ICW – tentamenstof
Chapter 2 – the philosophical approach
Philosophy is the search for wisdom and knowledge. In this chapter we look at 2 branches of
philosophy: metaphysics examines the nature of reality and epistemology is the study of
knowledge and asks questions such as, what is knowledge? The mind-body problem addresses
how psychological or mental properties are related to physical properties. On the one hand, we
look at the brain as material and physical. On the other hand, there are those who argue that the
mind is something more. The discussion in this chaptered is around the basic conceptions of
the nature of mind. According to monism, there is only one kind of state or substance in the
universe, Aristotle was a monist. He characterized the difference between mind and body as the
difference between mind and body as the difference between form and matter. In dualism, one
believes that both mental and physical substances are possible, like philosopher Plato. He
believed that the mind and the body exist in two separate worlds.
A possible way out of the mind-body problem is to rely solely on behaviors as indicators of
mental states. According to philosophical behaviorism, mental states are dispositions to
behave in certain ways under certain circumstances, like smiling when you are happy.
- Monism
Is we are monist, we are left with 2 fundamental choices. Either the universe is mental, or it is
physical. However, we do not believe in a mental world, like idealism does.
In the materialism world, or physicalism, it is believed that all things were composed of atoms.
A common thought with the monistic view is that the physicalism also believes that the universe
is composed of a single substance (atoms).
According to identity theory, the mind is the brain; so being happy is identical to a particular
type of brain activity. There is a lot of terminology in this theory as it describes both mental and
physical states. Because the scientific descriptions are more accurate and better reflect what is
actually going on, it might make sense to abandon our mental terms at all. This is what
eliminativism is about. It rejects the terminology and the mental states. It says; once you have a
good biological explanation for a psychological phenomenon, then you can eliminate the
psychological explanation and rely solely on the biological one.
In folk psychology subjective terms are used to help understand and predict behavior of
people; Cookies taste good, Tim likes to feel good, if Tim walks by the cookie store he will buy
and eat some cookies. However, folk psychology is too far removed from scientific explanations
that are tested in experiments.
➔ Evaluating the monist perspective: monist views have one advantage: they are simpler
than dualist accounts as they allow for only one single universe.
o Evaluating idealism; it does not really qualify as a legitimate theory because it
cannot be proved true or false.
o Evaluating physicalism: there is a lot of evidence for this. But it does have critics;
some say that physical processes cannot explain mental processes, as they
cannot explain different kinds of fear. Here is a need for mental terms.
o Identity theory: any mental state can be realized differently in different creatures.
This is the argument of multiple realization. Differences exist between species
but also between individuals.
, - Dualism
Dualists believe both in mental and physical realms. Classical dualism comes from Descartes.
He thought the mind exerted its control on the body through the pineal gland. In this view, the
mind is like a puppet master, the body the puppet, and the pineal gland the strings. In
substance dualism the mind and body are composed of completely different substances.
There are strong arguments against substance dualism; if mind and body are two different
substances, then they should not be able to causally interact, it does not give us any kind of
explanation like what are the mental things made of and how do they operate? Then there is
property dualism: the mind and the body can be of the same stuff, but have different properties
(characteristics). They believe that mental states are nonphysical properties of the brain.
However there is still little explanation.
➔ Evaluating dualist perspective: Clark says dualism is uninformative and tells us what the
mind isn’t rather then what it is. There is no explanation for the 2 worlds that must be
coordinated. Critics say introspection is a weak form of evidence and can be wrong.
- Functionalism
There needs to be made a distinction between two ways of
classifying things; physical kinds are identified by their material
composition only, whereas functional kinds are distinguished by
their actions or tendencies. According to functionalism, mental
states are not just physical states, but also the
functioning/operation of those physical states. It has several
implications like that the same mental state could be realized in
quite different ways than in two separate ways.
So, functionalism implies that mental states might not be reduced
to any particular physical state.
➔ Evaluating Functionalism: it is a very dominant view in the cognitive science. Critics have
argued that, although it is possible that minds can exist in the absence of brains, this
does not make it plausible. We have yet to see something mental in the absence of a
brain. Some have also argued that the failure to identify mind with a physical kind can
itself be considered a reason to do away with the concept of mind. Another problem is
qualia, it cannot account for the felt experienced characters of mental states, like
feeling hungry.
