Introduction to Philosophy: Philosophy of Mind

Abstract

There are two major views in the philosophy of mind that arise from trying to describe the nature of our minds. One claims that our minds are different in nature and separate from our bodies and the other claims that our minds really are just physical, or a part of our bodies and the rest of the purely physical world. These mark the two extremes. The first is called “substance dualism” or “Cartesian dualism” after René Descartes, who originated the primary arguments and the general view. The other is called “physicalism” and was in the modern era associated most with Thomas Hobbes. Both philosophers were trying to make sense of the mind within the modern context of science within the latter part of the seventeenth century. Philosophy of mind was not yet a separate discipline and fell under metaphysics as these philosophers studied it, but this time period, called the modern period, marks the beginning of what we consider now to be investigations into the philosophy of mind. It was a period of great scientific advancement and marked the beginning of the discipline of psychology, as well.