Summary of Mind and Matter by Mario Bunge

Science & Education, 2012

Bunge's writings on the mind-body problem provide a rigorous, analytical antidote to the persistent anti-materialist tendency that has characterized the history of philosophy and science. Bunge gives special attention to dualism and its shortcomings, and this attention is welcome in view of the resurgence of the doctrine today. However, I focus my comments selectively on Bunge's more controversial, provocative claims, not to dismiss them, but to engage with them seriously. For example, a difficulty arising from Bunge's rhetorical style and its undoubted virtues is that not all the targets of his selfconfessed ''bashings'' (2010, xi) are equally deserving. For example, Bunge suggests ''most contemporary philosophers of mind are indifferent to psychology, or are remarkably uninformed about it''. This charge cannot be sustained today in light of the work of foremost philosophers today. 1 Fantasy Worlds Aristotle (1941, 536) begins his De Anima asking: A … problem presented by the affections of soul is this: are they all affections of the complex of body and soul, or is there any one among them peculiar to the soul by itself? To determine this is indispensable but difficult.

Journal of the Siena Academy of Sciences

After a brief review of the solutions given to the mind-body problem by philosophers I propose a naturalistic-materialistic solution that is based on a collaboration between the philosophy of mind and neurosciences. According to this solution the three fundamental characteristics of every human state of consciousness-that is, having a content and being conscious and self-conscious-are identified with three higher order properties of brain dynamics from an ontological point of view, although each of them can be described and explained in the language of neuroscience, cognitive psychology and folk-psychology.

Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the …, 2010

The goal of the symposium 'Integrating Perspectives on the Relation between Mind and Brain' was to get people with different views and from different disciplines to open up a dialogue by focusing on answering a set of questions. In this paper I present a view of the relation between the mind and the brain that is informed by recent work in the philosophy of science. The basic idea is that the mind is more than the brain because mental states are identical to the activity of groups of organized neurons. Unlike the standard non-reductive materialism irreducibility is not seen as related to multiple realisability. The upshot is that we can bring the relation between the mind and the brain in line with other clear cases of ontological emergence, we can see how psychology can be an independent science, and yet how important explanatory connections can be made between psychology and neuroscience.

Mario Bunge: A Centenary Festschrift, 2019

Bunge’s writings on the mind-body problem (Bunge 1980, 1991, 2010) provide a rigorous, analytical antidote to the persistent anti-materialist tendency that has characterized the history of philosophy and science. Bunge suggests that dualism can be neutralized “with a bit of philosophical analysis” (Bunge 1991) but this is clearly too optimistic in view of the recent revival of dualism as a respectable doctrine despite a vast industry of philosophical analysis. The conceivability of zombies (Chalmers 1996) leads to the possibility of dualism and thereby to the falsity of materialism. Bunge relies on his general case that “arguably all the factual (“empirical”) sciences only study concrete (or material) entities, from photons to rocks to organisms to societies” (Bunge 2010). Bunge’s immunity to philosophical extravagance is to be commended, but he is perhaps like someone who rejects Zeno’s paradoxes as physical absurdities and thereby leaves the puzzle itself untouched. While philosop...

Science & Education, 2011

Psychiatry and Neuroscience Update, 2015

This paper presents current trends in philosophy of mind and philosophy of neuroscience, with a special focus on neuroscientists dealing with some topics usually discussed by philosophers of mind. The aim is to detect the philosophical views of those scientists, such as Eccles, Gazzaniga, Damasio, Changeux, and others, which are not easy to classify according to the standard divisions of dualism, functionalism, emergentism, and others. As the variety of opinions in these fields is sometimes a source of confusion, it is worth the effort to obtain an overall panorama of the topic. A general conclusion on epistemological and ontological issues, concerning the relationship between neurobiology and philosophy and the multi-level account of the embodied mind, is proposed.

This paper presents current trends in philosophy of mind and philosophy of neuroscience, with a special focus on neuroscientists dealing with some topics usually discussed by philosophers of mind. The aim is to detect the philosophical views of those scientists, such as Eccles, Gazzaniga, Damasio, Changeux, and others, which are not easy to classify according to the standard divisions of dualism, functionalism, emergentism, and others. As the variety of opinions in these fields is sometimes a source of confusion, it is worth the effort to obtain an overall panorama of the topic. A general conclusion on epistemological and ontological issues, concerning the relationship between neurobiology and philosophy and the multi-level account of the embodied mind, is proposed.

