(Vincent) Van Gogh
Artist who painted The Starry Night
(Rene) Magritte
Artist who painted The Treachery of Images
Metaphysics
The area of philosophy concerned with fundamental
questions about the nature of reality
Metaphysical monism
A metaphysical position that claims that there is only one kind of reality
Metaphysical dualism
A metaphysical position that claims that there are two kinds of realities
Metaphysical materialism
A type of monism that claims that reality is totally physical in nature
Physicalism
A synonym for metaphysical materialism
Metaphysical idealism
A type of monism that claims that reality is entirely mental or spiritual in nature
Ockham's Razor
The principle that we should eliminate (shave off ) all
unnecessary entities and explanatory principles in our theories
Inference
Both science and metaphysics go beyond what is observed and try to construct large-scale theories that will explain and make sense out of what is observed. Consequently, both science and metaphysics cannot directly verify their theories but must make use
Three
Every metaphysical theory attempts to lump things into the following _____ broad categories: things that are not real; realities that can be reduced to more fundamental realities; and things that are fundamentally real
Eliminativist (eliminativism)
In metaphysics, the strategy that eliminates or gets rid of things that are not real
Reductionist (reductionism)
In metaphysics, the strategy that argues certain realities can be reduced to more fundamental realities
Bottom-line
In metaphysics, the strategy that clarifies which things are fundamentally real
Mind-body dualism
The claim that the mind and the body (which includes the brain) are separate entities
Contradiction
1. The body is a physical thing.
2. The mind is a nonphysical thing.
3. The mind and body interact and causally affect one another.
4. Nonphysical things cannot causally interact with physical things.
You can believe any combination of three of them, but
Physicalism
The theory that human beings can be explained completely and adequately in terms of their physical or material components
Interactionism
The most common version of dualism, which claims that the mind and body, though different, causally interact with one another
Idealism
Position on the mind-body problem that asserts the physical world and the body are just a collection of mental experiences or are aspects of a larger mental reality
Identity theory
A type of physicalism that denies the existence of a
separate, nonphysical mind but retains language that refers to the mind
Reductionism
A synonym for the identity theory
Eliminativism (Eliminative materialism)
A type of physicalism that denies the existence of a
separate, nonphysical mind and discards all language that refers to mental events
Functionalism
A philosophy that claims that the mind is characterized by particular patterns of input-processing-output
Mind-body dualism
Synonyms include Cartesian dualism, substance dualism, interactionism, psychophysical dualism
Consciousness
Descartes adduces three arguments in favor of the view that the mind and body are separate realities: they include the argument from doubt, the argument from divisibility, and the argument from _____
Nonidentity of discernibles (Indiscernibility of identicals)
Implicit within all of Descartes' arguments for mind-body dualism include which principle?
Identical
The form of Descartes' arguments for dualism:
1. The body has property A.
2. The mind has property non-A.
3. If two things do not have exactly identical properties, then they cannot be _____.
4. Therefore, the mind and the body are not identical. They are
(The) Argument from Doubt
1. I can doubt my body exists.
2. I cannot doubt my mind exists.
3. If two things do not have exactly identical properties, then they cannot be identical.
4. Therefore, the mind and the body are not identical.
(The) Argument from Divisibility
1. The body is divisible.
2. The mind is indivisible.
3. If two things do not have exactly identical properties, then they cannot be identical.
4. Therefore, the mind and the body are not identical.
Cerebral Commissurotomy
Surgery in which the surgeon severs the bundle of nerves (the corpus callosum) that connects the two hemispheres of the brain. Patients with these split brains experience a fragmentation within their experience. The part of the brain that processes visual
(The) Argument from Consciousness
1. Minds have the property of consciousness.
2. Bodies as materials objects do not have the property of consciousness.
3. If two things do not have exactly identical properties, then they cannot be identical.
4. Therefore, the mind and the body are not id
Cartesian compromise
In the physical realm, science is the dominant authority and gives us the truth. We do not consult the Church or the Bible to see how fast the heart pumps its blood; science informs us about such facts. But according to the _____ _____, science cannot tel
Interactionism
Descartes' specific theory of dualism in which mind and body are not only different substances but interact and causally affect one another.
