identity representation theory

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Identity Theory

Professor of Sociology

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The concept of identity has become widespread within the social and behavioral sciences in recent years, cutting across disciplines from psychiatry and psychology to political science and sociology. All individuals claim particular identities given their roles in society, groups they belong to, and characteristics that describe themselves. Introduced almost thirty years ago, identity theory is a social psychological theory that attempts to understand identities, their sources in interaction and society, their processes of operation, and their consequences for interaction and society from a sociological perspective. This book describes identity theory, its origins, the research that supports it, and its future direction. It covers the relation between identity theory and other related theories, as well as the nature and operation of identities. In addition, the book discusses the multiple identities individuals hold from their multiple positions in society and organizations as well as the multiple identities activated by many people interacting in groups and organizations. Finally, it covers the manner in which identities offer both stability and change to individuals. Step by step, the book makes the full range of this powerful new theory understandable.

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Article contents

Social representation theory: an historical outline.

• Wolfgang Wagner Wolfgang Wagner Institute of Psychology, University of Tartu, Estonia
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.606
• Published online: 30 July 2020

The concept of social representation (SR) was developed by Serge Moscovici in 1961 as a social psychological approach articulating individual thinking and feeling with collective interaction and communication. SRs are conceived as symbolic forms that come about through interpersonal and media communication. They are the ways individuals think, interact with others, and shape social objects in their interaction with the local world.

This text presents an outline of the history of social representation theory (SRT), using a four-period model: first, creation and incubation in France starting with Moscovici’s first book; second, the opening to the English-speaking academe around 1980; third, institutionalization and proliferation with the start of the journal papers on SRs and regular conferences in 1992; and, fourth, normalization, approximately from 2000 onwards.

The first period (1961–1984) started with Serge Moscovici’s first presentation of his ideas in a French-language volume on “La psychanalyse son image et son public.” This was republished in an updated version in 1976 and translated into English in 2008. The theory postulates cognitive and social factors in the genesis and structure of SRs. These are accompanied by specific styles of communication that reflect the communicators’ identity and ideology. Together these aspects constitute common sense.

The first period was a time of incubation because Moscovici and his first PhD students, Claudine Herzlich, Denise Jodelet, and Jean-Claude Abric, tried the concept in different domains. The second half of this period saw Moscovici and collaborators extend SRT’s theoretical frame to include the idea of consensual vs. reified domains. A consensual domain of communication is characterized by the free interchange of attitudes and opinions, while a reified domain is determined by institutionalized rules. Moscovici also postulated a process of cognitive polyphasia. By cognitive polyphasia he described a phenomenon where individuals use different and even contradictory thoughts about the same issue depending on the social setting they are in.

The year 1984 marked the publication of a book for English-speaking scholars edited by Robert Farr and Moscovici that collected papers from an international conference in 1979. It was the first book-length collection of works on SRT and highlighted empirical research by a variety of international scholars. The period following 1979 through to 1992 saw a broadening of the base of scholars becoming interested in SRT. The 1980s brought Willem Doise’s conceptualizing of anchoring as a process of social marking, Abric’s theory of core and peripheral elements of a representation, and Hilde Himmelweit’s founding of a societal psychology.

Proliferation was boosted 1992 by the founding of the journal Papers on Social Representations and the beginning of a biannual series of International Conferences on Social Representations, starting in 1992. This increased the international visibility of SRT and helped scholars to organize themselves around topics and form cross-national research groups.

The period from 1992 to the first decade of the new century was characterized by an increasing number of empirical and theoretical studies. A series of theoretical branches emerged: there was research on the micro-genesis of SRs on the individual level, an extension of the structural theory of SRs, the discussion of the socially constructive aspects and sociopolitical uses of SRT, the design of a dialogical approach to the mind and social life, and Moscovici’s suggestion to consider large-scale themata as a factor in social thinking.

If the period after 1992 was a time of institutionalization, the time after the turn of the century can be called a period of normalization. That is, a period when SRT was presented in chapters for handbooks of social psychology and when dedicated handbooks and monographs were published. From this period onward it becomes virtually impossible to give even a superficial account of the most important contributions to SRT’s burgeoning field of research and theory development.

• social sciences
• social psychology
• history of psychology
• social representations
• social construction

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Social Identity Theory In Psychology (Tajfel & Turner, 1979)

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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Social Identity Theory, proposed by Henri Tajfel and John Turner in the 1970s, posits that individuals derive a portion of their self-concept from their membership in social groups.

The theory seeks to explain the cognitive processes and social conditions underlying intergroup behaviors, especially those related to prejudice, bias, and discrimination.

Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s).

Tajfel and Turner (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g., social class, family, football team, etc.) people belonged to were important sources of pride and self-esteem.

Social identity groups can give you a sense of:

• Belonging : Being part of a group can instill feelings of connection and unity, giving individuals the comforting sense that they’re not alone in their experiences or perspectives.
• Purpose : Group affiliations often come with shared goals or missions, which can provide direction and purpose to individual members.
• Self-worth : Affiliating with a group can boost self-esteem as individuals derive pride from group achievements and a positive group image.
• Identity : Groups provide a framework to understand oneself in the context of a larger community. They can help define who you are based on shared attributes, values, or goals.

1. Social Categorization

This refers to the tendency of people to classify themselves and others into various social groups based on attributes like race, gender, nationality, or religion.

We categorize objects to understand them and identify them. In a very similar way, we categorize people (including ourselves) to understand the social environment.  We use social categories like black, white, Australian, Christian, Muslim, student, and bus driver because they are useful.

Categorization helps individuals simplify the social environment but can also lead to stereotyping. If we can assign people to a category, that tells us things about those people.

Similarly, we find out things about ourselves by knowing what categories we belong to.  We define appropriate behavior by referencing the norms of groups we belong to, but you can only do this if you can tell who belongs to your group. An individual can belong to many different groups.

For example, you have categorized yourself as a student, chances are you will adopt the identity of a student and begin to act the ways you believe student act.

2. Social Identification

Once individuals categorize themselves as members of a particular group, they adopt the identity of that group. This means they begin to see themselves in terms of group characteristics and adopt its norms, values, and behaviors.

If for example you have categorized yourself as a student, the chances are you will adopt the identity of a student and begin to act in the ways you believe students act (and conform to the norms of the group).

There will be an emotional significance to your identification with a group, and your self-esteem will become bound up with group membership.

3. Social Comparison

After categorizing and identifying with a group, individuals compare their group to others. This comparison is often biased in favor of one’s own group, leading to in-group favoritism.

This is critical to understanding prejudice, because once two groups identify themselves as rivals, they are forced to compete in order for the members to maintain their self-esteem.

Competition and hostility between groups is thus not only a matter of competing for resources (like in  Sherif’s Robbers Cave ) like jobs but also the result of competing identities.

