Mind/body Problem

Descartes regularly claims that questions concerning the possibility of causal interaction between mind and body due to their heterogeneous natures are based on a misunderstanding of how mind and body are united. To illustrate this point, Descartes draws an analogy with the scholastic notion of heaviness in an effort to clear up this misunderstanding and to dispel their concerns about mind to body causal interaction. This paper examines the heaviness analogy in some detail. The main conclusions are that Descartes maintains a holenmeric notion of mind-body union such that the whole mind is in the whole body and wholly in each one of its parts while also exercising its function primarily in the pineal gland. This, for Descartes, implies a teleological rather than a mechanistic understanding of how the mind moves the body and thereby avoids this version of the problem entirely. The paper concludes with a short discussion of what these considerations may mean for Paul Hoffman's hylomorphic understanding of Descartes' theory of mind-body union.

The neuroscientist’s voice is imperious: «your body moves according to the constants of neurophysiology and you are mistaken in believing that your will can disturb the natural order». Even the behavioural scientist’s voice is adamant: «do not believe that your will is foreign to the movements of the body because, otherwise, biological evolution would not use the lures of pain and pleasure to make your choices advantageous in preserving and perpetuating the species». I believe both the neuroscientist and the behavioural scientist are right. The will conforms to the natural order but at the same time is present in moving the body. The answer to the question of the title will be as follows: will is not an illusion at all. The fulcrum of this truth consists in the denial of an old conjecture, that is, of a substance obviously occult which is called matter.

Introduction: Chronic back pain is the leading cause of disability in the United States. Based on the hypothesis that nonspecific back pain may be rooted in a psychophysiologic etiology, we propose a new approach to chronic back pain. Objectives: A pilot study was conducted to assess whether psychophysiologic symptom relief therapy (PSRT) can reduce disability and back pain bothersomeness for patients with chronic back pain. Methods: This was a three-armed, randomized trial for adults with nonspecific chronic back pain that compared PSRT with usual care and an active comparator (mindfulness-based stress reduction [MBSR]). Psychophysiologic symptom relief therapyrandomized participants received a 12-week (36 hours) course based on the psychophysiological model of pain. All groups were administered validated questionnaires at baseline and at 4, 8, 13, and 26 weeks. The primary outcome was the reduction in pain disability measured by the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire. Results: The mean Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire score for the PSRT group (n 5 11) decreased from 9.5 (64.3 SDs) to 3.3 (65.1) after 26 weeks which was statistically significant compared with both MBSR (n 5 12) (P 5 0.04) and usual care (n 5 12) (P 5 0.03). Pain bothersomeness scores and pain-related anxiety decreased significantly over 26 weeks in PSRT compared with MBSR and usual care (data in manuscript). At 26 weeks, 63.6% of the PSRT arm reported being pain free (0/10 pain) compared with 25.0% and 16.7% in MBSR and usual care arms, respectively. Psychophysiologic symptom relief therapy attendance was 76%, and there was 100% follow-up of all groups. Conclusion: Psychophysiologic symptom relief therapy is a feasible and potentially highly beneficial treatment for patients with nonspecific back pain.

Current events in science imply that a new scientific revolution in physics is unfolding. This new revolution will be as much about mind and consciousness as it is about matter and physics. It will bring a new theory of physical reality that includes the consciousness that senses, interprets and interacts with physical reality. The new theory of consciousness will lead to explanatory models of the paranormal as well as explain how consciousness survives death. This prediction is not an optimistic 'pipe dream', but our present and future. A theory of this type has already been developed. It is based on a five-dimensional Einstein-Kaluza model of the space-time continuum. ‘Single field theory' or SOFT can easily account for paranormal phenomena and the survival of consciousness. Whatever theory finally succeeds in bridging the gap between mind and matter, indications are that it will have many of the characteristics of SOFT if it is not SOFT. Whatever the case may be, a valid theory that combines physical reality and consciousness is truly a theory to die for!

Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) is considered the founder of modern philosophy. Profoundly influenced by the new physics and astronomy of Kepler and Galileo, Descartes was a scientist and mathematician whose most long-lasting contributions in science were the invention of Cartesian coordinates, the application of algebra to geometry, and the discovery of the law of refraction, what we now call Snell’s law. His most important books on philosophy were The discourse on method(1637) and The meditations (1642). Descartes’ writings display an exemplary degree of clarity and an aversion to pedantry. I explore Descartes' break with Aristotle, but also shine a light on the intellectual continuity Descartes had with Aristotle's thought. I also draw attention to some overlooked but interesting possibilities for an experimental test of a dualistic theory of mind.

With regards to its current meaning, it can be put forward that cognitive science emerged with the invention of machines capable of computing, namely Data processing machines and computers. The great support provided to thinking based on computing and information technology understanding by especially electronic technology and rapid momentum gained thereof have revealed many problems associated with information as well. In this research it will be described what cognitive science is, what main problems related to information are and basic views about these questions. It will be claimed that these emerging problems re-raise many issues from definition of what intelligence, consciousness and cognition are to what coding, processing and transmission of information mean.

Abstract. This article examines Averroes’ interpretation, found in his Long Commentary on the De Anima, of a famous passage in Aristotle’s De An. III 5 (430a14-15) which presents the intellect “producing all things, as a kind of positive state (hexis), like light”. Averroes, clearly heir to Alexander of Aphrodisias for whom hexis refers not to the intellect “agent” itself but to its product, defends nevertheless, via the comparison with light, the conception of the agent intellect (a substance purely in act by itself) as an hexis, which leads us to the inevitable consequence that the agent intellect is the prime object of the material intellect, acting as a condition for all subsequent thoughts.

