Custom «Philosophy Exam» Essay Paper Sample

PART I: True/ False

1. Property dualism can avoid epiphenomenalism only if physical properties affect mental properties through downward causation. True.
2. Folk psychologists believe that mental states exist, but disbelieve that mental states cause and explain human behavior. True.
3. Leibniz believes that consciousness cannot be explained in purely mechanical terms. True.
4. Descartes believes that an intelligent machine can be constructed. True.
5. Descartes claims that he is a physical thing on the grounds; that it is impossible for him to exist and not have a body. True.
6. The absent qualia objection to functionalism is based on the belief that a functional state could have all the functional properties of a mental state without having any of its qualitative contents. False.
7. According to the logical behaviorism, it is impossible for our minds to survive the death of our bodies. True.
8. Lewis’ Pained Madman thought that experiment is meant to show that being in a certain mental state requires being in a certain functional state. False.
9. The logical behaviorist and identity theorist both accept the claim that human being is an entirely physical entity. False.
10. One advantage of property dualism over Cartesian dualism is that we do not have to deal with the problem of accounting for the interaction between material and nonmaterial substances. False.
11. Functionalism allows minds to be caused by and realized in things other than human brains. False.
12. According to Searle, current computers manipulate linguistic symbols on the basis of their syntax. True.
13. Block’s Chinese Nation thought, experiment is meant to show that functioning in the right way, the whole nation of China can correctly be considered to be a mind. False.
14. Ryle says, “There is a great difference between mind and body, in as much as body is by nature always divisible, and the mind is entirely indivisible”. True.
15. Churchland claims that folk psychology has succeeded in explaining many psychological phenomena-including sleep, intelligence, memory, and mental illness. True.
16. Putnam’s Inverted Spectrum thought, experiment is meant to provide a counterexample to functionalism’s claim that being in certain functional state is all that is needed for being in a mental state. True.
17. Nonreductive materialists believe that mental properties are not reducible to physical or functional properties. True.
18. According to Lewis, if one gains some performative knowledge, one has to gain some factual knowledge. True.
19. Eliminative materialists believe that, cognitive scientists will be able to explain people’s behavior without referring to their mental states. False.
20. The essence of a thing consists of all the properties that it could not do without. False.
21. Intentionality is just doing something on purpose. True.
22. Empiricists hold that, in order to be a respectable science mind, the mind has to be unobservable. False.
23. Rorty attempts to show that, just as we have eliminated all reference to demons from our explanations of disease, so we will be able to eliminate all references to mental states from our explanations of behavior. False.
24. According to property dualism, there are two kinds of substance: physical substance and mental substance. False.
25. Folk psychology is our every day or “folk” understanding of mental states. False.
26. Functionalism recognizes that, mental states serve both as inputs and outputs in the characterization of mental states. True.
27. Putnam’s Conscious Computer thought that, experiment is meant to provide a counter example to the identity theory’s claim that being in a mental state requires having a brain. True.
28. Logical positivism is the view that, the only source of knowledge about the external world is logic and positive thinking. False.
29. Empiricism is the view that the only source of knowledge about the external world is sense experience. False.
30. According to substance or Cartesian dualism, mental states are dependent on physical states in the sense that, if there were no physical states, there would be no mental states. False.
31. The identity theory posits immaterial substances and explains mentality in purely physical terms. True.
32. According to the double aspect theory, all that exists are aspects always come in pairs. True.
33. Logical behaviorism is a materialist and reductive theory of mind. False.
34. Reductive theories of mind include logical behaviorism, identity theory, and functionalism. True.
35. Descartes claims that his mind cannot be a physical thing, because physical things are divisible, whereas minds are indivisible. True.
36. Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment is meant to show that knowing how to manipulate linguistic symbols according to their syntax is not sufficient for understanding them. True.
37. Searle claims that mental properties are caused by microphysical properties, but they do not affect microphysical properties. True.
38. According to the identity theory, minds are brains. True.
39. Ryle uses the notion of a functional role primarily to claim that mind and body cannot be spoken of in parallel ways, for they are in radically different categories. True.
40. The difference between “strong AI” and “weak AI” is this: “Weak AI” refers to the attempt to produce artificial intelligence by creating software, whereas “strong AI” refers to the attempt to produce artificial intelligence by creating hardware. False.
41. Block claims that there is nothing more to being in a certain mental state than being in a certain functional state. True.
42. The doctrine that there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses is accepted by empiricists. False.
43. Because Cartesian egos or immaterial souls have no physical properties, they cannot be sensed or detected by any physical instruments, and this leads to problem of other minds. False.
44. Property dualism is the doctrine that minds are made up of both physical and nonphysical substances. False.
45. According to Descartes, the mind affects the body through the nervous system. True.
46. According to Searle, a system can manipulate symbols according to their syntax and produce appropriate outputs without being in any intentional states. True.
47. Folk psychology is the view that actions can be explained in terms of reward and punishment. False.
48. Jackson offers a defense of physicalism, the view that only facts are physical facts. False.
49. According to Nagel, consciousness is knowable from a first-person point of view. True.
50. Descartes calls Cartesian dualism “the Dogma of the Ghost in the Machine”. True.
51. Occasionalism is the view that the correlation between mental events and physical events was established by God at the beginning of the universe. True.
52. The intentional content of a mental state is what it is trying to accomplish. True.
53. Idealism is the doctrine that all that exists are minds and their contents. False.
54. Searle argues that, if a term or concept does not appear in our most advanced physical theories, then what that term or concept refers to does not exist. False.
55. Parallelism is the view that the mind and the body are two separate things that do interact with each other. True.
56. Nagel claims that consciousness cannot be explained in purely physical terms. True.
57. According to eliminative materialism, mental terms do not refer to anything. False.
58. Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment is meant to discredit strong AI, weak AI, and eliminative materialism. False.
59. According to Ryle, it is a mistake-a category mistake-to think that minds exist over and above behavioral dispositions. True.
60. According to epiphenomenalism, the body affects the mind, but the mind does not affect the body. False.
61. If physicalism were true, then only physical objects would exist and only physical events would occur. True.
62. According to Ryle, the mind cannot affect the body, because the mind is just a theoretical entity. False.
63. All theoretical entities are by nature observable. False.
64. Cartesian dualists accept that minds exist in space. True.
65. Leibniz claims that in the distant future, we will be able to provide a mechanical explanation of thinking. True.
66. One of the criticisms of logical behaviorism is that the behaviorist account leaves out the inner or subjective aspects of mental states. False.
67. Intentionality is the property of certain mental states and meaningful utterances that makes them of, or about, something. True.
68. B.F. Skinner believes that psychology can be a respectable science only, if it studies unobservable thoughts and feelings. True.
69. Logical behaviorism maintains that all human behavior is logical. True.
70. Putnam’s Super-Spartans and Perfect Pretender thought experiments are meant to provide counterexamples to logical behaviorism. False.
71. Logical behaviorism posits more kinds of entity than Cartesian dualism. False.
72. According to eliminate materialism, all reference to mental states should not be eliminated from our most advanced scientific theories. False.
73. The causal closure of the physical is the principle that everything that happens can be completely explained in purely physical terms. False.
74. One of the criticisms of Cartesian dualism is that it seems incapable of explaining how mental states have causal efficacy or how physical states cause mental states. True.
75. Epiphenomena are incidental side-effects or ineffective by-products. False.
76. Qualia are introspectively accessible in the sense that we can access them by means of introspection. True.
77. Descartes claims that even in the distant future, machines will never be able to use language and solve problems as we do. True.
78. According to reductive theories of mind, intentionality is a primitive property. True.
79. Locke and Hume maintain that there is nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses. True.
80. Functionalists believe that in order to determine whether a computer has a mind, we must determine whether its characteristic inputs and outputs are similar to ours. False.
81. According to the identity theory, it is impossible for our minds to survive the death of our bodies. False.
82. A Cartesian dualist believes that the mind is not dependent on the body. False.
83. According to property dualism, physical states are dependent on mental states. False.
84. According to Nagel, we can know everything there is to know about a bat’s brain without knowing what it is like to be a bat or what it is to undergo a bat’s experience. True.
85. Qualitative contents are contents of a quality. True.

