Education and the Philosophy of Mind and Brain

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Education and the Philosophy of Mind and Brain

Derek SANKEY

Abstract

This chapter attempts to show how philosophy of mind and brain has practical relevance to teachers in their everyday role as educators. In addition to briefly considering the relationship between mind and brain and how that may impact on the way we relate to others, including our students in school, the chapter also discusses three philosophical concerns related to the neuro-sciences. These are the metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions that underpin neuroscience, the nature of human rationality, and ethical concerns about the scope of neurotechnology. Although each theme is barely more than introduced, the aim is to open up key issues for consideration and debate.

Introduction

The aim of this chapter is to open a small window on some big questions in the philosophy of mind and brain in order to consider their relevance to education. I have to warn you that this is quite a minefield, so we will be treading as carefully as we can. This is because there are many contested ideas surrounding issues of mind and brain, but that makes the discussion exciting. Let us try to state as clearly as possible the question to be addressed in this chapter. To make it practical, it might be something like this: What practical benefits to education might come from teachers' adopting a philosophical perspective on issues of mind and brain?

Notice the implicit claim in this question that there is such a thing as a philosophical perspective on mind and brain. We will be working towards this. Also, I should say that when I use the word “education”I primarily mean the practice of education, particularly teaching and learning. We begin by considering philosophy.

Philosophy as Two Kinds of Thinking

For the purpose here, I would like to propose that philosophy is seen to comprise two different but related kinds of thinking. The first is rational, critical analysis, which has tended to predominate in the West. Philosophy demands attention to detail in what is said, so that we do not end up deceiving ourselves with our own words. Philosophers focus on clarifying meanings and on asking; for example: How can you be sure of what you are claiming? Are your claims coherent? How might they be justified? To do this philosophical work, one carefully analyses what is being said and the claims being made. When held up to scrutiny, we often find that what we say is riddled with inconsistencies and errors.

The second kind of thinking, found in the East and within metaphysical traditions in the West, aims to bring ideas together to form a synthesis. Important questions are raised regarding the nature of personhood, the world we live in and how humans fit into the overall scheme of things. This kind of thinking is also concerned with behaviour and responsibility. Thus, as in Chinese philosophy, it is often orientative, where the intention is to “effect some change in the self or in the world” (Lao, 1989, p. 277).

Philosophy of Mind and Brain

Armed with these two ways of thinking, the analytic—critical and the synthetic—orientative, we can now turn to the philosophy of mind and brain before looking at how this relates to education. You may be wondering why philosophy of mind and brain—should it not be psychology? Your curiosity may arise from the kind of story some psychologists tell in the introduction to their textbooks, which goes something like this:

Up until the end of the nineteenth century, the study of mind and brain was a matter of speculative philosophy, but the results were inconclusive and there was little agreement. Then came psychology with such great pioneers as Hermann Ebbinghaus who in the 1880s provided a laboratory-based approach, which made the study of mind a matter of science rather than philosophy (see, e.g., Squire & Kandel, 1999, p. 3).

After reading this kind of story, you might think that philosophy of mind ended shortly after Ebbinghaus and his friends performed their pioneering feats. You will then be very surprised to discover many recent books on philosophy of mind. Still, if you were to open one of these books, written in 2004 by John Searle, called Mind: A Brief Introduction, you might be reassured of philosophy's demise when reading that “the philosophy of mind is unique among contemporary philosophical subjects in that all of the most famous and influential theories are false” (p. 2). So, plenty of books on philosophy of mind but all their theories are false.¹ Not very encouraging!

Where does this leave us, having to concede to psychology? Not at all; the theories Searle is talking about all relate to one core issue and it is truly philosophical—the issue of mind and brain.

Why Mind and Brain?

This topic is very problematic, and like most problems it has a history. In the modern period, it goes back to the seventeenth century and the French mathematician and cosmologist René Descartes. He posited that the world is essentially mechanical, an idea that has guided much of science. However, he said, that cannot apply to the mind, because mind is essentially spiritual. So he divided mind from brain in what became classical dualism. Within the context of his time, it may have made sense, but it left Western thought with a massive problem: are mind and brain really two different things, different substances as Descartes claimed, or different properties, or what? One way to cut through the problem is to say that all we mean by mind can be reduced to the brain. There is no problem; it's just a pseudo-problem. Those taking this route are eliminative physicalists—mind talk can be eliminated and replaced by physical talk about the brain. If you feel like being challenged, you may like to try Churchland's (1986) demanding but absorbing book Neurophilosophy, which argues for the eliminativist case.

Others in philosophy (e.g. Lakoff & Johnson, 1999) and in neuro-science (e.g. Rose, 2005) who are physicalists, nevertheless, feel that there is something wrong with the eliminative thesis, and I agree. What I think is wrong is that when we are talking about our mental life, about ourselves as persons, our beliefs, desires, feelings of love, we are not talking about the electrochemical firing of neurons and the release of neuro-transmitters and the like, even though (as physicalists) we know that our mental life is causally related to our brain. Our thoughts and feelings are real, and they are not only causally related to our brains but also to our social interactions with other persons, other minds and brains. Hence, the way in which the mind and the brain interact is not just bottom-up as eliminativists claim—from brain to mind talk to social interaction. It is also top-down: the social can impact on the mind, our personal thoughts and feelings, which in turn can change the physical state of the brain. Not everybody proposing a non-eliminative view will agree with the way I have put it here, but they will deny the reductionist, eliminative claim that mentality (our minds and their contents) is nothing but the firing of neurons in the brain.

