Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 688 pages
• Published by: Oxford University Press, USA July 25, 2002
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 019514581X
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0195145816
• Book Dimensions: 9.8 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 2.6 pounds

Product Review
"By far the best selection of readings in the field. The hard-to-find are represented (Huxley) as well as the often neglected (Hill, Yablo). This is the best of all possible anthologies in the philosophy of mind."--Don A. Merrell, Arkansas State University

"An great volume of essays organized in a way that captures the issues that are most important to contemporary researchers in the field."--Casey O'Callaghan, University of California, Santa Cruz

Product Description
What is the mind? Is consciousness a process in the brain? How do our minds represent the world?
Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings is a grand tour of writings on these and other perplexing questions about the nature of the mind. The most comprehensive collection of its kind, the book includes sixty-three selections that range from the classical contributions of Descartes to the leading edge of contemporary debates. Extensive sections cover foundational issues, the nature of consciousness, and the nature of mental content. Three of the selections are published here for the first time, while many other articles have been revised especially for this volume. Each section opens with an introduction by the editor. Philosophy of Mind is suitable for students at all levels and also for general readers.

Reader Reviews
This is a fantastic collection compiled by David Chalmers, one of the leading philosophers of mind today. The best papers in here are "Quining Qualia" and " True Believers: The Intentional Strategy and Why It Works" by Dan Dennett, "The Rediscovery of Light" by Paul Churchland (all you hard-problemers out there should be forced to read at least the ending section of this paper), "What Experience Teaches" by David Lewis, "Sensations and Brain Processes" by J.J.C. Smart, "Is Consciousness a Brain Process?", and a good excerpt from "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" by Wilfrid Sellars. Non-reductive materialists and property dualists also will like this book as they are represented as well with papers from the likes of Jackson (classical paper of his is included in which he expounds the knowledge argument, "Epiphenomenal Qualia") Mcginn, Nagel, Block, Levine, and of course Chalmers himself. All in all this is a fair sampling of the competing views in the Philosophy of Mind.