Saturday, 28 May 2016

Philosophy of mind SYNTHESISED

Key points throughout philosophy of mind

- Cartesian Dualism
➡ Descartes’ view that the mind is ontologically distinct from the body

➡ Argument that the mind is res cogitans and the body is res extensa

➡ It is autonomously found and certain for Descartes that ‘I have a mind’

➡ substance = an entity in which does not depend on another entity in order to exist, entity = a thing
with distinct and independent existence

- Indivisibility Argument
➡ Proof of the dualistic nature of Descartes’ mind and body but that the mind is unitary and one

1. My mind is indivisible

2. My body is divisible

3. My body is not my mind

4. It is impossible for anything to be divisible and indivisible at the same time

5. I am a single conscious entity

➡ Makes use of Leibniz’ law; two things are the same if, and only if, they possess all the same properties
at the same time

- Dualistic Interactionism Argument; The Passions of the Soul

➡ Interactionism asserts that the mind and body directly causally interact with each other

➡ Descartes’ faced criticisms as to where the mind and body actually interact, if they do at all

➡ For Descartes’ they definitely do interact, namely, at the pineal gland, a small section of the brain
where the mental and physical supposedly meet
➡ The mental act of ‘volition’ motivates physical action from mental desire; the want to pick up the cup of
tea and the arm outreaching to retrieve it
➡ Physical changes in my body seem to directly or indirectly have caused mental states such as
sensations and beliefs
➡ Physical changes in the sense organs cause various sensory experiences in the mind

Criticisms
➡ The problem Descartes’ faces is interactionism’s apparent inability to explain how causal interaction
between the mind and the body is possible. There must be some common medium in which
transactions between one and the other can take place

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➡ Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia in her correspondence with Descartes expresses the problem in terms
of the need for some contact between the two substances in order for the mind to affect the body.
Since the mind has no extended surface it is unable to touch the body and so cannot casually interact
with it.
➡ This must mean that the mind has more in common with physical things than dualism allows.

➡ Another way of approaching the problem of interactionism is the inability for an unextended thing to be
spatially located, for since minds have no spatial characteristics , there would seem to be no particular
place where the mind might come into contact with the body. So the idea of the mind and body
connecting at the pineal gland is nonsensical. As is the idea that the mind is ‘within’ the body, as an
unextended thing it makes little sense that the minds bound anywhere, this is merely a metaphor
➡ Descartes’ defends this criticism by asserting that the mind can only be understood ‘through the mind
itself’. By this he means that we shouldn’t try to make sense of the mind in terms of anything other than
itself. Elisabeth’s mistake rests on her attempt to make sense of causality in terms of the way physical
things causally interact, where for Descartes’, the mind and body interaction is different ‘it is
incomparable as to how a mind moves a body and how a body moves a body’
➡ Hume: the causal closure of the physical and the law of conservation of energy

➡ We cannot through experience alone find reason to believe the cause of a thing. No object ever
discovers, by the qualities which appear to the senses, either the cause to encounter a loaf of bread for
the first time, having never observed anything like it before, I would be unable to deduce how it was
made, or the effects which will arise from it. But via Hume’s constant conjunction, if we experience what
appears to be cause and effect enough times, we have reason to believe this could be the case - albeit
this is uncertain, so for Hume, there is nothing in theory that contradicts that the mind does motivate
the body
➡ Additionally, the physical universe is causally closed. By laws of physics, it is apparent that energy is
conserved, thus all physical objects in the universe motivate each other, nothing is ever created or
destroyed, as this would refute the closure of the physical universe. Therefore, if all bodies motivate
each other, it makes little sense to argue that a mental thing (above physical order) can motivate a
physical body, as this would contradict the idea of a closed conservation of energy in which nothing
above or beyond can intervene. If substance dualism was true, there would be an injection of energy
into the universe, a mental capacity of energy. This contradicts the principle of conservation of energy.
➡ Every physical event can be accounted for in terms of a physical cause

1. The physical universe is a closed system

2. And in any closed system, energy must be conserved

3. Mind and body causally interact

4. But causation involves the transfer of energy

5. Therefore, mind must be physical

➡ This can be defended by interactionism due to the fact that the mind energy could too be enclosed in
the system, that the effects of the mind and the body cancel each other out. However to support this
claim we would need more understanding of how and why an import or export of energy cancel each
other out - it appears an ad hoc to suggest this is how interactionism can be defended, resting on an
article of faith that energy eliminates itself for mind and body

- Conceivability Argument
➡ Some things are physically impossible in our world, others are logically impossible

➡ It is inconceivable to imagine a logical impossibility; a round square, but it is not inconceivable to

imagine a physical impossibility; a flying horse

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1. If I can clearly and distinctly conceive of the essential natures of two things separately, it might just be
possible to separate them
2. I clearly and distinctly perceive myself to be essentially a thinking unextended thing (my mind)

3. I clearly and distinctly perceive my body to be essentially an unthinking extended thing

4. It must be possible for mind and body to be separated in reality, meaning they are distinct substances
➡ Importantly, Descartes does not claim that the mind and body will ever be separated, just that they
could be if God chose them to
➡ Descartes’ claims to have a clear conception of the essence of his own body and of bodies in general
as extended things - that is to say, that necessarily have spatial dimensions. Since this conception of
body is not part of the idea has has of his mind, he can conclude that his mind really is distinct from his
body and could exist separately - they must be distinct things or substances

- Property Dualism
➡ Unlike substance dualism, property dualism claims that humans are composed of just one kind of
substance: matter. However, what makes it a dualist theory is the claim that we possess both mental
and physical properties.

➡ Mental states are dependent on the physical, so that the mind cannot exist without the body, but at the
same time mental states cannot be reduced to physical states

➡ Leibniz: Physicalism is an incomplete account of what there is in the world, and we need to posit a non-
physical mind, a ‘simple substance’ to locate consciousness

- Chalmers’ Zombie Argument for Property Dualism

➡ The problem Chalmers wrestles; ‘how to explain subjective experience, or what it is like to be a
conscious human being’

➡ For Chalmers, consciousness is ‘what it is like to see a vivid green, feel a sharp pain, feel a deep
regret’, these are what he calls the ‘phenomenal character’ of these states of consciousness, these are
qualia

➡ Chalmers asks us to imagine a human that lacks qualia and other mental states; a human with no
conscious experiences at all - he calls this being a philosophical zombie, a being that entirely
resembles a functioning human being; physically identical in every way, they just do not have
subjective consciousness. They behave like a regularly functioning human being, they are physically
indistinguishable from a human, except they do not have any experience of qualia

➡ The main thing is, we cannot tell if someone is a philosophical zombie. We can only measure people
on a physical observable scale, we cannot determine their consciousness; a private, subjective thing

➡ Chalmers thinks it is possible that there is a world populated with these people, since there is no way of
knowing otherwise. But he doesn’t think they actually exist. It is more important that we can conceive of
such beings, and that because we can conceive of them, he argues, there are other possible
universes, other ways things could have been, in which such beings could exist, where human beings
are philosophical zombies. Philosophical zombies are, in other words, metaphysically possible.

