LAST EXAM BEFORE EOY Y12 Flashcards
Definition of the Self?
The philosophy of self-defines the essential qualities that make one person distinct from all others.
What’s Descartes view of the Self?
The self can be viewed as just the mind which is separate from the body as well as the outside world.
The simple self, The mind, also stands to be capable of thinking about itself and its existence.
The self when seen as a compound is when it can be interpreted as being a whole human being, body and mind, with the body being an extension of the mind.
How does Descartes Justify the belief of the Mind being the Self?
Substantial self: stems from argument for the existence of the mind and the mind-body distinction (Cartesian Dualism)
Aspects of thought, such as willing, understanding, imagining, or perceiving, are not parts that could be removed from me since it is the same mind that wills, understands, etc.
Therefore, myself is unitary and divisible the body, by virtue of being extended, can always be divided into parts Hence my mind is not my body
Evaluation of Hume’s argument?
The most problematic objection to the bundle theory of substance:
If a substance is a collection of non-substantial, concrete qualities, what exactly holds these qualities together? Why do we not perceive random qualities “floating about”? Why do they collect into substances?
DUALISM good because it has a good metaphysical explanation of how our self is held together (it is held together by a substance)
Many answer by saying that the parts of a collection are unified due to a causal connection with one another.
BUT
This implies something similar to mereological essentialism, if the bundle theorists insists that all of the elements within the collection are causally dependent on one another. In this scenario, if one of the elements is destroyed, then all of these elements would be destroyed. A substance would possess all of its properties essentially.
