The Philosophy of Mind: The Metaphysics of Consciousness

Description

In Philosophy of Mind: The Metaphysics of Consciousness, Dale Jacquette provides students and professionals with a concise and accessible overview of this fascinating subject. The book covers all the key topics and debates in the philosophy of mind and introduces the full range of choices available in approaching the mind-body problem. Exploring classical and contemporary texts, the book surveys the subject's historical background and current applications. Crucially, Jacquette offers a defence of property dualism as an alternative solution to the mind-body problem, instead of the mainstream eliminativist and reductivist strategies. Clearly structured and featuring useful diagrams, a glossary of key terms, and advice on further reading, the book is ideal for classroom use. Fully revised, updated and expanded to meet the needs of a new generation of philosophy students, this second edition is the ideal companion to the study of the philosophy of mind.

Dale Jacquette is Senior Professorial Chair in Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He is the author of The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (Acumen, 2005), Pathways in Philosophy (OUP, 2004), Ontology (Acumen, 2002) and Six Philosophical Appetizers (McGraw-Hill, 2001), and editor of Philosophy of Logic (Elsevier, 2007), The Cambridge Companion to Brentano (CUP, 2004), and A Companion to Philosophical Logic (Blackwell, 2002).

"In clear and accessible prose Dale Jacquette's Philosophy of Mind surveys the entire range of currently deliberated issues in this active field of investigation. Integrating a vast body of material from a unified and coherent perspective, Jacquette throws instructive light upon a varied panorama of key philosophical issues. A work of wide scope and deep insight, his book is a true landmark." - Nicholas Rescher, University of Pittsburgh, USA "Dale Jacquette provides, in this much-expanded, much-reworked second edition of his 1994 Philosophy of Mind, an unusually helpful, clear, user-friendly compendium of the present state of play of the literature and treatment of the metaphysics of consciousness within the bounds of analytic philosophy. His book may well prove to be the most serviceable general introduction to the principal problems, arguments, theoretical options, and notable contributors to the field that one could possibly ask for. He puts an absolutely sprawling mountain of conceptual analysis into the simplest legible order. The discussion is remarkably straightforward, brief, to the point, very reliably informed, and generous in its coverage." - Joseph Margolis, Temple University, USA