| Position | Causal
Relation | Proponents |
| Interactive
Dualism | Both
mind (or 'soul') and body exist and causally interact. -we are 'machines
that think' | Descartes,
La Mettrie |
| Epiphenomenalism |
Mind real but
unimportant and not causal. -study bodily mechanisms or behavioral 'operants.' | Hobbes,
Skinner |
| Reductive
Materialism | Mind
doesn't exist. -study bodily mechanisms, the nervous system, actions, or behavior. | Hobbes,
French Materialists (e.g., Cabinis), mid-19th century physiology, Watson |
| Phenomenalism
| Matter
doesn't exist (theistic or logical immaterialism). -study sensations and habits. | Berkeley,
Hume, Condillac |
| Vitalism | No
'soul' but Mind, Body, plus a 'life principle.' -mind/consciousness relies
on but not reducible to a material nervous system. | J.
Müller, early-19th century physiology |
| Double-Aspect
Theory | Unity
of body & mind but not reducible. -didn't have or use evolutionary
theory. -study and measure the interaction of these aspects. |
Spinoza, Fechner, early C.L. Morgan, Psychophysics |
| Parallelism |
Mind (consciousness)
& Body Separate -who cares why? -describe or measure each in their own
way. | British
Associationism, Wundt, Structuralism, Gestalt & Humanistic psychology |
| Preestablished
Harmony | Both
run in parallel according to God's (or nature's) initial winding of two clocks.
-study unconscious influences and character types. | Leibniz,
Phrenology, Faculty Psychology |
| Occasionalism | Active
God | Malebranche |
| Emergentism | Non-reductive
functional relation between substantive body and mind as a transformative
process. -study the evolutionary development of the process. | James,
Dewey, later C.L. Morgan, Functional psychology; Dialectical materialism;
Activity Theory |