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    THE MIND BODY RELATIONSHIP

    Introduction

    That there are two distinct kinds of events, the mental and the physical, is something

    which has been generally accepted in the whole literature on the mind-body problem. Wecan show that there is such a thing as the mental as opposed to the physical with the help

    of an argument. John Hospers in his An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis has put

    forward the following argument.

    What happens when you hear a noise? (Unless you are just hearing things, in which

    case the auditory sensation is generated from within the brain itself) Something first

    happens outside your body. Sound waves, alternate condensations, and rarefactions of theair cause air particles to strike repeatedly on your eardrum, so that it vibrates. The

    eardrum is connected by three small bones to a membrane that covers one end of a spiral

    tube in the inner ear. The vibration of your eardrum is transmitted through the chain of

    three bones to the membrane at the end of the tube. The tube is filled with the liquid, perilymph, so that the vibration in the membrane attached to these bones causes a

    corresponding vibration to pass through this liquid. Inside the first tube is another one,filled with the liquid called endolymph, vibrations in the perilymph causes vibrations in

    the membranous wall of the inner tube and waves in the endolymph. The auditory nerve

    is joined to the roots of these hairs. The vibration of the hairs causes impulses to pass up

    the auditory nerve to a part of the brain called the auditory centre. Not until the auditorycentre is stimulated do you hear the sound.

    So far all the events described have been physical; they have been minute changes goingon inside your head. They are extremely difficult to observe, even with cleverly devised

    instruments, since peoples heads are not transparent and it is difficult to open a personshead while the person remains alive with his functioning as usual. Nevertheless manysuch minute changes have been measured and observed. (Even if this were not so, it

    would still be logically possible to observe them: the impossibility would be merely

    technical).

    The entire process just describes takes only a fraction of a second, but now, when the

    auditory nerve has carried the stimulus to the appropriate portion of the brain, something

    new and different occurs. You hear a sound, you have an auditory sensation. This issomething new under the sun. It is something quite different from anything that went

    on earlier in this brief but complex process. The auditory sensation is a mental event, not

    a physical event like the preceding ones. It is an awareness, a state of consciousness. Thesame holds for visual sensation: kinesthetic sensations, smell sensations, taste, touch,

    heat, cold, pain, and so on; and also for states of consciousness not directly associated

    with the senses, such as thoughts, memories, images, emotions.**(Hospers, John An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis pp 378-79)

    It is precisely because my sensation is exclusively my sensation and nobody elses; a

    purely physicalistic description of me experiencing a sensation is bound to be incomplete.

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    Hence it makes sense to postulate another kind of event, which is called mental event,

    which is neither locatable in space nor extended in space.

    Issues on the philosophy of mind have acquired a focus in terms of this problem of the

    relationship between the mental and the physical. Traditionally various theories about the

    relationship between mind and body have been proposed. What I intend to do in this shortdissertation is to expound the traditional views regarding mind-body relationship and also

    try and critically assess them in a modest fashion; I shall conclude with what I consider a

    plausible characterization of the mind-body relationship.

    CHAPTER II

    The Relationship between Mental and Physical

    We had seen earlier that the existence of two distinct kinds of events, namely the mental

    and the physical is beyond doubt (By way of the interpretation of the illustration provided

    in the introduction). What sort of a relationship hold between the two realms has beenconceived in different ways, depending upon the kinds of substances, or the ontological

    schema a thinker has put forward. For example, the Cartesian philosopher who postulatedtwo distinct kinds of substances viz. mind and body would argue for some kind of an

    interactionist theory while explaining the relationship between the mental and physical.

    Therefore, any proposal as to the relationship between the mental and the physical

    depends on the kind of ontological entities postulated by the thinker. Without going intodeeper issues of ontology I shall in this chapter merely sketch the various traditional

    theories regarding the relationship between the mental and the physical.

    Interactionism:

    The dictionary of philosophy defines Interactionism as a dualistic theory of the relationbetween mind and body, according to which physical events can cause mental events and

    vice versa.*

    *A Dictionary of Philosophy, - Edited by Flew, Antony. Published by Pan Books Ltd.

    It is a simple common sense view, For example, one receives a blow on the head and

    feels pain. The former is a physical event and has been the cause for the latter which is a

    mental event. Every time a physical event or a physical stimulus causes something toregister in consciousness, it can be said that physical events cause mental events. An

    example for the case of mental event causing a physical event is clear in a case where one

    feels frightened and subsequently the heart beats faster: or when a decision is made(mental event) and the decision is carried out (physical event). Every time an act of will

    results in your doing what you willed to do, it is proof positive that mental events cause

    physical events.

    These above examples should suffice to show that mind and body interact. The most

    systematic dualistic theory was presented by the French philosopher Rene Descartes.

    Being confronted with the problem of interaction between mind and body, which are

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    completely different entities, mind which is extended ad spaceless and body which takes

    up space and therefore extended, Descartes placed the nexus of these two substances in

    the pineal gland, which is an appendage of the brain. Knowing that the brain had so muchto do with ones mental life, he allowed for these two unrelated substances to overlap in

    the pineal gland, which he identified as the principle seat of the soul.

