Elements of Mind

Elements of Mind PDF Author: Tim Crane
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 9780192892973
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 181

Get Book Here

Book Description
'... an immensely well-informed an up-to-date discussion... Replete with controversial and original insights, it is sure to stimulate the interest of students and specialists alike.' THESThis book provides an accessible lively introduction to the main problems and debates in contemporary philosophy of mind. Tim Crane proposes an original and unified theory of all the phenomena of mind, and, in the light of his theory, examines the central problems of the philosophy of mind: the mind-body problem, the problem of intentionality, the problem of consciousness, and the problem of perception.

Elements of Mind

Elements of Mind PDF Author: Tim Crane
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN: 9780192892973
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 181

Get Book Here

Book Description
'... an immensely well-informed an up-to-date discussion... Replete with controversial and original insights, it is sure to stimulate the interest of students and specialists alike.' THESThis book provides an accessible lively introduction to the main problems and debates in contemporary philosophy of mind. Tim Crane proposes an original and unified theory of all the phenomena of mind, and, in the light of his theory, examines the central problems of the philosophy of mind: the mind-body problem, the problem of intentionality, the problem of consciousness, and the problem of perception.

The Phenomenology of Mind

The Phenomenology of Mind PDF Author: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN: 1465592725
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 910

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the case of a philosophical work it seems not only superfluous, but, in view of the nature of philosophy, even inappropriate and misleading to begin, as writers usually do in a preface, by explaining the end the author had in mind, the circumstances which gave rise to the work, and the relation in which the writer takes it to stand to other treatises on the same subject, written by his predecessors or his contemporaries. For whatever it might be suitable to state about philosophy in a preface - say, an historical sketch of the main drift and point of view, the general content and results, a string of desultory assertions and assurances about the truth - this cannot be accepted as the form and manner in which to expound philosophical truth. Moreover, because philosophy has its being essentially in the element of that universality which encloses the particular within it, the end or final result seems, in the case of philosophy more than in that of other sciences, to have absolutely expressed the complete fact itself in its very nature; contrasted with that the mere process of bringing it to light would seem, properly speaking, to have no essential significance. On the other hand, in the general idea of e.g. anatomy - the knowledge of the parts of the body regarded as lifeless - we are quite sure we do not possess the objective concrete fact, the actual content of the science, but must, over and above, be concerned with particulars. Further, in the case of such a collection of items of knowledge, which has no real right to the name of science, any talk about purpose and suchlike generalities is not commonly very different from the descriptive and superficial way in which the contents of the science these nerves and muscles, etc.-are themselves spoken of. In philosophy, on the other hand, it would at once be felt incongruous were such a method made use of and yet shown by philosophy itself to be incapable of grasping the truth. In the same way too, by determining the relation which a philosophical work professes to have to other treatises on the same subject, an extraneous interest is introduced, and obscurity is thrown over the point at issue in the knowledge of the truth. The more the ordinary mind takes the opposition between true and false to be fixed, the more is it accustomed to expect either agreement or contradiction with a given philosophical system, and only to see reason for the one or the other in any explanatory statement concerning such a system. It does not conceive the diversity of philosophical systems as the progressive evolution of truth; rather, it sees only contradiction in that variety. The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant’s existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. These stages are not merely differentiated; they supplant one another as being incompatible with one another. But the ceaseless activity of their own inherent nature makes them at the same time moments of an organic unity, where they not merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the other; and this equal necessity of all moments constitutes alone and thereby the life of the whole. But contradiction as between philosophical systems is not wont to be conceived in this way; on the other hand, the mind perceiving the contradiction does not commonly know how to relieve it or keep it free from its onesidedness, and to recognize in what seems conflicting and inherently antagonistic the presence of mutually necessary moments.

Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind

Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind PDF Author: Dugald Stewart
Publisher: London : T. Cadell and W. Davis ; Edinburgh : A. Constable
ISBN:
Category : Human information processing
Languages : en
Pages : 790

Get Book Here

Book Description


Philosophy of Neuroscience

Philosophy of Neuroscience PDF Author: William Bechtel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108950590
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 100

Get Book Here

Book Description
This Element provides a comprehensive introduction to philosophy of neuroscience. It covers such topics as how neuroscientists procure knowledge, including not just research techniques but the use of various model organisms. It presents examples of knowledge acquired in neuroscience that are then employed to discuss more philosophical topics such as the nature of explanations developed in neuroscience, the different conception of levels employed in discussions of neuroscience, and the invocation of representations in neuroscience explanations. The text emphasizes the importance of brain processes beyond those in the neocortex and then explores what makes processing in neocortex different. It consider the view that the nervous system consists of control mechanisms and considers arguments for hierarchical vs. heterarchical organization of control mechanisms. It concludes by considering implications of findings in neuroscience for how humans conceive of themselves and practices such as embracing norms.

The Metaphysics of Mind

The Metaphysics of Mind PDF Author: Janet Levin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108944205
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 142

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Philosophy of Mind

Philosophy of Mind PDF Author: Jaegwon Kim
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429974485
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

The Philosophy of Fine Art

The Philosophy of Fine Art PDF Author: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Philosophy of Mind

The Philosophy of Mind PDF Author: Peter Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521312509
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
A clear introduction to the main issues arising in the philosophy of the mind is provided through this straightforward elementary textbook for beginning students of philosophy.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind PDF Author: Brian McLaughlin
Publisher: Oxford University Press (UK)
ISBN: 0199262616
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 833

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Beyond Reduction

Beyond Reduction PDF Author: Steven Horst
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198043155
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Get Book Here

Book Description
Contemporary philosophers of mind tend to assume that the world of nature can be reduced to basic physics. Yet there are features of the mind consciousness, intentionality, normativity that do not seem to be reducible to physics or neuroscience. This explanatory gap between mind and brain has thus been a major cause of concern in recent philosophy of mind. Reductionists hold that, despite all appearances, the mind can be reduced to the brain. Eliminativists hold that it cannot, and that this implies that there is something illegitimate about the mentalistic vocabulary. Dualists hold that the mental is irreducible, and that this implies either a substance or a property dualism. Mysterian non-reductive physicalists hold that the mind is uniquely irreducible, perhaps due to some limitation of our self-understanding. In this book, Steven Horst argues that this whole conversation is based on assumptions left over from an outdated philosophy of science. While reductionism was part of the philosophical orthodoxy fifty years ago, it has been decisively rejected by philosophers of science over the past thirty years, and for good reason. True reductions are in fact exceedingly rare in the sciences, and the conviction that they were there to be found was an artifact of armchair assumptions of 17th century Rationalists and 20th century Logical Empiricists. The explanatory gaps between mind and brain are far from unique. In fact, in the sciences it is gaps all the way down.And if reductions are rare in even the physical sciences, there is little reason to expect them in the case of psychology. Horst argues that this calls for a complete re-thinking of the contemporary problematic in philosophy of mind. Reductionism, dualism, eliminativism and non-reductive materialism are each severely compromised by post-reductionist philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind is in need of a new paradigm. Horst suggests that such a paradigm might be found in Cognitive Pluralism: the view that human cognitive architecture constrains us to understand the world through a plurality of partial, idealized, and pragmatically-constrained models, each employing a particular representational system optimized for its own problem domain. Such an architecture can explain the disunities of knowledge, and is plausible on evolutionary grounds.