Author Description

The philosophy of mind and cognition has been transformed by recent advances in what is loosely called cognitive science. This book is a thoroughly up-to-date introduction to and account of that transformation, in which the many strands in contemporary cognitive science are brought together into a coherent philosophical picture of the mind. The book begins with discussions of the pre-history of contemporary philosophy of mind - dualism, behaviourism, and early versions of the identity theory of mind - and moves through discussions of functionalism in its many varieties, consciousness and qualia, instrumentalism and the autonomy of psychology, to topics such as eliminative materialism, individualism and the problems of content and representation. The synoptic nature of the discussion makes it ideal as the foundation of an undergraduate or graduate course in the philosophy of mind.