Naturalism and the First-Person Perspective [Paperback]

Science and its philosophical companion, Naturalism, represent reality in wholly nonpersonal terms. How, if at all, can a nonpersonal scheme accommodate the first-person perspective that we all enjoy? In this volume, Lynne Rudder Baker explores that question by considering both reductive and eliminative approaches to the first-person perspective. After finding both approaches wanting, she mounts an original constructive argument to show that a non-Cartesian first-person perspective belongs in the basic inventory of what exists. That is, the world that contains us persons is irreducibly personal.

After arguing for the irreducibilty and ineliminability of the first-person perspective, Baker develops a theory of this perspective. The first-person perspective has two stages, rudimentary and robust. Human infants and nonhuman animals with consciousness and intentionality have rudimentary first-person perspectives. In learning a language, a person acquires a robust first-person perspective: the capacity to conceive of oneself as oneself, in the first person. By developing an account of personal identity, Baker argues that her theory is coherent, and she shows various ways in which first-person perspectives contribute to reality.

Introduction: What is the Problem?
The Claim of Naturalism
A Challenge to Naturalism
What is at Stake
An Overview

Part I: The Core Argument

Chapter 1. Varieties of Naturalism
What Counts As 'Science'?
Reductive Naturalism
Nonreductive Naturalism
Disenchantment and Optimism

Chapter 2. On Naturalizing the First-Person Perspective
What is Naturalization?
The Robust First-Person Perspective
The Rudimentary First-Person Perspective

Chapter 3. Reductive Approaches to the First-Person Perspective
John Perry on an Epistemic Account of the Self
David Lewis on De Se Belief
A Comment on John Searle
Can Cognitive Science Save the Day?

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