Contemporary Philosophy of Mind: A Contentiously Classical Approach [Paperback]

Georges Rey (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0631190716 | ISBN-13: 978-0631190714 | Publication Date: January 30, 1997 | Edition: 1

This volume is an introduction to contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind. In particular, the author focuses on the controversial "eliminativist" and "instrumentalist" attacks - from philosophers such as of Quine, Dennett, and the Churchlands - on our ordinary concept of mind. In so doing, Rey offers an explication and defense of "mental realism", and shows how Fodor's representational theory of mind affords a compelling account of much of our ordinary mental talk of beliefs, hopes, and desires.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is an excellent introduction to contemporary issues in the metaphysics of mind, covering all the major twentieth century theories of mind and most of the questions and arguments that have occupied us for the past few decades. It is clearly and engagingly written, full of illuminating examples, wise warnings, and provocative arguments." William G. Lycan, University of North Carolina

"By covering a wide range of topics in a lively and entertaining style, Rey has written a book that is ideal for student use." Kenneth Taylor, Stanford University

From the Back Cover

This volume is an introduction to contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind. In particular, the author focuses on the controversial "eliminativist" and "instrumentalist" attacks - from philosophers such as of Quine, Dennett, and the Churchlands - on our ordinary concept of mind. In so doing, Rey offers an explication and defense of "mental realism", and shows how Fodor's representational theory of mind affords a compelling account of much of our ordinary mental talk of beliefs, hopes, and desires.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell; 1 edition (January 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631190716
• ISBN-13: 978-0631190714
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,695,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Rey searches for the algorithm of mind., October 7, 1998

By 

John Schmidt [e-mail] (Wichita, Kansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Contemporary Philosophy of Mind: A Contentiously Classical Approach (Paperback)

Rey drops us into the middle of some contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind. He often focuses on the attempts of other philosophers of mind to be 'eliminativists' or 'instrumentalists' with respect to the mental states (states like beliefs and desires) that we are subjectively aware of by way of introspection. Rey suggests that people like Dennett are wrong to view "beliefs" as only being useful instruments by which Folk Psychology allows us to predict future human behaviors. Rey thinks people like Paul Churchland are wrong to try to eliminate "beliefs" from the Science of Mind by replacing them with neural network processes.

What Rey offers is a spirited defense of 'mental realism', taking mental states like "beliefs" as the basis for an algorithmic description of how human minds work. Rey builds on Fodor's representational theory of mind to produce his own version of a Computational/Representational Theory of Thought that tries to incorporate and extend our ordinary day-to-day world of mental experience: our beliefs, hopes, and desires.

Rey provides both an initial outline of his plan of attack and a useful glossary of terms. He quickly dances past "The Temptations to Dualism"; anyone sympathetic to Chalmers or other modern dualists will be disappointed with the brush-off dualism recieves. Rey's chief concern is fighting the forces of Eliminativism and issuing endless complaints about the weaknesses of trainable neural networks. Halfway through the book Rey finally makes clear that he is proposing a theory of thought that will have to be built upon some foundation (such as neural networks), but he is uninterested in developing such a foundation.

Rey wants to describe an algorithm by which sensory experiences (inputs) can be translated into abstract mental representations (elements of a Language of Thought) which can then be subjected to computational processes and so produce new representations and human behaviors (outputs). His formal system for doing this is the type of toy algorithm that one commonly finds being offered in Freshman term papers by students who are getting their first exposure to artificical intelligence or cognitive science. This is where most "realists" admit that something must be done about the problem of getting semantics into syntactical algorithms. Rey does not take up this challenge. Finally, Rey suggests how "Further Capacities" such as subjective quales might be incorporated into his theory.

Rey provides a clear statement of modern functionalism. Maybe Rey's level-headed methods will allow materialists to grant Rey's algorithmic approach to mind a place in the Science of Mind. In this age of mindless connectionistic models, we could sure use a viable counter-balance at the high end of the brain/mind hierarchy. Only time will tell us if Rey's theory is viable or D.O.A.