Philosophy 'Mind-Body Dualism' Essay
Assess the plausibility of ‘mind-body dualism.’
I will argue that considerations of the ‘mind-body relationship’ have been around for a very long time and even today parts of ‘mind-body dualism’ as presented by Descartes play an important role on thinking on the subject. There is a long line of ancient thinkers who grappled with this ‘mind-body relationship,’ starting in the West with Plato and Aristotle, then as with much of the Western history of ideas, these notions were developed through the First and into the middle of the Second millennia by theologians until they were taken up again a few hundred years ago. A mind-body distinction of some sort forms an integral part of almost all major religions, so it could be said to be still very plausible to many. It was really Descartes method that led to his presentation of the material and mental worlds as distinctly different substances that resulted in his ‘mind-body dualism’ having so much longevity. This then led to people consider the interactional causation between the physical and mental and the uniquely subjective nature of mental events as apposed to physical events. I will then look at some of the strengths and weakness of ‘mind-body dualism’ arguments and finally explain my thoughts on the subject.
Ever since the appearances of whatever we consider to be the first ‘conscious’ beings there has been an unresolved relationship between mental and physical worlds we all experience. We have a body, and a ‘conscious’ mind. Through our bodily senses we can all touch, hear, see, smell and taste physical events and objects. We can all also locate where these occurrences take place physically but ‘If you hear a bell ringing, where does your auditory experience occur?’[1] Is it somewhere in the brain? When someone else is in pain, for whatever reason, you may feel you are able to empathise with the pain that the other person is experiencing but it is exclusively their experience. In fact although logically your reaction should be broadly similar the experience may be different in some way but as we have no way of comparing unique personal experience we do not know for sure.
There is a long established development of mind-body considerations within Western Philosophy. Plato (b. 427 BC) was one of the earliest to touch on this subject with his ‘doctrine of ideas or forms’[2] where ’whenever a number of individuals have a common name, they also have a common idea or form. For instance, though there are many beds there is only one ‘idea’ or ‘form.’[3] These he says are universal concepts, independent non-physical ideas that are only conceivable to those who can understand the bigger picture of their role in the universe. Of this Bertrand Russell said that it ‘contains a number of obvious errors. But in spite of these it marks a very important advance in philosophy, since it is the first theory to emphasise the problems of universals, which in varying forms, persisted to the present day.’
Aristotle (384 BC- 322) revised this theory when he developed the ‘Third Man Argument’ but also developed his ideas of a non-material world. This argument that that was proposed initially by Plato highlighted that if there is an earthly form and a virtual form then there must be a third similar form to make the likeness. From this he developed his ‘essence’ argument but still not believing that intellect can be conceived as material because “if the intellect were material then it could not receive all of the forms. If the intellect were a specific material organ (or part of one) then it would be restricted to receiving only certain kinds of information, as the eye is restricted to receiving visual data and the ear is restricted to receiving auditory data. Since the intellect is capable of receiving and reflecting on all forms of data, then it must not be a physical organ and, hence, it must be immaterial.”[4]
The next Western incarnations of the mind-body relationship were developed by the only intellectual class of the times, the theologians, so naturally had a heavy spiritual element attached. Saint Augustine (354-430) ‘believed that I am a soul that is “chained” to a body.’[5] Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) came to develop Aristotle’s theory of forms into a trinitarian notion of forms that mirrored the trintarian doctrine of Father, Son and Holy Spirit: forms, intellect and soul were three parts of the same singular phenomenon. For him, the soul was the substance of a human but you need a body for the soul to manifest itself within, the soul can exist without the body but it could not be said to be a person. Upon death the soul was all that remained of the person, everything bodily inculding your memories would be wiped out.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is considered one of the most influential philosophers due to the paradigm shift that occurred after his recognition of the importance of mind-body dualism. He developed an approach to philosophy that has become known as ‘Cartesian Doubt’ where he doubted everything he could possibly doubt to see what (if anything) he was left with. After dismissing the senses because it could all be a dream or an evil demon misleading him for some unknown reason he was left with his single most famous line: “I think, therefore I am.” This became the first principle of his philosophy and is important in the history of ideas because it ‘makes mind more certain than matter, and my mind (for me) more certain than the minds of others. There is thus, in all philosophy derived from Decartes, a tendency to subjectivism, and regarding matter as something only knowable, if at all, by inference from what is known of the mind.’[6] He also claimed that this showed that the mind, a thinking thing, can exist apart from its extended body. And therefore, the mind is a substance distinct from the body, a substance whose essence is thought. This is became known as Substance Dualism or Cartesian Dualism.
