Frank Craik: a contemporary American neuroscientist, casually dressed in jeans and pullover, with open-necked shirt. He has a pronounced Californian accent.

Jill: a philosopher in her early thirties, dressed in an elegant but informal manner.

Richard: a middle-aged Oxford don of the mid-twentieth-century, dressed in cavalry-twill slacks, waistcoat and tie, and well-cut jacket.

Alan White¹: a small man, dressed in a dark blue jacket and grey slacks, with a light blue shirt and a bow tie. He speaks with a slight Irish accent.

Peter Strawson: dressed in a well-worn tweed suit and a woollen tie. He has a rather deep voice, speaks slowly and very deliberately.

Frank: OK. I agree that our discussion with Aristotle showed us why dualism and crude materialism are wrong. He made clear what the mind is, but he still left us with the problems we started with.

Jill: What problems do you have in mind, Frank?

Frank: Why, the problems that Richard raised: why do we speak of having a mind? And then there is the further question: why on earth do we speak of having a body? And what is it that has them?

Jill: Yes. We really must talk about that. I have a body, just as I have a mind. But what exactly is this relation of having? And what exactly is involved in having a mind and a body?

Richard: Well, at least this much became clear: Having a mind is to be compared with having powers and abilities, with having talents – not with having a house or a car. And doing something with one's mind is not like doing something with a hammer or a screwdriver, but like doing something with one's talents. It is exercising one's intellect and will. And what it is that has a mind is obviously the living human being.

Jill: All right. So far so good. Aristotle certainly made that clear. But what about having a body? If I have a body, how can I also be a body? Surely I can't be what I have? And surely having a body is not at all like having talents. Having a beautiful body isn't exercising anything, even though it is very attractive.

Frank: OK. I can see that. But I don't see what you're driving at?

Jill: The point is that to say that I have a body is to imply that I own my body. And if I own my body, then I have a right to my body, and a right to determine how I use it. Women have a right to their bodies.

Richard: Well, I'm not sure. You're rushing ahead far too quickly, Jill. I think we should slow down and follow Aristotle's advice.

Jill: Namely?

Richard: Well, when I raised the issue of the idiom of ‘having’, as in ‘having a mind’ or in ‘having a thought at the back of one's mind’, he said that we should begin with things that are said in a manner that is true but unclear and replace the confusing expressions by ones that are more perspicuous.

Jill: All right. So how are we to deal with ‘having a body’ and ‘my body’ or ‘her body’?

Richard: No, no. Take it slowly, Jill. We should start with idioms related to having a mind.

Jill: I don't see why? I'm much more interested in exploring what is involved in having a body, and what the moral consequences of being in possession of one's body are.

Richard: Jill, we'll come to that. Look, we have been given some pretty powerful insights into the nature of the mind. We should build on that. For doing so may also give us some clues about the nature of the body and of having a body. Even more importantly, it will make clear how to proceed. For we don't want to ‘consult our intuitions’. We want to examine our concepts.

Jill: What is wrong with examining our intuitions? Most women have a very powerful intuition that they own their body, that it belongs to them.

Richard: We'll come to that, Jill. But we'll be on much safer ground if we first prove our methods and sharpen our techniques by examining idioms of possession – of ‘having’ – in relation to the mind. Intuitions are really neither here nor there. After all, what is an intuition anyway? It's either just a firm conviction, which may or may not be a strong prejudice, or it is a hunch or guess. And none of these have any place in philosophical inquiry. Pre-philosophical convictions are just grist for philosophical mills.

Jill: You have forgotten the most important form of intuition, Richard, which is direct insight into a truth. After all, is that not what female intuition is?

Richard: But Jill, that merely moves the question back a stage. For now you have to have a criterion to distinguish between genuine intuition and apparent intuition. To draw that distinction we need an independent determination of the correctness or truth of what has allegedly been intuited – which in our case is the proposition that we own our bodies. But that is where we started. So let's take the longer, round-about way, and start with closer scrutiny of the mind. We'll get to the body later.

Frank: Yeah, that sounds right to me. We can start from the idea that the mind is not an immaterial substance in causal interaction with the body. I accept the arguments that show that we neuroscientists are wrong to suppose that the mind just is the brain. I'll go along with that. To have a mind, Aristotle showed us, is to have and to exercise the intellect and the will. But where do we go from there?

Richard: We need to examine the idioms that occur in association with the mind. For that will shed light on the logical character of our discourse concerning the mind and the exercise of our rational faculties. We speak of having a thought in mind, and of having a thought at the back of our mind. We speak of making up our mind, and of changing our mind, of having half a mind to do something or of being in two minds whether to do something. We call things to mind, and things sometimes come to mind. We bear things in mind, hold things before our mind, and sometimes things slip out of our mind or lurk at the back of our mind. We may turn our mind to a task, we may have a sharp mind or a dirty mind, an active mind or an idle one, a mind that . . .

Frank: [waving his hand and groaning] Enough already, Richard! You're a walking Thesaurus. Why is all this idiomatic stuff interesting? It's just English idiom. You won't find all this in other languages. So what's the big deal?

