Key Texts S.
2 total works
This collection of nine papers brings together many of Geach's thoughts on such wide topics as resurrection; deductive proof of the existence of God; God's role in ethics; materialism; and the relation of time and prayer. The first three papers are concerned with the survival of death and what form such a survival might take. This includes Geach's argument against materialism in "What do we think with?". Two further papers are concerned with arguments about existence, and the remaining papers concern natural theology.
Geach insists, in opposition to the behaviourism of the day, that there are episodic mental acts such as acts of judgment. How to characterize such mental acts remains as problematic as it was fifty years ago, and his book still has much to teach us. He begins with an attack on the abstractionist theory of concept-formation, then goes on to critize the relational theory of judgement propounded by Bertrand Russell. Moving from criticism to construction, Geach first offers an improved version of Russell's analysis, them moves on to offer an alternative of his own.