This chapter considers the literature associated with explorations of consciousness in Indian philosophy. It focuses on a range of methodological and conceptual issues, drawing on three main sources: the naturalist theories of mind of Nyaya and Vaisesika, the mainly phenomenological accounts of mental activity and consciousness of Abhidharma and Yogacara Buddhism, and the subjective transcendental theory of consciousness of Advaita Vedanta. The contributions of Indian philosophers to the study of consciousness are examined not simply as a contribution to intellectual history, (...) but rather with a view to evaluating their relevance to contemporary issues, specifically to the mind-body problem. The presence of dualist positions with strong naturalist undercurrents in Indian philosophy, especially in the Nyaya and Samkhya traditions, rules out the possibility of treating the mind-body problem as an idiosyncratic feature of Cartesian metaphysics. (shrink)

The mind-body problem: background and history -- Dualist theories of mind and body -- Physicalist theories of mind -- Anti-materialism about the mind -- Science and the mind-body problem: consciousness -- Three neutral theories of mind and body -- Neutral monism.

This book concerns the soul/body problem in Plato and Aristotle. Established as well as early career scholars actually working on Plato and Aristotle explore - under different points of view as well as through original readings and interpretations - the manifold dimensions involved in the conception of the soul/body relation articulated by the two greatest founders of Western Thought. The book starts with an exploration of the relation between cause and matter in Plato and Aristotle, then some (...) papers on Plato's theory of soul and body are presented, which involve new advancements in the research about Platonic epistemology, moral and political theory, metaphysics of mind, even about his religious and 'theological' view. Some papers on Aristotle's model follow, which are focused on his so-called "hylomorphism" as an alternative view to Plato's alleged "dualism": the ontology of the soul/body relation in Aristotle is explored, as well as the implications of this theoretical framework for his theory of knowledge, his moral theory, his cognitive psychology. Finally, two papers critically assess the philosophical connections between Aristotle's hylomorphism and its modern and contemporary Wirkungsgeschichte. (shrink)

Moritz Schlick, Rudolf Carnap and Herbert Feig are the most prominent of the positivists to formulate views on the mind-body problem (aside from Hempel’s one-off treatment in 1935). While their views differed from each other and changed over time they were all committed to some form of scientific physicalism, though a linguistic or conceptual rather than ontological form of it. In focus here are their views during the heyday of logical positivism and its immediate aftermath, though some initial (...) scene-setting of Schlick’s and Carnap’s pre-positivist views will help to understand the final opposing positions of Carnap and Feigl. (shrink)

In this paper I examine a specific way that video-conferencing modifies structures of intersubjective awareness and interaction. I focus on multi-person interactions (involving more than two people) via video-call. By unpacking some of the key features of multi-person intersubjectivity in cases of embodied co-presence, I will show where and how certain social affordances are strained or lost when multi-person interactions are transferred to the screen.

This book evaluates the widespread preference in philosophy of mind for varieties of property dualism over other alternatives to physicalism. It takes the standard motivations for property dualism as a starting point and argues that these lead directly to nonphysical substances resembling the soul of traditional metaphysics. In the first half of the book, the author clarifies what is at issue in the choice between theories that posit nonphysical properties only and those that posit nonphysical substances. The crucial question, he (...) argues, is whether one posits nonphysical things that satisfy an Aristotelian-Cartesian independence definition of substance: nonphysical things that could exist in the absence of anything else. In the second half, the author argues that standard and Russellian monist forms of property dualism are far less plausible than we usually suppose. Most significantly, the presuppositions of one of the leading arguments for property dualism, the conceivability argument, lead by parity of reasoning to the view that conscious subjects are nonphysical substances. He concludes that if you posit nonphysical properties in response to the mind-body problem then you should be prepared to posit nonphysical substances as well. Mainstream philosophy of mind must take nonphysical substances far more seriously than it has done for the best part of a century. The Mind-Body Problem and Metaphysics will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This book, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's current views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind...

