 As you know, we have been discussing about the concept of dualism in philosophy of mind. In the last class we did talk about Sal's criticism of substance dualism advocated by Descartes. Today we will be discussing about dualism. There are two points that I am going to discuss today. One is about argument for dualism. How dualism sustains in philosophy and how it has been sustaining rather in philosophy. And the second point that I am going to discuss is about property dualism. In fact, when I talked about Sal's argument against Descartes substance dualism, I did mention about this term called property dualism. Sal has been criticised for advocating property dualism. Or Sal's philosophy of mind has been defined as property dualism. Now today I will start with the concept of property dualism. Now particularly in today's lecture we will have reference to Paul Churchland's work on matter and consciousness. This work was published in 1984 and the revised edition came out in 1987 by MIT Press. So today let us see what is property dualism. We would also come back to this idea that whether Sal is a property dualist at all. Because when Sal talks about the concept of mind he says that the mind is an irreducible phenomenon. It is not only irreducible but also its properties are irreducible. So mind has different properties. So consciousness that is irreducible to mental to the brain processes is something very significant. Similarly the other properties like intentionality, subjectivity, etc. will also share this feature of irreducibility. So let us go to this idea of a property dualism. Now what Churchland talks about, how briefly he defines this notion of property dualism. He says the brain has a special sort of properties possessed by no other kind of physical object. It is this special properties that are non-physical. So we have physical properties and also we have mental properties. Like physical properties are fundamental to the physical objects and the explanation of physical objects. Similarly mental properties are essential for the explanation of mental phenomenon. So for example when we are having pain, pain is a sensation and the sensation would also have some other mental states. Like desire to get rid of sensation, desire to get rid of the pain that I am suffering. So this desire is a mental state. Now mental states have properties according to Sal. Let us find that how Sal defines these properties. He says intentionality is one of the properties. All mental states are intentional by nature. By intentional he means that they are directed towards something in the world. So this directedness is a feature of the mental state. So if intentionality is a feature then intentionality is a mental feature. And that is what is very important for a property dualist that there are certain features which are exclusively mental. So for example in the case of a physical object mass, waves are certain important properties, essential properties. Through which we explain the physical objects. Property dualist would talk about the existence of the mental as well as the existence of the physical. So the non-physical or the mental is something which is to be explained exclusively in terms of certain mental properties. Now do property dualist talk about mind as a reality? That is the question. Now when we talk about property dualism we go back to this idea of reality of mind precisely because there are some property dualist who do not accept the existence of mind. So the reality of mind is questioned in fact within the theoretical framework of property dualism because the hypothesis is that the mind is emerging out of certain brain processes. Now when the brain process was to certain level of complexity then this complexity or the complex function of the brain gives birth to mind. So mind is emerged as a phenomenon out of the brain processes. In that sense mind is a causal product of the brain processes. Now if this idea is correct, if this thesis is correct then the question is whether mind is reducible to the brain processes. Now property dualist would argue that mind is reducible to brain processes. Meaning thereby since mind is caused by brain processes mind can be reduced to the brain processes. In the sense that mind is causally explainable in terms of the functions of the brain. Now if mind is causally explainable in terms of the brain processes the question is whether there is mind at all. Now this question is valid for a property dualist who is also known as an epiphenomenalist. Now epiphenomen is not a very new term this has been there in the Greek. Let us see where we talk about epiphenomen in the Greek we say that it is above. So the mind is above the brain processes. Now certain level of complexity of the brain processes causes mind. Now mental phenomena are caused to occur by various activities of the brain. They do not have the causally facts in turn. When mental is caused then what is its ontological status? That is the question. Now whether it can in turn be explained by the brain processes. Some property dualist would argue that they can be explained by the brain processes hence so the idea of mind is an illusion. Now the other idea is that which talks about some kind of interaction between the mind and the brain. That is that I have desire I have intention and when with this desire and intentions beliefs etc. have function they cause certain actions. So for example desire to get rid of pain will cause that I must go to the doctor. I must consult the physician for this pain. Now this decision to going to a doctor and getting consulted and getting rid of this pain is something very interesting. So there are mental phenomena which are causing action and so there is a kind of an interaction between the mind and the body. So this kind of interaction will presuppose that mind is something real something there. But for the property dualist minded and body at physical movements and thoughts are real. But for an epiphenomenonist mind is not a reality mind is an illusion. So epiphenomenonist will say that the very impression of mind that is in