This led straight to the what has become known as the ‘Problem of Interactionism’ where somehow these two distinct substances have to find a way of bridging this gap between mind substances and body substances. Descartes himself later came up with an explanation along the lines of men ‘have a soul, which resides in the pineal gland. There the soul comes into contact with the ‘vital spirits’, and through this contact there is interaction between soul and body.’[7] Even his protoges where not happy with this and this quickly led to alternative explanations like, Geulincx his Dutch disciple to come up with his ‘two clocks’ theory. This theory suggests that with two running clocks at identical times, it could seem like, if you could only see one and hear the chime of the other, that one, caused the other. This is not the case, they are just runnining parallel to each other, and it is not our will that moves our body at the same time as our mind requests, but as Leibniz further developed this theory of a ‘pre-established harmony’ set in place by God creating the appearance of interaction.
This interaction causation is important to me, not least because it is also an intuative commom-sense notion that physical and mental events interact but also because of the implications of this interaction on any real dualism. This can be called ‘Interactionism’ and in this view, mental states such as desires and beliefs, causally interact with physical states. We have all seen something like this. A child falls over and cuts its knee(physical) so he feels pain(mental) shouts out(physical) in agony and this alerts and causes brief panic(mental) for its parent. So any mind-body dualism for me would need to deal with this interaction keeping them distinctly separate entities.
Within this argument it is important for me to acknowledge that mental and physical experiences have very different, and prehaps irreconcilable, properties. There is a certain subjective quality to mental events but this is not the case for physical events. For example, what does the pain from a burn feel like? What does a particular colour look like? What does pleasant music sound like? These subjective aspects of mental events has been called by philosophers ‘Qualia.’ This is the particular ‘what it is like’ to feel pain, sorrow, etc. It is extremely difficult to try reduce these Qualia into anything remotely physical.
I find parts of both Property Dualism and Predicate Dualism appealing. The former suggesting that when matter is organised in an appropreiate way as in the human body, mental properties emerge. With Predicate Dualism people maintain that while there is only one ontological category of substances and properties of substances (physical), the predicates that we use to describe mental events cannot be redescribed in terms of physical predicates of natural languages.
Apart from the intuative objection I raised earlier about the causal interactions of these two different types of substance there is a more scientific approach to the argument. Even with mystical explanations that violate normal conceptions of Newtonian mechanics, these causal interactions must violate the laws of physics. Similarly, it could be said that dualistic interactionism violates a general heuristic principle of science: the causal closure of the physical world. Critics of this suggest that mental events could be causal overdetermined and that some features of an effect may not be fully explained by its sufficient cause.
There is an argument formulated around the effects of brain damage on mental performance that questions the clarity of any distinction between body and brain/mind. It is simply that when the brain suffers some sort of damage, either by an accident, drug abuse or pathological diseases, it is always the case that the mental properties of that person are significantly compromised. If the mind were a completely separate substance from the brain, how could it be possible that every single time the brain is injured, the mind is also injured? Experts can even predict and explain the kind of mental or psychological deterioration or change that will take place when specific parts of their brains are damaged. So the question for the dualist to try to confront is how can all of this be explained if the mind is a separate and immaterial substance from, or if its properties are ontologically independent of the brain.
The final argument against dualism I will present is that of ‘Occam’s Razor.’ It is another example of dualism going against the heuristic principles in science and philosophy. Why would we assume the existence of more entities that is necessary for a clear explanation and prediction? Why believe in two, onotologically distinct entities, mind and body, when you could try explain it in one?
