This examination counts as fifteen percent (15%) of your course grade.

This is a closed-book, in-class examination on the scheduled date.

There will be two parts.

• Part I (for ten (10) points) will ask you to answer ten (10) "short answer" questions worth one (1) point each. By "short answer" I mean that a sentence or two (or three) will suffice.
• Part II (for five (5) points) will ask you to answer one (1) essay question worth five (5) points. You will have a choice from two (2) questions on this part. By "essay" I mean a discussion that will probably take more than a paragraph or two, but should take no more than a few pages.

Ground Rules

As always, cheating will not be tolerated. No help in answering the questions may be received from anyone (except yourself) during the examination. You may not use books or notes during the examination.

Sample Questions and Points to Study

• State something that is true of a mind that is not true of any physical thing--or explain why this cannot be done. Critically discuss how a materialist and a dualist would respond to this request.

• Explain: monism, dualism, idealism, materialism, interactionism, epiphenomenalism, and parallelism, occasionalism, and preestablished harmony. Explain the differences and similarities among these theories.

• What is panpsychism? Is it a plausible view? Why or why not? Critically discuss.

• Give an example of an instance in which a mental state apparently causes something physical to happen. What theories of the nature of mind deny that anything of that sort goes on? How would adherents of those theories explain what is happening in the example? Critically discuss.

• Give an example of an instance in which a physical state apparently causes something to happen in a person's mind. What theories of the nature of mind deny that anything of that sort goes on? How would adherents of those theories explain what is happening in the example? Critically discuss.

• Suppose that it is argued that a mind can think but a body cannot think, so a mind is not a body. How might a materialist reply to this argument? Critically discuss.

• How would an epiphenomenalist explain the following: I see someone whom I recognize as a friend of mind and accordingly raise my arm to greet her. Critically discuss.

• Descartes argues in Meditation VI that there is a real distinction between the body and the mind. One of his argument is contained in a paragraph which begins "And first of all." Carefully explain this argument. Critically discuss, exploring possible objections to the argument.

• Descartes offers an argument for the mind not being the body based on "divisibility." Explain the argument. Critically discuss the argument.

• Shaffer identifies four materialist theories of mind. Explain each of these theories.

• Shaffer offers an argument against the identity theory from the "condition of coexistence in space." Carefully explain this argument. Critique the argument.

• Churchland writes "epiphenomenalism ... is a bargain struck between the desire to respect a rigorously scientific approach to the explanation of behavior, and the desire to respect the testimony of introspection." (IP3 282a) Explain what epiphenomenalism is, and then explain how it can be seen as the kind of "bargain" Churchland speaks of.

• Define "emergent property," as this term is used by Churchland. What properties are emergent? Are mental properties emergent? Explain.

• Churchland discusses four sources of arguments for dualism. Explain what each of these is. Explain Churchland's objections to these arguments.

• Explain and critically discuss one argument that Churchland offers against dualism.

• Explain what the reductive materialist believes about mental states.

• What four reasons does Paul Churchland give for thinking that there can be reduction of our common-sense conceptual framework for mental states, or "folk psychology," to neuro-science?

• Define "intertheoretic reduction."

• State Leibniz' law. Explain it and offer an example (not concerning the nature of the distinction between the mental and the physical) of an inference which appeals to it.

• State one argument Churchland considers against reductive materialism from some premise concerning introspection. How does he respond to this argument? Critically discuss.

• What are semantic properties? What argument appealing to semantic properties can be constructed against reductive materialism? How does Paul Churchland respond to this argument?

• Explain the numerous traditional monist and dualist positions on the mind-body problem. How do the various views account for the apparent interaction between mental and physical events? Which seems most plausible to you? Why? Explain one advantage one of the other views has over the one you find most plausible.