Great Ideas of Philosophy

Lecture Fifty-FourPhilosophy of Mind, If There Is OneScope: Philosophy of mind, though a wide ranging subject, is heavily influenced by the mind/body problem andby methods and perspectives shaped by the position one takes on that problem. The principal grounds ofdisagreement within philosophy of mind center on the question of whether the right framework forconsidering issues is provided by the developed sciences or through more humanistic and, some wouldcontend, realistic frameworks. Arguments favoring the former are often tied to an ontological monismadmitting of only one kind of “stuff” comprising reality, and that a physical or material kind. Thiscommitment may still result in a dualistic language but for reasons of convenience or convention. Relatedissues arise from the thesis that knowledge of the external world is always mediated by perceptualmechanisms and, thus, is never direct. Rather, the external world is “represented” in a manner that altersthe reality thus represented. In any case, what is known and knowable on this account is exhausted by thematerial physical facts of reality. The famous “Mary problem” is a challenge to this and raises the generalquestion of perceptual qualia and their place (if any) with a reductionistic and physicalistic philosophy ofpsychology.OutlineI. Descartes drew a sharp distinction between himself as a thinking thing—res cogitans—and as an extendedthing—res extensa—drawing criticism from the likes of Thomas Hobbes and Pierre Gassendi.A. Both would surely have agreed with the broad scientific perspective according to which the physicalsciences are “complete.”1. That term refers to the view that nothing in the domain of the “really real” falls outside the realm ofthe “really physical,” of physics.2. In other words, reality is not composed of two radically different kinds of stuff but of one kind only—the physical.B. This position is referred to as ontological monism and stands in opposition to ontological dualism.1. For the ontological monist, there is but one kind of furniture in reality.2. For the ontological dualist, there are two; the dualist adds the mental to the physical.3. Were the latter position to be correct, it is argued that physics would be “incomplete,” because its lawsand principles do not account for this other immaterial, non-physical aspect or part of reality.C. The ontological monist can retain mentalistic terms and concepts as a form of “folk” psychology.1. For practical purposes, it may be impossible to conduct normal social and personal lives without thisage-old language of mental states and mental events.2. Donald Davidson dubbed this use of language anomalous monism: a recognition both of the validity ofontological monism and the fact that our mentalistic terms and concepts will never be reduced tophysical events and processes.II. The position one takes on the mind/body problem is likely—either implicitly or explicitly—to inform positionstaken on a far wider range of issues within the philosophy of mind.A. The mere appearance of mentalistic terms and concepts will shape the more general approaches toproblems in philosophy of mind.B. The problem of representation is a central part of the problem of knowledge and an enduring issue inphilosophy of mind.1. At the most fundamental ontological level, our experiences of the external world are complexarrangements of matter and energy.2. We might ask whether we or a honeybee—whose vision is sensitive to an electromagnetic spectrum towhich we are essentially blind—more accurately “represents” the properties of roses and lilies.3. Thus , the question of representation can be stated: Is our knowledge of objects in the external worlddirect or mediated?©2004 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 17