Philosophy of Mind

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Philosophy of Mind by Mind Map: Philosophy of Mind

1. Dualism

1.1. Property Dualism

1.1.1. Epiphenomenalism

1.1.1.1. Epiphenomenalism is the view that mental events are caused by physical events in the brain, but have no effects upon any physical events.

1.1.2. Double Aspect Theory: Spinoza

1.1.2.1. Mind and body are two attributes of the same substance. Reality is two perspectives on the same thing: physical matter as perceived through the senses and mental stuff as experienced with the mind.

1.2. Substance Dualism

1.2.1. Platonic Dualism: Plato

1.2.1.1. The true substances are not physical bodies, which are ephemeral, but the eternal Forms of which bodies are imperfect copies. The body is physical whilst the intellect is immaterial because Forms are immaterial and the intellect has an affinity with the Forms.

1.2.2. Parallelism: Leibniz

1.2.2.1. The mind and body are different substances however there is no mind-body interaction strictly speaking, but only a non-causal relationship of harmony, parallelism, or correspondence between mind and body.

1.2.3. Occasionalism: Malebranche

1.2.3.1. Mind and body are separate substances but have no causal connection - the only causal entity is God who connects the actions of the mind and body.

1.2.4. Interactionism: Descartes

1.2.4.1. There are two kinds of substance: matter, of which the essential property is that it is spatially extended; and mind, of which the essential property is that it thinks.

2. Physicalism

2.1. Functionalism: Dennett

2.1.1. The doctrine that what makes something a thought, desire, pain (or any other type of mental state) depends not on its internal constitution, but solely on its function, or the role it plays, in the cognitive system of which it is a part.

2.2. Eliminative Materialism: Churchlands

2.2.1. People's common-sense understanding of the mind (or folk psychology) is false and that certain classes of mental states that most people believe in do not exist.

2.3. Behaviourism: Ryle

2.3.1. A mental state (such as being happy) is the same as being in a physical state. In other words, since all that we can know about another person's state of mind is through their behaviour, there is nothing else.

3. Idealism

3.1. Subjective idealism: Berkley

3.1.1. Only minds and mental contents exist. It entails and is generally identified or associated with immaterialism, the doctrine that material things do not exist.

4. Hylomorphism

4.1. Aristoteleanism: Aristotle

4.1.1. Being, including human beings, is a combination of matter and form.