    Interactionism may be stated in the following four propositions:

    i. The mind and body are two things, like a cooking stove and a kettle.ii. Each is capable of existing without the other.

    iii. But throughout life they interact on one another. In other words, certain states

    of the one act on the other, so as to form the occasion of certain other states in

    the other. This situation in the body occasions the boiling of the kettle and theover boiling of the kettle occasions the rusting of the stove. A condition in

    each case is the previous proximity of kettle and the stove.

    iv. Mind M owns Body B means : between M and B there hold the particular

    sort of intimate causal connexions indicated by certain correlations **Wisdom, John. Problems of Mind and Matter. pp103-04. Cambridge University Press.

    Psycho-Physical Parallelism:

    The view that mental (psychical) and bodily (physical) events occur in separate but

    parallel sequences. Psychical events exist in a causal relationship with other psychicalevents, and similarly physical events with other physical events, but the physical and the

    mental do not interact one with the other.*

    *A Dictionary of Philosophy, Ed. Flew, Antony. Published by Pan Books Ltd. Pg. 273.

    The main contention of the parallelists is that there is no causal relationship between

    mind and matter. The physical events and mental events are two distinct sets of eventsrunning along two parallel tracks. For every mental event there is also a corresponding

    physical event in the brain. But the reverses need not be true, for physical events such as

    digestion have no mental correlate at all. (Medical scientists have shown that stress anddepression can interfere with ones natural digestion and cause ulcers) Even though the

    proponents of parallelism refuse to allow any causal connection between events which

    differ so radically in type, accept the concept of causality with regard to events of one

    single type. For example, they allow that there is a causal connection between bodilyevents where a cut in ones hand produces the stimulation of nerves leading from the

    hand to the brain. In this case the connection is entirely between two bodily events.

    Similarly one mental event cause another mental event, where feeling a sharp painprompts one to decide to do something about it.

    The parallelists account of the process of a sensation would be something like this.

    When light waves impinge upon the retina (in the case of vision); an impulse is carried

    along the optic nerve to the brain, which is a physical event. This physical event gives

    rise to other physical events which are termed as brain events. They never lead to a

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    mental event according to the parallelists. But along with these brain events, related

    events invariably occur in the consciousness, which are classified as mental events, but

    they never are caused by those brain events. They just occur as parallel events.

    For the parallelists, even the notion that mental events can be the cause of physical events

    does not exist. They do not see any act of volition in physical actions. For the parallelists,if the visual sensation caused by the light waves that impinge is one of seeing the words

    in a recipe book which you read as add a pinch of cinnamon. (You know that the

    cinnamon is kept in the spice cabinet but you DONT WILL yourself to walk to the spicecabinet.) The sentence you read stimulates certain nerves (efferent nerves) going all the

    way from the brain, to the feet, these in turn affect the muscles and you walk. In effect

    your legs move in that direction as a result of a series of brain events and not because you

    will yourself to do so by any act of volition which is a mental act. The entire series ofcauses and effects can be traced within the physical realm. The accompanying thoughts,

    sensations, emotions, ideas, feelings etc, are just parallel events which belong to a

    different realm which may be defined as mental and not either causes or effects.

    Parallelism as a theory may be stated as follows:

    i. The mind and body are two things.

    ii. Each is capable of existing without the other.

    iii. Throughout life the states of the one run parallel with the states of the other.

    That is, for each kind of mental state there is just one kind of bodily eventwhich accompanies it and vice versa. Bodily states do not influence mental

    events and mental events do not influence bodily events. The hands of your

    clock moves in tune with the movement of the sun. But the movement of thesun does not cause the movement of the clock and they are not joint effects of

    a common cause.

    iv. M owns B means between M and B there hold the double parallelismmentioned in (iii) Every bodily event in B has a mental companion in M and

    vice versa.*

    *Wisdom, John. Problems of Mind and Matter pp104-05. Cambridge University Presspublished in 1934

    Epiphenomenalism

    Epiphenomenalism is a materialistic analysis of the mind-body relationship. It is a

    doctrine concerned with the relationship between mind and body, and considers

    consciousness as an epiphenomenon or a secondary or added accompaniment tomolecular change in the brain. An Epiphenomenalist would say that mind is just

    incidental to the body and therefore all mental events are just effects of physical events

    and never the causes of physical or mental events.

    Epiphenomenalism is dualistic in nature because it allows for one way interaction. They

    allow for interaction from the physical to the mental, and also agree with the dualists that

    mental states are distinct from physical states. According to them the mental events are

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    just by products of physical events and mind is considered to be an inactive concomitant.

    Thomas Henry Huxley who was the one to introduce the concept of epiphenomenalism

    conceives the mind to be as completely without any power of modifying as in theworking of the steam whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine and is

    without any influence upon its machinery.

    Professor John Wisdom sums up Epiphenomenalism in the following manner, in his

    Problems of Mind and Matter.

    i. The body is a thing but the mind is not. The mind is not a thing but a string of

    events which do not form a thing. Each of these events is produced and

    completely explained by some bodily event. We may say that the mental

    events are like shadows a body casts or the smells a factory makes; but neitheranalogy is satisfactory.

    ii. The body can exist without the mind but not the mind without the body.

    iii. Bodily events have effects. Mental events have none.

    iv. M owns B means M is a string of events produced by events in B. Theseevents which make up M are not events in the life history of a thing M, caused

    by the action of B on M. There is no second thing M. M is a series of byproducts of the activity of B.*

    *Wisdom, John. Problems of Mind and Matter. Pg. 105. Cambridge University Press.

    Published in 1934.

