Within the DEEDS literature, few if any, make reference to Gregory McCulloch’s The Life of the Mind (Routledge, 2003). The subtitle “An essay on phenomenological externalism” barely hints at McCulloch’s distinctiveness. According to Tim Crane’s forward to The Life of the Mind, it was a book that McCulloch had been working on for almost twenty years. And it shows. Unlike many books that hit the shelves, typically a reworking of a recent doctoral dissertation or a lazy cobbling together of previously published papers under some theme, McCulloch’s book is most refreshing. I first came across this book in 2003 and have now returned to reading it. It has turned out to be one of the most rewarding books in philosophy of mind in years. Quite what accounts for it being so unknown, I don’t know. I can only surmise that because it was published posthumously (McCulloch died in 2001) that without Gregory being actively behind the book, it’s been overlooked. For anyone interested in an non-Cartesian and non-materialist perspective refracted through an analytical sensibility, this book will be profoundly rewarding.
The book is concerned with three big themes (p.1):
phenomenology, the idea that it is like something to have a mind;
externalism, the idea that ‘the mind ain’t in the head’;
the epistemological Real Distinction, the idea that knowledge of minds as such is different in kind from that delivered by the physical sciences.
Reviews of The Life of the Mind can be found here and here. The only biographical details for Gregory are from Tim Crane’s forward: the department of philosophy at Birmingham University, his last affiliation, doesn’t seem to make any mention of Gregory. In any event, his work lives on in a wonderful book that will have a shelf life longer than most.
manwithoutqualities 