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Philosophy of Mind
Quick questions on Cartesian Dualism and Interaction - TCE Philosophy (Tasmania)
2short Q&A pairs drawn directly from our worked dot-point answer. For full context and worked exam questions, read the parent dot-point page.
What are dualist responses?Show answer
Three classic responses try to save dualism from the interaction problem. Interactionism, Descartes' own position, simply maintains that mind and body do causally interact in both directions, accepting the interaction as a basic fact even if its mechanism is obscure. Occasionalism, associated with Nicolas Malebranche, denies any direct causal link: on the occasion of a mental event God brings about the corresponding bodily event, and conversely, so the only true cause is divine. Parallelism, developed by Gottfried Leibniz, holds that the apparent causal link is an illusion; mind and body do not interact at all but run in perfect, pre-established harmony, like two clocks set in step, so that mental and physical events correspond without one causing the other.
What is evaluating dualism?Show answer
Dualism captures the powerful sense that conscious experience is not just physical motion, a point modern philosophers raise through the difficulty of explaining why brain activity is accompanied by any felt experience at all. Its enduring weakness is the interaction problem. Interactionism leaves the mechanism unexplained and seems to violate the conservation of energy in physics. Occasionalism and parallelism avoid the mechanism only by invoking God or a vast pre-arranged harmony, which many find extravagant.
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