Author N. Praetorius

The paper discusses the flaws in the solutions proposed by philosophical positions of constructivism and naturalism of the mind-body and mind-reality problems to which Cartesian dualism gives rise. It is argued that subscribing – explicitly or implicitly – to the assumptions of these philosophical positions by two research traditions within current academic psychology, that is, social constructionism and cognitive neuroscience, the flaws and problems that these positions inherit cease to be of merely `philosophical’ interest, but become flaws in the foundations of the science of psychology. More importantly, the aim is to show how arguments in refutation of the assumptions of naturalism and constructivism in turn suggest and point to tenable alternative assumptions about the relation between mind and reality and between mind and body, which – as a matter of principle – must be taken for granted by both philosophy and psychology.

Key words: cartesian dualism, constructivism, mind-body dualism, mind-matter dualism, mind-reality dualism, naturalism, reductionism, social constructionism.