Hegel and Mind : Rethinking Philosophical Psychology

Exploring Hegel's philosophical psychology to uncover viable remedies to the chief dilemmas plaguing contemporary philosophy of mind, Hegel and Mind exposes why mind cannot be an epistemological foundation nor reduced to discursive consciousness nor modelled after computing machines.

Hegel and Mind draws upon Hegel''s theory of "Subjective Spirit" to address the key problems of philosophical psychology. Winfield rethinks Hegel''s account of the psyche, consciousness, and intelligence to resolve the dilemmas of mind-body dualism and reveal the psychological reality of reason. Hegel and Mind shows why mental activity is not reducible to computation and why machines can never feel, be conscious, or think. Hegel''s famous analysis of desire and recognition is shown to establish how self-consciousness can be without thought or language, making possible the emergence of linguistic intelligence. On this basis, Hegel''s theory of representation is enlisted to grasp how thought can arise, enabling philosophy to account for its own psychological conditions. Hegel and Mind thereupon brings closure to the philosophy of mind by exploring the psychology of will, arriving at the threshold of ethics. The final chapter makes explicit the significance for knowledge of Hegel''s account of mind, showing why mental processes may be enabling conditions of knowledge, but not epistemological foundations distinguishing true from false beliefs.