Nancy J. Nersessian, Creating Scientific Concepts, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008.

For more than two decades now Nancy Nersessian has been working at the intersection of philosophy of science and the cognitive sciences, investigating how scientists actually think at work. Creating Scientific Concepts provides a general introduction to her approach, covering, on the one hand, historical research on the ways of thinking of 19th century physicists (namely, James Clerk Maxwell) and, on the other hand, an analysis of the cognitive foundations of scientific modelling. Nersessian’s essay is more than introduction though. Her goal is to explain conceptual innovation in science. More precisely, to articulate an analytic framework to account for the “specific modelling practices that historical records implicate in problem solving leading to conceptual innovation, specifically, analogical modelling, visual modelling and thought-experimenting” (p. 13). Let me spell this out.

Nersessian adopts an empiricist view of concepts, drawing mainly on the work of Lawrence Barsalou (Chapter 4). According to this latter, concepts would be perceptual symbols, neural correlates of sensorimotor experience (p. 124). These symbols constitute analogical representations and the sensioriomotor processes in which they originate are re-enacted whenever we use them to think. In our concepts about physical systems, the analogy captures the constraints we discern in the phenomena (e.g., causal structures). These constraints are then preserved in our mental simulations, even if we change other properties and relations of our physical concepts in order to solve whatever problem we are dealing with. The possession of a concept implies thus the skill “for constructing a potentially infinite number of simulations” according to our needs and goals (p. 126). Nersessian also argues for a coupling between external and internal representations: mental simulation often needs real-world resources “outside” our heads. However, she acknowledges that the nature of the cognitive mechanisms at the interface of this coupling is still to be articulated. Images ―diagrams, for instance― provide representational tools to extend our mental simulations.

Nersessian analyzes the role of analogies, images and thought-experimental narratives in our modelling practices (chapter 5). She departs from the standard assumption that these are separate resources, treating them as a continuum of tools for model based reasoning. Instead of direct inferences (mappings from sources to target domains), Nersessian studies how analogies, images and narratives contribute to the creation of intermediary models, with their own sets of constraints, that can be gradually elaborated in a series of representations that finally reaches real world phenomena. The assessment of these intermediary models according to the way they preserve and extend the relevant structural constraints (drawing here on Dedre Gentner’s ideas) provides the epistemic warrant for model based reasoning. Satisfactory models should exemplify features relevant to the epistemic goals of the problem solver (p. 157).

All these claims are illustrated with two case studies of scientific problem solving. In chapter 2 Nersessian revisits her analyses of the historical record of models constructed by James Clerk Maxwell leading to the field equations for electromagnetic phenomena. In chapter 3, she studies an experiment conducted by John Clement in which an expert is asked to solve a physics problem recording every step on his way to the solution. Both cases show at different scales how the cycles of construction, simulation, evaluation and adaptation of models with the aforementioned resources finally yield an original solution. Those interested in bringing together history and philosophy of science will surely appreciate Nersessian’s naturalist approach. Her cognitive appraisal of Maxwell’s models allows her to interpret as positive steps on his way to success what were previously considered misguided attempts at getting there. The analogy between Maxwell’s written records and Clement’s in vivo experiment is equally refreshing. Not every philosopher will enjoy this book though. Nersessian’s approach takes sides and her combination of concept empiricism plus embodied cognition is not precisely mainstream. She is honest enough to admit the limitations of her approach: the view she presents is far from consensual at most points and certainly needs further elaboration. However, the research program she presents is articulated enough to deserve serious consideration. I am not particularly happy though with the purported output of this book: the account Nersessian presents of scientific creativity appears as rather a poor corollary of the previous analysis: if we are able to construct “a potentially infinite number of simulations” many of them will be innovative, but how do we distinguish those of scientific value?

The answer depends of course on the goals and needs of the scientific community. But even if Nersessian wants her account to be social, little is said about how the community chooses the relevant innovations. We are left with the impression that the choice of constraints is always epistemic, but our goals and needs often impose non-epistemic constraints (David Bloor famously argued that scientific concepts are closed according to these latter) and we may legitimately wonder how do they contribute to the success of a model. Part of the plausibility of Nersessian’s analysis depends indeed on her choice of purely epistemic success stories as illustrations. But her argument made me think instead of an already old controversy on failed analogies between physics and economics sparked by Philip Mirowski’s book More Heat than Light in 1989. The equations never proved to be as empirically successful in the target domain (the analysis of the supply and demand) as they had originally been in physics. And yet they were acknowledged as an innovative analogy, perhaps because they observed several constraints considered relevant by some schools of thought in economics. Perhaps for Nersessian the explanation of innovative success and error is symmetrical (in Bloor’s sense), but I would have expected a more explicit discussion of this problem in this book. I can only recommend it nonetheless.

{December 2010}

{Metapsychology online review}

Jan Lauwereyns, The Anatomy of Bias. How Neural Circuits Weigh the Options, MIT Press, 2010.

More and more often practicing scientists from the most diverse fields are writing books for general audiences with a view not only to communicate their own results or the state of the art in their field, but also to draw the more general implications of such findings for, say, our worldview. Whereas the former can be accomplished reasonably well by any competent scientist with a taste for writing, the latter will be more or less engaging depending on what the author has read beyond her discipline. Jan Lauwereyns is a cognitive neuroscientist and a remarkable poet who also enjoys reading across disciplines. And just as in 1621 The Anatomy of Melancholy provided an interdisciplinary survey on its topic, Lauwereyns presents his own anatomy as an "integrative account of the structure and function of bias as a core brain mechanism that attaches different weights to various information sources, prioritizing some cognitive representations at the expense of others" (p. xiv). There is much to praise in Lauwereyns' account, but I wonder to what extent it is really integrative. Let me explain why.

