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Are Persons Bodies?

The so-called mind-body problem, the relationship of the mind to the body, is commonly seen as the central issue in the philosophy of mind, though there are many issues concerning the nature of mentality which do not involve its relation to the physical. Through out this essay I will cover the main arguments of the mind-body problem. I will do this by researching into different opinions of the main schools of thought. It is important to first of all be able to distinguish between the mental and the physical. A physical property is one that is instantiated but not always available to one individual. A mental property is one that is not initially instantiated but one individual has the knowledge and access to discover weather it is instantiated when others do not. There are many that would disagree with this general overview.

Dualism is a major school of thought that has attempted to resolve the mind-body problem. Dualism believes that there is a separate existence of mind and body. Some dualists believe that the mental characteristics are just different types of physical characteristics and that it is not reducible mental phenomena.(Searle, J, 2004) It is also argued that mental and physical seem to have quite different properties. Mental events have a definite subjective quality, whereas physical events of course do not. For example, what does a cut feel like? What does green grass look like? Dualists believe that this would be unlikely to be reduced to anything physical.

The mind, according to Descartes, was a "thinking thing" and an immaterial subatance. This "thing" was that which made him think, feel, and believe. I have a clear and distinct idea of myself as a thinking non-extended thing, and a clear and distinct idea of body as an extended and non-thinking thing. Whatever I can conceive clearly and distinctly, God can so create. So, Descartes argues, the mind, a thinking thing, can exist apart from its extended body.(Decartes,R,1984)

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