Armstrong, D.M. (2010). " The Nature of Mind". In J. Perry, M. Bratman, J.M. Fischer (Eds.), Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings, Fifth Edition, pp. 259-266. New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published in 1980)
Armstrong favors a scientific approach to explain what minds are and their relationship to bodies. According to Armstrong, the prevailing scientific view of human nature: ”… [is that] we can give a complete account of man in purely physio-chemical terms”
Armstrong view on behaviorism criticizes the notion that mental states are identical to behavior, but does acknowledge that behaviorists may be right in thinking that the mind and mental states are logically tied to behavior. He sees minds to be defined as not identical to behavior, but as inner causes of certain behavior.
Thought is not speech under suitable circumstances, rather it is something within the person which, in suitable circumstances brings about speech.
Armstrong view of the mind
Armstrong defines his view of the mind as so =
… the mind is properly conceived as an inner principle, but a principle that is identified in terms of the outward behaviour it is apt for bringing about (p. 263)
His two line of reasoning to get to this view =
- it is an unnatural way to describe the mind as behavior. The mind is that which brings about complex behavior
- behaviorist’s depositions are actually states that underlie behavior, and under suitable circumstances bring about behavior.
we reach the conception of a mental state as a state of the person apt for producing certain ranges of behavior
By this, he means that while he agrees with the classical view (Descartes-substance-Dualism) that there is something internal happening, they are not mysterious non-physical things, but instead are physical states of the brain that cause behavior. Here, Armstrong is endorsing (implicitly) a type-physicalism identity theory.
Armstrong on consciousness
Armstrong outlines an objection that is shared with Behaviorism and his physicalist view of the mind.
Behaviorism may be a satisfactory account from an other-person point of view, but it will not do as a first-person account. We are aware from our own point of view that we are so much more than behavior. The same argument can be applied to Armstrong’s view that the mind is an inner principle that causes behavior. Is consciousness simply something that goes on within us that causes certain behavior?
in order to explain consciousness, Armstrong gives the example of automatic driving: there are mental processes going on, but something mental is missing. that something mental is consciousness. Armstrong explains that consciousness is similar to how when driving, the person perceives the road but does not perceive the perceiving.
One who is aware, or conscious, of his thoughts or his emotions is one who has the capacity to make discriminations between his different mental states.
So I have argued that consciousness of our own mental state may be assimilated to perception of our own mental state, and that, like other perceptions, it may then be conceived of as an inner state or event giving a capacity for selective behaviour, in this case selective behaviour towards our own mental state.
Armstrong suggests that being conscious of your own mental state (knowing you’re angry) can be thought of as perception directed inwardly. As Kant puts it, “inner sense”. Just as perception of the world allows us to act toward things outside us, perception of our own mental state (consciousness) allows us to act toward what’s happening inside us.
But if we are convinced, on general scientific grounds, that a purely physical account of man is likely to be the true one, then there seems to be no bar to our identifying these inner states with purely physical states of the central nervous system. And so consciousness of our own mental state becomes simply the scanning of one part of our central nervous system by another.
This gives a summary of Armstrong’s view = If humans are entirely physical beings, then these inner perceptual states must themselves be physical brain processes. Thus, consciousness is the brain “scanning” or monitoring its own activity, making self-awareness a purely physical process within the central nervous system, giving us the “capacity for selective behavior” as Armstrong puts it. E.g. you “perceive” that you are angry and can decide to calm down.