The Living Mind

From Psyche to Consciousness

By (author) Richard Dien Winfield

Publication date:

07 July 2011

Length of book:

328 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442211551

As enthusiasm for computational models of the mind has waned and the revolution in neuroscience has progressed, attention in philosophy and cognitive science has shifted toward more biological approaches. The Living Mind establishes that mind cannot be immaterial or reduced to mechanistic or cybernetic processes, but must instead possess a subjectivity embodied in an animal organism. On this basis, the work proceeds to show why mind involves a pre-conscious psyche, a non-discursive consciousness and self-consciousness, and an intelligence overcoming the opposition of consciousness. In so doing, The Living Mind provides a detailed account of the psyche and consciousness, paving the way for conceiving the psychological enabling conditions of rational theory and practice.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part 1: The Preconditions of Mind
Chapter 1: Mind and Matter
Chapter 2: Mind and Machine
Chapter 3: Mind and Life
Part 2: The System of Mind
Chapter 4: Psyche, Consciousness, and Intelligence as Irreducible Spheres of Mind
Section 1: The Psyche
Chapter 5: The Nature of the Psyche
Chapter 6: The Feeling Psyche
Chapter 7: Habit, Expression, and the Emergence of Consciousness
Section 2: Consciousness
Chapter 8: The Elementary Shapes of Consciousness
Chapter 9: Self-Consciousness
Chapter 10: Consciousness as Reason
Works Cited
Index

Winfield has achieved a fundamental, systematic and comprehensive re-thinking of the problem of mind. Grounded in a critical reconstruction of Aristotle and Hegel, it draws upon a broad range of ancient, modern and contemporary philosophers to establish that mind must necessarily be materially embodied in living, animal organism, and must manifest itself in the three distinguishable phases of psyche, consciousness and intelligence, thoroughly exploring the sometimes surprising implications of such an analysis. It answers the need for a thoroughly non-Cartesian account of mind better than any available alternative. I would not teach the philosophy of mind again without using this work.