Overview
- Presents the only in-depth analysis of the argument as found throughout history
- Covers the main line in the history of the Achilles argument in the Western philosophical tradition
- Discusses variations on the Achilles argument and its criticism in ancient, medieval and early modern philosophy
- Makes a valuable and original contribution to the history of philosophy of mind
- Is relatively non-technical and therefore of use to students
Part of the book series: Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind (SHPM, volume 7)
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Table of contents (15 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
In his Second Paralogism of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant described what he called the “Achilles of all dialectical inferences in the pure doctrine of the soul”. This argument, which he took to be powerful yet fatally flawed, purports to establish the simplicity of the human mind, or soul, on the basis of the unity of consciousness. In Kant’s illustration, the unity had by our perception of a verse cannot be accounted for if the words of the verse are distributed among parts thought to compose the mind. The argument, or at least the unity of consciousness that underpins it, has a history extending from Plato to the present. Moreover, many philosophers have extended the argument, some of them using to argue such views as immortality.
It is the aim of this volume to treat the major figures who have advanced the argument, or who have held views importantly bearing on it. Original essays by scholars with expertise on the relevant authors treat Plato, Aristotle, the Neoplatonists, the medievals, Descartes, Locke, Cudworth, Bayle, Clarke, Spinoza, Leibniz. Hume, Mendelsohn, Kant, Lotze, James, as well as those working in contemporary cognitive science on what is called the binding problem of how the human brain can unify the elements of experience into a single representation.
Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: The Achilles of Rationalist Psychology
Editors: Thomas M. Lennon, Robert J. Stainton
Series Title: Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6893-5
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4020-6892-8Published: 08 February 2008
Softcover ISBN: 978-90-481-7754-7Published: 30 November 2010
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4020-6893-5Published: 22 January 2008
Series ISSN: 1573-5834
Series E-ISSN: 2542-9922
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: X, 290
Topics: Philosophy of Mind, History of Philosophy, Philosophy, general, History of Science, Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, multidisciplinary, Psychology, general