Dualism

1. Explain the following, and the differences between them: epistemic possibility, nomological (or natural) possibility, and metaphysical possibility.

2. (True or false?) All dualists hold there are immaterial souls.

3. (True or false?) All substance dualists hold there are immortal souls.
   

4. What is the principle of causal closure of the physical? What are the grounds for thinking that the physical world is causally closed?

5. What is the evolutionary argument against dualism? How can the point be turned around in favor of dualism?

6. Consider the following objection to dualism:

   Our best brain science tells us a great deal about how the brain works and about the mind’s dependence on the brain. There are, admittedly, still many mysteries, but we have come to know quite a bit about the brain’s neural structures, pyramid cells, cortices, and the laws of nature which govern them. For example, we know that learning involves lasting chemical changes in the brain. The dualist cannot explain the mind’s dependence on the brain. (Take the substance dualist as an example.) The substance dualist cannot explain, for instance, why damaging the brain affects our mental capabilities. Why do caffeine, alcohol, Prozac affect our ability to think clearly? Since it is possible for the soul to exist completely apart from the body, the dualist thinks its possible for the brain to have no effect on the mind, thus the dualist cannot explain any of these mind-body dependencies.

   This objection is different from the causal closure objection to interactionist dualism. What is the difference between this objection and the causal closure objection? (Keep in mind the distinction between different sorts of possibility.)

7. How might the dualist respond to this objection? (Again, keep in mind the distinction between different sorts of possibility.) Is this reply adequate?

8. Consider the following passage in which Descartes is giving an argument for dualism:

   The first observation I make at this point is that there is a great difference between the mind and the body, inasmuch as the body is by its very nature always divisible, while the mind is utterly indivisible. For when I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am merely a thinking thing, I am unable to distinguish any parts within myself; I understand myself to be something quite single and complete. Although the whole mind seems to be united to the whole body, I recognize that if a foot or arm or any other part of the body is cut off, nothing has thereby been taken away from the mind. As for the faculties of willing, of understanding, of sensory perception and so on, these cannot be termed parts of the mind, since it is one and the same mind that wills, and understands and has sensory perceptions. By contrast, there is no corporeal or extended thing that I can think of which in my thought I cannot easily divide into parts; and this very fact makes me understand that it is divisible. This one argument would be enough to show me that the mind is completely different from the body, even if I did not already know as much from other considerations. (18-19; see also "Passions of the Soul" #30: 21-22)

   1. What is Leibniz's Law (the indiscernibility of identicals)?
   2. How is Descartes using Leibniz Law to argue for dualism in this passage?
   3. How does this use of Leibniz Law differ from the illegitimate use of it we discussed in class ("I doubt that Clay was heavyweight champ; I do not doubt that Ali was heavyweight champ; …")?
      

Materialism and supervenience

1. (True or false?) The fact that a perfect _________ is of little artistic value shows that the aesthetic merit, or artistic value, of an oil painting does not supervenes on the paint and canvas facts.

2. What is supervenience? Suppose someone claimed that the aesthetic merit, or artistic value, of an oil painting supervenes on the paint and canvas facts. Give an example which shows that this claim is false.

3. (True or false?) If A supervenes on B, then B supervenes on A.

4. (True or false?) There is never a case where A supervenes on B and B supervenes on A.

Behaviorism

1. Explain the following passage:

My destructive purpose is to show that a family of radical category-mistakes is the source of the double-life [ghost in the machine] theory. The representation of a person as a ghost mysteriously ensconced in a machine derives from this argument. .As the human body is a complex organized unit, so the human mind must be another complex organized unit, though one made of a different sort of stuff and with a different sort of structure. (Ryle, 35)

2. Why is the distinction between saying "It burns! It burns! Get it off!" versus making such-and-such noises—noises which sound exactly like someone saying "It burns! It burns! Get it off!"—or writing a large check to one’s professor versus moving one’s hand in such-and-such a way—a way such that one puts marks on a check that look exactly like one’s signature—important in the evaluation of behaviorism? That is, why can’t the behaviorist include things like saying or writing their analyses?

