I am a tremendous admirer of Jonathan Lowe's books, both for his even-handed, thorough, and nuanced treatment of his topics and for the extraordinary lucidity of his expository prose style. So, naturally, I ordered this volume as soon as it became available, with high expectations.

I was not disappointed. This fine volume is a complete, systematic introduction to the philosophy of mind. And Lowe's remarkable exposition will be accessible to the beginner but sacrifices nothing in precision or completeness in order to achieve that accessibility.

The main feature that sets this volume apart from other apparently similar introductions is the balance Lowe strikes between philosophy proper and cognitive science. Lowe spares no effort to incorporate relevant results from empirical research, but he is quite unwilling to concede that philosophy has simply become the handmaid of empirical psychology or neuroscience. In spirit though not in detail, his approach reminds me of Brand Blanshard's in _The Nature of Thought_.

Moreover, Lowe's presentation is more concerned with raising important questions than with determining their answers. Some of the most valuable passages in his book simply point out the existence of significant _problems_ and canvass the possible solutions. In some cases he prefers one solution to another and says so, giving his reasons. But in every case the entire array of proposals receives a fair hearing, with references.

The text consists of an introduction and nine topical chapters, devoted in turn to these title topics: minds, bodies, and people; mental states; mental content; sensation and appearance; perception; thought and language; human rationality and artifical intelligence; action, intention, and will; and personal identity and self-knowledge. The order of the chapters is of course important, but I find that each can be read as a mostly self-contained introduction to its topic.

The coverage is extremely thorough. Lowe's discussion introduces a wide range of subissues, including e.g. whether minds are "things," the ontological status of propositions, sense-data vs. "adverbial" accounts of sensory experience, the existence (or otherwise) of qualia, the meaning(s) of rationality, the relevance of these possible meanings to the claims of empirical research, the nature of intentionality, John Searle's famous "Chinese room" experiment, and the meaning of "free will." (This last topic is one of several that might not ordinarily be regarded as part of the "philosophy of mind." Lowe acknowledges as much but finds good reason to discuss the experiments of Benjamin Libet -- the ones that appeared to show that certain choices actually _followed_ certain changes in the brain by as much as a fifth of a second.)

Here as elsewhere, Lowe's great strength is his ability to make issues clear, including his uncanny skill in raising a broad range of possibilities and objections within a just few paragraphs or pages without sacrifice of depth. I really don't know how to convey, in a short review, the remarkable effectiveness of Lowe's exposition; suffice it to say that he is a gifted prose stylist whose straightforward clarity is admirably suited to philosophical material.

In short, this volume is a wonderfully clear presentation of its title topic, suitable to readers of any philosophical commitment or none. Lowe's own views are quite defensible in their own right, of course, and readers may be led to consult his other works (of which I have also reviewed his excellent book _Locke on Human Understanding_). However, quite apart from agreement on particular issues, any reader seeking an introduction to the philosophy of mind can hardly find a better, fairer, or more thorough guide than Lowe. I can't praise this workmanlike volume enough.

John Locke was without a doubt one of the sanest and soberest souls ever to put pen to paper. Here philosopher Jonathan Lowe provides a fine and thorough introduction to Locke's greatest and most influential work: his _Essay Concerning Human Understanding_.

Lowe not only provides clear and sound explications of Locke's own views, carefully placing them into historical context, but also inquires into whether Locke's views can be defended today -- and, perhaps surprisingly, finds that many of them are defensible though perhaps in need of modification. And Lowe does not hesitate to add his own views where necessary, by way of suggesting how a modern follower of Locke might carry his philosophy forward in light of scientific developments since Locke's day.

The result is more than an introduction to Locke -- it is a scintillating volume that will be a pleasurable read even for longtime readers of Locke. Lowe has a knack for picking out the most interesting features of Locke's thought and presenting them in a new light.

For example, I was quite struck by Lowe's remarks on Locke's "particularist" (Lowe's term) view of logic. Locke, as his readers may know, was extremely critical of syllogistic formalism, holding that while reasoned arguments may indeed be put in syllogistic form, it was nevertheless ridiculous to maintain that the use of the form itself is what gives validity to an argument. As Locke famously remarked, God was not so sparing as to make men barely two-legged and leave it to Aristotle to make them rational.

Lowe trenchantly notes that Locke's critiques would apply equally well to the Frege-Russell variety of formal logic; Locke, very much like Brand Blanshard in _Reason and Analysis_, held that we reason by connecting terms through their _meanings_, which a strictly formal logic provides no way to do.

Lowe's remarks on this point are food for thought not only on the matter of formal logic but on the question of what allegedly divides "rationalism" from "empiricism." Elsewhere in this volume, Lowe suggests that the firm distinction between these allegedly opposite schools of thought cannot be made out; and Locke was quite clearly a rationalist as regards knowledge even if he believed we arrived at all of our our ideas "empirically." That is, Locke clearly still has something to say to the rationalist philosophers of our own day -- and through Lowe, he says it.

And says it well: it is very much to Lowe's credit that, through his own lucid prose, he has allowed Locke to speak so clearly. The reader of this excellent introduction will find Locke to be fine intellectual company -- and also Lowe, a clear thinker and graceful writer whose own admiration for Locke is never explicitly stated but is nevertheless obvious through the keen sympathy of his presentation.

All in all, then, a delightful volume very much in the Lockean spirit.

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