This is Philosophy of Mind

Pete Mandik is Professor of Philosophy at William Paterson University, New Jersey. He is the author of Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind (2010), co-author of Cognitive Science: An Introduction to the Mind and Brain (2006), and co-editor of Philosophy and the Neurosciences: A Reader (2001).

• How to Use This Book xvAcknowledgments xvii1 Meet Your Mind 1Aspects of Mind 1Thought and experience 1Conscious and unconscious 2Qualia 3Sensory perception 3Emotion 4Imagery 4Will and action 5Self 5Propositional attitudes 5Philosophical Problems 6Mind–body problem 7Other problems 9Conclusion 14Annotated Bibliography 142 Substance Dualism 15Arguments for Substance Dualism 15Leibniz’s law arguments 16Criticism of Leibniz’s law arguments: Intensional fallacy 19Explanatory gap arguments 20Criticisms of explanatory gap arguments 21Modal arguments 22Criticism of the modal arguments: Does conceivability eally entail possibility? 23Mind–Body Interaction as a Problem for Substance Dualism 24Princess Elisabeth’s objection 25The dualistic alternatives to Cartesian interactionism 26Conclusion 27Annotated Bibliography 283 Property Dualism 29Introducing Property Dualism: Qualia and the Brain 29The Inverted Spectrum 30Attack of the Zombies 32The Knowledge Argument 34The Explanatory Gap Argument 37Does Property Dualism Lead to Epiphenomenalism? 39How Do You Know You’re Not a Zombie? 41Conclusion 42Annotated Bibliography 424 Idealism, Solipsism, and Panpsychism 45Solipsism: Is It Just Me? 46Idealism: It’s All in the Mind 50Berkeley’s argument from pain 51Berkeley’s argument from perceptual relativity: Berkeley’s bucket 51Berkeley’s “Nothing but an idea can resemble an idea” 52Berkeley’s master argument 52Why Berkeley is not a solipsist 53Arguing against idealism 53Panpsychism: Mind Is Everywhere 54The analogy argument 55The nothing from nothing argument 56The evolutionary argument 57Arguing against panpsychism: The combination problem 57Conclusion 58Annotated Bibliography 595 Behaviorism and Other Minds 61Behaviorism: Introduction and Overview 61The History of Behaviorism 63Ludwig Wittgenstein and the private language argument 64Gilbert Ryle versus the ghost in the machine 66Objections to Behaviorism 67The qualia objection 67Sellars’s objection 68The Geach–Chisholm objection 69The Philosophical Problem of Other Minds 70The rise and fall of the argument from analogy 71Denying the asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of other minds 72Conclusion 73Annotated Bibliography 746 Mind as Brain 77Introducing Mind–Brain Identity Theory 77Advantages of Mind–Brain Identity Theory 78A Very Brief Overview of Neuroscience 79Major parts and functions of the nervous system 80Major parts and functions of the brain 80Neurons, neural activations, and brain states 81Lesions, imaging, and electrophysiology 81Localism and holism 81Learning and synaptic plasticity 82Computational neuroscience and connectionism 82Neural correlates of consciousness 83On pain and c-fi bers 83Some General Remarks about Identity 84Arguments against Mind–Brain Identity Theory 86The zombie argument 86The multiple realizability argument 87Max Black’s “distinct property” argument 89Conclusion 90Annotated Bibliography 917 Thinking Machines 93Can a Machine Think? 93Alan Turing, Turing Machines, and the Turing Test 94Alan Turing 95Turing machines 95The Turing test 96Searle’s Chinese Room Argument 97Responses to the Chinese Room Argument 98The Silicon Chip Replacement Thought Experiment 99Symbolicism versus Connectionism 102Conclusion 105Annotated Bibliography 1068 Functionalism 109The Gist of Functionalism 109A Brief History of Functionalism 111Arguments for Functionalism 112The causal argument 112The multiple realization argument 114The Varieties of Functionalism 117Turing machine functionalism 117Analytic functionalism versus empirical functionalism 118Arguments against Functionalism 119Adapting the zombie argument to be against functionalism 120Adapting the Chinese room argument to be against functionalism 121Conclusion 122Annotated Bibliography 1229 Mental Causation 123The Problem of Mental Causation 123The causal closure of the physical 124The problem for substance dualists 126The problem for property dualists 