The Mind-Brain Identity Theory and Behaviourism of Ullin Thomas Place: An Expository and Evaluative Study

REV. FR. JOSEPH T. EKONG O.P

Brain, Exposition, Evaluation, Identity, Mind, Materialism, Theory.

This work is expository, critical and evaluative in its methodology. The “Mind-brain Identity Theory,”(also called physicalism or central state materialism) is a philosophical position which claims that the mind and the brain are the same. In other words, the state of mind is the same as brain processes; that mental state is the same as the physical state of the brain. Place formulated the thesis that mental processes were not to be defined in terms of behavior; rather, one must identify them with neural states. With this bold thesis, Place became one of the fathers of the current materialistic mainstream of the philosophy of mind. British philosopher and psychologist U.T. Place, one of the developers of the identity theory of mind, argued in his 1954 paper: "Is Consciousness a Brain Process?,"that the prevalent view that there exists a separate class of events, mental events, that cannot be described in terms of the concepts employed by the physical sciences, no longer commands the universal and unquestioning acceptance among philosophers and psychologists that it once did. In the most simplistic terms, mind-brain identity theory purports that the mind is simply a part of the physical body. Like all ideas and theories on the state of being, this philosophy of mind seeks to explain the nature of human consciousness and to address the mind-body problem, a philosophical conundrum over the relationship between the mind (with its thoughts, beliefs and emotions) and the physical body. The objective of this work is to revisit the claims of U.T. Place, in his central state materialism, and evaluate their plausibility or implausibility, in the light of the contemporary advancements in neuroscience and the Philosophy of Mind.

https://doi.org/10.31871/WJRR.15.4.6