Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Paper of December 1676' and 'Alcibiades'

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2 ideas

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 1. Dualism
Man uses his body, so must be separate from it [Anon (Plat), by Maslin]
     Full Idea: A man uses his whole body to do things, and therefore, just as a person is distinct from a tool he uses, so it follows that a man must be distinct from his body.
     From: report of Anon (Plat) (Alcibiades [c.340 BCE]) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 2.3
     A reaction: This 'follows'? Every part of my body and my mind makes 'use' of every other part. My body uses my mind to achieve reproduction. He presumably means 'person' rather than 'man'.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 7. Zombies
It's impossible, but imagine a body carrying on normally, but with no mind [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: If it could be supposed that a body exists without a mind, then a man would do everything in the same way as if he did not have a mind, and men would speak and write the same things, without knowing what they do. ...But this supposition is impossible.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Paper of December 1676 [1676], A6.3.400), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 5
     A reaction: This is clearly the zombie dream, three centuries before Robert Kirk's modern invention of the idea. Leibniz's reason for denying the possibility of zombies won't be the modern physicalist reason.