Abstract

In this book Lewis presents the substance of the first series of Gifford Lectures he gave during the period 1966-1968. In sharp contrast to the prevailing views in Anglo-American philosophical circles, this gifted and prolific writer gives a brilliant and persuasive defense of body-mind dualism. In the first three chapters devoted to Ryle, this clever critic makes the creator of the "category-mistake" look like a paradigm of how to fall into it, particularly in his demythologizing of Descartes, in exorcising the "Ghost-in-the-machine," or in searching vainly for volition as an antecedent act rather than an integral component of every concrete purposeful act. Subsequent chapters treat of Hampshire's "New Materialism," Passmore's "Humpty-Dumpty Argument," Malcolm's "Dreaming," Strawson's refutation of the "no-ownership theory," and so on, Each subsequent opponent such as Hirt, Feigl, Smart, etc. come closer in their monism to fingering the "elusive mind," but fail in the last analysis by confusing circumstantial evidence of its presence with what it is in itself, and thus allow it to dissolve, as it were, into something else. Sydney Shoemaker, in Lewis opinion, comes closest to trapping it when he ties it in with the mind's most personal possessions, its memories, yet even he does not go quite far enough. Finally, in chapter nine. Lewis clarifies the logical character of this "elusive self," which, though never found in a pure state, apart from conscious experience, is recognized both as other than any given experience it may be involved in at the moment, and as being one and the same, not in kind, but individually, in each conscious act. Though each of us directly experiences his own "self," and only his own self, it becomes elusive only when we try to say what its otherness and distinctive character consists in; for all descriptions of it, either in terms of its most intimate experiences such as its memories, or its relationship to present or past events, such as its dispositions, its feelings, its knowledge, or volitions, are all couched in general or universal terms, whereas it is uniquely individual. Hence any attempt to say what it is, to define or describe it, will inevitably confuse it in varying degrees with something other than itself. This explains the apparent success of language philosophers in eliminating it by reductive analysis to something familiar and other that can be described. Subsequent chapters are devoted to explaining how we know "other minds," and how far this conception of the elusive mind is compatible or incompatible with that of other philosophers such as Buber, Bradley, Green, Bosanquet, or the "mystics." A final chapter entitled "The Elusive Self and Morals and Religion" gives a preview of what will be dealt with in a sequel to this work, provisionally entitled "The Elusive Self and God." If it lives up to the present volume, it will indeed be something to look forward to.--A. B. W.