PHIL 2010H Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Julien Offray De La Mettrie, Christian Mortalism, Active Minds
2 May 2017
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Ideas imprinted on the senses ( outer perception) Ideas of the emotions and of mental operations such as associating one idea with another ( inner perception) The activity of perceiving ideas is called understanding, and the activity of manipulating ideas (for example, calling ideas up from memory, imagining different combinations of ideas, etc. ) is called willing. They do not do anything unless they are caused to do so by some mind. Two non-dualist solutions to skepticism about the world. Materialism (hobbes, la mettrie): there is no non-spatial, immaterial mind. This solves skepticism about the world because the material brain has no problem gathering information about material things through the material body. But it is hard to maintain belief in an immortal soul or any kind of divinity on this view. Idealism (berkeley): there is no material world. There are only minds and the ideas in those minds.
