Research Catalog

Title

The unity of the mind / D.H.M. Brooks.

Author

Brooks, D. H. M.

Publication

New York, N.Y. : St. Martin's Press, 1994.

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Details

Description

xi, 174 pages; 23 cm.

Summary

• How can we distinguish one mind from another? How are we to determine what unifies the mind? Given radical mental disunity, these questions need to be answered.
• Commissurotomy or split-brain patients may have two minds in one brain. Mind and consciousness may also split in self-deception and multiple-personality disorder. The author investigates these strange phenomena and considers the theories of classical philosophers like Hume and Kant in the light of current philosophical thinking.
• Mind, consciousness and self are distinguished, and in working out criteria for the unity of the mind and explaining synchronic personal identity he puts forward a distinctive philosophy of mind. Real-life cases are considered as well as thought experiments. All these are subject to the realistic constraint that they could occur in a world where everything is supervenient upon some laws of nature.

Series Statement

Studies in contemporary philosophy

Uniform Title

Studies in contemporary philosophy

Subject

• Philosophy of mind
• Self (Philosophy)
• Identity (Philosophical concept)
• identity
• Bewusstsein
• Einheit
• Selbst
• Identität

Note

• "In association with the Scots Philosophical Club."

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-170) and index.

Contents

1. Split Brains, Scattered Agents and Group Minds. Split Brains and Scattered Agents. Group Minds. Evidence for Group Minds -- 2. Is the Problem of the Unity of Mind a Pseudo-Problem? The No-Ownership Thesis. The Ascription of Experiences. Mind, Self and Consciousness. Unity of Consciousness and Unity of Self-Reflexiveness -- 3. Hume's Bundle Theory of the Mind. Hume's Theory. Outside the Stream of Consciousness. Explaining the Stream of Consciousness -- 4. The Kantian Response. Strawson's Kant. Synthesis and Reflexivity. Group Minds Again -- 5. The Unity of the Mind. Relational Criteria of Mental Unity. The Unity of the Mind is the Unity of a Machine. The Essence of Mind for Persons -- 6. Functionalism and the Machine Model. The Nature of a Machine. Theories of the Mind. Ambitious Functionalism. Ramsey Sentence Functionalism -- 7. Irrationality and the Splitting of the Self. Self-Deception and Other Deception. A Mechanism for Self-Deception. Alternative Criteria of Mental Unity. One Mind; Two Consciousnesses? -- 8. Individuating Minds and Agents. Individuating Agents by Actions. The Grounds of Action Ascriptions. Goal Systems. Belief Systems. Appendix: Naturalness.

ISBN

• 0333604970
• 9780333604977
• 0312120176
• 9780312120177

LCCN

93037499

OCLC

• ocm29030583
• 29030583
• SCSB-9579869

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library