PersonPerson

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Shadia Abd ElkaderShadia Abd Elkader

Philosophical views of the personPhilosophical views of the person

Person

Monism Dualism

MonismMonism  

• According to monism, the mind and the body are both made up of the same substance, either mental or physical.

• Aristotle (384—322 B.C.) advocated a physical form of monism. He believed the mind and body were both physical.

• He stated that aspects of mind correspond to the different physical states the brain assumes.

DualismDualism

• Plato (427—347 B.C.) was a dualist. • Dualism argues that mind and body are of two different

natures; the brain is a physical substance and the mind is a mental substance.

• Plato thought the body resided in a world that is material, extended, and perishable.

• The mind, he believed, resided in an ideal world of forms that was immaterial, non-extended, and eternal.

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The Mind-Body Relation:The Mind-Body Relation: Ancient Western Views Ancient Western Views

Democritus (fl. 450 BCE) Lucretius (94-55 BCE)

Materialism: all things (including minds/souls & mental events) are bodies in motion

Plato (427-347 BCE

•Dualism: the soul is an immortal life force distinct from the body;• its search for truth is moral desire

(384-322 BCE)

• Aristotle: the soul is the form of a body: the life of plants, the sensation/motion of animals, the mind of human beings

The Hindu SelfThe Hindu Self

• The experienced part of person (the conscious self and body) differs from the all-pervading divine Self, which is not known or reasoned to

(788-820)

Sankara: The phenomenal world (including selves) does not exist

Ramanuja: The phenomenal self is a modification of the inner self (God/Brahman

MonismMonism

• Monism is the belief that the universe is only comprised of one type of substance.

• Forms of monism include: – Materialism- everything that exists is physical

by nature. – Mentalism- only the mind truly exists. – Identity position- mental processes are the

same as brain processes but simply described in different ways.

The Mind-Brain RelationshipThe Mind-Brain Relationship  

• Explanations of the mind-body relationship do not answer some fundamental questions: – Why is consciousness a property of brain activity? – What kind of brain activity produces consciousness? – How does brain activity produce consciousness?

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• Because “consciousness” is not observable, it’s function is often difficult to define and/ or explain.

• Solipsism- suggests that “I alone” am conscious – Difficulty of knowing if others have conscious

experiences is known as the “problem of other minds”.

• Chalmers (1995) proposes two problems that must be distinguished when discussing consciousness:

• Easy problems - focus on differences in conscious states and their mechanisms.

• Hard problems - focus on why and how brain activity is associated with consciousness.

The mind-body problem  The mind-body problem 

• Describes the seeming incompatibility between the physical properties of the brain and the mental qualities of the mind.

• The brain is material and physical and can be studied objectively.

• The mind consists of subjective phenomena such as thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.

• Is the mind physical?

Types of Types of monismmonism  

• Idealism. The mind and body both exist in a mental realm. ‘ All that exists are minds and ideas in minds. There is no physical world.

‘Solipsism’ : A form of idealism in which the universe exists only in one’s mind. Non-mental matter is an illusion projected by our minds

• Physicalism. Mind and body are both physical. There is no nonphysical world.'Phisical matter, in all its permutation and combinations, is all that exists’(p.155).   

Physicalism Physicalism 

• Physicalism is essentially the metaphysical claim that everything is physical

• It is distinguished from materialism (everything is matter) by the fact that physicalists include such entities as energy, magnetism, gravity, etc. which we agree are physical but it’s not clear that they are made of ‘matter’

• An important part of physicalism is the notion of superevinences. – A dot-matrix picture has global properties -- it

is symmetrical, it is cluttered, and whatnot -- and yet all there is to the picture is dots and non-dots at each point of the matrix. The global properties are nothing but patterns in the dots. They supervene: no two pictures could differ in their global properties without differing, somewhere, in whether there is or there isn't a dot.

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dot4

Dot 3

Dot2

Dot 1

dot4

dot2

A Problem for Physicalism  A Problem for Physicalism 

• Qualia – the feelings/qualities of things – A famous neuroscientist is confined to a black

and white room. She learns about the world via black and white media such as tv, computers, newspapers, etc. Through study, she learns (knows) all that physical theory can teach her. When she is released into the world of color, it is clear that she did not know what it is like for both herself and others to see colors.

