Philosophy of Mind: The Basics

Amy Kind

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781317613541
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Philosophy of Mind: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to the fundamental philosophical questions and theories about the mind. The author Amy Kind, a leading expert in the field, examines central issues concerning the nature of consciousness, thought, and emotion. The book addresses key questions such as:

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• What is the nature of the mind?
• What is the relationship between the mind and the brain?
• Can machines have minds?
• How will future technology impact the mind?

With a glossary of key terms and suggestions for further reading, Philosophy of Mind: The Basics is an ideal starting point for anyone seeking a lively and accessible introduction to the rich and complex study of philosophy of mind.

Mind and Mentality

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Harry finally kisses Cho, a classmate on whom he has had a crush since his early days at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Unfortunately, however, Cho starts crying during the kiss. Were Cho’s tears a sign that Harry is a terrible kisser? That’s the explanation that Harry and Ron come up with when discussing the situation afterwards. In an effort to set them straight, Hermione tries to get them to understand how things likely seem from Cho’s perspective:

Well, obviously, she’s feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she’s feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work out who she likes best. Then she’ll be feeling guilty, thinking it’s an insult to Cedric’s memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she’ll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can’t work out what her feelings toward Harry are anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that’s all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she’s afraid she’s going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she’s been flying so badly.

(Rowling 2014, 424)

When encountering Hermione’s explanation, some readers might disagree with the accuracy of her assessment of Cho’s feelings, while others might think she got things exactly right. Still others might share Ron’s stunned reaction: “One person can’t feel all that at once, they’d explode.” Whichever of these reactions one has, however, the kinds of characterizations that Hermione uses to describe Cho – that she’s thinking and feeling and worrying, that she has conflicting romantic inclinations, that she’s sad and afraid and confused – are no doubt familiar ones. All of these characterizations seem a perfectly natural way to describe a teenager like Cho’s states of mind.

Of course, Cho and the other students at Hogwarts are witches and wizards, but we use the same kinds of words to describe the states of mind of those of us humans who are not endowed with magical powers. But now suppose we take a step back and consider what exactly these descriptions are describing. What is a state of mind? Or, to step back even farther, what is a mind? Posing these questions provides an entry point into philosophy of mind, the subject matter that we’ll be exploring in this book.

What is philosophy of mind?

Philosophy of mind sits at the intersection of two big sub-fields of philosophy – metaphysics and epistemology. In metaphysics we take up questions about reality, and more specifically, about its structure and nature. We normally accept the existence of things like tables and trees and tadpoles without question. But do all of these things really exist, or are they just elaborate fictions imposed by human beings on the world? And what about other kinds of seeming existents, like time and numbers and God? Do all these exist too? And if so, how is their existence to be understood and explained, given that they aren’t the kinds of things that we can see and touch?

While metaphysics concerns the structure and nature of reality, epistemology concerns the structure and nature of our access to reality. In particular, epistemology takes up questions about knowledge, belief, and justification. We normally take ourselves to have all sorts of beliefs about the world – that there’s a table in the kitchen, that trees require sunlight to flourish, that tadpoles are baby frogs. In many cases, these are not just claims that we take ourselves to believe but claims that we take ourselves to know. But what differentiates knowledge from mere belief? In addition to knowing the existence of things that we see and touch like tables and trees and tadpoles, can we also know of the existence of things that we can’t see and touch, like time and numbers and God? How do we gain such knowledge? And, given that our perceptual capacities are fallible and that we are often victims of illusions and hallucinations, is it even really possible for us to know of the existence of tables and trees and tadpoles?

Philosophy of mind addresses issues in both metaphysics and epistemology. On the metaphysics side, philosophers of mind ask: What is the nature of the mind? What is its relation to the brain and to the body? Which sorts of beings have minds? On the epistemological side, philosophers of mind ask: What methods of study can provide us with knowledge about the mind? Or, more specifically: Are introspective methods – methods where we draw upon our own inwardly-focused mental assessments – reliable? How can we know whether (and, if so, which) other beings have minds? Although we will explore both metaphysical and epistemological lines of inquiry in philosophy of mind throughout this book, our attention will primarily be focused on metaphysical matters.

