Historically, the central focus of the philosophy of mind has moved away from the long
tradition that extends from Aristotle's De Anima to Hume's Treatise of Human Nature.
This tradition tried to provide elements of a theory of perception and of learning.
Many details were necessarily lacking, but a systematic survey of the functions of
the mind was expected. Philosophy of mind in the twentieth century moved away from
many parts of this tradition. I propose to revive it, with the additional consideration
of what has been learned about the mind in modern psychology and about the brain in
modern neuroscience. Three fundamental topics will be emphasized: the central role
of processes of perception, methods of computation embodied in brain activity, and the
nature of language processing in the brain.
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