July 2nd, 2009
Considering the positions of materialists and dualists:
All forms of dualism arise from the alleged disparity between persons and physical objects. Men, it is rightly noted, are capable of thinking, believing, feeling, wishing, and so on but bodies, it is claimed, are capable of none of these things, and the conclusion is drawn that men are not bodies. Yet it cannot be denied that men have bodies; hence, it is decided that a man, or a person, is a nonphysical entity, somehow more or less intimately related to a body. But here it is rarely noted that whatever difficulties there may be in applying personal and psychological predicates and descriptions to bodies, precisely the same difficulties are involved in applying such predicates and descriptions to anything whatever, including spirits or souls. If, for example, a philosopher reasons that a body cannot think, and thereby affirms that, since a person thinks, a person is a soul or spirit or mind rather than a body, we are entitled to ask how a spirit can think. For surely if a spirit or soul can think, we can affirm that a body can do so; and if we are asked how a body can think, our reply can be that it thinks in precisely the manner in which the dualist supposes a soul thinks. The difficulty of imagining how a body thinks is not in the least lessened by asserting that something else, which is not a body, thinks. And so it is with every other personal predicate or description. Whenever faced with the dualist’s challenge to explain how a body can have desires, wishes, how it can deliberate, choose, repent, how it can be intelligent or stupid, virtuous or wicked, and so on, our reply can always be: The body can do these things, and be these things, in whatever manner one imagines the soul can do these things and be these things. For to repeat, the difficulty here is in seeing how anything at all can deliberate, choose, repent, think, be virtuous or wicked, and so on, and that difficulty is not removed but simply glossed over by the invention of some new thing, henceforth to be called the “mind” or “soul.”
Taylor, R. (1974). Metaphysics (2nd ed.). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. pp. 30-31
Holy shit, that blows my mind.
That is a good place to start with an attack on Mind/Body dualism.
The main hole in it that a dualist (heh, arguments at dawn!) would use is this: The mind is that which thinks, in the same way that triangles are triangular, that blue is coloured. “How” is irrelevant, it just is.
A perhaps better question of “How” is “How does this non-physical thing that you posit affect and get affected by physical things.” The answers that come up for that one can be rather amusing, actually
Yes. Taylor talks about that a bit. I had never considered the “how” before and didn’t even realize it was a question, but now that it’s been pointed out it will bug me forever.
So when you talk about numbers and triangles, is there a term for things that necessarily must “be”, in the sense that 3′s and circles “are”?
Thinking out loud… How can the “how” be irrelevant? is what comes to mind – thus far in my (limited) philosophical discussion experience people posit the mind as the thinker as though it’s obvious that minds can think and bodies cannot… but why? What does a mind have that a body doesn’t? And just defining a mind as that which thinks seems unsatisfyingly tautological to me, and fails to differentiate from the body anyway, since the body could be what’s thinking. There must be a how! Mustn’t there…?
Taylor’s book is my first intro to metaphysics other than watching religious debates. It’s a pretty neat little survey of the metaphysical issues, just to give you a taste of the landscape so to speak. I am liking it quite a bit.
Yes, there is a term and you’re actually most of the way there already: necessary truth.
I agree that “how” we think is a fascinating question on a scientific level, however as a philosophical question I find it much less interesting. But that’s probably because I think that Mind/Body dualism is just silly – yet another annoying artifact of Descartes’ obstruction of useful philosophical discourse.
Metaphysics can indeed be much fun
So, I am curious – would you describe yourself as a materialist? (I imagine I am grossly oversimplifying things… don’t let me pester you into a long discussion if you have better things to do!) I think I am, mainly through a process of elimination: I am not persuaded by dualism of any of the flavours I’ve read about so far, and that seems to leave just one option. But materialism has its problems too! Taylor gives the example of holding beliefs: I may say I believe in God, but it is nonsensical to say that my foot believes in God. Yet if I am nothing but material, then every characteristic of me (X) must be the same as every characteristic of my body (Y), and if ever there is a characteristic of X that is not also a characteristic of Y then they are by definition different – dual, you could say! What to do with this problem?
I am heading down town today for some shopping (my cousin is getting hitched and I need a shower gift) and will be hitting the Chapters for the book you recommended. I don’t suppose you have at hand a recommendation for something on metaphysics? I think I am still in the realm of survey works but could go beyond Taylor, which is a 125 page intro. I seem to have abandoned psychology wholesale…!
In reverse order: Sorry, I don’t know a good intro to metaphysics book off the top of my head.
I am not a dualist… I’m not sure if that actually makes me a materialist, but it’s as good a definition as any. And no worries, I love long philosophical discussions
As for that particular argument, it rests upon a bit of ambiguity in what is meant when one is refering to themselves. As you’ll see in the logic book, self-reference can be rather tricky. That being said, my counter argument would be this: I can digest food. My eyeball does not digest food. Therefore, digestion is a non-physical phenomenon, seperate from my corporeal being.
I’ve yet to see a defence of dualism that didn’t turn on something silly
That is silly. I have this feeling like a magician just pulled a rabbit out of his hat and it must be a trick, but I don’t know how he did it. “He” in this case being either you or Taylor, I’m not sure which! It clearly makes no sense to say my eye isn’t part of me since it doesn’t do the same thing that another part of me does… yet I can’t help but feel that the example of beliefs is somehow different and more relevant.
Well maybe it isn’t different at all – in both cases we’re saying “one part of me does X and another part does not” – believing in one case, digesting in the other. If the digesting example is silly then maybe the believing one is too, since they are parallel arguments?
Well. All I can say is this stuff is hard. I just read a little chapter on space and time and I must say it was the weirdest one yet. Moving back and forth in time… yeeee, that’s hard to wrap my head around.
Something that may help break the tricky-feeling:
The “self” that you’re talking about with it’s believing and digesting is intended as a totality. But when you’re talking about body parts, that totality is gone. This is where the ambiguity is. If you change the two first sentences to “My brain believes” or “My stomache digests” then you’ve shattered the ambiguity, along with the need for dualism.
Heh – if you think that bit is brain-busting, try out Sartre’s essay on nothingness. I couldn’t think straight for a couple days afterwards. Better then drugs, it was