Naturalism and the First-Person Perspective

Lynne Rudder Baker is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Baker has written four books on metaphysics and the philosophy of mind, and has published many articles in philosophy journals such as The Journal of Philosophy, The Philosophical Review, Philosophical Studies, Noûs, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research and many more.

Introduction: What is the Problem? ; The Claim of Naturalism ; A Challenge to Naturalism ; What is at Stake ; An Overview ; Part I: The Core Argument ; Ch. 1. Varieties of Naturalism ; What Counts As 'Science'? ; Reductive Naturalism ; Nonreductive Naturalism ; Disenchantment and Optimism ; Ch. 2. On Naturalizing the First-Person Perspective ; What is Naturalization? ; The Robust First-Person Perspective ; The Rudimentary First-Person Perspective ; Ch. 3. Reductive Approaches to the First-Person Perspective ; John Perry on an Epistemic Account of the Self ; David Lewis on De Se Belief ; A Comment on John Searle ; Can Cognitive Science Save the Day? ; Ch. 4. Eliminative Approaches to the First-Person Perspective ; Daniel Dennett on Consciousness ; Thomas Metzinger on a Self-Model Theory ; My Recommendation ; Ch. 5. Arguments Against First-Person Naturalization ; From First-Person Concepts to First-Person Properties ; A Linguistic Argument: A Complete Ontology Must Include First-Person Properties ; A Metaphysical Argument Against Ontological Naturalism ; Part II: An Account of the First-Person Perspective ; Ch. 6. From the Rudimentary to the Robust Stage of the First-Person Perspective ; The First-Person Perspective: Consciousness and Self-Consciousness ; Language and the Acquisition of Concepts ; How to Acquire a Self-Concept ; Human Persons: Wrap Up ; Ch. 7. Is the Idea of the First-Person Perspective Coherent? ; Personal Identity: A First-Personal Approach ; Objections and Replies ; Mark Johnston on the Self as Illusory ; Johnston's Critique Side-Stepped ; Ch. 8. A Metaphysical Framework for The First-Person Perspective ; First-Person Properties ; Dispositional Properties ; Haecceitistic Implications ; Ch. 9. Agents, Artifacts, Moral Responsibility: Some Contributions of the First-person Perspective ; Personhood ; Agency ; Artifacts ; Moral Responsibility ; Ch. 10. Natural Reality ; Near-Naturalism ; Property-Constitution and Causation ; Emergentism and Downward Causation ; How Naturalistic is Near-Naturalism? ; Index