Making Names Chapter-by-Chapter Synopsis

Chapter One: Minds and Bodies

An English midsummer landscape is described as if seen through a camera lens. The camera closes up for a moment on the insect life in the grass, before pulling back to take in the full sweep of the countryside; it finally focuses on an old university town and zooms in on a quiet street where a pedestrian is absent-mindedly stepping out into the path of a speeding sports car. An accident is narrowly avoided. The driver and the pedestrian start talking. Their conversation begins before the men have been introduced either to each other or to the reader. In the town's busy market square, the question "how do you know that there are other minds (people) here?" is asked almost casually, and a casual investigation gets going. The two men introduce themselves, displaying their academic credentials. The scientist's (Effect's) attempts to justify his belief in the existence of other minds soon fail, and he becomes confused. In an Italian ice-cream parlour, the philosopher (Cause) takes Effect through the argument again in more detail, this time with the help of a quotation from J. S. Mill. Once more, the justification fails. All sorts of questions are then asked about the relationship between brain states and mental states, about the relationships between every day doubts (about other people) and philosophical doubts (about other mentality) and about our criteria of valid justification. It is suggested that a belief in others is not so much a justifiable certainty as a psychological imperative. Cause concludes that our beliefs about other mentality are essentially racist in nature.

Effect tries a new, behaviourist tack, suggesting that perhaps the problem can be solved by analysing the meanings of words. At this point, Cause suggests a drive out to the 'San' (the local mental hospital), and on the way he introduces a little philosophical background; empiricism and logical positivism are explained. Over a cup of tea at the San they discuss Ryle's Concept of Mind, and Cause indulges in some linguistic algebra, introducing a bit of philosophical jargon of his own invention (the b-language/M-language distinction). Various peculiar results of the behaviourist thesis are examined. Again, Effect is reduced to confusion. Cause draws a parallel between Ryle and Berkeley; some conclusions tentatively emerge.

Next, the two men drive out to 'Hartlands' Zoo Park, which provides the ideal setting for Effect tell the first of his three scientific stories: the Darwinian account of the evolution of the animal species. Cause hears him out and then raises a number of typical objections to the account, pointing out its various weaknesses and failures. Cause then repeats the new version of the central question: how (when, where) does consciousness arise? He harries Effect with questions about animal consciousness, machine consciousness, alternative evolutionary histories and so on, again driving him into an uncomfortably anthropocentric ('racist') corner. The dangers and inadequacies of language, and particularly of scientific language, are beginning to become evident. During the drive back to town, Cause 'exercises his imagination'.

Chapter Two: Causes and Effects

This is perhaps the metaphysical 'backbone' of the book. The conversation now continues at the physics laboratories, where Effect is performing certain experiments in the hope of coming up with a new model of proton-proton collision; hydrogen fusion is Effect's particular field of research. The project (an awkward but necessary contrivance, this) requires Effect to perform a series of classic 'billiard-ball' collision tests. Cause scrutinises what takes place during such a test and introduces Effect to the problem of causation, this time with the help of a number of quotations from David Hume (Cause carries with him a small reference book of Hume quotes). Cause examines critically the notion of causal necessity and then takes a nap, while Effect continues with his series of tests on the billiard balls. Out of the blue, a freak event occurs which takes Effect completely by surprise and confounds all his expectations; Cause wakes up. Effect prepares to carry on as if nothing had happened, but Cause insists upon this freak event being discussed. They adjourn from Effect's laboratory to the physics common room, where from now on the experimental results are all imagined. All sorts of possibilities are entertained and analysed. Stage by stage, Effect's assumptions and attitudes are dissected, and his ideas of causality and explanation are dismantled. Focus switches from the billiard-ball case to other examples, and Effect's tendency always to a resort to atomic causes in his explanations begins to emerge as Cause's chief target. The scientist's conception of causality, Cause concludes, is theoretically incoherent, explanatorily obstructive and practically unnecessary. Effect feels frustrated by his inability to counter decisively Cause's attack.

Chapter Three: Freedoms and Laws

The 'problem', or, to Cause, the 'fact' of human freedom is the other side of the causal coin. The various sorts of deterministic 'threat' to a philosophically satisfactory account of human freedom are briefly introduced. Effect waffles away, along ill-thought-out weakly conciliatory lines. Cause reiterates the distinction between reasons and causes. They discuss the notion of teleological process and the possibilities of freedom in the physical world. They decide to drive to a pub on the river for lunch, and on the way back to the car they discuss the behaviour of traffic at traffic lights. Cause's car won't start and there follows an amusing interlude of car-repairing, one-way-system-negotiating and policemen-evading which finally ends in the Criminology Institute car-park. Different sorts of 'law' and 'necessity' are analysed and a discussion ensues on the nature of criminality, the limits of excusability, the justification of punishment and other related matters. Amongst other things, the two men's engagement in this moral argument in itself demonstrates our human ability (freedom) to determine how law-governed to be. Cause draws certain ominous conclusions about the dangers of our viewing the world and ourselves in certain (deterministic) philosophical lights. The pub is still open, thanks to a bar extension.

