Philosophy of Mind

The philosophy of mind is concerned with the nature of mind and its relation to the natural physical world. More particular issues examined include:

1. the analysis of mental states, such as desire, hope, fear, pain, and their interrelations;
2. the relationship of mind and brain, or mental states and brain states;
3. epistemological issues: how do we know our own mental states, and those of others?

General Reading

There are many good general introductions to the philosophy of mind. Besides encyclopaedia entries, some recommended introductory books are:

• Paul Churchland, Matter and Consciousness.
• Colin McGinn, The Character of Mind.
• Peter Smith and O. R. Jones, The Philosophy of Mind.
• Frank Jackson and David Braddon-Mitchell, Philosophy of Mind and Cognition.

There are also certain useful collections of articles:

• David Rosenthal, The Nature of Mind.
• Ned Block, Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, volume 1.
• William G. Lycan, Mind and Cognition.

Topics

For each of the topics below, you will find an introductory discussion in one of the introductory books mentioned earlier. Entries marked with a * are introductory.

Dualism

According to dualists, mind and body are distinct and separable substances with incompatible properties.

• Peter Smith and O. R. Jones, The Philosophy of Mind, part 1.
• Peter Carruthers, Introducing Persons, chapters 2, 3.
• John Foster, The Immaterial Self, chapters 1 and esp. 6.
• John Eccles and Karl Popper, The Self and its Brain. (this is a huge book; use selectively).
• Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind chapter 1; reprinted as ‘Descartes Myth’ in Rosenthal.

Materialism

We can describe as ‘materialist’ any view which denies the Cartesian claim that mind is a substance, or thing, distinct and separable from the body. There are many accounts of mind which are compatible with this overall position, including the identity theory, functionalism, anomalous monism, and eliminative materialism.

• *Paul Churchland, Matter and Consciousness, chapter 2.
• *Robinson, Matter and Sense, chapter 1.
• Gilbert Ryle, The Nature of Mind.
• J.J.C.Smart, ‘Sensations and Brain Processes’, in Rosenthal and Phil. Review 1959.
• Jerry Fodor, ‘Special Sciences’, in Block.
• Donald Davidson, ‘Mental Events’, in his Essays on Actions and Events. esp. pp. 207–209;214–215;222–end; or, Rosenthal esp. pp. 247–248; 250; 253–end.
• Richard Boyd, ‘Materialism without Reductionism’, in Block.
• Saul Kripke, ‘Identity and Necessity’, esp.161–3, in Munitz, (ed.), Identity and Individuation.
• Thomas Nagel, ‘What is it Like to be a Bat?’ Rosenthal, Lycan, Phil. Review 1974; and/or The View from Nowhere chapters 2, 3.
• Frank Jackson ,’Epiphenomenal Qualia’, in Lycan and Phil. Quarterly 1982.
• Also relevant is the material on eliminative materialism, functionalism, qualia, and action explanation.

Functionalism.

Functionalists reject the view that we can reduce mental states, such as desires, to neural states. On their view, a wide range of creatures with different physical constitutions could have mental states. They hold that what makes a particular mental state the type of state that it is is its funcaitonal role, that is (roughly) its dispositions to cause certain outputs (say behaviour and other mental states) and be caused by certain inputs (say sensory stimulations and other mental states).

• *William Lycan, Mind and Cognition, pp. 4–11.
• *Ned Block, ‘What is Functionalism? in his Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. 1.
• John Searle, ‘Minds, Brains and Programs’, in Rosenthal, and Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 1980.
• David Lewis, ‘Mad Pain and Martian Pain’, in Rosenthal, Block and Lewis’s Collected Papers; ‘Psycho-physical and theoretical identifications’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 1972.
• Ned Block, ‘Troubles with Functionalism’, in Rosenthal, BlockI

Eliminative materialism

Eliminative materialists deny the existence of ordinary mental states such as beliefs and desires.

