Philosophy of Mind

Citation

Kim, J. (2011). Philosophy of Mind (3rd ed.). Westview Press.

Chapter Summary

The third edition runs to about 385 pages (Routledge gives 386; Google Books 384) and was published by Westview Press and is now listed in the Routledge catalogue. After a preface and an introduction, the publisher's contents list gives nine chapter titles, which it does not number. The titles are grouped below by theme. The summaries follow those titles and the publisher descriptions of the third edition and of an earlier edition; the contents list does not show sections within chapters.

Introduction

The publisher says the book explores a range of issues in philosophy of mind, with the mind–body problem as the main focus, and serves as a stimulus for the reader to engage with the problems of the mind and try to come to terms with them. The introduction opens this discussion.

Mind as Immaterial Substance

This chapter examines Descartes's mind–body dualism, which the publisher names as a subject of the book. The third-edition description calls the book "the only text of its kind" to give substance dualism a serious and respectful treatment.

Mind and Behavior

The second theory of what the mind is. A description of an earlier edition lists the attempts to explain the mind "as certain forms of behavior".

Mind as the Brain

The chapter turns to the view that the mind is the brain, the third of the traditional attempts to explain the mind that the earlier-edition description lists (soul, behaviour, brain, computer).

Mind as a Computing Machine

The fourth of those attempts treats the mind as a computing machine. The publisher says the book touches in places on the status of psychology and cognitive science.

Mind as a Causal System

This chapter presents the mind as a causal system. The earlier-edition description speaks of "more recent complex attempts to meet objections" raised against the traditional accounts, and the chapter title fits that description.

Mental Causation

The question how mental states can cause anything in a physical world has its own chapter. The author's own books, listed in the Google Books biography, include Supervenience and Mind and Mind in a Physical World.

Mental Content

The chapter on mental content takes up what gives mental states their subject matter. The earlier-edition description says the book includes "extensive coverage of the issues surrounding content and consciousness".

What Is Consciousness? and Consciousness and the Mind–Body Problem

The last two chapters are on consciousness. The publisher says the third edition includes two new chapters on the nature of consciousness and the status of consciousness; they are the two chapters with these titles.

Key Concepts

Theories of what the mind is

• Substance dualism: the view that the mind is an immaterial substance distinct from the body, treated seriously in the first chapter.
• Behaviourism: the view that mental states are forms of behaviour or dispositions to behave.
• Brain identity: the view that the mind is the brain.
• Computationalism: the view that the mind is a computing machine.
• The mind as a causal system: the view that mental states are individuated by their causal relations.

Problems for those theories

• Mental causation: how mental states can have effects in a physical world.
• Mental content: how mental states are about things.
• Consciousness: what it is and what it implies for the mind–body problem.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Clear organising principle. The chapter titles take the traditional answers to "what is the mind?" one at a time (immaterial substance, behaviour, brain, computing machine, causal system) and only then turn to the problems that cut across them. A reader can follow the mind–body problem as a sequence of proposals and responses.
• Fairness and a visible authorial view. The publisher's descriptions say that Kim lets readers come to their own terms with the central problems while his own emerging views are on display. The earlier-edition description calls the book "comprehensive, clear, and fair". These are publisher claims.
• Serious treatment of substance dualism. The third-edition description says no other text of its kind gives it a serious and respectful treatment.
• An author with a research record in the field. The Google Books biography lists his Supervenience and Mind, Mind in a Physical World, Physicalism, or Something Near Enough and Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind.

Limitations

• Level. The publisher's description says the book is designed for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students, so it is more demanding than a first introduction.
• Focus on the metaphysics. The publisher says the mind–body problem is the main focus, and that psychology and cognitive science are touched on in some places. The contents list shows no chapter devoted to the sciences of the mind.
• Consciousness comes last. The two chapters on consciousness close the book, so readers whose main interest is consciousness have to work through the earlier chapters first or read them out of order.

Where It Fits in the Course

Kim's Philosophy of Mind is the course's rigorous textbook on the metaphysics of the mind. Ian Ravenscroft's Philosophy of Mind: A Beginner's Guide and Amy Kind's Philosophy of Mind: The Basics are gentler first books: Ravenscroft explains the main theories from dualism to functionalism and eliminativism in stages, and Kind gives a concise introduction ending each chapter with a summary and further reading. John Heil's Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction is the closest alternative, a broad introduction whose contents list adds topics Kim's does not show, such as artificial intelligence, the extended mind, emergence and panpsychism.

Two advanced books continue from Kim's chapters. Kim's own Mind in a Physical World is a short, dense monograph that argues that non-reductive physicalism cannot explain how mental properties make a causal difference, which takes up the topic of the chapter on mental causation at monograph length. David Chalmers's The Conscious Mind argues that consciousness cannot be explained reductively in physical terms and defends a naturalistic dualism, and follows naturally from the last two chapters on consciousness.

How to Use This Book

The publisher's description says the book is designed for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students. A first philosophy course is useful, and the arguments are easier to follow with basic logic.

A sensible reading order is the one the book follows. The introduction and the chapters on immaterial substance, behaviour and the brain give the classical positions and the vocabulary that the rest assumes. The next two chapters present the mind as a computing machine and as a causal system, and the later chapters on mental causation, content and consciousness take up problems that cut across these answers. For a short course, read the introduction and the first three chapters, then mental causation and consciousness.

For study, state each chapter's position and the main objection to it in a sentence, then compare it with the next chapter's reply. Readers who want a gentler first pass can start with Ravenscroft or Kind and return to Kim for rigour, and those who want recent topics can add Heil.