The problem I hope to expose in this paper is the lack of evidence in The Argument from Analogy for Other Minds supporting that A, a thought or feeling, is the only cause of B. Russell believes that there are other minds because he can see actions in others that are analogous to his own without thinking about them. He believes that all actions are caused by thoughts, but what happens when we have a reaction resulting as an action of something forced upon one’s self? Such as when a doctor hits your patellar tendon with a reflex hammer to test your knee-jerk reflex. Russell does not answer this question. He is only “highly probable” that we are to know other minds exist through his A is the cause of B postulate. In Russell’s The Argument from …show more content…
The problem with Russell’s argument arises when he states “we must know that only A causes B.” (Russell, 248) We are given no reason to accept that only A causes B. Russell does not explain the concept of reflexes in his argument. A reflex is “an action that is performed as a response to a stimulus and without conscious thought.” (Reflex) You have the thought that your reflex will be stimulated but this does not cause the reaction of the reflex. There is an action that must occur to cause the reaction of the reflex. When a reflex is stimulated you don 't need to think about the action that is taking place. Involuntary bodily functions also go against the postulate for the Existence of Other Minds. We do not need to think about the involuntary bodily functions taking place inside of us to know they are functioning. In order to be alive your brain is controlling more actions then you could even think of. If you had to think about every time your heart was to beat or every time you were to take a breath you would most likely forget to do either one of these two and die. This causes great uncertainty as to whether Russell’s new postulate is true or not. When faced with the question of this uncertainty he responds by saying that “It is not necessary that we should know this with any certainty; it is enough if it is highly probable.” (Russell, 249) The only way this position is able to be salvaged is if Russell were to distinguish between what actions he was talking about in his A causes B postulate. If Russell was to specify that only voluntary thought provoked actions are included in the postulate for the Existence of Other Minds then he would have made his argument stronger. He leaves doubt in his argument when he references all analogous visible human movements. We do not think to blink, breathe, or pump our blood.
The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the political careers of Richard B. Russell and Carl Vinson (Brown, 2016). Overall, these two men political careers have positively affected Georgia. During their prime, their leadership skills were at an exemplary level. Each of these individuals deserves to have their names registered in history. They positively affected the United States as a whole. These two individuals had their hearts on absolutely affecting Georgia and the United States. They were indeed optimistic in affecting citizens within our nation’s community. This paper states the well renowned actions during their political careers.
ABSTRACT: Davidson argues (1) that the connection between belief and the "constitutive ideal of rationality" (2) precludes the possibility of their being any type-type identities between mental and physical events. However, there are radically different ways to understand both the nature and content of this "constitutive ideal," and the plausibility of Davidson’s argument depends on blurring the distinction between two of these ways. Indeed, it will be argued here that no consistent understanding of the constitutive ideal will allow it to play the dialectical role Davidson intends for it.
In his “Proof of an External World”, Moore puts forth several supported hypotheses in regards to the nature of the existence of things outside the self. Primarily, Moore discusses hands; his argument is that if he can produce two hands then it follows logically that two hands must exist. Furthermore, Moore puts forth the theory that if hands exist then this alone is proof of an external world. In opposition to Moore’s opinions will be found three main arguments: firstly that all of Moore’s evidence is based upon sensory input, secondly that the truth of one fact based on the truth of another fact forms an Epistemic Circle in this case, and finally that the evidence out forth by Moore, even if proved, does not necessarily prove the fact that he is attempting to prove.
Chapter 6 of part I of The Stranger concluded with Meursault’s conscious decision to shoot an Arab because of the physical discomfort the Arab’s knife caused him. The significance of the ending of part I is that it was the first demonstration of Meursault’s awareness of the possible consequences of the act that he committed. This awareness continues into the second part of the novel as he is arrested and trialed. The reason for Meursault’s trial is the murder of the Arab. His insensitivity towards Maman’s death and lack of a social conscientious are factors that contributed to support further investigations, but are not reasons to trial him because they have not ‘harmed’ society on a way that he could be arrested for. For example, if Meursault
Are minds physical things, or are they nonmaterial? If your beliefs and desires are caused by physical events outside of yourself, how can it be true that you act the way you do of your own free will? Are people genuinely moved by the welfare of others, or is all behavior, in reality, selfish? (Sober 203). These are questions relevant to philosophy of the mind and discussed through a variety of arguments. Two of the most important arguments with this discussion are Cartesian dualism and logical behaviorism, both of which argue the philosophy of the mind in two completely different ways. Robert Lane, a professor at the University of West Georgia, define the two as follows: Cartesian dualism is the theory that the mind and body are two totally different things, capable of existing separately, and logical behaviorism is the theory that our talk about beliefs, desires, and pains is not talk about ghostly or physical inner episodes, but instead about actual and potential patterns of behavior. Understanding of the two arguments is essential to interpret the decision making process; although dualism and behaviorism are prominent arguments for the philosophy of the mind, both have their strengths and weaknesses.
