Heusser Philosophy 100 SG #11a

Churchland and The Mind-Body Problem

The Problem: What is the mind? Is it something that can exist independently of the body? Is it reducible to matter or is it totally immaterial? How does the mind relate to the body?

(Synonyms in the literature: Body = Corporeal, Material, Physical; Mind = Incorporeal, Immaterial, Mental)

Some Modern Views about Mental States:

A. Dualism: (Cartesian/Platonic Substance Dualism) The Mind is not identical with the body (Body and Mind are two different things). These separate minds are both dependent and independent of body. Some mental states or events can in principle never be located spatially or temporally. These states exist and cannot be explained as mere behavior and are not identical or functionally identical with physical states.

B. Material Monism: The Mind is a part of body, not something distinct from it. That is, the mind is dependent upon the body for its existence, being necessarily embodied.

1. Philosophical Behaviorism: Any sentence about a mental state can be paraphrased without loss of meaning into a long, complex sentence about what observable behavior would result if the person in question were in this or that observable circumstance.

There is no point in worrying about the mind-body problem or the relation of the two. To talk of one’s mind is not to talk about some thing she possesses, it is to talk about her capacities and dispositions. It is compatible with materialism, since material objects can have dispositional properties. (Ryle, Carnap, Skinner, etc.)

2. Reductive Materialism Mental states are physical states of the brain. Each type of mental state is numerically identical with some type of physical state or process within the brain or nervous system. (Identity theory: Feigl, J.J.C. Smart, Armstrong, U.T. Place)

There should be nothing surprising about a reduction of our familiar introspectible mental states to physical states of the brain.

1) The causes of human and animal behavior are essentially physical in nature.

2) There exists a one-to-one correspondence of neural states with the mental states

3. Functionalism: Mental states are essentially functional states (many including Lycan).

The essential feature of a mental state is the set of causal relations it bears to:

1) Environmental effects on the body,

2) Other types of mental states, and

3) Bodily behavior

The Functionalist denies the behaviorist environmental input and behavioral output.

The adequate characterization of almost any mental state involves an ineliminable reference to a variety of other mental states with which it is causally connected.

4. Eliminative Materialism: Our Common sense psychological framework is a false and radically misleading conception of causes of human behavior and cognitive activity. Eliminate rather than reduce the old framework (Churchland).

Our concepts of folk psychology: belief, desire, fear, sensation, pain, and joy will eventually go. We must reconceive our internal states as neuro-pharmacological states.