Ch. 2: Human Nature

What have critics argued?

-Fossil record shows gaps -evolution is consistent with "divine direction" -human capacity to reason is unique in nature.

What are the several sexist assumptions that the traditional view makes?

-Reason & rationality are "male," whereas desires and feelings are "female." -Only men are fully human BC only men are fully rational, while women are not and are driven by their emotions & desires. -BC reason must rule, men should rule over women.

What assumptions did Augustine of Hippo incorporated from Plato?

1) Humans self is a rational self with reason. 2) Humans have an immaterial and immortal soul.

What are the 3 varieties of Materialism?

1) Identity Theory = conscious states are identical w/ the body's brain states. 2) Behaviorism = conscious mental states are bodily behaviors/dispositions. 3) Functionalism = mental states are functions between perceptual inputs and behavioral outputs.

Howa have our parents taught us about independency and self-sufficiency individuals?

1) Independence of thought and action. 2) Conformity is bad, and that they should strive to be true to themselves. 3) To value privacy, freedom and creativity.

What three ideas were proposed for the Darwinian Challenge by Charles Darwin?

1) Natural Variation 2) Struggle for Existence 3) Natural Selection

What are the three parts Plato though human nature was?

1) Pursues knowledge of immaterial ideals (Forms) 2) The appetites 3) Spirited part/aggressiveness

How does Darwin's theory undermines two key beliefs in Traditional Rationalism?

1) That the ability of reason is a completely different kind of ability than any of the abilities other animals have. 2) That humans are designed for a purpose.

What are the three challenges facing the traditional view of human nature?

1) The Darwinian Challenge 2) The Existentialist Challenge 3) The Feminist Challenge

What are three arguments against the theory of enduring self as body?

1) We could never become totally new persons 2) Our ideas about a life after death should not make sense 3) Thought experiment.

What 4 distinct bodies of evidence of evolution did Darwin offered?

1) existence of similar species with shared common characteristics 2) geographically distribution of species over the face of the Earth. 3) similarity of bone structures, embryonic developments & useless rudimentary organs among contemporary living creatures. 4) fossil record was the best explained by his theory that species living today had descended from different earlier species.

What are the three assumptions about human nature?

1) human beings have self that is conscious and rational. 2) Self is different from but related to the body. 3) Self endures through time.

What is the Traditional Rationalistic View?

A synthesis of classical Greek and Judeo-Christian beliefs and attitudes.

What happens when we fulfill the being's purpose?

Allows it to accomplish its good and leads to the flourishing of the being.

What does Taylor suggest about the Relational Self?

Another way is to be able to see who I am-the real inner me-depends on my relationship to others.

How did Gottfried Leibniz addressed the question of interaction?

Arguing that mind and body run in parallel order, like two clocks that are synchronized so that they seem to be connected yet operate independently.

What is the No-Self view?

Buddhist alike, believe that the self is nothing more than an fleeting momentary composite of constantly changing elements: our form & mater, our sensations, perceptions, psychic dispositions & our conscious thoughts.

What is the Judeo-Christian view?

Claims that humans are made in the image of God, who has endowed them with rational self-consciousness and an ability to love.

Describe Stephen Jay Gould's response to this point. (75)

Claims that the gaps show only that evolution generally occurs by rapid jumps or saltation's from one species to another.

What does David J. Chalmers believe?

Conscious experience involves properties of an individual that are not entailed by the physical properties of that individual.

What is one challenge that faces the traditional rationalistic view?

Darwin's Theory of Evolution.

What is bad faith?

Deceiving ourselves by pretending that we are not free and so not responsible.

What is the Existentialist Challenge?

Deny the Traditional View's claims that there is a fixed human nature and that we have a purpose. Our consciousness of our freedom to create ourselves and its accompanying responsibilities cause what Sartre refers to as "anguish."

How does Sartre argue for the claim that humans lack an essence, using the example of a paperknife?

God makes man according to a procedure and a concept, exactly as the artisan manufactures a paper-knife, following a definition and a formula he had in mind.

What did Nicolas Malebranche believed contrary to Gottfried?

He believed that God steps in to synchronize the body and the mind.

How does Descartes talk about the interaction of these two distinct things? (91)

He suggested that perhaps the mind interacts with the body through the pineal gland, a tiny gland & so sensitive that even the immaterial mind could move it.

What does Aristotle argue about Relational Self?

He who is unable to live in society/no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be a beast or a God.

What is one problem of interaction that Descartes' dualism raises?

How do the mind and body interact?

Give an example of a conflict between reason and desire, and between reason and aggressiveness.

Human virtue consists of dealing with our feelings, [desires], and actions in such a way that we attain in them the kind of moderation that reason determines is right.

How does Aquinas argue for this? (68)

Humans naturally desire, as their ultimate purpose, to know the first cause of things. But the first cause of all things is God. So the ultimate purpose of humans is to know God.

How does Chalmers use the zombie thought experiment to argue for his new dualism? (106)

If consciousness is a physical feature of our world, then a world that contains all the physical features of our world would have to contain consciousness. Possible for a zombie world to have all the physical features of a world but no consciousness. Therefore, consciousness is not a physical feature rather a physical property of our world.

