A currently popular form of psychological externalism takes the causal–evolutionary history of a person to be determinant of that person’s intentional content. Two challenges bearing on the feasibility of this doctrine are outlined and discussed: the problems of functional indeterminacy and the psychological non-status of Davidson’s Swampman. Using Schank and Abelson’s script construct, a division of intentionality into an aboutness component and a directedness component is introduced.

Richer in content and scope, the second edition of The Character of Mind is still intended for the general reader and the novice student. In preparing the manuscript McGinn chose not to rewrite the original text, partly because “it is in general a mistake to tamper with an earlier piece of finished writing”. Instead, he has added three new chapters, which are meant to capture the major developments in the philosophy of mind since the first edition was published in 1982.