Non-physical entity

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In ontology and the philosophy of mind, a non-physical entity is an object that exists outside physical reality. The philosophical schools of idealism and dualism assert that such entities exist, while physicalism asserts that they do not. Positing the existence of non-physical entities leads to further questions concerning their inherent nature and their relation to physical entities. [1]

Contents

Abstract concepts

Philosophers generally do agree on the existence of abstract objects. The mind can conceive of objects that clearly have no physical counterpart. Such objects include concepts such as numbers, mathematical sets and functions, and philosophical relations and properties. If such objects are indeed entities, they are entities that exist only in the mind itself, not within space and time. For an example, an abstract property such as redness has no presence in space-time. [2] [3] To make a distinction between metaphysics and epistemology, such objects, if they are to be considered entities, are categorized as logical entities to distinguish them from physical entities. The study of non-physical entities can be summarized by the question, "Is imagination real?" While older Cartesian dualists held the existence of non-physical minds, more limited forms of dualism propounded by 20th and 21st century philosophers (such as property dualism) hold merely the existence of non-physical properties. [4]

Mind–body dualism

Dualism is the division of two contrasted or opposed aspects. The dualist school supposes the existence of non-physical entities, the most widely discussed one being the mind. But beyond that it runs into stumbling blocks. [5] Pierre Gassendi put one such problem directly to René Descartes in 1641, in response to Descartes's Meditations :

[It] still remains to be explained how that union and apparent intermingling [of mind and body ...] can be found in you, if you are incorporeal, unextended and indivisible [...]. How, at least, can you be united with the brain, or some minute part in it, which (as has been said) must yet have some magnitude or extension, however small it be? If you are wholly without parts how can you mix or appear to mix with its minute subdivisions? For there is no mixture unless each of the things to be mixed has parts that can mix with one another.

Gassendi 1641 [5] [6]

Descartes' response to Gassendi, and to Princess Elizabeth who asked him similar questions in 1643, is generally considered nowadays to be lacking, because it did not address what is known in the philosophy of mind as the interaction problem. [5] [6] This is a problem for non-physical entities as posited by dualism: by what mechanism, exactly, do they interact with physical entities, and how can they do so? Interaction with physical systems requires physical properties which a non-physical entity does not possess. [7]

Dualists either, like Descartes, avoid the problem by considering it impossible for a non-physical mind to conceive the relationship that it has with the physical, and so impossible to explain philosophically, or assert that the questioner has made the fundamental mistake of thinking that the distinction between the physical and the non-physical is such that it prevents each from affecting the other.

Other questions about the non-physical which dualism has not answered include such questions as how many minds each person can have, which is not an issue for physicalism which can simply declare one-mind-per-person almost by definition; and whether non-physical entities such as minds and souls are simple or compound, and if the latter, what "stuff" the compounds are made from. [8]

Spirits

Describing in philosophical terms what a non-physical entity actually is (or would be) can prove problematic. A convenient example of what constitutes a non-physical entity is a ghost. Gilbert Ryle once labelled Cartesian dualism as positing the "ghost in the machine". [9] [10] However, it is hard to define in philosophical terms what it is, precisely, about a ghost that makes it a specifically non-physical, rather than a physical entity. Were the existence of ghosts ever demonstrated beyond doubt, it has been claimed that would actually place them in the category of physical entities. [10]

Purported non-mental non-physical entities include things such as gods, angels, demons, and ghosts. Lacking physical demonstrations of their existence, their existences and natures are widely debated, independently of the philosophy of mind. [11] [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is a position which encompasses many varieties such as metaphysical, mathematical, semantic, scientific, moral and epistemic. The term was first articulated by British philosopher Michael Dummett in an argument against a form of realism Dummett saw as 'colorless reductionism'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Existence</span> State of being real

Existence is the state of being real or participating in reality. The terms "being", "reality", and "actuality" are often used as close synonyms. Existence contrasts with nonexistence, nothingness, and nonbeing. A common distinction is between the existence of an entity and its essence, which refers to the entity's nature or essential qualities.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality. This includes the first principles of being or existence, identity, change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity, actuality, and possibility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monism</span> View that attributes oneness or singleness to a concept

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Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance in nature, and that all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions of material things. According to philosophical materialism, mind and consciousness are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes, without which they cannot exist. Materialism directly contrasts with idealism, according to which consciousness is the fundamental substance of nature.

