Ullin Place (1924-2000) lived most of his life in England and devoted most of his career to psychology, but he had a background in philosophy as well as psychology and this paper (which is probably his best-known work) dates from a time early in his career when he was teaching in Australia. It sets out a perspective on the relation of mind and body, often called “identity theory,” that Place himself did not pursue but which was quite influential, especially in Australia. The paper we will discuss Thursday is a later example of the same line of thought.

The sections of Place’s paper tend to each have one key point, which is often a distinction between a couple of ideas and is usually formulated in the section’s title. A good way of getting into the paper would be to try to formulate each of these points for yourself.

More broadly, you should think about two large issues, one associated with sections II and III and the other with section V. Most of what is important about the first issue appears in Place’s discussion of the examples of clouds and lightning. In the case of the second, pay special attention to his association of what he calls the “phenomenological fallacy” with the idea of an “internal cinema or television screen.” Notice that, if our observation of external objects involves such a screen, that observation is indirect, for what we see in the first instance is the appearance of these objects on the screen. Contrast this with the suggestion at the end of the paper that it is our experience of external objects that is most basic and that talk of appearances is a secondary development, a new way of thinking rather than a recognition of something that had been going on all along.