4. In-group (us) and Out-group (them)

Within the context of SIT, the ‘in-group’ refers to the group with which an individual identifies, while ‘out-group’ pertains to groups they don’t identify with.

The theory asserts that people have a natural inclination to perceive their in-group in a positive light while being neutral or even negative towards out-groups, thus enhancing their self-image .

5. Positive Distinctiveness

The desire for positive self-esteem will motivate one’s in-group to be perceived as positively different or distinct from relevant out-groups.

Prejudiced views between cultures may result in racism; in its extreme forms, racism may result in genocide, such as occurred in Germany with the Jews, in Rwanda between the Hutus and Tutsis, and, more recently, in the former Yugoslavia between the Bosnians and Serbs.

Examples of In-groups and Out-groups

It’s important to note that ingroups and outgroups are fluid concepts. The group an individual identifies with can change based on context, environment, or over time.

Moreover, everyone belongs to multiple ingroups across different facets of their identity. The categorization into ingroups and outgroups also plays a significant role in intergroup dynamics, biases, and conflicts.

Ethnicity & Race:

• Ingroup : Someone of Chinese descent might identify with other Chinese individuals.
• Outgroup : The same individual might see people of Japanese or Indian descent as an outgroup.
• Ingroup : A Christian might identify with other Christians.
• Outgroup : Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists might be perceived as outgroups to Christians.

Nationality:

• Ingroup : An American might feel a kinship with fellow Americans.
• Outgroup : Canadians, Mexicans, or Britons might be seen as outgroups.

Professional Affiliation:

• Ingroup : Teachers might see other teachers as part of their ingroup.
• Outgroup : They might see administrators, policymakers, or even other professions like lawyers or doctors as outgroups.

Sports Teams:

• Ingroup : A fan of the New York Yankees might identify with fellow Yankees fans.
• Outgroup : Boston Red Sox fans could be perceived as the outgroup.

Political Affiliation:

• Ingroup : A Republican might feel aligned with fellow Republicans.
• Outgroup : Democrats, Libertarians, or members of other political parties might be seen as outgroups.
• Ingroup : Teenagers might feel that other teens understand their experiences and challenges best.
• Outgroup : They might see adults, especially older adults, as an outgroup.

Musical Preference:

• Ingroup : Fans of heavy metal music might identify with fellow metalheads.
• Outgroup : Fans of pop, country, or classical music might be perceived as outgroups.

Educational Institutions:

• Ingroup : Alumni of a particular university might feel a sense of camaraderie with fellow alumni.
• Outgroup : Alumni from rival universities might be seen as the outgroup.

Gender and Sexual Orientation:

• Ingroup : LGBTQ+ individuals might feel a sense of belonging with others who identify similarly.
• Outgroup : Heterosexual individuals or those who aren’t supportive might be perceived as outgroups.

Implications

• In-group Favoritism : Because individuals seek positive self-esteem, they are inclined to favor and promote their in-group at the expense of out-groups. This can manifest in various ways, from simple preference to allocating more resources to in-group members.
• Stereotyping and Prejudice : By categorizing people into groups, there’s a risk of overemphasizing similarities within groups and differences between them, leading to stereotyping. Coupled with the natural bias towards one’s own group, this can foster prejudice against out-groups.
• Intergroup Conflict : When competition or perceived threats exist between groups, or when resources are scarce, the dynamics described by SIT can intensify, leading to intergroup hostility and conflict.
• Shifts in Group Membership : SIT suggests that if individuals feel their current group membership is not providing positive self-esteem, they may either seek to elevate the status of their current group or abandon it in favor of another group that offers a more positive identity.

Applications

• Reducing Prejudice : By recognizing the mechanisms that lead to in-group bias and out-group prejudice, interventions can be designed to foster intergroup understanding and cooperation.
• Organizational Behavior : Within organizations, understanding group dynamics can be instrumental in team formation, conflict resolution, and promoting corporate identity.
• Political and Social Movements : SIT can provide insights into the formation and mobilization of social or political groups, including understanding factors that lead to radicalization. Social identity theory is useful for political psychologists because it addresses intergroup relations, but it has limitations in explaining real-world political identities.

Key issues limiting social identity theory’s application to politics are: 1) Choice in acquiring identities versus assigned identities; 2) Subjective meaning of identities rather than just boundaries; 3) Gradual strength of identification rather than just its existence; 4) Stability of identities over time rather than high fluidity.

Key issues limiting social identity theory’s application to politics are : 1) Choice in acquiring identities versus assigned identities; 2) Subjective meaning of identities rather than just boundaries; 3) Gradual strength of identification rather than just its existence; 4) Stability of identities over time rather than high fluidity.

Research priorities include: studying real-world political identities varying in strength; examining identity formation/development, not just consequences; understanding individual differences in adopting identities; and investigating the meaning of identities based on values, prototypes, valence for members, and contrast with outgroups.

Critical Evaluation

The social identity approach explains group phenomena based on social context, categorization, identity, norms, and status. It shed new light on old topics like crowd behavior, stereotyping, social influence, cohesion, and polarization with its emphasis on collective psychology.

• The approach is one of the only broad meta-theories in social psychology that integrates concepts across an impressive range of domains.
• The theory revolutionized the field of social psychology and had a major influence on research into prejudice, stereotyping, social influence, and intergroup conflict (Hornsey, 2008).
• It has extensive empirical support. The minimal group paradigm remains a widely-used tool.

Yet theorists debate whether the original formulation oversimplified the complex relationship between personal and collective identity.

Depersonalization may also be overstated, as group members accept diverse opinions. The theory’s breadth and multifaceted nature make it hard to falsify.

Critics argue it focuses more on ingroup favoritism than outgroup negativity. And its meta-theoretical scope sometimes comes at the cost of precise, testable hypotheses.

Recent evolutions in the social identity approach sought to address some limitations. Theorists now embrace a more nuanced perspective, acknowledging the interplay between personal and social identity. The self-concept is seen as fluid, with individuals shaping group norms as well as vice-versa.

Distinctiveness and belonging are recognized as concurrent human needs. This fueled research on subgroups, deviance, and the motivational significance of inclusion versus differentiation.

New research also expanded the outcomes examined to cover emotions and historical memory. It delved into the most inclusive level of human identity. Applications proliferated in justice, leadership, communication, politics, and especially organizational psychology.

The approach is increasingly prominent in understanding responses to stigmatized identities, collective action, political conflicts, and intergroup contact.

Ingroups are studied not as monoliths but as complex entities with dissenting voices. Overall, social identity theory remains vibrant and influential, broad-reaching across psychology.

