unit 2

DR. Sigmund Freud’s Ego, ID, and Superego

  • Ego - the balance between id and superego, the conscious component of an individual 

  • Id - the drive to fulfill all desires of a physical nature; exists in the unconscious mind 

  • Superego - the conscience; in opposition to the id. Also exists on the unconscious level.

Plato Traditional Rationalist

  • We are made of both physical body and immaterial soul

  • The soul is superior because it does not have the desires that the body has

  • These bodily desires cause suffering

Plato’s Goal: To access the perfect ideals known as the forms

Theory of Forms

  • All forms that exist in the physical world are duplicates of perfect forms in the invisible world

  • Perfect ideals are real but not visible 

  • Can only be known by accessing the invisible world 

  • Visible world = imperfect, always changing 

  • Invisible world - perfect, unchanging 


Darwin’s theory of evolution undermined the idea that living things are designed for a purpose.  The evolution of a species, Darwin argued, is the result of CHANCE, not of purposeful DESIGN.  Humans and other animals are the product, not of a purposeful plan, but of chance variations and the blind mechanical forces of natural selection

Challenges to Darwinism

  • Gaps in fossil records, with species seemingly appearing abruptly without gradual transitions, challenge the gradualism of Darwin's theory

  • Some argue that Darwin's theory does not disprove the idea of purpose in human nature, suggesting a divine teleology or intelligent design behind evolution

Existentialism

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) 

  • Saw humans as “condemned to be free”. 

  • Emphasizes individual freedom and responsibility in shaping one's own existence

  • It asserts that humans create their own nature through choices and actions, without a fixed purpose

  • Existentialism acknowledges the anxiety and responsibility that come with individual freedom

Omega Point 

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), a French philosopher, Jesuit, and priest conceived the idea of the Omega Point (a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving).  His book, The Phenomenon of Man, sets forth a sweeping account of the unfolding of the cosmos and the evolution of matter to humanity to ultimately a reunion with Christ.


Mary Wollstonecraft and the Vindication of Women's Rights

  • Argues that society and men keep women in a state of dependence and moral inferiority

  • Advocates for the equal education of women and men, based on the shared capacity for reason and morality

  • Believes that women will flourish as equals when freed from societal conditioning

The Challenge of the Rationalist View

  • Rejects the association of reason with men and emotion with women, arguing that both genders have equal capacity for reason and emotion

  • Challenges the traditional view of gender roles and the perceived differences between male and female traits

Dualism vs Materialism: The Cartesian Argument

  • Descartes proposed the mind-body dualism, viewing humans as immaterial minds inhabiting material bodies

  • The Cartesian argument emphasizes the conscious ability to think as the essential nature of the mind

  • Descartes' argument suggests that the mind and body are distinct because we can conceive of one without the other

Types of Materialism 

  1. Identity Theory 

  • Mental events like thoughts are “type identical” to physical events in the brain

  • If four different people are thinking “Chocolate Chip cookies would be good right about now”, the exact same things are happening in their brain

  • Thoughts are simply complex sequences of physical events that are happening in the brain

  • t’s only a matter of time before neuroscience can figure out the specific patterns of every thought

  • Main Comparison: sound is now understood as just compression waves racing through a medium such as air and hitting your eardrums; this wasn’t a known fact before and it took awhile to develop this thought; neuroscience will eventually “figure things out”

  • In other words, every state of mind can be explained by a corresponding brain state.

  1. Eliminative Materialism 

  • All discussions regarding thoughts, beliefs, desires, the mind are mistaken

  • Thinking that we have a “consciousness” is where all the problem starts

  • We need a PARADIGM shift in the way we think

  • Ideas about “consciousness” should be reduced to “Simple Folk Psychology”

  • The advancements of neuroscience in the near future should change:“Ow, my toe hurts” “Ow, C-fibres are firing in section L2 of the cortex”

  • This is the paradigm shift that we need to start embracing

  1. Behaviouralism 

  • A school of psychology that restricts the study of human nature to what can be observed rather than to states of consciousness.

  • Mental activities can be explained by observing behaviors

  • Gilbert Ryle – we can explain mental activities and mental states in terms of the externally observable behaviors associated with which they are associated.

  • EX: Loving someone is a disposition to behave in certain ways towards that person. 

  1. Functionalism

  • A view which does not try to reduce all mental activities to external behavior, but which claims that humans should be thought of as complicated computers.

  • DM Armstrong argues we explain mental activities in terms of input and outputs.

  • Inputs are the stimulus observed and outputs are the behaviors that result.

  • Beliefs are just links in the brain that connect sensory input with behaviors

  • Mental states are to be explained in terms of the roles they play in linking our sensory stimulation to our external behavior.

  1. The Computer view 

  • A view that insists the human brain is a kind of advanced computer that processes inputs (sense observations) and generates outputs (behavior).  Some functionalists such as Alan Turing believe that computers will one day be able to imitate the inputs and outputs of the human brain and then they will have minds and be able to think.  

The Enduring Dilemma

  • Most philosophers reject the idea of a completely separate mind from the body.

  • The challenge lies in explaining consciousness and mental states, and the relationship between mind and body

The Enduring Self: Change and Permanence vs No Self View

  • The "Problem of Personal Identity" addresses the question of whether we remain the same person over time

  • Some philosophers argue that bodily continuity over time defines our enduring identity, while others suggest the soul is the enduring aspect of the self

  • Descartes believed the continuity of thought made him the same person throughout his existence "I think, therefore I am"

  • Humean Thought : True knowledge is dependent on sense perceptions: what we see, hear, touch, smell, taste, and feel. If you can’t experience (perceive) it with your senses then it’s not genuine knowledge. Hume argues that no one can actually perceive the “self”

  • Locke: what makes a person at one time the same as a person at  another time is MEMORY. It is the continuity of consciousness that makes me today the same person I was.