126Basic Views of Interaction 127Interactionism 127Parallelism 128Epiphenomenalism 129Reductionism 130Qualia and Epiphenomenalism 130Whether qualia-based epiphenomenalism conflicts with phenomenal self-knowledge 131Dennett’s zimboes 131Anomalous Monism 132The Explanatory Exclusion Argument 136Conclusion 137Annotated Bibliography 13710 Eliminative Materialism 139Introduction and Overview 139Basic Ingredients of Contemporary Eliminative Materialism 140Folk psychology as a theory 141The contrast between reduction and elimination 142Putting the ingredients together 143Arguments for Propositional Attitude Eliminative Materialism 143Folk psychology is a stagnant research program 144Folk psychology is committed to propositional attitudes having a sentential structure that is unsupported by neuroscientific research 144Folk psychology makes commitments to features of mental states that lead to an unacceptable epiphenomenalism 145Arguments against Propositional Attitude Eliminative Materialism 145Eliminative materialism is self-refuting 146The “theory” theory is false 146Folk psychology is indispensable 147Introspection reveals the existence of propositional attitudes 148Qualia Eliminative Materialism: “Quining” Qualia 149Conclusion 152Annotated Bibliography 15311 Perception, Mental Imagery, and Emotion 155Perception 155Direct realism and the argument from illusion 155Philosophical theories of perception 158Mental Imagery 161How similar are mental images to other mental states? 162Is mental imagery the basis for mental states such as thoughts? 163To what degree, if any, is mental imagery genuinely imagistic or picture-like? 163Emotion 165What distinguishes emotions from other mental states? 166What distinguishes different emotions from each other? 167The difficulties in giving a unifi ed account of the emotions 167Conclusion 168Annotated Bibliography 16812 The Will: Willpower and Freedom 171The Problem of Free Will and Determinism 171Sources of Determinism 173General remarks 173Physical determinism 174Theological determinism 175Logical determinism 175Ethical determinism 176Psychological determinism 176Compatibilism 177Incompatibilism 178The origination or causal chain argument 179The consequence argument 180What Might Free Will Be, If There Were Any Such Thing? 181Freedom aside for the moment, what is the will? 181What might the freedom of the will consist in? 183Conclusion 185Annotated Bibliography 18513 Intentionality and Mental Representation 187Introducing Intentionality 187The Inconsistent Triad of Intentionality 188Defending each individual proposition 189Spelling out the inconsistency 190Internalism versus Externalism 190For externalism: The Twin Earth thought experiment 192Against externalism: Swampman and the brain in the vat 193Theories of Content Determination 194Resemblance theory 194Interpretational semantics 195Conceptual role semantics 196Causal or informational theory 198Teleological evolutionary theory 199Conclusion 200Annotated Bibliography 20014 Consciousness and Qualia 203Optimism about Explaining Consciousness 203Focusing on Several Different Uses of the Word “Conscious” 204Creature consciousness 204Transitive consciousness 204State consciousness 205Phenomenal consciousness 205Rosenthal’s Higher Order Thought Theory of Consciousness 206An objection to the HOT theory: Introspectively implausible 209Another objection to the HOT theory: Too intellectual 209First Order Representation Theories of Consciousness 211The transparency argument for first order representationalism 213The “Spot” argument for fi rst order representationalism 214Conclusion 214Annotated Bibliography 21515 Is This the End? Personal Identity, the Self, and Life after Death 217Problems of Personal Identity 217The Problem of Persistence 219Approaches to the Problem of Persistence 220The psychological approach 220The fission problem for the psychological approach 221The somatic or bodily approach 222Temporal parts theory aka perdurantism aka four-dimensionalism 224The no-self view 225Life after Death 227Substance dualism and the afterlife 228Mind–brain identity theory and the afterlife 228Functionalism and the afterlife 229Temporal parts and the afterlife 229No-self and the afterlife 230Conclusion 230Annotated Bibliography 230Index 233