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• Intentionality – The ‘aboutness’ of thought is difficult to explain within

a physicalist account of meaning via a dispositional theory of meaning (a word means what its use suggests e.g. we use the word blue to talk about blue things)

• Imagine a situation in which

• (a) the dispositional theory is true• (b) the word ‘red’ means red for a speaker S

• (c) the speaker misapplies the word e.g. they describe a white object viewed through red lenses as red (they don’t know it’s white)

• So S applies ‘red’ to things which are ‘either red or white but viewed through red lenses’

• Therefore the combination of a, b and c leads to a contradiction

– The dispositional account of meaning cannot be true

Identity Theory of Mind Identity Theory of Mind 

• The identity theory of mind claims that mental events and physical events are one and the same (not merely correlated)

• Two classic papers are: – Is Consciousness a brain process? (U.T. Place, 1956) – The “Mental” and the “Physical”? (H.Feigl, 1958)

• Identity theorists, in part, argue that a problem has arisen because philosophers have confused ‘meaning’ and ‘reference’ – E.g. ‘very bright star in the morning’ and ‘very bright star in

the evening’ have different meanings but both statements refer to the planet venus

– In this sense, identity theory is ‘contingent’ and subject to empirical investigation

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Anomalous Anomalous MonismMonism   

• This philosophy of mind comes from the writings of Donald Davidson

• It is based on three basic principles – At least some mental events causally interact with at least

some physical events – Events related by causes must follow strict laws – There are no strict laws that for mental events can relate,

explain, predict other events • In order to resolve some of problems associated with this line

of reasoning Davidson invokes a final principle – Supervenience

• If two events share all their physical properties they will also share all their mental properties

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Eliminative Materialism Eliminative Materialism 

• Feyerabend (1963) argued that our intuitions (‘folk psychology’) about the relationship between mind and body are simply wrong. – Any form of materialism or physicalism automatically

excludes the mental – there are no mental events • If mental events are physical events (and only physical

events) then our lack of a language to describe those physical events is just that and no more

Functionalism Functionalism 

• Functionalism is the claim that what makes a mental state a particular mental state is not it’s ‘internal constitution’ but rather the role is plays in relation to sensory input, behavior, and other mental states. – Functionalism is not committed to a physicalist view of

the world – Functionalism allows different physical instantiations of

the same ‘mental states’ – A functional description of the mental state pain may be

something of the form • ∃x y z w ( x tends to be caused by bodily injury & x ∃ ∃ ∃

tends to produce states y, z, and w & x tends to produce wincing or moaning).

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Problems for Functionalism  Problems for Functionalism 

• Absent and Inverted Qualia – It is possible to imagine a being whose mental

state is exactly that as described by a functionalist account but whose mental state has no ‘quale’

– It is possible to imagine a being whose mental state is exactly that as described by a functionalist statement but whose ‘quale’ is not the same as another person/being

• A conceivable zombie – It is possible to imagine a being (zombie)

without mental states who is functionally identical to other beings that possess mental states

Thinking Machines (Animals, Thinking Machines (Animals, Martians, etc) Martians, etc) 

• If functionalism is correct then machines, animals, martians can ‘think’.

• However, Searle (1980, Minds, Brains and Programs) argued that this is clearly impossible – A English language speaker is locked in a room. In

that room there are some Chinese symbols and some rules written in English for manipulating those symbols. Some more symbols are passed into the room and by using the rules the person can pass the correct symbols out the room.

 

– An onlooker looks at the input and output to the room and concludes that the person in the room understands Chinese.  However, the person in the room clearly doesn’t understand Chinese and would tell you so.

• The ability to manipulate symbols in a functional way is not evidence that a machine is actually thinking

The Trouble with Minds  The Trouble with Minds 

• Minds seem to have some properties that are not easily seen as the result of atoms (or fields) in motion (Searle 1984): 

• Consciousness: We’re aware of the things around us and experience all sorts of sensations. What exactly is consciousness? That is a tough question. your… Consciousness does have a sort of ‘know-it-when-you-experience-it’ quality to it. Anyway, we’re undeniably conscious and electrons plausibly are not. How can a swarm of unconscious particles become conscious?

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• Subjectivity: Our mental lives are private. You may look like you’re paying attention during lecture, thinking about philosophy, but for all I know you may be thinking about the homework of your child. Arguably, no amount of digging around in your skull will ever let me know what you’re thinking

• Intentionality: Our thoughts represent things in the world. They are about the world. My thought “The cat is on the mat” is about a cat, mat and a relation between the two. Yet how can thoughts (or anything) be about anything? What is ‘aboutness’ anyway? This category is more general than that of conscious thought. How can matter in motion represent things?

• Incorrigibility: Arguably, there are some mental states that you can’t be wrong about. How could you be wrong about whether or not you’re in pain, for instance? Feeling the sensation of pain just is being in pain. Yet if mental states are merely a product of matter in motion, why should our knowledge of them be any different from our knowledge of other things?

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Mind-Body Problem  Mind-Body Problem  • The mind-body problem is simply the question of how

the mind and body are connected to each other. We believe the two are connected somehow: whenever we drink too much or injure our bodies physical events are affecting our mental lives; typically when we think ‘raise arm’ our arm rises, and in this case, mental events are affecting physical events. But how exactly are they connected? Are they one and the same thing, and if so, in what sense? Or are mental events radically different from physical events, and if so, do the two really interact?

