Phil 340: 1st Review

This page is meant to summarize the notions, theories, and arguments discussed in the first weeks of class (up through the end of our discussion of imaginability and possibility).

Some notions presented near the start of term:

• phenomenal/qualitative feels, sensations
• propositional/intentional attitudes
• difference between “intensional” and “intentional”

The next few points were introduced early in the class notes, but came up again when we were discussing Leibniz’s Law:

• intension or meaning of some words vs their extension (what objects they apply to)
• notion of special/privileged access to one’s own mind
• What kinds of special privileged access have philosophers claimed we have to our own minds?
• infallibility vs luminosity/can’t-be-hiddeness (what Kim calls “transparency”)

When considering how we know that other people/animals/machines have minds, we discussed:

• Turing Test: how does it work? what significance does passing it have?
• causal determinism
• epistemic vs objective uses of probability talk
• compatibilists about free will and determinism vs libertarians vs those who say we lack free will

When introducing the debate between dualists and materialists, we discussed:

• ontology
• metaphysics
• abstract vs concrete
• individuals vs properties/relations
• intrinsic vs extrinsic properties (also came up in relation to Leibniz’s Law, below)
• facts and propositions
• objects vs events/states
• types of laptops/events vs particular token instances of those types
• substances vs “derivative or dependent” objects (like smiles, wits, waves, hikes, dances)
• contrast between what’s part of the definition of some notion (for example, “substance”), and substantive, possibly contentious claims about that notion
• debate between (substance) dualists about the mind/body relation and (what I’ll later call the broader kind of) materialist/physicalist, who are one kind of substance monists

We considered two groups of arguments for this dualist view. The first appealed to Leibniz’s Law.

When we were discussing Leibniz’s Law, we discussed:

• intrinsic/extrinsic properties (again)
• qualitative identity (being copies of each other) vs numerical identity (being one and the same thing)
• antecedent and consequent of a conditional
• difference between converse and contrapositive of a conditional
• equivocating
• notion of a question-begging argument

We said that the materialist/physicalist would respond to these kinds of arguments for dualism in one of these ways:

1. the dualist is equivocating
2. the dualist begs the question
3. the dualist is applying Leibniz’s Law illegitimately (as in the arguments we attributed to Lex Luthor)
4. these arguments don’t have “the right shape” or “go all the way” to establish dualism, anyway

The second argument for dualism is listed below.

When considering arguments against dualism, we discussed:

• interactionism
• epiphenomenalism (Huxley)
• Princess Elisabeth’s complaint about how Cartesian souls could interact with anything in physical space
• Kim’s “Pairing Problem”
• “causal closure” of physical events
• “causal overdetermination” of an effect
• difference between causal determinism and causal overdetermination

The second argument for dualism appealed to a link between what we can conceive/imagine and what’s possible, and was illustrated by an argument from Descartes’s Sixth Meditation. When we were discussing the connections between imaginability and possibility, we introduced these notions:

• modal words
• difference between (i) “nomological” or lawful possibility, (ii) metaphysical/counterfactual/logical possibility, (iii) “epistemic” possibility, and (iv) other uses of modal talk, such as to discuss obligations
• contingency
• essential vs accidental properties
• causal vs metaphysical dependence
• the claim that one set of facts supervenes on (or “are nothing over and above,” or are “fixed or metaphysically determined by”) another

We distinguished substance dualists, who think we have nonphysical/immaterial parts, called “souls,” from property dualists, who agree with materialists that there are only physical substances, but deny that mental facts supervene on physical facts. Our discussion will mostly focus on the debate between substance dualists and materialists in the narrower sense, who think that the mental does supervene on the physical.

We mentioned the difference between saying it’s possible for our mind to exist without our body, and Descartes’s ambition to ultimately get the stronger claim that our minds and bodies are already independent/separate substances. (Our discussion focused on whether the dualist can even succeed in getting the first claim.)

Descartes proposed that being able to conceive or imagine something without violating conceptual definitions (in his lingo, “clearly and distinctly understanding or perceiving it without contradiction”) showed that the thing was in fact metaphysically/counterfactually possible (in his lingo, it “could be done or made by God”).

But we saw that arguably some metaphysical necessities/impossibilities can’t be read off from conceptual definitions: they’re knowable only “a posteriori” (that is, by observation and/or empirical investigation/research). If someone is ignorant of what my table is made of, they might be able to imagine it being made of steel, whereas in fact it’s essentially made of wood. If I forget that I am Jim Pryor, I may be able to imagine existing without Jim Pryor existing, but in fact that’s not possible. So being able to imagine something without making any conceptual mistake/confusion, even if it’s some reason to think the thing is possible, doesn’t guarantee that it is.

Materialists think that’s what’s going on when you imagine mental differences floating free of how the physical world is, or imagine having a mind without having any physical body.

Important terms and distinctions from this:

• we’re starting already to see different things people can mean by “materialism/physicalism” (more are yet to come)
• substance dualism vs property dualism
• conceptual definitions vs scientific identities
• a priori vs a posteriori knowledge