DOCSLIB.ORG

Philosophy of Mind and the Mind-Body Problem Definitions

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Philosophy of Mind and the Mind-Body Problem Definitions 10/3/2016 Philosophy of Mind and the Mind-Body Problem A classic philosophical debate Definitions Philosophy The search for wisdom and knowledge Metaphysics A branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality Explains the fundamental nature of being and existence Not an easy term to define The Mind-Body Problem A metaphysical problem Is the mental world part of the physical material world? How are mental properties related to physical properties? What is the mind? How is it related to the brain? Options? How would you phrase this question/problem in your own words? 1 10/3/2016 Basic Ideas of the Nature of Mind Monism – only one kind of substance in the universe Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) Difference between matter (body) and form (mind) Varieties of Monism Solipsism Mental substance is the only substance; no physical realm Universe exists only in one’s mind Physicalism Physical substance is the only substance Everything that exists is physical, consisting of atoms Operations of the mind are operations of the brain Reductive and non-reductive physicalism Functionalism Mental states conform to physical states Critiques? Basic Ideas of the Nature of Mind Dualism – both mental and physical substances exist Plato (427-347 B.C.E.) Mind and body exist in two separate worlds World of forms vs. world of material (e.g., perfect circle) Varieties of Dualism Classic dualism – mind controls the body (thought produces action) Parallelism – mind and body distinct, having no effect on each other Epiphenomenalism – body controls the mind (brain produces thought) Interactionism – body can affect the mind, mind can affect the body Functionalism – mental states might not be reduced to any particular physical state; look at what the mind does, not what it is made of Critiques? 2 10/3/2016 Functionalism Dominant view in cognitive science since the 70’s Physical kinds vs. Functional kinds Material composition vs. actions or tendencies (e.g., phones, cars) Application to the idea of mind Physical kind or functional kind? Mental states are not just physical states, but also the functioning or operation of those physical states Implications? Same mental state could be realized in different ways in different physical systems Different phones displaying the same image Different people having the same thought Number of possible mental/computational states exceeds number of possible physical states For both thinking organisms and computers (Recall our TM discussions) How come on both lists (monism and dualism)? Critiques? Consciousness A mystery that blurs the monism-dualism categories No single definition Subjective quality of experience Individual subjective awareness of mental states Emotions, sense of self, conscious thought, sensation, perception, etc. Your definition? Relationship to mind? Equivalent? Component? Necessary feature? Types of consciousness other than normal, awake, alert Unconscious, asleep, hypnotized, drug-induced, etc. Do these change your ideas of how consciousness is related to mind? 3 10/3/2016 Consciousness If consciousness means having some sort of experience, what is experience like? What is it like to be a bat and have sonar? What is it like to beat the world grandmaster at chess? Reflect on previous discussion of functionalism Problem: consciousness is inherently subjective and science can only provide objective descriptions of phenomena Consciousness/mind as an emergent property Property of the brain, but not of its parts Monist or dualist? Can conscious experience be explained by any of the theories previously discussed? 4.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • From Locke to Berkeley
    From Locke to Berkeley How Berkeley rejects Locke’s Metaphysical Realism in favor of what he calls “Idealism” Locke Summary Like Descartes, Locke believes that we perceive the “real” world only indirectly. • We do not directly perceive material objects, – Just as we do not directly perceive people we see on T.V.; • Rather, we directly perceive only ideas (sensations, things “in” our minds) that are caused by and represent material objects, – Just as, when watching T.V., we directly see only images on the screen. Locke’s Causal Theory of Perception: Indirectly Sensation aware of Matter Do our sensations resemble their objects? • Recall that Descartes’ big worry was whether or not there were any objects outside our minds. – (By the end of the 6th Meditation, he assures that there are.) • But he said we also make mistakes in thinking that our ideas always resembled the objects in the real world that caused us to have those sensations. Why should we believe that the ideas in our minds actually resemble the objects outside our minds that cause them? Mind’s Eye Idea Object Idea Object Mind In Locke’s Terms • Even if we accept that the ideas in our mind are caused by real objects that exist outside our minds – (Locke never really questions this) • Is it true that our ideas always resemble the qualities in the objects that caused us to have those ideas? Locke’s Answer • Only sometimes. Some of our ideas do resemble qualities in the objects, but some of them do not. • Our ideas of primary qualities resemble those qualities.
