Sentences about Other Minds

[Carnap, R., 1932/33. “Psychology in Physical Language,” Erkenntnis, 3: 107–42.]

R9. Putnam, Hilary. “Brains and Behavior”

1. What “embarrassing entities” did set theory “get rid of”? And, why and to whom are such things an embarrassment?

2. What is the central thesis of logical behaviorism and what does it have in common with set theory?

3. What does Putnam mean by ‘reduction’?

4. How does this view differ from both dualism and materialism (and yet shares something in common with each)?

5. What two propositions comprise the “weak” (but philosophically interesting) version of logical behaviorism?

6. Is Putnam a proponent of logical behaviorism?

Logical Behaviorism

7. What does ‘intension’ mean?

8. What is a cluster concept?

9. What is a “super-spartan”?

10. What are their children like?

11. What do we do when we convert the 2^nd generation super-spartan?

12. What is an “X-worlder”?

13. What is the point of this thought experiment?

Some Behaviorist Arguments

14. On what grounds does Putnam say the behaviorist might object to his hypothesis about “X-worlders” and what is Putnam’s reply?

15. What is the story of “w-waves” mean to show?

16. Ultimately, what is Putnam’s objection to behaviorism?

[Putnam, Hilary. “Brains and Behavior.” Analytical Philosophy, Second Series, ed. R. J. Butler (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1963), 211-235.]

R10. Armstrong, Chapter 1 from The Nature of Mind

4. THE IDENTITY THEORY

R11. Smart, J.J.C. 1959: ‘Sensations and Brain Processes’

1. What is an after-image?

2. What view does Smart reject?

3. What is Occam’s Razor?

4. What is a “nomological dangler”?

5. What’s wrong with saying that mental states are correlated with brain states?

6. What is significant about behavior?

7. In what sense are brain states and mental states identical?

8. What are Smart’s replies to the five objections that might be raised to the view of the mind he endorses?

[Smart, J.J.C. (1959). "Sensations and Brain Processes", Philosophical Review, 68, pp. 141-156.]

R12. Place, U.T. 1956: ‘Is Consciousness a Brain Process?’

Introduction

The “Is” of Definitions and the “Is” of Composition

The Logical Independence…

6. What is the difference between a particular proposition and a universal proposition?

[Place, U.T. (1956). "Is Consciousness a Brain Process?", British Journal of Psychology, 47, pp. 44-50.]

R13. Hirst, Rodney Jullian. “Mind and Body”

1. What four initial points does Hirst make?
2. What is the dual aspect theory? What are the two aspects and how are they related?
3. How does Hirst argue that these are aspects of the same event?
4. How does this view explain the uniqueness of the mental (subjectivity, privacy) without denying it exists?
5. How does this view explain Freudian “unconscious thoughts” better than dualism does?
6. How does this view explain mind-body interaction better than the dualist and the behaviorist do?
7. How does it explain the effects of psychiatric drugs?
8. In what three ways is the theory consistent with neuroscience?

R14. Kripke, Saul. “Identity and Necessity”

1. How does Kripke defeat the claim that the proposition ‘heat is MKE is contingent’?
2. What is the case of the Martians and what is it suppose to show?
3. How does he explain the illusion of contingency in the case of the claim ‘heat is MKE’?
4. On what grounds is it usually held that ‘pain is a neural state’ is contingent?
5. What does it mean to say that both ‘pain’ and ‘n-state’ are rigid designators?
6. How is the way we pick out pains and neural states different from how we pick out heat?
7. If ‘pain is a neural state’ is a necessary truth, how can we explain the illusion of contingency?

5. FUNCTIONALISM

R15. Lewis, David (1966). “An Argument for the Identity Theory”

1. What is the central thesis of Identity Theory?

2. What is Lewis’s argument for this theory?

3. What analogous argument does he give? In what way is this a functional analysis?

4. What is Shaffer’s argument? What is Lewis’s objection to this argument?

5. What is the difference between sense and reference?

6. What is Lewis’s reply to the objection to his argument that points to different senses of mental state ascriptions and neural state ascriptions?

