Week 10 Dualism and its Problems

Question 1

The Distinct Substances Problem

Answer 1

The fact that an individual is composed by
two distinct substances runs against all
contemporary neuroscience and cognitive
sciences.
It is hard to accept the non-corporeality of
the mind.
Modern day science says that the mind is part of the body and not a distinct substances

Question 2

The Causality and Interaction Problem

Answer 2

How can a non-bodily substance cause bodily movements?
How can our thoughts/desires/… (qua non-extended substance) cause bodily movements?
Since the mind is space-less how can it influence the body?
Descartes’ answer is that the soul is united with the body. Hence the mind/body unison problem.

Question 3

The Mental-or-Physical Dilemma

Answer 3

Either we are dealing with purely physical (mechanical) or purely mental events, i.e. the perception of an incorporeal spirit.
What about psycho-neural phenomena such as vision which seems to be neither purely physical nor purely mental?

Question 4

Imagination vs. Perception

Answer 4

They are special modes of thinking (as
such they differ from thinking, willing,
doubting, …) insofar as they require
physiological activity.
The difference between sense-perception and
imagination is really just this, that in sense-
perception the images are imprinted on the
brain by external objects which are actually
present, while in the case of imagination the
images are imprinted by the mind without
any external object, and with the windows
shut, as it were. (Descartes Conversation with
Burman: 27)

Question 5

Problem:

Answer 5

Sensations such as imagination and 
perception cannot be captured by 
Descartes’ dualism insofar as they are 
neither purely physical nor mental.
They’re somewhat between the mental 
and the physical.

Question 6

‘Trialism’

Answer 6

Descartes recognises 3 primitive categories in terms of what we think about the world: the res cogitans, the res extensa and the psycho-physical interaction (e.g. sensations and passions).
The latter is somewhat derivative of the former but it is nonetheless primitive insofar as it cannot be classified either as purely mental or purely physical
Cf. the analogy of the mule which derives from a horse and a donkey and yet it cannot be classified as either equine or asinine.
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Question 7

E.g. hunger has three aspects:

Answer 7

1.the purely physical events such as the shortage of nourishment (this would also appear in a zombie or a comatose individual);
2.the purely mental events such as the qualia-less judgement such as “my body needs food” and
3.the feeling of hunger (the qualia).
Sense-perception is the property of an embodied being: thus a non-corporeal being (e.g.: God, angels) lacks it

Question 8

Even if phisycalism is correct, it remains that there

Answer 8

1. There are his bodily/physical events which do not require any form of consciousness;
2. There are the thinking events peculiar of language-users (e.g. belief, desires, …).
3. There are the qualia which are conditions/ sensations of the body produced by effect of the external world and cannot be fully described in language.

Question 9

Perception and Reality

Answer 9

While reason can tells us about ourselves
and our experiences, our experience does
not teach us much about reality. Sensory-
experience does not teach us what really
exists in the things themselves. That is,
the sensory-qualities such as color, taste,
etc. (the qualia) are silent on what
external bodies are like in themselves.
But in all these there need be no resemblance
between the idea which the soul conceives
and the movement which causes these ideas.
(Optics; CSM 1: 167

Question 10

Descartes takes our ideas of sensory qualities to be like internal sensations such as the sensation of pain.

Answer 10

While it makes sense to say that a sensation of pain is not in the object causing it (e.g.: it isn’t in the bullet hitting one’s leg), it is more difficult to claim that redness or heat is not in the object causing it.

Question 11

The creator, God, has chosen that some 
events are “marked” in the mind in a 
specific way, but God could have chose to 
mark them in a completely different way 
(qualia are arbitrary).

Answer 11

Cases of color qualia-inversion could be
invoked in favour of this idea. It would be
harder to think of pain-sensation as
arbitrary, though, for natural selection it
would not help one who does not feel pain
the way we actually do (e.g.: if sex was
painful, reproduction and thus the
survival of the species would be
endangered).

