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(1) Question 1
In The Meditations, Descartes attempts to use arguments from doubt, clear and distinct perceptions, as well as simplicity in order to prove that the mind is distinct and wholly separate from the body. Descartes’ views, commonly known as Cartesian Dualism has attracted criticism from many philosophers.
The first argument made by Descartes is derived from doubt. He concludes that although he can envision the possibility of the perception of his own body in a false manner, he cannot envisage the possibility that he without a mind (or soul). This is because the very act of doubting presupposes the existence of something that does the work of doubting. Next, Descartes proposes that the mind is totally different from the body. He argues that the fact that someone is unsure about being a physical thing is enough to bring him to the conclusion that he is not a physical thing.
The main problem that arises with this argument is the fact that it validates arguments made by people who doubt about those things for which they have inadequate information. The fact that someone is knowledgeable in a certain area does not mean that the statements made with regard to this area are false. In response to this criticism, Descartes states that his intention was not to ‘exclude anything that is physical from his essence’. Instead, he meant to use this argument of doubt so as to come to a conception of himself that excludes all body; his intention was not to come up with a conclusion that was objectively the case. Indeed, Descartes concluded that it was impossible to exclude the possibility of the existence of an aspect of materiality to the soul.
Descartes made the second argument solely from clear and distinct perception. He attempted to prove that the mind is distinct from the body. First, he proposed that all people are thinking about things as opposed to physical things. Next, he argued that not only is the mind separate from the body, it can also live without it. From this argument, he concluded that if two things can exist apart from each other, they must be separate things. If it is possible to imagine a scenario whereby two things exist apart, then God must have the ability to create such a scenario. This means that these two things exist apart, and are distinct from one another. If one applies this to the body and mind, it becomes possible that the two are distinct from one another, since the properties that they exhibit are not shared with each other. If the mind is distinct from the body, it can as well exist separately.
The main problem arises when the question of reality and perception is considered. The fact that one can perceive the mind and body as distinct elements do not mean that they are indeed distinct from each other. However, Descartes rebuffs all criticisms on this argument, insisting that no other comparison can be equated to that of the mind of the body. Descartes appears to be arguing a persuasive point, only that it is one that needs to be argued on its own terms.
Thirdly, Descartes argues from the perspective of simplicity. The main idea here is that everything that is extended can be divided into parts. The body, being an extended being, can be extended into different parts such as arms, legs, and so on. However, Descartes did not believe that it was possible to divide the mind into different parts even though different areas are labeled differently, and are associated with distinct cognitive processes. The main thrust of this argument is that the differently labeled parts are based on the same driving force. Therefore, if the mind cannot be divided into different parts, and all the extended things that exist can be divided into different parts, then the mind is not an extended thing. This led him to the conclusion that the mind is made up of a substance that is different from the body, and, therefore, it must be separable and distinct.
Today, it is clear that destroying one part of a brain leads to detriment insight, memory, hearing, speech, and so on. Descartes would readily agree with this, since he would just say that the brain has a role to play in mental activities. Descartes considers the aspect of ‘pure thought’ to be untouchable by anything physical since it does not involve any physiological events in the brain or elsewhere. This belief made Descartes state that the soul has to continue thinking even when the body has gone into a deep sleep or in the fetal development process. However, it has been said that when we are thinking, our thoughts always appear transparent to us, meaning that we would be aware of our thinking even when we are deeply asleep.
Descartes’ claim that we merely forget the thoughts that we always have during sleep appears a rather far-fetched. If it is true that we simply forget them, it is unclear why we would forget so much while sleeping compared to the thoughts we experience and retain while we are awake.
The last argument of Descartes is based on simplicity. This argument appears to be the most significant for him. This is because it does not seem to be affected by the many new medical techniques which keep providing new evidence to suggest that thinking is a function of the brain. He freely admits that some mental activities require the use of the brain, although the kind of physiological response involved in ‘pure thought processes’, he believes, is not measurable. The main question that is asked of this argument concerns how one can constantly think during sleep and remember none of it. Although the answer that ‘we just forget whatever we have dreamt’ seems far-fetched, it is not without merit. After all, people also forget events that they have experienced in the past while they were conscious.