I think that our ‘conciousness’ is just a quirk of nature, an emergent property of the neureological evolution of living organisms and, it is this, that has caused for us the mind-body ‘problem.’ The only things that exist are physical things. All mental things appear to exist to us in our heads as thoughts and memories but these are just functions of our brain. When your heart pumps it is doing the major part of its job within the body, when your brain thinks it is doing the major part of its job within the body. Physical occurrences run in parallel with mental occurrences, the physical leading the mental. It may appear to us that what is going on within our heads is somehow just as real as the physical world (if not more) but it is in part due to the subjective nature of our mental world.
In conclusion mind-body dualism is still not resolved for most people so it must be plausible. Mind-body considerations have been with us since our evolution gave us ‘consciousness’. It could be said be intuitive to believe in some sort of dualism and it is certainly very important for people of a religious persuasion. Descartes rejection of anything he could doubt led to an introversion that has been very rewarding in the history of ideas. He was first to establish the subjective nature of thought and how hard it is to reconcile with the physical world. This led to investigation into the causation interaction of these two separate worlds that has not yet been resolved. There are strong arguments against mind-body dualism but it is subtly a well established concept for many people for many different reasons but I believe the authority of subjective thought established by Descates is the principle. I feel we have progressed as far as we can with this line of enquiry into a relationship we can fundamentally never totally understand. Others are still looking to the future:
”What is needed is something we do not have: a theory of conscious organisms as physical systems composed of chemical elements and occupying space, which also have an individual perspective on the world, and in some cases a capacity for self-awareness as well. In some way that we do not now understand, our minds as well as our bodies come into being when these materials are suitably combined and organised. The strange truth seems to be that certain complex, biologically generated physical systems, of which each of us is an example, have rich non-physical properties. An integrated theory of reality must account for this, and I believe that if and when it arrives, probably not for centuries, it will alter our conception of the universe as radically as anything has to date.”
Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere
Sebastian O’Brien Jan 2007
[1] 173 hospers Introduction to Philosophical analysis
[2] Bertrand Russell- History of Western Philosophy 123
[3] ibid
[4] Aristotle
[5] hospers 171
[6] 516 hist western
[7] 514 western
I will argue that considerations of the ‘mind-body relationship’ have been around for a very long time and even today parts of ‘mind-body dualism’ as presented by Descartes play an important role on thinking on the subject. There is a long line of ancient thinkers who grappled with this ‘mind-body relationship,’ starting in the West with Plato and Aristotle, then as with much of the Western history of ideas, these notions were developed through the First and into the middle of the Second millennia by theologians until they were taken up again a few hundred years ago. A mind-body distinction of some sort forms an integral part of almost all major religions, so it could be said to be still very plausible to many. It was really Descartes method that led to his presentation of the material and mental worlds as distinctly different substances that resulted in his ‘mind-body dualism’ having so much longevity. This then led to people consider the interactional causation between the physical and mental and the uniquely subjective nature of mental events as apposed to physical events. I will then look at some of the strengths and weakness of ‘mind-body dualism’ arguments and finally explain my thoughts on the subject.
Ever since the appearances of whatever we consider to be the first ‘conscious’ beings there has been an unresolved relationship between mental and physical worlds we all experience. We have a body, and a ‘conscious’ mind. Through our bodily senses we can all touch, hear, see, smell and taste physical events and objects. We can all also locate where these occurrences take place physically but ‘If you hear a bell ringing, where does your auditory experience occur?’[1] Is it somewhere in the brain? When someone else is in pain, for whatever reason, you may feel you are able to empathise with the pain that the other person is experiencing but it is exclusively their experience. In fact although logically your reaction should be broadly similar the experience may be different in some way but as we have no way of comparing unique personal experience we do not know for sure.
There is a long established development of mind-body considerations within Western Philosophy. Plato (b. 427 BC) was one of the earliest to touch on this subject with his ‘doctrine of ideas or forms’[2] where ’whenever a number of individuals have a common name, they also have a common idea or form. For instance, though there are many beds there is only one ‘idea’ or ‘form.’[3] These he says are universal concepts, independent non-physical ideas that are only conceivable to those who can understand the bigger picture of their role in the universe. Of this Bertrand Russell said that it ‘contains a number of obvious errors. But in spite of these it marks a very important advance in philosophy, since it is the first theory to emphasise the problems of universals, which in varying forms, persisted to the present day.’