Keep Learning

• If your identity is a definition of who you are, then how does your affiliation with multiple groups affect it?
• Can one truly understand the experiences of an outgroup without having been a part of it?
• How do experiences of discrimination or privilege, based on social identities, shape an individual’s understanding of societal structures?
• In what ways does social identity contribute to societal cohesion, and conversely, societal division?

Huddy, L. (2001). From social to political identity: A critical examination of social identity theory.  Political Psychology ,  22 (1), 127-156.

Tajfel, H., Turner, J. C., Austin, W. G., & Worchel, S. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. Organizational identity: A reader , 56-65.

Billig, M., & Tajfel, H. (1973). Social categorization and similarity in inter-group behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 3, 27–52.

Brewer, M. B. (1979). In-group bias in the minimal inter-group situation: A cognitive motivational analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 307–324.

Brown, R. (2000). Social identity theory: Past achievements, current problems and future challenges. European journal of social psychology ,  30 (6), 745-778.

Deaux, K. (1993). Reconstructing social identity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19 , 4–12.

Ethier, K. A., & Deaux, K. (1994). Negotiating social identity when contexts change: Maintaining identification and responding to threat. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 243–251.

Flippen, A. R., Hornstein, H. A., Siegal, W. E., & Weitzman, E. A. (1996). A comparison of similarity and interdependence as triggers for in-group formation. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22 , 882–893.

Hogg, M. A., Terry, D. J., & White, K. M. (1995). A tale of two theories: A critical comparison of identity theory with social learning theory. Social Psychology Quarterly, 58 , 255–269.

Jackson, J. W., & Smith, E. R. (1999). Conceptualizing social identity: A new framework and evidence for the impact of different dimensions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25 , 120–135.

Karasawa, M. (1991). Toward an assessment of social identity: The structure of group identification and its effects on in-group evaluations. British Journal of Social Psychology, 30 , 293–307.

Mummendey, A., & Schreiber, H. J. (1984). “Different” just means “better”: Some obvious and some hidden pathways to in-group favouritism. British Journal of Social Psychology, 23, 363–368.

Noel, J. G., Wann, D. L., & Branscombe, N. R. (1995). Peripheral ingroup membership status and public negativity toward outgroups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68 , 127–137.

Tajfel, H., Billig, M. G., & Bundy, R. P. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1 , 149–178.

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–48). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

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The Mind/Brain Identity Theory

The identity theory of mind holds that states and processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain. Strictly speaking, it need not hold that the mind is identical to the brain. Idiomatically we do use ‘She has a good mind’ and ‘She has a good brain’ interchangeably but we would hardly say ‘Her mind weighs fifty ounces’. Here I take identifying mind and brain as being a matter of identifying processes and perhaps states of the mind and brain. Consider an experience of pain, or of seeing something, or of having a mental image. The identity theory of mind is to the effect that these experiences just are brain processes, not merely correlated with brain processes.

Some philosophers hold that though experiences are brain processes they nevertheless have fundamentally non-physical, psychical, properties, sometimes called ‘qualia’. Here I shall take the identity theory as denying the existence of such irreducible non-physical properties. Some identity theorists give a behaviouristic analysis of mental states , such as beliefs and desires, but others, sometimes called ‘central state materialists’, say that mental states are actual brain states. Identity theorists often describe themselves as ‘materialists’ but ‘physicalists’ may be a better word. That is, one might be a materialist about mind but nevertheless hold that there are entities referred to in physics that are not happily described as ‘material’.

In taking the identity theory (in its various forms) as a species of physicalism, I should say that this is an ontological, not a translational physicalism. It would be absurd to try to translate sentences containing the word ‘brain’ or the word ‘sensation’ into sentences about electrons, protons and so on. Nor can we so translate sentences containing the word ‘tree’. After all ‘tree’ is largely learned ostensively, and is not even part of botanical classification. If we were small enough a dandelion might count as a tree. Nevertheless a physicalist could say that trees are complicated physical mechanisms. The physicalist will deny strong emergence in the sense of some philosophers, such as Samuel Alexander and possibly C.D. Broad. The latter remarked (Broad 1937) that as far as was known at that time the properties of common salt cannot be deduced from the properties of sodium in isolation and of chlorine in isolation. (He put it too epistemologically: chaos theory shows that even in a deterministic theory physical consequences can outrun predictability.) Of course the physicalist will not deny the harmless sense of "emergence" in which an apparatus is not just a jumble of its parts (Smart 1981).

1. Historical Antecedents

2. the nature of the identity theory, 3. phenomenal properties and topic-neutral analyses, 4. causal role theories, 5. functionalism and identity theory, 6. type and token identity theories, 7. consciousness, 8. later objections to the identity theory, other internet resources, related entries.

The identity theory as I understand it here goes back to U.T. Place and Herbert Feigl in the 1950s. Historically philosophers and scientists, for example Leucippus, Hobbes, La Mettrie, and d'Holbach, as well as Karl Vogt who, following Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis, made the preposterous remark (perhaps not meant to be taken too seriously) that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile, have embraced materialism. However, here I shall date interest in the identity theory from the pioneering papers ‘Is Consciousness a Brain Process?’ by U.T. Place (Place 1956) and H. Feigl ‘The "Mental" and the "Physical"’ (Feigl 1958). Nevertheless mention should be made of suggestions by Rudolf Carnap (1932, p. 127), H. Reichenbach (1938) and M. Schlick (1935). Reichenbach said that mental events can be identified by the corresponding stimuli and responses much as the (possibly unknown) internal state of a photo-electric cell can be identified by the stimulus (light falling on it) and response (electric current flowing) from it. In both cases the internal states can be physical states. However Carnap did regard the identity as a linguistic recommendation rather than as asserting a question of fact. See his ‘Herbert Feigl on Physicalism’ in Schilpp (1963), especially p. 886. The psychologist E.G. Boring (1933) may well have been the first to use the term ‘identity theory’. See Place (1990).

Place's very original and pioneering paper was written after discussions at the University of Adelaide with J.J.C. Smart and C.B. Martin. For recollections of Martin's contributions to the discussion see Place (1989) ‘Low Claim Assertions’ in Heil (1989). Smart at the time argued for a behaviourist position in which mental events were elucidated purely in terms of hypothetical propositions about behaviour, as well as first person reports of experiences which Gilbert Ryle regarded as ‘avowals’. Avowals were thought of as mere pieces of behaviour, as if saying that one had a pain was just doing a sophisticated sort of wince. Smart saw Ryle's theory as friendly to physicalism though that was not part of Ryle's motivation. Smart hoped that the hypotheticals would ultimately be explained by neuroscience and cybernetics. Being unable to refute Place, and recognizing the unsatisfactoriness of Ryle's treatment of inner experience, to some extent recognized by Ryle himself (Ryle 1949, p. 240), Smart soon became converted to Place's view (Smart 1959). In this he was also encouraged and influenced by Feigl's ‘"The Mental" and the "Physical" ’ (Feigl 1958, 1967). Feigl's wide ranging contribution covered many problems, including those connected with intentionality, and he introduced the useful term ‘nomological danglers’ for the dualists' supposed mental-physical correlations. They would dangle from the nomological net of physical science and should strike one as implausible excrescences on the fair face of science. Feigl (1967) contains a valuable ‘Postscript’.

