Philosophy of Mind and Cognition: An Introduction

338 Pages·2006·11.337 MB·English

by  David Braddon-Mitchell, Frank Jackson

The Philosophy of Mind and Cognition
For Bella, and Heloise
?
David Braddon-Mitchell
and Frank Jackson
THE PHILOSOPHY
OF MIND AND
COGNITION
Second Edition
á jk Blackwell
Publishing
© 1996, 2007 by David Braddon-Mirchcll and Frank Jackson
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First edition published 1996
Second edition published 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
1 2007
Library of Congress C '.utalojiinq-in Publication Data
Braddon-Mitchell, David.
Philosophy of mind and cognition : an introduction / David Braddon-
Mitchell and Frank Jackson. — 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-3323-4 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4051-3323-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-3324-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 1-4051-3324-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Philosophy of mind. I. Jackson, Frank, 1943- . II. Title.
BD418.3.B72 2006
128'.2—dc22
2006014906
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
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CONTENTS
Preface x
Part I: From Dualism to Common-sense Functionalism 1
1 The Flight from Dualism 3
The Issue Between Dualism and Materialism 3
Some of the classic arguments for dualism 4
Two kinds of dualism 10
The causal problem for dualism 12
Some responses for the dualist 15
Refining the definition of materialism 19
Supervenience 21
Supervenience and completeness 21
Supervenience and possible worlds 23
Possible Worlds: An Introduction 23
Explications in terms of possible worlds 24
‘Supervenience and possible worlds 28
‘Materialism and supervenience 28
‘Making true and the varieties of materialism 30
‘Some warnings and physical properties revisited 31
Annotated Reading 35
2 Behaviourism and Beyond 37
The Case for Behaviourism 38
Methodological and Revisionary Behaviourism 40
Problems for Behaviourism 41
vi Contents
The Path to Functionalism via a Causal Theory 45
The Causal Theory of Mind 46
Annotated Reading 47
3 Common-sense Functionalism 48
Multiple Realizability 49
Common-sense Functionalism Expounded 52
Interconnections without Circularity 55
Behaviour Characterized in Terms of Environmental Impact 59
What Does Common Sense Say about the Mind? 61
Annotated Reading 64
Part II: Rivals and Objections 65
4 Theory of Reference 67
The Description Theory of Reference 67
Objections to the description theory 69
The Causal Theory 72
Rigid designation 75
The Necessary A Posteriori 79
Annotated Reading 83
5 Empirical Functionalisms 84
Common-sense Functional Roles as a Reference-fixing Device 84
Chauvinism and Empirical Functionalism 87
Annotated Reading 94
6 The Identity Theory 95
The Identity Theory and Functionalism 97
Some Early Objections to the Identity Theory 98
Token—Token versus Type—Type Identity Theories 100
*Essentialism about Psychological States 104
Annotated Reading 106
Contents vii
7 Four Challenges to Functionalism 107
The China Brain 107
The Chinese Room 110
Blockhead 114
Good chess versus being good at chess 115
The game of life 116
Why Blockhead is not a thinker 119
Common-sense functionalism and Blockhead 122
The Zombie Objection 123
Annotated Reading 128
8 Phenomenal Qualities and Consciousness 129
The Question of Qualia 130
The spectrum inversion objection to functionalism 131
The knowledge argument challenge to physicalism 134
Replies to the knowledge argument 135
Consciousness 142
*Representationalism and Perceptual Experience 149
Annotated Reading 152
9 Instrumentalism and Interpretationism 154
Instrumentalism 154
Stances and intentional systems 155
Instrumentalism and intentional systems theory 159
Interpretationism 164
Annotated Reading 167
Part III: About Content 169
1G The Language of Thought 171
The Language of Thought Hypothesis 173
Why are we supposed to believe in the language
of thought? 175
The Map Alternative 177
The way maps represent 179
Do maps explain the phenomena? 181
Annotated Reading 184
v¡¡¡ Contents
11 Content 185
What is the Problem of Content? 185
The Map Theory 188
Belief as a map by which we steer 188
The Internal Sentence Theory 193
Problems for the Map-system Theory 195
Problems and Questions for the Internal Sentence Theory 203
Informational semantics 204
Content, evolution and biological function 210
A general objection to the internal sentence theory of
the content of belief 215
Annotated Reading 217
12 Connectionism 219
Connectionism and the Map-system Theory 230
Annotated Reading 236
13 Broad and Narrow Content 237
Narrow Content 238
Virtual reality and brains in vats 238
Narrow content is not intrinsic 240
Egocentric content 242
The explanatory value of narrow content 245
Broad Content 246
The explanatory value of broad content 251
Deflationism about Broad Content versus Scepticism
about Narrow Content 254
Annotated Reading 261
Part IV: Explaining Behaviour: Eliminativism
and Realism 263
14 Eliminative Materialism 265
The Case for Eliminativism 265
The Functionalist Reply to Eliminativism 268
Contents ix
Does functionalism make it too easy to save folk
psycholog}'? 272
Empirical functionalism: how to have strong internal
constraints without inviting scepticism 274
Natural Kinds and Scientific Reductions 275
Annotated Reading 279
15 Psychological Explanation and Common-sense
Functionalism 280
Three Questions for Common-sense Functionalism 281
The triviality question 282
The relationship question: partial and complete
explanations 284
The causal question 289
Annotated Reading 291
Glossary 292
Bibliography 310
Index 316