Exam 5: René Descartes Mind and Body

Descartes's position in which he asserts that we have a mind and a body is called ...

According to Churchland, "the mysteriousness of a problem is not a fact about the problem, it is not a metaphysical feature of the universe-it is an epistemological fact about us."

Explain what Churchland means when she says, "the mysteriousness of a problem is not a fact about the problem, it is not a metaphysical feature of the universe-it is an epistemological fact about us." Do you agree with Churchland?

Explain what Velleman means when he suggests that "Perhaps, then, liberation from the passage of time would entail liberation from suffering altogether, though not of course from pain."

Cavendish criticizes Descartes's claim that all other animals besides man lack reason since other animals cannot express their mind, thoughts or conceptions, either by speech or any other signs, as man can do. According to Cavendish, "although they cannot talk or give intelligence to each other by speech, nevertheless each has its own peculiar and particular ..."

Velleman says. "Just as a single point in space can contain only part of an extended object, a spatial part, so a single point in time can contain only part of a persisting object, a temporal part. The object fills time by having one temporal part after another, just as it fills space by having one spatial part next to another. An object that persists through time in this way is said to ..."

There are those who complain about the drawbacks of believing in an enduring self, for example, the loneliness of proprietorship in a single life, and the emotions attendant upon time's passage. They also complain of the sense that they are "moving faster and faster" through the tunnel, toward the "darkness" at its end. However, Velleman says that "the remedy for these anxieties and regrets is not to get out of the tunnel and live 'in the open air'; the remedy is to stop moving." Explain Velleman's point.

Nagel claims that "If we acknowledge that a physical theory of mind must account for the subjective character of experience, we must admit that no presently available conception gives us a clue how this could be done."

Conway says, "if spirit and body are so contrary one to another, so that a spirit is only life, or a living and sensible substance, but a body a certain mass merely dead; a spirit penetrable and indiscerpible [having no separate parts], but a body impenetrable and discerpible [having separate parts], which are all contrary attributes." Conway then asks the following question:

Velmans says, "To avoid confusion, and to enable such research, it is important to reserve the term mind for psychological states and processes that may or may not be transparent."

Velleman suggests that an effect produced by "experiential anticipation, in which I prefigure a future experience from the perspective that I expect to occupy in it. A single self appears to have its full existence both now and later, because I who anticipate the experience and the 'I' of the anticipated experience become superimposed."

Explain what Nagel means when he says, "Very little work has been done on the basic question (from which mention of the brain can be entirely omitted) whether any sense can be made of experiences having an objective character at all."

Why does Shapiro argue that "The passions thus provide just the right sort of context for Elisabeth's making the point she does about the soul-body union. They serve to illustrate her thesis about the relation between mind and body"?

James says, "I believe that metaphysics, when once it has evaporated to this estate of pure diaphaneity, is on the point of disappearing altogether. It is the name of a nonentity, and has no right to a place among first principles."

Shapiro claims that "if Elisabeth does indeed want to maintain that the condition of the body enables the soul to be immaterial, I do not see how she can maintain that the soul is sacred."

Why does Hume asserts that "Pain and pleasure, grief and joy, passions and sensations succeed each other, and never all exist at the same time"? Do you agree with Hume? Explain your answer.

Hume questions the idea of "self" when he asks, "Unluckily all these positive assertions are contrary to that very experience, which is pleaded for them, nor have we any idea of self, after the manner it is here explained. For from what impression could this idea be derived?"

Nagel says, "Reflection on what it is like to be a bat seems to lead us, therefore, to the conclusion that there are facts that do not consist in the truth of propositions expressible in a human language. We can be compelled to recognize the existence of such facts without being able to state or comprehend them."

Nagel says of consciousness, "No doubt it occurs in countless forms totally unimaginable to us, on other planets in other solar systems throughout the universe. But no matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism."

Churchland asserts that "The only thing you can conclude from the fact that attention is mysterious, or sensorimotor integration is mysterious, or that consciousness is mysterious, is that we ..."