Agency and the mind-body problem

What is the mind, and how is it related to the body? The two main traditional answers to this question are dualism and physicalism. Whereas the focus is normally on the differences between these views, I argue that they share a mistaken assumption and propose a third alternative. Normally it is assumed by both dualists and physicalists that the mind consists of internal states which are only causally related to actions. I argue in contrast that the mind in the most basic sense consists of an organism's skillful interaction with the world. I focus on the shared assumption in the first half of the thesis by considering two prominent arguments for dualism and functionalism (the main contemporary form of physicalism). First, the dualist claims that a world physically identical to the actual world but which lacks consciousness is conceivable. I argue that such a world is inconceivable because consciousness is essentially related to skillful actions, and such actions are essentially related to the physical world. Second, the functionalist claims that in folk psychology we think of mental states as internal states only causally related to actions. I argue that the functionalist misdescribes folk psychology, and that ordinarily we primarily think of mental states as a form of interaction with the world. If the mind primarily consists of an organism's acting in the world, what is the nature of such actions? In the second half of the thesis I argue against the Kantian view that all human actions are guided by thought and self-consciousness. I argue that basic skillful actions are phenomenologically and structurally unreflective, and that they are presupposed by reflective actions. A consequence of denying the Kantian view while accepting that the mind is most basically a form of action is that it highlights a new way of answering the mind-body problem. Understanding the mind as a natural phenomenon requires first explaining unreflective actions in terms of the physical complexity of the organism in the world, and then explaining reflective actions and the more sophisticated mental states against the background of unreflective actions.