3.4.2 Descartes Conceivability arguement for substance dualism

Question 1

Define substance dualism

Answer 1

The theory that two kinds of substance exist, mental and physical substance.

Question 2

What is the concievability argument?

Answer 2

Arguments for dualism from the conceivability of mind and body being distinct.

Question 3

What is logical possibility?

Answer 3

something possible to conceive of without contradiction, e.g: 1+1=2

Question 4

What is physical possibility?

Answer 4

something possible given the laws of nature in this universe
e.g: throwing a brick at the window and it breaking

Question 5

What is metaphysical possibility?

Answer 5

something logically possible but not physically possible
e.g: pigs flying
mind/body separation

Question 6

State the conceivability argument formally

Answer 6

P1. If I can clearly and distinctly conceive of the essential natures of two things separately, it must be metaphysically possible to separate them.
P2. I clearly and distinctly perceive myself (my mind) to be essentially a thinking and unextended thing.
P3. I clearly and distinctly perceive my body to be essentially an extended and
unthinking thing.
C1: It must be metaphysically possible for mind and body to be separate.
C2: Therefore mind and body are distinct substances.

Question 7

What is Descartes conceivability argument, stated simply

Answer 7

He is saying that it is conceivable and therefore possible for mind and body to exist separately. The reasoning is that if mind and body were the same substance, it would be inconcievable that they are seperate.

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Question 8

Why is it not important that there is a leap from possibility to actuality in the Conceivability arguement

Answer 8

It may seem a bit of a leap from it’s possible that mind and body are separate to mind and body are separate. But this topic is about what the mind is – its identity. If it’s possible for the mind to exist without the body, then what the mind is cannot be the same thing as the body (or any part of the body)
so they must be distinct substances (substance dualism)

Question 9

What are the three criticisms of the conceivability arguement?

Answer 9

-mind without body is not conceivable
-what is conceivable may not be metaphysically possible
-what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the actual world.

Question 10

How can the concievability arguement be critiqued?

Answer 10

1) Deny P1 (It is concievable that mind can exist without body)
2) Deny Inference P1-> C1 (because it is conceiavle that mind can exist without body, it is possible that mind can exist without body.)
3) Deny C1->C2 (because it is possible that mind and body can exist seperately, mind and body are distinct substances)

Question 11

Option 1 critique - Deny P1) It is possible to concieve of mind without body

+ What are the subcategories of this arguement

Answer 11

This view invites us to consider that when we have a better understanding of the mind/body relationship then we will see that in fact they are not conceivably separate.
-problem of identity
-‘life’ without sense expoerience
-problem of communication
-hume

Question 12

Explain the problem of identity

Answer 12

Descartes claims the true nature of ourselves is not phsyical. But this goes against our intuition of what it means to be a person.
In our everyday lives we recognise people based on their physical bodies.
Example: next wek a person turns up with a different body to teach you, could you be persuaded that it was really the same person?
If not it suggests that a persons body is an essential component of who a person is.

Question 13

Explain the life without sense experience problem

Answer 13

Imagine waking up in the morning, loking in the mirror and there being nothing there. Is that concievable? If yes, those accounts make emplicit reference to embodiemt - you need eyes to see. If the sould/mind could be detatched from the body-where would it be? Given it is unextended and does not exist in speace, does it make sense to say it exists in space, does it make sense to say it exsists in any place at all?

Question 14

What is the problem of verification?

Answer 14

According to AJ Ayer only statements which are verifiable are meaningful . Minds are non-physical; it is impossiblle for snese experience to detect them or to come to any knowledge of them
Therefore claims about non-physical are not something which is verifiable, so it is not meaningful.

Question 15

What is the problem of communication?

Answer 15

Without a body it would be impossible to communicate with others, because communication involves the use of sense organs. So if disembodied conciousness is possible, it would appear a rather lonely project, unless some form of telepathy were possible. But ordinary experience suggests we cannot peer into the contents of other people’s minds to see what they are thinking and feeling.

Question 16

Explain Hume’s Objection

why problem for dualism

Answer 16

• Hume an empiricst argued that introspection does not provide a continous perception of the self as a persisting ‘I’/entity
• if it is not possible to imagine the mind as a continuing whole then the conceptual justification for dualism falls appart as a mere collection of individual perceptions cannot be said to form a substance.

Question 17

Why is Hume’s objection not that big of an issue for the concievability argument?