Place spoke of constitution rather than of identity. One of his examples is ‘This table is an old packing case’. Another is ‘lightning is an electric discharge’. Indeed this latter was foreshadowed by Place in his earlier paper ‘The Concept of Heed’ (Place 1954), in which he took issue with Ryle's behaviourism as it applied to concepts of consciousness, sensation and imagery. Place remarked (p. 255)

The logical objections which might be raised to the statement ‘consciousness is a process in the brain’ are no greater than the logical objections which might be raised to the statement ‘lightning is a motion of electric charges’.

It should be noticed that Place was using the word ‘logical’ in the way that it was used at Oxford at the time, not in the way that it is normally used now. One objection was that ‘sensation’ does not mean the same as ‘brain process’. Place's reply was to point out that ‘this table’ does not mean the same as ‘this old packing case’ and ‘lightning’ does not mean the same as ‘motion of electric charges’. We find out whether this is a table in a different way from the way in which we find out that it is an old packing case. We find out whether a thing is lightning by looking and that it is a motion of electric charges by theory and experiment. This does not prevent the table being identical to the old packing case and the perceived lightning being nothing other than an electric discharge. Feigl and Smart put the matter more in terms of the distinction between meaning and reference. ‘Sensation’ and ‘brain process’ may differ in meaning and yet have the same reference. ‘Very bright planet seen in the morning’ and ‘very bright planet seen in the evening’ both refer to the same entity Venus. (Of course these expressions could be construed as referring to different things, different sequences of temporal stages of Venus, but not necessarily or most naturally so.)

There did seem to be a tendency among philosophers to have thought that identity statements needed to be necessary and a priori truths. However identity theorists have treated ‘sensations are brain processes’ as contingent. We had to find out that the identity holds. Aristotle, after all, thought that the brain was for cooling the blood. Descartes thought that consciousness is immaterial.

It was sometimes objected that sensation statements are incorrigible whereas statements about brains are corrigible. The inference was made that there must be something different about sensations. Ryle and in effect Wittgenstein toyed with the attractive but quite implausible notion that ostensible reports of immediate experience are not really reports but are ‘avowals’, as if my report that I have toothache is just a sophisticated sort of wince. Place, influenced by Martin, was able to explain the relative incorrigibility of sensation statements by their low claims: ‘I see a bent oar’ makes a bigger claim than ‘It looks to me that there is a bent oar’. Nevertheless my sensation and my putative awareness of the sensation are distinct existences and so, by Hume's principle, it must be possible for one to occur without the other. One should deny anything other than a relative incorrigibility (Place 1989).

As remarked above, Place preferred to express the theory by the notion of constitution, whereas Smart preferred to make prominent the notion of identity as it occurs in the axioms of identity in logic. So Smart had to say that if sensation X is identical to brain process Y then if Y is between my ears and is straight or circular (absurdly to oversimplify) then the sensation X is between my ears and is straight or circular. Of course it is not presented to us as such in experience. Perhaps only the neuroscientist could know that it is straight or circular. The professor of anatomy might be identical with the dean of the medical school. A visitor might know that the professor hiccups in lectures but not know that the dean hiccups in lectures.

Someone might object that the dean of the medical school does not qua dean hiccup in lectures. Qua dean he goes to meetings with the vice-chancellor. This is not to the point but there is a point behind it. This is that the property of being the professor of anatomy is not identical with the property of being the dean of the medical school. The question might be asked, that even if sensations are identical with brain processes, are there not introspected non-physical properties of sensations that are not identical with properties of brain processes? How would a physicalist identity theorist deal with this? The answer (Smart 1959) is that the properties of experiences are ‘topic neutral’. Smart adapted the words ‘topic-neutral’ from Ryle, who used them to characterise words such as ‘if, ‘or’, ‘and’, ‘not’, ‘because’. If you overheard only these words in a conversation you would not be able to tell whether the conversation was one of mathematics, physics, geology, history, theology, or any other subject. Smart used the words ‘topic neutral’ in the narrower sense of being neutral between physicalism and dualism. For example ‘going on’, ‘occurring’, ‘intermittent’, ‘waxing’, ‘waning’ are topic neutral. So is ‘me’ in so far as it refers to the utterer of the sentence in question. Thus to say that a sensation is caused by lightning or the presence of a cabbage before my eyes leaves it open as to whether the sensation is non-physical as the dualist believes or is physical as the materialist believes. This sentence also is neutral as to whether the properties of the sensation are physical or whether some of them are irreducibly psychical. To see how this idea can be applied to the present purpose let us consider the following example.

Suppose that I have a yellow, green and purple striped mental image. We may also introduce the philosophical term ‘sense datum’ to cover the case of seeing or seeming to see something yellow, green and purple: we say that we have a yellow, green and purple sense datum. That is I would see or seem to see, for example, a flag or an array of lamps which is green, yellow and purple striped. Suppose also, as seems plausible, that there is nothing yellow, green and purple striped in the brain. Thus it is important for identity theorists to say (as indeed they have done) that sense data and images are not part of the furniture of the world. ‘I have a green sense datum’ is really just a way of saying that I see or seem to see something that really is green. This move should not be seen as merely an ad hoc device, since Ryle and J.L. Austin, in effect Wittgenstein, and others had provided arguments, as when Ryle argued that mental images were not a sort of ghostly picture postcard. Place characterised the fallacy of thinking that when we perceive something green we are perceiving something green in the mind as ‘the phenomenological fallacy’. He characterizes this fallacy (Place 1956):

the mistake of supposing that when the subject describes his experience, when he describes how things look, sound, smell, taste, or feel to him, he is describing the literal properties of objects and events on a peculiar sort of internal cinema or television screen, usually referred to in the modern psychological literature as the ‘phenomenal field’.

Of course, as Smart recognised, this leaves the identity theory dependent on a physicalist account of colour . His early account of colour (1961) was too behaviourist, and could not deal, for example, with the reversed spectrum problem, but he later gave a realist and objectivist account (Smart 1975). Armstrong had been realist about colour but Smart worried that if so colour would be a very idiosyncratic and disjunctive concept, of no cosmic importance, of no interest to extraterrestrials (for instance) who had different visual systems. Prompted by Lewis in conversation Smart came to realize that this was no objection to colours being objective properties.

