The Percept and Vector Function Theories of the Brain
- 1 December 1988
- journal article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Philosophy of Science
- Vol. 55 (4) , 511-537
- https://doi.org/10.1086/289459
Abstract
Physicalism is anempiricaltheory of the mind and its place in nature. So the physicalist must show that current neuroscience does not falsify physicalism, but instead supports it. Current neuroscience shows that a nervous system is what I call avector function system.I provide a brief outline of the resources that empirical research has made available within the constraints of the vector function approach. Then I argue that these resources are sufficient, indeed apt, for the physicalist enterprise, by offering a vector functional, hence physicalist, theory of thepercept—the perceptual experience itself, a paradigm of phenomenally immediate, introspectively accessible consciousness.Keywords
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