Because the course philosophy of mind is divided into mid- and endterm, this is the summary of the first part of the course. It compromises the required exam materials, the slides of the lectures and the book (8 questions about the conscious mind). For a handy reading and understanding, it is summa...
The philosophy of mind – Part 1
Table of content
Chapter 1: Substance dualism........................................................................................................................ 2
1. What is philosophy?.........................................................................................................................................2
2. Why philosophy for psychologists?..................................................................................................................2
3. What is the conscious mind? (first question)...................................................................................................2
4. Can the mind function separately from the brain? (2nd question)...................................................................3
Lecture 2: Idealism & Behaviorism................................................................................................................. 5
1. Idealism/Immaterialism Question 3: Is there only mind? Question 3: Is there only mind?...............................................................................5
2. Behaviorism Question 3: Is there only mind? Question 4: Is there only behavior?............................................................................................5
2.1. Psychological/methodological behaviorism.............................................................................................5
2.2. Philosophical (analytical/linguistic) behaviorism.....................................................................................6
2.3. Problems with behaviorism......................................................................................................................7
3. Summary..........................................................................................................................................................7
Question 5: Is the conscious mind part of the brain?......................................................................................8
1. Another type of monism: Materialism.............................................................................................................8
2. What is identity?..............................................................................................................................................8
3. MBIT Question 3: Is there only mind? Mind body/brain identity theory...........................................................................................................9
4. Arguments for/against MBIT...........................................................................................................................9
5. Conclusion......................................................................................................................................................10
Question 6: Can machines have conscious minds? – Functionalism...............................................................11
1.1. Comparing functionalism with behaviorism and MBIT...............................................................................11
2. The Turing machine........................................................................................................................................12
3. Evaluation of functionalism............................................................................................................................13
4. Connectionism as an alternate to cognitivism...............................................................................................13
Question 7: The embodies, embedded and extended mind..........................................................................16
1. The embodied & embedded mind..................................................................................................................16
2. The extended mind.........................................................................................................................................17
2.1. Intro. leading to the extended mind hypothesis (EMH).........................................................................17
2.2. Extended mind hypothesis.....................................................................................................................17
2.3. Pro EMH..................................................................................................................................................17
2.4. Contra EMH.............................................................................................................................................18
1
,Chapter 1: Substance dualism
1. What is philosophy?
Philosophy is...
o Conceptual analysis
Scientific research provides us with a scientific world view
Everyday world view = manifest world view
Relation between different world views
o Conceptual clarification
Using science itself to clarify concepts
o The science of validity
In science you use all kinds of concepts, like the concept of ‘causality’
Usually you use the concept without asking questions about that concept
o Changing perspectives
o Search for the truth
Ancient Greek: teachers taught techniques to win arguments not truth is
important, but winning
Socrates against this technique
2. Why philosophy for psychologists?
Academic thinking Because philosophy is critical thinking
Thinking critically about different things, like how should I act?
o Ethical questions
o What is a mind/psyche? And consciousness?
The hard problem
o People have dualist intuitions
3. What is the conscious mind? (first question)
3 mental states
o Conscious experiences
“What-it-is-likeness” (Nagel)
Experiences of taste, color, etc.
Qualia qualitative aspects of (phenomenal) experiences
o Cognition
Propositional attitudes
Stances towards a proposition
Cognitive states have intentionality aboutness
Discrete entities
o Emotions
Have qualitative character and intentionality
E.g. being angry: it’s sth. it feels like to be mad at a bad driver
Conscious and unconscious mind
o “The notion of an unconscious mental state implies accessibility to consciousness.”
memory
o Many processes in brain that you can’t be conscious of no mental states, bc they
lack the ability to become conscious states
The general problem: “How does the conscious mind fit in the physical world?”
o 3 subproblem:
How do conscious experiences fit in the physical world?
How do cognitive states fit in the physical world?
How do emotions fit in the physical world?
o Reduction: bc of 2 properties (qualia and intentionality)
How do qualia fit in the physical world?
2
, How does intentionality fit in the physical world?
o Consciousness and cognition
“Cognition” part of the mental states that have aboutness
“consciousness” phenomenal states of the mind, bc cognitive states are
mental states that can also be conscious states
Cognitive states (that can become conscious) = mental states
o Different views:
Substance-dualism mind and body are independent of each other
Idealism physical world is dependent on the mental world
Behaviorism the mind is behavior
Reductionism / identity theory mental states are certain brain states
Eliminativism there’s no mind
Functionalism mental states are realized by brain states
Connectionism mental states are states in a neural network
Embodies & embedded (+ extended) mind there is more to mind than
brain
4. Can the mind function separately from the brain? (2nd question)
The separability thesis soul survives bodily death
Inseparability thesis mind can’t function separated from a physical body
Substance: can exist on its own
Substance-dualism: (Rene Descartes)
o Res cogitans (“thinking substance”)
o Res extensa (“physical/extended substance”) physical bodies can bump into other
physical bodies and set them in motion because they are extended
Essential properties/Foundation:
o The essential property of the thinking substance is: thinking;
o The essential property of the extended substance is: being extended / having
extension;
o Being extended means that it takes up a place in space;
o Movement is the result of collisions.
