Topic: Tuesday 10/15; Parallelism and Behaviorism
From: Richard Pelfrey
Date: 10/18

Announcements:
The study guide for our first test was handed out. The test can be taken from 10/17 to 10/23 in Elex 108. We are allowed a 3 x 5 card for notes. Show up to the lab at least 1/2 hr. before closing. There will be class on thursday 10/17.

Parallelism:
Parallelism is the view that there are causes and effects between mental phenomena and causes and effects between physical phenomena but there is no interaction between the two (physical and mental). Leibniz says that even though there appears to be interaction between the physical and the mental there is not, they are just perfectly in sync. His explanation for this is that God knows exactly every intention that every soul will ever have and has arranged for the bodies to act accordingly. In other words, when a person decides to do something God knows of this decision and wills the physical world to go along with it. God is the link between mind and body and every little thing that we will ever do has already been planned by God.

Objections to parallelism:
-This is an ad hoc or "rube goldbergish" (meaning way too complicated and crazy to be true) theory.
-This view makes God an accomplice to evil
-God is a spritual being and He can affect the physical world, so why can't our souls do this?

Gilbert Ryle:
Behaviorist. He claims that Descartes made a category mistake, I.E. putting things that have nothing in common in the same category and then drawing absurd conclusions from that category. An exmple was given in class of a category mistake from Alice in Wonderland, when the white king is astonished by Alice's ability to see "nobody". Ryle says that Descartes mistakes thoughts and feelings for real things with their own individual existence when they are merely ways of describing behavior.
Descartes would say that Al's soul is in an angry state, while Ryle would say that Al's face is red, his jaw is clenched, his hands are balled up in fists, etc. In other words anger is a word which describes certain behaviors.

Objections to Behaviorism
-It is ad hoc with truthful behavior
-It makes behavior evidence for mental states that might be something different than what the behavior makes them seem to be.