    [Show full text]
  • Descartes' Arguments for Distinguishing Mind and Body
    © Michael Lacewing Descartes’ arguments for distinguishing mind and body THE KNOWLEDGE ARGUMENT In Meditation II, having argued that he knows he thinks, Descartes then asks what kind of thing he is. Discussions of identity seek to establish the essential properties of something, what makes it the thing that it is. The question ‘what am I?’ can be answered by considering the question of what it is for me to exist. Descartes is trying to identify his essence, those properties which, if he lost them, would mean he was no longer what he is. (An island, for instance, must be surrounded by water. If the water dried up, joining it to the mainland, it would cease to be an island.) He remarks that he can continue to doubt whether he has a body; after all, he only believes he has a body as a result of his perceptual experiences, and so the demon could be deceiving him about this. But he cannot doubt that he has a mind, i.e. that he thinks. So he knows he exists even though he doesn’t know whether or not he has a body. From this Descartes concludes that it is possible for him to exist without a body. He is essentially a mind, not a body. He would not necessarily cease to be himself if he ceased to have a body, but he would necessarily cease to be himself if he didn’t have a mind. APPEAL TO GOD’S OMNIPOTENCE Descartes’ argument so far is that minds can exist without bodies. However, on its own, it doesn’t establish dualism.
    [Show full text]
  • Transparency of Mind: the Contributions of Descartes, Leibniz, and Berkeley to the Genesis of the Modern Subject
    Transparency of Mind: The Contributions of Descartes, Leibniz, and Berkeley to the Genesis of the Modern Subject Gary Hat! eld Philosophers often use classical positions as paradigms for de! ning their own views, usually in contrast. In the philosophy of mind, the notion of the Cartesian subject is one such paradigm. This notion is often used to represent tendencies in the conception of the subject that today’s philosophers wish to avoid. John McDowell and Hilary Putnam 1, among others, portray the Cartesian subject – and speci! cally the Cartesian mind – as a step backward from an earlier, preferable Aristotelianism, whose concept of mind might be made serviceable today if adjusted to ! t modern science. Such paradigms, whose use is unavoidable, are typically caricatures, whether slight or gross. The Cartesian mind as standardly portrayed by McDowell, Putnam, and oth- ers 2 is a gross caricature. This would be important enough for its potential to mislead us about the actual historical development of philosophy. But even more crucially for the philosophy of mind, the use of a caricatured picture as a counterparadigm against which one de! nes one’s own, comparatively better position, can lead to a pyrrhic vic- tory that avoids or misrepresents the real problems. If the opponent has been tailored to one’s desired virtues as conquering hero, one may give the impression that one’s own position solves great problems, deeply embedded in the tradition, when in fact one has simply rejected a fairly recent problematic position, which one has perhaps also misun- derstood and misidenti! ed. 3 The Cartesian mental paradigm is frequently de! ned in terms of four factors: con- sciousness as essence, intentionality as exclusively mental, the veil of perception, and the transparency of mind.
    [Show full text]
  • Richard Swinburne's Arguments for Substance Dualism
    Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. MA by Research in Theology and Religion David Horner September 2018 Richard Swinburne’s arguments for substance dualism. Submitted by David Horner to the University of Exeter as a dissertation for the degree of MA by Research in Theology and Religion in September 2018 This dissertation is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the dissertation may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this dissertation which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. 1 Acknowledgements. I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr Jonathan Hill and Dr Joel Krueger for their support and encouragement in the writing of this dissertation and for their patience in trying to keep me on the straight and narrow. I want to acknowledge the many conversations, on this and other topics, I have had with my friend and philosopher, Dr Chris Boyne, who sadly died in June of this year. I thank all my other chums at The Bull, Ditchling, for listening to my metaphysical ramblings. And finally, I thank my wife, Linda, for once more putting up with this kind of thing. 2 Abstract This dissertation is a contribution to debates in the philosophy of mind and of personal identity. It presents a critical account of arguments for substance dualism to be found in Richard Swinburne’s Mind, Brain, and Free Will (2013).
