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Jerzy Bobryk
Genesis and history of Twardowski’s theory of actions and products:
From the psychology of consciousness to the general theory of action
Kazimierz Twardowski was born in 1866 in Vienna, where he later studied
under Franz
Brentano. He joined the circle of Brentano’s followers which
included E.
Husserl,A.Meinong,
K. Stumpf, and others. In 1892 he visited Wund’s
psychological
laboratory and studied shortly under Karl Stumpf. In 1894,
his work Zur Lehre vom
Inhalt und Gegenstand der Vorstellungen (On the
content and object of presentation)
presented as a thesis qualified him as
assistant professor (habilitation). After his
habilitation he moved (in
1895) to Lvov, where he held a professorship for 35 years at
the Jan
Kazimierz University. Twardowski died in 1938.
In philosophy, Twardowski initiated the
Lvov-Warsaw school, which is
sometimes termed the
Polish analytical philosophy. Twardowski concentrated
mainly
on building in Poland a real
scientific philosophy; he also founded the first Polish
laboratory of
experimental psychology. He was the master of famous Polish
philosophers,
logicians, sociologists and psychologist, like Władysław
Tatarkiewicz,
Tadeusz Kotarbiński,
Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz, Innocenty
Bocheński, Alfred Tarski, Jan
Łukasiewicz, Stanisław Leśniewski,
Stanisław Ossowski, Maria
Ossowska,
Władysław Witwicki, and
others.
Twardowski wrote in German and in Polish, his works
dealt with the analysis of
philosophical, psychological, logical and
ethical concepts.
It is not an easy task to give a brief summary of
Twardowski’s intellectual
development. His
starting point was Brentano’s theory of intentional acts,
but finally
he reverted to the analytical method of the positivist
tradition, although he never
postponed basic assumptions of Brentano’s
philosophical psychology. In other
words, Twardowski’s
philosophy was an original synthesis of phenomenology and
linguistic
philosophy. It is worth mentioning that he made this synthesis at the
beginning of 20th century, several decades before the appearance of British
linguistic philosophy.
I would like to present here only one aspect of development of
Twardowski’s
thought: his concept of intentional act and relationship between the human
consciousness and the human action.
The following figure is an ideogram of relationships between
Twardowski’s
philosophy and psychology, phenomenological philosophy and linguistic
philosophy
Figure one: Theory of intentionality and its
developement
Franz Brentano in his Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkt argued
that mental phenomena have unique property: they are intentional. Our
mental states are
in some sense directed at objects and states of affairs
in the world. If someone has a
belief it is a belief that something is the
case. If I have a wish it must be a wish to do
something. If Mary or John
have an image it must be an imagination of something.
Our mental states
could be directed at material or ideal or fictional objects. I can
believe
that the King of France is a good-looking man even if there is no King of
France. I can imagine Pegasus, I can think about fictitious numbers. In all
the cases
there is something which is called the object of my
consciousness. In other words,
every mental phenomenon is characterized by
its intentional object. The intentional
object of my act of perception is
the perceived material object. The intentional object
of my act imagination
of Pegasus is the fictional mythological Pegasus. The Pegasus
could be an
object of my thinking or believing. I can believe that Pegasus exists. This
directness or “aboutness” is the first property of
intentional acts.
The second property of intentional acts is something,
which can be called
self-determination or teleological determination. The
course or development of my act
of imagination of Pegasus depends on my
will and my intention (in this case it is the
intention of an imagination
of Pegasus). It seems the goal or the target of my act
determines the course of this act. The factual or apparent feature of any
mental act is
its teleological determination.
We can assume that Pegasus is a creature that exist in external world, for
example, a
result of genetic engineering. This physically existing Pegasus
could be an object of
my visual perception. The mental action of perception
produces – in some sense –
the mental representation of Pegasus. This
product of the action of perception exists
as long as the action of
perception lasts. But if Pegasus is a material creature, the
duration of
its existence is longer than the visual perception of Pegasus. Another
mental action, the action of imagination or the action of remembering can
produce an
imagined or remembered Pegasus. The imagined Pegasus can exist
even if the
material Pegasus does not exist.
It seems that in the case mentioned above there are two different objects:
material
Pegasus and its mental representation. In his Zur Lehre vom Inhalt und Gegenstand
der
Vorstellungen
Kazimierz Twardowski argued that his master Franz
Brentano
used the word “object” in two senses: on the one hand, for independently
existing
entity to which our mental actions are directed, as it were; and,
on the other, for the
mental product, picture, representation and
presentation of a real entity. The former is
termed the transcendent object
of mental action, the latter the content or the
immanent object of this action.
