ABSTRACT
Is there a mental-physical dichotomy? Philosophers, scientists, and many ordinary folk seem to think so. We often speak of the difference between mental health and physical health, or between the mental aspects of athletic performance and the physical ones. In addition, standard definitions of psychology typically imply that it is the science of mental phenomena, and that the latter comprise a subject matter that distinguishes the methods of psychology from those of biology, chemistry, or physics. But the mental-physical dichotomy generates mind-body problems: persistent philosophical problems understanding how mental phenomena are related to physical phenomena. These problems suggest that there is a conceptual instability at the very foundations of psychological science. A hylomorphic metaphysic provides an alternative. It implies that there is nothing canonical about the mental-physical dichotomy; any distinctions we draw between mental and nonmental subject-matters or physical and nonphysical ones are mere artifacts of our descriptive and explanatory interests. This suggests an understanding of psychological science that is not based on a mental-physical dichotomy.
