Identity Theory, Essay Example

Identity theorists seem plausible in stating that every mental state has a corresponding neurobiological state in the brain. Human beliefs and emotions including pain, sorrow, and joy result in different states of brain, which are expressed in the physical world as mental states (Lowe, 2000). For example, an injury on someone’s arm results in neural state, which is expressed as a physical or mental state of pain. Therefore, it seems reasonable to argue that every physical state corresponds to an identical state of brain. However, the type of physical state does not necessarily to be identical to the type of brain state.

Identity theorists explain the relationship between neural state and mental state in two different ways (Warburton, 2004). Some theorists favor a type-type relationship in which they argue that each type of physical state has an identical type of neural state. Others argue for token-token relationship: every instance or token of a particular type of physical state has an identical in the brain, which does not have to correspond to the same type of neural state. Using the example of pain, type identity theory assumes that all pain tokens (for example, pain in the toe, arm, and head) have same type of brain state (for example, the tokens are expressed on a single point in the brain). In contrast, token identity theorists believe that these pain tokens have identical tokens, which are not necessarily of the same type of neural state. Therefore, token identity theory seems to be the most suitable approach for neuroscientific predictions because instances of a certain state of mind do not have to correspond to the same type of neural state.

References

Lowe, E.J. (2000). An introduction to the philosophy of mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Warburton, N. (2004). Philosophy: The basics. (4^th ed.). London: Routledge.