Epiphenomenalism

By Campbell, Keith; Smith, Nicholas J.J.

Epiphenomenalism is a theory concerning the relation between the mental and physical realms, regarded as radically different in nature. The theory holds that only physical states have causal ...

Knowledge argument

By Alter, Torin

The knowledge argument is an argument against physicalism, the view that the world is wholly physical. It was developed by Frank Jackson (1943–) and is based on the ...

Materialism in the philosophy of mind

By Robinson, Howard

Materialism – which, for almost all purposes, is the same as physicalism – is the theory that everything that exists is material. Natural science shows that most things ...

Mental causation

By Loewer, Barry

Both folk and scientific psychology assume that mental events and properties participate in causal relations. However, considerations involving the causal completeness of physics and the apparent non-reducibility of ...

Dualism

By Rosenthal, David M.

Dualism is the view that mental phenomena are, in some respect, nonphysical. The best-known version is due to Descartes (1641), and holds that the mind is a nonphysical ...

Mind, identity theory of

By Jackson, Frank

We know that the brain is intimately connected with mental activity. Indeed, doctors now define death in terms of the cessation of the relevant brain activity. The identity ...

History of materialism

By Brown, Robin Gordon; Ladyman, James

Materialism is an ontological theory, that is, a theory about the kind of things that exist. In its simplest form, it can be understood to be making one ...

Panpsychism

By Goff, Philip

Panpsychism is the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the natural world. In a standard form of the view, the fundamental constituents of the ...

Benjamin, Walter (1892–1940)

By Roberts, Julian

Walter Benjamin was one of the most influential twentieth-century philosophers of culture. His work combines formal analysis of art works with social theory to generate an approach which ...

Psychology, theories of

By Wetherick, N.E.

The object of study in psychology is the experience and behaviour of organisms, particularly human organisms. Psychology resembles the other sciences in employing methods appropriate to material phenomena ...

Santayana, George (1863–1952)

By Lachs, John

George Santayana was a philosopher, essayist, novelist and poet. Born in Spain, he moved to America as a child and attended Harvard, studying under William James and Josiah ...

Attention

By Mole, Christopher

Attention is related to several puzzling phenomena. But its nature, and role in their explanation, is contentious. ...

Attention

Attention is a contentious topic, partly because the nature of attention itself is disputed, and partly because there are open questions about attention’s explanatory relations to several other ...

Australia, philosophy in

By Coady, C.A.J.

Australian academic philosophy has made an international impact disproportionate to the country’s small population, though its beginnings contain little that might have suggested such influence. The first Philosophy ...

Sellars, Wilfrid Stalker (1912–89)

By Rosenberg, Jay F.

Wilfrid Sellars was among the most systematic and innovative of post-war American philosophers. His critical destruction of the ‘Myth of the Given’ established him as a leading voice ...

Time, direction of

By Uffink, Jos

You can pour a tumblerful of water into the sea, but you can never get that same tumblerful of water out again. James Clerk Maxwell gave this as ...

Anomalous monism

By McLaughlin, Brian P.

Anomalous monism, proposed by Donald Davidson in 1970, implies that all events are of one fundamental kind, namely physical. But it does not deny that there are mental ...

Ideology

By Freeden, Michael

An ideology is a set of ideas, beliefs and attitudes, consciously or unconsciously held, which reflects or shapes understandings or misconceptions of the social and political world. It ...

Mind, philosophy of

By Jackson, Frank; Rey, Georges

‘Philosophy of mind’, and ‘philosophy of psychology’ are two terms for the same general area of philosophical inquiry: the nature of mental phenomena and their connection with behaviour ...

Paranormal phenomena

By Braude, Stephen E.

The term ‘paranormal phenomena’ refers to the class of anomalous events studied within the field of parapsychology. Parapsychology’s principal areas of investigation are extrasensory perception (ESP), psychokinesis (PK), ...

Consciousness

By Lormand, Eric

Philosophers have used the term ‘consciousness’ for four main topics: knowledge in general, intentionality, introspection (and the knowledge it specifically generates) and phenomenal experience. This entry discusses the ...

Supervenience

By Blackburn, Simon

Supervenience is used of the relationship between two kinds of properties that things may have. It refers to the way in which one kind of property may only ...

Thomasius (Thomas), Christian (1655–1728)

By Haakonssen, Knud

Christian Thomasius’ stature as the ‘founder’ of the German Enlightenment has been the source of much debate. His many essays dealing with issues in moral enlightenment and law ...

Chomsky, Noam (1928–)

By Hornstein, Norbert

Fish swim, birds fly, people talk. The talents displayed by fish and birds rest on specific biological structures whose intricate detail is attributable to genetic endowment. Human linguistic ...

Matter

By Shapere, Dudley

Viewed as arising within the framework of a more general theory of substance, philosophical treatments of matter have traditionally revolved around two issues: (1) The nature of ...