The Mind And Body Dualism

RECALL: The writer makes several important points in “Body and Mind” from “Problems from Philosophy”. The writer discusses the idea of the body being a material entity and the mind as an immaterial entity. The mind and body problems arise due to the different types of facts and their relation with each other. The concept of mind body dualism is an attempt to solve this conflict between these two entities and the main points discussed in the chapter are: 1) According to the ‘Conceivability Argument for Dualism’, presented by Descartes, the mind and the body cannot exist without each other and if they were to do so, they would not be the same thing; 2) Physical facts are proven through observations but mental states are private and cannot be

The progression in scientific discoveries made Descartes theories seem more superstitious than based on facts and soon they disappeared. The materialistic theories started flourishing in the middle of the twentieth century and Behaviorism was among them. This theory stated that the science of psychology is more concerned with finding a pattern of the stimulus and response. According to Watson and Skinner, behavior is shaped by the physical inputs human beings get and the private mental states of humans are irrelevant. Behaviorism also did not last very long and soon it was replaced by “Cognitivism” which fell under the investigative research methods of psychology. Another theory put forth was the “The Mind-Brain Identity Theory” which claimed that the mental events human beings experience are neurological rather than behavioral or ghostly. Introspection is considered an inner process since firing of neurons is not in any way connected with the input from the body. The neuron firing can be considered as a type which is further subdivided into different token types. The type-type Identity theory being that when an individual is in pain, a particular type of neuron is firing whereas the token-token identity states that every instance of physical pain is identical with a particular physical state and is