Neither Brain nor Ghost: A Non-dualist Alternative to the Mind-Brain Identity Theory (review)

Abstract

Rockwell argues in this broad-ranging text that mind ought not to be identified with the brain. More generally, Rockwell argues for the rejection of “Cartesian materialism,” his term for any attempt to identify mind with any particular part of the “brain-body-world nexus.” It is the partitioning of that nexus that is problematic. Rockwell argues first that, given the inseparability of brain and body processes, mind is not confined to “neurons in the skull” but is pervasively present throughout the body; he then argues that mind cannot be bounded by the skin, either, given the organically necessary interactivity of “inner” processes with “outer.” Mind is thus only to be identified with the entire brain-body-world nexus. One problem with the thesis is that the key concept, mind, remains unexplicated. Given this, it is impossible to give an unqualified yea or nay to Rockwell’s thesis. It is plausible, indeed, necessarily true, that when “mind” is understood in precisely the way required by his thesis, it is exactly as Rockwell describes it to be. A different conceptualization of mind—say, as a certain set of capabilities of an organism—would lead to a different conclusion, and we are given no compelling and independent reasons for taking the concept of mind in Rockwell’s chosen holistic sense. Rockwell rejects pan-psychism; it is only that portion of nature in close interaction with the organism, its “world,” that participates in constituting its mind. However, since any narrowly described portion of nature is itself in intimate interaction with larger portions, it would seem by parity of reasoning that we can