Question

The nature of mind: James examined every solution to the mind-body problem and found none to be satisfactory. He thought psychologists should lay aside the whole mind-body problem because the discipline was not ready or able to articulate the connection between physiological states and mental states. Rather, for the present, its proper concern should be the description and explanation of such processes as reasoning, attention, will, imagination, memory, and feelings. James’ suggestion would become the dominant view within many branches of psychology.

Answer 1

Psychology cannot be understood without its physiological responses and the environment and circumstances where the physical body functions. It should always looked in a holistic manner because they both are interlinked and one causes the other. For example if one studies attention, one shouldn’t only look at the focusing on the task alone because factors such as physical tiredness, illness, stress etc. can prevent one from focus their attention. Even if one is willing to do something, if their physical body do not support it, one cannot do it. So, the physical body and the physical environment affect the mind to large extend thus it becomes very important that one studies it together and not separately.