my mind on books

The New Science of the Mind: From Extended Mind to Embodied Phenomenology (Bradford Books) by Mark Rowlands (MIT Press, 2010).

(link for amazon.co.uk)

Product description from the publisher:

There is a new way of thinking about the mind that does not locate mental processes exclusively “in the head.” Some think that this expanded conception of the mind will be the basis of a new science of the mind. In this book, leading philosopher Mark Rowlands investigates the conceptual foundations of this new science of the mind.

Traditional attempts to study the mind are based on the idea that mental processes—perceiving, remembering, thinking, reasoning—exist in brains; they are often described as “software” realized by the “hardware” of the brain. The new way of thinking about the mind has emerged from the confluence of various disciplines in cognitive science ranging from perceptual and developmental psychology to robotics. It emphasizes the ways in which mental processes are embodied (partly made up of extra-neural bodily structures and processes), embedded (designed to function in tandem with the environment), enacted (constituted in part by action), and extended (located in the environment).

The new way of thinking about the mind, Rowlands writes, is actually an old way of thinking that has taken on new form. Rowlands describes a conception of mind that had its clearest expression in phenomenology—in the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. He builds on these views, clarifies and renders consistent the ideas of embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended mind, and develops a unified philosophical treatment of the novel conception of the mind that underlies the new science of the mind.

Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind by Evan Thompson (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), originally published in 2007, is now available in paperback.

(link for amazon.co.uk)

Product description from the publisher:

How is life related to the mind? The question has long confounded philosophers and scientists, and it is this so-called explanatory gap between biological life and consciousness that Evan Thompson explores in Mind in Life.

Thompson draws upon sources as diverse as molecular biology, evolutionary theory, artificial life, complex systems theory, neuroscience, psychology, Continental Phenomenology, and analytic philosophy to argue that mind and life are more continuous than has previously been accepted, and that current explanations do not adequately address the myriad facets of the biology and phenomenology of mind. Where there is life, Thompson argues, there is mind: life and mind share common principles of self-organization, and the self-organizing features of mind are an enriched version of the self-organizing features of life. Rather than trying to close the explanatory gap, Thompson marshals philosophical and scientific analyses to bring unprecedented insight to the nature of life and consciousness. This synthesis of phenomenology and biology helps make Mind in Life a vital and long-awaited addition to his landmark volume The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (coauthored with Eleanor Rosch and Francisco Varela).

Endlessly interesting and accessible, Mind in Life is a groundbreaking addition to the fields of the theory of the mind, life science, and phenomenology.

See also: review at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (“should be read by all those interested in exploring new approaches in cognitive science”), author’s website

An interesting-looking though pricey book from philosopher-physicist Mario Bunge — may be something to check for at your library or through interlibrary loan…

Matter and Mind: A Philosophical Inquiry (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science) (Springer, 2010)

(link for amazon.co.uk)

This book discusses two of the oldest and hardest problems in both science and philosophy: What is matter?, and What is mind? A reason for tackling both problems in a single book is that two of the most influential views in modern philosophy are that the universe is mental (idealism), and that the everything real is material (materialism). Most of the thinkers who espouse a materialist view of mind have obsolete ideas about matter, whereas those who claim that science supports idealism have not explained how the universe could have existed before humans emerged. Besides, both groups tend to ignore the other levels of existence—chemical, biological, social, and technological. If such levels and the concomitant emergence processes are ignored, the physicalism/spiritualism dilemma remains unsolved, whereas if they are included, the alleged mysteries are shown to be problems that science is treating successfully.

