Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the materialist view of the

mind-body problem.
Materialism is a philosophical derivative of monism that postulates the exclusive
existence of matter as the elemental foundation of reality (Bermdez &
McPherson, 2006). Epistemological materialism is closely related to naturalism
the presupposition that physical laws, and not metaphysical mechanisms,
operate within the universe, empiricismthe belief that knowledge arises
primarily from sensory experience, and positivismthe conviction that
scientific study should be confined to the treatment of sense-data, and as such
proposes the synonymy of mind and brain (Bermdez & McPherson, 2006).
Material responses to the mind-body problem are contemporarily deemed
explanatorily powerful as they rely on a perceptively basic belief, identity theory:
the intuitive notion that for something to happen in the mind, something must
happen in the braina position conspicuously corroborated by the effects of
consciousness-altering physiological phenomena such as drug use, brain
damage, and sleep (Vaitl et al., 2013).
Materialist solutions to philosophical problems gained prominence during the Age
of Enlightenment (Bristow, 2011). Hume's Fork (Hume, 2008) laid the
epistemological foundations for modern philosophers who established a
movement that proposed the parameters of proper epistemology as: "Whereof
one cannot speak, there one must remain silent..." (Wittgenstein, Pears &
McGuinness, 2001). In other words, logical positivism postulates that knowledge
is required to be observable to be meaningful, and as such negates the existence
of mind as something which cannot be tested (Kemerling, 2011). Leading on
from these notions, materialist psychologists, such as Watson and Skinner,
designated the common-sense notion of mind as epiphenomenal, in other words
casually impotent, and transcribed the early-psychological concern with
consciousness into the study of empirical observation (Skinner, 1953; Southwell,
2012).
Behaviour, according to behaviourists, is a result of a simple interaction
stimulus-responseand nothing more (Skinner, 1953). This epistemological shift
from the introspection of early psychological study was embraced by researchers
who wished to advance the validity of empirical psychological study (O'Donohue
& Kitchener, 1996). Behaviourist ontology, however, as exemplified in the
'stimulus-response thesis,' relies heavily upon a classically conceived, i.e.,
Newtonian, understanding of physical causality, which has been undermined by
the contemporary preoccupation with quantum mechanics and the transition into
understanding causality in a relativistic, almost virtual, way: matrices of
possibility, the dematerialisation and ambiguity of interaction, and the effect of
observers (O'Donohue & Kitchener, 1996). The frontiers of contemporary physics
pose radical challenges for materialists solutions to the mind-body problem.
In additional to ontological problems, behaviourism raises an existential
question: What is the nature of the self? Behaviourism, however,via the
concept of blank slate, or tabula rasa, does not supply an answer congruent
with the phenomenological unified self-consciousness that seems qualitatively
different than the sense of self delineated by behaviourists (Parkin, 2014). Hume,
a precursor to philosophical behaviourism, forthright espouses the view of a
fragmented ego, and postulates that the intuitive unitary self is nothing more
than habituation and the conformity of experience (Hume, 2008). Kantian
transcendental philosophy, a direct reaction to Hume, postulates the existence of

the transcendental unitary of apperceptionor the transcendental egoas an

innate condition of knowledge, and therefore a necessarily anchored self of a
different nature to matter (Kant, 1990). The transcendental paradigm has been
utilised by modern scholars such as Chomsky to understand language
acquisition, which led to the downfall of the behaviourist criterion (Salkie, 2014).
As can be seen, there are many epistemological inconsistencies within
materialist solutions to the mind-body problem (O'Donohue & Kitchener, 1996).
Proponents of radical materialist theories like Chuchland's eliminativism posit
these inconsistencies as redundant and symptomatic of the category mistake
that fuels the continued existence of the mind-body problem ("Patricia
Churchland on Eliminative Materialism," 2009). Instead, eliminative materialists
propose a form of teleological verificationism which anticipates the imminent
eradication of folk-psychological concepts such as 'mind' and 'consciousness',
and the replacement of them with naturalistic and mathematical accounts of
brain states ("Patricia Churchland on Eliminative Materialism," 2009).
Eliminativists, however, neglect the anomalous nature of empirical psychological
study (Chalmers & Bourget, 2009). In other words, the proposition that a
paradigmatic shift will radically overturn the intuitive sense of mind-body
distinction negates the qualitatively different nature of mind and body, and in
turn the impossibility of finding universally quantifiable and standardised
accounts of mental phenomena (Russell, 2008). In fact, Kant denied the
teleological possibility of empirical psychology achieving the positivist status of
physics three-hundred years earlier, and this is corroborated by modern theorists
such as Donald Davidson (Davidson, 2006; Kant, 1990).
In opposition to reductive material solutions to the mind-body problem,
advocates of emergentism propose that consciousness is an emergent property
that is seemingly qualitatively different than, and seemingly independent of, the
sum of its parts (Heil, 1998). 'Mind', therefore, is an emergent property of the
interactions and integration of 'body' in the same way that magnetism is an
emergent property of the interactions and integration of electrons in a current
(Heil, 1998). Emergentism proposes a non-reductive materialist theory of the
mind-body problem without introducing 'science of the gaps' fallacies or
neglecting the epistemological parameters of science. However, emergentism is
not immune from philosophical critique. A concern with the prospect of
qualitatively different emergent properties, namely the emergence of
consciousness from non-conscious matter, is a legitimate issue for emergentists
to be pressed upon (O'Donohue & Kitchener, 1996). The assessment seeks to
expose the epistemological basis of emergentism as property dualism, which
Searle argues introduces obscure metaphysical concepts that do not belong in
materialist solutions to the mind-body problem (Searle, 2002). The subverting
assessment, however, might be a redundant one, as Anscombe rectifies the
emergent thesis: physical matter is not un-conscious or non-conscious but aconscious, meaning that the emergence of consciousness from matter is not a
logically impossibility that requires metaphysical intrusion (Anscombe, 1981).
The fundamental flaws of material solutions to the mind-body problem, whether
reductive or non-reductive, are denominated as the 'problems of consciousness'
(Heil, 1998). The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining the
existence of a first person ontology, a unitary subjective sense of
phenomenological experience, and how this might emerge from qualitatively
different units: or how matter gives rise to the peculiar sense of consciousness
that is non-material (Chalmers, 2010). The qualitatively-different nature of

