Naturalizing the Mind

by Fred I. Dretske

How can the baffling problems of phenomenal experience be accounted for? In this provocative book, Fred Dretske argues that to achieve an understanding of the mind it is not enough to understand the biological machinery by means of which the mind does its job. One must understand what the mind's job is and how this task can be performed by a physical system — the nervous system.

Naturalizing the Mind skillfully develops a representational theory of the qualitative, the phenomenal, the what-it-is-like aspects of the mind that have defied traditional forms of naturalism. Central to Dretske's approach is the claim that the phenomenal aspects of perceptual experiences are one and the same as external, real-world properties that experience represents objects as having. Combined with an evolutionary account of sensory representation, the result is a completely naturalistic account of phenomenal consciousness.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology

208 pages, Paperback

First published August 21, 1997

About the author

Frederick Irwin Dretske is a philosopher noted for his contributions to epistemology and the philosophy of mind. Recent work centers on conscious experience and self-knowledge. He was awarded the Jean Nicod Prize in 1994. Dretske received his Ph.D from The University of Minnesota and taught for a number of years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before moving to Stanford University. After retiring from Stanford, he moved to Duke University where he is now research professor of Philosophy.
Dretske holds externalist views about the mind, and thus he tries in various writings to show that by means of mere introspection one actually learns about his own mind less than might be expected.

Reviews

[Chant · Rating 2 out of 5]

Representational theory of mind I think was a fad of the late 80's and early 90's (could be wrong on this point) and it shows with this book.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dretske never met a false analogy he did not like. That pretty much wraps up my main frustration with this book. He uses SO many analogies in this book in order to explain his theory of mind, but the vast majority are so plainly not analogous to the mind.

In addition, he is operating under a definition of consciousness that Chalmers calls "The Easy Problem" and thus this book sets out to form a theory about that which needs no philosophical theory, and in doing so ignores that which is need of explanation.

And now let me quote the last paragraph of the book:

"Individuals are either conscious or they are not. It's like being pregnant. But if I am conscious and my very distant ancestors were not, when did my less-distant ancestors start being conscious? At the same time a poor man becomes rich as you keep giving him pennies."

Uhhhhhh. So why two starts? Because the representational theory and externalism about the mind (both of which he attempts to defend) are interesting theses--ones that may be better defended by others.

[Gerardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredibly clear and lucid explication of Representationalism. I disagree with the dispositionalist aspect of his theory, it requires abandoning physicalism, but he provides a good starting point for more accurate theory.

[Brandi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weird idea of how we perceive reality. If you can call it that. Representation plays a huge role, so it seems not so far off from empirical psychology, but it adds that qualia stuff in there. Qualia. Qualia. Qualia. bleh.

[Brian Tracz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book advances a representational theory of mental content as the best way of integrating a biological account of intentionality and introspection.