Is the mind material? Part 2

In the last post, I presented a brief argument, based on some stuff John Locke says, that concludes that the mind cannot be purely material. The crucial premise of that argument was the following:

3.    It is inconceivable that purely material processes produce mental activity and states.

I then asked you to give some reasons for thinking that 3 is true.

Here is one reason for thinking that 3 is true (this is based on Plantinga's brief remarks, but I hope what follows is a bit clearer):

Consider the phenomena that philosophers call intentionality. Certain states are about other states.  In particular mental states are about other mental states and non-mental states. When philosophers talk about intentionality, they are talking about aboutness :-).  

The aboutness relation is very weird: how can one thing be literally about another thing?  Think about a molecule or an atom.  It seems like a mistake (a category mistake) to say that the molecule or atom is about something else.  Think about a tree or a rock or a mountain or planet. It seems like a mistake (a category mistake) to say that a tree or a rock or a mountain or a planet is about something else. Those sorts of things (rocks, molecules, atoms, planets, etc) are not the sorts of things that are about other things. 

Now think about a belief or a fear.  My belief that p is about p and my fear that p is about p.  So, I am in states (or have states) that are about other things. Indeed, this seems to be the essence of certain mental states—they are essentially intentional or aboutness states. But non-mental things do not seem to possess intentionality or to be about other things.  So, it seems that non-mental things cannot give rise to mental things, or at least cannot give rise to intentional mental states.

To think otherwise seems to be a category mistake.  If that is right, then Locke’s claim that it is inconceivable that incogitative (non-cognitive) matter produces mentality is correct.  In fact, it’s in some sense worse.  If it is a category mistake then it’s like saying that yellow is 3 feet or that Obama is taller than the shape square.  

Comments

  1. David KaemererMarch 29, 2019 at 1:15 PM

    This argument seems solid and I appreciate being put forth here in the blog, nice job Dr. A.

    ReplyDelete
  2. David KaemererMarch 29, 2019 at 1:18 PM

    This argument explanation above seems simple enough to understand once read through and strong enough on its own that I am unsure whether I have anything to try to add to or critique about it.

    ReplyDelete

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