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Question 1

MBTI gist

Answer 1

Mental properties are just physical properties of the brain

Question 2

Ontological claim

Answer 2

It is an ontological reduction: mental properties are reducible to physical properties of the brain

This means it is a physicalist view: only physical properties exist.

Question 3

Language claim

Answer 3

It is NOT an analytic reduction: Mental concepts do not have the same meaning as any concepts that we use about the brain.

Question 4

Type identity

Answer 4

all people with the same type of mental state (say, headache) will have the same type of brain state (say, brain state 146b).

Question 5

OBJECTION 1: The identity theorist cannot provide type identities due to the multiple realisability of mental states

Answer 5

There is no one specific physical type of physical state that all those with that mental state have in common.

Let’s take pain as an example. How exactly pain is realised might be different in different human brains, in different non-human animal brains. So pain can’t be identified with a type of human brain state.

Question 6

response to obj 1 (species-relative type-identities)

Answer 6

In response, the identity theorist can accept that mental states are multiply realisable, but make an amendment to their theory to deal with this. They can claim that their theory is, and was always, just a theory about human mental state types - so it just tells us what each type of mental state is identical to in a human. There will be different theories then needed for each species of non-human animal

Question 7

ISSUE: Mental state types are multiple realisable within the human “species” too

Answer 7

We see evidence of multiple realisability between/within humans too. Two people with very different brains can have the same mental state (e.g. when one of them has had severe damage to their brain).

Question 8

The ‘knowledge’/Mary argument

Answer 8

P1: Mary has propositional knowledge of all the physical facts

P2: After seeing red for the first time Mary gains propositional knowledge of a new phenomenal fact (i.e. she knows that redness is like this)

C1: Therefore, there are some facts that are not physical facts.

P3: Non-physical facts must be about non-physical properties.

C2: Therefore, there are some non-physical properties (i.e. the phenomenal properties / the qualia).

C3: Therefore physicalism is false

Question 9

The ‘philosophical zombies’ argument

Answer 9

P1: A zombie world is a world that is physically identical to the actual world but in which there are no phenomenal properties (no consciousness / qualia).

P2: A zombie world is conceivable (or imaginable).

P3: If a zombie world is conceivable then it is metaphysically possible.

C1: Therefore, a zombie world is metaphysically possible.

P4: If a zombie world is metaphysically possible then phenomenal properties can’t be the same as physical properties.

C2: Therefore, phenomenal properties (the qualia) cannot be (and could not be) the same as physical properties.

C3: Therefore, physicalism is false.

Question 10

Descartes’ conceivability argument

Answer 10

P1: I have a clear and distinct idea of (i.e. can conceive of) myself as something that thinks and isn’t extended

P2: I have a clear and distinct idea of (i.e. can conceive of) body as something that is extended and does not think

P3: If I have a clear and distinct thought of something, God can create it in a way that corresponds to my thought

IC1: Therefore, God can create mind as something that thinks and isn’t extended and body as something that is extended and does not think

IC2: Therefore, mind and body can exist independently of one another

C: Therefore, physicalism is false.

Question 11

Descartes’ indivisibility argument

Answer 11

P1: My mind and my mental states cannot be [conceived of as being] divided

P2: Physical entities (including the body) can be [conceived of as being] divided.

C1: Therefore, minds (being indivisible) cannot be identical to anything physical (being divisible).

C2: Therefore physicalism is false.