Is Consciousness a Brain Process?

Introduction

Ullin T. Place, a British psychologist and philosopher who taught at the University of Adelaide, published the paper in the British Journal of Psychology in 1956. He accepts a behavioural analysis, in the spirit of Ryle, for concepts such as knowing and believing, but argues that consciousness, sensation and mental imagery require reference to an inner process. The “is” in “consciousness is a brain process” is the “is” of composition, as in “lightning is a motion of electric charges”, not the “is” of definition. He also identifies a “phenomenological fallacy”: the mistake of supposing that in describing our experiences we describe properties of objects on an inner screen. The paper is regarded as the first statement of the mind–brain identity theory.

Connections

Responds to

• The Concept of Mind1949 · Gilbert Ryle

Taken up in

• Sensations and Brain Processes1959 · J. J. C. Smart