This book consists of a number of
selected essays in the philosophy of mind and language that have been published
by the author over the past fifteen years. While discussion seems at first
glance to be very academic, it is in fact carried out in a fairly
conversational style.  Jane Heal is
professor of philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of St. John’s
College in Cambridge, UK.  In the
Introduction she points out that she will attempt to address three main
questions with her essays:  first, How
do we arrive at psychological judgements about others?, second, How should we
explain psychological concepts and what is it to possess them?, and third, What
is the nature of the beings, persons, to whom the concepts apply and who are
the subjects of the judgements?  (1).

Heal’s writing is clearly academic
in tone, yet she is careful to explain technical terms in language that most
readers will be able to follow.  But
while simplicity is a positive feature of this book on one level, there is
another level at which simplicity will no doubt cause some readers a certain
amount of frustration.  I will return to
this point momentarily.

The book is divided into four
parts.  The first, titled  "Mind, Theory, and Imagination,"
contains five chapters presenting arguments concerning how it is that one person
comes to some sort of understanding of the thoughts and behaviours of
another.  The second part, titled
"Thought and Reason," contains three chapters which focus on what
Heal calls "the simulation approach" discussed in the first section,
and on semantic holism (the fact that no thought stands alone but is always
contained among others) and how it is we may know other minds.  The third part, titled "Indexical
Predicates and Their Application," contains two chapters on the philosophy
of language dealing with ways of referring or describing that don’t involve
language directly.  The fourth and final
part is titled  "Thinking of Minds
and Interacting With Persons." 
This section discusses what a definition of rationality ought to
include, what states of mind, and how those mental states are ‘connected’ to
behaviour.  There is, of course, a
significant amount of argument throughout the book in response to people like
Dennett, Wittgenstein and others that will be of interest to specialist
academic readers.  I won’t discuss them
in this review for a general readership.  

I mentioned above that some who read this book will
experience a certain amount of frustration. 
I admit I’m one of them.  My
frustration came from the fact that this book discusses at great length what I
consider to be some very trivial things. 
I’ll admit I’m not an avid scholar of the philosophy of mind or
language, although I’ve studied both. 
But I was amazed at how Heal took simple concepts and presented them as
though they were extremely profound. 
For example, in the second chapter she discusses how it is that we can
assume we know what the other person’s thinking or motivation is.  She compares "functionalism"  (assuming a cause behind every thought or
behaviour) to her own approach which she calls the "replicating
view"  (p. 13).   She describes this as a new approach which
requires using your own imagination to put yourself in the other’s place in
order to better understand their point of view.  The term she uses–replicating view–sounds great; very
academic.  But don’t the rest of us call
it empathy?  The problem is, of course,
if she had called it empathy she wouldn’t have been able to devote an entire
chapter describing, explaining, and defending it as an exciting new concept in
her field. Then in the third chapter she discusses  "simulation theory." 
Again, it sounds great, but what it means is very simple:  in order to figure out what someone else is
thinking we try to re-create imaginatively or "simulate his or her
thoughts, we re-create in ourselves some parallel to his or her thought
processes"  (29).  In other words, this "simulation
theory" is just me imagining what someone else may be thinking.  Seventeen pages in this chapter and the next
two chapters are then devoted to discussing the merits of the simulation
approach.  I found this very
disappointing because I expected something different. 

Perhaps, in order for my expectations to be met Heal
would have had to write a completely different book.  I must admit, the further I got into the book the more mature the
writing seemed to become.  The last
three chapters offer at least a few solidly interesting perspectives on
rationality, but this did not make up for some very tedious reading in the
first two thirds of the book.  This
collection of essays will no doubt be of interest to upper-level students who
are focusing their studies in on the philosophy of mind and language, and to a
lesser degree to students of psychology and perhaps some clinical
psychologists.  But I found it difficult
going, not because it was difficult in a technical sense but because it was
difficult to keep my concentration operative. 

© 2003 Peter B. Raabe

Peter B. Raabe
teaches philosophy and has a private practice in philosophical counseling in
North Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of the books Philosophical
Counseling: Theory and Practice (Praeger, 2001) and Issues
in Philosophical Counseling (Praeger, 2002).

Categories: Philosophical