Lecture 2

Question 1

substance monism

Answer 1

the view that there is only one substance
- the interaction problem disappears
- accepted as materialism or physicalism
- claims that everything in the world is physical or made of matter

Question 2

idealism

Answer 2

everything in the world is mental
- favored by George Berkeley
- does not provide us with a satisfying answer to the question of how the conscious mind fits into the physical world
- does not take science seriously

Question 3

Locke

Answer 3

empiricist and believed we can only gain knowledge about the world via our sensory experiences

Question 4

primary properties

Answer 4

properties that things really have

Question 5

secondary properties

Answer 5

properties that things don’t really have but are instead assigned to them when we percieve them

Question 6

Berkeley

Answer 6

empiricist and believed that if primary properties exist, there must be something that has those properties as well, and this is the substance

Question 7

behaviorism

Answer 7

mental states and processes can be understood and explained solely in terms of observable behaviors and their environmental stimuli
- takes science seriously
- does not take the mind seriously

Question 8

the black box

Answer 8

there is input that goes into a black box, and then comes the output
- we have no idea what happens inside this black box

Question 9

Gilbert Ryle

Answer 9

against dualism
- argued against the idea of a ghost in the machine
- argued that it is better to study behavior and no longer think about the immaterial mind

Question 10

category mistake

Answer 10

occurs when concepts from one category are mistakenly applied to another category where they do not belong
- university example

Question 11

disposition

Answer 11

a behavioral pattern one displays under certain circumstances
- e.g. of a dispositional property = the ability of something to dissolve
- we don’t need a hidden spirit to explain the behavior

Question 12

logical positivism

Answer 12

a philosophical movement that emphasizes the importance of empirical verification and the reduction of meaningful statements to either logical or empirical terms
- rejecting metaphysical or unverifiable claims as meaningless

Question 13

paraphrasing sentences

Answer 13

behaviorists believed that any sentence with a reference to a subjective inner state can be paraphrased without loss of meaning to display behavior

Question 14

the behaviorist dilemma

Answer 14

if behaviorists accepted that there is a mind apart from behavior, it would mean they don’t study the mind by studying behavior. Instead behaviorists should state that by studying behavior, they also study the mind and that there is nothing more to it
- the human mind is human behvaior

Question 15

why philosophical behaviorism failed

Answer 15

• it is impossible to rewrite sentences to leave only the behavioral disposition without losing its meaning
• the sentence loses meaning without its subjectivity