Pattern-chaser wrote: ↑October 6th, 2021, 7:06 amConsul wrote: ↑October 5th, 2021, 3:28 pm
I'm not sure that would help, because it would make dualism true
by definition; and then we would have to define "physical" instead in order to know what "nonphysical" means.
I don't think it would make dualism true by definition. That we see fit to assign
labels to distinguishable things doesn't mean they
are distinct, only that we label them separately, for our convenience. But yes, it would certainly mean that we had to define "physical" to see what "non-physical" meant.
Semantic concept/predicate dualism doesn't entail ontological property dualism, let alone substance dualism. To say that psychological concepts and physical ones are non-synonymous is not to say that psychological entities are non-physical entities. But in order to avoid building a
theory of the psychophysical relationship into the definition of "mental" or "physical", we must define these terms in a neutral way, such that neither dualism, reductive materialism, nor reductive mentalism is true or false
by definition. Clarifying the mind-body relationship really isn't just a trivial matter of semantics, but a substantive philosophico-scientific issue.
QUOTE>
"We have a tendency to read 'nonphysical' when we see the word 'mental', and think 'nonmental' when we see the word 'physical'. This has the effect of making the idea of physical reduction of the mental a simple verbal contradiction, abetting the misguided idea that physical reduction of something we cherish as a mental item, like thought or feeling, would turn it into something other than what it is. But this would be the case only if by 'physical' we meant 'nonmental'. We should not prejudge the issue of mind-body reduction by building irreducibility into the meanings of our words. When we consider the question whether the mental can be physically reduced, it is not necessary—even if this could be done—to begin with general definitions of 'mental' and 'physical'; rather, the substantive question that we are asking, or should be asking, is whether or not things like belief, desire, emotion, and sensation are reducible to physical properties and processes. We can understand this question and intelligently debate it, without subsuming these items under some general conception of what it is for something to be mental. If 'mental' is understood to imply 'nonphysical', it would then be an open question whether or not belief, desire, sensation, perception, and the rest are mental in that sense. And this question would replace the original question of their physical reducibility. We cannot evade or trivialize this question by a simple verbal ploy."
(Kim, Jaegwon. "The Mind-Body Problem at Century's Turn." In
The Future of Philosophy, edited by Brian Leiter, 129-152. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. p. 138)
<QUOTE
But even if "it is not necessary…to begin with general definitions of 'mental' and 'physical'", the question of the meanings of the concepts of mentality and physicality must be answered sooner or later—even given the circumstance that adequate general definitions of these terms are very hard to come by.
