The Mind-Body Problem in Contemporary Analytic Philosophy: A Review of the Main Approaches
The objective of the article is to review modern approaches to interaction between the mental and the physical in the human person in the analytic philosophy. It starts with the critical comparison between the mind-body dualism, inaugurated by Descartes, and the materialistic reductionism including the identity theory and functionalism. The next step is to discuss some more “compromising” approaches as the antireductionism and the property dualism including the epiphenomenalism. The author discusses the question, to which extent the human brain may be compared to a computer (the computer metaphor). Each solution is supplemented with the key pro and contra arguments, while the mind philosophy is evaluated from the positions of its instrumentality for the Christian apologetics. The author shows the connections between modern approaches and works of the Russian researchers on the early 20th century (G. Chelpanov,V. Zenkovsky).