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Against the mind package view of minds: Comments on Carrie Figdor's Pieces of mind
Author(s) -
Schwitzgebel Eric
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
mind and language
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.905
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1468-0017
pISSN - 0268-1064
DOI - 10.1111/mila.12288
Subject(s) - feeling , philosophy of mind , theory of mind , psychology , epistemology , mind–body problem , cognitive science , computational theory of mind , cognitive psychology , aesthetics , philosophy , cognition , metaphysics , neuroscience
Carrie Figdor's Pieces of mind lays the groundwork for critiquing the mind package view of minds. According to the mind package view, psychological properties travel in groups, such that an entity either has the whole mind package or lacks mentality altogether. Implicit commitment to the mind package view makes it seem absurd to attribute some psychological properties (e.g., preferences) to entities that lack other psychological properties (e.g., feelings). Contra the mind package view, we are psychologically continuous with plants, worms, and bacteria: Our patterns of mindedness resemble theirs, even if such entities do not have the whole mind package.