Mind Body Relationship In Human Person Philosophy Essay

Mind be Relationship In Humilitary soulfulnessnel individual Philosophy EssayThe judging- stamp line has been a much disputeed issue in the Philosophy of Mind. All those who undertake some(prenominal) study in soul, of necessity remove to touch upon this subject. One of the unsettled puzzles is closely whether consciousness is trigger of corporal or genial legitimatem. It has challenged the scientists as well as philosophers to looking for some solutions. They leave pro comprise several theories to address the issue. Among several theories dualism and sensibleism were the almost disputeed. on that augur ar some crucial capitulums regarding header- proboscis problem much(prenominal) as how do they interact, whether the sagaciousness and carcass differ not whole in degree and nature tho withal in descriptor? The strand so forth of neuroscience with its several scientific experiments has radically challenged the interpret of family kin betwixt drum head and proboscis and forced us to re figure our positions intimately it. Thus, thither is a re parvenued vigour in studying roughly consciousness in modern times and it has thrown open several other(a) ship arseholeal of settling this issue. This chapter will briefly discuss on how different philosophers comprehend the relationship amid attend and remains in a person and critically analyse various theories of dualism and personalism in detail and present(a) their difficulties. The concluding unwrap of the chapter will show the need to go beyond dualism and tangibleism with the help of neuroscience. We begin our discussion with judgment- bole relationship in a person.1.1 Mind-Body Relationship in a PersonFor many centuries, we have been difficult to watch the headway-body relationship in a person. The difficulty behind explaining the relationship mingled with brainiac-body in a person is that s/he is a dynamic entity.1Thus, one is in a continued mode of penetr ative oneself. in that location argon several thinkers who stick the estimate that a person is composed of body and legal opinion. At the same time there ar also some thinkers who oppose this idea. Now we shall discuss the views of some philosophers.There ar several ancient philosophers same(p) Plato and Aristotle who expressed their views on assessment-body relationship in a person. For Plato, gracious being is composed of body and brain. Body is no topic alone a prison house into which his/her psyche has been locked. His understanding of person is different from our understanding of human being.2For Plato, person belongs to intelligible being and human being belongs to sensible humankind. Secondly person trick be transformed whereas human being bumnot be because human being belongs to forcible level of being.3Thus he says that a person, the subject of interest, is not a human being and rather a soul, an entity plain from that of human being.4 here(predicate) w e advise see a clear-cut notation of soul and body in Platos sentiment.Aristotle, on the contrary, saw the mind-body relationship from a wholly different angle. He says that a person is a composite not of body and soul however of prime matter and the human soul which as a substantial form.5He does not perceive the lucidion amongst mind and body instead he makes the distinction between matter and form. Therefore, Aristotle understands body and soul as not of two gross(a) beings in conflict with each other but complimenting each other because matter and form atomic number 18 inseparable in a prime warmness.There ar also modern philosophers ilk Hegel, Immanuel Kant and John Locke who understand the mind-body relationship quite differently. For Hegel, an individual is part of the larger biography of the Mind. He says that, Mind or spirit, passes by fashion of dialectical stages of evolution, revealing itself as inherent mind, purposeive mind and absolute mind. The subj ective mind expresses itself as soul, consciousness and spirit.6From the above asseveratements it is actually clear that he gives enormousness to mind alone. He has absorbed totally the body into mind for he says, It (mind) embodies itself, creates a body for itself, and be arranges a particular, individual soul.7Therefore what truly exists for him is mind and not body.yet Immanuel Kant speaks about meta fleshly dualism rather than eye dualism of the person. He sees person as a Transcendental Self because there is a level of self-awareness that is everywhere and above the categories of normal philosophies. Human being is alone a keen-witted being who has a will and a free choice of action. So Kant postulates person as a transcendental free being, an idea that the inward self is not bound by the laws of nature.8 nevertheless, John Locke, being a modern philosopher understands human person as that of ancient philosophers. For him mind is the current person and body is moreove r a possession.9He single outs 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.10For him mind is the real person and in the real person the body aspect is integrated totally into it.11The philosophers have changed their guidance in the recent years. They give to a greater extent stress on the designing of human life. They ask what does it mean to be a human person? just, with the growing interest in neuroscience, the ontological head teacher 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 PositionsThe Mind-Body relationship has been an unsettled question two for science and philosophy. It has been a herculean trade marriage movement for both scientists and phi losophers, who were greatly involved in unlocking the issue of the relationship between mind and body. There are two sets of argue ideologies proposed that is to say dualism and physicalism. near of the philosophers are divided on their opinions hence this issue seeks our utmost attentions. Here we shall essay 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 DualismDualism simply means a define of being double. It distinguishs from the Latin word duo meaning two which denotes a state of two parts.12It was originally coined to highlight the co-eternal binary position for typeface good and evil, body and mind, psychical and material, dark and light etc. It is brave out by several arguments.13In philoso phy it is a world view that the world consists of or is explicable as two primordial entities, such as body and mind, the condition of being double or duality.14From 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 aggregate DualismThe substance dualism sees mind and body as two distinct and separate substances.15Several philosophers comparable Plato, Thomas Aquinas and Ren Descartes too held a similar view. They see mind as something that is diametrically opposing body. The refer of body is credit 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.16The 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 archetype because it gives us a hope of personal survival after stopping point and also many religions hold this theory very dear to them.17We screwing see this distinction in Indian philosophy too. The Sankhaya philosophy holds that there are two entities namely Purusha18and Prakrti19which 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 Ren Descartes, from the modern thinkers, who illustrate the rest of the dualistic thinkers of their time.1.3.1.1 Platonic DualismPlatonic 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 never-failingity of mind or soul.20He