Comment: Mental Events and the Brain

Abstract

Shaffer’s note (Paper XIII) and the preceding discussion to which it refers show very clearly the dilemma of any identity hypothesis concerning mental events and brain processes. Such hypotheses are usually put forth by physiologically inclined thinkers who want also to be empiricists. Being physiologically inclined, they want to assert the material character of mental processes. Being empiricists, they want their assertion to be a testable statement about mental processes. They try to combine the two tendencies in an empirical statement of the form: X is a mental process of kind A≡ X is a central process of kind α (H) But this hypothesis backfires. It not only implies, as it is intended to imply, that mental events have physical features; it also seems to imply (if read from the right to the left) that some physical events, viz. central processes, have non-physical features. It thereby replaces a dualism of events by a dualism of features. Moreover, this consequence seems to be the result of the way in which the physiologist has formulated his thesis. Even if he is a convinced monist he seems to be forced, by the very content of his thesis of monism, to acknowledge the correctness of a dualistic point of view.