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Author: Terence Horgan Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1316240738 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 283
Book Description
How does mind fit into nature? Philosophy has long been concerned with this question. No contemporary philosopher has done more to clarify it than Jaegwon Kim, a distinguished analytic philosopher specializing in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. With new contributions from an outstanding line-up of eminent scholars, this volume focuses on issues raised in Kim's work. The chapters cluster around two themes: first, exclusion, supervenience, and reduction, with attention to the causal exclusion argument for which Kim is widely celebrated; and second, phenomenal consciousness and qualia, with attention to the prospects for a functionalist account of the mental. This volume is sure to become a major focus of attention and research in the disciplines of metaphysics and philosophy of mind.
Author: Terence Horgan Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1316240738 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 283
Book Description
How does mind fit into nature? Philosophy has long been concerned with this question. No contemporary philosopher has done more to clarify it than Jaegwon Kim, a distinguished analytic philosopher specializing in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. With new contributions from an outstanding line-up of eminent scholars, this volume focuses on issues raised in Kim's work. The chapters cluster around two themes: first, exclusion, supervenience, and reduction, with attention to the causal exclusion argument for which Kim is widely celebrated; and second, phenomenal consciousness and qualia, with attention to the prospects for a functionalist account of the mental. This volume is sure to become a major focus of attention and research in the disciplines of metaphysics and philosophy of mind.
Author: Terry Horgan Publisher: ISBN: 9781316248300 Category : PHILOSOPHY Languages : en Pages : 271
Book Description
"How does mind fit into nature? Philosophy has long been concerned with this question. No contemporary philosopher has done more to clarify it than Jaegwon Kim, a distinguished analytic philosopher specializing in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. With new contributions from an outstanding lineup of eminent scholars, this volume focuses on issues raised in Kim's work. The chapters cluster around two themes: first, exclusion, supervenience, and reduction, with attention to the causal exclusion argument for which Kim is widely celebrated, and, second, phenomenal consciousness and qualia, with attention to the prospects for a functionalist account of the mental. This volume is sure to become a major focus of attention and research in the disciplines of metaphysics and philosophy of mind"--
Author: Jaegwon Kim Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 9780262611534 Category : Body, Mind & Spirit Languages : en Pages : 166
Book Description
This book, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's current views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind--in particular, the mind-body problem, mental causation, and reductionism. This book, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's current views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind--in particular, the mind-body problem, mental causation, and reductionism. Kim construes the mind-body problem as that of finding a place for the mind in a world that is fundamentally physical. Among other points, he redefines the roles of supervenience and emergence in the discussion of the mind-body problem. Arguing that various contemporary accounts of mental causation are inadequate, he offers his own partially reductionist solution on the basis of a novel model of reduction. Retaining the informal tone of the lecture format, the book is clear yet sophisticated.
Author: Jaegwon Kim Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400840848 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 201
Book Description
Contemporary discussions in philosophy of mind have largely been shaped by physicalism, the doctrine that all phenomena are ultimately physical. Here, Jaegwon Kim presents the most comprehensive and systematic presentation yet of his influential ideas on the mind-body problem. He seeks to determine, after half a century of debate: What kind of (or "how much") physicalism can we lay claim to? He begins by laying out mental causation and consciousness as the two principal challenges to contemporary physicalism. How can minds exercise their causal powers in a physical world? Is a physicalist account of consciousness possible? The book's starting point is the "supervenience" argument (sometimes called the "exclusion" argument), which Kim reformulates in an extended defense. This argument shows that the contemporary physicalist faces a stark choice between reductionism (the idea that mental phenomena are physically reducible) and epiphenomenalism (the view that mental phenomena are causally impotent). Along the way, Kim presents a novel argument showing that Cartesian substance dualism offers no help with mental causation. Mind-body reduction, therefore, is required to save mental causation. But are minds physically reducible? Kim argues that all but one type of mental phenomena are reducible, including intentional mental phenomena, such as beliefs and desires. The apparent exceptions are the intrinsic, felt qualities of conscious experiences ("qualia"). Kim argues, however, that certain relational properties of qualia, in particular their similarities and differences, are behaviorally manifest and hence in principle reducible, and that it is these relational properties of qualia that are central to their cognitive roles. The causal efficacy of qualia, therefore, is not entirely lost. According to Kim, then, while physicalism is not the whole truth, it is the truth near enough.
