Philosophy of Mind Flashcards
Essay plan for assessing Logical Behaviourism
- Intro
- Will be arguing that LB is false - Dualism
- Mind and body are separate and distinct substances
- Has some implausible consequences - Consequences
- Can’t fix the meanings of words
- Wittgenstein’s Beetle in the Box
- Can’t talk intelligibly about mental states - Ryle and LB
- Reductionism (lightning example)
- ‘John is in pain’ = ‘John is crying and clutching his foot’
- Behaviour is bodily movements and physiological changes - Attacking Dualism
- ‘Ghost in the machine’
- Dualists make a category error
- University example
- Dualists mistake mental states for being private and ghostly - Evaluation
- Not a strong argument (only attacks Dualism, doesn’t argue for LB) - Hempel’s Verificationist argument
- Premise form
- Behavioural states are empirically verifiable
- Mental states must be physical or behavioural - Hempel is wrong
- Problem with implications of argument
- Can’t talk intelligibly about experience
- Since we can, follows that Hempel is wrong - Super Spartans
- Can imagine a community of adults who suppress pain behaviour
- Connection between pain and pain behaviour now contingent - Reply
- Scenario wouldn’t occur
- Would still exhibit pain behaviour e.g. when asked
- Still disposed to exhibit pain behaviour, but chooses not to - Evaluation
- Not a good response
- Showing no obvious behavioural differences to someone not in pain - Bigger problem
- Even if response was stronger, have a bigger problem
- No actual convincing pair of sentences (behaviour = mental states) has been given that are equivalent in meaning - Conclusion
- Can’t reply to this
- LB fails
Hempel’s verificationist argument in premise form
(a) The meaning of a statement is given by the conditions that must be verified for it to be true
(b) For a statement to be meaningful to more than one speaker, they must each have access to the verification conditions
(c) Only behavioural and physical phenomena are physically verifiable
Therefore, (d) The meaning of any statement about mental states must be given by empirically verifiable conditions
Essay plan for assessing Physicalism
- Intro
- Will be arguing Physicalism is false
- Claim seems true on first glance
- Will discuss both branches of physicalism - Physicalism
- General view, not just in PoM
- Reductionism
- ‘John is in pain’ = ‘John has c-fibre stimulation’
- Can look at brain scans to understand mental phenomena - Ockham’s Razor
- Should always accept simplest explanation
- Raining example
- Physicalism is simpler than e.g. Dualism - Problems
- Can’t always accept simplest explanation
- Gravity example
- Not a good argument
- Will now discuss criticisms - Brain injuries
- Argument against Physicalism
- Parts of the brain can be damaged but other parts of the brain compensate and are able to perform the same function
- Leads to problem of Multiple Realisibility - Multiple Realisibility
- Octopus example
- Different physical states realise the same mental states - Reply and evaluation
- Octopus pain is different from human pain
- Different mental states being realised
- Not a good reply
- Still call it pain
- Type Physicalism fails - Toke Physicalism
- Solves problem of Multiple Realisibility
- Explain view - Mary and the Black and White Room
- Shows that not all facts are physical facts
- So physicalism is false - Reply
- Not a good criticism
- Applies to epistemological reductions, Physicalism is an ontological reduction - Empty view
- Can reply to Mary and the Black and White Room
- Greater Problem
- Token Physicalism is an empty view
- Doesn’t help us to understand mental states - Conclusion
- Token Physicalism can’t recover from this
- Both types of Physicalism fail
Description of a reductive theory of mind e.g. Physicalism
Physicalism is a reductive theory of mind, they believe mental states can be explained purely in terms of the physical without any loss of meaning. For A to be reduced to B, A and B must be equal in meaning, and B must help us to understand A. For example, we don’t really know what lightning is, but we can reduce it to an electrostatic discharge, which helps us to understand it.
