Mental Causation and the Union of Mind and Body

Question 1

What is Descartes’s intensional fallacy?

Answer 1

P1. I have a clear and distinct idea of myself, in so far as I am simply a thinking, non-extended
thing. (epistemological premise)
P2. I have a clear and distinct idea of body, in so far as this is simply an extended, nonthinking
thing. (epistemological premise)
C1. It is certain that I am really distinct from my body, and can exist without it. (metaphysical
conclusion)

Question 2

How do material substances (bodies) and immaterial substances (minds) interact?

Answer 2

1. Mental-to-physical causation: a mental event or state causing bodily movement or change
2. Physical-to-mental causation: where a physical event causes a change in your mental state

Question 3

What is Princess Elizabeth’s objection to mental causation?

Answer 3

Mechanistic accounts of causation require some form of contact, therefore if minds are immaterial, lack location and extension, they cannot causally affect the body

Question 4

Summary of substance dualism?

Answer 4

1. By arguing from what we believe on
the basis of introspection, substance
dualism leaves it open that we may
be ignorant of the connection between
mind and body (the ‘epistemic gap’)
2. Substance dualism renders it
mysterious how mental and physical
substances can causally interact