Neurophilosophy

Abstract

Neurophilosophy includes all philosophical discussion about aims, methods, empirical findings, and the possible consequences of neuroscience. Also, it denominates all attempts to clarify the relationship between brain states on the one hand and mental states on the other. Major topics of neurophilosophy are: (1) The “mind-brain”-problem, i. e., the nature of mental states and their relationship to brain states, particularly with respect to consciousness and mental causation, (2) the relationship between the “outer” or “objective” and “the inner” or “phenomenal” world including the epistemological quest for certainty of perception and cognition, (3) the problem of free will and culpability, (4) the question of unique human as opposed to animal traits including the presence of mind and consciousness in animals, (5) the origin and function of the “self”, (6) the origin of social and moral behavior, and (7) ethical questions of neuroscience. As to the mind-brain problem, only versions of nonreductionist monism or physicalism appear worth discussing. Empirical evidence underlines that mental states obey physical laws and can be predicted on the basis of knowledge about brain states. It has to be left to the future as to whether already existing physical concepts will suffice to explain the “nature of mind”, or whether new laws, while being compatible with the existing ones, have to be discovered.