Review by Choice Review
In this clearly written and well-organized work, Robinson (Iowa State University) aims to show that people are not wholly physical. He considers four nontheological arguments that aim to show that people are partly nonphysical. The first argument relies on the assumption that people have sensations, and sensations cannot plausibly be identified with physical things. The second depends on the claim that (a) people use utterances that are about things, i.e., have "intentionality," and that (b) intentionality is not a purely physical phenomenon. The third argument claims that we cannot account for the unity of the self if we assume that a person is entirely physical. And the final argument claims that if we were purely physical, we could not be the subjects of moral evaluation. Robinson supports the first of these four arguments, and argues that the other three are unsuccessful. He defends a version of dualism since he states that persons are partly nonphysical because they have sensations that are nonphysical. In Robinson's view, sensations are nonphysical because they are nonspatial; they are caused by firing neurons. Two recent related works are W. G. Lycan's Consciousnness (1987) and Hilary Putnam's Representation and Reality (1988). Recommended for any library supporting an undergraduate major in philosophy or psychology. -P.K. Moser, Loyola University of Chicago
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