In general, the problems that are pointed out in Descartes’ dualism can be rectified if they were seen as a product of the philosophical thoughts that were under discussion during his time. Additionally, the dualism argument can be considered rather successful if it was considered on the basis of Cartesian presuppositions. The essence of human beings as ‘thinking beings’ is first and foremost, based on the assumption that clear and distinct perception exists. This assumption, in turn, is based on the assumption that the method of inquiry that involves radical doubt is valid.
The main problem with Descartes’s dualism can be solved through a proper conception of the interaction between the body and mind. If they are distinct, as Descartes suggests, there is a need for an explanation of how an immaterial mind interacts with a material body. At first, Descartes simply responded to this question with the assertion that the soul is simply ‘united’ with the body. Later, he said that the pineal gland is the point where the brain interacts with the soul. Sadly, this did not answer his critic’s question of how these two interact. Descartes’ argument that the mind is independent of the body also leads critics into wanting to know whether it is possible for many individuated minds to inhabit the same body, either in succession or at the same time.
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The time in which Descartes was writing his work may have had a profound influence on his arguments. During this time, the Church was in conflict with the newly introduced scientific approach. Descartes seems to have conveniently managed to please both sides. He gives the church a credible role of dealing with matters of the mind, which is purely immaterial. On the other hand, he conveniently appears to have assigned the corporeal body to scientists. Although this may not be what shaped conclusions of The Meditations, it may have contributed in part to Descartes’ line of argument.
(2) Question 2
The behaviorist conception of psychology is a purely experimental branch of natural science, which is also objective. Its core theoretical goal is to predict and control behavior. The scientific value of the behaviorist conception’s data is not dependent upon the readiness with which these data lend themselves to interpretation with regard to consciousness.
For the behaviorist, man’s behavior, with all its complexity and refinement, forms only a part of his total scheme of investigation. Followers of behaviorism maintain that psychology is a scientific study of different phenomena of consciousness. According to behaviorists, when elementary constituents are given, complex states can be determined. The world of stimuli, which to a natural scientist forms the total phenomena, is just a means to an end for a behaviorist. For a behaviorist, the end is the resulting mental states that can be ‘inspected’ or ‘observed’.
On the other hand, psychological behaviorism was introduced by Arthur W. Staats. According to Arthur, personality is made up of a set of learned patterns of behavior, which are acquired through interaction between a person’s biology, cognition, environment, and emotion. The three behavioral repertoires that make up this theory include sensory-motor, language-cognitive, and emotional-motivational repertoires.
The sensory-motor repertoire includes basic sensory-motor abilities and attentional and social skills. The language-cognitive repertoire includes receptive, expressive and receptive-expressive languages. The emotional-motivational repertoire is made up of positive and negative emotional reactions that direct the whole behavior of an individual. When an infant is born, he is without any basic behavioral repertoires. They have to be acquired through complex learning. As this occurs a child gains the ability to respond to different situations in life.
The behaviorist conception can motivate, yet is distinct from psychological behaviorism. This form of motivation emanates from the stimuli, which is a means to an end in the behaviorist conception. For instance, In the case of emotion, for example, the mental state is the object of observation. The main problem in emotion is not to determine the number and type of elementary constituents that are present, their intensity, loci, the order of appearance, and so on.
However, unlike in psychological behaviorism, introspection has no value in behaviorist conception. Introspection is used merely as a way of manipulating mental states in order to understand the psychology. Behavior data gains relevance only insofar as it sheds, analogically or indirectly, on a psychological realm.
In psychological behaviorism, learning is said to take place as new repertoires are acquired. The repertoires that are already functional provide assistance in the acquisition of new ones. Individual behavior is simply a function of his life situation and his individual basic behavioral repertoire. Basic behavioral repertoires can be considered both dependent and independent variables, since they emerge from learning and cause behavior, thereby constituting an individual’s personality. According to this theory, all biological learning conditions are essential. Biology is the main provider of mechanisms through which behavior is learned and performed. For instance, a child whose brain is damaged cannot learn basic behavioral repertoires in the right manner.
