Editing Mind–body dualism (section)

===Ancient Greek philosophy===
[[Hermotimus of Clazomenae]] (fl. c. 6th century BCE) was a philosopher who first proposed the idea of mind being fundamental in the cause of change.<ref>Aristotle. ''The Metaphysics'' 984b20, trans. by Hugh Lawson-Tancred. London, 2004.</ref>  He proposed that physical entities are static, while reason<ref>{{Cite book|title=The basic works of Aristotle|last=Aristotle|date=2001|publisher=Modern Library|others=McKeon, Richard (Richard Peter)|isbn=0375757996|location=New York|pages=696 (Metaphysics, Book 1, Chapter 3)|oclc=46634018}}</ref> causes the change. [[Sextus Empiricus]] places him with [[Hesiod]], [[Parmenides]], and [[Empedocles]], as belonging to the class of philosophers who held a dualistic theory of a material and an active principle being together the origin of the universe.<ref>Sextus Empiricus, ''adv. Math.'' ix., ''ad Phys.'' i. 7</ref> Similar ideas were expounded by [[Anaxagoras]].

In the dialogue ''[[Phaedo]]'', [[Plato]] formulated his famous [[Theory of forms]] as distinct and immaterial substances of which the objects and other phenomena that we perceive in the world are nothing more than mere shadows.<ref name="Plat" />

In the ''Phaedo'', Plato makes it clear that the Forms are the ''universalia ante res'', i.e. they are ideal universals, by which we are able to understand the world. In his [[allegory of the cave]], Plato likens the achievement of philosophical understanding to emerging into [[Metaphor of the Sun|the sunlight]] from a dark cave, where only vague shadows of what lies beyond that prison are cast dimly upon the wall. Plato's forms are non-physical and non-mental. They exist nowhere in time or space, but neither do they exist in the mind, nor in the [[pleroma]] of matter; rather, matter is said to "participate" in form (μεθεξις, ''[[methexis]]''). It remained unclear however, even to Aristotle, exactly what Plato intended by that.

[[Aristotle]] argued at length against many aspects of Plato's forms, creating his own doctrine of [[hylomorphism]] wherein form and matter coexist. Ultimately however, Aristotle's aim was to perfect a theory of forms, rather than to reject it. Although Aristotle strongly rejected the independent existence Plato attributed to forms, his [[metaphysics]] do agree with Plato's ''[[A priori and a posteriori|a priori]]'' considerations quite often. For example, Aristotle argues that changeless, eternal substantial form is necessarily immaterial. Because matter provides a stable substratum for a change in form, matter always has the potential to change. Thus, if given an eternity in which to do so, it ''will'', necessarily, exercise that potential.

Part of Aristotle's ''psychology'', the study of the soul, is his account of the ability of humans to reason and the ability of animals to perceive. In both cases, perfect copies of forms are acquired, either by direct impression of environmental forms, in the case of perception, or else by virtue of contemplation, understanding and recollection. He believed the mind can literally assume any form being contemplated or experienced, and it was unique in its ability to become a blank slate, having no essential form. As thoughts of earth are not heavy, any more than thoughts of fire are causally efficient, they provide an immaterial complement for the formless mind.<ref name="Ari2">Aristotle. [c. mid 4th century BC] 1907. ''[[On the Soul|On the Soul (De anima)]]'', edited by [[Robert Drew Hicks|R. D. Hicks]]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1968. Books II-III, translated by D.W. Hamlyn, Clarendon Aristotle Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref>