Exam Board Checklist for Substance Dualism
The mind–body problem: What is the relationship between the mental and the physical?
Dualism: the mind is distinct from the physical The indivisibility argument for substance dualism (Descartes) Issues, including: the mental is divisible in some sense, not everything thought of as physical is divisible. The conceivability argument for substance dualism: the logical possibility of mental substance existing without the physical (Descartes). Issues, including: mind without body is not conceivable, what is conceivable may not be possible, what is logically possible tells us nothing about reality |
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What is Substance Dualism?
There are two fundamentally different types of substances:
Minds and bodies are ontologically distinct and independent. |
The Conceivability Argument
Descartes argued that his true self can be identified with his consciousness or mind; that his essential nature is thought. I, as he says, am a ‘thinking thing’ and it is conceivable that this thing might exist without a physical body. Reliance on God? The argument does not rely on God's existence. Rather Descartes uses the idea of God as a way of talking about what is logically possible. Whatever is clearly conceivable is possible, since God is omnipotent he could make it so. |
The Indivisibility Argument
Leibniz’s Law – Identity (sameness) of Indiscernibles If you think you have two things and they have all the same properties including their position in space then they are identical. If X and Y do not have all the same essential properties they cannot be the same kind of thing (X cannot = Y)
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Exam Board Checklist for Property Dualism
The ‘philosophical zombies’ argument for property dualism: the logical possibility of a physical duplicate of this world but without consciousness/qualia (Chalmers).
Issues, including: a ‘zombie’ world is not conceivable, what is conceivable is not possible, what is logically possible tells us nothing about reality.
The ‘knowledge’/Mary argument for property dualism based on qualia (Frank Jackson).
Qualia as introspectively accessible subjective/phenomenal features of mental states (the properties of ‘what it is like’ to undergo the mental state in question) – for many qualia would be defined as the intrinsic/non-representational properties of mental states.
Issues, including: Mary gains no new propositional knowledge (but gains acquaintance knowledge or ability knowledge), all physical knowledge would include knowledge of qualia, there is more than one way of knowing the same physical fact, qualia (as defined) do not exist and so Mary gains no propositional knowledge.
Issues, including: a ‘zombie’ world is not conceivable, what is conceivable is not possible, what is logically possible tells us nothing about reality.
The ‘knowledge’/Mary argument for property dualism based on qualia (Frank Jackson).
Qualia as introspectively accessible subjective/phenomenal features of mental states (the properties of ‘what it is like’ to undergo the mental state in question) – for many qualia would be defined as the intrinsic/non-representational properties of mental states.
Issues, including: Mary gains no new propositional knowledge (but gains acquaintance knowledge or ability knowledge), all physical knowledge would include knowledge of qualia, there is more than one way of knowing the same physical fact, qualia (as defined) do not exist and so Mary gains no propositional knowledge.