➡ It follows that consciousness cannot be identical to physical properties and there is more to being
conscious than can be captured in a complete physical description

1. Physicalism claims that consciousness is ultimately physical in nature

2. It follows that any world which is physically identical to this world must contain consciousness

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3. But we can conceive of a world which is physically identical to this one but in which there is no
conscious experience (on other words, such a world is metaphysically possible)
4. Therefore physicalism is false

Criticisms:
➡ Dennett: A zombie world is not conceivable. Chalmers zombies are not conceivable. The idea of a
philosophical zombie entails hidden contradictions. Is it really conceivable that a philosophical zombie
would be able to communicate if they did not have qualia? For Dennett, there is an inextricable link
between our private mental states and qualia and how we communicate. Having a mind is integral to
be able to perform such tasks.
➡ Additionally, a zombie’s inner life (absence of mind) and thoughts are not merely empty or dark.. they
are unimaginable, there is no way we can comprehend this. So the idea of a philosophical zombie is
inconceivable for two reasons: they would definitely noticeably be lacking in consciousness, this would
reflect in their behaviour.
➡ We cannot comprehend ‘lack of consciousness’ , it is inconceivable.
➡ Perhaps, the puzzling nature of Chalmers zombie argument stems from us mistakenly thinking we can
hold these two conceits together: imagining being mindless, a being with a dark empty mind, crossed
with imagining meeting one of these beings, an apparently normally functioning person, to which we
would never tell if they were mindless.
➡ What is conceivable is not possible: we can imagine a world where a similar liquid to water is called
‘water’, but has a different chemical composition than H2O, hence is not water. It is not possible, albeit
conceivable. The same applies to the zombies, by the nature of conceiving of a being that is identical to
us, except they are mindless, we can eliminate the possibility of this being just because it is
nonsensical to have a being that is identical to us without a mind, a world populated with this illogical
being does not make sense

- Qualia
➡ The ‘phenomenal character’ of states of consciousness
➡ Intrinsic non-representational qualities, our sensations of pain, smell or colour: the redness of red, or
unpleasantness of pain

➡ They are what we are immediately conscious of when we experience such sensations and it is clarified
that we are directly aware of them through consciousness

- Mary/Knowledge Argument
➡ Jackson: like Chalmers, argues that the intrinsic nature of certain mental states - qualia - is irreducible,
cannot be simplified.
➡ However, Jackson, like Chalmers, accepts that the brain must have some role to play in the production
of consciousness. Jackson supports a version of property dualism whereby the mental is irreducible;
but nonetheless a product of the physical brain
➡ He regards himself as a qualia freak; that is someone for whom it appears obvious that no amount of
physical information can capture what it is like to experience qualia; ‘the smell of a rose’
➡ Jackson however provides an idea appealing to basic intuition, for more stubborn physicalists

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➡ The argument begins with a thought experiment about a brilliant neuroscientist named Mary. Mary, we
are asked to suppose, has been confined in a black and white room her entire life, having only been
able to access the world via a black and white television screen - this point being, she has never
experienced colour herself. Despite this handicap, she has studied the science of vision and come to
know everything there is to know about what happens when someone physically sees and talks about
colours. So she knows which wavelengths of light produce which effects on the retina, for example, and
how this translates in people’s brains, allowing people to announce they have had colour experience.
Suppose now, that one day, Mary leaves the confines of the black and white room and is able for the
first time to look directly at the sky, the grass and a rose, and so experience colour and other
sensations
➡ Does Mary discover something she did not know already? Jackson thinks it is clear that she does - she
learns what it is like to experience colours. It follows that her knowledge before she left the room must
have been incomplete. Since this prior knowledge included everything there is to know physically about
colour vision, physicalism leaves something out; namely, it cannot explain qualia. Hence physicalism is
not a complete account of reality
➡ In sum, Jackson asserts;

1. Mary knows everything about the physical processes involved in colour vision

2. But she learns something new when she experiences colour vision herself

3. Therefore, there is more to know about colour vision than what is given in a complete physical account
of it
4. Physicalism is false

Criticisms:
➡ Mary gains no new propositional knowledge

➡ There is a distinction between acquaintance knowledge and propositional knowledge, propositional

knowledge are facts about a thing, true or false claims. Acquaintance knowledge of a thing is different,
it is the experience with a thing
➡ So when Mary claims to know all there is to know about colour vision, she really only knows what is
propositional about colour vision. It is an entirely different experience to be acquainted with a thing, this
a different form of knowledge altogether
➡ This criticism rests on the equivocation of the word ‘know’. In a sense, Mary does not gain any new
knowledge, she gains no new propositional knowledge. But she does gain acquaintance knowledge,
therefore she did not before know all there was to know about colour vision
➡ Jackson could respond in saying that she did gain propositional knowledge; namely how humans
experience colour. For now she is able to know facts about what it is like when people experience
colour. Before she knew everything physical about human colour vision, on her release she knows
something more about it, so her new knowledge isn’t confined to mere acquaintance with colour herself
➡ If Mary had a companion in her black and white room, let’s call him Marvin, then upon return to the
black and white room Mary would be unable to communicate her experience of colour, therefore
showing qualia as existent and physicalism as an insufficient account of reality, as there is a subjective
knowledge she cannot communicate to another being
➡ Others argue she gains ability knowledge, not propositional. She does not gain any new true or false
facts she instead gains an ability in how to observe colour, and acquaintance in the experience of
colour itself. The fact she learns something new doesn’t undermine physicalism since it is perfectly
possible for Mary to acquire new abilities without this meaning she didn’t have a complete account of
knowledge of what happens when people view colours
➡ All physical knowledge would include knowledge of qualia

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➡ Patricia Churchland; “How can I assess what Mary will know and understand if she knows everything
there is to know about the brain? Everything is a lot, and it means in all likelihood that Mary has a
radically deeper and different understanding of the brain that anything barely conceivable in our wildest
flights of fancy”
➡ If Mary did indeed know all the physical facts about colour vision, then she would be able to work out
what colour would look like like, and even so, even in the black and white room, could imagine what it
is like to look at the sky or a rose
➡ Dennett urges us to recognise just how hard it is to really imagine Mary knows absolutely everything
about colour vision. We currently know very little about how colour vision works, so we are not in a
position to get a proper imaginative handle on what it would mean to know it all. So faced with the
invitation to imagine Mary’s body of knowledge, we must conjure a very vague and general sense of
what she would know. But this vague idea is not, says Dennett, a safe basis upon making judgements
concerning what it would or would not be possible for Mary to understand
➡ Dennett urges that our imaginations are limited, that it is near impossible for us to imagine what Mary
could possibly know if she knew all there is to physically know, that in this way, we are guilty of
‘philosopher’s syndrome’: mistaking failure of imagination for an insight into necessity
➡ Jackson remoulds his argument in his appreciation and acknowledgement of Dennett’s objection, that
essentially if we as humans are limited in our understanding then perhaps it is possible that Mary could
know all there is to know physically about colour vision, that this would mean that she does not acquire
any new knowledge upon her first encounter with colour. However, this is a very complex idea and one
itself that shows the puzzling nature of the human mind, that we struggle to even comprehend a mind
in which could hold all physical information about colour, so much so that it would be unnecessary to
ever experience colour. This is unlikely in humanity, this criticism more shows the limitations of the
human mind
➡ Blue banana trick; Suppose upon release, Mary was presented with a trick banana, that is a banana
we have surreptitiously coloured blue. Would she be able to recognise that it was the wrong colour? If
Jackson’s original idea in ‘epiphenomenal qualia’ is right, then she would not. However, Dennett,
whose example this is, argues this conclusion is based purely on intuitions generated by a bad thought
experiment and asks us to imagine Mary’s complete knowledge of colour vision, enabling her to spot
the trick
➡ There is more than one way of knowing the same physical fact

