AccScience Publishing / BIJP / Volume 14 / Issue 4 / DOI: 10.29228/beytulhikme.78455
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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Why is the Mind-Body Problem Both an Ancient and a Medieval Problem? 

Mehmet Zahit Tiryaki1
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1 İstanbul Medeniyet, Edebiyat Fakültesi, Felsefe Bölümü 34720, İstanbul, Türkiye
BIJP 2024, 14(4), 1027–1056; https://doi.org/10.29228/beytulhikme.78455
Received: 1 September 2024 | Published online: 29 December 2024
© 2024 by the Authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
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Abstract

The present article aims to contribute to ongoing scholarly debates by examining the similarities and differences between the conceptualization of the soul-body relationship in early philosophical traditions and the formulation of the mind-body problem in the post-Cartesian framework. To achieve this objective, the article is organized into two primary sections. The first section presents the central arguments of scholars who assert that the soul-body problem of ancient and medieval philosophy is distinct from the mind-body problem emerging in the modern period. The second section of the article critically evaluates these arguments, highlighting the continuities between the soul-body relationship in ancient-Hellenistic and medieval thought and the mind-body relationship in modern and contemporary philosophy. This article contends that the soul-body and mind-body problems, alongside the various approaches developed across different historical periods, should be understood as exhibiting a problematic continuity. It argues that, despite differing terminologies, a persistent duality problem can be traced from antiquity through to the modern era.

Keywords
Antiquity
Middle Ages
modern and contemporary period
soul-body relationship
mind-body relationship.
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Beytulhikme An International Journal of Philosophy, Print ISSN: 1303-8303, Published by AccScience Publishing
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