Mind Body Relationship In Human Person Philosophy Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

The mind-body problem has been a much discussed issue in the Philosophy of Mind. All those who undertake any study in consciousness, necessarily need to touch upon this subject. One of the unsettled puzzles is about whether consciousness is part of material or mental realm. It has challenged the scientists as well as philosophers to look for some solutions. They have proposed several theories to address the issue. Among several theories dualism and physicalism were the most discussed. There are some crucial questions regarding mind-body problem: such as; how do they interact, whether the mind and body differ not only in degree and nature but also in kind? The arrival of neuroscience with its several scientific experiments has radically challenged the understanding of relationship between mind and body and forced us to rethink our positions about it. Thus, there is a renewed vigour in studying about consciousness in modern times and it has thrown open several other ways of settling this issue. This chapter will briefly discuss on how different philosophers perceived the relationship between mind and body in a person and critically analyse various theories of dualism and physicalism in detail and present their difficulties. The concluding part of the chapter will show the need to go beyond dualism and physicalism with the help of neuroscience. We begin our discussion with mind-body relationship in a person.

1.1 Mind-Body Relationship in a Person

For many centuries, we have been trying to understand the mind-body relationship in a person. The difficulty behind explaining the relationship between mind-body in a person is that s/he is a dynamic entity. [1] Thus, one is in a continued mode of knowing oneself. There are several thinkers who hold the view that a person is composed of body and mind. At the same time there are also some thinkers who oppose this idea. Now we shall discuss the views of some philosophers.

There are several ancient philosophers like Plato and Aristotle who expressed their views on mind-body relationship in a person. For Plato, human being is composed of body and soul. Body is nothing but a prison house into which his/her soul has been locked. His understanding of person is different from our understanding of human being. [2] For Plato, person belongs to intelligible world and human being belongs to sensible world. Secondly person can be transformed whereas human being cannot be because human being belongs to physical level of being. [3] Thus he says "that a person, the subject of interest, is not a human being but rather a soul, an entity distinct from that of human being." [4] Here we can see a clear-cut distinction of soul and body in Plato's thinking.

Aristotle, on the contrary, saw the mind-body relationship from a completely different angle. He says that a person is "a composite not of body and soul but of prime matter and the human soul which as a substantial form." [5] He does not perceive the distinction between mind and body; instead he makes the distinction between matter and form. Therefore, Aristotle understands body and soul as not of two complete beings in conflict with each other but complimenting each other because matter and form are inseparable in a primary substance.

There are also modern philosophers like Hegel, Immanuel Kant and John Locke who understand the mind-body relationship quite differently. For Hegel, an individual is part of the larger life of the Mind. He says that, "Mind or spirit, passes through dialectical stages of evolution, revealing itself as subjective mind, objective mind and absolute mind. The subjective mind expresses itself as soul, consciousness and spirit." [6] From the above statements it is very clear that he gives importance to mind alone. He has absorbed totally the body into mind; for he says, "It (mind) embodies itself, creates a body for itself, and becomes a particular, individual soul." [7] Therefore what truly exists for him is mind and not body.

However Immanuel Kant speaks about metaphysical dualism rather than substance dualism of the person. He sees person as a Transcendental Self because there is a level of self-awareness that is over and above the categories of normal philosophies. Human being is alone a rational being who has a will and a free choice of action. So Kant postulates person as a transcendental free being, an idea that the inner self is not bound by the laws of nature. [8] However, John Locke, being a modern philosopher understands human person as that of ancient philosophers. For him mind is the real person and body is only a possession. [9] He separates mind from body and shows that body is only a material reality. He says that, "Every man has a property in his own person.  This no Body has any Right to but himself." [10] For him mind is the real person and in the real person the body aspect is integrated totally into it. [11] 

The philosophers have changed their focus in the recent years. They give more stress on the purpose of human life. They ask; what does it mean to be a human person? However, with the growing interest in neuroscience, the ontological question bounced back with new a quest. One of the forerunners and pioneers of this movement is Philip Clayton who brought back the same question with a new focus. Now we shall discus the extreme positions of mind-body relationship and their solutions.

1.2 Extreme Positions

The Mind-Body relationship has been an unsettled question both for science and philosophy. It has been a herculean task for both scientists and philosophers, who were greatly involved in unlocking the issue of the relationship between mind and body. There are two sets of opposing ideologies proposed; namely dualism and physicalism. Most of the philosophers are divided on their opinions hence this issue seeks our utmost attentions. Here we shall examine these two positions in detail and see why we need to go beyond these divisions. As part of this session, 1.3 deals with substance dualism and property dualism and 1.4 tries to examine the critical appraisal of the mind body relationship. The second part begins in 1.5 which deals with physicalism. Let us begin with dualism.

