Jaegwon Kim: biography of this philosopher of mind

Throughout the entire history of philosophy, we find outstanding figures who became known worldwide for their contributions to this field of knowledge. One of these figures, belonging to contemporary history, was Jaegwon Kim (1934-2019), an American philosopher of Korean origin.

In this article we will see a biography of Jaegwon Kim, as well as his most relevant contributions to philosophy and, more specifically, to the philosophy of mind and the mind-body problem.

• Related article: "How are Psychology and Philosophy similar?"

Jaegwon Kim Brief Biography

Jaegwon Kim was born in Daegu, South Korea on September 12, 1934. He began studying French literature at the University of Seoul (Korea), although only for two years. Later, in 1955, he entered Dartmouth College (United States). He later changed his major from French literature to one that combined French, philosophy, and mathematics. So he went to Dartmouth College where he graduated. Later, He received his doctorate in philosophy from Princeton University (New Jersey, USA).

Also, Jaegwon Kim he worked as emeritus professor of philosophy at Brown University during the 1960s; In between, he worked elsewhere, but returned to Brown in 1987, where he stayed until he passed away.

Thus, Kim was also working as a philosophy professor at other universities: the University of Michigan, the Notre Dame University, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University, and Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania, USA).

Other interesting facts about Jaegwon Kim are that he was president of the American Philosophical Association for one year, from 1988 to 1989. He was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and editor of the quarterly Philosophical Magazine Noûs along with the Cuban philosopher Ernesto Sosa.

Finally, Jaegwon Kim passed away on November 27, 2019, at the age of 85.

The mind-body problem

Jaegwon Kim, a thinker who rejected strict physicalism and who focused on research on metaphysics, survival, the mind-body dilemma and above all, the philosophy of mind. He was an American philosopher, of Korean origin, who he became known as a result of his work on the "mind-body problem".

The mind-body problem (also called the mind-body dilemma) refers to the difficulty in explaining the relationship between mind (or soul, for some) and matter. That is to say, How can mental states (such as beliefs, memories, sensations...) explain or interact with the material world (the world of objects)?

In addition, Jaegwon Kim's contributions also focused on the field of epistemology and metaphysics. The themes in which this philosopher especially worked were: survival, metaphysics Cartesian (rather, the rejection of it) the individualization of events and the limitations of identity psychophysics.

As a noteworthy fact, the most important works of Jaegwon Kim have been collected in the book Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays (1993).

• You may be interested in: "What is the Philosophy of Mind? Definition, history and applications"

influences

Jaegwon Kim himself recognized that his main influences, on a philosophical level, derived from the American philosophers Carl Hempel and Roderick Chisholm. From Hempel, above all, he was influenced by his logical positivist approach, and from Chisholm, Kim claimed to have learned "not to fear metaphysics.".

Contributions and thought

Jaegwon Kim developed his work focused on different topics about the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, the philosophy of science, the theory of action and epistemology. All of them are fields of knowledge (or currents) within philosophy.

1. philosophy of mind

Jaegwon Kim defended, during his career, different theories of the body-mind dilemma. In his early days, in the early 1970s, Kim advocated a version of identity theory..

To get an idea, the identity theory (also called “mind-brain identity theory”) is a theory that establishes that the states and processes of the mind are the same (or equivalent) to the processes that take place in the brain (processes cerebral). Thus, according to this theory, mental processes are actually activities or mental connections.

Subsequent to defending his version of the identity theory, Kim he went on to defend another theory, in this case a non-reductive version of physicalism.

On his part, physicalism is a doctrine of philosophy, related to naturalism and materialism, who talks about the nature of real things, and who holds that only the physical exists (including the mental).

Rejection of strict physicalism

Jaegwon Kim rejected strict physicalism; according to him, this doctrine was insufficient to explain, understand or resolve the mind-body dilemma. According to him, moreover, the problem of consciousness (the question so investigated and discussed in philosophy, about "what is human consciousness?") would never be resolved through physicalism.

Some of his works (in this case, monographs), such as: “Mind in a Physical World” (1998) and “Physicalism, or Something Near Enough” (2005) address this issue; the rejection or criticism of strict physicalism in order to explain certain phenomena of philosophy or aspects of the human condition itself, with their corresponding arguments.

2. Dualism

Another of the theses defended by Jaegwon Kim was that desires and beliefs, as intentional mental states that they are, could be functionally reduced to their neurological performers, but instead unintentional mental states (such as sensations), are physical, and could not be reduced to something even more primary.

In this sense, Kim would be defending a version of dualism. For his part, he dualism It is that philosophical (or also religious) doctrine that establishes that the order of the universe is the result of an action that combines two opposite and irreducible principles.

3. the study of the mind

According to Jaegwon Kim (and this is how he explains it in an interview in 2008 through the Korean newspaper Joongang Ilbo), In order to understand and explain how the human mind works, we must resort to a naturalistic explanation..

This is so because the mind consists of a natural phenomenon (and not "supernatural", for example). So, in reality, a reliable explanation of the functioning and nature of the mind would be provided by a natural science, and not so much by philosophy.

Plays

Some of Jaegwon Kim's most notable works are:

• Supervenience and Mind, Cambridge University Press (1993)
• Mind in a Physical World, M.I.T. Press (1998)
• Making sense of Emergence, Philosophical Studies 95 (1999)
• Physicalism, or Something Near Enough, Princeton University Press (2005)
• Philosophy of Mind, 2nd ed., Westview Press (2006)