Physicalism

Question 1

What is physicalism?

Answer 1

everything that exists (including mind, mental states) is either a physical thing or supervenes on physical things

Question 2

What is hard behaviourism?

Answer 2

Hard behaviourism claims that ‘all propositions about mental states can be reduced without loss
of meaning to propositions that exclusively use the language of physics to talk about bodily
states

we can give a complete account of the mind in purely in terms of behaviour
the mind is nothing more than behaviours, if you describe all behaviours in physical terms you describe the mind

we can translate all talk about mental states into observation statements about peoples physical states and behaviour

Question 3

What is soft behaviourism?

Answer 3

Mental states do not always have to be displayed in terms of behaviour
eg. If you have a toothache, you don’t necessarily have to complain about it
Ryle: proper analysis of mental states must be reduced to ones mental disposition
eg. if someone has toothache, doesnt mean they will call for dentist, but would do so only under the right circumstance

says propersitions about mental states (eg. I am in pain) are just behavioural dispositions
Disposition: How likely something is to behave in a certain circumstance

Question 4

what is behaviourism?

Answer 4

idea that mental states (happy, sad) are nothing more than dispositions
to have a mental state is to display the behavioural dispositions in relation to that state (crying out for help =pain)

Question 5

What is the distinctness of mental states from behaviour argument?

Putnam: against

Answer 5

Putnam aims to disprove behaviouralism through use of super spartans
Super spartans: group of people who suppress all outward demonstrations of pain and have no dispositions toward pain behaviour
They do feel pain internally but its not expressed whatsoever
Behaviourism says pain is a disposition to act a certain way, but here they are separate things
if super spartans are possible, behaviourism is false as it’s possible to have the mental state without the behavioural disposition.

Question 6

Hard behaviouralists cannot define mental states due to multiple realisability of mental states in behaviour

Answer 6

Problem: many behaviours wil be a part of the analysis of any given mental state, because of how people act
Eg. Analysis of “If S sees a spider, S runs away/hides/ prays” due to the different possibility of differing responses from different people/ same person at different times
This is multiple realisability of mental states in behaviour
Because of this, we can no longer give the necessary and sufficent conditions for having a particular mental states as they vary between people