Chapter One Introductory - A still point in a turning world?
§1. Introduction: The 'dazzling ideal' of science
§2. Priority in science: The possibility of an ordo cognoscendi
§3. The six 'still points': Connecting persons, agency, and meaning
§4. Meaning what we say: Normativity, responsibility and understanding
§5. Wittgenstein, exceptionlessness & occasion-sensitivity
§6. Sellars's two images of humankind
§7. Philosophy and language again
§8. Conclusion: The project of this work
Chapter One References/Bibliography
Chapter One Notes
Chapter Two Persons as Agents: The Possibility of Genuine Action
§1. Introduction: the 'free will' issue
§2. Setting the scene
§3. What is determinism?
§4. Determinism as an issue for philosophy
§5. Causality and exceptionlessness §6. Causality and agency
§7. On Davidson's anomalous monism
§8. Connections
§9. Locating science in the 'action' debate
§10. Conclusion: A therapeutic resolution
Chapter Two References/Bibliography
Chapter Two Notes
Chapter Three What Persons Are: Identity, Personal Identity and Composition
§1. Introduction to numerical identity
§2. Five (quick) properties of numerical identity
§3. What are the covering concepts?
§4. Psychological discontinuity & multiple personality
§5. Wiggins (1980) 'solution'
§6. Hunting logical possibility
§7. Some problems for problem-cases
§8. Identity and composition
§9. Conclusion
Chapter Three References/Bibliography
Chapter Three Notes Chapter Four What Persons are Not: Causality, Minds and the Brain
§1. Introduction
§2. The causal story of past behavior: causal sufficiency
§3. Brain-states and behaviour
§4. The problem of plasticity
§5. Deploying the "is" of composition
§6. Reducing thoughts to brain states: six cases of a Bugatti Veyron
§7. Contemporary science and the permanence of explanation
§8. The body's role
§9. The 'mereological fallacy', from Bennett & Hacker
§10. Exceptionlessness in correlation: returning to 'other minds'
§11. Wittgenstein's question about states and processes
Chapter Four References/Bibliography
Chapter Four Notes
Chapter Five Evolutionary Explanation in Psychology: Not an Issue
for Philosophy?
§1. Introduction: Sketching the biology
§2. The individual and evolution
§3. The place of the individual in evolutionary theory
§4. Genes (and memes)
§5. Reasoning in evolutionary psychology
§6. Dual-Inheritance theory
§7. Conclusion
Chapter Five References/Bibliography
Notes Chapter Five Notes
Chapter Six Persons, Artificial Intelligence, and Science Fiction
Thought-Experiments
§1. Introduction
§2. The Turing Test
§3. Searle's Chinese room
§4. To be or not to be - that is not the android's question
§5. The Aphrodite Argument
§6. Like a person?
§7. Half-time score
§8. Thought-experiments and Science Fiction
§9. Blade Runner
§10. Caught in the Turing trap?
§11. The strange
About the Author:
Graham McFee is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Brighton, UK, and a member of the Philosophy Department at California State University Fullerton. He has lectured and published nationally and internationally on, especially, the philosophy of Wittgenstein and the aesthetics of dance.
