Summary ISSUES WITH DUALISM ( ALEVEL EXAM BUNDLE)

ISSUES FACING DUALISM


“SUBSTANCE DUALISM &
PROPERTY DUALISM”

, Notes:




Notes:

- Problem of other minds:
 We know that our mental states occur by introspection but we cannot
experience other people’s mental states
 Other people could all be automatons and I could be the only
mind
 We can establish the existence of our own mind through
introspection
 Cannot prove existence of other people’s minds in the same
way we discover our own
 All we have to go on is other people’s behaviours
 E.g when a person cry shows that they are sad
 Other people could be programmed to display exact replicas of
human behaviour but without mental states
 Face threat of solipsism = you are the only mind that exists
 My mind is private & inaccessible
 External world is unverifiable (minds of others)
o Each of us only experiences our own
thoughts/sensations and feelings
 Problem for dualism = cannot assume people have minds when
experiencing their behaviour
 If mind & body are two independent substances (substance
dualism), how do we know that a mind is attached to the body
 It is possible to have physical behaviour without a mind
o P -ZOMBIE
 Minds are immaterial = cannot be detected by 3rd person
means