Description
Book SynopsisThe phenomenon of action in which the mind moves the body has puzzled philosophers over the centuries. In this new edition of a classic work of analytical philosophy, Brian O'Shaughnessy investigates bodily action and attempts to resolve some of the main problems.
Trade Review'Brian O'Shaughnessy is one of the best philosophers in England … He has worked by himself largely outside of contemporary philosophical society, and these wild and wonderful volumes reveal with what intensity and on what a scale he has worked … A good philosopher must find his obsession, and it will drive him for the rest of his life … O'Shaughnessy's obsession has been with the most intimate of those relations in which the self stands to the physical or 'external' world; its relation to that part of the physical world which it can move directly and of which it has immediate awareness - the body … The result is a theory of mind and body much richer than anything Wittgenstein would have allowed himself. With its strong personality and wonderful flights of language … the book is accessible to anyone with a taste for sustained philosophical argument and plenty of time.' Thomas Nagel, The Times Literary Supplement
Table of ContentsPart III. Dual Aspect Theory: Introduction; 9. Observation and the will; 10. The scope to the intention; 11. Voluntariness and volition; 12. The proof of a duel aspect theory of physical action; 13. The definition of action; 14. Defining the psychological and the mental; 15. The ontological status of physical action; 16. Dual aspect theory and the epistemology of physical action; Part IV. From Mind to Body: Introduction; 17. The antecedents of action (1): from desires to intention; 18. The antecedents of action (2): from intending to trying; 19. The antecedents of action (3): from will to action; 20. The 'mental pineal gland'.
