oflittleliterarymerit:

MORIARTY IS REAL.

Hey Rob,

Sorry it’s so short.

Slogan Logan x

Behaviourism is a theory which proposes the non-existence on what most people refer to ‘mental states’; being happy, sad, in pain, etc. Behaviorists believe that ‘mental states’ do not exist, or at least can not be spoken about because they are private experiences, and you can only judge people’s ‘emotions’ off of their physical actions; Rob is happy would not refer to the fact that Rob is feeling happy, but the fact that Rob is smiling and energetic.

Objection

There are people, conceivably, that whilst being in pain would not show any physical manifestations of the sensation of pain, but later will state that yes, they were in pain. Like Super-Spartans where as Super-Super-Spartans would not even say they were in pain, but privately might admit, inside their minds, that they are in pain.

There are statements which say ‘Rob is clever’. This statement is rather vague- why is Rob clever? If he ALWAYS clever? No. Rob is clever in Philosophy which means that in Philosophy he displays understanding of the subject and scores high on tests, Rob is clever in mathmatics, meaning he is good with equations and solves them quickly. Being ‘clever’ is not a constant in everything, Rob does not walk around feeling a sense of ‘cleverness’. Being clever is conditional.

Agreement

I agree with behaviourists in a fairly weak sense. I agree that we can’t talk about people’s mental states clearly as we can only see how they’re feeling from their physical actions. We’re not psychic after all.

Hi Rob, hope this is correct. ENJOY! :)

Sarah xx

1. Cartesian Dualism—What is it?

Cartesian means of Descartes - Anything created by Decartes we put the word ‘Cartesian’ in front of it.

2. What are Descartes arguments?

• Knowledge/Indubitability argument - You can doubt the existance of the body but not the mind. Therefore they must be different.
• Indivisability - You can chop a body into pieces and concieve of the body being in seperate bits but you can’t chop the mind into seperate parts or concieve of it being split into pieces. Therefore they must be a different type of substance.

3. Responses

Knowledge/Indubitability

• You can doubt, so there is doubt, but it doesn’t neccessarily mean everyone is able to concieve of that doubt, therefore doubt is subjective and doubt does not neccessarily mean that the doubt is true. Lacewing uses the analogy of the masked man to explain this concept - He provides a parallel argument which uses the same structure to prove that it fails.

Masked Man- I can rightly believe that a masked man robbed a bank and I can believe that my father is not the masked man. Therefore they are seperate.

This is wrong. ‘Believing’ is not the same as knowledge, so unless you ‘know’ your father definitely wasn’t the masked man, you can not conclude that they are different people.

Indivisability

• There is not such thing as the ‘mind’ so it can’t be chopped up if it does not exist, as the ‘mind’ is only the brain and the firing of the synapses. The ‘mind’ and body are the same thing, in the sense that the ‘mind’ does not actually exist, it’s a product of the physical responses the brain gives to the outside world.

Rob, my teacher, has remembered that we have this tumblr and is making us use it again!