On Mind and Matter

A major problem in the traditional body-mind debate is the apparent irreconcilability of interactionism with what we think of as a scientific understanding of natural phenomena. This paper rejects the idea of body-mind interactionism, and argues that the problem of interactionism may be overcome by the body-mind distinction being viewed as a division between two ways of looking at living beings: one consisting in relating overt behavioural reactions to intra-bodily causes and effects, the other consisting in understanding what these reactions mean.