This is our backup site. Click here to visit our main site at MellenPress.com

Subject Area: Philosophy-Philosophy of Mind

Brain, Mind and Human Behavior in Contemporary Cognitive Science
 Coulter, Jeff
2007 0-7734-5315-6 260 pages
This book engages a range of currently debated issues in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, challenging certain cognitivist positions in contemporary neuroscience. In addressing each topic, an effort is made to illuminate the historical-philosophical origins of the problems confronted, exposing a central the way in which various forms of philosophical materialism are often uncritically invoked to buttress ‘scientific’ claims about the human mind/brain and behavior. The authors conclude that a radical reorientation is required if the confusion that permeates the field is to be eliminated.

CONSCIOUSNESS, IRRATIONALITY, AND SELF-DECEPTION (hardcover)
 Rossman, Neil
2024 1-4955-1290-8 308 pages
Self-deception, and assorted other forms of irrationality, are human phenomena and so human problems. They arise in the course of the development of human consciousness. They do not precede or stand outside the development of human consciousness but are rather aspects of this development.

Empirical Evidence for the Non-Material Nature of Consciousness
 Schins, Juleon M.
2004 0-7734-6557-X 284 pages
A challenging work that founds a theory of knowledge on the mathematical insights of Kurt Gödel and Roger Penrose. This is a study on the dual (material and non-material) nature of consciousness. It is an answer to the tremendous problems materialism faces when trying to define consciousness, a recent phenomenon called the ‘incompleteness’ of sciences, and the philosophical urge to unify common-sense causality and quantum causality. The study also treats four examples of incompleteness (mathematics, physics, biology, and ethology) and shows that only the postulate of a non-material human mind can account for these empirical data.

How John Searle's Theory of the Background Offers the Groundwork for a Revolutionary Philosophy of Mind: A Critical Examination with a Suggestion for Expansion
 Kort, E.D.
2024 1-4955-1146-2 264 pages
This book provides, in Part One, a critical examination of John Searle's Theory of the Background, which offers the groundwork for a revolutionary theory of mind. In Part Two, Kort offers a suggestion for developing and expanding it. More specifically, Kort takes it that Searle's insights about the Background are of great value, but his theory is underdeveloped because of restrictions imposed by Searle's methodology. Having identified the restrictions and their sources, Kort re-directs Searle's helpful insights about the Background and introduces possibilities for how it may be developed (the "Navigational" alternative).

How John Searle's Theory of the Background Offers the Groundwork for a Revolutionary Philosophy of Mind: A Critical Examination with a Suggestion for Expansion
 Kort, E.D.
2024 1-4955-1265-7 264 pages
(SOFTCOVER EDITION) Part One is a critical examination of John Searle's Theory of the Background, which offers the groundwork for a revolutionary theory of mind. In Part Two, Kort offers a suggestion for developing and expanding it. More specifically, Kort takes it that Searle's insights about the Background are of great value, but his theory is underdeveloped because of restrictions imposed by Searle's methodology. Having identified the restrictions and their sources, Kort re-directs Searle's helpful insights about the Background and introduces possibilities for how it may be developed (the "Navigational" alternative).

Idea of a Reason for Acting. A Philosophical Argument
 Schueler, George Frederick
1989 0-88946-344-1 150 pages
Examines a series of defenses of the view that there can be no reasons for acting which are not connected to the agent's motives. The author argues that all such accounts fail owing to a failure to distinguish deliberation from the explanation of the action.

Philosophical Study of the Criteria for Responsibility Ascriptions. Responsibility and Personal Interactions
 Tam, Henry B.
1990 0-88946-786-2 248 pages
Explores the interpersonal basis of the practice of responsibility ascriptions. Formulates a clear and precise set of criteria for responsibility ascriptions. Demonstrates how the proposed criteria help to solve all the key problems connected with responsibility in moral and legal philosophy. Chapters include "Personal Attitudes, Personal Interactions, and the Practice of Responsibility Ascriptions," "Is It Irrational to Hold People Responsible for Their Behavior?" "Forced to Behave in Spite of Oneself," "Culpable and Non-Culpable Ignorance," and "Mental Abnormality and Responsibility."

Philosophy of Sir William Mitchell (1861-1962)
 Davies, W. Martin
2003 0-7734-6733-5 468 pages
This study argues that Mitchell’s work is surprisingly relevant to current concerns among cognitive scientists and philosophers of mind. He wrote on issues that are only today being discussed by philosophers and psychologists under the auspices of ‘cognitive science.’ His major work Structure and Growth of the Mind (MacMillan, 1907) is a major treatise on philosophical psychology. Most worthy of note, Mitchell seems to have anticipated the claims of the ‘new mysterians’ and their emphasis on subjective experience. He also seemed to have prefigured themes associated with perceptual plasticity, developmental accounts of modularity, and connectionism.

WHY CONSCIOUSNESS IS REALITY
A Philosophical Alternative to Materialism and Classical Dualism
 Maclachlan, D.L.C.
2010 0-7734-1385-5 200 pages
This work presents the plausible mind-body theories that connect bodily life with intentional thought and consciousness. It proposes a unified account of a world containing both thoughtful, conscious beings and 'mere' physical objects.