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Full Idea
One generation addresses the qualitative aspect of mentality, the next focuses on its scientific standing, its successor takes up the problem of mental content, then the cycle starts all over again…
Gist of Idea
Different generations focus on either the quality of mind, or its scientific standing, or the content of thought
Source
John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
Book Ref
Heil,John: 'Philosophy of Mind' [Routledge 1998], p.175
A Reaction
This pinpoints the three interlinked questions. We seem to be currently obsessed with the quality of experience (the 'Hard Question'), but the biggest questions is how the three aspects fit together. If there are three necessities here, they must coexist.
| 2096 | Is the function of the mind management, authority and planning - or is it one's whole way of life? [Plato] |
| 4608 | Minds are hard-wired, or trial-and-error, or experimental, or full self-aware [Dennett, by Heil] |
| 2443 | I say psychology is intentional, semantics is informational, and thinking is computation [Fodor] |
| 2994 | In CRTT thought may be represented, content must be [Fodor] |
| 7852 | The only serious mind-brain theories now are identity, token identity, realization and supervenience [Papineau] |
| 3136 | The three theories are reduction, dualism, eliminativism [Rey] |
| 4610 | Different generations focus on either the quality of mind, or its scientific standing, or the content of thought [Heil] |
| 2537 | Types are properties, and tokens are events. Are they split between mental and physical, or not? [Sturgeon] |
| 2534 | Mindless bodies are zombies, bodiless minds are ghosts [Sturgeon] |
| 6617 | The main questions are: is mind distinct from body, and does it have unique properties? [Lowe] |