Contemporary Philosophy of Mind A Contentiously Classical Approach

by Rey, Georges

• ISBN13: 9780631190691
• ISBN10: 0631190694
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-01-23
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This volume is an introduction to contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind. In particular, the author focuses on the controversial "eliminativist" and "instrumentalist" attacks - from philosophers such as of Quine, Dennett, and the Churchlands - on our ordinary concept of mind. In so doing, Rey offers an explication and defense of "mental realism", and shows how Fodor's representational theory of mind affords a compelling account of much of our ordinary mental talk of beliefs, hopes, and desires.

Author Biography

Georges Rey is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland. In addition to publishing numerous articles in the philosophy of mind, he is co-editor (with Barry Loewer) of Meaning and Mind (Blackwell, 1992).

Table of Contents

List of Figures	xii	(1)
Preface	xiii
Introduction	1	(13)
1 A Renaissance of the Explanatory	1	(1)
2(*) Explanation vs. Ontology and Ordinary Talk	2	(4)
3 Plan and Argument of this Book	6	(4)
4 Why it Matters	10	(4)
1 Preliminaries	14	(24)
1.1 Some Distinctions Among Purported Mental Phenomena	14	(7)
1.1.1 Language and metaphysics	14	(4)
1.1.2 Qualitative states and propositional attitudes	18	(2)
1.1.3 Rationality and intentionality	20	(1)
1.2 The Metaphysics of Mind: the Three Main Approaches	21	(4)
1.2.1 Reductionism	21	(2)
1.2.2 Dualism	23	(2)
1.2.3 Eliminativism	25	(1)
1.3 The Need for Non-tendentious Evidence	26	(1)
1.4 The Need for Fairness	27	(1)
1.5 Philosophical and Empirical Research	28	(10)
1.5.1 Constitutive analyses	28	(4)
1.5.2 Analyses of explanatory concepts	32	(6)
2 The Temptations to Dualism	38	(31)
2.1 Explanatory Gaps	38	(7)
2.2 Monism, Dualism,..., N-alism	45	(1)
2.3 Physicalist Reduction	46	(2)
2.4 Identity and Leibniz's Law	48	(1)
2.5 The "Identity Theory" and Its Leibniz Law Difficulties	49	(13)
2.5.1 Rationality and language	50	(2)
2.5.2 Free will	52	(1)
2.5.3 Spatiality and phenomenal objects	53	(2)
2.5.4 Privacy	55	(1)
2.5.5 Descartes' argument: the fallacious version	56	(1)
2.5.6 Intentionality and referential opacity	57	(2)
2.5.7(*) Kripke's version of Descartes' argument	59	(3)
2.5.7.1(*) Constitution or identity?	61	(1)
2.6 Qualia and "What It's Like"	62	(2)
2.7 Summary of Problems So Far	64	(5)
3 Eliminativism: Philosophical Issues	69	(26)
3.1 From Dualism to Eliminativism	69	(8)
3.1.1 The lack of a causal break	70	(4)
3.1.2 Normativity and interpretavism	74	(2)
3.1.3 Instrumentalism	76	(1)
3.2 Philosophical Objections to Eliminativism	77	(11)
3.2.1(*) Transcendental arguments	78	(5)
3.2.2 Introspective arguments	83	(5)
3.3 Standardized Regularities	88	(7)
4 Eliminativism: Empirical Issues	95	(40)
4.1 Radical Behaviorism and Its Problems	97	(10)
4.1.1 Latent learning	99	(1)
4.1.2 Passive learning	100	(1)
4.1.3 Spontaneous alteration	100	(1)
4.1.4 Improvisation	101	(2)
4.1.5 Responses to RBists: epicycles and mentalistic re-description	103	(4)
4.2 Chomsky	107	(15)
4.2.1 The evidence	108	(8)
4.2.2 Competence vs. performance	116	(2)
4.2.3 Creativity and productivity	118	(1)
4.2.4 The poverty and corruption of the stimulus	119	(2)
4.2.5 Extensions of Chomsky's program	121	(1)
4.3(*) Eliminativism's Roots in Empiricism	122	(6)
4.4 The Need for Mind	128	(7)
5 Mentalism: Pre-Functionalist Approaches	135	(30)
5.1 Introspectivism	136	(4)
5.1.1 The problem of application	138	(2)
5.1.2 The problem of other minds	140	(1)
5.2 Irreferentialism	140	(11)
5.2.1 Phenomenal singular terms and their objects	144	(2)
5.2.2 Phenomenal predicates and their properties	146	(1)