caused by brain processes is an illusory phenomenon. It is not a reality at all. Now to be real it should have certain causal power. A phenomenon is real if and only if it can bring some effect in the reality in the world. And that is how we consider something is real and something is unreal. An illusory phenomenon cannot cause any effect. So therefore mind is causally inefficacious to cause an effect. So what is in fact causing an effect is the brain. So the brain activities are causing physical movements. It is the brain activities which are now causing my action. My action to visit the doctor or consult the physician to get rid of the pain. Now all these actions decisions judgments etcetera are in fact caused by the brain activities. So the impression of the mind is indeed considered as an epiphenomenon. So this idea of or this notion of mind is known as epiphenomenonism. And now the question is feather shell commits to the very idea of epiphenomenonism. The theory of epiphenomenonism is something to be discussed probably in some of the other classes. What is important to note here is that when shell gives his hypothesis that mind is caused by brain processes and realized in brain process, shell is certainly talking about some kind of a causal interaction between the brain and the mind. So this causal interaction does not hold the causal reductionism. It does not hold any kind of reductionism for that matter. So shell is therefore a property dualist. Shell does not accept an emergentist notion of mind. We will discuss about it how does shell refute some of the emergentists like say for example Jogun King who is a strong advocate of emergentism in contemporary philosophy of mind. King argues that mind is caused by brain processes and mind is has a causal relationship with brain processes. But this causal relation is not in fact the kind of causal relationship which we are talking about in the first case of emergence. That say for example when we talk about the body or say for example the brain, then mind is emerging out of the brain. It is kind of a it is the first level of causation. Now this is accepted to King, but what is not accepted to King probably some kind of a causal interaction where mind is considered as something causally real. As the potential interaction between the brain and the mind is considered as something causally real. As the potentiality to interact or intervene in the case of the bodily behaviors. So that kind of significance is not attributed to the concept of mind in the case of King. So we will come back to this idea of where shell is critiquing King's notion of emergentism and there is something good about emergentism. Talk about some kind of a parallelism. We will look at this notion of parallelism, how parallelism is historically advocated by say life needs or many others. We will come back to that. Now let us look at the kind of a dilemma which property dualism poses. At one point we find that there is you know a brain which is causing behavior the origination of the behavior and the brain is something which is controlling all our behaviors. So behaviors are controlled by certain function of the brain. So and there are you know the brain is a kind of a complex system and this complex systems have various mechanisms and the neuroscience tells us how the brain functions happen, different brain functions happen at different point of time and how complex it is when we talk about explanation of a particular behavior. So brain as a whole is something very important so far as human behavior is concerned. Now if that is true then it you know it does not fit with the other part. The other part is the testimony of introspection and the desire, intention, volitions etcetera are been felt. I am introspecting that yes these are there. I experience that yes I this is my desire and I had to cross to the doctor. Now I need to consult the doctor and I believe that there is somebody called doctor. So desire, believe and my intention to get rid of this pain is are all connected. So all these mental states are in fact felt. When I introspect I am aware of or I am experiencing this mental states. So experience is not denied. Similarly the brain is causing different behaviors, different movements and different processes are involved in causing a particular behavior is also significant. So property dualists are the dualists who accept some kind of interaction between the brain and the mind but some of them do not accept that mind is real. Some of them accept that both mind and the brain are real. Sir belongs to this category who argues that mind is irreducible to the brain processes. Now what is this irreducibility? Irreducibility let us briefly put it in this way that mind cannot be causally explained by the function of the brain processes. So once it is explained we say that it is been reduced because when we talk about the explanation in the case of material bodies we do find that material bodies function in a particular way. So the mechanism that is involved in the function of this material body is certainly explained by the causal laws. So causal laws or causal explanation is possible in the case of explaining the different functions the complex function of a material body a material object and how this the body interacts with the world how this interaction brings about changes in the world. So that determines the causal efficacy of a material object or causal efficacy of a phenomenon but if we say that mind is not real we mean that mind is causally important it is causally inefficacious to make that impact to bring about any change in the case of the material body. So so property dualist some property dualist are epiphenomenalist some property dualist are still dualist but of course they are not dualist in the Cartesian sense of the term dualism where say for example the Descartes official theory advocates that mind and body are two substances. So property dualist certainly do not accept this argument of substance dualism and I think we have discussed about it you know how shall refuse substance dualism in our previous