Resumo

Em meio a uma discussão sobre a localização cerebral dos fenômenos psicológicos, Freud propõe em 1891, em seu trabalho sobre as afasias, a chamada hipótese do "concomitante dependente". Segundo esta hipótese, atribuída pelo autor ao neurologista John Hughlings Jackson, os estados mentais serão considerados como distintos, não redutíveis e paralelos aos processos cerebrais, não havendo relação causal entre ambos. Entendendo que estes princípios constituem uma resposta possível ao problema mente-corpo, nosso objetivo neste artigo será situar a posição assumida por Freud no interior deste debate filosófico durante a segunda metade do século XIX. Para tal, nosso trabalho será dividido em três partes: em um primeiro momento 1) abordaremos alguns antecedentes deste debate nos dedicando ao estudo da noção de psiquismo durante as primeiras décadas do século XIX. Na sequência, considerando a emergência e a consolidação do paradigma monista e materialista a partir dos anos 1820, 2) discutiremos o surgimento de duas posições distintas, o localizacionismo e o funcionalismo. Por fim, nos aprofundando na segunda destas posições, dita funcionalista, 3) buscaremos demonstrar o vínculo da hipótese freudiana a uma determinada tradição neurológica de língua inglesa, em grande medida orientada pelos trabalhos do filósofo escocês Alexander Bain.

Paravras-chave: História da psicanálise; Problema mente-corpo; Filosofia da mente; Recepção filosófica da psicanálise.

Abstract

In the midst of a discussion on the cerebral location of psychological phenomena, Freud proposes in his work on aphasia (1891) the so-called "dependent concomitant" hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, attributed by the author to the neurologist John Hughlings Jackson, mental states will be considered as distinct, not reducible and parallel to brain processes, with no causal relationship between them. Understanding that these principles constitute a possible response to the mind-body problem, our objective in this article will be to situate the position assumed by Freud within this philosophical debate during the second half of the nineteenth century. To this end, our work will be divided into three parts: first 1) we will approach some antecedents of this debate by focusing on the study of the notion of psychism during the first decades of the nineteenth century. Next, considering the emergence and consolidation of the monist and materialist paradigm from the 1820s, 2) we will discuss the emergence of two distinct positions, localizationism and functionalism. Finally, deepening in the second of these positions, the so-called functionalist, 3) we will seek to demonstrate the link of the Freudian hypothesis to a certain neurological tradition of the English language, largely guided by the works of the Scottish philosopher Alexander Bain.

Keywords: History of psychoanalysis; Mind-body problem; Philosophy of mind; Philosophical reception of psychoanalysis.

An analysis of the physical implications of abstractness reveals the reality of three interconnected modes of existence: abstract, virtual and concrete. This triple-aspect monism clarifies the ontological status of subatomic quantum particles. It also provides a non-spooky solution to the weirdness of quantum physics and a new outlook for the mind-body problem. The ontological implications are profound for both physics and philosophy.

Here I bewail the slapdash and confusing way in which philosophers bandy about the word ‘incoherent’ (and ‘incoherence’ and ‘incoherently’).  To some it appears to mean: inconsistent; to others: pragmatically self-defeating; and to yet others: nonsensical, i.e. meaningless.  And often one is left guessing.

Focusing on the Western intellectual lineage, this essay traces the human archetypal metaphor for the universe as it shifts three times, from that of a great mind, to a great machine, to the modern-day transition toward an organismic view of the universe. We explore how the way we talk about nature can ultimately be scaled to a grounding cosmic metaphor, which itself comes to serve as the lens through which we interpret our deepest questions, - about what we are, and our place in reality. Discussed are the implications of the emerging organismic paradigm to the fundamental orientation of the self to the world, to other beings, and its place in reality.

Jelen dolgozat a pszichológiai tanácsadásba könnyen beépíthető, negatív érzelmi állapotokat módosító neuro-lingvisztikus programozás módszertanához tartozó technikát, az intrapszichés interakciót mutatja be esettanulmányokon keresztül. Az esetek bemutatását a módszer részletes ismertetése, valamint elméleti felvezetés előzi meg. Amennyiben hozzáférést biztosítunk belső erőforrásunkhoz, azzal képesek vagyunk felülírni, módosítani, viselhetőbbé tenni negatív érzelmeket, traumatikus élményeket, berögzült indulati mintákat. A módszer érdekessége, hogy a mindnyájunkban elérhető belső erőforráshoz az adott negatív érzelmen keresztül vezet az út. A technika emellett diagnosztikai eszközként is szolgál, mivel képes feltárni az érzelmi problémák mögött húzódó valós dinamikákat, elakadásokat, traumatikus élményeket. Mindezt biztonságosan teszi, mert nem elviselhetetlen tudattalan tartalmakat, hanem hozzáférhetőbb tudatos, vagy tudatelőttes tartalmakat mozgat és rendez.

This chapter examines the integrative nature of reflexive monism (RM), a psychological/philosophical model of a reflexive, self-observing universe that can accommodate both ordinary and extraordinary experiences in a natural, non-reductive way that avoids both the problems of reductive materialism and the (inverse) pitfalls of reductive idealism. To contextualize the ancient roots of the model, the chapter touches briefly on classical models of consciousness, mind and soul and how these differ in a fundamental way from how mind and consciousness are viewed in contemporary Western philosophy and psychological science.  The chapter then travels step by step from such contemporary views towards reflexive monism, and towards the end of the chapter, to more detailed comparisons with Hindu Vedanta and Samkhya philosophy and with Cosmopsychism (a recently emergent, directly relevant area of philosophy of mind). 

