John Walkers Quest To The Galaxy

John Walkers Quest To The Galaxy

John Walker
Professor Stieg
Philosophy 115
27 April 2010
Churchland Arguments Against Dualism Summary
Paul Churchland is a materialist who believes that “everyday mental concepts such as beliefs, feelings, and desires are theoretical constructs without coherent definition; hence we should not expect such concepts to be a necessary part of a scientific understanding of humans” (Philosophers: Chris Marvin). Churchland’s beliefs opposed the view of a Dualist, one who believes there is two parts to the human: mind and body. In Churchland’s piece, A Critique of Dualism, he states what dualism is, provides arguments for dualism, and then finally gives his own arguments against dualism. His first argument against dualism is known as evolutionary history argument.
The evolutionary history argument states that the human body is a very sophisticated species. The human also believes we are much more sophisticated than a dolphin or a mouse since we have the ability to do much more than any other animal can do. This argument then goes on to state that every species in today’s world “is a surviving type from a number of variations on an earlier type of organism” (Churchland). We know this from fossil records, comparative anatomy, and the biochemistry of proteins and nucleic acids. Churchland states that every organism living today can be traced back to some three billion years ago, where there were only a few types of species who were purely physical and who did not contain a nonphysical mind. “These organisms, like their more complex offspring, are just self-repairing, self-replicating, energy-driven molecular structures” (Churchland). Churchland states that from the first simple species alive, through the process of evolution over three billion years, the human species is just a physical outcome that happened through a physical process, therefore leaving no room for a nonphysical mind to enter the picture, one that a dualist would believe. Churchland...