MIND AND SCIENCE

The Philosophy of Mind and Science

The Philosophy of Mind and Science

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to enlighten and explore the concept of dualism in a holistic manner. While comparing dualism with functionalism and behaviorism, it has been realized that dualism consider the best account of the mind. According to diverse sources, there is a strong relation between dualism and science that correlates it with the human minds. Dualism is the idea that the mind (soul) is a separate, ontologically different, substance to a body. Two types of dualism exist, substance dualism and property dualism. The substance dualist will state that the body and mind have radically different essential natures, while property dualist says although there is only one type of substance in the world; it possesses two different types of property, physical and mental.

Arguably the main founder of this theory, Descartes, tries to defend and prove this view using a number of processes. Using Leibniz's law ( the law that states if X has all the attributes of Y then there is no way to distinguish between them, equally if X has different attributes then it cannot possibly be the same as Y ) Descartes puts the argument of doubt to prove the separation of mind and body. Descartes stated that although you can doubt the existence of your body, you cannot possibly doubt the existence of your mind (as there must be something doing the doubting) therefore according to Leibniz's law, it is not possible for the mind and body to be the same.

Relationship between Dualism and Science

Overall the arguments that support Dualism seem to be flawed at best, with Descartes first attempts to mix up the epistemological and ontological. Later attempts such as doubt and indivisibility, mental states and free will, seem to have valid counters now that modern thinkers know much more about the brain, and the entire argument for Dualism seems to rely too heavily on Leibniz's Law, which seems grounded in the mathematical world and many of factors should be taken into account when using it in real world problems (Price, 2008). However saying this, believers in free will theories in philosophy seem to have ground to separate mind and body, although many questions can be asked if the human being possesses free will to begin with, and if not, then it must be said believers of Dualism must find further arguments if the claim can find any credibility.

On the other hand, Monistic philosophy explains that the human body and mind are not two different matters. The Behaviorists, Hobbs, Hegel, and Aristotle were philosophers who believed in this phenomenon and jointly regarded as the materialists. They hypothesized that the human mind is a physical role and nothing else. Human mind in general believed as a matter other than a physical matter. Schopenhauer, Leibniz, and Berkeley recognized as the idealists as they were monists who believed in different philosophy (Morris, 2010).

They hypothesized that the human body was merely an emotional ...