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Cognition
and Community: The Scottish Philosophical Context
of the "Divided Self"1
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This realisation is also central to another important Scottish philosopher to whom Laing is indebted. In The Divided Self, John Macmurray is mentioned as a thinker who criticises the depersonalising tendencies of a "theory that seeks to transmute persons into automata or animals": "it is difficult," remarks Laing, "to explain the persistence in all our thinking of elements of what Macmurray has called the 'biological analogy'" (Divided Self 23). Macmurray is also a determined opponent of the ontologically insecure self of Western philosophy. In his Gifford Lectures of 1953, he argues, like Baillie, that the schizoid position is consequent upon the assumption that knowledge is fundamentally theoretical: The particular unreality which concerns us is the disruption of the integrity of the Self through a dualism of practical and theoretical activity. We are asked to embark upon a purely theoretical activity which isolates itself from the influence of all "practical" elements - since these must introduce bias and prejudice - in the hope of attaining a knowledge which will take precedence over the beliefs by which, in practice, we live. (Macmurray, Agent 77-78) Again, like Baillie, Macmurray identifies the key problem as the assumption - held by both Descartes and Aristotle - that philosophy should produce a theory by which to secure knowledge against error: "This, it may be said, is the point of view of philosophy - that nothing is known until it has been transformed, by rational criticism, from a mere belief into a logical certainty. Knowledge, in this strict sense of the term, is the product of thought and lies at the end of a process which begins in doubt" (Macmurray, Agent 78). This premise leads, as we have seen, to an epistemology plagued by an insoluble trilemma of infinite regress, logical circularity, and extra-discursive certainty. Macmurray's way out of this dead-end is to revise the assumption that we must be able to say what thinking is before we can do it. Thinking is, instead, a skill which we already possess before we attempt to theorise and articulate it: "the distinction between 'right' and 'wrong,' which is constitutive for action, is the primary standard of validity; while the distinction between 'true' and 'false' is secondary" (Macmurray, Agent 89). To know is therefore primarily to act rightly: Knowingly to actualize one of a number of possibles, and in doing so to negate the others, is to characterize the act that is so performed as right and the others as wrong. Again, it is the doing of the action which so distinguishes between right and wrong, not a theoretical judgement which may or may not precede, accompany or follow the doing. (Macmurray, Agent 140) Thus, if we find that our theory of knowledge can have, in principle, no effect upon what we actually believe, then we must accept the authority of our skilful coping with the world over our putative theoretical reconstruction: Suppose that I am presented with a triumphant logical demonstration. I accept its premises; I can find no flaw in the argument. The conclusion follows with logical necessity and is therefore logically certain. But at the same time I find the conclusion impossible to believe. What then? I can only reject it in toto, even if I can find no theoretical grounds for doing so. (Macmurray, Agent 78) This, of course, differs greatly from the traditional schizoid metaphysical position in which even though "I refuse to act in conformity with my theory . . . and so provide evidence that I do not really believe it" (Macmurray, Persons 130), I "can always lay the blame upon the body and its practical demands"(Macmurray, Persons 131). The work of Baillie and Macmurray therefore explains why Laing is so indifferent to the philosophical claim that we are indeed selves divided into res cogitans and res extensa. Within Laing's native philosophical context, a great deal of work had already been done to discredit this model of the human subject. It is no mere bravado, then, for Laing to dismiss implicitly the seemingly most developed conception of human being as, in fact, mere "ontological insecurity." Macmurray, Laing, and Community The ground against which Laing figures includes not merely a critique of Cartesian subjectivity, but also an insistence that the self is essentially social. This motif finds an epistemological form in Macmurray's further consideration of the know-how upon which theoretical knowledge is based. Though indeed, one may be skillful in a purely instrumental sense, this, for Macmurray, is not the primary ability of a human being: "the skills a child acquires, and the form in which he acquires them, fit him to take his place as a member of a personal community, and not to fend for himself in natural surroundings" (Persons 58-59). The child's true environment is therefore the social world: In the human infant - and this is the heart of the matter - the