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The Problem of the mind and body

What is the mind? Is the mind just a physical object that survives on our body, is the mind just as important as the heart, lungs or blood? Without any main organs our bodies will not survive, but without the brain our body cannot function accordingly. How can we know for certain that our surrounding people are real and have a mind of their own? Philosophy of the mind answers proposes various answers to these questions. But which answer is correct? This essay will review all of the many concepts critically, and select the most significant concept.

The concept where the mind and body are two separate things and each of us have a mind and a body are called mind/body dualist. Dualism theory argues that the mind and body are separate substances that interact with each other. In addition the mind different to the brain, as the mind processes mental thinking, compare with the brain that has nerves, and cells that interact together. Therefore thinking is done by the mind and not the brain. Because the mind is separate to the brain dualism additionally argues that the mind can continue to live even if the brain does not function. For an example the mind still exists after the body dies, which could mean our minds are perhaps our souls.

Rene Descartes is a commonly known theorist in dualism and the mind and body theory. His popular six meditations demonstrate that his thoughts illustrate his existence. In his work, The Principles of Philosophy, Descartes illustrates his theory:

'But although any one attribute is enough to give us knowledge of a substance, there is always one chief property of a substance that constitutes its nature and essence, and upon which all the other depends. Thus extension in length, breadth and depth makes up the nature of physical substance; and thought makes up the nature of thinking substance. For, everything else that may be attributed to bodies presupposes their extension, and is only a form of this extended thing: just as everything that we find in mind is only form of thinking. Thus, for example, we cannot conceive of a figure except as an extended thing, nor of movement except as taking place in an extended space; and in the same way imagination, feeling and will occur only in a thinking thing. But, on the other hand, we are able to conceive of extension without figure or action, and of thinking without imagination or sensation, and so on, as it quite clear to anyone who examines the matter carefully.' R. Descartes (2004).

There are many opposing arguments against dualism. The arguments include; the mind cannot be measured and investigated using science as all equipment and technology are material/physical substances. This point is undoubtedly true, but a common reaction to this criticism is observing our own mind through introspection, and by doing this I know my mind exist as my thoughts thinks about Descartes theory, and although I am unable to prove scientifically, I am very positive that my mind exist. Dualism does not provide all pressing answers such; how mind comes into existing, what is the nature of the mind and where does the mind originally come from? However the dualist approach to the mind and body question proves a sensible approach, and connects greatly with religious beliefs. Dualism also conflicts with the evolution theory, due to humans evolving from a simpler life form as an animal. Does this mean that animals have minds and if they do not, how did our human minds evolve?

Some dualist believe that the mind and body are separate things but do not interact with each other at all. This approach is a psychophysical parallelism concept, which illustrate that the mind and body functions in parallel, and that the interaction between the mind and body is an illusion. Another concept of how the mind and body interact is occasionalism which argues that the interaction between the mind and body is created by God. Occasionalism is highly supported by Malebranche, his concept highly involves the intervention of God.

'Malebranche claims, two great truths will become manifest, opening clear paths into the subjects of metaphysic and epistemology. In metaphysics, we will see clearly that only God can be a true cause, and that what we commonly call ‘natural’ or ‘second’ causes are mere occasions for God to act in accordance with His own self-imposed rules. In epistemology, we will find that human knowledge is only possible by means of the ‘Vision in God’, i.e. if ideas are archetypes in the Creator's mind, not merely modifications or 'modes' of our own souls.' A. Pyle (2003).

The problem with this theory is the inclusion of God, and there is no scientific proof that God even exist. All of these adapted concepts of dualism offer answers to many criticising questions but they all cannot provide scientific proof.


Epiphenomenalism is an additional approach to dualism, and argues that mental events in the body created are never physical mental events, and have no consequences to the physical world. Our thoughts are responses to sequences caused by the physical world. One problem with this epiphenomenalism is that a person physical action (lighting a match in a gas filled room) can cause physical destruction to the world (creating fire, and burning the environment).

Having reviewed dualism and the numerous criticisms to the theory, physicalism (materialism) offers a diverse approach to the mind and body. Physicalism can explain mental events physically, and also differs to dualism due to having one substance (the physical) compared with two substances that dualism states. An obvious advantage physicalism offers is that due to the mind and body being explained physically it can then be measured scientifically, which is what dualism could not offer. There are several types of physicalism, and some are more open to criticism than others.