PIneal gland
Descartes' (unsatisfactory) resolution to the problem of interactionism
Strengths (of dualism)
1. Descartes' view allows him to accept the scientific account of the physical world while retaining traditional notions of the mind and human freedom.
2. Descartes' view claims that the properties of matter could never produce something as mysterious and
Weaknesses (of dualism)
1. Descartes had a major problem explaining how a nonspatial mind can influence a spatially located brain. Do you think Descartes's account of where and how mind-body interaction takes place is satisfactory? If not, can you even conceive of another explan
(The) Problems with Dualism
1. Where does the interaction take place?
2. How does interaction occur?
3. What about the conservation of energy?
4. What about the success of brain science?
Correlation
The constant _____ between mental events and brain events plus the principle of Ockham's razor makes physicalism seem very attractive
Emergent
Properties of a whole that are not found in the parts--such as the wetness that's found in water but not in the hydrogen or oxygen that make up water--are known as ______ properties
Reductionism
Synonym for the identity theory
Identity theory
Theory that treats mental events as real but claims that they are identical to brain events
Phineas Gage
The story of this railroad worker suggests one's personality can be greatly affected by the state of one's brain.
Official position
Gilbert Ryle's name for the default of most individuals on the mind-body problem, which is dualism
Category mistake
If you thought that a school "dance" was some entity apart from the motions of various people's bodies and the music, you'd be guilty of
Folk psychology
Pejorative term used by eliminativists to characterize traditional psychological theories
Eliminativism
Theory that our mentalistic talk is so deeply flawed that it must be abandoned, because there is no hope of correlating our talk about beliefs and desires with our talk about brain states, as the identity theorist does
(Fritz) Kahn
Artist of Man as an Industrial Palace (1926)
Strengths (of physicalism)
1. For some time now, brain researchers have been able to attach wires to a person's head and study the brain's electrical impulses by projecting their images onto the screen of a monitor. For example, when a person is asked to mentally choose a playing c
Weaknesses (of physicalism)
1. Mary, the colorblind neuro-scientist thought experiment (called the knowledge argument)
2. Leibniz might say that even if a computer can defeat a human chess master, we will fi nd only electronic chips and wires within this mechanism; we will not fi nd
Poe (Edgar Allan)
Well-known author of "Maelzel's Chess-Player" who argued that in principle no machine could play the game of chess
Big Blue
The IBM computer that first defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov
Multiple realizability
The property by which something can be realized (embodied, instantiated) in multiple ways and in different media
Independent
The identity theory says that mental events or states (believing, doubting, willing, feeling pain, and so on) are identical to a particular brain state. However, the
functionalist argues that what is essential to a mind is not a certain sort of material (
Neutral
Strictly speaking, functionalism is _____ on the issue of dualism versus physicalism
Minds
Even if it turns out that our brains are what produce our psychological properties, there could be other ways that psychological states could occur. Hence, _____ have the property of multiple realizability. (Think of the analogy with chess.)
