Anne Conway first argues that spirit and body do not differ in essence but rather only differ in degree. She argues that they differ in degree “based on the intimate union or bond that exists between spirits and bodies, by means of which spirits control the bodies they are united with, moving them around and using them as instruments in their various operations.” She furthers her argument by pushing against Descartes theory of a “vital fit” she suggests rather that this would not require a spirit to have such an organized body. She argues that if it were true that the spirit and the body differed entirely then when the spirit moved it would leave the body behind because they differ so much.…
Touching the Breeze: Sue Goyette’s Ocean “Objects are the way things appear to a subject – that is with a name, an identity, a gestalt or a stereotypical template. … Things, on the other hand, … [signal] the moment when the Object becomes the Other, when the sardine can look back, when the mute idol speaks, when the subject experiences the object as uncanny and feels the need for what Foucault calls ‘a metaphysics of the object, or, more exactly, a metaphysics of that never objectifiable depth from which objects rise up to our superficial knowledge.’” (W. J. T. Mitchel in Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter (2010), 2)…
Whose Body is This? Whose body is this? Mine or societies? Mine, or my swayed conscious’?…
Jean Piaget’s study of the development of reasoning gives us the best insights into how we develop the self. This is best understood by assessing the insights of Cartesian dualism. ‘ Cogito ergo sum’ is Latin for ‘I think, therefore I am’. In contrast, subjective interactionists claim that the “I” is the subjective self, whereas the “me” is objective. The older I get, the better I am at reasoning with my surroundings; even if I consider my body to be part of my environment.…
Dualism vs Materialism The mind/body problem, the question of what is the relationship between the mind and the body, is commonly seen as a key issue in the philosophy of the mind (Sober, 2013, p. 204). The two categories of views discussed in Sober’s ‘Core Questions in Philosophy’ that attempt to resolve the mind/body problem are dualism and materialism. Dualism is the theory that the mind and the brain are two fundamentally different substances (Sober, 2013, p. 204). Conversely, materialism says that matter is the one and only fundamental substance in nature, and the notion that mental phenomena are a result of physical interactions follows (Sober, 2013, p. 204).…
Metaphysics closes itself to the simple essential fact that the human being essentially occurs in his essence only where he is claimed by being. Only from that claim ‘has’ he found that wherein his essence dwells. Only from this dwelling does he ‘have’ language as the home that preserves the ecstatic for his essence. Such standing in the clearing of being I call the ek-sistence of human beings. This way of being is proper only to the human being.…
For an individual who can generate any type of work consistently throughout each day, writing about subjects that they're not interested in can be accomplished. There are many reasons why someone might end up writing about subjects that they are completely uninterested in, but in order to offer a variety of subjects to your readers, it's essential that you learn to write about anything. If you ever intend to write for other writing companies or make any real income as a freelance writer, this is a skill you must master. Research the subject thoroughly. If you have a subject to write about, but aren't necessarily interested in, start with finding information about the subject.…
Human beings, as individuals, place a substantial amount of importance on and extensively value the consideration that we are unique. This is foundational aspect of human nature, interaction, and being. But what does this uniqueness mean, and what does it mean to us? The concept of the self or having a personal identity leads to questions of what one is really addressing when making statements about the self; such as, how is the concept of the self created or formed? Does the self persist through time, and how can we know that this identity is the same as we flow through time?…
This Dualist idea presents the Mind and Body as separate things made of separate stuff. The Body is external and public whereas the Mind is internal and private. This view pushes that the Mind and Body are still connected, however, explaining that what the Mind wills the Body does. The Doctrine justifies this connection by explaining two separate…
The mind-body problem is a debate that has raised questions throughout history and is still doing so today, philosophers argue as to whether the mind and body are one entity or two separate entities. The body is what we perceive to be our physical attributes, things like the head, legs, and so forth, the mind is one that controls our feelings, thoughts, and beliefs. For philosophers there are many ways to explain the mind and body problem but the two main ones include materialism and dualism. In this circumstance one has to come to a conclusion as to if they believe that the mind and body are separate entities, dualism, or they are one, materialism.…
The Extended Mind and its Implications: Clark and Chalmers’ Extended Mind hypothesis presents the idea that objects external to the body within an environment can function as a part of the mind. For them, they claim that cognitive functions do not need to take place entirely the head and can occur in the physical world (Clark, Chalmers, 1998). In taking this stance they emphasize that the mind is not confined between the arbitrary internal boundaries of an individual’s head They emphasize the distinction between the body, the mind, and the environment in that they are three separate parts, but all work with each other. The three parts working together exists more as a cognitive system of its own rather than each part working separately. Objects…
In Philosophy, there is the well known concept of the mind-body problem. The mind-body problem explains how mental states such as beliefs, actions, and thinking are related to physical states of an individual (Stewart, p.137, 2012). The basic issue of the mind body problem is the understanding how a body can have a mind inside of it that is controlling it. A frequent question asked is are we only matter or are we matter and mind? There are four philosophical positions including; type identity theory physicalism, functionalist physicalism, property dualism, and substance dualism that have different approaches to the concept of the mind-body problem.…
Substance Dualism is a theory of mind that asserts the thesis that there exists the mind (nonphysical) and the body (physical) and that they are two distinct substances. Moreover, it identifies a being immediately with their mind and only secondarily with their body. Logical Behaviorism is branch of philosophical behaviorism. Behaviorism, essentially, is the thesis that mental states, if they exist, are identical to behavioral states. Logical Behaviorism posits that descriptions of mental states are reducible to descriptions of behavioral states.…
The ‘world’, as Heidegger claims, is defined by and identified through Dasein’s tool-guide interactions with the entities in the world and where the world is ultimately a function of our interaction with it (Tietz, 2001:63). Heidegger expresses this point by saying that the terms of the ‘Being-in-the-world’ structure are equiprimordial and gives a phenomenological characterization of the entities that make up our immediate environment. He claims that these entities primarily have the phenomenological character of ‘equipment’. To take his famous example, when I am engaged…
Part I: Ontological Dualism Implies Embodied Perception Merleau-Ponty is a French philosopher whom was greatly influenced by the earlier phenomenologists Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl (Moran & Mooney 2007). In his phenomenology Merleau-Ponty attempts to answer various questions surrounding human existence including questions concerning the constitution of a subject and inter-subjectivity. His inquiry begins by exploring the ideas of embodiment and perception. For Merleau-Ponty finding a new method of inquiry to investigate the mind/body problem would avoid the previous downfalls and shortcomings of classical philosophical approaches.…