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Philosophy of mind, brain and behavior Summary
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Lecture 1 - Dualism, logical behaviorism and the identity theorySubstance Dualism
• Mind = umbrella term for all mental states
• Mental = intentional (about something else, connected via thought) and/or phenomenal
(subjective, qualitative aspect)
• Substance dualism: mind is a non-physical substance (soul) that is causally connected to body
• All mental states bundled together can exist independently of body
• Soul = seed of the mind
• Descartes had very convincible argument for substance dualism
• Property dualism: the mind is produced by the physical brain, but some of its properties
(phenomenal properties) are non-physical
• Physical theory can never completely explain the mind
Psychological Behaviorism - Methodological problems with dualism
• Dualism implies introspection is the only scienti c methodology
(immaterial souls cannot be studied with other methods)
• Introspection is not objective (relies on trust, cannot be checked)
• Unconscious mental states cannot be topics of scienti c research
• Response: de ne psychology as behavioral science (believing in minds = believing in souls)
Logical behaviorism
• Background - theoretical problems with dualism
• The interaction problem: Bohemia corresponded with Descartes and
asked how soul would in uence body if its immaterial
• Descartes said pineal gland is responsible for where soul in uences
body (doesn’t explain how, cannot be proven)
• Descartes argued that its ‚just there‘ -> not everything can be
explained
• Nowadays believe in causal closed world (every phenomenon in
physical world as a physical explanation)
• Ryle wrote ‚Concept of Mind‘ -> convinced people to get rid of dualism
• Believing in separate substances means believing as mind and body as puppeteer & puppet
• Mind as hidden locus of control to explain intelligent & non-intelligent behavior (-> can only do
that if we already understand the di erence between both)
• Make a causal explanation (one caused by mind, the other not) but that explanation is not
needed because we already know it
• Mind = intelligent behavior, not a hidden cause of it
• Conceptual analysis of mind (analyze way people used word mind)
• Output similar to one huge de nition
• Mind is not a thing (that would be a category mistakes)
• Mind is something like atmosphere at a party, its in many things together
• Mental states are behavioral dispositions
=> can explain what someone thinks/mind in behavioral terms
Problems with behaviorism
• Super Stoic (somebody who is able to withstand pain) & Perfect Pretender (being able to mimic
pain behavior) —> shows experience and behavior might not be the same
• Theory lack subjective/experiential experience
Identity Theory (science oriented)
• Insight aspects missing in behaviorism
• Experimental evidence for link between mind and mental states
• Boring: ‚Consciousness is a brain process‘ -> back then consciousness was not
looked at /talked about
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, • Smart
• the mind is as manipulable as the brain
• Mentalistic language is ‚topic neutral‘ (people are not producing/defending any theory when
talking about e.g. mind)
• Dualism may have been true, but it isn’t (evidence is lacking)
• Mind = brain (not a causal role relationship)
• This is a scienti c discovery (comparable to water = H2O)
Problem
• The explanatory gap
• Stating that mental states are brain states
doesn’t explain anything • Multiple realization
• How can intentionality and phenomenal be • According to the identity theory, organisms
physical?—> how can mental activity be with di erent brains cannot have the same
electrical current types of mental state (brain state = mental
• The H2O argument is not convincing (water state)
has clear properties that together de ne • This is unlikely (e.g. pain, plasticity,
water, properties are fully explained by arti cial intelligence)
idea that water is H2O)
Literature
1) The Mind-Body Problem
• Mind: range of processes (thinking, beliefs, desires, consciousness, emotions
• Scientists and philosophers attempting to explain mind as a natural, physical phenomenon
• Di cult since thoughts, lies, hopes, fears and dreams are a strange property
• We can think about things, but thought only ever refer to things
• Experiential quality: need to experience it to know it (tastes)
• Subjektive qualities
• Seemingly non-physical properties (in terms of physical/natural sciences)
1.1) Substance dualism
• Substance dualism: people consist of material body & immaterial soul (mental states/processes)
• Immaterial soul = all conscious processes (per ceiling, dreaming, believing)
• Substance = something that can exist independently
(soul and body are distinct but not actually separated -> continuous interaction)
• Associated with religion, spiritism
• According to Descartes soul does not occupy space
Doubt as an argument
• Descartes quest for scienti c knowledge —> doubting everything we presume
• ‚I think (I doubt) therefore I exist‘
• Logically possible that all that exists is our experience of world and bodies, not the things
themselves
• Assumption that material objects cannot think
• Leibniz: x is really the same thing as y, if x and y share all their properties
• Even if identical in all properties they do not share their place in space and time
• Leibniz principal can be used to argue that Descartes thinking ‚I‘ cannot be the same entity as a
material body or brain
• Can doubt existence of our own bodies and brains but cannot doubt existence as thinking
(doubting) things
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, Two features of Cartesian dualism
• ‚I‘ = soul (immaterial)
• Cartesian: idea that people consist of two separable parts, believe in immaterial soul
• For some being cartesian is only to believe in immaterial soul
• Descartes thought ‚I‘ was separated from world, connected to world
only indirectly (through senses/ behavior)
• Ideas = in mind, about the world
• Thought = manipulation of ideas
• Knowledge = ideas of how world really is
Problems with arguments for dualism
• Many Philosophers nowadays think Descartes was wrong in thinking material entities cannot be
conscious in principle (e.g. computers that can reason and produce and understand language)
• What someone is entitled to think about x (e.g. whether or not they can doubt x’s existence)
should not be considered a property of x (Leibniz principle)
• When and how something is perceived is not a property of that object (no intrinsic property)
• Ontology: study of what really exists
• Idea that the mind and body are distinct
• Epistemology: study of what we know and how we know it
• distinction between mind and body in terms of what we can doubt
• Argument for substance dualism based on doubt fails because it draws ontological conclusion
form epistemological di erence
The interaction Problem
• Elisabeth of Bohemia: How can an immaterial soul cause body to move?, How can material
Cody cause changes in soul? If they belong to entirely di erent realm of reality
• Descartes initially tried locating where soul in uences body
• Argued fact that we do not know how soul body interact doe snot mean that there is no
interaction
• Nowadays causal closure of the physical realm (occurrence of every physical event has physical
explanation)
1.2) Logical behaviorism
• Dualist position relies on introspection
• Methodological problems (objective/scienti c knowledge impossible)
• Mind was made a scienti c taboo but people outside of science would still speak/think about
mind (science without mind = incomplete)
• Ryle published The Concept of Mind & showed thinking about the mind is still deeply Cartesian
• Alternative way of thinking that avoids this dilemma => logical/philosophical behaviorism
The para-mechanical hypothesis
• Ryle's critique of mind-body dualism not aimed at immateriality of the soul but idea that mind is
a closed inner realm that gets input from senses and produces outputs
• According to cartesian dualism di erence between intelligent behavior & non-intelligent
behavior is a causal di erence (intelligent behavior caused bylined, non -intelligent behavior
purely bodily)
• Para-mechanical hypothesis: idea that intelligent behavior characterized by speci c causal
origin (behavior and mind merely casually connected, mind controls behavior but behavior is not
part of the mind)
Your idea
The mind is not a causal explanation for behavior is useless!
• Ryle's point: before we come up with para-mechanical explanation we
are able to distinguish intelligent behavior from non-intelligent behavior
• Di erence is a conceptual distinction
• Hypothesis doesn’t add anything
• Much of what we call ‚mind‘ is already part of our behavior
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