Download or read book The Metaphysics of Mind written by Anthony Kenny and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1992 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brings together in a systematic way Anthony Kenny's work in the philosopy of mind. It is intended as a sustained attack on a false view of the mind, the Cartesian view, and a demonstration that clarity is impossible without good metaphysics
Download or read book Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind written by Jaegwon Kim and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2010-10-21 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jaegwon Kim presents a selection of his essays from the last two decades. The volume includes three new essays, on an agent-centered first-person account of action explanation, the concepts of realization and their bearings on the mind-body problem, and the nonexistence of laws in the special sciences. Among other topics covered are emergence and emergentism, the nature of explanation and of theories of explanation, reduction and reductive explanation, mental causation and explanatory exclusion. Kim tackles questions such as: How should we understand the concept of "emergence", and what are the prospects of emergentism as a doctrine about the status of minds? What does an agent-centered, first-person account of explanation of human actions look like? Why aren't there strict laws in the special sciences - sciences like biology, psychology, and sociology? The essays will be accessible to attentive readers without an extensive philosophical background.
Download or read book Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind written by William Jaworski and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Structure and the Metaphysics of Mind is the first book to show how hylomorphism can be used to solve mind-body problems--persistent problems understanding how thought, feeling, perception, and other mental phenomena fit into the physical world described by our best science. Hylomorphism claims that structure is a basic ontological and explanatory principle. Some individuals, paradigmatically living things, consist of materials that are structured or organized in various ways. Those structures are responsible for individuals being the kinds of things they are, and having the kinds of powers or capacities they have. From a hylomorphic perspective, mind-body problems are byproducts of a worldview that rejects structure. Hylomorphic structure carves out distinctive individuals from the otherwise undifferentiated sea of matter and energy described by our best physics, and it confers on those individuals distinctive powers, including the powers to think, feel, and perceive. A worldview that rejects hylomorphic structure lacks a basic principle which distinguishes the parts of the physical universe that can think, feel, and perceive from those that can't, and without such a principle, the existence of those powers in the physical world can start to look inexplicable and mysterious. But if mental phenomena are structural phenomena, as hylomorphism claims, then they are uncontroversially part of the physical world, for on the hylomorphic view, structure is uncontroversially part of the physical world. Hylomorphism thus provides an elegant way of solving mind-body problems.
Download or read book Having Thought written by John Haugeland and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2000-09-15 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unifying theme of these thirteen essays is understanding. Haugeland addresses mind and intelligence; intelligibility; analog and digital systems and supervenience; presuppositions about the foundational notions of intentionality and representation; and the essential character of understanding in relation to what is understood.
Download or read book Personal Agency written by E. J. Lowe and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Personal Agency consists of two parts. In Part II, a radically libertarian theory of action is defended which combines aspects of agent causalism and volitionism. This theory accords to volitions the status of basic mental actions, maintaining that these are spontaneous exercises of the will—a 'two-way' power which rational agents can freely exercise in the light of reason. Lowe contends that substances, not events, are the causal source of all change in the world—with rational, free agents like ourselves having a special place in the causal order as unmoved movers, or initiators of new causal chains. And he defends a thoroughgoing externalism regarding reasons for action, holding these to be mind-independent worldly entities rather than the beliefs and desires of agents. Part I prepares the ground for this theory by undermining the threat presented to it by physicalism. It does this by challenging the causal closure argument for physicalism in all of its forms and by showing that a dualistic philosophy of mind—one which holds that human mental states and their subjects cannot be identified with bodily states and human bodies respectively—is both metaphysically coherent and entirely consistent with known empirical facts.
Download or read book Philosophy of Mind written by Jaegwon Kim and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores a range of issues in the philosophy of mind, with the mind-body problem as the main focus. It serves as a stimulus to the reader to engage with the problems of the mind and try to come to terms with them, and examines Descartes's mind-body dualism.
Download or read book The Metaphysics of Mind written by Michael Tye and published by . This book was released on 1989-02-24 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this provocative book, Michael Tye presents his unique account of the metaphysical foundations of psychological discourse. In place of token identity theory or eliminative materialism, he advocates a generalisation of the adverbial approach to sensory experience, the 'operator theory'. He applies this to the analysis of prepositional attitudes, arguing that mental statements cannot involve reference to mental events or objects and that therefore causal statements about the mental cannot be regarded as asserting relations between events. This adverbial theory has the virtue of being both simple and systematic and is an important contribution to the philosophy of mind.