impulse to communication is his sole adaptation to the world into which he is born. Implicit and unconscious it may be, yet it is sufficient to constitute the mother-child relation as the basic form of human existence, as a personal mutuality, as a "You and I" with a common life . . . Thus, human experience is, in principle, shared experience; human life, even in its most individual elements, is a common life; and human behaviour carries always, in its inherent structure, a reference to the personal Other. (Macmurray, Persons 60-61) To be cognitively skilled is therefore fundamentally to have been socialised into the practices of a group: the child's development has a continuous reference to the distinction between "right" and "wrong." He learns to await the right time for the satisfaction of his desires; that some activities are permitted and others suppressed; that some things may be played with and others not. He learns, in general to submit his impulses to an order imposed by another will than his; and to subordinate his own desires to those of another person. He learns, in a word, to submit to reason. (Macmurray, Persons 59) Macmurray therefore finds a profound philosophical significance in the primary social relationship between child and carer: "we may say that the first knowledge is the recognition of the Other as the person or agent in whom we live and move and have our being" (Persons 77). One might summarise his position in the following way: we must know-how before we can know-that; but prior even to knowing-how, is simply knowing, or acknowledging, another. Metaphysics, of course, takes knowing-that as the primary form of knowledge. Macmurray argues that this dogma is so beguiling precisely because it entails the obliteration of recognitive knowing. The primacy of the theoretical allows the philosopher to alienate himself from his existence as one person among many: our fear of the Other generates the desire to escape from the demands of the Other upon us, by withdrawing from action into another life, the life of the mind, in which we can exist as thinkers, and realize our freedom in reflection. If this could be, then we should be pure minds, and spectators of a world of activity in which our actions would be determined for us by laws not of our making. In the realm of thought we should be free, but our bodily life would be determined by the laws of that world of necessity from which we have escaped. The world of action would become an external world, a world of phenomena; that is to say, a show ... a dramatic spectacle which unrolls itself upon the stage for us to watch, to follow and to enjoy. (Macmurray, Persons 130-31) The philosopher consequently feels that she is answerable only for the thoughts of her logical ego, and not for the beliefs and practices of her putatively mechanical body: "we have uncovered the motive of dualist thinking. It is the desire to know the truth without having to live by the truth. It is the secret wish to escape from moral commitment, from responsibility" (Macmurray, Persons 131). Macmurray regards this attempt to evade one's original and primary social existence as essentially due to a crisis of faith which may occur during ontogeny. The divided self is, he argues, a consequence of the child's failure to trust his or her carer (designated by Macmurray as "the mother"): If a child is to grow up, he must learn, stage by stage, to do for himself what has up to that time been done by the mother. But at all crucial points, at least, the decision rests with the mother, and therefore it must take the form of a deliberate refusal on her part to continue to show the child those expressions of her care for him that he expects. This refusal is, of course, itself an expression of the mother's care for him. But the child's stock of knowledge is too exiguous, the span of his anticipation too short, for him to understand this. (Persons 88-89) There is much - such as toilet training and times-tables - that a child must suffer in order to become an adult. Such things undoubtedly seem arduous at the time but, in retrospect, are recognised (by most of us) as a vital contribution to one's autonomy. A child has trust, or faith precisely because despite its inability to see the value of these formative experiences at the time, it nonetheless submits to them in order to maintain a relationship with a loved other. When this submission is willing and whole-hearted, then, for Macmurray, the development is normal. When, however, it is merely a prudent conformity, then, he argues, a pathologically divided self will be created: He will become a "good" boy, and by his "goodness" he will create for himself a secret life of phantasy where his own wishes are granted. And this life of the imagination in an imaginary world will be for him his real life in the real world - the world of ideas. His life in the actual world will remain unreal - a necessity which he will make as habitual and automatic as possible. (Macmurray, Persons 103) Here, Macmurray thinks like a theologian. The parental carer is analogous to that