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Philosophy of Mind: A Comprehensive Introduction
PHILOSOPHY of MIND “Philosophy of mind is an incredibly active field thanks in part to the recent explosion of work in the sciences of the mind. Jaworski’s book is a well-written, comprehensive, and sophisticated primer on all the live positions on the mind–body problem, including various kinds of physicalism, emergentism, and his own favorite, hylomorphism. This is a serious and responsible book for philosophy students, philosophers, and mind scientists who want to understand where they stand philosophically.”
Owen Flanagan, Duke University Philosophy of Mind introduces readers to one of the liveliest fields in contemporary philosophy by discussing mind–body problems and the range of solutions to them: varieties of substance dualism, physicalism, dual-attribute theory, neutral monism, idealism, and hylomorphism. It treats each position fairly, in greater depth and detail than competing texts, and is written throughout in a clear, accessible style that is easy to read, free of technical jargon, and presupposes no prior knowledge of philosophy of mind. The result is a balanced overview of the entire field that enables students and instructors to grasp the essential arguments and jump immediately into current debates. William Jaworski discusses the impact of neuroscience, biology, psychology, and cognitive science on mind–body debates. Bibliographic essays at the end of each chapter bring readers up to speed on the latest literature and allow the text to be used in conjunction with primary sources. Numerous diagrams and illustrations help newcomers grasp the more complex ideas, and chapters on free will and the philosophy of persons make the book a flexible teaching tool for general philosophy courses in addition to courses in philosophy of mind.
Owen Flanagan, Duke University Philosophy of Mind introduces readers to one of the liveliest fields in contemporary philosophy by discussing mind–body problems and the range of solutions to them: varieties of substance dualism, physicalism, dual-attribute theory, neutral monism, idealism, and hylomorphism. It treats each position fairly, in greater depth and detail than competing texts, and is written throughout in a clear, accessible style that is easy to read, free of technical jargon, and presupposes no prior knowledge of philosophy of mind. The result is a balanced overview of the entire field that enables students and instructors to grasp the essential arguments and jump immediately into current debates. William Jaworski discusses the impact of neuroscience, biology, psychology, and cognitive science on mind–body debates. Bibliographic essays at the end of each chapter bring readers up to speed on the latest literature and allow the text to be used in conjunction with primary sources. Numerous diagrams and illustrations help newcomers grasp the more complex ideas, and chapters on free will and the philosophy of persons make the book a flexible teaching tool for general philosophy courses in addition to courses in philosophy of mind.
426 pages, Paperback
First published February 16, 2011
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About the author
William Jaworski
6 books4 followersAssistant Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 22, 2015
Jaworski's introduction to the philosophy of mind is one of the most comprehensive and detailed treatments of the subject. It deals with purely contemporary issues, and sidesteps the historical dimension, which to some may appear to be a flaw. While the neglect of the historical aspect of these debates may constitute a strike against the book, it makes up for it in the last two chapters. Unlike any other well known introduction to the philosophy of mind, Jaworski's devotes two chapters to hylomorphism and the hylomorphic theory of mind. His hylomorphism is an updated version of the Aristotelian worldview that doesn't carry as much metaphysical baggage, and is in line with the sciences of the mind. This book is a must read for anybody interested in the philosophy of mind, as it deals with a neglected framework from which one can understand the various mind-body problems.
August 27, 2022
It is a singular oddity of our time that the least intuitive and most seemingly implausible theories of mind—substance dualism (Cartesianism) and physicalism (albeit generally of a non-reductive variety)—appear to be the most pervasive, both within various corners of academia and increasingly among the wider public. While some academics and activists of the political left imagine there to be such a profound wall of separation between mind and body that the latter relates to the former the way an avatar in a video game relates to the player—as a completely malleable and ultimately disposable vessel for the self-expression of the disembodied will—even to such an extent that a child may credibly choose to receive infusions of cross-sex hormones, ingest pharmaceuticals that delay the onset of puberty, and undergo so-called “gender affirming” surgeries, all on the basis of the child’s personal “identity”, which is in no way determined by his or her body; many scientists and philosophers insist that the entire vocabulary apposite to consciousness and mental events denote phenomena that are ultimately reducible to the interaction of energy and fundamental physical particles; in other words, that physics can provide a complete description and explanation of reality. While the most powerful forces and institutions in our social lives propagate an ideology that seeks to maximize personal choice—taking this to be the highest, or even the only, public value—many of our most influential thinkers subscribe to a picture of reality in which there can be no persons or choices at all, except perhaps as terms of convenience (reductivism) or as a kind of illusionary residue that glows on the surface of mindless physical processes, but which has no capacity to alter them (epiphenomenalism).
