that if you opt for (A), (B), or (C), you can’t logically presuppose (1) through (5). Surely this alone is enough to conclude that we can have no good reason for believing the materialist account of the mind.

To summarize, electrochemical reactions in the brain are not about anything, they just are. So how do we get from an electrochemical reaction to an intentional state? How does brute matter by itself produce an intentional state - aboutness, or forness or ofness?

No one knows. The materialist must simply respond that even though we don't know how it does it, it must do it because materialism is true.

This response, however, is an example of the fallacy of begging the question. In order to defend the truth of materialism the materialist assumes the very thing, the truth of materialism, that the non-materialist is calling into question.