Metaphysics of Mind

Question 1

What do theories of mind need to account for?

Answer 1

Theories of mind need to account for two key characteristics of mental states (intentionality and qualia).

Question 2

What is intentionality?

Answer 2

Mental states such as beliefs, fears and hopes are about something. It is not possible simply to believe, fear or hope; you must believe, fear or hope for something. For example, I may believe it is raining. In this case, my belief, in a sense, points to or is about the rain. The quality that makes a mental state about something is called intentionality.

Question 3

What are qualia?

Answer 3

Certain mental states have a particular quality or ‘feel’. For the person experiencing it, there is a certain way it feels to taste a pineapple or see a red poppy etc. These qualities are intrinsic and non-intentional phenomenal properties that are introspectively accessible.

Question 4

Explain Property Dualism

Answer 4

There are at least some mental properties that are neither reducible to nor supervenient upon physical properties.
It doesn’t go as far as substance dualism in claiming that the mind is completely non-physical, but it differs from physicalism in that property dualists believe a complete description of the physical universe would not be a complete description of the entire universe. Instead, property dualists believe that a complete physical description of the universe would miss out qualia.

Question 5

Explain the ‘philosophical zombies’ argument for property dualism (David Chalmers).

Answer 5

Chalmers argues that property dualism is true because of the zombie argument.
A philosophical zombie is a person who is physically and functionally identical to an ordinary human – except they don’t have any qualia.
It can be outlined as follows:
P1. It is conceivable that there are zombies.
P2. If it is conceivable that there are zombies, it is metaphysically possible that there are zombies.
C1. Therefore, it is metaphysically possible that there are zombies.
P3. If it is metaphysically possible that there are zombies, then phenomenal properties of consciousness are neither physical properties nor supervene on physical properties.
C2. Therefore, phenomenal properties of consciousness are neither physical properties nor supervene on physical properties.
C3. Therefore, physicalism is false and property dualism is true.

Physicalism is the view that ultimately consciousness is nothing more than the physical. This claim implies that any physical duplicate of you would have to be conscious. Therefore, it implies that zombies are not metaphysically possible. So if it can be shown that zombies are metaphysically possible, then physicalism will have been refuted. In order to show this, Chalmers begins by persuading us that philosophical zombies are conceivable.

Question 6

Explain the response to philosophical zombies: a ‘philosophical zombie’/a ‘zombie’ world is not conceivable

Answer 6

Physicalists can argue that zombies are not, in fact, conceivable if we correctly understand consciousness. A physical duplicate of you is a functional duplicate of you, and consciousness can be analysed in physical and functional terms. Therefore, any physical, functional duplicate of you must also be conscious.

Question 7

Explain the response: what is conceivable may not be metaphysically possible (philosophical zombies)

Answer 7

Physicalists can also object that zombies are not metaphysically possible, even though they are conceivable. Conceivability is not always a reliable guide to possibility. For example, we can conceive that water is not H20 but this is not possible. Likewise, if phenomenal properties are physical properties, zombies are impossible.

Question 8

Explain the response: what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the actual world. (philosophical zombies argument)

Answer 8

A final response is that we cannot infer from what is metaphysically possible to what is physically possible. Even if we concede that there may well be possible worlds containing philosophical zombies, in the actual world the natural laws are such as to make zombies an impossibility here, and this is what matters
However if physicalism is true it is committed to the claim that consciousness is reducible to the physical in any possible world. Therefore, it is not metaphysically possible for zombies to exist and therefore cannot ever be physically possible.

Question 9

Explain the ‘knowledge/Mary’ argument for property dualism (Frank Jackson).