1.3 Dualism

Dualism simply means a condition of being double. It comes from the Latin word duo meaning two which denotes a state of two parts. [12] It was originally coined to highlight the co-eternal binary position; for example good and evil, body and mind, mental and material, dark and light etc. It is supported by several arguments. [13] In philosophy it is a world view that the world consists of or is explicable as two fundamental entities, such as body and mind, the condition of being double or duality. [14] From the point of theology, it speaks about that human being having two basic natures, the physical and spiritual. There are two kinds of dualism- substance dualism and property dualism.

1.3.1 Substance Dualism

The substance dualism sees mind and body as two distinct and separate substances. [15] Several philosophers like Plato, Thomas Aquinas and René Descartes too held a similar view. They see mind as something that is diametrically opposing body. The attribute of body is extension but at the same time they see that the body is passive; whereas the mind is thinking, active and free. The two substances are absolutely distinct and mind is without extension. Those who hold dualism say that they have a clear and distinct idea of themselves in so far as they are only a thinking and un-extended thing. [16] The distinction between body as material and mind as immaterial substance becomes a crucial point of discussion in substance dualism because they differ not only in kind but also in nature and degree. However it is a compelling concept because it gives us a hope of personal survival after death and also many religions hold this theory very dear to them. [17] We can see this distinction in Indian philosophy too. The Sankhaya philosophy holds that there are two entities; namely Purusha [18] and Prakrti [19] which are the two constitutive elements of the world. However dualism is more clearly and intelligibly spelled by the western thinkers. Now we shall discuss briefly about two predominant philosophers: Plato, from the ancient schools and René Descartes, from the modern thinkers, who represent the rest of the dualistic thinkers of their time.

1.3.1.1 Platonic Dualism

Platonic Dualism can be seen very clear in Phaedo, one of his dialogues. In the dialogue, Plato accepts the two ultimate principles; namely body and mind. Here his dualism is metaphysical in nature because he deals with immortality of mind or soul. [20] He calls mind as soul. [21] For him, the mind is immortal and body is mortal. [22] The mind is the one which differentiates the living from the dead. He sees the body as a prison in which the soul is confined. In the imprisoned life, the mind is compelled to investigate the truth by means of the organs of perception of the body. Forms are universals and represent the essences of sensible particulars. Plato says that we do not see reality as a whole. We perceive equal things, but not equality itself. We perceive beautiful things but not beauty itself. To have insights into the pure essences of things, the mind must struggle to disassociate itself from the body as far as possible and turn its attention towards the contemplation of not only to intelligible things but also to invisible things. Plato defines "death as the separation of soul and body, and the state of being dead as state in which soul and body exist separately from one another." [23] Thus for Plato, the dualism of mind and body are opposite in nature. He establishes the distinction of mind and body by establishing the distinction between the immortality of mind and mortality of body. He proves the immortality of soul through Argument from Opposites, Argument from Recollection and the Argument from Affinity. [24] These three arguments are keys to establish his dualism.

Plato defends his immortality of soul from the Argument from Opposites. He says that things that have an opposite come to be from their opposite. For example, if something comes to be taller, it must come to be taller from having been shorter; if something comes to be heavier, it must come to be so by first having been lighter. These processes can go in either direction. Similarly he says that dying comes from living, living must come from dying. Thus, we must come to life again after we die. During the interim between death and rebirth the soul exists apart from the body and has the opportunity to glimpse the Forms unmingled with matter in their pure and undiluted fullness. Thus the cycle of life goes on.

The second defence for his immortality of soul is the Argument from Recollection. For Plato, soul must exist prior to birth because we can recollect things that could not have been learned in this life. According to Plato, we recognize unequal things and strive for equality. To notice inequality, we must comprehend what equality is. In order to know what equality is, we must have the prior knowledge so that we can understand the form of equality. Hence, the soul must have existed prior to birth to the form of equality. [25] 

The third defence for his immortality of soul is the Argument from Affinity. Plato claims that composite things are more liable to be destroyed than things that are simple. The forms [26] are true unities and therefore least likely ever to be annihilated. Further Plato says that invisible things such as forms are not apt to be disintegrated, whereas visible things are susceptible to decay and corruption. Since the body is visible and composite, it is subjected to decomposition. As against to body, the soul is invisible part of forms and purifies itself by having no more association with the body than necessary. Since the invisible things are the durable things, the soul, being invisible, must outlast the body. Further, soul becomes form-like immortal and survives the death of the body. [27] Through these three arguments Plato proves the immortality of soul or mind whereby he makes the distinction between body and mind; thus he proves the dualism.

