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Mental and the Physical: The Essay and a Postscript

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Herbert Feigl's "The 'Mental' and the 'Physical'", originally published in *Minnesota Studies In The Philosophy Of Science*, was for many years considered a genre-defining work of analytic philosophy: that is to say, its attempt to bring the phenomenalist scruples of Feigl's early days up to materialist "spec" set the tone of discussions of the "mind-brain identity thesis" to an extent greater than attested to by the rate of adoption concerning Feigl's particulars. In some respects, this is a more finely wrought work than subsequent discussions of the topic: and those concerned with the benefits brought on by confessions of materialism would do well to consider it (especially Feigl's off-hand dismissal of Wilfrid Sellars) as a historical document neglecting to "index" certain commonplaces of the time.

The essay is certainly available to today's reader only in that format, and perhaps there is lesson enough about obsolescence contained in that: those concerned with revitalizing the mode of speech associated with its condition of production ought to think hard about the extent to which the intellectual manners of logical positivism are simply outdated, in that a great many of the Vienna Circle's goals for popular discourse on scientific matters have been achieved, others completely sublimated, and the remainder available almost exclusively "at a distance" (that is to say, in materials deriving from work done in proximity and at cross-purposes to them). But an honest assessment of postwar intellectual life in the US requires the granting of considerable respect and to popularity for their views.