Mind, Matter, and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for the Philosophy of Mind

326 Pages·2013·1.5 MB·English

by  Madden

Mind,
Matter &
nature

James D. Madden
Mind,
Matter &
nature
A Thomistic Proposal
for the Philosophy
of Mind
The Catholic University of America Press
Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2013
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standards for
Information Science—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Madden, James D.
Mind, matter, and nature : a Thomistic proposal for the
philosophy of mind / James D. Madden.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages) and index.
ISBN 978-0-8132-2141-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Philosophy of
mind. 2. Naturalism. 3. Dualism. 4. Materialism.
5. Philosophy of nature. I. Title.
BD418.3.M3525 2013
128΄.2—dc23 2012043720
For Jennifer
“Amor meus, pondus meum”

Contents
Preface ix
chapter 1
Naturalism and the
Philosophy of Mind 1
What Is Naturalism? 1
Naturalism and the Philosophy of Mind 7
chapter 2
The Case for Dualism 19
What Is Dualism? 19
The Modal Argument for Substance Dualism 30
The Difference Argument for Dualism:
Unity and Simplicity 47
Concluding Remarks about the Case for Dualism 57
Chapter 3
The Case against Dualism: the
Problem of Mind-Body
Interaction 58
Intelligibility 60
The Law of the Conservation of Energy 65
The Causal Closure of the Physical 69
Psycho-Physical Dependence, Conscious Animals,
and the Unity of Human Persons 81
Chapter 4
Materialism 88
Eliminative Materialism 89
Behaviorism 95
Identity Theory 102
Token Identity Theory and Nonreductive Materialism 114
Functionalism and Artificial Intelligence 122
contents
Chapter 5
Problems for
Materialism 132
Qualia Arguments—Bats, Cloistered Neuroscientists,
and Zombies 133
Materialist Replies to the Qualia Arguments 138
Arguments from Thought—Beliefs, Intentionality,
and the Man in the Chinese Room 147
Materialism and Agency 161
Chapter 6
Emergentism and
Naturalism 169
Emergence 171
Problems for Emergence 182
Emergentism and Abstract Thought 203
Emergentism and Agency 210
Chapter 7
Before the Philosophy
of Mind—The Philosophy
of Nature 217
The Problem of Change 222
Atomism and the Problem of Change 229
The Aristotelian Solution to the Problem of Change 235
Forms, Final Causes, and Scientific Explanation 243
Chapter 8
Aristotelian-Hylomorphic
Philosophy of Mind 250
The Souls of Living Substances 251
The Souls of Conscious Substances 255
The Souls of Human Beings 265
But Is This Dualism? 274
A Key Objection and Reply 280
Some Tentative Conclusions 284
Bibliography 287
Index 305
viii
Preface
Another Opinionated
Introduction to the
Philosophy of Mind
We are not exactly suffering our way through a dearth of intro-
ductory books covering the philosophy of mind in the current
academic and popular market. Many of these books are very
helpful, leaving little room for improvement, and you will find
that I cite some of them in this book. A few fairly common,
though not universal, deficiencies in these books have moved
me to write Mind, Matter, and Nature: A Thomistic Proposal for
the Philosophy of Mind. Introductory texts in the philosophy of
mind tend to take materialism, or at least some broad version of
naturalism, as a default position. Even in those cases in which
nonmaterialist philosophies are considered, this treatment rarely
goes beyond a brief examination of Descartes’s arguments in the
Meditations, which are usually quickly dismissed by appeal to
scientific progress or supposedly insurmountable problems of
mind-brain interaction. The implication is often that we contem-
poraries just know better than to fall for something so silly as to
believe in an immaterial soul. Such a hasty dismissal is unfair to
Descartes and dualists in general, as there are arguments offered
by contemporary philosophers, often inspired by Descartes, that
go a long way toward supporting mind-body dualism.
Moreover, even when materialism is not simply presumed
from the beginning, it is still common to accept the uniquely
modern dichotomy between materialism and Cartesian dualism.
The fact that there is a long history of philosophizing, that is, the
Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, that can be characterized as nei-
ix