Richard: Well, I'm not making a big deal out of it, old chap. But it is interesting. And the fact that these idioms don't occur in French or German, or don't occur in the same way, doesn't mean that in a language in which they do occur, their occurrence may not teach us something important. Certain turns of phrase often express emblematic pictures embedded in our languages. The fact that they are commonly idiomatic does not mean that we cannot learn much from examining them. As Wittgenstein remarked, there is a whole mythology laid down in our language.Footnote ² In many cases, our forms of representation exhibit the mythology in our language.

Jill: I don't know what you mean by ‘form of representation’, Richard.

Richard: A form of representation is the constant form in which we represent certain kinds of things, a form which may well be at odds with the logical character of what is represented.When we speak of having a pain in our foot or of there being a pain in our foot, as opposed to speaking of our foot's hurting, we represent pain in the form of an object. But, of course, pain is not an object of any kind. Similarly, when we present the number of things in nominal form, as when we say that the number of moons of the earth is one, we approximate representing numbers in the form of objects, and then, like Frege, we're misled into characterizing numbers as abstract objects. But they're not objects of any kind. As you've obviously noticed, we represent the mind as a possession, as something we have or possess, for we speak of having a mind, and of losing one's mind. We speak of knowledge as something we acquire, which we may pass on to another and share with another or keep to ourselves. We speak of memory as a storehouse in which we keep information and where we store our memories.We present thinking in the form of an act or activity, as when we order someone to think, or tell another not to interrupt one's thinking.

Frank: And why is that interesting?

Richard: Well, this mythology is often misleading. It is, so to speak, a form of linguistic iconography, and needs to be interpreted and understood – just as renaissance iconography needs to be understood before one can see many renaissance paintings aright. For example, you probably know that the figure of a man carrying a fish is almost always a representation of Tobias. And you might ask yourself why he is usually holding the hand of an angel.

Frank: No, I didn't know that. But what's the answer?

Richard: [chuckles] There isn't one. You've asked the wrong question.

Frank: Why? What's wrong with the question?

Richard: The question to ask is not why Tobias is holding the hand of an angel. The correct question to ask is why the angel is holding the hand of Tobias.

Frank: You've lost me. I don't follow.

Richard: It's the wrong question because there is no hidden story to the painting. Tobias is only there to identify the angel as the archangel Raphael, just as the fish is there to identify Tobias. Raphael is mentioned only in the book of Tobit in association with Tobias. So the only way to identify an angel as Raphael is by portraying the angel in the company of Tobias. And that may be crucial in identifying the guild or fraternity that commissioned the painting, for the archangel Raphael may be their patron.Footnote ³

Jill: Brilliant. And correctly identifying and interpreting the linguistic iconography embedded in our language – the mythology laid down in our language – can similarly prevent us from asking the wrong questions and jumping to the wrong conclusions.

Frank: That's great. Linguistic iconography! Haha! Fantastic! Now how do you bring all this to bear on the misleading idioms of the mind?

Richard: Well, I suppose that it calls for very careful and imaginative analysis both of idioms and of our forms of talk about the mind.

[A small man, with twinkling eyes and brown/ginger hair, who has come up behind the three disputants, interrupts]

Alan White: Of course you're right, Richard.

[Richard jumps to his feet]

Richard: Hello Alan. I'm so glad to see you. You know Jill and Frank, don't you? [They exchange greetings] Would you like to join us? You're the very person we need to help us with our enquiries.

[Alan smiles and sits down]

Alan White: Well, I'd be delighted to join you; and if I can contribute to your discussion, I should be very glad. [Richard pours him a glass of wine and gives it to him.] Thank you. [He takes a drink] That is excellent. . . . Now, I couldn't help overhearing what you were saying, Richard, and it seems to me to be absolutely right. We speak of acquiring knowledge, as if it were a possession, and we say that we can pass our knowledge on to another or keep it to ourselves. That is the form in which we represent it. But just look at the way the word ‘knowledge’ and its cognates are used. Coming to know something is like becoming able to do various things. If I know something to be so, then I can answer questions on the matter, I can act on the information I previously learnt, and I can volunteer the information when it's requested or needed. So knowing is more like being able to do something than it is like possessing a piece of property. Bear in mind that when we share our knowledge, as opposed to sharing our possessions, we don't have any less; when we pass knowledge on to another, we also keep it. Similarly, we think of memory as a store of knowledge, but we need to recollect that when we remember something, we do not store it anywhere, rather we retain the information we acquired. Retention is not the same as storage. We retain abilities, we do not store them – there is no such thing as storing an ability. You can store your bicycle in the garden shed, but what on earth would it be to store your ability to ride it? Now, although knowledge is not a generic ability, it has a kinship with abilities.

Frank: So all these idioms are systematically misleading! We need to get away from these ordinary ways of talking and introduce a more scientifically accurate way of talking.

Jill: No, not at all – at any rate not if what we're trying to do is to clarify our current conceptual scheme. You can introduce new concepts, but that will not shed light on the conceptual problems that arise out of our existing concepts. If you want to understand how birds fly, you don't want to be given a blueprint for an aeroplane. If you're puzzled about our thermal idiom of heat and cold, as Berkeley was, you will not have your puzzlement cleared up by introducing the concept of temperature.