Chapter Four: Universals and Families

At the pub, Effect tries to mount a counter-offensive by insisting that Cause lays down the criteria he is applying in his cranky uses of certain words. Cause demonstrates the mistakenness of Effect's requirement of criteria by in turn asking him for a definition of tableness (examples of different tables abound in the pub); they have arrived at the traditional problem of universals. The usual realist/nominalist ground is covered, and the two men retire to Effect's college rooms to read Wittgenstein's 'family resemblances' analogy (Effect had been given a copy of the Philosophical Investigations for Christmas). Cause, however, is not content to let the matter rest there, but pursues the analogy, revealing in it a number of fatal weaknesses. Paradoxically, the analogy focuses the men's attention not upon the problem of universals as such but upon the concept of a human family. There follows a long discussion of familyhood, during which Cause challenges Effect's belief in modern genetic theory (that is, his belief in the existence of genes), makes some radical proposals about our attitudes towards and treatment of child-bearing, and attacks many of our (and Effect's) conventional ideas concerning parental rights and child-raising. During the course of this conversation, many raw personal nerves are touched, and at times the exchanges become quite heated. Cause's point though, at the end of it, has been not so much to canvass this or that family system as to point out (to demonstrate) that our concept of familyhood is, as he puts it, 'up for grabs'. The implications of this realisation for the problem of universals are obvious and fundamental. Once again, Effect's cherished toe-holds on certainty are beginning to slip away.

Chapter Five: Goods and Morals

In the last chapter-and-a-half, the two men's discussion has unmistakably entered the province of moral argument, so it is natural that they should now attempt to delineate this territory more precisely and in more detail. This conversation, which takes place at a nearby local cricket match, opens with Effect castigating Cause for always recommending things (in particular, a new linguistic usages) and making a plea for impartial philosophical analysis. Cause mentions that he is writing a book, and casually remarks that he would probably publish under a nom de plume, and another moral argument ensues. Cause proposes that they should initiate a search for the meaning of the word 'good', concentrating to start with only on its non-moral uses. There follows a convoluted analysis of the meanings and uses of certain words, including 'good', 'function', 'use' and, of course, 'meaning'. Some important reminders are assembled. Next, the word 'moral' is stalked, as it dodges in and out of discussions of personal responsibility, public utility, and idealisms. Once more, Effect finds himself 'all at sea'. Cause, again with the help of quotations from Hume (on the faculty of 'sympathy'), runs through a quasi-scientific attempt to 'explain' the phenomenon of morality, and again, of course, he fails. Finally, Cause proposes an entirely different metaphysical starting point as being the correct solution to the moral/philosophical dilemma.

Chapter Six: Gods and Models

On the way back to college, Cause asks Effect if he believes in God. Cause rudely dismisses Effect's professed Christian faith, and initiates an investigation into the notion of gods in general. In Hall, over supper, Cause introduces Effect to the pre-Socratic Greek philosophers, flippantly running through their history in just a few minutes. This paves the way for Effect, in the as-yet unfinished new Senior Common Room (a converted chapel), to tell the second of his scientific stories, the history of our modern atomic and particle theories of matter. Predictably, Cause continually picks at the holes and the weak spots in Effect's story. As Effect attempts to bring his theories are more and more up-to-date, so the intelligibility of his explanations and the meaningfulness of his language appear to dwindle away into emptiness. Cause scoffs, and suggests that the contents of the scientists' explanations in fact rightly belong to the family not of physical objects, but of gods. He lists the reasons (traces the family resemblances) that support this assertion. In his first defence against Cause's argument, Effect objects to the philosopher's characterisation of atomic objects as being non-perceivable. There follows a discussion of the phenomenon of perception and an examination of the various 'horizons' of perceivability. Their analysis of 'seeing' again leads them into some interesting and convoluted philosophy of language, and, it is hoped, to some understanding of the relationship between the senses and the intelligence. Effect has been forced to retreat somewhat, but he now takes a firm stand on the claim that atoms (and particles and so on) are in fact only models. This claim is cross-examined and Effect is obliged to retreat further, behind the shield of quantum theory and post-quantum-theory philosophy of science (he talks of 'explanatory languages' and of 'useful fictions'). His retreat roughly parallels that made over the years by orthodox scientific thinkers. Cause takes all this as proving his case that atoms are gods, and launches into a prolonged, teasing attack upon scientists in general, whom he compares with the priests of Christian religion. By the end of this attack, Effect is reduced to a state of anger, confusion, and, it has to be added, some genuine doubt.

Chapter Seven: Physics and Metaphysics

It is getting late; they start a long walk through the town. Cause begins a rebuilding programme by proposing a new demarcation between physics and metaphysics. The marriage of empiricism and rationalism is re-examined. Effect mounts a last ditch defence by appealing to all the achievements of modern technology, but Cause remains unimpressed. Effect challenges him to produce an alternative metaphysics, but promptly dismisses his vague, obscure suggestions, becoming irritated and fretful. Effect tells the third of his scientific stories: a brief account of modern cosmology, including explanations of the 'Big Bang', the galactic red shift, quasars and black holes. Again, the scientist's intelligibility itself seems to recede into darkness. At last they reach Cause's flat.

Chapter Eight: Above Olympus

After a small fib is unmasked, Cause holds forth on the functions of myth, and persuades Effect to go back to square one with his atomic theory. With the aid of a little toy, Cause turns his bed-sitter into a theatre, and together, the two men read aloud a play that Cause has written. In the intervals between the three acts of the drama, they break off and discuss its implications; in the second of these intervals, the two men come to blows, for the first time. After Act 3, they dance, as dawn comes up over the town.

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