. Sometimes called philosophical psychology. Psychology deals with questions that can be settled by observation, experiment and measurement, while philosophy of mind settles its different questions by reflection. Before the twentieth century the subjects were hardly distinguished, and the sharp divisions that have prevailed through much of that century are now becoming blurred again as philosophy of mind becomes ever more reliant on the findings of subjects like cognitive science (see COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, CONNECTIONISM). The philosophy of psychology is a rather narrower subject concentrating on philosophical problems that arise from studying the nature of psychology as a science, such as the problem of the scientific status of Freudianism.
Recent philosophy of mind has been perhaps primarily, though far from exclusively, concerned with two main problems: first that of what mind is and how it relates to body, known as the mindbody or body-mind problem; this is a very ancient problem with soul or spirit, especially in older literature, sometimes replacing and sometimes being added to mind. The second main problem is that of how the mind relates to the external world in its dealings with that world in terms of thought, belief, perception, etc. (see INTENSIONALITY AND INTENTIONALITY). This too is a problem with ancient roots but owes its modern revival partly to the influence of BRENTANO and others, and partly to the developments of cognitive science mentioned above.
For the second problem see, as well as INTENSIONALITY, INTERNALISM AND EXTERNALISM, INDIVIDUALISM, CONTENT. Answers to the first problem range between idealist views that only the mind is real and materialist views that either the body alone is real (cf. BEHAVIOURISM) or mental phenomena are identical with certain physical ones (IDENTITY THEORY OF MIND). These views, along with the DOUBLE ASPECT THEORY, neutral MONISM, Strawson’s view distinguishing bodies from PERSONS, and Aristotle’s view that mind is to body as FORM to matter, are all MONIST views, in that they deny that mind or mental phenomena and body or bodily phenomena are distinct things. DUALIST views assert this distinctness and include interactionism, EPIPHENOMENALISM, PSYCHO-PHYSICAL PARALLELISM and OCCASIONALISM. A weaker dualism, however, applies to properties rather than substances (and would include, e.g., Strawson’s view). FUNCTIONALISM is compatible with both monism and dualism.
Idealist and most dualist views are currently in a minority, though not unrepresented, while the identity theory is still being vigorously discussed. The related topic of personal IDENTITY is important for questions like: Can a mind animate several bodies, successively, as in reincarnation, or at once? Can several minds animate the same body (one view of ‘multiple personality’ cases), or one mind many bodies (‘corporate personalities’)? Can a mind exist without a body at all, whether or not originally joined to one? Clearly much depends on what counts as a mind. This is one of the few areas where philosophy may affect our predictions of the future. Discussion has been stimulated by the logical possibility of brain transplants. Early work in psychical research has been relevant here and in connexion with extrasensory perception, precognition, telepathy, etc. The question whether causal relations can link mental phenomena with each other and with physical phenomena, and if so, how, arises here.
A topic linking philosophy of mind closely to ethics is philosophy of action. The FREEWILL question again makes us ask whether actions can be caused, e.g. by reasons or intentions, and calls for a general analysis of concepts like motive, intention, volition, wanting, trying. Are they the sort of things that could be causes? Are they mental states? Can they be identified or described independently of actions? Are there limitations on our irrationality (cf. INCONTINENCE)? Ethics as well as philosophy of mind can ask whether there are logical limits to what we can approve of or feel obliged to do. Are there things such that nothing would count as our approving of them?
CONSCIOUSNESS is a topic which has seen a big revival of interest recently. Its study also raises questions about pleasure and pain (cf. psychological HEDONISM), and about FEELINGS and emotions. In what sense, for example, are feelings ‘in’ the body or mind, and how are emotions to be analysed and distinguished from feelings and from each other? Many such questions, like many on perceiving and imagining, border on aesthetics.