Frank: But these idioms are very misleading!

Alan White: Well, they're only misleading once we start to think about them. In daily use, there is nothing misleading or bewildering about them at all. You aren't puzzled by the phrases ‘I've made up my mind’, ‘I can't make up my mind’, or ‘I've changed my mind’. And you can readily explain what they mean. ‘I've made up my mind’ means ‘I've decided’, ‘I can't make up my mind’ means ‘I can't decide’, and ‘I've changed my mind’ means ‘I've revoked my decision’.

Frank: Well, that's clear enough, but how does it help us? I mean, that's all obvious.

Alan White: Of course it's obvious. We're just reminding ourselves of some of the common or garden uses of the word ‘mind’. What's not obvious at all is how to arrange these examples in a manner that will shed light on the problems.

Richard: Yes, we must find a way of ordering them so that they will give us a clear overview of the conceptual terrain – what Wittgenstein called ‘a surveyable representation’.

Alan White: Exactly. Now if you reflect on the idioms associated with the word ‘mind’, you will find that a large number of them are clustered around four key concepts: first, intention and the will – which is what we were just looking at: making up one's mind, changing one's mind, and so forth; secondly, memory and recollection; thirdly, thought and thinking; and finally, belief and opinion.

Frank: Could you spell that out. I'm not sure what you're driving at.

Alan White: Of course. What I mean is that many of these idioms can be arranged into four groups. Let's continue with intention and the will. In addition to the examples we've mentioned, we speak of having it in mind to do something, or of being minded to do something – which amounts to being inclined to do it or to intend to do it. We speak of having half a mind to do something, that is: we're tempted to do it. And we speak of being in two minds whether to do something, which means the same as: we're undecided. All right so far? [The others nod] Good.

Frank: That's neat.

Jill: Yes – that's just fantastic. Do go on, Alan.

Alan White: All right. Let's turn now to thought and thinking. We speak of a thought's crossing our mind, which is just to say that something or other occurred to us. To have something on one's mind is to be preoccupied with it, and, to be sure, to have a load taken off one's mind is to be relieved from thinking about it. To turn one's mind to something is to start thinking about it, and to focus one's mind on something is to concentrate on it, to think hard about it. By contrast, when one's mind wanders one has lost concentration, and when it goes blank one does not know what to think or say. Of course, the idioms of cogitation also involve the venerable term ‘idea’. For to have an idea come to mind is to have thought of something, to have an idea lurking at the back of one's mind is to have an incipient thought, and to have an idea flash through one's mind is for something suddenly to have occurred to one. To have an original cast of mind is to be able to display originality in one's thought, just as to have a powerful, agile, subtle or devious mind is to be quick, ingenious and skillful at problem solving, and for one's solutions, plans and projects to display subtlety and cunning.

Frank: [Laughing] Enough, enough. I think we've gotten the point.

Alan White: One more observation, and then I'll stop. Note the number of idioms concerning the mind that are focussed quite generally on the faculty of rationality. For that gives us an important clue. Someone is of sound mind if he retains his rational faculties; someone is out of his mind if he thinks or proposes or does things that are irrational; someone is not in his right mind if he is distraught; and one is said to have lost one's mind if one is bereft of reason and rational faculties.

Frank: OK. That sure is comprehensive, but where does it get us?

Richard: Well, for one thing, it surely confirms that however much we bungle our philosophical reflections on the mind, English idiom is on the side of Aristotle.

Frank: Would you spell that out a bit?

Richard: Isn't it obvious, old boy? All the idioms that Alan has placed on the table and ordered so neatly are concerned with rational faculties of intellect and will possessed by human beings, not with activities or properties of immaterial substances or of brains. It is human beings, not minds that think and reason, hope and fear, not minds. And it is human beings that deliberate, weigh reasons for thinking or acting, and decide, not brains. All the idioms Alan has mentioned are linked with rationality – with the rational psuchē as Aristotle said, rather than with consciousness, or experience, or so called conscious experience, as Descartes thought.

Alan White: I agree. But there are further morals to be learnt from our ordering of idioms. First, it is clear that each such idiom is easily paraphrased by a form of words in which there is no mention of the mind.

Jill: Doesn't that show that there is no such thing as a mind, that we don't really have a mind?

Frank: Yeah, what it shows is that the mind is just a fiction. It's not identical with an immaterial substance, and its not identical with a material substance like the brain either, because its not identical with anything!

Alan White: No, no. That's much too fast. Talk of the mind is not like talk of Father Christmas. Father Christmas is a fiction, but there is nothing fictitious about the mind. When we say that someone made up his mind, we're not saying something false or truth-valueless. It's not like saying to the children that Father Christmas will come in the night. When we speak of the mind, when we say that some great deed is a triumph of mind over matter, we aren't talking of some fictitious stuff, like the Elixir of Life, and we're not talking of some fictitious object, like the Philosophers' Stone, either. If the mind were a fiction, then no one would have a mind – [he chuckles] but to be mindless is to be stupid, and surely not everyone is stupid!