Answer 9

Frank Jackson presents the knowledge argument for property dualism which can be summarised as follows:
P1: Mary knows everything there is to know about the physical processes involved in colour vision.
P2: But she learns something new when she experiences colour vision herself.
C1: Therefore there is more to know about colour vision that what is given in a complete physical account of it.
C2: So physicalism is false.
The thought experiment supposes there is a scientist named Mary who has been confined to a black and white room all her life (she has never seen colours) but has learned all there is to know about the physical processes underlying colour vision. It questions whether upon seeing colour for the first time she learns something new. Jackson argues that she would as she would learn what it is like to see colour. In this case knowing everything that goes on physically when someone experiences colour vision doesn’t entail knowing everything about colour vision. Specifically, it cannot tell you what it is like to have qualia. And so physicalism is false.

Question 10

How does the knowledge/Mary’ argument for property dualism (Frank Jackson) attack Mind-Brain Identity Theory?

Answer 10

The theory claims that sensations are just brain processes, so it follows that if Mary knows all about brain processes, she knows everything there is to know about sensations. This is precisely the claim that the knowledge argument attacks.

Question 11

How does the‘knowledge/Mary’ argument for property dualism (Frank Jackson) attack Functionalism?

Answer 11

Functionalism claims that phenomenal properties are functional properties. When Jackson says that Mary knows all the physical facts, this includes the functional facts. Mary knows exactly how the brain functions during an experience of seeing red. But the argument is meant to show that Mary doesn’t know all there is to know about such an experience, so phenomenal properties are not just functional (+ physical) properties so functionalism is wrong.

Question 12

How does the knowledge/Mary’ argument for property dualism (Frank Jackson) attack Hard Behaviourism?

Answer 12

Hard behaviourism claims we can reduce talk of colour experiences to the conditions of verification. But, the knowledge argument claims, Mary knows all about what conditions in someone’s brain would verify whether or not they had a particular colour experience, but she doesn’t know all about colour experiences, because she doesn’t know what it is like to experience color

Question 13

How does the knowledge/Mary’ argument for property dualism (Frank Jackson) attack Soft Behaviourism?

Answer 13

Soft behaviourism - same as hard, just extends the knowledge MAry has to also include knowing how someone is disposed to behave when they experience a colour.

Question 14

Explain the response: Mary does not gain new propositional knowledge but does gain ability knowledge (the ‘ability knowledge’ response).

Answer 14

A response is that Mary does not gain new propositional knowledge (knowledge of facts, such as the knowledge that Paris is the capital of France) but does gain ability knowledge (knowledge of how to do things, such as tie shoelaces). When Mary sees colour for the first time, she acquires new abilities. For example, she now knows how to recognise ripe tomatoes by sight. But this new ability knowledge doesn’t mean she has learned any new facts about colour vision and so it is still true that she possessed all the factual knowledge before leaving the room.

Question 15

Explain the response: Mary does not gain new propositional knowledge but does gain acquaintance knowledge (the ‘acquaintance knowledge’ response).

Answer 15

A response is that Mary does not gain new propositional knowledge (knowledge of facts, such as the knowledge that Paris is the capital of France) but does gain acquaintance knowledge. Acquaintance knowledge is the knowledge that comes from encountering or experiencing something. For example, Mary might have acquaintance knowledge of the taste of black-eyed beans. This objection claims that the knowledge argument equivocates on these two types of knowledge. P1 is true of Mary’s propositional knowledge and P2 of her acquaintance knowledge. So C1 doesn’t follow: a complete physical account really does exhaust all the propositional knowledge about colour vision and Mary knew all this before leaving the room. On leaving the room she has become acquainted with the phenomenal character of colour vision, the qualia, but this new knowledge is not knowledge of new facts.

Question 16

Explain the response: Mary gains new propositional knowledge, but this is knowledge of physical facts that she already knew in a different way (the ‘New Knowledge / Old Fact’ response).

Answer 16

Another objection with the knowledge argument is that Mary gains new propositional knowledge, but this is knowledge of physical facts that she already knew in a different way. Upon her release, Mary gains knowledge of what it is like to see colours and acquires new concepts, based on her new phenomenal experience. This means hse can now describe the processes of colour vision using concepts she didn’t possess before leaving the room.

