The Human Person: Animal and Spirit

It is unfortunate that this work seems to have gone out of print. David Braine offers a powerful tour de force against many dominant arguments and positions found throughout the contemporary literature in philosophy of mind, action theory, mereology, philosophy of language, and philosophical anthropology. The work and argumentation is rigorous and thorough, going through as many of the contemporary arguments as is necessary. Braine commands a comprehensive arsenal of philosophical insights which he deploys against the materialism (eliminativist, (non-)reductionist), dualism, and anti-realism found in analytic philosophy. In the early sections on philosophy of mind he brings out the many similarities between contemporary materialist/physicalist positions and modernity's many dualisms. Braine highlights the fact that the same difficulties that have forever plagued dualism likewise are insurmountable difficulties for physicalism in philosophy of mind.

Braine's neo-Aristotelian position is presented in a fresh light and its philosophical cogency is brought into relief against the positions he rejects. His focus on the unity of the human person and his holistic analysis of man's faculties and operations is a needed treatment in analytic philosophy. As he writes in the preface:
"The first need is to understand the human being's character as an animal living in the world, and it is only at a second stage that one can go on to understand what is special to human beings, what is involved in their intellectuality and their capacity for reflection and choice."

Many of the chapters could stand alone as excellent articles, such as ch. VI "The Primacy of the Agent Over the Event in Causation," which is a erudite contingent against the neo-Humean influence in ontology and aetiology. Braine attacks event theorists (in particular Davidson) offering arguments from both philosophy of language and ontology to supplant the inverted ontologies that posit events as the locus of causal efficacy. Braine presents an alternative position placing causal efficacy in agency.

The work is most likely too advanced for undergraduates but would make an excellent work for a graduate course. The book takes on a lot of literature from twentieth century analytic philosophy, however, Braine is a charitable interlocutor concerned to present his opponents at the top of their game, because he is certain his philosophical tradition is still superior in rigor of argumentation, intellectual acumen, and most importantly, truth.

To spur interest in this volume, which I myself had never heard of until a professor randomly recommended it to me, I have included a skeleton of the table of contents from the book (the book itself has very detailed subdivisions of each chapter).

Prologue: What it is for the Human Being to be an Animal and for this Animal to be a Spirit

Part One: The Human Being as and Animal: The Nature of Psychophysical Unity

I. Overview of Part One: The sameness of Materialism and Dualism and the need for a Holistic view opposed to both (pp. 19-68)

II. Perception (I): The Shape of a Holistic View (pp. 69-93)

III. Perception (II): Clarifying the notion of Real Cognitive Relation and Assessing Contemporary Discussion (pp. 94-130)

IV. Action, Emotion, and Sensation (pp. 131-170)

V. A Non-Dualistic Account of the Meaning of Mind-Involving Statements (pp. 171-200)

VI. The Primacy of the Agent over the Event in Causation (pp. 201-227)

VII. No Presumption in Favour of Mechanism: The Possible Autonomy of Teleological Explanation (pp. 228-248)

VIII. The First Refutation of Mechanism: Psychophysical Unity at the Level of Explanation and Reality (pp. 249-289)

IX. The Community of Human Beings with Other Animals: Five Aspects (pp. 290-341

Part Two: The Human Being as Spirit: Human Transcendence Revealed in Language

Introduction

X. Language and the Understanding of Language (pp. 351-398)

XI. The 'Objects' of the Mind in Speaking and Thinking (pp. 398-446)

XII. The Second Refutation of Mechanism: Linguistic Understanding and Thinking have no Bodily Organ (pp. 447-479)

XIII. Animal and Human Souls: Two Non-Dualistic Conceptions (pp. 480-511)

XIV. How Human Beings Transcend the Body: First Explanation - The Transcendence of the Human Soul (pp. 512-531)

XV. How Human Beings Transcend the Body: Second Explanation - The Transcendence of the Human Being as Such (pp. 532-552)