7. What is the first premise and how does Lewis defend it?

8. What does Lewis think of the dispositions to which the Behaviorist’s theory is committed?

9. What is a “syncategormatic” part of a statement?

10. What is the second premise and how does Lewis defend it?

11. What conclusion does Lewis draw?

12. What is the objection from epiphenomenalism? What is Lewis’s reply to this objection?

R16. Putnam, Hilary. “Psychological Predicates.”

1. What are the “rules” of analytic philosophy?

2. What does Putnam think of these rules?

3. What is a property, a concept, and a predicate?

4. What is Putnam’s position with respect to the argument for mind state/brain state identity?

5. Putnam response to two objections. What are they?

6. What is a Turing machine?

7. What is pain, according to Putnam?

8. Is functionalism a version of dualism?

9. What does Putnam think the weaknesses with Identity Theory are?

10. What empirical considerations count in favor of functionalism?

11. In ways are functionalism and behaviorism similar? How is functionalism an improvement over behaviorism?

12. What are the three methodological considerations?

R17. Armstrong, David. from The Nature of Mind (chapter 2)

1. What effect did the “success of science” have on philosophy? What is philosophy’s role in this scientific era?

2. What is analytic philosophy? What are some things that philosophers do?

3. What is the “simple argument”? What is it for?

4. What objection has been raised to this argument?

5. How does Armstrong reply?

6. How does Armstrong analyze the concept of a mental state?

7. What is a causal concept?

8. What are some features of this analysis?

9. What roles do perceptions and beliefs play in the analysis of mental concepts?

10. What are the two advantages of this view that Armstrong mentions?

R18. Block, Ned. “The Troubles with Functionalism”

1. How does functionalism differ from behaviorism? How is it similar?

2. What does it mean to say that behaviorism is guilty of liberalism?

3. How is Block using “physicalism”? What theory of the mind is he referring to?

4. What does it mean to call a theory chauvinistic? Which theory has been characterized this way?

5. How should we understand functionalism?

6. What is psychofunctionalism?

7. What is a Ramsey sentence?

8. What is the Blockhead case and what is it supposed to show?

9. What is the “China Brain” thought experiment and what is it meant to show?

10. What objections are considered? How does Block respond?

11. What is the Absent Qualia argument and what is it mean to show?

6. Eliminativism

R19. Churchland, Paul. “Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes”

1. What is folk psychology?

2. What makes it a theory?

3. How does Churchland characterize the mind-body problem?

4. How do each of the theories deal with folk psychology?

5. What is the central thesis of eliminative materialism?

6. What criteria should be used in evaluating folk psychology?

7. How does folk psychology fare in this evaluation?

8. What objections have been raised to eliminative materialism?

9. How does Churchland respond to these objections?

10. What is the analogy to alchemy supposed to show?

11. What is Churchland’s take on functionalism?

12. What lies ahead if folk psychology is rejected?

R20. Baker, “Cognitive Suicide” or “elimination and an argument from science”

7. FICTIONALISM

R21. Daniel C. Dennett (1981). True Believers: The Intentional Strategy and Why It Works.

1. What are the two opposing views of belief attribution Dennett points out?

2. Which of these does he favor?

3. What is an intentional system?

4. What are “stances”?

5. What are the three different stances? What is an instrumentalist approach to the mind? How is Dennett’s theory instrumentalist?

6. What is the difference between the intentional stance, design stance, and the physical stance and how is this relevant to understanding minds?

