Philosophy November Mock Property Dualism Flashcards

What is Property Dualism?

The view that there is one type of substance (physical substance), but it possesses both physical and fundamental mental properties.

What is the main difference between Substance Dualism and Property Dualism?

Substance Dualism claims there are two types of substance: mental and physical. Property Dualism claims there is only physical substance, but it possesses both physical and mental properties.

What is a substance?

An entity that exists independently of other substances and possesses properties.

What is ontological independence?

When something does not depend on another entity for its existence.

What is ontological dependence?

When something relies on another entity for its existence.

What is a property?

A characteristic or feature possessed by a substance.

How are substances and properties related?

Substances possess properties, while properties cannot exist independently of substances.

What does it mean for a substance to persist?

It continues to exist even when its properties change.

What is consciousness?

What it is like to be you, experienced from your own first-person perspective.

What is phenomenology?

The philosophical study of conscious experience and how things appear from a first-person perspective.

What is intentionality?

The idea that consciousness is directed towards or about something, such as an object, memory or desire.

What is lived experience (lifeworld)?

The world as we immediately experience, feel and act within it before analysing it theoretically.

What are qualia?

The individual, subjective and conscious qualities of an experience: what it feels like to experience something.

What is a quale?

A single instance of a subjective conscious experience, such as the feeling of pain or seeing red.

What are examples of visual qualia?

The subjective experience of seeing redness in a tomato or blueness in the sky.

What are examples of auditory qualia?

The subjective experience of hearing a particular musical note.

What are examples of gustatory and olfactory qualia?

The subjective experience of tasting chocolate or smelling a rose.

What are examples of tactile and somatic qualia?

The subjective experience of pain, touch or the roughness of sandpaper.

What does it mean that qualia are subjective and private?

They belong to the individual experiencing them and cannot be directly experienced by another person.

What does it mean that qualia are introspectively accessible?

We become aware of our own qualia by examining our conscious experience from within.

What does it mean that qualia are non-intentional?

They concern the felt quality of an experience itself rather than representing or pointing towards an external object.

What is Chalmers' distinction between the phenomenal and psychological concepts of mind?

The phenomenal concept concerns subjective experience, while the psychological concept concerns the functions of the mind and how they explain behaviour.

What is the phenomenal concept of mind?

The first-person perspective: the subjective quality of what it is like to have a mental experience.

What is the psychological concept of mind?

The third-person perspective: what the mind does, such as processing information and producing behaviour.

How can pain demonstrate the difference between the phenomenal and psychological concepts?

Phenomenally, pain is how the experience feels. Psychologically, it involves processes that detect damage and produce avoidance behaviour.

Why are the phenomenal and psychological concepts distinct?

They describe different aspects of mental states: subjective experience and psychological function.

What is the Easy Problem of Consciousness?

Explaining the physical mechanisms responsible for functions such as attention, information processing and behavioural responses.

Why are the Easy Problems considered relatively easy?

They can be explained by identifying the physical mechanisms that perform particular functions.

What is the Hard Problem of Consciousness?

Explaining why physical brain processes produce subjective conscious experiences, or qualia.

Why does Chalmers believe the Hard Problem is difficult?

Explaining brain functions does not explain why those processes feel like something from a first-person perspective.

What is the Explanatory Gap?

The apparent gap between explaining physical brain processes and explaining the subjective experience of consciousness.

What is Chalmers' challenge to Physicalism?

Even a complete explanation of physical brain processes appears unable to explain the subjective qualities of conscious experience.

What does Chalmers mean when he suggests consciousness is 'over and above' matter?

Conscious experience involves fundamental phenomenal properties that cannot be fully explained by physical properties alone.

What is the main Property Dualist response to the Hard Problem?

Consciousness involves fundamental phenomenal properties that cannot be reduced to physical properties, so a complete account of reality must include them.

What does Property Dualism claim about physical and mental properties?

Physical substances possess physical properties and fundamental phenomenal mental properties.

What is the difference between reduction and supervenience?

Reduction explains mental properties entirely in physical terms. Supervenience means mental properties depend on physical properties, so there cannot be a mental difference without a physical difference.

What is nomological supervenience?

Mental properties are fixed by physical properties according to the actual laws of nature.

What does Chalmers' Property Dualism suggest about mental and physical properties?

Mental properties are not logically entailed by physical properties alone, although natural laws may correlate them.

Why does Property Dualism reject Physicalism?

Phenomenal properties such as pain cannot be fully reduced to behavioural, functional or physical properties.

What is a fundamental property?

