Body and Mind

158 Pages·1970·11.008 MB·English

by  Keith Campbell (auth.)

Problems of Philosophy
General Editor: D. J. o'CONNOR
Each volume in this series provides a short introductory study of one
of the main problems of philosophy. An account is given of the ways
in which the given problem has been seen in the history ofp hilosophy,
and of the principal solutions which philosophers have advanced.
An important feature of the series is that in each studythe language
and the treatment are as simple as is compatible with a serious
presentation of the philosophical difficulties. A full bibliography is
included.
Published
TRUTH Alan R. White
BODY AND MIND Keith Campbell
MEMORY Don Locke
In Preparation
PERCEPTION G. N. A. Vesey
HuMAN AcTION G. Langford
FREE WILL D. J. O'Connor
SUBSTANCE AND PROPERTY A. P. Cavendish
UNIVERSALS H. Staniland
EXPLANATION C. B. Wright
THE A PRIORI R. W. Ashby
KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF R. J. Ackermann
CAUSALITY A. Musgrave
Keith Campbell was born into an academic family in
Wellington, New Zealand, in 1938. He studied at the Vic
toria University of Wellington and at Oxford in the early
1960s and became a lecturer and then senior lecturer in
the University of Melbourne (1963-65). Since 1966 he
has been Senior Lecturer in Philosophy in the University of
Sydney. He has contributed to Mind, Analysis, American
Philosophical Quarterly, Australasian Journal of Philoso
phy, Politics, and to two collections of essays, The Business
of Reason and Contemporary Philosophy in Australia. He
is married and has three children.
BODY AND MIND
Keith Campbell
MACMILLAN EDUCATION
ISBN 978-1-349-00680-9 ISBN 978-1-349-00678-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-00678-6
©Keith Campbel11970
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1999 978-0-333-10043-1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, without permission.
First published in the United States 1970
First published in Great Britain 1971
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in New York Tor.onto
Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras
SBN 333 10043 3
Contents
1. THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM AND ITS
PLACE IN PHILOSOPHY 1
(i) What the Problem Is 1
(ii) Assumptions Involved in the Mind-Body
Problem 4
(iii) The Importance of the Mind-Body
Problem 9
2. HOW THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM ARISES 14
(i) Four Incompatible Propositions 14
(ii) The Initial Plausibility of All Four
Propositions 25
3. DUALISMS 41
(i) Philosophical Objections to Spirit 41
(ii) Scientific Objections to Spirit 48
(iii) Interactionist Dualism 50
(iv) Parallelism 55
4. THE BEHAVIORIST SOLUTION 59
(i) The Behaviorist Doctrine of Mental
States 59
vi Body and Mind
(ii) The Mind-Body Problem and the
Problem of Other Minds 63
(iii) Behaviorism and Mental Causes 65
(iv) Mental Episodes 71
(v) The Strength of Behaviorism 74
S. CENTRAL-STATE MATERIALISM 77
(i) The Causal Theory of the Mind 77
(ii) The Significance of Mental Terms 82
(iii) Central-State Materialism 86
(iv) The Causal Theory of Mind Examined 97
(v) The Causal Theory of Mind Amended 104
6. A NEW EPIPHENOMENALISM 110
(i) The Old and New Epiphenomenalisms 112
(ii) Double Aspect 113
(iii) The New Epiphenomenalism and the
Mind-Body Problem 116
(iv.) The Problem of Other Minds 118
(v) The Problems of Evolution and
Embryonic Development 121
(vi) The Current State of the Mind-Body
Problem 124
BIBLIOGRAPHY 126
INDEX 147
BODY AND MIND
Chapter 1
THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM
AND ITS PLACE IN PHILOSOPHY
(i) What tbe Problem Is
The problem with which this book deals, the Mind
Body problem, can be posed most briefly in a single
question: What is the relation, in a man, between his
mind and his body?
The problem is really more general, of course, for if
animals other than men, or bodily creatures on other
planets, have minds too, then there will be a problem
about the relation of their minds to their bodies. I dare
say we can generalize whatever conclusion we reach
about ourselves to cover animals rather like us, and with
luck it might even extend to extraterrestrial beings. In
any event men, being concerned most with themselves,
have concentrated chiefly on their own case; we will
follow this tradition and postpone the wider problem.
So the Mind-Body problem will be for us the problem
of determining in what relation a human mind stands to
a human body. It is clear that to get a firm grasp of even
the problem, let alone its solution, we must also settle
two further questions:
What is a human body?
What is a human mind?
The three questions are thoroughly intermingled-a
situation quite common in philosophy. Views of what
2 Body and Mind
body and mind are help determine answers to the Mind
Body problem, and the troubles involved in some an
swers to the Mind-Body problem can in tum discredit
some opinions about body and mind. Because the
questions are so interconnected, when we tackle the
Mind-Body problem we must at the same time also
work toward answering the questions about mind and
body. The Mind-Body problem is three problems rolled
into one.
As a first step, we must get clear what we are think
ing about in using the terms "body" and "mind".
"Body": Provided you know who you are, it is easy to
say what your body is: it is what the undertakers bury
when they bury you. It is your head, trunk, and limbs.
It is the collection of cells consisting of your skin and
all the cells inside it. It is the assemblage of flesh, bones,
and organs which the anatomist anatomizes. It is the
mass of matter whose weight is your weight.
"Mind": What are we talking about when we talk
about a man's mind? In philosophy, we need to use
words in ways which beg the fewest questions, so a
suitably non-committal explanation of the meaning of
"mind" begins:
The mind is what differentiates a man from other less
interesting objects in the world-plants, rocks, and
masses of gas, for example. These other things have
no mind. Men are different; "mind" names the differ
ence. But we must be more specific than that. For many
features distinguish a man from a rock, a tree, a wax
dummy, or a corpse. And most of these differences con-