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Philosophy

 

            
             In the following paragraphs, I will attempt to explain what the mind - body problem entails the questions it presents and the philosopher's responses to these questions. I agree that humans live in two worlds: That of the physical /body and that of the more private world of the mind.
             The mind-body problem can be traced back at least as far as Plato. Plato was the first dualist, that is to say he believed that the mental and physical states were quite different in kind. He did not believe the mental to be identical with the physical. Plato believed the soul to be distinct from the body and capable of maintaining its own existence from it.
             Dualism is a philosophical position that can be exemplified by: .
             1. Pre Socratics' appearance/reality distinction.
             2. Plato's forms/ world distinction.
             3. Hume's fact/Value distinction.
             4. Kant's empirical phenomena/ transcendental noumena distinction.
             5. Heideggar's being/ time distinction.
             6. Russell's existence /subsistence distinction.
             7. Descartes mind/matter distinction.
             Dualism has been the catalyst of the mind-body problem as well as the majority view until recently. In advocating this view of distinction between mind and body, dualists often encounter the question; "What is it that makes it possible for two contraries (one spatially existing and the other not) to interact as our minds seem to with our brains?" Descartes answers this question by claiming the interface between the mind and the brain is the pineal gland. He says in perception physical states of the world influence our bodies, which influence our brains, which in turn influence our soul by way of the pineal gland, and vice-versa of deliberate actions. This explanation which Descartes proposes raises yet another question: "How do mind and matter interact?" This is the question that must be answered to get the solution to the classic mind-body problem, as it is one thing to claim they interact yet quite another to explain how.


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