The original core of this book is mostly in the first two chapters, where the author presents the main findings of his own research, which hinge on his version of LATER, the standard model for the analysis of response time distributions generated in visual processing experiments. These experiments measure, on the one hand, the time it takes to a subject (usually monkeys) to convert a sensory stimulus into an eye movement according to the task assigned. On the other hand, they record the level of activity in a neuron (or group of neurons) that code for the relevant stimulus. In LATER the eye movement is understood as a result of a decision, modeled as a function of neural activity: when the function reaches a certain threshold, the eye moves. The function is defined by (1) the starting point of this activity, (2) its slope and (3) the variance of the activity.

In this framework, Lauwereyns claims that bias operates through changes in the first parameter that can be detected in two neural markers. First, the level of activity is significantly stronger in biased neurons than in unbiased neurons at all levels: i.e. for the coded stimulus and for noise alike. But even before the coded stimulus appears, and this is the second marker, the level of activity in biased neurons is also stronger, in a form of anticipatory processing. These superior levels of neural activity make the biased neurons reach the threshold at which decisions are made earlier than biased neurons.

Neural bias should be distinguished from neural sensitivity, the capacity to detect the right signal to act, which is measured by the second and third parameters in the model. The first marker for sensitivity is also a stronger level of activity, but just for the stimulus coded in the neuron, not for noise. The second marker is an enlarged ratio of response to the coded stimulus once it appears, through which the neuron can capture a broader range of signals.

Lauwereyns developed his interpretation of the LATER model namely in order to account for the activity of certain neurons observed in the caudate nucleus of monkeys in an experiment in which they had to make an eye movement to a position where a visual target had been briefly flashed shortly before. Certain caudate neurons, coding for positions where a reward had been obtained in previous blocks of the experiment, showed anticipatory activity before the visual target appeared (what Lauwereyns aptly calls wishful seeing). The monkeys, of course, could not predict where the next flash would come from. Further refinements of this experiment provided evidence that these neurons exhibited a reward-oriented bias of the sort described in the LATER model.

However, in the remaining five chapters, we do not find many more straightforward applications of LATER, but rather an informal examination of other experimental evidence in the light of this model. Hence, in chapter 3 Lauwereyns suggests that there are analogue biases and sensitivity mechanisms for fear (i.e., negative rewards) in the brain. In chapter 4, the author discusses the conceptual compatibility of his conception of bias with two widely studied heuristics in cognitive psychology, whose brain foundations remain as of today unexplored. In the remaining two chapters, Lauwereyns speculates on the more general brain architecture that could support LATER-like information processing. Chapter 5 is perhaps the more daring: Lauwereyns calls for the application of the theory of self-organizing processes to object representations in the brain. In chapter 6, he offers a conjectural model of competition of different neural networks in the brain that could account for evidence gathered in Stroop-like tests for monkeys. Chapter 7 contains the author's musings on the inevitability of bias in our species and how to tame it. The book closes with a Coda on the motivation for the book.

This is, of course, a quite partial summary aimed at capturing what, in my view, constitutes the book's thread or, at least, what I found most original or informative. My major complain about this anatomy is, precisely, how unbalanced it is in every other respect. The author is relatively systematic in the presentation of experimental evidence from his own field, but quite unmethodical in the discussion of everything else. As we have just seen, this is a book in which the author tries to generalize from experiments about certain brain mechanisms of visual processing in monkeys to bias in humans. This generalization requires a number of assumptions that the author clearly acknowledges: to name just one, about our cognitive architecture, how to model it and how to infer it from experimental evidence obtained in different species. Reading the book one gets to know Lauwereyns' views on these particular issues, but there is no introduction to any of them, much less a discussion of the alternatives. The author does not explore in depth positive research on biases in other disciplines, namely cognitive psychology, but rather handpicks examples without presenting their theoretical framework. The final discussion of the social consequences of our biases could have been improved with an examination of, e.g. different policies for fighting conflicts of interests in various domains (do scientific communities really fight biases the way the author thinks, for instance?) I do not think thus that this counts as an integrative anatomy of bias.

The Anatomy of Bias is intended instead as a more personal essay and we get to know more than our usual share about the author's life and tastes. I often got the impression that Lauwereyns digresses just because there is something he aesthetically likes, independently of whether he is right or wrong in the analysis (e.g. his occasional exegeses of Deleuze or Heidegger). Even if I am not particularly happy with this Anatomy, this is certainly a genre worth exploring, and Lauwereyns' attempt deserves all praise for trying to expand the scientific conversation beyond its usual borders.

{July 2010}
{Metapsychology online reviews}

Alfred Mele, Effective Intentions. The Power of Conscious Will, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009

Effective intentions is a book to be praised by everyone who thinks that philosophers should address issues of public interest, in particular when they arise from the advancement of science. Recent developments in the experimental study of our conscious decisions are challenging some widely spread and deeply rooted intuitions about free will. In Effective intentions Alfred Mele, a prominent philosopher of action, claims that there is no conclusive scientific evidence about the causal efficacy of our decisions and, provided we adopt a proper theoretical framework, there are good grounds to defend the freedom of our will. Mele's book is short and accessible, but it is not popular philosophy: it often engages in scholarly debates and discusses technical points at length. However, those who find the conceptual discussions pervading the popular literature on these topics too rough will probably enjoy reading it. The following summary will provide at least a glimpse of its structure.