The immanent object or the content of mental action is a mental or
psychological
entity, and it is a result of mental processes of a
particular subject (person).
The transcendent object of mental action is
mostly a material or physical entity and it
is independent on my mentality.
If I am thinking about ideal objects like triangles or
numbers they have
objective properties. Any triangle has three straight sides and
three
angles even if I do not know about that. Ideal or abstract object are also
independent of my mind. However I can have mental representation of these
objects.
The difference between “content” and “object” of my (or your) action of
imagining the Eiffel Tower is analogous to the difference between a camera
picture of
the tower and the tower itself.
When a photographer is taking a photo of the tower, a photograph results.
When I
am imagining, or remembering the tower, mental picture of it comes
into existence.
When I am speaking about the Eiffel Tower, it is the
content of my mental act and my
speech act. “The content” is a product of
my mental act like a photo is a product of
the work of a camera. The
product of a camera work is a representation of a material
object like the
content of a mental act may be a representation of a particular material
object. We can imagine a non-existing (fictional) object, as well as we can
produce a
representation of non-existing object using an electronic camera
and a computer.
action or act
content of product
object
imaginining
the perception
the object of perception
speaking
the content
the reference
painting
the portrait
the model
In such pairs as:
to race – the race,
to cry – the
cry,
to think – the thought,
to speak – the speech,
to jump –
the jump,
to walk – the walk,
to inform – the denunciation,
the first word denotes an action, the second the product of this
action.
The difference between the two words is not only of grammar but
also of meaning as
the two words have different denotation
(Twardowski
1912/1979). When we argue, a
discussion results, when we
think a thoughts result, when we construct a
construction results. W
may say that a jump is a product of jumping and a song is a
product of
singing. Various kinds of actions and products can be reduced to two
basic kinds, that is, physical actions and products, and mental actions
and products.
The former category covers: “to jump – the jump”, “to
swim – the swimming”, the
latter: “to think – the thought”, “to expect
– the expectation”. Moreover, from among
physical actions and products
we should separate out those that are psychophysical,
namely, those in
which a physical action is accompanied by a mental one, which
somehow
affects that physical action and, accordingly, its product. This applies to
actions and products such as: “to lie – the lie”, “to cry – the cry”,
“to speak – the
speech”, “to write – the writing”, “to paint – the
painting” (Twardowski 1912/1979).
Relations between actions and products are clear and simple from the
logical
and grammatical point of view, however, these relations are
more complicated from
ontological and empirical point of view
(Twardowski
1912/1979). There is a gradation
from cases in which a
product almost merges with the action of which it is the result
to
cases in which a product is clearly distinct from the action. We can
predicate many
things about products that we do not predicate about
actions (Twardowski
1912/1979). We may say that the certain questions are
incomprehensible or unclear,
which is not to say that posing questions
is an incomprehensible or vague action. In
many cases the distinction
between an action and its product must be substantiated,
but here are
other cases where that distinction is self-evident. The first kind of
products might be termed non-durable, those product which exists only
as long as
the action that produces them lasts. A speech exists as long
as the action of
speaking continues, a thought, as long as someone is
thinking. Anyway, it is often
said that the ideas or thoughts of a
thinker outlive him, but in this case we do not
mean the continuing
existence of the thought, an existence independent of any
action. We
denote the repetition of actions and products: from generation to
generation similar actions and products are repeated. By way of
analogy, we may
say that ideas, expectations, desires are inherent in
that sense that they exist in our
mind, even though in a given moment
we are not performing an appropriate action
that produce these ideas or
desires. But as a matter of fact we simply mean that we
have certain
psychological disposition (in the next chapter we will
discuss the nature
of this disposition), which may make us produce in
the future the same products we
produce in the past. Hence we may speak
of continuing existence of products of this
kind, meaning either
repetition of the same actions and products, or their potential
existence. The product may be termed non-durable in the virtue of their
not actually
existing longer than the actions that produce them.
There are, however, products that can last longer than the action which
produces them. Examples of such actions and products comprise: “to draw
– the
drawing”, “to write – the writing”, “to type – the typescript”,
“to program the computer
– the written computer program”. We employ
etymological figures and speak of
“building buildings”, “painting
paintings”, and „drawing – drawings”. Products of this
kind may be
termed durable products (Twardowski
1912/1979). Certain products may
continue to exist after
the action from which they result ended, because these actions
transformed, or affected, something that had existed before the
particular action
began and continued to exist after termination of
that action. This “something” can be
called the material of the action.
