Aristotle’s Concept of the Soul and the Link Between Mind and Body in Contemporary Philosophy

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the true extent of neurological explanations of mental events and human actions. There is no doubt that advances in neuroscience are posing challenges that go beyond the fields of biology and physiology. The increasingly thorough knowledge of brain topography is very close to identifying the areas involved in the decision-making processes that precede human actions. This has led to the assumption, by some physicalist currents, that a full explanation of mental acts by investigating neurological conditions is possible. However, this assumption implies the superfluity of regulatory orders, and that human actions could not be implemented differently than as provided by the neurological structures. Freedom in this case is a senseless concept. The possibility is suggested, towards the end of this chapter, of going to the Treatise on the Soul, by Aristotle, as a more appropriate source to transcend physicalist reductionism. The latter has two limitations: one, to reduce the explanation of mental acts and free decisions to its neurological conditions; another, that of not being able to open up to other explanatory possibilities that go beyond the determinism of neurosciences. Aristotle, we suggest, provides the elements to overcome these difficulties.