This brings us to the more centrally cognitive notions like perception, sensation, judgment, together with more specific ones like attending, noticing, observing, and the more purely intellectual ones like thinking, understanding, believing, doubting, feeling sure, reasoning, inferring. Epistemology concentrates primarily on questions of justification, while philosophy of mind analyses these concepts rather from the point of view of what logical conditions someone must satisfy if he is to be said to be perceiving, thinking etc. The second of the original main problems is relevant here. Knowledge is not in the above list, because knowing involves being correct or justified; its analysis therefore belongs to epistemology. Again, the question whether believing is being disposed to act in certain ways belongs primarily to philosophy of mind, but the question whether one can properly be said to believe something where one could not be wrong, such as believe one is in pain, belongs to epistemology. But the distinction is not rigid.
A.R.Anderson (ed.), Minds and Machines, Prentice-Hall, 1964. (Can machines think? and similar questions.)
D.M.Armstrong and N.Malcolm, Consciousness and Causality: a Debate on the Nature of the Mind, Blackwell, 1984. (Materialist and opponent debate issues concerning consciousness.)
P.Beakley and P.Ludlow (eds), The Philosophy of Mind: Classical Problems/Contemporary Issues, MIT Press, 1992. (Large anthology. Main headings: the mind-body problem, mental causation, mental imagery, associationism/connectionism, innate ideas.)
N.Block (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, 2 vols, Harvard UP/Methuen, 1980–1. (Mainly reprinted articles, in sections covering behaviourism, reductionism and physicalism, functionalism (vol. 1), mental representations, imagery, the subject matter of grammar, innate ideas (vol. 2).)
T.Burge, ‘Philosophy of language and mind: 1950–90’, Philosophical Review, 1992. (Survey article with many references, see esp. 2nd half, pp. 29ff., for philosophy of mind.)
*K.Campbell, Body and Mind, Macmillan, 1970. (Introductory.)
*T.Crane, The Mechanical Mind: a Philosophical Introduction to Minds, Machines and Mental Representation, Penguin, 1995. (Elementary introduction.)
D.Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events, Clarendon, 1980. (Influential articles on various topics, including his ‘anomalous MONISM’ (chapter 11). See also B.Vermazen and M.B.Hintikka (eds), Essays on Davidson: Actions and Events, Clarendon, 1985, and E.Le Pore and B.P.McLaughlin (eds), Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson, Blackwell, 1985.)
J.A.Foster, The Immaterial Self, Routledge, 1991. (Defends a dualist view.)
*J.Glover (ed.), The Philosophy of Mind, Oxford UP, 1976. (Readings.)
J.Heil and A.Mele (eds), Mental Causation, Oxford UP, 1994. (Specially written essays.)
W.James, ‘Does “consciousness” exist?’, in his Essays in Radical Empiricism, 1912 (written 1904). (Neutral monist approach.)
A.Kenny, Action, Emotion and Will, RKP, 1963. (Discussion of these concepts.)
*C.McGinn, The Character of Mind, Oxford UP, 1982. (Introduction to some issues.)
D.Rosenthal (ed.), The Nature of Mind, Oxford UP, 1991. (62 articles and extracts covering wide range of topics. Main headings: problems about mind, self and other, mind and body, the nature of mind, psychological explanation.)
C.Rovane, ‘Self-reference: the radicalization of Locke’, Journal of Philosophy, 1993. (Defends view of personal identity that takes seriously multiple and corporate personalities.)
G.Ryle, The Concept of Mind, Hutchinson, 1949. (Classic attack on some dualist (‘ghost in the machine’) mind-body views, with discussions of feelings, emotions, etc.)
*P.Smith and O.R.Jones, The Philosophy of Mind: an Introduction, Cambridge UP, 1986.
G.N.A.Vesey (ed.), Body and Mind, Allen and Unwin, 1964. (Selections from Descartes onwards.)
R.Warner and T.Szubka (eds), The Mind-Body Problem: a Guide to the Current Debate, Blackwell, 1994. (Mainly new essays, wide-ranging from physicalism to dualism.)
A.R.White, The Philosophy of Mind, Random House, 1967; Greenwood Press, 1978. (Combines general survey with detailed analyses.)
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