Embodied Minds in Action

✍ Scribed by Robert Hanna, Michelle Maiese

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 431
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In Embodied Minds in Action, Robert Hanna and Michelle Maiese work out a unified treatment of three fundamental philosophical problems: the mind-body problem, the problem of mental causation, and the problem of action. This unified treatment rests on two basic claims. The first is that conscious, intentional minds like ours are essentially embodied. This entails that our minds are necessarily spread throughout our living, organismic bodies and belong to their complete neurobiological constitution. So minds like ours are necessarily alive. The second claim is that essentially embodied minds are self-organizing thermodynamic systems. This entails that our mental lives consist in the possibility and actuality of moving our own living organismic bodies through space and time, by means of our conscious desires. The upshot is that we are essentially minded animals who help to create the natural world through our own agency. This doctrine--the Essential Embodiment Theory--is a truly radical idea which subverts the traditionally opposed and seemingly exhaustive categories of Dualism and Materialism, and offers a new paradigm for contemporary mainstream research in the philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 12
Preface and Acknowledgments......Page 8
Introduction......Page 14
1.0 Introduction......Page 32
1.1 Some Preliminaries......Page 35
1.2 The Nature of Consciousness[sub(lo)]......Page 41
1.3 Essential Embodiment and the Cartesian Mistakes......Page 63
2.0 Introduction......Page 72
2.1 Ten Types of Consciousness[sub(lo)]......Page 73
2.2 Eight Structures of Consciousness[sub(lo)]......Page 86
2.3 Affectivity, Egocentricity, Spatiality, and Temporality......Page 89
2.4 Embodiment, Intentionality[sub(lo)], Focus, and Intensity......Page 100
3.0 Introduction......Page 114
3.1 Classical Causal Theories of Action, and Beyond......Page 116
3.2 Against Davidson 1: Reasons are Epiphenomenal......Page 125
3.3 Against Davidson 2: Reasons are Insufficient for Actions......Page 129
3.4 Against Davidson 3: Actions without Reasons......Page 139
3.5 Against Davidson 4: Deviant Causal Chains Again......Page 166
4.0 Introduction......Page 172
4.1 Towards a Non-Classical Causal Theory 1: Active Guidance......Page 173
4.2 Towards a Non-Classical Causal Theory 2: Effortless Trying......Page 188
4.3 Is Trying an Epiphenomenal Illusion? No.......Page 203
5.0 Introduction......Page 208
5.1 Essentially Embodied Agency and the Emotions......Page 210
5.2 What is an Emotion?......Page 216
5.3 The Intentionality[sub(lo)] of Desire-Based Emotions......Page 236
5.4 Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Emotional Self-Control and Emotional Zeroes......Page 251
6.0 Introduction......Page 268
6.1 Some Preliminaries about Causation......Page 270
6.2 The Amazingly Hard Problem......Page 284
6.3 Good Reasons for Efficacy, Closure, Physicality, and Irreducibility......Page 285
6.4 The Causal Exclusion Problems......Page 299
7.0 Introduction......Page 308
7.1 From Causal Exclusion to Property Fusion......Page 311
7.2 The Dynamic World......Page 326
7.3 Dynamic Systems Theory......Page 336
7.4 Strong Metaphysical A Priori Necessity......Page 341
8.0 Introduction......Page 354
8.1 Mind-Body Animalism......Page 356
8.2 Dynamic Emergence......Page 369
8.3 Arm-Raising vs. Arm-Rising: Trying as Structuring Causation......Page 383
Bibliography......Page 400
A......Page 418
B......Page 419
C......Page 420
D......Page 421
E......Page 422
G......Page 423
I......Page 424
L......Page 425
N......Page 426
P......Page 427
R......Page 428
S......Page 429
T......Page 430
Z......Page 431