Soul, Mind and Body

Question 1

What is dualism?

Answer 1

The view that there are two different types of existence: mental and physical.

Question 2

What is materialism?

Answer 2

The view that the one kind of existence is physical substance.

Question 3

What is substance dualism?

Answer 3

Descartes’ version of dualism that the two different types of existence are two different substances, e.g. mental (characterised by thinking) and physical (characterised by extension). A substance is a type of existence which cannot be broken down into anything further.

Question 4

What is monism?

Answer 4

The view that there is only one kind of existence.

Question 5

What is Plato’s argument from recollection?

Answer 5

We are born with innate knowledge of perfect concepts, like justice, beauty and mathematics. We must have gained this knowledge a priori. Therefore, there must have been a part of us (the soul) that existed in the World of Forms before our birth.

Question 6

What are some criticisms of Plato’s argument from recollection?

Answer 6

Justice and Beauty are not universal. They can be perceived differently by different people, making them imperfect. Reliant on culture.

HOWEVER one could say that maths is not subjective, and is universal.

Hume would argue that we can conceive the idea of perfection even if we have never experienced it; it is the negation of imperfection.

Question 7

What is anamnesis?

Answer 7

The process of re-remembering forms through a posteriori sensory experience.

Question 8

What is Plato’s analogy of the chariot?

Answer 8

There is a white horse, a perfect horse that wishes to soar to the heavens (world of Forms.)
There is a black horse that is ugly and lazy that tries to pull the chariot back down to Earth.
The charioteer is the soul, that must keep these two instincts in moderation.

Question 9

What does Aristotle believe about the soul?

Answer 9

He is a materialist. He saw Plato’s world of the Forms as an unnecessary hypothesis, so he didn’t believe our soul exists there. He believes that the soul does exist, but on a physical plane.

Question 10

What is Aristotle’s analogy of the stamp and what does it suggest about the soul?

Answer 10

The imprint on a wax stamp doesn’t have any positive existence separable from the wax, but it still gives form to the wax. The imprint is the soul, and the wax is the body; they both exist in the physical plane as the imprint shapes the physical wax.

Question 11

How could you criticise Aristotle’s materialism?

Answer 11

Aristotle believes the soul to be the formal cause of the body. Bacon would argue that formal causation is beyond scientific study. (I.e. the ‘whiteness’ of snow is a metaphysical matter and cannot be tested.)

What Aristotle deemed as the ‘rational soul’ would, in modern science, translate to neurological processes and the brain. So what Aristotle thought of as ‘form’ is actually material structure.

Question 12

What does Descartes mean by divisible and indivisible?

Answer 12

Anything with physical presence is ‘extended’, and is therefore divisible because there has to be a point at which it could be divided.

Without a physical presence, an object is indivisible because it can’t be physically divided.

Question 13

What is Descartes’ indivisibility argument?

Answer 13

1. Physical substance is divisible because it’s extended (physically present.)
2. The mind is indivisible because it’s non-extended (our thoughts don’t exist physically.)
3. Leibniz’s law states that identical things must have the same properties.
4. Therefore, the mind cannot be identical with any physical substance, like the body.

Question 14

How could Descartes’ indivisibility argument be refuted?

Answer 14

The mental is divisible because we have perception, memory, emotions, etc. DESCARTES RESPONDED by saying that he doesn’t consider these to be divisions of consciousness, but rather modes of consciousness.

The mental could be divisible because we have two separate brain hemispheres, connected only by a thin strand of neurones.

Question 15

What is Descartes’ conceivability argument?

Answer 15

We can conceive of our mind separate from our body (i.e. our conscience in another form.) What is conceivably separate is possible separate. What is possibly separate is actually non-identical. Therefore, the mind and body are not the same.

Something identical cannot be separated possibly. I.e. you can’t separate a triangle from having three sides.

Question 16

What is the masked man fallacy and how does it criticise Descartes’ substance dualism?

Answer 16

Imagine you heard of someone robbing a bank. You can conceive that the person robbing the bank is not your father, but if it is your father, it is impossible for the robber to not be your father, even if that’s what you conceived.

This implies that we can conceive the impossible. Something being conceivable doesn’t render it possible by default.

Question 17

How does the interaction problem criticise dualism/substance dualism?

Answer 17

If the mental and physical are separate, how do they interact? The mind must interact with the body to cause the body to move, and the body’s feelings of sensations (i.e. a hot stove) cause feelings in the mind (i.e. heat, pain.)

Question 18

What did Ryle call his rejection of dualism?

Answer 18

“The dogma of the Ghost in the Machine.”

Question 19

How did Ryle criticise Descartes?

Answer 19

Ryle says Descartes makes a CATEGORY ERROR. He uses the analogy of a person being shown around all the university buildings, and asking “but where is the university?” It would be wrong to assume the “university” is a singular entity.

Similarly, we use the words “states” and “processes” to describe the mental and physical. Because Descartes couldn’t find a physical thing that represented the mind, he assumed it must be non-physical.

Ryle thinks when we talk about someone’s mind, we are actually talking about their disposition. For example, when we say someone is scared, we refer to their disposition to run away and scream.

Question 20

How could Ryle be criticised?

Answer 20

It could be inaccurate to state the mind is a series of dispositions as the mind feels like it exists in a more significant manner. It is overly reductionist to say the mind is just dispositions.

Question 21

What does Dawkins believe about the soul?

Answer 21

He is a monist, and he believes that we are just physical beings composed of DNA, as that is all science can prove. There is no supernatural ‘soul.’

He notes two types of soul:

Type 1 - the metaphysical spiritual soul that he rejects due to lack of evidence.

Type 2 - a metaphorical soul (i.e. like when we say “Hitler was a soulless person.”) The soul is a metaphor for human emotion and morals.

Question 22

How could Dawkins’ view of the soul be refuted?

Answer 22

David Chalmers: we don’t know enough about the universe or neuroscience to conclusively say that there is no non-physical soul.

“The hard problem of consciousness” (what brain process is responsible for consciousness itself) has yet to be solved by neuroscience.