What are some key contributors for the philosophy of mind?

Answer 1

Depends on whether you're thinking of historical figures or contemporary ones.

For contemporary:

David Chalmers is famous for coining the term "the hard problem" - the problem of consciousness / the explanatory gap between physicalist explanation and the first person perspective. He ran off to Australia (ANU I think), but he's still big in the states. Also wrote about "the extended mind" with Jesse Prinz a few years back.

Daniel Dennett is known for being an instrumentalist regarding mental statements / explanations and for coining the term "the intentional stance" (the 'stance' we take when we give explanations of action/behavior by referencing beliefs and desires). He was still at Tufts last I checked. And he looks a bit like Santa Claus but is a huge jerk.

The Churchlands (Paul and Pat) are the most famous eliminativists - they claim that the mind 'reduces' to physical facts about the brain (meaning, more or less, that the mind just IS the brain, and that there are no irreducible facts about minds). Everyone else thinks they are crazy, even though most contemporary philosophers are physicalists (don't think the mind is composed of some metaphysically distinct substance, a la Descartes' substance dualism).

-D

Answer 2

Most of us assume that all thinking takes place in the
brain. Modern psychology treats body and mind as a
single unit called psycho-somatic system. Even though
modern medicine recognized the brain-spine system as a
single unit, it does not assign any thinking functions
to any part of the spine. Modern medicine says that
even when a considerable amount of brain is removed
through surgery, a person can still have reasonable
mental abilities and can lead a near normal life. Head
injuries are one of the commonest of all serious
accidents at present. However, these injuries leave few
people with lasting mental disabilities. On the
contrary, surgical removal of some 'safe' parts from
womb of a woman is known to cause problems of mind like
dementia. Then, what are the components of mind and
where are they located?

In the study of army veterans with spinal-cord
injuries, researchers found that they can become
emotional but they do not feel it - they do not have
the bodily heat that they used to have before the
injuries.

Scientists are not sure how the so called emotional
mechanism of the brain works (The Diagram Group, The
Brain: A User's Manual, Berkley Books, New York, 1983,
p. 215). Some modern philosophers wrote that emotion
has a strong physical component which is primarily felt
in the body (Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, Yogi
Impressions, Mumbai, 2004, p. 20).

During the 1970s, neurologists became increasingly
dissatisfied with the epiphenomenalism theories of mind
and brain. (Donald Watson, A Dictionary of Mind and
Spirit, Andre Deutsch Ltd., London, 1991, page 112)
More scientists came to suspect that mind and brain
were different in a kind and could interact.

Many Indians put their hand on the chest when they say
"I am saying this from the depths of my Manas". Manas
(mimd) is a common word used in India, and no one shows
his head when he uses that word. The English people
have a folk classification of mind which says that some
persons are brain-driven and some others are
heart-driven. We all know that the brain is the seat of
memory and knowledge. Then what about the other
component of mind in the chest? The Europeans have an
esoteric tradition that mind exists independently of
the physical brain, and thoughts become known to a
person through the brain.

Modern psychologists accept the existence of more than
one faculty of mind:

"Our two minds .... One is an act of the emotional
mind, the other of the rational mind. In a very real
sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that
feels" (Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence,
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 1996, page 8).

The Upanishads describe five components of mind.
They are located on the spine. Chitta is the emotional
component of mind and Manas is the rational component
of mind. Buddhi is the intellect which discriminates
between emotion and reason.

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Answer 3

The theory of evolution is surely one. 'Mind' can be thought of a phenomena, sustained by the central nervous sytem, that is essential to our survival.

Answer 4

Well. As the Scarecrow said to the Wizard of Oz, "If I only had a brain."
That would be as good a place as any to start!