Bennett, Laura Jane (1992) Realism and evidence in the philosophy of mind. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis evaluates a variety of important modern
approaches to the study of the mind/brain in the light of
recent developments in the debate about how evidence should
be used to support a theory and its constituent hypotheses.
Although all these approaches are ostensibly based upon the
principles of scientific realism, this evaluation will
demonstrate that all of them fall well short of these
requirements. Consequently, the more modern,
co-evolutionary theories of the mind/brain do not
constitute the significant advance upon more traditional
theories that their authors take them to be.
There are two fundamental elements within my discussion of
the relationship between evidence and the constituent
hypotheses of a theory. Firstly, I shall demonstrate that
the traditional veil-of-perception issue has a wider
relevance than that which has historically been attributed
to it, since it is the paradigm case of an attempt to
construct a two level theory on the basis of evidence tha~
does not adequately support either hypothesis. This
interpretation of the issue can be represented by
constructing a semantically inconsistent tetrad. It is
shown that similar tetrads can be constructed for each of
the theories of the mind/brain discussed in this thesis.
Secondly, I shall argue that the theories discussed all
employ a variety of the bootstrap strategy. This strategy
is a relatively recent development in the philosophy of
science, which suggests a way in which the same evidence
can be used to generate both a general and a specific
hypothesis within a theory without violating the
constraints of scientific realism. However, I contend that
recent use of this strategy in the investigation of mind is
largely unsatisfactory as a result of a neglect of
structural as well as more informal influences upon the
kinds of evidence employed to support the hypotheses
contained in the theories.
The thesis is divided into three major sections. The first
(Section A) discusses the influence of the motivations of
the individual theorists upon their arguments and provides
a critical discussion of the issues of the
veil-of-perception and bootstrapping. The second section
(Section B) comprises a detailed examination of a range of
modern theories of the mind/brain and critically analyses
their success. The final section (Section C) draws
together general conclusions and methodological
consequences of the detailed analysis of the nature of
realism and evidence in the philosophy of mind.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BD Speculative Philosophy
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Philosophy of mind, Realism, Evidence
Official Date:	June 1992
Dates:	Date Event June 1992 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Philosophy
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Hunt, Gregory
Extent:	ix, 413 p.
Language:	eng

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