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Crane - Elements of Mind
(Text as at 12/02/2015 16:48:00)
Section Summaries
- Chapter 1: "Crane (Tim) - Mind"
- Note1 – Philosophy of mind and the study of mental phenomena: We have a scientific view of ourselves and a non-scientific view; philosophy has preoccupied itself with the question of if (and how) these views are compatible; but there is a prior question: what is the content of the non-scientific view we have of ourselves?
- Note2 – Perspectives and points of view: The idea that having a mind is having a perspective on things, or on the world, introduced; the distinction between those creatures with a perspective and those without is vague, but it matches the vagueness in the concept of a mind.
- Note3 – Perspectives and their objects: Two features of a perspective introduced: objects are presented within perspectives, and perspectives are partial, they let in some things and leave out others. These correspond to the two defining features of intentionality: 'directedness' and 'aspectual shape'.
- Note4 – The origin of the concepts of intentionality and intension: The origin of the term 'intentionality' explained; intentionality as a mental feature should be distinguished from the logical feature, intensionality; the connection and difference between these ideas explained.
- Note5 – Directedness and intentional objects: All intentional phenomena have two essential features: directedness upon an object and aspectual shape; the idea of an intentional object introduced; intentional objects are not a kind of thing; an intentional object is what is thought about.
- Note6 – Aspectual shape and intentional content: Aspectual shape is the way in which something is apprehended in an intentional state or act; connections and differences are described between the idea of aspectual shape and Frege's idea of sense; for a state to have intentional content is for it to have an intentional object and a certain aspectual shape.
- Note7 – The problem of intentionality: Various things are called the problem of intentionality: the problem discussed here is the problem of how intentional states can concern things that do not exist; the best solution is to deny that intentional states are relations to genuinely existing objects; internalism and externalism introduced.
- Note8 – The structure of intentionality: All intentional states have intentional objects (something they are about) but they are not relations to these objects; rather, intentional states are relations to intentional contents; intentional contents need not be propositional; intentional modes introduced; the relational structure of an intentional state is subject—mode—content.
- Chapter 2: "Crane (Tim) - Body"
- Note9 – Interaction between mind and body: Descartes's view that he is not lodged in his body like a pilot in a ship endorsed; the mind and the body do interact causally; this is taken as a starting point for debate, not something which is in need of defence.
- Note10 – Substance, property, event: Some basic metaphysical categories introduced; substance distinguished from attribute or property; a state is a thing having a property at a time; states are distinguished from events on the grounds that events are particulars with temporal parts; mental phenomena comprise both mental states and mental events (or 'acts').
- Note11 – The 'intelligibility' of mental causation: Mental-physical causation may be considered problematic because of something about causation or something about the mental, or something about the physical; the first two of these dismissed; the problem of mental causation is a result of 'physicalist12' assumptions about the physical world.
- Note13 – Physics and physicalism14: Physicalism15 distinguished from monism in general and from materialism16; physicalism17 gives a special role to physics; the 'generality of physics' distinguished from the 'completeness of physics' and the 'explanatory adequacy of physics'.
- Note18 – The problem of mental causation for dualists: The problem arises from the apparent conflict between mental causation and the completeness of physics; overdetermination of mental and physical causes ruled out.
- Note19 – The identity theory: The identity theory solves the problem of mental causation by identifying mental and physical causes; which version of the identity theory is accepted depends on what the relata of causation are (events or properties).
- Note20 – Reductionism: The identity theory is an ontologically reductionist theory; ontological reduction distinguished from explanatory reduction, a relation between theories; the two types of reduction are independent.
- Note21 – Against the identity theory; anti-reductionism: The identity theory is implausible because of Putnam's variable or multiple realization argument; ontological reduction should therefore be rejected.
- Note22 – The problem of mental causation for non-reductive physicalism23: If ontological reduction is denied, then the problem of mental causation returns for non-reductive physicalism24; the non-reductive physicalist25 response is to hold that the mental is necessarily determined by the physical; the difficulties with this view discussed.