The first two metaphysical questions just mentioned – What is the nature of the mind? and What is its relation to the brain and body? – are frequently referred to jointly as the mind-body problem. This problem came to prominence through the work of René Descartes, a 17^th century French philosopher who is often thought of as the father of philosophy of mind. Much of the work in philosophy of mind in the centuries since has been devoted to the mind-body problem. This topic will occupy our attention in Chapters Two, Three, and Four of this book. Subsequent chapters will address these metaphysical questions through the lens of machine mentality and the place of mind in our increasingly technological world.

Before we can dive into those topics, however, it will be useful to lay some groundwork for the discussion. In the remainder of this chapter, we tackle three different subjects that will help to prepare us for the discussion to follow in the remainder of the book. The first main section offers an investigation of our mental life and, in particular, provides a survey of the different types of mental states for which a theory of mind will have to account. The second main section offers an exploration of the kinds of methodologies philosophers employ to study our mental life. The third section provides a schematic overview of philosophical theories of mind. Though several of these theories are explored in detail in subsequent chapters, it can be helpful to have a sense of the alternatives as one considers the advantages and disadvantages of each view. Arguments against one theory are often taken to be arguments for another, and so having a sense of the big picture puts one in a better position to evaluate each theory individually. Finally, in the last main section of this chapter, I provide a quick overview of the contents of the remainder of the book.

An inventory of our mental life

At any given moment, even one in which you’re sitting completely still, there are many things going on in your body. Your heart and circulatory system are pumping blood, your respiratory system is regulating your breathing, your digestive system is processing the contents of your most recent meal, and so on. At any given moment, there are also many things going on in your mind. Even if you’re not experiencing quite the jumble of thoughts that Cho was when Harry kissed her, you’re probably thinking and feeling many things all at the same time. Just consider a typical moment in the life of a student in a college class. As he stares at his professor’s PowerPoint slides and listens intently to what she’s saying, determined to process every word, he might also be worrying about the exam he has tomorrow, remembering the fun time he had with friends last night, fighting off an intense wave of exhaustion, and trying to ignore a persistent itch on his left arm.

Propositional attitudes

Consider the claim: it’s sunny today in Southern California. We can take many different kinds of mental stances towards this claim. I might believe that it’s sunny today in Southern California, hope that it’s sunny today in Southern California, dread that it’s sunny today in Southern California, and so on. Beliefs, desires, hopes, and dreads are mental states that philosophers refer to as propositional attitudes, so called because they consist in our taking a particular kind of attitude toward a certain kind of content, i.e., a proposition.

Now consider various different beliefs that someone might have: the belief that Arsenal is currently playing a match against Sheffield United, the belief that Arsenal is losing, and the belief that people in the United States refer to the game that they’re playing as “soccer” while people in the United Kingdom refer to the game that they’re playing as “football.” Each of these beliefs is representational, as each of them represents or is about events or states of affairs in the world. In fact, all propositional attitudes are representational mental states. Whether I believe or desire or hope or dread that Arsenal win today’s game, my mental states can be said to be about or directed at a certain event currently happening in the world. Philosophers refer to this phenomenon of representationality or aboutness as intentionality. “Intentionality” is here a technical word, and in this technical sense, it doesn’t have anything to do with purposefulness. Whether a mental state has intentionality in the sense we’re now talking about is completely independent of whether the mental state was deliberately or voluntarily formed.

Sometimes we have propositional attitudes that, though they can be described as being directed, cannot really be described as being directed at the world. Rather, they are directed at non-existent entities or states of affairs. Even in these sorts of cases, however, the mental state is about something and so has intentionality. Consider a child who desires to be as strong as Wonder Woman, or who worries that he will be attacked by the Loch Ness Monster, or who believes that Wonder Woman would emerge victorious were she to battle the Loch Ness Monster. Even though Wonder Woman and the Loch Ness Monster don’t really exist, the child’s desire, worry, and belief have intentionality nonetheless.

Some philosophers have claimed that all mental states are intentional. Indeed, some philosophers have even suggested that having intentionality is a distinguishing mark of the mental – it’s what makes a state a mental state. Compare your mental state of believing that chocolate ice cream is delicious to the state that your stomach is in as it digests the chocolate ice cream or the state that your chin is in when it is covered by chocolate ice cream. All of these states involve chocolate ice cream, but only the mental state represents the chocolate ice cream. The view that intentionality is the mark of the mental is perhaps most closely associated with 19^th century German philosopher Franz Brentano (1874), and the claim that all mental states are intentional has recently been defended by a number of philosophers of mind known as intentionalists or representationalists. But this claim is a controversial one, and as we will see, there are various mental states that seem to serve as counterexamples to this intentionalist claim.

