Trends in philosophy of mind and in philosophy of neuroscience

pp. 23-37

in: Psychiatry and neuroscience update, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

This chapter presents current trends in philosophy of mind and philosophy of neuroscience, with a special focus on neuroscientists dealing with some topics usually discussed by philosophers of mind. The aim is to detect the philosophical views of those scientists, such as Eccles, Gazzaniga, Damasio, Changeux, and others, that are not easy to classify according to the standard divisions of dualism, functionalism, emergentism, etc. Because the variety of opinions in these fields is sometimes a source of confusion, it is worth the effort to obtain an overall view of the topic. A general conclusion on epistemological and ontological issues regarding the relationship between neurobiology and philosophy and the multi-level account of the embodied mind is proposed.