According to RM there never was a separation between what we normally think of as the “physical world” and what we think of as our “conscious experience”. In terms of its phenomenology, the phenomenal physical world is part-of conscious experience not apart-from it. This phenomenal world can be thought of as a biologically useful representation of what the world is like, although it is not the world as-described-by modern physics, and it is not the thing itself—supporting a form of indirect (critical) realism. The analysis then outlines  how 3D phenomenal worlds are constructed by the mind/brain, focusing specifically on perceptual projection, and then demonstrates how normal, first-person conscious experiences (e.g. of phenomenal worlds) and their associated, third-person viewable neural correlates can be understood as dual manifestations of an underlying psychophysical mind, which can, in turn, be understood as a psychophysical form of information processing. This dual-aspect monism combines ontological monism with a form of epistemological dualism in which first- and third-person perspectives on the nature of mind are complementary and mutually irreducible—a principle that turns out to have wide-ranging applications for the study and understanding of consciousness.

The chapter then considers the evolution and wider distribution of consciousness (beyond humans) through a brief analysis of the many forms of discontinuity theory versus continuity theory and argues that to avoid the “hard problem” of consciousness one may need to treat its existence  as fundamental, and, as co-evolving with the evolution of its associated material forms. This, in turn, takes one to a central issue: What does consciousness actually do? The analysis argues that its central function is to real-ize existence (to know it in a way that makes it subjectively real). With these foundations in place we then come to the heart of the essay—the ways in which reflexive monism provides a very different view of the nature of the universe to those offered either by dualism or materialist reductionism. As summarised in the last paragraph of this section, “In this vision, there is one universe (the thing-itself), with relatively differentiated parts in the form of conscious beings like ourselves, each with a unique, conscious view of the larger universe of which it is a part. In so far as we are parts of the universe that, in turn, experience the larger universe, we participate in a reflexive process whereby the universe experiences itself.”

The essay then considers the precise ways in which this reflexive monist understanding of “consciousness” and “mind” relates to later developments in Vedic philosophy and suggests a way of bridging contemporary Western and classical Vedic ways of understanding consciousness and mind.  Finally, the chapter considers what can be said of mystical experience and the ground of being, following the principle that this ground must have the power to both manifest the universe in the form that science shows it to be and our ability to experience the universe in the way that we do. In this, RM is shown to be a dual-aspect monist form of cosmopsychism—a recent area of development within philosophy of mind. The essay compares and contrasts this with idealist versions of cosmopsychism and argues that RM allows for an integrated understanding of realism versus idealism, dualism versus monism, how ordinary experience relates to mystical experience, and how consciousness relates to mind. RM also provides an ‘open’ conceptual system that can, in principle, incorporate a range of parapsychological effects.

Thomas Nagel in ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ suggests that we don’t yet have much idea of how mental entities could be identical with physical ones (though he wisely stops short of accusing physicalists of not meaning ANYTHING WHATSOEVER by their identity-claims).  Colin McGinn goes further by suggesting that we may forever remain in this state of ignorance and incomprehension because of the inherent limitations of the human intellect.  I argue that the mere possibility that McGinn is right shows that it is over-hasty to conclude from philosophy’s failure to solve its problems that there must be something wrong with the problems themselves.  I also try to relate Nagel’s and McGinn’s view to David Stove’s response to philosophy’s apparent failure to make much progress.  He seems pessimistic about whether we will ever fully understand what is wrong with some philosophical claims.

.....the double bind as constituting an entirely new, non-material, principle of evolution, major conceptual revisions may need to be made in our general understanding of evolution as contained within the “modern evolutionary synthesis”.

KEYWORDS:
behavior, communication, context, contradiction, deutero-learning, double bind, epistemology, evolution, incompleteness theorum, kinesics, learning, logical type theory, metacommunication, metamessages, metatheory, mystification, paradox, relationships, schismogenesis, schizophrenia,  scientific elegance, symmathesy, teleology, temporality, transcontextual, transdisciplinary, trauma

Chapter 2 of the book Arievitch, I. M. (2017). "Beyond the Brain: An Agentive Activity Perspective on Mind, Development, and Learning". Rotterdam/Boston: Sense Publishers.
The book outlines a fundamental alternative to the rising wave of aggressive biological reductionism and brainism in contemporary psychology and education. It offers steps to achieving a daunting and elusive goal: constructing a coherently non-reductionist account of the mind. The main obstacle to such a construction is identified as the centuries-old contemplative fallacy that leads to entrenched dualisms and shackles major theoretical frameworks. The alternative agentive activity perspective overcomes this fallacy by advancing the core principles of the cultural-historical activity theory. This innovative perspective charts a consistently non-mentalist and non-individualist view of psychological processes without discarding the individual mind. A vast body of research and theories, from Piaget and Dewey to sociocultural and embodied cognition approaches are critically engaged, with a special focus on Piotr Galperin’s contribution. The notion of the embodied agent’s object-directed activity serves as a pivotal point for re-conceptualizing the mind and its role in behavior. In a radical departure from both the traditional mentalist and biologically reductionist frameworks, psychological processes are understood as taking place “beyond the brain” – as constituted by the agent’s activities in the world.  From this standpoint, many of Vygotsky’s key insights, including semiotic mediation, internalization, and cognitive tools are given a fresh scrutiny and substantially revised. The agentive activity perspective opens ways to offer a bold vision for education: developmental teaching and learning built on the premise that real knowledge is not “information storage and retrieval” and that education is not about “knowledge transmission” but instead it is about developing students’ minds.
Publisher’s product page with Table of Contents and free preview of Chapter 1 (Introduction): https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/bold-visions-in-educational-research/beyond-the-brain/

