The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

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ArticleTitle	Philosophical problems in neuropsychology
Language	J
AuthorList	Hidetaka Yakura
Affiliation	Scientific Knowledge, University of Paris Diderot
Publication	Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 29 (1), 35-43, 2013
Received
Accepted
Abstract	In this paper, I would like to discuss two problems. First of all, after reflecting on what philosophical exercises mean to us, I will demonstrate that philosophy is vital to reach a higher level of consciousness or truth. Based on this analysis, I will propose "an ethics of knowledge" as a future form of our intellectual activities. Secondly, I will focus on the mind-body problem that is originated from Descartes who divided our existence into material body (brain) and nonmaterial soul (mind), independent of the law of nature. The problem thus arises as to how physicochemical reactions in the brain give rise to nonmaterial mental phenomena and how the mind inversely affects the body. I will first review representative theories and hypotheses put forward to explain this apparent paradoxical situation, namely various forms of dualism (substance and property dualism, parallelism, occaisonalism, and epiphenomenalism) and a variety of monism (idealism, materialism, physicalism, eliminativism, behaviorism, and neutral monism), and then search for a possible way to resolve this difficult question.
Keywords	philosophical questioning, a new ethics of knowledge, the mind-brain problem