A basic feature of reality that cannot be explained in terms of more basic properties.

Why might Chalmers consider phenomenal properties fundamental?

They cannot be explained by reducing them to physical properties or identifying the physical mechanisms that accompany them.

What is the Explanatory Gap Argument for Property Dualism?

P1: Physical explanations describe brain processes involved in experiences, such as C-fibre firing during pain.

P2: Describing these processes does not explain the subjective feeling of pain.

C1: Therefore, there is an explanatory gap between physical processes and phenomenal experience.

C2: This suggests that phenomenal properties cannot be fully explained by physical properties alone.

Why does the C-fibre example challenge Physicalism?

Identifying pain with C-fibre firing may explain its physical basis, but it does not seem to explain what pain actually feels like.

What is a proposition?

A statement describing a state of affairs that can be true or false.

What is a necessary truth?

A proposition that must be true in every possible world.

What is a contingent truth?

A proposition that is true in the actual world but could have been false.

What is a necessary condition?

A condition that must be present for something to occur, although it may not guarantee it by itself.

What is a sufficient condition?

A condition that guarantees something will occur, although it may not be necessary.

What is a necessary and sufficient condition?

A condition that is both required and enough on its own for something to occur.

What does it mean for something to be logically possible?

It can be conceived without involving a logical contradiction.

What does it mean for something to be physically possible?

It is permitted by the laws of nature operating in the relevant world.

What does it mean for something to be metaphysically possible?

It could genuinely exist or occur in at least one possible world.

What are possible worlds?

Ways reality could have been, each containing a particular set of facts and properties.

What does it mean for possible worlds to be internally consistent?

They must not contain contradictions within themselves.

What is the difference between logical, physical and metaphysical possibility?

Logical possibility concerns contradictions; physical possibility concerns natural laws; metaphysical possibility concerns what could genuinely exist or occur.

What is the difference between analytic and necessary truths?

Analytic truths are true by definition, while necessary truths must be true in every possible world. They are not identical categories.

How does the example of water and H2O demonstrate the difference between conceivability and possibility?

We can coherently imagine water not being H2O, but if water is identical to H2O, a world containing water that is not H2O is metaphysically impossible.

Why is water necessarily H2O?

H2O is the underlying chemical identity of water, so water could not exist without being H2O.

Could there be a possible world where water exists but is not H2O?

No. If water is identical to H2O, water cannot exist without being H2O.

What is a Philosophical Zombie (P-Zombie)?

A hypothetical being physically identical to a normal human but lacking all subjective conscious experience.

What would a P-Zombie be like externally?

It would look, speak, behave and react exactly like a conscious human being.

What would a P-Zombie lack internally?

It would have no qualia, feelings or subjective awareness. There would be nothing it is like to be that being.

Are P-Zombies possible in the actual world?

Chalmers accepts that actual natural laws correlate physical processes with consciousness, so P-Zombies do not occur in our world.

What is the purpose of Chalmers' P-Zombie Argument?

To challenge Physicalism by arguing that a physical duplicate without consciousness is conceivable and potentially metaphysically possible.

What does Chalmers mean by saying God would have to do 'more work' to create a conscious person?

Even after fixing all the physical facts, something further would be needed to explain why the person has conscious experience rather than being a P-Zombie.

What does Physicalism claim about physical duplicates?

If Physicalism is true, two worlds with exactly the same physical facts cannot differ in their mental facts.

What is Chalmers' P-Zombie Argument for Property Dualism?

P1: P-Zombies are conceivable.

P2: If P-Zombies are conceivable, they are metaphysically possible.

C1: Therefore, P-Zombies are metaphysically possible.

P3: If P-Zombies are metaphysically possible, phenomenal properties do not supervene metaphysically on physical properties.

C2: Therefore, Physicalism is false and Property Dualism is supported.

Why would metaphysically possible P-Zombies challenge Physicalism?

They would show that two worlds could have identical physical properties but different phenomenal properties.

What is the first objection to the P-Zombie Argument?

P-Zombies are not genuinely conceivable because the idea of a fully functioning human without consciousness is incoherent.

What is Daniel Dennett's objection to P-Zombies?

Dennett argues that P-Zombies seem conceivable only because people mistakenly imagine consciousness as an extra, ghostly experience separate from physical processes.

How does Dennett explain the apparent conceivability of P-Zombies?

He argues that people do not fully understand how a complete physicalist explanation of consciousness would work.

How might a Property Dualist reply to Dennett?

A physical and functional description still fails to capture the intrinsic subjective quality of conscious experience.

