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Unit 3 Section 1
1
Philosophy of Mind
In this chapter, we examine three types of answer to the question āWhat is the mind?ā The first, substance dualism, argues that the mind is a substance that can exist independently of the body. The second approach argues that we can completely analyse and explain āthe mindā ā which is not a āthingā at all ā in other terms, such as behaviour, functions or neurophysical processes. The third set of answers holds on to the idea that there is something unique about the mind that cannot be captured in this way. In discussing these theories, we examine a wide variety of topics, such as how we know other people have minds, how the mind can cause physical events (e.g. bodily movements) and the nature of consciousness and thought. Students should be able to argue for and against different positions in these topics and in the three schools of thought.
The AQA A2 syllabus for this chapter is:
Substance Dualism
ā Cartesian, or substance, dualism: the view that mind and body are distinct and separate entities. Reasons for holding this view.
ā Problems associated with this view of mind, including solipsism; the problem of other minds and the mindābody problem.
ā Responses to these problems: arguments against the possibility of starting from oneās own case, how we learn to self-ascribe and whether there could be a necessarily private language (such as a language describing private mental states); the argument from analogy and inference to the best explanation; accounts of the relationship between mind and body.
Reductive Accounts of the Mind
ā Logical behaviourism, the logical analysis of mental concepts in terms of behaviour; identity theories, type and token versions of the ontological reduction of minds and mental processes to brains and brain processes; functionalist theories, machine and teleological versions of the reduction of mental states to a causal role; eliminative materialism, the attempt to rid ourselves of āfolk psychologyā completely. Arguments for and against these positions.
ā The features of consciousness thought to resist reduction: particularly qualia and intentionality.
ā The hard problem of consciousness: how is it that some physical organisms are subjects of experience, how does the water of the brain give rise to the rich wine of consciousness? Whether zombies are conceivable and possible. Whether artificial intelligence is intelligent.
Non-Reductive Materialism
ā The view of consciousness as an emergent or supervenient property of the brain (or other suitably complex physical system). Biological naturalism or anomalous monism. Arguments and difficulties for such positions.
ā Whether such views are materialist or versions of property dualism. Accounts of mental causation: how can we explain, or explain away, the belief that mental states such as reasons, beliefs, sensations and emotions are causes of actions?
I. Substance Dualism
Cartesian, or Substance, Dualism
A substance is traditionally understood as an entity, a thing, that does not depend on another entity in order to exist. Substance dualism holds that there are two fundamentally different types of such entities: material substances, or bodies, and mental substances, or minds. It claims that minds do not depend on bodies in order to exist; for example, that minds can exist separated from any body. People who believe that the mind is the soul, and the soul can continue to exist without a body after death, are substance dualists. If mental substance exists, it will be very unlike matter. For instance, we shall see that Descartes argues that it does not exist in space and does not have any parts.
We can contrast substance dualism with materialism, the view that there is only one sort of substance, matter. According to materialism, everything that exists either is a material thing, or is dependent on some material thing to exist. For example, a materialist might claim that mental properties (including mental states, such as holding beliefs, and mental events, such as having a thought) are properties of a person, and that a person is necessarily a material object (a body). Or again ā a more contentious view ā they might claim that mental properties are, in fact, properties of the brain.
What is substance dualism?
One traditional definition of a substance is something that does not depend on any other thing to exist.
Substance dualism holds that there are two types of substances, mental substances (minds) and material substances (bodies), each capable of existing without the other.
Materialism holds that there are only material substances, so that everything that exists either is, or depends on, a material substance to exist.
Reasons for Holding this View
Platoās Arguments
In the Phaedo, Plato argued that death is the separation of the soul from the body. He gave two arguments for thinking that the soul could exist separately from the body.
First, he argued that souls cannot be destroyed. All unseen things are unchanging and āsimpleā ā that is, they donāt have parts. If they donāt have parts, they cannot be broken up. To destroy something is to break it into parts. And so something without parts cannot be destroyed. The soul is unchanging and simple. So, it cannot be destroyed.
We can object that perhaps there are other types of destruction than breaking into parts. For example, if souls were created out of nothing, then perhaps they could be destroyed by being annihilated.
Second, Plato argued that everything comes about from its opposite. Whenever you change something, you change it from what it is into what it (currently) is not; for example, if you paint a wall red, you change it from not-red to red. Likewise, life changes into its opposite, not-life, or death, the separation of soul and body. But to become alive is therefore also a change from not being alive. Life must come from ādeathā ā that is, it must be the joining of soul and body. So, our souls must exist in another world first and then are born, or reborn, here.
We can object that there are types of change, such as ācoming into existenceā, that donāt involve change from one opposite to another. If I come into existence, it is wrong to say that I change from not existing to existing. Because if I didnāt exist, then I didnāt have any properties at all, including that of ānot existingā. If death is the destruction of the soul, rather than the separation of soul from body, birth could be its creation (from nothing) rather than the joining of a soul to a body.
In both these arguments, Plato assumes that souls exist. But this is exactly what we want to prove.
Critically discuss Platoās view that the soul can exist independently of the body.
Descartesā Knowledge Argument
Platoās views on the soul were very influential, and were combined with Christian doctrine as this emerged two thousand years ago. In the seventeenth century, when Descartes lived, the view that humans are part angel, part beast was almost deemed an orthodoxy. But unlike many of his contemporaries, Descartes defended dualism not (in the first instance) on the basis of theology, but by epistemology.
In his Meditations, Descartes raises the question of what kind of thing he is. The question āwhat am I?ā can be answered by considering the question of what it is for me to exist. Descartes is trying to identify his essence, those properties which, if he lost them, would mean he was no longer what he is. (An island, for instance, must be surrounded by water. If the water dried up, joining it to the mainland, it would cease to be an island.)
Explain and illustrate the difference between properties that are essential and those that are not.
He remarks that he can coherently doubt whether he has a body; after all, he only believes he has a body as a result of his perceptual experiences. However, suppose these experiences were actually hallucinations caused by an evil demon. He could be mistaken, deceived into thinking he has a body. But, he continues, he cannot doubt that he has a mind ā that is, that he thinks. He cannot doubt that he thinks, because doubting is a kind of thinking. If the demon were to make him doubt that he is thinking, that would only show that he is thinking. Equally, he cannot doubt that he exists: if he were to doubt that he exists, that would prove he does exist ā as something that thinks.
So, he knows he exists even though he doesnāt know whether or not he has a body. From this, Descartes concludes that it is possible for him to exist without a body. He would not necessarily cease to be himself if he ceased to have a body, but he would necessarily cease to be himself if he didnāt have a mind.
This argument doesnāt show that substance dualism is true, because it doesnāt show that bodies exist. But let us assume that they do (Descartes argues for this later in the Meditations). In that case, if bodies exist, and minds can exist independently of bodies, then substance dualism is true.
Outline Descartesā argument that mind and body are different because he knows he has a mind, but does not (yet) know he has a body.
The Mind as Single Substance
Descartes claims that he is a thinking substance. Many philosophers have thought he means to show that he is the same thing, the same āIā, persisting from one moment in time to the next. But how can Descartes be certain of this? Could it not be that Descartes (or any of us) is only a succession of thoughts?
Descartesā response was to say that thoughts logically require a thinker. Properties cannot exist without substances; thoughts are, logically, properties of the mind. But perhaps he is wrong. Perhaps thoughts are substances ā things that can exist independently.
Hume believed that thoughts did not logically need a thinker to exist. See PHYSICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUITY II, p. 190.
Going Further: Knowledge and Reality
Does Descartesā knowledge argument establish that minds exist independently of the body? We can object that just because Desc...