Answer 17

• He doesn’t actually identify any logical problem with concieving of a mind
• He argues that we don’t experience it, but not that it is impossible
• so doesn’t actually undermine the argument in a significant way

Question 18

option 2) concievability does not imply metaphysical possibility

Outline Kripke’s argument that concievability does not entail possibility in all cases

Answer 18

The example of H2O
- Before it was discovered that water is H2O that H2O has the essential properties of water, people may have had thoughts such as ‘I wonder if water is H2O’ and ‘I suspect that water is H2O but it may not be’
- These are perfectly coherent thoughts.
- In this sense at least, it is concievable that water is not H2O
- It is easy to think that water could have been different in some possible world.
- Suppose in another an odourless, clear liquid also falls from the sky in drops and fills ocean, is it water?
- No Kripke says, it is something just like water in that it has many of the contingent propoerties of water
- But it isn’t water because it is not metaphysically possible that water isn’t H2O
- because they are two concepts that refer to the same entity in the world
- so you cannot always infer metaphysical possibility from concievability.

Question 19

what is a rigid designator?

Answer 19

things which have an identity that holds true in every possible world, and these are discoverable by empirical investigation.
(If A is identical to B -if A is B- then A is B in every possible world.)

Question 20

Kripke’s water example applied to descartes

evaluate

Answer 20

Descartes’ idea of his mind and body may be incomplete
While it could be that in the way water is tangible can be reduced to its constituent parts, that a mind is intangible so descartes rational intuition of the mind is the best explanation
It could also be Descartes belief is an incomplete understanding. There is potential for further evidence to suggest otherwise so his beliefs about the nature of his mind are not infallible
Maybe the mind and body/mental and physical have a relationship like H2O and water, that has not yet been discovered allowing us to concieve of them as seperate when actually this is metaphysically impossible.

Question 21

option 2) concievability does not imply metaphysical possibility

How does Descartes’ concievability argument rely on Liebniz’s indescernability of identicals law

Answer 21

Liebniz’s law= If A is B then A shares all the same properties as B
So if the mind and the body were identical, they’d share all the same properties. Descartes thinks he’s shown they don’t (mind is thinking, immaterial; body is extended, material), so they can’t be identical.

Question 22

What does the masked man fallacy show us?

Answer 22

you can’t use conceivability to prove identity/non-identity in the case of intentional contexts.

Question 23

The Masked Man Fallacy

Answer 23

• I conceive of Batman as a caped crusader
• I conceive of Bruce Wayne as a billionaire who is not a caped crusader
• Therefore, Batman is not Bruce Wayne

Question 24

define intentional context

Answer 24

when properties are identified as in common/not in common to a person’s understanding

Question 25

why does the masked man fallacy fail?

Answer 25

Because it confuses how you think about something (your mental representation) with what the thing actually is. Your knowledge or belief about the masked man isn’t a real property of the object. It’s a property of your mental state. This is called an intentional context.

Question 26

# option 2) concievability does not imply metaphysical possibility why/how does descartes commit the same fallacy as masked man? | and why does this fall under the 2nd critique ## Footnote that you cant infer metaphysical possibility from concievability

Answer 26

he says : “I can conceive of my mind without my body” “I can’t conceive of my body as thinking” But these are thoughts in intentional contexts — he’s saying what he can conceive, not what’s actually true about the things themselves. And Leibniz’s Law doesn’t apply in intentional contexts. | So he can’t infer that the mind ≠ body just from conceivability.

Question 27

How might Descartes respond to Masked Man Objection

Answer 27

Descartes doesn’t think that this is a fair comparison. My awareness of Batman as a masked crusader as distinct from the identity of Bruce Wayne all based on **empirical observation**. My awareness of the separate nature of my mind - on the other hand - is deduced from **clear and distinct** awareness that I have, founded on the principle of the cogito. In other words: I know my own mind better than I know anything else.

Question 28

What is option 3 critique

Answer 28

what is metaphysically possibble tells us nothing about the real world.

Question 29

Explain the critique that what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the real world.

Answer 29

This view expresses **scepticism about the relevance** of metaphysical possibility to understanding actual reality. They argue that what is metaphysically possible (which concerns what could exist or happen into other possible worlds) is **too disconnected** from the actual world to provide meaningful insights into how things are or must be in our own world.

Question 30

# 3) what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the real world Why do people believe in the 3rd option critique | 3 reasons

Answer 30

1. Lack of empirical relevance 2. Metaphysical possibility vs actual necessity 3. Quinean scepticism

Question 31

# 3) what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the real world Explain the 'Lack of empirical evidence'

Answer 31

One central criticism is that metaphysical possibilitiies are often based on abstract reasoning and thought experiments which do not necessarily align with empirical or the actual conditions of our world.

Question 32

# 3) what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the real world Explain the 'metaphysical possibility vs. actual necessity'

Answer 32

what is metaphysically possible does not mean it can happen in the actual world, because of the laws of physics etc.

Question 33

# 3) what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the real world Explain 'Quinean Scepticism'

Answer 33

Quine was sceptical of metaphysical modality (possibility and necessity) altogether. For Q, talk of possible worlds and metaphysical possibility might reflect how language works but doesn't track the physical or empirical nature of the world itself.