ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to suggest ways in which psychiatry, and the broader society, can accommodate both the dualism of their intuitions and the monism of science and considers several controversial points made by Dr. Eric Kandel. Kandel begins by emphatically rejecting Cartesian dualism in favor of physicalism. Then, in the bulk of the article, he discusses the essential involvement of memories in mental disorders. One way to reconcile the use of mental language while insisting on the primacy of physical causation is to appeal to what one philosopher calls transparency. The philosophical justification for the dual explanandum strategy rests on certain fundamental differences between physics and the other sciences, particularly psychology. Psychiatrists, too, customarily use language that implies mental causation. Society will experience significant changes as the belief in Cartesian dualism declines in the face of scientific advances. One important change will occur in attitudes towards persons with mental illness.
