PHILOSOPHY 100 (Ted Stolze)哲学100（Ted Stolze）.pptVIP

PHILOSOPHY 100 (Ted Stolze) Notes on James Rachels, Problems from Philosophy Chapter Six: Body and Mind Two Positions on the Mind/Body Problem Dualism Materialism René Descartes Descartes was an important 17th century thinker whose ideas have had a great influence down to the present day. He been called the “father of modern philosophy (and of mathematics).” Perhaps his most famous philosophical work is called the Meditations on First Philosophy (1641). (1596-1650) Cartesian Dualism Body and mind are different substances, and mental states have the following two distinctive characteristics: Privileged access Infallibility Descartes on Minds and Machines “It is indeed conceivable that a machine could be made so that it could utter words, and even words appropriate to the presence of physical acts or objects which cause some change in its organs; as, for example, if it was touched in some spot that it would ask what you wanted to say to it; if in another, that it would cry that it was hurt, and so on for similar things. But it could never modify its phrases to reply to the sense of whatever was said in its presence as even the most stupid men do.” (From Discourse on Method, translated by Laurence J. Lafleur [Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960 (1637)], pp. 41-42.) Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia’s Objection to Descartes How could a non physical mind interact with a physical body, and vice versa? (1618-1680) Descartes’s Responses to Elizabeth It’s too difficult to explain, so don’t worry about it! The pineal gland is where the mind interacts with the body: “The soul has its principal seat in the little gland in the middle of the brain, whence it radiates into all the rest of the body by the mediation of the spirits, nerves, and even blood, which, participating in the impressions of the spirits, can carry them through the arteries into all the members” (from The Passions of the Soul, 34, translated by Stephen H. Voss [Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1989], p.