In a famous experiment conducted by B. Libet, the participants had to make a movement with their right hand whenever they wished. Libet recorded the electrical activity in the scalp of his experimental subjects together with the activity of the relevant muscles, asking them to signal the time at which they consciously initiated the movement. Libet detected a shift in the activity in the motor cortex that precedes voluntary muscle motion (the "readiness potential") about 550ms before the actual movement took place. The experimental subjects reported the conscious initiation of the movement only 200ms before it started.

Experiments of this sort challenge our common understanding (the folk psychology) of voluntary actions: since we take our will to be free, we would expect the movement to depend somehow on the agent's beliefs or desires. This is why these experiments have captured the popular imagination proving that our will is, in fact, not free. As the title of the book suggests, Mele thinks that intentions are effective and follows a twofold strategy to prove it. On the one hand, Mele reexamines the experimental evidence against free will showing that it is not as conclusive as is often taken to be. On the other hand, the philosophy of action constructed by Mele throughout the past two decades allows him to interpret the experiments in a way that preserve the efficacy of our intentions.

As to the former, Mele puts forward the following interpretation of Libet's experiments: the electrical activity recorded in the scalp 550ms before the action starts would rather be a potential cause of a proximal intention or decision, than any of these two. At least, the electrical patterns associated with the pre-conscious brain activity in Libet's experiments are similar to those recorded in other experiments where there seems to be no apparent unconscious intention or decision. It should be something else, concludes Mele: perhaps some sort of causal input of the intention. In a similar spirit, Mele contests the instances of actions in which intentions apparently have an epiphenomenal role put forward by Daniel Wegner, showing that such actions may not count as intentional. But what sort of intentions could these be?

Mele focuses on ocurrent intentions, defined as executive attitudes towards plans, i.e., being settled on executing them. Such attitude, warns Mele, cannot be reduced to any combination of beliefs and desires. Ocurrent intentions arise from decisions when there is uncertainty about the alternatives; if there is none, ocurrent intentions can be acquired without any explicit decision. Hence, proximal intentions (about immediate actions), at least, need not be conscious: when we act by habit, our acts are no less intentional (we are settled on executing them) even if there is neither a explicit decision nor any awareness of our intentional process. Finally, Mele accepts that intentions may have potential causes and still fully contribute to our actions I hope this very simplified summary will at least suggest why, if we accept Mele's approach, Libet's experiments would not exclude, at least a priori, an intentional interpretation. Our intentions may be considered so despite being causally prompted, unconscious or separated from our beliefs and desires.

However, this does not amount to prove that intentions are causally effective in producing an action. Mele invokes here the evidence on distal implementation intentions: there is evidence showing that people meet non-immediate goals in significantly higher proportion if they are state in advance when, where and how will they achieve them. Prima facie, intentions seem to play a causal role in the explanation of these actions ―and Mele argues at length against alternative accounts in which they do not.

Mele closes the book claiming that science has neither shown that free will is an illusion nor that there are no effective intentions: "this is good news for just about everyone", concludes. But probably "just about everyone" (not this reviewer) will be slightly concerned by the admission that our intentions are causally originated somewhere beyond the realm of consciousness. Mele is quite vague about this point, stating just that our decisions may "more proximally initiate an intentional action that is less proximally initiated" by a potential cause of such decisions (p. 69). I agree with Manuel Vargas (see his piece on Mele's book for the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews) that this is precisely the point that many would have wanted to see addressed.

It is an indisputable merit of Mele to show that the conceptual framework of Libet's experiments, among others, is often imprecise. Yet, by the same token, it is shown that "the conceptual schemes that we use to interpret and explain our behavior" are equally misleading, which is no less unsettling. Mele's conceptual schemes are certainly more articulate, but this book will not allow the uninitiated reader to grasp them in full. However, unlike many others in philosophy, Mele suggests bits of experimental evidence that could potentially falsify several parts of his theory. We can only hope these tests are actually conducted, making this debate progress in a more empirically oriented fashion, even if the news are not always as good as we once expected.

{January 2010}
{Metapsychology online reviews}

H.D. Thoreau, Sobre el deber de la desobediencia civil (1849), Edición crítica bilingüe de Antonio Casado da Rocha, Iralka, Irún, 1995.

Acaba de ver la luz una nueva edición en castellano de la obra que el estadounidense Henry David Thoreau diese originalmente a la imprenta, en 1849, como Resistence to Civil Government y que, por deseo de sus editores, acabaría después publicándose como Civil Disobedience (1866) para evitar así cualquier asociación con el recentísimo levantamiento de los Estados del sur contra la Unión. Aún en la actualidad, se diría que los ecos de las obras de Thoreau no dejan de resonar en el día a día de los Estados Unidos de América: ¿cómo no recordar la cabaña de la laguna de Walden ante la imagen de esa otra en Lincoln (Montana) -El País, 8/4/1996-, sin agua corriente ni electricidad, donde vivía el matemático Ted Kaczynski, alias Unabomber, y en la cual preparaba, al parecer, los explosivos que luego remitía a cuantas instituciones (Universidades, aeropuertos, &c.) representaban para él el avance de las ciencias -acaso por creer, como nuestro autor, que "las oportunidades de vivir disminuyen proporcionalmente al aumento de los llamados medios de vida"-?

