Self, Death and Afterlife Flashcards
Forms (and an example)
Plato’s theory of forms was that all things in the world of sense perception are particular instances of universal Forms.
Think about the example of a perfect table
Psyche
(Greek) soul, spirit, mind
Thumos
(Greek) in Plato’s understanding, that part of the psyche/ soul corresponding to pugnacity, righteous indignation, courage etc. It is subordinate to the rational part.
Nous
(Greek) intellect
Radical
Extreme, as in ‘radical dualism’: the view that the mind and matter are radically different: in particular, mind is not the same as the brain.
Qualia
The qualities of subjective conscious experience: e.g. what it feels like in your mind to experience redness, or the smell of a rose.
Neuroscience
The study of the brain and the nervous system
Interactionism
Descartes’ (false) view that mind and body interact within the pineal gland
Fuctionalism
It conceives of the mind as function. Mental states are identified by their functional role, for example, via human brains or through a non-biological system such as a computer.
Multiple Realisability
In functionalism, this is the argument that minds/ mental states can run on a variety of different platforms, like computers
Dual-aspect Monism
The view that the mind and matter are two aspects of one substance. Mind is first-person subjective experience (qualia), whereas brain events are third-person objective and neither is reducible to the other.
Introspection
To examine/ observe at one’s own conscious thought processes or feelings.
Panpsychism
The view that all entities are to some extent conscious; so consciousness is not unique to humans and other animals, but is possessed even but what we normally refer to as ‘inanimate objects’ such as rocks.
Physicalism
The monist view that there is only one substance - physical matter. for Physicalists, mind reduces to matter
