CONTEMPORARY ANALITYC PHILOSOPHY OF MIND: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS

In the paper, we argue that the paradigm of contemporary analytic philosophy of mind has three main theoretical elements: naturalism, respect to empirical data and the search for adequate explanation of subjective experience. The paper begins with a brief overview of the history of the beginning of analytic philosophy of mind, with a description of its coming to Russia. Then every theoretical element of contemporary philosophy of mind is analyzed and their exemplification in the work of philosophers exposed. Naturalism is very popular in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind and it has many varieties. In the article, we specify naturalism in strong and weak senses, methodological and ontological naturalism. The shortcomings for the naturalistic in the strong sense explanation of mind are considered. Taking into account empirical data looks like a maximum consensus in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind. All major lines in philosophy of mind - materialism, functionalism, dualism - are trying to strengthen their arguments with a help from empirical data. Materialism tend to go by neuroscience due to its theoretical foundations. Debates around functionalism today include empirical data from sociology and psychology. Moreover even the proponents of dualism, usually perceived as anti-naturalists, tend to include neuro-cognitive research in their conceptual schema. Explaining subjective experience may take radically different forms-from postulating extra ontology of sensation to its total elimination. Nevertheless the choosing the strategy of explanation nearly everyone in the field agree that there could not be any satisfactory explanation of mind unless we have and adequate explanation of subjective experience. In the end, we conclude that the welfare of the current paradigm of philosophy of mind depends on successful explanation of subjecting experience within the naturalistic framework and with a firm empirical data support.