Jaegwon Kim

(1934 - 2019)

It was about half a century ago that the mind–body problem, which like much else in serious metaphysics had been moribund for several decades, was resurrected as a mainstream philosophical problem. The first impetus came from Gilbert Ryle'sThe Concept of Mind, published in 1948, and Wittgenstein's well-known, if not well-understood, reflections on the nature of mentality and mental language, especially in hisPhilosophical Investigationswhich appeared in 1953. The primary concerns of Ryle and Wittgenstein, however, focused on the logic of mental discourse rather than the metaphysical issue of how our mentality is related to our bodily nature. In fact, Ryle and Wittgenstein would have regarded, each for different reasons, the metaphysical problem of the mind-body relation as arising out of deplorable linguistic confusions and not amenable to intelligible discussion. There was C. D. Broad's earlier and much neglected classic,The Mind and Its Place in Nature, which appeared in 1925, but this work, although robustly metaphysical, failed to connect with, and shape, the mind–body debate in the second half of this century.

Thoroughly updated, the second edition of this highly successful textbook continues to represent the most comprehensive and authoritative collection of canonical readings in metaphysics. In addition to updated material from the first edition, it presents entirely new sections on ontology and the metaphysics of material objects. One of the most comprehensive and authoritative metaphysics anthologies available - now updated and expanded Offers the most important contemporary works on the central issues of metaphysics Includes new sections on ontology and the metaphysics of material objects, as well as readings on the topics of fictionalism, fundamentality, tropes, vague identity, temporary intrinsics, stage theory, and composition Surpasses other anthologies in its combination of contributions from leading metaphysicians and a younger generation of "rising-stars"

The paper discusses Ted Honderich's ‘Hypothesis of Psychoneural Correlation’, one of the three fundamental ‘hypotheses’ of his Theory of Determinism. This doctrine holds that there is a pervasive system of psychoneural laws connecting every mental event with a neural correlate. Various questions are raised and discussed concerning the formulation of the thesis, Honderich's concepts of ‘mental’ and ‘physical’, and the possible grounds for accepting the thesis. Finally, Honderich's response to Donald Davidson's well‐known arguments for psychophysical anomalism is discussed.