The action itself from which durable products result
consists in
modifying the material; the action changes the configuration of its
particles
or changes it in some other way. The product of that action
is merely a new
configuration, modification or transformation of the
material since that material
existed prior to the action. Thus in
calling a drawing the product of the action of drawing, we do not mean that
the particles of graphite and the paper are products of
the action of
drawing, since the product is only a given configuration of particles of
graphite on paper.
Amongst actions and products we may single out those that are
psychophysical, namely those in which a physical action is accompanied
by a mental
action which somehow affects that physical action and,
consequently, its product. A
product obtained in this way is termed a
psychophysical product (Twardowski
1912/1979). The text written on the paper is usually a
product of a human mental and
physical actions, and therefore it may be
termed the psychophysical product. We
may say that the human culture
and civilization is a collection of psychophysical
products. Some of
them – like books or paintings – are durable products, others –
like
musical performances – are non-durable.
There are three categories of actions and products: physical actions and
products, mental or psychological actions and products, and
psychophysical actions
and products.
actions and products
non - durable
durable
physical
to dance (and) the
dance
to walk (and) the
walk
to build (and) the
building
to cook (and) the
food
mental
to think (and) the
thought
to perceive (and) the
perception
psycho-physical
to speak (and) the speach
to inform (and) the
information
to paint (and) the painting
to write (and) the text
Fig.3 Actions and products
Kazimierz Twardowski
(1912/1979) argues that any mental product is not
durable
in itself; it exists only as long as the mental action which produces it. A
thought exists as long as someone is thinking, a mental representation
of the
perceived object exist in my mind as long as I am perceiving it.
Of course, after
perception I may initiate a mental action of imagining
or remembering
of previously perceived object which produce a new
product, another psychological representation
of previously perceived
thing. Products of psychological processes of thinking are
not
permanent and they tend to disappear when the process comes to an end.
Human conviction of their durability comes from our habit to produce
and employ
psychophysical products such as written text, picture,
logical notation, etc., i.e. the
ways of bringing permanence to the
fleeting products of human thinking. In other
words, mental products
are not durable, but because of physical actions that usually
accompany
particular mental actions there are durable psychophysical products as
writings, drawings or simply graphic signs. At the moment when a
psychophysical
actions occurs, both the mental product and the
psychophysical product exist
simultaneously
(Twardowski
1912/1979). We may say that the majority of human
actions
are, as a matter of fact, psychophysical actions.
Twardowski’s thesis on the non-durability of mental
products is a controversial
part of his theory. However it is worth to
say that Urlic Neisser (a prominent cognitive
psychologist) presented – independently and 50 years after
Twardowski – a very
similar conception of mental acts
(mental processes in his language). According to
Neisser (1967) the traditional
theories of human cognitive processes are based on
the assumption of
durability of mental representations. This approach Neisser termed
“the
reappearance hypothesis”, which, in his opinion, had originated from the
English
empiricist philosophers. Classical psychology assumed that
several cognitive units,
like “ideas”, “concepts”, stored in human mind
can be used several times. The same
“memory”, image, idea or other
cognitive unit can disappear and reappear
over and over again
(Neisser
1967, p. 281). In Twardowski’s terms this
would be the
hypothesis of the permanence, durability and repeated
manifestation in human
mental acts a fixed product of previous mental
acts.
To this traditional reappearance hypothesis Neisser
counterpoised his own,
based on the assumption of the impermanence of
product of mental activity, i.e. the
utilization hypothesis. According
to Neisser, concept ideas and other mental
representations are not fixed products separate and apart from the acts
themselves
which, once created, continue to exist in a ready form and
may be re-used many
times. Thus human mind stores not so much ready
ideas, concepts and
representations, as traces of previous cognitive
acts, which allow for a repetition of
the act itself and obtaining
similar results of the repeated cognitive activity. „Recall,
by way of
image, takes places when a new construction is largely under the control of
what remains from an earlier one. Recall in words, on the other hand is
a new verbal
synthesis which may be based on information from a number
of sources, including
not only traces of earlier verbalizations, but
perhaps visual images an other
constructions as well.”
(Neisser
1967, p. 285). Ulric Neisser claims that
traces of
cognitive acts are not simply “revived” or “reactivated” in
the act of recall; instead,
the stored fragments are used as
information to support a new construction. “It is as if
the bone
fragments used by the paleontologist did not appear in the model he builds
at all - as indeed they need not, is it is to represent a fully
fleshed-out, skin-covered
dinosaur. The bones can be thought of,
somewhat loosely, as remnants of structure
which created and supported
the original dinosaur, and thus a sources of information
about how to
reconstruct it.” (Neisser
1967, p. 286).
