MIND-BODY AND PHYSIOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING

Mind-Body and Physiological Functioning

Mind-Body and Physiological Functioning

Introduction

In the early seventeenth century, the work of Galileo and Descartes lay the foundations of modern science and philosophy. First, the new science of Galileo required the use of an experimental research method to the explanation of physical phenomena on the other, the new philosophy of Descartes aims to lay the foundations for rational thinking autonomous religious ideas, capable of certainties discovering itself. Regarding the problem under consideration, the philosophy of Descartes is the dissolution of the former approach the problem as a problem of the relation between soul and body in a teleological cosmos and the emergence of a new approach to the problem as a problem of the relationship between mind and body in a mechanistic cosmos. This paper discusses how the mind-body problem impacts physiological functioning and health.

Mind-Body and Physiological Functioning: A Discussion

The new science of Galileo has resulted in a new conception of nature that displaces the old teleological conception of the Cosmos and replaced by a mechanistic, in which the question of ends is totally neglected. The Cosmos is conceived as a mechanism of power in which bodies influence each other according to purely mechanical laws. It is mathematically possible to know the laws that produce natural phenomena, without considering the question of the ultimate purpose of such phenomena. The teleological conception required to develop general theories that explain the entire universe. The mechanistic conception is limited to particular theories develop a limited set of phenomena (Block, 2005).

Within this mechanistic conception of the Cosmos, Descartes eliminates the classic notion of the soul as principle of life and movement, establishing a radical distinction between soul and body. The soul is pure thought, but no extension. The bodies are extended and are governed by purely mechanical causes but are completely incapable of thinking. Soul and body are two entirely different substances in nature and are separated. There is already a vegetative or sensitive soul to enable and regulate the functions of living beings and directed toward a purpose (Block, 2005), but are pure mechanisms whose operation can be explained by mechanical laws. The soul is something totally different: a thinking mind that is not governed by mechanical laws but by logical laws that are imprinted in the mind at the time of birth. The substantial dualism of Descartes has important consequences:

1) It allows a mechanistic explanation of the cosmos, completely independent of religion. The mechanical regularity of natural phenomena makes possible scientific knowledge.

2) He claims total freedom of human thought, since being the mind an entirely different substance from the body, not subject to mechanical laws (Crane, 2003).

3) It made possible the self-study of the human mind, and that mental phenomena could not be explained as physical phenomena and introspection is the only possible access to the contents of consciousness.

But the radical separation between mind and body that made possible the new science introduced a difficult problem: If soul and body are two entirely different substances, how the affections ...