It could hardly be doubted that there is a profound connection between the mental states and the work of neural systems of the human brain. One could even argue that these processes are identical. Patricia Churchland is a scientist who is well-known for her work that connects neuroscience and traditional philosophical concepts such as the self and consciousness (Rosen et al. 424). This paper aims to analyze her perspective on the question of the reducibility of mental states to neurological states, concerning the terms “intentional property” and “intentional fallacy” along with Jackson’s Mary thought experiment.
First of all, it is essential to touch upon the notion of intentional property. Churchland starts her reasoning by proposing two hypotheses: (1) the qualia (the qualitative character of sensations and feelings) are knowable to an individual by introspection, and (2) the properties of neural states are knowable by the external senses. Additionally, the qualia are not cognizable by the external senses as well as the neural state, cannot be experienced by introspection. Therefore, it is concluded that the qualia of one’s sensations are not equal to the properties of one’s neural system. Nevertheless, Churchland argues that this conclusion might be wrong due to the use of the intentional property. She defines intentional property as a feature of an object, which is “apprehended under some description or other or as thought about in some manner” (Rosen et al. 426). Accordingly, Churchland notices that both (1) and (2) hypotheses are based on the use of thought-dependent (intentional) properties, and thus their credibility could be argued.
Further, the scientist defines such use as the intentional fallacy, which is treating intentional properties as if they were original properties of the objects. To illustrate her thought, she discusses the thought experiment, which was designed by Frank Jackson in 1982 (Rosen et al. 427). In summary, the argument is as follows: (1) Mary, a neuroscientist, has complete knowledge about neural states and their properties but (2) she does not know everything about the qualia of sensations; therefore, (3) sensations and their properties are not equal to brain states and their properties (Rosen et al. 427). According to the conditions of the thought experiment, Mary lives in the room in which no colors are displayed (only grey shades between black and white), and thus, even though she might have complete knowledge about how neural system functions, she cannot experience the sensation of seeing the red color. Nevertheless, Churchland argues that the assumption of Mary’s inability to feel the sensation of red color is an example of intentional fallacy since this hypothesis cannot be defended on both a priori and empirical grounds (Rosen et al. 429).
In conclusion, it is possible to observe that Churchland does not give a direct answer to the question of the reducibility of mental states to neural states. She suggests that we do not have enough empirical evidence to precisely solve this issue. Therefore, the solution to this question appears to be the subject of intentional fallacies due to the lack of knowledge.
Work Cited
Rosen, Gideon, et al., editors. The Norton Introduction to Philosophy. WW Norton & Company, 2015.