Substance dualism Flashcards
What is substance dualism?
The theory that people consist of two parts, the material body and the immaterial soul
What is a “substance”?
Something that can exist indipendently
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According to Descartes:
What defines material things?
What defines the immaterial soul?
Material things have “extension”, they occupy space
The essence of the immaterial soul is “thinking” which means here all conscious processes (imagining, perceiving, desiring, doubting, dreaming, hoping,…)
According to Decartes, what is the foundation of scientific knowledge?
Knowledge that we cannot doubt
Explain Descartes Method of Doubt!
What is radical doubting?
Doubt everything you presume to know until you come across a piece of knowledge you cant possibly doubt.
It doesnt matter if it is reasonable to doubt some presumed knowledge. All that matters is if you can doubt it or not.
What is Descartes reason to accept dualism when it comes to material objects and immaterial thinking?
Material objects cannot reason and cannot be conscious. Thus, something else must be able to “think”.
Explain: “I think, therefore i exist”!
There is only one thing we can not doubt and that is, that there is someone (or something) that is doubting.
Your thinking (doubting) existence cannot be doubted.
Explain Gottfried Leibnitz (1646 - 1716) principle of the “identity of indiscernibles”!
What does it mean for Descartes substance dualism?
We can only say that x is really the same thing as y, if x and y share ALL their properties.
Our material body and our immaterial mind cannot be the same because they dont share all their properties
What are the two features of Cartesian dualism?
(1) Descartes thinking “I”, his conception of the soul, is an immaterial entity.
(2) The domain of the thinking “I” is separated from the outside world and only interacting indirectly through senses (the minds input) and behavior (the minds output) with the outside world.
What are problems for dualism?
(1) Descartes thought of material things to be unable to think. Yet todays computers are able to reason and use language.
(2) The argument from doubt fails because it draws an ontological conclusion from an epistemological difference.
What is the interaction problem of Cartesian dualism?
Who put this problem on the philosophical agenda?
How does Descartes answer to the problem?
Does his answer still hold up these days?
If body and mind both belong to different realms, how can there be an interaction between the two?
Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618 - 1680) who corresponded extensively with Descartes.
He argues that even though we do not know how body and mind interact, we can not deny that there is an interaction.
No! There are reasons to believe that an influence of an immatetial entity on a physical process will never be possible (causal closure of the physical realm)
What is the “causal closure of the physical realm”?
Can it be proven?
What would it mean for Cartesian dualism?
The idea that the occurence of every physical event has a complete physical explanation.
It cannot be proven emperically but its likelyhood is proportional to the (immense) predictive power of the physical sciences.
The existense or inexistense of a immaterial soul would make no difference since it could not excert influence on the body which is a physical entity.
What is the position of someone who considers him-/herself as an anti-cartesianist?
Rejecting the idea of an immaterial soul
Trading the soul-body dualism for brain-body dualism
