The Philosophy of Mind, which includes the Philosophy of Perception, is a branch of Epistemology (or “Theory of Knowledge”), which in turn is a major branch of Philosophy. The specialization of the Philosophy of Mind is the focus on the nature of Mind, Mental Events and Functions, Perception, Memory, and Consciousness, or in short, everything philosophical about the Mind and/or Brain. These areas of study give rise to some very difficult problems and questions in Philosophy, Metaphysics, Ethics, Science, Artificial Intelligence, Law, Medicine, and so many other areas. There have also been as many opinions about the answers to the problems and issues of Mind as there have been philosophers, it seems, but in today's world we have the benefit of Neurological Science and Experimental Psychology, which have defined the Mind and Brain like never before in History.

A Teleological Question

What does the Philosophy of Mind or Epistemology offer that we do not find in Neurological Science or Experimental Psychology? This is a teleological query about Purpose. Well, philosophers are trained to reason very carefully about concepts and the deeper implications of viewpoints, such as is done in the Philosophy of Science, which not only helps scientists clarify, articulate, and develop the concepts within their disciplines, it also helps to drive scientific discoveries and theories by asking the right questions. There are also some conceptual questions that the sciences do not generally answer. For examples: What is Pain? What is Evil? What is Love? What is a Person? The sciences can tell us what Brain activity indicates what mental states which correspond to these concepts, but philosophers are necessary to determine how to understand these questions more broadly and more deeply. No amount of focus on the Brain has yet really answered questions such as: How are we Self-Aware? How do we remember yesterday? How is it that we love a specific Person? Some of these questions are not necessarily a part of the purpose of Science, but they certainly need to be asked and answered. So a better question is, where would fields like Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Computer Science, and many others be today without the Philosophy of Mind and Epistemology?

Indeed, without the inherent and fundamental and driving component of Philosophy, the mother of all Science, where would any scientific inquiry be today? Perhaps the biggest question of all for us is: What is the Mind we know we have, when we cannot find it in our studies of the Brain? Despite such a big and deep question, this article covers the broad scope of the Philosophy of Mind and its important questions.

Classic Problems

The best place to start is with the classic “problems” from the Philosophy of Mind:

Mind-Body Dualism: This problem has plagued both Modern Philosophy and Science ever since René Descartes argued the Mind is a non-physical Substance, separate from our physical Body or Brain. Despite the mountains of contemporary evidence showing this is not likely to be the case, it persists in our thinking, and ultimately supports spiritual or religious interpretations. It is a double-headed problem, because the Dualism begs the question of how a separate Mind and Brain would interact or work together.

Physicalism or Materialism: Contrary to Mind-Body Dualism is the well-supported view that everything we are, including our Mind, is a physical, detectable, sensible Substance. For Materialists, all of our mental phenomena are simply physical, though electro-chemical, processes within the Brain and how it functions and processes information. Dualists challenge this by arguing that our Subjective Consciousness has experiences and states of awareness which could not have come directly from merely physical Matter. The Dualism vs Materialism debate reaches back to Ancient Philosophy, and is continually renewed because Materialism directly challenges “spiritual” views.

Personal Identity: This epistemic brain-teaser is the question of how we remain the same person from one day to the next and over the years of our lives. The problem of Identity has had solutions ranging from our Spirit, or a Supreme Being, maintaining our continuity, to a simple denial that this is a problem to begin with. David Hume devised more of a Materialist's answer with a “Rope Theory” saying that our Identity is preserved through the connections handed down into each moment through Time like the twists of a rope. Modern Neurological Science findings support a similar broad view, that is, that our Personal Identity is a product of the Brain's day-to-day functions. Some reject these findings, again based on religious misgivings, while others posit a Behaviourism, that Identity and other states are only observable dispositions of our behaviours and not indicative of “Mind”.

Freewill vs Determinism: This is often more of a metaphysical problem, but was a key part of Descartes formulations for Mind-Body Dualism. If the physical Brain is subject to the same Laws of Causation and Materials Science, that is, Determinism, then how can we possibly find Freedom in any action we choose to take? On the one hand, there is Epiphenomenalism, which describes a mental Event as caused by a physical Event, while on the other, Psychophysical Parallelism describes a different kind of Dualism where mental and physical events happen in parallel, the one not causing the other.

What is the Mind?

It is easy to remain confused, because we haven't answered the question, What is the Mind? Or have we? To the Dualist, and to the religious believer, the answer is simple, that the Mind is a Spirit which animates the Body. Identity and Freewill are possible because they are inherent features of a Spirit World. To those in this camp, the Mind is forever deferred from explanation, because the Spirit is beyond, outside, mystical. For the Materialist, the answer is equally simple, that the Mind is shown by Science as simply a product of trillions of neurons firing away in our head in billions of patterns. Identity and Freewill involve False Choices in discussion, as Identity is a direct result of the Brain functioning over Time, and Freewill is how we make choices about how to act, what to eat, and so on. To this camp, the Mind is the Brain, and the Mind boggles our imagination because the Brain really is that complex. To those in this camp, the Mind simply “is”, and any creature which has Perception and Memory has a Mind - though this still leaves the question of Artificial Intelligence at large.