3. It seems that there is an asymmetry between your access to your own mental states and my access to your mental states. Describe this asymmetry, and say why behaviorism might have a problem accounting for it.

4. Consider the following claim that Deep Blue, the chess-playing computer, doesn’t think.

At bottom, Deep Blue works via processors, such as AND gates, that are blind and stupid: blind because each individual processor sees nothing of the outside world and knows nothing about what the machine as a whole is doing; and stupid because it understands nothing on its own. In addition, these processors are simple and mechanical. Nothing composed of such processors can think.

How might one object to this claim (i.e., give reasons for thinking that the claim is false)?

5. Explain the Turing Test, and say in a few sentences whether you think the Test is a good way of assessing whether a machine could think.

6. What is the difference between using the Turing Test to assess whether a machine thinks and Turing’s own position?

7. How does the outcome of the test depend on the judge and the human contestant? Why might this be a problem for Turing’s account?

8. What does the fact that people are often fooled by conversation simulators show? Explain.

Identity Theory

1. What is the argument from mental causation that mental states are brain states?

2. What is Smart’s “nomological dangler” objection to dualism?

3. Distinguish between type-type identity theory and token-token identity theory. Are both of these theories materialist theories? Explain why or why not.

4. Here is a description of a view we can call emergentism:

   At a certain level of biological complexity, a wholly new type of phenomenon, mentality, emerges. There is no reduction, in fact no explanation of any kind, of these "emergent" phenomena in terms of the underlying physical/chemical/biological phenomena from which they emerge.

   How does this theory differ from the type-type identity theory? Why would Smart find this theory implausible? (I have in mind one of the considerations Smart mentions in the first section of his article, though you may come up with your own objection if you like.)

5. Why does Smart think he needs to give a topic-neutral analysis of mental terms? How is the topic-neutral analysis supposed to solve this problem?

6. Explain the following passage:

   The after-image is not in physical space. The brain process is. So the after-image is not a brain-process. .Reply: I am not arguing that the after-image is a brain-process, but that the experience of having an after-image is a brain-process. (Smart, 64-65)

7. If we had the technology, and could gradually replace all the neurons in your brain by silicon transistors, the resulting creature with a silicon brain would still have a mind (never mind whether that creature would be you). This shows that mental states are ______________.

8. Discuss the multiple realization argument against the identity theory.

functionalism

1. What is commonsense (or analytic) functionalism? How does common-sense functionalism propose to solve the multiple realization problem?

2. Explain the difference between commonsense functionalism and empirical (or scientific) functionalism.

3. (True or false?) Functionalism is a version of physicalism. It is incompatible with dualism.

4. What is the sense in which functionalism is consistent with dualism? How can it be that most functionalists count themselves as physicalists? Explain.

5. (True or false?) Functionalism, like behaviorism, has a problem defining mental states non-circularly.

6. What is the difference between first-order and second-order properties?

7. Use the distinction in (6) to explain the difference between functionalism and the kind of identity theory that Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson favor (chapter 6).

8. Explain the causation problem for second-order properties.

9. Draw up a machine table and a finite automaton (the bubble diagram) for a coke machine that charges twenty-five cents for a coke and accepts nickels, dimes, quarters, and gives change.

10. What are the charges of chauvinism and liberalism?

11. Describe the problem of inputs and outputs. Why does Block think no functionalist will be able to solve this problem while avoiding both liberalism and chauvinism?

12. On pages 52-54, Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson discuss their proposal for how the functionalist should describe behavior. At the end of this section they write:

    We saw earlier…that we should not be chauvinists about what realizes the various functional roles. Equally, we should not be chauvinists about the kind of body and, accordingly, the kind of bodily behavior that are distinctive of creatures with a mental life.…

    What is Braddon-Mitchell & Jackson's proposal? (You may have to extrapolate a bit from their rather brief discussion.) How is this proposal supposed to help functionalists avoid chauvinism? Are there chauvinism charges that it does not deflect? Explain.