In 1984
John Searle presented his theory of human action, which is
– like
Twardowski’s theory of action – based on the
theory of intentionality. According to
the classical theory of
intentionality (which in fact is the theory of human
consciousness), human
mental processes are characteristic of two
features: the first feature of
conscious psychological act is that all mental acts are intentional; they are
about “something”; the second, is that they are “personal”,
“mono-subjective” or
“private”, which means that only the subject of mental
acts has privileged and
immediate access to them. The other persons may
have only indirect knowledge
about my mental processes and their content.
They may learn about it from my
verbal expressions or deduce it from my
behavior. This mediated and indirect
knowledge is deceptive and open to
doubt. Only the subject of a mental act has
immediate and unquestionable
knowledge about the content of his/her mental act. I
am aware of myself and
my internal mental states and assume that they are distinct
from the selves
and mental states of other people.
By way of analogy, in his description of the structure of human action John
Searle (1984, p. 58) emphasized that an important feature of human action
is that a
person is in a special position to know what he/she is doing. The
subject of any
action does not have to observe himself/herself or conduct
an investigation to see
which action he/she is performing, or trying to
perform. Because of that, we are able
to identify and explain quite
effortlessly the our own behavior. “If I am going for a walk to
Hyde Park,
there are any number of other things that are happened in the course
of my
walk, but their descriptions do not describe my intentional action […] So, for
example I am also moving in the general direction to Patagonia, shaking the
hair on
my head up an down, wearing out my shoes, and moving a lot of air
molecules.
However, [...] if you say to me Are you trying to walk to Hyde
Park or trying to get
closer to Patagonia?>> I have no hesitation in giving
an answer even though the
physical movements that I made might be
appropriate for either answer.”
(Searle
1984, p. 58). In other words,
we can say that any human action consist of its
“content” or “preferred
description”, and that “content” or “preferred description” is
first and
foremost known by the subject of action.
This “content” or “description” of a human action is a mental component (an
intentional component – in Searle’s words) of human action, which means
that doing
something I am conscious, or potentially conscious, what I am
doing, or at least,
going to do. These mental or intentional states
sometimes cause things to happen:
“if I want to go to the movies, and I go
to the movies, normally my desire will cause
the very event it represents,
my going to the movies. In such cases there is internal
connection between
the cause and the effect, […] the cause both represents and
brings about
the effect” (Searle
1984, p. 61) John Searle calls such kind of
cause and
effect relations “intentional causation”. Intentional causation
means that the intention
of my action, in other words, mental component of
my psychophysical action, is both
the cause of this action and the element
of it.
There are two basic kinds of the intention of action: prior
intentions
and intentions in action. Some actions are premeditated, they are results of
some sort of
planning in advance, other actions are spontaneous, we do
something without any
prior reflection. In the first case we have the prior
intention; in the second, is the intention in action or immanent intention.
This is the intention we have while we
actually performing an action. “For
example, in a normal conversation, one doesn’t
reflect on what one is going
to say next, one just says it. In such cases, there is
indeed an intention,
but it is not an intention formed prior to the performance of the action.”
(Searle
1984, p. 65). 
Searle’s thesis on the intentional
causation of action is – in my opinion – a
hypothesis on the possibility of
self-determination of human action. It seems the goal
or the target of my
act determines (or may determine) the course of this act. The
factual or
apparent feature for any human action is its teleological determination or
self-determination. We have said the same about the determination of act of
consciousness.
Investigating mental acts, or mental events, we have to face “the mind-body
problem”, which is the problem of explaining how human mental states and
acts are
related to the states and processes in our brain. Can we assume
that words “mind”
and “brain” are two names of one thing? If brain and mind
are identical, why are we
speaking about “mental acts” not about “brain
acts”? Why for thousands of years
have philosophers been trying to solve
the problem of ontological and causal
relations between the human mind and
the human brain, mental acts and brain
processes? Since the seventeenth
century philosophers have been convinced that
mental phenomena are
“subjective” whereas brain (i.e. physiological) processes are
”objective”.
One can study human mind with the use of psychological (e.g.
introspective)
methods whereas the brain can be researched with the use of objective
experimental methodology. Should we assume the non-identity of the mind and
the
brain?