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science by Dr
    Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science By Dr. Charles Wallis Last revision: 1/23/2013 Chapter 2 Greek Metaphysical Speculation: Philosophical Materialisms and Dualisms 2.1 Introduction It may seem odd to the contemporary thinker to suppose that people did not always have a clear conception of the mind and of mental phenomena. Nevertheless, like most contemporary western concepts the development of the notion of the mind and of mental phenomena actually occurs over the course of centuries. Indeed, the development of the notion of “the mind” arguably traces back to the development of the Greek notion of the soul. For most of Greek history the conception of the soul bears little resemblance to its contemporary western counterpart. In fact, the Greeks develop their notion of the soul as part of the development of general ontological frameworks for scientific and metaphysical speculation. Three features of the development of the Greek notion of the soul figure prominently in this rather superficial history. First, the development of the Greek notion of the soul represents a slow accretion of properties and processes associated with three different contemporary distinctions into a single ontological entity; living vs non-living, animate vs inanimate, and mental vs non-mental. Second, as the soul becomes more distinct both in its nature and in its functions, the Greeks begin to more actively debate whether the soul constitutes a fundamental kind of stuff (a distinct substance) or merely one of many permutations of more fundamental kinds of stuff (substances). For instance, early Greek thinkers often supposed that the universe consists of various permutations of one or more fundamental elements.
    [Show full text]
  • Two Varieties of Skepticism
    1 2 3 4 Two Varieties of Skepticism 5 6 James Conant 7 8 This paper distinguishes two varieties of skepticism and the varieties of 9 philosophical response those skepticisms have engendered. The aim of 10 the exercise is to furnish a perspicuous overview of some of the dialec- 11 tical relations that obtain across some of the range of problems that phi- 12 losophers have called (and continue to call) “skeptical”. I will argue that 13 such an overview affords a number of forms of philosophical insight.1 14 15 16 I. Cartesian and Kantian Varieties of Skepticism – A First Pass 17 at the Distinction 18 19 I will call the two varieties of skepticism in question Cartesian skepticism 20 and Kantian skepticism respectively.2 (These labels are admittedly conten- 21 tious.3 Nothing of substance hangs on my employing these rather than 22 23 1 The taxonomy is meant to serve as a descriptive tool for distinguishing various 24 sorts of philosophical standpoint. It is constructed in as philosophically neutral a 25 fashion as possible. The distinctions presented below upon which it rests are 26 ones that can be deployed by philosophers of very different persuasions regard- 27 less of their collateral philosophical commitments. A philosopher could make use of these distinctions to argue for any of a number of very different conclu- 28 sions. Some of the more specific philosophical claims that I myself express sym- 29 pathy for in the latter part of this part (e.g., regarding how these varieties of 30 skepticism are related to one another) do, however, turn on collateral philo- 31 sophical commitments.
    [Show full text]
  • Swinburne on Substance Dualism
    SWINBURNE ON SUBSTANCE DUALISM LYNNE RUDDER BAKER University of Massachusetts Amherst Richard Swinburne’s Mind, Brain and Free Will is a tour de force. Beginning with basic ontology, Swinburne formulates careful definitions that support his mature philosophy. He is well-known for his views on free will and substance dualism. In Mind, Brain and Free Will, he revisits these issues among others, because he now has ‘deeper and stronger’ arguments for his position. Here I want to discuss substance dualism. The first sentence of the book says that its focus is ‘the nature of human beings – whether we are merely complicated machines or souls interacting with bodies’1 (Swinburne 2013: 1). Since I do not believe that this dichotomy is exhaustive, I shall first examine Swinburne’s argument for the claim that human beings are ‘souls interacting with bodies’, which he interprets as substance dualism. Then, I shall offer a sketch of a different view – my own – which is materialistic in the sense that it makes reference neither to any immaterial concrete objects nor to any immaterial properties (whatever that might mean). I do not say that my materialistic view is a complete metaphysics, inasmuch as that it pertains only to the natural world. I leave it open whether there is a supernatural world. Since I am going to offer an alternative to Swinburne’s substance dualism, let me begin by enumerating ways in which I am in full agreement with him. I fully agree with Swinburne that it is not the case that ‘mental events are merely brain events’, and it is not the case that ‘I am the same thing as my body’ (Baker 1995; Baker 2000).
