1st Edition

The Embodied Mind

By G. N. A. Vesey Copyright 1965
    114 Pages
    by Routledge

    114 Pages
    by Routledge

    Originally published in 1965. For hundreds of years the thinking of philosophers, psychologists, and theologians on the problem of the mind’s relation to the body was dominated by the Cartesian notion that mind and matter are distinct substances. That Descartes also held that there is a union of mind and matter, in a person, has largely been ignored. This may be because, as he admitted in his private correspondence, it is impossible to think of mind and matter both as being distinct substances and also as being, in some sense, united. The fact of mind being united with matter in a person – our experience of ourselves as embodied minds – cannot be accounted for on Cartesian principles. This book rejects the panaceas of the Double Aspect Theory and the Identity Theory and investigates the possibility of accommodating this experience within a conceptual framework derived from Kant, the basis of which is the concept of mind, not as immaterial substance, but as a subject related, in experience, to its objects.

    1. Substance  2. Alternatives to Substance  3. The Embodied Mind  4. The Local Sign Theory  5. The Idea-Motor Theory  6. Mediacy and Immediacy  7. Qualities Which are Not Qualities  8. Bodily Sensations – Objects Which are Not Objects  9. Bodily Sensations of Warmth and Coldness  10. An Antinomy of the Will  11. Actions Which are Not Actions  12. Conclusions

    Biography

    G. N. A. Vesey