Mind, Metaphysics and Value, ed. J. Haldane, 2002
This is a self-contained chapter in a collection that tries to recapture some of the ancient theories (Aristotle & Acquinas) that grappled with the mind-body problem. As the problem became different with Descartes, part of what it means to use ancient theories is to change what the problem is in the first place. The first part of the paper is devoted to author comparing what the scholastic philosophy world was like just before Descartes to what our current anglo-analytic philosophy world is like, suggesting that there is about to be a major revolution that will sweep all this work away as irrelevant, or at least outdated.
Author continues to stress how we need a different approach to the mind-body problem altogether. One example is to focus on the non-representational forms of intentionality, using quotes from Merleau-Ponty and Anscombe that talk about immediate, unmediated practical knowledge that the mind acquires from the world. (pg 57-8) To make his point that current understandings are in need of overhaul, author points to the following problems:
-- The problem of eliminitivism: the unwelcome conclusion that denies mental content/experience
-- The problem of supervenience: the unwelcome conclusion that asserts some kind of connection between the mental and the physical, but fails to capture how (the problem given to the non-reductive physicalist)
--The problem of dualism: the unwelcome conclusion that separates the mind from the body in all important ways
With these three problems put in this way, it isn't clear how we're going to get out of it using our current reasoning. Author assumes that eliminitivism is a bad conclusion, as is mentalism. Author focuses on the problem of supervenience/dependence. What is the nature of this relation? The Davidsonian reply is weak: you can't have a change in the mental without a change in the physical, and vice verse (then add an asymmetry that favors the physical as the primary causal source). (This doesn't go as far as type-type or token-token identity.) The problem here is that any change in the physical (in any part of the world) could account for a change in my mental state, a sort of 'global supervenience' that is absurd.
In the next discussion, we have a potential fix that tries to use perceptual externalism. The problem is that we don't have a good world-mind connection, so why don't we just say that part of what is in the mind is the things that are in the world? (pg 62) Author thinks this fails because of the problems of genuine mental causation. The first problem of genuine mental causation is basically the same as the earlier problems: are there two distinct processes, one (non-identical) process, or what? (pg 64-5) The second problem is that it seems as though the physical systems are doing all the causal 'work', with the mental is an epiphenomenal, or byproduct of the physical. (pg 65-7)
Author turns to three possible arguments from Acquinas, two of which he would like to see revitalized. (pg 72) These are as follows:
2) Human reasoning uses not empirical particulars but abstract universals, which don't 'exist' per se
3) Thinking is self-reflexive: when I am thinking, I know I am thinking-- but not as a second-order thought but instead as part of the original thought.
Author thinks that pursuing these lines of argument might be fruitful.
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