Give an example of what seems to be mind to body causation and vice versa.

If your body is injured, you become aware of pain in your mind.

What does Hegel claim in Power?

Implies that the powerful and powerless classes in society are created by the qualities we are willing to recognize in them, such as masters and slaves.

Is there an enduring self?

In favor of this is the fact of bodily continuity, that most of my body continues the same as it was that previous day, and most of it continues the same into the next succeeding day.

What was Thomas Aquinas vie on human's purpose?

Is to achieve happiness by using their reason to know God.

What does Hegel argue with Culture and Self-Identity?

It is in fact, through her culture that a person gets the recognition that makes her a free person or enslaved. in other words, Who I am, the qualities that define me, depends on my culture and my relationships to the people in my life.

What does Eliminative materialism claim?

Mental conscious states don't exist, and that future science will let us eliminate al terms referring to such states.

What does Hegel argue with Recognition of Relational Self?

My own identity-who I really am-depends on my relationships with other and that I cannot be who I am apart from my relationships with others.

How does Hobbes describe his version of reductionism?

No need to postulate existence of immaterial substances but instead acknowledge that only material things exist. However he wasn't convincing!

What is Plato's argument for the soul's immateriality?

Plato argues that our mental abilities provide the clearest evidence of the immaterial nature of the soul.

What is the Rationalistic Version of the Traditional View?

Reason is the most distinctive capacity of human beings. Neither understood human beings as essentially egoistic or self-interested.

What did Descartes say defending atomism?

Said the self exists and can be known independently of others and that only the self can judge the truth about what it is.

How does John Searle's "Chinese Room Argument" challenge the notion that a computer could have a mind?

Searle objects that a computer following a program is not conscious. His "Chinese Rook" example is a person who follows a program that outputs the right Chinese characters when given Chinese inputs. This passes the Turing Test, yet the person is not conscious of knowing Chinese.

What does Materialism argue?

Since only physical bodies and systems exist, then the activities we attribute to the mind are really activities of our material body, we should be able to explain the operations of the mind in terms of the working of the body

Explain Tomas Reid's objection to the memory theory.

Suppose at age 20 I remember myself at 10, and at 30 I remember myself at 20 but not at 10. Locke's view at 20 I am the same person I was at 10, and at 30 I am the same person I was at 20. So at 30 I must be the same person I was at 10. Locke's view also says at 30 I am not the person I was at 10.

What is the most anguishing thought we have?

That we alone are totally responsible for ourselves.

What is the Feminist Challenge?

The Rationalist Traditional View leaves us with concepts of reason, appetites, emotions, mind, and body that are all biased in favor of men and against women.

How does Kant argue about atomism?

The core of the self is the ability to choose for oneself the moral laws and moral principles by which one will live one's life.

What does Sartre mean by "we lack an essence, existence precedes essence?" (79)

The key to Sartre's view is the idea that humans, unlike things, are defined by their actions.

What did Augustine emphasized?

The notion of a will: the ability to choose between good and evil.

What is the Atomistic Self view?

The self is like the atom, self-contained and independent of other atoms. "The core of my self, can always rise above, remaining independent of all that it meets."

How do the stories of the woman with amnesia and the bank robber support Locke's theory?

The woman having no consciousness after the accident of being the man's wife, then she is no longer that same person. A person who has no awareness of ever doing something cannot be responsible for doing that thing.

What is Hume's denial of an enduring self view say?

There is no such idea of "self" we are a bundle or collection of different perceptions that are all continuously changing.

What do the New Dualists believe?

They hold that there are two different kinds of properties in the universe.

What is the purpose of humans?

To use their reason to think and to control desires and aggressions.

What is reductionism?

Viewpoint that the structure and/or function of one kind of thing-the mind-can be exhaustively explained by the structure and function of another kind of thing-the body.

What does Taylor refer to The Dialogical Self?

We define our identity always in dialogue with the recognition of others to be who we are, and depend on our culture to give us the words and ideas we use to define who we are.

How does Aristotle argue for the claim that the purpose of humans is to live a life of reason?

We gain such self-mastery by learning to control our passions and appetites with our reason during life. To attain such a self-mastery through the exercise of reason is the ultimate purpose of human beings.

What does Locke's "thought experiment" say about enduring self?

What makes a person at one time the same as a person at another time is his or her consciousness-person's awareness. In other words MEMORY!

How does Traditional Western View views enduring self as soul?

What remains the same as the body changes is one's immaterial soul.

What argument does Descartes use to establish that the mind is not a physical thing?

When people weaken, their mind can remain strong. The mind can deteriorate even though the body remains vigorous. The mind cannot violate the principle of the conservation of matter and energy.

psychological egoism

acting not to benefit this person rather out of self-interested motives.

What is our ability to reason?

is the characteristic that sets the human self apart from all other creatures of nature.

What is Dualism?

view that human beings are immaterial minds within material bodies.

inter-psychic conflict

when the soul is torn between reason, its bodily desires, its aggressive impulses.