As persons, we are importantly different from all other creatures in the universe. But in what, exactly, does this difference consist? What kinds of entities are we, and what makes each of us the same person today that we were yesterday? Could we survive having all of our memories erased and replaced with false ones? What about if our bodies were destroyed and our brains were transplanted into android bodies, or if instead our minds were simply uploaded to computers?In this engagin...

Philosophy of Mind: The Basics is a concise and engaging introduction to the fundamental philosophical questions and theories about the mind. The author Amy Kind, a leading expert in the field, examines central issues concerning the nature of consciousness, thought, and emotion. The book addresses key questions such as:What is the nature of the mind?What is the relationship between the mind and the brain?Can machines have minds?

This Element explores the nature of both imagination and creative thinking in an effort to understand the relation between them and also to understand their role in the vast array of activities in which they are typically implicated, from art, music, and literature to technology, medicine, and science. Focusing on the contemporary philosophical literature, it will take up several interrelated questions: What is imagination, and how does it fit into the cognitive architecture of the mind? W...

What is consciousness and why is it so philosophically and scientifically puzzling? For many years philosophers approached this question assuming a standard physicalist framework on which consciousness can be explained by contemporary physics, biology, neuroscience, and cognitive science. This book is a debate between two philosophers who are united in their rejection of this kind of "standard" physicalism - but who differ sharply in what lesson to draw from this. Amy Kind defends dualism ...

While the philosophical study of mind has always required philosophers to attend to the scientific developments of their day, from the twentieth century onwards it has been especially influenced and informed by psychology, neuroscience, and computer science.Philosophy of Mind in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries provides an outstanding survey of the most prominent themes in twentieth-century and contemporary philosophy of mind. It also looks to the future, offering cautious ...

Philosophy has long paid minimal attention to creativity, and even with the rise of research on imagination, the creative imagination has still largely been ignored. The aim of this Oxford Handbook is to correct this neglect. By bringing together research from various sub-disciplines, the contributors explore recent emerging topics and open up new avenues of research in the philosophy of imagination and creativity. The 37 chapters provide state of the art treatments of a variety of subject...

This book explores a topic that has recently become the subject of increased philosophical interest: how can imagination be put to epistemic use? Though imagination has long been invoked in contexts of modal knowledge, in recent years philosophers have begun to explore its capacity to play an epistemic role in a variety of other contexts as well.In this collection, the contributors address an assortment of issues relating to epistemic uses of imagination, and in particular, they ta...

Imaginative cases, or what might be called puzzles and other thought experiments, play a central role in philosophy of mind. The real world also furnishes philosophers with an ample supply of such puzzles.This volume collects 50 of the most important historical and contemporary cases in philosophy of mind and describes their significance. The authors divide them into five sections: consciousness and dualism; physicalist theories and the metaphysics of mind; content, intentionality,...

**This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language from the author of Rationality, The Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style and Enlightenment Now."Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty."--The New York Times Book Review**Bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide l...

A concise guide on how to write a good essay, written by someone who has graded a heck of a lot of them. It contains essay writing strategies, helpful tips, and a step-by-step process guide. The second edition has a sample essay and extensive examples of pragraph structure and paraphrasing. Learn how to get the highest grade possible for your work and avoid the mistakes that so many students make.

This guide examines Kant's theory of knowledge, specifically his arguments for separating human thought into concepts and intuitions. Based on the Critique of Pure Reason, this guide covers his critique of empirical and rational thought, and explains key concepts such as a priori judgements, analytic and synthetic judgements, and the difference between pure and empirical concepts.

This guide outlines concepts and principles of philosophy in an easy to understand format. Topics covered in this guide include: metaphysics, mind body problems, language games and much more.