- The knowledge acquisition problem
In the nature-nurture debate we look at the differences between our ‘hardwired born’
characteristics and the things we learned through experience. According to nativism, a lot of
knowledge is innate or build into an organism. It favors nature (Plato). Rationalism is like
nativism, but differs still (Descartes). It states that we know certain logical reasonings like a thing
can’t exist and not exist.
Empiricism sees knowledge as acquired through experience and observation, it favors nurture.
Like Locke said we are a tabula rasa. Locke differentiated between simple ideas; derived
through sensory input or simple processes of reflection. Complex ideas are formed from the
active mental combination of simple ideas.
, ➔ Evaluating the knowledge acquisition debate: there is quite some research supporting
the notion that some forms of procedural knowledge are innate, like the reflexes of an
infant. There is a large middle ground consisting of traits and cognitive abilities that can
result from the complex interaction of nature and nurture.
- Consciousness
Consciousness is a complex concept and has no single agreed-on definition. It may be thought
of as our subjective awareness of mental states; sensation, perception, visual images. The
phenomenal concept of mind is essentially the idea of mind as a conscious experience. Mental
states in this view need to be explained in terms of how they feel. The psychological concept of
mind sees mental states only in terms of how they cause and explain behavior. Chalmers (1996)
differentiates between easy problems of consciousness (those that can be solved by cognitive
science and explained in terms of neural mechanisms, and hard problems of consciousness
(involves subjective experiences). The fact that subjective human experience may not be fully
explained by an objective account using physical and mechanical processes is known as the
explanatory gap.
The what is it like theory is about the idea that when you have a conscious mental state, there
is “something that it is like” to have that state. For example, when you bite into a candy bar, you
have a subjective experience of tasting it, but the candy bar itself does not. Conscious beings
can have experiences, while non-conscious things cannot.
Nagel (1974) asks what it is like for a bat to use echolocation. It is known how bats do this, but
that still does not explain 8what the bat’s experience is like. This shows that functional or
scientific descriptions cannot capture qualia—the subjective side of experience. Jackson (1982)
gives another example with Mary, the colorblind neuroscientist. She knows everything about
color vision scientifically, but when she first sees red, she gains a new kind of knowledge. Some
critics argue that subjective knowledge is not real factual knowledge, and so science should
focus only on objective methods like experiments, brain imaging, or computer simulations. The
problem is that consciousness seems to resist this purely objective approach.
The mind as an emergent property theory is about the idea that consciousness cannot be fully
explained by just looking at the brain’s parts. Reductionism says you can understand a whole
simply by adding up its parts, but emergence says the whole has features that go beyond that.
For example, water has liquidity and transparency, even though individual water molecules do
not. Searle argues that consciousness is like this: it emerges from the causal interactions of
neurons but is not reducible to them. He says consciousness is a property of the brain, similar to
how digestion is what stomachs do or photosynthesis is what plants do. Conscious states are
not physical states, but they are real and have their own distinct status. The emergent view is
appealing but has problems. It does not explain what a “property” actually is, especially if it is
nonphysical. It also leaves unclear how exactly microscopic processes in the brain give rise to
macroscopic conscious experience. In this way, even though Searle tries to avoid the traditional
mind–body debate, he seems to end up close to property dualism. The emergent property view is
about Searle’s idea that consciousness arises from the interactions of neurons but cannot be
reduced to them. However, critics say this still leaves problems. If consciousness is a
nonmaterial property, what exactly is a property? And how do microscopic neural events give
rise to macroscopic experience? Searle risks falling back into a form of property dualism. He
also relies on introspection as being infallible, but some argue that introspection often misleads
us and cannot be treated as fully reliable knowledge.
, Dennett, in contrast, rejects the classical “Cartesian theater” idea of a single place in the brain
where consciousness happens. He says consciousness is not a unified projection but instead
works as multiple drafts—parallel streams of mental activity that can be edited, delayed, or
combined. This explains phenomena like how we experience fireworks’ light and sound as
simultaneous even though they arrive at different times. Experiments also support the idea that
consciousness is constructed through parallel processes and editing.
The neuroscience view of consciousness is about the idea that conscious experience arises
from brain activity, specifically from populations of neurons working together. One proposal is
that the intralaminar nuclei of the thalamus, which relay sensory information to the cortex, play
a key role. Recurrent loops between thalamus and cortex may sustain information and explain
features like short-term awareness, daydreaming, or the return of consciousness in dreaming.
