Preproceedings 2006 - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

252
Experience and social norms in folk psychology – Wittgenstein meets neuroscience - Pim Klaassen
directed discontent appeared to be an immediate event.
The first major contribution of Varela and Depraz,
however, is that affects such as these develop in (micro-
)time, i.e., that we are concerned with processes rather
than events. The second is related, since this small
timescale allows us to connect experience with brain
activity. 3
Let us focus on the phenomenological side of the
story. Here we find that the modification of the timescale
Varela and Depraz introduce, brings along yet another
interesting thing: we find a minimal form of immediate
normative action, viz., the very first moment of an
appreciative reaction. This is a reaction that involves
movement from the very first moment onwards. After
Varela and Depraz I will call this “valence.”
If we want to attain a better understanding of Mary’s
experience of the alteration of her readiness to act that
arises the moment that she notices her unhappy friend
Andra, we need an analysis of the moment at which an
object emerges and leads to a change in one’s actionreadiness.
At the moment Mary first sees Andra’s unhappy
face, she will normally not consciously know what exactly it
is that she sees, what condition her friend is in.
Phenomenological analysis suggests that part of the
process in which affects emerge takes place prereflectively.
That is to say, such situations as just
described generally affect us to some extent even before
we have become reflectively conscious of what happens
(cf. Rudrauf et al. 2003, 59)
Using concrete examples, Varela and Depraz
attempt to show that event-related affect and movement
(action) are integral aspects of the first constitutive
moments of any experience, and that these already have
an evaluative dimension to them. Because of this
combination of affect and movement Varela and Depraz
call valence a motion-affect. (2004, 164) This appreciation
can be understood as a dynamic polarity, as a tension that
takes several forms: like-dislike, attraction-rejection,
pleasure-displeasure. (Ibid, 163) Furthermore, it comprises
anticipation on the possible actions that the situation
allows. (Ibid, 164) Varela and Depraz insist that these
polarities should not be understood too strictly, but that we
should rather see them in terms of distinct global
repertoires of actions. Valence, then, is the first (relatively)
big restriction of someone’s room to manoeuvre in a
particular situation. This analysis suggests that from the
start, every experience of meaningful objects is valueladen.
When an object occurs there are always several
aspects that play a role in the progression towards a more
matured affect, such as directed discontent. Examples that
Varela and Depraz mention include:
- A precipitating event, or trigger that can be perceptual
(a social event, affective expression or behaviour of
another in social context) or imaginary (a thought,
memory, fantasy or other affect) or both;
- A “feeling of evidence” of the precipitating event’s
meaning, the emergence of a salience. [...]
- A motor embodiment, especially facial and motor
changes, and differential “readiness” activations. [...];
3 On this timescale we find a relative stability of relevant aspects. On a larger
timescale, such as the narrative one, complex stochastic processes in the
brain come to play a role and there emerges a ‘disorganized complexity [...]
because a system has a large number of significant components that exhibit a
high degree of random behavior’. (Le Van Quyen 2003, p.72)
- Complex autonomic physiological changes, with the
most commonly studied being various cardio-pulmonary
parameters, skin conductance, and various muscle tone
manifestations. (Ibid, 160-1)
All these aspects develop in parallel; they influence
each other continuously and in that way add to the
emergence of an event-related affective reaction. An
example is provided by Mary’s change in expression and
action when she perceives the unhappy expression on the
face of her friend Andra. Taken together, these aspects
help to make clear that the first moment that something
affects someone, already involves movement, which in this
case becomes manifest in the changed expression on
Mary’s face.
Of course, much more needs to be said about this to
fully answer the question what happens when we act
instantaneously in accord with a folk-psychological norm.
But what we have here is the beginning of an account of
the physiology of normativity, and hence a way to tackle
the question how individuals become members of a
community. And it appears that the
neurophenomenological account is valuable here.
Moreover, the phenomenological account can (in principle)
be wedded to a neurophysiological one, which provides
additional explanatory resources. Neurophenomenology,
then, enables the assessment of the causal role of
experience in folk psychological action.
4. Individualism cum mechanicism versus
normativity cum sociality
Individualism with regard to folk psychology entails that all
of it can be explained exhaustively in terms of the features
of individuals alone. This position can be ascribed to
several prominent contemporary thinkers (e.g. Fodor 1987
and Churchland 1991). Which of these features are
relevant is a disputed issue amongst individualists, but,
since one popular view has it that it is neurophysiology,
neurophenomenology may well be taken as promoting
individualism. More generally, the rise of neuroscience
seems to many to entail the promise that one day our
everyday going about can be reductively explained in
terms of neurophysiology.
Such explanation is, by necessity, “mechanical”,
since it can only take recourse to causal chains in its
accounts of human action. This is not altered when firstperson
experience guides neuroscience in its quest for
answers, as is the case with neurophenomenology. If we
assume – as I think we must – that meaning cannot be
accounted for in mechanical terms, this puts a constraint
on what we can expect from such an enterprise, since then
the meaning of everything involved in folk psychology
cannot play any explanatory role.
Since our various folk-psychological practices are
intrinsically meaningful, the normative dimension that
pertains to language applies to them as well. This is
obvious from the fact that meaningful expressions can be
used either correctly or incorrectly. It is in virtue of their
meaning that, for example, intentions, hopes, wishes and
their cognates normatively determine what accords with
them. That is to say, what fulfils a particular intention, hope
or wish – all crucial knots in our folk psychology – is
decided by what the intention, hope or wish is about.
Stressing the meaningfulness and normativity of folk
psychology provides the starting point for an argument
against individualism, since the normative rules of our