This can make a difference to how we think of others as persons and how we evaluate our understanding of what it means to make choices, espouse values, have beliefs and desires, act in a responsible way in regard to ourselves and others, and even how we see reason operating in our study of intellectual disciplines. If we are nothing but the workings of the brain (though, let me repeat, we are at least that), then a lot of what we hold dear about our mental life is going to seem very questionable.

Is this important for education, for teachers and students? I believe it is, for two main reasons. First, a teacher's commitment to education is not simply to having a job. Rather, it is a vocational commitment, encompassing the belief that education is intrinsically valuable, not least because it helps fashion young persons into who and what they become. From a top-down perspective, we can say that education acts on a child's mind (a child viewed as a person in relation to their learning environment), which then acts on the physical construction of the child's brain (the way the neurons connect together and fire together). Bottom-up, the neuronal connections made in the brain are manifested as the mind of the young person, operating in relationship to other minds in the contexts of their environment. So, at one level of description, teachers are mind-makers and at another level brain-makers; we need to keep both levels in the picture. From either perspective, teaching is a daunting responsibility, and teachers deserve the greatest encouragement and respect.

Second, if, as teachers, we view children as young persons with minds, and not only as neuronal, synaptic selves, we will resist the temptation of treating children as though they are simply material stuff. Descartes was wrong to draw a hard divide between mind and brain as different substances; but if his intention was to safeguard the integrity and dignity of persons, then that remains a valuable goal.²

Philosophy and the New Neurosciences

In addition to the core issue of how we understand mind and brain, which has been a traditional concern of philosophy, we now briefly consider three philosophical concerns related to the findings of the new neurosciences. These are:

the metaphysical and epistemological presuppositions underpinning neuroscience
the nature of human rationality
ethical concerns, particularly regarding neurotechnology

The first of these concerns relates to the philosophy of science and neuroscience. The way science has traditionally been projected emphasises its objectivity and impartiality, free from presuppositions that might influence its findings. However, over the past half century or so, that image of science as almost super-human has been thoroughly undermined. For example, Karl Popper emphasised the fallibility of science and the theory dependence of all scientific observations; Thomas Kuhn focused on the strong social element in scientific discovery and the commitment of scientists to paradigms that they are reluctant to change; and V. W. O Quine pointed out that, given the facts of science at any given time, there are always many alternative theories that could fit those same facts. Theories, as he put it, are always underdetermined by the facts. Moreover, science is based on a number of metaphysical assumptions about the nature of reality. In short, science is a human endeavour with all the limitations that it implies, including the limitation that we are attempting to use our brains in order to understand brains! And, like all other sciences, neuroscience carries a philosophical baggage that needs to be opened up to question and critical scrutiny. This is the role of philosophy of science.

Naturally, that is beyond the scope of this essay, but there is an important point to note here about how one views the claims of neuro-science in the context of education. Let me briefly illustrate this in regard to learning. New brain-scanning techniques and years of fundamental work, particularly on memory, have combined to produce important new insights, including how learning changes the physical structure and organisation of the brain plus, for example, the importance of making learning meaningful—though you don't need to be a neuroscientist to agree with that. This success has generated considerable enthusiasm, which you will see if you read the opening pages of a book such as How People Learn (Bransford, 2000), which begins with a chapter on “Learning: From speculation to science”. Notice we have met this sentiment before! I suggest that, when encountering this kind of material, you look at its origins, what is motivating it, and what philosophical and cultural baggage it is carrying, and beware of its over-claiming tendencies. In short, don't get carried along by its claims of scientific credibility, be critical and orientative; assess its value and see that it takes your teaching where you and your students really want to go.

At the same time, as philosophy has questioned some cherished assumptions about science, neuroscience has made a contribution to our understanding of human rationality. Traditionally, it was thought that rational thinking is synonymous with logical thinking, requiring the elimination of personal feelings. However, it is now realised, partly as a result of sustained work on patients with prefrontal lobe damage, that the ability to think rationally requires a balanced input of emotion and feeling (see Damasio, 2000). A deficit in the prefrontal lobes almost inevitably leaves these people unable to sense the emotional impact of their words and actions on others. It also severely compromises their ability to empathise, to sense what others may be feeling when hurt or distressed. It seems that thought without feeling is not at all rational; just the opposite.

The third philosophical area identified above is ethical, and it requires both critical and orientative thinking related to two main areas of concern. First, the acceptable scope of neuroscientific research, how far it should be allowed to go, and, second, the application of neuroscientific findings to brain modulation and enhancement, particularly in relation to the pharmaceutical industry and its massive involvement in neuroscientific research.