Churchland (1995) develops a neurocomputational theory based on this thalamus–cortex
circuit, arguing that its dynamic, recurrent activity is what allows consciousness to persist over
time. Other researchers, like Koch, focus on neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs),
defined as the minimal neural activity needed for a specific conscious experience. Different
NCCs may underlie the taste of chocolate, the feeling of wind, or the perception of a face.
Experiments with binocular rivalry show that changes in conscious awareness correspond to
changes in brain activity patterns. For instance, seeing a house activates the parahippocampal
place area, while seeing a face activates the fusiform face area. These studies suggest
consciousness can be linked to specific brain areas and patterns, but they still leave open the
deeper question: how do these objective patterns explain subjective experience?
The AI and consciousness debate is about whether machines could ever truly be conscious.
Strong AI says yes: consciousness could emerge from a purely physical, nonbiological process,
and with enough complexity and learning, machines might one day be conscious. Dennett
supports this by arguing that many things once seen as
mysterious now have scientific explanations, and that artificial
systems could, over time, develop real awareness. The main
challenge to this is Searle’s Chinese room argument. It shows
that following rules to manipulate symbols does not equal
understanding. A man in a room could use a rulebook to answer
Chinese questions without knowing Chinese at all. To Searle,
that’s all a machine can do: process symbols without meaning,
without intentionality, and therefore without true consciousness.
Others argue that understanding could be defined
operationally—as being able to respond appropriately. They also
say that as systems become more complex, they might develop real understanding. Clark adds
that cognition extends beyond the brain: when tools and systems are integrated, the whole can
achieve understanding even if its parts cannot.
Chapter 3 – the psychological approach; a profusion of theories
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. It uses scientific methods as a means
of gaining knowledge. It studies mental events like perception, reasoning and visual imagery as
well as behavior. There are different movements in psychology; i.e. voluntarism and
structuralism were concerned with listing the ‘stuff’ inside our heads (the basic elements). A
second group of psychologists focused more on what the mind does, rather than what it
contains, like functionalism and psychoanalytics like Freud. Their focus was on how mental
Chapter 2 – the philosophical approach
Philosophy is the search for wisdom and knowledge. In this chapter we look at 2 branches of
philosophy: metaphysics examines the nature of reality and epistemology is the study of
knowledge and asks questions such as, what is knowledge? The mind-body problem addresses
how psychological or mental properties are related to physical properties. On the one hand, we
look at the brain as material and physical. On the other hand, there are those who argue that the
mind is something more. The discussion in this chaptered is around the basic conceptions of
the nature of mind. According to monism, there is only one kind of state or substance in the
universe, Aristotle was a monist. He characterized the difference between mind and body as the
difference between mind and body as the difference between form and matter. In dualism, one
believes that both mental and physical substances are possible, like philosopher Plato. He
believed that the mind and the body exist in two separate worlds.
A possible way out of the mind-body problem is to rely solely on behaviors as indicators of
mental states. According to philosophical behaviorism, mental states are dispositions to
behave in certain ways under certain circumstances, like smiling when you are happy.
- Monism
Is we are monist, we are left with 2 fundamental choices. Either the universe is mental, or it is
physical. However, we do not believe in a mental world, like idealism does.
In the materialism world, or physicalism, it is believed that all things were composed of atoms.
A common thought with the monistic view is that the physicalism also believes that the universe
is composed of a single substance (atoms).
According to identity theory, the mind is the brain; so being happy is identical to a particular
type of brain activity. There is a lot of terminology in this theory as it describes both mental and
physical states. Because the scientific descriptions are more accurate and better reflect what is
actually going on, it might make sense to abandon our mental terms at all. This is what
eliminativism is about. It rejects the terminology and the mental states. It says; once you have a
good biological explanation for a psychological phenomenon, then you can eliminate the
psychological explanation and rely solely on the biological one.
In folk psychology subjective terms are used to help understand and predict behavior of
people; Cookies taste good, Tim likes to feel good, if Tim walks by the cookie store he will buy
and eat some cookies. However, folk psychology is too far removed from scientific explanations
that are tested in experiments.
