From Publishers Weekly
With characteristic verve and wit, Univ. of California at Berkeley philosopher Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind) dismantles various competing theories of mind—dualist, materialist, behaviorist and skepticist—in this opinionated overview of the philosophy of mind. His purview includes the relationship of the mind to the body, the role of perception in human understanding and the purported equivalence between mind and brain. On dualism, for example, Searle finds Descartes’s postulation of mind and body as separate spheres leaves no room for consciousness. Searle himself argues for a "biological naturalism" that holds that "conscious states are real phenomena in the real world." Although the language and theory surrounding the philosophy of mind is often technical and complex, Searle’s knack for presenting dense ideas in lively prose makes this book a fine starting point for an investigation into the contemporary philosophy of mind.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
The philosophy of mind is unique among contemporary philosophical subjects, writes John Searle, "in that all of the most famous and influential theories are false." In Mind, Searle dismantles these famous and influential theories as he presents a vividly written, comprehensive introduction to the mind. Here readers will find one of the world's most eminent thinkers shedding light on the central concern of modern philosophy. Searle begins with a look at the twelve problems of philosophy of mind--which he calls "Descartes and Other Disasters"--problems which he returns to throughout the volume, as he illuminates such topics as the freedom of the will, the actual operation of mental causation, the nature and functioning of the unconscious, the analysis of perception, and the concept of the self. One of the key chapters is on the mind-body problem, which Searle analyzes brilliantly. He argues that all forms of consciousness--from feeling thirsty to wondering how to translate Mallarme--are caused by the behavior of neurons and are realized in the brain system, which is itself composed of neurons. But this does not mean that consciousness is nothing but neuronal behavior. The main point of having the concept of consciousness, Searle points out, is to capture the first person subjective features of the phenomenon and this point is lost if we redefine consciousness in third person objective terms. Described as a "dragonslayer by temperament," John Searle offers here a refreshingly direct and open discussion of philosophy, one that skewers accepted wisdom even as it offers striking new insights into the nature of consciousness and the mind.
Mind: A Brief Introduction ( Fundamentals of Philosophy Series) FROM THE PUBLISHER
John Searle offers here a direct and open discussion of philosophy, one that skewers accepted wisdom even as it offers striking new insights into the nature of consciousness and the mind.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Searle (philosophy, Berkeley) offers a chatty gloss on the traditional arguments for separating the human mind from its biology and his own account of this same mind as occurring as a part of nature itself. From Descartes's dualism to materialism's contemporary struggles to cope with artificial intelligence, he limns concepts that shape not only philosophic thinking but also inform-for better or for worse-social science and scientific theories involving the mind. Conceptions of consciousness, "proofs" of intentionality and free will, and the problems of perception and identity are taken up in turn, sometimes with more casual treatment than a rigorous scholar might want of the arguments Searle proposes to demonstrate as "right." However, the intention of this book is to give general readers some understanding of where the philosophy of mind stands at the present and an invitation to think about the mind for themselves. The treatment offered here does indeed suit such a purpose, which marks this as a timely book for general collections.-Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., CA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
It seems fitting that the one indispensable tool of philosophy is also one of its major problems. Here's an attempt to show general readers the key issues. Searle (Philosophy/Berkeley; Mind, Language, and Society, 1998, etc.) begins by flatly stating that all the major theories of mind are false. By that he refers explicitly to dualism-Descartes' hard-and-fast distinction between the mental and the physical-and materialism, the belief that the working of the mind can be explained entirely by physical processes. The problem, according to Searle, is that both positions seem reasonable in isolation, yet neither can account for things that we experience daily. The dualist, for example, can't explain how we can perform the simplest voluntary acts, such as raising an arm; and the materialist can't explain the subjective realm of emotions, idea, and sensations that each of us inhabits. Searle gives detailed summaries of these two schools, then offers his refutations. Traditional categories of "physical" and "mental," he argues, beg the question, forcing us to believe that we must choose between alternatives. Searle's common-sense proposal: that while mind is indeed the product of physical processes of the brain, it operates on a higher level-just as the solidity of matter is a higher-level result of interactions of atoms and physical law. He labels his synthesis "biological naturalism," then goes on to discuss several of the key questions raised by modern theories of the mind: consciousness and unconsciousness, intentionality, free will, perception, the self. The reader untrained in philosophy may find much of this-in particular the discussion of intentionality-heavy going. But Searle makes adetermined effort to provide real-world examples of his subject, and those who stick with him will find his insights persuasive. An often-fascinating look into a subject we all know intimately-but that even the experts don't fully understand.
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