Logical behaviorism is a theory of mind that was developed by Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976). In The Concept of Mind, Ryle proposed a way in which logical behavior could be determined through the elucidation of certain paradigmatic sentences that contain mental concepts. The sentences that Ryle chose are those that appear in ordinary speech. The aim of choosing straightforward sentences was to retain a sharp and steady attention to the non-philosophical, nontechnical talk. According to Ryle, everything that is true about the mind can be derived through this elucidation process. Likewise, a refutation of everything that is either false or rather muddled that has been said concerning the mind can also be derived from this same elucidation.
Ryle construed Cartesianism as a classical doctrine whereby all mind-sentences are logically categorical in terms of character. For Ryle, building a theory of mind entails an inquiry into the logical character of different model sentences that contain thought, emotion, perception, imagination, among other concepts.
Logical behaviorism provides many remedies to the ‘mental states-related’ problems that a psychological behaviorist would find extremely helpful. Like all other behaviorists, Ryle was opposed to the Cartesian view. To him, there are many ways to be; therefore, it is silly to claim that something has to be either ‘mental’ or ‘physical’. Psychological behaviorists are interested in the new repertoires that lead to the transformation of individuals’ states of being and understanding of the world. Therefore, a psychological behaviorist, just like a logical behaviorist, dares not limit himself to the Cartesian categories since he may end up making category mistakes. In other words, logical behaviorism takes care of intentions that cannot exist because they are ‘mental’.
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Hilary Putnam, in his paper, Brains, and Behavior, argues against logical behaviorism. While Putman is clearly opposed to the idea of Cartesian dualism, he is also of the feeling that logical behaviorism is a grave misstep that fails to solve Descartes’ problem. He uses hypothetical x-world to attack logical behaviorism. In the hypothetical x-world, people feel pain but they fail to express it in their behavior. According to the prescriptions of logical behaviorists, such people are not in pain.
(3) Question 3
The type-identity was proposed as a straightforward and rather compelling to the mind-body problem. In this theory, each type of an individual’s mental state is identical to a neutral state that is yet to be identified. Therefore, someday, mental terms such as ‘desiring’, ‘loving’ and ‘hating’ will be fully shown to be synonymous with precise terms, just as water is today known to be synonymous with H2O.
Identity theory was developed in the 20th century in response to works in physical sciences and psychology. The theory can be proposed that brain states are identical to mental states, minds are identical to brains, and the mental realm is a subset of the physical realm. In this theory, no attempt is made to define mental terms. Therefore, unlike logical behaviorism, it is not a semantic thesis.
Smart, an identity theorist, claimed that the mind and brain strictly act as identity statements, in that they refer to the same thing. By this, he meant that if brains are identical to minds, then minds are identical to brains. In other words, strict identity statements are logically symmetrical. Smart’s objection followed from his argument that a ‘un-strict’ identity statement was a possibility. Such a statement would have to be considered asymmetrical. For example, whereas rain is identical to bad weather, bad weather could be sleet, rain, slow and so on.
Another identity theorist, U.T Place, made an extraordinary claim when he said that different mental states can be identified in the same manner that one can identify lightning using an electrical discharge. Therefore, whenever we speak of a particular brain state and a thought, we are speaking of the same thing, but in entirely different terms. In light of this claim, Place brought forward an objection to the type-identity, instead, proposing the central-state materialism (CSM).
The extent to which mental states and brain states are identical creates a problem for identity theorists. Consequently, one can subscribe to one of two kinds of identity theory: token-token identity theory and type-type identity theory. In the former kind, individual mental states are taken to be identical to various individual mental states. In the latter kind, types of mental states are taken to be identical to various types of brain states.
Hilary Putman’s damaging objection to the type-identity theory is contained in his work, The Nature of Mental States, (1967). Putman argued that it seems plausible that physically possible life forms can remain in the same mental state without their brains being in a similar, unique, physical-chemical state. On the basis of this empirical hypothesis, Putman concluded that it is highly unlikely for the type-identity theorist to be correct.
