Gilbert Ryle, Rudolf Carnap and Logical Positivism

• Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976) was an analytic philosopher.
• His major work is "The Concept of Mind".
• Ryle was influenced by G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Rudolf Carnap.
• Ryle argued against "the official doctrine", also known as the "Descartes' Myth".
• "The official doctrine" posits that the mind and body are separate entities with different properties.

Rudolf Carnap and Logical Positivism

• Carnap was associated with logical positivism and the Vienna Circle.
• Philosophers in the early 1900s, impressed by empirical sciences, wanted philosophy to make "similar moves".
• A productive approach would avoid irresolvable metaphysical disputes by deriving a new theory of meaning consistent with natural sciences.
• The Verification Principle states a statement is only meaningful if it is empirically verifiable or tautological (true by logical form).
• Logical Positivism prevailed from 1920 to 1950, influencing thinkers with an anti-metaphysical approach.

Ryle's Case Against "the Official Doctrine"

• Ryle challenged substance dualism, presenting an aggressive case against it.
• He identified "the problem" as confusion about the use of language.
• He also presented positive arguments against the official doctrine.
• Ryle is identified more closely with ordinary language philosophy than analytic philosophy per se.
• Categorical mistakes occur when terms are used as if they belong to one category, when they don't.
• Ryle's example: "She came home in a flood of tears and a sedan chair."
• The phrase "in a flood of tears" is used figuratively, not referring to a thing.
• Ryle argues Descartes mistakenly assumed that because bodies have mass, dimension, etc., and minds think, have awareness, etc., these could be referred to as "things,” albeit different types.
• This leads to Descartes' position on substance dualism.
• Ryle refers to the mind-body relationship as "the ghost in the machine" theory.
• Ryle's counterarguments against the Official Doctrine include:
• No empirical basis for the claim that there is a non-physical thing that accounts for our ability to do anything.
• It leads to the problem of infinite regress, requiring a pre-existing cause for every purposeful mental act.
• It presumes an intellectualist hypothesis (requires a pre-existing intellectual act for competent human behavior).
• Knowing how is the ability to competently perform an act, while knowing that is exercising judgment that something is or is not the case
• The intellectualist hypothesis assumes that competent behavior depends on a precursory process involving knowing that something is the case.
• Ryle finds this highly implausible.
• Problems with the intellectualist bias include:
• Many cases of "knowing how" do not depend upon any process based on "knowing that.”
• Assessing another person's competence involves assessing their behavior.
• Behavior based on instructions often transitions away from performing acts on this basis.
• Ryle concludes that the official doctrine has hallmarks of a debunked theory.

Ryle's Solution - Philosophical Behaviorism

• Talk about the "mental" in nature can avoid a category mistake by trying to understand that such talk must be referring to the human capacity to be “disposed” to engage in certain forms of behavior.
• "Mental talk" needs to be translated into talk about what a person may be "disposed to do" under certain conditions.
• Mental talk expresses our thoughts regarding what people "will do" or "would do" under certain conditions.
• Example: "Jennifer believes it will rain today" can be understood as Jennifer will take an umbrella if she goes outside, her answer will be "yes" if asked if she needs an umbrella, and she will cancel a planned picnic.
• Dispositions should not be thought of as "things”.
• Ryle believed that moving "mental talk" away from the official doctrine and toward dispositional talk effectively dissolved problems with the official doctrine.

Functionalism

• Concerned about whether or not functionalism can account for subjective experience ("how experiences 'feel'").
• Functionalism seems to have a difficult time accounting for human capacity for volition.
• Views human capacity for exercising "free choice" as "dropping out of the picture".
• Philosophical Zombies (P-zombie) are beings physically identical to humans but lacking consciousness.

Thomas Nagel (1937-)

• Nagel is an analytic philosopher.
• His major work is "What is it Like to be a Bat?" (1974).
• Nagel's article "pushes back" against reductionism and materialism.
• Reductionism: the belief that any particular phenomenon can be reduced to more basic terms.
• Nagel doesn't ask to imagine what it would be like if we were a bat.
• Instead, the question is what it is like "for a bat to be a bat" from the bat's perspective, not ours
• Nagel wants us to reflect on the aspect of existence that cannot be captured by materialistic and reductionist theories.
• Refers to this as the "ineluctable subjectivity" of experience(consciousness).
• States this does not change the fact that there must be something it is like to have an experience.
• If materialistic and reductionist theories of mind are unwilling to account for this aspect of experience, we may need to be open to the possibility that the phenomenon we refer to as consciousness may not be capable of being reduced or explained away.
• Macbeth's hallucination of a "floating dagger" can be considered "real" in one sense (Meaning 1) but not in another.
• Nagel's view implies that there's a certain type of knowledge only acquired through direct acquaintance.
• Qualia: The technical term applied to the "object" of this type of knowledge, or "what something is like".
• Examples include experiences involving sound, color, taste, smell, pain, pleasure, sensation, and emotions.
• Nagel argues that physicalism may be committing the fallacy of "false dichotomy”.
• Nagel's proposal: "an objective" phenomenology could be pursued by figuring out a way to "translate" subjective knowledge into more objective knowledge.
• If Nagel's argument succeeds, it forces us to confront issues associated with substance dualism.
• Chalmers: "the hard problem".

