Steven Horst, Beyond Reduction: Philosophy Of Mind And Post-reductionist Philosophy Of Science, Philosophy Of Mind Series

摘要

The main theme of the book is clearly stated in the Introduction, and repeated through 10 chapters (grouped in three Parts), apparently to make sure the reader is absorbing all the impact: "The mind is irreducible; but it is hardly unique in this regard. Indeed, in some sense, in the sciences it is explanatory gaps all the way down" (p. 4). Revealing the general failure of reductionistic strategies in science, Horst is successful in the long awaited task of bridging the gap between contemporary Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Science. In the first part of the book, he argues that reductionistic assumptions are essential to several varieties of physicalism (both reductive and non-reductive) and also to contemporary dualistic approaches. He considers that non-reductive physicalist philosophers, although being skeptical about actual inter-theoretical or other reductive explanations, find their rationale in the idea of "metaphysical supervenience" of the mental from the physical (i.e., the assumption that the determination of a basic physical ontology also determines mental ontology). On the other hand, new dualists like David Chalmers found most of their appeal from the (so assumed) exceptional irreductibility of mental phenomena, leading to the famous "Hard Problem of Consciousness".