2 no predictions or experimental findings based on the Identity Theory differ from those based on mind-brain Parallelism or Epiphenomenal ism, i.e., Dualism in general. The Identity Theory, therefore, must stand or fall on its reputed conceptual advantages over Dualism. Then the conceptual issues at stake in the mind-brain problem are discussed. The kernel of truth present in the Identity Theory is shown to be obscured by all the talk about reducing sensations to neural processes. An attempt is made to (...) characterize pain adequately as a pattern or complex of bodily processes. This view is then reconciled with the asymmetry in the way one is aware of one's own pains and the way in which others are. This asymmetry constitutes an epistemological dualism which no philosophical theory or scientific experiment could alter. The sense in which experiences are both mental and physical is thus elucidated. A Multi-Aspect Theory of the mind is presented and defended. Five aspects of pain are discussed in some detail: experiential, neural, bodily, behavioral and verbal. Having a mind characteristically involves having all of these features except the bodily (i.e., a physical irregularity). Thus having a mind characteristically entails having experiences and a healthy, functioning brain. It also involves being able to act and speak reasonably intelligently. (shrink)

This is probably the most important book on perception since R. J. Hirst's The Problems of Perception. Ben-Ze'ev presents a highly original, very detailed, comprehensive, and plausible theory of perception, cognition, and other mental phenomena At last we have a viable alternative to the troubled dualistic, representational, "veil of perceptions" theories initiated in the seventeenth century and to the equally troubled materialistic, reductionist theories of the Churchlands et al. Ben-Ze'ev has made a brilliant synthesis of some of the most fruitful (...) ideas of Aristotle, Kant, and others, and he shows that many recent findings in psychological experiments confirm, or are more compatible with, his theory than the alternatives. He defines perception as an "intentional state of direct awareness of the environment." Ben-Ze'ev makes a very convincing case for his nonreductionist, holistic, intuitively plausible, and empirically-grounded theory. The world that physics is gradually disclosing to us is not the "perceptual environment" because it belongs to a different level of description. This parallels his explanation of the relationship between neural states and mental states, which is not that of cause and effect. Rather, they are stratified and belong to different vocabularies and different categories. Ben-Ze'ev has a version of the dual-aspect or multi-aspect theory of mind and body which strikes me as the only remotely plausible approach. The physical world may not be the world we know and love but the world of sights and sounds is real in its own way. Each sort of perceiver has its own kind of access to genuine, emergent properties of the world. (shrink)