Books in the philosophy of mind

There have been recent discussions on other weblogs of the last century's five most important books in epistemology and ten most important books in the philosophy of biology (also here and here).  Being something of a listmaniac, I couldn't help starting to think about a similar list in the philosophy of mind.  What's surprising was how hard it was.  By my lights, three books select themselves: Broad's The Mind and its Place in Nature (1925), Ryle's The Concept of Mind (1949), and Armstrong's A Materialist Theory of the Mind (1968).  But it's hard to think of others that stand alongside these.  Maybe Sellars' Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind (1953) and Feigl's The "Mental" and the "Physical" (1958) count retrospectively, although neither was a book at the time.  One could make a case for Price's Perception (1932) and just maybe something by Russell (The Analysis of Mind?) or Wittgenstein (the Investigations?).  One should probably include something by Husserl (but which book?), and some would include Merleau-Ponty's The Phenomenology of Perception (1945) and/or Sartre's Being and Nothingness (1943).  But no book from the last thirty years or so seems to quite stand alongside the first three, although of course there could be illusions of perspective.

So to make it easier, I then lowered the standards and considered the ten most important books in the philosophy of mind from the last thirty years.  It wasn't too hard to come up with a first pass at a list: Fodor's The Language of Thought (1975), Jackson's Perception (1977), Dennett's Brainstorms (1978), Churchland's Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind (1979), Dretske's Knowledge and the Flow of Information (1981), Kripke's Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982), Searle's Intentionality (1983), Millikan's Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories (1983), Fodor's Psychosemantics (1987), and Dennett's The Intentional Stance (1987).  I see there's nothing there from the last 15 years, because that's just too close.  But anyway, I'm sure that I've overlooked a number of books and that a better list is possible.

So I hereby throw open the listmaking to all-comers.  People are welcome to contribute to either question: most important of the last 100 years, and of the last 30 years.  Feel free to include books from the last 15 years if you like (but I stipulate that no book by an author of this weblog is eligible).

Comments

[KT]

[E-mail address modified for spam avoidance.]

Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness. Winner of the Scientific and Medical Network 1998 Book Prize. July 1999, ISBN 0-262-51109-6. Homepage: Zen and the Brain

This book is hard to describe. The table of contents may help. Well, I'll try to describe it anyway: It's kind of an anti-new-agish treatment of meditation and altered states written by professor of neurology and long time meditator James Austin (MD). It's not first of its kind but it is the most complete and scientifically serious work I have ever encountered.

[Brian Weatherson]

Any support for Sense and Sensibilia? It's not my favourite book ever, but it played an important role (I gather) in the formation of the contemporary views on perception, and in some ways seems to me important generally in the growth of externalist theories of content.

[Michael Cholbi]

I'm not a philosopher of mind but it strikes me that Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, though not a work in the philosophy of mind per se, might be considered, insofar as (a) it was widely discussed at the time, and (b) it sparked a lot of interest in the relationship between mental representation and epistemology.

For those interested, we've been runnning a similiar list on books in ethics at PEA Soup: http://peasoup.typepad.com/peasoup/2005/01/agendasetting_b.html

[Yujin Nagasawa]

I think there should be more books on consciousness on the list of the most important phil. mind books of the last 30 years. Perhaps we could include one or more of the following:

Searle, The Rediscovery of the Mind (1992); Dennett, Consciousness Explained (1992); McGinn, The Problem of Consciousness (1993). (It's a shame that we are not allowed to include Chalmers, Conscious Mind (1996)!)

Also, Kim, Supervenience and Mind (1993)?

I would also be interested in a list of the most important *papers* in the philosophy of mind. (We could then make a collection of ten best papers of the last 100 years for each area of philosophy.)

[me]

Well, you don't say what the criteria are but here's a few comments:

1) I'd say "Conscious Mind" has to be near the top - c'mon, no need for false modesty here - it absolutely exploded the discussion of consciousness in analytic philosophy. Its lasting significance of course, remains to be seen, but it focused the discussion like no other book has, ever.

