AN EXCERPT FROM C. D. BROAD DEFENDING EPIPHENOMENALISM FROM ONE SORT OF ARGUMENT

There is a single paragraph from Broad's monumental classic, The Mind and Its Place in Nature, Routledge & Kegan Paul. London. 1925. p. 470-471, which I will conclude by quoting in full. It is selected as an example of the way an empiricist of Broad's sort argued. Its focus is on the relation of neurology, on the one hand, and sensation and volition, on the other, and it bears on the argument that epiphenomenalism makes it impossible to account for the difference between passive and active experience. As for what 'epiphenomenalism' means, consider Broad's remark made in reply to Wm Kneale's marvelous essay, "Broad on Mental Events and Epiphenomenalism" (The Philosophy of C. D. Broad Edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp. Tudor Publishing. 1959 pp.437-457); it is taken from p. 791 of the Schilpp volume.
I think epiphenomenalism, in the sense in which Mr. Kneale takes it, is equivalent to what T. H. Huxley called the "conscious automaton theory." It may be summed up in the following three propositions: -

(1)An experience is not a state or a modification of any substance, if "substance" be understood to mean a particular existent of a peculiar kind, other than a set of intimately inter-related events, which has qualities, states, and dispositions, but is not a quality or a state or a disposition of anything. (2) The complete immediate cause of any experience is a simultaneous bodily event in the brain or nervous system of some one living organism. (3) No experience is a cause-factor in the total cause of any bodily event. (It is unnecessary to add that no experience is a cause-factor in the total cause of any mental event, for that follows immediately from Proposition (2) above.) So far as I can see, these three propositions are logically independent of each other.

It is worth noting that Broad had earlier, in Mind and Its Place in Nature (p. 118) described one form of mind-body relation as "One-sided Action." There he associates this view with epiphenomenalism in particular, adding that the it can be understood in terms of four propositions:
(1) Certain bodily events cause certain mental events. (2) No mental event plays any part in the causation of any bodily event. (3) No mental event plays any part in the causation of any other mental event. Consequently (4) all mental events are caused by bodily events and by them only. Thus epiphenomenalism is just One-sided Action of Body on Mind, together with a special theory about the nature and structure of mind.
Before citing the passage where Broad discusses passive and active experience, I would urge the reader to consider that Broad is responding in large measure to the sort of view that had been advanced by Bertrand Russell in An Analysis of Mind. Besides that work, which is very much underrated among Russell's works, I would suggest a careful look at the theory of "neutral monism" (James) (Broad's criticisms in MPN are very much worth considering). In connection with neutral monism the reader will find it much to his advantage to carefully examine Ian Gallie's "Mental Facts" in Proc. of the Aristotelian Society 1937. pp. 192-212. I might add here that the following quotation comes from a chapter in Broad's book which was probably less often read than practically any of the others. In the archived material of the philosopher Gustav Bergmann, who used Broad's book in many of his classes, and who described Broad as "the best second rate mind of the twentieth century," there are notes obviously written in rage over how boring this chapter is. Here I disagree with my "hero" Prof. Bergmann; now for the actual quote.
Is there any conclusive objection to a purely physiological theory of traces and dispositions, and to the purely epiphenomenal theory of mind which seems to me too be its natural complement? At first sight there seem to be several objections, and the question is whether they are really conclusive. (1) We have certain experiences in which it seems to us that our minds are acting on our bodies, and we have other experiences in which it seems to us that our bodies are acting on our minds. The voluntary initiation and control of bodily movements is an example of the first kind of experience, and the occurrence of a new sensation is an example of a second kind. Now, it might be said that this distinction between "active" and "passive" experience could not exist, if epiphenomenalism were true; for in all cases our experiences would be merely idle accompaniments of certain physiological processes, and the latter would be the only real "agents". I do not think that this is the right way of putting the case. It is true that the interpretation which we put on this distinction would be mistaken, but it seems to me that the existence of the distinction could be explained perfectly well on the epiphenomenalist theory. Let us consider the observable differences between a volition which is followed by the desired bodily movements, and a sensation which arises when someone sticks a pin into me. The volition forms the end-point of a certain conscious mental process, viz. a process of deliberation, which has a characteristic kind of internal unity. It is no doubt succeeded by other mental events, but they do not form a continuation of the process of deliberation. The subsequent events which are specially closely connected with the volition are simply the sensations due to the bodily movement. Now contrast this with the new sensation. This is not a continuation of any conscious mental process which was going on before it happened, though it may form the starting point of a characteristic conscious mental process which succeeds it. The previous events with which it is most closely connected are events in my body which are unaccompanied by conscious mental events. We feel "passive" par excellence at those critical points where a physiological process which is not accompanied by consciousness passes into a physiological process which is accompanied by consciousness of a characteristic kind. We feel "active" par excellence at those critical points where a physiological process which has been accompanied by a series of mental events so related as to form a single conscious process passes into a physiological process which is either not accompanied by consciousness at all or is accompanied by mental events which are not continuations of the previous conscious mental process. Thus epiphenomenalism would seem to be quite capable of accounting for the existence of the distinction in question.

It is worth remarking that much of the discussion of epiphenomenalism as well as other significant issues in philosophy of mind, e.g., phenomenalism, would be changed radically following what Bergmann described as the "linguistic turn." The above is a small specimen of analysis prior the transformation brought about by the linguistic turn.

Steve Bayne (www.hist-analytic.org)