Final Exam

Philosophy of Mind

Prof. McCormick

Final:  Thursday, May 24, 10:15-12:15

At the final exam, you will be given 6 of these questions and required to answer 5 of them.  Bring a blue book or two (any size) to the final.  The test will be closed book and closed notes. 

1.  List and explain the reasons that lead Descartes to conclude that minds must be of an essentially different kind of substance than bodies.  What are the primary features of the two substances?  And what are the major problems with Descartes’ view?

2.  For Descartes, how do the concepts of conceivability, logical possibility, and their relationship play a role in his arguments concerning the existence of minds and bodies? 

3.  What are the standard criticisms of Cartesian substance dualism that philosophers typically take to be devastating?  How do they undermine Descartes’ argument? 

4.  What are the most compelling reasons in favor of identity theory as conceived of by Place and Smart?  What objection voiced by Putnam has become the standard criticism of their position?  How substantial is the objection?

5.  Reconstruct and explain Ryle’s strongest set of reasons for concluding that there is nothing “internal” to the mind and that the mental is best explained in terms of dispositions to behave.

6.  What are the major problems with functionalism according to Block?  What impact do they have on functionalism as an explanatory approach to the mind?

7.  What does Nagel mean when he suggests that we need to develop "new concepts and devise a new method—an objective phenomenology not dependent on empathy or the imagination" in order to address questions like "What it is like to be a bat?" 

8.  What makes certain kinds of consciousness, like the bat's, difficult or impossible for us to access?  What can we know about their conscious awareness?  What can't we know?  Why?

9.  What are the grounds for thinking that philosophical zombies like Chalmers describes are possible?  Explain.  Critically evaluate this argument.

10.  What are the main features of qualia on the traditional view according to Dennett?  How does the Chase and Sanborn Coffee Tasters example disprove these aspects of qualia, according to Dennett?  How good is this argument? 

11.  What does the thought experiment concerning Mary show about physicalism, according to Jackson? 

12.  How do the notions of logical possibility (metaphysical possibility) and conceivability play a role in anti-reductionist arguments like Nagel’s and Chalmer’s?  Critically evaluate this argument method. 

13.  What is Paul Churchland’s method for attacking the so called “Hard Problem/Easy Problem” distinction in “The Rediscovery of Light” ?  How successful is this response?  

14.  What does Block’s distinction between A-consciousness and P-consciousness contribute to the debate over the inadequacies of functionalism as a theory of mind? 

15.  How does Searle’s Chinese Room example purport to refute an argument concerning machines and consciousness?  What is the position he refutes? 

16.  Connectionism offers a new model with which to parse the concepts of memory, representation, projectibility, propositional modularity, and understanding in artificial intelligence research.  What is that model?  How does it improve on GOFAI? (Good Old Fashioned Artificial Intelligence”? 

17.  Summarize the strongest reason in favor of eliminative materialism.  What are the biggest problems with this approach to giving a theory of mind?