Question 12

Chomsky on the Mind/Body 
Problem
Chomsky vs. Descartes
Chomsky’s Cartesianism does not mean 
that he accepts all the Cartesian views. 
Chomsky rejects Descartes view 
concerning the privileged access of 
our own mind. No scientific study of the 
mind could accept this thesis (cf. 
linguistics).

Answer 12

Chomsky’s Cartesianism does not mean
that he accepts all the Cartesian views.
Chomsky rejects Descartes view
concerning the privileged access of
our own mind. No scientific study of the
mind could accept this thesis (cf.
linguistics).

In rejecting Descartes’ mechanism
Chomsky rejects the idea that in order for
bodies to come to action, things must be
in contact (“a dead horse since Newton’s
law of gravitation”).
This parallels the rejection of Descartes’
view of matter or substance.
This in turn entails the rejection of
Descartes’ mind/body substance dualism.

Once forces such as gravitation (which
Descartes would have characterized as
mysterious) enter the real world there is
no reason to exclude mental features from
the physical realm.
Hence there is also no reason to make a
coherent distinction between the physical
and the mental.
The mind-body problem should no longer
be taken seriously

Question 13

Essence vs. appearance

Answer 13

Descartes distinguishes between the
world as it is (in itself, i.e. as God
perceives it) and the world as it appears
to us.
This rests on the very idea that there is a
subjectivity involved in our perception of
reality. Since God implanted in us the
seeds of truth about the universe, in our
abstract, mathematical concepts we can
take God’s viewpoint and perceive the
universe as it is.

Question 14

Biological Rationalism

Answer 14

No place for a mechanism called “reason” doing reasoning.
Unlike the syntactic process involved in language production, reason is not a mechanism with fixed operations.
As such reason cannot be the subject matter of science and cannot have a place in a scientific rationalist study of the mind.

Reason can be seen as a human attribute 
provided by common sense 
understanding. 
As such it can be seen as something 
guiding our (scientific) enterprise; it 
cannot be the subject of scientific inquiry. 
Reason is a kind of social practice, 
hence quite different from linguistics 
which is more close to chemistry and 
physics.

Question 15

Reasoning

Answer 15

It is a normative process carried out by
persons. It is not confined to a dedicated
part of one’s mind/brain.
Reason rests on the domain of human
freedom, while the language faculty does
not. The former is normative, the latter,
like vision, is not.
Linguistic processes and vision, unlike
reasoning, are unconscious and cannot be
modified by the community. They are
innately configured faculties which
operate automatically and blindly.

Question 16

Philosophical challenge

Answer 16

No science can eliminate persons and their mental life.
No science can eliminate intentionality.
Any correct description and explanation of the human species and what happens in their head must deal with persons and their intentions

Question 17

Chomsky has a dismissive answer.

Answer 17

He does not deny that our understanding 
of persons relies upon common sense 
concepts or that these understanding can 
be dismissed.
E.g.: we learn more about people from 
arts and poetry than from psychology or 
philosophy. 

If the concept of person is found in the
domain of common sense it can be
inquired through arts and history.
From the common sense viewpoint this
inquiry is more fruitful than an enterprise,
such as linguistics or biology, committed
to a formal description.
Science is not suited to the way in which
the concept of a person is dealt with in
common sense understanding

Question 18

Anti-Eliminationism/Reductionism

Answer 18

Common sense concepts have been useful for millennia and there is no reason they should be eliminated by a scientific study of the mind/brain.
We have different explanations serving different purposes.
We cannot make science continuous with common sense. They are different universes which do not intrude each other.

Question 19

Common Sense Concept of the World

Answer 19

A scientific conception of the world cannot play a role
when we come to apprehend the real world.
A three year old today apprehends the real world in
much the same way as a three year old Greek
apprehended it thousands of years ago.