Neutral monism is an umbrella term for a class of metaphysical theories in the philosophy of mind, concerning the relation of mind to matter. These theories take the fundamental nature of reality to be neither mental nor physical; in other words it is "neutral".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ontology</span> Philosophical study of being and existence

In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being. It investigates what types of entities exist, how they are grouped into categories, and how they are related to one another on the most fundamental level. Ontologists often try to determine what the categories or highest kinds are and how they form a system of categories that encompasses the classification of all entities. Commonly proposed categories include substances, properties, relations, states of affairs, and events. These categories are characterized by fundamental ontological concepts, including particularity and universality, abstractness and concreteness, or possibility and necessity. Of special interest is the concept of ontological dependence, which determines whether the entities of a category exist on the most fundamental level. Disagreements within ontology are often about whether entities belonging to a certain category exist and, if so, how they are related to other entities.

Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory positing that objects are constituted each by a substance and properties borne by the substance but distinct from it. In this role, a substance can be referred to as a substratum or a thing-in-itself. Substances are particulars that are ontologically independent: they are able to exist all by themselves. Another defining feature often attributed to substances is their ability to undergo changes. Changes involve something existing before, during and after the change. They can be described in terms of a persisting substance gaining or losing properties. Attributes or properties, on the other hand, are entities that can be exemplified by substances. Properties characterize their bearers; they express what their bearer is like.

In metaphysics, a universal is what particular things have in common, namely characteristics or qualities. In other words, universals are repeatable or recurrent entities that can be instantiated or exemplified by many particular things. For example, suppose there are two chairs in a room, each of which is green. These two chairs share the quality of "chairness", as well as greenness or the quality of being green; in other words, they share two "universals". There are three major kinds of qualities or characteristics: types or kinds, properties, and relations. These are all different types of universals.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind–body dualism</span> Philosophical theory

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<i>Meditations on First Philosophy</i> Philosophy book by Descartes

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<i>The Concept of Mind</i> 1949 book by Gilbert Ryle

The Concept of Mind is a 1949 book by philosopher Gilbert Ryle, in which the author argues that "mind" is "a philosophical illusion hailing chiefly from René Descartes and sustained by logical errors and 'category mistakes' which have become habitual."

In philosophy, the Cartesian Self, or Cartesian subject, a concept developed by the philosopher René Descartes within his system of mind–body dualism, is the term provided for a separation between mind and body as posited by Descartes. In the simple view the self can be viewed as just the mind which is separate from the body as well as from the outside world. The simple self, the mind, also stands to be capable of thinking about itself and its existence. The self when seen as a compound is when it can be interpreted as being a whole human being - body and mind - with the body being an extension of the mind. It is distinct from the Cartesian other, anything other than the Cartesian self, yet the human-being version, union of body and mind, of the self is capable of interaction with the Cartesian Other through extension. According to Descartes, there is a divide intrinsic to consciousness such that one Individual's self is the only thing one can know to certainly exist - since one is not capable of knowing whether other minds exist or are able to think.

The "ghost in the machine" is a term originally used to describe and critique the concept of the mind existing alongside and separate from the body. In more recent times, the term has several uses, including the concept that the intellectual part of the human mind is influenced by emotions; and within fiction, for an emergent consciousness residing in a computer.

Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addressed, such as the hard problem of consciousness and the nature of particular mental states. Aspects of the mind that are studied include mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and its neural correlates, the ontology of the mind, the nature of cognition and of thought, and the relationship of the mind to the body.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind–body problem</span> Open question in philosophy of how abstract minds interact with physical bodies

The mind–body problem is a philosophical problem concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the body.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cartesianism</span> Philosophical and scientific system of René Descartes

Cartesianism is the philosophical and scientific system of René Descartes and its subsequent development by other seventeenth century thinkers, most notably François Poullain de la Barre, Nicolas Malebranche and Baruch Spinoza. Descartes is often regarded as the first thinker to emphasize the use of reason to develop the natural sciences. For him, philosophy was a thinking system that embodied all knowledge.

Interactionism or interactionist dualism is the theory in the philosophy of mind which holds that matter and mind are two distinct and independent substances that exert causal effects on one another. An example of your mind influencing your body would be if you are depressed, you can observe the effects on your body, such as a slouched posture, a lackluster smile, etc. Another example, this time of your body affecting your mind would be: If you struck your toe very forcefully on a door, you would experience terrible pain. Interactionism is one type of dualism, traditionally a type of substance dualism though more recently also sometimes a form of property dualism. Many philosophers and scientists have responded to this theory with arguments both supporting and opposing its relevance to life and whether the theory corresponds to reality.

References

  1. Campbell 2005, p. 910.
  2. Jubien 2003, p. 3638.
  3. Moreland & Craig 2003, p. 184185.
  4. Balog 2009, p. 293.
  5. 1 2 3 Bechtel 1988, p. 82.
  6. 1 2 Richardson 1982, p. 21.
  7. Jaworski 2011, p. 7980.
  8. Smith & Jones 1986, p. 4849.
  9. Brown 2001, p. 13.
  10. 1 2 Montero 2009, p. 110111.
  11. Gracia 1996, p. 18.
  12. Malikow 2009, p. 29–31.

Further reading