➔ Evaluating the monist perspective: monist views have one advantage: they are simpler
than dualist accounts as they allow for only one single universe.
o Evaluating idealism; it does not really qualify as a legitimate theory because it
cannot be proved true or false.
o Evaluating physicalism: there is a lot of evidence for this. But it does have critics;
some say that physical processes cannot explain mental processes, as they
cannot explain different kinds of fear. Here is a need for mental terms.
o Identity theory: any mental state can be realized differently in different creatures.
This is the argument of multiple realization. Differences exist between species
but also between individuals.
, - Dualism
Dualists believe both in mental and physical realms. Classical dualism comes from Descartes.
He thought the mind exerted its control on the body through the pineal gland. In this view, the
mind is like a puppet master, the body the puppet, and the pineal gland the strings. In
substance dualism the mind and body are composed of completely different substances.
There are strong arguments against substance dualism; if mind and body are two different
substances, then they should not be able to causally interact, it does not give us any kind of
explanation like what are the mental things made of and how do they operate? Then there is
property dualism: the mind and the body can be of the same stuff, but have different properties
(characteristics). They believe that mental states are nonphysical properties of the brain.
However there is still little explanation.
➔ Evaluating dualist perspective: Clark says dualism is uninformative and tells us what the
mind isn’t rather then what it is. There is no explanation for the 2 worlds that must be
coordinated. Critics say introspection is a weak form of evidence and can be wrong.
- Functionalism
There needs to be made a distinction between two ways of
classifying things; physical kinds are identified by their material
composition only, whereas functional kinds are distinguished by
their actions or tendencies. According to functionalism, mental
states are not just physical states, but also the
functioning/operation of those physical states. It has several
implications like that the same mental state could be realized in
quite different ways than in two separate ways.
So, functionalism implies that mental states might not be reduced
to any particular physical state.
➔ Evaluating Functionalism: it is a very dominant view in the cognitive science. Critics have
argued that, although it is possible that minds can exist in the absence of brains, this
does not make it plausible. We have yet to see something mental in the absence of a
brain. Some have also argued that the failure to identify mind with a physical kind can
itself be considered a reason to do away with the concept of mind. Another problem is
qualia, it cannot account for the felt experienced characters of mental states, like
feeling hungry.
- The knowledge acquisition problem
In the nature-nurture debate we look at the differences between our ‘hardwired born’
characteristics and the things we learned through experience. According to nativism, a lot of
knowledge is innate or build into an organism. It favors nature (Plato). Rationalism is like
nativism, but differs still (Descartes). It states that we know certain logical reasonings like a thing
can’t exist and not exist.
Empiricism sees knowledge as acquired through experience and observation, it favors nurture.
Like Locke said we are a tabula rasa. Locke differentiated between simple ideas; derived
through sensory input or simple processes of reflection. Complex ideas are formed from the
active mental combination of simple ideas.
, ➔ Evaluating the knowledge acquisition debate: there is quite some research supporting
the notion that some forms of procedural knowledge are innate, like the reflexes of an
infant. There is a large middle ground consisting of traits and cognitive abilities that can
result from the complex interaction of nature and nurture.
- Consciousness
Consciousness is a complex concept and has no single agreed-on definition. It may be thought
of as our subjective awareness of mental states; sensation, perception, visual images. The
phenomenal concept of mind is essentially the idea of mind as a conscious experience. Mental
states in this view need to be explained in terms of how they feel. The psychological concept of
mind sees mental states only in terms of how they cause and explain behavior. Chalmers (1996)
differentiates between easy problems of consciousness (those that can be solved by cognitive
science and explained in terms of neural mechanisms, and hard problems of consciousness
(involves subjective experiences). The fact that subjective human experience may not be fully
explained by an objective account using physical and mechanical processes is known as the
explanatory gap.
The what is it like theory is about the idea that when you have a conscious mental state, there
is “something that it is like” to have that state. For example, when you bite into a candy bar, you
have a subjective experience of tasting it, but the candy bar itself does not. Conscious beings
can have experiences, while non-conscious things cannot.
Nagel (1974) asks what it is like for a bat to use echolocation. It is known how bats do this, but
that still does not explain 8what the bat’s experience is like. This shows that functional or
scientific descriptions cannot capture qualia—the subjective side of experience. Jackson (1982)
gives another example with Mary, the colorblind neuroscientist. She knows everything about
color vision scientifically, but when she first sees red, she gains a new kind of knowledge. Some
critics argue that subjective knowledge is not real factual knowledge, and so science should
focus only on objective methods like experiments, brain imaging, or computer simulations. The
problem is that consciousness seems to resist this purely objective approach.
