This Is Philosophy of Mind

PETE MANDIK is a Full Professor in the Department of Philosophy at William Paterson University of New Jersey. He is the author of Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind and Physicalist Theories of Consciousness, the co-author of Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Mind and Brain, and the co-editor of Philosophy and the Neurosciences: A Reader. He writes and illustrates the comic Mind Chunks, which appears monthly at DailyNous.com.

• How to Use This Book xvAcknowledgments xviiAbout the Companion Website xix1 Meet Your Mind 1Aspects of Mind 1Thought and experience 1Conscious and unconscious 2Qualia 3Sensory perception 3Emotion 4Imagery 4Will and action 5Self 5Propositional attitudes 5Philosophical Problems 6Mind–body problem 6Other problems 9Conclusion 14Annotated Bibliography 142 Substance Dualism 15Arguments for Substance Dualism 15Leibniz’s law arguments 16Criticism of Leibniz’s law arguments: Intensional fallacy 19Explanatory gap arguments 20Criticisms of explanatory gap arguments 21Modal arguments 22Mind–Body Interaction as a Problem for Substance Dualism 24Princess Elisabeth’s objection 25The dualistic alternatives to Cartesian interactionism 26Conclusion 27Annotated Bibliography 283 Property Dualism 29Introducing Property Dualism: Qualia and the Brain 29The Inverted Spectrum 30Attack of the Zombies 32The Knowledge Argument 34The Explanatory Gap Argument 37Does Property Dualism Lead to Epiphenomenalism? 39How Do You Know You’re Not a Zombie? 40Conclusion 42Annotated Bibliography 424 Idealism, Solipsism, and Panpsychism 44Solipsism: Is It Just Me? 45Idealism: It’s All in the Mind 49Berkeley’s argument from pain 50Berkeley’s argument from perceptual relativity: Berkeley’s bucket 51Berkeley’s “Nothing but an idea can resemble an idea” 51Berkeley’s master argument 52Why Berkeley is not a solipsist 52Arguing against idealism 53Panpsychism: Mind Is Everywhere 53The analogy argument 54The nothing from nothing argument 55The evolutionary argument 56Arguing against panpsychism: The combination problem 57Conclusion 58Annotated Bibliography 585 Behaviorism and Other Minds 59Behaviorism: Introduction and Overview 59The History of Behaviorism 61Ludwig Wittgenstein and the private language argument 62Gilbert Ryle versus the ghost in the machine 64Objections to Behaviorism 65The qualia objection 65Sellars’s objection 66The Geach–Chisholm objection 67The Philosophical Problem of Other Minds 68The rise and fall of the argument from analogy 69Denying the asymmetry between self- knowledge and knowledge of other minds 70Conclusion 71Annotated Bibliography 726 Mind as Brain 74Introducing Mind–Brain Identity Theory 74Advantages of Mind–Brain Identity Theory 75A Very Brief Overview of Neuroscience 76Major parts and functions of the nervous system 77Major parts and functions of the brain 77Neurons, neural activations, and brain states 78Lesions, imaging, and electrophysiology 78Localism and holism 78Learning and synaptic plasticity 79Computational neuroscience and connectionism 79Neural correlates of consciousness 80On pain and c- fibers 80Some General Remarks about Identity 81Arguments against Mind–Brain Identity Theory 83The zombie argument 83The multiple realizability argument 84Max Black’s “distinct property” argument 86Conclusion 87Annotated Bibliography 887 Thinking Machines 89Can a Machine Think? 89Alan Turing, Turing Machines, and the Turing Test 90Alan Turing 91Turing machines 91The Turing test 92Searle’s Chinese Room Argument 93Responses to the Chinese Room Argument 94The Silicon Chip Replacement Thought Experiment 95Symbolicism versus Connectionism 98Conclusion 101Annotated Bibliography 1028 Functionalism 104The Gist of Functionalism 104A Brief History of Functionalism 106Arguments for Functionalism 107The causal argument 107The multiple realization argument 109The Varieties of Functionalism 111Turing machine functionalism 112Analytical functionalism versus empirical functionalism 113Arguments against Functionalism 114Adapting the zombie argument to be against functionalism 114Adapting the Chinese room argument to be against functionalism 115Conclusion 116Annotated Bibliography 1169 Mental Causation 118The Problem of Mental Causation 118The causal closure of the physical 119The problem for substance dualists 121The problem for property dualists 121Basic Views of Interaction 122Interactionism 122Parallelism 123Epiphenomenalism 124Reductionism 125Qualia and Epiphenomenalism 125Whether qualia- based epiphenomenalism conflicts with phenomenal self- knowledge 126Dennett’s zimboes 126Anomalous Monism 127The Explanatory Exclusion Argument 131Conclusion 132Annotated Bibliography 13210 Eliminative Materialism 134Introduction and Overview 134Basic Ingredients of Contemporary Eliminative Materialism 135Folk psychology