Scope and challenges of mind-brain relationships in the context of the dialogue between neuroscience and philosophy

Abstract

The so-called «mind-brain relationships» are shown to be a privileged place for understanding the human being in a unitary way in its biological and psychic aspects. This reveals the need for an interdisciplinary approach to understand the human being in an integral way. This approach can be carried out, at least, in two directions, taking as a model the dialogue between neuroscience and philosophy. The first one goes from neuroscience to philosophy and covers, above all, the subject of knowledge, mainly in the so-called inner senses. The second extends from philosophy to neuroscience by exploring topics such as attention, memory and habits. From this vision, an understanding of mind-brain relationships arises in which the interdisciplinary approach is extremely important. From it, we propose a possible application of these relationships to the ethical sphere, inspired by the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre in his analysis of human vulnerability in a context of social co-dependence.