Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 21 Fall 2003

              Two Philosophical Psychologists
With its cognitive revolution, professional psychology has vastly Increased an
already considerable knowledge of the human mind. Philosophers cannot
but take note of this, and this is especially true of the writings of
psychologists who turn their attention to philosophical issues —
philosophical psychologists. I look briefly at recent books by two of these. It is
written in memory of a third, Ken Bowers.
Santayana offers a concept of spirit that is entirely impotent; it consists of feelings
as feelings, conscious awareness as awareness, with no consideration of the possible
sources of these, assumed to rest in the realm of matter. This notion has been
criticized, and the critique would be justified if spirit is meant to be part of a solution
to the mind/body problem. It is not, and Santayana sees any possible explanation of
the emergence of mind as a question about matter. If a solution is forthcoming, it will
be given by science. It is of some interest, I believe, that each of the psychologists
under consideration deal at length with specific mental phenomena that are impotent
and would be treated by Santayana as special cases of spirit.
Antonio Damasio gives us a fascinating and original study of the grounds and
function of human feelings; written as a popular text, it is nevertheless a serious
discussion of philosophical issues fully informed by experimental results.1 He
acknowledges the importance of feelings to everything human, and has initiated
experimental investigations of these in respect to their sources in the brain. As its title
suggests, his book makes Spinoza's treatment of the emotions a central theme, tying it
into his ongoing scientific study of human feelings and emotions. In the third and
fourth books of the Ethics, Spinoza deals at length with the nature and strength of the
emotions, and offers an extended list entitled "Definitions of the Emotions." Damasio
is attracted to the part that the body plays in Spinoza's account of these emotions; of
particular interest to him is the separation made by Spinoza between bodily emotions
and conscious feelings — a distinction that he wants to enforce in order to facilitate
his study of the feelings. We tend to speak of emotions and feelings as
indistinguishable, but he finds their separation is important to an understanding of
each.
The human mind, says Spinoza, is the idea of die human body; much of our
ignorance of the human mind stems from our ignorance of the body; the mind is
capable of perceiving many things in proportion of the body receiving many
modifications; joy (sorrow) is associated with an increase (decrease) of bodily
perfection. These and many others of Spinoza's propositions mesh nicely with
Damasio's account of emotions and feelings and his position on the mind/body
problem. He finds experimental evidence for these, and indeed fully endorses
"William James's conjecture that when we feel emotions we perceive body states" (D
105).2
1 Antonio Damasio. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain (Orlando:
Harcourt, 2003). To be cited simply as D in small caps.
2 This would make a feeling into a kind of knowledge. According to Santayana's view of
perception and knowledge, the essence intuited is unlikely to be the same as the essence of the
thing perceived. In order for a perception to count as a genuine instance of knowledge, what is
needed is functional success in interactions with matter applying it. This applies to ordinary
perception, and no less to the observations and theories of science. With Damasio, this view of
perception is carried to an altogether higher level. Even our feelings are, in a sense, instances of