1 / 4

Theories of Mind: Monism, Physicalism, Dualism, and Beyond

Explore the intricate realm of philosophy of mind with discussions on monism, physicalism, dualism, and attempted solutions regarding how the physical and mental realms interact. Delve into various theories including identity theory, functionalism, eliminative materialism, and idealism.

bweber
Download Presentation

Theories of Mind: Monism, Physicalism, Dualism, and Beyond

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Newall: Philosophy of Mind • Mind and body are the same (monism) • Physicalism: physical objects or processes (e.g., neural firings) are “tokens” (examples) of “types” of things (minds or mental events) • Reductive physicalism: minds/mental events are reducible to physical objects/events • Non-reductive physicalism: minds/mental events “supervene on” physical objects and events: that is, they depend on, but are not reducible to, physical objects and processes

  2. More Monistic Theories of Mind • Mind-Brain (Identity) Theory: mental states are simply brain states • Objection: brain states and introspective qualia (experiences) have different characteristics • Functionalism:mental states are associations or linkages of sensory stimuli and behaviors • Eliminative Materialism: we should replace terms like “thought” with materialist expressions • Idealism: physical objects/processes are really only mental events or objects of mind

  3. Dualistic Theories of Mind • Predicate Dualism: the mental and physical are said to be different kinds of things • Property Dualism: the mental and physical are different characteristics of things • Substance Dualism: the mental and physical are simply different kinds of real things • The major problem with dualism (viz., interaction) concerns how the physical and mental can affect or relate to one another

  4. Attempted Solutions to the Challenge of Dualistic Interactionism Epiphenomenalism: bodies can influence minds, but minds cannot influence bodies Objections: why can’t minds influence bodies? Why have the mental at all? Occasionalism: God’s intervention accounts for the interaction N. Malebranche • Parallelism: apparent interaction is due to a pre-established harmony between the physical and mental G. W. Leibniz

More Related