Abstract

Bunge’s writings on the mind-body problem provide a rigorous, analytical antidote to the persistent anti-materialist tendency that has characterized the history of philosophy and science. Bunge suggests that dualism can be neutralized “with a bit of philosophical analysis” but this is clearly too optimistic in view of the recent revival of dualism as a respectable doctrine despite a vast industry of philosophical analysis. The conceivability of zombies leads to the possibility of dualism and thereby to the falsity of materialism. Bunge relies on his general case that “arguably all the factual sciences only study concrete entities, from photons to rocks to organisms to societies”. Bunge’s immunity to philosophical extravagance is to be commended, but he is perhaps like someone who rejects Zeno’s paradoxes as physical absurdities and thereby leaves the puzzle itself untouched. While philosophers need to be cured of their paradoxes, perhaps Bunge’s strategy of just getting on with real scientific inquiry is, after all, the best approach.