Mind and Matter

Abstract

This chapter is an in-depth examination of the various very convoluted philosophical issues that arise from the interconnection between the ideas of mind and matter. First the chapter critically examines the state of the art in the domain of the philosophy of the mind by approaching an array of different theories regarding the relationships between these two notions. While some accounts interpret this relationship in a reductive manner, whatever the specific direction of the reduction may be (from eliminative materialism to physicalism to pan-psychism) other approaches have very controversially insisted on the impossibility to explain away the so called “hard problem” of consciousness. There are still other doctrines that tend to understand the connection between mind and matter in a more systemic fashion by employing the ideas of emergence and complexity. While there is no denying that there exist philosophical merits to all these positions to various degrees, the point that the chapter makes is that they all come with insurmountable conceptual difficulties as well. The second part of the chapter advances an alternative framework inspired by the ideas of the Spanish philosopher Gustavo Bueno that, while avoiding the limitations of the various approaches considered, highlights the ways in which the notions of mind and physical matter can be accorded their proper roles without mutual reductionisms and without the resource to the very problematic idea of emergence.