Richard: But one might, I suppose, say that all talk of the mind is a façon de parler.

Alan White: Well, I wouldn't say that, you know. For that too could be misleading. But one might say that our talk about the mind has a potentially misleading form in as much as we are prone to misconstrue it on the model of other quite different expressions that share the same form but have quite different uses. Our talk of the mind, unlike our talk of the brain, is not talk about a special kind of entity, but rather talk about an ordinary entity with special kinds of powers.

Jill: What entity?

Alan White: Human beings, of course. We're talking of human beings with powers of intellect and will, these being rational powers unique to language-using creatures. We are not, to be sure, homo sapiens, but we certainly are homo loquens – we never stop talking! [He laughs] Only creatures that have mastered a reasonably developed language can be said to reason, to apprehend things as affording reasons for thinking, feeling or doing, to weigh reasons and to come to conclusions on the basis of deliberation, and to do things for reasons.

Jill: Do you mean that other animals don't have minds? Isn't that going a bit far, Alan? I mean: they have conscious experiences, and there are well known scientific experiments that show that dolphins and elephants are self-conscious beings too. It has been shown that they can recognize themselves in a mirror. So they obviously have a sense of themselves and can think of themselves. Surely that implies that they have a mind?

Alan White: I think that the matter needs careful scrutiny, Jill. It's far from obvious that being able to recognize one's face in a mirror betokens self-consciousness or a sense of the self – whatever that might be. Does the ability to recognize one's hand in a mirror also betoken self-consciousness?

Jill: No, of course not. That seems silly.

Alan White: Well, then, what difference does the face make? Why should the ability to recognize one's reflection in a mirror imply that one knows who or even what one is, let alone imply self-consciousness?

Richard: Let's not digress. I think we should finish our business with linguistic analysis.

Alan White: All right. Let's go back to where we were. Richard suggested that our talk of the mind is merely a façon de parler. One way in which that suggestion may be misleading is that it intimates that when we are speaking of the mind in our rich array of idioms, we are speaking of nothing. And that would be quite wrong. We are not speaking of nothing, rather we are not speaking of a thing.

Richard: So we might borrow Wittgenstein's remark about pain and say that the mind is not a something, but it isn't a nothing either.

Alan White: Perhaps. And you can bring out the fact that we're not talking of a something if you reflect on the fact that when we say that a man changed his mind, has a dirty mind and has turned his mind to something new, we are not say that there is something that is at once changed, dirty and has been turned!Footnote ⁴ Of course, we are, in another sense, talking of the same thing, namely of the same human being. But we are, from case to case, saying something very different about him and the character and exercise of his powers of thought and will.

Frank: OK. I can see that. But what I'd like to know is this: does this linguistic analysis solve the mind/brain identity issue? Until we had that great discussion with Aristotle, I was convinced, like most of my neuroscience colleagues, that the mind just is the brain. But Aristotle showed us that that's bullshit. Does this examination of our mind-language get us any further?

Jill: Well, obviously. If the mind is not a kind of thing, then it cannot be identical to a kind of thing. So it can't be identical to the brain. You can't have an array of powers between your ears, even though you wouldn't have those powers but for the stuff between your ears.

Alan White: That's right. But don't short-change the reductionists, Jill. The argument does not show that mental states are not identical with brain states.

Frank: Well now. If they are identical, that would satisfy most of my colleagues! And I'd feel OK with it too.

Richard: [laughs] Don't chortle too soon, old boy. There are plenty of other arguments to show that there is no identity here.

Frank: Ah! I was afraid you'd say that. So tell us.

Richard: Well, very briefly then – I don't want to digress from our main concern. First of all, for two state descriptions to signify one and the same state, the state descriptions must be describing states of the same thing. But neural states are states of the brain, not of the human being whose brain it is: if someone's brain is sclerotic or oedematous, it does not follow that the human being is sclerotic or oedematous, any more than if your heart is beating fast, then you are beating fast.

Secondly, the very notion of a neural state is ill-defined and underdetermined. We have no criteria of identity for a brain state that could determine what dynamic configuration of neurons, what neural activity, might be identical with feeling afraid of global warming or feeling overjoyed that Manchester United won the Cup.

Thirdly, no brain state could have either the grounds or the consequences of a mental state. There are reasons for feeling afraid of something frightening, but no reasons for being in a given brain state, whatever that may be. Similarly, if one believes that things are thus-and-so, that commits one. After all, you can't intelligibly say ‘I believe that things are thus-and-so, but whether they are is still an open question for me’. But one can say ‘I am in brain state B, but whether things are thus-and-so is still an open question for me’. So believing can't be a brain state.

Frank: Wow! That's a bit quick. I didn't follow all of that.

Richard: Well, you'll just have to try to think it through later, old boy. We have to pursue our quarries: the mind and the body.

Alan White: Good. But let me make one further point before we turn to the problems about having a body. It is evident from our linguistic descriptions that the mind is not the brain. But it is also evident that it is not the mind that thinks and feels, or imagines and reasons, it is the human being. I mean, no one would say ‘My mind is thinking it over’, ‘My mind reasoned that things are so’, or ‘My mind is getting angry’ or ‘My mind imagined that there was someone downstairs’.

