Exam 5: René Descartes Mind and Body

According to Cavendish, there is a double creation and a double annihilation.

A major point of Elisabeth's criticism of Descartes focuses on the mind-body problem is the question, "How is it possible for two really distinct substances to act as if the future is completely determined?"

Explain in detail Locke's definition of "self."

Velleman tells us that "According to ___________, all of the temporal facts can be expressed in terms of the temporal relations between events. One event can occur earlier or later than another, and it can be closer to or further from the other in time."

Those who take materialism to its logical conclusion and who argue that consciousness is nothing more than a state or function of the brain, are called ...

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 do not understand the mechanisms."

According to Nagel, "If the subjective character of experience is fully comprehensible only from __________________, then any shift to greater objectivity-that is, less attachment to a specific viewpoint-does not take us nearer to the real nature of the phenomenon: it takes us farther away from it."

Explain in detail what it means to be a "property dualist." What are some criticisms of this position?

Explain in detail Locke's definition of "personal identity."

Conway says that if the substance dualists are correct, then how does the mind, which is a non-physical substance, feel pain?

James says, "If the world were then and there to go out like a candle, it would remain truth absolute and objective, for it would be ______________, would have no critic, and no one would ever oppose the thought in it to the reality intended."

Explain Locke's meaning when he asserts that if the same consciousness is preserved, whether in the same or different substances, then the personal identity is preserved. Do you agree with Locke?

According to Hume, "The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions successively make their appearance; pass, re-pass, glide away, and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations." Do you think that Hume's analogy works? Explain your answer.

According to Churchland, "problems such as the nature of short-term memory, long-term memory, autobiographical memory, the nature of representation, the nature of sensory-motor integration, top-down effects in perception-not to mention such capacities as attention, depth perception, intelligent eye movement, skill acquisition, planning, decision-making, and so forth," are the so-called Easy Problems.

Explain Descartes's reasoning for his claim that he has a distinct idea of "body." Are Descartes's arguments strong or weak? Explain your answer. 3 How does Descartes define "mind"?

According to James, "a given undivided portion of experience, taken in one context of associates, play the part of a knower, of a state of mind, of consciousness, while in a different context the same undivided bit of experience plays the part of a thing known, of an objective content. In a word, in one group it figures as a thought, in another group as a thing."

Shapiro argues that since Elisabeth "defends neither a reductionist materialism nor a substance dualism, but rather wants to find a way of respecting the autonomy of thought without denying that this faculty of reason is in some essential way dependent on our bodily condition," therefore,

According to James, "a given undivided portion of experience, taken in one context of associates, play the part of a knower, of a state of mind, of consciousness, while in a different context the same undivided bit of experience plays the part of a thing known, of an objective content. In a word, in one group it figures as a _________, in another group as a ________."

Those who take materialism to its logical conclusion and who argue that consciousness is nothing more than a state or function of the brain, are called "reductionists."

Churchland says that some philosophers have labeled the problem of trying to explain consciousness or conscious experience the ...