Before I answer this question, I would like to applaud the author of The Mind Body Problem for writing the first full-length and comprehensive book devoted to the mind-body problem that has been published “in a long time.” The author’s name is Jonathan Westphal and the publisher is The MIT Press.
Not only does this book carefully define the problem but it carefully describes its background and history before critically discussing in several chapters the central theories of mind and body.
Back to my first sentence: “What is the mind-body problem?” Westphal answers the question by giving a formulation of four propositions:
(1) The mind is a nonphysical thing.
(2) The body is a physical thing.
(3) The mind and body interact.
(4) Physical and nonphysical things cannot interact.
Formulated in this way, Westphal writes that “the mind-body problem is an entirely logical problem.” He means that the problem cannot be solved if the word “solving” means that you cannot claim that all four propositions are true. Thus, the first and most basic question is “which one of the four propositions is one going to deny?” That is the mind-body problem.
You might start by denying that (1) the mind is a physical thing. If that fails, you could argue that (2) the body is not a physical thing, (3) the mind and body do not interact, or (4) physical and nonphysical things can interact. If looks like you are stuck. If you think about it, at least one of the propositions must be false, “and the attempt to show the exact way in which this plays out is the work of developing a solution to the mind-body .”
The remainder of the book is an adventurous philosophic ride through several theories of mind and body. Chapter 2 is about Dualist theories of mind and body. Westphal asks how mind and body can interact if the body is physical and the mind is nonphysical.
Chapter 3 takes on Physicalist theories of minds. “On this view, everything that exists is physical; so the mind is a physical thing, if it is a thing.” This obviously solves the mind body problem. If the mind is a physical thing, then it can interact with other physical things, including the body. But how can one prove that the mind is a physical thing?
Chapter 4 is about Antimaterialism. Idealism is a good example. “If materialism tells us that everything is matter, then idealism tells us that everything is spiritual or that everything is mental.” This prompts several questions. One of them is “How could anyone believe that the body is nonphysical?”
Chapter 5 is a discussion of science and the mind-body problem with an emphasis on Consciousness. In this chapter, Westphal takes as the representative of the scientific study of mind the recent work that has been done on consciousness. One of the scientists he examines is Bernard Baars, who proposes the “global workplace theory” of consciousness. Westphal shows that Baars, without knowing it, has mixed up incompatible philosophical theories of mind. Westphal writes that “the logical part of [the mind-body problem] must be solved before the scientific and psychological elements of a solution can begin to have any traction.”
The final chapters (6 and 7) are on Neutral theories of mind and body and a theory called Neutral Monism. Neutral Monism is Westphal’s solution to the mind-body problem in Chapter 7. He defines it as “the view of mind and body according to which things such as colors are neither physical nor mental, but 'neutral' with respect to the mental and physical, except as they are placed by us into physical or psychological explanatory relations.” Thus, a manifestation of a color is physical if we consider its relation to a light bulb, to heat, and so on. It is psychological if we consider its dependence on the retina, on the state of mind and so on, in which case it is a sensation.”
I strongly recommend that philosophy majors and graduate students buy or borrow The Mind Body Problem. The book not only covers the most important theories (solutions) but it shows us how analytic philosophy not science is the best methodology one can use to solve the mind body problem.
The Mind-Body Problem (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series) by Jonathan Westphal | Sep 30, 2016.