Primarily, type-identity theory is one physicalism concept. This concept argues that mental events are identical to physical events. In further detail a though about something is a particular state of the brain, and are two ways to referring to the same thing. For an example water and H20 is the same thing but referred to in a common name and a scientific name. An advantage of the type-identity concept is that neuropsychologist could look for the relations to the physical and the brain. One critical objection to this concept is that brain states are not so apparent to us compared with thoughts, we know what are thoughts are but not the part of the brain our thought is situated. In addition, if our thoughts are located to a brain state, what happens if we are to think about two interacting thoughts? For an example a thought about my brother and a though about the local shops can interact by a thought of my brother being in a local shop. Does this mean that two state of the brain is functioning at the same time?

Token-identity theory is similar to type-identity theory as type-identity theory states that all thoughts are identical to brain states, but token-identity theory allows that thoughts of the same type need not all be brain states of the same type. Type is more general thoughts and token is a more specific thought. Individual tokens of a particular type of thought are not necessarily physical states of precisely the same type. The token-identity theory is mainly criticised as two people that are physically identical (for example identical twins) but they can be mentally completely different. It also suggest that two people that have the same brain state will have the same thoughts, which seems unrealistic, as mental states can vary.

An additional physicalism approach is behaviourism. Behaviourist denies the existence of the mind, and argues that public behaviour displayed by an individual is describing their mental experience. For an example; if an individual cut their arm and begun to cry, behaviourist believes that the individual’s mental state is pain. In addition, behaviourist argue that mental language does not refer to the mind and its events (discussing pain, hurt or joy) but it is a way of talking about behaviour. For an example Sarah desperately needs to use the toilet, can be also described as Sarah pulls her legs tightly together and frowns while she stood outside the vacant toilet. Gilbert Ryle is a highly known theorist for behaviourism, he published of The Concept of Mind attempts to get rid of what he calls ‘the ghost in the machine’.

'I shall often speak to it, with deliberate abusiveness, as ‘the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine’. I hope to prove that it is entirely false, and false not in detail but in principle. It is not merely an assemblage of particular mistakes. It is one big mistake and a mistake of a special kind. It is, namely, a category-mistake. It represents the facts of mental life as if they belonged to one logical type or category (or range of types or categories), when they actually belong to another. The dogma therefore is a philosopher’s myth.' G. Ryle. D. Dennett (2000).

Behaviourist finds that there are no problems of explaining the relationship between the mind and the body because mental experience is easily accounted for in the terms of behaviour patterns. So, rather than solving a problem, the behaviourist claim to have dissolved it completely. One great criticism to the behaviourist theory is that they fail to explain how to know if someone is truly displaying their behaviour or pretending to behave. For an example; an actor could be pretending to die, roll around in pain, and shout and scream, however, that is just pretending. Yet, the actor still publically displays the behaviour of someone being in extreme pain, and just cause we observe his behaviour means we understand he is in pain. Therefore there are no explanations of the difference between someone actually being in pain and someone who is genuinely in agony.

Another criticism of behaviourism is that it fails to include any reference to what it actually feels like to be in a particular mental state. By reducing all mental events to behavioural tendencies, behaviourism leaves qualia out. In addition, according to behaviourism, the way I learn about my own beliefs is the same way I learn about other people’s beliefs, by observation of behaviour. However, I know that it is wrong to murder another human being, or that I was born in Britain. I know these things without observing other people’s behaviour. Therefore behaviourism does not give a satisfied explanation of the difference between routes to self knowledge and finding out other people’s beliefs. Watson’s theory on behaviourism is as follows;

'Psychology as the behaviourist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behaviour. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness. The behaviourist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute.' K. W. Buckley. (1989).

Watson argues that feelings, images and visions are introspective and cannot publically be displayed. They are subjects of consciousness and cannot be measure with science. This is another significant point for behaviourist, introspective thoughts that cannot be measured through physically behaviour. Another significant critical response to behaviourism is human that are paralysed. People that are paralysed and cannot move, for an example the condition of Stephen Hawking, how can they behave in any way? Does this mean that they do not have any mental experiences? There are various parts of the behaviourist concept that does not give a significant enough explanation to the mind and the body problem.

Functionalism is a more recent developed concept to the mind and body problem compared with dualism and physicalism. It argues more closely on the functional role of mental states, reviewing the relation between inner states and the inputs and outputs. A functionalist defines any mental state in terms of its typical relations to other mental states and its effects on behaviour. For an example the thought about an apple has relations to other thoughts (looking at fruit basket) and to behaviour (entering in the kitchen hungry).

