What Is Unobservable?

I would like to begin this paper by addressing what question I hope to answer through the entirety of this paper: is the mind physical? As simple as this question may seem to be, there still, to this day, is not a definite answer. There are, mostly, two approaches to answering this problem, through dualism or physicalism. The dualist, for the purposes of this paper, simply believes that the mind and the body are not equal and therefore, they are not one in the same. The physicalist, however, would come back to say that there are no such things as non-physical objects and therefore, they would conclude that the body and the mind are both physical. After weighing on both sides of this argument, I am going to defend the physicalist ideas and

The main in Descartes Meditations 1 and 2 is that the method of gaining knowledge just through the senses is wrong, Descartes advocates for the method of gaining knowledge through the existing mind or intellect not through senses alone. He backs up his first argument reflecting on his life and how he believed things because of his senses. He then gives then gives the example of his dreams in which his senses tell him some things are true, in turn he believes them. In the second meditation he backs up his argument by stating the disconnection we as humans have from the mind and the world. He gives the example of the wax explaining we can’t gain knowledge about the wax based of just senses but it requires us to also use intellect.

Through the course of this paper, I began to wonder if it was even worth finishing. Thoughts rushed through my head on whether this Word document I was typing on even really existed. My reality as I presumed it to be may actually be thoughts in my head, and this philosophy assignment may have just been some weird way my own mind decided to entertain me. Perhaps yet, it may have been the work of a divine mind, taking helm of the way my thoughts flowed. These were all questions that came up as I read through George Berkeley 's, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge. For in his manuscript, he addresses skepticism about the physical world, that is the ambiguity humans have in how a physical world outside of our minds is like. Berkeley has a simple solution to this. Through his interpretations of ideas, Berkeley comes to the conclusion that there should not be any skepticism surrounding the physical world because the physical world simply does not exist.

One of the most fundamental questions in philosophy is the one of appearance vs. reality. We find ourselves asking the question of what is genuinely “real,” and what is viewed merely as just an “appearance,” and not real? It becomes difficult when we assume there is a difference in the two to determine which is which. Generally, what we label as “real” is regarded as external

The Knowledge Argument by Jackson is one of the main threats to Physicalism. Physicalism says that everything that is or could ever exist is ultimately physical in nature. The Knowledge Argument claims that there are truths about consciousness that cannot be deduced from the complete physical truth. Lewis’ response on the other hand, disagrees with the Knowledge Argument. In this paper I will address the Knowledge Argument and Lewis’ response to it.

Realism is broadly defined as verisimilitude, meaning “the faithful representation of reality” (Donna M. Campbell, 2011). Realism is the doctrine that universals exist outside the mind

G.E Moore, in his “Proof of an External World” attempts to offer the sceptics evidence for the existence of the external world. His evidence was simple, namely that of him having hands. In this essay, I will present Moore’s argument, and offer a critique, based on the Cartesian sceptic view.

The mind is perhaps the most fascinating part of the human body due to its complexity and ability to rationalize. In essence, the mind-body problem studies the relation of the mind to the body, and states that each human being seems to embody two unique and somewhat contradictory natures. Each human contains both a nature of matter and physicality, just like any other object that contains atoms in the universe. However, mankind also is constituted of something beyond materialism, which includes its ability to rationalize and be self-aware. This would imply that mankind is not simply another member of the world of matter because some of its most distinctive features cannot be accounted for in this manner. There are obvious differences between physical and mental properties. Physical properties are publically accessible, and have weight, texture, and are made of matter. Mental properties are not publically accessible, and have phenomenological texture and intentionality (Stewart, Blocker, Petrik, 2013). This is challenging to philosophers, because man cannot be categorized as a material or immaterial object, but rather a combination of both mind and body (Stewart, Blocker, Petrik, 2013). Man embodies mind-body dualism, meaning he is a blend of both mind and matter (Stewart, Blocker, Petrick, 2013). The mind-body problem creates conflict among philosophers, especially when analyzing physicalism in its defense. This paper outlines sound

G.E. Moore “Proof of an External World” argues, if there is proof of an external world. Moore disregards Kant's view of the external world deeming it too complex. In order, to prove that the external world existence, Moore simply holds up his two hands. He explains how his hands are proof the external by stating three conditions. Furthermore, the conditions are analyzed to show the reader how this conclusion is reached.

The Mind-Body problem arises to Philosophy when we wonder what is the relationship between the mental states, like beliefs and thoughts, and the physical states, like water, human bodies and tables. For the purpose of this paper I will consider physical states as human bodies because we are thinking beings, while the other material things have no mental processes. The question whether mind and body are the same thing, somehow related, or two distinct things not related, has been asked throughout the history of Philosophy, so some philosophers tried to elaborate arrangements and arguments about it, in order to solve the problem and give a satisfactory answer to the question. This paper will argue that the Mind-Body Dualism, a view in

In this paper, I will defend the claim that reductive physicalism is false. I will argue for this by presenting Rene Descartes conceivability argument that because we can imagine having a mind but no body then the two must be distinguishable, Frank Jackson's knowledge argument that because it is possible to have full physical knowledge of a phenomenon yet lack qualitative or experiential knowledge of that phenomenon then not all phenomenon can be physical, and Thomas Nagel’s consciousness argument that because we cannot capture the true subjective experience of living thing then there is no way to reduce consciousness to an objective analysis.

Unfortunately the postmodern philosophy of our day has reduced the concept of reality to all kinds of relativistic structures of consciousness that fail to have general application in providing us with the universals predicated by Heavenly Father’s perspective of the world and its people. Instead reality has been relegated to the subjective interpretation of the individual and to “situational ethics.” This view would have us believe that the nature of reality shifts with each individual’s personal perspective or

Traditionally, realism is associated with any position that endorses belief in the reality of something. Thus, one might be a realist about one 's perceptions of tables and chairs (sense datum realism), about tables and chairs themselves (external world realism), or about mathematical entities such as numbers and sets (mathematical realism), and so forth. Scientific realism is a realism about whatever is depicted by our best scientific theories—from this point forward, ‘realism’ here denotes scientific realism. But what, more precisely, is that? In order to be evident as to what scientific realism amounts to and to distinguish it from some important antirealist alternatives, it is useful to understand it in terms of three dimensions: a metaphysical dimension,a semantic dimension, and an epistemological dimension.

As with many philosophers worth studying, a common theme present amongst René Descartes, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant is the fact that all three philosophers challenged the traditional ways of thinking about philosophy respective to their eras. In certain aspects, all three of these philosophers also grappled with understanding, discovering, and logically explaining the power of the mind to shape whole truths. From Descartes’ foundational work with methodological doubt to Kant’s contribution to previous philosophical concepts such as synthetic judgments, all three men made undeniably valuable advances in epistemological thought despite the occasional controversies associated with their forward thinking during their time.

“Metaphysics encompass the study of what is sometimes termed “ultimate reality”. As such, metaphysics raises questions about reality that go beyond sense experience, beyond ordinary science. Metaphysical questions involve free will, the mind-body relationship, supernatural existence, personal immorality, and the nature of being. Some philosophers question the very possibility of a reality