Rediscovery of the Soul (Contemporary World Academic Classics·Philosophy Series)

Author: [USA] John R. Searle
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-09-01
Features: The book The Rediscovery of the Mind is comprehensive in content, forceful in argument, and truly a masterpiece. — Ned Block, Professor of Philosophy and Linguistics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
In this important new work, John R. Searle, with his characteristic direct style and compelling examples, delivers an irrefutable critique of the orthodox views in contemporary philosophy of mind. The book offers a thorough and detailed critique of the materialist tradition in modern philosophy of mind, yet it also opposes dualism. The author argues that consciousness is the primary mental phenomenon—it is internal, qualitative, subjective, person-oriented ontologically, and cannot be reduced to physical phenomena. However, just as liquidity is a feature of water, consciousness is also a feature of the neurophysiological processes of the brain, and thus does not conflict with our scientific worldview. The book also analyzes concepts such as consciousness, intentionality, and background capacity, proposing new directions for the development of cognitive science.