Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind

The unifying theme of these thirteen essays is understanding. What is it? What does it take to have it? What does it presuppose in what can be understood? In the first group of essays John Haugeland addresses mind and intelligence. Intelligibility comes to the fore in a set of "metaphysical" pieces on analog and digital systems and supervenience. In the third set of papers Haugeland elaborates and then undermines a battery of common presuppositions about the foundational notions of intentionality and representation. Finally, the fourth and most recent group of essays confronts the essential character of understanding in relation to what is understood. The necessary interdependence between personality and intelligence is developed and explained, specifically in the conditions of the possibility of objective scientific knowledge.

Bookending these mostly previously published 13 essays toward a new existentialism, the author's jacket coin art evokes the basic Kantian/Heideggerian conclusion: the constituted objective world and the free constituting subject are intelligible only as two sides of a coin. The "Mind" section fathoms understanding intelligence scientifically. "Matter" focuses on the material incarnation of the mental, while the "Meaning" essays consider representation and intentionality. The "Truth" conclusion confronts objective knowledge.
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The unifying theme of these thirteen essays is understanding. In the first group of essays John Haugeland addresses mind and intelligence. Intelligibility comes to the fore in a set of metaphysical pieces on analog and digital systems and supervenience. In the third set of papers Haugeland elaborates and then undermines a battery of common presuppositions about the foundational notions of intentionality and representation. Finally, the fourth and most recent group of essays confronts the essential character of understanding in relation to what is understood. The necessary interdependence between personality and intelligence is developed and explained, specifically in the conditions of the possibility of objective scientific knowledge. Researchers and students in cognitive science and philosophy of mind will welcome this collection of 13 essays...A 'must' for any serious collection in cognitive science and philosophy of mind. --R. M. Stewart, Choice This very readable but concise book will serve as an invaluable introduction to the philosophy of cognitive psychology from a critical perspective. It will be useful for all working in the area of cognitive psychology and neural modelling who are interested in understanding the philosophical assumptions underlying the current research activities. --South Pacific Journal of Psychology

John Haugelandis Professor of Philosophy at the <>University of Chicago. He is the author of Artificial Intelligence: The Very Ideaand editor of Mind Designand Mind Design II.

Toward a New Existentialism

Mind

The Nature and Plausibility of Cognitivism

Understanding Natural Language

Hume on Personal Identity

Matter

Analog and Analog

Weak Supervenience

Ontological Supervenience

Meaning

The Intentionality All-Stars

Representational Genera

Mind Embodied and Embedded

Truth

Objective Perception

Pattern & Being

Understanding: Dennett and Searle

Truth and Rule-Following