Readers of this book should already have some familiarity with modern philosophy of mind, and at least a glancing acquaintance with contemporary psychology and cognitive science. (Anyone of whom this is not true is recommended to look at one or more of the introductions listed at the end of the chapter.) Here we shall only try to set the arguments of subsequent chapters into context by surveying – very briskly – some of the historical debates and developments which form the background to our work.

Developments in philosophy of mind

Philosophy of mind in the English-speaking world has been dominated by two main ambitions throughout most of the twentieth century – to avoid causal mysteries about the workings of the mind, and to meet scepticism about other minds by providing a reasonable account of what we can know, or justifiably infer, about the mental states of other people. So most work in this field has been governed by two constraints, which we will call naturalism and psychological knowledge.

According to naturalism human beings are complex biological organisms and as such are part of the natural order, being subject to the same laws of nature as everything else in the world. If we are going to stick to a naturalistic approach, then we cannot allow that there is anything to the mind which needs to be accounted for by invoking vital spirits, incorporeal souls, astral planes, or anything else which cannot be integrated with natural science.