However Plato's arguments are highly challenged even by his own disciple Aristotle. Firstly, the Argument from Opposites applies only to things that have an opposite and, as Aristotle notes, substances have no contraries. [28] Further, even if life comes from what is itself not alive, it does not follow that the living human comes from the union of a dead (i.e. separated) soul and a body. The principle that everything comes to be from its opposite via a two-directional process cannot hold up to critical scrutiny. Secondly, one becomes older from having been younger, there is no corresponding reverse process leading the older to become younger. If aging is a uni-directional process, perhaps dying is as well. The Arguments from Recollection and Affinity, on the other hand, presuppose the existence of forms and are therefore no more secure than the forms themselves. Thus these criticisms show that we cannot simply take the prior existence of soul as it is true. Therefore Plato's understanding is more of metaphysical and bit of vague because there are several unanswered questions like things which have two different natures interact. At the same time we acknowledge, he has brought certain clarity in understanding dualism with clear proofs. Now we shall discuss the dualism proposed by Descartes.

1.3.1.2 Cartesian Dualism.

René Descartes is one of the modern Philosophers who has extensively dealt with dualism. For Descartes, body and mind are distinct substances and the immaterial mind is somehow associated with the material body. [29] Substance dualism gets more predominance in Cartesian dualism. [30] He says "substance dualism goes along with the view that the identity of a person over time is constituted by the identity overtime of this substance, and in versions of the doctrine that countenance life after death, it is survival of this substance, often called 'soul' perhaps along with certain memory and psychological continuities, that constitutes the survival of the person." [31] The idea that there is a fundamental difference in kind between the mind and body can be spelled out in two broadly different ways. [32] Descartes held that "minds and bodies are substances of distinct kind that, in the case of living human beings, happen to be intimately related." [33] The distinction between the body and mind is: the body is spacial, public and has material qualities; and mind is non-spacial, private and has distinctively mental qualities. By spacial, he means that it occupies some space and time for its existence. It is public which means it is visible and we can experience it. When he says that the body has material qualities, he means that it has several qualities by which the substance expresses itself and reveals it to others and through which we come to know the things. [34] Firstly, in contrast to body, the mind occupies no space therefore it can be anywhere at any time. In short it is beyond space and time. Secondly it possesses mental qualities of life feeling, perceiving, experience joys and sorrows of life etc. Thirdly the mind is private because we cannot perceive it. [35] Descartes believes that the world is made up of substances. A substance is not a thing as we think like water or coal, or paint. For Descartes substance is an individual thing or an entity. He says that substances are different; they are complex. He gives importance to human being and his/her rationality. He claimed that, "human rationality could not be a physical process." [36] 

The dualism of Descartes sounds good; however, there are certain conceptual difficulties and seemingly insurmountable problems. One of the crucial issues is the interaction of mind-body which is totally opposing each other in nature and kind. If minds are as distinct from material things as Descartes claims, it seems at least paradoxical: how can then the two sorts of substances interact. In this case property dualism seems to solve some of the problems which substance dualism cannot.

1.3.2 Property Dualism

Property dualism maintains that mind is not only one kind of physical substance, having physical or behavioral-material-functional properties but also nonphysical behaviorally-materially-functionally in-eliminable and irreducible properties. [37] The advantage of property dualism over substance dualism is that it avoids the casual interaction problem because "this theory has no need to countenance causal interaction between material and immaterial or spatial and non-spatial substance, since it admits only that there is only material substance." [38] It also need not appeal to God's divine abilities in order to account for mind-body interaction or the objectivity of the perceived world. It has an edge over materialism that it provides for the intuitive distinction between body and mind by positing a difference in their properties, and especially in the metaphysical categories of their properties. Property dualism holds that without both properties, we cannot satisfactorily explain the psychological phenomena. The in-eliminable and irreducible properties are said to be essential to mind because they are responsible for experience, feeling, object directionality and intentionality of psychological states. [39] This property dualism could be understood in three ways; namely Theory of Attribute, Anomalous Monism and Non-reductive materialism.

1.3.2.1 Theory of Attribute

The first way of understanding the property dualism is through Spinoza's theory of attribute. Attributes are part of Spinoza's metaphysics. [40] For Spinoza God is the only Substance since God's essence involves existence. He says that, "God exists and, moreover, only God can fulfill the conditions for substance, therefore there can be only one substance." [41] It is a mistake to assert that mind and body as substances because they are not fully self-subsistent, but are dependent modes or manifestations of God. For him, "A true substance must be that which contains within itself, as part of its essence, the complete explanation of its nature and existence." [42] This God has infinite attributes. But human being can know only two attributes; they are namely thought and extension. By attribute what Spinoza understands is that the intellect perceives substance as constituting its essence. For him, the attribute of thought is attached to mind and extension to the body. He says that the object of idea constituting the human mind is the body which is certain mode of extension. He says that "Therefore, the mind's power of understanding extends only as far as that which this idea of the body contains within itself, or which follows there from. Now this idea of the body involves and expresses no other attributes of God than extension and thought." [43] This attribute enables us to understand and talk about an extended world and a thinking world in terms of which we understand bodies and minds. He partly invented this theory of attribute for the sake of solving an outstanding question raised by Descartes philosophy of mind. If the mind is, or belongs to, a separate substance from that of the body, then how does the body-mind interact? In order to avoid the problem, Spinoza considered that mind and body is one and the same thing under the attribute of extension and thought. Though the Cartesian notion of dualism was logical, it had constant problems. It could not substantially explain the relationship between substance constructed as individual and substance constructed as matter or stuff. But Spinoza's explanation came very close to a satisfactory theory. [44] 

