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Critical notice : Decontaminating our view of the mind
Author(s)
Date Issued
2003
Date Available
2013-11-25T16:16:53Z
Abstract
I suppose that most people think their minds are inside their heads, and not spread around
in the environment outside. Now that we are not able to make sense of the old Cartesian
doctrine that minds exist in some non-material realm this looks like the only option; our
minds are lodged in our brains. Perhaps we have learnt enough from Gilbert Ryle’s (1949) attack on the very
meaningfulness of this way of talking about minds that we might modify our way of
putting this. What we would say instead is that facts about the mental depend on facts
about the brain. To put it more technically, the mental supervenes on the
neurophysiological. This means roughly that if any of the facts about your mind were
different then some neurophysiological fact about your brain would have to be different
too; facts about the mind do not float free from facts about the brain.
in the environment outside. Now that we are not able to make sense of the old Cartesian
doctrine that minds exist in some non-material realm this looks like the only option; our
minds are lodged in our brains. Perhaps we have learnt enough from Gilbert Ryle’s (1949) attack on the very
meaningfulness of this way of talking about minds that we might modify our way of
putting this. What we would say instead is that facts about the mental depend on facts
about the brain. To put it more technically, the mental supervenes on the
neurophysiological. This means roughly that if any of the facts about your mind were
different then some neurophysiological fact about your brain would have to be different
too; facts about the mind do not float free from facts about the brain.
Type of Material
Review
Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Journal
International Journal of Philosophical Studies
Volume
11
Issue
4
Start Page
465
End Page
475
Copyright (Published Version)
2003 Taylor & Francis
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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Decontaminating_our_view_of_the_mind.pdf
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Format
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