The Mind-Body Problem: An Opinionated Introduction

✍ Scribed by D. M. Armstrong

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 185
• Series: Focus Series (Westview Press)
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The relation of mind to body has been argued about by philosophers for centuries. The Mind-Body Problem: An Opinionated Introduction presents the problem as a debate between materialists about the mind and their opponents. After examining the views of Descartes, Hume, and Thomas Huxley the debate is traced through the twentieth century to present day. The emphasis is always on the arguments used and the way one position develops from another. By the end of the book the reader is afforded both a grasp of the state of the controversy and how we got there.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of Tables and Figures
Preface
1 Introduction
1.1 General principles
1.2 An overview of later chapters
1.3 A note to instructors
2 Descartes' Dualism
2.1 Descartes on the body
2.2 Descartes on the mind
2.3 Descartes on the relation of mind to body
2.4 Descartes' arguments for his Dualism
2.5 Mind as a substance
3 Hume's Bundle Dualism
3.1 Hume's defence of Dualism
3.2 Mind-body interaction
3.3 Hume's critique of spiritual substance
4 T. H. Huxley's Epiphenomenalism
4.1 Huxley's argument
4.2 Critique of Epiphenomenalism
4.3 Summing up on Epiphenomenalism
5 Ryle's Rejection of Two Realms
5.1 Mind-body interaction a category-mistake
5.2 Is the will a cause?
5.3 The Argument from Distinct Existences
5.4 The importance of behaviour for our concept of the mental
5.5 Ryle on dispositions
6 The Identity Theory
6.1 Central-state Materialism revived
6.2 Finding a model
6.3 The 'phenomenological fallacy'
6.4 The secondary qualities
6.5 Smart and topic neutrality
6.6 Mind-body interaction
7 The Causal Theory—Armstrong and Lewis
7.1 Dispositions once more
7.2 Lewis and causal role
7.3 A new model: gene = DNA molecule
7.4 Some fine tuning
8 The Eliminativist Theory
8.1 Rorty's model
8.2 Comparison with the Free Will debate
8.3 Why did Eliminativism arise?
8.4 Eliminativism based on a semantic mistake?
9 Functionalism
9.1 Token-token versus type-type identity
9.2 Varieties of Functionalism
10 Consciousness
10.1 Minimal consciousness
10.2 Perceptual consciousness
10.3 Introspective consciousness
11 The Sensible Qualities
11.1 The Qualia problem—how it arose
11.2 An objectivist account of the secondary qualities
11.3 Objections considered
11.4 Perceptions of qualities are representations
11.5 Introspective consciousness revisited
11.6 Note to Chapter 11
12 Intentionality
12.1 The Hegemony of Representation
12.2 Analyzing intentionality
12.3 A simple case analyzed
12.4 Going beyond simple intentionalities
Appendix: "On the Hypothesis That Animals Are Automata, and Its History" by Thomas Huxley
Index