A Level Philosophy Metaphysics of the Mind AQA

Not everything physical is divisible

Not all physical objects are divisible. The smallest physical particles are best understood as packets of energy that cannot be divided. If this is true then we can easily see how the mind could be divisible without being divisible.

Descartes' Indivisibility Argument

1) A body is divisible 2) A mind is indivisible C) The mind and the body must be separate substances

Issues for the Conceivability Argument:

1) A mind without a body is not conceivable - Materialist Philosophers argue that the mind and body are one thing. 2) What is conceivable may not be metaphysically possible - Masked Man Fallacy - Chauffer says Batman can be anyone, Batman is Bruce Wayne, it is impossible for someone to be one thing and another thing at the same time. Bruce Wayne is Batman, it is impossible for him not to be Batman.

Issues with Behaviourism

1) Assymetry between self and other knowledge 2) Super Spartans (Putnam) they don't since, flinch or say 'ouch'. They have no disposition towards pain behaviour. 3) Zombie Argument from Property Dualism 4) Circularity - E.g. suppose samsul is on a hunger strike. He would refuse food but that doesn't mean he was not hungry. One desire overides another desire. It seems very difficult to express this without reintroducing mental terms.

Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia

1) Bodies interact with another by exerting force. 2) Force requires extension. 3) If the mind is un-extended then it cannot exert force. 4) If dualism is true, the mind is un-extended and cannot exert force. 5) The mind can exert force on bodies 6) Dualism is false

Issues with the Indivisibility Argument

1) Is it possible to think of everything physical as being divisible? 2) Is the mental divisible? Instances of multiple - personality disorder show that it is.

Issues with the Knowledge Argument

1) Mary gains new ability knowledge. 2) Mary learns something new, her new knowledge is still a kind of physical knowledge: knowledge by acquaintance. 5)We could argue that, if Mary really did know all the physical facts about what it's like to see red (as the thought experiment claims), then this would include knowledge of what it's like to see red. In other words, Mary would already know what it's like to see red before she left the black and white room.

The Zombie Argument

1) Philosophical zombies are conceivable 2) If philosophical zombies are conceivable then philosophical zombies are metaphysically possible 3) If philosophical zombies are metaphysically possible then phenomenal properties are non-physical 4) If phenomenal properties are non-physical then property dualism is true 5) Therefore, property dualism is true

Issues with the zombie argument

1) Zombies are not conceivable 2) Zombies are not possible.

Jackson's Knowledge Argument

1) knows all the physical facts about colour 2) Mary does not know what it feels like to see colour 3) Therefore, what it feels like to see colour is not a physical fact 4) Physicalism says that all facts are physical facts 5) Therefore, physicalism is false

Descartes' Conceivability Argument

1)If I can clearly think of one substance apart from anoher I know they are really different substances. 2) My mind is a thinking thing but not an extended thing. 3) My body is an extended thing but not a thinking thing. 4) I can think of a mind without a body. 5) I can think of a body without a mind. 6) The mind and body are distinct things.

Philosophical Zombie

A philosophical zombie is a person who is physically and functionally identical to an ordinary human - except they don't have any qualia. A zombie might say "ouch!" when it gets stabbed but it doesn't feel any pain internally.

Hard Behaviourism

All propositions about mental states can be reduced without loss of meaning to propositions that exclusively use the language of physics to talk about bodily states. Hempel.

Interactionist Substance Dualism

An interaction between mental and physical is possible.

Behavioural Dispositions

An objection to behaviourism is that we can have a mental state without showing any behaviour. Or we can pretend to be in pain by showing behaviour, but not have the mental state of pain. However, Ryle's behaviourism is not just about specific behaviours, but also behavioural dispositions. A disposition is how something will or is likely to behave in certain circumstances. For example, a wine glass has a disposition to break when dropped on a hard surface. The wine glass has this disposition even when it hasn't been dropped and is in perfect condition. So, the mental state of pain is not the same as saying "ouch!". There is a number of infinite list of hypothetical actions that make up being in pain. For example, if you asked someone who stubbed their toe "Did that hurt?", they would answer "yes". The person in pain has this disposition even if you never actually ask them the question.

Behaviourism

Behaviourism is the idea that mental states - such as pain, pleasure, sad, happy, etc. - are nothing more than behavioural dispositions. What it means to have the mental state of pain is to display the behavioural dispositions associated with being in pain.

Mind without body is not conceivable

Behaviourists would argue that a happy e.g. must reveal happy behaviour to be minded. Our common sense theotu would be that out minds are tied to bodies. The question is whether we can think of soilds without bodies involves an argument without empirical evidence. Materialism is simpler. According to materialist, there is only one type of stuff. Materialism is therefore simpler

Descartes response

Bodies are spatially divisible but minds are functionally divisible. The mind may have parts that do different things but that the Mind still has unity.

Physicalists reply

Challenge the idea that the mind is a substance; non-physical stuff does not exist. Instead the brain has properties. We would not expect the properties of a brain to be divisible; e.g the property of being bored doesn't make sense. Only spatial properties would be divisible.

The Problem of Causal Interaction

Conceptual Issues - If mind is non-extended, immaterial substance and body is extended material substance, how can they interact?

