Title: Consciousness and cognition
First published: 2002
Description: "In this book, Michael Thau shows that philosophers and cognitive scientists have been fundamentally mistaken about the nature of consciousness and cognition - until now." "Contemporary research in philosophy and cognitive science starts from a very natural conception of the mind. Mental phenomena are conceived of as particulars that put subjects in mediated relations to their world. The materialist takes these particulars to reside in the brain, while the dualist takes them to reside in some kind of non-physical stuff. Given this natural conception, the study of the mind has become the study of these entities. But these entities do not exist and, hence, the study of the mind has become the study of nothing." "Consciousness and Cognition will appeal to anyone interested in the nature of the mind. The book is organized around three famous philosophical puzzles: Spectrum Inversion, Frege's Puzzle, and Black-and-White-Mary. The discussion of Frege's Puzzle contains important insights about linguistic communication, so anyone interested in the fundamental questions in philosophy of language will also find the book illuminating."--Jacket.
Subjects: Philosophy of mind, Mental representation
LC classification: BD418.3 .T42 2002