Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz has the view that the mind of a substance, including humans, is not a composite entity. To Leibniz, the mind is similar to a mill, in the sense that it is like a machine where all of the parts of it work together. When, in reality, the mind is something that is complex, and needs both an intellectual and a technical side to it for it to function –quite unlike the machine Leibniz claims it is. His argument, known as “The Mill Argument”, states that if a person were to walk into a mill, he or she would observe the inner workings of it, and not know what the parts are made of, or how they are related. Nothing about the parts of the mill would provide insight as to how it works. Leibniz concludes that the mind is merely a mechanical substance, because there is no proof that there is a consciousness connected to the properties of the mind. However, the mind is composed of neurons, which allow the body experience sensations. This means that everything that composes the mind also composes thoughts and feelings, which makes humans not only material, but also thinking beings.
In Reflections on the Soul of a Beast, Leibniz writes:
“we also may easily conclude that in any mill or clock considered by itself no perceiving principle is found that is produced in the thing itself; and it makes no difference whether solids, fluids or mixtures of the two are considered in the machine”
(Leibniz, Rutherford, Philosophy.ucsd).
Leibniz uses the example of the mill to illustrate the fact that there is a difference between the mechanics, and the mental state of the mind. For instance, an analysis of the mind would show that there is nothing that connects the material substance of the brain, to the perceptions it produ...
... middle of paper ...
...e. Which is why we do not analyse the mechanical parts of our Smartphones, or other machines, because we are aware that they are going to perform whatever task we choose to command of the technology. Our minds do not work in the same way as machines; we have multiple functions that we sometimes are not aware we can do, which is completely unlike a machine that can only function the way it is programmed. This is why Leibniz’s theory cannot be true.
Word Count: 1256
Works Cited
Locke, John. "IV.iii.6." An Essay concerning Human Understanding. Print.
Von Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, and Donald Rutherford. "Reflections on the Souls of Beasts." Philosophy.ucsd. N.p., 21 Nov. 2001. Web. https://portal.utoronto.ca/bbcswebdav/pid-3766584-dt-content-rid-20413057_2/courses/Fall-2013-PHL210Y5-Y-LEC0101/Leibniz-Beasts
Von Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. Monadology 17. Print.
Rowlands, Mark. The Philosopher and the Wolf . New York : Pegasus Publishing , 2008.
Some believe that the mind must be a physical object, and others believe in dualism, or the idea that the mind is separate from the brain. I am a firm believer in dualism, and this is part of the argument that I will use in the favor of Dennett. The materialist view, however, would likely not consider Hubert to be a mind. That viewpoint believes that all objects are physical objects, so the mind is a physical part of a human brain, and thus this viewpoint doesn’t consider the mind and body as two separate things, but instead they are both parts of one object. The materialist would likely reject Hubert as a mind, even though circuit boards are a physical object, although even a materialist would likely agree that Yorick being separated from Dennett does not disqualify Yorick as a mind.
Nagel, Thomas. "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" Exploring Philosophy. 4th ed. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. 138-141. Print.
He suggests that the physical substance (body) and mental substance (mind) are different in nature from each other. He believes that what we see could possibly be deceiving us and that this world might just be a dream.
... Theory is instrumental in explaining how the mind can be considered an entity that is separate from the body. We can come to this conclusion by first understanding that we are real, and we cannot logically doubt our own presence, because the act of doubting is thinking, which makes you a thinker. Next, we realize that the mind, and all of its experiences and thoughts, will remain the same no matter what changes or destruction that’s endured by the body. Then we can grasp that we are our minds and not our physical bodies. We can use a number of examples to illustrate that these concepts, including the movie The Matrix. Finally, we can disapprove John Locke’s objections to the Dualist Theory by identifying that the mind is capable of conscious and unconscious thought; therefore, it cannot be divisible like the body. Hence the mind is a separate entity from the body.
Hobbes, Thomas, and C. B. Macpherson. Leviathan ; Edited with an Introduction by C.B. MacPherson. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968. Print.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig; G. E. M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte (eds. and trans.). Philosophical Investigations. 4th edition, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Print.
. Its most famous defender is Descartes, who argues that as a subject of conscious thought and experience, he cannot consist simply of spatially extended matter. His essential nature must be non-m...
Hoggart, Simon. “Beauty and the beasts.” The Spectator. ProQuest, 31 July 2010. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
“I shall briefly explain how I conceive this matter. Look round the world: Contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines, which again admit of subdivisions, to a degree beyond what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy, which ravishes into admiration all men, who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since therefore the effects
the mind is not is a superb point of reasoning that can be applied on many different levels with
...ning of mind is something that cannot be divisible but that is hard to see because I have already proved that by my understanding of the mind it has parts. It is also hard to think of a mind or soul that does not have such things as memory and personality therefore I believe Descartes argument is false.
Since Descartes many philosophers have discussed the problem of interaction between the mind and body. Philosophers have given rise to a variety of different answers to this question all with their own merits and flaws. These answers vary quite a lot. There is the idea of total separation between mind and body, championed by Descartes, which has come to be known as “Cartesian Dualism”. This, of course, gave rise to one of the many major responses to the mind-body problem which is the exact opposite of dualism; monism. Monism is the idea that mind and body one and the same thing and therefore have no need for interaction. Another major response to the problem is that given by Leibniz, more commonly known as pre-ordained harmony or monadology. Pre-ordained harmony simply states that everything that happens, happens because God ordained it to. Given the wide array of responses to the mind-body problem I will only cover those given by Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. I will also strive to show how each of these philosophers discuss what mind and body are and how each accounts for God’s influence on the interaction of mind and body, as this is an interesting distinction between them, as well as the important question of the role of substance. This is important, I believe, because it helps to understand the dialogue between the three philosophers.
So, the question is: is there any causal correlation between the mind and the body according to Leibniz? For him, this is impossible. The mind cannot act upon the body and the body cannot act upon the mind. For Leibniz, a substance cannot affect another substance. So the mind as a substance cannot affect the body as a substance. These are two different finite substances. But how does Leibniz explain the pain I feel when I cut my finger or anything in my body? The cut of my finger led my brain to signal pain so I felt it. If there is no causal correlation, then how did this occur? Leibniz answers this question by saying that although there is no causal relation between mind and the body, they act in a perfectly coordinated way; they act as if there is causal relation between both. In other words, there is a previously established harmony between both. So one asks now, what or who caused this harmony?
Gilbert Ryle’s The Concept of Mind (1949) is a critique of the notion that the mind is distinct from the body, and is a rejection of the philosophical theory that mental states are distinct from physical states. Ryle argues that the traditional approach to the relation of mind and body (i.e., the approach which is taken by the philosophy of Descartes) assumes that there is a basic distinction between Mind and Matter. According to Ryle, this assumption is a basic 'category-mistake,' because it attempts to analyze the relation betwen 'mind' and 'body' as if they were terms of the same logical category. Furthermore, Ryle argues that traditional Idealism makes a basic 'category-mistake' by trying to reduce physical reality to the same status as mental reality, and that Materialism makes a basic 'category-mistake' by trying to reduce mental reality to the same status as physical reality.