➡ In defence of physicalism, Mary does not gain any physical propositional knowledge, just to know the
same facts via a different route
➡ Upon release, Mary acquires a new set of concepts based on her experience of colours, ‘phenomenal
concepts’
➡ This subjective access is simply a different way of presenting the same neurophysiological states that
Mary already knew under the third person description, so is not knowledge of a new set of facts
➡ Qualia therefore, is not a new source of knowledge, it is another way of knowing the previously
established physical proportions about colour vision
➡ Mary may know all the physical facts concerning what goes on in the brain when we see red things.
And when she sees red things for herself she learns that the experience of seeing red things involves a
certain ‘red-like’ qualitative feel and she acquires a phenomenal concept from this experience. So now
she is able to present the same physical facts going on in her brain under two different descriptions,
one involving physical, the other phenomenal terms - but these are just two ways of describing the
same fact about seeing red
➡ Qualia do not exist and so Mary gains no new propositional knowledge

➡ Dennett; “nothing, it seems, could you know more intimately than your own qualia”

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➡ Qualia seems to present an explanatory gap between physical facts and subjective feel of our
phenomenal experiences
➡ But if qualia could be shown not to exist, this would provide the physicalist with a powerful counter to
the knowledge argument, however this is difficult, for there seems to be nothing as real as qualia for
humans
➡ Dennett uses Descartes to draw attention to the fact that the physical universe could be merely illusory,
but the subjective feel (qualia) we experience of it, whatever it is we experience, is indubitable
➡ The central claim the Churchland’s advance is that the whole range of mental state terms which are
part of our common sense picture of the nature of our minds, such as qualia, but also beliefs, desires,
emotions and so on, should be eliminated from a proper understanding of human mentality
➡ This is because there is nothing in reality that corresponds to terms such as ‘qualia’, ‘beliefs’ or
‘desires’
➡ So in the future, when neuroscience is sufficiently advanced, we will be able to abandon all talk of such
mental states and talk only on brain processes, this is an eliminitavist view
➡ The eliminitavist argument begins with the claim that our common sense understanding of the mind is
really a kind of pre-scientific theory about human behaviour. This theory is called folk-psychology
meaning that it is the theory of mind (psychology) of ordinary people (folk). This theory employs entities
such as beliefs, desires and sensations to predict and explain human behaviour and it does so
tolerably well. I can for example predict when someone is in pain. If folk psychology is indeed an
empirical theory of this kind, then it follows that it is open to refutation. If a better theory comes along,
one that explains and predicts human behaviour more effectively, then we should abandon folk
psychology in favour of the new theory. Neuroscience for example, is looking far more promising for its
prediction of behaviour than folk psychology has ever had the capacity to do. In this sense, qualia
would become eliminated if we could reduce it to scientific means
➡ Dennett aims to show that qualia as a concept is hopelessly confused, their completely isolated and
incomparable nature is problematic. It is unavoidable to suggest that if the concepts are incomparable,
individually and between other people, that qualia does not possess any properties, that properties are
merely assigned to qualia, we are left hopelessly puzzled. He asserts that the judgements we make
about our conscious experience are comprehensible in terms of what is publicly observable to anyone
and thus are ultimately explicable on physicalist terms
➡ Qualia can also change, how can it be that we can experience pleasantness from a taste of beer for
example at one incident and then grow to find it unpleasant? If qualia is intrinsic, how can this change?
For if one’s changing reaction has altered the taste itself , then its nature cannot be what it is only in
virtue of itself alone. Surely if taste has an intrinsic nature, then we cannot experience them differently
from how they are. So either way we look at it, we seem to be saying that the way we experience a
taste and the taste itself are not identical which contradicts the idea of qualia having an intrinsic nature
➡ If qualia are indeterminate then we cannot claim that they have intrinsic properties and if we cannot
unambiguously identify qualia, then we cannot claim that such entities exist
➡ The inverted spectrum case, ‘intersubjective comparison’, if we experience entirely different spectrums
of colour, then like qualia, it becomes ineffable and meaningless to try and communicate our subjective
experiences. But if there was no way of detecting the subjectivity, then there is no real difference
between us. Unless it can be refuted or confirmed, it is to a situation we can make genuine sense of.
Wittgenstein’s beetle in a box analogy for example. The intrinsic nature of our respective beetles
cannot be compared, and without such intersubjective comparison, their natures cannot meaningfully
be spoken about. So perhaps we are talking nonsense when we speak of the ‘intrinsic’ nature of qualia,
precisely because linguistic meaning must be connected to what is publicly verifiable

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- Parallelist Theories: theories of mind that deny a direct causal interaction
between mind and body. Instead the two are coordinated, usually by the
involvement of God

- Occasionalism
➡ One reaction to the problem of mental causation that substance dualists may pursue is to accept that
there is no causal relation between the two substances, but simply a correlation between states of
mind and the body
➡ Nicolas Malebranche: convinced by the arguments for dualism which appear to show that the mind is a
substance and is of a totally different nature to matter, Malebranche also posits that the mind and body
are radically different and therefore cannot causally interact
➡ His theory is a radical explanation as to how the mind and body link, or appear to link, to supposedly
produce mental events caused by physical events
➡ He acknowledges that mental events are associated with physical events, this is certain
➡ Malebranche argues that it is God who organises such that events in the mental and physical
universes coincide in the law-like ways that they do. His argument for this involves the claim that only
God can be a genuine causal agent. God observes us making physical decisions and intervenes to
implement the idea of pain in our mind for example
➡ The pre-established harmony

➡ Like Malebranche, Leibniz was also persuaded by the idea that the mind is a distinct substance from
the body and that causal interaction between two substances is impossible. Since no genuine
substance,he argued, could have any causal influence on any other, whatever happens within
someone’s mind must be produced internally
➡ The appearance of causal interaction between minds and the physical world occurs because when
God created the universe he created each substance so that it would unfurl under its own internal
dynamic in such a way that events in one would correspond with events in others
➡ For example, this means the pain in my thumb is pre-programmed to occur at a particular time, and the
impact of a hammer and my thumb is similarly pre-programmed
➡ Leibniz’s analogy of the clocks: the situation is like someone winding up two clocks so that the
movements of the hands of one are paralleled by those of the other. This produces the appearance that
one is causing the other to move, but in reality they are completely causally independent of each other,
this is for Leibniz the ‘pre-established harmony’ of substances
➡ [Many criticisms face parallelist theories and occasionalism as they so heavily rely on God’s
orchestration of the universe, they are counter-intuitive]

- Epiphenomenalist Dualism: mental phenomena ‘sit above’ the brain but do not
causally affect it
➡ Property dualists accept that the mind depends upon the brain, but property dualism fits better with the
theory of evolution than does with substance dualism. Minds don’t mysteriously appear fully formed at
some arbitrary point in our evolutionary past, but emerge gradually over millions of years as the brain
has become increasingly complex, the same with consciousness, it is not implemented randomly into
you it develops as you grow older

