Philosophy of Mind: A Very Short Introduction probes some of the great philosophical questions about the mind: What is the relationship between mind and matter? Can science unravel the mystery of consciousness? How can our thoughts represent things in the world? Are computers genuinely intelligent? In the book, Barbara Gail Montero highlights key thought experiments used by philosophers to explore the nature of mind and how mind and body relate to each other (the mind-body problem). She leads readers through the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed solutions to the mind-body problem and explores the philosophical conundrums associated with sensation, perception, cognition, and emotion. While keeping an eye on the contemporary philosophical debate, Montero also considers the cross-cultural roots of philosophy of mind, and its connections to psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and physics. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Barbara Gail Montero is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York. Most of her research concerns one or the other of two very different notions of body: body as the physical or material basis of everything, and body as the moving, breathing, flesh and blood instrument that we use when we run, walk, or dance. Her recent book Thought in Action: Expertise and the Conscious Mind (OUP, 2016) explores this latter topic. She is also the author of On the Philosophy of Mind (Wadsworth Press, 2009) and co-editor of Economics and the Philosophy of Mind, (Routledge, 2006). She has written over fifty articles, including one for the New York Times, which was reprinted in The Stone Reader: Modern Philosophy in 133 Arguments (Norton/Liveright, 2015).

Is the neurophysiology of pain all there is to pain? How do words and mental pictures come to represent things in the world? Do computers think, and if so, are their thought processes significantly similar to our thought processes? Or is there something distinctive about human thought that precludes replication in a computer? These are some of the puzzles that motivate the philosophical discipline called "philosophy of mind," a central area of philosophy. This Very Short Introduction introduces the philosophy of mind, and looks at some of the most interesting and important topics in this fascinating field, including the mind-body problem and dualism. Barbara Montero also discusses minds other than our own, and the problems associated with defining consciousness in animals, aliens and machines. Considering these and other such thorny issues such as physicalism and intentionality, she demonstrates how questions of the philosophy of mind also infiltrate disciplines outside of philosophy, including psychology, neuroscience, economics, evolutionary biology, and linguistics. As she observes, most everyone, at some time or another, has ruminated over the relation between mind and matter. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.