What is a Human Being A Heideggerian View [Paperback]

Olafson develops Heidegger's philosophy and yields a distinctive new alternative in the philosophy of mind.Drawing on certain basic ideas of Heidegger, this text presents an alternative to the debate waged between dualists and materialists in the philosophy of mind. It involves changing the way we usually think about mental life and breaking down familiar contrasts between the physical and the psychological. Drawing on certain basic ideas of Heidegger, this text presents an alternative to the debate waged between dualists and materialists in the philosophy of mind. It involves changing the way we usually think about mental life and breaking down familiar contrasts between the physical and the psychological. This broad, ambitious study is about human nature--treated in a way quite different from the scientific account that influences so much of contemporary philosophy. Drawing on certain basic ideas of Heidegger, the author presents an alternative to the debate waged between dualists and materialists in the philosophy of mind that involves reconceiving the way we usually think about mental life. Olafson argues that familiar contrasts between the physical and the psychological break down under closer scrutiny. They need to be replaced by a conception of human being in which we are not entities compounded out of body and mind, but unitary entities that are distinguished by having a world, which is very different from simply being a part of the world.1. Inside and outside; 2. Perception as presence; 3. Presence and absence; 4. Individuation; 5. Polarity and agency; 6. Bodies; 7. The entity each of us is; Conclusion; Index.