Science, philosophy and man's mind

This paper argues, in disagreement with most of the writers in the special issue [see Reyna (1995) Cognition, behavior and causality: A broad exchange of views stemming from the debate on the causal efficacy of human thought, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 20(3)], that: (1) science cannot be separated from philosophy even for the purpose of trying to see which set of assumptions is more "pragmatically useful;" (2) a true understanding of causality eliminates skepticism and reveals why private, conscious events are causes of action; (3) consciousness is directly observable; and (4) the belief in cognition, far from divorcing man from the real world of action, points to the actual cause of action and of political change.