"Il Problema XXX è il testo di riferimento della tradizione millenaria che associa l’intelligenza degli “uomini d’eccezione” e la loro creatività alla melanconia. Ma è anche uno dei primi tentativi di indagare le basi fisiologiche della mente.
Questa edizione rivela i presupposti e le implicazioni di un’opera fondamentale rendendola accessibile all’ampio pubblico dei lettori non specialisti."

Ideas about soul and body – about thinking or remembering, mind and life, brain and self – remain both diverse and controversial in our neurocentric age. The history of these ideas is significant both in its own right and to aid our understanding of the complex sources and nature of our concepts of mind, cognition, and psychology, which are all terms with puzzling, difficult histories. These topics are not the domain of specialists alone, and studies of emotion, perception, or reasoning have never been isolated theoretical endeavours. As Francis Bacon described human philosophy or ‘the knowledge of our selves’, within which he located the study of body, soul, and mind, it ‘deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly’ (1605/ 2000: 93). The history of ideas in these domains is
particularly challenging given the practical dimensions and implications of theories of mind. Because theories of human nature and debates about body and mind do ‘touch us’ so ‘nearly’,
they attract and can thus reveal, in specific historical contexts, interconnected discourses or associations which may be quite unlike our own. This chapter retains a focus, however, on the history of theories of mind: we address an array of distinctive positi
ons inmetaphysics and psychology which emerged in wider British debate, each with potential religious, moral, and political implications. We proceed by selectively surveying the conceptual inheritance and challenges for British philosophers in the early seventeenth century with regard to both the soul and the humoral temperament of body and mind. We look at some of the eclectic systems developed by British philosophers of the soul in the mid-century period, and at different ways new ideas in both medicine and metaphysics were integrated.

This paper aims to show that the thought of Aristotle can shed much light on the irksomeproblems that lurk around the philosophical foundations of neuroscience. First, we will explorethe ramifications of Aristotle’s mereological principle, namely, that it is not the eye that sees, butthe human person that sees by the eye. Next, we shall draw upon the riches of Maxwell Bennett’sand Peter Hacker’s Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (=PFN) in order to elucidate howAristotle’s mereological principle can be of service to contemporary neuroscientists, psychologists,and philosophers. In the third and fourth parts we aim to complement the project of PFN byshowing how Aristotle’s philosophical anthropology and doctrine of pros hen equivocation canstrengthen PFN’s response to eliminativists, reductionists, and other critics of “folk psychology.”Finally, our last section will investigate the kinds of correlations involved in brain scanningtechniques, such as fMRI, so as to determine whether the most recent empirical discoveries do infact support various critics’ rejection of “folk psychology.” We will show that the empiricalevidence does not in fact favor eliminativist or reductionist views, and that we would do well toturn to the more Aristotelian approaches to neuroscience adopted by PFN and ourselves.

Each well-known proposed solution to the mind-body problem encounters an impasse. These take the form of an explanatory gap, such as the one between mental and physical, or between micro-subjects and macro-subject. The dialectical pressure to bridge these gaps is generating positions in which consciousness is becoming increasingly foundational. The most recent of these, cosmopsychism, typically casts the entire cosmos as a perspectival subject whose mind grounds those of more limited subjects like ourselves. I review the dialectic from materialism and dualism through to pan(cosmo)psychism, suggesting that explanatory gaps in the latter stem from assuming foundational consciousness to be perspectival. Its renunciation may yield the notion of an aperspectival, universal, ‘non-dual’ consciousness that grounds all manifestation and is unstructured by subject, object or any differentia. Not only is such consciousness suggestive of a natural successor to cosmopsychism, it has also been reported to be the direct experience of mystics who claim to have transcended the individual perspective. Their purported insight – that our aperspectival conscious nature is identical to the ground of all being – has been termed ‘the Perennial Philosophy’. Believing this Perennial Philosophy to offer the most promising way forward in the mind-body Problem, I construct from it the foundations of a metaphysical system that I call ‘Perennial Idealism’. This attempts to account for manifestation in terms of dispositional, imagery-bound subjects. I then address an age-old ‘Parmenidean’ conundrum that I refer to as ‘the problem of the one and the many’: how can an undifferentiated substratum ground differentia without the ground itself differentiating? The proposed solution takes its cue from mystico-philosophical writings in the Advaita Vedānta tradition, known as the ajāta doctrine.

L’itinéraire que prendra notre recherche part du général au particulier pour retentir encore sur le général, des conceptions antiques aux conceptions contemporaines et une tentative de marier les deux, d’un intellect rétrospectif vers une intelligence prospective qui sans négliger la préséance de la conscience, elle l’appuie. En effet, notre souci primordial étant de rendre vie à la philosophie en repensant les dynamiques de l’esprit - qui est aujourd’hui bafoué au profit d’un matérialisme ontologique réduisant la conscience à de simples réactions chimiques.
Le présent mémoire explore la notion de conscience chez Bergson et la lie aux problématiques contemporaines que l'on rencontre en sciences cognitives, philosophie de l'esprit contemporaine neurologie, ou encore le virage paradigmatique qu'appuie la physique quantique et les conséquences sur notre compréhension de la conscience et son intime relation à la notion de la matière.

