I. Metaphysics is the study of topics that are considered after or beyond questions dealing with physical issues.  Instead of asking questions such as, How much does a thing weigh? it asks what reality itself is, and what distinguishes reality from mere appearance.  It also tries to determine whether it makes sense to think of some things (e.g., numbers, minds, ideas, natural laws, etc.) as real as sensible objects like tables and books.  It thus raises issues about questions that are beyond the physical such as: Does the universe have an order or purpose?  Is there life after death?  Do human beings have souls or are they only bodies?  Are humans only highly developed animals?  Do computers think?

The study of the nature of reality is also called "ontology," which literally means the "study [logos] of being [ontos]."  Since what it means for something to be or to be real is an issue beyond what is physically accessible, ontological questions are metaphysical.  Metaphysics includes not only the study of being and reality but also the study of specific kinds of beings (such as minds).  Metaphysics in general and ontology in particular are both interested in providing a "logos," a rational explanation for existence.

II. Mythos and Logos: Recall from earlier in the semester: A rational explanation differs from a mythic explanation insofar as myth provides an account or story about how things come to be as they are.  A rational explanation of something does not require that we know why the thing is that way; it only requires that we understand how that thing makes sense in terms of our experience of nature.  It does not ask why there is anything at all (including nature), because to do so would require us to appeal to yet another principle of explanation, and that would generate an infinite regress.

Mythos, on the other hand, attempts to explain the natural world ultimately by appealing to supernatural or divine forces.  For the mythic mind, the act of recounting the myth or casting a spell reinvokes what it means to say that something exists in the first place.  Myth identifies things as real without attempting to justify such identifications.  A mythic pronouncment is thus not the natural speech or act of a human being; it is the supernatural speech or act of the gods.

By contrast, a rational or "logical" explanation tries to justify why something is the way it is by appealing to things in nature that are not themselves questioned but are simply accepted as the way things are in nature.  Myth identifies those unquestioned things for us and provides us with our understanding of what logos (logic, meaning, reason) is.

Ultimately, there is no rationale or justification for myth because it is through myth that reason itself is identified.  That is, myth does not "explain" how things are as much as it simply reveals how things are.  Apart from such a revelation, it makes no sense to try to talk about things.

Some philosophers (e.g., Nietzsche) object to the metaphysical attempt to provide a totalizing, eternal, uniform picture of reality.  Others (positivists) argue that metaphysical speculation is meaningless since it cannot be falsified and is not true by definition.  To such objections metaphysicians often reply that the attempt to understand the nature of reality is not concerned with being true as much as with being helpful in making sense of life.

III. Views on the Nature of Reality:

• Dualism: everything that is real is either physical or mental (spiritual), material or immaterial, body or mind.
• Monism: everything that is real is one and only one kind of thing:
• Materialism: only material bodies are real
• Behaviorism: All claims about minds or mental events can be expressed in terms of behaviors
• Mind-Brain (Neural Identity) Theory: minds are brains, ideas are brain processes (though "mind" and "brain" differ in meaning)
• Eliminative Materialism: a mind is nothing other than a brain, an idea is nothing other than a brain process; we need to eliminate mental talk
• Connectionism: mind is the product of patterns or sequences of intricate material (neurological) connections in the brain (like computer hardware)
• Functionalism: mind is a function of how symbols are manipulated according to programmed rules (like computer software) to produce intelligible output
• Critical Naturalism: only natural, physical things are real, but they are not reducible to material bodies.
• Idealism: only minds and their ideas are real.
• Pluralism: no single substance is ultimately real; rather, there is a multiplicity of real substances.
• Naive Realism: what we consider as "real" varies depending on how we speak about the world.
• Nihilism: nothing or ought to be considered real.

A. Dualism (Descartes): there are two kinds of things that are real: mind/thought (mental or spiritual things) and body/extension (material things).  Mental things can be known only through introspection (first-person accounts); physical things are known through sensible observation (third-person accounts).  My knowledge of other minds is based on their behavior; but my knowledge of myself is not.  Introspection reveals the reality of mental things that are accessible only privately. Because the mental and the physical can be conceived as distinct, it is possible that they are distinct.  At least conceptually there is no reason to think they are necessarily united; so it is possible that at the dissolution of the body, the soul or mind survives in some afterlife.

Objections:

• how is interaction between a purely spiritual and a purely material thing possible?
• if mind is known only introspectively, how do we know that others have minds?
• if the mind is influenced by the body (which itself is completely determined), how can the mind be free?
• why should we believe that thinking has to be a spiritual, immaterial activity?  That is, why not say that matter can think?

B. Materialism: reality is best understood only in terms of physical, sensibly experienced events (e.g., the behavior of people or the motions of material bodies).  Life is a physico-chemical process and mind and thought are only either behaviors, ways of speaking about behaviors, or electrochemical activities of the brain.  Mental events are physical processes that are like other material things and should be described in a similar way (e.g., by describing them in terms of laws of nature).  Mental states (including intentions, fears, and beliefs) are only inclinations to behave in certain ways or brain states.  "Mentality" is either our way of describing bodily behaviors or a by-product (or "epiphenomenon") of brain (or neural) activity.  Intelligence is the evolutionary result of chance events in the development of the universe.  There is no purpose or plan in the development of the universe.  Variations:

• Behaviorism: all statements about minds, mental life, or mental events can be expressed in terms of behaviors.  Otherwise, such terms are nonsense.

• Hard behaviorists (e.g., B. F. Skinner) say that there are no such things as minds, mental events, states, or processes; there are only bodies in motion (behaviors).  Mental vocabulary is misleading and should be deleted from our speech.  Just because we speak about ideas and intentions, that does not mean there are such things.  For clarity's sake we should abandon such ways of speaking.  Beliefs in freedom and moral dignity are out of touch with the scientific reality.

            Objections:

• Unlike my account of other minds, I do not explain my own mind by observation of my behavior.
• The vocabulary of intentional states would have to be modified in a non-common sensical way.
• Soft behaviorists claim that there may be minds and mental events and processes, but we don't need to think that they are real since a behaviorist methodology can account for everything that is interesting about them.
• Logical behaviorists (e.g., Gilbert Ryle) claim that the mental or intentional refers to ways of behaving.  It is OK to speak of minds and use mentalistic terminology (contra Skinner) as long as we recognize how such talk, like talk of bodies, is not a claim about their reality apart from their logical status as modes of behavior or dispositions to behave.  To talk of bodies is to describe certain observable behaviors that we identify as things.  Minds are not such things (ghostly or otherwise)--that would involve the "category mistake"  of thinking of bundles of characteristics as being things; minds are only ways of describing bodily activities.  Nonetheless, we should maintain the logical distinction between the mental and the physical: without such a distinction (based on the manner of behavior), we could not distinguish between intentional and accidental behaviors.