ABSTRACT
Science offers to explain how we see things – it tells us the mechanism of vision – and psychologists try to explain why we want some things and fear others, and how desire and aversion control our behaviour. By 'sensations' philosophers mean primarily bodily sensations of pain and pleasure, the sensations that come from being burnt or cut or having sex. When Russell in The Analysis of Mind made out that belief and desire are sensations he was claiming they should be conceived on the model of pain. If science cannot explain why there is causation in the world, still less can it explain why there is mind. One might as well ask it to explain why there are logical and mathematical truths. There can be a causal explanation of how the physical conditions necessary for purposive behaviour come to be satisfied.
