II. Cartesian Dualism: Background Flashcards
What is the problem in assessing the claims of the Cartesian Dualists?
- To evaluate whether something exists, we standardly appeal to empirical evidence, which can be obtained by carrying out appropriate observations and experiments that can be established intersubjectively.
- However, the claim is that CM is non-physical, so we cannot appeal to physical evidence.
Can we claim that, since there is no empirical evidence of CM, there are no CMs?
No:
* Non-physical entities cannot be empirically observed.
* Our instruments and other empirical tools register physical magnitudes.
Does Introspection provide proof of CMs? Can it disprove the existence of CMs?
No:
* Introspection cannot prove CMs:
Hume: “All I am aware of when I introspect is individual mental states, not some entity thathasthem.”
* Inrospection cannot disporve CMs unless we can assume that, if we had a CM, wewouldbe aware of it in this way
-in other words: Intrsopection could only disprove the existence of CMs if there were an experienced difference between amere physical systemwith a mind and something whose mind required aCM.
What is the only way to argue for or against the CM?
Argument from indirect evidence, usually of form:
P1: If an entity can do x, it must have a CM.
P2: TWMs can do x.
C: TWMs must have a CM.
What are the two grounds to question an indirect argument of the form that arguments for CMs usually take?
- Recognize the validity of the argument but question one of the premises (premises not sound) or
- Show that one of the key terms is being understood differently in each promise (argument invalid).
What is Swinburne’s argument for the existence of Cartesian minds?
P1:If it is logically possible/conceivable (lp/c) that a person survives the total destruction of his or her body,then that person must actually have a CM.
P2:It is lp/c that a person survives.
C:People actually have CM’s.
How does Swinburne argue that [it is lp/c that a person survives the total destruction of the body]?
(P2 of his argument for CM)
2a: It is logically possible/conceivable (lp/c) for an X to do A or to be B just in case doing A or being B is not ruled out by the ‘essential properties’ of X.
2b: The essential properties of persons would rule out the possibility ofsurvivaljust in case they include being a merely material entity with a particular body.
2c: But the essential properties of persons, as revealed by ‘thought experiments’, don’t include mere materiality or identity with a particular body.
C/P2:It is LP/conceivable that a person survives.
What is the problem with Swinburne’s argument for P2?
By the argument for P2, what is required if it is to be LP/conceivable that a person survives is that being ‘merely material’ is not anessentialproperty of persons.
But to say that being ‘merely material’ is not an essential property of persons is to say that it isLP/conceivablethat a person not be merely material - in other words, that it isLP/conceivablethat a person has a CM.
So what is warranted is not P1 but P1*:
P1:If it is LP/conceivable that a person survives, then it is LP/CONCEIVABLE that they have a CM.
Instead of
P1:If it is LP/conceivable that a person survives the total destruction of his or her body,then that person must actually have a CM.
How does Swinburne argue that [If it is LP/conceivable that a person survives the total destruction of his or her body, then that person must actually have a CM]?
(P1 of his argument for CM)
1a:Consider any particular person P at a particular time t, with whatever properties andcapacities P has at t.
1b:If P at t ismerely material, then it is not lp/c that P, given the properties and capacities she actually has at t, survives total material destruction.
C/P1: If it is LP/conceivable that a person P at t, with the properties/capacities that she has at t, survives, then P cannot be merely material at t - i.e. P must have a CM at t.
What is the problem with Swinburne’s argument for P1?
if this is how we are to understand talk of ‘what is lp/c for a person’ in P1, then P2, understood in the same way,begs the question.
For it will be lp/c that P, with her actual properties/capacities at t, survives total material destruction ONLY IFFshe actually has a CM at t, which is the very thing Swinburne is trying to prove.
Why is Swinburne’s argument for CMs invalid.
The argument equivocates on the notion of ‘what is LP/conceivable for a person’:
- For P2, this concerns which properties are essential to be a person in general–we answer this by analyzing our concept of what a person, in general, is.
- For P1, this concerns what is possible for a particular person at a time, given the properties they actually have at that time.
Cf: Is it conceivable that I am teaching this class NOW in a business suit? Is it conceivable that, given what I am now wearing, I am teaching this class now in a business suit?
Who is the guy who came up with Cartesian Dualism?
René Descartes
