8 Descartes (1596-1650)

Question 1

What is the idea of Aristotle’s substance metaphysics?

Answer 1

That everything that exists is a substance.

Question 2

What is the Pythagorean view of metaphysics?

Answer 2

That all physical features are quantitative despite appearing to be otherwise.

Question 3

The world consists of two kinds of substance, says Descartes. Which?

Answer 3

1. The physical

2. The mental

Question 4

What characterises physical substances, selon Descartes?

Answer 4

Physical substances are characterised by extension: the measurable, spatial properties of things, e.g. length, area, volume

Question 5

What characterises mental substances, selon Descartes?

Answer 5

Thinking – perception, cognition, memory, etc.

Question 6

What is Descartes’ dualism?

Answer 6

The idea that the world is made up of two fundamentally distinct types of substance - the mental and the physical.

Question 7

Apart from the mental and physical, what other substances are there in Descartes’ world?

Answer 7

None. That’s it.

Question 8

What is dualism, conceptually?

Answer 8

The idea that X is composed of two fundamentally distinct types.

Question 9

What are the six propositions of the Cogito?

Answer 9

1. He could doubt anything other than fact he is thinking, because doubting is thought.
2. So he could doubt he possessed a body.
3. So thinking is independent of extension.
4. So there must be two different kinds of substance.
5. Everything we can envisage is either thinking (mind) or extension (matter).
6. So mind and matter exhaust the universe.

Question 10

Why is the argument contained in the first three propositions of the Cogito invalid?

1. He could doubt anything other than fact he is thinking, because doubting is thought.
2. So he could doubt he possessed a body.
3. So thinking is independent of extension.

Answer 10

Doubting you possess a body does not imply that you don’t have a body. It may be the body – or some part of it – that is doing the thinking.

Question 11

In what way do the first two propositions of the Cogito demonstrate the logical independence of the body and thinking?

1. He could doubt anything other than fact he is thinking, because doubting is thought.
2. So he could doubt he possessed a body.

Answer 11

The fact that he is thinking does not entail he has a body, and the fact that he has a body does not entail he is thinking.

Question 12

What is logical independence?

Answer 12

Let s be a sentence and let T be a set of sentences in a formal language. Informally, s is independent of T if T does not determine the truth-value of s. In other words, s is independent of T if s is not a logical consequence of T and the negation of s is not a logical consequence of T (some authors omit the last clause). In particular, s is deductively independent of T if neither s nor the negation of s can be deduced from T.

Question 13

What’s the problem with Descartes’ idea that thinking is the essence of mind?

Answer 13

Thinking is what the brain does, so it can’t also be the essence –a property –of the brain.

Question 14

In what way are believing, desiring, thinking etc. ‘intentional’?

Answer 14

They take an object?

Question 15

What is the idea of intentionality?

Answer 15

That certain mental acts are ABOUT something. This aboutness is intentionality.

Question 16

In relational psychology, how is the mind defined?

Answer 16

The mind is a spatio-temporally extended relation between organisms and environmental situations.

Question 17

According to relational psychology, where does the psychological – thinking, remembering, perceiving –occur?

Answer 17

It’s a relation between the subject and the environment.

Question 18

In relational psychology, is the brain a necessary and sufficient condition for thinking?

Answer 18

No, the brain is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for thinking.

Question 19

What are the four logical constraints of relational psychology?

Answer 19

1. Any relation requires at least two items (terms).
2. Each term is a real existent independently of its role in a relational situation
3. No two terms can be collapsed into each other.
4. The relation cannot be a property of either term. (i.e. cannot be something inside the subject).

Question 20

How did Descartes believe the analogy of the machine applied to the mind and body?

Answer 20

Bodies work like machines –causal and explicable in terms of their parts. But minds are not machines – and have capacity for free choice.

Question 21

Why was keeping idea of free will important to Descartes?

Answer 21

Because without free will there can be no moral responsibility, no right or wrong, no sin or virtue.

Question 22

Why is psychology impossible as a science according to a Cartesian theory of mind?

Answer 22

Because if the mind is not causal, there will be no regularities of the kind seen in the other sciences. If psychology is to be science, its subject matter must be part of the same world as other natural phenomena.

Question 23

What causes mental events in the Cartesian view?

Answer 23

‘Giving or withholding assent.’ Doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Question 24

According to determinism, the state of something at any given moment is completely determined by ___________ ___________.

Answer 24

According to determinism, the state of something at any given moment is completely determined by antecedent conditions.

Question 25

Why does dualism not withstand critical analysis?

Answer 25

Because for two things to constitute another thing, they must be somehow related in the same space-time region. If they interact, they’re not distinct. The dualism collapses.

Question 26

In a relational view, what does thinking consist of?

Answer 26

The mind (or thinker) that does the thinking and the object (proposition) that is being thought about. Thinking is the relation itself.

Question 27

Why cannot thinking be a property of mind?

Answer 27

Because thinking is an activity the mind engages in. A thing cannot be the same as its activities. If a mind thinks about something, then it must have a character independent of thinking. It cannot be defined by its relations.

Question 28

Why do most people thinking of mental activities as properties of the mind, rather than relations?

Answer 28

Who knows? But there seems to be some kind of in-built bias.

Question 29

If matter is quantitative, selon Descartes, and mind is completely different material. Can mind be quantitative?

Answer 29

Nope.

Question 30

Descartes’ dualism was not only a dualism with respect to substance (mind versus matter), but also with respect to…?

Answer 30

… the way things come about –the free versus the determined.

Question 31

What kind of link must exist to explain mind/matter dualism?

Answer 31

A link that is neither material nor mental.

Question 32

What is the dualist’s dilemma?

Answer 32

If dualism is complete, interaction is not possible. If interaction occurs, there is no dualism.

Question 33

What did Descartes propose to be the interface between the material and the mental?

Answer 33

The pineal gland.

Question 34

Why does Descartes’ dualism force him to espouse mental representationism?

Answer 34

Given that the mind and the material world are distinct, then perceiving an object must be a mental occurrence. Therefore our knowledge of the world is purely mental.

Question 35

If a mind thinks about something, then it must have a character ______________ of thinking. It cannot be defined by its ___________.

Answer 35

If a mind thinks about something, then it must have a character independent of thinking. It cannot be defined by its relations.