Mental Causation

ISBN-13: 9780198239291 / Angielski / Twarda / 1993 / 352 str.

John Heil; Alfred R. Mele

Opis

Common sense and philosophical tradition agree that mind makes a difference. What we do depends not only on how our bodies are put together, but also on what we think. Explaining how mind can make a difference has proved challenging, however. Some have urged that the project faces an insurmountable dilemma: either we concede that mentalistic explanations of behavior have only a pragmatic standing or we abandon our conception of the physical domain as causally autonomous. Although each option has its advocates, most theorists have sought a middle way that accommodates both the common-sense view of mind and the metaphysical conviction about the physical world. This volume presents a collection of new, specially written essays by a diverse group of philosophers, each of whom is widely known for defending a particular conception of minds and their place in nature. Contributors include Robert Audi, Lynne Rudder Baker, Tyler Burge, Donald Davidson, Fred Dretske, Ted Honderich, Jennifer Hornsby, Frank Jackson, Jaegwon Kim, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ruth Garrett Millikan, H. W. Noonan, Philip Pettit, Ernest Sosa, and Robert Van Gulick.

Recenzje

a welcome collection of sixteen previously unpublished papers that explore the many dimensions of the questions whether, and if so how, mind matters ... the papers represent an invigorating diversity of vantage point and assumption. They effectively display the intricacy of the interconnections amongst topics that are mishandled if taken as insulated from one another.