Online research in philosophy

A dialog between Donald MacKay and Mario Bunge, printed in the journal Neuroscience over the course of two years beginning in 1977, provides a conscise summary of MacKay's views on the mind-body relationship. In this dialog, MacKay contrasts the dualistic interactionism theory of Popper and Eccles with Bunge's emergentist materialism theory, and then builds a case for a third alternative based on the notion of mental events embodied in, but not identical to, brain events. Although neuroscience has made tremendous progress in the past two decades, MacKay's attempt to trace a path between interactionism and materialism is still worth considering.

The reason why, since Descartes, nobody has found a solution to the mind–body problem seems to be that the problem itself is a false or pseudo-problem. The discussion has proceeded within a pre-Cartesian conceptual framework which itself is a source of the difficulty. Dualism and all its alternatives have preserved the same pre-Cartesian conceptual framework even while denying Descartes’ dualism. In order to avoid this pseudo-problem, I introduce a new perspective with three elements: the subject, the observed object, and the conditions of observation (given by the internal and external tools of observation). On this new perspective, because of the conditions of observation, the mind and the brain belong to epistemologically different worlds.

Topics include immortality; materlialism; Descartes's 'Divisibility Argument' for dualism; the Argument from introspection'; the problems with...

Mind body, not a pseudo-problem, by H. Feigl.--Is consciousness a brain process? by U. T. Place.--Sensations and brain processes, by J. J. C. Smart.--The nature of mind, by D. M. Armstrong.--Materialism as a scientific hypothesis, by U. T. Place.--Sensations and brain processes: a reply to J. J. C. Smart, by J. T. Stevenson.--Further remarks on sensations and brain processes, by J. J. C. Smart.--Smart on sensations, by K. Baier.--Brain processes and incorrigibility, by J. J. C. Smart.--Could mental states be brain processes? by J. Shaffer.--The identity of mind and body, by J. Cornman.--Shaffer on the identity of mental states and brain processes, by R. Coburn.--Mental events and the brain, by J. Shaffer.--Comment: mental events and the brain, by P. Feyerabend.--Materialism and the mind-body problem, by P. Feyerabend.--Materialism, by J. J. C. Smart.--Scientific materialism and the identity theory, by N. Malcolm.--Professor Malcolm on scientific materialism and the identity theory, by E. Sosa.--Rejoinder to Mr. Sosa, by N. Malcolm.--Mind-body identity, privacy and categories, by R. Rorty.--Physicalism, by T. Nagel.--Mind-body identity, a side issue? by C. Taylor.--Illusions and identity, by J. M. Hinton.--Bibliography (p. [259]-261).

The Human Psyche is an in-depth exploration of dualist-interactionism, a concept Sir John Eccles developed with Sir Karl Popper in the context of a wide...

Physical and chemical processes may act upon the mind; and when we are writing a difficult letter, our mind acts upon our body and, through a chain of physical...