Beyond Mental Representation: Dualism Revisited

Abstract

In this paper, I suggest that the perennial endeavour to understand how language
and thought work leads to a major recurrent fallacy: the introduction of new
entities/conceptual variables with misleading and elusive functions, apparently
helpful, but in the event difficult, or indeed impossible, to grasp. It is
obvious that the oft-quoted mental discomfort felt by Wittgenstein is due to
this kind of counterfeit invention. And in the momentous complementary case of
Wilfrid Sellars, it becomes conspicuous that we have no chance at all to find a
satisfactory way to provide a synoptic view of commonsensical versus scientific
descriptions of the world within the framework of a traditional dualistic and
verbalist approach. In a desperate attempt to step out of this framework, i.e.
to connect mental and physical processes, I will focus on the notion of motor
activity, relying on conceptual metaphor theory and the enactive approach in
cognitive studies.