Lecture: "Is the Mind a Physical Thing?” As part of the New Directions in the Study of the Mind project, Tim Crane will giving a public lecture.
The lecture will take place at 5:00-6:30pm on Wednesday 17th May, at Newnham College, in the Lucia Windsor Room, which is accessible from the Newnham College Porters' Lodge on Sidgwick Avenue. The lecture will be followed by a reception. Please do come along. All are welcome, though places are limited. To register, visit the event’s webpage <http://www.newdirectionsproject.com/events/2017/05/17/physicalmind/>. Registration closes on Tuesday 9th May. Abstract To answer the question of whether the mind is a physical thing requires us first to understand what is meant by ‘physical’ and ‘thing’. The traditional debate over the mind-body problem tends to take it for granted that these terms should be understood in the way they have been since the 17th century: those who these days assert the doctrine of physicalism or materialism take themselves to be disagreeing, for example, with Descartes. I argue that unless we accept the metaphysical assumptions behind this 17th century debate, the contemporary debate between dualists and physicalists/materialists loses a lot of its point; and that once we explicitly abandon these assumptions, we can see the way to the conclusion that there is no interesting sense in which the mind a physical thing. Any questions? Get in touch by email <mailto:[email protected]>. This lecture is a part of the New Directions in the Study of the Mind <http://www.newdirectionsproject.com/> project, based in the Faculty of Philosophy in Cambridge, and supported by the John Templeton Foundation <https://www.templeton.org/>. Alexander Greenberg <http://alexandergreenberg.github.io/> | Research Associate & Project Administrator New Directions in the Study of the Mind <http://www.newdirectionsproject.com/> Faculty of Philosophy | University of Cambridge _____________________________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CamPhilEvents mailing list, or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents List archive: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive Please note that CamPhilEvents doesn't accept email attachments. See the list information page for further details and suggested alternatives.
