In the Shadow of Descartes Essays in the Philosophy of Mind
Descartes made a sharp distinction between matter and mind. But he also thought that the two interact with one another. Is such interaction possible, however, without either a materialist reduction of mind to matter or an idealist (phenomenalist) reductio
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SYNTHESE LIBRARY STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY, LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Managing Editor: JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University
Editors: DIRK VAN DALEN, University ofUtrecht, The Netherlands DONALD DAVIDSON, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley THEO A.F. KUIPERS, University ofGroningen, The Netherlands PATRICK SUPPES, Stanford University, California JAN WOLENSKI, Jagiellonian University, KrakOw, Poland
VOLUME272
GEORG HENRIK VON WRIGHT Academy 01 Finland, Helsinki, and University 01 Helsinki, Finland
IN THE SHADOW OF DESCARTES Essays in the Philosophy oi Mind
Springer Science+Business Media, B.Y.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-90-481-5011-3
ISBN 978-94-015-9034-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-9034-1
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1998 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover Ist edition 1998 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner
"In philosophy it is always good to put a question instead of an answer to a question. For an answer to the philosophical question may easily be unfair; disposing of it by means of another question is not. " Wittgenstein
To LilU and Fred Friends and companions in the Cartesian shadow
CONTENTS
Preliminary
ix
Of Human Freedom
1
Sensations and Perceptions
45
Thing and Quality. Substance.
69
An Essay on Door-Knocking
83
Notes on the Philosophy of Mind
97
On Mind and Matter
125
A Note on Causal Explanation of Bodily Movement and Rational Explanation of Action
149
A Note on Timing Consciousness
151
On Sound
155
Concluding Postscript. On Pain and Sound.
165
Index of Persons
171
Subject Index
173
vii
PREUMINARY
My awakening to pbilosophy took place when I was an adolescent. The flrst book I read was Psykologi by the much esteemed Swedish pbilosopher and essayist Hans Larsson. It had a section on the mind-body problem wbich put my thoughts in motion. Soon after I read Wilhelm Jerusalem's Einleitung in die Philosophie and was especially fascinated by the account it gave of the empiriocriticist form of identity theory advocated by Mach and Avenarius. I thought out for myself a "monistic phllosophy" inspired by the sources mentioned. I cannot remember my "arguments" - only that they seemed to me, at the time, "absolutely convincing". When in 1934 I started university studies in philosophy under the guidance of Eino Kalla in Helsinki, psychology was still considered to be part of "theoretical phllosophy". This meant that I also got a basic education in psychology, ineluding a rudimentary acquaintance with experimental work. I think tbis was a good preparation for research into the pbilosophy of mind or of psychology. Kalla was himself
