The ontological neuro/phenomenal identity thesis in contemporary philosophy of mind and its critique

Saffet Murat Tura (1955) a psychiatrist and philosopher working on the problem of consciousness in Turkey is one of the materialist monist thinkers. This study evaluates the ontological neuro/phenomenal identity thesis his naturalist theory of consciousness. The ontological neuro/phenomenaal identity thesis is a theory accepting the human's conscious phenomenal experiences and the neural activities of the brain as ontologically identical, which cannot be handled by natural sciences. In this study his theory will be analyzed more critically. In this respect, the theory will be discussed in three aspects: 1. Trying to show how consistent the theory is in itself, 2. To question whether it is original compared to previous theories, and 3. To evaluate naturalism, which is the world view that the theory depends on, in terms of the relationship between philosophy and science and the problem of free will, which is one of the basic issues of philosophy of religion.