5.2.3 Propositional attitude terms and their states	147	(1)
5.2.4 Propositional content expressions and their propositions	148	(3)
5.3 Analytical Behaviorism	151	(4)
5.4(*) Verificationism	155	(10)
6 Functionalism: Commonalities	165	(19)
6.1 The Basic Idea	166	(1)
6.2 Turing Machines	166	(6)
6.3 Ramsification	172	(4)
6.3.1 Structure and the problem of uniqueness	175	(1)
6.4 Multiple-Realizability and Levels of Explanation	176	(8)
7 Functionalism: Differences	184	(24)
7.1 Different Meta-Approaches to Constitutive Stories	184	(7)
7.1.1 Folk functionalism	185	(1)
7.1.2 A priori functionalism	186	(1)
7.1.3 Psycho-functionalism	187	(2)
7.1.4 Some constraints on thought experiments	189	(2)
7.2 Different Functionalist Stories	191	(10)
7.2.1 Input/output vs. anchored functionalism	191	(3)
7.2.2 Holistic vs. molecular (and homuncular) functionalism	194	(2)
7.2.3 Teleo-functionalism	196	(1)
7.2.4 Superficialism	197	(4)
7.3 Towards Minimizing Commitments	201	(7)
7.3.1 The theory theory	201	(2)
7.3.2 Modest Mentalism	203	(5)
8 CRTT: Computation (Meeting Descartes' Challenge)	208	(29)
8.1 Syntactic Computational Architecture	209	(2)
8.2 The Paradigm Case: Syntactic Computations for Deduction	211	(3)
8.3 Extensions to Induction and Abduction	214	(2)
8.4 Practical Reason: Decision Theory	216	(2)
8.5 A Toy Example: the COG Program	218	(3)
8.6 Free Will	221	(1)
8.7(*) The Irrelevance of Godel's Theorem	221	(3)
8.8 Bridging Explanatory Gaps: CRTT vs. Radical Connectionism	224	(13)
9 CRTT: Representation (Meeting Brentano's Challenge)	237	(27)
9.1 Internalist Theories	238	(3)
9.1.1 Images and stereotypes	238	(1)
9.1.2 Conceptual roles	239	(2)
9.1.3 A general problem for any purely internalist theory	241	(1)
9.2 Externalist Theories	241	(10)
9.2.1 Historical causal theories	242	(1)
9.2.2 Co-variational locking theories	243	(3)
9.2.2.1 Ideal co-variation	244	(1)
9.2.2.2 Fodor's asymmetric dependencies	245	(1)
9.2.3 Teleo-semantic theories	246	(3)
9.2.4 General problems with purely externalist accounts	249	(2)
9.3 Two Factor Theorists: Narrow and Wide Content	251	(2)
9.4 Further, Semantic Arguments for CRTT vs. RCON	253	(2)
9.5 Status of the CRTT	255	(1)
9.6 Is Consciousness Necessary for a Mental State?	256	(8)
10 Replies to Common Objections	264	(24)
10.1 Red Herrings	264	(6)
10.1.1 Introspection	264	(1)
10.1.2 Images and "mental models"	265	(2)
10.1.3 Homunculi objections	267	(1)
10.1.4 Actual and artificial intelligence	268	(1)
10.1.5 Nativism	269	(1)
10.2 Searle's Worries About His "Chinese Room"	270	(5)
10.2.1 The Turing Test vs. the right program	271	(1)
10.2.2 The (non-)autonomy of language	272	(1)
10.2.3 Searle's own problem and his fallacy of division	273	(2)
10.3 Worries about Idealization	275	(13)
10.3.1 Normative vs. descriptive idealizations	276	(1)
10.3.2 Dennett's specific idealizations	277	(1)
10.3.3 "Unrealistic" idealizations	278	(3)
10.3.4 Is CRTT's realism really hysterical?	281	(7)
11 Further Capacities (Meeting Levine's Challenge)	288	(34)
11.1 Nested Intentionality	289	(1)
11.2 Subjectivity	290	(5)
11.2.1 Essential indexicals	290	(2)
11.2.2 Central vs. avowed attitudes	292	(3)
11.3 Sensational Sentences	295	(4)
11.4 Dealing with Some Standard Puzzles	299	(2)
11.4.1 Privacy	299	(1)
11.4.2 Privileged access	299	(1)
11.4.3 "What it's like"	300	(1)
11.5 What is Represented in Sensation?	301	(4)
11.6 Are Qualia Real?	305	(5)
11.6.1 Reasons for CRTQ and denying qualia	307	(1)
11.6.2(*) Kripke's Cartesian argument answered	308	(2)
11.7 Further Problems	310	(12)
11.7.1 Reverse qualia and other functional isomorphisms	310	(2)
11.7.2 Arbitrary realizability and absent qualia	312	(2)
11.7.3 Behavioral chauvinism	314	(8)
Glossary	322	(7)
References	329	(21)
Index	350