Andrew Brook

This is the only contemporary text to cover both epistemology and philosophy of mind at an introductory level. It also serves as a general introduction to philosophy: it discusses the nature and methods of philosophy as well as basic logical tools of the trade. The book is divided into three parts. The first focuses on knowledge, in particular, skepticism and knowledge of the external world, and knowledge of language. The second focuses on mind, including the metaphysics of mind and freedom of will. The third brings together knowledge and mind, discussing knowledge of mind and naturalism and how epistemology and philosophy of mind come together in contemporary cognitive science. Throughout, the authors take into account the needs of the beginning philosophy student. They have made very effort to ensure accessibility while preserving accuracy

In "How language helps us think", Jackendoff explores some of the relationships between language, consciousness, and thought, with a foray into attention and focus. In this paper, we will concentrate on his treatment of consciousness. We will examine three aspects of it: I. the method he uses to arrive at his views; 2. the extent to which he offers us a theory of consciousness adequate to assess his views; and 3. some of the things that we might need to add to what he offers to achieve an adequate theory.

Human consciousness usually displays a striking unity. When one experiences a noise and, say, a pain, one is not conscious of the noise and then, separately, of the pain. One is conscious of the noise and pain together, as aspects of a single conscious experience. Since at least the time of Immanuel Kant (1781/7), this phenomenon has been called the unity of consciousness . More generally, it is consciousness not of A and, separately, of B and, separately, of C, but of A-and-B- and-C together, as the contents of a single conscious state

In "How language helps us think", Jackendoff explores some of the relationships between language, consciousness, and thought, with a foray into attention and focus. In this paper, we will concentrate on his treatment of consciousness. We will examine three aspects of it: I. the method he uses to arrive at his views; 2. the extent to which he offers us a theory of consciousness adequate to assess his views; and 3. some of the things that we might need to add to what he offers to achieve an adequate theory

In his recent book, The Elm and the Expert, Fodor attempts to reconcile the computational model of human cognition with information‐theoretic semantics, the view that semantic, and mental, content consists of nothing more than causal or nomic relationships, between words and the world, or (roughly) brain states and the world. In this paper, we do not challenge the project. Nor do we show that Fodor has failed to carry it out. instead, we urge that his analysis, when made explicit, turns out rather differently than he thinks. In particular, in some places where he sees problems, he sometimes shows that there is no problem. And while he says two conceptions of information come to much the same thing, his analysis shows that they are very different. This is rather strange.