1st Edition
Philosophy of Mind 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments
Imaginative cases, or what might be called puzzles and other thought experiments, play a central role in philosophy of mind. The real world also furnishes philosophers with an ample supply of such puzzles.
This volume collects 50 of the most important historical and contemporary cases in philosophy of mind and describes their significance. The authors divide them into five sections: consciousness and dualism; physicalist theories and the metaphysics of mind; content, intentionality, and representation; perception, imagination, and attention; and persons, personal identity, and the self. Each chapter provides background, describes a central case or cases, discusses the relevant literature, and suggests further readings. Philosophy of Mind: 50 Puzzles, Paradoxes, and Thought Experiments promises to be a useful teaching tool as well as a handy resource for anyone interested in the area.
Key Features:
- Offers stand-alone chapters, each presented in an identical format:
- Background
- The Case
- Discussion
- Recommended Reading
- Each chapter is self-contained, allowing students to quickly understand an issue and giving instructors flexibility in assigning readings to match the themes of the course.
- Additional pedagogical features include a general volume introduction as well as smaller introductions to each of the five sections and a glossary at the end of the book.
General Introduction
Part I: Consciousness and Dualism
Introduction
1. The Floating Man
2. Leibniz’s Mill
3. The Disembodied Pain
4. The Hard Problem of Consciousness
5. What it’s Like to be a Bat
6. Mary and the Black-and-White Room
7. Zombies
8. Yogis
9. The Coffee Tasters
10. The Hornswoggle Problem
11. The Slugs and the Tiles
Part II: Physicalist Theories and the Metaphysics of Mind
Introduction
12. The Exclusion Problem
13. The Puzzle of the Special Sciences
14. The Super Spartans
15. Mad Pain and Martian Pain
16. The Blockhead
17. The Imitation Game
18. The Chinese Room
19. Eloise and the Tree
20. Inverted Qualia
21. Hempel’s Dilemma
22. Brains within Brains
Part III: Content, Intentionality, and Representation
Introduction
23. Rabbits and Rabbit Stages
24. Swampman
25.Twin Earth and Arthritis Man
26. Otto’s Notebook
27. The Brain in a Vat
28. Puzzling Pierre
29. The Shopping List
Part IV: Perception, Imagination, and Attention
Introduction
30. Molyneux’s Problem
31. The Missing Shade of Blue
32. Imagining Chiliagons
33. Color Swatches and Speckled Hens
34. The Skywalk
35. Pine Trees and Cyrillic Text
36. Synesthesia
37.Change Blindness
38. Blindsight, Distracted Driving, and Pneumatic Drills
Part V: Persons, Personal Identity, and the Self
Introduction
39. The Prince and the Cobbler
40. The Chariot and the Candle
41. The Body-Swap Puzzle
42. Mind Uploading
43. The Puzzle of Too Many Minds
44. Split Brains and the Unity Puzzle
45. Sharing Feelings, Combining Minds
46. The Elusive Self
47. The Essential Indexical
48. The Queen and the Gametes
49. Trekkies, Mr. Oreo, and the Narrative Self
50. The Puzzle of Transformative Choice
Biography
Torin Alter is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama, USA. Most of his publications concern consciousness and the mind–body problem, including The Matter of Consciousness: From the Knowledge Argument to Russellian Monism (Oxford UP, 2023) and A Dialogue on Consciousness (Oxford UP, 2009; co-written with Robert J. Howell).
Robert J. Howell is Yasser El-Sayed Chair of Philosophy at Rice University, USA. He has published extensively in the philosophy of mind and is the author of Self-Awareness and the Elusive Subject (Oxford UP, 2023) and Consciousness and the Limits of Objectivity (Oxford UP, 2013). With Torin Alter, he has co-authored A Dialogue on Consciousness (Oxford UP, 2009) and The God Dialogues (Oxford UP, 2011).
Amy Kind is the Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, USA. She has published extensively in the philosophy of mind, with much of her work taking up issues relating to imagination. She has also authored and edited numerous books, including Philosophy of Mind: The Basics (Routledge, 2020).