Physicalists
There is no official position on what a system must be made out of to have mental states. However, the fact is that most functionalists are _____. They would say that it happens to be the case that our functional mental states are identified with brain st
Internal
Functionalists claim that mentalistic terms (belief, desire, love) do not alone refer to behavior or dispositions to behavior. Unlike the behaviorist, the functionalist says that mental states can function as the inner causes of behavior. Furthermore, the
Causal
The positive side of functionalism is the theory that mental states are defined in terms of their _____ role (how they function)
Software
According to the functionalist, the hardware of the computer (the wires, chips, and so on) are like the brain or whatever substance underlies the mental states. The software is a set of logical relationships that direct the processing of inputs, the chang
Turing Test
Operational test produced by Alan Turing to determine
whether a computer can think or not
Strong AI (thesis)
The claim that an appropriately programmed computer really is a mind and can be said to literally
understand, believe, and have other cognitive states
Weak AI (thesis)
The claim that artificial intelligence research may help us explore various theoretical models of human mental processes while acknowledging that computers only simulate mental activities
Irrelevant
Functionalism claims that a mind is anything that has the functional capabilities to behave in ways characteristic of human minds. The materials composing the system (wet gray matter or electrical circuits) are _____ to its status as a mind. Hence, if a c
Chinese Room (thought experiment)
Thought experiment created by John Searle, which was an attempt to refute the strong AI thesis
Intentionality
A feature of certain mental states (such as beliefs) by
which they are directed at or are about objects
or states of affairs in the world
Constitute
For Searle, passing the Turing Test may be evidence that the producer of the apparently intelligible responses has a mind, but this feat alone does not _____ having a mind
Biological naturalism
The name of Searle's resolution to the mind-body problem, which is a physicalist account (1.Consciousness is real and irreducible [against the eliminativists]; 2. Conscious states are caused by neuronal processes [against the dualists]; 3. All conscious s
Conscious
1. If something has a mind, it has subjective, _____ experiences.
2. Even computers that pass the Turing Test do not have subjective, conscious experiences.
3. Therefore, even computers that pass the Turing Test do not have minds.
Psychophysical
For Chalmers, a true theory of everything would entail both physical laws and _____ laws
Qualia
The raw sensation of experience; individual instances of subjective, conscious experience such as what it feels like to experience a sunset
Zombie (argument)
Argument devised by David Chalmers:
1. It is conceivable that there be zombies.
2. If it is conceivable that there be zombies, it is metaphysically possible that there be zombies.
3. If it is metaphysically possible that there be zombies, then consciousne
Mary (knowledge argument)
Thought experiment in which there is a 23rd-century brain scientist who is completely color-blind. She experiences only black, white, and gray. Theoretically, she could have complete scientific knowledge of your brain states while you were experiencing a
Consciousness
The subjective, inner life of the mind
Easy problems (of consciousness)
For Chalmers, questions (such as how can a human subject discriminate sensory stimuli and react to them appropriately?) that are associated with consciousness in that they all concern the objective mechanisms of the cognitive system, which further researc
Hard problem (of consciousness)
For Chalmers, the question of how physical processes in the brain give rise to subjective experience
Primitive
A property that cannot be reduced to or analyzed in terms of any more basic property
Panpsychism
The view that everything has mental properties. That's not to
say that everything has a mind, but it is to say that everything has features of the sort we associate with minds, like perceiving, desiring, remembering, and so on. This applies to inanimate a
Property dualism
The view that the mind is an arrangement of nonphysical properties arising from yet dependent on physical properties; also called "emergent materialism," "nonreductive materialism," and "soft materialism
Emergent (property)
A property that comes into being when things that lack that property become related in the appropriate ways
Emergentism
The view that consciousness is an emergent property. The individual neurons that make up our brains are not conscious. But once they become related to one another in the right sorts of ways, consciousness emerges.
Circumstantial freedom
The ability and the opportunity to perform whatever action we choose, that is, freedom from external forces, obstacles, and natural limitations that restrict or compel our actions
Metaphysical freedom
The power of the self to choose among genuine alternatives; free will
Sufficient
It follows that if we have metaphysical freedom (free will), then the given circumstances and our psychological makeup prior to a decision are not _____ to make a particular choice necessary or inevitable.
Free will and moral responsibility problem
1. We are determined.
2. If we are determined, then we lack the freedom necessary to be morally responsible.
3. We do have the freedom necessary to be morally responsible.
Determinism
The claim that all events are the necessary result of previous causes
Incompatibilism
The claim that determinism is incompatible with the sort of freedom
required to be morally responsible for our behavior
Morally responsible
What does it mean to be _____ _____ for an action? It means that we deserve praise or rebuke, credit or blame, reward or punishment for that action. The issue is not whether rewards or punishments are effective in causally determining a person's behavior.
Requires
The incompatibilist claim is that having moral responsibility _____ that we have metaphysical freedom.
