Substance Dualism and Dualism responses - summary sheet

AQA PHILOSOPHY
3.4 METAPHYICS OF MIND

Please note, this is not a completed worksheet. It is left blank for students to complete using the Metaphysics of Mind textbook, Routledge, Michael Lacewing

Worksheet for the following part of the specification:

Dualist theories
Substance dualism
-Minds exist and are not identical to bodies or to parts of bodies.
-The indivisibility argument for substance dualism (Descartes).

Responses, including:
-the mental is divisible in some sense
-not everything thought of as physical is divisible.
-The conceivability argument for substance dualism (expressed without reference to God) (Descartes).

Responses including:
-mind without body is not conceivable
-what is conceivable may not be metaphysically possible
-what is metaphysically possible tells us nothing about the actual world.

Issues facing dualism as a whole
Issues facing dualism, including:
-The problem of other minds
-Dualism makes a “category mistake” (Gilbert Ryle)

Responses including:
-the argument from analogy
-the existence of other minds is the best hypothesis.

Issues facing interactionist dualism, including:
-the conceptual interaction problem (as articulated by Elisabeth, Princess of Bohemia)
-the empirical interaction problem.

Issues facing epiphenomenalist dualism, including:
-the challenge posed by introspective self-knowledge
-the challenge posed by the phenomenology of our mental life (ie as involving causal connections, both psychological and psycho-physical)
-(not included) the challenge posed by natural selection/evolution.