7. How does the intentional strategy work? What are the rules?

8. What role does rationality play in the intentional system?

9. What evidence is there to support this theory?

10. What are “true believers”?

11. How does Dennett’s theory accommodate consciousness?

8. The Chinese Room

R22. Searle, John. “Minds, Brains, and Programs”

1. What is the difference between strong and weak AI?

2. What is a Shank Program?

3. What is the argument for Strong AI?

4. What is Searle’s objection to this?

5. What is the Chinese Room thought experiment and what is it mean to show?

6. How does this relate to functionalism?

R23. Fodor, “Searle on what only Brains can do”

R24. Block, Ned. “The Mind as Software in the Brain”

What is Block’s objection to the Chinese Room argument?

9. MIDTERM SUMMARY

10. CONSCIOUSNESS

J. Chalmers, David. excerpt from The Conscious Mind

1. What are some of the different meanings of ‘consciousness’?

2. What does Chalmers mean by ‘consciousness’?

3. What are the difference types of consciousness experiences?

K. Block, “On a confusion about a function of consciousness”

L. Tye, Michael. “Kinds of Consciousness” an excerpt from Consciousness and Persons

1. What are the different types of consciousness that Tye distinguishes?

2. Which type of consciousness does Tye take to be the most problematic?

M. Block, “Consciousness” in Guttenplan (in my office)

11. Phenomenal Consciousness

R25. Nagel, Thomas. “What is it like to be a bat?”

1. What does it mean to say that ‘Sa has a conscious experience’?

2. What can functionalism tell us about subjective experience?

3. What are the implications for physicalism?

4. What is Nagel’s goal?

5. What is the story of the bat and what is it supposed to show?

6. What are subjective facts? What problem do they raise for physicalism?

7. What is Nagel’s “speculative proposal’?

R26. Levin, “Could love be like a heat wave?”

1. What is Nagel’s argument to which this paper is a response?

2. What is Jackson’s argument?

3. What is the “equivocation objection” to both of these arguments?

4. What is still compelling about these arguments?

5. What three points support this claim?

6. What must the physicalist prove?

7. What is Levin’s argument? What is it meant to show/do?

8. What problem does she identify with this argument and what does this show?

9. What is “Molyneux’s Question and what responses did the Empiricists have to it?

10. …

12. The Knowledge Argument

R27. Jackson, Frank. “Epiphenomenal qualia”

1. What is the story of Fred and what is it supposed to show?

2. What is the story of Mary? What does she know? What does she learn? What is this thought experiment meant to show?

3. What is the modal argument?

4. What is Nagel’s argument?

5. How does Jackson distinguish his thesis from Nagel’s?

6. What are the two versions of classical epiphenomenalism and how does Jackson modify their central theses?

7. On what grounds does Jackson argue for epiphenomenal qualia?

R28. Churchland, Paul. Knowing qualia: A reply to Jackson”

1. What equivocation does Churchland think the knowledge argument commits?

2. How does Churchland restate the “proves too much” objection? Does this avoid Jackson’s response?

3. How can the knowledge argument be restated to avoid the equivocation? What are the consequences for the argument?

4. In the end, what is Churchland’s diagnosis of the problem?

R29. Jackson, Frank. “What Mary didn’t know”

1. What is the equivocation objection and how does Jackson respond?

2. What is the Lewis-Nemirow objection and how does Jackson respond?

3. What is the “proves too much” objection and how does Jackson respond?

4. What is the “Mary cannot imagine what it is like” objection and how does Jackson respond?

R30. VanGulick, “Understanding the Phenomenal Mind”

13. Representationalism

R31. Harman, Gilbert. “The Intrinsic Properties of Experience”

