Philosophy of mind

Philosophy of mind is the philosophical study of the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, and consciousness.

Mental properties

Another question commonly asked is whether mental properties (or states, or kinds, or ) just are physical properties. Is the mental phenomenon we call 'pain' really just, say, firing C-fibers in the brain? This view is known as type-physicalism (or type-identity theory). A common argument against this view is known as the argument from multiple realizability: since animals we commonly attribute as being in pain have completely different neurophysiological systems, and thus completely different physical properties, it follows that pain cannot be one particular physical property, i.e., firing C-fibers found in humans. After all, surely dogs, other animals, and even reptiles are capable of feeling pain. (We could go as far as saying that aliens with utterly disparate physical systems are also, at least possibly, capable of feeling pain.). This type of argument is generally taken to be an argument against another related view known as scientific reductionism.

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