Book and Lecture Summary of Philosophy of Mind (First Part of Course) - Grade 9.5
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Course
Philosophy of Mind (500251B5)
Institution
Tilburg University (UVT)
This is a summary of the first part of the course, so including all the material needed for the midterm and some of the material needed for the final exam. It includes notes for the book and lectures about the entire first part of the course dealing with the "conscious mind".
For the second part ...
Philosophy of Mind – Summary
Block 3, Week 1
8 Questions about the Conscious Mind: Chapter 1 – What is the Conscious Mind?
- What is Philosophy?
1) conceptual analysis
- everyday world view = manifest world view; scientific research = scientific world view
- philosophy: asking what is meant by concepts, looking at relation between world views
2) conceptual clarification
- looking at science to tell us more about concepts you’re investigating
3) science of validity
- questioning validity of concepts
4) changing of perspectives
- training to an eye for other opinions
5) search of the truth
6) all of the above, i.e., philosophy = metascience
- all of the above, trying to approximate objective truth
- The hard problem of philosophy: problem of consciousness
➢ People having dualist intentions, but reciprocal connection of brain and body, i.e., not
independent
- Substance: can exist on its own (e.g., wood)
- Property: quality of substance (e.g., being round)
- Separability thesis: thesis that mind can exist and function separately from physical world
- Experiences (thoughts, feelings, taste, …) = mental states, which form conscious mind
- Qualia: qualitative aspects of phenomenal experiences, what-it-is-likeness (Thomas Nagel)
➔ Privileged first-person access
- Mental states:
1) Phenomenal experiences: characterised by qualitative feel
2) Cognitive states: possess intentionality (≠ intention), aboutness
→ archetype of mental state with intentionality: propositional attitude (proposition =
meaning of sentence; different stances)
→ PA’s: discrete entities
- Types of mental states: conceptually distinguishable from another
3) Emotions: both what-it-is-likeness and aboutness
- Conscious vs unconscious mind: states of unconscious can become conscious; existence of
conscious = accessibility to consciousness
, - States not belonging to either (e.g., heartbeat regulation): in a sense unconscious, but no
mental states (impossible to become conscious)
- Mind-body problem: how conscious mind fits into physical world
- Mind-body problems:
1) How do phenomenal experiences fit into the physical world?
2) How do cognitive states fit into the physical world?
3) How do emotions fit into the physical world?
➔ Basic problems:
1) How do qualia fit into the physical world?
2) How does intentionality fit into the physical world?
- Cognition: mental states with aboutness
- Consciousness: phenomenal states of mind
- Philosophy: brings together data from other sciences, discover false reasoning
Chapter 2 – Can the Mind Function Separately from the Brain?
- Separability thesis (Rene Descartes): mind existing and functioning separately from physical
world (≠ inseparability thesis)
- Sceptics: philosophers arguing that we can never be certain about anything
➔ Michel Eyquem de Montaigne: any claim, even claiming that you know nothing for
certain, too strong
➔ “Que sais-je?”: What do I know?
- Rene Descartes: initial acceptance of method of sceptics, i.e., doubting everything you can
doubt
➔ Conclusion: not possible to trust anything / anyone who has deceived one in the past,
including other humans, and senses, e.g., even existence of body, physical world
(malignant demon creating it)
➔ Only certainty: nothing is certain
- BUT: Descartes’ foundation
➔ Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) = being able to doubt existence meaning being
able to think, thinking only possible if existing
➔ Human = thinking thing (I =?)
- Cogito ergo sum = insight, not argument
➔ Whatever is perceived clearly and distinctly is true: new method to find truths
,- Proof for God: idea of God has to come from perfect being (i.e., God himself)
- Proof for God’s goodness: impossible to deceive, as deception = imperfection
- Conclusion: Descartes’ ideas about mind and body, physical world originating from God =
also existent
➔ = ontological argument
➔ Humans = mind and body, latter existing in world among other physical things
- Thinking and physical thing: two substances, can exist on their own
- Res extensa: physical substance; is extended, three dimensional = has place in space
➔ Physical bodies: moved by other physical bodies
- Res cogitans: thinking substance, not extended
- Substance Dualism (SM): thinking and physical substances = independent of each other
- Humans = both substances / machines closely related to human mind, animals = only
machines, physical things without a mind
- Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia: the interaction problem/Patrick Swayze problem (how can the
physical body and non-physical mind interact?)
➔ Causal closure (CC) of the physical world: no energy (hence no mass) gets in or out the
system, i.e., every physical event has physical cause, making non-physical causes seem
unintelligible
- Bodily/animal spirits: small particles allowing bodily movement (Aelius Galen)
- Descartes’ suggestions:
➢ pineal gland as point of interaction between body and mind
➢ God taking care of interaction, how: no one knows
- Soul moving body without requiring collision, similar to heaviness
- But: body and soul ≠ sailor and ship
➔ Simultaneously unity and distinct from one another: incomprehensible how they interact
- Occasionalism:
➢ Malebranche: only cause of event in world = God
➢ All natural causes, not true but occasional causes (occasion for God to cause another
event)
➢ Mind-body interaction and genuine body-to-body interaction only seeming like, but
not actually interaction: God as cause between two events
- Parallelism:
➢ Geulincx: pre-established harmony between mental and physical world
➢ Leibniz: harmonious monia praestabilita
➢ Will and movement both depending on same supreme designer having created them
to run parallel to one another without actual causal relation
- Both views: mystery not solved; one problem merely replaced by another
, - Jaegwon Kim: inability to come up with satisfactory solution for interaction problem = fatal
to SD
- Parapsychology:
➢ Either: acceptance of separability thesis due to conviction of existence of
parapsychological phenomena
➢ Or: science investigating claims about paranormal ohenomena
- Clairvoyance: instance of extrasensory perception (ESP), would be in support of mind’s ability
to function independently
➔ BUT: no real evidence
- Electronic voice phenomena (EVP): tuning in between radio stations to record white noise
and discover messages from deceased (Raudive voices)
➔ Instrumental Transcommunication (ITC; including photos, etc.)
➔ Most EVP researchers amateurs
➔ No proof of supernatural as cause
➔ Studies by Baruss, Skinner and Warren disproving evidence, e.g., verbal transformations
(VTs): showing that people have tendency to interpret meaningless sounds as meaningful
➢ Pareidolia: phenomenon of recognising meaningful patterns in random stimuli;
affects different senses
➢ Theory of ladenness of perception: what we perceive is influenced by a theory that
tells us what to perceive
- Conclusion: absolutely no empirical support for SD and separability hypothesis
Chapter 3 – Is there Only Mind?
- Substance monism: view that there is only one substance, not two
- Materialism/Physicalism: type of monism usually accepted in modern philosophy of mind,
claiming that everything in the world is physical, material or made out of matter
- Idealism (George Berkely): related to res cogitans/thinking substance, claiming that
everything in the world is mental
➔ No interaction, only mind
- John Locke:
➢ Empiricist: knowledge only gained through sensory experiences
➢ Humans = naïve realists
➢ Primary and secondary properties/qualities: properties that things really have vs
properties that we ascribe to them
➢ Existence of secondary properties dependent on perceiver
- Problematic of Locke: perceiving only properties of thing, not thing having properties
➢ BUT: convinced of existence of substance lying underneath primary properties
- Idealism: primary properties actually also secondary properties
- Three most influential British empiricists: Berkely, Locke, and Hume
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