心と物質の関係については、誰もが一度は思いをめぐらしたことがあると思われます。これを扱う哲学の一分科が心の哲学です。この分野にとって最も重要かつ興味深い「心身問題」や「二元論」はもとより、人以外の動物、異星人、機械などの意識を定義する上での問題や、「物理主義」「志向性」といった厄介なトピックも取り上げ概説します。さらに、心の哲学が扱う問題は心理学や神経科学、経済、進化生物学、言語学にも踏み込むものであることも解き明かしてゆきます。
 

• Introduces the philosophy of mind, and looks at some of the most interesting and important topics in this fascinating field, including the mind-body problem and dualism
• Discusses minds other than our own, and the problems associated with defining consciousness in animals, aliens, and machines
• Demonstrates how questions of the philosophy of mind also infiltrate other disciplines, such as psychology, evolutionary biology, and linguistics

   
Is the neurophysiology of pain all there is to pain? How do words and mental pictures come to represent things in the world? Do computers think, and if so, are their thought processes significantly similar to our thought processes? Or is there something distinctive about human thought that precludes replication in a computer? These are some of the puzzles that motivate the philosophical discipline called "philosophy of mind," a central area of philosophy.
   
This Very Short Introduction introduces the philosophy of mind, and looks at some of the most interesting and important topics in this fascinating field, including the mind-body problem and dualism. Barbara Montero also discusses minds other than our own, and the problems associated with defining consciousness in animals, aliens and machines. Considering these and other such thorny issues such as physicalism and intentionality, she demonstrates how questions of the philosophy of mind also infiltrate disciplines outside of philosophy, including psychology, neuroscience, economics, evolutionary biology, and linguistics. As she observes, most everyone, at some time or another, has ruminated over the relation between mind and matter.