An important part of the mind-brain problem arises because sentience and consciousness seem inherently resistant to scientific explanation and understanding. The solution to this dilemma is to recognize, first, that scientific explanation can only render comprehensible a selected aspect of what there is, and second, that there is a mode of explanation and understanding, the personalistic, quite different from, but just as viable as, scientific explanation. In order to understand the mental aspect of brain processes - that aspect we (...) know about as a result of having relevant neurological processes occur in our own brain - we need to avail ourselves of personalistic explanation, irreducible to scientific explanation. The problem of explaining and understanding why experiential or mental aspects of brain processes or things should be correlated with certain physical processes, things or states of affairs is a non-problem because there is no kind of explanation possible in terms of which an explanation could be couched. A physical theory, amplified to include the experiential, might be predictive but would, necessarily, cease to be explanatory; and an amplified personalistic explanation could not succeed either. There is, in short, an explanation as to why there cannot be an explanation of correlations between physical and mental aspects of processes going on inside our heads. (shrink)

In this paper I begin to develop an account of the acquaintance that each of us has with our own conscious states and processes. The account is a speculative proposal about human mental architecture and specifically about the nature of the concepts via which we think in first personish ways about our qualia. In a certain sense my account is neutral between physicalist and dualist accounts of consciousness. As will be clear, a dualist could adopt the account I will offer (...) while maintaining that qualia themselves are non-physical properties. In this case the non-physical nature of qualia may play no role in accounting for the features of acquaintance. But although the account could be used by a dualist, its existence provides support for physicalism. (shrink)

The book provides an overview of the contemporary discussion of the mind-body problem. This discussion takes its modern form during the 17th century in the works of René Descartes. The book covers the most important points of view in modern philosophy of mind. An important thesis of the book is that contemporary debates are still heavily influenced by Descartes’ arguments, especially those related to the nature of consciousness. (Google translate).

My dissertation focuses on the foundations of the mind-body problem: how we should think about the physical world, what the role of science is in arriving at a solution to the problem, and whether it is possible to answer metaphysical questions about the mind while admitting epistemic defeat. ;Many philosophers argue that the mind is physical, but few spend much time explaining what counts as being physical. This, I argue, is a mistake: if the mind-body (...) class='Hi'>problem is the problem of explaining how the mind could be physical, we should have some understanding of what it means to be physical. In other words, in order to solve the mind-body problem, we must also solve the body problem. Surprisingly enough, however, a solution to the body problem is not forthcoming. ;Where, then, does this leave the mind-body problem? One might think that the impossibility of solving the body problem dissolves mind-body problem entirely. This, I argue, is not the case. Rather, the most troubling aspect of the mind-body problem does not dissolve in light of our inability to solve the body problem. For regardless of whether we understand what it means to be physical, we can still ask whether mentality is a fundamental feature of the world. Thus I propose that rather than thinking of the mind-body problem as the problem of finding a place for mentality in a fundamentally physical world, we should think of it as the problem of finding a place for mentality in a world that is, at its most fundamental level, entirely nonmental. The crux of the mind-body problem, then, is whether mentality is fundamental. ;Finally, I argue that it is difficult to justify ontological-conclusions about the mind while holding that we will never understand the mind. A number of philosophers think that while we cannot explain how the mind is physical we can know that it is physical, nonetheless. I argue that given a commitment to the inexplicability of the mind, arguments for ontological physicalism are not persuasive and conclude that physicalists must strive to understand the mind. Anything less amounts to giving up. (shrink)

