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A Call for Modesty: A Priori Philosophy and the Mind-Body Problem

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New Waves in Philosophy of Mind

Part of the book series: New Waves in Philosophy ((NWIP))

Abstract

Philosophy has long claimed the mind-body problem, which presses us to discover and explain the relationship between the mind and body, as its own. This made sense millennia ago, when natural phenomena of various kinds were included within the domain of philosophy. But as many of these topics, including the nature and origin of animal life and the heavens, have been taken over by the natural sciences, we might wonder why the mind-body problem persists as a particularly philosophical problem. Philosophers did not discover that water is H2O (no, not even Saul Kripke), so why should we think that philosophers, in their capacity as a priori theorizers, can discover and explain the relationship between mind and body?

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© 2014 Eric Funkhouser

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Funkhouser, E. (2014). A Call for Modesty: A Priori Philosophy and the Mind-Body Problem. In: Sprevak, M., Kallestrup, J. (eds) New Waves in Philosophy of Mind. New Waves in Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137286734_2

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