The expanded objectivity of Dual-aspect theory in search of a broad vision of reality

• Grant number: 24/14818-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2024
• End date: November 30, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Epistemology
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Antonio Alves
• Grantee: Marcelo Fernando Gonçalo
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências (FFC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Marília. Marília , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Philosophy of Mind emerged as a field that investigated issues such as those related to the problem of the mind-body relationship, the nature of mental processes and their relations with action, and the possibility of an objective and quantitative explanatory approach to such processes. Thomas Nagel developed an approach, known as Dual Aspect Theory, or Property Dualism, seeking to provide answers to questions such as these. Nagel's philosophical project is to distance himself from both the physicalist and substance dualist approaches to the mind, which exclude mental life in its entirety, and to explore the possibility of an expanded objective understanding, which includes the subjective phenomena of human experience, in search of a broad vision of reality. For Nagel (1974, 2004, 2007, 2012), the brain is the seat of mental life, but conscious states are not mere physical states. This organ of the body has a set of physical properties and another of mental properties, irreducible to the physical. In this project, we propose a critical analysis of the Dual Aspect Theory. We intend to address the following issue: would the Dual Aspect Theory be a satisfactory perspective for explaining mental processes? Our hypothesis is that, given the subjective and qualitative nature of these processes, such dualism constitutes a more appropriate explanatory approach to them than physicalist approaches, which reduce the mental to the physical, or dualist approaches such as the substantial approach, which need to advocate the existence of an entity independent of the body to explain mental phenomena.