Mental RealityIn Mental Reality, Galen Strawson argues that much contemporary philosophy of mind gives undue primacy of place to publicly observable phenomena, nonmental phenomena, and behavioral phenomena (understood as publicly observable phenomena) in its account of the nature of mind. It does so at the expense of the phenomena of conscious experience. Strawson describes an alternative position, "naturalized Cartesianism," which couples the materialist view that mind is entirely natural and wholly physical with a fully realist account of the nature of conscious experience. Naturalized Cartesianism is an adductive (as opposed to reductive) form of materialism. Adductive materialists don't claim that conscious experience is anything less than we ordinarily conceive it to be, in being wholly physical. They claim instead that the physical is something more than we ordinarily conceive it to be, given that many of the wholly physical goings-on in the brain constitute -- literally are -- conscious experiences as we ordinarily conceive them. |
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ability act or behave action or behavior arguable argument beliefs blindsight brain causal causes chapter claim color experience concept conscious thought consider constituted count creatures Descartes desire disposed to act dispositions E/C intentionality eliminativism episodes essential nature existence experienceless experiencing experiential phenomena experiential properties fact fundamental given Goldbach's Conjecture human idea idealism idealist immaterial instances of behavior Instant Louis intrinsically mentally contentful involve L-reality materialist mental goings-on mental phenomena mental properties mentalist mind-body problem neobehaviorism neutral monism nonexperiential phenomena nonexperiential processes nonmental phenomena notion objection occurrences one's ontically other-observable panpsychism phenomenology phenomenon philosophical philosophy of mind position possess possible propositional attitudes publicly observable pure process qualitative character question reality reason respect rience satisfactory account seems sensations sense sensory simply Sirians sort subject of experience suppose talk theoretical theory things thought experience true U-similarity understanding understanding-experience unpleasant Weather Watchers word pain