Von Wright on the mind-body problem

Mario De Caro

pp. 123-130

in: Rosaria Egidi (ed), In search of a new humanism, Berlin, Springer, 1999

Abstract

Looking at the development of Professor von Wright's philosophy, one could be surprised by the fact that, until very recently, he didn't appear interested in the mind-body problem. In his "Intellectual Autobiography", written in 1972–73, for example, von Wright writes — referring to his youthful interest in the mind-body problem and the other fundamental metaphysical questions about the nature of reality — that 'strangely enough, this is an aerea in which, as an active philosopher I have (so far) done no work at all".¹