2) It is sadly absurd that Fodor and Dennett supposedly represent 4 of the 10. I'd say Psychosemantics deserves to be there for popularizing computationalism, but Dennett is personally responsible for the fact that so many supposed "philosophers of mind" barely understand some of the most basic concepts of metaphysics. As for Churchland, "Neurophilosophy" may have been in vogue 30 years ago but it has gone the way of 30s-era "philosophical behaviorism."

3) Ahem, "Naming and Necessity"? Davidson? Is this a philosophy list or a cog sci list? (if you think they're the same, you need to go read your Descartes again).

[djc]

Not sure how I forgot Sense and Sensibilia -- if Price is on the list, Austin should be too. Even if S&S lacks much in the way of real argument, it's certainly important, and extraordinarily engaging. I took Naming and Necessity to be mainly not philosophy of mind (though the little bit that it has is certainly important). Likewise Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (this has more philosophy of mind in it than most people remember, but its importance mostly lies elsewhere). The relevant Davidson would have to be Essays on Action and Events, but this is a somewhat fragmented collection with only about three articles in straight philosophy of mind (I've followed the usual although slightly odd convention of taking action theory to be a distinct field), and the importance to the field derives mostly from a single paper. The list is meant to be a philosophy of mind list rather than a cogsci or even a philosophy of cogsci list (if the latter, there would be a strong case for books like The Modularity of Mind and Neurophilosophy, at least on grounds of sheer influence). No more votes for present company, please -- way too much selection bias!

[ghr]

For the last 100 years I would have to put the Phil. Investigations at or near the top of the list for the problematics alone. For me, Kripkenstein could be on the same line for the same reason. If depth and originality matter, I'd also vote for Process and Reality.

In recent phil. of mind, leaving aside TCM, I felt Kim's "Mind in a physical world" was a nice book to focus thinking. Churchland's Plasticity of Mind was and still is very thought provoking. I'd also include one of Millikan's books.

Fodor and Dennett make it if the criteria is influence, but not if the criteria is quality.

The startling thing as I think about possibilities is how many of the books I would consider "great" focus on problematics and how few contain what I view as positive contributions to solutions.

[Fritz McDonald]

Chomsky, Syntactic Structures and Aspects of the Theory of Syntax.

[Kirk Ludwig]

I think that any list of the most influential books in the philosophy of mind is apt to be misleading, since some single articles have been more influential than some of the books mentioned, and some books and articles ostensibly not in the philosophy of mind have exerted a huge influence, for example, Putnam's "The Meaning of 'Meaning'".

If collections of essays are fair game, then it strikes me that _Essays on Actions and Events_ should make the list. The philosophy of action is a subfield of the philosophy of mind, and Davidson's work in the philosophy of action has had a lot of influence on work in the philosophy of mind more generally, and is clearly connnected with such issues as how to individuate propositional attitudes, the connection between rationality and agency, and between agency and the possibilty of thought in general. It also lies in the background of his argument for anomolous monism, and one can find a hint of this at the end of "Actions, Reasons and Causes."

One might also think here of volume 2 of Putnam's _Philosophical Papers_, _Mind, Language and Reality_, which contains a number of quite influential papers in the philosophy of mind as well as "The Meaning of 'Meaning'." And what about David Lewis's _Papers in Metaphysic and Epistemology_, which doesn't have 'mind' in the title, but contains a number of classic and highly influential papers in the philosophy of mind?

A book that has had a large influence but is not narrowly classifiable as in the philosophy of mind is of course Quine's _Word and Object_.

I rather think list making of this sort in philosophy can't be a very profitable enterprise. There is too much cross fertilization from different areas in philosophy. The most influential books and articles for a given field may not be in that field at all.

[M.]

For a more philosophically relevant (although poorly edited) book by Chomsky, what about New Horizons (2000). For the 80s: Schiffer, Remnants of Meaning (1987). Stalnaker is missing too: Inquiry (1984).

What about ideas for an ultrashort list of papers: In a review in LBR last fall, Fodor told the history of analytic philosophy as if it can be told by focussing on Quine, 2DE + Kripke, N&N with perhaps a little Putnam, Mo"M"...

[Angel P.]