The Problem of Other Minds

• Nagel's argument presents the compelling case for the existence of the subjective.
• Any knowledge a person have about experiencing "consciousness" will be restricted to first-person perspectives.
• Nagel's argument manages to establish the existence of consciousness.

Frank Jackson (1943-)

• Jackson is an analytic philosopher.
• His major works include "Epiphenomenal Qualia (1982)" and "What Mary Didn't Know (1986)".
• Known for championing "the knowledge argument" against physicalism.
• Considered a property dualist.
• The world comprise two different types of properties (physical and nonphysical).
• Jackson is known for view associated with epiphenomenalism.
• Supervenience: An asymmetrical relationship of ontological dependence between two different types/properties A-properties supervene on B-properties if every change/that we see in A-properties is a result of change in B-properties(but not vice versa)
• The ascetic properties (A) of the painting (beauty, significance, emotional impact) supervene upon the physical properties of the painting (B) (paint color, brush strokes, etc.).
• Epiphenomenalism: is the view certain states human experience are mental/nonphysical. These states can be caused by physical events. The states themselves cannot cause changes in the physical world
• Jackson states the experience as consciousness is best understood as in epiphenomenon those supervenes on certain phsical process within us fe.E .. brain, nerve function
• A common analogy: Your physical body under the right conditions (lighting)is capable of casting "a shadow" to appear.
• What it is not the arguing mental states are brain (are not anything physical)
• It rises the question of how something physical and governed by the physical processes/laws can cause something completely different kind.
• Fred's Case (Fred's Experience of Color Vision) Fred possess/has a unusual sense of visual activity with a more visual sense than usual
• He can detect sub shades of color difference other people cannot
• For most people the colors are just simply red
• However, to Fred, those colors have differing colors "red17" or red18' are drastically different to the way we see color This constitutes why physicalism does not account/equal all knowledge to be capable to of

Amy Kind

• Known for Representar theory of Conscious and for critiquing transparency.

Known in saying qualia should not be reaal

• An person can/may present with a variety of subjective experiences when encountering.
• Transparency: Conciousness is all presentation and with our attemps -We can't seperate something from what is needed to have an experince then it questions that qualia can be consdiderd object expeirences We never expalince qualia per see but they represent or being capable of having experiences
• kinds counter Arguments
  • Certain exotic cases that are not exprieneces that are repreentaatilnal nature Blurry/phaosphine experionos.
• There way were if you fully attentive you seperate phenomominal exerinces
• Ordinary bodily exerince are not staright forwardly expeiced But in mundane some/not all could possibly have an experince/ if you focaus You are not tied to an aspect

Strong/weak positional

• Kind detects two possbile postition when to coems for
• Strong: Phemominal qualitity always be transpere and never fully expeirnenced -weak - most of the time phemonal qualiats don't expecirened but through efforts

Ned Block

• Major Work "Troubles with Functionalism (1978)".
• Functionalism is the idea that: what makes someone in the mental state has to deal mostly with the constitution. But is mostly that dealing with a particular system. analogy familiar with mind, brain, program/software for a computer hardware.
• Behaviorism: the mental must he translated and understood. Hypothetical of being capable of what is being preserved
• It does not make to account the subjective and first nature of an experince
• Address causation which has been created by a particular mental, event
• "Black box theory: focuses only on inputs/output.
• Materialism: The theory that everything is physical and or material
• Identity: It is that specific types of mental status are equal to specific a type of status
• Thinking about what tastes like your moms chicken soup is equal to a type of brain like firing

Turing

• Alen Turning.
• Mathematcian,cryptonist,philosopher
• Turnign gave earth birth to theoretical compuler science by systeme of what he call algorthms
• Functionalism is identified with it fucnto state.
• It cased by inputs/outputs
• Light witch is an excmpel of a system, two different stages*
• ON
• off state