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Philosophy Then

Mind Without Matter

Peter Adamson traces ancient arguments against materialism.

What would a philosopher say you’re using to understand these words as you read them? Well, as usual, it depends on which philosopher you ask. Some are ‘materialists’, and think that your mind is reducible to its physical substrate, and so might say ‘your brain’. Some are ‘dualists’ and think that the mind is distinct from the brain, being a completely different kind of thing, so might just say ‘your mind’.

Many, if not most, pre-modern philosophers were dualists. Here we may think of Plato and the many thinkers influenced by Platonism in later European and Islamic thought, or of dualist theories of self in classical India.

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