John Searle Compare And Contrast

In his writings, “A Contemporary Defense of Dualism,” J.P. Moreland argues the point that the mind and brain are separate from each other. It seems as a quick thought that both are the same. However, the mind deals with ideas, thoughts and hopes. The brain is made up of the neural process. Throughout the entire argument, Moreland tries to prove the theory of physicalism, which is the idea that only things that exist are composed of matter. His explanation is that the soul doesn’t exist and the brain controls everything.

In his Meditations Rene Descartes aimed to reconstruct the whole of science by trying to prove the distinction between mind and matter. He gives an argument from doubt, and another from conceivability. I will give a brief summary of the foundations Descartes builds his thesis on, and then looking at his arguments and whether they are capable of persuading us that dualism is a logical stance to hold.

In this paper, I will examine the principal merits and challenges of René Descartes’ concept of dualism and then defend my preferred alternative among the options Paul M. Churchland discusses. After briefly defining Cartesian Dualism, I will show that its principal merits are that it is consistent with common sense and that it is able to explain phenomena that appear mental in nature. Next, I will show that its principal challenges are its failure to adequately explain how the mind and the body can causally interact, and its failure to respond to the observation that brain damage impairs the mind. Finally, I will explain why Functionalism is the best alternative to Cartesian Dualism.

During the sixteen hundreds, the French philosopher René Descartes laid the foundations for the beginnings of Cartesian Dualism. In contrast, the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued against dualism in favor of materialism. Recently, Cartesian Dualism, and dualism in general has fallen out of favor as materialism arose as a more plausible and explanatory theory regarding the interrelationships between body and mind. The translation Descartes’ writing in the Meditations is far more cryptic than Hobbes’ writing in the Leviathan. Making it far easier to see Hobbes’ claims. Hobbes provides a reasonable explanation against dualism in his objections to Descartes, and in his Leviathan, provides background upon his reasoning in

The debate between free will and determinism is something that will always be relevant, for people will never fully admit that we have no free will. But, while we may feel that we control what we do in life, we simply do not. The argument for free will is that individuals have full control and responsibility over their actions, and what they become in life as a whole (The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility by Galen Strawson, page 16). Determinism, on the other hand, is saying that we have no control over our actions and that everything we do in life is determined by things beyond our control (Strawson, page 7). After analysis of The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility by Galen Strawson and Freedom and Necessity by A. J. Ayer,

Dualism is defined as a belief that mental occurrences are more than just a physical act. Humans are composed of two kinds of substances which are immaterial and physical. The immaterial substance consists of the mind or soul and the physical substance consists of the body. Moreland attempts to make nonbelievers believe in the immaterial soul by mentioning that there are numerous non-physical entities that we believe in, such as numbers, goodness and moral laws. This ultimately leads to the defense of dualism and rejecting the physicalism worldview that is present with those that deny that the mind and body are separate entities.

The first matter to be noted is that this view is in no way in contradiction to science. Free will is a natural phenomenon, something that emerged in nature with the emergence of human beings, with their

To establish determinism, we can admit by denoting that some events in our lives happen because of prior reasons without yet losing our sense of freedom. It is actually evident that the events and actions that an individual undertakes action have different effects upon him even though they may be past or present events. Though we might not be sure whether our past event result to our present status in life, it is pertinent to note that freedom in decision making is an open forum for each individual and impacts on later activities. We can admit that some events, for example, a next domino fall, are bound to happen because of a prior event. It is possible that if we have no power to act other than us, in fact, to act, then we have no free will. This argument for hard determinism is persuasive. It is certainly valid, and none of the premises appears to be clearly false. Although we have discovered a plausible argument in defense of hard determinism, most people find this argument to be impossible to accept. In our lives, we hold each other in account of our deeds that we had made wrong choices.

Baron d’Holbach was an author, philosopher, and encyclopedist who was a prominent character during the French Enlightenment and is notable for being the first writer of openly atheist works. He was an atheist, a determinist, and a mechanistic materialist, believing that all events are determined by mechanistic causes and that there is no God or spiritual existence, and that there is only physical matter that exists. “Of The System of Man’s Free Agency” is Chapter 11 from System of Nature, d’Holbach’s most famous work. In this chapter, d’Holbach argues against the existence of free will through an ideology of materialistic determinism, an ideology essential to all of his conclusions but with a fallacy of false cause, which therefore decomposes

all of the time. Meaning that events and states in our mind can cause physical events in

Dualism is prominently associated with Descartes, it centers on the idea that the body and are but two separable and distinct entities that can exist without the other, therefore the soul can survive the body. More specifically called substance or Cartesian dualism, stating that although the mind can exist beyond the body’s confinement, the body without the soul can’t produce thought. The mind is but non-extended because it can be broken apart into smaller elements, nonphysical substance whereas the body is extended and physical substance, therefore one can exist without the other. Written in the Principles of philosophy, Descartes argues the dividend between body and minds and its reciprocity and independent existence of each other. The

Substance Dualism, also known as Cartesian dualism, argues that the mind has distinct substances from the body, making them two very different things. The mind is something which thinks, making it an immaterial substance different from the body which is physical and thus a material substance in contrast with the body. The initial source of this idea was founded by Descartes in ‘The Meditation of First Philosophy’, focusing on his sixth meditation where he concludes that he is distinct from his body (Descartes, 1641). The reasons he gives for substance dualism is that the body is essentially extended, whilst the mind is not. This can be understood in his argument from clear and distinct perception, where his first premise holds that he can clearly

     Before one can properly evaluate the entire debate that enshrouds the Free Will/Determinism, each term must have a meaning, but before we explore the meaning of each term, we must give a general definition. Determinism is, "Everything that happens is caused to happen. (Clifford Williams. "Free Will and Determinism: A Dialogue" pg 3). This is the position that Daniel, a character in Williams’ dialogue, chooses to believe and defend. David Hume goes a little deeper and explains in his essay, "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding of Liberty and Necessity," that determinism is this: "It is universally allowed, that matter, in all its operations, is actuated by a necessary force, and

Materialism gives absolute importance to the material world, saying that the material always precedes thought. Therefore, it argues that some mental phenomena do not really exist, all that exist is matter-energy physics following their corresponding natural laws and excluding the possibility of anything other than material such as free will, mind, or feelings. This is closely related to determinism, which states that all actions and events are determined or happen necessarily, and that human actions are not different. Hence, there is not free will. People do not have the power of make choices. Determinism also affirms that freedom of the will is an illusion. Then, if this is true, all our selected actions are exclusively necessitated by prior

The theory or doctrine of mind-brain identity, as its name implies, denies the claim of dualists that mind and brain (or consciousness and matter) are distinct substances. The tradition of dualism, whose clear-cut foundations laid by Rene Descartes (1596-1650) were built upon during succeeding centuries, sharply distinguishes between the stuff of consciousness and the stuff of matter.