- Note26 – Emergence: An alternative non-physicalist position introduced: mental properties are 'emergent' properties with their own causal powers; this position denies the completeness of physics.
- Note27 – Physicalism28 as the source of the mind-body problem: Some see physicalism29 as the source of the mind-body problem, not its solution; the problem here is how to explain the place of consciousness in the physical world; the contemporary mind-body problem as a dilemma: if the mind is not physical, then how can it have physical effects? But if the mind is physical, how can we understand consciousness?
- Note30 – What does a solution to the mind-body problem tell us about the mind?: Whether the identity theory, non-reductive physicalism31, or emergentism are true does not tell us much of interest about the nature of mental properties themselves.
- Chapter 3: "Crane (Tim) - Consciousness"
- Note32 – The conscious and the unconscious: Different senses of 'conscious' and 'unconscious' distinguished; Block's distinction between phenomenal and access consciousness discussed; our concern is with phenomenal consciousness; a state is phenomenally conscious when there is something it is like to be in that state.
- Note33 – The distinction between the intentional and the qualitative: Mental phenomena are often divided into intentional and qualitative phenomena; this distinction is not very clear; many intentional states are phenomenally conscious; qualitative states are a variety of phenomenally conscious states, those having a sensory character.
- Note34 – Qualia: The term 'qualia' defined: qualia are non-intentional conscious mental properties; it is a substantial thesis that qualitative character is explicable in terms of qualia.
- Note35 – The intentionality of bodily sensation: Bodily sensation examined as the apparently best case for a non-intentionalist view of the mind; a proper conception of bodily sensation shows it to be intentional in the sense of §8; bodily sensations are ways of being aware of one's body.
- Note36 – Strong intentionallsm and weak intentionallsm: Intentionalists believe that all mental states or acts are intentional; weak intentionalists hold that some intentional states or acts also have qualia which account for their phenomenal character; strong intentionalists deny this; strong intentionalism defended.
- Note37 – Physicalism38, consciousness, and qualia: The problems of consciousness for physicalism39 revisited; these problems do not depend on the existence of qualia; three arguments distinguished: the explanatory gap, the knowledge argument, and the zombie argument.
- Note40 – The explanatory gap: The explanatory gap argument claims that consciousness remains beyond the explanatory reach of physicalism41; this argument is shown to rest either on excessively strong understandings of physicalism42 and explanation, or on the zombie hypothesis.
- Note43 – The knowledge argument examined: The knowledge argument is a sound argument against the view that all facts are physical facts; but physicalism44 should not define itself in that way.
- Note45 – Zombies: The zombie argument is effective against the forms of physicalism46 discussed in §§14 and 17; if it is accepted, it provides a further motivation for emergence.
- Note47 – The prospects for explaining consciousness: The prospects for a reductive account of consciousness summarized.
- Chapter 4: "Crane (Tim) - Thought"
- Note48 – Thoughts and beliefs: The term 'thought' will be used for a kind of mental state or act, not for the content of such states or acts.
- Note49 – Consciousness and belief: Belief, properly so-called, is never conscious; belief is a mental state, not a mental act; what philosophers call 'conscious belief is really the event of becoming conscious of what one believes.
- Note50 – Propositional attitudes: Russell's term 'propositional attitude' picks out those intentional states whose intentional content is evaluable as true or false; the nature of propositional content discussed; Fregean and neo-Russellian accounts compared.
- Note51 – The propositional attitude thesis: The thesis that all intentional states are propositional attitudes introduced and rejected; the thesis is unmotivated and it has obvious counter-examples.
- Note52 – De re and de dicto attitudes: Thoughts and attitudes can be described in a 'de re' or relational style as well as in the more usual 'de dicto' style; the fact that there are such de re ascriptions does not imply that there is a category of de re thoughts or attitudes; the nature of intentional states can be separated from the conditions for their ascription.
