Exam 5: René Descartes Mind and Body

Why does Descartes assert that corporeal objects exist, but that they are not exactly such as we perceive by the senses? How does God figure in Descartes's assertion? Do you agree with Descartes? Explain your answer.

According to Velmans, "we can say that when consciousness is present, phenomenal content (consciousness of something) is present."

According to Nagel, "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."

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

Locke says, "it must be allowed, that, if the same _____________ can be transferred from one thinking substance to another, it will be possible that two thinking substances may make but one person."

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

Explain what Nagel means when he says, "It is useless to base the defense of materialism on any analysis of mental phenomena that fails to deal explicitly with their subjective character. For there is no reason to suppose that a reduction which seems plausible when no attempt is made to account for consciousness can be extended to include consciousness."

Explain what Hume means when he says, "It must be some one impression, that gives rise to every real idea."

James says, "So far, all seems plain sailing, but my thesis will probably grow less plausible to the reader when I pass from __________ to __________, or from the case of things presented to that of things remote."

Explain what "substance dualism" means.

Elisabeth argues that a substance dualist must hold that no matter what condition the body finds itself in-if, for example, a person has fainted-the mind should still be able to exercise its power of thought. Why is this an important issue for substance dualism?

According to Cavendish, there is a double __________ and a double _________.

A major point of Elisabeth's criticism of Descartes focuses on the mind-body problem concerning the question, "How is it possible for two really distinct substances to ..."

Shapiro suggests that "we can read Elisabeth as here working towards an intermediary position, one between the _________________ she originally identified with Descartes's own and the ______________ which she then seemed to take to be the only alternative."

According to Shapiro, Elisabeth seems to be arguing the following: "For maintaining that thought is an autonomous activity does not require us to claim that it is an independent ___________; we need not think of thought as an entity subsisting in and by itself."

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

According to Churchland, "There is a vast psychological literature, and a nontrivial neuroscientific literature, on this topic. Some of it powerfully suggests that attention and awareness are pretty closely connected. The approach might of course be wrong, for it is a metaphysical hypothesis."

Descartes claims that he has a clear and distinct idea of "mind" which he defines as an epistemological ideality.

Velmans says, "Following the success of the brain sciences and related sciences, 20th century theories of mind in the West became increasingly materialistic, assuming physical 'stuff' to be basic, and consciousness in some way _____________ or dependent on the existence of physical forms."

According to Cavendish, "perception, observation, and intelligence do not make reason-reason being the cause, and they the effects." What does Cavendish mean by this claim?