Problem body-spirit

The problem body-spirit is the problem of the determination of the relations between the Human body and the Esprit. Although this problem exists almost since the origin of philosophy (cf Plato), this problem is known since the 20th century like a fundamental question, even like the key question of the Philosophie of the spirit under the English expression of Mind-body problem .

The problem body-spirit is primarily the problem of knowing how to explain the relations between the mental Esprit, or processes, and the body states or processes. It is for example for us obvious that our sensory experiments have their origin in stimuli which reach us of the outside world by the means of our bodies of the directions, and which these stimulis produces of the modifications of the state of our brain, causing in the final analysis the perception of feelings which can be pleasant or unpleasant. It seems also obvious that we can drive our body in kind to satisfy a need or a desire. However, how may it be that the conscious experiment can put moving a body, i.e. a material object equipped with physicochemical properties? How can one want to be the cause of the operation of our neurons and the contraction of our muscles leave there that they carry out what we propose to do? They are there some of the principal questions with which the philosophers of the spirit confronted themselves, since Descartes.

These questions received several answers enumerated in this article.

Dualism

Dualism is perhaps the oldest doctrines concerning the relationship between the body and the Esprit; Thalès can certainly be held for a physicalist completely monist, but it should be noticed that the opposition between matter and Esprit does not exist in this thought, and one can thus suppose that the problem had not arisen yet. On the other hand, Parménide raises an insurmountable difference between the being and the thought on a side, and other nature; the pythagorism then imported in Greece the belief in the Immortalité of the heart which is thus independent of the body; Démocrite, in a way rather similar to Parménide, separates what is known by the conventional reason and phenomena that we observe; finally, Plato is finally the first philosopher to be formulated, as far as we can the knowledge, the problem in all his width by exposing several Théorie S aiming at including/understanding which is the nature of the heart.

The Dualisme is the thought which admits as well the existence of the material world as Esprit, but as different realities by nature. It should be noted that not-dualistic theories, in a strict sense, can not be reductionistic, i.e. to admit the existence of the material world and Esprit, but without their lending substantial difference other that a difference in categories.

In the case of dualism, the traditional problem is that of the relations between these two worlds: the typology of dualism shows the various manners of answering this problem. In general, the dualistic thinkers either admit the darkness of these relations (Descartes) - but by posing the obviousness of its existence (we experienced that we have a double existence), or resort to a transcendent causality with the experiment which is or the direct action of God (Nicolas Malebranche), or a consequence of the action of God organizing the world (Leibniz).

Dualism is characterized by the following features: the body is localized in the space and the Temps; it can be known by the directions, and it can be the object of sciences which seeks the causal mechanisms of them; the Spirit (or the heart), on the other hand, is localized in an interiority which is neither visible, nor, consequently, recognizable by others: the Esprit cannot consequently be the object of a science, because he escapes the causal mode of existence from the matter. The impossiblity for dualism to attest the existence of the Esprit of others generally leads it to a second Aporie: the Solipsism.

Typology of dualism

Causality (Descartes)

Occasionalism (Malebranche)

The action of the body on the Spirit and of the spirit on the body is impossible; consequently, it is God who only acts, by conforming the will of the Esprit to the acts of the body.

Harmonize preestablished (Leibniz)

Leibniz poses that the universe consists of Monade S which is closed with the outside world. Consequently, how to explain that all occurs in the world as if the monades were influenced really mutually? Leibniz explains this agreement by a universal Harmonie between all the beings, and by a common creator of this harmony:

“Also God alone makes the connection and the communication of the substances, and it is by him that the phenomena of the ones meet and agree with those of the others, and consequently that there is reality in our perceptions. ” ( Speech of metaphysics )

If the monades seem to hold account from/to each other, it is because God created them so that it is thus. It is of God that the monades are created of a blow by fulguration , to the state of individuality which does them like small gods. Each one has a point of view of on the world, a sight of the Univers in miniature, and all its prospects have an internal coherence together, while God has the infinity from the points of view which it creates in the form of these individual substances. The force and the thought close friends of the monades are thus a divine force and a thought. And it harmony is right from the start in the spirit of God, i.e it is preestablished.

The dualism of the Psychoanalysis

Derived from philosophy, the dualism of the psychoanalysis is one of the pillars of the Métapsychologie of Freud and the majority of its follower. Without using the " term; dualisme" Freud always built its private clinic and its theories on the idea of a dynamic conflict between Pulsion S, sexual and of autoconservation, then of life and death. Before him, Gustav Fechner and others had tried to give an account of the bond between body and Esprit by the Psychophysique. On the other hand Carl Gustav Jung, Pierre Janet is presented like monists. The Neurosciences postulate they-also a unit body spirit, a monism; while referring about it in particular to the opposition Spinoza - Descartes.

