Body and Mind and the New Epiphenomenalism

In Body and Mind Keith Campbell investigates the Mind-Body problem in depth by first positioning its problematic status in the history of philosophy. His aim in the first chapter is to identify the problem, review the assumptions surrounding it, and to assert the universal significance of the problem. Next he introduces four incompatible propositions regarding its nature which he identifies as the inconsistent tetrad (15). Further Campbell finds it necessary to discuss in depth the concepts of Dualism, Behaviorism, Central-State Materialism, and Functionalism. Having dutifully presented this overview, Campbell is then free to discuss the centerpiece of his book, New Epiphenomenalism. New Epiphenomenalism is first differentiated from the Old Epiphenomenalism. Next it is interrelated to the problem of other minds, the problems of evolution and embryonic development. In commenting upon the current state of the Mind-Body problem, Campbell concludes that Central-State Materialism

offers the "simplest and least compromising view of the matter" (139). The Mind-Body question remains unclosed since it still must seek to more efficiently incorporate such disparate elements as mental objects (images and dreams), mental processes (suffering and pain) and mental descriptions with their intentionality within the folds of Materialism (139).

Body and Mind's greatest strength and weakness is Campbell's careful attempt at ana

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th forged by Parmenides would diffuse the Mind-Body problem as it is now known. He suggests that to follow their line of argument would leave a series of other, perhaps equally pertinent, philosophical questions unanswered. There remains a need to know what is the relationship between my mind and body or the relationship between your mind and body. The Mind-Body problem assumes that "the spaciotemporal world is a reality" (7). Campbell acknowledges that this assumption overrides the objections of the Idealist's position. Western thought has a longstanding respectable tradition of Idealism. Bishop Berkeley serving as a major voice within this tradition contended that "an apple was a collection of perceptions-as-of-apples whose real existence was as ideas in perceiving minds" (7). God as an "infinite idea-generating spirit" who passes on his ideas to humans as "finite idea-receiving spirits" is all that exists (8). Bodies according to these premises should be perceived as "a collection of ideas in human minds" or "complex sets of mental items existing only insofar as they are apprehended" (8). True to his taste for historical accuracy and depth, Campbell points out that Leibniz's notion of monads also preempts the Mind-Body
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Approximate Word count = 3012
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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