The MindBody Relation: Ancient Western Views

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The Mind-Body Relation Ancient Western Views
Democritus (fl. 450 BCE)
Lucretius (94-55 BCE)

• Materialism all things (including minds/souls
  mental events) are bodies in motion

• Dualism the soul is an immortal life force
  distinct from the body its search for truth is
  moral desire

Plato (427-347 BCE)

• Aristotle the soul is the form of a body the
  life of plants, the sensation/motion of animals,
  the mind of human beings

(384-322 BCE)
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The Hindu Self

• The experienced part of person (the conscious
  self and body) differs from the all-pervading
  divine Self, which is not known or reasoned to

• Sankara The phenomenal world (including selves)
  does not exist

(788-820)

• Ramanuja The phenomenal self is a modification
  of the inner self (God/Brahman)

(1077-1157)
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Mind-Body Dualism
(1596-1650)
(1637-78)

• René Descartes human beings are composed of a
  material body and an immaterial mind that are
  distinct but linked through the pineal gland
• Problem Interaction. Proposed solutions
• Anne Conway bodies are not really different from
  souls both express different degrees of how
  reality is organized and expressed

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Other Proposed Solutions to Mind-Body Dualism
(1646-1716)
(1632-77)

• Baruch Spinoza mind and body are simply
  different ways in which God is expressed (dual
  aspect monism)
• G. W. Leibniz mental and physical events happen
  independently of one another but are harmonized
  by God (parallelism)