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Class notes Philosophy of Mind (500251-B-5)
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Notes on Philosophy of Mind lectures for Tilburg University.
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Philosophy of Mind LecturesPart 1 - Mind-Body problem
1. Introduction and Substance Dualism
We are conscious beings with a mental life:
● We think, experience feelings and emotions, have wishes, fears…
● We make decisions, have intentions
● We have memories
We are also physical creatures:
● We have physical bodies
● We have powerful brains
Mind-body problem: what is the relationship between the physical body and the mind?
Question 1 - What is the conscious mind?
Conscious experiences
● Thomas Nagel: what-it-is-likeness
○ There is something it is like to be a bat – we know this theoretically yet not in practice
○ We consider our experiences
■ Taste, color
● Qualia (quale)
○ Conscious experience
○ How they feel
■ What it is like to taste water from NL vs. water from Mex
Cognitive states
● Posses intentionality, they are ABOUT something (aboutness)
● Propositional attitudes (PAs):
○ Mental states that involve thinking about a proposition
■ John believes that it is raining
● This does not entail any “feelings”
○ PAs are discrete entities
■ They can be individualized
Emotions
● Mental states that have:
○ Qualitative character
■ There is something it is like to have this feeling
○ Intentionality
■ There is something causing this feeling
How does the conscious mind, constituted by these states, fit in with the body and in the physical world?
Central problems:
- How do qualia fit in the physical world?
- How does intentionality fit in the physical world?
Question 2 - Can the mind function separately from the brain?
Substance
● A substance is that which can exist on its own (as opposed to properties)
○ Ex: a wood ball
● Substance dualism: there are two substances
, ○ Res cogitans: thinking substance
○ Res extensa: extended (physical) substance
● René Descartes - 17th century French philosopher
○ There are two kinds of things that can have reality – mind and body
Essential properties
● Certain characteristics that are essential
○ Res cogitans – thinking
○ Res extensa – having extension
■ To be extended is to take up a place in space
■ Movement is the result of collision between extended objects
Descartes’ Methods
● Radical doubt
○ Mathematics should be the prototype of science, it's a foundation to build on
○ What is a foundation you cannot doubt?
■ Descartes’ begins doubting everything
■ There is room for skepticism everywhere
○ Solid foundation: I think therefore I am
■ Cogito ergo sum
■ I am a thinking being
■ I must have some kind of existence
● Clear and distinct insights
○ Descartes is…
■ Res cogitans, a thinking substance
■ With the essential property of thinking
○ How does he know this?
■ This is perceived clearly and distinctly
○ Other clear and distinct truths:
■ God exists
■ God is good
■ God does not deceive me (or at least not all the time)
■ I am also a body
● Res extensa
The interaction problem
Princess Elizabeth: “how does the immaterial mind and the material body interact?”
● Causal closure (CC) of the physical world: no energy (hence, no mass) gets in or out the system
○ Energy is not created → every physical event has a physical cause
● If CC applies, then non-physical causes are unintelligible
● “Patric Swayze” problem: how can a non-physical substance collide with a physical substance?
How does Descartes’ answer?
● He does not really know…
○ On one hand, we are (a) clearly two substances
○ On the other hand, this is not comparable to a sailor in a ship, instead (b) mind and body
are closely connected
○ We cannot thing of (a) and (b) together: (a) and (b) are inconsistent
● The pineal gland
○ According to Descartes → the mind and body connect through the Pineal Gland
■ Not accurate
, ■ How?
● Perhaps it’s God…
○ God takes care of the interaction → suggestion
○ How would this work?
■ Occasionalism
● God as the true cause of
events
○ It seems to me that
my thought causes
me to act
○ Instead, my
thought is the
occasion for God to
raise my arm
■ Parallelism
● Two parallel series of
events: mental and
physical
● God synchronizes all
mental events to match
with all physical events
○ How does God do it?
■ How do mind and body interact?
→ How does God intervene?
Princess Elizabeth: “I must admit that it would be easier for me to attribute matter and extension to the
soul, than to attribute to an immaterial being the capacity to move and be moved by a body.”
2. Idealism
Question 3 - Is there only mind?
How to avoid the interaction problem?
→ Reject the idea that the mind is a separate entity from the body
→ Commit to some kind of Monism
- View that fundamentally there is only one kind of thing
Berkley’s monism
● G. Berkeley on the interaction problem:
○ There is no interaction because there is only mind
○ More precisely, there is no material substance
■ The existence of matter depends on the existence of a mind
● To be is to be perceived
○ Esse est percipi
○ Dialogue between Philonous (man who loves the mind) and Hylas (the matter-man)
○ Philonous defends the thesis that there is no material substance
● Berkley’s argument
○ Empiricism: knowledge comes from sensory experience
○ What is observable?
■ Substances are not observable … but properties are
● Ex. Water
, ○ Odorless, liquid, warm, tasteless
■ We don’t perceive the water itself, we perceive it via the senses
○ Primary and secondary properties
■ Primary properties are independent from an observer
● Not constituted by our experience of them
○ Height, size, movement
■ Secondary properties are not independent from an observer
● Depends on someone perceiving it
○ Odor, sound, color
○ Berkley argues that primary properties are “not necessary”
■ All of these things depend on the existence of a mind
○ Colors as secondary properties
■ “Usual” definition: colors are the wavelengths of light
● A color is something that is attributed
■ Reductio ad absurdum → establish a claim by showing that the opposite
scenario would be absurd
● Secondary property such as color - defined in a sense by how we
EXPERIENCE it
○ Dependent upon the mind
○ Aren’t there other primary properties that exist independent of the observer? (Height,
size)
■ John Locke, Galileo, etc. – yes there are
■ Berkley – all properties are dependent on the observer
● Whether something is big, depends on the observer
● Victor Johnson 1999
○ “Not a single sound or smell or taste exists without the emergent properties of our
conscious brain. Our conscious world is a grand illusion!”
● Berkeley’s error
○ Whether something is big or small does depend on the observer, but it’s height does not
■ Temperature is also independent of any observer
○ The persistence of the physical world
■ There are no minds observing everything always
■ The physical cannot work without the mind
○ What happens if there is no observer?
■ Berkely needs God to stop the physical world from disappearing
3. Behaviorism
Question 4 - Is there only behavior?
● There are two versions of behaviorism: philosophical and psychological
○ Psychological behaviorism
■ Prediction and control of behavior
■ Psychology as a science → we have to study things we can observe
■ Methodological reasons
● Psychological behaviorism → methodological behaviorism
● As a science, psychology should be objective
● Its method should be aimed at observing and documenting
stimulus-response correlations
○ Watson’s Little Albert experiment
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