"¿Cómo le conviene comportarse a un hombre con este gobierno americano hoy?", se preguntaba Thoreau en su Resistence...: "Respondo que no puede asociarse con él sin deshonra" ¿No es un mismo dilema el suyo y el de los miembros de esas 441 milicias repartidas hoy por los EE.UU.(según El Mundo 19/4/1996), mundialmente conocidas a raíz del atentado, en abril del pasado año, contra el edificio del Gobierno federal en Oklahoma? Desde luego, no sería nada extraño que este opúsculo de Thoreau se leyese en los medios libertarios estadounidenses, aunque sería ciertamente injusto olvidarnos de sus restantes lectores, pues según algunos observadores (D.Walker Howe), éste es uno de los libros desde siempre más difundidos entre los estudiantes norteamericanos -ese fue el caso, por ejemplo, de M.Luther King-. Lo cual se corresponde, en efecto, con las ochenta y ocho ediciones impresas sólamente en los EE.UU. antes de 1977 (National Union Catalogue), por dar uno solo de los datos que encontramos en la Introducción de ésta que ahora comentamos. Ello, por supuesto, sin olvidar a sus incontables incondicionales a lo largo y ancho del mundo -v.gr., Gandhi-, España incluida, donde al menos se conocen ya cinco ediciones de Resistence to Civil Government.

Antonio Casado da Rocha, becario del Departamento de Filosofía de los Valores en la UPV, nos ofrece ahora, por su parte, una cuidada versión castellana según el original inglés de 1849, que va igualmente incluido en la obra, más su introducción, un extenso aparato crítico -que comprende las variantes de 1866-, un apéndice en el que se recogen interesantes comentarios de muy distintos autores, un índice de términos, cronología y bibliografía. Una magnífica edición crítica, en suma, con otro encabezamiente consagrado por el uso ya desde 1903, Sobre el deber de la desobediencia civil. Su actualidad, como vemos, no puede ser mayor: considerando, además, la importancia de lo que en ella se discute, a la vez que su inmensa difusión, es obligado para El Basilisco enfrentarla con su mirada.

El contenido de las apenas veinticinco páginas de la obra es el siguiente: a causa de la guerra de su país con Méjico en 1846 y de la legalidad de la esclavitud, Thoreau entiende que al verdadero americano no le queda otra opción que desobedecer la ley si no quiere perder su condición de Hombre, si no quiere actuar contra su conciencia y degradarse en máquina. Así, forzaría al gobierno a elegir entre "mantener en prisión a todos los hombres justos o acabar con la guerra y la esclavitud". "La única obligación que tengo derecho a asumir es la de hacer en cada momento lo que creo justo", declara Thoreau y, consecuentemente, exige un gobierno que deje las decisiones de justicia a las conciencias, al individuo, pues su convicción era que los gobiernos, particularmente el norteamericano, no son otra cosa que obstáculos para el desarrollo de los pueblos. En cualquier caso, dice, "no soy el responsable del buen funcionamiento de la maquinaria de la sociedad. No soy el hijo del ingeniero", y si el Estado no atiende sus demandas, le "retirara su apoyo" -objeción fiscal, &c.-, convencido de que la verdadera vida se vive más allá de su ley (¿Walden?). Su propia desobediencia, relatada en la obra, consistió en su negativa a pagar un impuesto de capitación durante seis años: pasó por ello arrestado una noche en la carcel y salió al día siguiente cuando una familiar, contra la voluntad de Thoreau, pagó la deuda.

Ahora bien, conviene advertir que en este opúsculo no se encontrará la menor explicación, ni siquiera por alusiones, de las ideas que lo articulan, las de individuo, conciencia, justicia, &c., ni análisis alguno acerca de la esclavitud o la guerra con Méjico -los motivos de su desobediencia-, ni, desde luego, ningún desarrollo de sus alternativas. El discurso, que no argumentación, de nuestro autor es un discurso vacío. Pero en ello radican, creemos, las auténticas razones de su inmensa difusión: cabrá reinterpretarlo infinitas veces, apelando a motivos análogos -genéricamente: guerras, opresión, &c.- para asignar luego los valores que cada cual asuma a las funciones justicia, Estado, conciencia, &c.. La clave de lectura (la forma de la función), nos la ofrece el eje que articula el discurso, su idea de sujeto, o individuo, interpretado desde su atributo conciencia, que nos indica a su vez, creemos, cuál es la escala a la que acontece -masivamente, por cierto- su recepción.

En cuanto a esta clave, y ateniéndonos a las coordenas empleadas para el análisis de la idea de conciencia expuestas por "Pedro Belarmino" en estas mismas páginas (El Basilisco, 2aépoca, 2 (1989):73-88), es obvio que la de Thoreau es una concepción absoluta de la conciencia, desligada del cuerpo, de su comunidad y, por supuesto, del Estado: las masas sirven al Estado con sus cuerpos, dice, y no con sus conciencias, se vuelven así "máquinas" y su dignidad es la de "un monton de estiercol"; a sus conciudadanos les niega mayoritariamente la condición humana (i.e., la conciencia): "¿Cuántos hombres hay en este país por cada mil millas cuadradas? Difícilmente uno."; &c.