Philosophy of Perception

The Persistence of Memory (1932), Salvador Dali

Now, the Philosophy of Perception is a perhaps dated specialization of the Philosophy of Mind. Along with “Cognitive Science”, a vast purely academic feeding ground that produced a lot of confusion for more than half a century, the Philosophy of Perception has been bound with the same fate. Where the philosopher of Perception remains tightly woven with new findings in Neurological Science and Experimental Psychology, the work remains relevant, of course. That said, the Philosophy of Perception is properly focused on one big compound question: What is the Nature of Perception, and Why is it a Problem? Philosophers of Mind in part study the nature of Sensory Experience and its relationship to Reality. Today, the many older lines of inquiry have given way to two main camps of contemporary Realism:

Naïve Realism: This view is about our Sensory Experience involving the Perception of constituent parts of Things which are ordinary External Objects. We cannot have Sensory Experience of something unless that something actually exists for us to perceive it, because that Object is directly giving rise to our Sensory Experience. This much is British Empiricism by another name, but Naïve Realism also adopted Phenomenology from the early Twentieth Century, which describes “what it's like” to have the Sensory Experience of the Object, which is also a part of the overall experience.

Representationalism: Sometimes called “Intentionalism”, and also ostensibly a form of Empiricism, this view is about our Sensory Experience having conditions of accuracy or truth in the same way any of our Thought or Reason would have the same. This is a “Direct Realism” which describes how Thought, Belief, or Perception are direct experiences of real Objects in the World, and they can be given degrees of accuracy. While this view almost smacks of Continental Rationalism, it is really not about “Innate Ideas”, but about “Representational Ideas”. A belief about a given Object relates only to that Object in a direct way, illustrating that Sensory Experience is about Objects directly. In this way, Sensory Experience has “Representational Content”, and is also close to Transcendental Idealism.

These two “isms” are what's left standing from a whole panoply of other theories, among them an older version of Representationalism which really was more Continental Rationalist, in that it was about the Experience of Internal Ideas about External Objects. Other theories included “Sense Datum”, “Skepticism”, “Phenomenalism”, “Adverbialism”, “Cognitive Science”, and other academic circumlocutions. This paring down of the field is in part due to changes in Philosophy itself, but of course also to the rapid advancement of the Sciences related to the Brain and Perception. We are left with a debate between Perception being a Phenomenal Experience or a Quasi-Rationalist Representation...which sounds indeed like two ways of saying the same thing.

The Problem of Perception

Either way, and whichever “ism” we may like, the Problem of Perception has become an ever more paramount issue throughout Modernity and especially today. If our Perception is sorta-kinda Realistic but also more toward the Phenomenological, perhaps even Rationalist, then how do we manage the clash of many phenomenal Perceptions all fighting for legitimacy and power over us all? How do we combat misinformation produced on such a vast scale today that whole swaths of people are brainwashed by “fake news” (and fake “encyclopedias”) into believing what is false and hating what is true? How do we grapple with the consequences when Artificial Intelligence is used to present to us ever more convincing yet completely false content and images? How can we stand up against what has become a “War on Truth”? This is yet another reason why Epistemology, The Philosophy of Mind, and the Philosophy of Perception are so important, particularly when pursued in concert with Ethics. In short, we need Philosophy like never before.

Some Philosophers of Mind

Scholarship by M.R.M. Parrott

Dynamism: Life: Volume II: Biological Chemistry and Epistemology
Philosophy and Science Treatise

©2001, 2010-2011 M.R.M. Parrott
First Published: Jun 2011

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Dynamism: Force: Volume I: Quantum Physics and Ontology
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©2001-2004 M.R.M. Parrott
First Published: Feb 05/Jun 11

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Synthetic A Priori: Philosophical Interviews
Interviews, Discussion

©1998-1999 M.R.M. Parrott
First Published: 99,00,02,08,11

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The Pure Critique of Reason: Kant and Subjectivity
Philosophical Monograph

©1998-1999 M.R.M. Parrott
First Published: Oct 2002

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0-9662635-5-3 | 978-0-9662635-5-8
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The Empiricism of Subjectivity: Deleuze and Consciousness
Philosophical Monograph

©1996-1997 M.R.M. Parrott
First Published: Oct 2002

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0-9662635-3-7 | 978-0-9662635-3-4
128 Pages, Paperback & eBook, 2025

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The Ethos of Modernity: Foucault and Enlightenment
Philosophical Monograph

©1995-1996 M.R.M. Parrott
First Published: May 96/Oct 02

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160 Pages, Paperback & eBook, 2025

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The Generation of 'X': Philosophical Essays 1991-1995
Academic Papers

©1991-1995 M.R.M. Parrott
First Published: Oct 2002

Published by rimric press
0-9662635-0-2 | 978-0-9662635-0-3
160 Pages, Paperback & eBook, 2025

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