Author: Sven Walter Publisher: Andrews UK Limited ISBN: 1845405838 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
Physicalism—the thesis that everything there is in the world, including our minds, is constituted by basic physical entities—has dominated the philosophy of mind during the last few decades. But although the conceptual foundations of the physicalist agenda—including a proper explication of notions such as ‘causation’, ‘determination’, ‘realization’ or even ‘physicalism’ itself—must be settled before more specific problems (e.g. the problems of mental causation and human agency) can be satisfactorily addressed, a comprehensive philosophical reflection on the relationships between the various key concepts of the debate on physicalism is yet missing. This book presents a range of essays on the conceptual foundations of physicalism, mental causation and human agency, written by established and leading authors in the field.
Author: Edmond Leo Wright Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262731886 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 790
Book Description
Philosophical and scientific defenses of Indirect Realism and counterarguments to the attacks of qualiaphobes. Many philosophers and cognitive scientists dismiss the notion of qualia, sensory experiences that are internal to the brain. Leading opponents of qualia (and of Indirect Realism, the philosophical position that has qualia as a central tenet) include Michael Tye, Daniel Dennett, Paul and Patricia Churchland, and even Frank Jackson, a former supporter. Qualiaphiles apparently face the difficulty of establishing philosophical contact with the real when their access to it is seen by qualiaphobes to be second-hand and, worse, hidden behind a "veil of sensation"--a position that would slide easily into relativism and solipsism, presenting an ethical dilemma. In The Case for Qualia, proponents of qualia defend the Indirect Realist position and mount detailed counterarguments against opposing views. The book first presents philosophical defenses, with arguments propounding, variously, a new argument from illusion, a sense-datum theory, dualism, "qualia realism," qualia as the "cement" of the experiential world, and "subjective physicalism." Three scientific defenses follow, discussing color, heat, and the link between the external object and the internal representation. Finally, specific criticisms of opposing views include discussions of the Churchlands' "neurophilosophy," answers to Frank Jackson's abandonment of qualia (one of which is titled, in a reference to Jackson's famous thought experiment, "Why Frank Should Not Have Jilted Mary"), and refutations of Transparency Theory. Contributors Torin Alter, Michel Bitbol, Harold I. Brown, Mark Crooks, George Graham, C.L. Hardin, Terence E. Horgan, Robert J. Howell, Amy Kind, E.J. Lowe, Riccardo Manzotti, Barry Maund, Martine Nida-Rümelin, John O'Dea, Isabelle Peschard, Matjaz Potrc, Diana Raffman, Howard Robinson, William S. Robinson, John R. Smythies, Edmond Wright
Author: S. C. Gibb Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199603774 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 281
Book Description
This book demonstrates the importance of ontology for a central debate in philosophy of mind. Mental causation seems an obvious aspect of the world. But it is hard to understand how it can happen unless we get clear about what the entities involved in the process are. An international team of contributors presents new work on this problem.
Author: Anthony Dardis Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231513518 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 213
Book Description
Two thousand years ago, Lucretius said that everything is atoms in the void; it's physics all the way down. Contemporary physicalism agrees. But if that's so how can we—how can our thoughts, emotions, our values—make anything happen in the physical world? This conceptual knot, the mental causation problem, is the core of the mind-body problem, closely connected to the problems of free will, consciousness, and intentionality. Anthony Dardis shows how to unravel the knot. He traces its early appearance in the history of philosophical inquiry, specifically in the work of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and T. H. Huxley. He then develops a metaphysical framework for a theory of causation, laws of nature, and the causal relevance of properties. Using this framework, Dardis explains how macro, or higher level, properties can be causally relevant in the same way that microphysical properties are causally relevant: by their relationship with the laws of nature. Smelling an orange, choosing the orange rather than the cheesecake, reaching for the one on the left instead of the one on the right-mental properties such as these take their place alongside the physical "motor of the world" in making things happen.
Author: Terence Horgan
Author: Terence Horgan
Author: Terry Horgan
Author: Terry Horgan
Author: Jaegwon Kim
Author: Terence Horgan
Author: Jaegwon Kim
Author: Sven Walter
Author: Edmond Leo Wright
Author: S. C. Gibb
Author: Anthony Dardis