Aristotle (384 BC- 322) revised this theory when he developed the ‘Third Man Argument’ but also developed his ideas of a non-material world. This argument that that was proposed initially by Plato highlighted that if there is an earthly form and a virtual form then there must be a third similar form to make the likeness. From this he developed his ‘essence’ argument but still not believing that intellect can be conceived as material because “if the intellect were material then it could not receive all of the forms. If the intellect were a specific material organ (or part of one) then it would be restricted to receiving only certain kinds of information, as the eye is restricted to receiving visual data and the ear is restricted to receiving auditory data. Since the intellect is capable of receiving and reflecting on all forms of data, then it must not be a physical organ and, hence, it must be immaterial.”[4]
The next Western incarnations of the mind-body relationship were developed by the only intellectual class of the times, the theologians, so naturally had a heavy spiritual element attached. Saint Augustine (354-430) ‘believed that I am a soul that is “chained” to a body.’[5] Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) came to develop Aristotle’s theory of forms into a trinitarian notion of forms that mirrored the trintarian doctrine of Father, Son and Holy Spirit: forms, intellect and soul were three parts of the same singular phenomenon. For him, the soul was the substance of a human but you need a body for the soul to manifest itself within, the soul can exist without the body but it could not be said to be a person. Upon death the soul was all that remained of the person, everything bodily inculding your memories would be wiped out.
Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is considered one of the most influential philosophers due to the paradigm shift that occurred after his recognition of the importance of mind-body dualism. He developed an approach to philosophy that has become known as ‘Cartesian Doubt’ where he doubted everything he could possibly doubt to see what (if anything) he was left with. After dismissing the senses because it could all be a dream or an evil demon misleading him for some unknown reason he was left with his single most famous line: “I think, therefore I am.” This became the first principle of his philosophy and is important in the history of ideas because it ‘makes mind more certain than matter, and my mind (for me) more certain than the minds of others. There is thus, in all philosophy derived from Decartes, a tendency to subjectivism, and regarding matter as something only knowable, if at all, by inference from what is known of the mind.’[6] He also claimed that this showed that the mind, a thinking thing, can exist apart from its extended body. And therefore, the mind is a substance distinct from the body, a substance whose essence is thought. This is became known as Substance Dualism or Cartesian Dualism.
This led straight to the what has become known as the ‘Problem of Interactionism’ where somehow these two distinct substances have to find a way of bridging this gap between mind substances and body substances. Descartes himself later came up with an explanation along the lines of men ‘have a soul, which resides in the pineal gland. There the soul comes into contact with the ‘vital spirits’, and through this contact there is interaction between soul and body.’[7] Even his protoges where not happy with this and this quickly led to alternative explanations like, Geulincx his Dutch disciple to come up with his ‘two clocks’ theory. This theory suggests that with two running clocks at identical times, it could seem like, if you could only see one and hear the chime of the other, that one, caused the other. This is not the case, they are just runnining parallel to each other, and it is not our will that moves our body at the same time as our mind requests, but as Leibniz further developed this theory of a ‘pre-established harmony’ set in place by God creating the appearance of interaction.
This interaction causation is important to me, not least because it is also an intuative commom-sense notion that physical and mental events interact but also because of the implications of this interaction on any real dualism. This can be called ‘Interactionism’ and in this view, mental states such as desires and beliefs, causally interact with physical states. We have all seen something like this. A child falls over and cuts its knee(physical) so he feels pain(mental) shouts out(physical) in agony and this alerts and causes brief panic(mental) for its parent. So any mind-body dualism for me would need to deal with this interaction keeping them distinctly separate entities.
Within this argument it is important for me to acknowledge that mental and physical experiences have very different, and prehaps irreconcilable, properties. There is a certain subjective quality to mental events but this is not the case for physical events. For example, what does the pain from a burn feel like? What does a particular colour look like? What does pleasant music sound like? These subjective aspects of mental events has been called by philosophers ‘Qualia.’ This is the particular ‘what it is like’ to feel pain, sorrow, etc. It is extremely difficult to try reduce these Qualia into anything remotely physical.
