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1. detemining certainty of claims
2. asseesing the strengths of arguments
3. alanyizing concepts, definitions and explanations
4. interpreting scientific results and conclusions
5. scientific integrity
6. ethical reflection

the sun will rise tomorrow, smoking causes cancer

e.g., Ad Hominem, slippery slope, causation versus correlation)

free will', 'consciousness'

responsibility, publication pressure, bias

"Should brain reading technology be used in court?"


### Mind body problem

most central puzzle in philosophy of mind, brain and behaviour

a lable of mental states : perception ,sensation ,emotions , beliefs , desires , intentions

also associated with language , rationality , morality, ethics, consciousness, free will

psychology is about the mind : " the scientific study of the human mind and its functions, especially those affecting behaviour in a given context"

1. dualism
2. behavioursm
3. identity theory
4. functionalism

### Substance dualism

body and soul are separate substances

two parts separate : material body and immaterial soul

something that can exist independently

" fundamnetal building block of reality"

chair is a substance but the leg of the chair is not as without it it is just a piece of wood

soul is the seat of our menatal states and pocesses

soul does not occupy space : no extension

human beings consists of two substances : mental and physical

extension ( size, shape , location )

thinking, i.e. anyting marked by cinsciousness ( reasoning , imiging, sensing )

'thinking' : all consciousness processes not only intelectual

rationality, language, consciouness

something physical is not conscious, cannot reason or use language

not very popular thoery , want to get rid of in last years

how to explain the mental given the constraints of a physiclaist / materialist paradigm

problem of finding a place for the mind in a world that is fundmantally physical

consequences for psycholgy as a scientific discipline

cognitivism : behaviourism, identitiy theory, functionalism

I think therefor I am

I can doubt everything , except the fact tahat I am doubting (mental)

cannot doubt the mind only the body

can doubt my body but not my mind therfor they must be sepparate things

→ we can doubt the existance of our own body but we cannot doubt our own existance as thinking is doubting

foundations of knowledge consist of knowledge that we cannot doubt

we can doubt anyting but doubting

material objects cannot think

x=y but only when x and y share all their properties

( two but biliard balls are not the same even if they have the same properties )

A. I can doubt that I have a body

B. I cannot doubt that I exist

C. Ergo, I am not identical with my body

1. doesn't work for psychological states ( thinking , doubting and beliving )
2. what I think about something is not neccerly a property of that thing
3. I can doubt that I have no body, this does not imply that I am not identical with my body

how is casual interaction between mental and physical substance possible ?

causal closure of the physical domain : we can give a full phisicial explanation without reference to mental

e.g. going to the fridge to get something

decartes : we know our own mind by means of introsepction

we are directly aware of our own mental states, but we need to infer the mental states of others on the basis of their behaviour

is there an asymmety between how we knoe oursleves and how we know others ?

is my knowledge pf my own mental states indeed more certain ? how reliable is introspection as a method

A. the problem of mental causation

B.methodological problems