Jill: Do you mean that these are not things our mind does, but things we do with our mind?

Alan White: No. On the contrary. We don't think or reason with anything – except perhaps with a pencil in hand.

Jill: But surely we use our mind when we think.

Richard: Yes, but not as we use our legs to walk. The mind is not an organ of any kind.

Jill: But we do say to each other: ‘Use your mind’.

Richard: Yes, but that is not like ‘Use your left hand’. It just means ‘Think!’

Alan White: Exactly. The mind is not an aethereal organ, any more than it is a material organ. Remember that we also say ‘Use your brains!’, and that too means no more than ‘Think!’. After all, the brain, unlike the hands or legs, is not an organ that we can move at will. Indeed, it is not an organ with which we can do anything, even though without it, we can do nothing. ‘Use your head!’ may be literal advice to the panting wrestler, but it is only metaphorical advice to the stupid schoolboy.Footnote ⁵

Frank: So what can the mind do? You make it sound as if it is useless! If it is so feeble, we might just as well do without it.

Alan White: [chuckles] No, no, Frank. You've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. To have a mind is to have an array of rational faculties. Even in our curious possessive form of representation, we do not present the mind as an agent. But it is interesting that we sometimes speak of it figuratively as if it were a patient. After all, we say that our mind is in turmoil – that is: that we are bewildered and confused; and that it is flagging – that is: we are weary of thinking or concentrating. We say that our mind has gone blank, that is: we do not know what to think or say; or that it is wandering: that is: we can't concentrate. But in this figurative form of speech, we don't present these as acts or activities of the mind, but rather as things that happen to it – as passivities, as it were. On the other hand, when it comes to thinking and reasoning, to deciding and forming intentions, to feeling overjoyed or excited – these are things done by a human being or responses of a human being, and we do not present them as activities of the mind.

Jill: All right. That sounds very convincing, and it all confirms Aristotle's conception. But I don't see what light it sheds on having a body and on what kind of relation that is.

Alan White: Well, it's very suggestive.

Jill: In what way?

Alan White: It suggests a line of analysis we might pursue, and a method we might exploit. For we have now made it clear that having a mind is not standing in the relation of having to an object called ‘the mind’. Moreover, having a mind is not possessing any thing. Now, it seems at the very least plausible that having a body is not standing in a relation of having, that is: of possessing, to one's body. So surely we should apply our linguistic analysis to phrases and idioms associated with the possessive form of representation characteristic of our discourse about our bodies.

Jill: But there's no analogy here at all. We have to grant that the mind is not a thing or entity of any kind, that it is not a substance, neither material nor immaterial. But it is obviously different when it comes to the body. For after all, the body is a physical thing, a spatio-temporal continuant consisting of matter. I own my body – it's mine, and I may be proud of it, or ashamed of it, feel comfortable with it or uncomfortable with it. It's obvious that I stand in a relationship to it.

[Peter Strawson strolls in from the trees]

Peter Strawson: Yes, of course, you do.

Richard: Hello, Peter! How delightful to see you. Do join us in our discussion. I think you know everyone here. [Strawson nods, and greets the others]

Peter Strawson: Hello, hello. What a charming gathering. I should be very happy to join you.

Richard: Will you have some wine.

Peter Strawson: Thank you. That looks a very inviting bottle of Arcadian. [Richard pours Strawson a glass. Strawson seats himself.] Good. Now, I overheard you talking about the notion of having a body, and of the relationship between a person and his or her body. An interesting question.

Jill: Yes, and it's one you've written about, if I remember correctly.

Peter Strawson: You're absolutely correct. I discussed the matter in Individuals.Footnote ⁶ I tried to clarify the relationship between a human being and his, or her, body by reference to the dependence of perceptual experience upon facts about the body.

Frank: What d'you mean, Peter?

Peter Strawson: Well, it is obvious enough if you think about it. Whether one sees anything at all depends on whether one's eyes are open. And what is visible to one depends on where one's body is located, on the direction in which one's head is turned, and on how one's eyeballs are oriented. Now surely, such facts of experience explain perspicuously why a particular body should be spoken of as standing in some special relation – which we call ‘being possessed by’ – to the human person to whom states of consciousness are also ascribed.

Jill: Yes, that's exactly right. I possess my body. And I have inalienable rights over it.

Peter Strawson: Well, perhaps, perhaps. But at any rate such facts surely explain why a subject of experience should have a very special regard for just one body, why he – or she – should think of it as unique and perhaps more important than any other. Indeed, these facts might even be said to explain why, granted that I am going to speak of one body as mine, I should speak of this body as mine.

Richard: I'm not sure what you mean, Peter. Might you have spoken of some other body as yours?

Peter Strawson: Well, the experience-dependence of a human being on his location, orientation and the condition of his sense organs explains why a subject of experience should pick out one body from among others, give it, perhaps, an honoured name, and ascribe to it whatever characteristics it has.

Richard: But Peter, that can't be right. A subject of experience does not pick out one body from among others to call his own. One surely has no choice, and could have no choice, in what to speak of as ‘my body’. Nor could one be mistaken as to which body is one's own.

