Property Dualism Questions

Outline how property dualism explains mental states (5)

Property dualism is the view that, although there is just one kind of substance, material substance, there are two fundamentally different kinds of property, mental and physical. Mental states cannot be reduced to physical states, nor do they supervene (interrupt) on the physical. Property dualism claims that these properties, such as pain, the smell of coffee, the visual experience of a red rose, the feeling of joy, and so on, can’t be reduced to physical, behavioural or functional properties. These properties, at least, are a completely new, irreducible type of property.

A comparison can be made with heat. A physical description of heat misses the phenomenological quality of heat. In the same way, a physical description of mind cannot explain qualia.

Property dualism rejects substance dualism. The mind is dependent on matter. Mental states are properties and properties cannot exist without substance.

Rejects physicalism- A completely physical understanding of the universe would be incomplete because of quaila.

Explain the Mary/knowledge argument for substance dualism (5)

If everything, including the mind, could be reduced to the physical, then complete physical knowledge would be knowledge of all things. Physical facts would be all there is.

Jackson attempts to show that complete physical knowledge does not tell us about what experience is like, for it cannot tell us about quail. As quail are an intrinsic part of mind, the mind cannot be reduced to the physical.

Mary is a scientist who has lived in a completely black and white room (explain this). She has come to learn every physical fact there is to know about colour, the eye and its neural pathways etc. When she is released from the room and see’s colour, does she learn a new fact?

Jackson argues it is obvious that she does. She learns the phenomenological experience of qualia (intrinsic, non representational part of consciousness). This new fact is not physical, and therefore, not all facts are physical.

P1: Mary knows all physical facts about seeing colour before having the opportunity to.

P2: On her release, she learns a new fact about seeing colour. The qualia of red.

C1: Therefore, not all facts are physical facts.

C2: Therefore, the phenomenological aspects of consciousness can not be reduced to the physical.

C3: Therefore, physicalism is false and property dualism is true.

Explain the response that Mary gains new propositional knowledge, but this is knowledge of the physical facts she already knew in a different way (5)

Mary can gain new knowledge the same fact, the fact being ‘red’. In the room she had a psychological/ physical knowledge of the colour red and then she gains the phenomenological knowledge. But it is the same fact, so she does not gain anything new.

If there I have a bottle of water, there is H2O in it. If I am ignorant to this fact and suddenly find out, then I have gained new knowledge from the same fact.

So, before leaving the room, Mary has a concept of red in physical terms. On her release she gains a concept of red in phenomenal terms.

She acquires quail, but this is the same thing as what her physical concept was a concept of. Two different concepts of the same physical property of the brain. If we gain a concept of water’s physical composition we gain a new concept of the same fact.

Explain the response that Mary does not gain new propositional knowledge but does gain acquaintance knowledge:

Knowledge of knowing of, direct acquintance of a thing.

If what it is like to see red is a physical property of the visual experience, that is, the qualia are physical properties, then Mary can indeed know all about it before she leaves the room.

She gains new knowledge but not a new fact.

e.g. I could know all the facts about Paris. If I were to visit Paris I would not gain any propositional knowledge (no new facts) but rather, I would become acquainted with Paris.

In the same way, Mary becomes acquainted with the colour red.

Explain the response that Mary does not gain propositional knowledge but does gain ability knowledge

Instead of gaining new facts about red, propositional knowledge, Mary gains ability knowledge. This is knowledge of ‘how’ to do something.

I could know everything there is to know about riding a bike, but would only gain ability knowledge if I were to ride it, but I would gain no more propositional knowledge.

In the same way, Mary knows all facts surrounding the colour red and seeing red, yet when she comes to see it for herself, she gains ability knowledge. She now has the ability to recognise red and distinguish between red and other colours. These are skills, not facts.