Unit 5 - Materialism Lecture Flashcards
Clockwork universe
The role of god in creating life
God built the clock and it runs on its own
How does consciousness come about
It’s the result of material processes: neurons, APs, etc
What are humans made of?
Matter and nothing else
Epiphenomenalism
Mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events
Associationism
Mental life is an association of ideas
How external ideas become organized
Language
Verbal mental notes
Thinking and reasoning tools
Insignificant sounds
Sloppily used words
- Undefined terms (eg. God); meaningless because undefined
- Contradictions
- Inconstant names (eg. free society and free cake)
- Metaphors
Logical positivists
Philosophy of science
How to use words more effectively
Created a special rhetoric form for science: Operational Definition
Thomas Aquinas
13th c philosopher - age of faith
Last to try to make a systematic description of all human knowledge
Bible/theology and everything else = sci and non sci
How did Aquinas reconcile science and non-science?
Both are based on truth
Unitary and could not be contradictory
Martin Luther
1517 - Wittenberg
95 theses
Church was selling indulgences, Luther vehemently disagreed
Church shd mediate rltnshp with god
Descartes
Early 17th c France
Humans as machines and dualism
Pineal gland as the connection between mind and body
Euclidean rationalism
Ancient Greek geometer
Created complex system of geometry from 4 rules
Logic
Arithmetic applied to words
Free will
Absurd
It is a sequence of endeavors with will as a last step, so it is never free
Natural and acquired wit
Natural - born with it (fluid)
Acquired - learning and how you apply it (crystallized)
What is the basic human motive?
Power
(probably not actually the only motive)
No spiritual satisfaction, rather only human wants
Power
The ability to acquire things
You have to take what you want
And humans only look out for themselves - all against all
Hobbes’ view of life
Nasty Brutish Solitary Poor Short
Social dilemmas
No one cares about others and people are obstacles
So there must be one central authority
Natural rules
- Seek peace
- Make contract with others to preserve peace
- Perform covenants made
- Gratitude
- Mutual accommodation and limits on the wealthy
Influence on Skinner
Materialism
Epiphenomenalism
Determinism
Reductionism
Consciousness
Byproduct of brain processes
Skinner’s determinism
Did not believe in FW
If one understands antecedents, it is possible to predict action (impossible to prove)
Skinner’s philosophy of government
Freedom as a dangerous delusion
Totalitarianism
Government sets up enforcement and contingency of punishment
Eliminates competition
Materialism and Pinker
Better Angels of Our Nature
Decline of violence - punishment, murders, etc. compared to past
Role of the leviathan - 3rd party/state leads to better conditions than non-state
