A classic in the field of philosophy of mind, Jae-Kwon Kim's Philosophy of Mind, 3rd edition

An introductory book to the philosophy of mind by Jae-Kwon Kim, who led and was at the center of the debate in modern philosophy of mind.
It covers topics in the philosophy of mind and includes almost all the major debates in contemporary philosophy of mind.
Rather than simply introducing various arguments or views, it presents a rigorously reconstructed argument.
Even notoriously difficult arguments, such as Davidson's anomalous monism or the argument based on Burge's arthritis thought experiment, are being reborn as coherent arguments through the hands of masters.
Covering a wide range of topics, including metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and epistemology, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in the philosophy of mind and related fields, as well as anyone interested in contemporary philosophy.

The second and third editions of the book were not published in Korea after the first edition in 1999, leaving many readers with regret and longing. Now, three translators who were mentored by the author at Brown University are introducing a reliable translation.

This book explores a wide range of topics in the philosophy of mind, focusing on mind-body issues.
Although the specific issues addressed here and our general approach fall within what is now called the metaphysics of mind, our discussion also touches on questions of the epistemology of mind and language, and at various points we explore the implications of our discussion for the status of cognitive and behavioral science.
This book, however, is not about the philosophy of psychology or cognitive science, nor is it about the “analysis” of psychological language or concepts.
The main themes of this book are the nature of the mind and its relationship to the nature of the body, and the place of the mind in the essentially physical world.
--- From the "Preface"

Professor Kim Jae-kwon was one of the philosophers who led the rapid development of the philosophy of psychology in the latter half of the 20th century.
In particular, the discussion on “suban” led by the teacher in the 1970s and 1980s played a major role in setting the structure of the debate on the mind-body problem.
A few papers written in the 1980s were enough to shake the stronghold of functionalism, which was then the standard position on mind-body issues.
In the 1990s, he focused primarily on the problem of causal exclusion, trying to show that the hope of “non-reductive physicalism” was untenable, an attempt that culminated in the 1998 book Mind in the Physical System.
Although relatively less well-known compared to these achievements, research on consciousness and the explanation of action in the 2000s can be said to have been an exploration of alternative perspectives on consciousness and agency from a physicalist perspective.
Although the professor's research was based on contemporary philosophical discussions, he shared the commonality of always posing original problems and arriving at stable solutions through persistent and meticulous argumentation.
(...)
This book was first published in the United States in 1996, and the second edition was published in 2006 and the third edition was published in 2010.
The first edition was published in 1999 (Philosophy and Reality Publishing) with translations by Ha Jong-ho and Kim Seon-hee, but no translated versions were published after that.
In fact, it should have been translated long ago for domestic readers interested in philosophy, but it is coming out so late, long after the original publication and after the author's passing, that it feels a bit late.
While the professor was writing the third edition of this book, the translators were graduate students who were receiving close instruction from the professor, and one of them even served as the professor's assistant and helped review the manuscript.
For this reason, the translators seemed to have felt a subtle burden that they would have to translate this book someday.
However, because it was a book of such vast volume and so densely written, I couldn't even bring myself to translate it.
Moreover, the fact that the teacher was known for his fluent English was also a burden.
Although the teacher could not speak Korean fluently, he had a special sense and high standards for writing in Korean.
It was clear that a satisfactory translation would require considerable time and “inner strength,” so I was hesitant to take on the task.
After the teacher passed away in 2019, by chance, we received an offer from Philosophy Publishing, and the three of us, who had been academic colleagues since our time studying abroad in the United States, joined forces to begin the translation.
The translation was done through a process where three people each translated a few chapters and went through several rounds of cross-review, discussion, and revision.
Each chapter passes through the hands of all three people, and the result is so common that it is meaningless to distinguish who translated which part.
In addition, we have made efforts to maintain the unity and consistency of the translation and style in many aspects.
This is also why I rarely consulted the translations of previous editions.
(The translation of the word “twater” from “water” in Putnam’s thought experiment to “cool” follows the translation of the previous edition.) I tried to preserve not only the literal content of the original text but also its subtle nuances, while translating it into Korean as naturally as possible.
In the same vein, we have tried to convey the meaning entirely in Korean without using English unless absolutely necessary.
Although there were some unavoidable paraphrases, we tried to keep them to a minimum.

--- From the Translator's Note