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➡ However, if mental properties are irreducible, but at the same time physical causes alone are needed
to explain behaviour, then we are led to the view that the mind is a product of the brain, but one which
can have no causal influence on the body or its actions. If property dualists accept the causal closure
of the physical, then mental states may be produced by physical brains, but they cannot have any
reciprocal influence on bodies
➡ Huxley: early advocate of Darwin’s theory of evolution, defends Descartes’ thesis that we can explain
animal’s behaviour in purely physical terms, that is to say, animal behaviour is determined completely
by their complex physiologies. Huxley draws Descartes’ example that we flinch at someones hand as if
they were going to strike us, that animals act as complex machines. The flinching example is an
automatic response in us, one that needs not the mind to be consulted
➡ Unlike Descartes’, Huxley believed animals have consciousness. Albeit animals are automata, we have
reason to think they have experiences like ours - we are related to all other animals so it would be
peculiar if we were very different from them in the respect of having conscious experiences
➡ “(animals) volition, if they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such
changes”
➡ Huxley likens conscious experiences to the whistle on a steam train and the body to the train itself. The
steam that drives the whistle is produced by the engine which drives the train forward, but the whistle
doesn’t affect the forward motion, it is just a by-product and the train would move as well without it. The
whistle, like consciousness, is a ‘collateral product’ or ‘epiphenomenon’, meaning it is produced by
underlying processes but has no causal impact on those processes
➡ Volitions and actions are closely correlated. We are ‘conscious automata’, machines whose actions are
physically determined and in whom conscious experiences are a mere by-product
➡ “volition is an emotion indicative of physical changes, not a cause of such a change”

➡ As a form of property dualism, epiphenomenalism is able to accommodate the dependence of

conscious life on the brain and the apparent fact that consciousness emerges with the evolutionary
development of the brain
➡ This theory avoids the Cartesian problem of how mental and physical substances causally interact, this
means we are able to produce an account of human behaviour exclusively in terms of physical
mechanisms. Epiphenomenalism respects the desire for a scientific explanation of human behaviour

Criticisms
➡ The evidence of introspection: epiphenomenalism goes against our intuition that our volition causes
our action, and denies our common sense of what appears to be revealed to us through introspection.
Our ability to be transported by introspection (the smell of butter reminding me of my grandmother’s),
different mental states are causally related. So our introspective awareness of our mind strongly
suggests that their represent a stream of causally linked events
➡ Huxley responds in two ways: reminding us of the causal closure of the universe (all actions must be
explained in physical causes), and that it is merely illusive that we even have volition at all - some
experiments have shown that at least some conscious decisions are not the initiating causes of
actions, an action is often committed before the person is conscious of any volition

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➡ The role of qualia: epiphenomenalism is absurd to neglect the role of qualia, that there is definitely an
intrinsic unpleasantness to pain that we are conscious of:
➡ However, Huxley responds with a cowboy movie analogy, that it is merely illusory when someone is
punched in a film, there is no pain. The conjunction of ‘hitting someone’ and the actual ‘blow’ are
produced by a film projector, therefore they are not actually causally linked. Pain and behaviour do not
occur together, the two may be a distinct effect of another underlying cause
➡ Free will and responsibility: if my actions are exclusively determined by physical processes, and the
intention or decision is causally impotent, then it seems I have no choice over my actions. If human
actions are determined by physical laws, then the choices I make in any given instant are the result of
these laws, meaning that I could not have chosen otherwise than I did, therefore I am not free
➡ An epiphenomenalist may respond in sating that they are unconcerned by this consequence. Free will
and the feeling we have that we could have chosen otherwise may be another illusion. This illusion
may be a consequence of not having access in our consciousness to the working parts of our brains.
We are unaware of the cause of an action (our brains are very complex), it is a mistake to suppose that
because we cannot know how an action comes about, it must have come about by some mysterious
indeterminate cause - this is a mistake
➡ Huxley is a compatibilist about free will, he believes that actions can be free in the sense that matters
for moral responsibility, and that they can be determined by physical processes; my desires may not
cause my actions, but so long as the action I perform is one which fulfils the desires, then it can be
considered free. A free agent, for Huxley, is free when there is nothing to prevent him from doing that
which he desires to do, there is a causal determination in free will (it is not entirely random, Hume
would argue random behaviour is not free)

- Problems with other minds

➡ if ‘mind properties’ are mental and cannot be reduced to a physical form, it is conceivable that we can
know all physical things about another being and have no knowledge of their consciousness - this
leads to a sceptical problem, ultimately raising the issue of what can happen if we dismiss the
existence of other minds
➡ for Descartes’ dualism, we can directly know about our own mind but only indirectly about things
outside the mind, namely via the senses. This leads to the question of how we can only indirectly, if at
all, know another person’s mind
➡ Some argue that we can understand their mental states by their behaviour, but the link of mind ->
behaviour is uncertain, how the inference of mind -> behaviour is made is unclear
➡ The main dualist problem therefore, is that “if pain is a sensation felt in my own mind, how can I infer
the existence of pain that is not mine and not felt by me?”
➡ Wittgenstein: beetle box analogy Wittgenstein likens dualism to a situation in which each of us has
his or her own box into which only he or she can look. I can see directly what I have in my box, but no
one else can, they have to rely on my report of what I have. He then asks us to imagine a beetle in the
box. He proposes that each of us, have what we call, a beetle in our box. While we suppose that there
is a beetle in everyone’s box, we could possibly all have something different in our boxes
➡ Because we never compare we can never be sure, some may for example have nothing in their box at
all. This is analogous of the mind and the subjectivity issue that arises, we can never compare and
‘look inside’ another’s mind
➡ Mill’s Argument from analogy with my own case: we can learn the connection between behaviour
and mental states by observing our own case. Therefore, as cited by Mill, we can suppose there is also
an analogous connection between the behaviour of other people and their internal states
➡ “human beings have feelings like me, because first, they have bodies like me”

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➡ Mill believes there is a law-like connection between body and mind, and it is needed in order to
understand other people’s minds
➡ However, it is based on analogy. What is the justification for assuming analogous connections between
the behaviour of other people and internal states? We cannot make independent checks of the analogy
inference from our own case, and 2 bodies cannot be checked/compared mentally. A dualist could
respond to this that internal states are exactly that - internal. They are private and need not be
checked, they are internal.
➡ Wittgenstein would find it impossible then to form a coherent concept of someone else’s experience on
the basis of acquaintance only with his own.. ‘pain is only known in my case’. A pain not felt by
Wittgenstein is regarded as a contradiction in terms, if the only basis for understanding of the mind was
only his experience of it, it would be contradictory to try and attempt to understand another’s
➡ Subject of experience: I must, in order to have a concept of myself, as a ‘subject of experience’ have
the concept of subjects of experience other than myself. Knowledge of my mind without proper
knowledge of others is impossible so it cannot be the basis if knowledge of other minds
➡ Private language: attempts to undermine Cartesian epistemology, no coherent sense can be made of
the solipsistic state that Descartes entertains, must presuppose a certain objective language since only
by the use of language can we classify and re-identify experience, and on that basis build up
knowledge of the world and other minds. Descartes’ solipsistic isolated state is a ‘private language’,
therefore is only comprehensible to himself
➡ Heidegger: problem of other minds rests on the mistake of how we acquire knowledge. For Heidegger,
we don’t need to discover other's minds by inference from my own experience because I have an a
priori recognition of their consciousness within the structure of my own experience. Our primary mode
of experience is already what he calls ‘being with others’, so the problem is not how to reach out to
others, but how to separate ourselves from them in order to come to see oneself as a distinct
individual. As social animals, we could have hard wiring that allows for the development of our
consciousness and our sense of self in a social context.
➡ Sartre: I am directly aware of the existence of other minds when I encounter other people, this
immediate awareness is not something inferred but an integral part of my experience of being in the
world. So the issue of whether I am justified in believing in the existence of other minds doesn’t arise,
as I can be as sure of their existence as I am of my own awareness. As soon as I encounter another
being looking at me, I become aware of myself as an object of consciousness, so Descartes’ isolated
act of introspection is insufficient for self-consciousness, being conscious of the self requires being
conscious of other people’s consciousness