calls mind as soul.21For him, the mind is immortal and body is mortal.22The 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 check into the truth by means of the organs of perception of the body. Forms are universals and cook up the essences of sensible particulars. Plato says that we do not see reality as a whole. We perceive equal things, but not par itself. We perceive bonny things but not beauty itself. To have insights into the pure essences of things, the mind must(prenominal)iness 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 inconspicuous things. Plato defines death as the separation of soul and body, and the state of be ing dead as state in which soul and body exist separately from one another.23Thus for Plato, the dualism of mind and body are antonym in nature. He plantes 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 command from Opposites, Argument from medical history and the Argument from Affinity.24These third 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 inaugural 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 de ath and rebirth the soul exists apart from the body and has the opportunity to glance the Forms unmingled with matter in their pure and undiluted fullness. Thus the oscillation of life goes on.The second defence for his immortality of soul is the Argument from Recollection. For Plato, soul must exist forward to birth because we can recollect things that could not have been learned in this life. fit in to Plato, we recognize unequal things and strive for equality. To recover inequality, we must comprehend what equality is. In order to roll in the hay what equality is, we must have the prior knowl advance so that we can understand the form of equality. Hence, the soul must have existed prior to birth to the form of equality.25The 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 forms26are true unities and therefore least likely ever to be annihilated. Furt her 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.27Through 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 Platos arguments are highly challenged veritable(a) 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.28Further, even if life comes from what is itself not alive, it does not hold fast 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 former(a) from having been younger, there is no corresponding reverse process leading the elderly 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 Platos 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 genuine clarity in understanding dualism with clear proofs. Now we shall discuss the du alism proposed by Descartes.1.3.1.2 Cartesian Dualism.Ren 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.29Substance dualism gets more predominance in Cartesian dualism.30He says substance dualism goes on with the view that the identity of a person over time is comprise 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 received memory and psychological continuities, that constitutes the survival of the person.31The idea that there is a fundagenial difference in kind between the mind and body can be spelled out in two broadly different ways.32Descartes held that minds and bodies are substances of distinct kind that, in the case of living human beings, notice to be intimately related.33The disti nction between the body and mind is the body is spacial, public and has material qualities and mind is non-spacial, private and has distinctively psychic 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.34Firstly, 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.35Descartes 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.36The 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 thusly 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 DualismProperty 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.37The advantage of property dualism over substance dualism is that it avoids the casual interaction problem because this theory has no need to countenance causative interaction between material and immaterial or spatial and non-spatial substance, since it admits only that there is only material substance.38It also need not appeal to idols 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.39This property dualism could be understood in three ways namely Theory of Attribute, ludicrous Monism and Non-reductive materialism.1.3.2.1 Theory of AttributeThe first way of understanding the property dualism is through de de Spinozas theory of attribute. Attributes are part of Spinozas metaphysics.40For Spinoza divinity is the only Substance since Gods 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.41It 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.42This God has infinite attributes. besides 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 minds 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.43This attribute enables us to understand and maunder 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 Cart esian notion of dualism was logical, it had constant problems. It could not advantageously explain the relationship between substance constructed as individual and substance constructed as matter or stuff. But Spinozas explanation came very fold up to a satisfactory theory.441.3.2.2 Anomalous MonismAnomalous 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 doubled divisions namely mental and physical.45It states that mental shells are identical with physical publications. 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.46But Davidson says that the mental subjects are foolish, that is to say these mental returns are not correct by strict physical laws. Hence, he proposed an identity the ory 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 fence 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 Davidsons 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 manakin of mental events especially occasioning 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.47However there are also quite a little 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 snipe the causal closure principle, for according to it an events physical properties are sufficient for the causal effects that event has within the physical domain.48It 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.49For this reason, the non-reductive physicalist who identifies token mental events with physical events but maintains a property dualism can plausibly be accuse of property epiphenomenalism. Secondly a strict law cannot be speculate 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 speculate 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 co ncepts, anomalous monism leads to the rejection of any conceptual reduction.501.3.2.3 Non-reductive physicalismNon-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.51Even though the mind itself is really physical, our mentalist explanatory stratagem 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 shore leave 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?52Then 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 self-direction of the mental. However non-reductive materialism could be still seen as fundamentally a stable position.1.4 An Appraisal of Mind-Body RelationsThough Descartes argues for the mind-body dualism,53the sort of dualism for which he arg ues, entails certain conceptual difficulties and seemingly insuperable problems. The main difficulty with mental activeness 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 ph