What is the Philosophy of Mind? Definition, history and applications

The Philosophy of Mind one of the forms that the problem of the mind-body relationship has taken. In other words, it is one of the areas of study of philosophy which is responsible for studying the relationship between mental processes and the body (the brain in particular), and therefore, the link between the mind and behavior.

Under this area are grouped a set of works that add different proposals to the question about what is the mind? It has also led them to reflect on the relationship that exists between mental processes and the processes that occur within the brain.

Origins and object of study of the Philosophy of Mind

The concepts studied by the Philosophy of Mind have been essential to modern philosophy and have many of their antecedents in classical philosophy, however, it is a from the second half of the twentieth century when they have gained fundamental importance, especially since the rise of cognitive science and science computational.

As early as the first half of the 20th century, the Philosophy of Mind appeared as a specialized branch within it. philosophy, whose content was especially around "the mental" (perception, intentions, representations). At that time "mind" was already a fairly widespread and naturalized concept, even in the language of everyday life.

To give an example, thanks to this extension, many practices could be legitimized and developed, ranging from the development of research, theories and cognitive therapies, to the development of alternative practices that used the concept of "mind" and its contents, to also develop theories and ways of intervening on this mind.

But it happened that, in the middle of the 20th century, the problem of studying the Philosophy of Mind became more acute, because cognitive psychology and the sciences of the computing had a parallel boom, especially related to the development of artificial intelligence systems, and also because of advances in neurosciences.

Some questions about whether animals have minds or not, and whether computers have minds or not were even added to the discussion.. Without losing validity or legitimacy, "the mind" and its processes (perceptions, sensations, desires, intentions, etc.), ceased to be a precise term to become rather a vague concept worth discussing.

Finally, after the 1980s, a time when neuroscience reached an even greater boom, along with the increasingly sophisticated computing systems that promised to mimic the brain's set of neural networks human; Philosophy of Mind became an area of ​​study with special relevance. With this, the science of the 21st century begins with a new object of study at the center: the brain.

The mind or the brain?

As we have seen, the discussion about what constitutes us as human beings, and about concepts related to this, such as decision, intentions, reason, responsibility, freedom, will, among others, have been the subject of philosophical discussion for a long time. weather.

From the previous question naturally arise multiple questions, which have to do with the intentional content of our mental states, with beliefs or desires. In turn, from this it is derived how it is that these mental states include, or not, in our behavior and in our actions.

For example, What determines our actions? It is one of the key questions for the Philosophy of Mind, and different answers have come from there. On the one hand, it may be that the actions are caused by the individual intentions of the people, which reduces them to being the consequence of a mental state, which It also means that there are physical processes that cannot be explained by means of physical or natural laws, with which these processes should be disregarded. physical.

Or, it may be that the actions are caused and determined simply by a set of physical processes, with which, everything that has to do with "what mental ”can be explained through physical laws that are not modified by intentions, but by physical-chemical laws such as those suggested by the neuroscience.

As we can see, the answers to these questions vary according to the position adopted by each author and each reader, with which hardly we could speak of a single answer, but of different versions that can be useful to think and act on some things, and not to other

From cognitive sciences to neurosciences?

Consequently, the Philosophy of Mind, and more specifically the cognitive sciences, have become a set of interdisciplinary theoretical approaches. In fact, recently the very concept of Philosophy of Mind has begun to transform towards that of Neurophilosophy, or Philosophy of Neurosciences, in where they have begun to absorb some of the more traditional concepts of cognitive psychology, such as cognitive processes or consciousness, for their study.

As expected, This has had an impact not only on the theoretical development of the sciences of cognition and behavior, but has even influenced discussions that have to do with bioethics, and without going that far we can see its influence on the current trend of using the prefix "neuro" to legitimize, and even make marketable, a series of practices ranging from business marketing to psychological crisis interventions.

Bibliographic references:

• Sanguineti, J.J. (2008). Philosophy of Mind. Published June 2008 in Philosophica, Online Philosophical Encyclopedia. Retrieved April 25, 2018. Available in https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/31512350/Voz_Filosofia_Mente.pdf? AWSAccessKeyId = AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A & Expires = 1524651624 & Signature = 5x8xwT% 2FqnbXAbYm1DBcvokYJqTk% 3D & response-content-disposition = inline% 3B% 20filename% 3DFilosofia_de_lazi_dedf_df
• Moya, C. (2004). Philosophy of Mind. PUV: University of Valencia
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (1999). The Philosophy of Neuroscience. Retrieved April 25, 2018. Available in https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neuroscience/
• Kim, J. (1996). Philosophy of Mind. Routledge Taylor & Francis: England