The empiricists cannot rely on science (a
recent invention which is constantly
changing) to explain how we commonly
apprehend the world.
The sole concept of the physical world
that we can possibly imagine to be
unchangeable over time and/or cultures is
the one understood in common sense (folk
physics).

The rationalist explains our apprehension of the world claiming that the basic concepts used to explain the physical world are innately specified, they are part of a fixed human nature.
The correct explanation of a fixed common sense (including folk physics and folk psychology) does not rely, pace the empiricist’s credo, on scientific explanations, but in a fixed human nature.
The relevant concepts are provided at birth and need only an experiential trigger to activate (see poverty of the stimulus argument).

Question 20

Folk Psychology

Answer 20

It must be stable across people and time.

And for it to be so convenient we must posit a basic human nature with fixed concepts and basic needs that makes the use of these concepts convenient.
Cf. The evolutionary psychology enterprise.

This is not an explanation that the empiricist doctrine welcomes, for according to the latter convenient concepts can change across time and cultures. But they should if, as the empiricists claim, they depend on experience.

In short, how can one explain folk psychology stability without appealing to stable and universal concepts?
To posit the stability of folk psychology on the fact that there subsists a similarity across cultures would be a circular explanation.

Question 21

Chomsky’s Anti-Reductionism

Answer 21

There is no convincing reason to expect that the mental can be reduced to the physical as currently conceived.
Physics keeps evolving and, thus any reduction that the current/contemporary physics could propose would be unsatisfactory regarding the physics as it will be developed in the future (see Lycan 2003. In Chomsky and His Critics).
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I have not been concerned with the question of
“reduction of mind to matter,” and do not even
understand what the question is. … I use the
term “mind” with no ontological import:
rather, as an informal way of referring to the
“study of the body—specifically the brain—
conducted at a certain level of abstraction.
… I also see no reason to question the general
conclusion reached long ago that thought is “a
little agitation of the brain” (Hume) or “a
secretion of the brain” that should be considered
no “more wonderful than gravity, a property of
matter” (Darwin) … From this point of view,
there is no place for Lycan’s problem about
“reduction of mind to matter.” (Chomsky 2003.
Reply to Lycan: 257-8)

Question 22

Physical vs. Mental

Answer 22

The distinction between mental and physical or material can have only a descriptive content. It cannot be scientifically sustained and it has no metaphysical import.
What does “merely physical” mean? Are “mental things” the only things that are not “merely physical”? How about magnets? Stable molecules? Insects? What is the import of the word “things”? (Chomsky 2003. Reply to Lycan: 259)
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There is an intrinsic error among materialists who persist in talking about the difference between the mental and the physical: they perpetrate a kind of dualism they aim to reject (see Strawson 2003).
We should turn to experiential vs. non-experiential terminology.
By “mind,” I mean the mental aspect of the world, with no concern for defining the notion more closely and no expectation that we will find some interesting kind of unity or boundaries, any more than elsewhere; no one cares to sharpen the boundaries of “the chemical.” (Chomsky 2000: 75)
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Since the brain, or elements of it, are critically involved in linguistic and other mental phenomena, we may use the term “mind”—loosely but adequately—in speaking of the brain, viewed from a particular perspective developed in the course of inquiry into certain aspects of human nature and its manifestation. (Chomsky 2000: 76)
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Question 23

Methodological Naturalism

Answer 23

[A] “naturalistic approach” to the mind investigates mental aspects of the world … seeking to construct intelligible explanatory theories, with the hope of eventual integration with the “core” natural sciences. Such “methodological naturalism” can be counterposed to what might be called “methodological dualism,” the view that we must abandon scientific rationality when we study humans “above the neck” (metaphorically speaking), becoming mystic in this unique domain, imposing arbitrary stipulations and a priori demands of a sort that would never be contemplated in the sciences, or in other ways departing from normal canons of inquiry. (Chomsky 2000: 76)