- Behaviourism: mind means behaviour like mother means female parent

➡ Ayer: an analytical behaviourist ‘the difference between a machine and man resolves itself into the
distinction between different perceptible behaviour’
➡ An alternative solution to the problem of other minds, consists in the denial that there is anything
beyond the behaviour of others the existence of which needs to be inferred
➡ Dualists assert that minds are in principle undetectable, so it can be argued that they are not real
entities and are idle and meaningless. For something to be meaningful, it must in a sense to be
observed
➡ Analytical behaviourism claims that minds are just what people say and do, thus all statements
concerning mental states or processes are not really, as dualists claim, concerned with a private world
which acc of us is directly aware of through introspection.
➡ Rather, talk about minds is completely reducible without reminder to talk about people’s behaviour

➡ It is termed ‘analytical’ because analysis of the meanings of the language of mind will reveal it all boils
down to statements about behaviour, this is termed ‘analytic reduction’, meaning that statements about
minds mean the same as statements about behaviour, the same way that mother means female parent

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➡ Statements about emotions and beliefs etc are not hidden processes going on inside a person, they
are instead a shorthand way of talking publicly about publicly observable actual and potential patterns
of behaviour, so they are concerned with what we can all directly see; if this is true, there is no longer
the ‘problem of other minds’ because the existence of other minds is justified through their behaviour
➡ We only have access to behaviour of others, so that behaviour must be the basis of all communication
about other people
➡ Ayer proposes that meaningful propositions must be empirically verified for example, therefore he
rejects the idea there is an isolated undetectable ‘mind’ in anyone
➡ It is the failure to recognise ‘talk of things of unverified existence is meaningless’ that allows dualists to
become embroiled in the pseudo-problems of other minds. Behaviourism, by equating mind with what
is observable, eliminates the problem. Also, behaviourism doesn’t concern the problematic concept of
‘substances’ and how they can interact. Additionally, behaviourism uses the importance of
communication, dualists believe we can have internal introspection of isolated subjective minds,
behaviourists think this is meaningless because the language people use individually could be incorrect
and incoherent altogether, we cannot communicate it

- Hempel
➡ Hard behaviourism: logical positivism
➡ Logical positivism is a form of empiricism which insists that meaningful propositions must have
empirical content and so make positive claims about our experience
➡ So Hempel adhered to the verificationist account of meaning, according to which all meaningful
propositions are either analytic or they must be provable by reference to observation
➡ Since other minds cannot be observed, talk about them is either meaningless or reducible to what can
be observed
➡ Ultimately, for Hempel this means that if we are to talk meaningfully about human beings’ minds we
have to be able to show just how our claims about them can be reduced to behavioural descriptions
➡ His project was to replace the language of mental states with descriptions in terms of physical
movements, which could ultimately be rendered in the language of physics

Criticism:

What if the ‘mental state’ cannot easily be reduced to behaviour? Such as someone wanting to be rich, or
kicking a ball intentionally. If someone acts intentionally, then that is not purely a bodily movement, the
action has been willed. For an action to be considered willed, that implies a mental state. Also, the same
bodily movement may on different occasions manifest itself in any number of actions, for example playing
football. Lots of actions occur with different results, sometimes a kick, into the goal for example, is positive
and will result in a cheer, or however if the ball is kicked offside then this would not result in the same
action. Bodily movements can represent different actions

Analytical behaviourism doesn’t show differences in the bodily movements that would account for different
actions, reduction cannot adequately account for the range of mental states we attribute to people

The martian watching football analogy, even observing the behaviour of the ball moving and the laws of
physics apparent, would the martian based on physical movement alone know what was going on?

Actions are ‘multiply realisable’, there are many different bodily movements for expressing the same
action, analytical behaviourism doesn’t account for this in its reducibility, such as many physical ways of
greeting a person, there is no definite one-to-one correspondence. Similarly, a mental state may not
always correspond to a certain behaviour, or any behaviour at all - the example of being thirsty, you may
exclaim ‘I am thirsty!’, or you might keep quiet. All of the possibilities of how one can act in a situation
associated to a certain mental state, meaning full analysis of it couldn’t be completed - the project of
reducing mental states to pure behaviour fails

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- Ryle’s Project: dismantling Descartes’ dualism
➡ Soft behaviourism

➡ Ryle does not think that a reduction of language of the mind to pure bodily movements is possible

➡ His positive account of the mind, he intends to ‘explode the myth’ of Cartesian dualism

➡ Ryle likens the Cartesian philosopher who wonders what kind of thing the mind could be and how it
might interact with the body, to a foreigner in England who watches a cricket match for the first time
and who is taught to recognise who is responsible for the batting and the bowling etc, but then asks
who is responsible for team spirit
➡ The point is, that team spirit is not another cricketing task but a way of talking about the way the team
performs. In this story, the foreigner misunderstands how the term ‘team spirit’ functions. Its function is
not to refer to a specific operation performed in the game, but to how well all of them are performed.
Ryle calls a misunderstanding of this kind a ‘category mistake’
➡ According to Ryle, Descartes was led astray in a similar way to the foreigner at the cricket match

➡ He noted that people eat, walk, talk and sleep and all of these tasks are performed physically, so they
are easy for us to see, but we also talk a great deal about people imagining, thinking and sensing etc
➡ Descartes couldn’t find any obvious behaviours that our talk of these things referred to, and that when
we talked about the mind, there was no physical thing we referred to, leading to him believing the mind
is a ‘very special kind of thing’
➡ The mistake here, for Ryle, is that Descartes held tightly onto the belief that the mind was a ‘thing’ at all

➡ Rather, it is a way of talking about the capacities, of human beings, to perform a whole range of
actions. By understanding just how our talk about the mind can be made sense in terms of human
behaviour we will be freed from the spell cast on our thinking by ‘Descartes’ Myth’
➡ According to Ryle, mental concepts are not the same CATEGORY as material bodies. So the
difference between deliberate and non-deliberate behaviour is not explain in terms of being caused by
the mind and the latter by bodies, but rather in terms of behavioural differences
➡ When we talk of other minds ‘we are not referring to occult episodes of which their overt acts and
utterances are effects; we are referring to those overt acts and utterances themselves’
➡ Ryle’s task therefore is to analyse your ordinary talk about the mental and the physical and show that
while it may invite the idea that there is a substantial difference between an observable body and an
unobservable mind, a proper understanding of its logic shows the distinction to be explicable in terms
of our different observable behaviour
➡ Actual behaviour is not sufficient for the ascription of a mental state to people (such as pain) and the
analysis will need to be a little more sophisticated
➡ Dispositional Analysis: sugar in water

➡ Mental states are ultimately dispositions to behave in certain ways and sentences expressing
dispositional properties are always hypothetical
➡ They sum up past behaviour in a law-like way, our tendency to do things

➡ Because dispositions are behaviour patterns, people do not possess them as a state of themselves but
rather display them through what they do in various situations and so we need not think of mental
states as signifying ‘ghostly processes’ but simply dispositions
➡ ‘Inference tickets’, refutes dualism as it claims that mental concepts are inference tickets, ways of
inferring future behaviour based on their past behaviour

Criticism:

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The asymmetry of self knowledge and knowledge of others

To support Ryle’s behaviourism is to say that in the same method of knowing other people’s mental states,
observing them through behaviour, I must do this myself to know my own mental states - nonsensical

