Abstract

The mind-body problem is a conflict between a principle of reason and an intuition. The principle of reason is that if something A, identified in one way and something B, identified in a different way are discovered to have the same causal or explanatary role, that is a reason, other things being equal, for saying that A and B are identical. The intuition is that mental phenomena can neither be eliminated from one's ontology nor identified with physical phenomena. This intuition conflicts with the principle of reason because the principle together with evidence concerning the causal/explanatary roles of mental states and neurophysiological states imply that we should identify at least some mental phenomena as neurophysiological phenomena. I resolve this conflict by explaining away dualistic intuitions. ;In Chapter I I reject one argument for the truth of dualist intuitions by showing that it presupposes an implausible theory of perception. In Chapter 2 I criticize Thomas Nagel and Saul Kripke's arguments against the identity theory. I argue that dualist intuition can be supported only by adopting an epistemological view I call epistemological dualism: it is a characteristic of mental phenomena that once one knows what an experience feels like one knows all there is to know about the nature of that experience. It is a characteristic of physical phenomena on the other hand that one could always discover new things about the nature of a physical state, event, etc. ;In Chapter III I reject an argument against epistemological dualism derived from Wittgenstein's private language argument. I claim that the possibility of a private language in the sense implied by epistemological dualism is not incompatible with a Wittgensteinian account of meaning. ;In Chapter IV I argue that there is no reason to think epistemological dualism is true since the arguments for it are not convincing. If epistemological dualism is false than dualist intuitions are unjustifiable. Therefore, given that, discounting dualist intuition, there is evidence for mental-physical identification, dualist intuitions should be rejected.