Mind, Language, and Reality PHIL 3400

Midterm Mallon

On test day, you will be asked to answer 2 questions one from each group below. THE QUESTIONS WILL BE RANDOMLY SELECTED. This means you should prepare an answer to each question below.

The test will be closed book, closed notes. You will have 50 minutes to finish, so plan to spend approximately half that time on each question.

Group 1.

1. Mill writes:

The successions, therefore, which obtain among mental phenomena do not admit of being deduced from the physiological laws of our nervous organisation; and all real knowledge of them must continue, for a long time at least, if not always, to be sought in the direct study, by observation and experiment, of the mental successions themselves. Since, therefore, the order of our mental phenomena must be studied in those phenomena, and not inferred from the laws of any phenomena more general, there is a distinct and separate Science of Mind. (37)

Explain why Mill concludes there must be a distinct and separate Science of Mind. Is he correct?

2. Explain what Mill means when he says that "The Social Science … is a deductive science." Do you think Mill is correct?

3. Taylor complains that the empiricist tries to render the world as 'brute data'. Why does Taylor think this is problematic? Is he correct?

Group 2.

4. Griffiths suggests conceptual analysis is impoverished. Why? Is he correct?

5. Griffiths offers a variety of objections to propositional attitude theories of the emotions. Choose the 3 best. Do they succeed in defeating such an account? How might a PA theorist respond?

6. Griffiths wants to break the link between "evolutionary explanation" and "innateness." Explain why. Are his reasons any good?