Descartes Substance Dualism - Admission/Application Essay Example

?Descartes’ Substance Dualism Studying the problem of existence, Descartes tried to create a basic, fundamental concept that would characterize the essence of being. For this purpose the philosopher created the concept of substance. The substance is all that exists, and does not require the existence of anything but itself. Such characteristic (lack of necessity for the existence of anything other than itself) belongs only to one substance – God, who is eternal, uncreated, indestructible, omnipotent, the source and cause of everything. In general, Descartes’ dualism has two manifestations. The first manifestation is the dualism of body and soul in man. Two substances—mental and material—are completely separated from each other. Descartes, however, mentioned the pineal gland, in which they are connected, but this argument has no effect. In general, there is a gap between them. Mental substance has no spatial parameters, material substance has spatial parameters. Descartes rejects admission of the existence of the body; he speaks of the mental unenbodied substance, which exists in itself separated from the body. The second manifestation is the duality of God and world. This is a deistic position: God is the creator of the world. Having created the world as an extended substance, he gave it the laws of mechanics and the first impulse. God does not intervene in the affairs of the world. After that everything develops according to the laws of mechanics. In terms of dualism Descartes solved the fundamental question of philosophy – the dispute about the priority of matter or consciousness is meaningless. Matter and consciousness are united only in man, and since man is dualistic (combines two substances – the material and the spiritual), neither matter nor consciousness can be primary – they always exist and are two different manifestations of being. This viewpoint seems to be the closest to common sense. In fact, people tend to believe that they have both mind and body, and even though they somehow fit together, the difference between thoughts, feelings, and such material things as rocks or tables is too large to consider all these things as a single form of being. According to materialist outlook, matter (objective reality) is ontologically the primary cause, and the ideal is secondary. Materialism recognizes the existence of a single substance – matter; all entities are formed by matter and all phenomena (including consciousness) are the processes of interaction of material entities. According to the materialist theory, spiritual or mental is a subclass of physical processes in brain; thinking is identical to brain processes. Considering the question of the nature of consciousness materialism exists in two main forms: reductive and eliminative. Reductive materialism views all mental states and properties as states and properties of human brain. For example, leg pain can be identified as a quite material process of “ignition” of certain neural tissue. Eliminative materialism goes even further replacing all mental processes with neurophysiological or brain ones. It is impossible to prove the materialist doctrine either theoretically or empirically. One must go beyond matter to make a statement about the whole matter, assuming that mind is inside matter, because it depends on it (according to the materialists). The idea of ??the whole matter must be logically out of matter and above it. Locke’s Theory of Personal Identity John Locke was one of the first scientists in Western philosophy to study the problem of personal identity, distinguishing human identity (the identity of continuously changing particles that join with same organism) and personal identity of a rational being, endowed with self-consciousness (according to Locke, the latter is close to memory). In this sense personality can be saved after changing physical substance. According Locke’s theory of identity people cannot be resurrected after death with numerically same bodies they had in life. Consciousness of a resurrected person will be extended, regardless of whether it remained as the same thinking agent. Locke shows it with the example of the soul of a prince in the body of a cobbler. He says that it will be the same person as the prince, responsible only for the actions of the prince, but one can’t say that it will be the same person. Locke believed that for all people man is defined by his body, so this person would be the same cobbler for everyone, except himself. Locke warned that only in ordinary speech one and the same personality and one and the same person mean the same thing, but the researcher must distinguish between the ideas of the spirit (consciousness), the person and personality. According to Locke, if a person can remember some experience, he/she in fact had that experience. This is the most debatable part of his theory: if we admit the last argument we will have to admit the following: if the person cannot remember some experience, then he/she did not have that experience. Memory is consequently, according to Locke, a necessary condition of personal identity. Dependence of the personal identity on how the person is seen by everyone was developed by Hume and subsequently reflected in contemporary views on identity. Hume spoke critically about Locke’s opinion. He believed that personal identity cannot be created by consciousness, for the latter is, in fact, merely perception. Finding some of the perceptions connected in the mind by means of associative relations one ascribes them to the identity. In the process of introspection it is impossible to find a peculiar “self”, as something that exists aside individual perceptions. I think that though this point has some drawbacks, it is more plausible. Hume’s perceptions can be compared with the features of Cheshire Cat’s face in Alice in Wonderland which together made up his smile. That smile outside the combination of those features