Despite their obvious differences, these two approaches share the same fundamental premise: there is an insoluble antagonism between mind and matter, and no union or mixture of the two is possible or desirable. Following the fateful divorce between empiricism and rationalism in the seventeenth century, the empiricists have sought to create a comprehensive model of reality that is thoroughly purged of any trace of conscious perspective, representing the world according to a mind-independent “view from nowhere.” This effort began as a methodological convenience, a purposive bracketing out of traditional questions pertaining to reasons, rational relations, or teloi from the study of nature in the interest of isolating physical, etiological cause and effect.
While at first the partisans of mind and matter coexisted peacefully, it wasn’t long before the latter embarked upon a great crusade to cannibalize the former, seeking to reduce the first-person perspective of mind to the most fundamental perspectiveless constituents of the body: to organ systems, organs, tissues, cells, organelles, molecules, atoms, and finally to the subatomic particles of which all things are supposedly comprised. This attempt to transform a practical observational method into a comprehensive picture of metaphysical truth was destined to run aground when strict empiricists sought to use matter to explain mind. Any attempt to explain consciousness with a methodology that was explicitly designed to exclude consciousness from the field of observation will always be like trying to clap with one hand, or to look at one’s own eyeballs. My reasons for doing something can never be found amidst a vast array of ions flowing through neuronal membranes and neurotransmitters traversing synapses—necessary though these are. Physicalists claim that this is because reasons do not really exist, nor do persons; but this has never been anything more than a bare assertion. They might insist that the mental is reducible to the physical, but one could just as easily claim the opposite: that mind, rather than matter, is the most fundamental ontological principle, the formal and teleological structure upon which mechanistic physical causes—or even physicality as such—are rationally dependent; that the structures inherent in logic, language, and mathematics penetrate nature to its profoundest depths, while the (mental) concepts of pure physicality and the etiological univocity of causation are only, as initially imagined, convenient methodological fictions.
It is also possible that in the end, because reason and sense perception are our only tools for understanding reality, and because one cannot be collapsed into the other, and because we cannot think our way beyond the structure of our own thinking, the prospect of uniting the two faculties at a higher level of awareness is simply beyond our capacity. Even so, it is necessary to hold them in healthy proportion. The physicalist drive to expel mind entirely from the order of reality has only caused the latter, like a repressed trauma or the unassimilated Jungian shadow, to reassert itself in adventitious and arbitrary ways. The physicalist foreclosure of the absolute and the emergence in our time of an ontological dualism that speaks of “black bodies,” “menstruating bodies,” “disabled bodies,” and the like as things wholly extrinsic to the unassailable subjectivities that spectrally inhabit them—and which forecloses these subjectivities against any objective verification by or similitude to other subjectivities, even by analogy to the phenomenal experiences of others—represent two mutually-reinforcing fundamentalisms. A fundamentalism of matter (corresponding to posthumanism) will always carry on its obverse a fundamentalism of mind (corresponding to transhumanism).
What is needed is a genuinely humanist metaphysics that can incorporate mind and matter without doing violence to either; and to that end the revitalization of an Aristotelian hylomorphism inspired by the life sciences—a theory of mind championed by William Jaworski, which embraces causal pluralism, posits structure as an irreducible ontic reality, and sanely repositions the human being at the intersection of matter and consciousness, recognizing him as an inescapably, inseparably, and unconfusedly psychophysical creature—is a welcome and urgently-needed development.
As for this book? It is an excellent choice for those looking to become acquainted with the predominant theories of philosophy of mind, and to wade right into contemporary problems and debates.