Objections against dualism

There exist at least three traditional aporias with dualism; these objections were developed, inter alia, by Spinoza and Daniel Dennett:

the problem of the interaction enters the body and the Esprit; the ratio of two Causalité S of different nature is inintelligible. Indeed: the alternative seems to be as follows: or the body and the Esprit are in a report/ratio of causality, and in this case they are of comparable nature, it thus does not have there dualism (but the problem of their reports/ratios is not solved); or, not being of comparable nature, they have each one a clean causality.
the Solipsism: to include/understand this objection, it is possible to start from an experiment of thought invented by Descartes ( Méditations Metaphysics ): looking in the street by the window, I see hats and clothing which is driven; how can I know that in fact machines make them drive, rather than men such as me. The problem of dualism is here that the only knowledge of spiritual reality is that which each one has in a private sphere that one names interiority; it results from this that I can allot a Esprit to others only insofar as what publicly appears conforms to an understandable control to which I can attach Motivation S, decisions, etc I thus do not know never if others are also a Esprit, in addition to being the body that I see. The spirit, on this assumption, seems to become what one called a Fantôme in the machine (Ryle).
the problem of the Self-knowledge and the private language. According to dualism, all Homme has a Intériorité, i.e a " espace" deprived in which it is perceived feeling and thinking. On this assumption, each one knows itself closely, and it is impossible to be mistaken on its own thoughts and perceptions. However, this thesis which is in the Occidental culture an obviousness for almost everyone, raises serious difficulties. These difficulties were particularly raised by Nietzsche, then within the framework of the analytical Philosophie, with Wittgenstein. The first of these difficulties is that one knows only general information which is expressed through a public language. However, our interiority is, at best, a flow of feelings that it is impossible for us to express for themselves. Thus, when we indicate the red color which we feel, we in general speak about the red - the concept - and never about this red which is not the red, but a feeling of which we say publicly that it must correspond to the concept " rouge". That involves several difficulties: such a declaration, on our interior life, is unverifiable; but it is also incomparable, so much so that we can manage no intersubjective agreement on such a concept. These difficulties touch then, inter alia, with the question of the foundation of sciences: if one wants, following the example Carnap, to base the scientific observation on a private language, on an individual protocol which can be used to establish the thesis fondationalist of science, this protocol in the final analysis escapes any investigation. Consequently, science does not have an ultimate base, but builds itself only according to preexistent theories (cf Philosophie of sciences).

The whole of these objections, indicated by Ryle by the expression of doctrines received , pleasing to consider the problem from the point of view exclusively monist, who can be reducing or not.

The Monisme

The monism was then developed generally during the 20th century: thus Ryle supported it a form of behaviorism. But there exist many alternatives, which raise all of the more or less specific problems. This thesis, generally, has great repercussions for the problems of the free will, the reality of our mental states, etc the various alternatives of this metaphysical thesis according to which all is physical, can be thus represented:

Behaviorism

The mental states can be described objectively, with the third nobody, which then makes it possible to describe their bond with the biological one.

Physicalism

Materialism identity: to any psychic phenomenon corresponds phenomena neurobiologic but the reverse is not true.
reducing Materialism: (see Behaviorism) the psychic one is a simple epiphenomene, of which it is vain to seek the corrélat neurobiologic.

Functionalism

There is no autonomous psychical reality, but it is impossible to establish precise relations between the mental states and of the states of the nervous system (epistemological irreducibility). The Cognitivisme is a form of functionalism.

Éliminativisme

In this theory, most radical (it maintains the materialism after the acknowledgment of failure of the Réductionnisme), the mental states are fictitious entities created by the popular Psychologie.

Idealism

According to the Idéalisme, and, in particular, the subjective idealism, all that is, is a mental phenomenon. As developed by Berkeley, this thesis says that all that exists, exists as perceived. Consequently, which is not perceived, does not exist. The force of this thesis, according to Berkeley, rests on the argument that it is impossible for us to indicate an existing reality which would not be at the same time a perceived reality. It is followed from there for example, that in the absence of perceiving, the world does not exist; thus, by closing the eyes, perceiving it really made disappear the unit from the existing entities as them are perceived.

Typology of the idealism

Buddhist Berkeley
Idealism: school Cittamatra

In theology

It exists there a similar problem in theology relating to the relations between the Gospel and the Eucharistie. Eucharistie represents the body whereas the Gospel represents the word or the Esprit.

The Protestants proclaim the primacy of the word whereas the catholics teach the union of the Body and the Spirit of God.

The men are with the image of God. However, God is the Holy Trinity. God has a Spirit (the Holy Spirit) and a Body (Jesus). Consequently, the catholic doctrines follow Plato, who says that it exists there an intimate union between the body and the Esprit.

References

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