was nothing. In the same way Hume’s concept of human personality is nothing outside perceptions. In fact, Hume did not deny the existence of personalities. This would be tricky to do, because their existence is an indisputable empirical and sociological fact. Nagel’s Article “What is it like to be a Bat?” In this article Nagel concerns the problem of self-perception. More precisely, he is interested in the experience of consciousness. Based on the fact that a certain creature is aware of something, Nagel concludes that being this creature is something that it feels like. Therefore, Nagel asks: “What is it like to be ...?” And it doesn’t mean just imagine being something – one will just view himself in that place. Nagel talks about feeling to be something from the point of view of this something. Furthermore, one should turn away from personal experience and get some kind of quintessence, the overall experience of the species one want to feel to be. Nagel argued that no matter how much we learn about the physiology of bats, we cannot really know what it means to be a bat, because science cannot penetrate into the area of subjective experience. The case of the scientist from Mars clearly demonstrates that although he could understand the rainbow with the scientific and physical point of view, he simply cannot see it as a human being perceives it. Despite the modern discoveries in the fields of biology, genetics, etc., Nagel’s point that any attempt to imagine what it’s like to be a bat will fail. People can only imagine what it is like for a human to pretend to try to be a bat. It’s just impossible that having human senses one can meaningfully correlate his/her experiences with those of a bat. In general, Nagel’s point is convincing. However, he didn’t pay attention to one moment. The bat has no idea “what it is like to be a bat.” Moreover, it does not even raise this question. Language as a means of exchanging ideas allows human beings to ask this question and to search for solutions. Hard and Soft Determinism Determinism is a philosophical doctrine of regular interconnection, interdependence of entities and phenomena in the real world. Modern progressive determinism does not imply a strict causality. On the contrary, since all the real essences and phenomena are probabilistic, the ratio (interdependence) between them is also probabilistic. Adherents of hard determinism consider that environment, genetics, unconscious instincts, defense mechanisms, and other effects determine people to act the way they do; and due to it they are not responsible for their deeds. Soft determinism, on the other hand, considers that freedom means being capable to do what one wills to do, without compulsion or interference from anyone else. The desires of a person (as expressed by person’s individuality or character) are determined by external circumstances (e.g., heredities, culture, background), but as long as this person is capable to act consistent with his choices, this person is considered free. Such opinion is called soft determinism because though it acknowledges that all happenings, including human activity, have causes, it admits the existence of free actions, if the actions are caused by person’s choices rather than external circumstances. D’Holbach described the principles of materialism of his epoch in The System of Nature. He offered the idea that all the phenomena of nature and all natural forces are caused by various forms of motion of material particles. Nature is a unity of different moving forces of matter. The movement is inherent in matter, and nothing exists besides matter in motion. The movement is the source of all the properties that were considered as primary in the concepts of Descartes and Spinoza. He describes the movement of two types – the mechanical movement and interaction of invisible material particles. Causality and determinism are understood mechanically. Nature as matter in motion has no accidents. Cause and effect are everywhere: in space and in the field of human action. David Hume tried to clear the notion of causality from any kinds of metaphysical overtones. In fact, he questioned the very concept of causality. Hume argued that the only direct benefit of all sciences is that they teach humanity to control future events and manage them by means of causes. Hume was convinced that the fact that we know of an event A following event B—even if this following was repeated several times—does not prove that in the future event A will invariably follow event B. Hume came to conclusion that our belief in causality is nothing more than a habit, and rightly argues that the habit cannot be a suitable basis for a belief. The concept of hard determinism and mechanistic world view in general had been increasingly coming into conflict with real events and events that were studied in physics, biology and social sciences. In fact, if we assume that all the phenomena, processes and relations between them are strictly interconnected, it remains unclear how new things can occur in the world. Also, hard determinism does not allow for free actions, which is highly debatable. Libertarianism and Free Will Being a libertarian, Campbell considers that free will is incompatible with determinism (“incompatibilism”). People possess free will, and thus, determinism is mistaken. The key argument for incompatibilism is the “could have done otherwise” argument. According to it, if a person freely chooses to do something, he “could have done otherwise” having precisely the same beliefs, desires, motives, etc., that is, could have chosen to act in another way. According to Campbell, there are two meanings of the expression “could have done otherwise”. Thus, in the categorical sense “could have done otherwise” means “could have chosen in a different way”, even in precisely the same conditions, with exactly the same thinking, desires, motives, personality. Another meaning is, in fact, Hume’s definition of free will. According to it, in