Download or read book The Metaphysics of Mind written by Janet Levin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-10 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Metaphysics of Mind presents and discusses the major contemporary theories of the nature of mind, including Dualism, Physicalism, Role-Functionalism, Russellian Monism, Panpsychism, and Eliminativism. Its primary goal is to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the theories in question, including their prospects for explaining the special qualitative character of sensations and perceptual experiences, the special outer-directedness of beliefs, desires, and other intentional states, and—more generally—the place of mind in the world of nature, and the relation between mental states and the behaviors that they (seem to) cause. It also discusses, briefly, some further questions about the metaphysics of mind, namely, whether groups of individuals, or entire communities, can possess mental states that cannot be reduced to the mental states of the individuals in those communities, and whether the boundaries between mind and world are as sharp as they may seem.
Download or read book The Metaphysics of Relations written by Anna Marmodoro and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents thirteen original essays which explore both traditional and contemporary aspects of the metaphysics of relations. It is uncontroversial that there are true relational predications-'Abelard loves Eloise', 'Simmias is taller than Socrates', 'smoking causes cancer', and so forth. More controversial is whether any true relational predications have irreducibly relational truthmakers. Do any of the statements above involve their subjects jointly instantiating polyadic properties, or can we explain their truths solely in terms of monadic, non-relational properties of the relata? According to a tradition dating back to Plato and Aristotle, and continued by medieval philosophers, polyadic properties are metaphysically dubious. In non-symmetric relations such as the amatory relation, a property would have to inhere in two things at once-lover and beloved-but characterise each differently, and this puzzled the ancients. More recent work on non-symmetric relations highlights difficulties with their directionality. Such problems offer clear motivation for attempting to reduce relations to monadic properties. By contrast, ontic structural realists hold that the nature of physical reality is exhausted by the relational structure expressed in the equations of fundamental physics. On this view, there must be some irreducible relations, for its fundamental ontology is purely relational. The Metaphysics of Relations draws together the work of a team of leading metaphysicians, to address topics as diverse as ancient and medieval reasons for scepticism about polyadic properties; recent attempts to reduce causal and spatiotemporal relations; recent work on the directionality of relational properties; powers ontologies and their associated problems; whether the most promising interpretations of quantum mechanics posit a fundamentally relational world; and whether the very idea of such a world is coherent. From those who question whether there are relational properties at all, to those who hold they are a fundamental part of reality, this book covers a broad spectrum of positions on the nature and ontological status of relations, from antiquity to the present day.
Download or read book Reason Metaphysics and Mind written by Alvin Plantinga and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-02-09 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each of the essays in this volume engages with some particular aspect of philosopher Alvin Plantinga's views on metaphysics, epistemology, or philosophy of religion.
Download or read book The Metaphysical Mind written by Andrew B. Newberg and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-12 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How are philosophical and theological concepts conceived in the mind? Why are certain topics of greater importance to philosophers and theologians? Why do people think about these issues in the first place? These are the questions that are explored in the ground breaking book, "The Metaphysical Mind". Philosophy and theology usually considers various fundamental concepts such as those related to being, reality, causality, logic, or phenomenology. But the philosophical approach to these topics often leaves out one of the most important things - the human brain. After all, it is the brain that is actually thinking about these ideas in the first place. "The Metaphysical Mind" explores the relationship between the brain and philosophical thought and helps us to understand how the brain enables and restricts our ability to think about these metaphysical concepts. One of the major developments of contemporary thought has been the field of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics considers the environmental, linguistic, and cultural factors that influence a given philosopher in order to determine how particular ideas or texts may have been shaped. However, no one has ever examined philosophical and theological thought specifically from the hermeneutical perspective of the neurobiological and genetic substrate that underlies such thinking. This "neuroscientific hermeneutic" or "neurohermeneutic" refers specifically to the functions of the brain and how they are related to various thought processes which have been at the cornerstone of philosophical and theological thought throughout history. Additionally, this neurohermeneutic helps to better interpret how and why such thoughts develop. Neurohermeneutics is based upon a synthesis of information from multiple fields including anthropology, neurophysiology, cognitive neuroscience, genetics, theology, and philosophy. Many of the major milestones in the history of philosophical and theological thought from pre-Socratic thinkers to the present day can be considered from the perspective of the functioning of the human mind and its multimodal interaction with the social, cultural, intellectual, and physical environment. In particular, the development of some of the most dramatic concepts in philosophy and theology can be considered in relation to certain brain functions and how those functions enable human beings to interpret meaning in the world. Similarly, contemplative/meditative traditions can be considered to be associated with certain brain functions in order to explore how such experiences are perceived and interpreted. This book will also consider the issue of the experience of reality from a neurophysiological perspective. This leads to fascinating conclusions regarding the nature and degrees of reality and how the brain experiences that reality. Although not all philosophical and theological concepts will be examined, many of the major movements will be considered in order to extrapolate to the notion that a neurobiological hermeneutic may provide a basis and fundamental bias for all philosophical thinking - a "metaphilosophy" (or "metatheology" in the specific context of religion). Ultimately, this approach might even lead to a "megaphilosophy" containing universal concepts that could be conceived of from any philosophical or theological perspective. The result of this analysis leads to a description of the "metaphysical mind" which is necessarily driven to pursue philosophical and theological questions, but also shapes how the answers to such questions arise. Thus, the brain itself is "designed" to function in a philosophical or metaphysical manner. This revolutionary approach to philosophical and theological thought will provide readers something to think about for the millennium to come.
