THE STORY OF THE MIND - PSYCHOLOGICAL AND BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF HUMAN-BEHAVIOR

Persons have a curious dual nature. On the one hand, they are subjects , whose actions must be explained in terms of beliefs, desires, plans, and goals. At the same time, however, they also are physical objects, whose actions must be explicable in terms of physical laws. So far no satisfying account of this duality has been offered. Both Cartesian d ualism and the modern materialist alternatives (reductionist and antir eductionist) have failed to capture the full range of our experience o f persons. I argue that an exciting new approach to this difficulty ca n be found by considering developments in clinical psychology. The cli nical debate between those endorsing biological models of mental illne ss and those endorsing psychodynamic models mirrors broader debates in the philosophy of mind. The possible resolution of this debate throug h the development of integrated psychobiological models suggests a pro mising way to reconcile the dual nature of persons in a far more appea ling way than any yet proposed.