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Summary Philosophy of Mind (Prerecorded lectures)
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Detailed notes on the prerecorded lectures for the course Philosophy of Mind (videos by Hans Dooremalen). With these notes, I got a 9 on the final exam.
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PHILOSOPHY OF MIND – PRE-RECORDED LECTURES8 QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CONSCIOUS MIND
LECTURE 1 – CHAPTER 1&2 (introduction and substance dualism)
→ the mind-body problem – how does our conscious experience relate to our physical body?
- we are conscious beings with a mental life
- we think, experience feelings and emotions, have wishes, fears and beliefs
- we make decisions and have intentions and memories
- we are also physical creatures with physical bodies and powerful brains
1. What is philosophy?
→ philosophy can be: (depends on who you are asking)
- conceptual analysis
* everyday world view = manifest world view
* scientific research provides us with a scientific world view (we look at the world the
way scientists do – by systematic investigation)
* thanks to experience coming from our senses we get to learn about the world
* philosophers try to get the meaning of concepts from the armchair (what is meant by
your concept X ; X can be culture, life, intelligence, mind)
* what is the relation between these world views?
* conceptual analysis could also be perceived as one of the traditional methodological
approaches in philosophy (not merely as its definition)
* conceptual analysis is used to combine scientific and manifest worldview concepts
and see the relations between them (we can make observations from the armchair or we
can rely on scientific research)
- conceptual clarification
* empirical evidence is taken into account
* conceptual clarification considers more scientific research than conceptual analysis in
order to differentiate between concepts
* it asks about the meaning of concepts
* science tells us more about these concepts
- the science of validity
* scientists use all kinds of concepts sometimes without reflection on them too much
ex. the concept of “causality” (widely used)
* usually concepts are used without asking questions about that concept
* are these concepts valid?/ can these concepts be applied?
* causality requires systematic manipulation not mere observation and correlation
- a training in changing perspectives
* high-school view of philosophy
* train to have an eye for other opinions
* necessary to partake in debates
* systematic change in perspective
- search for the truth
* ancient Greeks: sophists (they are in line with the training in changing perspectives
because they were trained in argumentative skills)
* sophists were relativists about the truth – the best argument that wins is the perspective
that should be taken
, * sophists are more concerned with winning an argument and not with finding the actual
truth
* Socrates argued against this practice – Socrates claimed there is an objective truth that
should be uncovered
- all of the above altogether
* we want to know what is meant by concepts, whether they are valid, and we want to find
out whether we need to change perspectives in order to clarify concepts
* sometimes we seek to at least approximate an objective truth
* philosophy is a meta-science – helps relate one’s position to those of others
* reflective enterprise
1.1 what philosophy IS NOT?
→ philosophy is not just chatting
→ it is not fact-free
→ it neither requires radical skepticism (denying we can get an objective truth) nor pure
relativism (denying the possibility of reaching a common ground when it comes to
perspectives)
→ answers are hard to find but we can approximate an objective knowledge with an
analytical approach
2. Why philosophy for psychologists?
→ we are engaging in a meta-science
→ and we do critical thinking in relation to our science
* we ask about ethical issues
* questions about the philosophy (theory) of science
ex. do the data support the inferences I have made?
ex. do the entities in my theory actually exist?
ex. do our models of the mind represent biologically realistic structures?
* foundational questions about concepts in our discipline
ex. consciousness
ex. what is a mind/psyche? / what is consciousness? / what role does the body play in
consciousness and cognition?
2.1 the hard problem of consciousness
→ the problem of consciousness is not easy
→ discrepancy between our everyday intuitions and the scientific natural view of the world
→ people have dualist intuitions
ex. mind and body are two entirely different things that can exist and function separately
(causes which have no minds vs spirits which have no physical bodies)
→ if you feel something, then something happens in your brain and in many cases also the
other way around (mind and body are heavily intertwined)
2.2 consciousness
→ confronted with the mind-body problem
→ modern scientists have to accept that consciousness is in some sense physical
→ the most acceptable notion is the materialist view
→ we need a preliminary account of what the conscious mind is
→ consciousness is some sense in physical and minds are physical (needs to be accepted)
3. What is the conscious mind?
→ initial classification of the conscious mind: 3 characteristics
, 1) conscious experiences
- what-it-is-likeness (what is it like to experience something)
- phenomenal character
- experiences of taste, color, feeling a texture
- we are experiencing qualia – phenomenal experience of what-it-is-likeness (ex. seeing a
cherry and red is the quale)
2) cognition
- having cognition means having propositional attitudes (PAs) – stances taken towards a
proposition
ex. John believes it is raining
ex. Mary believes the sun shines
* different attitudes towards the same proposition are possible
- cognitive states have intentionality (aboutness = it refers to something, not intentions)
- PAs are discrete entities – changes to one PA do not affect another PA
ex. beliefs are propositional attitudes
ex. conscious experiences are phenomenal experiences with phenomenal character
- PAs are about something and have intentionality
3) emotions
- have both a qualitative character and intentionality
ex. being angry/ being in love
3.1 the general problem – how does the conscious mind into the physical world?
→ three sub-problems:
1) how do conscious experiences fit in the physical world?
2) how do cognitive states fit in the physical world?
3) how do emotions fit in the physical world?
they can be reduced to two questions!
1) how do qualia fit in the physical world?
2) how does intentionality fit in the physical world?
! the philosophical views are related to these questions
4. Substance dualism
→ substance: it can exist on its own (not a property!)
→ properties need something they are instantiated in
→ substance dualism: 2 substances
- res cogitans (thinking substance)
- res extensa (extended substance)
→ Rene Descartes is the most famous proponent
→ essential properties: (according to Descartes they do not change)
* essential properties of res cogitans: thinking
* essential properties of res extensa: being extended/ having extension (to take up a place
in space-time continuum/ 3-D)
* movement is the result of collisions between extended objects
4.1 Descartes’s first method: radical doubt
→ he had two methods: destructive and constructive
→ mathematics as the prototype of science (a foundation to build on)
- used axioms which cannot be doubted
→ what information can be relied on?
, → senses are not to be trusted – they are deceiving
ex. optical illusions
→ what if there is a malin genie (almighty demon that deceives you)
→ he doubts everything except for the recognition he is thinking
ex. doubting is thinking so therefore Descartes cannot doubt he is thinking (Cogito ergo
sum)
→ “I think therefore I am” is the foundation
4.2 Descartes’s second method: clear and distinct insights
→ Descartes is, but what is he?
→ a res cogitans
→ he perceives this clearly and distinctly – he is a thinking thing because of res cogitans’s
essential property: thinking
→ clear and distinct perceptions
→ there is a good God who does not deceive
→ clear and distinct perceptions come from a perfect being which is God
→ anthological argument about God – problematic view
→ given the clear and distinct perceptions, there is also a body
→ Descartes is both: a physical and mental substance
- Elizabeth of Bohemia was not satisfied with Descartes’s explanations
she reiterates what Descartes states about movement
4.3 the interaction problem
→ reminiscent of the causal closure (CC) of the physical world: no energy (hence no
mass) gets in or out the system
ex. every physical event has a physical cause
→ if CC applies, then non-physical (mental) causes seem to be unintelligible
→ “Patrick Swayze problem” – how can a non-physical substance (with no extension) collide
with the physical substance?
ex. how can a ghost move about in the physical world
→ Descartes acknowledges there is a problem but does not know the solution
- we are clearly two substances
- but mind and body are closely connected (we are not like a sailor on a ship)
- these two claims cannot be thought about together
→ we need to make sense out of the interaction
- the mind and body are connected in the pineal gland according to Descartes (hypothesis)
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