Philosophy: Asking Questions--Seeking Answers Student Resources

. What is/are the central question(s) in the part of philosophy of mind often called the "problem of other minds"?

Do other people (and things like robots or fish) have mental states?

Are other people's (things') mental states similar to yours?

How can we know whether other people (things) have mental states and whether they are similar to yours?

All of the above

. The mind-body problem falls squarely in the part of philosophy known as

metaphysics.

phenomenology.

ethics.

aesthetics.

. __________ is widely considered to be the first "modern" philosopher.

Gilbert Ryle

Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia

Rene Descartes

John Locke

. Owing to the existence of properties such as consciousness, intentionality, and rationality, Descartes concluded

there must be a mysterious, divine spark within human beings.

there must be another, fundamentally different category of things in the universe-minds.

minds must be more metaphysically fundamental than bodies.

All of the above

. Descartes believed that the

mental is derived from the physical.

physical is derived from the mental.

division between the mental and the physical arose with the existence of human beings.

division between the mental and the physical goes back to the origin of the universe.

. __________ objected to substance dualism by wondering how-- if minds and matter are totally different kinds of things (i.e., metaphysically distinct substances)-- it is possible for them to causally interact with one another.

Gilbert Ryle

Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia

Rene Descartes

John Locke

. Descartes speculated that the mind and body interact in the

pineal gland.

cerebral cortex.

corpus callosum.

Wernicke area.

. The mind-body problem is relevant to

all animals.

only mammals.

only higher mammals.

only human beings.

. __________ proposed a memorably disparaging epithet for the dualist view, whereby the mind is a "ghost in the machine"

Gilbert Ryle

Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia

Rene Descartes

John Locke

. For verificationists, a sentence can be literally meaningful

by virtue of the meanings of the words it employs.

by observation.

Both a and b

None of the above

. According to verificationists, claims about the mental states of other people are verified by

observing their brain waves with an electroencephalogram (EEG).

observing their behavior.

having people report what they are experiencing (i.e., what they are thinking, feeling, etc.).

All of the above

. The behaviorist's answer to how mental states and processes are related to physical, biological, and behavioral phenomena is that mental states and processes are

behavioral dispositions.

equivalent to behaviors themselves.

mere epiphenomena.

emergent properties arising from the physical.

. According to the philosophical behaviorists, if something behaves like a normal human under a wide variety of conditions, then we

may tentatively assume it has mental states, though we cannot be sure.

can know it has mental states.

can perform behavioral analysis on such behavior and then determine whether it has mental states.

All of the above

. __________ challenges behaviorism by posing a thought experiment in which an actor perfectly exhibits the behavior characteristic of someone in pain even though he is not.

Gilbert Ryle

Daniel Dennett

Hilary Putnam

Ned Block

. For mind-brain identity theorists, the question "Which brain states are identical with which mental states" can only be answered by

empirical science.

noetic science.

a priori reasoning.

metaphysics.

. Of the following objections, which has/have been raised against the mind-brain identity theory?

A pattern of firing of neurons seems to be a very different thing from an experience of a blue rectangle.

If the brains of other creatures are not like ours, then they don't have mental states like ours.

Neither an extraterrestrial nor a robot can think about math problems.

All of the above

. Functionalist maintains that pain is anything that plays the pain-role in a complex causal system that captures our widely shared, common-sense beliefs about

pain.

pain and other mental states.

pain, other mental states, and environmental stimuli.

pain, other mental states, environmental stimuli, and behavior.

. For a functionalist, if a creature has a physical and chemical composition very different from ours,

it is impossible for it to have mental states.

it is impossible for it to have mental states like ours.

it is no obstacle at all for it to having mental states, just not like ours.

is no obstacle at all for it to have mental states like ours.

. Eliminativists think that common-sense mental states, including beliefs, desires, and pains, are

brain states; they are identical to the mental states to which they correspond.

emergent properties; they arise from certain underlying mental states.

like witches; they are the posits of a mistaken folk theory, and we should come to grips with the fact that they do not exist.

mere epiphenomena; they appear real to us, but have no causal efficacy.

. Besides the physical properties studied by physics, panpsychism holds that ordinary matter also has

mystical, unknowable properties.

a primitive form of consciousness.

a highly advanced form of pure mind.

All of the above

Chapter 10 Self Quiz