Twenty-three philosophers examine the doctrine of
materialism find it wanting. The case against
materialism comprises arguments from conscious
experience, from the unity and identity of the person,
from intentionality, mental causation, and knowledge.
The contributors include leaders in the fields of
philosophy of mind, metaphysics, ontology, and
epistemology, who respond ably to the most recent
versions and defences of materialism. The modal
arguments of Kripke and Chalmers, Jackson>'s
knowledge argument, Kim>'s exclusion problem, and
Burge>'s anti-individualism all play a part in the
building of a powerful cumulative case against the
materialist research program. Several papers address the
implications of contemporary brain and cognitive
research (the psychophysics of color perception,
blindsight, and the effects of commissurotomies), adding
a posteriori arguments to the classical a priori
critique of reductionism. All of the current versions of
materialism — reductive and non-reductive,
functionalist, eliminativist, and new wave materialism —
come under sustained and trenchant attack. In addition,
a wide variety of alternatives to the materialist
conception of the person receive new and illuminating
attention, including anti-materialist versions of
naturalism, property dualism, Aristotelian and Thomistic
hylomorphism, and non-Cartesian accounts of substance
dualism.
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