Abstract

NAGEL, Thomas. Conceiving the impossible and the mind-body problem. discus.filos [online]. 2010, vol.11, n.17, pp.69-86. ISSN 0124-6127.

The Intuitions based on the first-person perspective can easily mislead us about what is and is not conceivable. This point is usually made in support of familiar reductionist positions on the mind-body problem, but I believe it can be detached from that approach. It seems to me that the powerful appearance of contingency in the relation between the functioning of the physical organism and the conscious mind -an appearance that depends directly or indirectly on the first person- perspective must be an illusion. In other words, I believe that there is a necessary connection in both directions between the physical and the mental, but that it cannot be discovered a priori. Opinion is strongly divided on the credibility of some kind of functionalist reductionism, and I won't go through my reasons for being on the antireductionist side of that debate. My reading of the situation is that our inability to come up with an intelligible conception of the relation between mind and body is a sign of the inadequacy of our present concepts, and that some development is needed.

Keywords : a priori; first person; functionalism; mind-body problem; physical properties; reductionism.

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