It raises the issue against intuition that I know of my mental states, regardless of my physical behaviour. I
know it better than anyone else. Behaviourism suggests however that if it is linked to behaviour, then other
people who can see my behaviour more clearly know about my mental states better than I do - this seems
counter-intuitive

- Putnam’s conceivability of mental states without associated behaviour

➡ Imagine a society of ‘super spartans’, a community in which the adults have the ability to successfully
surprise all involuntary pain behaviour, despite often being in pain. They feel pain, albeit smile and act
as if they do not, but they feel it with just the same unpleasantness that we do. They even admit it takes
great effort to behave in a way that they do not express pain. Through years of training and heavy
belief in an ‘ideological reason’ to suppress pain, they have learnt to suppress and behave as if they
are not in any pain experience whatsoever
➡ Hilary Putnam defends the functionalist account of mental states, he is a critic of analytic behaviourism
and argues that we can conceive of cases where someone may be in a particular metal state, but
without there being a behavioural manifestation
➡ If analytical behaviourism were correct, then Putnam’s super-spartans would seem to not experience
pain
➡ Ryle responds to this sort of objection, that perhaps although the super spartans are in pain and do not
show it, this could be due to their ‘disposition’, they are ‘disposed’ to display the behaviour of
painlessness
➡ So, if the super-spartan were placed in a situation where they didn’t have any ‘important ideological
reason’ to suppress pain, then they would express pain behaviour (screaming and so on)
➡ Putnam, in response to this criticism, introduces super-super spartans.

➡ A reduction of pain to behaviour cannot work. For we have a race who, according to the scenario we
are imagining, are not even disposed to pain behaviour
➡ Putnam concludes that behaviourism confuses the evidence we use to ascribe mental states with the
mental states themselves
➡ He uses the analogy of a disease, such as polio. Before people knew what caused polio, they would
identify the disease with the symptoms. But later when they discovered the virus that causes it, they
came to see that having the virus is necessary and sufficient for having the disease, irrespective of
whether the patient exhibits the symptoms. All those that express symptoms have the disease, but not
all those that have the disease express the symptoms.
➡ In the same way, we can identify pain by the symptoms - the pain behaviour

➡ Pains are not equivalent in meaning to ‘pain behaviour’, but are the cause of pain behaviour, thus why
it is possible to be in pain without exhibiting the behaviour, and possible to exhibit the behaviour without
being in pain
➡ As a physicalist, Putnam advocates that it is the brain we need to look to understand mentality is one
we can now turn to.

- Mind-brain type identity theory: Smart

➡ The mind is the brain, so each mental state or process is literally one and the same thing as a state or
process within the brain. What this means is that facts about the mind are reducible to physical facts

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about the brain, so that pains, beliefs, desires and so forth are nothing more and nothing less than
neurological (brain) states. Identity theory is committed to the idea that research can (and eventually
will) eventually identity what each thought, feeling or desire is in the brain, albeit this is currently
unknown
➡ Numerical and qualitative identity

➡ Identical twins for example have identical qualities, they look the same, talk the same, etc while they
nonetheless count as two people. So they may be said to be qualitatively identical but not numerically
identical. Leibniz law asserts that if we come across what appear to be two things, but discover that
they literally share all their qualities, then they must be in fact one thing
➡ What the identity theory claims is that everything that is true of the brain, all of its qualities, are identical
with the qualities of the mind, and therefore that the terms ‘brain’ and ‘mind’ refer to the same thing
➡ The identity theorists is not saying the our talk of mind means the same as our talk about the brain. It
clearly does not. For when I am experiencing a certain sensation or that I am holding a specific belief I
do not mean the same as when I say certain neutrons are firing in my brain. So to say ‘the mind is the
brain’ is not to claim that the terms ‘mind and brain’ are synonymous and so it is not something that can
be demonstrated a priori by the analysis of our talk
➡ What is being claims is that the mind and the brain happen, as a matter of empirical fact, to be the
same - refer to the same thing
➡ The type of reduction in identity theory is ‘ontological reduction’, ontology concerning the nature of
existence, and ontological reductions involving showing that begins or entities of one kind are in reality
the same as entities of another kind
➡ Identity theory is compatible with developments in science, such as sound being compressions of
waves and water with H2O. In the same way, identity theorists claims that we call ‘mental states’ will
turn out to be identical with brain states, and that neuroscience will eventually be able to reduce our
folk-psychological concepts to neurological phenomena
➡ Arguments for: JJC Smart “that everything should be explicable in terms of physics”

➡ Identity theorists defend their position by point to the physical processes which we know have been
responsible for the development of human beings, both as individuals and species
➡ The knowledge modern science holds, neuroscience and the function of the brain, neutrons etc is far
more extensive than any vague knowledge a dualist has about the mysterious ‘mind substance’
➡ Through identity theory, we should be able to understand our minds better by investigation of the brain,
and also due it being increasingly evident that there is a precise and systematic correspondence
between different types of mental processes and processes in the brain. Real-time imaging provides
evidence that the subjects engaged in specific mental activities, such as arithmetic, are correlated with
specific areas of the brain becoming active - if identity theory is correct, this is exactly what we would
expect to see
➡ Property dualism also recognises the dependence on the brain, and so is also consistent with this
evidence. But the identity theorist argue that a thoroughgoing physicalism is to be preferred on the
grounds of simplicity
➡ To allow immaterial properties just looks untidy, given that everything else appears to be
explicably in terms of physics
➡ Smart says that if states of consciousness cannot be accommodated within the physicalist picture, they
would be nomological danglers, meaning they would not fit into the system of laws which govern
everything else in the universe, and this offends Ockham’s razor - the methodological principle that,
given two competing hypotheses, if their explanatory power is equal, then the simpler should be
preferred. If we can explain mental phenomena in terms of the physical brain and dualism has no
explanatory advantage, then a physicalist account should be preferred

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➡ Dualists struggle to explain our common sense conviction that my decisions or volitions can cause my
actions, and vice versa. If identity theory is correct and the mental is the physical then clearly the
difficulty disappears
➡ Preferable to analytical behaviourism because it allows a causal role for our mental states. One of the
main problems of behaviourism is that fact it cannot explain behaviour; if mental states are nothing
more than behaviour

Criticisms: Putnam
➡ Talk about the brain doesn’t mean talk about the mind; meaning and reference

➡ Putnam, ‘pain is a brain state’ violates some rules or norms of English

➡ Putnam objects identity theory on the basis that when I speak of the mind, such as ‘I fancy a drink’ this
is not the same talk as ‘my brain is in a certain neurological state’, even if we know it is. It is not the
same talk
➡ Smart considers this objections and observes someone who has no knowledge of the brain but can still
speak meaningfully about his or her mental states; the ‘illiterate peasant’ is fully conversant with the
vocabulary of folk psychology, he knows what he means by ‘ache’ and ‘pain’ so knowing meanings of
mental vocabulary doesn’t involve knowing anything about the brain. It follows, according to this
objection that we are talking about different things when we talk about our mental states from what we
are talking about when talking about our brains
➡ To deal with this difficulty, the identity theorist can draw on a philosophical distinction between
‘meaning’ and ‘reference’. The meaning of a term or phrase is the way the thing it identifies is
presented to the mind, the way an object is conceived. On the other hand, the reference is the
actual thing in the world to which the term refers
➡ Identity theorists therefore accept that our vocabularies of mental and physical states have different
meanings, however their claim is that they nonetheless refer to the same thing
➡ ‘Pain is a C-fibre firing in the brain’. To say that C fibres are firing does not mean the same as to say
that pain is occurring. If the two meant the same then this proposition would be analytic, (true by
definition), but it is not a necessary or analytic identity of meanings which is being claimed
➡ It is an ontological reduction rather than an analytical reduction, the two vocabularies do not mean the
same thing in an analytic sense, but they refer to the same thing
➡ Talk about the mind and brain are not analytic, they are contingent. There is a ‘contingent identity’
between mental states and brain states. Smart claims that to repost you have a mental state such as
pain is to report a process that happens to be a brain process.
➡ Sensation statements don’t mean the same as statements about brain states and the one cannot be
translated into the other. Therefore, identity theory can only be established empirically, by advances in
our neurophysiology
➡ The spatial location problem