One first gives the notion of a normal human percipient with respect to colour for which there are objective tests in terms of ability to make discriminations with respect to colour. This can be done without circularity. Thus ‘discriminate with respect to colour’ is a more primitive notion than is that of colour. (Compare the way that in set theory ‘equinumerous’ is antecedent to ‘number’.) Then Smart elucidated the notion of colour in terms of the discriminations with respect to colour of normal human percipients in normal conditions (say cloudy Scottish daylight). This account of colour may be disjunctive and idiosyncratic. (Maxwell's equations might be of interest to Alpha Centaurians but hardly our colour concepts.) Anthropocentric and disjunctive they may be, but objective none the less. David R. Hilbert (1987) identifies colours with reflectances, thus reducing the idiosyncrasy and disjunctiveness. A few epicycles are easily added to deal with radiated light, the colours of rainbows or the sun at sunset and the colours due to diffraction from feathers. John Locke was on the right track in making the secondary qualities objective as powers in the object, but erred in making these powers to be powers to produce ideas in the mind rather than to make behavioural discriminations. (Also Smart would say that if powers are dispositions we should treat the secondary qualities as the categorical bases of these powers, e.g. in the case of colours properties of the surfaces of objects.) Locke's view suggested that the ideas have mysterious qualia observed on the screen of an internal mental theatre. However to do Locke justice he does not talk in effect of ‘red ideas’ but of ‘ideas of red’. Philosophers who elucidate ‘is red’ in terms of ‘looks red’ have the matter the wrong way round (Smart 1995).

Let us return to the issue of us having a yellow, purple and green striped sense datum or mental image and yet there being no yellow, purple and green striped thing in the brain. The identity theorist (Smart 1959) can say that sense data and images are not real things in the world: they are like the average plumber. Sentences ostensibly about the average plumber can be translated into, or elucidated in terms of, sentences about plumbers. So also there is having a green sense datum or image but not sense data or images, and the having of a green sense datum or image is not itself green. So it can, so far as this goes, easily be a brain process which is not green either.

Thus Place (1956, p. 49):

When we describe the after-image as green... we are saying that we are having the sort of experience which we normally have when, and which we have learned to described as, looking at a green patch of light.

and Smart (1959) says:

When a person says ‘I see a yellowish-orange after-image’ he is saying something like this: " There is something going on which is like what is going on when I have my eyes open, am awake, and there is an orange illuminated in good light in front of me".

Quoting these passages, David Chalmers (1996, p. 360) objects that if ‘something is going on’ is construed broadly enough it is inadequate, and if it is construed narrowly enough to cover only experiential states (or processes) it is not sufficient for the conclusion. Smart would counter this by stressing the word ‘typically’. Of course a lot of things go on in me when I have a yellow after image (for example my heart is pumping blood through my brain). However they do not typically go on then: they go on at other times too. Against Place Chalmers says that the word ‘experience’ is unanalysed and so Place's analysis is insufficient towards establishing an identity between sensations and brain processes. As against Smart he says that leaving the word ‘experience’ out of the analysis renders it inadequate. That is, he does not accept the ‘topic-neutral’ analysis. Smart hopes, and Chalmers denies, that the account in terms of ‘typically of’ saves the topic-neutral analysis. In defence of Place one might perhaps say that it is not clear that the word ‘experience’ cannot be given a topic neutral analysis, perhaps building on Farrell (1950). If we do not need the word ‘experience’ neither do we need the word ‘mental’. Rosenthal (1994) complains (against the identity theorist) that experiences have some characteristically mental properties, and that ‘We inevitably lose the distinctively mental if we construe these properties as neither physical nor mental’. Of course to be topic neutral is to be able to be both physical and mental, just as arithmetic is. There is no need for the word ‘mental’ itself to occur in the topic neutral formula. ‘Mental’, as Ryle (1949) suggests, in its ordinary use is a rather grab-bag term, ‘mental arithmetic’, ‘mental illness’, etc. with which an identity theorist finds no trouble.

In their accounts of mind, David Lewis and D.M. Armstrong emphasise the notion of causality. Lewis's 1966 was a particularly clear headed presentation of the identity theory in which he says (I here refer to the reprint in Lewis 1983, p. 100):

My argument is this: The definitive characteristic of any (sort of) experience as such is its causal role, its syndrome of most typical causes and effects. But we materialists believe that these causal roles which belong by analytic necessity to experiences belong in fact to certain physical states. Since these physical states possess the definitive character of experiences, they must be experiences.

Similarly, Robert Kirk (1999) has argued for the impossibility of zombies. If the supposed zombie has all the behavioural and neural properties ascribed to it by those who argue from the possibility of zombies against materialism, then the zombie is conscious and so not a zombie.

Thus there is no need for explicit use of Ockham's Razor as in Smart (1959) though not in Place (1956). (See Place 1960.) Lewis's paper was extremely valuable and already there are hints of a marriage between the identity theory of mind and so-called ‘functionalist’ ideas that are explicit in Lewis 1972 and 1994. In his 1972 (‘Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications’) he applies ideas in his more formal paper ‘How to Define Theoretical Terms’ (1970). Folk psychology contains words such as ‘sensation’, ‘perceive’, ‘belief, ‘desire’, ‘emotion’, etc. which we recognise as psychological. Words for colours, smells, sounds, tastes and so on also occur. One can regard common sense platitudes containing both these sorts of these words as constituting a theory and we can take them as theoretical terms of common sense psychology and thus as denoting whatever entities or sorts of entities uniquely realise the theory. Then if certain neural states do so too (as we believe) then the mental states must be these neural states. In his 1994 he allows for tact in extracting a consistent theory from common sense. One cannot uncritically collect platitudes, just as in producing a grammar, implicit in our speech patterns, one must allow for departures from what on our best theory would constitute grammaticality.

A great advantage of this approach over the early identity theory is its holism. Two features of this holism should be noted. One is that the approach is able to allow for the causal interactions between brain states and processes themselves, as well as in the case of external stimuli and responses. Another is the ability to draw on the notion of Ramseyfication of a theory. F.P. Ramsey had shown how to replace the theoretical terms of a theory such as ‘the property of being an electron’ by ‘the property X such that...’. so that when this is done for all the theoretical terms, we are left only with ‘property X such that’, ‘property Y such that’ etc. Take the terms describing behaviour as the observation terms and psychological terms as the theoretical ones of folk psychology. Then Ramseyfication shows that folk psychology is compatible with materialism. This seems right, though perhaps the earlier identity theory deals more directly with reports of immediate experience.