Peter Strawson: But can't we imagine that what visual experience we have might depend on whether body A has open eyes, body B's head is turned in such and such a direction, and body C is located in such and such a place?

Richard: No! No, we can't. We cannot tell a coherent tale within any such framework, Peter. For who is to duck when a snowball is thrown directly at one of these beings? Who is going to be hurt when the snowball hits him? And who will rub the point of impact and say ‘Ow!’? I mean that the very notion of a subject of experience, and indeed the notion of agency, would disintegrate in the envisaged scenario. Our concepts of a sentient individual, of a living substance, of an agent, of a human being, and of a person would crumble. For they would get no grip.

Peter Strawson: Ah. . . . Good. Yes, I see my mistake. I have to withdraw that tale. Oh dear, what a blunder.

Frank: OK. I've been following your arguments, Richard, and I think I understand them. And it's not just that the concepts would be defunct, we'd have to abandon everything we know about biology and neuroscience.

Jill: But where does all this leave us? What bearing does it have on a person's ownership of her body?

Richard: Well, doesn't it make the whole idea smell rather bad?

Peter Strawson: As Wittgenstein used to say, it's easier to smell a rat than to catch one. [Chuckles] So what do you think is wrong, Richard?

Richard: Well, the body a human being has is surely not a body that he literally possesses. I think we can learn here from Aristotle. In the first place, he showed us that having a mind is not possessing some thing, but having an array of rational faculties, and that having faculties is not a matter of ownership. And bear in mind his remarks in the Categories about having.

Jill: You mean the final chapter?

Richard: Yes. In that single long paragraph he remarks on the peculiarities of the possessive form of representation. After all, as he noted there, having a wife or a husband is not owning anything, but being married to someone. Having a birthday is not possessing a birthday, and having a train to catch is not a form of ownership. Neither is having a body.

Jill: Why not?

Richard: Well, just reflect. One may have a house, a ticket to the opera, or a copyright. These one can sell or give away. Once one has sold them or given them away, they are no longer one's own. They belong to someone else. Now, one can sell one's body. But doing so will not leave one bodiless or disembodied [he chuckles]!

Peter Strawson: Yes. Just as when Faust sells his soul to the devil, he is not left soulless.

Frank: Yeah, to sell one's body is to sell sexual services. A prostitute sells her body.

Richard: To sell one's body does not leave one bereft of a body or in possession of some other body.

Jill: But we speak of having two arms and two legs. Or of having a kidney, and these days one can give one's kidney away or indeed sell it. Isn't having a body just like that?

Richard: No, obviously not. I can lose an arm or a leg, but I can't lose my body.

Frank: [chuckling] But someone may find my body!

Alan White: [laughing] I agree, but then he needn't bother returning it. [They all laugh]

Peter Strawson: All right. All that is convincing enough. But why should we not say that the relationship between a human being and his body is nevertheless one of ownership, but that unlike the humdrum relations of ownership you have been rehearsing, it is one of inalienable ownership?Footnote ⁷

Alan White: Surely not, Peter. There is indeed such a thing as inalienable ownership. Something is inalienably owned if one legally cannot alienate it. In such cases, we know what it would be to alienate the thing. But if it makes no sense to alienate something, if we have no idea what would count as alienating it – then it cannot be inalienable either.

Jill: I don't see that.

Alan White: Look, Parliament may pass a law declaring that some property or some right is inalienable. But it can do so only if we know, have some conception of, what it would be to alienate it – if we know what it is that we are legally unable to do. But in the case of one's body, contrary to what the dualists contend, we have no idea what it would be not to have a body. I suggest that we can make no sense of a disembodied spirit.

Frank: Yeah. Nor of a disembodied mind.

Peter Strawson: Nevertheless, that which one calls one's body is, at least, a body, a material body. It can be picked out from others, identified by ordinary physical criteria and described in ordinary physical terms. And I do speak of it as mine.

Alan White: Peter, I am afraid to say that I think that you are confusing and conflating the body you are with the body you have. [He chuckles] As Thomas Moore said in Robert Bolt's play, ‘I trust I make myself obscure’.

Peter Strawson: You do indeed, Alan. Very obscure.

Alan White: [He laughs] Look, the material body, the animate spatio-temporal continuant made of flesh and blood that can be picked out by others (but not by me), that can be identified and described in physical terms, is me. I am this living being [he pats his chest] before you. This living organism is not something I have, it is something I am. I don't call that which I am ‘my body’. In one sense of the term ‘body’, namely a living organism, I am indeed a body. But I don't have or possess that which I am. I don't have myself and I don't possess what I am.

Frank: Now you really have lost me. What d'you mean: the body I am and the body I have?

Alan White: [laughing] The distinction was drawn in these terms by an acquaintance of mine in Oxford.Footnote ⁸ It's a good dictum, but, of course, it's deliberately both suggestive and provocative. You must admit, Peter, that the question: ‘Which body is my body?’ has little use. Science fiction, fairy tales, dreams of death, and similar far fetched cases apart, it's useless. Pointing at myself and saying ‘This is my body’ certainly has no use in picking out my body from among others, although it might be used to explain the phrase ‘my body’.