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• Philosophers have offered a multitude of different answers to these questions. Monism is the view that there is only one kind of elemental substance, usually judged to be matter (materialism or physicalism). According to dualism, there are two types of elemental substance.  Besides this division of theories there are many more distinctions that mark off different theories. 

• Monism 

● Materialism 

● Behaviorism 

● Identity Theory 

● Functionalism 

● Idealism 

● Solipsism 

DualismDualism

• Dualism is the belief that there are different kinds of substances and the mind and the body are separate entities.

• Defended by French philosopher Rene Descartes.

• Most common belief among nonscientists.

• Rejected by most neuroscientists.

Dualism Dualism 

• There are three basic kinds of dualism • Substance (Descartes)

– Mental substances are different from physical substances. – Not only are the properties of a mental state are different from the

properties of a physical state but they are made of different things • Property

– The qualitative nature of consciousness is different from merely physical states – it is emergent from those physical states but not the same

• Predicate – Mental predicates are necessary for a complete theory of the world – Mental predicates cannot be reduced to physical predicates – E.g. water = h2o vs pain=firing of c-fibres

MIND AND BODYMIND AND BODY

Descartes on mind and body• The mind and body are separate.

– If one clearly and distinctly understands something as distinct from another thing, that understanding is so.

• “I am certain that I exist as a thinking thing, while I am not certain of the existence of my body.”

• Therefore, humans are thinking things and nothing else.– The mind’s essence is thought.

• Therefore, the mind and body are separate. – The mind can survive without the body.

• Therefore, the body is an extended and material thing.

• Humans are intimately joined with their bodies.– Pain and pleasure are ways of perceiving

what happens to the mind and body.– Nothing can be concluded from pain and

pleasure except conclusions made by the mind, not by the union of the mind and body.

Descartes' ArgumentDescartes' Argument

If I clearly and distinctly understand one thing as distinct from another, it is so.

I am certain that I exist as a thinking thing, while I am not certain of the

existence of my body

I am a thinking thing and nothing else. My mind is distinct from

my body. I am a thing that thinks and not an

extended thing.

I have a distinct idea of body as an extended thing.

What he was really sayingWhat he was really saying

• Thinking is the only quality that the soul possesses.

• Mind and extended matter are different substances.

• Descartes argues that humans are spirits that occupy a mechanical body, made of extended substance, and that the essential attributes of humans do not involve the body at all.

EXISTENCE OF EXISTENCE OF MATERIAL THINGSMATERIAL THINGS

Descartes on material objects

• Material objects exist.– They appear against one’s will.– They are more vivid than a product of

imagination. – They come from the senses.

• Nothing is in the imagination that is not first in the senses.

Descartes’s Argument: Material Objects Descartes’s Argument: Material Objects ExistExist

I can understand myself without imagination and sense, but I cannot understand imagination and sense without attributing them to a thing that thinks.

Movement is a power of mine, but movement is a power only of extended things

It seems that although I am essentially a thinking thing, I am not only a thinking thing. It at least seems to me that I also have an extended body, but we must now see how we can be certain of this.

I not only have the power of passive sense, of examining the contents of my mind, but I also have active sense, the power of originating ideas within my mind. This faculty of active sense cannot be within me for two reasons:

•No intellection is required for this active sensing.

•These ideas come to me by active sense against my will.

This faculty is in a substance other than myself.

This substance must have as much reality as the objective reality of the ideas it produces.

Material objects exist.

These objects, however, may not be as they seem to us through the senses.

THEREFORE

THEREFORE

In Other WordsIn Other Words

• Since the understanding conceives of extended things through its comprehension of geometrical form, it must at least be possible for things of this sort to exist.

• Since the imagination is directed exclusively toward the ideas of bodies and of the ways in which they might be purposefully altered, it is probable that there really are such things.

• Since the faculty of sense perception is an entirely passive ability to receive ideas of physical objects produced in me by some external source outside my control, it is certain that such objects must truly exist.

Types of dualism Types of dualism 

• Classical dualism. Proposed by Descartes (1596—1650). The mind controls the body through the pineal gland.

• Parallelism. Mind and body are isolated from each other and exist in parallel worlds. An unknown force synchronizes the two.

• Epiphenomenalism. The brain causes the mind. In this view, the mind has no causal influence on the brain.

• Interactionism. The mind and the body can mutually affect one another.

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How do mind and body interact? How do mind and body interact? 

• Interactionism To some degree mental states can cause

physical states and vice versa. • Epiphenomenalism Mental events are caused by physical events

but not vice versa • Parallelism Mental events and physical events are in a

kinds of continual harmony but neither causes the other