The Mind-Body Problem in the Origin of Logical Empiricism
نویسنده
چکیده
It is widely held that the current debate on the mind-body problem in analytic philosophy began during the 1950s at two distinct sources: one in America, deriving from Herbert Feigl's writings, and the other in Australia, related to writings by U. T. Place and J. J. C. Smart (Feigl [1958] 1967). Jaegwon Kim recently wrote that "it was the papers by Smart and Feigl that introduced the mind-body problem as a mainstream metaphysical Problematik of analytical philosophy, and launched the debate that has continued to this day" (Kim 1998, 1). Nonetheless, it is not at all obvious why these particular articles sparked a debate, nor why Feigl's work in particular came to play such a prominent part in it, nor how and to what extent Feigl's approach rests on the logical empiricism he endorsed. Following the quotation cited, Kim offers an explanation backed by a widespread (mis)conception of logical empiricism. He claims that work concerning the mind-body relation done prior to Feigl and Smart dealt either with the logic of mental terms – as Wittgenstein's and Ryle's work had – and therefore missed the point, or lacked the sophistication of our modern approaches. One exception , C. D. Broad's laudable work, could not alter this, for it "unfortunately. .. failed to connect with the mind-body debate in the second half of this century, especially in its important early stages" (Kim 1998, 1). Kim seems to extend his verdict on
منابع مشابه
The Mind-Body Problem in the Origin of Logical Empiricism: Herbert Feigl and Psychophysical Parallelism
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