Necessary
All three positions on the free will debate agree that some sort of freedom is a _____ condition for moral responsibility
Can
Ought implies _____
Circumstantial
All three positions on the free will debate would agree that if you lack _____ freedom in a situation (a gun is held to your head, you are drugged, or you are tied up), then you cannot be responsible for what you do or don't do when suffering from these c
Compatibilism
Position on the free will debate that argues circumstantial
freedom is a sufficient condition for a person to be morally responsible
Libertarianism and Hard Determinism (Hard Determinism and Libertarianism)
Positions on the free will debate that argue circumstantial
freedom is merely a minimal, necessary condition for responsibility and a person must also have metaphysical freedom to be held morally accountable for his or her behavior
Hard Determinism
The dual claims that (1) having metaphysical freedom is a necessary condition for people to be morally responsible for their choices in any meaningful sense of the word and (2) we do not
have the metaphysical freedom required for moral responsibility
Libertarianism
Position on the free will debate that argues we do have metaphysical freedom; a rejection of determinism
Compatibilism
The thesis that we are both determined and have the sort of freedom necessary to be morally responsible for our actions; sometimes called soft determinism
(The) Problems with Libertarianism
1. Libertarianism Is in Conflict with the Scientific View of the World
2. Libertarianism Requires the Problematic Notion of Uncaused Events
3. Libertarianism Fails to Explain the Fact That
We Can Influence Other People's Behavior
Basic Argument (of determinism)
1. Every event, without exception, is causally determined by prior events.
2. Human thoughts, choices, and actions are events.
3. Therefore, human thoughts, choices, and actions are, without exception, causally determined by prior events.
100
It is important to be clear about the fact that the determinist is claiming that every event is _____ percent determined by prior causes
All some
The issue of universal causation offers only two extremes and no middle ground. Either _____ human behavior is determined by previous causes (determinism), or _____ human behavior is not determined by previous causes (libertarianism).
Theological determinism
The view that God is the ultimate cause of
everything that happens in the world, including human actions
Behavior
Psychological state + External Circumstances = Human _____
Objections (typically made against determinism)
1. When I make a choice, I have the undeniable feeling that the choice is free.
2. When I make a choice, I could always have chosen differently.
3. The fact that sometimes I have to deliberate to make a decision proves that I am not determined.
4. It is i
Principle
While agreeing that a person's behavior may not be perfectly predictable in practice, the determinist would say that all human behavior is predictable in _____
Compatibilist
It is the denial of moral responsibility that sets the hard determinist apart from the _____
Necessary
For both the hard determinist and the libertarian, metaphysical freedom is a _____ condition for moral responsibility
(Clarence) Darrow
Famous criminal attorney who defended Leopold and Loeb
Causes
The hard determinist would say that to protect society, it is reasonable to confine criminals if they cannot help but commit crimes. The unpleasant consequences of crime will be determining _____ that will help prevent future crimes.
Sake
What the hard determinist would not agree to is punishment for punishment's _____ or punishment that assumes the criminal had the freedom to do otherwise than he or she did
Pantheism
The belief that God constitutes the whole of reality and that everything in nature, including individual persons, are modes or aspects of God's being
(Benedict) Spinoza
____ argued God does not act from freedom of the will, because his actions flow from the necessities
built into his own nature
Stone
Spinoza says people are like the "virtuous ____" in that they are deceived because they think themselves free, and the sole reason for thinking so is
that they are conscious of their own actions, and ignorant of the causes by which those actions are deter
Difference
According to the determinist, if we could keep
constant the exact psychological state you were in when you made a particular choice and if we could put you back into the exact same set of circumstances, your behavior would always be the same. Obviously, y
Strengths (of hard determinism)
1. Does it seem that determinism captures some of the basic intuitions we assume in our daily life?
2. Since science has opened up our understanding of nature by formulating the laws that explain events, isn't it likely that a science of behavior will lik
Weaknesses (of hard determinism)
1. Have the determinists made an illegitimate jump from the observation that "some behavior is conditioned and predictable" to the much stronger claim that "all behavior is conditioned and predictable"?
