A DOUBLE FACE VIEW ON MIND-BRAIN RELATIONSHIP

THE PROBLEM OF MENTAL CAUSATION

Autores

  • Jonas Gonçalves COELHO

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-31732017000300011

Palavras-chave:

Double face view, Conscious mind, Mental causation, Mind-brain relationship, Supervenience, Jaegwon Kim

Resumo

Interpreting results of contemporary neuroscientif studies, I present a non-reductive physicalist account of mind-brain relationship from which the criticism of unintelligibility ascribed to the notion of mental causation is considered. Assuming that a paradigmatic criticism addressed to the notion of mental causation is that presented by Jaegwon Kim’s analysis on the theory of mind-body supervenience, I present his argument arguing that it encompasses a formulation of the problem of mental causation, which leads to difficulties by him pointed. To ask “how mental events, being a nonphysical property of the brain, could act causally on brain structure and functioning?”, is not to treat the mind as a property of the brain, but as a Cartesian substance. I argue that, rather than asking “how does mind could act causally on the brain?”, as if the mind were something apart and independent of the brain, it would be more in line with a non-reductive physicalist view to ask “how the brain, guided by its mind, could act causally on itself?”. To justify this last formulation of the problem of mental causation, I propose a “double face view”, which consists in considering the consciousness as the essential property of the mind, and mind and brain as inseparable, dependent and irreducible faces. It means, in general terms, that the conscious mind is the result of brain structure and activity – “conscious mind as brain” - and that the brain, using its conscious mind as a guide to its actions, interacts with its body, and with the physical and sociocultural environment, constructing and being constructed by both – “brain as conscious mind”.

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Biografia do Autor

  • Jonas Gonçalves COELHO

    O Laboratório Editorial foi instituído com o objetivo de criar condições e oportunidades para a difusão de pesquisas e tornar públicos os resultados dos trabalhos do corpo docente da FFC. Constitui-se num órgão adjunto à Diretoria da FFC e vinculado à SAEPE, com o apoio da Seção Gráfica, da Diretoria, da Biblioteca, e das Seções de Finanças, Compras e Técnica Acadêmica. A função do Laboratório Editorial é a de assessorar, planejar, realizar e distribuir livros, periódicos e outras publicações elaboradas na FFC.

    E-mail: labeditorial@marilia.unesp.br 

Publicado

15-08-2017 — Atualizado em 17-02-2023

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Como Citar

COELHO, Jonas Gonçalves. A DOUBLE FACE VIEW ON MIND-BRAIN RELATIONSHIP: THE PROBLEM OF MENTAL CAUSATION. Trans/Form/Ação, Marília, SP, v. 40, n. 3, p. 197–220, 2023. DOI: 10.1590/S0101-31732017000300011. Disponível em: https://revistas.marilia.unesp.br/index.php/transformacao/article/view/7227.. Acesso em: 13 nov. 2024.