In any intellectual era there are certain overriding problems that form the horizon
of intellectual life. In our era the leading problem is how to account for our
commonsense conception of ourselves as conscious, free, mindful, rational
agents in a world consisting entirely of mindless, meaningless, blind, purposeless
physical particles in fields of physical force.

This problem is manifest in countless ways. How do the social sciences relate to
the natural sciences? What is the nature of mental illness and how does it relate
to physical illness? Can we really discover laws of human behavior analogous to
the laws of physics? The central problem area, however, lies in the philosophy
of mind. What is the nature and structure of the human mind and how does it
relate to the rest of reality? The aim of this series is to introduce the reader to
some of the leading issues in the philosophy of mind and above all to enable the
reader to think about these problems for himself or herself.