Essay plan on assessing Functionalism
- Intro
- Will be arguing Functionalism fails
- First that Machine-State fails
- Teleological is better, but still fails - Functionalism
- Mental states = functional states
- Mental states are how we relate inputs to outputs
- e.g. If John gets the input of being hit, and gives the output of rolling around crying, he is in the mental state pain
- Reductionism - Inverted qualia
- Problem for Machine-State Functionalists
- Both relate the same input to output but have different qualia
- Strawberry example - Reply
- Wittgenstein argues that there are now qualia
- Beetle in the Box example
- Qualia is not part of what we mean when we talk about mental states - Greater Problem
- Good reply to inverted qualia
- Problem of the robot
- Relates inputs to outputs in the same way as us but does not have mental states - Teleological Functionalism
- Machine-State Functionalists can’t reply to this
- Teleological Functionalists can
- Not just about inputs and outputs, but the reason behind the action - Problem of intentionality
- Can’t explain intentionality in functional terms
- Chinese Room example - Reply and evaluation
- Our beliefs are caused by objects and so are about objects
- Not a good reply
- Can’t have intentionality about imaginary objects - Conclusion
- Can’t solve problem of intentionality
- Both types of Functionalism fail
Essay plan on the problem of other minds
- Intro
- Is the problem that we cannot know other minds exist
- Will explain how problem arises
- 2 solutions: Russell and Wittgenstein
- Russell fails but Wittgenstein is successful - The problem
- Problem for Cartesian Dualists
- Lots of versions: Absent qualia, inverted qualia
- Will be looking at absent qualia
- Explain qualia
- Experiences only accessible to us, can’t experience something from someone else’s point of view
- How can I know other people are conscious, or have minds at all? - Descartes
- Refers to problem in Meditations
- Quote - Illustration
2 scenarios: Belief about seeing men walking down the street, justification is sensory experience, one scenario my belief is true, other it is not true
- Can’t rely on sensory experience
- Can’t assume other people have minds
- Logical form
- Solution should look like ‘I know the sceptical hypothesis ‘other people don’t have minds’ is false - Russell
- Argument from analogy
- Explain an analogy
- A and B are analogous to C and D is A is to B what C is to D
- Eg ‘Night is to day what old age is to life’
- I am analogous to you, when we behave in the same way, can assume having the same mental states
- Eg stimulus: being punched, leads to inner mental state, leads to me crying out in pain
- You behave the same way to the same stimulus so can assume inner mental state is the same
- Conclusion not decisive: only probable - Problems
- Fails on a few levels
- Conclusion weak, weakens argument
- Argument just offers assumption, can’t know for sure this is true
- Wittgenstein’s ‘beetle in a box’
- Is irresponsible to assume we all have small black insects in our boxes
- Haven’t solved problem - Wittgenstein
- Tries to dissolve problem
- Argument in premise form - More on Wittgenstein
- Witt’s work is based around language, and its use in language games
- Explain language games
- Premise (3) - swimming pool example - Explain
- Argues for premise (1) with diary example (someone writing ‘S’ in diary when feeling type of pain
- No one else understands this, so private rule following is impossible
- We talk about minds in the same way, have made up the word, is different to every person, doesn’t refer to one object
- Cant say whether minds exist or not - Criticism
- Wittgenstein predicts this
- Hasn’t explained what a language game, or language is, so doesn’t have a successful argument - Response
- Explain family resemblance and logically closed
- Language is not a logical closed concept, so doesn’t have an essence as such - Conclusion
- Russell’s argument fails
- Wittgenstein defends his argument well
- Wittgenstein’s argument enough o convince me that problem of other minds is dissolved
Descartes’ quote about the problem of other minds
“If I chance to look out of a window on to men passing in the street, I do not fail to say, that I see men… and yet, what do I see from this window, other than hats and cloaks, which can cover ghosts or dummies who move only by the means of springs?”
Logical form of problem of other minds
(a) I cannot know the sceptical hypothesis ‘other people don’t have minds’ is false
(b) If I cannot know that the sceptical hypothesis is false, then I lack a significant class of my beliefs
Therefore (c) I lack a significant class of my beliefs
Wittgenstein’s argument for dissolving the problem of other minds
(1) Private rule following is impossible
(2) Therefore, private language and private description is impossible
(3) The meaning of a word is how it is used in language
(4) There are various ways of using language known as language games
(5) Philosophical problems arise when language games are confused
(6) Sceptics confuse language games by casting doubt on inappropriate subject matter
(7) The term ‘mind’ is an inappropriate subject matter
(8) Therefore, scepticism concerning other minds contains an internal incoherence
(9) Therefore scepticism concerning other minds is dissolved
Essay plan on mental causation
- Intro
- Will argue there is no good solution
- But is still a problem - Mental Causation
- (i) Mental phenomena have effects in the physical world
(ii) For A to cause B, there must be a point of contact between A and B
- Premise (i) seems true
- Eg my thirst causes me to take a drink of water
- Physical objects can cause mental states e.g. looking at a beautiful sunset can make me feel emotional
- How can they interact? - Dualism
- Problem for Dualism
- View that mind and body are separate and distinct substances
- Mind is non-physical and body physical, so there can be no point of contact - Another problem
- Even if (ii) shown to be false, other problems with Dualism
- Violates conservation of energy
- Mind to body would increase energy
- Dualism doesn’t explain mental causation - Type Physicalism
- View that mental states = physical states
- Reductionism
- Mental causation not a problem because both mind and body are physical, therefore they can interact
- If a plausible view then have solved problem - Multiple Realisibility
- Different physical states can cause the same mental states
- Octopus example - Reply and evaluation
- Octopus pain is different from human pain
- Not a good reply
- Goes against our intuitions, still in pain
- Type physicalism solves problem but has other problems so can’t accept explanation - Token Physicalism
- Solves problem of multiple realisibility
- Can solve problem of mental causation if plausible view - Empty view
- However, Token Physicalism is empty
- Why call A, B and C all pain?
- Doesn’t help us to understand mental phenomena
- Solves problem but is not a successful view - Rejecting mental causation
- Eliminative materialists deny the existence of mental states
- Therefore no mental causation
- So problem is dissolved - Problem
- Eliminative Materialism is not a good view
- Wants to get rid of folk psychology
- All arguments for the view use folk psychological concepts
- So is self defeating - Conclusion
- Both Physicalism and Eliminative Materialism offer plausible explanations
- Both views fail on other counts
- No view can solve the problem
