Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind by Jaegwon Kim

by Jaegwon Kim

Jaegwon Kim presents a selection of his essays from the last two decades. The volume includes three new essays, on an agent-centered first-person account of action explanation, the concepts of realization and their bearings on the mind-body problem, and the nonexistence of laws in the special sciences. Among other topics covered are emergence and emergentism, the nature of explanation and of theories of explanation, reduction and reductive explanation, mental causation and explanatory exclusion. Kim tackles questions such How should we understand the concept of "emergence," and what are the prospects of emergentism as a doctrine about the status of minds? What does an agent-centered, first-person account of explanation of human actions look like? Why aren't there strict laws in the special sciences - sciences like biology, psychology, and sociology? The essays will be accessible to attentive readers without an extensive philosophical background.

Genres: Philosophy, Essays

Paperback Bunko

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Jaegwon Kim (born 1934 in Daegu, Korea (now in South Korea)) is a Korean-born American philosopher currently working at Brown University. He is best known for his work on mental causation and the mind-body problem. Key themes in his work include: a rejection of Cartesian metaphysics, the limitations of strict psychophysical identity, supervenience, and the individuation of events. Kim's work on these and other contemporary metaphysical and epistemological issues is well-represented by the papers collected in Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays (1993).

Kim's philosophical work focuses on the areas of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, action theory, epistemology, and philosophy of science.

Reviews

[Joshua Stein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kim is a terrific philosopher, and a very lucid writer (which is uncommon in philosophy). For those interested in philosophy of mind, I strongly recommend this book. Kim provides what seems to me to be one of the most effective characterizations of epiphenomenalism and causal efficacy I have come across.

The major problem with Kim is that he often does not speak for himself, but speaks through the views of others. While this is not strictly problematic, it can be very frustrating. For that reason, this is not a very good introduction to philosophy of mind. It does require extensive knowledge of the literature surrounding philosophy of mind, as well as metaphysics. For experienced metaphysicians, though, I strongly recommend this book.