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Introduction to Philosophy (UNO) > 7: Personal Identity and Philosophy of Mind > Flashcards

7: Personal Identity and Philosophy of Mind Flashcards

1
Q

Definition of Philosophy of Mind

A

The philosophical study of the mind and how the mind works

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2
Q

What is the problem of personal identity?

A
  1. What makes a person a person?
  2. What makes a person the person they are?
  3. What makes a person the same person over time?
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3
Q

What are persons?

A
  1. Persons are blameworthy and praiseworthy
  2. Persons are bearers of rights and resposibilities
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4
Q

What makes a person a person?

A

Traditional analysis

Something is a person if:

  1. it is rational
  2. it is autonomous
  3. it is a moral agent
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5
Q

What makes a person the person they are?

A
  1. their soul
  2. their memories
  3. their body/brain
  4. their psychological traits
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6
Q

What makes a person the same person over time?

A
  1. Sameness of soul
  2. Continuity of memories
  3. Sameness of body/brain
  4. Psychological continuity
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7
Q

Sameness of soul criterion

A
  1. are you the person you are because of your soul?
  2. will you continue to exist after you die?
  3. are you the person you are because of your soul?
    1. Persona (years ago) is identical to personb (today) only if persona and b have the same soul
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8
Q

What is a soul?

A
  1. What properties does the soul have?
    1. immaterial
    2. everlasting
  2. Are you you because of your soul?
  3. Will you continue to exist after your body dies?
  4. If yes, you are a dualist.
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9
Q

What is dualism?

A

The metaphysical view that there are 2 fundamentally distinct and irreducibly different kinds of substances: body & mind (soul)

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10
Q

Why is dualism appealing?

A
  1. it agrees with an idea of human life that is advanced by many religions
  2. it fits very well with the idea that there are certain features of our mental life that cannot be physical.
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11
Q

What is Descartes’s foundation for epistemology in his second meditation?

A
  1. That he knows he exists
    1. “What is this ‘I’ that I know?”
      1. He is not a body = material substance
        1. The body changes, but he remains the same
      2. He is a mind = a thinking substance, soul
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12
Q

What are some properties of bodies?

A
  1. material
  2. occupy space
  3. can be perceived by the senses
  4. can be moved
  5. divisible
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13
Q

What are some properties of mind according to Descartes?

A
  1. Immaterial
  2. Not occupy space
  3. Not perceived by touch, sight, hearing, taste or smell
  4. Cannot be moved/changed
  5. Indivisible
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14
Q

What is Descartes argument for dualism?

A
  1. “I am” is impossible to doubt
  2. What I am is either a body or a mind
  3. The essence of bodies is extension
  4. The essence of minds if thought
  5. If I am a thinking substance, I am not a body
  6. I am a thinking substance
  7. Therefore, I am not a body
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15
Q

What are some problems with dualism?

A
  1. Using doubt and property divergence
    1. if A has a certain property and B does not, A≠B
    2. You can’t use doubt as a basis for claiming not-identity
  2. The mind-body problem
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16
Q

What is the mind-body problem?

A
  1. The difficulty of explaining how the mental activities of human beings relate to their living physical organisms
    • How then can one’s mind affect one’s body?
    • How can one’s body affect one’s mind?
    • Drinking alcohol impairs my thinking ability
    • Why will damage to the brain result in impaired thinking and cognition?
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17
Q

What is monism?

A

The view that there is only one substance out of which everything is made

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18
Q

What are the different kinds of monism?

A
  1. Idealism
  2. Pantheism
  3. Materialism
  4. Physicalism
19
Q

What is idealism?

A

the view that everything that exists has the character of mind/spirit/psyche

  • all that exists are ideas, and not things themselves
20
Q

What is pantheism?

A

The view that everything that exists is part of the being of God

21
Q

What is materialism?

A

The view that everything that exists has the character of body or matter

22
Q

What is physicalism?

A

The view that everything that exists reduce to the things studied by physical science.

  • more refined version of materialism
  • it includes energy, fields, forces
23
Q

Who is Gilbert Ryle?

A
  • british analytic philosopher
  • Oxford
  • behaviorist
    • nothing over the behavior, no spirituality, etc.
    • equate the mind with the behavior
24
Q

What was Ryle’s aim/purpose on his attack on dualism?

A

The central principles of the official doctrine are unsound and conflict with the whole body of what we know about minds.

