Jaegwon Kim presents a selection of his essays from the last two decades. The volume includes three new essays, on an agent-centered first-person account of action explanation, the concepts of realization and their bearings on the mind-body problem, and the nonexistence of laws in the special sciences. Among other topics covered are emergence and emergentism, the nature of explanation and of theories of explanation, reduction and reductive explanation, mental causation and explanatory exclusion. Kim tackles questions such as: How should we understand the concept of "emergence", and what are the prospects of emergentism as a doctrine about the status of minds? What does an agent-centered, first-person account of explanation of human actions look like? Why aren't there strict laws in the special sciences - sciences like biology, psychology, and sociology? The essays will be accessible to attentive readers without an extensive philosophical background.

About the Author
Jaegwon Kim received his PhD from Princeton University in 1962 and has taught at Swarthmore College, the University of Michigan, Cornell University, and University of Notre Dame. He is presently William Herbert Perry Faunce Professor of Philosophy at Brown University. Kim is past President of the American Philosophical Association and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Reviews
a valuable addition to the literature on the metaphysics on the mind * Grant Gillett, Philsophy *



Book Information
ISBN 9780199585885
Author Jaegwon Kim
Format Paperback
Page Count 326
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 508g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 156mm * 19mm