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This book explores a neglected philosophical question: How do groups of interacting minds relate to singular minds? Could several of us, by organizing ourselves the right way, constitute a single conscious mind that contains our minds as parts? And could each of us have been, all along, a group of mental parts in close cooperation? Scientific progress seems to be slowly revealing that all the different physical objects around us are, at root, just a matter of the right parts put together in the right ways: How far could the same be true of minds? This book argues that we are too used to seeing the mind as an indivisible unity and that understanding our place in nature requires being willing to see minds as composite systems, simultaneously one conscious whole and many conscious parts. In thinking through the implications of such a shift of perspective, the book relates the question of mental combination to a range of different theories of the mind (in particular panpsychism, functionalism, and Neo-Lockeanism about personal identity) and identifies, clarifies, and addresses a wide array of philosophical objections (concerning personal identity, the unity of consciousness, the privacy of experience, and other issues) that have been raised against the idea of composite minds. The result is an account of the metaphysics of composition and consciousness that can illuminate many different debates in philosophy of mind, concerning split brains, collective intentionality, and the combination problem, among others.--publisher.

Philosophical anthropology --- Theory of knowledge --- Panpsychism. --- Subjectivity. --- Consciousness. --- Metaphysics.

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This book is the fruit of twenty-five years of study of Spinoza by the editor and translator of a new and widely acclaimed edition of Spinoza's collected works. Based on three lectures delivered at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1984, the work provides a useful focal point for continued discussion of the relationship between Descartes and Spinoza, while also serving as a readable and relatively brief but substantial introduction to the Ethics for students. Behind the Geometrical Method is actually two books in one. The first is Edwin Curley's text, which explains Spinoza's masterwork to readers who have little background in philosophy. This text will prove a boon to those who have tried to read the Ethics, but have been baffled by the geometrical style in which it is written. Here Professor Curley undertakes to show how the central claims of the Ethics arose out of critical reflection on the philosophies of Spinoza's two great predecessors, Descartes and Hobbes. The second book, whose argument is conducted in the notes to the text, attempts to support further the often controversial interpretations offered in the text and to carry on a dialogue with recent commentators on Spinoza. The author aligns himself with those who interpret Spinoza naturalistically and materialistically.

Spinoza, Baruch --- Ethics --- Spinoza, Benedictus de, --- Ethics. --- Deontology --- Ethics, Primitive --- Ethology --- Moral philosophy --- Morality --- Morals --- Philosophy, Moral --- Science, Moral --- Philosophy --- Values --- Ethik. --- Spinoza, Baruch. --- Spinoza, Baruch; Ethica. --- God. --- Hobbes, Thomas. --- affects. --- attribute. --- body. --- conatus. --- determinism. --- egoism. --- essence. --- explaoation. --- exteosion. --- freedom. --- friendship. --- humility. --- idea. --- immutability. --- joy. --- knowledge. --- laws of nature. --- materialism. --- monism. --- motion. --- necessity. --- nobility. --- omniscience. --- panpsychism. --- parallelism. --- physics. --- power. --- real distinction. --- reason. --- sadness. --- skepticism. --- substance. --- teleology. --- utility. --- whole of nature. --- Ethische Theorie --- Moral --- Philosophische Ethik --- Sittenlehre --- Moralphilosophie --- Ethiker --- Praktische Philosophie --- Theorie --- Morale. --- Spinoza, Baruch,