| The dichotomy between body and mind has been restricting people’s understanding of the relationship between body and mind since its emergence.We can have a glimpse of the body-mind dichotomy as early as in ancient Greece,when Plato put forward the "soul theory".Then,in modern times,Descartes put forward the idea that body and mind are two independent substances.This mind-body dualism indicates that the issue of the relationship between mind and body begins to emerge at the epistemological level.Through the ages,many philosophers have attempted to solve this problem.Although some insights have emerged from these attempts,none of them can be said to solve this problem perfectly.Through the theory of "one substance,two sides",Spinoza attempted to solve this problem.He inherited the essence of the ideas of philosophers like Aristotle on the relationship between body and mind,inherited cartesian rationalism,and tried to eliminate the binary division of Descartes’ thought by replacing cartesian dualism with entity monism.Spinoza also used the concept of “substance” to unify Descartes’ concepts of mind substance,material substance and god substance.He refused to consider body and mind as two different substances like Descartes did,but regarded them as the extended attribute and the thought attribute of the same substance.Then he proposed the idea of body-mind identity,which claimed that body and mind do not interact with each other and coexist at the same time.Spinoza proposed that there is no mutually determinate relation between mind and body,that is,mind cannot determine body,and body cannot determine mind.Spinoza believed that mind and the body were inseparable and interdependent,which seemed to mean that mind and body were equal in status,but in fact,Spinoza obviously attached more importance to body.Then,he put forward the idea that mind depended on body and body acted on mind.In fact,Spinoza’s point of view is consistent with the meaning of "embodiment".We can say that to some extent,Spinoza’s theory of mind-body relations is a kind of "embodiment" theory.Spinoza’s philosophy of mind reflects the characteristic of "embodiment" : mind is dependent on body.So,what does Spinoza mean by "the embodiment of mind" ? How does the idea of "the embodiment of mind" develop in the history of philosophy? Does it have anysimilarities with the "embodiment" philosophy in traditional cognitive science? What is the specific content of Spinoza’s "the embodiment of mind" ? How to show the dependence of mind on body? What are the significance and implications of his theory? The answers to these questions constitute the basic theoretical framework of this paper.Given that Spinoza’s idea of mind-body relation occupies an important position in his philosophy and is essential for the elaboration of his theory of mind,this paper will carry out a preliminary discussion on Spinoza’s theory of mind-body relation from the special perspective of“embodiment”.The paper defines Spinoza’s theory of mind-body relation as a kind of “the embodiment of mind” theory to clarify the meaning and philosophical origin of "the embodiment of mind" in Spinoza’s philosophical system.On this basis,the paper aims to further reveal the main content of Spinoza’s idea of "the embodiment of mind" and the characteristics of his theory of "the identity of body and mind",and to explore its profound influence on later generations. |
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