Identitätsthese

Identitätsthese refers to a philosophical concept concerning the nature of identity, particularly in the context of minds and their persistence over time. In its simplest form, the identity thesis, as discussed in philosophy of mind, often proposes that a mental state is identical to a physical state. This is a core tenet of reductive physicalism, also known as type-identity theory. It suggests that for every type of mental event or state, there is a corresponding type of physical event or state. For example, the feeling of pain is identical to the firing of certain C-fibers in the brain.

This view contrasts with non-reductive physicalism, which acknowledges that mental states are dependent on physical states but are not reducible to them, and with dualism, which posits that mental and physical substances or properties are fundamentally distinct. The identity thesis faces challenges, such as the problem of multiple realizability, which argues that the same mental state could be realized by different physical states, especially across different species or even within the same species under different conditions. This suggests that a strict one-to-one type identity might not hold.

Despite these challenges, the identity thesis remains a significant position in contemporary philosophy of mind, sparking ongoing debates about consciousness, qualia, and the relationship between the mental and the physical. Discussions often revolve around the explanatory power of such a thesis in understanding the mind and its place in the natural world.