However, these descriptions are not of any new facts. Rather they represent the same facts about colour vision she already possessed and spoke about in physical terms before. What is different is simply the way in which these same facts are presented, this time using phenomenal concepts. So Mary doesn’t learn any new facts about the world on leaving the room.

Question 17

Explain the issue for epiphenomenalist dualism: the challenge posed by introspective self-knowledge

Answer 17

An objection to epiphenomenalist property dualism is the challenge posed by introspective knowledge. Epiphenomenalism usually explains away the apparent causal effects of qualia by saying that it’s the brain that causes both qualia and behaviour. For example, when I burn my hand on a hot stove, my brain state causes me to pull my hand away and also causes the unpleasant qualia/mental state. Here, the qualia/mental state is just an effect of the brain state – it doesn’t actually cause anything itself.

But this explanation raises a problem in the case of self-knowledge: If qualia/mental states have no causal powers, then knowledge of qualia/mental states is impossible. If my brain state is all that causes my beliefs about my mental state, then I would have the same beliefs about my mental state even if the qualia was completely different.

When I have the brain state of pain, for example, my pain qualia could be like my red qualia, or swap places with my pleasure qualia, or disappear entirely, and I would still form the same belief “I am in pain”. This means that, at best, we could only ever have knowledge of our brain states, never knowledge of our mental states/qualia.

So, if property dualism is true, it seems to imply that introspective self-knowledge (of mental states) is impossible – which seems wrong as knowledge of mental states is possible (such as knowing “I am in pain”).

Question 18

Explain the issue for epiphenomenalist dualism: the challenge posed by the phenomenology of our mental life (ie as involving causal connections, both psychological and psycho-physical)

Answer 18

Dualist interactionists appeal to the phenomenology of our mental life to reject epiphenomenalism. It is part of our experience of having mental states that our mental states, e.g. feeling pain or wanting chocolate or believing that Paris is the capital of France, cause other mental and physical states and events. Most obviously, mental states can cause our behaviour, such as wincing or going to the food cupboard, and they can be part of a causal mental process, such as thinking about how to get to Paris. The ‘phenomenology of our mental life’ involves the experience of such causal connections, both psychological and psycho-physical which makes epiphenomenalism counter-intuitive.

Question 19

Explain the issue for epiphenomenalism dualism: the challenge posed by natural selection/evolution.

Answer 19

We can object that epiphenomenalist property dualism is incompatible with evolutionary theory because evolution only selects properties that make a difference to the survival and reproductive success of the animal. For example, having long neck genes enables a giraffe to reach food and survive. The causal effects of long neck genes clearly explain why giraffes have long necks: They are beneficial for survival in the physical world. But, if epiphenomenalism is true, there would be no evolutionary benefit to having qualia because epiphenomenal qualia don’t have any causal effect. It makes sense why animals would evolve brain states – for example, the brain state of pain would cause the animal to get away from things that might damage its body or kill it. But, if epiphenomenalism is true, the brain state alone would cause the animal to move away from whatever is damaging its body – the brain state alone would cause it to behave in exactly the same way whether it had qualia or not. So, there would be no evolutionary benefit of having epiphenomenal qualia in addition to the brain state. And so, if minds are the product of evolution, it would suggest that epiphenomenalism is false: Qualia does have some useful causal role, otherwise, we wouldn’t have evolved it.

Question 20

What is physicalism?

Answer 20

Everything is physical or supervenes upon the physical (this includes properties, events, objects and any substance(s) that exist).

Question 21

What is hard behaviourism?