- Note53 – Internalism and externalism: Externalists about intentionality believe that some intentional states or acts constitutively depend on the existence of their objects, while the strongest form of internalism denies this; it is argued that internalist intentionality is coherent, and that there is no prima facie intuitive case in favour of externalism.
- Note54 – The argument for externalism: Externalists employ the influential 'Twin Earth' argument in favour of their position; internalists may challenge this argument in two ways; the most plausible way is to deny the externalist's claim that content determines reference; no positive argument for internalism is provided, though.
- Note55 – Demonstrative thought: Demonstrative thoughts ('that F is G') have been claimed to be another source of externalist arguments; much of what externalists claim about demonstrative thought can be accepted by internalists.
- Note56 – The prospects for explaining thought: The prospects for a reductive account of thought or intentionality briefly considered.
- Chapter 5: "Crane (Tim) - Perception"
- Note57 – The problem of perception: The phenomenological problem of perception distinguished from the epistemological and psychological problems; the phenomenological problem is a result of the conflict between the immediacy of perception and the 'Phenomenal Principle', once one allows the possibility of perfect hallucination.
- Note58 – The argument from Illusion: The argument outlined, and its most plausible version defended; the argument is shown to rest on the 'Phenomenal Principle'.
- Note59 – Perception as a form of intentionality: The way to solve the problem of perception is to give a correct account of the intentionality of perception; the 'Phenomenal Principle' rejected; the nature of perceptual contents and modes examined.
- Note60 – The phenomenal character of perceptual experience: It is sometimes said that an intentionalist view of perception cannot account for the phenomenal character of perception; two kinds of evidence for this claim considered: introspective evidence and inverted spectrum/earth thought-experiments; introspective evidence shown to be inconclusive, once we understand intentionality in the proper way.
- Note61 – Inverted spectrum, Inverted Earth: The inverted spectrum possibility (if it is one) presents no knock-down argument against intentionalism; Inverted Earth only presents a problem for a purely externalist version of intentionalism; if narrow perceptual content is coherent, then the inverted earth argument is unsuccessful.
- Note62 – Perception as non-conceptual: A further aspect of the phenomenal character of perception introduced: its distinctness from belief and judgement; this is expressed by saying that perceptions have non-conceptual contents; this idea is clarified, motivated, and defended against its critics.
| Note last updated |
Reading List for this Topic |
Parent Topic |
| 12/02/2015 16:48:00 |
None available |
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Summary of Notes Referenced by This Note
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Summary of Notes Citing This Note
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Authors, Books & Papers Citing this Note
| Author |
Title |
Medium |
Extra Links |
Read? |
| Crane (Tim) |
Body |
Paper  |
|
Yes |
| Crane (Tim) |
Consciousness |
Paper |
|
Yes |
| Crane (Tim) |
Mind |
Paper |
|
Yes |
| Crane (Tim) |
Perception |
Paper |
|
Yes |
| Crane (Tim) |
Thought |
Paper |
|
Yes |
References & Reading List
| Author |
Title |
Medium |
Source |
Read? |
| Crane (Tim) |
Body |
Paper - Cited |
Crane - Elements of Mind - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, 2001, Chapter 2 |
Yes |
| Crane (Tim) |
Consciousness |
Paper - Cited |
Crane - Elements of Mind - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, 2001, Chapter 3 |
Yes |
| Crane (Tim) |
Elements of Mind - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind |
Book - Cited |
Crane (Tim) - Elements of Mind - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind |
Yes |
| Crane (Tim) |
Mind |
Paper - Cited |
Crane - Elements of Mind - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, 2001, Chapter 1 |
Yes |
| Crane (Tim) |
Perception |
Paper - Cited |
Crane - Elements of Mind - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, 2001, Chapter 5 |
Yes |
| Crane (Tim) |
Thought |
Paper - Cited |
Crane - Elements of Mind - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, 2001, Chapter 4 |
Yes |
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