Georges Leon Rey (born 1945) is an American philosopher. He is a professor of philosophy at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

Biography

Rey received a doctoral degree in philosophy from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1978. His thesis was titled ''The possibility of psychology: some preliminary issues'', and was completed under

Hilary Putnam Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, computer scientist, and figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He contributed to the studies of philosophy of ...

. His book ''Contemporary Philosophy of Mind'' discusses the topic of

philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of the mind and its relation to the Body (biology), body and the Reality, external world. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a ...

. One major focus of Rey's exposition relates to

eliminativism Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is a materialist position in the philosophy of mind that expresses the idea that the majority of mental states in folk psychology do not exist. Some supporters of eliminativism argue that n ...

and

instrumentalism In philosophy of science and in epistemology, instrumentalism is a methodological view that ideas are useful instruments, and that the worth of an idea is based on how effective it is in explaining and predicting natural phenomena. According to in ...

, particularly with respect to the mental states that we are subjectively aware of by way of

introspection Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's s ...

. Rey is the author of the current article on philosophy of mind at

Encyclopædia Britannica Online An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...

Books

*Reviews of ''Contemporary Philosophy of Mind'': * * *

References

External links

* faculty profile page at the University of Maryland
The Language of Thought Hypothesis
entry at the

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') is a freely available online philosophy resource published and maintained by Stanford University, encompassing both an online encyclopedia of philosophy and peer-reviewed original publication ...

includes mention of how Rey's Computational/Representational Theory of Thought relates to language of thought. University of Maryland, College Park faculty Living people 1945 births Harvard University alumni {{US-philosopher-stub