The trickiest questions in modern philosophy, i.e. those with which I have struggled most for decades, are those that involve the body/mind (or body/soul) connection.
Does the thinking-stuff that is "me" really interact with the material-stuff that the rest of the world sees and knows as me? If not, how can the two "Mes" be said to be one? Yet if they do interact, how is that possible? It seems to "me" that the two are so very different that it is hard to get a grasp on this.
I recently encountered the blog of a self-described "contemplative scholar," a Quaker who teaches philosophy at a small college. You can make this discovery for yourself here.
He said he has recently been teaching Leibniz to his students in the Modern Philosophy class. So I free-associated on Leibniz in his comments section. I'll just reproduce most of that comment below:
Leibniz, if I remember my college years at all, had a drastic solution to [mind body issues], -- preestablished harmony. Mind and body only seem to interact, as two trains running on parallel tracks at the same (predetermined) speed might seem to be moving deliberately in concert.
This calls for a rather distinctive conception of God, one at odds with much of the revelation offered to each of the "peoples of the book," and it all seems a very high price to pay for the resolution of the mind/body muddle.
Just my two cents.
To which the Contemplative Scholar replied with a fuller account of what Leibniz said in that line, and with his own thoughts on the matter. I'm sure that any of my readers who follow the above link will appreciate his reaction.
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2 comments:
The mind-body problem is no longer a philosophical problem, but rather a scientific one. The philosophical problem has been solved: the mind (i.e., consciousness) is a function of the brain. There are not two different types of "stuff" that interact. John Searle is the best person to read on this; a recent short book of his on this Freedom and Neurobiology. Science still has to figure out exactly how the brain produces consciousness.
Henry,
I admire Searle, but I don't agree he has settled the question. After all, there are lots of ways in which the word "function" may be understood.
Compare it for a moment to the crime/poverty problem. "Crime rates in a region or neighborhood are a function of impoverishment," I might plausibly say. But what does that mean? In terms of cause/effect, it could mean that crime increases as the areas become poorer, either in absolute terms or relative to their surroundings. Or it could mean that they become poorer because the increase of crime rates scares away wealth and generators of wealth. Or the causative arrow could point in both directions, Or there could be something still more fundamental that creates both high crime rates and impoverishment.
I admire Roger Penrose as much as I admire Searle, and both have made important recent contributions to the mind/body problem. But it remains a problem.
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