classes and we have also discussed the criticism of Gilbert Reil against this official doctrine of substance dualism. I will come back to Reil little later but let us talk about this interactionist property dualism one which says the irreducibility of the mental phenomena on the one hand and the fundamental properties of the physical on the other hand are considered as something very important. So there is a kind of a dualism which prevails whether it is in the sense of property dualism or it is in the sense of substance dualism dualism prevails. Now why dualism prevails what are the reasons for considering dualism is something very significant which is the other part which as I mentioned earlier that I will be discussing about this. Now the religious considerations Chuchland maintains that religious consideration is something very fundamental idea to now the dualistic ideas that the commitment to you know this view that mind is real and the commitment to this assumption that there is an immortality of soul as you know this term soul appears in meditation again and again so people have been talking about it whether soul is identical with mind or soul is different from the mind in Indian traditions we consider soul is something different from the mind mind is an indria is one of the sense organs whereas in the western tradition you find mind and soul are identical in Indian context when you say mind manas is an indria we never associated with the mind or the soul soul is a kind of a you know witness consciousness it is a kind of a shakhi as an observer who which is observing all the activities of the person of the mind and the body or the person as a whole so that kind of you know difference is there but when we talk about Descartes when we talk about Descartes dualism we look at it from the western point of view now the western tradition in the classical text soul is the term soul is mentioned in the recent text we find the term mind is mentioned and they are sometimes interchangeably used now when we talk about cognition or cognitive the science of cognition we do talk about the another term intelligence now some people identify say for example for church learned intelligence is something very significant it can replace the concept of mind and intelligence can be physically produced so church learns computational theory of mind now is one of the very significant contribution to the understanding of mind I am sure about the computational theory of mind in his lectures now let us look at our point on the point about the religious commitment of a person when a person is religiously committed to this idea that there is a soul and the soul is immortal and that is is problematic one in the sense that if that belief is acceptable proposition to a person then he would say that it is the body which dies it is the body which is there but it is not that significant so they accept the existence of body at the same time they accept the existence of the mind now when we talk about the origin of the universe in a religious context we do say that now the God has created the universe now this very idea of God is pure consciousness or the idea of an unmoved mover in a story talks about a kind of intelligent mind who has designed the universe look at a story in a story in notion of causality in a story in notion of causality you will find that there is a notion of efficient cause now who is an efficient cause the efficient cause is an agent it is the agent who has the power to bring about change in the matter it affects the material body and it brings out something it designs something so the presence of an efficient cause I am sure you know are total four kinds of causes the material cause the efficient cause the formal cause and the final cause now all four causes are important when we talk about the explanation of a particular phenomenon similarly when Aristotle talks about the existence of an unmoved mover Aristotle is referring to a kind of an universal agent and the agent who has been the creator of this universe so the creator he is the cause of universe and Descartes does talk about this first cause if now Descartes look at Descartes example of a person who is working you know in the desert and he finds that there is the words lying and what is the idea comes to his mind probably you know there is a watch maker so who is this maker is he an intelligent being or is he an intelligent being is something you know to be considered significantly so Descartes acceptance to the religious understanding of mind is not completely deniable he accepts that there is a soul and the soul has kind of a is a spiritual entity so the spiritual attribute is something and a significant in the case of Descartes understanding of the concept of mind or the soul so a religious person would look at the creation of the universe from a creator's perspective so creationist as you know talk about the creator and God is the creator of the universe and God is a kind of a spiritual being God is a non physical being now so non physical being exists is something you know is seriously argued by the dualist because dualist believe that there is a non physical being now if there is a non physical being then what is its position in the universe if there is a creator then what is his position in the universe that is something significant how he is being located in the universe that question will be you know very significant now let us go back to the next point that Descartes or a dualist would like to make the argument from introspection so first argument was argument from a religious point of view the second argument is argument from introspection in the center of our attention on the content of consciousness is something important we do talk about neural functions we do talk about how you know there is a electromagnetic waves are generated when the brain is functioning but we are also aware of the thoughts which are there in her mind we are aware of our experiences feelings etc and this awareness comes through some kind of a reflection so consciousness is reflexive in nature human