Topoi

This thesis is the result of a simple conviction: since minds are produced by brains then surely studying brains will tell us something about issues in the philosophy of mind? Moreover, if minds are also produced by our evolution and history then surely studying these will also tell us something about minds? Of course I am not the first to suggest these lines of inquiry but they have both usually lead to anti-realist scepticism about our ability to know the world. We seem to be stuck in a Faustian bargain in which we can only gain scientific knowledge at the expense of philosophical doubt. This thesis is an attempt to break this bargain, in which I start from the conviction that we can know the world, and then ask what kind of science, both natural and social, can make sense of this ability. We do not just need a philosophy of mind that fits our science, we also need a science that fits our philosophy of mind. We must fiddle with both sides of the equation in order to get a fit. In the course of this fiddling I challenge reductionist and empiricist assumptions about science, I question the philosophical tradition that dates back to Frege’s ‘linguistic turn’, and I draw parallels between Marx’s theory of history and Darwin’s theory of natural selection. The result is a realist philosophy of mind that is built on our ability to interact with and change the world, rather than on our ability to contemplate it passively. CONTENTS PART I: MATTER Re-examining two basic principles of how science understands complex systems 2 Anti-Reductionism 2.1 Reductionism and Materialism -- p9 2.2 Anti-ReductiveMaterialism -- p11 2.3 Downwards Causation -- p14 2.4 Conclusion -- p17 3 Naturalisation 3.1 Descriptions and Biases -- p19 3.2 Naturalisation -- p21 3.3 Theoretical Terms, Dispositions, and Causal Explanation -- p23 3.4 Laws and Exceptions -- p27 3.5 Prediction and Induction -- p29 3.6 Conclusion -- p31 PART II:MIND Applying this new take on complex systems to brains and epistemology 4 Brains and Behaviour 4.1 Neuropsychology and Neuroethology -- p33 4.2 Representation and Explanation -- p37 4.3 South Coast AI -- p39 4.4 Conclusion -- p45 5 Intentionality: The Insides 5.1 Opening the Black Box -- p46 5.2 Anti-Turing -- p48 5.3 Externalism -- p52 5.3.1 Epistemological Externalism -- p53 5.3.2 Metaphysical Externalism -- p54 5.3.3 Brains-In-Vats -- p58 5.4 Emergent Representation -- p59 6 Intentionality: The Outsides 6.1 Sense and Reference -- p61 6.2 Non-Conceptual Content -- p65 6.3 Affordances and Objects -- p68 6.4 Conclusion -- p70 PART III: NATURAL HISTORY Putting this in the context of natural selection Functions and Norms 7.1 Functional Explanation and Darwinian Norms -- p73 7.2 The Function of ‘Function’ -- p75 7.3 The Function of Behaviour -- p77 7.4 Conclusion -- p78 The Role of Genes in Natural Selection 8.1 Evolution and Mendelian Inheritance -- p80 8.2 Nature and Nurture -- p82 8.3 Inheritance and Mechanism -- p86 8.4 Evolution and Development -- p88 8.5 Conclusion -- p90 9 The Role of Vehicles in Natural Selection 9.1 Burying Vehicles -- p92 9.2 Counting Genes -- p94 9.3 Counting Replicators -- p97 9.4 Fitness -- p101 9.5 Conclusion -- p102 PART IV: SOCIAL HISTORY And understanding how social history fits in 10 Social Evolution 10.1 Natural and Social History -- p105 10.2 Memes and Vehicles -- p107 10.3 Memes and Power -- p110 10.4 Marx’s Theory of History -- p112 10.5 Memes and Symbols -- p116 10.6 Lamarckian Inheritance and Signalling -- p119 10.7 Memes and Adaptation -- p121 10.8 Conclusion -- p122 11 The Good, The True, The Beautiful 11.1 Truth and Success -- p125 11.2 Scienti?c Objectivism -- p128 11.3 Ethical Relativism -- p130 11.4 Conclusion -- p133 Bibliography

How can it possibly be the case that electrical activity in the soggy grey substance of our brains is responsible for our thoughts, our conscious experiences and our subjectivity? What is subjectivity, for that matter? Does it require a ‘self’, or a subject of experience? Is free will a possibility when all we think and do emerges from the physical brain? These are prototypical questions that characterize the philosophy of mind, brain and behaviour that we shall introduce in this book. Many of the problems and theories discussed in this book fall under what is traditionally known as analytical philosophy of mind, such as the mind-body problem, mental causation, mental content and consciousness. The range of this book, however, is wider, and includes other themes that are directly connected with the bigger issue of what it is that makes us human beings or persons. These topics are ‘the self’, ‘free will’, ‘understanding other minds’, ‘embodied, embedded cognition’ and ‘emotions’.