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Unit Code

PHI130

Assignment No.

Assignment Title

Dualism and Physicalism.

Due Date

05/08/2011

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Phone:0403424484

Unit Name

Mind Meaning and Metaphysics

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Email:joseph.zizys@gmail.com

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Student Name:

Family Name Zizys

Student Number:

42351979

Date:

05/08/2011

Given Name Joseph

ESSAY TWO
1500 words
by joseph Zizys

Why, according to Descartes, must we understand mind and matter (body) as different
substances? Explain and evaluate the reasons he uses to defend this position, and compare it
to the physicalist account of the relationship between mind and body (taken from the Nagel or
Churchland articles in your Reader). Clearly state which account you think is best and explain
why.

ABSTRACT
Descartes arguments for dualism are unconvincing because he cannot explain how his two
substances can possibly interact. The arguments for materialism are unconvincing because they
cannot explain how the mental can possibly be reduced to the physical.

Why, according to Descartes, must we understand mind and matter (body) as different
substances?
In the Meditations, Descartes wishes to establish the sciences on premises that are certain.
(Sutcliffe 1968 pp 95) Descartes performs a thought experiment where he asks what facts he
can in principle doubt, and finds that every physical fact is doubtful, but that there is at least one
fact, the cogito, or I think therefore I am that is not susceptible to this kind of doubt. (Sutcliffe
1968 pp103)From this the argument is derived (though not explicitly stated); (1) Any physical

fact can be a deception, (2) the fact that I think therefore I am cannot be a deception, .:
therefore the fact that I think cannot be a physical fact, and so the fact that I think is a mental
fact.
Descartes defends this argument by saying that it is an eternal truth;

When we say that it is impossible for the same thing at the same time to be and not to be, that
what has been done cannot be undone, that he who thinks cannot fail to be or exist while he
thinks, and numerous other things of this sort, these are eternal truths and not things existing
outside our thought... Principles 1, 49 (Doney 1967 pp 92)

So there is no black swan, no new piece of empirical evidence that could appear and disprove
that I think therefore I am. It is thus certain that physical and mental are different substances.

Compare this to the physicalist account of the relationship between mind and body (taken from
the Nagel or Churchland articles in your Reader)
The physicalist position is that there is only matter and no separate substance in which the mind
resides. There are several versions of physicalism, but the one advocated by P.M Churchland is
called eliminativism which asserts that there are no coherent mental facts, and the mental
should be eliminated from our ontology. (Churchland 1984 pp43) On this view there is no
relationship between the mind and the body, because only the body exists.
Before addressing the philosophical arguments made against dualism, Churchland makes use
of a rhetorical technique saying that it is not the most widely held view in the current

philosophical ... community (Churchland 1984 p7). Churchlands contemporary Dennett is even
more direct, entitling his introduction to dualism Why dualism is forlorn and stating it is
deservedly in disrepute today and rhetorically asking Why is it in such disfavor (Dennett 1991
p33) Both these assertions of marginality are not backed by any cited evidence, there not being
any census of philosophers available at the time their books where written. A survey now
exists however, (Bourget and Chalmers 2009) and it finds that in fact that only 56 percent of
faculty in the major philosophy departments globally accept or favor physicalism, 27 percent
favor non-physicalism, and 16 percent favor some other resolution to the mind-body problem.
This seems somewhat more diverse than a few brave souls as Dennett would put it. (Dennett
1991 p33) (The same survey found that philosophers Do in fact strongly over-estimate the
popularity of physicalism amongst other philosophers, which may have something to do with
Churchlands and Dennetts characterization of it.)
Next Churchland misrepresents Descartes motives for dualism;

But there was one isolated corner of reality he thought could not be accounted for in terms of
the mechanics of matter ... this was his motive for proposing a second and radically different
kind of substance (Churchland 1984 p8)

This is not the motive that Descartes claims led him to dualism, he suggests that rather than an
isolated corner, the mental accompanies every physical perception, and certain mental facts are
true independently of any physical facts. (Sutcliffe 1968 p111)

The first philosophical difference between the physicalist approach advocated by Churchland
and Descartes is that the physicalist denies that there is a problem in the first place;

The first argument against dualism urged by the materialists appeals to the greater simplicity of
their view... neither dualism nor materialism can yet explain all of the phenomena to be
explained... (B)ut ... there is no doubt at all that physical matter exists, while spiritual matter
remains a tenuous hypothesis
(Churchland 1984 p18 italics mine)