➡ Leibniz’ law states that if one thing is identical with another then everything that is true of one must be
true of the other. Thus if we can identify a property of mental states that brain states don’t have, the
identity theory would be refuted. The argument runs that since brain states must have some spatial
location, a specific size and shape, the identity theorist is committed to saying that mental states have
the very same location, size and shape. But it is nonsensical to say that my ‘belief’ for one thing is ‘right
next to’ my ‘desire’ for another thing. Mental states are just not the sorts of things that have spatial
location, size or shape
➡ Identity theorists can respond in saying that the fact that it sounds strange to ascribe spatial properties
to mental states is just because normal language lags behind the neuroscientific advances we are now
making. One our understanding of the brain has developed sufficiently, we all may find ourselves
complaint about C-fibres firing rather than our talk about pains

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➡ Also, it can be pointed out that ascribing certain spatial properties to physical states is also nonsensical
- such as being wet, or running. Just because we don’t quantity these brain states spatially doesn’t
mean they are not physical states. They are conditions of physical beings. So it is no different to say
that Rodney is running or that Amy is desiring a hot chocolate, they are not given precise shapes
➡ Putnam considers this slightly differently in ‘Psychological Predicates’, that it seems reasonable to
suppose that for one phenomenon to be reduced to another, they have to occupy the same spatial
location - that if a lightning strike is an electric discharge, then they occur in the same spatial location.
But a pain in the arm and a brain state are different spatial locations - one is in the arm and the other is
in the brain. One cannot be reduced to another.
➡ Dualist arguments can object; appealing the argument of introspection. Introspection reveals to me a
world of thoughts, sensations emotions etc, not a domain of electrochemical impulses in an organ in
my head - mental states are radically unlike neurological states and properties, they cannot be the
same
➡ The irreducibility of subjectivity: the claim that the subjective experience of pain is an essential part of
our concept of pain, any attempt to reduce this experience by purely objectively observable
neurological processes inevitably leaves something out
➡ This can be responded to by identity theorists by saying that we can experience the same thing in
different ways, so the way the brain appears to itself via introspection may be as a realm of conscious
experiences, but when we examine the brain via our outer senses, it appears as a physical organ
pulsating with impossibly complex electrochemical activity . The fact the mind appears radically unlike
the brain, does not mean it isn’t in fact the brain (masked man fallacy), it may just be that our access to
the brain via introspection is very different to our access via our eyes
➡ Multiple realisability: it is (empirically or conceptually) possible for two creatures to have the same
mental property, e.g ‘being in pain’ but have different physical properties. Therefore, the mental
property is not (or cannot be) simply physical causation
➡ Irreducibility of intentionality: Intentionality is the property of certain mental states. It is difficult to
explain intentionality physically because of how remarkable this feature of our mentality is, we are able
to allow our thoughts to wander freely around the universe, I can wonder where I put my keys, the
weather in Moscow and the next moment speculate about object’s on the far side of the solar system -
this is difficult to explain physically as there seems to be no physical connection between me and what
I’m thinking about. Our ability to imagine is such a mental state that are direct beyond themselves and
represent something, even though there is no actual thing out in the world that they are directed at
➡ Chauvinism: physicalism withholds mental properties from systems that in fact have them, for
example, physicalists unfairly exclude poor brainless creatures that nonetheless have minds. If pain is
a human brain process, it seems to follow that animals without human brains cannot be in pain. Say we
on day encounter a species unlike humanity, with very different brains, can we fairly assert they can
never experience pain? Pain cannot therefore be reduced to a human brain. Type-type theory is overly
chauvinistic, it singles out human beings as the only proper possessors of mental states, and unfairly
denies them to all other species, going against out intuitions about animal mentality and against our
sense that a creature that behaves thought it is in pain should be judged to be in pain regardless of
what kind of brain/lack of brain it has

- Functionalism; reducing mental states to functional roles

➡ Functionalism claims that mental states are logically linked to behaviour, but they are not reducible to it.
Mental states are states that exit 'between' input, eg. Stimulus, and output, eg. Behaviour. To
characterise a mental state, we need to describe its typical inputs and outputs.
➡ For example, what typically causes pain, and what pain typically causes, are different to what causes a
belief, and what a belief typically causes. In listing these inputs and outputs, we can't refer only to the
stimuli and behaviour; mental states have causal relations to other mental states.

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➡ For example pain causes the belief that one is in pain. So definitions of mental states are
interdependent. We can't eliminate talk of mental states in favour of behaviour.
➡ With this view, we can say that mental states are interdependent. We can't eliminate talk of mental
states in favour of behaviour.
➡ With this view, we can say that mental states are functional states... Any mental state can be analysed
in terms of the links it has with stimuli, behaviour, and other mental states.
➡ This analysis also rejects type identity theory – that theory claims that mental states and properties are
just physical states and properties. This means that a species with a different kind of brain could not be
in the same mental states as us.
➡ This seems wrong to the functionalist. The property of 'having the function x' is a property that can
occur in many different things, eg. 'being a mousetrap' is a functional property. There are lots of types
of mousetrap, built in different ways, with different materials... Similarly, 'being in pain' is a functional
property – there are lots of different physical ways, different brain states, that could be 'being in pain',
and this could vary from one species, from one individual to another – and, indeed, even within one
individual.
➡ Causal Role ('Teleological') Functionalism: There are different ways to understand 'function' – in the
most popular form of functionalism, 'causal role functionalism', the idea is understood causally.
➡ A mental state is a causal disposition to act in certain ways, and to have certain mental states, given
inputs and other states
➡ In other words, a mental state has a causal role in causing other mental states, and together with other
mental states, causing behaviour. We pick mental states out by their causal role.
➡ This is the idea of function outlined above – 'being a mousetrap' involves having certain causal
properties, namely trapping a mouse.
➡ In this example, the functional property depends on a set of physical properties. Some physical state or
other (some arrangement of parts) 'realises' the causal role that is 'being a mouse trap'.
➡ Likewise, mental properties such as 'being in pain' are realised by properties playing a causal role. In
human beings, perhaps these are brain properties.
➡ However, telling all about what goes on in the brain is no to say anything essential about what it is to
have a mind (mental properties), for things with very different brains could have mental properties, just
as long as they realised the same functional properties (that is, they played the same causal role.)
➡ Machine Functionalism: As a theory, functionalism began in a slightly different form, with a different
meaning of ‘function’. It rested on the comparison between the mind and a computer
➡ A computer performs a task by going through a series of states, governed by a set of rules or algorithm
(program). It is possible to describe a computer that could perform any task that is computational (can
be broken down into small steps)
➡ Alan Turing provided the description, and what he described became known as a 'Turing machine' –
not an object, but a mathematical idea of a machine with a finite number of possible states, that follows
a program which specifies, for any state and event, the next state the machine should go into
➡ Each rule in the program has the form 'if the machine is in state 1, and it receives input 1, it should go
into state 2, and produce output 1', and so on. So, each state is defined functionally. A vending
machine follows these kinds of rules, eg. State 1 displays the message 'insert 60p’. When input 1 is
received (50p), it should go into state 2, and display 'enter 10p’. When input 2 is received (10p), it
should produce output 1 (a drink), then revert to state 1 ('insert 60p’) And so on. This set of rules, which
specifies every possible state and every possible transition from that state to the next is called a
'machine table.’ A vending machine is limited in what it could do.... A turing machine can carry out any
computation: it's machine table will be much larger, but still finite.