    The Double Aspect Theory

    This theory is of the view that mental and physical are merely two aspects of the sameunderlying substance. Though the substance is unknowable to human beings, their

    attributes or aspects - the mental and the physical can be known.

    The historical ancestor of this theory is the Dutch philosopher, Spinoza of the 17 th

    century. For him mind and body are essentially the same. He says, Mind and body are

    one and the same thing, conceived first under the attribute of thought, secondly under theattribute of extension. *

    *Body, Mind and Death Edited by Flew, Antony. Pg.146. Published 1964 by

    Macmillan Company.

    John Hospers illustrates it with the following example.

    It is as if one is passing down a corridor with a mirror both on the right and the left, andones body is reflected on both the mirrors. One mirror is the physical and the other

    mental, and they both simultaneously reflect different aspects of the same substance.*

    * Hospers, John. An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis. Pg. 393. Published byRoutledge and Keagan Paul 1956.

    A recent attempt to find a compromise between dualism and materialism is the person

    theory offered by P.F.Strawson. It is the view that mental events happen neither to purely

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    immaterial substances nor to purely material substances, but to something which is

    neither purely material nor purely immaterial.

    John Wisdom sums up The Double-Aspect Theory in the following manner.

    i. The mind and the body are not two things. They are aspects of somethingwhich is neither the body nor the mind. I do not know at all clearly what is

    meant by this. The best I can do is to suggest the following analogy. Suppose

    you walk between two rows of mirrors. There will then be a series ofreflection of you; one series will appear on the left hand row of mirrors and

    the other series in the right hand row. Neither of these series forms the history

    of a thing. The only things concerned are you and the mirrors.

    ii. The mind could not exist without the body.iii. The states of mind parallel the states of the body. But they do not act on one

    another. On the other hand, parallelism is not an ultimate fact. It occurs

    because bodily events and mental events are joint effects of a common cause.

    iv. M owns B means M and B are a series of events which are aspects ofthe same thing in the sense explained in (i) and (iii)*

    *Wisdom, John. Problems of Mind and Matter. pp105-06. Published by CambridgeUniversity Press.

    Identity Theory

    Identity theory is a form of reductive materialism, and would consider that matter alone is

    real. What is taken to be mental is not distinct from and is only a physical reality, and

    that, in principle one can explain away mental processes in terms of physiochemistry.

    The theory states explicitly that someones mental events or experiences are identical

    with certain events or processes in the brain. That is, to say that you are in a certainmental state is to say that a certain event is going on in the cerebral cortex of your brain.

    Even if you do not know what exactly the process going on in your brain is, the mental

    state and the brain state are identical. According to this theory, therefore, someone havingan experience is identical with his being in a certain brain state or undergoing a certain

    brain process.

    The main contention of the identity theorist is that there are no two things as a mentalstate or brain state but only one. They do not contend that there is a one to one co-relation

    between a brain process and a mental state, for a co-relation exists only where there are

    two things, and moreover it makes no sense something to itself.

    The identity theory states that the experience or state of consciousness and the brain state

    or brain processes are the same thing in the sense that the substantive expression used todesignate the expression or state of consciousness and the substantive expression used to

    designate the brain state or brain process have the same extension.

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    The Dictionary of Philosophy explains the identity theory of mind in the following

    manner, A materialistic theory of consciousness which identifies being in such and such

    a state of consciousness with being in some corresponding neurophysiological state. Itmaintains that the modes of consciousness involved in the occurrence of thoughts,

    feelings, or wishes cannot be considered as constituting a separate class of entities or

    happenings, nor are mental and physical events merely correlated in any particular way.Materialistic or physicalistic terms in fact describe one and the same events. The identity

    claimed is empirical or contingent, not logical. Statements about mental events are

    neither synonymous with nor analyzable into statements about neurophysiologicalstates.*

    *Flew, Antony A Dictionary of Philosophy pg.150. Published by Pan Books Ltd.

    Let us see what meaning of identical is involved here. (1) When you say that thismarble is identical with that marble, you mean that the two marbles have exactly the

    same characteristics. There may not be two identical marbles in the world, but if there

    were they would have exactly the same characteristics: Identical here means exactly

    the same. Of course, if occupying the same portion of space and the same segment oftime is to count as characteristic, then it would be logically impossible for tow marbles to

    be identical, for if they were at the same place at the same time they would be one marbleand not two. When we say that two things are identical, we usually mean that they have

    exactly the same properties except for their spatio-temporal properties.

    There is another meaning of identical as well. (2) When you say that A is identical with

    B, You may mean numerical identity that they are, quite literally one and the samething. The ancients thought that the morning star and the evening star were two stars, but

    we now know that they are one the planet Venus. The morning star and the evening star

    is identical. They are one and the same object. Similarly, two explorers may be mappingunknown territory, and each one, approaching a mountain from the opposite direction,

    may give a different name to what turns out (after they have compared maps) to be the

    same mountain. The supposedly two mountains are numerically identical: they are oneand the same mountain. The identity theory of mind-body says that mental states and

    physical brain-states are numerically identical: they are literally the same thing.*

    *Hospers, John: An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis. Pg.339

    As J.J.C. Smart writes in his Sensations and Brain Process, Philosophical Review 1959,

    on page 145 writes, I quote,

    When I say that sensation is a brain process or that lightning is an electrical discharge Iam using IS in the same strict identity (just as in the in this case necessary

    proposition 7 is identical with the smallest prime number greater than 5.) When I say

    that a sensation is a brain process or that lightning is an electric discharge I do not meanjust that sensation is somehow spatially or temporally continuous with the or that the

    lightning is spatially or temporally continuous with the electric discharge.*

    *It should be noted however, that lightning and electric discharge is not strictlyidentical: Lightning is only one kind of electric discharge.

