The author's purpose in writing this comprehensive book is to "offer an examination of rival doctrines of mind as well as a general framework for building specific theories of mental abilities". Since the mind-body problem is at present under intensive study, this goal is admirable. The current interest in the subject needs no justification, since (i) the problem of mind is a central philosophical issue, and (ii) recent advances in neurophysiology and technology have provided us with new ideas and methods for attacking the relevant sub-problems. Professor Bunge's book is thus a timely contribution to the intellectual scene.
The book's ten chapters divide neatly into two consecutive parts. The first three chapters contain a systematic review of various historically familiar solutions, 1 as well as a philosophical and mathematical introduction to the author's preferred solution: emergentist materialism. Bunge's theses are presented in set-theoretical terms, by exploiting the apparatus of his earlier Treatise on Basic Philosophy, Volume 3 (Reidel, 1977(Reidel, -1979)). Philosophers and scientists interested in emergentist ideas can profit from these three chapters, although the text is not free of conceptual and technical inaccuracies. I will discuss Bunge's emergentism below.
Chapters four through ten contain sketches for emergentist materialist descriptions of specific kinds of mental activity. Some possible biological bases of sensing, perceiving, learning, thinking, knowing, being conscious, and association are discussed in depth, with copious references to the scientific and philosophical literature. This part is intended to show that the program of the first part can in principle be fulfilled.