Part II: Essays                                                                  

86.

a). Cartesian dualism is Rene Descartes theory that talks on the theory of duality. This is the immaterial mind and the material body. It says that the mind and soul are completely separate entities from the body, but they work in synchronization. He borrows the theory from the biblical view of Adam`s story.

b). Conceivability argument for Cartesian dualism is that the mind does not consist of material things and it exits in the universe. In addition, the body is made up of material substance hence; it is not the same as the mind. Moreover, the body can be divided into parts, for example, the arm or leg can be separated from the main body, but the soul or the mind is indivisible. That is why they cannot be separated from each other.

c). One problem with the conceivability argument is that Descartes believes that the mind does not contain material thing, but at the same time it exists in the universe. This makes it inconceivable, because the world does contain material entities.

d. Cartesian dualism leads to problem of other minds, because he says the mind is private, it is complex, and it is associated with other physical things contingently. In addition, physical things can be observed using senses and own minds by introspection. But, other people minds cannot be observed directly thus the dualism.

91.

a). Property dualism is a theory that believes that the physical and mental consist of two different types of property in the world. That is the physical and non-physical properties. In addition only one kind of substance exists. The physical properties can include the body weight and height, while, non-physical properties include the mind desires and beliefs. It does not believe in the immaterial minds existence that interacts in the physical world. Property dualism believes that the mental state is complex and cannot be analyzed physically.

b). The two versions of property dualism are the physical and non-physical properties, but they are properties of the same type of objects. The body has physical properties that include; height and weight. In addition, the mind having non-physical properties like beliefs, desires, among others.

c). Primitive property is an intentional that cannot be reduced, ended or eliminated. This is concept on the gradual evolution of property, like land.

d). Jacquette’s argument for the primitiveness of intentionality is that it should be distinguished from complex concepts. The complex concepts are themselves analyzed primitive concepts. Intentionality is a primitive rather than a complex concept. He says primitiveness of intentionality cannot be ended, or eliminated. Intentionality distinguishes what is mental from physical.