P6: developments in religious belief

• Philosophical behaviourism, Ryle: ‘mental’ events just refer to behaviour we can observe in the brain. Consciousness is only behaviour
• 2 criticisms of Ryle behaviourism

  • Ward: pretend to be angry + actually angry exhibit same behaviour, but not same internal state - behaviour doesn't explain all
  • Behaviours can't describe subjective qualia
  • Frank Jackson: Mary knowledge arg
  • Nagel: don't know what it's like to be a bat
• 2 criticisms of Ryle behaviourism

  • Ward: pretend to be angry + actually angry exhibit same behaviour, but not same internal state - behaviour doesn't explain all
  • Behaviours can't describe subjective qualia
  • Frank Jackson: Mary knowledge arg
  • Nagel: don't know what it's like to be a bat
• Dennett's response to the criticism of materialism from qualia

  • consciousness is "a bunch of tricks in the brain"
  • introspection about our mental states is deceptive as our minds often mislead us, e.g. optical illusion
  • what we think are qualia might be illusions created by brain we don't have explanation for yet
• Dennett's response to the criticism of materialism from qualia



  • consciousness is "a bunch of tricks in the brain"
  • introspection about our mental states is deceptive as our minds often mislead us, e.g. optical illusion
  • what we think are qualia might be illusions created by brain we don't have explanation for yet
• Materialists, Dawkins, Dennett: we have diff words for mental events + physical processes underlying them, but they're really the same