    The relevant identity is not one of meaning but a factual one. A statement reporting that I

    am having an experience is not being said to have the same meaning or the logical

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    grammar as one reporting that I am in a certain brain state or undergoing a certain brain

    process. But insofar as each statement refers to something, a brain state or a brain

    process.

    Chapter III

    A Critical Assessment of The Various Theories.

    What I propose to do in this chapter is offer a few relevant criticisms against the varioustheories mentioned in the previous chapter. My main contention would be that there are

    such things as mental events as opposed to physical as I had pointed out with the help of

    the argument offered by John Hospers, in the Introductory Chapter. But since the

    Interactionists theory faces some difficulties through our philosophical tradition, let ussee if we can meet the difficulties after examining them in a simple way.

    The traditional problem that Interactionism faced, without the exclusion of even

    Descartes himself who is responsible for its prominence in Modern Philosophy, could bebest understood in the words of one of his most penetrating critics. In a letter dated May

    1643, Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia wrote: I beg of you to tell me how the human soul can determine the movement of the body

    being as it merely a conscious substance, for the determination of the movement seems

    always propelled to depend on the kind of impulse it gets from what sets it in motion or

    again on the nature of this later things surface. Now the first two things involve contact,and the third involves that the impelling thing has extension, but you utterly exclude

    extension from your notion of the soul and contact seems to me incompatible with a thing

    being immaterial. **Descartes: Philosophical Writings: Translated and edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and P.T.

    Geech, Nelson,1954.

    The whole point expressed here is on how these entities which are so totally opposed in

    their characteristic features interact. From the outset Descartes has maintained that the

    interaction occurs in the pineal gland but the verification of such a speculation is quiteimpossible because according to his own theory it cannot be located in space and the

    pineal gland happens to be extended in space. As Sir A. J. Ayer points out in his An

    Honest Ghost.

    The reason he had the problem the reason why we have it still is that matter and

    mind were conceived by him right from the outset as distinct orders of being; it is as if

    there were two separate worlds such that every event had to belong to one or the other ofthem, but no event could belong to both. But from these premises it follows necessarily

    that there can be no bridge or junction; for what would the bridge consist of? Any event

    that you discover would have to fall on one or the other side of it. So, if there is difficultyhere, it is not because our logic is defective. Perhaps the whole manner of conceiving the

    distinction between the mind and matter is at fault. In short our problem is not scientific

    but philosophical. *

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    *A. J. Ayer: But this is to Misconceive the Problem. in Body, Mind and Death. Edited

    by Flew, Antony, 1964.

    Scientifically much of the difficulty arises from a narrow concept of causality. If weassume that C cannot cause E without C acting on it, we will be in difficulty. But there

    are many cases where action occurs at a distance in spite of not being physical things.

    The action of gravitation, magnetism, cosmic rays etc. fall into such categories wherethere seems to be action at a distance or causality without one body acting upon

    another. Though we know that the first causes the second, we cannot point to any kind of

    contact between the physical and the mental, unless, of course, we invent some kind ofhypothesis where even if C and E are spatially separate, there is a continuous series of

    contiguous events that can be traced between them.

    Gilbert Ryle in his The Concept of Mind rejects Cartesian metaphysics, particularly itsdualism of mind and matter as a category mistake which created false issues and

    philosophical perplexities for example by confusing the logic of discourse pertaining to

    minds with the logic of discourse pertaining to bodies. In referring to the human mind

    according to Ryle, we should only talk about it as a term involving a persons abilities,liabilities, and inclinations to do and undergo certain sorts of things, and of the doing and

    undergoing of these things in the ordinary world. In short, his analysis of mind turns outto be the behaviourists assertion that it is merely a function of bodily activities. Gilbert

    Ryle thus exposed Cartesian dualism as a myth and a mere dogma of the ghost in the

    machine and held that it is improper to ask any question about the relations between the

    person and his mind or the persons body and his mind. Their claim is that all our talkabout mental states and processes can be reformulated in such a way as to eliminate any

    reference to an inner life. What would remain would be a set of dispositional statements

    about peoples overt behaviour. Though this notion offers some relief from having toexplain dualistic theory, it denies the very existence of minds. However commonsensical

    our approach be reduced to, the proposition that there is no mind is quite hard to digest

    (imagine a world inhabited by mindless beings).

    Even though dualism has its advantages over materialism by way of accepting the

    existence of mental events that are distinct from physical events, the concept of mind asunextended and spaceless and of some kind of a totally different entity neither visible to

    the eye nor tangible to the touch brings out the problem of individuation and

    identification.

    The problem of identification concerns ones knowledge of other minds. If, according to

    the dualists account, no observation could render the possibility of locating the mind,

    how do we account for their existence? Regarding ones own self there is some kind ofprivileged access. But with regard to other minds the dualistic analysis has no solution.

