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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 December 2022
There are two natural ways of answering the query “Where is the mind?” The first, is “In the head”; the second is “Not in the head, but somewhere else.” A third, more recently mooted answer is “Both in the head and somewhere else.” This chapter will trace attempts of contemporary philosophy of mind to answer this question before suggesting that it ought to be rejected. In so doing, I will challenge the endeavor to find a place for the mental in a physical world.
In the Head: The Skull
What do we mean when we say that the mind is in the head? Might we be thinking of a human face, perhaps skinless, with muscles, eyes, nose, mouth, and teeth exposed? We may imagine the cavities of the cheek, the bones of the jaw, and the eyes staring out of their sockets. If this is the sense of “in the head” we have in mind, then it ought to make perfect sense to continue with the question “Where in the head is the mind?”
Although I could indicate a place where a person, described thus, would feel the discomfort of a head cold or a headache, it is not obvious where to point when it comes to the kinds of things philosophers associate with the mind. Besides thoughts, which we do naturally associate with the head, there are also emotions, sensations, feelings, imaginings, dreams, longings, hopes, fears, intentions, and so on, some of which we do and many of which we do not.
Emotions, sensations, feelings, thoughts, intentions, and so on belong to the domain of the mental. Indeed, philosophers rarely focus on the mind, agreeing that it is not a thing or an object, preferring instead to talk, as I have just done, about mental phenomena. In so doing, many suppose they are referring to mental properties, states, events, and processes.
This move away from objects toward properties is only momentarily comforting, however, in enabling us to avoid the threat of the immaterial, for the move to posit mental properties, occurrences, and states simply re-invites our original question. For what instantiates these properties? In what medium do we find these states and processes?
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