Includes index (pages 505-514).

Part I. Philosophy: its subject matter, method, and utility : Metaphysics, knowledge, and the mind-body problem ; The problems of any science ; The practical problems of philosophy ; The theoretical problems of philosophy ; The method of knowledge in philosophy ; Philosophical method, reality, and the mind-body problem -- Part II. Fundamental categories : Causality: critique of Hume's analysis ; Analysis of the causal relation ; The universality and uniformity of causation ; Causality, substances, properties, and events ; Causality, determinism, and freedom -- Part III. Nature, matter, and minds : Nature, matter, and mind as behavior ; The relation of sensa to sensing ; What is mental? ; Objective reference, objects, and the perception of nature ; The mental operations ; The substantiality of minds -- Part IV. The mind-body relation and the possibility of a life after death : The mind-body relation ; The case against the possibility of survival ; The case for the possibility of survival ; Some theoretically possible forms of survival

"C.J. Ducasse, Professor of Philosophy in Brown University, in this volume, undertakes to clarify the nature of the relation between mind and body. To develop the numerous analyses necessary in such a way that they are not arbitrary--such as purely conventional definitions of terms can only supply--but so that they are empirical and, so far as they go, authoritative analyses, has been undertaken in Book I. Analyses of the 'Fundamental Catagories,' which are necessary to the development of the argument follow (Part II) with an especially fine and full treatment of Causality. Basic to the argument of the whole book is the criterion which determines whether a given event is mental or material, and the implication of this problem is developed in Part III concerning the nature, the constituents and the operation of the mind, and the nature of the knowledge a mind has of material and objective things and events. Finally, the conclusions which the three preceding parts seem to warrant are set forth in Part IV concerning the mind-body relation and the implications as to the possibility or impossibility that a mind, or some part of a mind, may survive the death of the body."--back flap.