The Metaphysics of Mind

Modelled on the same structure as Ryle's "The Concept of Mind", this book pays tribute to the philosophers whose work in the philosophy of mind the author most admires. It is written in the tradition of analytic philosophy, yet shows how linguistic analysis can accompany traditional philosophy. The book, like Ryle's, is intended as a sustained attack on what the author believes is a false view of the mind, the Cartesian view, which is metaphysical in the sense of that word in which it was made a term of abuse by positivists: as isolating statements about mental life from any possibility of verification or falsification in the public world. It goes on to show the importance of distinctions between different kinds of actuality and potentiality, distinctions which were one of the major concerns of the work of Aristotle. So, within the realm of the philosophy of mind, the book's aim is to show the confusion which can be generated by bad metaphysics and the clarity which is impossible without good metaphysics.