Introduction to Philosophy

28 March 2001

The Mind/Body Problem

I. Dualism—The Official Doctrine

A. People have two parts or aspects: mind and body.

1. Body is physical

a. Material, made of matter

b. Located in space and time

c. Subject to physical laws (e.g. gravity)

d. Public, unprivileged

2. Mind is not physical

a. Immaterial, not made of matter

b. Not located in space (time?)

c. Not subject to ordinary physical laws

d. Private, privileged

B. Differences supporting dualism

1. Survival

2. Divisibility

3. Privileged access

4. Privacy

5. Intentionality

II. Ryle—The Ghost in the Machine

A. Category-errors (universities, class, team-spirit, average family, “flood of tears”)

B. Origin of Descartes’s category-error? Ryle: Para-mechanical response to scientific progress.

C. Mental causation also pushes toward mechanistic conception of mind

D. Two varieties of category error

1. Items from same category treated as if from different categories

2. Items from different categories treated as if from same category