1.3.2.2 Anomalous Monism

Anomalous monism is proposed by Donald Davidson, who is an American pragmatist. Anomalous monism is a philosophical thesis about the mind- body relationship. This theory has twofold divisions; namely mental and physical. [45] It states that mental events are identical with physical events. "Events are causes in virtue of the properties that they instantiate, unless mental properties and physical properties are also identified, questions about the causal redundancy of the mental reappear at the level of properties." [46] But Davidson says that the mental events are anomalous, that is to say these mental events are not regulated by strict physical laws. Hence, he proposed an identity theory of mind without the reductive bridge laws associated with the type-identity theory. He understands the ontological nature of the relationship of mental events especially propositional attitudes with physical actions. Davidson accepts that there is ontology of events where events, which may seem to be opposed to objects or states of affairs, are the fundamental, irreducible entities of the mental and physical universe. He also believes that event-individuation must be done on the basis of causal powers. He further argues in favour of the individualization of events on the basis of spatio-temporal localization. According to this view, all events are caused by and cause other events and for him this is the defining characteristics of what an event is. The important aspect of Davidson's ontology of events for anomalous monism is that an event has an indefinite number of properties or aspects. He says that a very simple physical action like switching on a light has a large variety of mental events especially reasoning; for example recognizing the need of light, making a choice to switch on etc. For Davidson, a particular reason causes a particular action. Thus it explains that reasons are causes and actions are effects of the causal efficacy of the mental events. [47] 

However there are also people who are highly critical about it. One of the criticisms about the anomalous monism is whether mental events are ever causes of physical events in virtue of their mental properties. Gibb says that "If the mental properties of a mental event do make a causal difference, then unless one admits systematic causal over determination, this is to violate the causal closure principle, for according to it an event's physical properties are sufficient for the causal effects that event has within the physical domain." [48] It is otherwise the mental properties of an event make no causal difference to the physical effects that the event has, then mental properties have the status of epiphenomena. He observes that "Consequently, to identify mental events with physical events whilst distinguishing mental properties from physical properties are not to remove but merely to relocate the problem of mental causation." [49] For this reason, the non-reductive physicalist who identifies token mental events with physical events but maintains a property dualism can plausibly be accused of property epiphenomenalism. Secondly a strict law cannot be formulated in the same terms as the causal claim because causally related events must have descriptions under which they instantiate a strict law. Similarly, the causal claim and the relevant covering law cannot be formulated in purely mental terms because any mental event that causes a physical event must be characterizable in physical terms and therefore be physical. Hence, mental events are physical events. On the other hand, as there are no strict psychophysical laws that would support the reduction of mental concepts to physical concepts, anomalous monism leads to the rejection of any conceptual reduction. [50] 

1.3.2.3 Non-reductive Materialism

Non-reductive materialism represents the current orthodoxy in Western Philosophy thinking about the ontological status of the mind. The proponents of non-reductive materialism hold that "the mental is ontologically part of the material world; yet, mental properties are causally efficacious without being reducible to physical properties." [51] Even though the mind itself is really physical, our mentalist explanatory scheme is not reducible to physics but is instead autonomous. They hold both irreducibility of the mind as well physical nature of the mind as realism. They are also arguing that they are fundamentally unstable combination. The non-reductionist distinguishes mental kinds from physical kinds, where the mental includes sensation and thought, and the physical is roughly the domain of the physical sciences, including neurophysiology. But those who oppose it say that the whole question of explanatory autonomy became a topical philosophical issue which threatened the reductionism because there was a general acceptance of materialist theories. It was broadly a metaphysical doctrine. It would seem to follow that all phenomena are susceptible to physical explanation, and if this is true then what can the ontological status be of those concepts, categories and theories which fall outside the domain of the physical sciences? [52] Then the non-reductive materialist may have to give up all pretense of having a realist view of mental terms, giving up all talk of real but non-physical mental properties. It seems that you cannot combine Physicalism with realism about the mental and at the same time hold out for the autonomy of the mental. However non-reductive materialism could be still seen as fundamentally a stable position.