    [Show full text]
  • Consciousness: Philosophical Paradox Or Scientific Object?
    CHAPTER ONE Consciousness: Philosophical Paradox or Scientific Object? The subject of consciousness has not lacked for human attention. In the past, it was the exclusive domain of philosophers, but recently both psychologists and neuroscien­ tists have begun to attack the so-called mind-body problem or, in Schopenhauer's suggestive phrase, “the world knot. ” In this chapter we briefly review classical and modem approaches to consciousness. We point out various positions taken by philoso­ phers, psychologists, and neuroscientists, rejecting, some of the more flagrant ones, — such as dualism or extreme reductionism. We suggest that consciousness can be con­ sidered a scientific subject and that it is not the sole province of philosophers. ** Everyone knows what consciousness is: It is what abandons you every evening when you fall asleep and reappears the next morning when you wake up. This deceptive simplicity reminds us of what William James said of attention at the turn of the century: “Everyone knows what attention is. It is ^ the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought.”1 s W* More than one hundred years later, many think that neither attention nor y. consciousness is understood in any fundamental sense. This lack of understanding is certainly not because of lack of attention in philosophical or scientific circles. Ever since Rene Descartes, few subjects 1 4 A UNIVERSE OF CONSCIOUSNESS have preoccupied philosophers so consistently as the riddle of consciousness^"" For Descartes, as for James more than two centuries later, to be conscious was synonymous with “to think”: James’s stream of thought, for example, was nothing but the stream of consciousness.
    [Show full text]
  • Introductory Lectures: the Nature and History of Cognitive Science Chapter 4: Philosophy’S Convergence Towards Cognitive Science by Dr
    Introductory Lectures: The Nature and History of Cognitive Science Chapter 4: Philosophy’s Convergence Towards Cognitive Science By Dr. Charles Wallis Last revision: 9/24/2018 Chapter Outline 4.1 Introduction 4.2 The Scientific Explosion of the Early 20th Century 4.3 The Logical and Mathematical Explosion of the Early 20th Century 4.4 The Rise Logical Empiricism 4.5 Logical Behaviorism 4.6 Three Problems for Logical Behaviorism 4.7 Identity Theories: Reduction Through Reference Equivalence Rather Than Meaning Equivalence 4.8 Identity Theories: Type-Type Identity 4.9 Two Arguments For Type-Type Identity Theory 4.10 Identity Theories: Token-Token Identity 4.11 Functionalism 4.12 Computationalism 4.13 Property Dualism 4.14 Eliminative Materialism 4.15 Glossary of Key Terms 4.16 Bibliography The 20th Century and the Semantic Twist 4.1 Introduction Recall that ontological frameworks provide a general framework within which theorists specify domains of inquiry and construct theories to predict, manipulate, and explain phenomena within the domain. Once researchers articulate an ontological framework with sufficient clarity they begin to formulate and test theories. Chapter two ends with the suggestion that oppositional substance dualists face two major challenges in their attempt to transition from the articulation of an ontological framework to the formulation and testing of theories purporting to predict, manipulate, and explain mental phenomena. On the one hand, oppositional substance dualists have problems formulating theories providing explanations, predictions, and manipulations of the continual, seamless interaction between the mental and the physical. Philosophers often call this the interaction problem. On the other hand, the very nature of a mental substance--substance defined so as to share no properties with physical substance--gives rise to additional challenges.