Naturalistic inquiries onto the mind yield theories about the brain, its state and properties: UG, for example. (Chomsky 2000: 103)

Question 24

Physics

Answer 24

Epistemological characterisation:
The domain of the physical is what we come (more or less) to understand and hope to assimilate to the core natural sciences.
Yet we distinguish between physical things that represent the world from physical things that do not.
We thus seem to rely to some distinctions between the mental and the physical.
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For naturalistic inquiry, there is no interest
in taking “mental types” to be non-
biological … The computer analogy can be
useful as a stimulus to the imagination, much as
mechanical automata were for seventeenth and
eighteenth-century scientists. (Chomsky; Reply
to Lycan: 261)

Question 25

Physicalism

Answer 25

The term “physical” has no definite 
content. 
Thus physicalist thesis turn out to be 
meaningless, they lack a definite content 
(and thus truth-value). 
They are not empirical hypothesis and 
cannot play a serious role in enquiry. 

This rests on the fact that there is no a priori conception
of the physical grounded in natural language, folk
science or metaphysics, which provides the required
content.

Given the character of scientific inquiry (in particular in
physics) physicalists cannot hope to identify a definite
meaning for the term “physical” from a consideration of physical theory.

Question 26

Problems vs. Mysteries

Answer 26

Problems are questions that can be formulated in such a way that they allow us to proceed with serious inquiry.
Mysteries are problems which cannot be (scientifically) inquired, because they escape our capacities, i.e. because we are ill equipped to solve them (e.g.: as a mouse is ill equipped to deal with prime numbers).
This rests on the limits and power of the human intellect/mind.

Descartes’s dualism was not abandoned because he could not solve “the interaction problem,” but because his problem could not be posed; Functionalism did not repair a meaningful flaw in the Identity Theory… Computational theories of language, insect navigation, etc., require no Identity Theory. They are theories about the nature of the organism (mostly its brain) that have to be judged on their merits as explanatory theories, like others. Prior to unification with core physics, chemistry needed no Identity Theory, surely not one that linked it to the physics of the day, which had to be radically revised to be unified with chemistry … these lesson apply to the study of the mental aspects of the world. (Chomsky; Reply to Lycan: 260-1)

[I]t is unknown whether aspects of the theory of mind—say, questions about consciousness—are problems or mysteries for humans, though in principle we could discover the answer, even discover that they are mysteries. (Chomsky 2000: 83

Question 27

Dualism

Answer 27

Many problems linked to philosophy of mind/language are driven by a dualist conception. It is often claimed that the mental must be characterized in terms of access to consciousness, awareness, and the like.
Thus faculties like LAD (Language Acquisition Device) or UG posited by the Chomskian school cannot be characterized as mental or psychological (see Nagel) insofar as they escape a subject’s awareness. They do not differ from physical properties.

Some also claims (see Quine) that one cannot follow these rules; at best one’s action fits these rules, for we can talk of rules guiding actions only insofar as they are consciously applied to cause behavior.
All these “philosophical” worries rest on an implicit dualism at work. That is, on the distinction between the mind and the body and the view that a naturalistic account remains silent on the nature of the former.
Thus while some philosophers engage themselves in some form of reductionism and/or eliminativism, others accept a form of behaviourism.

Question 28

Cartesian Dualism and its Collapse

Answer 28

[T]he reasons for the collapse of Cartesian dualism are somewhat misconstrued: as noted, it was the theory of body that was refuted, leaving no intelligible mind-body problem, no notion of “physical,” etc. In this realm, we have only the naturalistic approach: to construct explanatory theory in whatever terms are appropriate, and to face the unification problem. Second, it is, for the moment, only a hope that “neurological terms” are relevant for the unification problem. Finally, there is no reason to try to define the “mental vocabulary” of ordinary discourse in a naturalistic framework, just as no one contemplates that for “physical vocabulary,” at least in the modern period. (Chomsky 2000: 103)