all-loving God who, in his infinite wisdom, permits what, to us, seems to be suffering. Indeed, the torments inflicted lovingly on a child by her parents must seem as baffling to that child as God's command to Abraham that he offer Isaac as a sacrifice. This is why Macmurray asserts that "the child can only be rescued from his despair by the grace of the mother; by a revelation of her continued love and care which convinces him that his fears are groundless" (Persons 90). For those of us who are not theologians, Macmurray merely seems naive. It is indeed vital that a child should have trust in adults; it is far from inevitable, however, that his or her elders should not abuse that trust. The young are vulnerable precisely because they cannot easily distinguish between straightforward abuse and an experience which, although painful, is nonetheless a condition of growth and autonomy. Laing, unlike Macmurray, is perfectly aware of this possibility, and this is why he cannot simply disapprove of the schizoid position. It may, like many so-called psychopathologies, be an adaptive response to a social environment that is far from loving. This is apparent in Laing's consideration of "David" a young man who has grown up in an abusive family, and who has developed into "an ambulatory schizophrenic" (Wisdom 143): In his teens he lives with his father. Father's girlfriend - physically naked - father and girlfriend make love with him around. Father sometimes loses his temper with him, hits him: he feels increasingly abject, cowardly, frightened. He decides to "agree" with everything. He becomes compliant, dishonest, insincere, flatters, internally hates, externally fawns. (Laing, Wisdom 145) David, who is being treated by his father as if he were an unfeeling thing, can regain a sense of agency by cultivating his own Cartesian split: His body: this place of rage, terror, desire and despair. This place of life, which is too harrowing and too fraught with too many conflicts and contradictions that entangle him, that he cannot resolve or transcend. What does he do? He withdraws from his body. He dissociates himself from it. He refuses to be it, live it, inhabit it, permeate it with himself. (Laing, Wisdom 147-48) With this hermeneutic sympathy, intended to recognise the agency of the so-called "patient," Laing intensifies the personalist philosophy of his intellectual context. Macmurray, however, when he turns to "mental illness," lapses into a view of "madness" as existing beyond the frontier of the I-thou relationship: Let us suppose that a teacher of psychology is visited by a pupil who wishes to consult him about the progress of his work . . . As [the interview] proceeds, however, it becomes evident that something is wrong with the pupil. He is in an abnormal state of mind, and the psychologist recognises clear symptoms of hysteria. At once the attitude of the teacher changes. He becomes a professional psychologist, observing and dealing with a classifiable case of mental disorder. From his side the relation has changed from a personal to an impersonal one; he adopts an objective attitude, and the pupil takes on the character of an object to be studied, with the purpose of determining the causation of his behaviour. (Macmurray, Persons 29) Whereas Laing would endeavour to hear the voice of a comprehensible intention, for Macmurray, the mentally "ill" may only be explained in terms of psychological causality: the objective attitude of the psychologist arises from, and is indeed made necessary by, the abnormal condition of the pupil. For the abnormality consists in his inability to enter into normal personal relations with others. This makes the personal attitude impossible in practice. More specifically, the abnormality consists in a loss of freedom - in a partial inability to act. The behaviour of the neurotic is compulsive . . . The motives of his behaviour are no longer under intentional control, and function as "causes" which determine his activity by themselves. This, at least, is the assumption underlying the change of attitude, the assumption that human behaviour is abnormal or irrational when it can only be understood as the effect of a cause, and not by reference to the intention of an agent. (Persons 36) Macmurray again succumbs to an unfortunate residue of theological thinking. Those who, lacking a revelation of the carer's continued love, choose to remain divided selves are exiled from Macmurray's secularised soteriological community. Because they are unable to recognise the gift of the other's grace, they lack suitable inspiration, and may only be compelled by earthly causality. This unwillingness to recognise whole-heartedly the intentionality of the divided self leads Macmurray into the same trap as many medical professionals. We might think, in this context, of the psychiatrist who essentially fails to recognise homosexuals as intentionally homosexual, and who instead relegates their sexuality to a domain of psychological causality. There it may be treated by such means as the conditioning of reflexes or the liberation of