WHAT IS A HAND? WHAT IS A MIND? Mohan MATTHEN 1. Movements in the philosophy of mind often turn on different approaches to definitional questions regarding the entities that are its subject-matter the percepfual systems, the emotions, rationality, and the like. For example, Gilbert Ryle's philosophical behaviourism was motivated by the suggestion that the mind should be understood as a complex of behavioural dispositions, and the functionalism of Jerry Fodor and David Lewis by the idea that it should be modularly analysed in terms of the causal roles mental capacities occupy in the processing and linguistic representation of information. Ruth Millikan suggests another type of analysis, in terms of the historical contribution that "language, thought, and other biological categories,' make (or more accurately "made", since hers is a historical analysis) towards the increased reproductive fitness of an organism. Finally, the idea that mental entities be defined in terms of intentional content or experienced character these being treated as something unanalysable in terms of other approaches has seen something of a revival. In this article, I am concerned with a factor that is not much considered by philosophers of mind. It is generally conceded nowadays that, whatever else they might be, mental organs are biological in nature. Evolutionary biologists tend to characteize organs as homologous kinds. So it seems worth asking whether the notion of a homology ought somehow to enter into the ways in which we conceive of mental organs. My task will be to explore some of the ways in which it does. I shall be arguing that the notion of a homology essentially modifies the movements in philosophy of mind listed above. 2. 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These points cross over to the mental kittar. Things with one function in us might well evolve in such a way that they have a different function in our evolutionary descendants. a"o 1'e might be wrong about what constitutes their defining functions. These problems should not be allowed to get in the way oi successful definition. Mental kinds can, like anatomical kinds, be defined by reference only to their origins. University of British Columbia.