What is the question-begging objection to the P-Zombie Argument?

It assumes that consciousness is separate from physical processes when imagining a physical duplicate without consciousness, so it assumes what it is trying to prove.

How might a Physicalist use the question-begging objection?

If consciousness is identical to physical brain processes, an exact physical duplicate must have the same consciousness. A P-Zombie is therefore impossible.

What is the second objection to the P-Zombie Argument?

Conceivability is not always a reliable guide to metaphysical possibility.

What is Churchland's objection to using conceivability as evidence?

We can imagine things that are not genuinely possible, such as water not being H2O, so imagination alone cannot establish metaphysical possibility.

How does the water and H2O example challenge Chalmers?

Although water not being H2O seems conceivable, it is metaphysically impossible. Therefore, P-Zombies being conceivable does not prove they are possible.

How might a Property Dualist reply to the water analogy?

Water is essentially H2O, but the essence of phenomenal experience is how it feels. A physical description may therefore fail to entail the existence of qualia.

What is the third objection to the P-Zombie Argument?

Even if P-Zombies are possible, this does not prove that they exist in the actual world.

How might a Property Dualist respond to the claim that possibility does not establish reality?

The argument challenges Physicalism's claim that physical facts determine all mental facts in every possible world, rather than simply claiming P-Zombies exist in reality.

What is the significance of identity claims across possible worlds?

If two things are genuinely identical, they cannot be different in another possible world while remaining those same things.

How does the identity of water and H2O support Physicalism?

If phenomenal properties are identical to physical properties, they must be identical in every possible world, not just the actual world.

What does Chalmers argue about physical facts and consciousness?

If physical facts were sufficient to determine consciousness, there would be no further phenomenal facts to add once the physical world was complete.

What is Patricia Churchland's general objection to the P-Zombie and Mary arguments?

She argues that these thought experiments reflect limitations in our current scientific understanding rather than proving that consciousness is non-physical.

How does Churchland's historical example challenge thought experiments?

People in the past could not imagine how germs caused illness, but scientific discoveries eventually explained it. Our inability to explain consciousness now may reflect incomplete neuroscience.

What is Churchland's view of the relationship between philosophy and neuroscience?

Speculation about consciousness should be informed by scientific investigation as neuroscience develops.

What is the Knowledge Argument (Mary Argument)?

Jackson's argument that Mary learns something new when she experiences colour for the first time, despite already knowing every physical fact about colour vision.

What is the set-up of the Mary thought experiment?

Mary is a neuroscientist who knows every physical fact about colour vision but has lived in a black-and-white environment and never experienced colour.

What happens when Mary leaves her black-and-white room?

She sees a colour such as red for the first time and appears to learn what experiencing red is like.

What is the central claim of the Mary Argument?

Mary learns something new when she experiences red, suggesting that complete physical knowledge does not include all facts about consciousness.

What is Jackson's Mary Argument against Physicalism?

P1: Mary knows all the physical facts about colour vision.

P2: When she sees red for the first time, she learns something new.

C1: Therefore, there are facts about colour vision that are not included in the complete physical account.

C2: This challenges Physicalism and supports the existence of non-physical phenomenal properties.

What is propositional knowledge?

Knowledge of facts, usually expressed through statements, such as knowing that eagles can fly.

What is acquaintance knowledge?

Knowledge gained through directly experiencing or becoming familiar with something.

What is ability knowledge?

Knowledge of how to perform an action or skill.

What is the objection that Mary gains ability knowledge rather than new propositional knowledge?

Mary does not learn a new fact about red; she gains the ability to recognise or imagine red through experience.

Why does the ability knowledge objection accuse the Mary Argument of equivocation?

The argument moves between propositional knowledge in its first premise and ability knowledge in its second, treating two different kinds of knowledge as the same.

How does the ability knowledge objection accuse the Mary Argument of equivocation?

The argument moves between propositional knowledge in its first premise and ability knowledge in its second, treating two different kinds of knowledge as the same.

How can a Property Dualist reply to the ability knowledge objection?

Knowing what red looks like does not require being able to imagine it, and being able to imagine a colour does not necessarily give someone the ability to recognise it. The objection therefore fails to show that Mary gains only an ability.

What is the objection that Mary gains acquaintance knowledge rather than new propositional knowledge?

Mary becomes directly acquainted with the experience of red, but does not learn a new fact about the physical world.

Why does the acquaintance knowledge objection defend Physicalism?

Mary gains a new type of awareness, not new propositional knowledge about colour vision, so all physical facts may still be known before she leaves the room.