Descartes’ first method: Radical doubt
o Mathematics as the prototype of science
o What is a foundation you can’t doubt?
nd
2 method: Clear & distinct insights
o Descartes is, but what is he?
o Answer: a res cogitans
o Essential property: thinking
o How does he know? – he sees this clearly & distinctly
The interaction problem (a mystery)
o How can the physical body and the non-physical mind interact with each other?
o Causal closure of the physical world: no energy gets in or out the system
o Every physical event has a physical cause
o Nonphysical (mental) causes seem to be unintelligible
o “Patrick Swayze Problem”
Two solutions:
o Descartes corresponded with princess Elizabeth of Bohemia;
o She asked him the following:
“How can the soul of man, being only a thinking substance, determine [i.e. causally
interact with] his bodily spirits to perform voluntary actions?” (Note: Spirits are not
ghosts but are physical particles in the nerves and blood vessels.)
3
, o Descartes does not know;
On the one hand (so Descartes says) we are [a] clearly two substances; On the other
hand we are not like a sailor on a ship, [b] but mind and body are closely connected;
o We cannot think [a] and [b] together.
The pineal gland
o Mind and brain are connected in the pineal gland according to Descartes
o Suggestion by Descartes: God takes care of the interaction: He could have made us in
a way that stepping in a nail would not result in pain but in the taste of chocolate.
Occasionalism
o Only God is the true cause between two events – mental or physical
o So it seems that my thought about raising my arm is the cause of me raising my arm
o My thought is the occasion for God to raise my arm
o Occasional cause event that is an occasion for God to cause another event
Parallelism
o If we have two clocks that run in sync, that is because they have been made that
way;
o The same applies to the mind and the body if we want to speak and the tongue
moves, then we will accompanies the motion of the tongue without them having a
causal relation; the will and the movement both depend on the same supreme
designer who has made them in such a way that they run parallel to each other
Problem with occasionalism and parallelism
o Both occasionalism and parallelism suffer from the same problem: How does God do
this?
o It is not insightful: one problem (how do the mind and body interact?) is replaced by
another (how does God do it?)
Parapsychology
o Natural explanations for phenomena and experiences that seem to be paranormal in
origin
o 2 case studies:
Clairvoyance
Ability to gain info about sth in a way that doesn’t use the normal
senses
Extrasensory perception (ESP)
Claim that they get info from spiritual world (support of separability
thesis)
More a fraud thing
Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)
Tuning a radio to a channel between two stations and record the
resulting white noise discovering all kinds of messages from the
deceased
Studies about EVP but don’t provide us with any reason to believe
that these recordings are the recorded voices of the dead
Conclusion:
o Dualism has no empirical support unable to explain how a non-physical mind can
interact with a physical body
o Science hadn’t been taking into account for explanation, any perspective that rejects
science should be abandoned discarding substance dualism
o Monist view only one substance no interaction problem
4
, Lecture 2: Idealism & Behaviorism
1. Idealism/Immaterialism Question 3: Is there only mind?
Solution to interaction problem (Berkeley) there is no interaction, for there is only mind
(Monism)
No material substance, everything is mental (a form of Monism)
How does Berkeley argue?
o Empiricism (John Locke, David Hume and George Berkeley)
o You can’t see substances
o What can we see?
Properties, some properties are dependent on us bc we ascribe them
All properties are secondary properties (e.g. colors)
o Reduction ad absurdum
Color 1 = 390 nm
Color 2 = 380 nm
If we can show we can experience 390 nm also as color 2, i follows (from our
premise) that color 2 = 390 nm as well
But that is absurd, for then 380 nm = color 2 = 390 nm
Locke/Galilei: there are also primary properties (that exist independently of
any observer), like height
o To be is to be perceived:
Esse est percipi
Unthinking things don’t have any existence outside of the minds that
perceive them
In his work he has Philonous (who loves the mind) argue with Hylas (the
matter-man) to show that physical objects don’t have primary properties and
there is no physical substance Hylas gets convinced by Philonous
o Are there primary properties?
If sth is big, that is dependent on the observer
Hence, height is also secondary property goes for all properties
But this is wrong: whether sth is big or small depends on the observer, but its
height doesn’t
Just like it depends on your perception whether water is hot or cold, but the
temperature is independent of any observer
Furthermore: where is the beer if you close the fridge?
Berkeley needs God to stop the physical world from disappearing
We don’t gain any insight or explanation idealism doesn’t take science
seriously either
2. Behaviorism Question 4: Is there only behavior?
Behaviorism (Watson)
o 20th century: psychology, to be scientific, can’t accept non-observable mental entities
and can’t use mentalistic terms that refer to such entities
o Studying the correlation between stimulus (input) and behavior/response (output)
Black Box
o Input goes into the black box (stimuli)
o Output comes out of it (behavior)
o Behaviorist doesn’t say anything about what happens inside the black box
Psychological and Philosophical Behaviorism
o Different motives to defend behaviorism
2.1. Psychological/methodological behaviorism
“Human thought is human behavior.” (Skinner)
5
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