Philosophy of mind

Not to be confused with Theory of mind.
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The philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of the mind and its relation to the body and the external world.

The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addressed, such as the hard problem of consciousness and the nature of particular mental states.[1][2][3] Aspects of the mind that are studied include mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and its neural correlates, the ontology of the mind, the nature of cognition and of thought, and the relationship of the mind to the body.

Dualism and monism are the two central schools of thought on the mind–body problem, although nuanced views have arisen that do not fit one or the other category neatly.

  • Dualism finds its entry into Western philosophy thanks to René Descartes in the 17th century.[4] Substance dualists like Descartes argue that the mind is an independently existing substance, whereas property dualists maintain that the mind is a group of independent properties that emerge from and cannot be reduced to the brain, but that it is not a distinct substance.[5]
  • Monism is the position that mind and body are ontologically indiscernible entities, not dependent substances. This view was espoused by the 17th-century rationalist Baruch Spinoza.[6] Physicalists argue that only entities postulated by physical theory exist, and that mental processes will eventually be explained in terms of these entities as physical theory continues to evolve. Physicalists maintain various positions on the prospects of reducing mental properties to physical properties (many of whom adopt compatible forms of property dualism),[7][8][9][10][11][12] and the ontological status of such mental properties remains unclear.[11][13][14] Idealists maintain that the mind is all that exists and that the external world is either mental itself, or an illusion created by the mind. Neutral monists such as Ernst Mach and William James argue that events in the world can be thought of as either mental (psychological) or physical depending on the network of relationships into which they enter, and dual-aspect monists such as Spinoza adhere to the position that there is some other, neutral substance, and that both matter and mind are properties of this unknown substance. The most common monisms in the 20th and 21st centuries have all been variations of physicalism; these positions include behaviorism, the type identity theory, anomalous monism and functionalism.[15]

Most modern philosophers of mind adopt either a reductive physicalist or non-reductive physicalist position, maintaining in their different ways that the mind is not something separate from the body.[15] These approaches have been particularly influential in the sciences, especially in the fields of sociobiology, computer science (specifically, artificial intelligence), evolutionary psychology and the various neurosciences.[16][17][18][19] Reductive physicalists assert that all mental states and properties will eventually be explained by scientific accounts of physiological processes and states.[20][21][22] Non-reductive physicalists argue that although the mind is not a separate substance, mental properties supervene on physical properties, or that the predicates and vocabulary used in mental descriptions and explanations are indispensable, and cannot be reduced to the language and lower-level explanations of physical science.[23][24] Continued neuroscientific progress has helped to clarify some of these issues; however, they are far from being resolved. Modern philosophers of mind continue to ask how the subjective qualities and the intentionality of mental states and properties can be explained in naturalistic terms.[25][26]

The problems of physicalist theories of the mind have led some contemporary philosophers to assert that the traditional view of substance dualism should be defended. From this perspective, this theory is coherent, and problems such as "the interaction of mind and body" can be rationally resolved.[27]

  1. ^ Kim, Jaegwan (1995). "Emergent properties". In Honderich, Ted (ed.). Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 240. ISBN 978-0-19-866132-0.
  2. ^ Siegel, S.: The Contents of Visual Experience. New York: Oxford University Press. 2010.
  3. ^ Macpherson, F. & Haddock, A., editors, Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
  4. ^ Descartes, René (1998). Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Hacket Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-87220-421-8.
  5. ^ Hart, W.D. (1996) "Dualism", in Samuel Guttenplan (org) A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, Blackwell, Oxford, 265–7.
  6. ^ Spinoza, Baruch (1670) Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (A Theologico-Political Treatise).
  7. ^ Schneider, Susan (2013). "Non-Reductive Physicalism and the Mind Problem1". Noûs. 47 (1): 135–153. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0068.2011.00847.x. ISSN 0029-4624.
  8. ^ DePaul, Michael; Baltimore, Joseph A. (2013). "Type Physicalism and Causal Exclusion". Journal of Philosophical Research. 38: 405–418. doi:10.5840/jpr20133821. ISSN 1053-8364.
  9. ^ S. C. Gibb; E. J. Lowe; R. D. Ingthorsson (21 March 2013). Mental Causation and Ontology. OUP Oxford. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-19-165255-4.
  10. ^ Demircioglu, Erhan (2011). "Supervenience And Reductive Physicalism". European Journal of Analytic Philosophy. 7 (1): 25–35.
  11. ^ a b Francescotti, Robert. "Supervenience and Mind". The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 2161-0002. Archived from the original on 2014-07-17. Retrieved 2014-08-10.
  12. ^ Gibb, Sophie (2010). "Closure Principles and the Laws of Conservation of Energy and Momentum". Dialectica. 64 (3): 363–384. doi:10.1111/j.1746-8361.2010.01237.x. ISSN 0012-2017. S2CID 55120533. See also Dempsey, L. P. (2012). "Consciousness, Supervenience, and Identity: Marras and Kim on the Efficacy of Conscious Experience". Dialogue. 51 (3): 373–395. doi:10.1017/s0012217312000662. S2CID 147060838. See also Baltimore, J. A. (2010). "Defending the piggyback principle against Shapiro and Sober's empirical approach". Dialectica. 175 (2): 151–168. doi:10.1007/s11229-009-9467-2. S2CID 13314992.
  13. ^ McLaughlin, Brian; Bennett, Karen (2014). Edward N. Zalta (ed.). "Supervenience". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition). Retrieved 2014-08-10.
  14. ^ Megill, Jason (2012). "A Defense of Emergence". Axiomathes. 23 (4): 597–615. doi:10.1007/s10516-012-9203-2. ISSN 1122-1151. S2CID 170226477.
  15. ^ a b Kim, J., "Mind–Body Problem", Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Ted Honderich (ed.). Oxford:Oxford University Press. 1995.
  16. ^ Pinel, J. Psychobiology, (1990) Prentice Hall, Inc. ISBN 88-15-07174-1
  17. ^ LeDoux, J. (2002) The Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are, New York:Viking Penguin. ISBN 88-7078-795-8
  18. ^ Russell, S. and Norvig, P. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, New Jersey:Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-103805-2
  19. ^ Dawkins, R. The Selfish Gene (1976) Oxford:Oxford University Press. ISBN
  20. ^ Churchland, Patricia (1986). Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind–Brain. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-03116-5.
  21. ^ Churchland, Paul (1981). "Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes". Journal of Philosophy. 78 (2): 67–90. doi:10.2307/2025900. JSTOR 2025900.
  22. ^ Smart, J.J.C. (1956). "Sensations and Brain Processes". Philosophical Review.
  23. ^ Donald Davidson (1980). Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-924627-4.
  24. ^ Putnam, Hilary (1967). "Psychological Predicates", in W. H. Capitan and D. D. Merrill, eds., Art, Mind and Religion (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.)
  25. ^ Dennett, Daniel (1998). The intentional stance. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-54053-7.
  26. ^ Searle, John (2001). Intentionality. A Paper on the Philosophy of Mind. Frankfurt a. M.: Nachdr. Suhrkamp. ISBN 978-3-518-28556-5.
  27. ^ Mousavirad, Seyyed Jaaber (2023-11-29). "Coherence of Substance Dualism". International Philosophical Quarterly. 63 (1): 33–42. doi:10.5840/ipq20231114214.