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Personal and Sub-personal: A Defence of Dennett's Early Distinction

Citation: Hornsby, Jennifer (2000) Personal and Sub-personal: A Defence of Dennett's Early Distinction.

Daniel Dennett introduced the term 'sub-personal' into philosophers' vocabulary thirty years ago. Dennett's uses of 'sub-personal' are of interest in connection with the development both of his own views and of the subject of philosophy of mind in the recent past. I have a particular reason for focusing on Dennett: his original distinction between personal and sub-personal levels of explanation is lost sight of in much recent work, with the result that a position that I should want to defend is lost sight of too. I shall present an argument designed to show that a satisfactory philosophy of mind must respect the distinction Dennett first made, and that this distinction is widely ignored nowadays. Even Dennett has deserted it, so that the position I want to defend is kept invisible. People lose sight of Dennett's personal/sub-personal distinction because they free it from its philosophical moorings. A distinction that serves a philosophical purpose is typically rooted in doctrine; it cannot be lifted out of context and continue to do its work. So I shall start from Dennett's distinction as I read it in its original context. And when I speak of 'the distinction', I mean to point not only towards the terms that Dennett first used to define it but also towards the philosophical setting within which its work was cut out.Article

Additional Information: Citation: Philosophical Explorations (Special Issue): 6-24.
Creators: Hornsby, Jennifer and
Subjects: Philosophy
Keywords: Dennett, Sub-personal
Divisions: Institute of Philosophy
Collections: London Philosophy Papers
Dates:
  • 2000 (published)
Comments and Suggestions:
Description/Provenance: Submitted by Mark McBride (mark.mcbride@sas.ac.uk) on 2008-01-05T16:38:40Z No. of bitstreams: 1 J_Hornsby_Personal.pdf: 184162 bytes, checksum: 60e58a7eea09355b472c66c8c971df0b (MD5); Description/Provenance: Made available in DSpace on 2008-01-05T16:38:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 J_Hornsby_Personal.pdf: 184162 bytes, checksum: 60e58a7eea09355b472c66c8c971df0b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2000. Date accessioned: 2008-01-05T16:38:40Z; Date available: 2008-01-05T16:38:40Z; Date issued: 2000.

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