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“Mind is brain” is trivial and nonscientific in both neurobiology and cognitive science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1999

J. Scott Jordan
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Saint Xavier University, Chicago, IL 60655 jordan@sxu.edu

Abstract

Gold & Stoljar reveal that adherence to the radical neuron doctrine cannot be maintained via appeals to scientific principles. Using arguments from (1) naturalism and materialism, (2) unification, and (3) exemplars, it is shown that the “mind-is-brain” materialism explicit in the trivial version of the neuron doctrine ultimately suffers the same theoretical fate. Cognitive science, if it is to adopt an ontology at all, would be better served by a metaphysically neutral ontology such as double-aspect theory or neutral monism.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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