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Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2009

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Summary

Wittgenstein remarks that philosophy leaves everything as it is. This book is, in that respect at least, Wittgenstenian. I do not advance a new programme of research in the philosophy of mind nor promote any startling views as to the character of mental states and episodes. There are quite enough new programmes and startling views in circulation already. My aim, rather, is to reconcile emerging conceptions of the mind and its contents that have, in recent years, come to seem irreconcilable. Post-Cartesian philosophers face the challenge of comprehending minds as natural objects possessing apparently nonnatural powers of thought. The difficulty is to understand how our mental capacities, no less than our biological or chemical characteristics, might ultimately be products of our fundamental physical constituents, and to do so in a way that preserves the phenomena. Having abandoned Cartesian dualism, we confront a dilemma. On the one hand, we could opt for an out-and-out eliminativism, according to which minds and their contents are taken to be, like Ptolemaic epicycles, discredited posits of outmoded theories. On the other hand, we might suppose that mental properties or kinds are, in one way or another, reducible to physical properties or kinds. Since reductionism is often taken to be a species of implicit, back-door eliminativism, and since naturalism gives rise to the dilemma, it may seem that we must choose between eliminativism and some nonnaturalistic conception of mind.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1992

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  • Preface
  • John Heil
  • Book: The Nature of True Minds
  • Online publication: 03 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511625367.001
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  • Preface
  • John Heil
  • Book: The Nature of True Minds
  • Online publication: 03 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511625367.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • John Heil
  • Book: The Nature of True Minds
  • Online publication: 03 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511625367.001
Available formats
×