materialism

• who ridicules the Cartesian (Descartes) account?


  Gilbert Ryle
• what is Gilbert Ryle?


  a materialist
• what is materialism?

  the view that there is no soul within the body
• what does Ryle call Descartes account of the body-soul relationship?

  the dogma of the "Ghost in the machine"
• what does the ghost in the machine mean?

  looking for something that doesn't exist
• what else does he say the Descartes account is?

  "entirely false" and a "category mistake"
• to speak of the soul was a...?

  mistake in the use of language
• to explain the "category mistake" what does Ryle use the example of?

  a visitor getting a tour around a university
• explain the example:

  imagine you look around a university, seeing the colleges, libraries etc, you then ask the guide "where is the university itself?"
• Ryle says that the visitor wrongly assumes what?

  that the university is something extra
• similarly, what do dualists wrongly assume?

  that the mind is something extra, when it is not
• what is Richard Dawkins?


  a materialist
• what does Dawkins see religion as?

  dangerous, and needing to be fought against
• what does Dawkins argue that we are?

  "machines of meat" programmed by our DNA
• what does this link with the theory of?

  evolution
• how does this link with the theory of evolution?

  we have evolved to such an advance state that our mind has created the perception that we have a soul
• in reality, we are just our bodies so...?

  it is incorrect to believe that we have a soul, and this is part of the insanity of religion
• what does Dawkins say?

  "being dead will be no different from being unborn"
• why does Descartes' theory of interactionism not work?

  because locating mind-brain interaction anywhere in the brain solves nothing
• why does it solve nothing?

  because it merely says "it interacts here" but does nothing to show how that interaction takes place
• in addition, why does it not work?

  because it has now been shown that the pineal gland produces melatonin to aid sleep
• what two arguments further go against Descartes' theory of interactionsim?

  physicalism and functionalism
• what does physicalism believe?

  the there is no body/soul relationship
• how can everything be explained and described in terms of?

  matter
• if everything is explained in terms of matter then...?

  "soul" is not needed to explain the nature of persons
• there is no body/soul relationship for the simple reason that...?

  there is no soul
• physicalism is a reductive philosophy. just as water reduces to H20 ...?


  mind reduces to brain
• physicalism seems to give an obvious explanation to what?


  common phenomena
• for example, if you're ill then...?

  you feel sluggish/ tired and you can't think straight
• for example, if you're excited then...?

  your pulse rate increases
• what does this suggest?

  that what we experience is related to straightforward physical causes
• what can science provide?

  answers to all the significant questions about life
• what is functionalism an example of?

  a physicalist theory of mind
• philosophers tend to talk of mind rather than soul
• so, what is the body/ soul problem?

  the mind/ body problem
• functionalism as a theory developed out of what?

  cognitive science
• where the mind is seen as what?

  an information processing system - as a working computer program
• to talk about a things function is to do what?

  simply describe the job it does
• a function contains 3 things, what are they?

  input, function and output
• for example, what is the input of a thermostat?

  the air in the room