1.4 An Appraisal of Mind-Body Relations

Though Descartes argues for the mind-body dualism, [53] the sort of dualism for which he argues, entails certain conceptual difficulties and seemingly insuperable problems. The main difficulty with mental activity is that, as Descartes understands them, how do the mind and matter interact. If minds are as distinct from material things as Descartes claims, it seems at least paradoxical that the two sorts of substances should interact. The question of the relation between the mental and the physical can be posed equivalently as about mental and physical properties, concepts, or predicates. A property is a feature of an object, such as being round, or being three feet from the earth's surface. A concept, as we have said, is a common element in different thought contents expressed by a general term. We deploy concepts in thinking about a thing's properties. So, corresponding to the property of being round is the concept of being round, or of roundedness. The corresponding to each property category whether mental or physical is a category of concepts and predicates. Thus, any question we ask about the relation of mental and physical properties can be recast as concepts or predicates, and vice versa.

1.4.1 Interactionism

Descartes himself believed sometimes the mind could casually affect the body and sometimes body could affect the mind. This view is called interactionism. [54] Descartes would answer that the mind though united with the whole body, has its principle seat in the pineal gland of the brain. The mind can move the gland in different ways. Here "the relation of the mind and body is clearly conceived as causal: through the mediation of the pineal gland a certain interaction between mind and body takes place." [55] Certainly, this explanation gives us some clue about how they mutually interact. However, one of the major objections in dualism is the problem of interaction. [56] Dualism has been finding itself with many unanswered questions like: how do dissimilar things like the physical body and immaterial soul interact? Or what is the relation between the mental and the physical properties? We deploy concepts in thinking about a thing's properties and there is a corresponding to the property of being. When we think about the concept of roundness we see a round ball out there. So how does thinking of a concept correspond to the reality out there? [57] Secondly, how can a nonmaterial thing act upon material thing at a same energy level without disturbing it? It shows that nonmaterial things have more energy than material things that it can cause motion. Thirdly, if they are at same energy level, how do they interact? Fourthly, the interaction must be under the time frame work. But mental or nonmaterial thing also come under the Time lag. [58] These objections really call for explanation.

1.4.2 Epiphenomenalism

The second answer to the problem of mind and body relation is epiphenomenalism. Thomas Henry Huxley was the one who first suggested this view. This philosophical view holds that there is only one-way casualty. Here the mind affects the body in the brain. This view also holds that behaviour is caused by muscles that contract upon receiving neural impulses, and neural impulses are generated by input from other neurons or from sense organs. It also suggests that mental events play no casual role in this process. [59] It accepts only "one half of the interactionist contention that part which holds that bodily events can cause mental events." [60] At the same time they deny that mental cause can affect bodily events. However no significant thinkers hold this view. Those who oppose epiphenomenalism hold that mental events can cause bodily actions. This is a significant view and well supported by neuroscience. They have proved this fact through different experiments and one of them is Libet Clock Experiment. [61] 

1.4.3 Parallelism

Parallelism is the third way of answering problem of mind-body interaction. It accepts Descartes' bifurcation of the world into extended material substances and unextended mental substances. [62] However, those who hold this view do not want to accept that mind and body interact casually. What they hold is that they have only a close connection or association of events. This argument does not compact with our ordinary experiences because our daily experience is that what is going on in our mind affects our body and even beyond our material world. It is still a mystery how events and objects in the world have an impact on our mind by way of their effects on our body. This causes a problem. if A's can co-vary with B's without its being true that A's cause B's, then the co-variation is extensive and systematic, however we seek a causal explanation: perhaps A's and B's are themselves caused by C's. [63] In this case what sort of explanations a parallelist has to offer for the fact that sequences of mental events co-vary systematically and universally with sequences of material events. To counteract this question, they say that, "one possibility is that this is just a brute fact about our world, something not capable of further explanation." [64] However, this response is scarcely satisfying.

1.4.4 Occasionalism

Occasionalism is the fourth way of understanding the body and mind relation. It is René Descartes himself who attempted to explain the interrelationship between mind and body, concluded that God is the only cause. It began with "the assumption that certain actions or modifications of the body are preceded, accompanied, or followed by changes in the mind." [65] This assumed relationship presents no difficulty to the popular conception of mind and body. According to this proposal, each entity is supposed to act directly on the other. It, however, asserts that cause and effect must be similar, could not conceive the possibility of any direct mutual interaction between substances as dissimilar as mind and body. According to them, the action of the mind is not, and cannot be the cause of the corresponding action of the body. Whenever any action in mind takes place, God directly produces a corresponding action in body in connection with action in mind. This argument does not have any substantial credentials because it needed an external agent to explain the relationship between mind and body.

Dualism and its suggestion to solve the problem of body-mind relationship have not come to an amicable solution. One of the major objections to dualism is that it considers mind as a separate entity. Along with it the presence of many minds makes the problem even more difficult. The first one who objected Descartes' dualism was his own disciple Leibniz. His main argument was that there cannot be two or more substances with the same attribute and secondly there necessarily is a substance with infinite attributes. In this line of thought many philosophers have grave doubts that the notion of the mind as a thing or an entity. In this case neither interactionism, epiphenomenalism, parallelism nor occasionalism could give any direction to understand the point where interaction takes place. These difficulties in dualism, calls us to look into physicalism for a solution.

