• Introduction: New Approaches to Knotty Old Problems


• 1: Avoiding Cartesian Materialism


• 2: From Causal Reductionism to Self-Directed Systems


• 3: From Mindless to Intelligent Action


• 4: How Can Neural Nets Mean?


• 5: How Does Reason Get Its Grip on the Brain?


• 6: Who's Responsible?


• 7: Neurobiological Reductionism and Free Will


• Postscript

If humans are purely physical, and if it is the brain that does the work formerly assigned to the mind or soul, then how can it fail to be the case that all of our thoughts and actions are determined by the laws of neurobiology? If this is the case, then free will, moral responsibility, and, indeed, reason itself would appear to be in jeopardy. Murphy and Brown present an original defence of a non-reductive version of physicalism whereby humans are (sometimes) the authors of their own thoughts and actions.