Abstract

White has an incredibly sensitive ear for distinctions among ordinary concepts in the philosophy of mind. As a botanizer of terms and their uses, he effectively rivals Ryle, upon whose general approach to the philosophy of mind he builds. Thus he has excellent chapters in which he distinguishes such related conceptions as care, interest, attention, notice, and consciousness. In another chapter he distinguishes five irreducible uses of "think," while in the next chapter he comes up with five distinct notions of feeling, the fifth of which has four subdivisions. The chapter on historical theories of mind is also neatly put together, and White takes this opportunity to identify himself as a somewhat modified Aristotelian. The ontological point of this claim is never made clear, however, as White prefers to remain in the linguistic heaven in which he can safely perform his "conceptual analysis" without descending to the level of nitty-gritty problems like ontic commitment. An adequate introductory bibliography to the philosophy of mind is appended.—E. A. R.