Theories of Philosophy

When we view the philosophy of mind we encounter many problems, the main being that although there are many theories on this topic it is impossible to prove any of them and thus this problem is still unresolved. How is it that we can understand more about the universe and science than ever before but do not understand what it is that enables us to understand, that is the mind? To answer this rather complicated problem there are many solutions, or theories, each with their good points but none which are totally convincing, though some seem more though than others. These theories are Dualism, the belief that mind and matter are different substances, behaviourism, the belief that for every mental state you can observe a behaviour, physicalism, the belief that mind is brain, and functionalism, the belief that is something puts out the right outputs or acts like it ahs a mind then it is conscious. Added to this are the problems of whether other people have minds, and what constitutes personal identity. Each of these areas has its own arguments for and against and, it seems, is highly criticised.

The first theory in the philosophy of mind is dualism, which in basic terms, is the belief that mind is a different substance to matter. Dualists use Leibniz's law, if A = B then A must have the same properties as B, to argue that because matter is subject to the physical sciences while mind is not, then they must be different ‘stuff's. Mind and matter are also different in other ways. Firstly we can, to a point, locate a piece of matter in time and space and observe that piece of matter. But mind is totally different, you can't locate a though and it's generally believed that the mind is private and can't be observed. So you can easily conclude that mind is different to matter because they have different properties, A doesn't equal B. And because mind is some kind of substance, it can't be nothing, it only fits that there is two kinds of substances, mind and matter.

However