Despite their obvious differences, these two approaches share the same fundamental premise: there is an insoluble antagonism between mind and matter, and no union or mixture of the two is possible or desirable. Following the fateful divorce between empiricism and rationalism in the seventeenth century, the empiricists have sought to create a comprehensive model of reality that is thoroughly purged of any trace of conscious perspective, representing the world according to a mind-independent “view from nowhere.” This effort began as a methodological convenience, a purposive bracketing out of traditional questions pertaining to reasons, rational relations, or teloi from the study of nature in the interest of isolating physical, etiological cause and effect.
While at first the partisans of mind and matter coexisted peacefully, it wasn’t long before the latter embarked upon a great crusade to cannibalize the former, seeking to reduce the first-person perspective of mind to the most fundamental perspectiveless constituents of the body: to organ systems, organs, tissues, cells, organelles, molecules, atoms, and finally to the subatomic particles of which all things are supposedly comprised. This attempt to transform a practical observational method into a comprehensive picture of metaphysical truth was destined to run aground when strict empiricists sought to use matter to explain mind. Any attempt to explain consciousness with a methodology that was explicitly designed to exclude consciousness from the field of observation will always be like trying to clap with one hand, or to look at one’s own eyeballs. My reasons for doing something can never be found amidst a vast array of ions flowing through neuronal membranes and neurotransmitters traversing synapses—necessary though these are. Physicalists claim that this is because reasons do not really exist, nor do persons; but this has never been anything more than a bare assertion. They might insist that the mental is reducible to the physical, but one could just as easily claim the opposite: that mind, rather than matter, is the most fundamental ontological principle, the formal and teleological structure upon which mechanistic physical causes—or even physicality as such—are rationally dependent; that the structures inherent in logic, language, and mathematics penetrate nature to its profoundest depths, while the (mental) concepts of pure physicality and the etiological univocity of causation are only, as initially imagined, convenient methodological fictions.
It is also possible that in the end, because reason and sense perception are our only tools for understanding reality, and because one cannot be collapsed into the other, and because we cannot think our way beyond the structure of our own thinking, the prospect of uniting the two faculties at a higher level of awareness is simply beyond our capacity. Even so, it is necessary to hold them in healthy proportion. The physicalist drive to expel mind entirely from the order of reality has only caused the latter, like a repressed trauma or the unassimilated Jungian shadow, to reassert itself in adventitious and arbitrary ways. The physicalist foreclosure of the absolute and the emergence in our time of an ontological dualism that speaks of “black bodies,” “menstruating bodies,” “disabled bodies,” and the like as things wholly extrinsic to the unassailable subjectivities that spectrally inhabit them—and which forecloses these subjectivities against any objective verification by or similitude to other subjectivities, even by analogy to the phenomenal experiences of others—represent two mutually-reinforcing fundamentalisms. A fundamentalism of matter (corresponding to posthumanism) will always carry on its obverse a fundamentalism of mind (corresponding to transhumanism).
What is needed is a genuinely humanist metaphysics that can incorporate mind and matter without doing violence to either; and to that end the revitalization of an Aristotelian hylomorphism inspired by the life sciences—a theory of mind championed by William Jaworski, which embraces causal pluralism, posits structure as an irreducible ontic reality, and sanely repositions the human being at the intersection of matter and consciousness, recognizing him as an inescapably, inseparably, and unconfusedly psychophysical creature—is a welcome and urgently-needed development.
As for this book? It is an excellent choice for those looking to become acquainted with the predominant theories of philosophy of mind, and to wade right into contemporary problems and debates.
December 16, 2012
A thorough survey of philosophy of mind. I enjoyed the author's style, particularly his accessible vocabulary and propensity for explicitly communicating premises of the more involved bits of argumentation.
This textbook is unusual insofar as it presents novel content, as opposed to only synthesizing current knowledge. In a surprising move, Jaworski devotes two out of eleven chapters exploring an idiosyncratic version of hylomorphism. While regrettably diverting attention from other under-explored areas, I found Jaworski's blend of Aristotelian and embodied cognition traditions to be worth reading.
The book opens with a taxonomic bang, sporting a graphical enumeration of different theories of mind, along with their interrelationships and metaphysical assumptions. Several theories and figures were later placed within this context, including functionalism, pragmatism, Searle, Dennett, and Chalmers (missing, however, were Metzinger and connectionism).
