The mental realm consists as much of situations as the natural and social world, so our knowledge of mind is on the same footing as the non-mental.
For a discussion sympathetic to Malebranche's critique of Descartes's account of our knowledge of mind, see Schmaltz (1996); for more recent discussions that defend Descartes against this critique, see Nolan and Whipple (2005) and LoLorodo (2005).
If one either intentionalizes consciousness, or else views intentionality as inseparable from phenomenal character, there will then be more room to view consciousness as central to accounts of the warrant involved in first-person ('introspective') knowledge of mind, and empirical or perceptual knowledge.
Pluralism about knowledge of mind-independent facts can be formulated in terms of different ways of to distribute properties (sociability-based pluralism), with more specific commitments about the ontological status of the related elements and their plural contextual manifestations of powers or dispositions (Chakravartty 2011, Cartwright 2007).
If further study confirms our results or improves upon them, then an intense search for the mechanism of action will be highly desirable and might lead to greater knowledge of mind-brain interactions, the psychophysiology of mental states, including the effects of trauma, and of treatment benefits.
Collingwood's remarks about the relation between speaker and hearer are of special interest not just to aestheticians but to philosophers of mind interested in knowledge of other minds.
This particular group continued to meet for the entire school year, discussing a wide range of philosophical topics, including: the relationship between the mind and the brain, differences (and similarities) between dreams and reality, knowledge of other minds, self-knowledge, and relationships between evidence and knowledge.
The theory of mind research program was closely associated with a debate on folk psychology between folk psychology as theory (the view that human knowledge of other minds is theoretical in nature), and folk psychology as simulation (the view that our knowledge of other minds relies on using our own mind as a model).
It follows from this analysis that each human being is inevitably and even in principle prevented from having knowledge of the minds of other human beings.
However it is often thought that knowledge of animal minds presents special methodological difficulties.
