Substance Dualism Flashcards
Outline and explain Descartes conceivability Argument.
- I have an idea of my body as something that is physical and does not think
- I have an idea of my mind as a thinking thing that is not-physical
- Therefore, my mind and body can exist separately from each other
- Therefore, mind and body are two distinct substances.
-It seems possible that your mind could exist independently of your body, perhaps as a ghost or something.
What is the response to the conceivability argument based on ‘what is conceivable may not be possible’?
- Just because we can imagine the mind floating around independently of a body, doesn’t mean this is physically possible.
- It might be logically possible – i.e. doesn’t involve a logical contradiction – but just because something logically possible, this doesn’t mean it is physically possible!
- For example, it is not logically possible for a triangle to have 4 sides because it involves a logical contradiction.
- But it is logically possible for me to jump on to the moon from earth. It might be physically impossible, but there is no logical contradiction in this idea!
- Similarly, just because it’s conceivable/logically possible for a mind to exist independently of a body, this doesn’t automatically mean such a thing is physically possible.
What is the masked man fallacy in response to Descartes conceivability argument? (Essentially what is conceivable May not be metaphysically possible).
-Descartes’ arguments switch from talking about his ideas of mind and body to the actual things themselves. This kind of reasoning is fallacious, as can be shown with the following example:
- I have an idea of Batman as a caped crusader
- I have an idea of Bruce Wayne as a billionaire who is not a caped crusader
- Therefore, Batman is not Bruce Wayne
- But Batman is Bruce Wayne, so the conclusion is clearly false. Just because your ideas of Batman and Bruce Wayne are of different people, doesn’t mean they are different people in real life.
- Descartes’ conceivability argument uses the same format as the Batman example. However, if this form of argument can lead to false conclusions in the Batman example, it’s possible that Descartes’ conclusion that mind and body are separate is also false.
- Basically, just because you have an idea that the two things are separate, it doesn’t mean this is how it is in real life. You can have an idea that Batman and Bruce Wayne are separate people even though they’re not. Similarly, just because you have an idea that the mind and body are separate things it doesn’t automatically mean they are in reality.
Outline and explain Descartes divisibility Argument.
-Descartes’ divisibility argument can be summarised as:
- My body is divisible
- My mind is not divisible
- Therefore, my mind and body are separate things
- The first premise is definitely true. If you chopped you leg or your arm off, you would be dividing up your body.
-The mind, however, does not seem divisible – at least not in the same way. You can’t, for example, have half a thought.
What is the response to the divisibility argument based on ‘the mind is divisible’?
The mind is divisible
- There are plenty of cases of mental illness in which the mind does seem to be invisible. For example, someone with multiple personality disorder could be said to have a divided mind.
- Another example of this would be people who have literally had their brain cut in half. A corpus callosotomy is a surgical procedure for epilepsy where the main connection between the left and right hemispheres of the brain is severed. Perhaps surprisingly, patients go on to live perfectly normal lives – although there can be a few weird side effects:
- This suggests that dividing the brain can, in fact, divide the mind.
- So, the second premise of Descartes’ argument appears to be false: the mind is divisible.
Outline and explain the problem of other minds for substance dualism.
- And if substance dualism is true, it seems difficult to avoid these solipsistic doubts.
- Each of us only ever experiences our own thoughts, sensations, feelings, etc. We might empathise when we see someone hurt themselves but we don’t literally feel their pain. -If we both look at the same sunset we are looking at the same thing but each of us is having a different, private, experience in our mind.
- Yet even though you might never literally experience my thoughts, you’d still assume I have them (except maybe in weird philosophical contexts like this one). You don’t seriously doubt whether your friends, family, and random people on the street have minds.
- You infer from their behaviour that they have a mind that causes their behaviour.
-But if substance dualism is true, what grounds do you have to make this assumption? Minds and bodies are two completely separate and independent substances. How do you know there is a mind ‘attached’ to a body? It’s completely possible, on the dualist view, to have physical behaviour without a physical mind. In such a case, what evidence could you possibly find which proves other minds exist at all?
What is the response from Mill to the argument of other minds? And how can solipsism respond?
-John Stuart Mill gives a ‘common sense’ response to the problem of other minds:
- I have a mind
- My mind causes my behaviour
- Other people have bodies and behave similarly to me in similar situations
- By analogy, their behaviour has the same type of cause as my behaviour: a mind
- Therefore, other people have minds
- However, solipsism can respond that one example of a relationship between mind and behaviour (my own) is not sufficient to prove the relationship holds in all cases. It would be like saying “that dog has 3 legs, therefore all dogs have 3 legs.”
- It’s a dubious inference to go from one instance of a relationship (I have a mind that causes my behaviour) to the claim that this relationship holds in all instances (everyone has a mind that causes their behaviour).-
What is the challenge to substance dualism from causal interaction?
- Physical things only move if they are pushed
- Only something that is physical and can touch the thing that is moved can exert such a force
- But the mind is not physical, so it can’t touch the body
- Therefore, the mind cannot move the body
- We know (4) is false, so there must be a problem elsewhere in the argument.
- Of all the premises, (3) seems easiest to dispute. It follows from this that the mind is, in fact, physical. And if the mind is physical then substance dualism is wrong.
Outline and explain an interactionist dualist view.
- Interactionist dualism: the mind can interact with the physical world (e.g. mental state of hunger causes you to go and get pizza) and the physical world can interact with the mind (e.g. getting hit in the head causes the mental state of pain).
- In other words, the mental and physical can interact in both directions.
Outline and explain the epiphenomenalist dualist perspective.
- Epiphenomenalist dualism: the physical world can cause mental states (e.g. getting hit in the head causes the mental state of pain) but mental states cannot cause changes in the physical world – i.e. the causal interaction is one way.
- Me going to get pizza would be explained by my brain state, not my mental state.
- Epiphenomenalism is a subset of property dualism.
What is the challenge to Substance dualism based on what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the world?
- Suppose that it is possible that the mind can exist as a distinct substance. Does it follow that the mind does exists as a distinct substance?
- Metaphysical possibility doesn’t entail physical possibility!
- Just as we could argue that dualism is conceivable, so too is physicalism. There is nothing contradictory in consciousness being the product of the brain and thus Descartes reasoning cannot conclusively prove his claim.
What is the challenge to the conceivability argument that mind without body is not conceivable?
- What is it that makes it possible for me to think ‘I think’? Couldn’t it be the brain as physicalists argue?
- Without an answer to this question, we may object that we think it is conceivable that mind and body are distinct substances when it isn’t conceivable!
- We May be confused or simply lack information. Descartes claim fails to distinctly separate mind and body. Therefore, it isn’t a clear and distinct idea!
What is the challenge to the indivisibility argument based on the question is everything physical divisible?
- Are physical objects infinitely divisible?
- If we consider the smallest particle we are aware of e.g. packets of energy, you cannot divide these any further!
- So we can challenge Descartes reasoning. There are something’s that are physical that can’t be divided.
- The mind may then indeed be a form of non-divisible physical thing.
- It does not necessarily follow that it is, but neither does Descartes reasoning shoe it isn’t!
