Mind, Body and Soul Flashcards
(59 cards)
What is dualism in the context of philosophy of mind?
The view that there are two different types of existence: mental and physical.
What is substance dualism?
Descartes’ theory that mental and physical existences are two distinct substances; mental is characterised by thinking, and physical by extension.
What is monism?
The view that there is only one kind of existence.
What is materialism?
The view that only physical substance exists.
How did Plato view the relationship between body and soul?
He believed the body was a prison for the soul, which came from the World of Forms.
What is Plato’s charioteer analogy meant to represent?
It illustrates the soul’s struggle between reason and desires, symbolising the conflict between rational and irrational parts of the soul.
What is Plato’s argument from recollection?
The idea that we possess knowledge of perfect concepts innately, implying we must have existed in the World of Forms before birth.
What kind of knowledge does Plato use to support his theory of innate ideas?
Concepts like perfect beauty, justice, and geometric ideas like perfect circles.
What story does Plato use in The Meno to illustrate the argument from recollection?
Socrates demonstrates an uneducated slave boy solving a geometry problem through guided questioning, suggesting innate knowledge.
What is anamnesis in Plato’s philosophy?
The process of recollecting the perfect forms through sense experience.
What type of knowledge does Plato believe is the source of true knowledge?
A priori knowledge, accessed through reason.
State the logical form of Plato’s argument from recollection.
P1: We have concepts of perfection; P2: We’ve never experienced perfection; C1: These concepts are innate; C2: Thus, a world of forms and pre-birth soul must exist.
What is a major criticism of Plato’s premise that we have perfect concepts like justice and beauty?
These concepts are subjective and vary by culture and time, challenging the idea of an objective perfect form.
How does Plato defend his argument from subjectivity of concepts like beauty?
By using mathematical concepts like perfect circles, which are harder to argue are subjective.
What is Hume’s objection to Plato’s argument from recollection?
He argued that we can form the concept of perfection by imagining the negation of imperfection, not because we had innate access to perfect forms.
How else can the slave boy’s knowledge be explained besides innate ideas?
He may have gained a basic conceptual understanding from experience, which Socrates’ questions merely helped reveal.
Even if innate ideas exist, what is a simpler alternative to the World of Forms?
Evolution may have hardwired moral and mathematical instincts into humans without needing a separate realm of forms.
What is Aristotle’s main criticism of Plato’s theory of forms?
It lacks empirical validity and explanatory power for change in the physical world.
What principle does Aristotle apply to reject Plato’s forms?
A version of Ockham’s razor: don’t multiply explanations beyond necessity.
How does Aristotle reinterpret ‘form’?
As a thing’s essence or formal cause – its defining characteristic – but inseparable from the thing itself.
What is Aristotle’s view of the soul?
The soul is the formal cause (essence) of the body, giving it life and rational ability.
What is Aristotle’s wax stamp analogy meant to show?
The soul gives form to the body like a stamp to wax, but it doesn’t exist separately.
What was Francis Bacon’s objection to Aristotle’s formal causation?
He argued formal causes are metaphysical and beyond empirical investigation, as shown in his example of snow’s whiteness.
How does modern science further critique Aristotle’s formal causation?
It explains form-related qualities like color and rationality through material and efficient causes (atoms, photons, brain structure).
