What is the relationship between the mind and the physical body or brain?
What the mind-body problem is, the features of mental states that theories must explain (intentionality, qualia, consciousness and the privacy of mental states), the broad division between dualist and physicalist answers, and the criteria for assessing theories of mind such as causal interaction and conservation of energy.
A focused answer to AQA A-Level Philosophy metaphysics of mind, mapping the mind-body problem, the features of mental states that any theory must explain (intentionality, qualia, consciousness and privacy), and the broad division between dualist and physicalist theories with the criteria for assessing them.
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What this dot point is asking
AQA wants you to set up the mind-body problem: to identify the features of mental states that any theory of mind must explain (intentionality, qualia, consciousness and the privacy of mental states), to explain the broad division between dualism and physicalism, and to know the criteria, such as accounting for causal interaction and respecting conservation of energy, by which the theories are assessed.
What the problem is
The features a theory must explain
The two broad answers
- Dualism holds that the mind, or at least mental properties, is non-physical and distinct from the body. It readily accommodates qualia, consciousness and privacy but struggles to explain how a non-physical mind interacts with a physical body.
- Physicalism holds that the mind is wholly physical, ultimately a matter of the brain and its functioning. It fits neatly with science and causal interaction but is pressed hardest by qualia and consciousness.
It helps to see the module as a map of how each theory trades off the features. Substance dualism explains qualia, consciousness and privacy effortlessly (they are properties of a non-physical mind) but fails on interaction. Behaviourism secures interaction and public knowability but seems to leave out felt inner states and self-knowledge entirely. Type identity theory explains causal interaction and intentionality well (mental states just are brain states) but is threatened by multiple realisability and still owes an account of qualia. Functionalism captures intentionality and causal role and allows multiple realisability, but the inverted and absent qualia objections suggest it omits consciousness. Eliminativism sidesteps the features by denying that beliefs, desires and perhaps qualia exist at all. Seeing the problem as a balance sheet, where every theory pays for its strengths with a characteristic weakness, is exactly what AQA rewards.
Criteria for assessing theories
Why the problem is hard
Each feature pulls in a different direction. Intentionality and causal interaction seem to favour a physical, scientific account; qualia, consciousness and privacy seem to resist reduction to anything purely physical. The rest of the module sets out the rival theories (dualism, behaviourism, mind-brain identity, functionalism, eliminativism) and how each fares against these criteria.
A deeper way to express the difficulty is Chalmers' distinction between the easy problems and the hard problem of consciousness. The easy problems are explaining the brain's functions: how it discriminates stimuli, integrates information, reports states and controls behaviour; these are hard in practice but in principle within reach of cognitive science. The hard problem is explaining why all that functioning is accompanied by felt experience at all, why there is something it is like to undergo it rather than the processing going on "in the dark". An "explanatory gap" (Levine) seems to remain even after every physical and functional fact is given: nothing in a complete neuroscience seems to entail that the firing should feel like anything. Whether this gap is merely epistemic (a limit on our concepts) or genuinely ontological (a gap in nature) is the question that the rival theories in this module are trying to settle.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of AQA exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AQA 20183 marksExplain what is meant by intentionality and give an example.Show worked answer →
A 3 mark "explain" wants the concept and a clear example. Intentionality is the property many mental states have of being about, of, or directed at something, so that they have content or represent the world. For example, a belief that it is raining is about the rain, and a desire for coffee is directed at coffee. Note that the object need not exist (one can fear a monster that is not real), which is part of what makes intentionality distinctive and hard to reduce to the physical.
AQA 20205 marksOutline two features of mental states that any theory of mind must explain.Show worked answer →
Markers want two features named and each briefly but accurately explained.
Choose two of: intentionality, the aboutness or directedness of states such as beliefs and desires; qualia, the subjective felt qualities of experience, the "what it is like" of seeing red or feeling pain; consciousness, the bare fact of subjective awareness; and privacy or first-person access, the way I seem to know my own mental states directly while others must infer them. A strong answer keeps the two distinct, for example contrasting intentionality (representational content) with qualia (felt quality), since conflating them is a common error.
AQA 202212 marksExplain the broad division between dualism and physicalism, and the criteria by which theories of mind are assessed.Show worked answer →
A 12 mark question wants the two camps characterised and the assessment criteria set out.
Dualism holds that the mind, or at least mental properties, is non-physical and distinct from the body; it readily accommodates qualia, consciousness and privacy but struggles to explain how a non-physical mind interacts with a physical body. Physicalism holds the mind is wholly physical, ultimately the brain and its functioning; it fits science and causal interaction neatly but is pressed hardest by qualia and consciousness. The criteria: a good theory must explain the four features (intentionality, qualia, consciousness, privacy), account for the apparent causal interaction between mind and body, cohere with physical science including the conservation of energy (a worry for interactionist dualism), and not render consciousness or other minds unknowable. A strong answer shows how the criteria favour different camps for different features, which is why the problem is hard.
Related dot points
- Substance dualism and Descartes' conceivability and divisibility arguments, property dualism and the philosophical zombies and knowledge arguments, and the objections to dualism including the problem of interaction, the conceptual problem of causation and the issues of other minds and category mistakes.
A focused answer to AQA A-Level Philosophy metaphysics of mind on dualism, covering substance dualism and Descartes' conceivability and divisibility arguments, property dualism and the zombie and knowledge arguments, and objections including the problem of interaction, conservation of energy and category mistakes.
- Logical and analytical behaviourism (Ryle and Hempel), the mind-brain type identity theory and its commitment to ontological reduction, eliminative materialism on folk psychology, and the objections including multiple realisability, circularity, the asymmetry of self-knowledge and the conceivability of disembodied minds.
A focused answer to AQA A-Level Philosophy metaphysics of mind on physicalist theories, covering logical and analytical behaviourism, the mind-brain type identity theory, eliminative materialism, and objections including multiple realisability, circularity, the asymmetry of self-knowledge and conceivable disembodied minds.
- Functionalism as the view that mental states are functional states defined by their causal role, the input, internal state and output structure and its multiple realisability, the contrast with type identity theory and behaviourism, and the objections from the possibility of inverted qualia and absent qualia and from the China brain or nation thought experiment.
A focused answer to AQA A-Level Philosophy metaphysics of mind on functionalism, covering mental states as functional roles defined by inputs, internal states and outputs, multiple realisability, the contrast with identity theory and behaviourism, and the objections from inverted and absent qualia and the China brain thought experiment.
- The concept of qualia and the hard problem of consciousness, the knowledge argument (Mary) and the philosophical zombies argument against physicalism, and physicalist responses including the ability and acquaintance replies, the new knowledge of old facts response and the denial that zombies are genuinely conceivable.
A focused answer to AQA A-Level Philosophy metaphysics of mind on qualia and consciousness, covering the concept of qualia and the hard problem, the knowledge argument (Mary) and the philosophical zombies argument against physicalism, and the main physicalist responses to each.
Sources & how we know this
- AQA A-level Philosophy (7172) specification — AQA (2017)