Minds, bodies and people

Abstract

A perennial issue in the philosophy of mind has been the so-called mind–body problem : the problem of how the mind is related to the body. However, as I indicated in the previous chapter, this way of putting the problem is contentious, since it suggests that ‘the mind’ is some sort of thing which is somehow related to the body or some part of the body, such as the brain. We are invited to consider, thus, whether the mind is identical with the brain, say, or merely causally related to it. Neither proposal seems very attractive – the reason being, I suggest, that there is really no such thing as ‘the mind’. Rather, there are minded beings – subjects of experience – which feel, perceive, think and perform intentional actions. Such beings include human persons, such as ourselves, who have bodies possessing various physical characteristics, such as height, weight and shape. The mind–body problem, properly understood, is the problem of how subjects of experience are related to their physical bodies. Several possibilities suggest themselves. In describing them, I shall restrict myself to the case of human persons , while recognising that the class of subjects of experience may be wider than this (because, for instance, it may include certain non-human animals). One possibility is that a person just is – that is, is identical with – his or her body, or some distinguished part of it, such as its brain.