Chapters 1-2
Here Jaworski does the necessary work of painting the philosophical landscape within which all theories of mind reside. He begins by discussing three problems that theories of mind tend to gravitate towards:
1. The Problem Of Psychophysical Emergence: "how did mental activity appear within the sparse, particulate sea of the universe?"
2. The Problem Of Other Minds: "how do people infer facts about the private mental lives of others?"
3. The Problem Of Mental Causation: "how do mental phenomena affect physical phenomena?"
While these problems motivate mental theories, they do not prepare the reader for the breadth of discussions within the literature. In this light, the mental-physical distinction is explored, as are questions of first-person authority, subjectivity, qualia, mental representation, intentionality, and other topics.
Chapter 3
Substance dualism is discussed. This chapter was unusually well structured, perhaps on account of the length of time that society has countenances its subject. Supporting arguments, grounded in modal conceivability-possibility links, proved inconclusive. Counter arguments (problems of other minds, of interaction, of explanatory impotence) extract the following concessions:
1. Denying knowledge of the mental states of others.
2. Discarding conservation of energy *or* mental-physical causation.
3. Rejecting the need to explain mental-physical correlations."
Chapter 4
The physicalist worldview is introduced, with some overlap with philosophy of science giants like Hempel. Only eleven pages are devoted to exploring theories of consciousness, including first-order-representation, higher-order-perception, higher-order-thought, and sensorimotor ideas.
Chapters 5-7
Reductive, non-reductive, and other specific physicalist theories are treated. The author was not shy about marshalling arguments against the current philosophic consensus that is realization physicalism. Multiple-Realizability arguments prominently featured in the discussion; I especially enjoyed the typology-based reductivist responses to the MRT.
Chapters 8-9
Dual-Attribute Theory, and other specific non-physicalist theories are treated. An interesting discussion of Dennett's and Wittgenstein's arguments against qualia spiced the presentation.
Chapters 10-11
Jaworski's brand of hylomorphism is presented, along with a related hylomorphic theory of mind. While Aristotelean approaches are becoming more popular within philosophy - notably philosophy of biology - there exists an uncomfortable lack of exposition into its tenets which these chapters help to fill. I found the connections with Morleau-Ponty's empirical phenomenology, and modern embodied cognition theorists like Noe and Regan, to be a helpful inspiration for future research.
Despite the few targeted criticisms above, I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to efficiently absorb philosophy of mind material.
This textbook is unusual insofar as it presents novel content, as opposed to only synthesizing current knowledge. In a surprising move, Jaworski devotes two out of eleven chapters exploring an idiosyncratic version of hylomorphism. While regrettably diverting attention from other under-explored areas, I found Jaworski's blend of Aristotelian and embodied cognition traditions to be worth reading.
The book opens with a taxonomic bang, sporting a graphical enumeration of different theories of mind, along with their interrelationships and metaphysical assumptions. Several theories and figures were later placed within this context, including functionalism, pragmatism, Searle, Dennett, and Chalmers (missing, however, were Metzinger and connectionism).
Chapters 1-2
Here Jaworski does the necessary work of painting the philosophical landscape within which all theories of mind reside. He begins by discussing three problems that theories of mind tend to gravitate towards:
1. The Problem Of Psychophysical Emergence: "how did mental activity appear within the sparse, particulate sea of the universe?"
2. The Problem Of Other Minds: "how do people infer facts about the private mental lives of others?"
3. The Problem Of Mental Causation: "how do mental phenomena affect physical phenomena?"
While these problems motivate mental theories, they do not prepare the reader for the breadth of discussions within the literature. In this light, the mental-physical distinction is explored, as are questions of first-person authority, subjectivity, qualia, mental representation, intentionality, and other topics.
Chapter 3
Substance dualism is discussed. This chapter was unusually well structured, perhaps on account of the length of time that society has countenances its subject. Supporting arguments, grounded in modal conceivability-possibility links, proved inconclusive. Counter arguments (problems of other minds, of interaction, of explanatory impotence) extract the following concessions:
1. Denying knowledge of the mental states of others.
2. Discarding conservation of energy *or* mental-physical causation.
3. Rejecting the need to explain mental-physical correlations."
Chapter 4
The physicalist worldview is introduced, with some overlap with philosophy of science giants like Hempel. Only eleven pages are devoted to exploring theories of consciousness, including first-order-representation, higher-order-perception, higher-order-thought, and sensorimotor ideas.
