Lecture 3

Question 1

materialism

Answer 1

the position that the world is material or physical and that all things that exist are therefore in some way physical
- used to refer to realist theories about the conscious mind (theories that take the mind seriously) and accept that everything in the universe is material or physical
- takes both the mind and science seriously

Question 2

mind-body supervenience

Answer 2

the general assumption for all materialist theories: any 2 things alike in all physical properties do not differ in mental properties

Question 3

Jaegwon Kim

Answer 3

develops the notion of supervenience:
- minimal demand to materialism: fully comitted to mind-body supervenience
- there are various approaches to what supervenience is
- identity
- realization

Question 4

supervenience relation

Answer 4

one set of properties determines another set of properties
- supervenience base - e.g. properties of the puzzle pieces
- supervenience properties - e.g. properties of the image the puzzle creates

Question 5

Star Trek assumption

Answer 5

the minimal assumption that the materialists, who are realists about the mind, have to accept
- the idea that the physical determined the mental, just like the physical determines shape

Question 6

materialist view on supervenience

Answer 6

mental properties supervene on physical properties
- any 2 things that are exactly alike in their physical properties must therefore have the same exact mental properties

Question 7

identity theory

Answer 7

all mental states are identical to certain brain states, but not all brain states are mental states
- a kind of materialism
- takes both the mind and science seriously
- arguments against it are not very convincing

Question 8

quantitative identity

Answer 8

if A is B, then B is A

Question 9

the principle of the identity of indiscernible objects

Answer 9

if 2 things really can’t be discerned from one another, then they must be the same thing
- known as Leibniz’s Law
- if object A is discernible from object B, then there must be a property P that A has and B lacks, or vice versa

Question 10

necessarily true

Answer 10

if a statment is necessarily true, denying it will result in a contradiction

Question 11

contingently true

Answer 11

if something is contingently true, one could deny it without denial resulting in a contradiction

Question 12

a priori

Answer 12

you can establish the truth of a claim by merely thinking about it, without needing to do empirical research
- thought to be necessary truths

Question 13

a posteriori

Answer 13

you can establish the truth of a claim only by doing research in the world
- believed for a long time to be contingent truths
- Kripke argued that a posteriori truths are not necessasrily contingent

Question 14

reductive materialism

Answer 14

mental phenomena can ultimately be explained by and reduced to physical processes in the brain or nervous system
- mental states are nothing more than physical states of the brain or neural activity

Question 15

eliminativism

Answer 15

the view that some mental states don’t exist

Question 16

type physicalism

Answer 16

states that every individual case (a token) of a certain mental category (a type) is identical to an individual brain state of a certain category

Question 17

token identity theory

Answer 17

every particular mental state is identical to some particular brain state, without claiming that the physical tokens all belong to the same type

Question 18

principle of parsimony

Answer 18

this rule states that entities should not be multiplied without necessity and is known as Ockham’s razor
- when confronted with 2 different but equally good explanations for a phenomenon, we should choose the more simple explanation

Question 19

Jack Smart

Answer 19

used Ockham’s razor to argue for the identification of mental states with certain brain states
- argued that a statement about a sensation is also a statement about some brain process
- supports identity theory

Question 20

David Armstrong

Answer 20

argued that one way of getting at identity claims is to employ causal role analysis
- we start by asking the question of what the phenomenon we want to investigate does, then ask what its causal role is
- a similar causal role analysis should be possible for mental states
- supports identity theory

Question 21

causal role analysis for mental states

Answer 21

we start by making the question of what the relevant mental state does. afterwards, we ask what it is that fills this causal role
- when it comes to pain, it is the activity in the SCIC
- supports identity theory

Question 22

differentiating property

Answer 22

a property that mental states have but brain states do not, or vice versa

Question 23

epistemic properties

Answer 23

properties of knowledge or understanding

Question 24

spatial properties

Answer 24

the location or arrangement of entities in space

Question 25

semantic properties

Answer 25

the meaning or content of mental states

Question 26

multiple realizability

Answer 26

something is multiple realizable if it can exist as different kinds of things
- argues against identity theory