Y en cuanto la recepción de este opúsculo, vaya por nuestra parte la siguiente propuesta para su análisis: nos parece que sería interesante estudiarla mediante la investigación de la constitución de la misma subjetividad de su autor, apelando para ello a una figura antropológica que alguna vez nos proponía Gustavo Bueno ("Psicoanalistas y epicúreos", El Basilisco, 1aépoca, 13 (1982): 12-39): el individuo flotante. Creemos, en efecto, que lo esencial en la construcción de Thoreau no son las ideas que pueda recoger de su amigo Emerson (la doctrina de la realidad como proyección de la "Super-Alma" o Dios, &c.), pues su discurso, aunque contenga filosofemas, no es, desde luego, filosófico -no es siquiera crítico, no considera o discute alternativa alguna: ¿no será, más bien, la doctrina de una hetería?-. Es cierto que su difusión sería inexplicable de no atender a los materiales que Thoreau recoge de las fuentes cristianas de la idea de conciencia y su relación con la desobediencia civil (y aquí cabría analizar su raíz puritana: el congregacionalismo, &c.), pero lo esencial aquí es que apela a ellas en un momento su sentido político es ya, en los EE.UU., muy otro que el que reciben de nuestro autor: el de un modelo de gobierno, la democracia de raíz puritana de los Estados del norte, enfrentado al que defendía la Confederación sudista. Un momento en el que los Estados Unidos alcanzan ya las proporciones imperiales que actualmente le conocemos (la guerra con Méjico, &c.), y cabe que los fines particulares de algunos de sus ciudadanos resulten "desconectados" de los planes o programas colectivos, para moldearse ahora sus contenidos a la escala de la individualidad, una individualidad exenta, "flotante".

¿No será este el caso del Thoreau que declara: "No es asunto mío andar solicitando al gobernador o a la legislatura más de lo que ellos me solicitan a mí; si no escuchasen mi solicitud ¿qué haría yo entonces? Pero en este caso el Estado no ha provisto medio alguno: su propia Constitución es el mal"?. ¿Hasta qué punto no es ésta la situación de muchos de sus lectores? ¿Hasta qué punto no es la de muchos de los desobedientes o insumisos que actualmente conocemos?

Tales son, aunque expuestas apresuradamente, las impresiones que nos causa la lectura de este opúsculo de Thoreau, absolutamente incomprensibles sin una edición de la riqueza de esta de Antonio Casado da Rocha, a la que únicamente se podría objetar, atendiendo a la lectura que aquí sugerimos, que no ahonde más en la inscripción del autor en su época. En cualquier caso, de la valía del carácter filosófico de Antonio Casado cabe esperar una magnífica Tesis doctoral sobre Thoreau y la cuestión de la desobediencia civil que venga a renovar su discusión académica.

{¿1996?}
{El Basilisco 20 (1996)}

DESOBEDIENCIA CIVIL E INDIVIDUOS FLOTANTES: O DE LAS DIFICULTADES DEL INSUMISO CON LOS PIES SOBRE LA TIERRA

Antonio Casado da Rocha
20 de junio de 1996

EN 1989, las páginas de la revista El Basilisco acogían un minucioso y documentado artículo de Pedro Belarmino sobre una controvertida cuestión de ética y moral: la “objeción de conciencia”. En él, el autor concluía que tal fórmula es, como concepto y como figura legal, contradictoria. Y que, en la práctica, se resuelve en (1) un “mero trámite de declaración de exceptuación de la norma” (es el caso del prestacionista), (2) en la “rebelión o desobediencia civil” (es el caso del objetor fiscal, un contribuyente que se niega a ingresar en el Tesoro la cantidad que le corresponde según el Impuesto), o (3) en “en una impugnación de una norma constitucional que, de no cursarse por la vía de reforma de la Constitución, se convertirá en una impugnación, por vía de hecho, antidemocrática, si razonamos en el supuesto de que la mayoría de los ciudadanos aceptan la norma” (es el caso, siempre según este autor, de los insumisos agrupados en el MOC).

En consecuencia —y aquí el estado de guerra es invocado como situación límite aunque del todo pertinente—, esta contradictoria objeción de conciencia no debiera ser, no ya regulada, sino ni siquiera tolerada por el Estado. Pedro Belarmino sugiere la justicia de fusilar a los sedicentes objetores de conciencia, o al menos de privarles de derechos civiles tales como el acceso a la función pública, etc. Al fin y al cabo, se nos dice, tales objetores no deberían aceptar ninguna clase de complicidad con un Estado que definen como militarista ni con una Constitución que consideran manchada de sangre. De modo que lo que Pedro Belarmino parece exigir es únicamente coherencia para que, si se admite esa contradicción de la “objeción de conciencia”, se la lleve hasta las últimas consecuencias.

El tiempo le ha dado, si no la razón, al menos cumplida prueba de su capacidad profética. Al día de hoy los insumisos son inhabilitados (e.e., privados de ciertos derechos civiles) merced al nuevo código penal; y el servicio militar obligatorio tiene los años contados (siempre que el Presupuesto, nuestro nuevo “Dios mortal”, nos lo permita). Sin embargo, y en el ínterin, la controversia dista mucho de estar resuelta. Al menos en lo que a mí respecta, la ha venido a renovar una amable reseña que David Teira dedica a mi edición del clásico de Henry David Thoreau sobre la desobediencia civil. Siempre es de agradecer que la gente se tome su tiempo para leer las cosas que uno, mal que bien, va pergeñando. Mas, de entre las que he recibido hasta la fecha, es ésta la primera reseña que merece el adjetivo de crítica, y por ello me es doblemente valiosa. Así que trataré de estar a la altura intentando a mi vez una réplica medianamente crítica, poniendo de relieve, en pro de la discusión, más puntos de desacuerdo que de acuerdo (que también los hay).

