ONTOLOGICAL SECURITY PAPER SCGW
Ontology - (ANSWER)a theory of reality or theory of being. Asks questions like What is a self?
Do I have a self? What is the mind? What is the relationship between the mind and the body?
What is real and what is appearance? Are we able to distinguish between the two?
Philosophy frames theories of, and discussions about, ontology in terms of the following
paradigms - (ANSWER)Nihilism, monism, pluralism and dualism
Nihilism - (ANSWER)nothing is real (as an ethics, nothing is meant to/deserves to exist)
Monism - (ANSWER)the view that there is only one reality or only one kind of thing that is real
Berkeley and Hegel - (ANSWER)attempted to construct and idealist monism, but their
ontological theories never gained much traction.
Materialistic monism - (ANSWER)ontological view that everything is material/physical or at
base everything is ultimately rooted in the material/physical
Behaviorism - (ANSWER)an ontology emphasizing the outward, behavioral aspects of thought
while dismissing its inward experiential aspects.
John B. Watson - (ANSWER)Behaviorist, Statements about human activity, including about
some mental life are merely descriptions of observable behaviors, and if not, the statement is
either false or nonsense.
Hard Behaviorism - (ANSWER)We are only bodies in motion, the so called mind- its events,
states, processes- does not exist.
B.F. Skinner - (ANSWER)hard behaviorist, excludes inner physiological and psychological
processes, including intention and meaning, as having any explanatory capacity.
,Soft Behaviorism - (ANSWER)minds may exist, but methodologically, science provides
adequate explanations of activity without reference to mind.
Ordinary Language Philosophy (OLP) - (ANSWER)All philosophy problems are really linguistic
problems.
Gilbert Ryle (pluralist) - (ANSWER)Ordinary language philosopher, category mistakes,
Critiques dualism and hard behaviorism.
Category-mistake - (ANSWER)erroneously placing a term/phrase from one logical or
grammatical category in another category, then drawing absurd conclusions as a result.
'Mentalistic' terms - (ANSWER)intelligence, spirit, hope- are not ghostly things that may/may
not exist, but references to how people do things, linguistic descriptions of how people behave.
Baseball example - (ANSWER)bats, gloves, fielders are things you can see, team spirit is not a
thing one can point out. Asking where the team spirit is is a category mistake.
Mind-Brain identity theory - (ANSWER)The mind's states-processes are identical to the brains-
mental events are real but are physical neurological events and only physical events. Experiences
(pain, sight, etc) are not merely correlated with the brain, such mental states/processes are brain
states/processes.
J.C.C. Smart - (ANSWER)Mind-brain identity theory, Everything should be explicable in terms
of physics, sensations are nothing other than brain processes.
Eliminative Materialism - (ANSWER)denies mental states in favor of brain states, but says
"what people used to call X, is now known to be Y". We merely construct explanations to
account for yet unknown physical occurrences that will eventually be found to exist.
Daniel Dennett - (ANSWER)Eliminative Materialism, strong artificial intelligence theory,
consciousness must be defined behavioristically in order to be scientific and thus...
, Strong Artificial Intelligence theory - (ANSWER)the brain is a digital computer, the so called
mind is a computer program.
Functionalism - (ANSWER)the mind is not a thing (brain or substance) but a system- i.e. an
ensemble of related components with a function (job) said system accomplishes.
Thomas Nagel - (ANSWER)Studies of the brain/nervous system may tell us what causes mental
experience but it tells us nothing about what said experience is. Ex: we know bats operate via
echolocation but we have no idea what "bat experience" might actually be like.
Phenomenology - (ANSWER)study of the structures of conciousness from the first person pov
experience, the central structure of which is intentionality- its being directed toward something,
being an experience of or about some object.
Dualism - (ANSWER)two distinct forms or kinds of reality or real things
Radical Dualism (Descartes) - (ANSWER)two kinds of real things, existing independently, and
never the twain shall meet.
Mental - (ANSWER)mind and or spiritual substance, the mind is a thing that thinks
Ghost in the machine problem - (ANSWER)how can two completely independent realms co-
exist with each other?
Descartes triumph - (ANSWER)mind/body are so intermingled as to compose one whole
Descartes failure - (ANSWER)fits the two together by locating the mind and soul in the Pineal
Gland (body)