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The Problem of the Soul: Two Visions of Mind and How to Reconcile Them
Author(s): Owen J. Flanagan (Author)
- Publisher: Basic Books
- Publication Date: 29 May 2002
- Language: English
- Print length: 384 pages
- ISBN-10: 0465024602
- ISBN-13: 9780465024605
Book Description
The illusions we must give up–concerning free will, personal identity, and the existence of the soul–and the (surprisingly rich) ideas we can keep. Traditional ideas about the basic nature of humanity are under attack as never before. The very attributes that make us human–free will, the permanence of personal identity, the existence of the soul–are being undermined and threatened by the current revolution in the science of the mind. If the mind is the brain, and therefore a physical object subject to deterministic laws, how can we have free will? If most of our thoughts and impulses are unconscious, how can we be morally responsible for what we do? The Problem of the Soul shows the way out of these seemingly intractable paradoxes. Framing the conflict in terms of two dominant visions of the mind–the “manifest image” of humanistic philosophy and theology, and the scientific image–renowned philosopher Owen Flanagan demonstrates that there is, in fact, common ground, and that we need not give up our ideas of moral responsibility and personal freedom in order to have an empirically sound view of the human mind.
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Owen Flanagan is James B. Duke Professor of Philosophy and Chairman of the Philosophy Department at Duke University. He is also Professor of Psychology and Professor of Neurobiology at Duke, as well as Affiliate Professor in the Graduate Program in Literature. He is the author of the classic Consciousness Reconsidered.
