1. The Mind-Body Relation: Ancient Western Views Materialism: all things (including minds/souls & mental events) are bodies in motion Democritus (fl. 450 BCE ) Lucretius (94-55 BCE ) Dualism: the soul is an immortal life force distinct from the body; its search for truth is moral desire Plato (427-347 BCE) Aristotle: the soul is the form of a body: the life of plants, the sensation/motion of animals, the mind of human beings (384-322 BCE)

2. The Hindu Self The experienced part of person (the conscious self and body) differs from the all-pervading divine Self, which is not known or reasoned to Sankara: The phenomenal world (including selves) does not exist (788-820) Ramanuja: The phenomenal self is a modification of the inner self (God/Brahman) (1077-1157)

3. Mind-Body Dualism René Descartes: human beings are composed of a material body and an immaterial mind that are distinct but linked through the pineal gland –Problem: Interaction. Proposed solutions: Anne Conway: bodies are not really different from souls; both express different degrees of how reality is organized and expressed (1596-1650) (1637-78)

4. Other Proposed Solutions to Mind-Body Dualism Baruch Spinoza: mind and body are simply different ways in which God is expressed (dual aspect monism) G. W. Leibniz: mental and physical events happen independently of one another but are harmonized by God (parallelism) (1632-77) (1646-1716)