Parallelism (philosophy)

The psychophysical parallelism is a philosophical theory that tries to give an answer to the mind-body problem: mental and material events follow each own regularities and not interact with each other, but nevertheless correspond.

The psychophysical parallelism in the 17th / 18th century

The two key assumptions in this position first later developed by Gottfried Leibniz and Arnold Geulincx and Nicolas Malebranche are as follows:

The second thesis of psychophysical parallelism tried to respond to problems in the theory of René Descartes. According to this there are two fundamental types of substances: spiritual and material (extended body ); both act together. Against such so-called interactionist dualism, however, several objections have been raised. On the one hand it seemed very mysterious how a non-material substance can act on a material, on the other hand, it was considered unnecessary to consider actions as caused by immaterial entities, since there is already a physical cause for them. The psychophysical parallelism tries to escape this problem, by denying any effect of the mind on the material and vice versa.

However, this position sees itself confronted with numerous objections, which has led to it today., In the form as in the 17-18 Century was represented, is barely represented. Thus the adoption of a causally explained exact match of physical and mental events requires ( changes to substances, which fall into two fundamentally different classes) even an explanation. It remains unexplained about how a shock can cause pain if the physical has no effect on the mental, or lift like a wish the arm leads to this body movement. Leibniz responded to this objection with the postulate of a pre-established by God harmony. Physical and mental events should like the hands of synchronized clocks run parallel to each other, without causing each other. He stated that the reason for this pre-established harmony in God's arrangement of the world. Non - theistic theorists see it as naturally often a strong mortgage that is hard redeemable by non- theistic explanations replacement.

The psychophysical parallelism in the 19th century

In the 19th century, was meant by the psychophysical parallelism a variety of property dualism that of Fechner ( 1801-1887 ) came from. Fechner also has the term " psychophysics " invented. His view was very widespread among physiologists, psychologists, philosophers and physicists of the 19th and early 20th century. While Fechner 's mental and physical range as for Leibniz also have no causal influence on each other. However, the reason for this non - causal relationship and the parallelism is not as Leibniz in a pre-established harmony, but in different perspective, which is assumed to things. Fechner uses to explain the watch analogy of Leibniz: while for Leibniz body and soul are like two clocks that were set by their Creator in the same time and therefore go without causal influence on each other in parallel, for Fechner body and soul, so to speak, a single clock, which is viewed from two different perspectives: from the outer to the clock and from the inner to the clock itself the psychic so that's from the perspective of the first person given, during the physical that includes from the third person given. The parallelism is therefore not, as in Leibniz to a common cause, namely God, return it to the correlated occurrence of perspective different properties of the same property wearer. The mental and physical side of man relate so according to this view, the manner of his givenness. Fechner called his solution to the mind-body problem itself " identity view ". The term " psychophysical parallelism " has probably naturalized by the psychologist Wilhelm Wundt, who also represented the psychophysical parallelism for low mental functions.

Fechner tried inductively establish that his two- page lesson is applicable not only to humans but also to the universe as a whole. He said on this panpsychism to close out of the system character of the universe, is quite analogous to the systemic nature of man. The reasoning is so similar to the modern functionalism (philosophy) the philosophy of mind. However, the acceptance of his panpsychism is logically independent of the assumption of psychophysical parallelism in relation to man. Therefore, many authors also spoke of the " psycho- physiological parallelism " in order to not create any suspicion of panpsychism. ( The founder of General Systems Theory Ludwig von Bertalanffy wrote about Fechner's system ideas his dissertation. )

Fechner's theory was combined with the Austrian philosopher Alois Riehl with the doctrine of the soul, the Immanuel Kant developed in paralogisms Chapter of the transcendental dialectic of his Critique of Pure Reason. This " identity theory ", as Riehl called them, seemed very involved in the philosopher Moritz Schlick, whose main work General Theory of Knowledge (1918 ) she played a dominant role. Meanwhile, students and temporary assistant Herbert Feigl, who later taught in the U.S. and currently thriving philosophy of mind co-founded, has gained in 1958 from a variety of the so-called " identity theory ( philosophy of mind )" ( identity theory ), which is still very popular. In the present, the American philosopher Thomas Nagel represents similar items. Psychophysical parallelism lives on in the way of speaking of the neurophysiology of the neural correlate of which is visited by this science for intellectual achievements in the neural substrate, usually by imaging methods.