Novy Metaphysics SP10

The Mind as a Function of the Body

Taylor Chapter 4

Basic claim: Persons are physical objects having psychological attributes which distinguish them from “mere” physical objects; these attributes can be understood in terms of – and/or identified with – certain bodily functions.

Option #1: Epiphenomenalism

a. Person = physical, living body having a mind

b. Mind = a series of states/events which are the effect – but never the cause – of bodily activity

c. Is “mental processes ® non-mental effects” less weird than “bodily processes ® non-bodily effects”?

A. Against Epiphenomenalism:

i. No mental state or event ever enters causally into any physical process.

ii. \All bodily behavior is caused by bodily process alone;

iii. \Mental states/events are only incidental by-products of these physical processes and are superfluous to understanding or explaining human behavior

iv. One’s ideas/feelings/thoughts/desires do have influence on what one does

v. Lines (iii) and (iv) are incompatible

B. Salvage Epiphenomenalism?

i. Effects require causes.

ii. Changes in bodily behavior could not happen without producing mental changes as a by-product

iii. \Epiphenomenalism is correct

C. Response: No, this misrepresents epiphenomenalism

i. Mental states & observable bodily behavior are both effects of certain states of the brain & nervous system

ii. \These states have two entirely different kinds of effects – mental & physical

iii. Observable body behavior is guaranteed to occur so long as the brain & nervous system states occur

iv. \ Talk of a mental state is superfluous

Option #2: Materialism (Again)

D. Simple dualist claim:

i. People – not bodies – are capable of thinking, believing, etc

ii. \ People are not bodies

iii. People nonetheless have bodies

iv. \ People are nonphysical entities somehow attached to bodies (i.e., people are minds)

E. Response: This is a bad inference

a. The difficulty is not in figuring out how bodies can feel, desire, think, etc.

b. Rather it is how anything at all can do these things

c. Rather, we are physical objects of a fairly special sort (that can think, feel, etc.)

F. Dump dualism:

a. Asserting the existence of two things rather than one, doesn’t resolve the problems of there only being one thing;

b. It introduces additional problems regarding the relationship of the two things

More Dualism: But how can a merely physical object have feelings?

a. Claim: Psychological states do not necessarily collapse into material states

b. That psychological states are not identical with familiar body states ≠ they are not identical to some body state

c. If mind = “that which is subject to psychological states,” then the physicality of mind is an open question

d. The right question: Why, if it is a physical object of certain sort, can it not feel?

G. The Soul: that which we need to add to a mere body to make it a person

a. My soul is a nonphysical marble!

H. The “Privacy” of Psychological States

a. Claim: Mental states may not be knowable to others, but they are knowable in an unmediated sense by me; this privacy is what makes them mental

b. Response: All that follows is that others can observe some, but not others of my states