mind is reflexive in nature it is not that it is I am just conscious of things that whatever I am seeing I am seeing all of you are there and you know listening carefully to my lectures like that but I am also thinking of what I am saying I am aware of what I am saying now this kind of awareness is called self reflection now if I go back to my office and think whether think about this class I feel now this class was really horrible I would not deliver what I was intending to deliver in the class now in that sense I am talking about my self consciousness I am reflecting on whatever I said in the class and what I was supposed to tell in the lecture now when I evaluate all this I am really interrogating myself I am really questioning myself I am reflecting on myself so this kind of you know attitude of the self or attitude of the being the attitude of the mind is something according to Descartes is introspection mind has this ability to introspect what it has so this is something now very important argument according to Descartes or a dualist who believes that mind and body are real he cannot just say that there is no mind like an epiphenomenalist argues that there is no mind now how can I eliminate this idea that I am not experiencing at all I am not aware of what I said in the class how do I say that now if somebody is saying that there is nothing called mind there is nothing called feelings experiences and so on then probably he is a physicalist he is a materialist he is not a dualist so dualist's consideration will be something different he would accept that there is a body there is there are brain processes happening brain processes have all the physical properties say for example there are chemical secretions in the brain corresponding to a particular feeling there is a chemical wave length to my particular thought or to a particular action now all these are reality so physical chemical processes are happening in the brain is a reality corresponding to a particular thought or a particular sensation or a feeling now that is not deniable at the same time what is not a deniable is that there exist mental states or thoughts or experiences now I have also talked about another argument which is raised by the argument of irreducibility I have said what irreducibility is all about now human ability to have mental phenomena ability to possess mental phenomena is something very significant and this significant feature is not causally explained by the behavior of the brain now similarly you have human beings have the ability to articulate expressions articulate thoughts put them in words so the linguistic ability of the being is something very significant so how does one articulate a particular thought so the linguistic ability according to search land is something very significant now whether we can really explain our ability linguistic ability at all that we will be discussing little later similarly how do we rationalize thoughts is reason a kind of a essential feature of the mind Descartes would say that reason is an essential feature of mind imagination is an essential feature of mind reason and imaginations are higher order consciousness whereas sensibility feeling is a lower order consciousness in meditation you will find that Descartes talking about imagination and the reason and he puts them at a very higher level now because human being is a rational being human being is a imaginative being of he imagines in imagination we create things so human creativity is fundamentally you know grounded on human imagination now the faculty of imagination or the faculty of reasoning is essentially features of human consciousness now so this is irreducible this is undeniable now the other aspect of human consciousness which talks about subjectivity or qualia with reference to Searle's criticism of Descartes I said that there are four features which are it to be explained away and that is what can retain dualism further and this four features are consciousness intentionality subjectivity and mental causation now these four things are very important now when we talk about subjectivity we talk about the first person's experience of particular thing or things in the world so when I look at you I look at it from my point of view when you are looking at me when you are listening to me and trying to understand what I am saying you are looking at from your point of view so for instance a poet is looking at the clouds and a materialist looking at the cloud they are looking at from two different point of views one who is trying to imagine a case of a beauty another who is trying to predict the weather the weather conditions so poet and materialist will look at the same reality from two different perspectives so according to Searle who is a property dualist let us accept Searle as a property dualist for our understanding we will debate whether he is really a property dualist or not in our you know future classes now who is a property dualist argues that all consciousness is prospectively because we look at the world from a subjects point of view where all concepts and we are looking at the world we are experiencing the world from our own point of view hence consciousness is prospectively so prospectively is a feature of consciousness like intentionality and that is what is subjective subjective in the sense that it is from a first person's point of view in the case of you know such experience is absent in the case of you know case of others you do not have it rather I do not have it so from that point of view we can look at you know the notion of subjectivity that is of course we do share our experiences that is there we do communicate our experiences feelings contents of thoughts etcetera that is fairly understood but what is important here is this that I experience things from my own point of view and when I represent that experience I represent it from a particular perspective so when I say that it is prospectively there is a semantic content in it there is a meaning embedded in it so when I say something I make it meaningful to you so a meaningful representation