Para empezar, y continuando con el artículo de Pedro Belarmino, ya en el inicio de su lectura se nos advierte que en el planteamiento del problema se procederá analizando por separado sus partes, para considerar a continuación su mutuo engarce haciendo abstracción de cualquier “sentido global originario” que la fórmula pudiera tener. Admitiendo que esta estrategia analítica se revela harto fértil en su desarrollo, no puedo dejar de apuntar aquí que el todo de la fórmula “objeción de conciencia” tiene, como mínimo, una unidad de sentido que es, en este siglo, históricamente anterior al uso que de sus partes se hace hoy. Me refiero a la que para algunos constituye la primera vez que se utilizó la expresión conscientious objection, hacia 1906, en la actual Sudáfrica durante las campañas de “desobediencia civil” de Gandhi (que conocía esta fórmula gracias a su lectura de Thoreau) en contra de la legislación racista. Como señala Rafael Sainz de Rozas, “resulta revelador constatar que [el equivalente a nuestra “objeción de conciencia”] no fue acuñado por los desobedientes sudafricanos que exigían sus derechos civiles, sino por el militar inglés encargado de su represión.” De modo que, ciñéndonos a este siglo, primero está la desobediencia civil y sólo después —intentando asimilar este “cuestionamiento de una situación injusta de militarización mediante la movilización coordinada y pública de los que estaban destinados a sostenerla mediante su colaboración” (ibid.)— surge la fórmula “objeción de conciencia”. Este dato ya invitaría a examinar la primera “desobediencia civil” de Thoreau; por otro lado, los propios miembros del MOC (Sainz de Rozas es de los más destacados) han reaccionado al intento de “integración de la disidencia” que supone la legislación española sobre objeción de conciencia acuñando a su vez el término insumisión y definiéndolo repetidamente en claves de desobediencia civil muy alejadas de la definición de objetor que se desprende de la legislación vigente —“persona que, por razones de conciencia, se muestra contrario [sic] a la prestación del servicio militar”— y que es la que Pedro Belarmino critica de manera, por lo demás, impecable.

(Valga esto como preámbulo, y pasemos a desarrollar brevemente algunos comentarios.)

1. La reseña comienza con el inestimable acierto de relacionar el contenido del libro con sucesos recientes de indudable importancia. El caso del Unabomber es —en estos tiempos y lugares en los que los paquetes bomba son cosa próxima— muy digno de ser tenido en cuenta. El detalle de la cabaña de Ted Kaczynski no es gratuito, ya que se corresponde con total exactitud a los bocetos que nos han quedado de la de Thoreau en Walden. De modo que es muy probable que exista una relación directa; por lo que me cuentan, en los EE.UU. pueden adquirirse por correo hasta reproducciones “listas para montar” de esa cabaña, y es que Thoreau se ha convertido en un “caso” célebre y su chabola ha pasado a formar parte del imaginario norteamericano. Y, como también se ha dicho, numerosos escolares de enseñanza secundaria leen el panfleto “sobre el deber de la desobediencia civil” que nos ocupa.

Acierta también la reseña al destacar el carácter vacuo del discurso de Thoreau, y su consiguiente universalidad:

El propio gobierno, que es sólo el medio elegido por el pueblo para ejecutar su voluntad, es igualmente susceptible de abuso y corrupción antes de que el pueblo pueda servirse de él. Vean si no la presente guerra de X, obra de relativamente unos pocos individuos que usan el actual gobierno como instrumento a su servicio; pues, de entrada, el pueblo no habría consentido esta medida. (p. 1)

Basta sustituir la variable X (que en el texto de 1849 contenía el valor “Méjico”) por los valores “Vietnam”, “Bosnia”, o incluso “Itoiz”, para advertir la inmediata aplicabilidad de este discurso, su enorme capacidad mimética.

2. Admito que el término conciencia, tal como es empleado por Thoreau, remite a un “concepto espiritualista y mentalista de estirpe claramente teológico cristiana, y más concretamente protestante”, conciencia subjetiva que se erige, tal como dice G. B., en un “Tribunal Supremo que reclama ante todo el respeto incondicionado de todos los demás” (ibid.)

Mas no sé yo si la concepción de la conciencia de Thoreau merece el calificativo de absoluta, más que nada porque Gustavo Bueno señala como paradigmas históricos de esa concepción el Dios aristotélico o la conciencia trascendental de Kant. Y esas son palabras mayores... Más bien, creo que la argumentación de Thoreau en torno a la conciencia merece los calificativos de teleológica y circular, pues apela a una supuesta finalidad inscrita en lo específicamente humano: “¿Para qué tiene cada hombre su conciencia?” (p. 3), se pregunta. Y la respuesta dada es: como para algo la tendrá, será para algo que le constituya como humano (ya que no se conoce conciencia moral entre los animales), con lo que Thoreau concluye que “debiéramos ser primero hombres [con conciencia] y después súbditos [sin ella]” (ibid.). La conciencia queda instalada como ultima ratio moral.

Parafraseando a Pedro Belarmino (1982:77-8), podría decirse que la conciencia moral de Thoreau habría despertado —si analizamos en estos términos el relato de su estancia en prisión— en el momento en el que los principios (ortogramas) que regulaban su acción (conducta) en Walden (su palacio ) se encontraron, al intentar salir de él, no ya con el dolor y con la muerte, sino con la esclavitud y la alienación de los esclavos negros y de sus propios vecinos.

3. Ya que de discursos se trata, espero que se me perdone que me ponga algo filológico. El discurso de Resistance es susceptible de ser utilizado por las heterías, no cabe duda. Que el propio Thoreau fuera adepto a una de ellas, o que el MOC lo sea, es más discutible.

