Real Materialism
and Other Essays
Published on 29. May 2008
Book
Paperback/Softback
488 pages
978-0-19-926743-9 (ISBN)
Description
Real Materialism draws together papers written over twenty years by Galen Strawson in philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Strawson focuses on five main areas of enquiry: [1] the nature of the physical, consciousness, the 'mind-body problem', and the prospects for panpsychism; [2] the self, the subject of experience, self-consciousness, and the 'narrative' self; [3] free will and moral responsibility; [4] the nature of thought and intentionality and their connection with consciousness; [5] the problem of causation with particular reference to the philosophy of David Hume.
Reviews / Votes
gives a clear, rational and sympathetic picture of humanity's place in a wholly material reality. * John Dance, Journal of Consciousness Studies * Strawson's work is not like that of any other contemporary philosopher. He is fiercely hostile to many of the assumptions and practices which contemporary philosophy has inherited from the twentieth century, which he regards as ' the silliest of all centuries'. One gets the feeling, reading these essays, that Strawson believes that the philosophers of the future will find it difficult to relate to the mindset of their predecessors, who felt able to deny the existence of conscious experience (over and above functional/physical properties) and causation (over and above regularity). Perhaps he is right. If so, then Real Materialism will be viewed as a rare beacon of common sense in an ocean of intellectual eccentricity. * Philip Goff, Philosophical Quarterly * immensely interesting and provocative, and written in an enjoyably combative style ... a fascinating and engrossing collection of papers, of which every one is deserving of detailed discussion. * Geoffrey Madell, Philosophy *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
736 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-926743-9 (9780199267439)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
05/2008
Oxford University Press
€107.70
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Galen Strawson is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center, New York, and Professor of Philosophy at Reading University, UK. Prior to that he was Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Jesus College, Oxford (1987-2000). He has held visiting positions at the Research School of Social Sciences at Australian National University (1993), New York University (1997), and Rutgers University (2000). Strawson received his degrees from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford and studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure (rue d'Ulm) and the Sorbonne (1977-8). He is also Philosophy editor at the Times Literary Supplement.
Content
Introduction ; 1. Real Materialism ; 2. Realistic monism: why physicalism entails panpsychism ; 3. Can we know the nature of reality as it is in itself? ; 4. Red and 'red' ; 5. Self, body, and experience ; 6. What is the relation between an experience, the subject of the experience, and the content of the experience? ; 7. Against narrativity ; 8. Episodic ethics ; 9. Mental ballistics: the involuntariness of spontaneity ; 10. Intentionality and experience: terminological preliminaries ; 11. Real intentionality: why intentionality entails consciousness ; 12. On the inevitability of freedom (from the compatibilist point of view ) ; 13. The impossibility of moral responsibility ; 14. Consciousness, free will, and the unimportance of determinism ; 15. Free agents ; 16. Realism and causation ; 17. The contingent reality of natural necessity ; 18. David Hume: objects and power ; 19. Epistemology, semantics, ontology, and David Hume ; Bibliography ; Index