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➡ Machine functionalism is the view that any creature with a mind can be understood as a Turing
machine, and mental states can be understood as machine states. These are specified by the machine
table – that is, what a state is can be defined in terms of what it does in response to inputs and other
states, and what outputs it produces.
➡ As functionalism developed, the idea that mental states are machine states of a Turing machine that
follows the rules of a machine table were left behind in favour of the idea that they are states defined
by their causal role (teleological functionalism).
➡ John Searle’s “Chinese Room” argument (against artificial intelligence)

➡ Searle’s analogy is a rejection of those who compare consciousness to computational functionalism.

Searle establishes a hypothetical situation in which an individual is locked in a room with no knowledge
of the Chinese language but does possess a comprehensive set of rules written in English which
instruct him how to respond. Following these rules, this hypothetical individual may be able to deceive
the Chinese-speaking individuals outside the room that they themselves are able to intelligibly speak
Chinese, despite intrinsically not being able to do so. Searle concludes that this undermines artificial
intelligence which - much like this analogy - has a ‘set of rules’ – code – which it uses to return various
results and outcomes. A computer, Searle argues, can only be as comprehensive and intelligent as the
‘rules’ which it abides, which require human input. Searle concludes that no conceivable program,
therefore, can provide a computer “mind”, “understanding” or “consciousness”. This also stands against
computational functionalism the likes of which Dennett argues.
➡ Functionalism and Reduction: If a mental state is just a state playing a certain kind of function, what
is the nature of this state? It could be anything, say functionalists. Functionalism is about what mental
states are, not about the nature of the substance that realises those states. It is therefore logically
compatible with both substance dualism and physicalism.
➡ However, most functionalists are physicalists. If physicalism is true, then mental properties are realised
by physical substance and physical properties (eg. Of the brain).
➡ As we've seen, perhaps different brain states play the same function in different species. But on each
occasion, the occurrence of the brain state is the occurrence of the mental state. This is token identity –
each individual instance of a mental state is just a brain state playing a certain function.
➡ Functionalism reduces mental properties to functional properties; but even assuming physicalism, it
does not reduce them to physical properties. Functional properties occur throughout science – an
example is 'being an eye'. They are not themselves physical properties. However functional properties
are realised by physical properties operating in causal relationships. They are not therefore radically
different from physical properties. There is nothing unique or strange about them.
➡ Objections to functionalism take the form of arguments that we can't reduce mental properties to
functional properties. The two properties now often thought to be the essential mental properties are
consciousness and intentionality.
➡ Inverted qualia: the idea of qualia starts with the idea of ‘phenomenal consciousness’, especially the
sort of consciousness involved with perception, sensation and emotion, a distinctive ‘experiential
quality’. We can call the properties of an experience which give it its distinctive experiential quality
‘phenomenal properties’, we are aware of them through consciousness and introspection
➡ However, phenomenal properties are only qualia if they are intrinsic, non-representational properties of
experience - intrinsic properties of experience, then, fix the identity of the experience
➡ representational properties ‘hook up’ to how the world actually is, such as Paris is the capital of France
is known in relation to Paris, the desire for chocolate is about chocolate etc
➡ So qualia, because they are intrinsic properties, are non-representational

➡ Qualia by definition, are intrinsic non-representational properties of conscious mental states. Intrinsic
non-representational mental states cannot, by definition, be completely analysed in terms of their
causal roles. Therefore, if qualia exist, some mental properties cannot be analysed in terms of their

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causal roles. Functionalism claims that all mental properties are functional properties which can be
analysed in terms of their causal roles. Therefore if qualia exist, functionalism is false. Qualia exist, so
functionalism is false.
➡ The possibility of duplicate with different qualia: two people can be identical with different phenomenal
properties [inverted qualia]. Because two people have grown up in the same linguistic community, upon
observing a red rose we have learned to use the word ‘red’ to described roses, so we both call the rose
‘red’. Functionally, we are identical, however we could have different experiences. Because they are
not identical in terms of their intrinsic properties, our qualia is different. Of course this can’t ever be
verified due to qualia being private and subjective. The objection is that inverted qualia are possible, if
functionalism were true, inverted qualia would be possible, so functionalism is false.
➡ Block: ‘troubles with functionalism’: suppose we have a complete functional description of your mental
states, for each and every one, we have an input-output analysts (a ‘machine table’). Now imagine a
human body, like yours, connected up not to a brain but to the whole population of China. Each
Chinese person plays the equivalent functional role of a neurone in your brain. The Chinese are linked
up to each other by two-way radios, and some of these are linked up to the input and output nerves of
the body, then, for a short time, the Chinese population recreates the functioning of your brain
➡ According to functionalism, this should create a mind: but it is very difficult to believe there would be a
‘Chinese consciousness’. Although it duplicates the functioning of the brain, it can’t duplicate your
mind, because some mental states are qualia and the system can’t have qualia because they are
functional states

- Eliminative materialism: Paul Churchland: mental states as they currently are do

not exist
➡ Eliminative materialism (or eliminativism) is the radical claim that our ordinary, common-sense
understanding of the mind is deeply wrong and that some or all of the mental states posited by
common-sense do not actually exist.
➡ Essentially, our understanding of our mind (beliefs, desires) is FALSE

➡ We should be prepared to allow our folk psychology to be superseded by a fuller scientific account. The
development of a new theory leads to the junking of an old ontology
➡ Comparative to alchemy, in that we once believed this to be the case and now it has been outdated by
modern chemistry and neuroscience. To the eliminitavist, This is much like the ‘folk psychology’
understanding of feelings and beliefs to stem from mental states, whereas neuroscience now can
outdate this and prove this is not the case and said things are merely chemical.
➡ Eliminativism provides a solution to the problem of other minds, for if folk psychology is indeed a
theory, then we are justified in supposing others have minds on the basis that it is the best theory we
have for explain and predicting others’ behaviour. To the extent that it is successful, it is a reasonable
hypothesis that other have minds. But of course, the eliminitavist is saying that once we have a better
theory, we will be able to give up on the claim that other have minds, and within the new theoretical
framework of a future neuroscience the problem will not arise

Criticisms
➡ We can object that we can be more certain we have mental states than that eliminativism is true. Our
own experience of our minds, for Descartes for example in his meditations, is certain, there is nothing
more certain, especially a philosophical theory contrary. Eliminitavist can respond that our mental
concepts refer to theoretical entities that explain our experience, and we cannot be certain that these
explanations are correct.
➡ We can object that folk-psychology does not intend to explain more than people’s behaviour and that
many developments in psychology uses its concepts

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➡ A more fundamental objection is that eliminativism cannot be true because any arguments against it
are self-refuting. One cannot argue that a theory is true or false without presupposing intentional
content. If we do not believe in ‘beliefs’, then Churchland cannot believe his own theory.
➡ Eliminativism offers us no alternative way of making sense of the idea of meaning, folk psychology is
therefore not an empirical theory but a condition of saying anything meaningful at all

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