Philosophy of mind

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

Reductionism

Identifying the mind with physical substances or properties is one direct form of materialism, and claiming that psychological theory (whichever flavour you wish) is reducible to scientific theory is another, albeit indirect, form of materialism. If we can show that all of psychology is reducible to neurophysiology, and in turn, neurophysiology is reducible all the way (perhaps via other special higher-order sciences, like chemistry) down to physics, then what we've shown is that mind is nothing above and beyond the physical. In effect, it is a two step process: i) reducing languages to each other, and ii) then claiming that the ontology (or objects) of the reduced science (psychology) is identical to the ontology of the reducing science (neurophysiology).

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