CHAPTER II. The Problem of Soul and Body

THE PROBLEM OF SOUL AND BODY

§ 1. The problem of psychophysical connection has to do with the correlation of scientific abstractions, not of given facts of experience. § 2. The “consciousness” of Psychology is thus not the same thing as the finite individual subject of experience, and Reality must not be said to consist of “minds” in the psychologist’s sense. Again, we must not assume a priori that there can be only one working hypothesis of psychophysical connection. § 3. The possible hypotheses may be reduced to three, Epiphenomenalism, Parallelism, and Interaction. § 4. Epiphenomenalism is legitimate as a methodological principle in Physiology; it is untenable as a basis for Psychology because it implies the reduction of psychical facts to mechanical law. § 5. Parallelism. The arguments for Parallelism as necessarily valid to Psychophysics because of its congruity with the postulates of mechanical Physics, are fallacious. We cannot assume that Psychology must necessarily conform to these postulates. § 6. As a working hypothesis Parallelism is available for many purposes, but breaks down when we attempt to apply it to the case of the initiation of fresh purposive reactions. A teleological and a mechanical series cannot ultimately be “parallel.” § 7. We are thus thrown back on the hypothesis of Interaction as the only one which affords a consistent scheme for the correlation of Physiology and Psychology. We have, however, to remember that what the hypothesis correlates is scientific symbols, not actual facts. The actuality represented by both sets of symbols is the same thing, though the psychological symbolism affords a wider and more adequate representation of it than the physiological 313