Kant’s pre-1770 philosophy responded to the mind-body problem by applying a theory of “physical influx”. His encounter with Swedenborg’s mysticism, however, left him disillusioned with any dualist solution to Descartes’ problem. One of the major goals of the Critical philosophy was to provide a completely new solution to the mind-body problem. Kant’s new solution is “perspectival” in the sense that all Critical theories are perspectival: it acknowledges a deep truth in both of the controversy’s extremes (...) (i.e., what we might nowadays call eliminative materialism and an absolutely ideal folk psychology), by viewing both as ways of considering the issue, rather than as the only correct approach. Once we take into account its perspectival character, a new way of understanding Kant’s philosophy of mind emerges. The mind is no longer separate from the body, but is a manifestation of it, viewed from another (specifically human, rational) perspective. Kant’s transcendental conditions of knowledge (spatio-temporal intuition, categorial conception, and principled schematization) do not portray the mind as somehow creating the physical world; rather, they imply the opposite, that knowledge of objects is necessarily structured by a set of unconscious assumptions about the physical world. Our pre-conscious (or pre-mental, in Descartes’ sense of “mental”) encounter with an assumed spatio-temporal, causal nexus is entirely physical. A reincarnated Kant’s solution to today’s mind-body problem would be: eliminative materialism is good science; but only the “explanatory idealist” can consistently be an eliminative materialist. Philosophically, multiple perspectives are necessary in order to understand anything we say or do. (shrink)

We numerically solve the functional differential equations (FDEs) of 2-particle electrodynamics, using the full electrodynamic force obtained from the retarded Lienard–Wiechert potentials and the Lorentz force law. In contrast, the usual formulation uses only the Coulomb force (scalar potential), reducing the electrodynamic 2-body problem to a system of ordinary differential equations (ODEs). The ODE formulation is mathematically suspect since FDEs and ODEs are known to be incompatible; however, the Coulomb approximation to the full electrodynamic force has been believed (...) to be adequate for physics. We can now test this long-standing belief by comparing the FDE solution with the ODE solution, in the historically interesting case of the classical hydrogen atom. The solutions differ. A key qualitative difference is that the full force involves a ‘delay’ torque. Our existing code is inadequate to calculate the detailed interaction of the delay torque with radiative damping. However, a symbolic calculation provides conditions under which the delay torque approximately balances (3rd order) radiative damping. Thus, further investigations are required, and it was prematurely concluded that radiative damping makes the classical hydrogen atom unstable. Solutions of FDEs naturally exhibit an infinite spectrum of discrete frequencies. The conclusion is that (a) the Coulomb force is not a valid approximation to the full electrodynamic force, so that (b) the n-body interaction needs to be reformulated in various current contexts such as molecular dynamics. (shrink)

My primary aim in this chapter is to explain in what the traditional mind–body problem consists, what its possible solutions are, and what obstacles lie in the way of a resolution. The discussion will develop in two phases. The first phase, sections 1.2–1.4, will be concerned to get clearer about the import of our initial question as a precondition of developing an account of possible responses to it. The second phase, sections 1.5–1.6, explains how a problem arises (...) in our attempts to answer the question we have characterized, and surveys the various solutions that can be and have been offered. More specifically, sections 1.2–1.4 are concerned with how to understand the basic elements of our initial question – how we should identify the mental, on the one hand, and the physical, on the other – and with what sorts of relations between them we are concerned. Section 1.2 identifies and explains the two traditional marks of the mental, consciousness and intentionality, and discusses how they are related. Section 1.3 gives an account of how we should understand ‘physical’ in our initial question so as not to foreclose any of the traditional positions on the mind–body problem. Section 1.4 then addresses the third element in our initial question, mapping out the basic sorts of relations that may hold between mental and physical phenomena, and identifying some for special attention. Sections 1.5–1.6 are concerned with explaining the source of the difficulty in answering our initial question, and the kinds of solutions that have been offered to it. Section 1.5 explains why our initial question gives rise to a problem, and gives a precise form to the mind–body problem, which is presented as a set of four propositions, each of which, when presented independently, seems compelling, but which are jointly inconsistent. Section 1.6 classifies responses to the mind–body problem on the basis of which of the propositions in our inconsistent set they reject, and provides a brief overview of the main varieties in each category, together with some of the difficulties that arise for each. Section 1.7 is a brief conclusion about the source of our difficulties in understanding the place of mind in the natural world. (shrink)

Here is an accurate and readable translation of a seminal article by Henri Poincaré that is a classic in the study of dynamical systems popularly called chaos theory. In an effort to understand the stability of orbits in the solar system, Poincaré applied a Hamiltonian formulation to the equations of planetary motion and studied these differential equations in the limited case of three bodies to arrive at properties of the equations' solutions, such as orbital resonances and horseshoe orbits. Poincaré wrote (...) for professional mathematicians and astronomers interested in celestial mechanics and differential equations. Contemporary historians of math or science and researchers in dynamical systems and planetary motion with an interest in the origin or history of their field will find his work fascinating. (shrink)

b>: there is no “mind-body problem”, or “hard problem of consciousness”; if there is a hard problem of something, it is the problem of reconciling the manifest and scientific images.

