Philosophy
of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the
mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness, and
their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body
problem, i.e. the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as one
key issue in philosophy of mind, although there are other issues concerning the
nature of the mind that do not involve its relation to the physical body, such
as how consciousness is possible and the nature of particular mental states.
Dualism and monism are the two major schools of thought
that attempt to resolve the mind-body problem. Dualism can be traced back to
Plato, and the Sankhya and Yoga schools of Hindu philosophy, but it was most
precisely formulated by René Descartes in the 17th century. Substance Dualists
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.
Monism is the position that mind and body are not
ontologically distinct kinds of entities. This view was first advocated in
Western philosophy by Parmenides in the 5th century BC and was later espoused
by the 17th century rationalist Baruch Spinoza. Physicalists argue that only
the entities postulated by physical theory exist, and that the mind will
eventually be explained in terms of these entities as physical theory continues
to evolve.
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.
Most modern philosophers of mind adopt either a reductive
or non-reductive physicalist position, maintaining in their different ways that
the mind is not something separate from the body.These approaches have been
particularly influential in the sciences, especially in the fields of
sociobiology, computer science, evolutionary psychology and the various neurosciences.
Other philosophers, however, adopt a non-physicalist position that challenges
the notion that the mind is a purely physical construct. Reductive physicalists
assert that all mental states and properties will eventually be explained by
scientific accounts of physiological processes and states.
Non-reductive
physicalists argue that although the brain is all there is to the mind, 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. Continued neuroscientific progress has helped to clarify
some of these issues. However, they are far from having been resolved, and
modern philosophers of mind continue to ask how the subjective qualities and
the intentionality (aboutness) of mental states and properties can be explained
in naturalistic terms.
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