The Analysis of Mind - Softcover

Russell, Bertrand

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1588277097 ISBN 13: 9781588277091

Publisher: IndyPublish, 2002

Synopsis

There are certain occurrences which we are in the habit of calling "mental." Among these we may take as typical Believing and Desiring. The exact definition of the word "mental" will, I hope, emerge as the lectures proceed; for the present, I shall mean by it whatever occurrences would commonly be called mental. I wish in these lectures to analyse as fully as I can what it is that really takes place when we, e.g. believe or desire. In this first lecture I shall be concerned to refute a theory which is widely held, and which I formerly held myself: the theory that the essence of everything mental is a certain quite peculiar something called "consciousness," conceived either as a relation to objects, or as a pervading quality of psychical phenomena. The reasons which I shall give against this theory will be mainly derived from previous authors. There are two sorts of reasons, which will divide my lecture into two parts: (1) Direct reasons, derived from analysis and its difficulties; (2) Indirect reasons, derived from observation of animals (comparative psychology) and of the insane and hysterical (psycho-analysis).

About this title

From the Publisher:

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From the Back Cover:

"This book has grown out of an attempt to harmonize two different tendencies, one in psychology, the other in physics, with both of which I find myself in sympathy, although at first sight they might seem inconsistent," Bertrand Russell wrote at the beginning of The Analysis of Mind, a collection of lectures delivered in London and Peking. He then unfolds for his readers his ideas on consciousness, instinct and habit, desire and feeling, introspection, perception, sensations and images, memory, words and meaning, belief, and characteristics of mental phenomenon.

Throughout, Russell explores the mystery of the mind, and proposes that there exists a fundamental material of which both mind and matter exist. "The stuff of which the world of our experience is composed is, in my belief, neither mind nor matter, but something more primitive than either," he wrote. "Both mind and matter seem to be composite, and the stuff of which they are compounded lies in a sense between the two, in a sense above them both, like a common ancestor."

About this edition

• Publisher: IndyPublish
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1588277097
• ISBN 13: 9781588277091
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 206