The mind as an emergent property theory is about the idea that consciousness cannot be fully
explained by just looking at the brain’s parts. Reductionism says you can understand a whole
simply by adding up its parts, but emergence says the whole has features that go beyond that.
For example, water has liquidity and transparency, even though individual water molecules do
not. Searle argues that consciousness is like this: it emerges from the causal interactions of
neurons but is not reducible to them. He says consciousness is a property of the brain, similar to
how digestion is what stomachs do or photosynthesis is what plants do. Conscious states are
not physical states, but they are real and have their own distinct status. The emergent view is
appealing but has problems. It does not explain what a “property” actually is, especially if it is
nonphysical. It also leaves unclear how exactly microscopic processes in the brain give rise to
macroscopic conscious experience. In this way, even though Searle tries to avoid the traditional
mind–body debate, he seems to end up close to property dualism. The emergent property view is
about Searle’s idea that consciousness arises from the interactions of neurons but cannot be
reduced to them. However, critics say this still leaves problems. If consciousness is a
nonmaterial property, what exactly is a property? And how do microscopic neural events give
rise to macroscopic experience? Searle risks falling back into a form of property dualism. He
also relies on introspection as being infallible, but some argue that introspection often misleads
us and cannot be treated as fully reliable knowledge.
, Dennett, in contrast, rejects the classical “Cartesian theater” idea of a single place in the brain
where consciousness happens. He says consciousness is not a unified projection but instead
works as multiple drafts—parallel streams of mental activity that can be edited, delayed, or
combined. This explains phenomena like how we experience fireworks’ light and sound as
simultaneous even though they arrive at different times. Experiments also support the idea that
consciousness is constructed through parallel processes and editing.
The neuroscience view of consciousness is about the idea that conscious experience arises
from brain activity, specifically from populations of neurons working together. One proposal is
that the intralaminar nuclei of the thalamus, which relay sensory information to the cortex, play
a key role. Recurrent loops between thalamus and cortex may sustain information and explain
features like short-term awareness, daydreaming, or the return of consciousness in dreaming.
Churchland (1995) develops a neurocomputational theory based on this thalamus–cortex
circuit, arguing that its dynamic, recurrent activity is what allows consciousness to persist over
time. Other researchers, like Koch, focus on neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs),
defined as the minimal neural activity needed for a specific conscious experience. Different
NCCs may underlie the taste of chocolate, the feeling of wind, or the perception of a face.
Experiments with binocular rivalry show that changes in conscious awareness correspond to
changes in brain activity patterns. For instance, seeing a house activates the parahippocampal
place area, while seeing a face activates the fusiform face area. These studies suggest
consciousness can be linked to specific brain areas and patterns, but they still leave open the
deeper question: how do these objective patterns explain subjective experience?
The AI and consciousness debate is about whether machines could ever truly be conscious.
Strong AI says yes: consciousness could emerge from a purely physical, nonbiological process,
and with enough complexity and learning, machines might one day be conscious. Dennett
supports this by arguing that many things once seen as
mysterious now have scientific explanations, and that artificial
systems could, over time, develop real awareness. The main
challenge to this is Searle’s Chinese room argument. It shows
that following rules to manipulate symbols does not equal
understanding. A man in a room could use a rulebook to answer
Chinese questions without knowing Chinese at all. To Searle,
that’s all a machine can do: process symbols without meaning,
without intentionality, and therefore without true consciousness.
Others argue that understanding could be defined
operationally—as being able to respond appropriately. They also
say that as systems become more complex, they might develop real understanding. Clark adds
that cognition extends beyond the brain: when tools and systems are integrated, the whole can
achieve understanding even if its parts cannot.
Chapter 3 – the psychological approach; a profusion of theories
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. It uses scientific methods as a means
of gaining knowledge. It studies mental events like perception, reasoning and visual imagery as
well as behavior. There are different movements in psychology; i.e. voluntarism and
structuralism were concerned with listing the ‘stuff’ inside our heads (the basic elements). A
second group of psychologists focused more on what the mind does, rather than what it
contains, like functionalism and psychoanalytics like Freud. Their focus was on how mental