Download or read book Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind written by Wilfrid Sellars and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1997-03-25 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most important work by one of America's greatest twentieth-century philosophers, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind is both the epitome of Wilfrid Sellars' entire philosophical system and a key document in the history of philosophy. First published in essay form in 1956, it helped bring about a sea change in analytic philosophy. It broke the link, which had bound Russell and Ayer to Locke and Hume--the doctrine of "knowledge by acquaintance." Sellars' attack on the Myth of the Given in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind was a decisive move in turning analytic philosophy away from the foundationalist motives of the logical empiricists and raised doubts about the very idea of "epistemology." With an introduction by Richard Rorty to situate the work within the history of recent philosophy, and with a study guide by Robert Brandom, this publication of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind makes a difficult but indisputably significant figure in the development of analytic philosophy clear and comprehensible to anyone who would understand that philosophy or its history.
Download or read book An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind written by E. Jonathan Lowe and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-01-20 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lucid and wide-ranging introduction to the philosophy of mind, suitable for readers with a basic grounding in philosophy.
Download or read book Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind written by Brian P. McLaughlin and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind showcases the leading contributors to the field, debating the major questions in philosophy of mind today. Comprises 20 newly commissioned essays on hotly debated issues in the philosophy of mind Written by a cast of leading experts in their fields, essays take opposing views on 10 central contemporary debates A thorough introduction provides a comprehensive background to the issues explored Organized into three sections which explore the ontology of the mental, nature of the mental content, and the nature of consciousness
Download or read book The Philosophy of Mind written by Dale Jacquette and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-06-23 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clear and accessible introduction to the philosophy of mind, ideal for use on undergraduate courses.
Download or read book Cybernetics and the Philosophy of Mind written by Kenneth Sayre and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-11-20 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, published in 1976, presents an entirely original approach to the subject of the mind-body problem, examining it in terms of the conceptual links between the physical sciences and the sciences of human behaviour. It is based on the cybernetic concepts of information and feedback and on the related concepts of thermodynamic and communication-theoretic entropy. The foundation of the approach is the theme of continuity between evolution, learning and human consciousness. The author defines life as a process of energy exchange between organism and environment, and evolution as a feedback process maintaining equilibrium between environment and reproductive group. He demonstrates that closely related feedback processes on the levels of the behaving organism and of the organism’s nervous system constitute the phenomena of learning and consciousness respectively. He analyses language as an expedient for extending human information-processing and control capacities beyond those provided by one’s own nervous system, and shows reason to be a mode of processing information in the form of concepts removed from immediate stimulus control. The last chapter touches on colour vision, pleasure and pain, intentionality, self-awareness and other subjective phenomena. Of special interest to the communication theorist and philosopher, this study is also of interest to psychologists and anyone interested in the connection between the physical and life sciences.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind written by Brian McLaughlin and published by Oxford University Press (UK). This book was released on 2009-01-15 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the most authoritative and comprehensive guide ever published to the state of the art in philosophy of mind, a flourishing area of research. An outstanding team of contributors offer 45 new critical surveys of a wide range of topics.