See also: Publisher’s webpage for the book

A new book from MIT Press reflects the current state of debate on the extended mind concept & I’ve collected some related titles and links below: The Extended Mind (Life and Mind: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology), ed. by Richard Menary (MIT Press, 2010) (link for UK)

Product description from the publisher:

Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? In their famous 1998 paper “The Extended Mind,” philosophers Andy Clark and David Chalmers posed this question and answered it provocatively: cognitive processes “ain’t all in the head.” The environment has an active role in driving cognition; cognition is sometimes made up of neural, bodily, and environmental processes. Their argument excited a vigorous debate among philosophers, both supporters and detractors. This volume brings together for the first time the best responses to Clark and Chalmers’s bold proposal. These responses, together with the original paper by Clark and Chalmers, offer a valuable overview of the latest research on the extended mind thesis. The contributors first discuss (and answer) objections raised to Clark and Chalmers’s thesis. Andy Clark himself responds to critics in an essay that uses the movie Memento’s amnesia-aiding notes and tattoos to illustrate the workings of the extended mind. Contributors then consider the different directions in which the extended mind project might be taken, including the need for an approach that focuses on cognitive activity and practice.

Contributors: Fred Adams, Ken Aizawa, David Chalmers, Andy Clark, Stephen Cowley, Susan Hurley, James Ladyman, Richard Menary, John Preston, Don Ross, Mark Rowlands, Rob Rupert, David Spurrett, John Sutton, Michael Wheeler, Rob Wilson

Table of contents & sample chapter (Introduction) at MIT Press

• link to original 1998 paper by Clark & Chalmers
• two related books by Andy Clark: (1) My introduction to the idea was in Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence (Oxford University Press, 2003, 2004). (link for UK)

  Product description from the publisher:

  From Robocop to the Terminator to Eve 8, no image better captures our deepest fears about technology than the cyborg, the person who is both flesh and metal, brain and electronics. But philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark sees it differently. Cyborgs, he writes, are not something to be feared–we already are cyborgs. In Natural-Born Cyborgs, Clark argues that what makes humans so different from other species is our capacity to fully incorporate tools and supporting cultural practices into our existence. Technology as simple as writing on a sketchpad, as familiar as Google or a cellular phone, and as potentially revolutionary as mind-extending neural implants–all exploit our brains’ astonishingly plastic nature. Our minds are primed to seek out and incorporate non-biological resources, so that we actually think and feel through our best technologies. Drawing on his expertise in cognitive science, Clark demonstrates that our sense of self and of physical presence can be expanded to a remarkable extent, placing the long-existing telephone and the emerging technology of telepresence on the same continuum. He explores ways in which we have adapted our lives to make use of technology (the measurement of time, for example, has wrought enormous changes in human existence), as well as ways in which increasingly fluid technologies can adapt to individual users during normal use. Bio-technological unions, Clark argues, are evolving with a speed never seen before in history. As we enter an age of wearable computers, sensory augmentation, wireless devices, intelligent environments, thought-controlled prosthetics, and rapid-fire information search and retrieval, the line between the user and her tools grows thinner day by day. “”This double whammy of plastic brains and increasingly responsive and well-fitted tools creates an unprecedented opportunity for ever-closer kinds of human-machine merger,”" he writes, arguing that such a merger is entirely natural. A stunning new look at the human brain and the human self, Natural Born Cyborgs reveals how our technology is indeed inseparable from who we are and how we think.

  
  (2) Clark’s more recent book – Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension (Philosophy of the Mind) (Oxford University Press, 2008) (link for UK)

  When historian Charles Weiner found pages of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman’s notes, he saw it as a “record” of Feynman’s work. Feynman himself, however, insisted that the notes were not a record but the work itself. In Supersizing the Mind, Andy Clark argues that our thinking doesn’t happen only in our heads but that “certain forms of human cognizing include inextricable tangles of feedback, feed-forward and feed-around loops: loops that promiscuously criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body and world.” The pen and paper of Feynman’s thought are just such feedback loops, physical machinery that shape the flow of thought and enlarge the boundaries of mind. Drawing upon recent work in psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, robotics, human-computer systems, and beyond, Supersizing the Mind offers both a tour of the emerging cognitive landscape and a sustained argument in favor of a conception of mind that is extended rather than “brain-bound.” The importance of this new perspective is profound. If our minds themselves can include aspects of our social and physical environments, then the kinds of social and physical environments we create can reconfigure our minds and our capacity for thought and reason.

