Die Neurowissenschaften und die Leib-Seele-Problematik

This paper deals with the mind-body-problem in light of recent discussions in the fields of neuro-science and philosophy, setting out to examine questions of free will, the nature of knowledge and the mind-brain-connection. In my paper I argue that, only on the surface the new ‘neurodeterminism’ stress the role of the body (brain) to the detriment of the mind, but, in reality, it aims at eliminating the body and naturalizing the mind; so it turns out to be a disguised Cartesianism. Against that, on order to grasp the problem of the mind-brain-connection I suggest to reinterpret the Aristotelic-Thomistic-Tradition about the correlation between body and mind, intending the mental as a recoding of the physical on the level of a comprehensive unifying totality.