Conceiving the impossible and the mind-body problem

Philosophy 73 (285):337-52 (1998)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Intuitions based on the first-person perspective can easily mislead us about what is and is not conceivable.1 This point is usually made in support of familiar reductionist positions on the mind-body problem, but I believe it can be detached from that approach. It seems to me that the powerful appearance of contingency in the relation between the functioning of the physical organism and the conscious mind -- an appearance that depends directly or indirectly on the first- person perspective -- must be an illusion. But the denial of this contingency should not take the form of a reductionist account of consciousness of the usual type, whereby the logical gap between the mental and the physical is closed by conceptual analysis -- in effect, by analyzing the mental in terms of the physical

Other Versions

reprint Nagel, Thomas (2010) "Conceiving the impossible and the mind-body problem". Discusiones Filosóficas 11():69-86

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 98,109

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The Mind-Body Problem: An Overview of Proposed Solutions.Javier Alejandro Galadí - 2023 - In Teresa Lopez-Soto, Alvaro Garcia-Lopez & Francisco J. Salguero-Lamillar (eds.), The Theory of Mind Under Scrutiny: Psychopathology, Neuroscience, Philosophy of Mind and Artificial Intelligence. Springer Nature Switzerland. pp. 435-467.
The Significance of Intuitions of Contingency for the Mind Body Problem.Judith M. Feldmann - 1997 - Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A non-materialistic view of person.Rajakishore Nath - 2005 - Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 22 (2):122-136.
Acquaintance and the Mind-Body Problem.Katalin Balog - 2012 - In Simone Gozzano & Christopher S. Hill (eds.), New Perspectives on Type Identity: The Mental and the Physical. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 16-43.
Summary of "Elements of Mind" and Replies to Critics.Tim Crane - 2004 - Croatian Journal of Philosophy 4 (11):223-240.
Erkenntnistheoretischer Dualismus.Tobias Schlicht - 2007 - History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 10 (1):113-136.
Mind--Brain Relationship and the Perspective of Meaning.R. Mukhopadhyay - 2018 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 25 (9-10):184-208.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
740 (#27,795)

6 months
21 (#132,646)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Thomas Nagel
New York University

Citations of this work

Imagining as a Guide to Possibility.Peter Kung - 2010 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (3):620-663.
Undefeated dualism.Tomas Bogardus - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (2):445-466.
Zombies.Robert Kirk - 2003 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

View all 51 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Consciousness and space.C. Mcginn - 1995 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 2 (3):220-230.

Add more references