as a theory 136The contrast between reduction and elimination 137Putting the ingredients together 138Arguments for Propositional Attitude Eliminative Materialism 138Folk psychology is a stagnant research program 139Folk psychology is committed to propositional attitudes having a sentential structure that is unsupported by neuroscientific research 139Folk psychology makes commitments to features of mental states that lead to an unacceptable epiphenomenalism 140Arguments against Propositional Attitude Eliminative Materialism 140Eliminative materialism is self- refuting 140The “theory” theory is false 141Folk psychology is indispensable 142Introspection reveals the existence of propositional attitudes 142Qualia Eliminative Materialism: “Quining” Qualia 143Conclusion 147Annotated Bibliography 14711 Perception, Mental Imagery, and Emotion 149Perception 149Direct realism and the argument from illusion 149Philosophical theories of perception 152Mental Imagery 155How similar are mental images to other mental states? 156Is mental imagery the basis for mental states such as thoughts? 157To what degree, if any, is mental imagery genuinely imagistic or picture-like? 157Emotion 159What distinguishes emotions from other mental states? 160What distinguishes different emotions from each other? 160The difficulties in giving a unified account of the emotions 161Conclusion 162Annotated Bibliography 16212 The Will: Willpower and Freedom 164The Problem of Free Will and Determinism 164Sources of Determinism 166General remarks 166Physical determinism 167Theological determinism 168Logical determinism 168Ethical determinism 169Psychological determinism 169Compatibilism 169Incompatibilism 171The origination or causal chain argument 172The consequence argument 172What Might Free Will Be, If There Were Any Such Thing? 173Freedom aside for the moment, what is the will? 173What might the freedom of the will consist in? 176Conclusion 177Annotated Bibliography 17813 Intentionality and Mental Representation 179Introducing Intentionality 179The Inconsistent Triad of Intentionality 180Defending each individual proposition 181Spelling out the inconsistency 182Internalism versus Externalism 182For externalism: The Twin Earth thought experiment 184Against externalism: Swampman and the brain in the vat 185Theories of Content Determination 186Resemblance theory 186Interpretational semantics 187Conceptual role semantics 188Causal or informational theory 190Teleological evolutionary theory 191Conclusion 192Annotated Bibliography 19214 Consciousness and Qualia 194Optimism about Explaining Consciousness 194Focusing on Several Different Uses of the Word “Conscious” 195Creature consciousness 195Transitive consciousness 195State consciousness 196Phenomenal consciousness 196Rosenthal’s Higher Order Thought Theory of Consciousness 197An objection to the HOT theory: Introspectively implausible 200Another objection to the HOT theory: Too intellectual 200First Order Representation Theories of Consciousness 202The transparency argument for first order representationalism 204The “Spot” argument for first order representationalism 205Conclusion 205Annotated Bibliography 20615 Is This the End?: Personal Identity, the Self, and Life after Death 207Problems of Personal Identity 207The Problem of Persistence 209Approaches to the Problem of Persistence 209The psychological approach 210The fission problem for the psychological approach 211The somatic or bodily approach 212Temporal parts theory aka perdurantism aka four- dimensionalism 214The no- self view 215Life after Death 217Substance dualism and the afterlife 218Mind–brain identity theory and the afterlife 218Functionalism and the afterlife 219Temporal parts and the afterlife 219No- self and the afterlife 220Conclusion 220Annotated Bibliography 22016 The 4E Approach 222Two Dimensions of Difference 223The spatial dimension: From in here to out there 223The causation- constitution dimension: Important to the mind vs. part of the mind 224The First E: Mind as Embodied 225Embodiment and thinking 225Embodiment and memory 226Embodiment and conscious experience 227Embodiment and the plasticity of sensory systems 228Spatial concepts and bodily orientation 229The coupling- constitution fallacy 230The Second E: Enactive 230You’ve got to move 231Sensorimotor contingencies 232Enactivism and anti- representationalism 233In a World: The Third and Fourth Es 235Annotated Bibliography 23517 Futuristic Directions 237Super AI and the Technological Singularity 238Chalmers’ singularity argument 240The gist of Chalmers argument is 240The quest for friendly AI 241Enhanced Humans and Posthumans 243Cyborgization and bioengineering 244Technology and the extended mind 245Posthumans versus natural- born cyborgs 246Mind Uploading 247Arguing for uploading 248Annotated Bibliography 250Index 252