1. What is the problem with functionalism?

2. What is the intentionality of experience?

3. What critical distinction did the sense data theory fail to draw?

4. What is the argument from illusion that was given in defense of the sense data theory?

5. What is the sense data fallacy?

6. What are the two senses of ‘sees’ and what is important about distinguishing between them?

7. What does experience represent?

8. What features of experience are revealed by introspectively attending to those experiences?

9. What is the attending argument and what objection does Harman raise to it?

10. What is the phenomenal concepts argument and what objection is raised to it?

11. What is the inverted spectrum though experiment and what is it supposed to show?

12. What is Shoemaker’s version of this thought experiment and what is Harman’s objection to it?

13. What conclusion does Harman draw?

32. Block, Ned. “Inverted Earth”

1. What are the four stages of the inverted earth thought experiment and what are the important features of each stage?

2. What was the original argument supposed to show?

3. What was Harman’s objection to that argument?

4. How has Block changed the thought experiment to avoid this objection?

5. What conclusion does Block draw?

R33. Tye, Precis of Ten Problems of Consciousness

1. What does Tye take to be the most difficult problem in philosophy and why?

2. What is strong representationalism?

3. What is the “philosophical orthodoxy” Tye mentions and what is his position with respect to this view?

4. Of the 10 problems Tye describes, choose three and briefly explain what problem is supposed to be.

5. What is the difference between phenomenal consciousness and higher-order consciousness?

6. Which sorts of states have phenomenal consciousness?

7. What does “PANIC” stand for?

8. In what way is perception non-conceptual?

9. How does experience differ from beliefs?

10. What is the objection Tye considers and how does he respond to it?

11. What does Tye think about the nature/existence of qualia?

12. What is the case of having an experience of a red disk supposed to show?

13. What does introspection have to do with the nature of phenomenal mental states?

R34. Block, “Is experience just representing”

1. What is the thesis of Block’s paper?

2. What is the case of Swampman and what is it supposed to show?

3. What is the difference between an “adaptionalist” and an “anti-adaptionalist”?

4. How does Block characterize Dretske’s position? Tye’s?

5. What is the “Earth Inverted Earth” case and what is it mean to show?

6. How does Block characterize Tye’s response to this thought experiment?

7. What’s up with Swampman’s grandchild?

8. How does perception of change support Block’s position?

14. STATE CONSCIOUSNESS

R35. Armstrong, David. “What is Consciousness?”

1. What is Descartes’ view of the mental and what is Armstrong’s argument against this view?

2. What is minimal consciousness?

3. What is perceptual consciousness?

4. What is introspective consciousness?

5. In what ways is introspection like perception?

6. What are the two types of introspective consciousness and how do they differ?

7. What is so special about introspective consciousness?

8. Why does consciousness seem special?

9. What does it mean to say that introspection is theory-laden?

10. What role does consciousness play?

11. What is the relationship between consciousness, memory and the self?

R36. Lycan, William. “Consciousness as Internal Monitoring”

1. What is the inner sense view of consciousness?

2. What are the advantages of this view?

3. What is fallibility?

4. What is the appearance/reality distinction and what role does it play in theories of consciousness?

5. What are two problematic implications of this view and what does Lycan have to say about them?

6. What is Dretske’s question and how does Lycan respond?

7. What are Dretske’s two objections and how does Lycan respond?

8. What is Rosenthal’s objection and what is Lycan’s response to it?

R37. Rosenthal, David. “A Theory of Consciousness”

1. When sense of ‘consciousness’ is problematic?

2. What kind of property is consciousness?

3. On what grounds does Rosenthal argue that consciousness is not an intrinsic property of mental states?

4. Is introspective awareness more like perception or cognition? What is Rosenthal’s argument for this?

5. What conclusion does he draw?

R38. Dretske, Fred. “Conscious Experience”

1. What is the difference between awareness of things and awareness of facts?

2. What are the distinguishing characteristics of each type of awareness?

3. What is transitive consciousness?

4. What role do concepts play in each type of awareness?

5. What is the difference between conscious beings and conscious states?

6. How does Dretske distinguish his view from Armstrong’s and Rosenthal’s?

7. How are thing- and fact-awareness related? What does this show about higher-order thought theories of consciousness?

8. What is Dretske’s argument against higher-order perception theories of consciousness?

9. What is Dretske’s positive account of consciousness?