Single Idea 2553

[catalogued under 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / a. Mind]

Full Idea

All that is needed for the mind-body problem to be unintelligible is for us to be nominalist, to refuse firmly to hypostasize individual properties.

Gist of Idea

The mind is a property, or it is baffling

Source

Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 1.3)

Book Reference

Rorty,Richard: 'Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature' [Blackwell 1980], p.32


A Reaction

Edelman says the mind is a process rather than a property. It might vanish if the clockspeed was turned right down? Nominalism here sounds like behaviourism or instrumentalism. Would Dennett plead guilty?