Mental Causation - Essay Example

PHYSICALIST VS DUALIST ON HOW MENTAL CAUSALLY INTERACTS WITH THE PHYSICAL Introduction For a very long time, man has continuously attempted to understand himself and how his nature functions. As part of the search for such knowledge, many philosophical deductions and hypotheses have been made as to how the whole human system functions. Quote (year) noted that as part of René Descartes’ search for knowledge on how the human system functions, it was claimed that the mind and the body are separate substances. Since this philosophical claim was made, several resultant works in the field of philosophy have been made, especially in the area of philosophy of mind. As philosophy of mind covers studies on the nature of the mind and other mental properties such as mental events, mental functions, consciousness, mental properties, and the relationship of these with the physical body such as the brain (quote), this field has tried to make meaning from René Descartes’ assertion. One of the key aspects of philosophy of mind that has been used to understand the relationship between the mind and the physical is what has come to be known as mental causation. The problem of mental causation has sought to resolve the question of how the non-physical and immaterial mind can possibly act on the body (quote). This question has been necessitated since the mind has been claimed to be independent of the body, and that the body is only physical and material. There are several philosophical positions taken on the problem of mental causation. Each of these philosophical positions has tried to explain the problem of mental causation. Two of these are the physicalist and dualists. However, there continues to debates among physicalists that dualists cannot satisfactorily interpret and give account of how the mental causally interacts with the physical. In this paper, the writer tries to examine the claim of the physicalist by giving reasons as to why the physicalist might think that the dualist cannot give a satisfactory account of mental causation. To do this effectively, mental causality shall be viewed from the perspective of dualism and the weaknesses and strengths associated with their arguments from the point of physicalism shall assessed. The paper will therefore conclude with a position taken if indeed dualists cannot give a satisfactory account of how the mental causally interacts with the physical. Overview of the problem of mental causation The problem of mental causation is one that has been described to be an intuitive one, focusing on the possibility that mental events cause physical events and physical events cause mental events (quote). The major problem put forward by mental causation has to do with how mental events have causal effects on physical events, given the fact that the body, which is responsible for physical events is deemed to be independent from the mind. The main issue with mental causation has to do with a non-correspondence in explanation that seems to underline the understanding that the body is only physical and material. This is because if the body is only physical and material, then it should be controlled only by physical and material motivations for the body to act. For example, a person should decide to buy a certain color of shoe because the leg has the material urge to wear that shoe. But once the problem of mental causation is brought into the argument, a new position is taken that it is possible for the mind, rather than the leg to be the source of motivation as to why a person would want to buy the said color of the shoe. This makes the problem of mental causation a highly dualistic situation, whereby the mind and the body are seen to relate together and affect each other. Mental Causation from the Perspective of Dualism The whole problem of mental causation has been claimed by some to be a dualist philosophy rather than a generalized philosophy of mind. This is because as the name implies, dualism takes the position that the mind and the body are not identical (quote). In effect, if the body and mind are not identical, then there should be a cause to worry about the notion that the mental interacts with the physical. Meanwhile there is a component of dualism that tends to claim to give solution to the problem of mental causation by claiming that the mental and physical causally interacts with the physical and vice versa (quote). This component of dualism is inspired by Descartes and is named interactionist dualism. The problem of mental causation from the perspective of dualism can therefore be said to revolve around the arguments of interactionist dualism. Debate however continues to rage on as to whether interactionist dualism solves the problem of mental causation or creates the problem of mental causation. There are many who believe that interactionist dualism creates the problem rather than solves it because that philosophy stands in great contradiction to universally acclaimed positions held about mind-body problem, which also takes its roots from philosophy of mind and claims that there cannot be such thing as an interaction between the mind and the body (quote). Physicalist claim against mental causation Physicalists actually reject the issue of mental causation, debating that the mental and physical are rather identical, or at worse, supervene physical events (quote). This means that as far as physicalists are concerned, there is a monism, whereby the separation between the mental and the physical do not exists all together. Because no such relationship is said to exist, the argument of their interaction do not also come into the discussion of physicalist all together. There are several theories that are used by physicalists to consolidate their claim of the mental and physical being identical. One of these is behaviorism, where it is held that mental events are inherent qualities of the mind that cause a person to behave in certain ways (quote). From this position, physicalists argue that the mind is actually a part of the physical and so there is no basis to start an argument of their independence as claimed by Descartes. This is because as soon as the debate of independence or separation is made, then there is a major limitation in trying to explain or accept the position of another claim that focuses on the mental causally interacting with the physical. In several quarters of academic studies therefore, physicalism has been noted to be the solution to the problem of mental causation, whereby through the arguments of physicalism, the problem of mental causation cannot be said to exist all together. Another perspective from which the physicalist view mental causation and argues against it is with the identity theory. Already, it has been said that physicalists believe that the mental and physical are identical and that the most unrelated conceptualization that can be made between the two is that the mind supervene physical events (quote). It is from this stand that the identity theory is developed as a counterargument against the claim of dualists that the mental causally interacts with the physical. As part of the identity theory, it is claimed that mental events are a type of physical events. However as part of supervenience, this relation between the mental and physical are said to form an order whereby lower level properties of the human action process determines its higher level properties (quote). Using an analogy of a person who choose to buy a bow tie instead of a flying tie, the identity theory, and backed by supervenience can be used as a form of physicalism to explain that the choice will be made as a result of direct communication between the mind and the physical. In such a situation however, the wishes of the buyer acts as a lower level order that needs to be satisfied by a higher level property, which is the mind’s ability to appreciate the aesthetic supremacy of the bow tie over the flying tie. Weaknesses of dualists’ argument as viewed from physicalist claim Based on the position taken by physicalists that the mind and physical are identical and that there is no room for independent exists of the two, major weaknesses are exposed in the claims made by dualists about how the mental causally interacts with the physical. In one of such claims, quote (year) indicated that the whole attempt by dualists to put up a claim about how the mental causally interacts with the physical, when there also exists that fundamental claim by Descartes that the mind and the body are separate and unrelated is a double standard. What this means is that once the position is taken that the mind is nonphysical, it would only be mysterious and an act of betrayal against the same philosophical claim that the mind has causal effects on anything that is physical. With an accusation of dualism being double standard on the issue of mental causation, the credibility of dualism as a whole becomes called into question. Another way that the double stand position of dualism in explaining how the mental causally interacts with the physical have been explained with possibly having two different complete causes to a single physical action that is performed (quote). This is because if a physical action has a complete physical cause, then brining in the role of the mental as claimed by dualists, means that there are two different complete causes, which are the physical and the mental. Read More