the hypothetical sense “could have done otherwise” means acting differently, if the agent had wanted to do so. In his work Campbell prefers not Hume’s hypothetical argument, but the “categorical sense” of “could have done otherwise”. According to Campbell, that argument is the best one, since its principles are true and it’s deductively valid. Thus, he concludes, it proves that incompatibilism is right. The issue of free will was also studied by William Rowe. Generally speaking, he belongs to the group of philosophers, who believe freedom of will consists in a characteristically personal form of causality, usually called “agent causation.” The agent himself triggers his choice or act, and this is not to be reductively examined as an incident within the agent triggering the choice. In Two Concepts of Freedom William Rowe discussed Lockean and Raidian accounts of freedom. Rowe offers two principal objections to Lockean freedom. By his words, Locke considered freedom to do a certain thing as the power to do that thing if we will to do it. But, according to Rowe, a person might have the power to do something if he/she wills to do it and yet lack the power to will to do it. He concludes that freedom must embrace the power to will, and not just the power to do if one wills. Rowe aslo offers an objection against the so-called “necessitarian” view, according to which the acts of will are causally necessitated by preceding events and conditions. Rowe considers that causal necessitation of human acts of will denies to any real power over the determinations of human will. Not having such power people do not act freely. Rowe is an advocate of—as he calls it—Reidian freedom. According to this freedom, any action people perform as a result of their act of will to do that action is a free action, on condition that that they were the agent-cause or the act of will to perform that action. Due to the fact, that to agent-cause an act of will includes the power not to cause it, it is possible to conclude that every act of will resulting in a free action is an act of will people had power to produce and power not to produce. Rowe, however, had to change Reid’s view of agent-causation according to his own views. Thus, not every act of the agent can be produced by the person only by the person’s applying power to produce it. Acts of will that are committed by the person whose acts they are, according to Rowe, are such that the person commits them but not by any other act or any exertion of the power he/she has to produce the acts of will. Rowe’s understanding of free will is closer to Hume’s hypothetical argument, which is based upon the desire to do some act. I think Rowe’s arguments are very convincing, and he is right to consider the will and the power to produce the acts of will. Merely choosing to act without the power to produce the act can’t be considered free will. Moral Luck According to Nagel, the concept of “luck” refers to different groups of circumstances; above all, they differ by the time of influence: some have already had their effect, but it has implications for the current course of events, others are woven directly into this course of events, and some are future events, the effect of which, however, affects the present. Speaking of moral luck, Nagel mostly had in mind the circumstances of the latter type. The concepts of constitutive luck and failure are closely linked with the problem of matching determinism and free will. For example, if we agree, that even been aware of his viciousness, that is, sharing moral values??, a person who was unlucky enough to be evil and cannot do anything with the way he acts, then it is perhaps more likely that he cannot be responsible for his actions, since he is not recognized as their author. If he is able to change, it would be correct to say that he continues to do evil on his own, and therefore constitutive luck is not an immediate cause of his immorality. Nagel argues that in two situations associated with the negligence of the same type (for example, in dealing with the car), where in one case there were no consequences, and in another a person was killed, our evaluation of the behavior of the subject will differ, and this difference is constituted by the consequences of behavior that was similar in both cases. One careless driver was lucky not to kill a person, another wasn’t so lucky: both results are caused by coincidence. In both cases, we tend to consider the driver’s negligent behavior worthy of condemnation, but in the case with the death of a person the degree of condemnation will be much greater, and this makes it a moral failure, as it directly affects the moral judgment, namely, to what extent the person is subject to moral condemnation or acquittal. Moral relevance of luck in making risky decisions is illustrated by the example of Chamberlain’s signing the Munich agreement, not knowing to what terrible consequences it will lead. The moral evaluation of his actions is caused by these consequences and, therefore, in terms of Nagel, is a moral failure of Chamberlain. Cases with making risky decisions differ, by Nagel, from cases of negligence by the fact that the person in them is morally responsible regardless of the outcome; luck affects only the degree of responsibility and what he is responsible for. Nagel, therefore, assumes that 1) the moral value of actions is defined by its moral evaluation by other people and 2) the actual practice of forming moral judgments really demonstrates the significant dependence of these judgments upon actual results. I agree to Nagel’s point both in cases of free will and moral luck. Thus, the villain, who can’t act otherwise (for example, due to some mental illness), but who understands that his actions harm someone shouldn’t be blamed for that. Also, moral evaluation of some actions indeed depends on the results of such actions. Even if a right choice later brings to bad results the act will be considered as bad by other people. Read More