MIND-BODY: WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

The mind-body problem has been under discussion for more than 2000 years, and it is still a live issue. One might even go further and say that with the advent of the neurosciences it has become a more hotly debated issue than ever. This is explained by a simple fact. Although the mind-body problem is fundamentally a philosophical one, the progress made in solving it is to a large extent dependent on the progress of neuroscientific knowledge. The philosophical debate is essentially about how to interpret the facts in the light of undisputed or at least widely accepted criteria of rationality and coherence. But these facts are primarily provided by the neurosciences. As new facts come to light, interpretations must be reconsidered. Several of the models of the mind under discussion today can be found as early as in the dialogue Phaedo, in which Plato defends a substantialist conception of the mind against a number of “materialist” conceptions that leave no room for immortality and knowledge of eternal forms. But only the remarkable progress, since its beginnings in the eighteenth century, of empirical investigations into the working of the mind and its substrate, the brain, has provided the resources necessary for a realistic assessment of these models and for leaving behind speculation and wishful thinking. Of course, the converse is also true.