History of the Mind-Body Problem (London Studies in the History of Philosophy)

History of the Mind-Body Problem is a collection of new essays by leading contributors on the various concerns that have given rise to and informed the mind-body problem in philosophy. The essays in this stellar collection discuss famous philosophers such as Aristotle, Aquinas and Descartes and cover the subjects of the origins of the qualia and intentionality. Book Cover 1 Title 4 Contents 5 List of contributors 8 Introduction 10 The musical, the magical, and the mathematical soul 22 The soul's relation to the body: Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant and the Parisian debate on monopsychism 43 How Cartesian was Descartes? 79 The emergence of the Cartesian mind 120 Intentionality or phenomenology? Descartes and the objects of thought 140 'A tumbling-ground for whimsies'? The history and contemporary role of the conscious/unconscious contrast 157 The origins of qualia 178 Beyond dispute: sense-data, intentionality and the mind body problem 204 Bibliography 241 Index 257 Philosophy At the beginning of his treatise on the soul, Aristotle considers the opinions of his predecessors, his avowed purpose being to 'profit by whatever is sound in their suggestions, and avoid their errors' (De Anima, 403b 23-4). This volume is a collection of essays on the various concerns that have given rise to the mind-body problem in philosophy. It examines contemporary debates on the subject and puts these views in a historical context