Creo que lo que ocurre con el individuo Thoreau (como paradigma) no es que se halle flotando a fuerza de perder conexión con los programas colectivos, sino que tiene que elegir entre un programa genérico que le dice que todos los hombres son libres e iguales y un plan universal que provoca esclavitud e injusticias. El problema de la desobediencia se traduce en un conflicto entre obediencias mutuamente excluyentes, entre fidelidades contrapuestas.

Me explico. La declaración de independencia es el perfecto “programa genérico”, así como la famosa doctrina del “destino manifiesto” es buen ejemplo de “plan universal” siguiendo la terminología de G. B. Como sabéis, el 4 de julio de 1776 (Independence Day, fiesta nacional), es adoptada la Declaración de Independencia (redactada en su mayor parte por Thomas Jefferson) que, en su segundo párrafo —su fragmento más célebre— reza así: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security”

Asumiendo parte del utillaje conceptual de Bueno, podría aventurarse como hipótesis que el caso Thoreau se resuelve en el desarraigo provocado por el conflicto entre la fidelidad al relato fundacional de los EE.UU. y la obediencia a la política vigente en 1848: destino manifiesto, guerra con Méjico, etc. (En realidad, esto no hace si no daros la razón.)

4. Que los anteriores fines sean metafísicos, o que se basen en una concepción del individuo irreal (porque el individuo aislado será algo imposible, porque el principio de todo planteamiento político no será el “yo”, sino el “nosotros”) no eliminan el hecho de que existe un país, los EE.UU. de América, cuyo relato fundacional descansa en esas ficciones. Y un país, por cierto, que ostenta una envidiable eutaxia (o supervivencia de la propia unidad política, medida a través de su duración temporal). Eutaxia que, según tengo entendido, es el único criterio objetivo que reconoce el Materialismo Filosófico para medir la fuerza de un modelo político.

Relato fundacional que viene a ser el de un “nosotros” (We hold...) que deciden instituir un gobierno con el fin de asegurar esos derechos a todos los “yoes” (varones, eso sí: all Men). Efectivamente, en la declaración de Independencia es el “nosotros” el principio de todo planteamiento político (y aquí estoy de acuerdo con Bueno), pero lo peculiar de ese “nosotros” es que instituye un programa colectivo en el que convierten a los “yoes” en los sujetos políticos. Y en el que, precisamente, se trata de hacer abstracción de los enclasamientos de esos “yoes”:

“Individuo flotante”, ese pleonasmo. El individuo, tal como sociológicamente se concibe en nuestra sociedad, es flotante por definición. La gente se considera “individuo” en la medida en que puede sustraer energías y fidelidad a los fines, planes y programas colectivos. Que eso sea moralmente bueno o no, es otro cantar. Pero ¿quién se atreve a decir hoy que sus fines se hallan perfectamente integrados en los planes o programas colectivos? Sólo algunos exaltados, probablemente mucho más peligrosos que cualquier individuo que, mal que bien, vaya flotando por ahí.

T. Bayne and J. Fernández, Delusion and Self-Deception. Affective and Motivational Influences on Belief Formation, New York-Hove, Psychology Press, 2009.

In 2004, Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science and the philosophy department at Macquarie University (Sydney) organized a conference on “Delusion, Self-Deception and Affective Influences on Belief Formation”, in which many of the papers of this volume were first presented. As the editors warn in their introduction, their aim was to foster empirical and conceptual connections between current research on delusion and self-deception. For this, they brought together a group of scholars in various disciplines, most of them with a remarkable competence for interdisciplinary discussion. The connecting thread in their analyses features in the title of the book: the role played by affects and emotions in the formation of delusional or self-deceptive beliefs. However, the unity of this compilation lies mostly in the extraordinary editorial work of Tim Bayne and Jordi Fernández, who have not only provided thorough author and subject indexes, but also encouraged cross-references between papers and wrote an introduction intended as a map for the terrain explored thereafter.

In my view, this volume hinges on five papers on two delusions: the Capgras delusion (the belief that a familiar person has been replaced by an impostor) and anosognosia for hemiplegia (the delusional belief of being able to move your paralysed limbs). These five papers present the standard theories of delusion, with special emphasis on the role of emotions in the explanation of the two cases in point, but with very few mentions of its connections to self-deception. Three additional papers bridge this gap, exploring possible connection between the explanation of these delusions and Mele’s theory of self-deception. Three more papers discuss the role of emotion in belief formation with no explicit link with any of the theories above. Following this division, I will provide a quick overview giving just a glimpse of the topics discussed. The reader is warned that the book is incredibly rich in ideas and evidence on every topic discussed and I am afraid many will be missing here.

The most successful empirical approach (so far) to explain the Capgras delusion focuses on the cognitive mechanisms of face recognition drawing on research on prosopagnosia. The Capgras delusion would arise when the subject is somehow able to recognize a familiar face but without experiencing the usual emotional response to it (as measured by skin conductance response). The damaged mechanisms in the brain explaining this diverging response are still under discussion, as Philip Gerrans informs us in ch. 7. There are different approaches to modelling the belief distortion in this delusion, namely two: endorsement models and explanationist models. In the former, the patient believes in the content of her experience, where the delusion lies. In the latter, the delusion is an attempt to explain an usual experience (e.g., the lack of emotional response). Gerrans develops an endorsement account focused on a purely cognitive misidentification (failure to acknowledge the numerical identity between the familiar face and the person the patient knows). Elisabeth Pacherie (ch. 6) considers alternative accounts of the Capgras delusion, pondering to what extent they support the endorsement approach. She is inclined to think that the delusion arises from the inability to process dynamic information about the emotions expressed by familiar faces. Pacherie furthers this approach with an argument for the modularity of the feelings of familiarity. If the delusion lies in the perceived experience, it is important to demarcate it from belief and Fodor claims that modularity is one such demarcation criterion. An additional argument against the explanationists provided by Pacherie is that, even if the subject forms a delusional belief, she applies correctly the usual checking procedures (further observation, background knowledge, testimony) but they fail to yield disconfirming evidence.

