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Locating mind in the causal world: L...

Wolfe, Charles T.

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Locating mind in the causal world: Locke, Collins and enlightened determinism.

Record Type:	Language materials, printed : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Locating mind in the causal world: Locke, Collins and enlightened determinism./
Author:	Wolfe, Charles T.
Description:	295 p.
Notes:	Adviser: Aaron V. Garrett.
Contained By:	Dissertation Abstracts International67-05A.
Subject:	History of Science. -
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3218563
ISBN:	9780542705052

Locating mind in the causal world: Locke, Collins and enlightened determinism.
Wolfe, Charles T.

Locating mind in the causal world: Locke, Collins and enlightened determinism. - 295 p.

Adviser: Aaron V. Garrett.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University, 2007.

This dissertation describes the emergence of a unique kind of compatibilist "volitional determinism" with Locke and his radical disciple Anthony Collins, and its reconstruction as a biologically grounded materialism in Denis Diderot. The goal of the thinkers examined here is less to redefine all mental events as physical events than to reconstruct psychological life in causal terms. A full assessment of this episode in intellectual history thus also involves concepts drawn from contemporary discussions in action theory and philosophy of mind.

ISBN: 9780542705052Subjects--Topical Terms:

896972
History of Science.

Locating mind in the causal world: Locke, Collins and enlightened determinism.
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020 $a 9780542705052
035 $a (UnM)AAI3218563
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040 $a UnM $c UnM
100 1 $a Wolfe, Charles T. $3 1086452
245 1 0 $a Locating mind in the causal world: Locke, Collins and enlightened determinism.
300 $a 295 p.
500 $a Adviser: Aaron V. Garrett.
500 $a Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-05, Section: A, page: 1764.
502 $a Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University, 2007.
520 $a This dissertation describes the emergence of a unique kind of compatibilist "volitional determinism" with Locke and his radical disciple Anthony Collins, and its reconstruction as a biologically grounded materialism in Denis Diderot. The goal of the thinkers examined here is less to redefine all mental events as physical events than to reconstruct psychological life in causal terms. A full assessment of this episode in intellectual history thus also involves concepts drawn from contemporary discussions in action theory and philosophy of mind.
520 $a I begin with Locke's critique of free will in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Locke gradually abandoned the view that we are determined by the Good and recognized an underlying hedonistic motivational process he called "uneasiness." But although Locke abandoned determination by the Good he reintroduced unconditioned action within this schema, through the "suspension of desire." In his Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (1717), Collins eliminated all second-order freedom, denying that there could be extra-causal "willing." For Collins, even when we believe and feel that we are willing freely, the beginning of the determined action precedes the feeling that we are free. Collins did not collapse the apparent complexity of mental life into an efficient causal mechanism which could be analyzed by the natural sciences. Instead, he argued skeptically and nominalistically for necessitation which is not merely 'physical' but 'moral' since it arises from motives. I suggest that Collins' volitional determinism and his notion of "moral necessity" constituted a significant innovation for naturalistic, determinist theories of mind and action. However, Collins did not explicitly analyze the material underpinnings of a causal-determinist theory of mind. I conclude by showing how this lacuna in Collins' account was filled by Diderot's biologically grounded materialism. Like Collins, Diderot rejected unconditioned freedom but contrary to physicalist determinism, sought "causes proper to man." This view centered on the concept of "organism" implies not only that there is a causal relation between mental states and actions but also that volition is inseparable from the organism's dispositions, experiences, and feelings.
590 $a School code: 0017.
650 4 $a History of Science. $3 896972
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710 2 0 $a Boston University. $3 1017454
773 0 $t Dissertation Abstracts International $g 67-05A.
790 $a 0017
790 1 0 $a Garrett, Aaron V., $e advisor
791 $a Ph.D.
792 $a 2007
856 4 0 $u http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3218563