The causal approach was also characteristic of D.M. Armstrong's careful conceptual analysis of mental states and processes, such as perception and the secondary qualities, sensation, consciousness, belief, desire, emotion, voluntary action, in his A Materialist Theory of the Mind (1968a) with a second edition (1993) containing a valuable new preface. Parts I and II of this book are concerned with conceptual analysis, paving the way for a contingent identification of mental states and processes with material ones. As had Brian Medlin, in an impressive critique of Ryle and defence of materialism (Medlin 1967), Armstrong preferred to describe the identity theory as ‘Central State Materialism’. Independently of Armstrong and Lewis, Medlin's central state materialism depended, as theirs did, on a causal analysis of concepts of mental states and processes. See Medlin 1967, and 1969 (including endnote 1).

Mention should particularly be made here of two of Armstrong's other books, one on perception (1961), and one on bodily sensations, (1962). Armstrong thought of perception as coming to believe by means of the senses (compare also Pitcher 1971). This combines the advantages of Direct Realism with hospitality towards the scientific causal story which had been thought to have supported the earlier representative theory of perception. Armstrong regarded bodily sensations as perceptions of states of our body. Of course the latter may be mixed up with emotional states, as an itch may include a propensity to scratch, and contrariwise in exceptional circumstances pain may be felt without distress. However, Armstrong sees the central notion here as that of perception. This suggests a terminological problem. Smart had talked of visual sensations. These were not perceptions but something which occurred in perception. So in this sense of ‘sensation’ there should be bodily sensation sensations. The ambiguity could perhaps be resolved by using the word ‘sensing’ in the context of ‘visual’, ‘auditory’, ‘tactile’ and ‘bodily’, so that bodily sensations would be perceivings which involved introspectible ‘sensings’. These bodily sensations are perceptions and there can be misperceptions as when a person with his foot amputated can think that he has a pain in the foot. He has a sensing ‘having a pain in the foot’ but the world does not contain a pain in the foot, just as it does not contain sense data or images but does contain havings of sense data and of images.

Armstrong's central state materialism involved identifying beliefs and desires with states of the brain (1968a). Smart came to agree with this. On the other hand Place resisted the proposal to extend the identity theory to dispositional states such as beliefs and desires. He stressed that we do not have privileged access to our beliefs and desires. Like Ryle he thought of beliefs and desires as to be elucidated by means of hypothetical statements about behaviour and gave the analogy of the horsepower of a car (Place 1967). However he held that the dispute here is not so much about the neural basis of mental states as about the nature of dispositions. His views on dispositions are argued at length in his debate with Armstrong and Martin (Armstrong, Martin and Place, T. Crane (ed.) 1996). Perhaps we can be relaxed about whether mental states such as beliefs and desires are dispositions or are topic neutrally described neurophysiological states and return to what seems to be the more difficult issue of consciousness. Causal identity theories are closely related to Functionalism, to be discussed in the next section. Smart had been wary of the notion of causality in metaphysics believing that it had no place in theoretical physics. However even so he should have admitted it in folk psychology and also in scientific psychology and biology generally, in which physics and chemistry are applied to explain generalisations rather than strict laws. If folk psychology uses the notion of causality, it is no matter if it is what Quine has called second grade discourse, involving the very contextual notions of modality.

It has commonly been thought that the identity theory has been superseded by a theory called ‘functionalism’. It could be argued that functionalists greatly exaggerate their difference from identity theorists. Indeed some philosophers, such as Lewis (1972 and 1994) and Jackson, Pargetter and Prior (1982), have seen functionalism as a route towards an identity theory.

Like Lewis and Armstrong, functionalists define mental states and processes in terms of their causal relations to behaviour but stop short of identifying them with their neural realisations. Of course the term ‘functionalism’ has been used vaguely and in different ways, and it could be argued that even the theories of Place, Smart and Armstrong were at bottom functionalist. The word ‘functionalist’ has affinities with that of ‘function’ in mathematics and also with that of ‘function’ in biology. In mathematics a function is a set of ordered n-tuples. Similarly if mental processes are defined directly or indirectly by sets of stimulus-response pairs the definitions could be seen as ‘functional’ in the mathematical sense. However there is probably a closer connection with the term as it is used in biology, as one might define ‘eye’ by its function even though a fly's eye and a dog's eye are anatomically and physiologically very different. Functionalism identifies mental states and processes by means of their causal roles, and as noted above in connection with Lewis, we know that the functional roles are possessed by neural states and processes. (There are teleological and homuncular forms of functionalism, which I do not consider here.) Nevertheless an interactionist dualist such as the eminent neurophysiologist Sir John Eccles would (implausibly for most of us) deny that all functional roles are so possessed. One might think of folk psychology, and indeed much of cognitive science too, as analogous to a ‘block diagram’ in electronics. A box in the diagram might be labelled (say) ‘intermediate frequency amplifier’ while remaining) neutral as to the exact circuit and whether the amplification is carried out by a thermionic valve or by a transistor. Using terminology of F. Jackson and P. Pettit (1988, pp. 381–400) the ‘role state’ would be given by ‘amplifier’, the ‘realiser state’ would be given by ‘thermionic valve’, say. So we can think of functionalism as a ‘black box’ theory. This line of thought will be pursued in the next section.

Thinking very much in causal terms about beliefs and desires fits in very well not only with folk psychology but also with Humean ideas about the motives of action. Though this point of view has been criticised by some philosophers it does seem to be right, as can be seen if we consider a possible robot aeroplane designed to find its way from Melbourne to Sydney. The designer would have to include an electronic version of something like a map of south-eastern Australia. This would provide the ‘belief’ side. One would also have to program in an electronic equivalent of ‘go to Sydney’. This program would provide the ‘desire’ side. If wind and weather pushed the aeroplane off course then negative feedback would push the aeroplane back on to the right course for Sydney. The existence of purposive mechanisms has at last (I hope) shown to philosophers that there is nothing mysterious about teleology. Nor are there any great semantic problems over intentionality (with a ‘t’). Consider the sentence ‘Joe desires a unicorn’. This is not like ‘Joe kicks a football’. For Joe to kick a football there must be a football to be kicked, but there are no unicorns. However we can say ‘Joe desires-true of himself "possesses a unicorn" ’. Or more generally ‘Joe believes-true S’ or ‘Joe desires-true S’ where S is an appropriate sentence (Quine 1960, pp. 206–16). Of course if one does not want to relativise to a language one needs to insert ‘or some samesayer of S’ or use the word ‘proposition’, and this involves the notion of proposition or intertranslatability. Even if one does not accept Quine's notion of indeterminacy of translation, there is still fuzziness in the notions of ‘belief’ and ‘desire’ arising from the fuzziness of ‘analyticity’ and ‘synonymy’. The identity theorist could say that on any occasion this fuzziness is matched by the fuzziness of the brain state that constitutes the belief or desire. Just how many interconnections are involved in a belief or desire? On a holistic account such as Lewis's one need not suppose that individuation of beliefs and desires is precise, even though good enough for folk psychology and Humean metaethics. Thus the way in which the brain represents the world might not be like a language. The representation might be like a map. A map relates every feature on it to every other feature. Nevertheless maps contain a finite amount of information. They have not infinitely many parts, still less continuum many. We can think of beliefs as expressing the different bits of information that could be extracted from the map. Thinking in this way beliefs would correspond near enough to the individualist beliefs characteristic of folk and Humean psychology.

