Abstract
A post-Newtonian understanding of matter includes immaterial forces; thus, the concept of ‘physical’ has lost what usefulness it previously had and consequently Cartesian dualism has ceased to support a divide between the mental and the physical. A scientific understanding of mind that goes back at least as far as Priestley (eighteenth century) not only includes immaterial components but identifies brain parts in which these components correlate with neural activity. What are we left with? The challenge is not so much to figure out how a physical brain interacts with a nonphysical mind, but to try to unify theories of mind and theories of brain that to date do not share a single property. The challenge is enormous, but at least we can be quite clear about its nature, as there is no reason to be distracted by the idea of two distinct substances. In the present volume, several historical perspectives on the mind-body problem are discussed; we follow major currents of thought regarding the mind-body problem so that it can be seen how we arrived at our conception that it makes sense only to talk about theory unification.
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- 1.
Thales, as reported by Aristotle (De anima, 411a7); in Kirk and Raven 1971, 94.
- 2.
Frankfort and Frankfort 1949, 14: ‘primitive man simply does not know an inanimate world.... The world appears to primitive man neither inanimate nor empty but redundant with life…’.
- 3.
See, for example (Apostle 1969), Metaphysics A, wherein Aristotle critically surveys the views of his immediate predecessors.
- 4.
It is worth noting that while the spirit (so to speak) of the Pythagorean view in some ways parallels the spirit of the Cartesian view, there are important differences in both the physics and metaphysics that inform the views.
- 5.
Some scholars maintain that the accompanying creation doctrine is what Plato presents in his dialogue Timaeus. Others, Duerlinger (2005) e.g., think that Plato himself adopted a view very similar to this Pythagorean view.
- 6.
There is one notable exception to this general rule: God. According to Aristotle, the divine being is form itself, without matter. See, Metaphysics Γ, Ζ, Η and Λ.
- 7.
For a defense of the view that Aristotle did not consider the body and soul separate in any sense, see Matson 1966.
- 8.
- 9.
White 1963. White gives a number of reasons for the development of labour-saving technologies in medieval Europe, not least ‘the spiritual repugnance of subjecting anyone to drudgery’ (p. 291).
- 10.
Vesalius 1998–2009, Book VII, Chapter 1, p. 624.
- 11.
See, for example, Letter to Meyssonnier, 29 January, 1640; to Mersenne, 1 April, 1640; and to Mersenne, 30 July, 1640.
- 12.
There are a number of theoretical debates continuing in the philosophy of mind. Dating back to J.J.C. Smart’s important (1959) paper “Sensations and Brain Processes,” there is the view that seeks a theoretical reduction of paradigmatic mental states to brain states, just as we are able to reduce lightning to electrical discharges. More recently, Kari Theurer and John Bickle (2013) have revived something of a mechanistic approach to the reduction of the mental to the physical. Lockwood (1989) suggests that the existence of what we refer to as consciousness presents yet another challenge to the common-sense view of matter, just as does quantum theory.
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Phillips, K.G., Beretta, A., Whitaker, H.A. (2014). Mind and Brain: Toward an Understanding of Dualism. In: Smith, C., Whitaker, H. (eds) Brain, Mind and Consciousness in the History of Neuroscience. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8774-1_18
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