Original Research Article
Year: 2016 | Month: March | Volume: 3 | Issue: 3 | Pages: 25-36
What We Do When our Brain Decides: Neurophilosophy Find the Answers
Ferrara Lydia1, Flammia Aurora2
1Department of Pharmacy, University of Naples “Federico II,” Naples, Italy.
2 ISFOM, Istituto Formazione Musicoterapia, Naples, Italy.
Corresponding Author: Ferrara Lydia
ABSTRACT
Understanding the behaviour, their own and others, it gave rise along the entire course of human history, in various research methodologies. Over time they have developed two distinct cultures that have operated as if the human being was made up of two entities: on the one hand, the bodies, the object of study of the natural sciences, on the other, the mind, the object of study of the human sciences. Often, nature and culture, innate and acquired, genetics and environment have found ourselves in positions irreconcilable; however, thanks to the most recent findings on the functioning of the nervous system, it was possible to revolutionize the way we think about the relationship between mind, brain and behaviour. In this context, the "Neurophilosophy" arises as a discipline whose aim is to establish a relationship between neuroscience and philosophy. Neuroscience infact, are influencing profoundly philosophical thought because, with their certainties, have questioned the classical view of the separation between mind and brain. The essence of Neurophilosophy is the thesis that knowledge of the mind essentially passes through the knowledge of the brain, but this does not imply that the neurosciences up the whole understanding of mental phenomena.
Recent developments in the neuroscience offer an increasing amount of “brain-based” explanations of decision-making in ethics (and economics). We reject brain-fundamentalism and we argue that neuroscientific developments support a moderate form of naturalism, according to which empirical results may indirectly influence moral reflection, but offer no direct evidence to radical reductive naturalism.
Key Words:Neurophilosophy, neuroscience thought, mind-brain, behaviour.