Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology

Front Cover
MIT Press, 1981 - Philosophy - 353 pages

This collection of 17 essays by the author offers a comprehensive theory of mind, encompassing traditional issues of consciousness and free will. Using careful arguments and ingenious thought-experiments, the author exposes familiar preconceptions and hobbling institutions.

This collection of 17 essays by the author offers a comprehensive theory of mind, encompassing traditional issues of consciousness and free will. Using careful arguments and ingenious thought-experiments, the author exposes familiar preconceptions and hobbling institutions. The essays are grouped into four sections: Intentional Explanation and Attributions of Mentality; The Nature of Theory in Psychology; Objects of Consciousness and the Nature of Experience; and Free Will and Personhood.

 

Contents

Intentional Systems
3
Reply to Arbib and Gunderson
23
Brain Writing and Mind Reading
39
Skinner Skinned
53
Why the Law of Effect Will Not Go Away
71
A Cure for the Common Code?
90
Artificial Intelligence as Philosophy and as Psychology
109
Are Dreams Experiences?
129
Two Approaches to Mental Images
174
Why You Cant Make a Computer that Feels Pain
190
Mechanism and Responsibility
233
The Abilities of Men and Machines
256
On Giving Libertarians What They Say They Want
286
How to Change Your Mind
300
Acknowledgements
339
Copyright

Toward a Cognitive Theory of Consciousness
149

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (1981)

Born in Boston in 1942, Daniel Clement Dennett explores the philosophical links between mind and brain. His first book, Content and Consciousness (1969) was one of the earliest to examine this issue. It is one that he expands on in his other books, including Consciousness Explained (1991), where he uses philosophical "materialism" to examine the link between mind and body. Dennett is a Distinguished Arts and Sciences Professor, a Professor of Philosophy and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University in Medford Mass. He is interested in the development of artificial intelligence, was the co-founder of the Curricular Software Studio at Tufts, and has aided in the design of computer exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston and the Computer Museum in Boston.

Bibliographic information