According to a familiar modern view, color and other so-called secondary qualities reside only in consciousness, not in the external physical world. Many have argued that this “Galilean” view is the source of the mind-body problem in its current form. This paper critically examines a radical alternative to the Galilean view, which has recently been defended or sympathetically discussed by several philosophers, a view I call “anti-modernism.” Anti-modernism holds, roughly, that the modern Galilean scientific image is incomplete – (...) in particular, it leaves out certain irreducible qualitative properties, such as colors – and that we can solve (or dissolve) the hard problem of consciousness by accepting these properties as objective features of the external physical world. I argue, first, that anti-modernism cannot fulfill its promise. Even if the outer world is resplendent with primitive colors, color experience remains a mystery. Second, I argue that the theoretical costs of accepting irreducible colors in the world are enormous. Even if irreducible colors in the world could dispel the mysteries surrounding consciousness, the theoretical benefit would not be worth the cost. If the problems of consciousness and color require that we posit irreducible properties somewhere, it would be far more plausible to accept irreducible phenomenal properties on the side of the subject, and to reject irreducible colors on the side of the object. (shrink)

This collection of new essays put the debates on the mind-body problem into historical context.

This first extensive study of Spinoza's philosophy of mind concentrates on two problems crucial to the philosopher's thoughts on the matter: the requirements for having a thought about a particular object, and the problem of the mind's relation to the body. Della Rocca contends that Spinoza's positions are systematically connected with each other and with a principle at the heart of his metaphysical system: his denial of causal or explanatory relations between the mental and the physical. In this (...) way, Della Rocca's exploration of these two problems provides a new and illuminating perspective on Spinoza's philosophy as a system. (shrink)

The mind-body problem is the problem of explaining how our mental states, events and processes—like beliefs, actions and thinking—are related to the physical states, events and processes in our bodies. A question of the form, ‘how is A related to B?’ does not by itself pose a philosophical problem. To pose such a problem, there has to be something about A and B which makes the relation between them seem problematic. Many features of mind and (...) body have been cited as responsible for our sense of the problem. Here I will concentrate on two: the fact that mind and body seem to interact causally, and the distinctive features of consciousness. A long tradition in philosophy has held, with René Descartes, that the mind must be a non-bodily entity: a soul or mental substance. This thesis is called ‘substance dualism’ (or ‘Cartesian dualism’) because it says that there are two kinds of substance in the world, mental and physical or material. One reason for believing this is the belief that the soul, unlike the body, is immortal. Another reason for believing it is that we have free will, and this seems to require that the mind is a non-physical thing, since all physical things are subject to the laws of nature. (shrink)

Robert Hanna and Evan Thompson offer a solution to the Mind-Body-Body Problem. The solution, in a nutshell, is that the living and lived body is metaphysically and conceptually basic, in the sense that one’s consciousness, on the one hand, and one’s corporeal being, on the other, are nothing but dual aspects of one’s lived body. One’s living and lived body can be equated with one’s being as an animal; therefore, this solution to the Mind- (...) class='Hi'>Body-Body Problem amounts to an “animalist” version of the dual aspect theory. (shrink)

