Cohen adapts Freud’s transference concept to explain the affection generated in good conversation. While Freud saw patients’ therapeutic infatuation as repeating family dynamics, Cohen identifies a ‘deep sense of affection’ as inherent to authentic conversation—a ‘welling up of positive feeling’ resembling falling in love that occurs when we genuinely engage with friends, strangers, or even whole classes of students. This transference-like connection sustains rather than ends relationships, making conversation fundamentally social and emotionally bonding.

Cohen distinguishes conversation’s improvisational nature from solitary creation. While writing and speechifying resemble sculpture—modeling something alone through words—conversation operates like team sports where ‘the game proceeds within certain parameters but is unpredictable and reliant on one’s ability to coordinate with another person.’ Words arrange infinitely but ‘wait on the response of a partner,’ requiring ‘extreme attentiveness’ and practice. Like sports, conversation skill develops through repeated performance with varied people, making it collaborative and responsive rather than independent.

Cohen cites Amar’s argument that ‘the American Revolution was successful in mobilising disparate people to its cause as a result of long and probing conversations among constituents across the colonies.’ Conversation created unity across geographic and social distances. Conversely, ‘The British were fated to lose the war… because George III refused to listen, let alone converse with his American subjects.’ This example demonstrates conversation’s civilizing power—how dialogue across difference enables collective action while its absence leads to rupture and failure.

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This article is rated Intermediate because while it engages with sophisticated concepts like Freudian psychology, transference, and historical analysis, Cohen’s warm, conversational style makes these ideas accessible. The essay blends personal memoir with intellectual history without requiring specialized knowledge. Vocabulary ranges from everyday language to academic terms, and the argument progresses logically through familiar experiences before introducing theoretical frameworks. The intimate tone and clear structure help readers follow complex ideas about conversation’s psychological and social functions without overwhelming difficulty.

Cohen argues that ‘Talk with others allows us to practise uncertainty and open-endedness in a safe environment.’ Conversation provides ‘exercise in extemporaneity and experiment’ while deconverting us ‘from rigid and established forms of belief.’ Because conversation is improvisational and relies on others’ unpredictable responses, it trains us to handle the unexpected without anxiety. Cohen concludes ‘There is no better antidote for certainty than ongoing conversation with a friend who disagrees,’ suggesting dialogue actively breaks down dogmatism and increases intellectual flexibility through regular practice.

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The interaction problem challenges how non-spatial mental states could causally affect spatial physical bodies. Physical causation seems to require spatial contact—a baseball breaks a window through physical contact. But if minds don’t take up space (as substance dualism claims), how could they contact and causally influence bodies? Yet minds and bodies clearly do interact: stubbing your toe (physical event) causes pain (mental state), which causes wincing (physical behavior). Substance dualism struggles to explain this causal interaction between fundamentally different kinds of substances without shared spatial properties that could enable contact.

Philosophical zombies are hypothetical creatures physically and behaviorally identical to humans but lacking conscious experience—they process information and respond appropriately without subjective awareness. Conceivability arguments use zombies to support dualism: if we can coherently imagine beings physically like us but without minds, this suggests minds are not reducible to physical states. However, Berger notes this inference is questionable since imaginability doesn’t guarantee possibility—we might imagine proving unprovable theorems. The zombie thought experiment remains influential in debates about whether physical facts exhaustively determine mental facts.

The shoe analogy demonstrates that some things are best defined by function rather than physical composition. Asking “What is a shoe?” gets unsatisfactory answers if we specify materials (leather, plastic, wood) since shoes exhibit multiple realizability. Instead, shoes are better characterized functionally: items whose function includes protecting feet while walking. Similarly, functionalism defines mental states by their characteristic causal roles—inputs, outputs, and relations to other mental states—rather than by physical substrate. Pain is whatever state is typically caused by bodily harm and produces behaviors like wincing, regardless of whether realized by neurons, silicon chips, or alien biology.

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This article is rated Intermediate because it introduces complex philosophical concepts through accessible exposition and concrete examples. While Berger discusses technical distinctions between substance and property dualism, identity theory, and functionalism, he explains terminology clearly and uses everyday examples (ghosts, shoes, stubbing toes) to illuminate abstract metaphysical debates. The article requires ability to follow sustained philosophical argumentation, distinguish between competing theoretical frameworks, and understand how objections motivate alternative positions, but doesn’t presume prior philosophical training. The dialectical structure guides readers through progressively sophisticated positions suitable for educated general readers or introductory philosophy students.

Berger includes these alternative theories to acknowledge the mind-body problem’s complexity while maintaining focus on the three dominant contemporary positions. Idealism (everything is mental), behaviorism (mental states are just behaviors), eliminative materialism (minds don’t exist), panpsychism (all matter has mental properties), and neutral monism (mental and physical are properties of neutral substance) represent historically significant or currently discussed alternatives. By mentioning them in notes rather than main text, Berger signals these positions exist and merit consideration while keeping the essay accessible and focused for introductory readers who need to grasp the major frameworks first.

The Ultimate Reading Course covers 9 RC question types: Multiple Choice, True/False, Multi-Statement T/F, Text Highlight, Fill in the Blanks, Matching, Sequencing, Error Spotting, and Short Answer. This comprehensive coverage prepares you for any reading comprehension format you might encounter.