• two more books on the extended mind:
  The Extended Mind: The Emergence of Language, the Human Mind, and Culture (Toronto Studies in Semiotics and Communication) by Robert K. Logan (U of Toronto Press, 2008) (link for UK)
  Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind (Philosophy of Mind) by Robert D. Rupert (Oxford University Press, 2009) (link for UK)
• Plus a forthcoming book (Oct) by philosopher Mark Rowlands: The New Science of the Mind: From Extended Mind to Embodied Phenomenology (Bradford Books) (link for UK)
• additional links –

  Extended Mind at PhilPapers

  “Extended Mind” at Wikipedia

  [added 6/27] “Extended mind hypothesis” at Brain Hammer (from Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind)

How the Mind Uses the Brain: To Move the Body and Image the Universe by Ralph D. Ellis and Natika Newton (Open Court, 2010)

(link for UK)

Product description from the publisher:

The nature of consciousness and the relationship between the mind and brain have become the most hotly debated topics in philosophy. This book explains and argues for a new approach called enactivism. Enactivism maintains that consciousness and all subjective thoughts and feelings arise from an organism’s attempts to use its environment in the service of purposeful action. The authors admit that their perspective presents many problems: How does one distinguish real action from reaction? Is it scientifically acceptable to say that the whole organism can use its parts, instead of being a mere summation of their separate mechanical reactions? What about the danger that this analysis will imply that physical systems fail to be “causally closed”? How the Mind Uses the Brain tries to answer these questions and represents a sharp break with tradition, arguing that consciousness and emotions are aspects of an organism’s ongoing self-organizational activity, driving information-processing rather than merely responding to it.

See also: Works by Ralph D. Ellis at PhilPapers

My Brain Made Me Do It: The Rise of Neuroscience and the Threat to Moral Responsibility by Eliezer J. Sternberg (Prometheus Books, 2010).

(link for UK)

Product description from the publisher:

As scientists continue to explore how the brain works, using ever more sophisticated technology, it seems likely that new findings will radically alter the traditional understanding of human nature. One aspect of human nature that is already being questioned by recent developments in neuroscience is free will. Do our decisions arise from purely mechanistic processes? Is our feeling of self-control merely an illusion created by our brains? If so, what will become of free will and moral responsibility?

These thorny questions and many more are examined with great clarity and insight in this engaging exploration of neuroscience’s potential impact on moral responsibility. Author Eliezer J. Sternberg delves into a host of fascinating topics, including:

-the parts of the brain that scientists believe are involved in the exercise of will

-what Parkinson’s, Tourette’s, and schizophrenia reveal about our ability to control our actions

-whether a future of criminal behavior is determined by brain chemistry

-how self-reflective consciousness may have evolved from a largely deterministic brain

Using illustrative examples from philosophy, mythology, history, and criminology, and with thorough discussions of actual scientific experiments, Eliezer J. Sternberg explores the threat of neuroscience to moral responsibility as he attempts to answer the question: Are we truly in control of our actions?

The Brain and the Meaning of Life by Paul Thagard (Princeton University Press, 2010).

(link for UK)

Product description from the publisher:

Why is life worth living? What makes actions right or wrong? What is reality and how do we know it? The Brain and the Meaning of Life draws on research in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience to answer some of the most pressing questions about life’s nature and value. Paul Thagard argues that evidence requires the abandonment of many traditional ideas about the soul, free will, and immortality, and shows how brain science matters for fundamental issues about reality, morality, and the meaning of life. The ongoing Brain Revolution reveals how love, work, and play provide good reasons for living.