One of the great frustrations we may face as teachers is dealing with children who do not behave well. For better or worse, teachers will increasingly see the impact of the new neurotechnology, especially when employed to modulate children's behaviour. The use of neurotechnology to aid in the healing of minds and brains is potentially of great value to humanity; for example, to heal the lesions that cause various brain disorders and to treat chronic depression, identified by the World Health Organization as the major health hazard of this new century. However, on the other side of the equation, the massive increase in the use of the drug Ritalin to treat a condition that has come to be called attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is problematic. Though noting that the United Kingdom is catching up with the United States, neuro-scientist Steven Rose (2005) says:

For a long time there seemed to be an extraordinary difference between the behaviour of children in the US and the UK. British child psychologists were diagnosing only at one tenth the rate found amongst young Americans, and Ritalin was not being prescribed. Why? If the disease is heritable, what distinguishes the US from the UK genotype? Alternatively, is there something particularly disease-provoking in the way US children are reared? If neither of these explanations is acceptable, then there are only two possibilities. Either, there is a huge level of over-diagnosis in the US, partly as a result of teacher and parent pressure, or … the British are simply behind the times in their reluctance to diagnose a childhood disease (p. 261).

So, is ADHD a childhood disease or a social phenomenon? International comparisons can certainly alert teachers to the possibility that such conditions may have more to do with customs and culture than the brain. And, if children are unable to stay attentive and calm when in school or at home, perhaps we should first take a look inside classrooms and homes before we look inside children's heads.

A Practical Suggestion

At the start of this chapter, we asked what practical benefits to education might come from teachers adopting a philosophical perspective on issues of mind and brain? I would like to suggest, on the basis of our discussion, that very real benefits will come from teachers adopting a philosophical perspective of healthy scepticism, a scepticism that is both critical and orientative. Adopt a perspective of healthy scepticism if you are told that human minds are nothing but brains, and be even more sceptical if you are told that brains are nothing but sophisticated computers. In fact, brains are nothing like computers as we know them, though computers can be used to model aspects of brain functions. Beware of where this kind of reductionist argument is leading you. Adopt a healthy scepticism towards the use of psychotropic drugs; alert yourself and your colleagues to the possibility that the problem may not be the child's brain but the impact on the child's mind of the kind of education he or she is receiving.

One of the important discoveries of neuroscience has been the extent to which many of our actions operate below the level of consciousness—not in the Freudian sense of repressed but simply out of reach of our conscious introspection. So, as I put it elsewhere, “we do not always know why we do what we do, and for very good neurobiological reasons” (Sankey, 2006, p. 170). That, I believe, should engender an attitude of compassion: try to see children as in many ways subconsciously responding to the physical processes of their brains, but also respect them at the level of their minds. Be critical of those who claim that children have total control over their actions, while also be critical of those who say there is no such thing as free will and they have no control. In many ways, we are constrained in what we do by very many different kinds of determinism, but taken together we remain underdetermined and there is freedom to choose to do otherwise, despite the findings of psychologists such as Benjamin Libet (see Sankey, 2006, pp. 171–175).

Let me end by giving you a possible future scenario related to learning and assessment:

You have just ended your last class with your students, who are about to take their national examinations. As they leave the classroom, one of the girls drops some pills from her bag. She is a good and dedicated student and you are concerned she might be unwell. “What are these?” you ask. “Oh, only some pills my parents asked me to take before the exams,” she replies, “I tend to get nervous when taking exams.” You note the label and decide to check what they are. You are staggered to find out that they are brain enhancers; and they not only help steady the nerves, they can also significantly improve attention and recall (memory).

What will be your response? Is this similar to athletes in the Olympic Games using performance enhancers? Perhaps it is simply aiding a child who tends to be nervous in examinations? What are the ethical issues when neurotechnology crosses from being a matter of restoring health to a matter of providing some (rich) people with advantage? You decide; my bet is that this kind of scenario is coming sooner than we may think. Be critical: where are all these “advances” taking us? Be orientative: where in education, in regard to children's minds and brains, should we be heading?

Notes

1 If you would like to follow up on these theories, I suggest An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind by Maslin (2001). You will find it very reader-friendly.

2 Though not often conceded by eliminativists, Descartes' error in reducing animals to machines, unable to feel pain, for example, provides an indication of what can happen if we so reduce human beings.

References

Bransford, J. D. (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Churchland, P. S. (1986). Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of Mind and Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Damasio, A. (2000). The Feeling of What Happens: Body, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness. London: Vintage.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.

Lao, S. K. (1989). On understanding Chinese philosophy: An inquiry and a proposal. In R. Allinson (Ed.), Understanding the Chinese Mind: The Philosophical Roots (pp. 245–293). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Maslin, K. T. (2001). An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Rose, S. (2005). The Future of the Brain: The Promise and Perils of Tomorrow's Neuroscience. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Sankey, D. (2006). The neuronal, synaptic self: Having values and making choices. Journal of Moral Education, 35(2), 163–178.

Searle, J. (2004). Mind: A Brief Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Squire, L., & Kandel, E. (1999). Memory: From Mind to Molecules. New York: Scientific American Library.