It was about half a century ago that the mind–body problem, which like much else in serious metaphysics had been moribund for several decades, was resurrected as a mainstream philosophical problem. The first impetus came from Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind , published in 1948, and Wittgenstein's well-known, if not well-understood, reflections on the nature of mentality and mental language, especially in his Philosophical Investigations which appeared in 1953. The primary concerns of Ryle and Wittgenstein, however, (...) focused on the logic of mental discourse rather than the metaphysical issue of how our mentality is related to our bodily nature. In fact, Ryle and Wittgenstein would have regarded, each for different reasons, the metaphysical problem of the mind-body relation as arising out of deplorable linguistic confusions and not amenable to intelligible discussion. There was C. D. Broad's earlier and much neglected classic, The Mind and Its Place in Nature , which appeared in 1925, but this work, although robustly metaphysical, failed to connect with, and shape, the mind–body debate in the second half of this century. (shrink)

The crudest form of materialism will be taken as the basis of argument. If it can successfully evade the objections of some philosophers, then a more refined doctrine will be even less troubled.

The mind-body problem in philosophy is typically understood as a discourse concerning the relation of mental states to physical states, and the experience of sensation. On this level it seems to transcend issues of race and racism, but Another Mind-Body Problem demonstrates that racial distinctions have been an integral part of the discourse since the Modern period in philosophy. Reading figures such as Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant in their historical contexts, John Harfouch uncovers discussions of mind (...) and body that engaged closely with philosophical and scientific notions of race in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, in particular in understanding how the mind unites with the body at birth and is then passed on through sexual reproduction. Kant argued that a person’s exterior body and interior psyche are bound together, that non-White people lacked reason, and that this lack of reason was carried on through reproduction such that non-Whites were an example of a union of mind and body without full being. Charting the development of this phenomenon from sixteenth-century medical literature to modern-day race discourse, Harfouch argues for new understandings of Descartes’s mind-body problem, Fanon’s experience of being ‘not-yet human,’ and the place of racism in relation to one of philosophy’s most enduring and canonical problems. -/- “Harfouch has written an important book on the intersection of race and the Western construction of the mind-body problem … This book is a significant resource for theorists dealing with race and decolonization issues, but it is more significant for the critique of philosophy itself and the continued teaching of mind-body issues. Readers will need some knowledge of philosophy, but the volume is in general accessible. It should be required reading for scholars of philosophy. Harfouch establishes a logically strong argument and makes a unique contribution to the field.” — CHOICE. (shrink)

The emphasis is always on the arguments used, and the way one position develops from another. By the end of the book the reader is afforded both a grasp of the state of the controversy, and how we got there.

Most scholars who presently deal with the Mind-Body problem consider themselves monist materialists. Nevertheless, many of them also assume that there exist (in some sense of existence) mental entities. But since these two positions do not harmonize quite well, the literature is full of discussions about how to reconcile the positions. In this paper, I will defend a materialist theory that avoids all these problems by completely rejecting the existence of mental entities. This is Quine's repudiation theory. According (...) to the theory, there are no mental entities, and the behavioral or physiological phenomena that have been attributed to mental entities, or that point to the existence of these entities, are exclusively caused by physiological factors. To be sure, several objections have been raised to materialist theories that do not assign some role to mental entities. But we will see that Quine is able to give convincing replies to these objections. (shrink)

Della Rocca concentrates on two problems crucial to Spinoza 's philosophy of mind: the requirements for having a thought about a particular object, and the problem of the mind's relation to the body. He contends that for Spinoza these two problems are linked and thus part of a systematic philosophy of mind.

