Publisher's Synopsis
Since its publication in 1996, many thousands of students have first encountered key issues in the philosophy of mind in the pages of Rocco J. Gennaro's introductory work, Mind and Brain: A Dialogue on the Mind-Body Problem. In this new edition, Gennaro updates and expands the work to reflect current topics and discussions.
The dialogue provides a clear and compelling overview of the mind-body problem suitable for both introductory students and those who have some background in the philosophy of mind. Topics include:
- Immortality
- Materialism
- Descartes' "Divisibility Argument" for substance dualism
- The "Argument from Introspection" for substance dualism
- The main objections to dualism
- The interaction between mind and brain
- The relation between brain damage and the prospect of an afterlife
- Parallelism and epiphenomenalism
- The type/token distinction within materialism and the problem of multiple realizability
- Arguments against materialism and its ability to explain consciousness
- Property dualism and panpsychism
- The epistemological problem of other minds
- The nature of inductive knowledge
- Evidence for animal consciousness
- The problem of machine or robot minds
- The inverted spectrum argument
