Explaining Attitudes
A Practical Approach to the Mind
Part of Cambridge Studies in Philosophy
- Author: Lynne Rudder Baker, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- Date Published: June 1995
- availability: Available
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521421904
Paperback
Other available formats:
Hardback
Looking for an inspection copy?
This title is not currently available on inspection
-
Explaining Attitudes offers an important challenge to the dominant conception of belief found in the work of such philosophers as Dretske and Fodor. According to this dominant view beliefs, if they exist at all, are constituted by states of the brain. Lynne Rudder Baker rejects this view and replaces it with a quite different approach - practical realism. Seen from the perspective of practical realism, any argument that interprets beliefs as either brain states or states of immaterial souls is a 'non-starter'. Practical realism takes beliefs to be states of the whole persons, rather like states of health. What a person believes is determined by what a person would do, say and think in various circumstances. Thus beliefs and other attitudes are interwoven into an integrated, commonsensical conception of reality.
Read more- This book challenges the dominant physicalism of contemporary philosophy of mind and replaces it with integrated, common-sense view that has much greater explanatory power
- Broad interdisciplinary appeal across philosophy, psychology and cognitive science
- Lynne Rudder Baker is a much published philosopher of mind. Her book, Saving Belief was published by Princeton in 1987
Customer reviews
Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review
Review was not posted due to profanity
×Product details
- Date Published: June 1995
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521421904
- length: 264 pages
- dimensions: 216 x 140 x 15 mm
- weight: 0.34kg
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Part I. The Standard View and its Problems:
1. Two conceptions of the attitudes
2. Content and causation
3. The myth of folk psychology
Part II. Explanation in Theory and Practice:
4. On standards of explanatory adequacy
5. How beliefs explain
Part III. Practical Realism and its Prospects:
6. Belief without reification
7. Mind and metaphysics
8. Practical realism writ large.
Related Books
Sorry, this resource is locked
Please register or sign in to request access. If you are having problems accessing these resources please email [email protected]
Register Sign in» Proceed
You are now leaving the Cambridge University Press website. Your eBook purchase and download will be completed by our partner www.ebooks.com. Please see the permission section of the www.ebooks.com catalogue page for details of the print & copy limits on our eBooks.
Continue ×Are you sure you want to delete your account?
This cannot be undone.
Thank you for your feedback which will help us improve our service.
If you requested a response, we will make sure to get back to you shortly.
×