Though beliefs and desires are both propositional attitudes, they are importantly different kinds of mental states. Compare your belief that there is chocolate ice cream in the freezer with your desire that there is chocolate ice cream in the freezer. Although both of these propositional attitudes represent the state of affairs that there is chocolate ice cream in the freezer, they do so in different ways. But how do we capture this difference? Here the philosophical notion of direction of fit is often introduced.

Beliefs have what’s called a mind-to-world direction of fit. When we believe something, we aim to represent the world as it is (or as we take it to be), and we thus aim to conform the content of our mental state to the world. If, for example, you were to discover that your roommate ate all the chocolate ice cream that had previously been in the freezer, you would give up your belief that there’s chocolate ice cream in the freezer. In contrast, when we desire something, we do not aim to represent the world as it is. Rather, we aim to adjust the world so that it conforms to the content of the mental state. A discovery that there is no chocolate ice cream in the freezer does not prompt you to give up the desire. Instead, it’s likely to prompt you to go to the store to buy some chocolate ice cream – or to send your roommate to do so! Desires thus have what’s called a world-to-mind direction of fit. Of course, we are not always successful in these endeavors – sometimes our beliefs are untrue, and sometimes our desires go unsatisfied. But these aims are central to making the relevant mental state the kind of mental state that it is.

Each of us has lots of beliefs and desires – lots and lots of beliefs and desires. Consider the desires you have about your own life. You want to be well fed, well educated, well liked, and so on… The list here will likely get pretty long pretty quickly and we haven’t yet even begun to take into account the desires you have about other people’s lives or the state of the world in general. Or consider the beliefs you have about world geography. You believe that Melbourne is south of Sydney, that Spain borders Portugal, that New York lies above the equator, and so on… Here again the list will likely get pretty long pretty quickly, and there are many, many other subject matters about which you likely have lots of beliefs.

At any given moment, however, very few of this vast number of beliefs and desires are present before your mind. Prior to reading the last paragraph, you were likely not actively thinking about the geographical relationship between Melbourne and Sydney or between Spain and Portugal. Or right now, before you go on to read the rest of this sentence, you are likely not actively thinking that Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth President of the United States or that a triangle is a three-sided figure, even though these may very well be beliefs of yours. Philosophers thus distinguish between occurrent beliefs and desires and non-occurrent beliefs and desires. When you’re taking a geography test about Australia, or trying to plan an Australian vacation, you might call up your belief about the geographical relationship between Sydney and Melbourne, and it becomes occurrent. Most of the time, however, this belief is non-occurrent.

Feelings: Moods, emotions, sensations

In addition to propositional attitudes like beliefs and desires, we have many other kinds of mental states. One obvious class consists of moods and emotions, often referred to as affective states. You might be disgusted or surprised, angry or anxious, elated or depressed. How exactly to distinguish moods from emotions – indeed, even whether we should distinguish moods and emotions – is a vexed topic about which philosophers have had much to say. We will return to this topic in greater depth in Chapter Five, but for now, we’ll settle for a rough characterization of the apparent difference: when the affective states are persistent and all pervasive, coloring everything one does, we tend to classify them as moods; when they are more short-lived or less all-encompassing, we tend to classify them as emotions. Recalling a piece of terminology that we saw earlier, emotions seem clearly to have intentionality, i.e., they are directed at or about a specific thing or event or state of affairs in the world. Someone might be happy that she got a promotion at work or, conversely, angry that she was passed over for a less-qualified candidate. But someone might be in an elated or depressed mood that’s not about any particular thing or event – or even some collection of things or events. Rather, the mood seems best characterized as about nothing at all. In this way, moods seem non-intentional, or at least not as obviously intentional as emotions. Indeed, moods serve as one of the standard counterexamples to the thesis we encountered earlier that all mental states have intentionality.

When talking about our emotions and moods, we often characterize them as feelings. It’s not just that you are disgusted or surprised or angr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Mind and Mentality
• 2. Dualism
• 3. Physicalism
• 4. Functionalism
• 5. Machine Minds
• 6. The Future of the Mind
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Index