A second division in the approaches to delusion can be made between one and two-factor approaches. The former invoke a perceptual and/or affective deficit that generates the belief and the latter add a second deficit to explain why such belief is not rejected. Brian McLaughlin (ch. 8) takes issue with the standard one-deficit account of Brian Maher, according to whom delusional beliefs “function to explain anomalous experiences resulting from neuropsychological anomalies” and this would be a rational response. In the Capgras delusion, argues McLaughlin, this would not be the case by any standard of epistemic justification, since the delusional belief coheres badly with our background knowledge. McLaughlin proposes a model for the Capgras delusion in which two types of beliefs would be acquired by separate routes: a linchpin belief (about the unfamiliarity of the face) and a thematic belief (about the impersonation). It is epistemically irrational on the part of the patient not to reject this second belief, arrived at by paranoid-driven reasoning. McLauglin develops the concept of existential feelings, among which familiarity would feature. Given the characteristics of these feelings, McLaughlin is skeptical about our natural ability to override them. So much for the Capgras delusion

Anne Aimola Davies and co-authors (ch. 10) analyse anosognosia for hemiplegia in the two-factor framework for delusions presenting a broad review of the available empirical evidence (including their own data) about the role played by motivational and cognitive factors. The first factor would be here “an impairment that prevents the patient’s paralysis or weakness from making itself known to the patient through immediate experience of motor failure”. The second factor, in turn, would be “an impairment that prevents the patient from making appropriate use of other available evidence of his or her motor impairments”. The authors present their own conjectures about the functional nature (“an impairment of working memory or executive process”) and neural basis (“the right frontal region of the brain”) of this second factor. Frédérique de Vignemont (ch. 12) systematically compares hysterical paralysis and anosognosia, the former apparently being the mirror image of the latter: patients feel paralyzed although they are physically able to move. De Vignemont points out that hysterical paralysis is grounded in delusional beliefs about the extent and source of their inability to move. It is a local paralysis and does not arise from organic damage. However, the experience of being paralysed generates the delusion as a normal response. Their anxiety at the paralysis keeps them frozen: this explains their inability to reject the original delusion without the intervention of a second factor. They are indeed paralysed.

So much for the study of delusions. As for its connection with self-deception, Alfred Mele (ch. 3) presents a brief summary of his own deflationary theory of this latter and an analysis of a few delusions in this perspective. Since Mele’s account of self-deception hinges on the influence of motivational factors in lay hypothesis testing and such factors do not necessarily feature in the explanation of, e.g., the Capgras delusion, he concludes (tentatively) that deluded subjects may not be deceiving themselves. Martin Davies (ch. 4) makes the more significant effort in the volume to bring together the analysis of deception and self-delusion. After a brief review of the standard one- and two-factor accounts of this latter and a summary of Mele’s theory on the former, Davies discusses how motivational biases can feature in either factor or in the route from experience to belief. When they affect the second factor, Davies concludes that we have the clearest cases of an overlap of delusion with Mele’s self-deception. Neil Levy (ch. 11) argues, against Mele, that there is one real case of self-deception in which the subject believes a proposition and its negation. This would be anosognosia for hemiplegia, where subjects –in a certain sense that Levy specifies– simultaneously believe that their limb is healthy and significantly impaired

The remaining three chapters are somehow at odds with the theoretical approaches presented so far. In chapter 1, Peter Ditto provides a brief overview of fifty years of psychological research on motivated cognition, which serves as an introduction to his own contribution, the quantity of processing view. According to this view, we would we react more sceptically and invest more time and resources in the cognitive processing of those pieces of information inconsistent with our preferences. As the editors notice in their introduction, this view does not seem to encompass delusions, where it often happens that the subject cannot reject a delusional belief despite its negative affects. Drawing on recent research in cognitive neuroscience (namely, appraisal theory and the somatic marker hypothesis), Michael Spezio and Ralph Adolphs (ch. 5) substantiate the claim that emotions mediate in the processing of information in the brain. As an illustration, they briefly show how emotional processing underlies our moral judgments. The editors observe here that it is an open question whether this account may apply to belief formation in general. In the final chapter of the book, Andy Egan proceeds to a philosophical discussion of the status of delusions and self-deception as mental states. Invoking a functional role conception of mental states, Egan argues that delusions are intermediate states between belief and imagination whereas self-deception is an intermediate state between belief and desire. As the editors point out, this is at variance with the assumption that now orientates empirical research on both phenomena: they are just beliefs.

Despite the effort of the editors, this volume is often difficult to read. The different theories and empirical findings about the two delusions analysed are presented time and again throughout the eight core papers. However, were it not for Davies’ paper, I guess I would be lost as to the connection between the two phenomena. Or more precisely between the standard theories of delusion and Mele’s theory of self-deception: no alternative approach is discussed in the book. This volume features in a series that “provides readers with a summary of the current state-of-the-art in a field”. The disunity in the two fields of study covered in this volume is adequately captured in the papers compiled.

{April 2009}
{Metapsychology online reviews}