The Mind and the Brain

Dualists deny that the mind is the same thing as the brain. Instead, dualists argue that the mind is something completely different to the brain - something non - physical.

What is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about reality

Even if we accept that it is metaphysically possible that the mind and body could be separate substances that does not offer any evidence that they are actually separate substances. It is logically possible that gorilla's could fly; but that doesn't tell me anything when I'm studying gorilla's. In the same way just because it is metaphysically possible that the mind is non physical what use is that in terms of dealing with the real world?

Descartes response to Princess Elizabeth

He claims that there must be some third thing which unites the mind and the body. But he says so little about this union.

Solipsists response to Mill

However, solipsism can respond that one example of a relationship between mind and behaviour (my own) is not sufficient to prove the relationship holds in all cases. It would be like saying "that dog has 3 legs, therefore all dogs have 3 legs." It's a dubious inference to go from one instance of a relationship (I have a mind that causes my behaviour) to the claim that this relationship holds in all instances (everyone has a mind that causes their behaviour).

Qualia

Intrinsic and non-intentional phenomenal properties that are introspectively accessible.

Descartes Doubting Argument

Introspection: Looking into our mental states. 1) Descartes cannot doubt that he has a mind (the cogito) 2) He can however doubt that he has a body. 3) Therefore, the mind and body cannot be identical.

What is conceivable is not metaphysically possible

It is logically possible to think of water as different from H20 but its not metaphysically possible. You can think of water and H20 as different but only because you're ignorant of the fact that they're the same thing. Things can be conceivable as different but this may not be metaphysically possible. (Masked Man Fallacy)

Mill's argument from analogy

John Stuart Mill gives a 'common sense' response to the problem of other minds: 1) I have a mind 2) My mind causes my behaviour 3) Other people have bodies and behave similarly to me in similar situations 4) By analogy, their behaviour has the same type of cause as my behaviour: a mind 5) Therefore, other people have minds

Masked Man Fallacy Response

Just because two things appear to be different, doesn't mean they are different. For example, we may know water, but not know its chemical composition is H20. This doesn't mean that water and H20 are different things. All it means is that we have two different descriptions and that we are simply unaware that the two descriptions are describing the same thing.

Property Dualism

Property dualism is the view that there is just one type of substance (physical) but that some physical substances can have non-physical properties. There are facts about the world that cannot be reduced to physical facts. There are atleast some mental properties that are neither reducible to nor supervenient upon physical properties.

Principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals

Proposed by Leibniz, things are only identical if they share exactly the same properties. If they have different properties, they are different things.

Soft Behaviourism

Propositions about mental states are propositions about behavioural dispositions.

Categorical Mistake

Ryle argues to say that mental states are distinct from our behaviour is to make a categorical mistake. E.g. say you were giving jack a tour of all the rooms of Oxford uni, but jack asks at the end of the tour: where is the uni? He's making a categorical mistake of thinking that he uni is separate to what he has been shown.

Problems of Other Minds for SD

Solipsism is the idea that one's own mind is the only thing that can be known to exist. This is the position Descartes ends up at after his three waves of doubt: he doubts the existence of everything - and everyone - except his own mind and if substance Dualism is true, it seems difficult to avoid these Solipstic doubts. Each of us only ever experience our own thoughts, sensations and feelings. We might empathise when we see someone hurt themselves but we don't literally feel their pain. If we both look at the same subset we are looking at the same thing but each of us is having a different, private, experience in our mind. Yet even tho you might never literally experience my thoughts, you'd still assume I have them. You don't doubt whether ppl on the streets have a mind. You infer from their behaviour that they have a mind that causes their behaviour.

The mental in divisible in some sense

The conscious and unconscious mind - you may desire one thing and do another. The example of blind sight shows individuals being able to guess the location of an object even when their conscious mind declares that they have no knowledge of the location. (divided mind)

Type Identity

The identity theorists is not saying the our talk of mind means the same as our talk about the brain. It clearly does not. For when I am experiencing a certain sensation or that I am holding a specific belief I do not mean the same as when I say certain neutrons are firing in my brain. So to say 'the mind is the brain' is not to claim that the terms 'mind and brain' are synonymous and so it is not something that can be demonstrated a priori by the analysis of our talk

Mind - Type Identity Theory

The mind is the brain, so each mental state or process is literally one and the same thing as a state or process within the brain. What this means is that facts about the mind are reducible to physical facts about the brain, so that pains, beliefs, desires and so forth are nothing more and nothing less than neurological (brain) states.

Epiphenomenalist

The ohysical world can cause mental states (e.g. getting hit in the head causes the mental state of pain) but mental states cannot cause changes in the physical world. Me going to get pizza would be explained by my brain state, not my mental state. Epiphenomenalism isna subset of property dualism.

Intentionality

The quality of mental states that consists in their being directed toward some object or state of affairs.

Substance Dualism

The theory that there is two kinds of substances: Mental substances and Physical substances and that the mind is distinct from the body.

Dualist Theories

There are 2 kinds of things

Physicalism

There is only one kind of thing: physical

Neuro dependence

When we play around with brains using drugs and surgery we can see it affects our mental reasoning, this is strong evidence that the mind is the brain (issue)