On the dereification of mind

pp. 147-159

in: Jeff Coulter, Rethinking cognitive theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1983

Abstract

Although I believe that the arguments presented in this work point toward the possibility of a principled distinction between the study of mind (as properly conceived) and the study of brains and nervous systems, it is quite obvious that without the necessary physiological equipment to enable us to do what we do (so that the mental vocabulary can apply to us) there would be nothing for the student of mind to study. The main point being advanced here is that because the mental vocabulary is governed by a practical logic, originating within and having its proper locus within the "natural attitude" of mundane social life, it does not consist in proper "natural kind designators' which could be used to locate phenomena for which adequate physiological explanations might be sought. Moreover, due to the irreducibility of the predicates of meaningful action to strict behavioural-event predicates, it seems clear that the vocabulary of conduct in general has this same property.