• *Paul Churchland, Matter and Consciousness, pp. 43–49.
• Paul Churchland, ‘Eliminative Materialism and the Propositional Attitudes’, in Rosenthal, Lycan, and J. Phil. 1981.
• Stephen Stich, From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science, esp. chapters 10 and 11.
• Terence Horgan and Woodward, ‘Folk Psychology is Here to Stay’, Phil. Review, 1985, and Lycan.
• Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit, ‘In Defence of Folk Psychology’ Philosophical Studies, 1990.

Supervenience

Some have suggested that the relation between mental states and physical states, e.g. brain states, is one of supervenience. Supervenience is a weaker relation than reduction, so may avoid some of the objections to the view that mental states reduce to physical states. But, it attempts to accommodate our view that there is nevertheless a very close relation between mental states and physical states.

• *Simon Blackburn, Spreading the Word, pp.182–9
• *Frank Jackson, From Metaphysics to Ethics, see index under ‘supervenience’ for relevant pages.
• Donald Davidson, ‘Mental Events’ in his Essays on Actions and Events.
• Jaegwon Kim, ‘Supervenience and Nomological Incommensurables’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 1978.
• Jaegwon Kim, Supervenience and Mind.
• David Lewis, ‘Is the mental supervenient on the physical?’, in Vermazen and Hintikka, eds., Essays on Davidson: Actions and Events.
• John Haugeland, ‘Weak Supervenience’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 1982.
• Terence Horgan, ‘Kim on the Mind-Body Problem’, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 1996; ‘Supervenience and Micro-Physics’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 1982; and, ‘Which Physical Events are Mental Events?’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1980-1.
• David Owens, ‘Levels of Explanation’, Mind 1989.

Qualia

Qualia are experiential or subjective properties of certain mental states, e.g. the way pain feels, the way a red sweater looks; or, more generally, the ‘what it is like’ to be in certain mental states. The existence of qualia has been argued to be a serious objection to any attempt to understand the mind purely in physical terms.

• Frank Jackson, ‘Epiphenomenal Qualia’, in Lycan and Phil. Quarterly 1982.
• Frank Jackson, ‘What Mary Didn’t Know’ in Rosenthal.
• Thomas Nagel, ‘What is it Like to be a Bat?’ in Rosenthal, Lycan, Phil. Review 1974.
• Martin Davies and Glyn Humphreys, Consciousness, Introduction (this useful though long essay gives a survey of the literature in this area); articles by Levine and Akins.
• Michael Tye, ‘The Subjectivity of Experience’, Mind 1986.
• Paul Churchland, ‘Reduction, Qualia and the Direct Introspection of Brain States’, Journal of Philosophy, 1985.
• Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained.
• Michael Tye, Ten Problems of Consciousness.
• David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind.

Action

Topics include the nature of actions, and how actions are distinguished from events which are not actions; the relation of actions and movements of the body; and the individuation of actions.

• Donald Davidson, ‘Agency’ in his Essays on Actions and Events, and Binkley et al, eds., Agent, Reason, and Action.
• Alvin Goldman, A Theory of Human Action, chapters 1 and 2, sections 1 and 2.
• Jennifer Hornsby, Actions chapters 1-3;
• Carl Ginet, On Action
• Danto A. ‘Basic Actions’, American Phil. Quarterly, 1965.
• Annette Baier, ‘The Search for Basic Actions’, American Phil. Quarterly 1971.

Action Explanation

We standardly explain what an agent did by citing her mental states, such as her beliefs and desires. Here we examine what the relation is between, on the one hand, a subject’s beliefs and desires and, on the other, an action when those beliefs and desires explain that action.

• *Smith and Jones, Philosophy of Mind chapter 9
• *Colin McGinn, The Character of Mind, chapter 5.
• Donald Davidson, ‘Actions, Reasons and Causes’, in his Essays on Actions and Events, and J. Phil. 1963.
• Ted Honderich, ‘Bad News for Anomalous Monism’, Analysis 1982.
• William Child, Causality, Interpretation and the Mind, chapters 3 and 6.
• Fred Dretske, ‘Reason and Cause’, in Tomberlin, ed., Philosophical Perspectives no.3; or, Explaining Behaviour, chap 4.
• Norman Malcolm, ‘The Conceivability of Mechanism’, Phil. Review, 1968.

