Soul_Searching_11_.pdf

PATHWAYS TO PHILOSOPHY PROGRAMME B: PHILOSOPHY OF MIND Searching For the Soul: Unit Eleven ________________________________________________________________________________________________ (a) the notion of qualia 223. THE idea of free will represented the very last chance for dualism, as a solution to the mind-body problem. Now that the futility of positing an immaterial self as the source of free will has been thoroughly exposed, our investigation takes on a new character. Time and again, we have approached the question of the relation between the inner and the outer by seeking a relation or bridge between mental objects on the one side, and material objects on the other. We have rejected the identity theorist’s claim that the relation is one of identity. We have rejected the dualist’s claim that the relation is one of difference. Yet surely, one might think, theories of identity or difference, in whatever form they may take, represent the only conceivable alternatives. Logically, if you are given A and B, then the only two possibilities are that A and B are in fact one and the same, or that A and B are distinct. What should we conclude, then, if A is neither equal to B nor non- equal to B? There is only one conclusion: we are not given A and B. The assumption that there are two terms that the philosopher has to ‘relate’ must be rejected. Either there is no such thing as the ‘inner’, or the ‘mental’ in the sense in which we have freely used these terms; or there is no such thing as the ‘outer’ or the ‘material’. (There is, of course, the third possibility that one will be led to reject both A and B, both ‘mind’ and ‘matter’.) 224. It may seem outrageous t