Natural Minds

In Natural Minds Thomas Polger advocates, and defends, the philosophical theory thatmind equals brain -- that sensations are brain processes -- and in doing so brings the mind-brainidentity theory back into the philosophical debate about consciousness. The version of identitytheory that Polger advocates holds that conscious processes, events, states, or properties are type-identical to biological processes, events, states, or properties -- a "tough-minded" account thatmaintains that minds are necessarily indentical to brains, a position held by few current identitytheorists. Polger's approach to what William James called the "great blooming buzzing confusion" ofconsciousness begins with the idea that we need to know more about brains in order to understandconsciousness fully, but recognizes that biology alone cannot provide the entire explanation.Natural Minds takes on issues from philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and metaphysics,moving freely among them in its discussion.Polger begins by answering two major objections toidentity theory -- Hilary Putnam's argument from multiple realizability (which discounts identitytheory because creatures with brains unlike ours could also have mental states) and Saul Kripke'smodal argument against mind-brain identity (based on the apparent contingency of the indentitystatement). He then offers a detailed account of functionalism and functional realization, whichoffer the most serious obstacle to consideration of identity theory. Polger argues that identitytheory can itself satisfy the kind of explanatory demands that are often believed to favorfunctionalism.