Mind-Brain Identity Theory
Edited by István Aranyosi (Bilkent University)
About this topic
Summary | The mind-brain identity theory (or identity thesis) is the assertion that mental states/events/processes are identical to brain states/events/processes. The type identity theory (often called just the "identity theory") says that mental types are physical types, while the token identity theory says that mental tokens are physical tokens. Over the years the thesis has been successively understood as involving a contingent identity relation, an analytic identity relation, and then an posteriori necessary identity relation. The most common objection to the type identity theory is the objection from multiple realizability. |
Key works | The thesis is explicitly defended in seminal articles by Place 1956, Feigl 1958, Smart 1959. This is the early stage, when the thesis is understood as an empirical and contingent one. A powerful attack on this version is put forward by Kripke 1980. The analytic identity thesis appears for the first time in Lewis 1966, then in Armstrong 1968. Criticism of this version appears appears in Nagel 1979, Jackson 1982, and Chalmers 1996. Defences appear in Braddon-Mitchell 2003 and Jackson 2003. A more recent defence, based on probability theory, appears in Aranyosi 2011. The empirical necessary identity thesis is defended, among others, by Loar 1990 and Papineau 2002. Criticism of this approach is to be found in Chalmers 1996 and Chalmers 2009. The multiple realizability objection to all forms of the type identity theory can be found in Putnam 1963. |
Introductions | A 30-year retrospective of the transformations of the thesis appears in Place 1988. A more recent introduction to and history of the thesis appears in Smart 2007. |
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Related categories
Siblings:
- Formulating Physicalism (376)
- Consciousness and Materialism (2,261 | 324)
- Qualia and Materialism (243)
- Eliminative Materialism (140)
- Anomalous Monism (212)
- Nonreductive Materialism (408)
- Physicalism about the Mind, Misc (482)
- Kripke's Modal Argument Against Materialism (98)
- Panpsychism (437 | 301)
- Multiple Realizability (335)
- Token Identity (106)
- Anomalous Monism (212)
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Editorial team
General Editors:
David Bourget (Western Ontario) David Chalmers (ANU, NYU) Area Editors: David Bourget Gwen Bradford Berit Brogaard Margaret Cameron David Chalmers James Chase Rafael De Clercq Ezio Di Nucci Barry Hallen Hans Halvorson Jonathan Ichikawa Michelle Kosch Øystein Linnebo JeeLoo Liu Paul Livingston Brandon Look Manolo Martínez Matthew McGrath Michiru Nagatsu Susana Nuccetelli Giuseppe Primiero Jack Alan Reynolds Darrell P. Rowbottom Aleksandra Samonek Constantine Sandis Howard Sankey Jonathan Schaffer Thomas Senor Robin Smith Daniel Star Jussi Suikkanen Lynne Tirrell Aness Kim Webster Other editors Contact us Learn more about PhilPapers |