The Universe As We Find It

What does reality encompass? Is reality exclusively physical? Or does reality include nonphysical--mental, and perhaps 'abstract'--aspects? What is it to be physical or mental, or to be an abstract entity? What are the elements of being, reality's raw materials? How is the manifest image we inherit from our culture and refine in the special sciences related to the scientific image as we have it in fundamental physics? Can physics be understood as providing a 'theory of everything', or do the various sciences make up a hierarchy corresponding to autonomous levels of reality? Is our conscious human perspective on the universe in the universe or at its limits? What, if anything, makes ordinary truths, truths of the special sciences, and truths of mathematics true? And what is it for an assertion or judgment to be 'made true'? In The Universe As We Find It, John Heil offers answers to these questions framed in terms of a comprehensive ontology of substances and properties inspired by Descartes, Locke, their successors, and their latter day exemplars. Substances are simple, lacking parts that are themselves substances. Properties are modes--particular ways particular substances are--and arrangements of propertied substances serve as truthmakers for all the truths that have truthmakers. Heil argues that the deep story about the nature of these truthmakers can only be told by fundamental physics.

Politics & Social Sciences

Heil, John

Philosophy

Oxford University Press

In Appearance in Reality, John Heil addresses a question at the heart of metaphysics: how are the appearances related to reality, how does what we find in the sciences comport with what we encounter in everyday experience and in the laboratory? Objects, for instance, appear to be colourful, noisy, self-contained, and massively interactive. Physics tells us they are dynamic swarms of colourless particles, or disturbances in fields, or something equally strange. Is what we experience illusory, present only in our minds? But then what are minds? Do minds elude physics? Or are the physicist's depictions mere constructs with no claim to reality? Perhaps reality is hierarchical: physics encompasses the fundamental things, the less than fundamental things are dependent on, but distinct from these. Heil's investigation advances a fourth possibility: the scientific image (what we have in physics) affords our best guide to the nature of what the appearances are appearances of.

Appearance in Reality

Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)

This comprehensive textbook, written by a leading author in the field, provides a survey of mainstream conceptions of the nature of mind accessible to readers with little or no background in philosophy. Included are the dualist, behaviourist, and functionalist accounts of the nature of mind, along with a critical assessment of recent trends in the subject. The problem of consciousness, widely thought to be the chief roadblock to our understanding of the mind, is addressed throughout the book and there is also material to interest those with a professional interest in the topic - philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists - as well as the general reader. Unique features of Philosophy of Mind:* provides a comprehensive survey of basic concepts and major theories* contains many lucid examples to support ideas* cites key literature in annotated suggested reading and a full bibliography* contains a full index including the location of key terms and concepts.

Routledge

This comprehensive textbook, written by a leading author in the field, provides a survey of mainstream conceptions of the nature of mind accessible to readers with little or no background in philosophy. Included are the dualist, behaviourist, and functionalist accounts of the nature of mind, along with a critical assessment of recent trends in the subject. The problem of consciousness, widely thought to be the chief roadblock to our understanding of the mind, is addressed throughout the book and there is also material to interest those with a professional interest in the topic - philosophers, psychologists and neuroscientists - as well as the general reader. Unique features of Philosophy of Mind: * provides a comprehensive survey of basic concepts and major theories * contains many lucid examples to support ideas * cites key literature in annotated suggested reading and a full bibliography * contains a full index including the location of key terms and concepts.

Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction is a comprehensive and accessible survey of main themes, positions and debates in philosophy of mind. John Heil introduces and discusses the major topics in succinct, user-friendly, self-contained chapters:* Cartesian dualism* Descartes's legacy* non-Cartesian dualism* behaviorism* the identity theory* functionalism* the representational theory of mind* qualia* radical interpretation* the intentional stance* eliminativism* property dualism* mind and metaphysics* the mind's place in natureThis revised and updated edition includes expanded chapters on eliminativism, qualia, and the representational theory of mind, and an entirely new chapter on property dualism. There are annotated suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, updated to include recent material and internet resources.

Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction is a comprehensive and accessible survey of main themes, positions and debates in philosophy of mind. John Heil introduces and discusses the major topics in succinct, user-friendly, self-contained chapters: * Cartesian dualism * Descartes's legacy * non-Cartesian dualism * behaviorism * the identity theory * functionalism * the representational theory of mind * qualia * radical interpretation * the intentional stance * eliminativism * property dualism * mind and metaphysics * the mind's place in nature This revised and updated edition includes expanded chapters on eliminativism, qualia, and the representational theory of mind, and an entirely new chapter on property dualism. There are annotated suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, updated to include recent material and internet resources.

When first published, John Heil's introduction quickly became a widely used guide for students with little or no background in philosophy to central issues of philosophy of mind. Heil provided an introduction free of formalisms, technical trappings, and specialized terminology. He offered clear arguments and explanations, focusing on the ontological basis of mentality and its place in the material world. The book concluded with a systematic discussion of questions the book raises--and a sketch of a unified metaphysics of mind--thus inviting scholarly attention while providing a book very well suited for an introductory course. This Third Edition builds on these strengths, and incorporates new material on theories of consciousness, computationalism, the language of thought, and animal minds as well as other emerging areas of research. With an updated reading list at the end of each chapter and a revised bibliography, this new edition will again make it the indispensable primer for anyone seeking better understanding of the central metaphysical issues in philosophy of mind.

Philosophy of Mind (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)

The Nature of True Minds (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)

This book aims at reconciling the emerging conceptions of mind and their contents that have, in recent years, come to seem irreconcilable.  Post-Cartesian philosophers face the challenge of comprehending minds as natural objects possessing apparently non-natural powers of thought.  The difficulty is to understand how our mental capacities, no less than our biological or chemical characteristics, might ultimately be products of our fundamental physical constituents, and to do so in a way that preserves the phenomena.  Externalists argue that the significance of thought turns on the circumstances of thinkers; reductionists hold that mental characteristics are physical; eliminationists contend that the concept of thought belongs to an outmoded folk theory of behavior.      John Heil explores these topics and points the way to a naturalistic synthesis, one that accords the mental a place in the physical world alongside the non-mental.

Cambridge University Press

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Books by Heil, John

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Heil, John. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Universe As We Find It

Appearance in Reality

The Universe As We Find It

Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)

Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)

Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)

Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)

Philosophy of Mind: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)

Philosophy of Mind (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)

The Nature of True Minds (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy)