MATERIALISTIC-REDUCTIVE APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIOUSNESS: MIND-BRAIN IDENTITY THEORY

Аннотация

The problem of consciousness, which attracted the attention of the thinkers for millennia, has acquired markedly materialistic hues in the mid 20th century. One of those approaches, which is “Mind/Brain Identity Theory” developed by thinkers such as U.T. Place, J.J. Smart and D. Armstrong, is one of the most marked theories of this type. According to the supporters of this theory, consciousness is simply the expression of physical phenomena occurring in the brain through our concepts. According to them, consciousness is not a substance with a special status, it is just a reflection of the processes in the brain. The article considers a number of advantages and disadvantages of the theory.