Mind and Supermind

Mind and Supermind offers a new perspective on the nature of belief and the structure of the human mind. Keith Frankish argues that the folk-psychological term ‘belief’ refers to two distinct types of mental state which have different properties and support different kinds of mental explanation. Building on this claim he develops a picture of the human mind as a two-level structure consisting of a basic mind and a supermind and shows how the resulting account sheds light on a number of puzzling phenomena and helps to vindicate folk psychology. Topics discussed include the function of conscious thought the cognitive role of natural language the relation between partial and flat-out belief the possibility of active belief formation and the nature of akrasia self-deception and first-person authority. This book will be valuable for philosophers psychologists and cognitive scientists.