1.5 Physicalism

Physicalism opposes dualism. It holds that there is nothing over or above his/her body. [66] It is one of the oldest theories. Democritus, a Greek philosopher, held that nothing exists but material. [67] Philosophers and scientists have different views on materialism regarding constitution and behaviour of materials objects. Physicalism is formally a doctrine concerning the nature of the world that give to matter a primary position and accord to mind a secondary, dependent reality or even none at all. Physicalism holds the theory that everything that exists is material. Such an idea evolved in order to counteract the dualistic properties. In the modern world the physicalism has claimed triumphalism over dualism because of the success of the science, which makes materialism true. It is preparing to deny what has been held true so far by religion. In the realm of the mind, a new challenge for immaterialist has also been developed. The abstract theory of mechanism threatens the idea of a special status for mental activity. Materialism is a strong version of naturalism- whatever occurs in the world is a result of physical force in accordance with physical laws. However with the emergence of strong physicalism, there are several problems attached with it. How can one explain the human experience of consciousness? Similarly, how will we explain the feeling of love, angry and pain? I assure there would not be a simplistic explanation. Such difficulties call for a higher explanation of physicalism. There are some answers to the problem of mind and body interaction offered by physicalist. They are namely Substance Monism, Functionalism, Mind-brain Identity Theory, Eliminative Materialism and Behaviourism. Here we shall critically analyse them.

1.5.1 Substance Monism

Substance monism upholds that there may not be two or more substance of the same nature or attribute in Nature. Spinoza has a key role in spreading this ideology. Through the substance monism he propagates that "reality is composed entirely of one substance. Monism is thus opposed to both dualism and pluralism." [68] According to this theory everything in the universe, including mental phenomena, is reduced to the one category of matter, as materialism. In the same way matter and mind can be regarded as merely aspects of the each other. [69] Substance monism is regarded as materialism. Its ways of functioning is understood different from epiphenomenalism in the dualistic theory. In the dualistic theory mind is the only active substance, which is acting upon body. But in this materialistic theory mind is utterly powerless to affect the body any way. It is the body that which is active and acting upon mind. [70] Thus it places the highest importance on the material side of thing.

1.5.2 Functionalism

Lewis, Jackson, Pargetter and Prior are the pioneers of functionalism. It is not a materialist theory per se; rather it can be seen as compatible with the spirit of materialism. Most of the functionalists regard themselves as materialists of one sort or another. They allow that although immaterial substances - spirits, for instance - are conceivable, in all probability every substance is a material substance. If this is so, then every property possessed by a substance is possessed by a material substance. Does this imply that every property is a material property? Functionalism offers a perspective on the mind that suits the needs of many empirical scientists, one that offers solutions to a host of long-standing philosophical puzzles about minds and their relation to material bodies. There is compatible relationship between functionalism and materialism because it considers mind as part of physical reality. In the light of what has been said about the ontology of functionalism, we can see now why the functionalists resist what they regard as the reductive tendencies inherent in competing materialist conceptions of mind.

1.5.3 Mind-brain Identity Theory

The Mind-brain identity theory says that states of mind are states of an individual substance, the mind. Descartes had argued that the mind is distinct from the body. James W. Cornman, the author of Philosophical Problems and Arguments, says that "The central conceptual problem for the Identity Theory arises, I believe, from the fact that mental phenomena seem to have properties inappropriate to physical phenomena, and physical phenomena seem to have properties inappropriate to mental phenomena." [71] If states of mind are not states of the body, they are not states of some part of the body, even part of the brain. The more we learn about the nervous system, the more we discover intimate connections, or at least correlations, between mental occurrences and neurological activities which go on in our brain. Suppose, these correlations were perfect: every mental state or process could be matched to some neurological state or process. If the correlations are based on causal interaction between minds and brains, they would resemble correlations between falling barometers and rain. If we identify conscious states with states of brains: mental occurrences are at bottom nothing more than what is going on in our brain. This is the mind-brain identity theory. Identity theorists hold that mental goings-on are not merely correlated with material goings-on in the brain. Indeed, talk of correlation here is misleading. Mental goings-on are brain processes. Correlations we discover in probing the brain are merely apparent. [72] There is also a criticism about identity the theory that they have no empirically verifiable content than their associated correlations. Finding mind-brain co-variances is not enough to support mind-brain identities. [73] 