Chapters 5-7
Reductive, non-reductive, and other specific physicalist theories are treated. The author was not shy about marshalling arguments against the current philosophic consensus that is realization physicalism. Multiple-Realizability arguments prominently featured in the discussion; I especially enjoyed the typology-based reductivist responses to the MRT.
Chapters 8-9
Dual-Attribute Theory, and other specific non-physicalist theories are treated. An interesting discussion of Dennett's and Wittgenstein's arguments against qualia spiced the presentation.
Chapters 10-11
Jaworski's brand of hylomorphism is presented, along with a related hylomorphic theory of mind. While Aristotelean approaches are becoming more popular within philosophy - notably philosophy of biology - there exists an uncomfortable lack of exposition into its tenets which these chapters help to fill. I found the connections with Morleau-Ponty's empirical phenomenology, and modern embodied cognition theorists like Noe and Regan, to be a helpful inspiration for future research.
Despite the few targeted criticisms above, I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to efficiently absorb philosophy of mind material.
April 5, 2021
Good intro to philosophy of mind, I came out finding none of the positions particularly persuasive although Hylomorphism was certainly interesting to read about.
July 12, 2025
I believe that explaining the mind is the final frontier in philosophy and yet there is a good reason to believe that we will never be able to answer the question.
This book covers the most common views on this topic, giving a description and the most popular arguments for and against these views. The book has pretty much everything you would expect from a well-written non-fiction about a complex topic. The writing is well-organised, accessible to people who don't necessarily have great knowledge about this topic and the author has managed to do a good job keeping it interesting with lots of real world examples to explain the paradoxes.
A couple of complaints though. The author is clearly biased in favour of Hylomorphism as he has spent 1/4th of the book on that topic while spending only 5 pages on idealism. Also I bought the physical book but chapters 12 and 13 were not in the book. Instead I found a link to download pdfs for these chapters which I did download and read. But it was an unnecessary inconvenience. Still, I enjoyed the book well enough to overlook these problems and give it a 5 star rating.
This book covers the most common views on this topic, giving a description and the most popular arguments for and against these views. The book has pretty much everything you would expect from a well-written non-fiction about a complex topic. The writing is well-organised, accessible to people who don't necessarily have great knowledge about this topic and the author has managed to do a good job keeping it interesting with lots of real world examples to explain the paradoxes.
A couple of complaints though. The author is clearly biased in favour of Hylomorphism as he has spent 1/4th of the book on that topic while spending only 5 pages on idealism. Also I bought the physical book but chapters 12 and 13 were not in the book. Instead I found a link to download pdfs for these chapters which I did download and read. But it was an unnecessary inconvenience. Still, I enjoyed the book well enough to overlook these problems and give it a 5 star rating.
February 28, 2021
A clear and easily accessible, yet comprehensive introduction to philosophy of mind. Provides a good overview of various mind-body theories and problems. Arguments for and against different views are represented fairly and with little if any noticeable bias.
The last two chapters represent an argument for a mind-body theory called 'hylomorphism' - a marginal view in philosophy of mind, which Jaworski himself endorses. While I remained unconvinced that hylomorphism is capable of dissolving the mind-body problems it claims to solve (namely, psychophysical emergence, other minds and mental causation), this nevertheless made the book far more interesting.
The last two chapters represent an argument for a mind-body theory called 'hylomorphism' - a marginal view in philosophy of mind, which Jaworski himself endorses. While I remained unconvinced that hylomorphism is capable of dissolving the mind-body problems it claims to solve (namely, psychophysical emergence, other minds and mental causation), this nevertheless made the book far more interesting.
July 13, 2024
Fine. Good for an intro survey of theories, but not for nuance. Annoying that he gives so much space to his pet theory (hylomorphism) with lots of details, but doesn't give the same treatment to other major theories. Good thing he's bad at arguing for his theory.
Repetitive, but again, that may be a feature for introductory contexts.
Repetitive, but again, that may be a feature for introductory contexts.
January 6, 2016
Excellent read; wonderful introduction to philosophy of mind.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews