On token physicalism and anomalous monism

pp. 43-50

in: Jeff Coulter, Rethinking cognitive theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1983

Abstract

The theory of token physicalism may be stated thus: for any given occasion on which you or I are actually in mental state M (say, in a state of pain), being in that particular mental state is identical to being in brain (or CNS) state S. There is quite a large philosophical literature dealing with this claim;¹ I refer to it here as a "theory" in recognition of its research-guiding function in some recent neuroscientific work. For example, in his paper "From Neuron to Behavior and Mentation", Mario Bunge asserts that "thinking is identical with (reducible to without remainder) the activities (functions) of certain neural systems."² Bunge clearly had in mind here something like the case in which one may engage in 'silent soliloquy" or "interior monologue". (We shall return to discuss interior monologue in detail in a later section of the present work dealing with "thinking".)