The 'mind-body' problem has troubled philosophers for centuries. This is because no human being has been able to sufficiently explain how the mind actually works and how this mind relates to the body - most importantly to the brain. If this were not true then there would not be such heated debates on the subject. No one objects to the notion that the Earth revolves around the sun because it is empirical fact. However, there is no current explanation on the mind that can be accepted as fact. In 'What is it like to be a bat?', Thomas Nagel does not attempt to solve this 'problem'. Instead, he attempts to reject the reductionist views with his argument on subjectivity. He examines the difficulties of the mind-body problem by investigating the conscious experience of an organism, which is usually ignored by the reductionists. Unfortunately, his arguments contain some flaws but they do shed some light as to why the physicalist view may never be able to solve the mind-body problem.
This leaves a particularly large hole in identity theory. From neural dependence and the causal problem, it is almost impractical to endorse any type of dualism. But multiple realizability makes identity theory suspect as well. Also emotional additives, and the fact that epiphenomenalism is self undermining but not impossible, lead to slight suspicion of physicalism in general. Basically, this paper set out to endorse and defend identity theory but has concluded nothing definitively.
In this paper I will present an argument I have found in the Second Analogy for the necessity of presupposing the causal determination of each event. I will begin by briefly describing Robert Paul W...
It is to say, being the fact that I have privilege to access my own mind and mental experience but am unable to do so to others, we infer to the fact that there is a possibility that other people are without minds or are even possibly be mindless robots. When responding the question from analogy, one could question the fact that the argument of, if I have a similar reaction towards something that you do as well, then we both have minds could be an outlier to the problem. It is possible that I am the only person who has a mind which therefore makes the analogy a special case. If we reconstruct the argument of rather making a single correlation between a single mind and behavior to the correlations of many mental states with behaviors we may confirm the argument that the behavior of others is caused by a mental states. Just as when you are feeling sad, the behavior that comes with might be different methods of grief, and when your happy, different behaviors of euphoria occur. If the following pattern of behaviors follow with that mental state, then it is accurate to say the analogy argument does not only apply to one person as a definition of solipsism but rather that other people behave just as I do, thus, we all have a
In addition all the objects, people and the sky that we perceive, and all our experiences are just the result of electronic impulses travelling from the computer to the nerve endings. (ibid.). However, he start by posing doubts by asking that if our brains were in a vat, could we say or think that we were (Putnam, 1981:7). He furthermore argued that we could not (ibid.). For Putnam, it cannot be true that, if our brains are a vat and we say or think that we were, for Putnam it is self-refuting (ibid.).
Bertrand Russell expressed his belief on knowing other minds, in an article based primarily around the notion of ‘analogy’, meaning similar to or likeness of. His belief is that, "We are convinced that other people have thoughts and feelings that are qualitatively fairly similar to our own. We are not content to think that we know only the space-time structure of our friends’ minds, or their capacity for initiating causal chains that end in sensations of our own" (Russell 89). Russell speaks of the inner awareness, such as being able to observe the occurrences of such things as remembering, feeling pleasure and feeling pain from within our own minds’. This would then allow us to presume that other beings that have these abilities would then be that of having minds.
The desire to avoid dualism has been the driving motive behind much contemporary work on the mind-body problem. Gilbert Ryle made fun of it as the theory of 'the ghost in the machine', and various forms of behaviorism and materialism are designed to show that a place can be found for thoughts, sensations, feelings, and other mental phenomena in a purely physical world. But these theories have trouble accounting for consciousness and its subjective qualia. As the science develops and we discover facts, dualism does not seems likely to be true.
Kim, J. (1993). Supervenience and mind : selected philosophical essays. New York: Cambridge University Press.
After reading Berkeley’s work on the Introduction of Principles of Human Knowledge, he explains that the mental ideas that we possess can only resemble other ideas and that the external world does not consist of physical form or reality but yet they are just ideas. Berkeley claimed abstract ideas as the source of philosophy perplexity and illusion. In the introduction of Principles of Human Knowledge,
First, Russell theory show a scientific method in analysing a proposition which replace Frege theory that use sense to explain and solve the puzzles. In Frege thought, he explained the problem of identity by the different sense of a denoting phrase. Compare with Russell, Russell is more reliable for me which can show me a concrete step of thinking instead of using a sense, which is difficult to recognize by me to explain the answer.