_Abstract_: Here, I examine the main philosophical solutions to the mind-body problem distinguishing between “historicist” solutions that (more or less clearly) separate philosophy from science and solutions that instead result from a double “cognitive turn”, and see “continuity” between philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. The “historicist” solutions include ontological dualism (together with “skepticism” and “new mysterianism”), epistemological dualism, subjective idealism, and absolute idealism. In this group, transcendental idealism, phenomenology, and neutral monism are the solutions most open (...) to a dialogue between philosophy and science. The “naturalistic” solutions can be divided into four groups: (1) behaviorism (psychological, logical, philosophical-analytical behaviorism); (2) materialism (identity theory, physicalism); (3) “weak naturalism” (functionalism, anomalous monism, “biological naturalism”, liberal naturalism, emergentism); (4) “strong naturalism” (“cognitive neo-evolutionism”, eliminativism). These offer a physicalist-eliminative solution to the mind-body problem (here called “soft physicalistic eliminativism”) that allows for more continuity between philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. _Keywords_: Mind/Body-Problem; Cognitive Science; Cognitive Turn; Naturalism; Eliminativism _Il problema mente-corpo in filosofia e le scienze cognitive___ _Riassunto_: Vengono esaminate le principali soluzioni filosofiche al problema mente-corpo al fine di distinguere le soluzioni di origine storicistica che separano (più o meno chiaramente) filosofia e scienza da quelle che invece, nate da una duplice “svolta cognitiva”, favoriscono la “continuità” tra filosofia della mente e scienze cognitive. Le soluzioni del primo gruppo sono anzitutto il dualismo ontologico (insieme allo “scetticismo” e al “neo-misterianismo”), il dualismo epistemologico, l’idealismo soggettivo e l’idealismo assoluto. L’idealismo trascendentale, la fenomenologia e il monismo neutrale sono invece soluzioni più aperte al dialogo tra filosofia e scienza. Le soluzioni del secondo gruppo, quelle “naturalistiche”, vengono suddivise in quattro grandi gruppi: (1) il comportamentismo (psicologico, logico e filosofico-analitico); (2) il materialismo (teoria dell’identità e fisicalismo); (3) il “naturalismo debole” (funzionalismo, monismo anomalo, “naturalismo biologico”, naturalismo liberalizzato e emergentismo); (4) il “naturalismo forte” (“neo-evoluzionismo cognitivo” ed eliminativismo). In conclusion, una soluzione di tipo fisicalistico-eliminativo (qui chiamata “eliminativismo fisicalistico moderato”) al problema mente-corpo è quella che più di altre favorisce la continuità tra filosofia della mente e scienze cognitive. _Parole chiave_: Problema mente/corpo; Scienza cognitiva; Svolta cognitiva; Naturalismo; Eliminativismo. (shrink)

In the 19th century, "Psychophysical Parallelism" was the most popular solution of the mind-body problem among physiologists, psychologists and philosophers. (This is not to be mixed up with Leibnizian and other cases of "Cartesian" parallelism.) The fate of this non-Cartesian view, as founded by Gustav Theodor Fechner, is reviewed. It is shown that Feigl's "identity theory" eventually goes back to Alois Riehl who promoted a hybrid version of psychophysical parallelism and Kantian mind-body theory which was taken up (...) by Feigl's teacher Moritz Schlick. (shrink)

The mind body problem is a continuing issue in philosophy. No surveys known to us have been conducted about the actual preferences of, for example, psychology students for particular preconceptions about the mind body relation. These preconceptions may have different practical implications for decisions concerning the object and method of research, the choice of explanatory device for psychological and other research data and for the approach of professionals in practice. A questionnaire comprising ten different preconceptions about the (...) mind body relation and other items was returned by 209 German students of various disciplines and by a second sample of 233 first year psychology students. Identity theory, interactionism and complementarity were preferred most. The students clearly believed that the preference for certain preconceptions has important practical implications. There were no differences between the students of different disciplines in the choice of preferred preconceptions about the mind body relation or in the view that these preconceptions are of practical importance. (shrink)

There is no problem more paradigmatically philosophical than the mind-body problem. Nevertheless, I will argue that the problem is empirical. I am not even suggesting that conceptual analysis of the various mind-body theories be abandoned – just as I could not suggest it be abandoned for theories in physics or biology. But unlike the question, ‘Is every even number greater than 2 equal to the sum of two primes?’ the mind-body problem cannot be (...) solved a priori, by analysis alone; though I will not argue this thesis here, it is nearly obvious, since purported solutions must make matter of fact claims, heavy with existential import, about the real world. By contrast, an investigation of the sensitivity of the mind-body problem to empirical evidence will show that purported solutions to the problem are empirically testable, to a degree consistent with philosophy giving a clarified mind-body problem to the sciences. I offer the bold outlines of such an investigation here. (shrink)