Abstract

This carefully argued book combines a phenomenological and rationalist account of the mind-body relation. Engelhardt avoids what he considers to be artificial analytic distinctions and employs the Hegelian dialectic to explain the mutual dependency of these concepts. "... The category of finite mind presupposes the category of body." The relationship is characterized as an identity in difference because the meaning of one depends on the other, but neither is reducible to the other. To show this, Engelhardt establishes a categorial domain of relations and exemplifies the dialectic experientially in a phenomenological "founding—founded" structure. The mind is primary and transcendent, both experientially and rationally; there are no meaningful experiences without conscious thought but, concretely, mind is founded in a world-oriented body, whereas the body is not dependent on the mind for its founding but is dependent on mind for meaning.