Map of Metaphysics

map of metaphysics

Peter D Jones, Shoreham, 10/3/05

	Descriptive Dualism		monism	Ontological dualism
Material			Eliminative materialism
Material		functionalism	behaviourism>	epiphenomenalism	emergence
neutral	Dual Aspect theory	functionalism	Neutral monism	Property dualism		Cartesian dualism
Mental			idealism	panexperientialism	pansychism
Mental			solipsism

Eliminative materialism

The theory that what we call mentality doesn't exist at all.

This is the theory that there is no such thing as consciousness, or its more problematical aspects. (As opposed to the other main materialist theory, the idea that consciousness is just a kind of material thing or process). back

behaviourism

The theory that what we call mentality is just behaviour.

Behaviourists often start from the assumption that everything we know about other people's behaviour, we attribute to them on the basis of their behaviour. Of course, it doesn't follow from this that consciousnes actually is behaviour. We have introspective insight into our own consciousness, and when we attribute consciousness to others, what we attribute to them is a similar insight, a similar inner world. We do so on the basis of their behaviour, but what we attribute is not just the behaviour itself.

Behaviourism has the conseqeunces that AI is almost certainly possible, and that the Turing Test is infallible. back

epiphenomenalism

The theory that mentality arises from the physical, is dependent on it, and has no causal powers of its own.

This is usually claimed on the basis that there is a complete physical description of human behaviour in physical terms, and and that mentality cannot therefore be adding anything. But if mentality is another level of description of the physical, that does not folow. A wood is another way of describing a bunch of trees, not something that exists instead of trees!

Epiphenomenalism is quite a strange doctrine psychologically. If nothing is caused by consciousness, then claims to be conscious are not caused by consciousness. It is difficult to see how the epiphenomenalist expects anyone to belive they are conscious in the first place. Epiphenomenalism seems to collapse into eliminatism, in the same way solipsism collapses into idealism. back

emergentism

The theory that mentality arises from the physical, is dependent on it, and nontheless has causal powers of its own.
"Emergence" is a theory, or class of theories according to which, the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts". It is opposed to reduction, the theory that everything is a logical construct of, and analytically reducible to, its smallest parts. It is not an extreme dualism because higher-level properties are not completely independent of lower-level ones. They need certain lower-level properties in order to manifest but the lower-level properties do not account for the higher-level properties with strict necessity and by themselves. Some contingent bridging laws are needed. back

property dualism

The theory that mental and physical are objective properties of the same underlying substance.

An advantage of property dualism is that it is probably true about sets of properties completely unconnected to mind/body dualism, such as shape and composition, chemical and nuclear properties. However, since information is undoubtedly stored in physical form, property dualism would indicate it must be reduplicated in mental properties.

dual aspect

The theory that mental and physical are different aspects of the same underlying substance and objective properties.

On this theory, it is automatically the case that the physical and mental aspects will contain the same information. back

functionalism

The theory that mental states are physical or neutral states characterised by functional roles.

Functionalism is designed to give a naturalistic resolution to multiple realisability

Functionalism has little to offer to explain qualia or resolve the hard problem

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Minds other than my own exist, and matter is a primitive kind of mentality. Note that this position differs from idealism in that only one aspect of mind/consciousness is taken to be fundamental, ie experience. Other aspects of mentality, eg thought, intentionality are constructs of experience -- as are all physical proprties.

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panpsychism

The theory that there is one substance which is mental in nature.

Minds other than my own exist, and everything is an experiencing subject, including what we normally take to be matter.

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solipsism

The theory that only my mind exists.

It can well be argued that the sceptical arguments generally used to establish idealism actually lead to solipsisn; if other bodies are a metaphysical extravagance, so are other minds.

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