Philosophy Of Human Mind Final

Front 1

Descartes’ arguments for dualism

Back 1

Argument 1: The Doubt Argument

1) I can doubt that my body exists.

2) I cannot doubt that I exist as a thinking thing.

3) Therefore I, a thinking thing, am not identical with my body.

Argument 2: The Conceivability Argument

1) I can conceive that I, a thinking thing, can exist without my body.

2) Anything that I can conceive is logically possible.

3) If it is logically possible for X to exist without Y, then X is not identical with Y.4) I, a thinking thing, am not identical with my body.

Argument 3: The Divisibility Argument

1) All extended things are divisible.

2) Minds are not divisible.

3) Minds are not extended.

4) Therefore, my mind is not identical with my body.

Front 2

Gilbert Ryle’s argument against dualism – Category Mistake

Back 2

Ryle says dualism proposes that there is a “ghost in the machine”. He believed this is a type of category mistake.

1) Imagine a visitor to Oxford University taking a tour.

2) The student is shown various building on campus and is told what goes on in each building.

3) At the end of the tour the student says, “I have seen all of these building and heard what goes on in them, but where is the university?”

4) This student has the mistaken belief that the university is some additional thing other than the buildings and what goes on in them. This is a category mistake

C) Descartes makes the same mistake when he assumes “the mind” is something different that the body and its behavior.

Front 3

Hilary Putnam’s argument against behaviorism: Cluster concept mistake

Back 3

1. Behaviorists believe pain as a cluster concept.

(A cluster concept is one that is defined by a list of criteria, such that no one of these criteria is either necessary or sufficient for membership. For example, a game is a cluster concept. Diseases often start as cluster concepts. Polio was once described by the symptoms it exhibited. Later, it was described by the virus that brought on the symptoms. Polio was a cluster concept originally, but then it became associated with a single origin. The effects of polio can be considered a cluster concept, but the cause of polio is not a cluster concept.)

2. Effects can be cluster concepts. Causes are not cluster concepts.(Pain is the cause of certain pain behavior. The pain behavior can be considered a cluster concept, but not pain itself because pain is a cause of behavior, not the effect of the relevant behavior.

3)Pains are the causes of certain clusters of responses, but pain is not a cluster concept.

C. Therefore, behaviorism is false.

Front 4

Hilary Putnam argument against identity theory: The multiple realizability objection

Back 4

1. Identity theorists must specify a physical-chemical state such that any organism is in pain if and only if it possess a brain of a suitable physical-chemical structure and its brain is in that physical-chemical state. Thus, things like reptiles, mollusks, and even extraterrestrial organisms must have brains like humans in order for them to feel pain.

2. If we can find even one psychological condition which can clearly be applied to both a mammal and an octopus (say “hungry”), but whose physical-chemical correlate is different in the two cases, then the brain state theory has collapsed.

3. At least one psychological condition can be applied to both a mammal and an octopus.

C. Therefore, the identity theory is false.

Front 5

Kripke’s argument against identity theory.

Back 5

1. Some philosophers say that the relationship between the mind and the body is analogous to the relationship between heat and molecular motion.

2. We first learn of heat from our sensation of heat. But heat sensation is only contingently related to actual heat.

3. Heat is not identical to heat sensation.

4. Pain is identical to pain sensation.

C. Therefore, the mind/body relationship is not analogous to the heat/molecular motion relationship.

Front 6

Ned Block’s Absent Qualia Argument against functionalism:Argument 1: Homunculi Head

Back 6

1. Functionalism describes mental states by the relationship of sensory inputs and outputs to behavior and other mental states.

2. Mental states are described by a Turing machine table of a certain kind. (Algorithm)

3. Imagine little men—G men—who live in someone’s head. They read from a machine table card designated G. Suppose a light goes on which is input I. Following the instructions on the G card, the G men press a button which produces output O.

4. According to functionalism the previous premise is an example of a mental state because it has inputs and outputs related to certain behaviors and other mental states (the G-men have mental states).

C. The Homunculi head does not have it’s own mental states. Therefore, functionalism is false.

Front 7

Ned Block’s Absent Qualia Argument against functionalism

Back 7

Argument 2: Country Consciousness

1. Instead of “little men in a head” imagine the population of China performing the same functions as our homunculi head.

2. It is difficult to see how either system produces anything like qualitative states. This system is absent any qualia. In other words, there is nothing that it is like to be a homunculi head.

C: Therefore, functionalism is guilty of liberalism—assigning mental states to systems that do not have mental states.

Front 8

Frank Jackson’s Knowledge Argument

Back 8

1) Mary knows all the physical facts of how our brain and optic structure perceives the color red.

2) Mary has lived in a black and white room all of her life so she has never seen the color red.

3) One day Mary walks outside and sees something red.

4) Mary has learned a new fact, namely, what it is like to see something red.5) Since Mary already knew all the physical facts of seeing red this knew fact of what it is like to see red must not be physical.

C) Thus physicalism is false.

Front 9

David Chalmer’s Modal Argument (Zombie argument)

Back 9

1) It is possible to be skeptical of everyone’s consciousness other than our own.

2) This means it is possible for there to be people who act just like humans, but who have no consciousness. Let’s call them zombies.

3. If zombies are possible, then consciousness is more than physical.

4. Zombies are possible.

C) Therefore, there is more to us than merely our physical bodies

Front 10

Thomas Nagel’s “What is it like to be” argument

Back 10

1) There is something that it is like to be a bat.

2) No amount of physical information can tell us what it is like to be a bat.

3) There must be more information rather than physical information.

C) Thus, physicalism is false.