I am merely a grad student, but I'm surprised no one has mentioned Fodor's "Modularity..." or Chomsky's "Aspects...". Outside of the topic of consciousness, these books provide the foundation of how the mind is actually studied now (with some success, I might add). For those who think a role of philosophy is to provide foundations, then these books would seem like good candidates. Plus, the topic of the organization of the mind and the nature of mental processes is a topic that has a long history in philosophy. I don't know what 'me' is talking about above with regards to Descartes. It seems to me that these (foundations of cog sci)issues concerned Descartes and Hume very much (for example).

[Charlie P.]

Anyone else got a soft spot for Evans' "The Varieties of Reference"?

[Yujin Nagasawa]

I agree with Kirk Ludwig that in the philosophy of mind many articles have been much more influential than books, particularly in the last three decades or so. (Nagel, Davidson, Jackson, Burge, Searle, McGinn, Putnam, Millikan, etc.) Chalmers' Conscious Mind seems like an exception.

[me again]

The reference to Descartes was a bit of a joke, since Descartes was responsible for most clearly dileneating the mind/body dichotomy that is characteristic of modern ontology and has made cognitive science possible.

Anyway, my point vis-a-vis philosophy vs cog-sci is that there are many "philosophers of mind" who really practice cognitive science and don't even have the most basic grasp of the issues involved in, say, modal metaphysics. I think Dennett's degree of acceptance in the field, and the example he sets, is partly responsible for this.

[Yujin Nagasawa]

Sorry if this is not relevant, but I just checked which phil. mind books have been translated into Japanese. Here is the result:

Armstrong, Consciousness and Causality; Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of Mind; Chalmers, Conscious Mind; Churchland, Scientific Realism and the Plasticity of Mind; Churchland, A Neurocomputational Perspective; Churchland, Neurophilosophy; Crane, The Mechanical Mind; Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language; Kripke, Naming and Necessity; McGinn, The Mysterious Flame; Nagel, Mortal Questions; Priest, Theories of the Mind; Putnam, Representation and Reality; Russell, The Analysis of Mind; Searle, Intentionality; Searle, Minds, Brains and Science.

[Michael Rosen]

Not a philosopher of mind (to put it mildly!) but I was really surprised not to see any of the following:

Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (brains in a vat, anyone?)
Nagel, The View from Nowhere
McDowell, Mind and World

Deliberate omissions?

[marc moffett]

I agree with Kirk on two counts. First, focusing on books can be extremely misleading, since much (most?) of the important work is in a paper or two (e.g., maybe, Shoemaker, Block, Jackson, Nagel). [And I have to put in a shameless plug for Bealer's "Self-consciousness" paper; published late, but deserving of wider influence in my opinion.]

Second, it is hard to delimit the philosophy of mind from the surrounding terrain. Much of the most important stuff in mind, was also simultaneously the most important stuff in language, metaphysics and/or epistemology (e.g., Kripke, Quine, Putnam, Burge, maybe Davidson). [Geez, think about Burge's single article "Individualism and the Mental" to see why these two issues are so tricky! And where to include Grice's work on INTENTION-based semantics which resulted in the subsequent development of theories of mutual knowledge and social interaction?]

I also agree with "me" (not myself) that Dennett is overrepresented in Dave's top 10--maybe just The Intentional Stance. I also think it would be hard to neglect Fodor's Modularity of Mind.

Finally, Lynn Rudder Baker's Explaining Attitudes is a pretty good piece of work and deserves at least an honorable mention. :)

[Scott PM]

I don't understand including "Rule-Following and Private Language" over "Naming and Necessity," I understand that Kripke is seen as having completely misunderstood the private language argument. Crispin Wright argues this, at least.

Davidson definitely needs to be up there, along with Wittgenstein's "Philosophical Investigations."

I'd also like to promote Warren McCulloch's "Embodiments of Mind," a founding work of connectionist theory.

[Jason Stanley]

A goodly portion of what is generally attributed to *Sense and Sensibilia* occurs in Chapter 3 of Price's *Perception*, "Some Modifications of Naive Realism", together with some objections Austin probably should have considered...

