MIND, BRAIN AND BIOCHEMISTRY 387 



act on the spatio-temporal patterning of the mind. There is, 

 so to speak, a two-way street: the cerebral detectors can also 

 act as transmitters so that the mind can both influence and 

 be influenced. 



Eccles' philosophy of mind and brain has not been widely 

 accepted. In the first place, it is still a mechanical explanation. 

 The mind is assumed to operate on the brain in the same way 

 as the brain operates on the mind. In other words, his view 

 ascribes to the mind a mode of activity which is proper to 

 material things. Descartes at least admitted a real difference 

 between thought and mechanics. In the second place, even 

 as a physical type of ghost the * mind ' in Eccles' view is still 

 too remote from cerebral activities. There is only one life by 

 which the mind and brain function. The realistic explanation 

 must somehow account for the real unity of life as well as for 

 the apparent difference between thought and cerebral physi- 

 ology. Descartes' dichotomy between spirit and matter has at 

 least some grounds of intelligibility, but Eccles' dichotomy 

 between a materialistic mind and neurophysiological activity 

 is devoid of all intelligibility. Finally, an adequate resolution 

 of the mind-body problem must allow the mind to act according 

 to its non-material nature, explaining simultaneously the on- 

 tological unity of the person and the diversity of thought and 

 physiological changes. 



To date the only adequate solution to the mind-body problem 

 is the one suggested by Aristotle and Galen, and developed 

 throughout the centuries even to our own day. The solution 

 can be called adequate because it does in fact explain the 

 ontological unity of the living being and at the same time 

 accounts for the immaterial nature of thought and the effect 

 of biochemical changes on the psychological person. The Aris- 

 totelian view, commonly called the hylomorphic theory, can 

 easily be misunderstood. If it is misunderstood, the hylo- 

 moi-phic theory offers no real solution at all; in fact, it might 

 even be an obstacle to a real solution. 



First it is important to note that according to the Aristotelian 



