Mind vs. body and other false dilemmas of post-cartesian philosophy of mind

Gyula Klíma

pp. 25-39

in: Miguel Garca Valdecasas (ed), Biology and subjectivity, Berlin, Springer, 2016

Abstract

This chapter, after surveying some of the most recalcitrant dilemmas of modern philosophy of mind, argues that we can get rid of them by revising their usually unchecked presumptions from the perspective of a paradigmatically different conceptual framework, namely, scholastic Aristotelian hylomorphism. In particular, the chapter points out that our false presumptions are historically rooted in those late-medieval conceptual developments that first allowed the emergence of the apparent possibility of "Demon-skepticism", which lies at the bottom of the modern idea of identifying the mind as "the self", the seat of consciousness, in stark contrast with the body, an unconscious physical, biological mechanism. As opposed to this conception, the chapter presents the earlier scholastic Aristotelian paradigm, which it dubs "hyper-externalism", as the conceptual framework that rightly excludes the apparent possibility of "Demon-skepticism", the ultimate ground of our false dilemmas listed earlier.

Cited authors

Aristoteles