1.5.4 Eliminative Materialism

Eliminative Materialism denies the existence of mind and holds that reference to mind is a misleading prescientific fiction that should be eliminated from a mature cognitive psychology. [74] It is denying the existence of mental phenomena entity. Total eliminativism about the mind is the view that there simply are no mental phenomena what so ever. The most serious arguments for eliminativism proceeds from exasperation with the many problems we have noted facing reductionism. [75] The rationale behind eliminativism is the principle of explanatory economy or Ockham's razor [76] theory. This theory is used here for disproving the property dualism. The Ockham's razor theory states that we should avoid multiplying entities beyond necessity. Appling this principle, the eliminative materialism seems to say that we may reduce everything into one or two substance. We may abstain ourselves from multiplying elements. There is nothing in principle objectionable in using this theory by those who hold Eliminativism. But they may run into the problem of theoretical eliminations rather than practical ones. They may not be able to even challenge the property dualism of metaphysics of mind in a scientific way. It is because they try to eliminate mind from psychology altogether in favour of no-mentalist theory to highlight the materialist theory.

1.5.5 Behaviourism

Materialistic Behaviourism tries to reduce mind and the mental by maintaining that everything we need to know about psychological phenomena is limited to the external body movements of humans. They claim: "we need not have to look inside the systems to know how it works in order to explain all aspects of its behaviour." [77] They regard only the explanation of external behaviour as psychological interest. Our brain correlates with all the activities. The mental state is nothing but the fine workings of neurons and brain substructures. This reduction may be possible however it looks difficult to reduce psychology into physiology. Still what we cannot say with certainty is at what conditions a particular behaviour recurs or discontinues. [78] In the 1920s John B. Watson of Johns Hopkins University made the radical suggestion that behavior does not have mental causes. He regarded the behavior of an organism as its observable responses to stimuli, which he took to be the causes of its behavior. Over the next thirty years psychologists such as B. F. Skinner of Harvard University developed Watson's ideas into an elaborate world view in which the role of psychology was to catalogue the laws that determine causal relations between stimuli and responses. In this "radical behaviorist" view the problem of explaining the nature of the mind-body interaction vanishes; there is no such interaction. In the 1920s John B. Watson of Johns Hopkins University made the radical suggestion that behavior does not have mental causes. He regarded the behavior of an organism as its observable responses to stimuli, which he took to be the causes of its behavior. Over the next thirty years psychologists such as B. F. Skinner of Harvard University developed Watson's ideas into an elaborate world view in which the role of psychology was to catalogue the laws that determine causal relations between stimuli and responses. In this radical behaviorist view the problem of explaining the nature of the mind-body interaction vanishes; there is no such interaction. [79] Therefore it is not sufficient to explain mental activates with the help of behaiviourism.

1.6 New Challenges from Neuroscience to Dualism and Physicalism

With the rise of neuroscience there are new challenges emerging against dualism and Physicalism. The neuroscientists are convinced that we inhabit a universe that is materially constituted, but the focal question remains: whether minds are nothing but brains; or psychology is nothing more than a chapter in neuroscience? [80] The famous Ockham's razor theories, which states that entities are not to be multiplied without necessity, become very prominent. The neuroscientists have undertaken many studies regarding how mind and matter interact each other. Here are few examples cited by which the pure dualism and physicalism are challenged.

The first example is based on the newspaper information in the Sunday New York Times on August 26, 2007. The newspaper had reported two long stories about air pollution before Beijing Olympics in China. It reported that China already experienced as many as four hundred thousand annual deaths from outdoor air pollution. When athletes heard this news they immediately began to feel chest tightens, resulting in an inability to breathe deeply enough to get oxygen to their muscles. [81] This incident became an interesting subject matter of study for the neuroscientists. They found that just thinking about pollution has a direct effect on body. The neuroscientists say that it is the dual activities of the mind. One activity gives rise to thinking and the second activity controls the functions of the body. Both are within the capacity of brain. If they were of two different realms, this interaction could have not been possible.

The second example is about the fear system in human persons. The fear system is a neural system for avoiding pain or injury. This system is based primarily in the central and lateral nuclei of the amygdale with connections to the medial hypothalamus and dorsal periaqueductal graymatter (PAG) of the midbrain. This system responds to both unconditioned stimuli (loud sounds, looming and sudden movements, painful stimuli, fearful faces) and conditioned stimuli (classically conditioned danger signals, memories, and images) arriving from the thalamus and sensory and association cortices. [82] This study of the fear system reveals how mind and matter could interact each other. Fear is a feeling; it is felt in the body as sensation. The energy created by the stimuli flows into the matter to create body sensation.

