PHIL 201 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Compatibilism, Physicalism
Document Summary
Dualism: the view that mental states are distinct from physical states. Physicalism: the view that mental states are nothing over and above physical states. Argument for dualism: descartes thinks that nothing is physical by the end of his first meditation, from his perspective nothing is physical . Descartes concludes that he cannot doubt the existence of i . It is impossible that i don"t exist - it"s possible nothing physical exist . It is possibility that even if nothing physical exists, i exist. If i exists and physical things don"t exist - i would not be physical. If nothing physical exists, i still do - thus i is a mental being (??) If a=b, then it is impossible for a to exist without b - contradicted by by a existing without b (physical things don"t exist but i exist) Conclusion: i am not a physical thing . If a = b, and a exists, b in fact exists.