Peter Strawson: But I can point reflexively [he points at himself] and say ‘My body is aged’, and point at someone else's body and say ‘Her body is beautiful’. Don't I thereby pick out my body or her body from among others and ascribe to it whatever characteristics it has?

Alan White: Well, you point at yourself, and ascribe somatic characteristics to yourself. The body I am is me – this animate, spatio-temporal continuant made of flesh and blood. Surely no one is going to say that I own myself.

Jill: Well, no. What we want to say is that we own our bodies.

Richard: But surely, Jill, it's now obvious that our talk of having a mind has nothing to do with possessing something. It is just the form of representation we have for talking about our powers of intellect and will, and their exercise. All our talk of having a good mind, or having a mind like a razor, having a devious mind or a subtle one, is just a way of talking about human beings and their rational capacities. Now, may it not turn out that our talk of having a body is likewise a picturesque way of talking about ourselves – that is about human beings and their properties.

Jill: What do you mean ‘and their properties’? We're talking about their bodies.

Richard: Yes, but to talk about the body a person has just is to talk about their bodily characteristics. I mean, if you have a skinny body, then you're skinny, if you have fat body, then you're fat and if you have a frail body, then you're frail.

Jill: You can have a beautiful body without being beautiful.

Richard: What do you mean?

Jill: If someone has a beautiful body and an ugly face one would not say that she is beautiful.

Richard: Yes, of course. But that merely shows that there is yet another use of the word ‘body’ – a use that signifies the torso and limbs as opposed to the head or face.

Peter Strawson: Yes, that is surely right. Remember that they used to talk of having one's head struck off one's body.

Jill: All right. But even if we grant that talk of the features of the body you have can be cashed in terms of talk of your bodily characteristics, that doesn't show that you don't have a body, or that you don't have rights over it. If you're frail, then you have a frail body. The body you have is frail. And if you're fit, then the body you have is fit. The paraphrase goes both ways, you know.

Alan White: Before we go any further, we might try to put some order into the kinds of things we ascribe to the body we have, so to speak.

Frank: Y'mean the way we did with phrases about the mind?

Alan White: Yes, exactly. It's clear enough, if you stop to think. After all, we have a variety of corporeal determinables: a physique or figure, physical or aesthetic appearance, degrees of fitness and health, sensations and surface properties. We might call these ‘somatic properties’. When we use the possessive form of having a body, are we not speaking of our somatic properties?

Peter Strawson: Yes, of course. That is an excellent suggestion, Alan. We say that we ourselves, or other people, have a beautiful or ugly, graceful or ungainly body – which means that they are beautiful or ugly, graceful or ungainly. We may describe ourselves or others as having a powerful, muscular, or athletic body, which is to say that we are physically powerful, have well developed muscles, and an athletic build. We speak of someone having a healthy body, or a frail and failing one – that is that they are healthy, or physically frail and failing. To say that our body is aching all over is to say that we are aching all over. We say that someone's body is sunburnt or covered with sweat, is blue all over, or is scratched and bruised all over, which means neither more nor less than that they are sunburnt, covered with perspiration, are scratched all over, and are blue with cold.

Frank: Or with paint, like the ancient Britons, haha.

Peter Strawson: Quite so, quite so. One category of predicate that we ascribe to the body we have, to use Alan's idiosyncratic terminology, is to describe the superfices of the body we are. Is that not right, Alan?

Alan White: Yes, indeed.

Jill: I don't see what this has to do with possessing my body.

Richard: Look, if our talk of having a body typically boils down to talk of our somatic characteristics, then the question of ownership or of rights can't even arise. You don't own your bodily features. If you have a beautiful or graceful body, you don't own your beauty or gracefulness – they are features you have, not possessions you own. If you have a healthy and fit body, you're healthy and fit, but you don't own your health and fitness. You have no right to your health and fitness, any more than you have a right to your frailty and weakness.

Jill: But we have attitudes towards our body. We may be proud of our body if it is fit and beautiful, or ashamed of our body if it is ugly and ungainly, flabby and fat. We may feel comfortable with our body, or ill at ease with it. We admire the bodies of the young, and are shocked at the bodies of the mutilated. These are attitudes to the body, to the body we have.

Peter Strawson: No. no! We must take Alan's suggestion seriously, Jill. These are attitudes to ourselves and to other people, attitudes the objects of which are somatic characteristics. To be proud of your fit and beautiful body just is to be proud of the fact that you are fit and beautiful – or at least that your figure is beautiful. It is to be proud of your physical features, not of a possession you own. And to be ashamed of your fat and unattractive body just is to be ashamed of being fat and ungainly. These are attitudes towards yourself and your somatic features.

Jill: But surely it is because I own my body that I have rights over my body. It belongs to me. A woman has a right to an abortion precisely because it is her body that bears a foetus, and she has a right to decide whether to have a child or not.

Richard: But Jill, women's right to an abortion does not have to rest on the misguided idea that they own their body. It is women that are pregnant, not their bodies. And it is women that bear a foetus. It is not as if they own something and the thing they own bears a foetus. One can perfectly well defend women's rights to demand an abortion in certain circumstances without any reference to the misguided idea that they own their body.

