The various branches of metaphysics influence the philosophical study of mind in their own particular ways, for instance:
- Mereology joins philosophy of mind in asking how the firing of neurons in the brain could give rise to consciousness when no single neuron is itself conscious. Whether it turns out that the mind just is the brain, or just a description of what the brain does, or if it is a second substance (like a soul inhabiting the body), or a property that brains possess, etc., the mind appears to supervene on its biomechanical parts as something more than the sum of those functioning parts.
- Ontology asks, "What is the mind?" Is it a second distinct and immaterial substance residing in a material brain (is dualism correct)? The biggest problem for dualists is how to explain the interaction between mind and brain. How, for instance, could bodily damage (physical) cause the sensation of pain (mental), or stage-fright (mental) cause the armpits to perspire (physical)? If dualism is not correct, how about monism? Materialism is the monastic doctrine that teaches that everything in the universe is made of a physical substance, such that the mind is identical with the brain or is simply the name we use to describe the way the brain functions. Something, by this account, is real if and only if it is extended in space and time (i.e. has size, shape, mass, and duration). Idealism is the monastic doctrine that teaches that everything in the universe is made of a non-physical substance, such that the mind is all there is and objects, space, and time are just the way the universe appears to us.
- Teleology often approaches the study of how the mind works by reverse engineering. First we notice that the mind has certain capabilities, then we try to figure out how it got that way. For example, does the human capacity to see color (a mental function) impart any survival value and if not, then what is it for?
- Semantics is concerned with questions such as: Are all thoughts expressed in a language, and if so is it the same as one's native tongue or is it some universal language such as ‘mentalese’? Is language an instinct, an innate capacity which we subsequently learn to modify depending on where in the world we are born? Why are we the only species we know of on this planet that uses language (the jury is still out on whales, dolphins, apes, etc.)?
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