I have always considered that the two questions respecting God and the Soul were the chief of those that ought to be demonstrated by philosophical rather than ...

The topic of this book is material objects. Like most interesting concepts, the concept of a material object is one without precise boundaries.

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. (...) And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility. (shrink)

Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a commonly occurring neuropsychiatric condition characterized by bothersome intrusive thoughts and urges that frequently lead to repetitive dysfunctional behaviours such as excessive handwashing. There are well-documented alterations in cerebral function which appear to be closely related to the manifestation of these symptoms. Controlled studies of cognitive-behavioural therapy techniques utilizing the active refocusing of attention away from the intrusive phenomena of OCD and onto adaptive alternative activities have demonstrated both significant improvements in clinical symptoms and systematic changes in (...) the pathological brain circuitry associated with them. Careful investigation of the relationships between the experiential and putative neurophysiological processes involved in these changes can offer useful insights into volitional aspects of cerebral function. (shrink)

There are two tasks for any adequate philosophy of mind: (1) articulate one’s position and explain why dualism is the commonsense view; (2) defend one’s position. I believe that there is an argument that simultaneously satisfies both desiderata in a non–ad hoc way and, thus, the argument can thereby claim the virtue of theoretical simplicity in its favor. In what follows, I shall present the argument and defend its most crucial premise, respond to three criticisms that have been raised against (...) it, and draw out one dialectical implication of the argument. (shrink)

By far the most widely used translation in North American college classrooms, Donald A. Cress's translation from the French of the Adam and Tannery critical edition is prized for its accuracy, elegance, and economy. The translation featured in the Third Edition has been thoroughly revised from the 1979 First Edition and includes page references to the critical edition for ease of comparison.

Presents a new way of looking at what it means to be human, offering a convincing case that humans are more than immaterial souls or "biological computers".

Consciousness emerges as the key topic in this second edition of Owen Flanagan's popular introduction to cognitive science and the philosophy of psychology....

One of our most original thinkers addresses the scientific world's premier question: What is the nature of consciousness?