Questo libro adotta il principio secondo cui gli istanti della nostra vita sono originari. Quel che vediamo, sentiamo e pensiamo, non proviene da qualcosa di ignoto che chiamiamo Dio, Anima o Materia. È uno sfondo che permette di venire a capo dei classici problemi della conoscenza: in primo piano ci sono la relazione tra mente e cervello nonché il significato del tempo e del Big Bang.

Questo libro si interessa alla teoria dei neuroni specchio. All’origine c’è un dato: un fascio di neuroni, presso l’area motoria del cervello, si mette all’opera non solo quando preparo una azione ma anche quando la osservo. Al dato si sommano le congetture: questa simulazione servirebbe per riconoscere l’azione che osservo e quest’arte di specchiare sarebbe un privilegio di speciali neuroni. Fra il dato e la teoria c’è un dislivello che è colmato dall’ideologia del riduzionismo. Si tratta di una dottrina in disuso, che risale a Parmenide e Democrito, secondo cui la natura sarebbe una macchina mentre un ingranaggio della macchina, il cervello, sarebbe responsabile della vita cosciente. Questo libro combina la critica all’esistenza e la critica all’ideologia dei neuroni specchio. Anticipo solo un appunto. Noi sappiamo che ogni neurone modella la propria forma in accordo con la propria funzione. Eppure i presunti neuroni specchio, a sentire l’opinione del microscopio, non espongono un segno caratteristico. Questi neuroni così circonfusi da cespi di alloro, così venerati dal maestro di salotto quanto dal cortigiano dell’ateneo, di centomila virtù si possono vantare ma non della virtù di esistere. Nel limbo della mitologia sono gemelli di un’altra meraviglia, l’araba fenice, la quale non rammenta di essere cenere e si risveglia come fosse un uccello dalle piume colorate.

David Chalmers gives the classical statement of the mind-body problem, which is that of finding a physical basis for our conscious experiences.  As Chalmers writes, “we have no good explanation of why and how [consciousness] so arises.”  To solve the “hard problem” of consciousness requires an “explanatory bridge” that would link conscious processes to “the structure and dynamics of physical processes.”  But, up to the present, no satisfactory linkage has been proposed.  In this article, I shall take a novel approach to this problem.  First, I shall trace its source to the transformation of science initiated by Descartes’ mathematization of nature, a mathematization that drains time from space.  Against this, I will argue that space and time cannot be conceived apart from each other.  I will then propose that their common ground is to be found in what, following the Czech philosopher, Jan Patočka, we can call “ontological” motion.  Such motion, understood as actualization, will be seen to ground both being and appearing.  As such, it realizes the physical processes occurring in our brains and the appearing that is their correlate.  This ontological motion, I will argue, is recursive.

Qu’on ouvre certains livres anciens, en arabe, en latin, ceux qu’on ne lit pas et qu’on oppose à tort, on y trouvera des auteurs médiévaux qu’obsède, non pas la lutte, mais la question de la pensée. Ils pensent, ils brûlent leur vie à penser, et cette vie-là, ils la posent sur une table, et ils regardent, et ils s’interrogent. On les comprend. Ils veulent savoir qui ils sont, ce qu’ils font, ce dans quoi ils espèrent ou s’épuisent.
Qu’appellent-ils penser ? Descartes, pour l’homme, avait sa réponse : je suis une chose qui pense, c’est-à-dire « une chose qui doute, qui conçoit, qui affirme, qui nie, qui veut, qui ne veut pas, qui imagine aussi, et qui sent ». Que disent-ils, eux, et avant lui ? Que répondent-ils, dans leur langue, qui soit bouleversant, gelé par l’oubli, et donc neuf ? C’est ce qu’on cherche, librement, en déclinant les entrées.
Car la pensée est équivoque, plurielle. Aristote écrit que l’intellect est comme la main, instrument d’instruments ; la pensée l’est aussi. Penser est une main, un instrument d’instruments, un mot rempli de mots. L’homme n’est pas l’être sans œuvre, il est l’être dont l’acte n’a pas qu’un nom, a plus qu’un nom, l’animal dont l’œuvre propre est innommable autrement que dans la multiplicité.
Voici donc une sorte de lexique, certains repères d’une carte mentale où paraîtrait, dans les connexions, ce que penser signifie. Les textes s’enchaînent, suivent un fil, mais se nuancent aussi, voire s’opposent, et des intermèdes, comme des marges, leur servent d’illustration, de contrepoint, ou bien d’alternative. Ce qu’on propose est ouvert, évidemment. Chacun a son mot à dire – et c’est tant mieux.