2. Does it make sense to develop and defend a theory
Free Will Impossibilism
The idea that if determinism is true there is no free will and that if indeterminism is true there is no free will; so, there is no free will
Libertarianism
The position that (1) we are not determined and (2) we do
have freedom of the will (metaphysical freedom) and (3) we have the capacity to be morally responsible for our actions
(The) Problems with Determinism
1) The Determinist Makes an Unwarranted Generalization
from a Limited Amount of Evidence
2) Determinism Undermines the Notion of Rationality
3) Determinism Confuses the Methodological Assumptions
of Science with Metaphysical Conclusions
All
Libertarians argue the most that the determinist can claim, based on experiments and case studies, is that "some behavior is determined." But it is a big leap from that statement to the conclusion that "____ behavior is determined.
Positive Arguments for Libertarianism
1) The Argument from Introspection
2) The Argument from Deliberation
3) The Argument from Moral Responsibility
Agency Theory
A version of libertarianism that rejects both determinism and indeterminism; this theory claims that events are brought about by agents
Event causation
Occurs when a prior event necessarily causes a subsequent event
Agent causation
Occurs when an event is brought about through the free action of an agent (person, self )
(Richard) Taylor and (Roderick) Chisholm
Philosophers associated with agency theory
Event causation
Examples include the motion of billiard balls and subatomic events
Agent causation
Examples include voting, making a promise, ordering from a menu, emailing a friend, reading a novel
Some
It is important to note that the libertarian does not need to make the claim that all human actions are free and undetermined. A libertarian merely asserts that _____ human
actions are free and undetermined.
God
If we are responsible, then have a prerogative which some would attribute only to _____: each of us when we act, is a prime mover unmoved. In doing what we do, we cause certain events to happen, and nothing--or no one--causes us to cause those events to
Existence
What is meant here by saying that _____ precedes essence? It means that, first of all, man exists, turns up, appears on the scene and, only afterwards, defines himself."--Jean-Paul Sartre
Condemned
We are _____ to be free"--Jean-Paul Sartre
Facticity (or throwness)
Sartre's term for those features of our past or present that we
were not free to choose and yet they seem to set limits on the course of our lives
Transcendence
Sartre's term for the root of our freedom, for our ability to define ourselves by our possibilities and all the ways in which each of us is continually creating our own future in terms of our choices, our plans, our dreams, and our ambitions
Act
Sartre goes so far as to say that even our emotions or passions are not forces that control us; instead, they are ways that we apprehend the world and _____ in it
Bad faith
Sartre's term for when we deny our freedom and our
responsibility for who we are
Strengths (of libertarianism)
1. Doesn't libertarianism do the best job of explaining what we experience internally when we deliberate, choose, and act? You can observe another person from the outside and
entertain the following theory: "She is like a machine, because her internal psy
Weaknesses (of libertarianism)
1. According to the libertarian, we experience our own freedom when we make choices. But in our dreams, we have the feeling that we are making choices even though we know
that dreams are the product of the physiological and psychological causes that produ
Vengeance
It is regarded as the earliest form of punishment (and is at the heart of blood feuds, which played a major role in small-scale societies)
Retribution
The notion of ______ is tied to the idea that people who do wrong deserve to be punished.
Lex talionis
Latin for "an eye for an eye
Positive Retributivism
Idea in which the guilty deserve to be punished; that is, it is morally appropriate to punish the guilty
Negative retributivism
Idea in which only the guilty deserve to be punished, so it is not morally appropriate to punish those who are not guilty.
Proportionality
Idea in which the punishment should fit the crimes, so it is wrong to punish someone severely for a minor crime
Free will
The moral propriety of retribution does seem to depend on ____ _____
Backward-looking
Approach to punishment in which the decision about whether punishment is appropriate depends on what happened in the past
Forward-looking
Approach to punishment in which the decision about whether punishment is appropriate depends on the future effects of punishing someone
Utilitarian (Utilitarianism)
Approach to punishment that rejects the idea that anyone deserves punishment. Instead, punishment, like everything else, is right insofar as it produces good consequences and wrong insofar as it produces bad consequences.