It is precisely this doubt, as to whether physical matter can be said with certainty to exist, that
Descartes begins with, and it is precisely the thinking thing, what Churchland calls the
spiritual matter, that Descartes decides is certain and fundamental.
The second criticism leveled by Churchland regards causation: "how is it possible for my mind to
have any causal influence on my body at all?" (Churchland 1984 p8-9)
At the end of his life Descartes himself thought that this was the most serious criticism of his
theory. (Kenny 1968 p226) However an exactly analogous criticism is made of physicalism; The
dualist criticism of the physicalist is that it does not appear possible to explain mental facts by
recourse to physical facts (Nagel 1987 p33-34). Of this argument Churchland says;

the dualist will retain a bargaining chip here, but that is about all ... (W)hat the dualists need in
order to establish their case is the conclusion that a physical reduction is outright impossible,
and that is a conclusion they have failed to establish

p16

This is exactly what Descates believes he has established, with his argument from irreducibility,
this argument, and the cogito, is not mentioned or examined in Churchland.
The physicalist by analogy needs to establish is the conclusion that a causal interaction
between he physical and the mental is outright impossible. I have not found any such explicit
argument made by Churchland.

Clearly state which account you think is best and explain why.
The problem of causal interaction is an issue for physicalists as well as dualists, because
contemporary science does not appear to have a mechanical view of how matter, energy and
so on interacts in the same sense that Cartesian or Newtonian mechanics did: Churchland, in
criticizing Descartes conception of matter as extended-in-space gives an example of how
modern science posits particles with no extension or definite location and yet on the same page
asks of the mind stuff how could something with no mass, no position in space and no shape
have any causal influence on the body? (Churchland 1984 p8-9) This is an example of how
change in scientific pictures of reality can make previously strange ideas acceptable.
Churchland argues from the impossibility of causal interaction but this argument rests on the
same fallacy that is often leveled against the materialists themselves when dualists and other
anti-reductionists assert that they cannot conceive of any way the mental could be reduced to
the physical. The materialists respond that this is the fallacy of inconceivability: Just because

you cannot conceive of any possible way that the mental could be explained in terms of the
physical is no argument for dualism! By the same token, just because the materialist can
conceive of no possible way that substances could interact is no argument for materialism.
Churchlands strongest argument appears to be by induction from the physical sciences; over
the last several hundred years there have been many apparent mysteries; the nature of
subatomic particles, the diversity of species, the working of gravity, each apparent mystery has
been resolved by science without recourse to supernatural entities, by induction it seems likely
that the mental will similarly be explainable in mundane scientific terms (Churchland 1984 p1).
A counter-argument, also based on induction over the history of science is that while each new
field has been successfully clarified by science, each new clarification has required a major
ontological upheaval in the sciences themselves, that is Newtonian mechanics revolutionized
Cartesian mechanics, and quantum mechanics revolutionized Newtonian mechanics (Kuhn
1970 p72-74), so while science may eventually explain the mental, this should not imply that the
ontology that this new science suggests will be physicalist in the sense Churchland wishes.
Churchland himself gives a classic example of this phenomena (Churchland 1984 p10-13);
When discussing property dualism, he gives the example of electromagnetism being thought to
be mechanical, but in fact being a fundamental property in its own right. Churchland then says ;

"electromagnetic properties ... are displayed at all levels of reality from the subatomic level on
up, mental properties are displayed only in large physical systems that have evolved a very

complex internal organization. The case for the evolutionary emergence of mental properties
through the organization of matter is extremely strong." (Churchland 1984 p13)

This misses the point, as before the new theory added electro-magnetism to our ontology the
assumption was that only a small, isolated set of phenomena needed to be explained, and that
they would be explained by recourse to material, Newtonian causation it was the difficulty in
explaining this small corner that led to a radical reappraisal of the fundamental nature of
electromagnetism (Kuhn 1970 p74).

Bibliography

Bourget, D and Chalmers, D. 2009 The PhilPapers Survey accessed at

http://philpapers.org/surveys/ on 01/08/2011
Churchland, P M., 1984. Matter and Consciousness MIT Press
Dennett, D., 1991. Consciousness Explained Penguin Books
Doney, W., 1967 Descartes Macmillan and Co LtD
Kenny, A 1968 Descartes a study of his philosophy Random House New York
Khun, T S., 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Second Edition, Enlarged University of
Chicago Press
Sutcliffe, F. E., 1968. Descartes Discourse on Method and the Meditations Penguin Classics