Answer 21

Philosophical behaviourism argues that the meaning of mental concepts can be analysed or understood in terms of ‘behaviour’. It is a form of physicalism because it rejects the idea of a distinct psychological reality. Behaviourists claim the mind can be analytically reduced to behaviour. An analytical reduction concerns the meanings of the terms involved, so a successful reduction can be conducted through an analysis of language alone without any investigation of how the world is.
Hempel argues that the meaning of a statement is established by the conditions of its verification. This entails that statements using mental concepts can be translated, without any loss of meaning, into statements about the conditions of verifying such claims in terms of behaviour, where ‘behaviour’ includes not only bodily movements but also physiological and neurological states and processes, described by physical concepts.
To use his example, to say that ‘Paul is in pain’ is equivalent to a series of statements such as ‘Paul weeps and makes gestures of a certain sort’, ‘At the question “What is the matter?” Paul utters the words “I have a toothache”, and so on.

Question 22

What is soft behaviourism?

Answer 22

Philosophical behaviourism argues that the meaning of mental concepts can be analysed or understood in terms of ‘behaviour’. It is a form of physicalism because it rejects the idea of a distinct psychological reality. Behaviourists claim the mind can be analytically reduced to behaviours. An analytical reduction concerns the meanings of the terms involved, so a successful reduction can be conducted through an analysis of language alone without any investigation of how the world is.
In soft behaviourism, Ryle defends a non-reductive form of philosophical behaviourism, arguing that mental states can be understood as behavioural dispositions. This is because a mental state does not always have to be manifested in any actual behaviour (e.g. you could have a toothache and not necessarily weep). Instead, Ryle suggests we are only disposed to behaving in certain ways. ‘Behaviour’ has its usual meaning in ordinary language. A disposition is how something will or is likely to behave under certain circumstances, and can be expressed in hypothetical propositions of the form “If…then…’.

For example, ‘You are thirsty” would be translated into “If you were in the right circumstances, then you would have a drink”. The dispositional analysis of a mental state must include a series of antecedent conditions expressed in a range of hypothetical propositions to capture the range of potential behaviours a disposition might lead to. IN this way, Ryle is able to say that mental states can be rendered not just in terms of actual behaviour, but also in terms of potential behaviour: what the person would do as well as what the person is doing.

Question 23

Explain the issue with behaviourism: dualist arguments applied to philosophical behaviourism (introspection; irreducibility and indivisibility arguments)

Answer 23

maybe add: view from nowhere/somewhere and Nagel stuff
Dualists will urge that I am aware from my own experience that mental states have a subjective and private dimension. The experiences of qualia, in particular, have a specific quality which I am directly acquainted with.
this subjective quality is not something that can be rendered in terms of behaviour. Any description of my behaviour cannot include what it is like for me to experience a toothache, for example.
So while behaviourism might seem plausible as an account of how we ascribe mental states to others, it cannot do justice to the lived experience of mental life as it is experienced from the subjective point of view.

Question 24

Explain the issue with behaviourism: the distinctness of mental states from behaviour (including Hilary Putnam’s ‘Super-Spartans’ and perfect actors)

Answer 24

It seems that many mental states and processes have an ‘inner’ aspect that can’t be captured by behaviour and behavioural dispositions. We can argue that statements about behvaiour or conditions of verification only tell us about how to know about mental states. They don’t give us the ‘intrinsic nature’ of mental states and what they are ‘in themselves’.
Hilary Putnam asks us to imagine a community of Super-Spartans who so completely disapprove of showing pain that all pain behaviour has been suppressed. They no longer have any disposition to demonstrate pain in their behaviour yet they could still be in pain. Pain is conceivable without any associated pain behaviour, it is distinct from such behavioural dispositions so philosophical behvaiourism is false.
In the perfect actor’s example, someone could pretend to be in pain yet not be in pain. The above explanation applies.

Question 25

Explain the issue with behaviorism: issues defining mental states satisfactorily due to (a) circularity

Answer 25

The circularity objection arises that we cannot eliminate references to mental states when trying to analyze what behavior a mental state is a disposition towards, or when providing its conditions of verification. How someone behaves, when they have a particular mental state, depends on the other mental states they have.

