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Umeå Studies in the Humanities 147
Psychological Phenomena and First-Person Perspectives
Critical Discussions of Some Arguments in Philosophy of MindPär Sundström |
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Pris: SEK 167 + porto.
 beställ! SWEDISH SCIENCE PRESS Box 118 SE-751 04 Uppsala SWEDEN Telefon: +46 (0)18-36 55 66 Fax: +46 (0)18-36 52 77 ISSN 0345-0155 ISBN 91-7191-604-0 |
At least since Descartes, philosophers have tried to describe what perspective we have, in the first person, on psychological phenomena such as beliefs, desires, thoughts and experiences. According to a historically influential type of view, there is one way in which all such phenomena can be apprehended in the first person. In contemporary philosophising about the mind, in contrast, one often finds cautions against generalisations in this matter. It is often emphasised that different psychological phenomena are or can be apprehended in different ways in the first person. The author of this book accepts the general idea that there is variety of ways in which different psychological phenomena are or can be apprehended in the first person. But he sets out to critically examine the details of how this variety is depicted in contemporary philosophy. Through close readings of Wittgenstein, Kripke, Nagel, McGinn and Chalmers, he argues that influential texts of contemporary philosophy display a particular type of oversight on the topic of psychological phenomena and the first-person perspective. While it is, in many of the texts examined, maintained that "qualitative" phenomena, such as tickles, pains and colour sensations, are necessarily apprehended in an exclusive way in the first person, the texts display an insufficient appreciation of the case for making similar claims about non-qualitative psychological phenomena. The book concludes with a call for a diagnosis of this insufficient appreciation displayed by influential texts of contemporary philosophy.
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