Human Beings and Science

Abstract

A central idea of this book can be formulated in this way: it is a mistake to think that the key to an understanding of what a person is is to be found in the first person point of view. My argument shares that much — an emphasis on the third-person point of view — with the most dominant lines of thought in current philosophy of mind. Beyond that, however, there are quite fundamental differences. First, and most obviously, the focus of my interest is different. I am primarily concerned with the relation between our understanding of people and, broadly speaking, ethical considerations. By contrast the relationship between our normal understanding of people and a scientific understanding is the central concern of contemporary philosophy of mind. Now that difference in interest is, I think, in practice strongly linked with a further difference. The difference is to be seen in remarks such as the following: ‘I declare my starting point to be the objective, materialistic, third-person world of the physical sciences’.1 It is assumed that the third-person world is ‘the materialistic world of the physical sciences’. Anyone who combines this assumption with a strong emphasis on the third person point of view is likely to regard questions about the relationship between our normal understanding of people and that offered by the physical sciences as pretty urgent; and may view my preoccupation with ethical considerations as slightly premature.