Greg Detre
Tuesday, 23 April, 2002
Dear All
Class meets tomorrow, Tuesday, 9-11.00 a.m.
Below is a set of questions to ponder about positions concerning the
relation of mind and body - and an indication of which questions on
recent past papers they should help you to tackle.
Do think both about at least some of these questions - and about the
past paper questions indicated. If you can manage an essay plan for one
or more of the past paper questions, so much the better.
Bill C.
Some Views about the Mind-Body Problem
The following questions are intended to help you locate and think
through the key features of some prominent positions about the relations
between the mental and the physical. You don't need to be able to answer
all these questions. But you should have views about some of them.
To link all of this to exams and exam questions. If you had
something to say about some or all of the points below, that would put you in a
position to answer at least some of the following questions on recent exam
papers:
2001 questions 7, 10, 13
2000 questions 1, 4, 8
1999 questions 1, 5, 7, 14, 16
1998 questions 4, 6, 10
1. What is the difference between a type (or type-type) mental-physical
identity theory and a token (or token-token) identity theory?
2. What is meant by the claim that types of mental state are variably
realizable? How is variable realizability supposed to count against
psychophysical identity theories? (Which theories?)
3. What is the holism of the mental? How is holism supposed to
count against behaviourism?
4. What is the main point of functionalism? (One way to think
about this: How can functionalism be seen as a response to the failings of
identity theories and of behaviourism? How do functionalists aim to
accommodate variable realizability and holism?) What is the difference
between common-sense functionalism and psycho-functionalism?
5. What are some main objections to: (a) dualism, (b) type identity
theories, (c) behaviourism, (d) functionalism, (e) token identity theories?
6. What is meant by the claim that rationality plays a constitutive role
in talk about the mental? How is the role of rationality supposed to show
that there are no strict laws for predicting and explaining mental
phenomena? (What is Davidson's argument for the anomalism of the mental
supposed to rule out? What does he mean when he talks of a "system
of strict laws on the basis of which mental phenomena can be predicted and
explained"?)
7. What is the problem of the epiphenomenalism of mental
properties? What is supposed to give rise to the problem? Is it a
problem?
8. What would it be to be an instrumentalist, or an eliminativist, or a
realist, about propositional attitudes? Are there good reasons for
thinking that ascriptions of propositional attitudes are not literally
true? Or that they are only ever true "with a pinch of salt"?
January 2002
What are teleo-functionalism and causal functionalism???
functionalism vs behaviourism vs materialism???
case for eliminativism???
mind-body problem vs consciousness???
what�s the difference between Chalmers� view and panpsychism???
is Chalmers a property dualist??? what is a property dualist???
what�s Block�s harder problem???
does behaviour include arithmetic etc. (re Strawson, weather watchers)???