Desire and belief

About this book

"What are states of mind? The book develops an answer with deep import for our understanding of ourselves. At once introductory, assuming only the reader's inquisitiveness, and yet rigorous enough to command the attention of experts, it maps the terrain to be explored, notes the minefields of philosophical controversy, and lays out a path through them. Respectful of the reader's own mind, the author always presents the major alternatives to his views and gives reasons for preferring his own. His book is at once conservative, initially focusing on traditional mentalistic psychology and doing justice to the mind's uniquely human features, and also revolutionary, in that it uncovers by patient analysis of that psychology the primitive survivals of ancestral mentality, revealing the mind's evolution. Thus the author initiates a new kind of analytic technique that opens the way for philosophy to become more fruitful."--BOOK JACKET.