    [Show full text]
  • A Perspective on the Mind-Body Problem, with Particular Reference to the Philosophy of Spinoza
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by SAS-SPACE 1 A PERSPECTIVE ON THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF SPINOZA MARGARET GULLAN-WHUR A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts, University of London Department of Philosophy University College London May 1996 2 ABSTRACT Spinoza's thesis of non-reductive monism was conceived in critical response to earlier dualist and materialist theories of mind. He rejects dualism with respect to both God- Nature and mind-body, yet his principles mark off the mental as severely as is possible without forfeiting monism, showing his awareness that monism (attribute identity) threatens mental irreducibility. The constraints Spinoza imposes in order to preserve mental irreducibility and to make human beings partial expressions of one thinking and extended substance produce a tension between mental autonomy and mind-body identity. However, I propose that while this remains a serious philosophical problem, some degree of tension must persist in any non-reductive monism which succeeds in giving the mental a weighting equal to the physical, and that Spinoza's sensitivity to this requirement is instructive. I argue, on the other hand, that Spinoza's theory of mind is irrevocably damaged by his turning of the traditional Mind of God into the Mind of the Whole of Nature in so far as he extrapolates from this Mind of God-or-Nature to finite minds. In characterising finite minds as partial expressions of "God's" infinite intellect I believe Spinoza becomes caught between his unorthodox conception of God's Mind as all-inclusive and a retained conception of the Mind of God as all truths.
    [Show full text]
  • Property Dualism and the Merits of Solutions to the Mind-Body Problem a Reply to Strawson
    Fiona Macpherson Property Dualism and the Merits of Solutions to the Mind-Body Problem A Reply to Strawson 1. Introduction This paper is divided into two main sections. The first articulates what I believe Strawson’s position to be. I first contrast Strawson’s usage of ‘physicalism’ with the mainstream use. I then explain why I think that Strawson’s position is one of property dualism and substance monism. In doing this, I outline his view and Locke’s view on the nature of sub- stance. I argue that they are similar in many respects and thus it is no surprise that Strawson actually holds a view on the mind much like one plausible interpretation of Locke’s position. Strawson’s use of ter- minology cloaks this fact and he does not himself explicitly recognize it in his paper. In the second section, I outline some of Strawson’s assumptions that he uses in arguing for his position. I comment on the plausibility of his position concerning the relation of the mind to the body compared with mainstream physicalism and various forms of dualism. Before embarking on the two main sections, in the remainder of this introduction, I very briefly sketch Strawson’s view. Strawson claims that he is a physicalist and panpsychist. These two views are not obvious bedfellows, indeed, as typically conceived, they are incompatible positions. However, Strawson’s use of the term ‘physicalism’is not the mainstream one. Strawson, clearly, recognizes this and takes some pains to distinguish how the way in which he con- ceives of physicalism is different from mainstream physicalism.
    [Show full text]
  • Neutral Monism-1
    The Demise of Neutral Monism Due to the Simplicity Intuition Neutral monism is the view that there is only one fundamental substance, neither physical nor mental, but neutral in nature. On this view, the world's neutral state determines both its mental and physical state. A central motivation for neutral monism is that it purports to provide for a solution to the mind- body problem. According to this solution, aggregates of neutral substance are conscious. A second motivation for neutral monism is that it purports to provide an explanation of the behavior of elementary particles. By this explanation, the neutral essences of elementary particles determine their physical behavior. It is my aim to show that neutral monism is false. My argument has two parts. First I will undermine the central motivation for neutral monism. I will do this by arguing that conscious beings are simple, that is to say, they are not composed of other things. Because conscious beings are simple, aggregates of neutral substance cannot themselves be conscious. And so, the neutral monist's solution to the mind-body problem is undermined. Second, I will show that only physical essences are a plausible candidate to explain the physical behavior of elementary particles. In section (1), I will explain the theory of neutral monism. In section (2), I will explore three conundrums presented by neutral monism. In section (3), I will defend the theory of our simplicity intuition applied to conscious beings. I will demonstrate how the theory of simplicity is in fact a sufficient counter argument to neutral monism.
    [Show full text]