Jaegwon Kim: Biography Of This Philosopher Of Mind
Throughout the history of philosophy, we find outstanding figures who became known worldwide for their contributions to this field of knowledge. One of these figures, belonging to contemporary history, was Jaegwon Kim (1934-2019), an American philosopher of Korean origin.
In this article we will see a biography of Jaegwon Kim as well as his most relevant contributions to philosophy and, more specifically, to the philosophy of mind and the mind-body problem.
Jaegwon Kim was born in Daegu (South Korea) on September 12, 1934. He began studying French literature at the University of Seoul (Korea), although only for two years. Later, in 1955, he entered Dartmouth College (United States). He later changed his major from French literature to one that combined French, philosophy and mathematics. So he went to Dartmouth College where he graduated. Later, He received his doctorate in philosophy from Princeton University (New Jersey, USA)
Also, Jaegwon Kim He worked as professor emeritus of philosophy at Brown University during the 1960s; In between he worked in other places, but returned to Brown in 1987, where he remained until he died.
Thus, Kim was also working as a philosophy professor at other universities: the University of Michigan, the University of Notre Dame, Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University and Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania, USA).
Other interesting facts about Jaegwon Kim are that he was president of the American Philosophical Association for one year, from 1988 to 1989. He was also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and editor of the philosophical quarterly magazine Noûs together with the philosopher Cuban Ernesto Sosa.
Finally, Jaegwon Kim passed away on November 27, 2019, at the age of 85.
The mind-body problem
Jaegwon Kim, a thinker who rejected strict physicalism and who focused on research on metaphysics, survival, the body-mind dilemma and, above all, the philosophy of mind. He was an American philosopher, of Korean origin, who He became known for his work on the “mind-body problem.”
The mind-body problem (also called mind-body dilemma) refers to the difficulty in explaining the relationship between the mind (or soul, for some) and matter. That is to say, How can mental states (such as beliefs, memories, sensations…) explain or interact with the material world (the world of objects)?
Furthermore, Jaegwon Kim’s contributions also focused on the field of epistemology and metaphysics. The themes on which this philosopher especially worked were: survival, Cartesian metaphysics (rather, his rejection), the individualization of events and the limitations of psychophysical identity.
As a noteworthy fact, Jaegwon Kim’s most important works have been collected in the book Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays (1993).
Influences
Jaegwon Kim himself recognized that his main influences, on a philosophical level, derived from the American philosophers Carl Hempel and Roderick Chisholm. From Hempel, above all, he was influenced by his logical positivist approach, and from Chisholm, Kim claimed to have learned “not to fear metaphysics.”
Contributions and thoughts
Jaegwon Kim developed his work focused on different topics about the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of science, theory of action and epistemology. All of them are fields of knowledge (or currents) within philosophy.
During his career, Jaegwon Kim defended different theories of the body-mind dilemma. In his early days, in the early 1970s, Kim defended a version of identity theory
To give us an idea, identity theory (also called “mind-brain identity theory”) is a theory that establishes that the states and processes of the mind are equal (or equivalent) to the processes that take place in the brain (brain processes). Thus, according to this theory, mental processes are actually mental activities or connections.
After defending his version of identity theory, Kim went on to defend another theory, in this case a non-reductive version of physicalism
For its part, physicalism is a doctrine of philosophy, related to naturalism and materialism, that talks about the nature of real things, and that maintains that only the physical (including the mental) exists.
Rejection of strict physicalism
Jaegwon Kim rejected strict physicalism; According to him, this doctrine was insufficient to explain, understand or resolve the mind-body dilemma. According to him, furthermore, The problem of consciousness (the question so researched and discussed in philosophy, about “what is human consciousness?”) would never be resolved through physicalism
Some of his works (in this case, monographs), such as: “Mind in a Physical World” (1998) and “Physicalism, or Something Near Enough” (2005) address this question; the rejection or criticism of strict physicalism in order to explain certain phenomena of philosophy or aspects of the human condition itself, with its corresponding arguments.
2. Dualism
Another of the thesis that Jaegwon Kim defended was that desires and beliefs, as intentional mental states that they are, could be functionally reduced to their neurological realizers, but on the other hand, non-intentional mental states (such as sensations), are physical, and could not be reduced to something even more primary.
In this sense, Kim would be defending a version of dualism For its part, dualism is that philosophical (or also religious) doctrine that establishes that the order of the universe is the result of an action that combines two opposite and irreducible principles.
3. The study of the mind
According to Jaegwon Kim (and this is explained in an interview in 2008 through the Korean newspaper Joongang Ilbo), In order to understand and explain how the human mind works, we must resort to a naturalistic explanation
This is because the mind consists of a natural phenomenon (and not “supernatural”, for example). So, in reality, a reliable explanation of the functioning and nature of the mind would be provided by natural science, and not so much by philosophy.