    The problem of individuation concerns what makes tow minds distinct, assuming thereare different minds. One answer might be the possession of different mental histories,

    that is two different sets of mental events. But, due to being brought up in the same way,

    we can suppose two distinct minds to have the same mental history, and with regard to

    such a case the dualist does not have a plausible answer. Having seen some of the

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    difficulties regarding the dualistic concept of Interactionism, let us pass on to assess the

    other dualistic theory namely Parallelism

    Parallelism is the theory that the mental and physical are two distinct entities and occur inparallel areas. This view does not allow for any kind of interaction between the physical

    and the mental but allows for interaction among entities of the same kind. They would

    say that bodily events can cause other bodily events, and mental events, other mentalevents. But, according to this school of thought no physical events can be the cause for

    mental events or vice versa, for they are of the view that can be no causal connection

    between entities that differ so radically in type.

    If according to the parallelists, corresponding to the series of physical events a series of

    mental events also occurs, we can say that there is a one to one correlation between them.

    That is if P-1, P-2, P-3 and so on are a set of physical events occurring as a series M-1,M-2, M-3 and so on would be the corresponding set of mental events occurring parallel

    to the physical events in a series. The relation between these physical events and mental

    events is invariable, that is if a certain brain event state B-12 were to occur a second time

    a mental state M-12 would occur. But again that such an outright repetition would occuris questionable because memory traces in the brain would make this second brain state

    different, in addition to the memory the consciousness of the previous occurrence of thesame kind of event would make the second mental state different.

    Let us assume that P-25 is the event of the legs moving or more precisely an event in

    the process and M-15 is the act of will (to move the legs) or ones volition which is a

    mental act. Corresponding to M-15 would be P-15, the brain event which in the causalchain of events initiates P-25. Without P-15, it is clear that P-25 would not have occurred.

    But P-25 would not have occurred if the corresponding brain state P-15 of the mental

    state M-15 had not occurred. So M-15 is essential to the process: P-25 would no morehave occurred without M-15 than it would have occurred without P-15. In other words

    M-15 is just as a necessary condition (and part of the sufficient condition) of P-25 as P-15

    is.

    If M-15 always occurs before P-25, and is a necessary condition for the occurrence of P-

    25, there is an implicit admittance by the parallelists that M-15 is as much a cause as P-15is for the occurrence of P-25. The only difference between the interactionists and the

    parallelists seems to be in the language they choose to use. The parallelists simply refuse

    to use the word cause because of their narrow concept of causality as necessarily

    involving action of one physical entity upon another and since it cannot be applied inthe physical-mental case.

    But we have already seen that there are many events and processes, like the action of

    gravitation magnetism cosmic rays etc. where causality can be traced without onebody acting upon another. And moreover, since the kind of relation that holds between

    the mental and physical would be called causal in any other context, there appears to be

    no good reason for refusing to call it so here.Among the various traditional theories I had mentioned in the previous chapter,

    Epiphenomenalism also falls into the dualistic category along with Interactionism and

    parallelism. But curiously enough Epiphenomenalism allows for only one way

    interaction.

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    The Epiphenomenalists accept only one-way causality. Their contention is that the

    bodily events but never the other way round. For them, whatever happens in the mind ismerely a by product of bodily activities. The mind and its events are merely effects of

    physical changes and never the causes of physical changes. Mind, according to them can

    be compared to a shadow which changes with the movement of the object whose shadowit is, though the movement of the shadow is no way responsible for the movement of the

    object. The example, no doubt, is quite strong, but whether it is appropriate, in relation to

    the problem, is questionable.

    As Jerome Shaffer says in his Philosophy of Mind, If it is only an illusion that mental

    events have effects, then human affairs must be conceived quite differently from the way

    they are ordinarily conceived. Historians like to attribute events to human emotions,decisions, thoughts and sensations. All that would be in error on this theory. And our

    ordinary, every day explanations of human behaviour in these terms would also be in

    error.*

    *Shaffer, Jerome, Philosophy of Mind pg.69. Published by Prentice Hall of India,1968.

    According to the Epiphenomenalist, the greatest works of art, architecture, and literary

    contributions amount to having been created without the aid of any mental faculties. The

    Epiphenomenalists position amounts to disregarding the achievements made by so many

    great minds which have been responsible for changing the whole course of the world, somuch that the whole of human history would have developed in just the way that it did

    even if there had never been a single thought, feeling, sensation, decision, or other mental

    event. Everything would have gone on just the same, even if everyone had always beencompletely unconscious for according to that theory mental events have no

    consequences and produce no effects.

    If we were to accept Epiphenomenalism as true, we would have to do away with such

    phrases as The pain made him scream or He screamed from the pain, because they

    are clear examples of mental events being the cause for physical events. Such phrases sayclearly and explicitly that feelings cause behaviour. Since we cannot do away with our

    ordinary expressions of language, we might as well reject Epiphenomenalism as false.

    Having seen some of the difficulties regarding the dualistic theories of Interactionism;Parallelism and Epiphenomenalism, we shall pass on to critically assess the materialistic

    theories offered by the Behaviourists and Identity theorists. In my final chapter I intend to

    expound in detail what I regard as a plausible solution to the problem of the Mind-Bodyrelationship.

    Behaviourism

    Behaviourism is the doctrine that talk of inner states is simply an abbreviated and

    perhaps misleading way of talking of dispositions to behave in certain ways. According

    to Gilbert Ryle, there is a necessary connection between the truth of a report of a certain

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    raw feeling and a disposition to behave in such and such a manner. Such a doctrine

    manages to discard ghosts in machines, the Cartesian picture of people and also prevent

    the skeptic about other minds from raising such questions as whether the person writhingon the floor have feelings of the sort which the skeptic himself would have when he

    writhes. In the logical behaviourists view, such reports are to be taken not to refer to

    nonphysical entities or any entity at all but just dispositions to behave.