The notion ‘type’ and ‘token’ here comes by analogy from ‘type’ and ‘token’ as applied to words. A telegram ‘love and love and love’ contains only two type words but in another sense, as the telegraph clerk would insist, it contains five words (‘token words’). Similarly a particular pain (more exactly a having a pain) according to the token identity theory is identical to a particular brain process. A functionalist could agree to this. Functionalism came to be seen as an improvement on the identity theory, and as inconsistent with it, because of the correct assertion that a functional state can be realised by quite different brain states: thus a functional state might be realised by a silicon based brain as well as by a carbon based brain, and leaving robotics or science fiction aside, my feeling of toothache could be realised by a different neural process from what realises your toothache.

As far as this goes a functionalist can at any rate accept token identities. Functionalists commonly deny type identities. However Jackson, Pargetter and Prior (1982) and Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson (1996) argue that this is an over-reaction on the part of the functionalist. (Indeed they see functionalism as a route to the identity theory.) The functionalist may define mental states as having some state or other (e.g., carbon based or silicon based) which accounts for the functional properties. The functionalist second order state is a state of having some first order state or other which causes or is caused by the behaviour to which the functionalist alludes. In this way we have a second order type theory. Compare brittleness. The brittleness of glass and the brittleness of biscuits are both the state of having some property which explains their breaking, though the first order physical property may be different in the two cases. This way of looking at the matter is perhaps more plausible in relation to mental states such as beliefs and desires than it is to immediately reported experiences. When I report a toothache I do seem to be concerned with first order properties, even though topic neutral ones.

If we continue to concern ourselves with first order properties, we could say that the type-token distinction is not an all or nothing affair. We could say that human experiences are brain processes of one lot of sorts and Alpha Centaurian experiences are brain processes of another lot of sorts. We could indeed propose much finer classifications without going to the limit of mere token identities.

How restricted should be the restriction of a restricted type theory? How many hairs must a bald man have no more of? An identity theorist would expect his toothache today to be very similar to his toothache yesterday. He would expect his toothache to be quite similar to his wife's toothache. He would expect his toothache to be somewhat similar to his cat's toothache. He would not be confident about similarity to an extra-terrestrial's pain. Even here, however, he might expect some similarities of wave form or the like.

Even in the case of the similarity of my pain now to my pain ten minutes ago, there will be unimportant dissimilarities, and also between my pain and your pain. Compare topiary, making use of an analogy exploited by Quine in a different connection. In English country gardens the tops of box hedges are often cut in various shapes, for example peacock shapes. One might make generalizations about peacock shapes on box hedges, and one might say that all the imitation peacocks on a particular hedge have the same shape. However if we approach the two imitation peacocks and peer into them to note the precise shapes of the twigs that make them up we will find differences. Whether we say that two things are similar or not is a matter of abstractness of description. If we were to go to the limit of concreteness the types would shrink to single membered types, but there would still be no ontological difference between identity theory and functionalism.

An interesting form of token identity theory is the anomalous monism of Davidson 1980. Davidson argues that causal relations occur under the neural descriptions but not under the descriptions of psychological language. The latter descriptions use intentional predicates, but because of indeterminacy of translation and of interpretation, these predicates do not occur in law statements. It follows that mind-brain identities can occur only on the level of individual (token) events. It would be beyond the scope of the present essay to consider Davidson's ingenious approach, since it differs importantly from the more usual forms of identity theory.

Place answered the question ‘Is Consciousness a Brain Process?’ in the affirmative. But what sort of brain process? It is natural to feel that there is something ineffable about which no mere neurophysiological process (with only physical intrinsic properties) could have. There is a challenge to the identity theorist to dispel this feeling.

Suppose that I am riding my bicycle from my home to the university. Suddenly I realise that I have crossed a bridge over a creek, gone along a twisty path for half a mile, avoided oncoming traffic, and so on, and yet have no memories of all this. In one sense I was conscious: I was perceiving, getting information about my position and speed, the state of the bicycle track and the road, the positions and speeds of approaching cars, the width of the familiar narrow bridge. But in another sense I was not conscious: I was on ‘automatic pilot’. So let me use the word ‘awareness’ for this automatic or subconscious sort of consciousness. Perhaps I am not one hundred percent on automatic pilot. For one thing I might be absent minded and thinking about philosophy. Still, this would not be relevant to my bicycle riding. One might indeed wonder whether one is ever one hundred percent on automatic pilot, and perhaps one hopes that one isn't, especially in Armstrong's example of the long distance truck driver (Armstrong 1962). Still it probably does happen, and if it does the driver is conscious only in the sense that he or she is alert to the route, of oncoming traffic etc., i.e. is perceiving in the sense of ‘coming to believe by means of the senses’. The driver gets the beliefs but is not aware of doing so. There is no suggestion of ineffability in this sense of ‘consciousness’, for which I shall reserve the term ‘awareness’.

For the full consciousness, the one that puzzles us and suggests ineffability, we need the sense elucidated by Armstrong in a debate with Norman Malcolm (Armstrong and Malcolm 1962, p. 110). Somewhat similar views have been expressed by other philosophers, such as Savage (1976), Dennett (1991), Lycan (1996), Rosenthal (1996). A recent presentation of it is in Smart (2004). In the debate with Norman Malcolm, Armstrong compared consciousness with proprioception. A case of proprioception occurs when with our eyes shut and without touch we are immediately aware of the angle at which one of our elbows is bent. That is, proprioception is a special sense, different from that of bodily sensation, in which we become aware of parts of our body. Now the brain is part of our body and so perhaps immediate awareness of a process in, or a state of, our brain may here for present purposes be called ‘proprioception’. Thus the proprioception even though the neuroanatomy is different. Thus the proprioception which constitutes consciousness, as distinguished from mere awareness, is a higher order awareness, a perception of one part of (or configuration in) our brain by the brain itself. Some may sense circularity here. If so let them suppose that the proprioception occurs in an in practice negligible time after the process propriocepted. Then perhaps there can be proprioceptions of proprioceptions, proprioceptions of proprioceptions of proprioceptions, and so on up, though in fact the sequence will probably not go up more than two or three steps. The last proprioception in the sequence will not be propriocepted, and this may help to explain our sense of the ineffability of consciousness. Compare Gilbert Ryle in The Concept of Mind on the systematic elusiveness of ‘I’ (Ryle 1949, pp. 195–8).