Deter
Utilitarians often justify punishment by claiming it will _____ future crime, a positive good
Barbaric
Utilitarian approaches to punishment, in theory, avoids any assumptions about free will. It also avoids the putatively _____ nature of retributivism.
Significant
In utilitarian approaches to punishment, all that matters is getting good effects in the future, then guilt and innocence are not, in themselves, morally ______ (same with proportionality)
Rehabilitation (approach)
Approach to punishment, which is forward-looking and argues criminals are sick and need medical treatment and to be rehabilitated
Counterintuitive
The quarantine and rehabilitation theories, like the utilitarian theory, do not depend upon free will, but are _____ in many ways, for they take into account only future considerations, not the guilt of the person or the severity of the crime, Against wha
Quarantine (approach)
Approach very similar to the rehabilitation model, in which just as we are morally justified in quarantining people who have dangerous viruses, so we are morally justified in quarantining people who we anticipate will pose a danger to society
Incompatibilism
If we are determined, we lack the freedom necessary to be morally responsible
Compatibilism
Synonym for soft materialism
Compatibilism (soft materialism)
The claim that we are determined and have the sort of freedom necessary to be morally responsible for our actions.
One-hundred
The compatibilist agrees with the hard determinist that the thesis of universal causation applies to all human actions. In other words, the compatibilist believes human actions are _____ percent determined just as much as the hard determinist does. The di
Lack
The major difference between compatibilism and the other two positions is that the compatibilist does not believe that a _____ of causal determination is necessary to have moral responsibility.
External
According to the (traditional) compatibilist, you are free and responsible as long as your actions are not forced by _____ conditions but are controlled mainly by your own psychological states
Voluntary
Compatibilists argue for their position by arguing for a particular conception of freedom. They claim that free actions are those that are done voluntarily. To
say that an action is _____, according to the compatibilist, does not mean that the action lack
Freedom
The compatibilist insists, no matter how your personality was formed and by what causal mechanisms, your personality is you, and as long as your decisions are made by you, _____ also reigns supreme
Verbal
W.T. Stace claims that the free-will problem is merely a _____ one, that it is based on an incorrect definition of free will
Indeterminism
For Stace, the incorrect definition of free will (that has led to the denial of free will)
Irrelevant
As soon as we see what the true definition (of free will) is we shall find that the question whether the world is deterministic, as Newtonian science implied, or in a measure indeterministic, as current physics teaches, is wholly _____ to the problem"--W
Incorrect
Whatever degree of determinism prevails in the world, human actions appear to be as much determined as anything else. And if this is so, it cannot be the case that what distinguishes actions freely chosen from those which are not free is that the latter
Psychological
Acts freely done are those whose immediate
causes are _____ states in the agent. Acts not freely done are those whose immediate causes are states of affairs external to the agent."--W.T. Stace
Requires
Thus, we see that moral responsibility is not only consistent with determinism, but _____ it. The assumption on which punishment is based is that human behavior is causally determined. If pain could not be a cause of truth-telling, there would be no just
Strengths (of compatibilism)
1. By rejecting the claim that some events (psychological states) are uncaused, is the compatibilist's position more consistent with the most well-founded principles of physics and the behavioral sciences than that of the libertarian?
2. In building a the
Weaknesses (of compatibilism)
1. Suppose you found out that since the age of eight, you have been the subject of a scientific experiment. Scientists found that from a distance, they could bombard your brain with ultrasonic rays that would cause you to have the particular values, likes
Deep-self compatibilism
Synonym for contemporary compatibilism
Authentic (desires)
Desires that we have chosen and that we identify with
Free will
For a deep self-compatibilist, _____ _____ is the ability to act on authentic desires (i.e., desires we truly want to act on)
First-order (desire)
For Harry Frankfurt, base desires such as the desire to eat; or, a desire for something other than a desire
Second-order (desire)
For Harry Frankfurt, the human ability to have desires about desires
Second-order volition
For Harry Frankfurt, a second order desire to act on a first order desire
Animals
According to deep self-compatibilism, _____ should not be considered to have genuine free will, for they lack the ability to choose and identify with their desires