Historic situation: Present-day theories of mind and body are basically materialistic: Mind is explained either as a realiziation of the physical conditions of the brain, or as 'supervenient' in relation to the body, i.e. as parallel with body in all properties, or as 'emergent' from body. What all these theories in all their subtleties and variations fail to take seriously and to explain is the ontological status of thought. Even the question whether there is an ontology of thought is commonly not addressed. The reason for that is the myth of the dual substances, mind and matter, which Descartes allegedly introduced into philosophy. Lamettrie had popularized the notion of "Man as Machine", and Gilbert Ryle coined the expression of the "ghost in the machine" intended to dispel any metaphysical approach to thinking. To present-day philosophy anti-metaphysical materialism appears to be the only way to overcome dualism. However, Descartes' theory of "ideas" was much closer to Neoplatonism than is commonly known. Descartes' doctrine of matter and mind in the formula of "extended thing" vs. "thinking thing" was clearly inspired by Renaissance Platonism, especially Marsilio Ficino. Neoplatonic idealism, i.e., the epistemology of ideas is therefore a gateway to a new approach to a metaphysics of thought that is concerned with cognition without precluding ontology, thus truly overcoming the mind-body-divide.

Major source: Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) introduced Platonism into the Latin West. His works that include commented translations of all the works of Plato and Plotinus and his own Platonic Theology defended a spiritual metaphysics that described the World as emanated from the One (to be read as the Christian God). But he also offered a well-structured epistemology in order to tell the whole story of the whole cosmos for the whole person.

Ficino offers not just some historic interpretation of Platonism but a way out of materialist and dualist philosophy of cognition of our days. 20th and 21st century philosophy that denies the legitimacy of metaphysics, for whatever reason, also denies legitimacy to the question after the ontological status of thinking. A purely linguistic and logical approach ensues that severs the link between the world known and the knower. Cosmology, understood as the encompassing reality that includes human beings, their surroundings (environment, in the sense of Uexküll), and their inner life, must appreciate thinking as a self-referential and spontaneous activity of the human mind that is part of the same cosmos and has its 'reason of being' within it. A proper ontology of thought is apt to overcome the misplaced dualism of mind and body.