This research is ‘in motion’ moving forwards in its investigation about learning through movement, towards the question: ‘what does it mean to be physically educated?’ This article is a mid-way report which describing the ground covered so far and maps the path ahead for the researcher. From rich philosophical territory concerning body-mind, meaning and intelligence, this qualitative inquiry started with questionnaires and is proceeding to physical ‘mobile methods’ – interviews on the move, to explore facets of thinking about intelligence as may be exercised through the body, while a person is exercising. A high degree of researcher reflexivity is a central feature of this work, to grapple with (i) challenging philosophical concepts, (ii) qualitative methodology and (iii) analysing the data in a quest for meaning. As the project has gathered momentum, the researcher’s positionality with these three areas are critiqued, including his own readjustment to what a concept of ‘research’ might be, beyond the shadows which Westernised concepts of ‘science’ have traditionally, and sometimes unhelpfully cast. In closing, it is hoped this grounded philosophical study might inform some reasoning and practices in Physical Education and Outdoor Education to engage the body in learning activities that promote becoming and being, physically educated.

Issues of subjectivity and consciousness are dealt within very different waysw in the analytic tradition and in the idealistic phenomenological tradition central to continental philosophy. This book brings together analytically inspired philosophers working on the contintent with English-speaking philosophers to address specific issues regarding subjectivity and consciousness. The issues range from acquaintance and immediacy in perception and apperception, to the role of agency in bodily 'mine-ness', to self-determination (Selbstbestimmung) through (free) action. Thus involving philosophers of different traditons should yield a deeper vision of consciousness and subjectivity; oe relating the mind not only to nature, or to first-perso authority in linguistic creatures Questions which, in the analytic tradition, are sometimes treated as exhausting the topic but also to many other aspects of mind's understanding of itself in ways which disrupt classic inner/outer boundaries.

The aim of the paper is to present the main conceptions in the contemporary philosophy of mental (mind). The debate is narrated in two ways: The first approach concerns the ontology of mental, with the questions such as: What is the nature of mental?; What is the relation between mental and body?; Is the mental  reducible to its physical basis? The second approach has an epistemological character where especially the problem of self-knowledge in the frame of the discussion between
externalism and internalism is pointed out. The last part of the article gives an evaluation of the actual situation in the philosophy of mind which on the one hand tries to evolve in the direction of cognitive science but on the other hand stays in the frame of the traditional philosophy. The reason of it is the nature of the questions, which cannot be answered only by means of scientific disciplines.
It means that in contrast to the cognitive science the philosophical account of the mind-body problem is the preferred one.


Keywords
Philosophy of mental, (mind), mind-body problem, externalism, internalism, cognitive sciences

В статье рассматривается аргумент случайности против физикализма. Изучается проблема статуса свободы человеческих решений при возникновении и последующем анализе трагедии. Приводится аргументация в пользу того соображения, что в монистическом мире трагедия оказывается зациклена сама на себе, и истинная свобода в нем может быть только тождественна случайности, так как в противном случае «свободное» решение оказывается подчинено тем или иным причинам, а значит, не может иметь статус свободного. Показано, что критика дуализма Декарта со стороны Спинозы нацелена не на сам дуализм, а на идею разделения мира на протяженную и мыслящую субстанции. При этом идея дуализма, которая возникает у Декарта органически из-за применения его метода сомнения и рассуждения о совершенном и несовершенном, также незаслуженно отвергается. В статье проводится различие между идеей дуализма вообще и разделением мира на протяженную и мыслящую субстанции. Делается вывод, что исходная идея дуализма может реализоваться не только в картезианской онтологии, но и в версии нейтрального дуализма, где несовершенство, то есть свобода или случайность, имеет место не как отдельная субстанция, а как следствие и пространство взаимодействия независимых нейтральных субстанций. Это подтверждается также отдельными положениями философии прагматизма.

Comprendere la natura della Coscienza può essere definito come "il Graal della Scienza moderna". Senza dubbio si tratta di una delle sfide più ardue che l'umanità abbia mai affrontato. E se prima erano interessati solo psicologi, filosofi e poeti, a partire dal XX secolo anche biologi, neuroscienziati, fisici e ingegneri informatici, hanno iniziato a prendere la questione dannatamente sul serio. Il filosofo David Chalmers ha coniato l'espressione "il duro problema della coscienza" (the hard problem of consciousness), per definire la gravità della situazione. Questo perché dal punto di vista della fisica e della neurologia non abbiamo che pochi indizi sparsi, rimanendo del tutto all'oscuro sull'origine e funzionamento della Mente. Eppure, dopo secoli di dispute sul dualismo mente-corpo e sull'imperscrutabilità dell'esperienza soggettiva, le nuove teorie sulla coscienza iniziano finalmente a convergere verso una direzione unica. Nel suo libro "La Singolarità è Vicina", il famoso inventore e futurista transumanista Ray Kurzweil sostiene che una volta superata la singolarità tecnologica, l'auto-riproduzione esponenziale delle macchine intelligenti sarà talmente veloce e radicale che condurrà a una fusione totale dei computer con la materia, fino a rendere la materia stessa conscia. Lo definisce il risveglio consapevole dell'Universo. Forse però qualcuno dovrebbe far sa-pere al Sig. Kurzweil che in effetti-l'Universo potrebbe essere già sveglio.

