Materialism Without Identity

Abstract

Broadly speaking, dualist theories are of three sorts, the elements of which may well overlap in any particular account: first, classic ontological theories (Descartes’, most prominently) that hold to a fundamental difference of substance between mind and body;second,semantic theories (Polten [1973]) that hold that because they differ in sense from physical expressions, mental expressions must, somehow, refer to (denote) something other than what physical expressions refer to, thus defeating monism as well as the identity theory; and third, accounts that, on either empirical or conceptual grounds, find it impossible to confirm what has earlier been termed attribute materialism, that is, the reduction of mental attributes to physical attributes. Among empirical scientists of the last persuasion may be mentioned Eccles [1970], Sherrington [1951], Penfield [1965], and, equivocally, Sperry [1969]. Eccles’ [1970] statement may be taken as a paradigm: “When thought leads to action, I am constrained, as a neuroscientist, to postulate that in some way, completely beyond my understanding, my thinking changes the operative patterns of neuronal activities in my brain. Thinking thus comes to control the discharges of impulses from the pyramidal cells of my motor cortex and so eventually the contractions of my muscles and the behavioral patterns stemming therefrom.”