Dualism Flashcards
Descartes’ skepticism
Material and physical are used synonymously occasionally
Descartes considered view is that our naive, pre-scientific beliefs about the material world, are to some degree, mistaken
Our perception of hot and cold don’t correspond to the underlying physical basis of the properties in the air
A part of Descartes’s meditations is to get us to realize that it could turn out that material objects are not the way we perceive them to be
Skeptical scenarios: scenarios where virtually everything we believe about the physical world is strong, yet everything seems to you the same way it does now
Evil Demon argument
Descartes goes even more extreme and argues that suppose that our entire lives we’ve been deceived by an evil demon - who is making me have the same visual and auditory, and all other experiences I’ve been having my whole life, but there is actually no material world or physical reality at all
Archimedean point
an infallible, indubitable foundation for all knowledge - maybe can use that as a starting point to build up a system of scientific knowledge
The one thing that we are totally certain, of is that I think, therefore I am. - cogito ergo sum
Cogito ergo sum
What he does say in the meditations is = sum res cogitans - I am a thinking thing - if this demon is going to deceive me about anything at all, I have to exist and I have to be a thinking thing, because only a thinking thing could be deceived about anything
So this is one thing I could never be deceived about - that I exist and a part of what I am is a thing that has thoughts
Mind better known than the body
The soul is a thinking thing, we know our existence as a thinking thing, before we know anything else - the thing that is harder to know is that there are physical things and the properties that these physical things have
Conscious experiences are just how they are, they cannot seem to seem a certain way, what we consciously experience, is just what we consciously experience
Descartes - Dualism - mind and body are two things
Descartes - Dualism - mind and body are two things
Mind - a thinking thing - uses mind, soul, and thinking thing interchangeably
The mind is not a physical thing that could survive the destruction of a body - which sounds a lot like the soul
Conclusion - I am not that structure of limbs that is called a human body
Descarte’s modal argument for dualism
- I can suppose that I exist but no material objects exist - material objects are those that we suppose don’t exist, and yet I am still sure that I exist, so I must not be a material object - objection: may it not perhaps be the case that these material objects that we suppose are nothing could be identical to the ‘I’ that which we are aware. We do not know
- Every understandable scenario is possible - God is omnipotent, so everything that I understand is capable of being created by God
- If it is possible for X to exist without Y existing, then X is not Y - two things are distinct if they are capable of being separated - separated = one exists without the other
- Conclusion - I am not a material object
Arnauld’s objection
- I can understand a scenario where I exist but no material object exists
- Every understandable scenario is possible
We can imagine a triangle which side’s don’t equal to 180 degrees
However, this is not possible
So, Descartes argument is incorrect, as it allows impossibilites
Descartes’ response: The person who imagines this does not clearly understand the scenario
Cartesian interactionalism
Descartes argued that the physical world contains spatial properties
Why is it that there are things that are merely physical, like a rock, can’t move by itself, and then there are also things that have their own autonomy, locomote, can pursue things
How can they behave so differently given that they are apparently made up of all the same stuff and follow the same universal laws
If you think Descartes is right in saying that the mind and body are separate things, but there is some connection between our mind and our body
My mind is effected by cause and effect of interaction with a particular part of our bodies
People thought that the soul directed the body
Descartes said that what makes my hand move is a mechanical process that is found within my muscles, why are my muscles doing that, they are getting a message from the nerves, and the nerves go up into my brain, and there must be somewhere in my brain that my mind is able to issue a command that goes down to my muscles
My mind causes by body to do stuff
And my body can cause things to happen in my mind - eyes look at something and then leads toa visual experience in our mind
Decisions in my mind effect my body through interaction
It’s one particular part of the brain - the pineal gland - I have one conscious experience, my unified conscious mind intteracts with the brain, but if you look at the brain, most of it is symmetric, but there is this little part right in the middle of the brain, there’s only one of, that’s probably where the mind and body interact with eachother
Jeff McMahan argument against Descartes
it’s difficult to reconcile the view of the soul with the documented fact of the dependance of mental events on the brain. If the soul is that which is conscious and engages in mental activity
Damage to the brain impairs mental capactiies
If the mind is dsitinct from the brain
Then the mind wouldn’t be damaged
So the mind should be intact even in the presence of brain damage
What can the mind seemingly do that the body doesn’t do on its own
Perception
Emotion
Memory
Imagination
Language
reasoning
Perception
prosopagnosia after damage to occipital or fusiform areas
Eg. didn’t recognise his wifes face, thought it was a hat, and tried to put it on his head
Brain damage cause that (not mind damage, whatever that may be)
If brain damage causes face-blindness, then being able to recognise faces is not entirely mental
Emotion
Phineas Gage’s personality changes after accident
At first he seemed ok, but his whole personality was different afterwards, he couldn’t hold down a job, his emotions were altered, he blew into fits of rage and had poor impulse control, brain damage can effect emotional stability
Emotions descartes thought was also caused by the brain
The emotions are in the mind, but what produces the emotions are in the brain
Memory
Henry Molaison’s enterograde amnesia after brain surgery
All his skills were in tact, but he couldn’t store a memory from one minute to the next
He could still remember skills, but memories of specific events, he couldn’t make new ones
Descartes thought that the large majority of memories are stored within your brain
When you want to remember something, the storage and retrieval are within the brain
Imagination
Charcot - Wilbrand symdrome after stroke
There are behavioural deficits in the mental inability to do rotation
Descartes says the brain does mental imagery as well
Language
Language: Receptive aphasia after damage to Wernick’s area
Damage to this area can impair language processing
One of them effects finding the right words to say - and the inability to comprehend the meaning of sentences
Reasoning
Cognitive decline in dementia
The imapriement in general intellectual abilities, Descartes would have to claim that there is interference, the mind is able to reason, but is swamped by stuff from the brain and is unable to work autonomously anymore
The brain interferes with the mind reasoning by swamping it with garbage perceptual input