    This doctrine has been attacked on the ground that we would need to first of all have and

    subsequently provide a long list of possible physical movements and noises in order tofill in a description of the necessary dispositions to behave. And the necessity expressed

    in this area is not a matter of meaning. It is simply an expression of the fact that we

    customarily explain certain behaviour by reference to certain inner states so that the

    necessity is no more linguistic or conceptual than that which connects the realness ofthe stove to the fire within. Finally, the version is attacked as the sort of philosophical

    paradox which only occurs to a mind obsessed with the verificationist dogma, - eager to

    reduce all unobservables to observables in order to avoid any risk of believing in

    something unreal.

    The central thesis of Ryles The Concept of Mind becomes so radical that it denies thevery existence of minds, insofar as their existence is understood to imply that there are

    inner states or processes or objects or events. According to him, the statement, the

    mind is its own place as theorists might construct it, is not true, for the mind is not even

    a metaphorical place. On the contrary, the chessboard, the platform, the scholars desk,the judges bench, the lorry drivers seat, the studio and the football field are among its

    places. These are where people work and play stupidly or intelligently. Mind is not the

    name of another person working or flocking behind an impenetrable screen; it is not thename of another place where work is done or games are played; and it is not the name of

    another tool with which work is done, or another appliance with which games are

    played**Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, pg 51.

    And again, under the heading Understanding and Misunderstanding, there is evidenceof his intention to deny the existence of mind as an inner state when he says that when we

    apply mental predicates to people, we are not making any untestable references to any

    ghostly processes in the streams of consciousness which we are banned from visiting, but

    that we are describing the ways in which these people conduct parts of theirpredominantly public behaviour.

    According to the logical behaviourists it is not proper to ask any questions about therelations that hold between a person and his mind or his body and mind. Therefore, for

    the logical behaviourist to succeed he has to show that all our talk about mental states and

    processes can be rephrased in such a way that references to any inner life is completelyeliminated from our language use. According to Ryles version what would remain would

    be a set of dispositional statements about peoples external behaviour. This kind of

    approach does offer a way of escape from philosophical perplexities. It saves us from

    having to explain dualistic theories and knowledge of other minds.

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    Ryle does take it quite a long distance as A. J. Ayer says, He has arguments to show

    that displays of intelligence, whether in speech or action, do not entail private planning,that to exercise the will is not to engage in mental acts of volition, that motives are not

    ghostly thrusts, that neither perceiving nor imagining entails the awareness of private

    objects.**A. J. Ayer, An Honest Ghost? in Ryle Modern Studies in Philosophy. Edited by

    Oscar P. Wood and George Pitcher.

    In spite of Ryles attempt to eliminate mental events, he does not succeed in doing so, for

    in many of the passages in the course of making a distinction between knowing how

    and knowing that, what would appear to be inner occurrences are permitted to remain

    just so. Ryle maintains that much of our ordinary thinking is conducted in internalmonologue or silent soliloquy, usually accompanied by an internal cinematograph show

    of visual imagery.*

    G. Ryle: The Concept of Mind pg. 27

    It recognizes a special sense of the words mental and mind in which a boy is said to

    be mental arithmetic when he says numerical symbols to himself performing hiscalculation in silent soliloquy or a person is said to be reading the mind of another

    when he describes truly what the other is saying or picturing to himself in auditory or

    visual image. Even though he claims that such mental processes cannot be taken as

    evidence for the dogma of the ghost in the machine, the very existence of such innerprocesses appear in any case to be granted for some concession.

    Behaviourism as well as other forms of reductive theories which attempt at abandoningthe aspect of the mental is bound to be a failure since The picture of human beings as

    having both an inside and an outside is so common place, so commonsensical that

    we find it hard to realize how strikingly modern it is. But to appreciate its modernity oneneed only cast about for statements of it earlier than Descartes. One does find interesting

    anticipations of it in Augustine, but not much earlier, and not much between the time of

    Augustine and that of Descartes.*Mathews, Gareth: Consciousness and Life Comments from Rorty, Richards

    Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature pg. 51. Published by Princeton University Press

    1959.

    The point is Ryle was attacking a basic institution, when he was attacking Cartesian

    dualism as a dogma of the ghost in the machine and not just the Cartesian idiosyncrasy.

    Any attempt on the part of Ryle to reduce the mental wants to physical dispositions inbehaviour is incompatible with the notion of creativity which is an innate capacity of

    human beings to respond to certain stimuli in a variety of different responses.

    Behaviourism presupposes some kind of a reduction of all of ones inner experience intoa kind of externally verifiable behavioural disposition. Since my disposition to respond to

    a specific stimulus would depend on my environment, the antecedent conditions just prior

    to the stimulus in addition to my psychological temperament, the behaviouristic claim

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    that all mental processes are nothing but certain dispositions to behave in such and such a

    manner doesnt seem to be intelligible.

