SUBSTANCE DUALISM

    Cards (25)

    • what is intentionality?
      the quality of certain mental states that directs them towards something outside of the mind and to things in the world. its what makes mental states such as belief, fears and desires ABOUT something
    • what is qualia?

      the subjective feel or PHENOMENAL QUALITY of certain conscious experiences. the 'what it is like' to experience things such as smelling petrol, eating an apple, touching a cats fur.
    • what is substance?

      a basic kind of stuff or thing, that doesn't depend on anything else to exist
    • what is a property?

      a property cannot exist on its own and depends on a substance.
    • what is dualism?
      the view that the mind and body are not identical and so the mental cannot be reduced to the physical.
    • wat are the key features of qualia?
      • the way that qualia feels is directly accessible by inspecting your own conscious experience.
      • you cannot be mistaken about its nature as it is directly accessible to you
      • it is private
      • it is ineffable - cannot be put into words
      • its intrinsic
    • what is substance dualism?

      it explains the irreducibility of of the mental by saying that minds are made up of an entirely different substance to physical bodies.
      we are composed of two different substances, mental and physical - which each have distinct sets of properties. both exist independently but are linked in some way
    • what are the key tenets of substance dualism?
      • mind and body are two different substances that each have distinct properties.
      • neither rely on each other to exist - therefore the decomposition of the body does not necessitate the destruction of the mind.
      • the mind and body causally interact - e.g stimulation of sense organs cases the mind to experience sensations
      • the mind and body are in an intimate union with one another
    • what is descartes indivisibility argument?
      descartes highlights how all physical bodies are spatially extended - it can be cut up into smaller and smaller parts.
      however, descartes claims that it is not possible to split the mind in this way - we can know this through introspection.
      given that being divisible and being indivisible are incompatible properties, mind and body cannot be the same substance
    • what is the indivisibility argument formally?
      p1: the body is divisible
      p2: the mind is indivisible
      c: therefore the mind is not the body and vice verse
    • what law is the indivisibility argument based upon?
      leibniz' law of indiscernibility - the principle that if two apparently distinct things have exactly the same properties then really they are the same thig - it follows from this that if we can find one property that two things dont share then we can conclude that theyre distinct from each other
    • what is the conceivability argument?
      descartes argues that if he has a clear and distinct idea of two things then it must be possible, in principle, to separate them. if i recognise the essential natures of two things to be clearly distinct then they must actually be distinct things.
    • what is the conceivability argument formally?
      p1: if i can clearly and distinctly recognise the natures of tow things to be different then they must be two different things.
      p2: i clearly and distinctly recognise the nature of the body to be extension and nothing more
      p3: i clearly and distinctly recognise the nature of the mind to be consciousness and nothing more.
      c: therefore the mind is a distinct substance from the body
    • what are the two criticisms of the indivisibility argument?
      the mental is divisible and not everything physical is divisible
    • what is the criticism of the IA - 'the mental is divisible' - unreliability of introspection?
      flawed due to the unreliability of introspection and recent scientific evidence. Descartes believed that introspection was reliable due to there being no gap between appearance and reality, however, Introspection is not always reliable; people can deceive themselves about their own desires and beliefs, as Freud's theory of the unconscious mind suggests. We might similarly be unaware of the mind's divisible nature.
    • what is a criticism of the IA - 'the mental is divisible' - modern neuroscience evidence
      Modern neuroscience also supports the idea that the mind can be divided. For instance, surgeries that sever the corpus callosum can result in two distinct centers of consciousness.
    • what is a criticism of the IA - 'the physical isnt all divisible'
      the first premise (the body is divisible) is attacked by the claim that not everything that is physical is divisible, such as physical states (e.g. being hot or cold). These things are still distinctly physical, but they are not divisible.
    • what is logical possibility?
      something is logically possible if it doesn't involve any contradiction - e.g it is logically possible for there to be life on mars or blue raspberries. it is conceivable
    • what is physical possibility?
      something is physically possible if its occurrence is consistent with the laws of nature that happen to exist in the actual world. e.g. it is physically possible to jump. it is not physically possible for you to fly by flapping your arms.
    • what is metaphysical possibility?
      all the ways the world could have or might have been - all the possible worlds represent the realm of wat is metaphysically possible. e.g it is metaphysically possible for humans to be able to fly, but it is not metaphysically possible for water to not be h20, as they are the same stuff
    • what is the criticisms of the CA?
      what is conceivable may not be metaphysically possible (masked man fallacy) , what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the actual world and the mind without body is not conceivable.
    • what is the criticism of the CA - what is conceivable may not be metaphysically possible
      arnauld uses the example of the Pythagoras theorem to question Descartes first premise.
      all right angled triangles hypotenuse angle is equal to the area of the two opposite sides.
      if you were unfamiliar with the PT, then it is possible for you to conceive of a right angled triangle that lacks this property.
      clearly, you would be mistaken if you concluded that this was possible in reality, because it isn't. therefore what we can conceive of is not a good guide of what is actually possible - refuting p1.
    • what is the masked man fallacy - criticism of CA?
      the masked man fallacy mimics the reasoning of descartes argument.
      p1: i recognise that batman is a masked crusader.
      p2: i recognise that bruce wayne is a playboy billionaire.
      c: therefore batman is not bruce wayne.
      the reasoning of this argument is clearly fallacious as p1 and 2 are true but the conclusion is false. if descartes uses the same reasoning in the conceivability argument then therefore that too must be fallacious.
    • what does the masked man fallacy reveal about the CA?
      i may only recognise an aspect of the person batman and if my idea doesnt reveal his full nature then i may wrongly assume that he is distinct from bruce wayne.
      similarly, descartes idea of the mind may be incomplete. introspection reveals the mind to be a realm of the conscious experience ad i am unaware of the mind having any involvement in this - however the fact that i am unaware of my body being responsible for consciousness doesnt show that it isnt in reality
    • what is descartes response to the masked man fallacy?
      he points out that his argument includes the claim that he clearly and distinctly recognises that nothing more is involved in his idea of mind and body. if he is correct that he can be certain that the essences of both mind and body are distinct then they would have to be distinct substances. - this would make the argument valid
      however, the problem still lies of whether we are persuaded that introspection can really give us an infallible insight into the true nature of consciousness.
    See similar decks