Robinson, Daniel N. Consciousness and Mental Life. New York: Columbia UP, 2007.
Consciousness and Mental Life seeks to demonstrate that something is seriously wrong with contemporary philosophy of mind. In fact, that there are at least three things wrong: Descartes is given an unduly bad press, the contribution of philosophers of the past to mind-theory is not properly appreciated by their descendants of today, and the current physicalist orthodoxy is deeply mistaken, both in its own right and in its deference to mainstream science. The book's real payoff is the message that philosophers of mind have a duty to pay careful attention to what their fellows have said, but this pays off in an unexpected way.
Robinson's central thesis is briefly as follows: There is far less to be gained from modern philosophy of mind and its interplay with the mind-sciences than is widely thought, especially when one properly examines the work on these issues carried out by great historical philosophers. Robinson's list includes Plato and Aristotle, up to Reid and James, but it is above all Descartes, he opines, who either foresaw current 'advances' in mind-theory, or else presented considerations powerful enough that, properly understood (as presently they are not), prove fatal to most every current analysis of mind. For Robinson, physicalism's falsity is quite clear, and Descartes -- read aright -- has already had more or less the final word on the mind/body problem.
Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=14906.
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