Phi 103 UC Davis

Substance Dualism

The notion that mind and body consist of two fundamentally different kinds of stuff, or substances.

Dualism

the presumption that mind and body are two distinct entities that interact

Physicalism

(The belief that) the real world is nothing more than the physical world

Pairing Problem

Problem w/ substance dualist argument: Why is it that my mind interacts with MY body rather than some other body? Attributed to Jaegwon Kim

metaphysical

Concerned with abstract thought, related to metaphysics (branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the nature of being and of the world); very subtle or abstruse

Humean constant conjunction

Two events A and B are constantly conjoined if whenever one occurs the other does

Cartesian Dualism

Descartes's view that all of reality could ultimately be reduced to mind and matter.

nonreductive physicalism

everything is physical but spirit can also be explained (have trouble accounting for mental causation)

reductive physicalism

A form of physicalism that claims that mental properties are physical properties

Functionalism

the doctrine that what makes something a mental state of a particular type does not depend on its internal constitution, but rather on the way it functions, or the role it plays, in the system of which it is a part

Behaviorism

emphasized the outward behavioral aspects of thought and dismissed the inward experiential, and sometimes the inner procedural, aspects as well

Psychofunctionalism

Machine state functionalism

Minded human beings understood as complex system on inputs (senses) & outputs (behaviours)

Analytic Functionalism

Mental Causation

Princess Elizabeth: Physics's goal of providing an explanation for every physical event challenges dualism's account of

Epiphenomenalism

The notion that mental properties do not cause anything, but merely accompany physical processes.

Type Identity Theory

Mental types are identical to physical types (pain = C-fiber firing)

multiple realizability

the property by which something can be realized, embodied, instantiated in multiple ways and in different media

Local Reductionism in multiple realizability

mental states are realized in different ways in different individuals

role functionalism

Mental types are relatively abstract things: collection of functional properties

→ they can say that humans and octopi possess the same collection of functional properties: Those associated with pain

(nonreductive functionalists)

Realizer functionalism

Mental types are concepts: they refer to things that possess particular functional properties

→ pain is not a thing but a particular brain state

(reductive functionalists)

Qualia

In philosophy, private conscious experiences of sensation or perception.

Mysterianism

Mind--Body Problem is unsolvable by human beings. We do not have the cognitive ability to solve it.