The Story of Philosophy - Research Paper Example

Introduction to philosophy Introduction to philosophy aims at introducing philosophical thinking in general ratherthan providing a full survey of all philosophical disciplines, their doctrines, methods and leading ideas. The mind-body problem looks at the relationship between matter and the mind, and more specifically the relationship between the brain and consciousness. The central issue in the mind-body problem is the question seeking to know the nature of the relationship between the nervous system and physical brain. It further goes to put into consideration whether physical existence (idealism and dualism) is somehow separated from the brain. Physicalism in philosophy is the existing argument that “everything is physical” or rather there is nothing else over and above the physical. Dualism is the view that the body and the mind are different, in other words, they are not identical. It is therefore the view that mental phenomenon is, in some disciplines non-physical. The essence of a physical body according to Descartes is its ability to occupy or fill a particular space resulting in exclusion of other bodies from it. The essence of the mind on the other hand is thinking and involves examples such as;imagining,believing,feeling,remembering,desiring,guessing,anticipating,calculating,reasoning,fearing,doubting,reasoning and getting angry. Human nature is made up of both body and mind or rather dualism. This means we have bodies and we spend a lot of energy and time on them. It is also obvious that we have minds and because of this we travel to increase its experiences, consult specialists to cure it and even pay attention to its emotions, doubts and beliefs. The mind and the body are totally different and separate concepts, denoting different kinds of phenomena, thus the term “illness” can never apply equally to both, hence the body cannot be ill as the mind can. It is clear therefore that the body and the mind are not only separated as objects of research, they are separate objects generally and obey different rules and respond differently to various life events. Thomas Nagel uses the example of a bat, and ponders;”What Is It Like to Be a Bat?”.In this essay, Thomas claims that theories (materialist) of mind leave out the crucial component of consciousness. An organism has got mental states that are conscious and exists in several areas of an animal’s life, particularly in the subgroup of mammals. Some objections to dualism that we’ve looked at include; the fact that evolution somehow would most likely have produced immaterial minds along our lines of lineage which looks inexplicable/improbable, when and how could this have taken place? The notion that immaterial minds cannot fit with the current physical world and the question of how can immaterial minds interact in space-time? And finally there must be some energy exchange if the mind were to interact with the body. Elizabeth challenges Descartes to explain us how the mind of an individual which is only a thinking object, can determine the bodily actions produced by bodily spirits. Thus it appears that when B is pushed by A, there is some sort of connection, which makes causal relation to occur. Elizabeth therefore makes a suggestion that the connection is spatial contact. She makes an argument that a body and a mind cannot come into spatial contact. Bodies are material, extended substances, whereas minds are immaterial, unextended substances. The arguments for physicalism include; the knowledge argument which is one of the major challenges to physicalism and claims that the world is completely physical. The argument claims that there are some truths pertaining consciousness that cannot be derived from the complete physical truth. Survival Plato’s view on whether we can survive death is that the soul could go on existing apart from the body and would continue existing after the body dies. Plato argues that humans are composed of souls and bodies, but the soul is immortal and more important. Plato claimed that he could make a conclusion that the soul could independently exist, irrespective of the body, since the soul acts independently of the body while engaging in thought. Plato is a dualist and associates the following properties with physical things; material, perishable and visible whereas the soul has properties such as those of being immaterial, immortal and invisible. Paul Edward’s argues that there is continued existence of an individual’s personality after the body’s physical death. He for example identifies death thus; once the conscious individual ceases to exist. Instrumentalism views scientific theory as a vital instrument in comprehending the world and is better portrayed as non-realism. It greatly objects Edward’s argument since instrumentalism believes there is no continued life after death and with death comes the finality of everything. Edward claims that the individual consciousness continues existing and does not end with death. Edward further claims that you can witness the death of others but not your own does not prove that there is a different meaning of death in the two cases. Thus according to Edward, the mind and the soul cease to exist after death. Death According to Epicurus, we should not fear death; we in fact should look forward to it-since the moment we die and cease to exist, we do not experience anything. He argues that death is in fact the cessation of all streams of consciousness. Epicurus theory of happiness holds that pleasure is only an intrinsic value and argues that the most pleasant life is one whereby we keep off unnecessary desires and achieve peace by being contented with simple and instead choose philosophical pleasure of conversing with friends over the pursuit of common physical pleasures such as sex, drink and food. Thomas Nagel’s deprivation theory states that death is harmful since it deprives an individual specific goods s/he would have gotten had death not occurred. Thomas Nagel’s argument against death claims that death mostly deprives us of good things and is to be feared since it is quite ok to fear the loss of valuable and good things we could have achieved such as enjoying the fruit of one’s labor, seeing our children grow up well and have children of their own and so on. Free will and determinism Free will is simply the conviction that we are in full control of our many choices and therefore our destiny; in other words we have the freedom to think and decide. The reason why we should have free will is because without free will, we would have no control of our goals and choices. Another reason is that without free will things like planning, prescriptive morality, self-esteem and social and self-responsibility would be meaningless. Determinism is simply the philosophical position that every state of affairs or event, which includes human action and decision, is the necessary and unavoidable result of predecessor of certain state of affairs. Determinism is a modernized version for Democritus an ancient idea which argues that the motion of atoms is determined by causal deterministic laws and the idea that most things, including our minds are made up of atoms in a void. The three main views whether we have free will are; whether people are capable of acting freely, the view that whether causal laws govern human behavior and is there any compatibility between being causally and acting freely. The main differences between these views is that the first view relates to human beings having free will the second is on whether humans have the power to act freely, and the third one is whether human behavior is indeed governed by causal behavior and if there is any compatibility between acting freely and being causally. The first view supports free will, the second view supports determinism and the third view supports compatibilism. The following are arguments we studied in support of hard determinism; if an action must occur, then it is not free and for any event Y, there are precursor causes that make sure the occurrence of Y in line with mechanical, impersonal laws. Arguments for soft determinism include; our inability to control the various inputs that start the complicated aversions and desire we may have at a given time and we would act freely when directed by them, and not influenced by obvious constraint or compulsion. Argument in support of libertarianism include the natural rights argument which claims that individuals have rights to liberty, life and property that are inviolable and its immoral for them to be violated by anybody. The other argument is that free society and free market fulfills goals of prosperity, technological innovation and poverty alleviation. The challenges facing free will include denial of any freedom by determinism, the compatibilists have redefined freedom and they claim that determinism by our will permits us to have moral responsibility for our actions and lastly Libertarians believe that the will is usually free when a choice is made and is not necessitated or determined by past events. The will is usually free if alternative choices could be made with similar conditions that are pre-existing. Work Cited Will, Durant. The Story of Philosophy. New York: Pocket Books, 1991. http://www.optimal.org/peter/freewill.htm http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/ Read More