[MS]

If collections of papers like Dennett's "Brainstorms" can be on the list, then, I think, a good candidate would be Shoemaker: Identity, Cause, and Mind (1984/2003).

What about Chishom's Perceiving (1957)?

[djc]

Sure, important books in the philosophy of mind are only one source of important philosophy of mind. That's a feature, not a bug -- it makes the question somewhat more tractable than the much thornier question of "what's the most important philosophy of mind in the last century". Of course a huge amount of important philosophy of mind is done via papers, and a lot is done via books that one wouldn't immediately classify as books in the philosophy of mind. That's what's going on with The View From Nowhere and Reason, Truth, and History, for example, which I'd classify as books in general metaphysics and epistemology that contain some important philosophy of mind along the way. Likewise I take Evans and Schiffer to be primarily philosophy of language. Of course criteria for inclusion in a list like this are fairly arbitrary, but I was restricting myself to books that one would count as primarily philosophy of mind.

I was also excluding "collected papers" collections as something of a cheat -- otherwise there's no question that the Lewis and Putnam collections include at least as much important philosophy of mind as the books by Broad, Ryle, and Armstrong. I did include the two Dennett collections, I suppose with the tacit criterion being that for a collection to qualify, it must have something approaching the thematic unity of a monograph, and the work in it must have an especially significant impact qua collection. I think that holds for the two Dennett books (and maybe the Davidson), but not for the Lewis and Putnam. (Nor for McDowell's collected papers, which I take to be otherwise superior to Mind and World.) Still, in retrospect it's probably cleaner to simply exclude collections. That might end up excluding Dennett, unless we stretch the timescale by seven years and include Content and Consciousness, an excellent book but one that had less impact than the others, or reach a little and include Consciousness Explained, an important book in terms of its impact on the field but pretty clearly not as successful a work of philosophy as the earlier books (which I think are genuinely excellent qua philosophy).

I suppose that leaves two open spots on my list, to be filled by two favorites of your choice. Davidson has attracted votes, but is now excluded as a collection (I'm also still worried that if one counts the philosophy of action, one then has to consider any number of important books on free will and practical reason). So has Naming and Necessity, but this is excluded (at least from the 30-year list) on grounds of the original 1972 publication date. (As for doubts about Kripkenstein, I take it that this book is more valuable qua primary source than qua secondary source, so that if the book's argument isn't Wittgenstein's, it's all the more original and important.) The Modularity of Mind is a contender, but three books by Fodor seems excessive. Maybe the last two spots can be wild cards for the 1990-2005 period. Personally I'd be tempted to include Siewert's The Significance of Consciousness (on grounds of quality) and give half a spot each to Dennett's and McDowell's books (on grounds of influence), but your mileage may vary.

I'm surprised there hasn't been more discussion of the "century" list -- no chance of a consensus top ten? Maybe Broad, Price, Ryle, Austin, Armstrong, and five more to be determined. The Investigations is a borderline case of "primarily philosophy of mind", but one could make a case for it. I almost mentioned Chisholm's Perceiving in my original post. I take Process and Reality to be primarily metaphysics. It's still hard to see any of the last-30-years books as really standing out from the crowd -- the top ten seem to be fairly level. But maybe others see things differently.

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[Ignacio]

Peter Geach, "Mental Acts"

[Lucy O'Brien]

And Anscombe's *Intention* is, I think, an important and influential essay.

[Varol Akman]

Sorry, didn't check the whole list of comments but I always found John Searle a great author and a source of excellent questions to ponder. Another favorite of mine is John Perry. His "Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness" is a gem. And when there's a list of great phil of language books, I'll go add his (and the late Jon Barwise's) "Situations and Attitudes".

[Peli Grietzer]

I think reading PI as primarily philosophy of mind is a major source of (what I take to be) the Dennettian\Behaviorist misreading which interprets its prgamtism\instrumentalism about the mental to be rooted in a materialist denial of any onthological status for (For example) sensations, while in fact it gives "It's raining" pretty much the same treatment as "He's in pain". So I believe it's quite important not to categorize it as primaraly philosophy of the mind.