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Article: Over matter?(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Commonweal
- Article date:
- October 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Commonweal Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Mind
A Brief Introduction John R. Searle
Oxford University Press, $26, 326 pp.
This book succeeds in introducing clearly and succinctly the basic concepts, theories, and controversies of contemporary Anglo-American philosophy of mind, all without oversimplifying. Mind is perhaps less fun to read than Colin McGinn's comparable The Mysterious Flame: Conscious Minds in a Material World (see "Mind Matters," May 19, 2000), but Searle's book is more comprehensive and rigorous.
The central question in the philosophy of mind is what is called the mind-body problem. There are in fact two conundrums that go by this name. The first is the problem ...