David Papineau

Clearing the Head

Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking

By

Allen Lane/The Penguin Press 496pp £20 order from our bookshop

According to modern science, we live in a material world. Everything that happens depends on the play of fundamental particles moving in strict accord with the laws of physics. Nothing is exempt. Stars, rainbows, plant growth, animal behaviour and the antics of our own exquisite selves are all essentially physical processes. If it doesn’t seem like that to us at first sight, this is only because of the unrevealing ways in which our material brains respond to the material world.

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