We may consider the mind-body problem investigating – on the one hand –
relationship between mind itself and mental functions, and – on the other
hand –
relations between brain functions and mind acts.
The term “function” has two meanings. The first one is mathematical or
quasi-
mathematical: when we say “X is a function of Y “, we mean that
variable quantity of
X depends on variable quantity of Y. For example, it
is said in physics that air-
pressure is a function of its temperature
because the air-pressure must change when
the air temperature changes.
The second meaning of the term “function” refers to the special activity or
purpose of a person or thing. In this case we are saying that the function
of the heart
is to pump blood through the body or that the function of the
teacher is to teach students.
These two different ways of understanding the term “function” are applied in
the psychological and philosophical discourse. We may say that “the mind is
a
function of the brain” (e.g. the mental process is a function of brain
process) and
saying this we mean that the mental states and processes are
changing due to the
changes of brain states and processes. It is the
quasi-mathematical understanding of
the expression: “the mind is a function
of the brain”. However, the same expression
may have another and entirely
different sense; and saying: “the mind is a function of
the brain” we
simply mean that the function of brain is to perform various mental acts
or
processes, like to think, to feel, or to be aware of something.
According to Twardowski the phrase: “the mind is a function of the brain”
may
be entirely and undoubtedly true if we understand it in a
quasi-mathematical way: our
mental states have to change when our brain
processes change. Using John Searle
(1984, p. 18) words we may say that: “Mental phenomena, all mental
phenomena
whether conscious or unconscious, visual or auditory, pains,
tickles, itches, thoughts,
indeed, all of our mental life, are caused by
processes going on in the brain”.
However, according to
Twardowski, the phrase “the mind is a function of the
brain” is
not true, if we understand the word “function” as a synonym of
“action” or “act”,
because it is uncertain that brain itself is able to
perform all our mental acts. We
should rather say that all human mental
acts (as well as the physical acts) are
performed by the whole person
(Twardowski
1897/1965, p.95-96) . If human brain
was isolated from the
rest of the body it wouldn’t perform any mental action.
In order to explain Twardowski’s idea I will put it in
other words and another
context. Speaking about “the brain being isolated
from the body” we may imagine
something like a science-fictional situation
or a thought-experiment in which, as a
result of a surgical procedure, the
brain has been removed from the body and placed
in a life-support system. I
believe (and Twardowski would believe) that a brain
isolated from the rest
of the body (e. g. from all visual or auditory receptors and
muscles) and
placed in a life-support system could not perform normal psychological
functions. All normal psychological functions are performed by the whole
person,
therefore the second meaning of the phrase “the mind is a function
of the brain” is
false. If this phrase is not true we have to reject the
identity of the mental acts and
the brain processes. In other words, the
neurophysiological processes are performed
by the brain (or in the brain)
whereas the whole person performs mental acts (e.g.
psychological
functions).
On that point Twardowski and Searle have slightly
different opinions.
Twardowski represents the
traditional dualistic ontology while Searle’s point of view
is
much more complicated. Searle’s solution of the
mind-body problem is called “the
new dualism” or “the methodological
dualism”. The methodological dualism is the
opinion that there are two
different levels of the scientific description of the mind: the
psychological level and the nuerophysiological level. On the one hand,
Searle (1984
p. 19) accepted the mind-brain ontological identity and claimed that:
“Pains and other
mental phenomena just are features of the brain (and
perhaps the rest of the central
nervous system)”. On the other hand, he
added, (Searle 1984 p. 22) that we can not
say that: “This neuron is in
pain, this neuron is experiencing thirst”. The mental terms
are useless on
the neuropsychological level, as well as neurophysiological, biochemical and
physical terminology is out of use on the mental level of scientific
description (e.g. in psychology) .
Neisser, Ulric (1967), Cognitive Psychology, Appleton-Century-Crofts , New York. Searle,
John R.(1984), Minds , Brains and Science, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Twardowski, Kazimierz (1894/1977), On the content and object of presentation, Martinus Nijhoff ,The Hague.
Twardowski, Kazimierz (1912/1979), Actions and products. Comments on the border area of psychology, grammar and logic. In: Jerzy Pelc (ed), Semiotics in Poland 1894-1969, Reidel, Boston.
Twardowski, Kazimierz(1897/1965),Psychologia wobec fizjologii i filozofii (Psychology in the face of physiology and philosophy). In: Teresa Rzepa (ed), Psychologia w szkole lwowsko-warszawskiej (Psychology of the Lvov-Warsaw school) ,PWN, Warszawa.
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