CGSC170 Study Guide - Spring 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Memory, Dualism, Behaviorism
12 Oct 2018
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Department
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CGSC170
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
The Mind in the History of Philosophy
• Philosophy and philosophers define problems, criticize models, and suggest
areas for future research
• Metaphysics
o Is the mental world part of the physical world?
• Epistemology
o What is knowledge? How is it represented in the mind? How is it
acquired?
• Topic today:
o The mind-body problem
o Dualism vs. monism
• What is the mind-body problem?
o Physical: measurable, directly observable, stateable in terms of things
we already know
▪ Ex: the brain and its structure and biochemistry
o The mind:
▪ Beliefs, desires, thoughts, emotions
▪ Are they physical? Tangible? Measurable?
▪ The soul- what is it?
o Body(brain) → mind (non physical?)
o The mind-body problem is: can the thing that we call mind be
reduced to properties that we know are true of the body?
o One answer is:
▪ )f we can’t reduce it, then it must exist in some other, non-
physical world(metaphysics)
• The hardware-software problem
o Computer(hardware) → software(non-physical?)
o Where does the thing that the software does, exist?
▪ Ex: words appearing on the screen as I type
▪ At one level: real (I can see it)
▪ At the hardware level: you cant see this event)
• Early views on the mind-body
o Plato (428 BC – 348 BC)
▪ Dualist
• Mind <> body
• Exist in two different worlds
▪ Ming: immaterial, non-extended, eternal
▪ Body: resides in the real world, is material, extended,
perishable
▪ Mental ideas: a circle, or triangle
• Reside in the ideal world, perfect
▪ Concrete examples: imperfect
• Plato’s dualism
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find more resources at oneclass.com
o Dualism entails that things like mind and soul are NOT part of the
physical world, but part of another world
▪ Which we can’t measure or have access to by the same
methods as we use for the real world
o Implicit in e.g. systems of religion
▪ The soul can leave the body
o near-death experiences
• Descartez(1596-1650)
o Substance dualism
▪ Cogito ergo sum
• I think, therefore I am
• Thoughts & mind esists
▪ Two types of substances:
• Res extensa(matter)
• Res cogitans (mind)
• The two cannot be unifies or reduced one to the other
▪ A casual link:
• Mind controls the body(but not other way around)
• Control center: pineal gland
▪ Body: made up of physical matter
• Atoms, molecules, cells…
▪ Mind: made up of mind-matter
• ??? we don’t know the components
▪ Argument
• Minds have free will and can make decisions
• Machines don’t
• Therefore, minds are not machines
• Minds can introspect- machines don’t
• Minds can understand speech
• Machines don’t…wait! They can!
• Therefore minds are not/are machines
• Could there be a conceptual problem with the question itself?
• Gilbert Ryle (1949) critique of dualism
o We are at a university
▪ You show the visitor around
• Gore
• Kirkbride, Trabant
• The Green
• Stadium
• Professors
• Labs, classrooms
• Students
• Visitor: where is the university?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
