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The philosophical and scientific issue of the Mind-Body Problem was raised in modern times by analytic philosophers from the need to investigate and clarify the type of relationship between the mental and physical spheres in man. The underlying question is whether the mental processes need a material and physiological basis (that is, because the brain is the physical organ of thought, there is full interaction between body and mind) or, on the contrary, the mental phenomena are totally irreducible to the physical structure of the brain and operate independently from the body and its physical components.
Although it is a main theme of today's philosophy of mind, whose origins can be found in the reflection of modern philosophers such as Descartes, Berkeley and Hume, some scholars trace the beginnings of the Mind-Body Problem back to ancient philosophy.
It is in the light of a debate which is still far from finding a solution that in this volume a group of scholars on ancient philosophy reflect on this issue, in order to clarify whether and under which terms some exponents of the classical, hellenistic and late antique thought may have approached the Mind-Body Problem or, on the other hand, it is anachronistic and methodologically incorrect to attribute words and concepts of today to the ancient philosophers.
This volume is the outcome of a Conference organized in Catania by G. Bentivegna, R.L. Cardullo and G.R. Giardina, on 4th and 5th May 2015, as part of a PRIN Project on The moral thinking about the Mind-Body Problem. Among the participants were: Cristina Rossitto (Padua), F. Trabattoni (Milan), Francesca Alesse (Rome), Elisabetta Cattanei (Cagliari), Angela Longo (L'Aquila), Emidio Spinelli (Rome).