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This book explores new perspectives on venerable problems about being mental that have always attracted philosophers attention. For human beings, being mental is one of the most fascinating research subjects, since having a mind is the feature that makes our life unique. Yet what does mentality really consist in? Is there a realm of the mental that can be singled out from other domains, and in what relation does being mental stand with other basic features of the world, notably being physical or having a body? By linking mentality with intentionality, phenomenal consciousness, and other interesting features this book provides a fresh perspective on philosophy of mind.
List of contents
1 Introduction.- Section 1: Intentionality.- 2 Brentano s Intentional In-Existence of the Object as the Defining Mark of Mental Phenomena (Mauro Antonelli).- 3 Apparent Relationality as the Mark of the Mental (Laura Gow).- 4 Is Intentionality a Natural Mark of the Mental? On Brentano s Scientific Methodology (Gianfranco Soldati).- 5 Naturalizing Phenomenal Intentionality (Andrea Pace Giannotta).- Section 2: Experience.- 6 Cambridge Experientialism Revisited (Arnaud Dewalque).- 7 The Copula Theory of Experience Makes Experience the Mark of the Mental (Alberto Voltolini).- 8 A Theory of Phenomenal For-me-ness (Alfredo Tomasetta).- Section 3: Between Intentionality and Experience and the Other Brentanian Marks.- 9 In Defence of a Sui Generis Disjunctivistic Account of the Mark of the Mental (Alberto Barbieri and Elisabetta Sacchi).- 10 Consciousness, Content, and Mentality (Sam Coleman).- 11 Brentanian Marks of the Mental: From Intentionality to Unity (Mark Textor).- Section 4. Other Marks and Further Problems.- 12 Character Traits and the Mark of the Mental (Katalin Farkas).- 13 Love, Understanding and the Marks of the Mental & the Psychological (Kevin Mulligan).- 14 No Marks of the Mental without Marks of the Physical (Tuomas Pernu).
About the author
Alberto Voltolini (PhD Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa 1989) is a philosopher of language and mind whose works have focused mainly on intentionality, depiction and fiction, perception, and Wittgenstein. He is currently Professor in Philosophy of Mind at the University of Turin (Italy). He has got scholarships at the Universities of Geneva and Sussex. He has been visiting professor at the Universities of California, Riverside (1998), Australian National University, Canberra (2007), Barcelona (2010), London (2015), Auckland (2007, 2018), Antwerp (2019). He has been a member of the Steering Committee of the European Society for Analytic Philosophy (2002-2008), of the Board of the European Society for Philosophy and Psychology (2009-2012), and of the International Society for Fiction and Fictionality Studies (2018-2023). His publications include How Ficta Follow Fiction (Springer, 2006), as well as the “Fictional Entities” and the “Fiction” entries (with F. Kroon) of the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, A Syncretistic Theory of Depiction (Palgrave, 2015) and Down But Not Out (Springer, 2022).
Summary
This book explores new perspectives on venerable problems about being mental that have always attracted philosophers’ attention. For human beings, being mental is one of the most fascinating research subjects, since having a mind is the feature that makes our life unique. Yet what does mentality really consist in? Is there a realm of the mental that can be singled out from other domains, and in what relation does being mental stand with other basic features of the world, notably being physical or having a body? By linking mentality with intentionality, phenomenal consciousness, and other interesting features this book provides a fresh perspective on philosophy of mind.