13. Do you think liberalism and chauvinism are serious problems for functionalism? Defend your answer.

14. What does Searle mean by ‘Strong AI’? What is the conclusion of Searle’s argument? What does he take himself to have shown?

15. According to Searle’s positive view, is it true that only biological systems can think? Explain.

consciousness as a challenge to physicalism

1. (True or false?) Nagel claims that part of why we cannot know what it is like to be a bat is that we cannot imagine what it's like to be a bat.

2. (True or false?) There are no new physical facts for Mary to learn about herself and her own visual systems when she comes out of the black-and-white room.

3. Why does Jackson think it is important to focus on Mary’s knowledge of what it is like for other people to taste chocolate, or see red?

4. Consider the distinction in this story:

   I read People magazine, so I know lots of things about the stresses and joys of being famous. But I do not have first-hand knowledge of what it is like to be famous. I can try to imagine what it’s like to be famous, but I don’t know first-hand. If we brought Brittany Spears in here, and asked her to imagine being famous, she might say, "I don’t need to imagine, I know what it’s like to be famous. Duh!" Thus, both Brittany and I have knowledge of the highs and lows of fame, but her knowledge enjoys a first-hand justification, whereas my justification is at best second-hand.

   What is the distinction described. Explain how this distinction can be used to give a version of the Old Fact reply to Jackson. Does this version escape the difficulties we raised for the Old Fact reply (see Braddon-Mitchell and Jackson, pp. 130–31)? Explain.

5. (True or false?) All definite descriptions (descriptions of the form 'the F') are non-rigid designators.

6. What is a possible world? Use the notion of a possible world to describe what a rigid designator is, and how rigid designators figure in the demonstration of a posteriori necessities.

7. Kripke thinks that conceivability is a good guide to possibility. Can we not conceive a situation in which something other than H₂O — say element W — runs in the lakes and streams, falls from the sky, and is essential to life? Explain why Kripke thinks this does not show that water = H₂O is not an a posteriori necessity. (That is, how does Kripke propose to explain the fact that it is conceivable that water <> H₂O?)

8. What is the difference between epistemic and metaphysical possibility. Is it epistemically possible that water ‡ H2O? that Pope John Paul II ‡ Karol Wojtyla ? that you are not now having an experience? Are these things metaphysically possible? Explain.

9. (True or false?) Kripke's argument supports dualism.

10. (True or false?) Kripke argues that mind-brain identities (pain = brain state a) are necessarily true.

11. Let your zombie twin be a creature that is a physical duplicate of you yet is not conscious — it has no sensations or feelings at all. There is nothing it is like to be this creature. It seems that we can all conceive of our zombie twins.

    How might the conceivability of your zombie twin pose a problem for physicalism?

12. Why does Kripke think that the solution to problem of question 7 will not work as a reply to the problem posed in question 10? What is the difference between the water/element W case versus the zombie case?

13. (True or false?) Christopher Hill holds that none of our intuitions about possibility are reliable.

14. What part of Kripke's argument does Hill dispute?

15. Explain Hill's distinction between sympathetic and perceptual imagination. How does he use it to diffuse worries about the possibility of zombies?

16. Explain why Hill feels compelled to general distinction than the one between sympathetic and perceptual imagination.

17. Explain how Hill uses the distinction between commonsense and theoretical imagination.

instrumentalism and eliminativism

1. What is the physical stance? the design stance? Why are these stances inadequate for explaining and predicting the behavior of human beings?

2. What is the intentional stance? Discuss in some detail.

3. What is it, according to instrumentalists like Dennett, to have a belief or a desire?

4. Why does Dennett think it is an objective matter whether a system has a belief or desire.

5. Distinguish instrumentalism from interpretationism.