As such, functionalism benefits from some of the insights of behaviourism due to mental activities are linked with behaviour. Its main concern is to specify the relations which holds different sorts of thought and behaviour. Putnam functionalist argument is as follows;
'Thus, human beings will not be epistemically distinguishable from machines that cannot, in principle, mathematically prove that their program is consistent. Even though the mental life of a machine is metaphysically different from that of a human being, human beings could not detect the difference'. J. Buechner. (2007)

This leads us to its main criticism, which is that it does not give an adequate explanation of conscious experience and sensations. What is it like to be happy, pain or thinking about a apple. Functionalism cannot give us a complete understanding of the mind, one common theorist that criticise the concept of functionalism is Gödel. He argues; 'Human beings, if they are not machines, are not subject to them. Gödel's theorems provide a precise way of expressing the difference between human beings and computer machines. Machines cannot prove that all they can prove in elementary arithmetic is true, nor can they prove some conjectures in arithmetic, even though they can express them. If human beings are not subject to Gödel theorems, they can prove that all they prove in elementary arithmetic is true, and they can prove a machine of type M subject to Gödel’s theorems, it is easy to formulate the conjectures it cannot prove.' J. Buechner. (2007)

Consequently, if we review functionalism on the computer analogy that Gödel and Putnam, it still does not give us a significant explanation of the mind. This essay has now examined most of the major concepts that attempt to explain the problem with the mind and body. All the theories above do not provide a satisfied theory of the mind. If we look at another important issue in the philosophy of the mind it leads to the problem of other minds. As Descartes argued that because I think, therefore I exist and we can only account that our own minds and thoughts are what prove our existence? However how do we certainly know that other peoples mind exist? How do we know that other people think, feel and have a conscious mind similar to the way I have a conscious mind. For all we know other people could be robots pretending to interact with the world and others by using their mind. This is a highly significant philosopher’s question, which caused much time and attention into providing an adequate answer.

The problem of other minds has been attempted by Gilbert Ryle a theorist for behaviourism, he argues; “only through the medium of the public physical world can the mind of one person make a difference to the mind of another. The mind is its own place and in his inner life each of us lives the life of a ghostly Robinson Crusoe. People can see, hear and jolt one another bodies, but they are irremediably blind and deaf to the working of one another minds and inoperative upon them.” G. Ryle. D. Dennett (2000).

Behaviourist argues that the problems of other minds do not arise for them. To a behaviourist it is appropriate to attribute mental experience to others on the basis of their behaviour since that is what the mind is: the mind have tendencies to behave in particular ways. An argument from analogy is the obvious answer to knowing the existence of other minds. It argues that we are all members of the same species, and we have similar bodies and behaviour. For an example when people are in extreme pain they will probably shout and scream as I do if I were in extreme pain. Analogy argument claims that the similarities in the way that I am.


The argument from analogy does not provide a conclusive proof that other people have minds. Usually arguments form analogy requires a great deal of supportive evidence; however in the problem of other minds philosophical question, the argument analogy presents is that there is only a single instance. Individuals have witnessed for themselves a connection between a certain sort of body and behaviour and a type of consciousness. There are also numerous ways in which my body is different to others. Besides, arguments from analogy being inductive, can only give probable evidence for their conclusions: they can never prove anything conclusively.


Just because someone is screaming, it does not prove that they are experiencing pain they same way I would experience pain. They may not be having a painful experience at all. Therefore, there seems to be no conclusive proof that demonstrates other people’s minds and thoughts. Everyone relies on assumption which has worked so far, i.e. a doctor prescribing painkillers to a patient that expresses his pain.


This essay has concentrated on debate about dualism, physicalism (materialism) and the problems of other minds. These are central issues in the philosophy of the mind. Certainly many of the most brilliant philosophers of the twentieth century have focused their energies on questions in the philosophy of the mind. The many writings, concepts and criticism argued in this area have created a result of continued questioning what are the mind and its relation to the body. Additionally how can we be sure that other people’s minds truly exist?

Bibliography: R. Descartes (2004). The Principles Of Philosophy. Kessinger Publishing Co (17 Jun 2004)
A. Pyle (2003). Malebranche (Arguments of the Philosophers) Routledge; 1 edition (13 Feb 2003)
G. Ryle. D. Dennett (2000). The Concept of Mind (Penguin Modern Classics) Penguin Classics; New Ed edition (3 Aug 2000)
K. W. Buckley. (1989). Mechanical Man: John Broadus Watson and the Beginnings of Behaviourism. Guilford Press; 1 edition (25 Dec 1989)
J. Buechner. (2007) Gödel, Putnam, and Functionalism a New Reading of Representation and Reality. MIT Press (2 Nov 2007)

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