The neopositivist genesis of the antimetaphysical axiom in philosophy of mind
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36592/opiniaofilosofica.2025.v16.1247Keywords:
philosophy of mind, neopositivism, antimetaphysics, mind-brain identityAbstract
The hypothesis we present in the article is that philosophy of mind was conceived in the same context in which the Vienna Circle emerged, so that it was born and remains marked to this day by an underlying antimetaphysical axiom, namely: it is science that will respond definitively to the problem of mind. No matter how antagonistic the positions adopted over decades of discussion have been – theory of mind-brain identity, theory of the non-existence of the mind, functionalism, interactionism, anomalous monism, biological naturalism, enactivism, eliminativism, naturalistic dualism –, the debate in Philosophy of Mind is conditioned by this axiom. In the first three points of the article, we propose an analysis of how Schlick, Carnap and Feigl solidified the statement that the problem of the mind must be answered strictly by science. Our objective with this analysis is to show that, behind their specific perspectives on the theory of mind-brain identity, there is an intention (to reduce the problem of the mind to science), which is common to them. This is not a supposed intention, by inference or other interpretation strategy, but an intention explicitly stated in the form of a fundamental axiom. In the fourth point, through selected examples, we seek to confirm the formulated hypothesis, showing how the neopositivist axiom has become a kind of indeclinable truth for what we call philosophy of mind.
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