The third example is about the Libet clock experiment [83] which directly challenges dualism. Benjamin Libet was a pioneer scientist in the field of human consciousness and a researcher in psychology. Libet was involved in research into neural activity and sensation thresholds. In 1980's he carried out a famous experiment called Libet clock experiment to show that human free will does not exist. This claim has been supported by M. Hellett Might's experiment called Vocal Rapid Response Experiment. In this experiment he recognised that he or she speaks the answer prior to being aware of the answer. This had been proven with studies of movement triggered by a backward masked stimulus. The Libet clock experiment as well as the Backward Masking Test (BMT) [84] experiment seems to question the very idea about free will. As we know the free will is the main weapon for defending dualism. When it is challenged by neuroscientist the very foundation of dualism is challenged. At the same time the difference between action and reaction makes the physicalist uncomfortable. In Libet clock experiment the action is first initiated in brain before it is executed. Here the uncomfortable question is who is really responsible for this action. Similarly, in BMT experiments too, the choice is first made in brain then the actual selection takes place. Here the basic question is who initiates the brain to make this choice. In both the cases, neither dualists nor physicalists can provide satisfactory answers.

To find a balance between dualism and Physicalism, Davidson argues that mental events are not governed by strict laws whereas physical events are controlled by strict laws. Therefore, there are no mono-logical connections between the mental and the physical. The mental states can be implemented by diverse physical states. "This makes the implementation level explanatorily uninteresting. Moreover, the fact that mental functions can be instantiated in a wide variety of material substrates precludes them from being reductively mapped onto, say, and neurophysiological processes." [85] In this case reductionist program in psychology could be lawfully coextensive with neural kind predicates, though they may not be. Hence, given multiple realizability, psychoneural reductionism seems to be ruled out. Jerry Alan Fodor, an American philosopher and cognitive scientist, says "What corresponds to the kind predicates of a reduced science may be a heterogeneous and unsystematic disjunction of predicates in the reducing science." [86] Hence, his conclusion is that multiple realizability refutes psychophysical reductionism once and for all. [87] Thus we can easily conclude that neuroscience really poses new challenges for dualism as well as physicalism and calls us to go beyond their boundaries.

1.7 Beyond Dualism and Physicalism

The new challenges posed by neuroscience have necessitated us to take steps beyond dualism and Physicalism. One of the major objections both dualism as well as Physicalism faced is the problem of interaction. [88] In order to solve this problem, followers of both streams applied so many theories. Somehow those theories did not adequately address the problem. Dualism still has not addressed the questions like: how do dissimilar things like the physical body and immaterial soul interact? Or what is the relation between the mental and the physical properties? These are some objections to dualism. They can be seen in three different levels. First, we know that energy level in the universe is constant. So how can a nonmaterial thing act upon material thing at a same energy level without disturbing it? It shows that nonmaterial things have more energy than material things that it can cause motion. Secondly, if they are at same energy level, how do they interact? Thirdly the interaction must be under the time frame work. But neither mental nor nonmaterial thing come under the Time lag. [89] These objections really call for explanation. The neuroscience finds it difficult to explain such interactions.

Now Descartes' solution in terms of a dualism of substances, interacting at the conarion, is now considered a relic of a very distant past. Science and philosophy have turned materialist: all that exists in space and time have to be considered fundamentally physical. [90] With this conviction the reductive physicalism believes that everything in the world, including mental activity, can be reduced to fundamental physical laws and all processes, whether organic or not, can be explained by the laws of nature. But Davidson challenged this view and he introduced nonreductive physicalism through the concept of supervenience. The concept of supervenience says that all mental states are physical but they cannot be reduced to physical properties. From this we can understand that crude and radical materialism faces many problems which prevent us from having a merely materialistic interpretation of the human person. There are number of epistemological and ontological problems with radical materialism. The neurophilosophers who argued for a pack of neuron is responsible for experience in a localized area, are now losing grounds, in contrary those neuroscientist who support the global distribution of the different aspects of an experience that are processed and executed in different parts of the brain, that the outcome is a unified account of experience, are gaining ground. [91] 

Reductionism understands that reality is composed of a minimum number of kinds of entities or substances. This claim is usually metaphysical. It is a form of monism. According to reductionism all objects, properties and events can be reduced to a single substance as against dualist reality which is composed of mind and body. However the ontological reductionism believes that higher-level, more complex entities are nothing but complex organizations of simpler entities, i.e., the whole is nothing but the sum of its parts. For them, everything can be simplified down to one main element, or two for a dualist.

The neuroscientist finds it very difficult to explain the central executive to perform such a unifying act than to accept the problem with all its complexity. This complexity poses a severe tread to materialism. Thus we need to go beyond from the both extreme positions and find a mid-path where we can accommodate both aspects and do away with their difficulties.

Conclusion

We have discussed the mind-body problem in detail and found that it is continued to be an unsettled issue. Dualism and physicalism tend to pull us in two opposite directions. For dualists it is mind acting upon matter. For a physicalist, consciousness can be reduced to matter. The neurosciences have challenged some aspects of dualism and Physicalism and showed the greater need to go beyond them. In this context emergence become an alternative to dualism and Physicalism.

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