Time to move beyond the mind-body split

doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7378.1433

BMJ 2002;325:1433-1434 ( 21 December )

Editorials

Time to move beyond the mind-body split

The "mind" is not inside but "out there" in the social world

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Descartes distinguished between the res cogitans and the res extensa. The former referred to the soul or mind and was saidto be essentially "a thing which thinks."¹ The latter was thematerial stuff of the body. It was characterised primarily bythe fact of extension: it occupied space and was therefore amenableto measurement. In recent years neuroscientists and cognitivepsychologists have argued that this ontological separation ofmind and body is no longer tenable.² The former maintain thatmental functions can be fully explained by brain science. Thelatter make the case for a distinct psychological realm but onewhose operations, like those of computer software, are measurableand open to scientific investigation. The res cogitans is illusiveno longer. We can map it, scan it, and explain its functions inbiological or computationalterms.

These ideas have become dominant in medical circles and, in some form . . . [Full text of this article]

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