Strengths And Weaknesses Of Dualism - 1357 Words

It seems very funny, ironic and challenging to try and understand the mind. Perhaps that is why we continue to have so many questions about it. After all, we are trying to understand the entity, or matter that does the understanding in the first place? One fundamental question that has guided this endeavor is, â€Å"what is the mind?† and more specifically, â€Å"what is the mind in relation to the brain?†(Friedenburg Silverman, 2012: 26) Three theories have emerged as the prevailing thoughts in today’s age that try and make sense of the mind: monism, dualism and functionalism. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but all-in-all, I believe that dualism is the strongest theory. It supports my Christian belief system and best explains what†¦show more content†¦(Descartes, Friedenburg Silverman, 2012: 31) Furthermore, these two realms cannot be reduced into each other (Friedenburg Silverman, 2012: 464). This explains the mind as something diffe rent or other than physical. The mental aspects are explained in various ways that can make up sub-theories of dualism. The mental can be your soul or spirit, or it can be a different substance than the brain in substance dualism (Descartes, Friedenburg Silverman, 2012: 32), or even can be made up of the same material as the brain, but have different properties in property dualism. (Friedenburg Silverman, 2012: 33). Functionalism takes an interesting turn from its counterparts of monism and dualism to ask, â€Å"are minds limited to brains?† (Friedenburg Silverman, 2012: 35), and â€Å"is it more important to our understanding of reality what something does than what something is?† (Turner, Lecture_4ppx) To make sense of this question Friedenburg Silverman discusses two ways of classification: Physical kinds - groupings based on physical or material makeup (Friedenburg Silverman, 2012: 474) and functional kinds - groupings based on similar actions and tendencies ( Friedenburg Silverman, 2012: 467). Functionalism looks at the mind with functionality as paramount since the mental states can be performed in different ways in different entities, but produce the same result, or function (Friedenburg Silverman, 2012: 35) Considering these various views, dualism seems to be theShow MoreRelatedThe Strengths and Weaknesses of Dualism4580 Words   |  19 PagesDualism is the belief that reality consists of two different, separate substances: that of the mental and that of the physical. In philosophy of mind, the belief that the mental and physical are deeply different in kind: thus the mental is at least not identical with the physical. It directly opposes materialism, as dualism dictates that the mind is unidentifiable to the body, as opposed to stating that the mind and body exist as one. 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