Abstract

Both the strengths and the weaknesses of this book derive from its acceptance and maintenance of sharp distinctions between the acknowledged positions and categories in current, analytically-minded philosophical psychology. Thus, while Beloff is able to distinguish between linguistic theories of the mind-body problem and ontologically committed physicalisms, he is too quick to conclude that the former inevitably lead to the latter if followed through consistently; and while he has given fairly strong arguments for disputing the physicalistic hypothesis, his suggestion that dualism à la Broad is the only other theory afoot that can "save the appearances" is open to question from someone adopting a Strawsonian or Merleau-Pontyean approach to the mind-body problem. Strawson's theory is considered but set aside as uncompelling because solipsism is not the inevitable result of the dualistic hypothesis. But even though Beloff has not provided any notable new insights into a set of currently puzzling issues in philosophical psychology, he has provided some exceptionally clear discussions of such problems as the relation between mind and body, perception, action, free will, paranormal phenomena, as well as one of the most judiciously sympathetic yet critical accounts of the scope and applications of the Cybernetical model of cognitive processes. In all, a partisan yet excellent introduction to the philosophy of mind.—E. A. R.