As medical science develops, more and more possibilities are put before us. Some of these are versions of familiar circumstances, but others are genuinely novel. Such developments
Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable. Perhaps that is why current discussions of the problem give it little attention or get it obviously wrong. The
What does it mean to say that we have got a mind-body problem? Do we need to think of our inner and outer lives as two separate items between which business must somehow be transac
The identity theory of mind holds that states and processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain. Strictly speaking, it need not hold that the mind is ide
‘Philosophy of mind’, and ‘philosophy of psychology’ are two terms for the same general area of philosophical inquiry: the nature of mental phenomena and their connection with beha
Perhaps no aspect of mind is more familiar or more puzzling than consciousness and our conscious experience of self and world. The problem of consciousness is arguably the central
Man was created by God in unity of body and soul[238]. “The spiritual and immortal soul is the principle of unity of the human being, whereby it exists as a whole — corpore et anim
I am pleased to address all of you taking part in this international Conference entitled “Mind, Body and Soul”, a topic which for centuries has engaged research and reflection in t
Human beings are material entities but they are also persons, that is subjects of consciousness, experience, perception and agency. As physical beings they are causally responsible for effects in the world, as rational agents they are morally responsible for what they do and fail to do. What, then, is the relationship between their physical and their personal natures? This is an ancient question and a difficult one to resolve, hence the ‘mind / body problem’. Broadly there are three kinds of answer: 1) material identity: the mind is part of the body, the best candidate being the brain and central nervous system; 2) dualist non-identity: mind and body are distinct entities forming some sort of temporary union, so in reality a human person is a body + a mind or soul; 3) dependency: the mind stands in some other relation to the body, not the same as part of it nor altogether distinct but a non-material aspect of it. There are arguments for and against these three positions. Contra 1) persons are a) subjects but their bodies and body parts are all b) objects, so they cannot be the same kind of thing. Against 2) what sense can be made of immaterial minds? and how do they inhabit and interact with ‘their’ bodies? Contra 3) what other relation is there than identity or non-identity? and how can there be ‘aspects’ of bodies other than physical ones? The problem goes back to the beginnings of Western philosophy and is also to be found in Eastern and other ancient traditions. Most of the great premodern, and modern philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Locke etc. have had views on it, and it remains a major topic in contemporary philosophy. Early Christians inherited Jewish views which tended to identify the person with the living human body, but through the incorporation of Greek philosophical ideas the early Church Fathers of East and West tended towards dualism. With Aquinas’s appropriation in the 13th century of Aristotelianism, versions of 3) were developed which had influence in Catholic teachings on the person. Today, however, most Christians tend to some version of 2) i.e. dualism, linking this with belief in continuing personal life after the death of the body.