Place has argued that the function of the ‘automatic pilot’, to which he refers as ‘the zombie within’, is to alert consciousness to inputs which it identifies as problematic, while it ignores non-problematic inputs or re-routes them to output without the need for conscious awareness. For this view of consciousness see Place (1999).

Mention should here be made of influential criticisms of the identity theory by Saul Kripke and David Chalmers respectively. It will not be possible to discuss them in great detail, partly because of the fact that Kripke's remarks rely on views about modality, possible worlds semantics, and essentialism which some philosophers would want to contest, and because Chalmers' long and rich book would deserve a lengthy answer. Kripke (1980) calls an expression a rigid designator if it refers to the same object in every possible world. Or in counterpart theory it would have an exactly similar counterpart in every possible world. It seems to me that what we count as counterparts is highly contextual. Take the example ‘water is H 2 O’. In another world, or in a twin earth in our world as Putnam imagines (1975), the stuff found in rivers, lakes, the sea would not be H 2 O but XYZ and so would not be water. This is certainly giving preference to real chemistry over folk chemistry, and so far I applaud this. There are therefore contexts in which we say that on twin earth or the envisaged possible world the stuff found in rivers would not be water. Nevertheless there are contexts in which we could envisage a possible world (write a science fiction novel) in which being found in rivers and lakes and the sea, assuaging thirst and sustaining life was more important than the chemical composition and so XYZ would be the counterpart of H 2 O.

Kripke considers the identity ‘heat = molecular motion’, and holds that this is true in every possible world and so is a necessary truth. Actually the proposition is not quite true, for what about radiant heat? What about heat as defined in classical thermodynamics which is ‘topic neutral’ compared with statistical thermodynamics? Still, suppose that heat has an essence and that it is molecular motion, or at least is in the context envisaged. Kripke says (1980, p. 151) that when we think that molecular motion might exist in the absence of heat we are confusing this with thinking that the molecular motion might have existed without being felt as heat. He asks whether it is analogously possible that if pain is a certain sort of brain process that it has existed without being felt as pain. He suggests that the answer is ‘No’. An identity theorist who accepted the account of consciousness as a higher order perception could answer ‘Yes’. We might be aware of a damaged tooth and also of being in an agitation condition (to use Ryle's term for emotional states) without being aware of our awareness. An identity theorist such as Smart would prefer talk of ‘having a pain’ rather than of ‘pain’: pain is not part of the furniture of the world any more than a sense datum or the average plumber is. Kripke concludes (p. 152) that the

apparent contingency of the connection between the mental state and the corresponding brain state thus cannot be explained by some sort of qualitative analogue as in the case of heat.

Smart would say that there is a sense in which the connection of sensations (sensings) and brain processes is only half contingent. A complete description of the brain state or process (including causes and effects of it) would imply the report of inner experience, but the latter, being topic neutral and so very abstract would not imply the neurological description.

Chalmers (1996) in the course of his exhaustive study of consciousness developed a theory of non-physical qualia which to some extent avoids the worry about nomological danglers. The worry expressed by Smart (1959) is that if there were non-physical qualia there would, most implausibly, have to be laws relating neurophysiological processes to apparently simple properties, and the correlation laws would have to be fundamental, mere danglers from the nomological net (as Feigl called it) of science. Chalmers counters this by supposing that the qualia are not simple but unknown to us, are made up of simple proto-qualia, and that the fundamental laws relating these to physical entities relate them to fundamental physical entities. His view comes to a rather interesting panpsychism. On the other hand if the topic neutral account is correct, then qualia are no more than points in a multidimensional similarity space, and the overwhelming plausibility will fall on the side of the identity theorist.

On Chalmers' view how are we aware of non-physical qualia? It has been suggested above that this inner awareness is proprioception of the brain by the brain. But what sort of story is possible in the case of awareness of a quale? Chalmers could have some sort of answer to this by means of his principle of coherence according to which the causal neurological story parallels the story of succession of qualia. It is not clear however that this would make us aware of the qualia. The qualia do not seem to be needed in the physiological story of how an antelope avoids a tiger.

People often think that even if a robot could scan its own perceptual processes this would not mean that the robot was conscious. This appeals to our intuitions, but perhaps we could reverse the argument and say that because the robot can be aware of its awareness the robot is conscious. I have given reason above to distrust intuitions, but in any case Chalmers comes some of the way in that he toys with the idea that a thermostat has a sort of proto-qualia. The dispute between identity theorists (and physicalists generally) and Chalmers comes down to our attitude to phenomenology. Certainly walking in a forest, seeing the blue of the sky, the green of the trees, the red of the track, one may find it hard to believe that our qualia are merely points in a multidimensional similarity space. But perhaps that is what it is like (to use a phrase that can be distrusted) to be aware of a point in a multidimensional similarity space. One may also, as Place would suggest, be subject to ‘the phenomenological fallacy’. At the end of his book Chalmers makes some speculations about the interpretation of quantum mechanics. If they succeed then perhaps we could envisage Chalmers' theory as integrated into physics and him as a physicalist after all. However it could be doubted whether we need to go down to the quantum level to understand consciousness or whether consciousness is relevant to quantum mechanics.

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How to cite this entry . Preview the PDF version of this entry at the Friends of the SEP Society . Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project (InPhO). Enhanced bibliography for this entry at PhilPapers , with links to its database.

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• Identity Theories , an incomplete paper by U.T. Place, published in the Field Guide to Philosophy of Mind

consciousness | functionalism

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my thanks to David Armstrong, Frank Jackson and Ullin Place for comments on an earlier draft of this article and David Chalmers for careful editorial suggestions.

Copyright © 2007 by J. J. C. Smart

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Guenther, C.L., Wilton, E., Fernandes, R. (2020). Identity. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24612-3_1132

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Mathematics > Combinatorics

Title: identities from representation theory.

Abstract: We give a new Jacobi--Trudi-type formula for characters of finite-dimensional irreducible representations in type $C_n$ using characters of the fundamental representations and non-intersecting lattice paths. We give equivalent determinant formulas for the decomposition multiplicities for tensor powers of the spin representation in type $B_n$ and the exterior representation in type $C_n$. This gives a combinatorial proof of an identity of Katz and equates such a multiplicity with the dimension of an irreducible representation in type $C_n$. By taking certain specializations, we obtain identities for $q$-Catalan triangle numbers, the $q,t$-Catalan number of Stump, $q$-triangle versions of Motzkin and Riordan numbers, and generalizations of Touchard's identity. We use (spin) rigid tableaux and crystal base theory to show some formulas relating Catalan, Motzkin, and Riordan triangle numbers.

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