Question 26

Explain the issue with behaviourism: issues defining mental states satisfactorily due to (b) the multiple realisability of mental states in behaviour

Answer 26

The multiple realisability of mental states in behaviour indicates that the same mental state in different people can involve different behavioral dispositions or again, that given such diversity of behaviour, a complete list of the conditions of verification for a mental state is impossible. So mental states can’t be understood in terms of behaviour.

Question 27

Explain the issue with behaviorism: the asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of other people’s mental states.

Answer 27

We can object that philosophical behaviourism rejects the asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of other people’s minds.
the distinctness of mental states from behaviour (including Hilary Putnam’s ‘Super-Spartans’ and perfect actors).
We can object that mental states have ‘inner’, qualitative aspects such as how they feel, and their phenomenal properties. Perhaps all mental states are distinct from behaviour, but certainly, at least this aspect of consciousness cannot be completely analysed in terms of behavioural dispositions.

Question 28

What is Eliminative Materialism?

Answer 28

Some or all common-sense (“folk-psychological”) mental states/properties do not exist and our common-sense understanding is radically mistaken (as defended by Patricia Churchland and Paul Churchland).
Eliminative materialism claims that our common-sense understanding of the mind represents a kind of folk theory termed ‘folk psychology’. Folk psychology involves the attribution to people of intentional states such as beliefs and desires, as well as sensations or qualia and other mental states, and it uses these theoretical concepts to explain and predict their behaviour. Science can and has eliminated entities in the past. For example, it was once thought that heat was propagated by a fluid called ‘caloric’ but this theory was abundant and the behaviour of heat was explained in terms of the agitation of molecules. Eliminative materialists claim that folk psychology concepts are false, they radically misrepresent the true nature of human beings. They, like caloric, don’t exist.
Therefore, the concepts of folk psychology need to be eliminated and replaced by a more advanced theoretical account of human mentality - an account to be provided by neuroscience. Patricia Churchland uses the example of explaining a basketball player’s demands for attention in terms of a ‘big ego’. This folk psychological concept probably has no genuine neuropsychological basis and so ‘egos’ will not figure in the neuroscience of the future; they will be eliminated.

Question 29

Explain the issue with eliminative materialism: our certainty about the existence of our mental states takes priority over other considerations

Answer 29

An argument based on introspection again eliminative materialism can be summarised as follows:
P1: When you look into your mind you appear to be directly aware of your mental states, such as your beliefs, desires and sensations
P2: It is absurd to deny the existence of what one is directly aware of.
C: So eliminativism is wrong to deny the existence of the mental states picked out by the concepts of folk psychology.
Therefore, introspection (such as Descartes Cogito argument) revealing the contents of your mind with such certainty takes priority over other considerations and thus provides a challenge to eliminative materialism.

Question 30

Explain the issue with eliminative materialism: folk psychology has good predictive and explanatory power (and so is the best hypothesis)

Answer 30

The theoretical acumen of folk psychology may be defended as it has good predictive and explanatory power. For example, if you know what I believe and desire you can predict what I will do. If I believe it is raining, and desire both to stay dry, then you can predict I will go out with my umbrella.
Furthermore, folk psychology has been around for at least 5000 years and very probably it is as old as our species and language. It is universal across human cultures and it is hard to imagine early human beings speaking and cooperating without employing folk psychology concepts. In summary, the universality and antiquity of folk psychology show that it is a very successful account of human nature. The science of psychology continues to employ many of the basic concepts of folk psychology, suggesting that the theory is continuing to develop rather than stagnate.
The postulates of folk psychology are central to many therapies used to treat mental ill-health, for example. Since neuroscience doesn’t yet have any alternative account of human nature which comes close to the explanatory and predictive power of folk psychology, folk psychology is still the best hypothesis

Question 31

Explain the issue with eliminative materialism: the articulation of eliminative materialism as a theory is self-refuting.

