Multiple realizability and mind-body identity

Abstract

One of the purposes of science is to provide identifications such as "water is H2O". The process of setting such identifications goes hand in hand with the answers to many "why" questions: "Why is water boiling at 100°C and freezing at 0°C?" Such a task is ubiquitous in all empirical sciences. Consider now the sciences of the mind, from cognitive science to psychoanalysis. Can such "theoretical identifications", to use an expression from David Lewis, be provided in case of psychological properties? If I am right in characterizing this as one of the aim of science, the importance of the question is evident: a negative answer to it would mark a limit for science. Such a boundary would extend to all those mental phenomena that have to do with mental properties, in general, and properties concerning consciousness in particular, because these have proven to resist the individuation strategies adopted for other mental properties, as the intentional ones. Phenomenal consciousness would be beyond the domain of the scientific method, not to mention our cognitive capacities (cf. McGinn 1991). Hence, mental phenomena that would prove intractable within the method of science should be considered as not naturalizable, as frequently the issue is posed, or would mark the incompleteness of science as to the natural world. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.