Aesthetics and Philosophy of Mind
Two subfields share this domain, and both reward precise statement of the argument form rather than opinion. Aesthetics questions test judgement, definition and interpretation; philosophy of mind tests the mind-body problem and consciousness.
Aesthetics
- Kant's judgement of taste: disinterested, subjectively universal, purposive without purpose, grounded in free play of imagination and understanding.
- Hume: a standard of taste despite sentiment, corrected by ideal critics.
- Definitions of art: representational, expression (Tolstoy, Collingwood), formalist (Bell's significant form), institutional (Danto, Dickie), and cluster accounts.
- Further topics: the sublime (Burke, Kant), aesthetic properties, fiction and truth, the intentional fallacy, interpretation and criticism.
Philosophy of mind
- Dualism: substance dualism (Descartes) versus property dualism; the interaction problem.
- Physicalist options: behaviourism, identity theory, functionalism, computationalism, eliminativism.
- Functionalism: mental states are causal roles, so multiple realisability follows; the absent and inverted qualia objections follow too.
- Consciousness: the hard problem (Chalmers); qualia; Mary's room (Jackson); philosophical zombies; mental causation (Kim's exclusion argument).
- Intentionality, personal identity (Parfit), and the extended mind (Clark and Chalmers).
Worked example
Mary knows every physical fact about colour vision but has only seen black and white. On seeing red she learns something new. Premises: she knew all physical facts; she learns something; therefore physicalism is false. The argument is valid if the premises hold; the dispute is over premise two. Ability hypothesis (Lewis, Nemirow): she gains know-how, not a fact. Phenomenal concept strategy: she gains a new concept of an old fact. State which premise your response targets.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating functionalism as the identity theory; multiple realisability is what separates them.
- Confusing qualia (what it is like) with intentionality (aboutness).
- Reading Searle's Chinese room as a proof that machines cannot think, rather than that symbol manipulation alone yields no understanding.
- Treating Kant's taste as merely subjective; subjective universality is the point.