1 Psychology and human development1.2 Awareness, sleep and consciousness
1.2.2 Mind and body
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Written by Resident Doctor Committee · Published
New in the 2027 syllabus
The College added this topic for exams from January 2027.
Philosophical accounts
Account | Claim |
|---|---|
Substance dualism | Mind and physical matter are fundamentally different substances |
Physicalism | Mental events are part of the physical world |
Dual-aspect monism | Mental and physical descriptions are two aspects of one underlying reality |
Substance dualism faces the interaction problem. If the mind is not physical, it is unclear how it could cause changes in a physical body.
Dual-aspect monism is still monist. It holds that there is one underlying reality, even though the mental and physical descriptions of it stay distinct.
Errors in clinical reasoning
Psychological does not mean unreal. A psychological explanation does not mean the symptoms are imagined or lack a biological basis.
A neural correlate (brain activity that goes along with a mental state) does not make meaning, relationships or social conditions any less relevant.
A false dichotomy treats biological and psychological explanations as if only one can be true. They may describe the same process at different levels.
The explanatory gap is the question of why brain processing comes with subjective experience. Finding correlations alone does not settle that philosophical question.