25
Q

What did Ryle meant with “official doctrine”?

A
  1. The Doctrine of the Ghost in the Machine
    1. Every human being has (or is) both a mind and a body
    2. There is a polar opposition between mind and matter
    3. What the mind wills, the legs, arms, and the tongue execute
    4. In consciousness and introspection he is directly and authentically appraised of the present states and operations of his mind.
26
Q

What is a category mistake?

A
  1. An error in reasoning in which things of one kind are presented as if they belonged to another, or a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property.
    1. “Where is the university?”
      1. University is made up of other categories below it
  2. Ryle thought dualism commited a category mistake.
27
Q

What is the category mistake that the proponents of the doctrine make?

A
  1. We know how to use words such as “process,” “cause,” “effect,” etc.
  2. Such words can’t be referring to what is unobservable, to use them that way is a category mistake
  3. Proponents of the official doctrine use those words to refer to the unobservable mind
  4. Therefore, proponents make a category mistake
28
Q

What are some problems with the sameness of soul criterion?

A
  1. How do we know souls exists?
  2. How do we know that we have the same soul over time?
  3. The mind-body problem
  4. Why will damage to your brain effect who you are as a person?
29
Q

Sameness of body/brain criterion

A
  1. The body plays an important in how we recognize and identify as persons
  2. Are you the person you are because of your body/brain?
  3. Is sameness of body/brain that which makes a person the same person over time?
30
Q

What were some things Hume said about the self?

A
  1. Received view of the self
  2. A problem
  3. His view of the self
  4. Personal identity requires sameness
31
Q

What is Hume’s received view of the self?

A
  1. “There are some philosophers, who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what we call our self.”
32
Q

What was Hume’s problem with the received view of the self?

A
  1. There is no impression constant and invariable of the self, which is what there must be if any impression gives rise to the idea of the self.
33
Q

What was Hume’s view of the self?

A
  1. The self is nothing but “ a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with inconceivable rapidity, and are in perpetual flux and movement.”
    1. there is no single, distinct, invariable that is self.
    2. it is constantly changing
34
Q

What did Hume mean when he said that personal identity requires sameness?

A
  1. We confuse succession with sameness, but that is a mistake.
    1. identity requires sameness
  2. for a = b, there can be no change
    1. ANY ALTERATION destroys the identity
35
Q

Memory/Consciousness Criterion

A
  1. are you the person you are because of your memories?
  2. Is continuity of memories/consciousness that which makes a person the same person over time?
    1. Persona is identical to personb only if personb remembers all or at least some of the experiences of persona
36
Q

What is a person according to Locke?

A

“A thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself… which it does only by that consciousness which is inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to be, essential to it.” (p.429)

37
Q

What was Locke’s aim in talking about persons?

A

To find wherein personal identity consists, we must consider what a person stands for.

38
Q

What is personal identity according to Locke?

A
  1. “Sameness of a rational being: and as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person.” (p.430)
    • not sameness of soul (immaterial substance)
    • not sameness of body (corporeal substance)
39
Q

Is it possible for 1 body be more than 1 person over the course of his life?

A
  • “it is possible for the same man to have distinct incommunicable consciousness at different times, it is past doubt the same man would at different times make different persons.” (Locke)
    • amnesia or memory loss
    • part of rational being constitutes a memory of past experiences
40
Q

What are some properties of identity?

A
  1. reflexive (a = a)
  2. symmetrical (If a = b, Aa then Ab)
  3. transitive (If a = b, and b = c, then a = c)
41
Q

What is the Gallant Officer objection of Thomas Reid?

A

(a = kid, b = adult, c = old)

  1. If a = b and b = c, then a = c
  2. If the memory criterion is correct, then c should have the apple memory b has
  3. It is false that c has the apple memory
  4. Therefore, it is false that a=c
  • Is it reasonable to say that you have to have all the memories?
42
Q

What is Psychological Continuity?

A

The bundle of beliefs, fears, desires and memories that a person holds over time.

43
Q

Psychological continuity criterion

A
  1. Are you the person that you are because of psychological traits that make up your beliefs, fears, etc.?
  2. Is psychological continuity that which makes a person the same person over time?
    1. Persona is identical to personb only if
      1. persona is psychologically continuous with personb and
      2. persona is not psychologically continuous with anyone else.

Introduction to Philosophy (UNO) (9 decks)

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