History of Philosophical Thought Regarding Mind-Brain Relations:
Category: Other
Updated: 5 Jan 2018
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Created byDaniella Maydan
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Hippocrates
“…pleasure, joy and laughter,
but also sorrow, pain, grief and
tears rise from the brain,
and the brain alone…”Plato
Described the human brain
as whitish, gelatinous, and
semen-looking → said it was
the source of the mindAristotle
said that the pumping heart and
flowing mind made up the living
mind because they were quick,
moving, and alive; thought the
brain served as simply a cooling
unit (said it wasn’t lively enough
to be the source of the mind)Galen
Was a physician to the gladiators; said that rational thought is stored
in the brain, but that it also keeps flowing as a liquid source → was
referring to brain ventricles filled with cerebrospinal fluid → thought
different ventricles had different roles (front = senses,
middle = reason, & back = emotion and movement)Leonardo Da Vinci: a neuroscience experimenter
1st experiment: filled an Ox’s head with hot wax to determine the real (“inflated”) shape of a living brain
2nd experiment: mapped the ventricles again and flipped reason and sensation’s location in the brain
(front = reason, middle = senses, & back = emotion and movement)Rene Descartes
Said that mind and matter and two separate domains that interact with one another (dualism) and
therefore touch somewhere in the body (pineal gland) → believed the body functioned like a
hydraulic machine, in the sense that he believed that when nerves experience physical sensations,
they cause ripples in body fluid that travel up to the pineal gland, which then causes a psychological
sensation; said that only the mind (not the fluid) can be a soulHydraulic machine
model → electrochemical
machineDualism
Says the mind and brain
are separate but interactReductionism
Says the brain causes the
mind in a one-way causationEmergentism
Says that the mind
is a higher-order entity;
contrasts with reductionism,
as it believes there is a two-way
causation between the brain
and the mind
Analogy: ocean waves and
water moleculesPeriods
4th century B.C.2nd century B.C.15th-16th century20th century -
Modern Day
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