McGinn, Colin. Basic Structures of Reality: Essays in Meta-Physics.

White, Alan

MCGINN, Colin. Basic Structures of Reality: Essays in Meta-Physics. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. viii + 243 pp. Cloth, $49.95--Part I of this book consists of an introduction and eleven essays; Part II, following its introduction, is "a series of aphorisms" viewed by its author as "a philosophical poem." According to the Preface, the book "aims to develop a philosophical understanding of basic physical concepts." The Introduction to Part I notes that the book is "accessible without grasp of technical and mathematical subtleties," and that its issues "can be raised independently of" "quantum mechanics and relativity." The variety of topics covered and arguments presented in Part I precludes summary in the space available here, so instead of summarizing, the following account introduces a few of the book's central theses, and a possible way of connecting them that the book does not consider.

The book as a whole presupposes "the so-called 'structuralist' conception of physical knowledge," that is, "the view that our knowledge of physics does not disclose the intrinsic nature of the entities posited, but only their mathematically specified interrelations." That this is the nature of the knowledge provided by the physical sciences provides the basis for their distinction from the biological and psychological sciences. Knowledge of the physical is termed "'remote knowledge,' because it concerns the remote effects of things on our senses (as they process our measuring instruments)." The psychological sciences provide "intimate knowledge," because "conscious experience is indubitable and the nature of particular states is given to the subject." The biological sciences also provide intimate knowledge, because (1) the "basic organizing concepts" of biology--"function, purpose, design, survival, selection, health, flourishing, life"--are understood, "initially, at least, by way of such [psychological] notions as intention, aim, well-being, choice, pleasure, plan, self, and so on," and (2) the biological concepts can be "freed of psychological associations" without ceasing to "inherit the transparency of psychological concepts."

The thesis that initially psychological concepts can be transformed such that knowledge in non-psychological sciences becomes intimate raises the possibility, not considered in the book, that the apparent remoteness of physical knowledge, too, might be overcome. Our knowledge of moving our limbs and indeed our bodies, and of being energetic and powerful in various ways and to various degrees, would appear to qualify as intimate. If it is, what would prevent our knowledge of non-psychological motion and energy from inheriting this transparency?

According to the book, our knowledge of motion is remote because--to cite one central reason given--absolute motion is incoherent, and in cases of relative motion what moves cannot be determined: "a fly buzzing about the room is no more absolutely in motion than the whole galaxy is--we can in principle select the fly as our point of reference ('rest frame') and conceive everything else as moving relative to it." Why the book's central criteria for theory selection--"explanatory power and internal coherence"--do not exclude the fly-as-stationary hypothesis from serious consideration is not clear. More importantly, the book never considers our ordinary locomotion or proprioception as possible sources of intimately known concepts that might be transformable into transparent physical counterparts.

Energy appears to be a yet more promising resource for extending the range of intimate knowledge. Particularly in essay 10, "Consciousness as a Form of Matter" (or energy), the book explicitly recognizes mental energy as evident in "causally efficacious acts of will and other mental work." Yet the book does not consider the possibility that energy, like the psychological concepts listed above, could be "cleansed of all psychological connotations" so as to render energy in its ubiquity as "transparent" as are psychological and biological concepts. Instead, the book asserts the following: "If consciousness is indeed a form of matter, then we would expect it to belong in the class of natural mysteries, not to be a model of epistemic transparency." It is not clear how this could be made consistent with the theses that "the mind is a transparent box with an open lid--we perceive its contents clearly," and that we know what consciousness is.

What is unexplained is why what may be termed pan-energism--according to which to be is to be a form of energy--is fundamentally different from panpsychism, of which the book says the following: "if we follow the panpsychist we know what matter is! The basic stuff is mind-stuff, and mind-stuff is completely evident to us. If matter seemed like a kind of cosmic mystery meat, then panpsychism removes the mystery by telling us exactly what kind of meat matter is made of--mental meat." Why then does matter remain mysterious if it is energetic meat?--Alan White, Williams College.