Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Developments in neuroscience
- 2 The origins of the modern concept of “neuroscience”
- 3 On the cusp
- 4 The mind-body issue
- 5 Personal identity and the nature of the self
- 6 Religious issues and the question of moral autonomy
- 7 Toward a cognitive neurobiology of the moral virtues
- 8 From a neurophilosophy of pain to a neuroethics of pain care
- 9 Transplantation and xenotransplantation
- 10 Neurogenetics and ethics
- 11 Neuroimaging
- 12 Can we read minds?
- 13 Possibilities, limits, and implications of brain-computer interfacing technologies
- 14 Neural engineering
- 15 Neurotechnology as a public good
- 16 Globalization: pluralist concerns and contexts
- 17 The human condition and strivings to flourish
- 18 The limits of neuro-talk
- Afterword
- Index
4 - The mind-body issue
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Developments in neuroscience
- 2 The origins of the modern concept of “neuroscience”
- 3 On the cusp
- 4 The mind-body issue
- 5 Personal identity and the nature of the self
- 6 Religious issues and the question of moral autonomy
- 7 Toward a cognitive neurobiology of the moral virtues
- 8 From a neurophilosophy of pain to a neuroethics of pain care
- 9 Transplantation and xenotransplantation
- 10 Neurogenetics and ethics
- 11 Neuroimaging
- 12 Can we read minds?
- 13 Possibilities, limits, and implications of brain-computer interfacing technologies
- 14 Neural engineering
- 15 Neurotechnology as a public good
- 16 Globalization: pluralist concerns and contexts
- 17 The human condition and strivings to flourish
- 18 The limits of neuro-talk
- Afterword
- Index
Summary
MIND-BODY: WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
The mind-body problem has been under discussion for more than 2000 years, and it is still a live issue. One might even go further and say that with the advent of the neurosciences it has become a more hotly debated issue than ever. This is explained by a simple fact. Although the mind-body problem is fundamentally a philosophical one, the progress made in solving it is to a large extent dependent on the progress of neuroscientific knowledge. The philosophical debate is essentially about how to interpret the facts in the light of undisputed or at least widely accepted criteria of rationality and coherence. But these facts are primarily provided by the neurosciences. As new facts come to light, interpretations must be reconsidered. Several of the models of the mind under discussion today can be found as early as in the dialogue Phaedo, in which Plato defends a substantialist conception of the mind against a number of “materialist” conceptions that leave no room for immortality and knowledge of eternal forms. But only the remarkable progress, since its beginnings in the eighteenth century, of empirical investigations into the working of the mind and its substrate, the brain, has provided the resources necessary for a realistic assessment of these models and for leaving behind speculation and wishful thinking. Of course, the converse is also true.
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- Information
- Scientific and Philosophical Perspectives in Neuroethics , pp. 95 - 116Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010