    The behaviouristic position having been brought to a point of unintelligibility let us pass

    on to the most controversial of all theories that have been offered namely the Identity

    Theory. Identity theory is of the view that the mental states are identifiable with certain physical states. But it is to be noticed that though the behaviourists method of

    identification of the mental and the physical is somewhat similar to the identity theorists

    they differ in the way they are characterized or defined. The behaviourists define thestates of the body in terms of what changes they result in when certain specifiable

    conditions obtain. But the identity theorists define them in terms of the process in the

    neurophysiological structure or in other words the very cells which make up our body.

    Another respect in which identity theory differs from behaviourism is in the analysis of

    the meanings of mentalistic terms. For the behaviourists to be in a certain mental state

    means that the state of the body is in a disposition to behave in such and such a

    manner. The identity theory would however reject that as wildly impossible, and claimthat one cannot have the faintest idea of what bodily state one would be in when one

    experiences a thought; but simultaneously would claim that to have a thought is to bein such and such a brain state.

    Having seen the ways in which these two reductive materialists differ let us see what the

    logical difficulties are regarding the identity theory. The difficulty arises in apprehendinga physical phenomenon in a misleading way. Saul Kripke, in Naming and Necessity

    sums up the intuition on which the defenders of dualism usually rely, in the following

    passage.

    Someone can be in the same epistemic situation as he would be if there were heat, even

    in the absence of heat, simply by feeling the sensation of heat: and even in the presenceof heat, he can have the same evidence as he would in the absence of heat simply by

    lacking the sensation S. No such possibility exists in the case of pain or in other mental

    phenomena. To be in the same epistemic situation that would obtain if one had a pain isto have a pain; to be in the same epistemic situation that would obtain in the absence of

    pain is not to have a pain. The trouble is that the notion of an epistemic i.e. a situation

    qualitatively identical to one in which the observer had a sensation S simply is one in

    which the observer had the sensation. The same point can be made in terms of the notionof what picks out the reference of a rigid designator. (an expression which designates the

    same object in all the possible worlds in which it designates at all). In the case of the

    identity of heat with molecular motion the important consideration was that althoughheat is a rigid designator, the reference of that designator was determined by an

    accidental property of the referent, namely the property of producing in us the sensation

    S. Pain, on the other hand, is not picked out by one of its accidental properties; ratherit is picked out by the property of being pain itself, by its immediate phenomenological

    quality. Thus pain, unlike heat, is not only rigidly designated by pain but the reference

    of the designator is determined by an essential property of the referent. Thus it is not

    possible to say that although pain is necessarily identical with a certain physical state, a

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    certain phenomenon can be picked out in the same way we pick out pain without being

    correlated with the physical state. If any phenomenon is picked out in exactly the same

    way that we pick out pain, then that phenomenon is pain. **Richard Rorty: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature pp78-79, published by Princeton

    University Press 1979.

    In fact Kripkes recent contribution to logical theory (Naming and Necessity) has far

    reaching implications for other areas of philosophy. In fact his work on Identity and

    Necessity has been applied in the philosophy of mind to show that the identity theorist iswrong.

    We normally take necessary statements as being a priory true and have nothing to do with

    factual discovery. But Kripke argues for the existence of a class of statements which arenecessary and yet a posteriorirather than a priori.

    E.g. The Morning Star is identical with the Evening Star.

    That the morning star is identical with the evening star was something which was

    empirically discovered and yet the above identity statement expresses a necessary truth.

    To understand this we have to go into Kripkes notion of a rigid designator (an

    expression which designates the same object in all the possible worlds in which it

    designates at all). We also have to distinguish three types of identity statements.

    a. Identity statements which join two individuating descriptions: The first

    Postmaster General of the United States is identical with the inventor of bifocals.b. Identity statements which join two proper names: Cicero is Tully.

    c. Theoretical identifications: Heat is the motion of molecules or Pain is a certain

    brain state.

    Kripke argues that statements of type (B) and (C) are necessarily true and identity

    statements of type (A) alone are contingently true. Identity statements of type (B) and (C)are statements which join two rigid designators; Kripke argues that such identity

    statements are, if true, necessary. This needs some explanation.

    A rigid designator is, as I had pointed earlier, that which designates the same thing in allpossible worlds. In this actual world Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister of

    independent India. In some other possible world Jawaharlal could have been a school

    teacher but he cant be anyone other than Jawaharlal Nehru. Proper names like JawaharlalNehru and theoretical names like heat designate the same thing in all possible worlds

    although the description used to identify it in any one of the worlds is purely a contingent

    matter. We identify heat through the sensation of it but Martians, with a differentphysiological structure, may identify it differently; yet heat is molecular motion. Both

    heat and molecular motion are rigid designators for Kripke, for they designate the

    same object in all possible worlds. Once heat has been discovered empirically to be

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    nothing other than molecular motion, the identity statement heat is molecular motion

    becomes necessary and yet a posteriori.

    In the context of the mind-body problem, the identity theorists claim that Pain is a

    certain state of the brain or nervous system. Construed as an identity statement, the

    identity theorist argues that the above assertion of identity is only contingently true. ButKripke argues that the above identity statement, if true, is necessarily true, for in

    Kripkes understanding, the above identity statement conjoins two rigid designators, and

    hence if true is necessarily true. But the identity theorist himself is not willing to grantthis and the identity theorist says that the identity is only contingently true. Hence Kripke

    contends that the identity statement is not true at all.