I find parts of both Property Dualism and Predicate Dualism appealing. The former suggesting that when matter is organised in an appropreiate way as in the human body, mental properties emerge. With Predicate Dualism people maintain that while there is only one ontological category of substances and properties of substances (physical), the predicates that we use to describe mental events cannot be redescribed in terms of physical predicates of natural languages.
Apart from the intuative objection I raised earlier about the causal interactions of these two different types of substance there is a more scientific approach to the argument. Even with mystical explanations that violate normal conceptions of Newtonian mechanics, these causal interactions must violate the laws of physics. Similarly, it could be said that dualistic interactionism violates a general heuristic principle of science: the causal closure of the physical world. Critics of this suggest that mental events could be causal overdetermined and that some features of an effect may not be fully explained by its sufficient cause.
There is an argument formulated around the effects of brain damage on mental performance that questions the clarity of any distinction between body and brain/mind. It is simply that when the brain suffers some sort of damage, either by an accident, drug abuse or pathological diseases, it is always the case that the mental properties of that person are significantly compromised. If the mind were a completely separate substance from the brain, how could it be possible that every single time the brain is injured, the mind is also injured? Experts can even predict and explain the kind of mental or psychological deterioration or change that will take place when specific parts of their brains are damaged. So the question for the dualist to try to confront is how can all of this be explained if the mind is a separate and immaterial substance from, or if its properties are ontologically independent of the brain.
The final argument against dualism I will present is that of ‘Occam’s Razor.’ It is another example of dualism going against the heuristic principles in science and philosophy. Why would we assume the existence of more entities that is necessary for a clear explanation and prediction? Why believe in two, onotologically distinct entities, mind and body, when you could try explain it in one?
I think that our ‘conciousness’ is just a quirk of nature, an emergent property of the neureological evolution of living organisms and, it is this, that has caused for us the mind-body ‘problem.’ The only things that exist are physical things. All mental things appear to exist to us in our heads as thoughts and memories but these are just functions of our brain. When your heart pumps it is doing the major part of its job within the body, when your brain thinks it is doing the major part of its job within the body. Physical occurrences run in parallel with mental occurrences, the physical leading the mental. It may appear to us that what is going on within our heads is somehow just as real as the physical world (if not more) but it is in part due to the subjective nature of our mental world.
In conclusion mind-body dualism is still not resolved for most people so it must be plausible. Mind-body considerations have been with us since our evolution gave us ‘consciousness’. It could be said be intuitive to believe in some sort of dualism and it is certainly very important for people of a religious persuasion. Descartes rejection of anything he could doubt led to an introversion that has been very rewarding in the history of ideas. He was first to establish the subjective nature of thought and how hard it is to reconcile with the physical world. This led to investigation into the causation interaction of these two separate worlds that has not yet been resolved. There are strong arguments against mind-body dualism but it is subtly a well established concept for many people for many different reasons but I believe the authority of subjective thought established by Descates is the principle. I feel we have progressed as far as we can with this line of enquiry into a relationship we can fundamentally never totally understand. Others are still looking to the future:
”What is needed is something we do not have: a theory of conscious organisms as physical systems composed of chemical elements and occupying space, which also have an individual perspective on the world, and in some cases a capacity for self-awareness as well. In some way that we do not now understand, our minds as well as our bodies come into being when these materials are suitably combined and organised. The strange truth seems to be that certain complex, biologically generated physical systems, of which each of us is an example, have rich non-physical properties. An integrated theory of reality must account for this, and I believe that if and when it arrives, probably not for centuries, it will alter our conception of the universe as radically as anything has to date.”
Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere
Sebastian O’Brien Jan 2007
[1] 173 hospers Introduction to Philosophical analysis
[2] Bertrand Russell- History of Western Philosophy 123
[3] ibid
[4] Aristotle
[5] hospers 171
[6] 516 hist western
[7] 514 western
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