repressed affect. Consider also the family doctor who, unable to understand his patient, declares that her depression is not reactive (is not, in other words, a comprehensible form of sadness), and therefore prescribes the chemical intervention appropriate to an endogenous depression. In both these cases, as with Macmurray, there is a depersonalisation of the "patient" by an expert who is unable, or unwilling, to recognise the intentionality of the individual in question. Laing is far from making such rash assumptions. He would regard as naïve any attempt to objectify "madness" into an effect of such causes as infantile trauma, conditioned reflexes, or chemical imbalances in the brain. Laing refuses to reduce the other to a baffling alien being who cannot be known or understood, but only explained in psychodynamic or neurological terms. The task is instead to acknowledge him or her in fullness and spontaneity: It is just possible to have a thorough knowledge of what has been discovered about the hereditary or familial incidence of manic-depressive psychosis or schizophrenia, to have a facility in recognizing schizoid "ego distortion" and schizophrenic ego defects, plus the various "disorders" of thought, memory, perceptions, etc., to know, in fact, just about everything that can be known about the psychopathology of schizophrenia or schizophrenia as a disease without being able to understand one single schizophrenic. Such data are all ways of not understanding him. (Laing, Divided Self 33) We should here recall Laing's famous objection to Kraepelin's observations of a disturbed young man. Laing concludes, "What about the boy's experience...? He seems to be tormented and desperate. What is he 'about' in speaking and acting this way? He is objecting to being measured and tested. He wants to be heard" (Divided Self 31). Conclusion In conclusion, it can be seen that, despite Laing's eventual dissent from his native context, the background of Scottish philosophy is vital to a proper appreciation of his work. Indeed, had this tradition been internationally available when Laing was alive, and had Laing been more willing to acknowledge it, he might well have been appreciated for the rigour and depth of his thought. As this article demonstrates, the work of Baillie and Macmurray defends Laing on at least two fronts. First, he can be protected from the philosophical accusation that the divided self is merely a developed consciousness of what, in truth, is the case for us all. Second, Laing's context brings out the importance of intersubjective recognition for his work, and indicates a possible reconciliation of this aspect with his refusal to invalidate the experience of the schizoid self. Thus, if we approach Laing in the fashion he would advise - that is to say, with a spirit of hermeneutic charity - then we shall be more likely to find not the ravings of a near madman, but the conclusions of a reasoned inquiry. Endnotes An earlier version of this paper was presented on 11 March 2000 to a symposium on John Macmurray organised by the Centre for the History of Ideas in Scotland, University of Edinburgh. Some additional material was also presented on 29th April 2000 to the Writing Taboos conference, School of European Languages and Cultures, French Section, University of Edinburgh.
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References Aristotle. Metaphysics. Trans. W.D. Ross. The Complete Works of Aristotle: the Revised Oxford Translation. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Vol. 2. Princeton: Princeton U, 1984. 1552-1728. 2 vols. Aristotle. Posterior Analytics. Trans. Jonathan Barnes. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Vol 1. Princeton: Princeton U, 1984. 114-66. 2 vols. Baillie, J.B. Studies in Human Nature. London: Bell, 1921. Descartes, René. Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason. Trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross. The Philosophical Works of Descartes. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1911. 81-130. 2 vols. Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G.R.T. Ross. The Philosophical Works of Descartes. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1911. 131-200. 2 vols. Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. ed. by L.A. Selby-Bigge. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978. Laing, R. D. The Divided Self. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Pelican, 1965. Laing, R. D. Wisdom, Madness, and Folly: The Making of a Psychiatrist 1927-57. Canongate Classics 89. Edinburgh: Canongate, 1998. Macmurray, John. Persons in Relation being the Gifford Lectures delivered in the University of Glasgow in 1954 by John Macmurray. London: Faber, 1961. Macmurray, John. The Self as Agent: being the Gifford Lectures delivered in the University of Glasgow in 1953 by John Macmurray. London: Faber and Faber, 1957. de Wulf, M. Scholasticism Old and New: An Introduction to Scholastic Philosophy Medieval and Modern. Trans. P. Coffey. Dublin: Gill, [1907]. |
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