qualiathe phenomenological experience of stimuliis best delineated by Nagel,

who argues that qualia are radically inaccessible (Nagel, 1987). For Nagel, the
inaccessibility of qualia is indicative of the substantial difference in nature
(Nagel, 1987). Although scientists can analyse the neurochemical interactions of
the brain from a third-person ontological perspective they cannot ever observe
the experience that the brain is having (Nagel, 1987). Qualia are experienced in
ways that what the brain does isn't; our experiences and mental states, therefore
do not share a strictly material basis, but must be substantively different.
Nagel's delineation of the problem highlights the difficulty of solving the mindbody interaction question. As McGilchrist puts it: "The one thing we do know for
certain is that everything we know of the brain is a product of consciousness..."
(McGilchrist, 2009). This has led modern theorists, namely epistemological
mysterianists, to call for a foreclosure on the problem of consciousness, citing
the impossibility of transcending the phenomena of consciousness to understand
it causally (McGinn, 1991).
As shown above, materialist solutions to the mind-body problem are grounded in
an intuitively direct identity theory. The relation between brain and mind is
indisputable: for something to happen in the mind, something must happen in
the brain, and vice-versa. However, materialist solutions to the mind-body
problem are, as yet conceived, inadequate in comprehensively clarifying the
nature and origins of consciousness. The hard problem of consciousness, namely
inaccessibility of qualia, as Nagel argued, undermines reductive strains of
materialism, exposing the methodological framework of such solutions. Proper
epistemological solutions to the mind-body problem cannot be exclusively
materialist unless simultaneously admitting the radical inaccessibility of qualia
and consciousness: the answer to the question 'What is the cause of
consciousness?' is as remote to the materialist as is the question 'What was
before the Big Bang?'

References:
Anscombe, G. E. (1981). Metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Bermdez, J. L., & McPherson, F. (2006). Philosophy of Psychology: Contemporary
readings. New York, NY: Routledge.
Bristow, W. (2011). Enlightenment (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).
Retrieved September 23, 2014, from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/
Chalmers, D., & Bourget, D. (2009). MindPapers: 4. Metaphysics of Mind.
Retrieved September 23, 2014, from http://consc.net/mindpapers/4/all#.4.1d
Chalmers, D. J. (2010). The character of consciousness. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
Davidson, D. (2006). The essential Davidson. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
Heil, J. (1998). Philosophy of mind: A contemporary introduction. London, UK:
Routledge.
Hume, D. (2008). Hume's Fork. In P. Millican (Ed.), An enquiry concerning human
understanding (p. XXXV). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Kant, I. (1990). The critique of pure reason (J. M. Meiklejohn, Trans.). Raleigh, NC:
Alex Catalogue.
Kemerling, G. (2011). Logical Positivism. Retrieved September 23, 2014, from
http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/6q.htm
McGilchrist, I. (2009). The master and his emissary: The divided brain and the
making of the Western world. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
McGinn, C. (1991). The problem of consciousness: Essays towards a resolution.
Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Nagel, T. (1987). What does it all mean?: A very short introduction to philosophy.
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
O'Donohue, W. T., & Kitchener, R. F. (1996). The philosophy of psychology.
London, UK: Sage Publications.
Parkin, A. J. (2014). Essential Cognitive Psychology. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor and
Francis.
Patricia Churchland on Eliminative Materialism [Video file]. (2009, July 30).
Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzT0jHJdq7Q
Russell, B. (2008). The Nature of Matter. In The Problems of Philosophy (pp. 2126). Rockville, MD: Arc Manor.
Salkie, R. (2014). The Chomsky Update (RLE Linguistics A. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor
and Francis.
Searle, J. (2002). Why I Am Not A Property Dualist. Retrieved from
http://www.imprint.co.uk/pdf/searle-final.pdf
Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New York, NY: Macmillan.
Southwell, G. (2012). Philosophy of Mind - Behaviourism - Materialism.
Retrieved September 23, 2014, from
http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/oldsite/pom/pom_behaviourism_materialism.h
tm
Vaitl, D., Birbaumer, N., Gruzelier, J., Jamieson, G. A., Kotchoubey, B.,
Kbler, A., . . . Strauch, I. (2013). Psychobiology of alter states of
consciousness. Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and
Practice, 1(1), 02-47.
Wittgenstein, L., Pears, D., & McGuinness, B. (2001). Tractatus logicophilosophicus. London, UK: Routledge.