В статье совершается попытка объединения двух известных философских проблем. Проблемы ментальной каузальности, или более широко, проблемы каузальности в дуализме вообще, и проблемы онтологии случайного. Показано, что оба эти вопроса часто возникали в истории философии одновременно, но при этом решались по-разному. В част-ности у Декарта, Лейбница, Поппера, Чалмерса и других. Это связано с тем, что случайность в различных ее формах, в том числе в форме свободы, требовалась дуализму для проведе-ния различия между материальной и нематериальной субстанцией или свойством, так как нематериальные проявления признавались традиционно более "свободными", менее зави-симыми от жесткого детерминизма. однако, при этом природа свободы или случайного никогда не рассматривалась как следствие дуалистической онтологии мира, так как источ-ником закономерностей или случайностей в дуализме обычно выступала какая-то внешняя по отношению к "мирам" движущая сила, например, Бог или эволюционный процесс. То есть онтология случайного и вообще каузальности всегда оказывалась за рамками дуализ-ма, и не задавалась им внутри. В данной статье предлагается новый взгляд на эту проблему, и попытка объяснить природу случайного через сам дуализм, как следствие неопределен-ности, имеющей место между разнородными сущностями ("мирами"), управляемыми раз-ными законами. Также поднимается вопрос о возвращении дуализма как парадигмы в его каузальной форме в научный процесс.

The article attempts to unite two well-known philosophical problems. Problems of mental causation, or more broadly, problems of causation in dualism in general, and problems of the ontology of the random. It is shown that both of these issues often arose in the history of philosophy at the same time, but at the same time they were solved in different ways. In particular, Descartes, Leibniz, Popper, Chalmers and others. This is due to the fact that randomness in its various forms, including in the form of freedom, was required by dualism to distinguish between material and immaterial substance or property, since immaterial manifestations were traditionally recognized as more "free", less dependent on rigid determinism...

The aim of this paper is to emphasize the theoretical and aesthetical meanings of Plessner’s aesthesiology. His theory on the unity of the senses allows to legitimate the normative sense of sensibility and his pregnancy to understand the organization of experience. Such an aesthetical perspective has also relevant implications for Plessner’s philosophical anthropology and his theory of eccentric positionality of human being, which is mainly a theory on the body-mind philosophical conjunction.

ÖZET
17. Yüzyılla birlikte “ruh” kavramı yerine ekseriyetle “zihin” (mens) kavramının ikame edildiğini görmekteyiz. Klasik anlamda, farklı töz anlayışlarına rağmen, insan söz konusu olduğunda bedenin karşısına ya da yanına konulan ve insanın cisimsel olmayan yönünü ifade eden “ruh”, sahip olduğu tüm özellikleriyle (ontolojik, epistemolojik ve aksiyolojik) modern anlamda “zihin” olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Modern felsefenin kurucuları
arasında zikredilen Spinoza da insanın cisimsel olmayan yanını ifade etmek için, “ruh” yerine “zihin” kavramını genellikle tercih etmiş ve birkaç yerde de birini diğerinin yerine kullanmıştır. Spinoza’nın Tanrı merkezli felsefesinde, insan zihin ve bedenden oluşur. İnsan zihni, Tanrı’nın bilinen iki sıfatından biri olan “düşünce” (res-cogitans) sıfatının bir tezahürü ya da değişimi olurken, insan bedeni Tanrı’nın bilinen diğer sıfatı olan “yer kaplama”nın (res-extansa) bir tezahürüdür. Tanrı gerçek anlamda tek töz olduğu için ve bilinen iki sıfatı da bu tek tözü nitelediği için, bu iki sıfatın tezahürü olarak insanda yer alan zihin ve beden farklı tözler olmayıp aynı tözü farklı şekilde ifade eden paralel, bir ve aynı şeydir.
İnsan zihni, bir yandan bedenin dışarıdan aldığı etkileri (affectus), diğer yandan da bedenin kendi içsel yapısından aldığı etkileri alarak fikirler (ideas) oluşturur. Zihin fikirler oluştururken, daha önce edindiği deneyimlere, fikirler arasındaki bağlantılara, mantıksal çıkarımlara ve duygulara bağlı olarak yeniden eyleme geçme gücünü, sahip
olduğu “anlama yetisi”, “hayal yetisi” ve “hafıza yetisi” sayesinde gerçekleştirir. Zihin bir yandan bedenden aldığı etkilerle ve bu etkiler neticesinde meydana gelen duygularla kendi varlığını sürdürürken, diğer yandan tüm bu etkilerden doğan fikirleri, sahip olduğu yetilerin de yardımıyla yeniden düşünür. Zihin, daha önce edindiği fikirler üzerine tekrar düşündüğünde, düşüncesinin nesnesi artık bu ilk fikir olur ve zihin böylelikle “fikrin fikri”ne (ideas of
ideas) ulaşarak yeni bir fikir daha meydana getirir. Bu “fikrin fikri” olan ikincil fikirler, “bilinci” (conscious/ness)
meydana getirir. Spinoza’da bilinç, zihin-beden paralelinde meydana gelen etkiler ve bu etkilerin taşıyıcısı olan yetiler sayesinde zihnin ulaştığı fikirler üzerine bir tür reflexif düşüncesi demektir. Zihnin bilişsel yönünü ortaya koyan bu reflexif düşünce, öncelikli olarak zihin ve bedenin diğer zihin ve bedenlerle karşılıklı etki alış-verişinden kaynaklanır.
Biz bu çalışmada ontolojik doğasına referansla insanda zihin ve bedenin nasıl bir ortaklık inşa ettiğini, birinin diğerine paralel olmasının ne anlama geldiğini tartışacağız. Spinoza’nın düalizm eleştirisi üzerine yükselen monist töz anlayışı, onun ontoloji, epistemoloji ve değer ya da etik alanlarına dair görüşlerini tamamen şekillendirmiştir. Her şeyden önce Spinoza zihin ve bedeni aynı hakikati farklı şekillerde ifade eden bir ve aynı şey olarak görür. Biz burada zihin ve bedeni bir ve aynı olarak görebilmemizi sağlayan temel zeminin Spinoza tarafından nasıl inşa edildiğini ortaya koymaya çalışacağız. Bu temel zeminde, Spinozacı felsefenin pratik yönünü şimdilik erteleyerek meseleyi ontolojik çerçeveden ve ontoloji ile epistemolojinin bir arada olma zorunluluğu gereği epistemolojik çerçeveden inceleyeceğiz. İncelememizde, zihin ile beden arasındaki ilişkinin nasıl bir ilişki olduğu, zihnin bedeni bilme imkânın ne olduğu, bedende etkilerin, zihinde fikirlerin nasıl meydana geldiği, zihin ve bedenin tabi olduğu bir “varoluş süreleri”nin olup olmadığı gibi temel sorulara yanıtlar aranacaktır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Zihin, Beden, Paralelizm, Duygulanış/Etkileniş, Fikir, Zihnin Sonsuzluğu

