1. FOUNDATIONS
(Dualism, Behaviorism, Central-State
Materialism)
(G. Ryle, ‘Descartes’ Myth’)
For Tuesday:
H. Putnam, ‘Brains and Behavior’.
In Chalmers, pp. 45-54.
Topics
1. Dualism
2. Introspection
3. Category Mistakes
4. Mental States not Causes of Behavior
5. Behaviorism
Dualism
‘Mind and body are different kinds of
stuff.’
- vs. there’s only one kind of stuff,
physical stuff.
1. Knowledge of your own existence
more certain than knowledge of any
material thing.
2. Can conceive separately of body and
self, so body and self are separate.
3. Matter is divisible but the self is
indivisible.
6
We don’t introspect non-physical
substance.
It shimmers,
beyond any knowledge we have.
So it doesn’t explain anything.
Suppose that each soul only lasted for
a second,
but transmitted all its psychological
states to the next soul coming up,
and a person has a long series of such
souls.
7
8
Everything would seem just the way
it does now, to you and to the
person.
9
So supposing it’s one soul,
rather than a series,
doesn’t explain anything.
Suppose that at any one time,
each person’s body had associated
with it
a thousand souls, all acting
together.
10
11
So when the body speaks,
there are a thousand souls wanting
to say that thing.
Again, everything would seem just
the way it does now
- to you and to the person.
So supposing it’s just one soul
doesn’t explain anything.
12
Topics
1. Dualism✔
2. Introspection
3. Category Mistakes
4. Mental States not Causes of Behavior
5. Behaviorism
Descartes’ Myth
1. Knowledge of your own existence
more certain than knowledge of
any material thing.
2. Can conceive separately of body
and self, so body and self are
separate.
3. Matter is divisible but the self is
indivisible.
Introspection
‘Not only can he view and scrutinize a flower
through his sense of sight and listen to and
discriminate the notes of a bell through his
sense of hearing;
‘he can also reflectively or introspectively watch,
without any bodily organ of sense, the current
episodes of his inner life.’
Introspection
‘This self-observation is … commonly supposed
to be immune from illusion, confusion or
doubt.’
- unlike sense-perceptions.
Introspection
‘On the other side, the person has no direct
access of any sort to the events of the inner
life of another.’
Introspection
‘Absolute solitude is on this showing the
ineluctable destiny of the soul. Only our
bodies can meet.’
Introspection
Knowledge of one’s own:
emotions (fear, happiness, depression)
sensations (pains - e.g. footballers’ injuries)
thoughts
beliefs (e.g. that X can’t be trusted)
virtues (kindliness, generosity)
temperament (shyness)
- Different possibilities of error in each
case.
Introspection
Knowledge of someone else’s:
emotions
sensations
thoughts
beliefs
virtues
temperament
- a different basis from knowledge of your own?
You can be an expert on the mental
states of some other person.
You’re a specialist on your own states.
You know about them the same way
you know about the mental states of
others.
Topics
1. Dualism✔
2. Introspection✔
3. Category Mistakes
4. Mental States not Causes of Behavior
5. Behaviorism
Watching the operations of someone else’s
mind:
mental arithmetic vs. working it out on
paper.
mental arithmetic vs. working it out on
paper.
Suppose we take ‘thinking’ to be
‘manipulating symbols’.
You can do this just as well in public as you
can in your head.
mental arithmetic vs. working it out on paper.
You can perform one and the same mental
activity publicly as privately.
When you perform the calculation in writing,
there isn’t a private calculation that is causing
it.
- So other people can have just as good
knowledge of what calculation I’m
performing as I do myself.
- cf. also, ‘trying to find my watch’.
Can do this by hunting, or by silently
reflecting.
Consider also,
‘being angry’
‘being in pain’
etc.
Showing someone the University:
UC Berkeley photo
UC Berkeley photos
29
But where is the University?
www.ghettodriveby.com/dungeon/
‘Expecting someone to come for tea at 4
o’clock’
31
‘Expecting someone to come for tea at 4
o’clock’
filling the kettle with water
looking out of the window
looking at your watch
32
33
Topics
1. Dualism✔
2. Introspection✔
3. Category Mistakes✔
4. Mental States not Causes of Behavior
5. Behaviorism
Dualism:
‘a para-mechanical hypothesis’.
Descartes
‘had mistaken the logic of his
problem. Instead of asking by
what criteria intelligent behavior is
actually distinguished from nonintelligent behavior,
‘he asked “Given that the principle of mechanical
causation does not tell us the difference, what
other causal principle will tell it to us?”
‘He realized that the problem was not one of
mechanics and assumed it must therefore be
one of some counterpart to mechanics.
‘Not unnaturally psychology is often cast for just
this role.’
The para-mechanical causes were assumed
to be known infallibly by each of us,
through introspection.
- thus we can never know how to classify
one another’s behavior.
Descartes should have asked:
by what criteria intelligent behavior is
actually distinguished from nonintelligent behavior.
This makes it sound as though:
psychological terms are just ways of
classifying complex behaviors,
not: ways of identifying the causes of
behaviors.
Behaviorism:
the view that psychological terms are
just ways of classifying complex
behaviors.
Topics
1. Dualism✔
2. Introspection✔
3. Category Mistakes✔
4. Mental States not Causes of Behavior
5. Behaviorism
How are we to explain the meanings of
psychological terms?
We can describe behavior in nonpsychological terms.
We can define psychological concepts in
terms of behavior.
Carnap defines
psychological
terms like this:
‘A is excited’
asserts the
existence of:
“that physical structure (micro-structure) of Mr. A’s
body (especially of his central nervous system)
that is characterized by
a high pulse and rate of breathing,
which, on the application of certain stimuli, may
even be made higher, by vehement and factually
unsatisfactory answers to questions, by the
occurrence of agitated movements on the
application of certain stimuli, etc.”
Couldn’t you be excited without having
any tendency to show any of those
symptoms?
If Carnap was right, how could you
know by introspection whether you
were excited?
You’d have better knowledge of
whether someone else was excited
than you do of whether you are
excited yourself.
Topics
1. Dualism✔
2. Introspection✔
3. Category Mistakes✔
4. Mental States not Causes of Behavior
5. Behaviorism