Answer 31

The argument that eliminative materialism is self-refuting can be summarised like this:
P1: Eliminative materialism claims that mental states, such as beliefs, do not exist.
P2: But if beliefs do not exist then it is not possible to believe that eliminative materialism is true. And if the language used to articulate the theory doesn’t really express genuine propositions or beliefs then it is meaningless.
C1: Therefore according to the eliminative materialist’s own view, it is not possible to believe and coherently articulate eliminative materialism.
C2: And so the theory is self-refuting.

Question 32

What is Functionalism?

Answer 32

all mental states can be characterised in terms of functional roles which can be multiply realised.

Functionalism identifies mental states with functional roles - in terms of what it does or the role that it plays in causal interplay with other things. Bodily organs, such as the heart are best defined functionally. The heart is the organ that pumps blood around the body. Importantly, the specifics of its design or of the materials of which it is composed are not relevant to this definition. Similarly, to define a mental state functionally is to define it in terms of the causal role it plays in consort with environmental inputs via the senses, other mental states and outputs via behaviour.

For example, pain is that mental state which is caused by damage to the body, which causes other mental states, such as anxiety and the desire to be rid of the pain, and which produces pain behaviour (wincing, groaning etc.). Since a functional role can be realised by different types of material, functionalism is agnostic over what kinds of substances instantiate minds. This means that, in theory, a functionalist might suppose that immaterial substances can instantiate minds.

However, in practice, functionalists are physicalists and regard the brain as the organ responsible for mentality. Because functional roles can be instantiated in different ways, according to functionalism mental stares are multiply realisable. Thus mental states supervene on states of the brain. This means it is liberal about what kinds of being may be minded e.g. an alien with a silicon brain could still have the same types of mental states as us.

Question 33

Explain the issue for functionalism: the possibility of a functional duplicate with different qualia (inverted qualia)

Answer 33

An issue with functionalism is the possibility of a functional duplicate with different qualia. This can be demonstrated through a thought experiment. Suppose two people have functionally identical visual systems (they react in the same sorts of ways to the electromagnetic spectrum that impacts their eyes). Since functional defines mental states functionally, according to functionalism they must therefore have the same mental states when they experience colours. However, it is conceivable that they have systematically inverted qualitative experiences of colour. So, when one experiences the quale of red, the other experiences the quale of green. Therefore, functionalism cannot account for the intrinsic qualitative nature of qualia.

This objection draws on the definition of qualia as having an intrinsic nature, the subjective ‘what it is like to experience them, which is independent of the relations qualia may hold to other mental states. If qualia are defined in this way, then they must escape a functionalist reduction since functionalism defines mental states extrinsically, that is, in terms of their relation to other mental states and behaviour.

Question 34

Explain the issue for functionalism: the possibility of a functional duplicate with no mentality/qualia (Ned Block’s China thought experiment)

Answer 34

Ned Block gives a thought experiment designed to reveal the intuitive implausibility of the functionalist account of mental states that he calls ‘The China Brain’. The thought experiment is based on the fact that the population of China is about 1 billion which is around the number of neurons in a brain. Suppose the people of China were all given radios connecting them and controlling a body in such a way as to realise an identical functional economy to a human brain. If the body stands on a nail and is caused by the population of China to scream and hop on one leg, would there be any experience of equal pain? If the answer is no, then it seems functionalism must be wrong in its claim that qualia can be reduced to functional states.

Question 35

Explain the issue for functionalism: the ‘knowledge’/Mary argument can be applied to functional facts (no amount of facts about function suffices to explain qualia).

Answer 35

Jackson’s knowledge argument can be deployed against functionalism and can be summarised as follows:
P1: Mary knows all the functional facts involved in colour vision.
P2: But she learns something new when she experiences colour vision herself.
C1: Therefore there is more to know about colour vision than what is given in a complete functional account of it.
C2: So functionalism is false.
The argument says that someone, Mary, who has had no experience of colour but who knows all the physical and functional facts about how colour vision works, would learn something new when she sees colour for the first time. If she learns something new then there must be more to colour vision than is captured in a complete functional account of it.