Mind-Body Problem, Their Relationship - Essay Example

The five theories include behaviorism, dualism, reductionism, functionalism, and eliminative materialism and each of them has its tenet in explaining the behavior of a person in a certain context (Turner 4-6). According to the dualist perspective of looking at human life, different sides of life conflict with or complement each other in the process of an individual acting in a context. For example, according to the theory, one person behaves in a certain way because of the moral dualism that exists between the people and which explains that there are two sides to morality.

This means that a person’s actions can be either towards morality or against it, which is shaped by the various ways of defining morality from different contexts and societies or societal descriptions of it (Turner 39-41). Behaviorism is a theory that explains the actions of an individual from the context of past behavioral actions to predict because the theory argues on the bases of human experience in society. This theory argues that what is manifested physically by a person can be used to explain the differences that are in the mind of the individual and people can use clear analysis of behaviors to give explanations that are relevant to predicting their behavior.

This means that according to behaviorists, the behavior of a person is consistent according to the things they do or the things they engage themselves and if a person can be able to identify the trends of behavior of another, he or she can be able to predict the way the first person will respond to a situation (Turner 76). According to the functionalist theory, mental constructs exist because of the function it serves, and without such, they cannot be important to the individual who has them.

This means the beliefs, desires, and pain exist in the mind of a person because that person needs to perform an action in the context he or she finds himself or herself. This implies that according to functionalists, mental constructs are void and irrelevant if they do not exist to serve any purpose in the person who has them whether they are perceivable to be good or bad (Turner 78). According to the perspective of the reductionist, a system that is complicated and has many constituents influences the small constituents and they can be used to explain the constituent.

According to these theorists, for example, in a society, the general culture shapes the behavior of individuals and these individuals can be used to explain the reasons why culture is the way it is. This means that the individuals in a certain context are dependent on the general context of behavior and therefore, one of them in that context can be used to explain why the groups behave the way it does (Turner 93-94). The theory of eliminative materialism argues that there are no neural bases that can be used to explain various contexts of desire or beliefs of a person since they have poor definitions.