Contemporary Debates In Philosophy Of Mind

Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind showcases the leading contributors to the field, debating the major questions in philosophy of mind today.

* Comprises 20 newly commissioned essays on hotly debated issues in the philosophy of mind

* Written by a cast of leading experts in their fields, essays take opposing views on 10 central contemporary debates

* A thorough introduction provides a comprehensive background to the issues explored

* Organized into three sections which explore the ontology of the mental, nature of the mental content, and the nature of consciousness

* Comprises 20 newly commissioned essays on hotly debated issues in the philosophy of mind * Written by a cast of leading experts in their fields, essays take opposing views on 10 central contemporary debates * A thorough introduction provides a comprehensive background to the issues explored * Organized into three sections which explore the ontology of the mental, nature of the mental content, and the nature of consciousness

Brian P. McLaughlin is Professor and Chair in the philosophy department at Rutgers University. He has published widely in philosophy of mind and cognitive science, and is the co-editor of the classic collection on the philosophy of Donald Davidson, Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson (Blackwell, 1988), editor of Dretske and His Critics (Blackwell, 1991) and the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Mind.

Jonathan Cohen is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. He is the the author of numerous papers in philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and perception. Much of his recent work has focused on the metaphysics of color properties.

Notes on Contributors.

Introduction: Jonathan Cohen (University of California, San Diego).

Part I: Mental Content:.

Is There a Viable Notion of Narrow Mental Content?.

1. Cognitive Content and Propositional Attitude Attributions: Gabriel Segal (King's College, London).

2. There Is No Viable Notion of Narrow Content: Sarah Sawyer (University of Nebraska-Lincoln).

Is Externalism about Mental Content Compatible with Privileged Access?.

3. Externalism and Privileged Access Are Consistent: Anthony Brueckner (University of California, Santa Barbara).

4. Externalism and Privileged Access Are Inconsistent: Michael McKinsey (Wayne State University).

Is the Intentional Essentially Normative?.

5. Normativism Defended: Ralph Wedgwood (University of Oxford).

6. Resisting Normativism in Psychology: Georges Rey (University of Maryland at College Park).

Is There Non-Conceptual Content?.

7. The Revenge of the Given: Jerry Fodor (Rutgers University).

8. Are There Different Kinds of Content?: Richard G. Heck Jr (Brown University).

Part II: Physicalism:.

Is Non-Reductive Materialism Viable?.

9. Everybody Has Got It: A Defense of Non-Reductive Materialism: Louise Antony (University of Massachusetts, Amherst).

10. The Evolving Fortunes of Eliminative Materialism: Paul M. Churchland (University of California, San Diego).

Should Physicalists Be A Priori Physicalists?.

11. A Priori Physicalism: Frank Jackson (Australian National University).

12. On the Limits of A Priori Physicalism: Brian P. McLaughlin (Rutgers University).

Is There an Unresolved Problem of Mental Causation?.

13. Causation and Mental Causation: Jaegwon Kim (Brown University).

14. Mental Causation, or Something Near Enough: Barry Loewer (Rutgers University).

Part III: The Place of Consciousness in Nature:.

Is Consciousness Ontologically Emergent from the Physical?.

15. Dualist Emergentism: Martine Nida-Rumelin (University of Fribourg, Switzerland).

16. Against Ontologically Emergent Consciousness: David Braddon-Mitchell (University of Sydney).

Are Phenomenal Characters and Intentional Contents of Experiences Identical?.

17. New Troubles for the Qualia Freak: Michael Tye (University of Texas at Austin).

18. A Case for Qualia: Sydney Shoemaker (Cornell University).

Is Awareness of Our Mental Acts a Kind of Perceptual Consciousness?.

19. All Consciousness Is Perceptual: Jesse Prinz (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill).

20. Mental Action and Self-Awareness (I): Christopher Peacocke (Columbia University).

Index