Frank: Yeah. Just like you can argue for prohibiting the logging of the Californian redwoods without claiming that trees have rights.

[A brief silence]

Peter Strawson: Where does this leave the mind-body relation?

Richard: Well, it doesn't look very good does it? I mean, how can a set of rational capacities stand in a relation to somatic features? The body I am, the living being I am, does not stand in any relation to its somatic characteristics or to its intellectual powers, any more than the chair you are sitting on stands in any relation to its height or weight. The body I have is no more than my corporeal characteristics. And corporeal characteristics cannot intelligibly be said to stand in a relation to intellectual powers.

Jill: Wait a minute. Something is wrong here. If I am five foot eight tall, and weigh nine stone, then my body is also five foot eight tall and weighs nine stone. But if it is wrong to say that I am my body, then it seems that two different things compete for the occupancy of the same space. Surely you aren't going to tell me, Alan, that I and my body occupy different spaces, or that they occupy the same space either! So something is wrong.

Alan White: No, no, Jill. The only thing that is wrong is that you have forgotten that the phrase ‘the body I have’ and the possessive phrases associated with a person's somatic features are no more than the surface grammar of our language. They are ways of speaking of our corporeal characteristics, not ways of referring to a physical object, let alone one which we inhabit. One cannot intelligibly ask whether the body I am is as tall as, or weighs more than, the body I have. Nor can one intelligibly wonder whether the body I have is as fat or as athletic as the body I am. It makes no sense to ask whether the two bodies occupy the same space at the same time, since there is only one body – one living spatio-temporal material continuant, not two.

Peter Strawson: Yes, that must be right. One might borrow an analogy from my old friend Quine. We can compare the phrase ‘my body’ with the phrase ‘my sake’. If you do something for my sake, you do something for me. But you don't do something for two different entities, me and my sake. And you can't raise the question of how my sake is related to me.

Frank: That's neat!

[Alan and Richard nod in agreement]

Jill: But you are wrong to claim that all uses of ‘my body’, ‘her body’, ‘their bodies’ are reducible to talk of somatic features. Don't we write in our wills ‘my body should be cremated’. That's not a way of talking about our corporeal characteristics or somatic features, is it?

Alan White: No, it isn't. I don't think that I suggested that all such phrases are reducible in this manner, only those that bear on the apparent ownership of one's body and on the apparent relationship between the mind and the body. When we speak of how our body should be disposed of after our death, we are speaking of our corpse. And of course, your corpse is neither the body you are, since you no longer exist, nor the body you have, since if you no longer exist, you no longer have corporeal characteristics. After all, Jill, you don't have your corpse, do you. The phrase ‘my corpse’ does not mean ‘the corpse I have’. It means ‘my remains’, that is, what is left of me after I die – the dead organism. But the fact that ‘my body’, ‘her body’, ‘their bodies’ also have a use to refer to corpses does not support the claim that to have a body is a form of ownership. All it means is that the word ‘body’ has multiple uses, which are, to be sure, related, but are not synonymous.

Frank: Yeah, of course. When Newton speaks of bodies he just means any material spatio-temporal continuant. But when biologists and zoologists speak of bodies, what they mean are organisms.

Strawson: And when architectural historians speak of the body of a church they are not contrasting a mind with a body, but the nave with the aisles, just as when we speak of the body of a document, we are speaking of the main part of the document as opposed to the preface and appendices.

Alan: [laughing] And when we speak of somebody or anybody, we're speaking of people. And when in Scotland an old lady is said to be a nice old body that's just the same as when we say in England that an old lady is a nice old soul. Haha.

Jill: All this nitpicking detail is fine, but we're losing sight of the mind-body relation.

Richard: But Jill, it's now obvious that there is no such thing as a relation between a person's mind and their body. If we take care to bear in mind the distinction between the body I am and the body I have, it is clear that the mind/body question simply evaporates, disappears. For the mind a person has and the body that a person has are not kinds of things that can intelligibly be said to stand in a relation to anything.

Frank: Yeah. Asking how my mind is related to my body would be like asking how green stands to the value of a dollar.

Richard: Say that again.

Frank: Well, dollar bills in the USA are known as greenbacks. A one dollar bill is green. But the color of a dollar bill can't stand in a relation to the value of one buck. [He chuckles]

Peter Strawson: Yes. Very good. My mind and my body are not relata standing in any kind of relation. A fortiori my mind does not possess or own my body. And my body does not have my mind.

Alan: That's right. What would my body do with a mind, so to speak!

Jill: Yes, but I have mind and a body.

Alan: Of course you do. But having is not a relation between you and your intellectual powers or between you and your corporeal features. You are a human being, and human beings are endowed with rational powers, on the one hand, and somatic features, on the other.

Richard: [getting up and stretching] Well, that was grand. Now what about dinner at the Ambrosian?

Peter Strawson: What an excellent suggestion. [He empties his glass and rises to his feet] Yes, that was a very illuminating discussion. Thank you so much.

[Frank, Jill and Alan get up too and they all walk off into the trees talking to each other]