Mind’s Body, Body’s Mind: The Ontology of Spinozist Parallelism

Abstract

With the 17th century, commonly, we see that the concept of "mind" has been replaced by the concept of "soul". In the classical sense, despite the different conceptions of substance, when it comes to human, the "soul", which is placed against or adjoined to the body and expresses the non-corporeal aspect of the human, appears as the "mind" in the modern sense with all its features and means (ontological, epistemological and axiological). Spinoza, who is mentioned among the founders of modern philosophy, generally preferred the concept of "mind" (mens) instead of "soul" (anima) to express the non-corporeal side of man and used one in place of the other in a few places. In Spinoza's God-centered philosophy, man consists of mind and body. The human mind is a manifestations or appearance of the "thought" (res-cogitans), one of the two known attributes of God, while the human body is a manifestation of the other known attribute of God, "extension" (res-extansa). Since God is literally a single substance, and since both known attributes qualify this single substance, the mind and body in man as the manifestation of these two attributes are not different substances, but are parallel, one and the same thing, expressing the same substance differently.
Human mind, on the one hand, constitute ideas by taking the effects of the body, which are receives from the outside and on the other hand, receives the effects of the body, from its own internal structure. While the mind constitute ideas, its realization of its power to act again, depending on the experiences, which it has acquired before, the connections between the ideas, logical inferences and emotions, thanks to its faculties, "intellect", "imagination" and "memory". While the mind preserve its being with the effects it receives from the body and the emotions that occur as a result of these effects, on the other hand, it rethinks the ideas arising from all these effects with the help of its faculties. When the mind rethinks on the ideas it has acquired before, the object of its thought becomes this first idea, and the mind thus creating a new idea, that is "ideas of idea". These "ideas of the idea", which is econdary ideas, form the "conscious-ness". In Spinozas thought, consciousness is a kind of reflexive thought on the ideas that the mind reaches thanks to the effects that occur in the mind-body parallel and the faculties that are the carrier of these effects. This reflexive thought, which reveals the cognitive aspect of the mind, primarily originates from the mutual ex-change of action of the mind and body with other mind and bodies.
In this study, we will discuss how human mind and body build a unity in humans, with reference to their ontological nature, and what it means to be one parallel another. Spinoza's monist conception of substance, rising on his critique of dualism, completely shaped his views on ontology, epistemology, and the fields of value or ethics. Become morething, Spinoza sees mind and body as one and the same thing expressing the same truth in different ways. Here we will try to study how the basic ground that enables us to see mind and body as one and the same thing was built by Spinoza. On this basis, we will postpone the practical aspect of Spinozian philosophy for the time being, and we will examine the issue within the ontological framework and the epistemological framework, that is due to the ontology and epistemology one bound to another. In our examination, answers will be sought to basic questions such as what kind of a relationship between the mind and body is; what is the possibility of the mind to know its body; how occur, the effects in the body, and the ideas in the mind; and whether there is a "duration existence" that the mind and body are subject to etc..
Keywords: Mind, Body, Parallelism, Affections, Ideas, Infinity of Mind

Ion Zalomit (1820/23–1885, PhD Berlin, 1848) was a professor of philosophy at the Saint Sava College and later at the University of Bucharest, Rector of the latter for 14 years, and a high State official, member and sometime vice-president of the Permanent Council of Public Instruction. He was influential in synchronizing Romanian academic philosophy with the French academic philosophy, which was by then dominated by Victor Cousin and the members of his eclectic spiritualist school. A disciple of Schelling himself and possibly of Krause, Zalomit formed his students in the spirit of a liberal and spiritualist eclecticism, with rational psychology as a foundational discipline. This psychology, maintaining the soul’s substantiality, simplicity, immateriality and spiritual character as well as the existence of the soul’s several “faculties” centred around the will, provided a general basis on which the Romanian philosophers of the 1870’s built their psychological doctrines, or against which they reacted. Two of Zalomit’s students, D. A. Laurian (1846–1906, B.A. Bucharest, 1868, Ph.D. Bruxelles, 1871) and C. Leonardescu (1844–1907, B.A. Bucharest, 1868, Ph.D. Bruxelles, 1872), contributed to psychological literature with studies and textbooks in which the joint influence of French spiritualism and Belgian Krausism was manifest. While remaining broadly spiritualistic dualists, they proposed a form of psychophysiological parallelism as a solution to the mind–body problem, insisting on the contrast of mind and body, cohering by reason of their very harmonic contrast, rooted in a deeper essential unity. The following paper tells in some detail the story sketched above.