NJIKO: A Multi-Disciplinary Journal of Humanities, Law, Education and Social Sciences

The mind-body problem is basically the problem of providing adequate explanation for the basic constituents and composition of the human person. This attempt generated a lot of controversies on the nature of the human mind and its possible relationship with the body in the history of Western philosophy. The mind-body problem became a major concern for metaphysicians and philosophers of mind in the 17th century. The problem was brought into focus by Rene Descartes who was concerned with providing explanation to the question of the fundamental nature of the human mind and how it is related to the body. In this case, Descartes developed a dualistic thesis called interactionism. He argues that though mind and body are separate entities, they causally interact. However, the possibility of providing a convincing explanation for this causal interaction between two different substances remains a very difficult task for Descartes and his contemporaries hitherto. As a result of this inadequacy, various theories that were put forward alternatively to Cartesian interactionism were succinctly considered in this respect. However, to further problematize the discourse, the paper relates the problem to contemporary cybernetics or artificial intelligence as a recent development of materialism in order to see how it attempts to undermine the Cartesian interactionist theory. However, the intractability of the problem remains intact as scholars attempt to compare human intelligence and artificial intelligence. This subsequently creates a conflict of superiority between men and machines. The research therefore argues that in spite of the difficulty of providing satisfactory explanation for the possibility of causal relationship between mind and body, Descartes interactionist theory appears more plausible and holistic in that it does not only fits nicely the commonsense notion but also pays sufficient attention to the relationship between the immaterial and material aspects of man in relation to his moral status.

Open Full Text (PDF)