The Nature and Extent of Self-Knowledge

To many it has seemed that a subject’s knowledge of her own mental states is special. Here, we investigate the nature of a subject’s knowledge of her own mental states, and the extent of that knowledge.

• Rene Descartes, Meditations, synopsis, and Meditations I and II.
• *Paul Churchland, Matter and Consciousness, pp. 73-81.
• Nisbett and Wilson, ‘Telling More Than We Know’ in The Psychological Review 1977; there is also a summary of some of their arguments in Stich, From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science, pp. 231-237.
• David Armstrong, The Materialist Theory of Mind.
• Fingarette, Self-Deception, chapter 2; OR: M. Martin, Self-Deception and Morality, chapter 2.
• Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, chapter 6.
• Alston, ‘Varieties of Privileged Access’, in American Phil. Quarterly, 1971 - this is a very useful article which surveys the different notions of privileged access in play in the literature.

Knowledge of Other Minds

Can you know that there are other minded people around you, and, if so, how? These are the issues dealt with by the philosophical discussion of other minds.

• *A. J. Ayer, ‘Our Knowledge of Other Minds’, from his The Concept of a Person.
• Hyslop and Frank Jackson, ‘The Analogical Inference to Other Minds’, in American Philosophical Quarterly, 1972.
• Don Locke, ‘Just What is Wrong With the Argument from Analogy?’ in Australasian Journal of Philosophy 1973.
• Stuart Hampshire, ‘The Analogy of Feeling’, in Rosenthal, and Mind 1952.
• Norman Malcolm, ‘Our Knowledge of Other Minds’, in Rosenthal, and J. Phil. 1958, and V. Chappell, ed., Philosophy of Mind
• Saul Kripke, ‘Wittgenstein on Other Minds’ in his Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language.
• Peter Strawson, ‘Persons’, in his Individuals as chapter 3; in Rosenthal, and Chappell, ed. Philosophy of Mind.
• A. J. Ayer, ‘The Concept of a Person’, in his The Concept of a Person and Other Essays.
• Hilary Putnam, ‘Other Minds’ in Mind, Language and Reality

Free Will

We commonly distinguish between actions which an agent did freely, or of her own free will, and those which she was compelled to do. Further, we typically blame or praise, punish or reward, agents only for the former. But some philosophers have argued that agents never act freely.

• *Edwards, ‘Hard and Soft Determinism’, in Hook, ed. Determinism and Freedom.
• A. J. Ayer: ‘Freedom and Necessity’ in his Philosophical Essays, and in Gary Watson, ed., Free Will.
• C. A. Campbell: ‘Is Free Will a Pseudo-Problem?’ in his Defence of Free Will, in Mind 1951, and in Berofsky, ed., Free Will and Determinism.
• Peter Strawson, ‘Freedom and Resentment’, in his Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays, and in Gary Watson ed. Free Will.
• Harry Frankfurt, ‘Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person’, in Rosenthal, and J. Phil. 1971.

Personal identity

A person can survive many changes in her appearance, character, and physique. What are the limits of the changes that can happen to a person without destroying her identity? E.g., could you survive the loss of your body, or all your memories, or a complete change of character?

• John Locke: Essay Concerning Human Understanding, II, xxvii.
• John Mackie: Problems from Locke, chapter 6; or A. Flew, ‘Locke and the Problem of Personal Identity’, in Philosophy 1951.
• Bernard Williams: Problems of the Self, esp. chapters 1 and 4.
• Derek Parfit, ‘Personal Identity’ in Phil. Review 1971; and/or his Reasons and Persons, part 3, esp. chapters 10-12.
• Kathleen Wilkes, Real People.