    Chapter IV

    The Person Theory

    The Person Theory is a modified version of the double aspect account. The historicalancestor of the person theorist is Spinoza, who held that the mental and the physical are

    both of them simply aspects of something which in itself is neither purely mental norpurely physical. The analogy that has been proposed for the double aspect account is of

    an undulating line which at a given moment may be concave from one point and convex

    from another. In this, my final chapter, what I propose to do is to examine in simple detail

    the theory offered by P.F. Strawson, which I feel is a diligent view; and can beconsidered as a plausible solution to the Mind-Body Problem. The manner in which

    Strawsons conception differs from that of Spinoza is that, for Strawson only a person

    can have physical and mental attributes whereas Spinoza held that the whole Universehad them.

    Normally, we would say, only of a person that he is six feet tall, weighs a hundredpounds and moves at the rate of three miles per hour, which are all physical attributes and

    simultaneously that he thinks about the paper he is writing, feels anxious and wishes that

    it were already over etc: which are all mental attributes. The attributions made here areneither to the mind and body nor to just a body. The attributions are clearly made to a

    person. Strawson argues that the person is the underlying entity which has mental

    predicates in addition to physical predicates. Thus when we say that the person has a

    mind and body, all we mean is that both mental and physical attributes can be applied tohim.

    Let us see why Strawson rejects materialism, and contends that mental states must beattributed to a person rather than to a body. If we consider, for example, that a particular

    subject has a headache, according to the materialists the subject of consciousness is

    always a body. Strawson argues that this notion of attributing a state of consciousness toa subject cannot be analysed as the notion of attributing a state of consciousness to a

    body. According to the Epiphenomenalist, Subject A has a headache is synonymous

    with body A is producing a headache. Since only subject As headaches can be

    produced by body A, to say that All Subject As headaches are produced by body A is

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    to say that All the headaches produced by body A is produced by body A. This is an

    utter tautology about which controversy is impossible. So epiphenomenalism cannot be

    true. The argument directed by Strawson against the materialists is on similar lines sincethe materialists contention is that Subject A has a headache means Body A has a

    headache.

    Strawsons point is that in order for the Materialists and Epiphenomenalists to formulate

    their claim, they need the concept of a mental state which is the attribute of a person and

    a not a material body. The Epiphenomenalists and the Materialists inevitably have tosingle out mental states to show that they are dependent on some particular body. Since

    the notion of the subject of states of consciousness is different from their notion of

    material body they are not able to successfully reduce all mental states to physical states.

    According to Strawson, the concept of a person is to be understood as the concept of a

    type of entity such that both predicates ascribing states of consciousness and states

    ascribing corporal characteristics, physical situation etc; are equally applicable to an

    individual entity of that type.**P.F. Strawson: Persons in Essays in Philosophical Psychology Edited by Donald F.

    Gustafson, Macmillan 1967.

    The Person Theory establishes the logical distinctness of subjects of consciousness and

    bodies. It clearly points out that the expressions referring to the one cannot mean the

    same as the expressions referring to the other. They are not synonymous and cannot beanalysed in terms of the other. The way in which the person theory expresses a form of

    identity is in its claim that even though the expression Subject of consciousness does

    not mean a body of a certain sort, it might turn out that whatever is subject ofconsciousness is identical with a body of a certain sort. The Person theory, allowing for

    the application of physical and mental predicates, does not claim that they inhere in

    separate realms like the dualists do. Strawson does not accept the view that the subject ofconsciousness is an immaterial, non-physical thing, to which only consciousness and its

    states can be applied. His argument is that for someone to have the concept of a subject of

    consciousness is to allow that there could be other subjects than himself. Therefore, inorder to distinguish one subject from another, it is essential that the other subjects of

    consciousness are not wholly immaterial or non-physical. For, according to the

    Cartesians, the subject of consciousness, being immaterial cannot be identified; the

    theory is without any meaning. Moreover, if there was no way of distinguishing onesubject from another, we would not have the concept of other subjects. In that case, one

    would not have had the concept of a subject of consciousness at all. Since we do have

    such a concept and since it is neither a material body nor an immaterial thing, we have areason to accept persons as the subjects of consciousness.

    Person Theory is the most plausible explanation so far since the mental and the physicalcan be applied in this context appropriately. The very concept of the mental physical

    structure is derived only from the existence of persons. All problems regarding the mental

    and the physical attributes arise only out of linguistic confusion.

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    The concept of a person is logically prior to that of an individual consciousness. The

    concept of a person is not to be analysed as that if an animated or of an embodied anima.

    This is not to say that the concept of a pure individual consciousness might not have alogically secondary existence, if one thinks or finds it desirable. We speak of a dead

    person a body and in the same way we might at least think of a disembodied person,

    retaining the logical benefit of individuality from having been a person.**P.F. Strawson: Persons in Essays on Philosophical Psychology pg.390, Edited by

    Donald F. Gustafson. Macmillan 1967.

    Bibliography

    1. A.J. Ayer - An Honest Ghost

    2. Antony Flew - A Dictionary of Philosophy

    - Body, Mind and Death

    3. Donald F. Gustafson - Essays in Philosophical Psychology

    4. Gilbert Ryle - The Concept of Mind

    5. P.T. Geach and - Ryle

    G.E.M. Anscombe

    6. Jerome A. Shaffer - Philosophy of Mind

    7. John Hospers - An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis

    8. John Wisdom - Problems of Mind and Matter

    9. Richard Rorty - Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature

    10. Saul Kripke - Naming and Necessity