would show how my thought is prospective and how do I look at it from that point of view we can say that consciousness is subjective or it has some kind of a qualia or a phenomenal property and that would suggest that consciousness is real there is another argument which search land is putting that argument is argument from parapsychology now let us look at this what are the features which are considered meaningful in the discourse of parapsychology one is telepathy pre-recognition telekinesis and clariforce now all these features are considered very significant when you talk about telepathy we talk about mind reading when you talk about pre-recognition we talk about how does an individual look at his futures talks about futures clarivans knowledge about distinct objects now these above phenomenon are real and existing in a super physical nature so parapsychology talks about another level of the mental where mental is considered is real so we do talk about pre-recognition we do talk about telepathy in our everyday life and all these have some kind of a cultural you know root they are culturally rooted in our everyday life that is what is I think would give you know clue to understand that there is something called mind it is not just an ordinary introspection rather at a level mind is real mind is realizable and there are so many you know psychologists who deal with parapsychology very systematically and there is one branch of psychology talks about parapsychology let us do not debate on what whether parapsychology is right or wrong or whether it is just a hypothesis but let us accept this proposition that telepathy clarivans etc are having some kind of a cultural basis religious point of view are discussed from the perspective of human society in the society there are different cultures and different cultures define human mind in many different ways so that is what is significant so our overall considerations are very general so you have a scientific credentials of the religions and their religious authority is questioned on one hand and this religious authorities who are questioned we also question that there is a kind of a reality or the universe which is not been created whether it is evolved this you know we have already seen in the radhasa or in the introduction as I mentioned that how geocentric view was rejected and geocentric view was accepted and Galileo Copernicus view about the origin of the universe is something very significant and I think it is important to look at the origin of the universe question from that point of view where what is there at the at the center is not the earth whether it is the sun which is at the center of the earth including other planets are revolving around the sun and so this idea between Ptolemy and Copernicus was meaningfully proved by Galileo's theory of light was a significant scientific contribution to understand how creationist notion of the universe is insignificant always look at the mind from a different point of view and religious or religious understanding of the mind will give a different pictures. So, the overall consideration is that there are micro elements there are micro elements which constitutes the matter or a physical body you know has this energy has the power to bring about change in the world. So, there is always a constant battle between science and religion and science in the radhasa we found that how science has succeeded and how science has proved that many things are real. Now, this understanding of religious rationality how do rationality of religions give this conviction look at idea that there are different religions and all as I said when we talk about the mind when we talk about the mind has a cultural truth. I particularly think that there are different religions Buddhism is there in the orient Islam is spread in African and Middle East Hinduism in India and Christianity in mostly in the sorry this is spelling mistake here Europe and America. So, you will find that they are all having a kind of different you know outlook about the religious understanding of the world. So, the religious understanding of the world is different from the scientific understanding of the world and there is a conflict between the two there is always a tension between the two and as a philosopher what we would really try to do is to find out a comfort zone to find out where we can make a critical contribution contribution to the understanding of the reality. So, that is what is philosopher stuff I think I have discussed about what philosophy does and what is philosophical knowledge all about in the my introductory classes if you remember we will our whole approach is to look at things whether it is religion whether it is science whether it is religious explanation or scientific explanation we try to locate these explanations more critically and our systematic criticism will help us to grasp the reality and it will generate new debates new discussions etcetera etcetera that will contribute certainly in the growth of knowledge. So, philosophical endeavor is is different. So, what is more important is that how the recently we can you know question the religious attitudes and how recently we can pursue science for the systematic development of knowledge. Now, if we only accept the religious understanding of the mind probably we will be doomed to you know a spiritualistic world and we will forget you know the success of science and the success stories of science are certainly meaningful they are very productive real so far as our day to day life is concerned. So, we cannot deny such a realism and jump into the religious conclusions, but when we accept this these two point of views when we accept that these are the realities then we have to accept dualism. So, dualism whether it is substance dualism or property dualism the remain the remain with us if we hold on to two perspectives the religious perspective of mind and the scientific perspective of mind. I will come back to the idea of how scientific perspectives of mind can give better picture of the mind in my next class. Thank you.