Description
“The philosophy of mind today includes a significant empirical component, and many philosophers of mind consider themselves ‘cognitive scientists,’ insisting on distancing their endeavors from the aims of the philosophical tradition that sharply distinguishes between science and philosophy, hoping to replace unrestrained metaphysical speculation with theories illuminated by science.”
This book addresses the ontology of mind, starting from the conviction that mental questions are metaphysical questions. It examines them through a review of modern conceptions of mind presented by the most important philosophical theories, foremost among them Descartes’ dualistic conception, which divides the world into mental and material substances. In contrast to the Cartesian dualistic conception, we find behaviorism and identity theory; Behaviorists argue that claims about the mind can be broken down into claims about behavior and predispositions, while proponents of identity theory view mental states as internal states of active beings who possess them. The book also examines functionalism as the historical successor to behaviorism and identity theory, and reviews the perspectives of other contemporary philosophers, such as Donald Davidson and Daniel Dennett.
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