Defending the superiority of evidence-based reasoning over religious faith and philosophical thought experiments, Thagard argues that minds are brains and that reality is what science can discover. Brains come to know reality through a combination of perception and reasoning. Just as important, our brains evaluate aspects of reality through emotions that can produce both good and bad decisions. Our cognitive and emotional abilities allow us to understand reality, decide effectively, act morally, and pursue the vital needs of love, work, and play. Wisdom consists of knowing what matters, why it matters, and how to achieve it.

The Brain and the Meaning of Life shows how brain science helps to answer questions about the nature of mind and reality, while alleviating anxiety about the difficulty of life in a vast universe. The book integrates decades of multidisciplinary research, but its clear explanations and humor make it accessible to the general reader.

See also: Website for the book, including a sample chapter and links to cited websites.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion (Oxford Handbooks in Philosophy) ed. by Peter Goldie (Oxford University Press, 2010)

(link for UK – published Dec 2009)

Product description from the publisher:

This volume contains thirty-one state-of-the-art contributions from leading figures in the study of emotion today. The volume addresses all the central philosophical issues in current emotion research, including: the nature of emotion and of emotional life; the history of emotion from Plato to Sartre; emotion and practical reason; emotion and the self; emotion, value, and morality; and emotion, art and aesthetics.

Anyone interested in the philosophy of emotion, and its wide-ranging implications in other related fields such as morality and aesthetics, will want to consult this book. It will be a vital resource not only for scholars and graduate students but also for undergraduates who are finding their way into this fascinating topic

See also: Table of contents

The Oxford Handbook of Causation (Oxford Handbooks) ed. by Helen Beebee, Christopher Hitchcock and Peter Menzies (Oxford, 2010)

(link for UK – published Nov 2009)

Product description from the publisher:

Causation is a central topic in many areas of philosophy. In metaphysics, philosophers want to know what causation is, and how it is related to laws of nature, probability, action, and freedom of the will. In epistemology, philosophers investigate how causal claims can be inferred from statistical data, and how causation is related to perception, knowledge and explanation. In the philosophy of mind, philosophers want to know whether and how the mind can be said to have causal efficacy, and in ethics, whether there is a moral distinction between acts and omissions and whether the moral value of an act can be judged according to its consequences. And causation is a contested concept in other fields of enquiry, such as biology, physics, and the law.
This book provides an in-depth and comprehensive overview of these and other topics, as well as the history of the causation debate from the ancient Greeks to the logical empiricists. The chapters provide surveys of contemporary debates, while often also advancing novel and controversial claims; and each includes a comprehensive bibliography and suggestions for further reading. The book is thus the most comprehensive source of information about causation currently available, and will be invaluable for upper-level undergraduates through to professional philosophers.

Found via the Book Bench at the New Yorker:

Fall of Sleep by Jean-Luc Nancy, tr. Charlotte Mandell (Fordham University Press, 2009)

(link for UK)

Product description from the publisher:

Philosophers have largely ignored sleep, treating it as a useless negativity, mere repose for the body or at best a source for the production of unconscious signs out of the night of the soul. In an extraordinary theoretical investigation written with lyric intensity, The Fall of Sleep puts an end to this neglect by providing a deft yet rigorous philosophy of sleep. What does it mean to “fall” asleep? Might there exist something like a “reason” of sleep, a reason at work in its own form or modality, a modality of being in oneself, of return to oneself, without the waking “self” that distinguishes “I” from “you” and from the world? What reason might exist in that absence of ego, appearance, and intention, in an abandon thanks to which one is emptied out into a non-place shared by everyone? Sleep attests to something like an equality of all that exists in the rhythm of the world. With sleep, victory is constantly renewed over the fear of night, an a confidence that we will wake with the return of day, in a return to self, to us–though to a self, an us, that is each day different, unforeseen, without any warning given in advance.To seek anew the meaning stirring in the supposed loss of meaning, of consciousness, and of control that occurs in sleep is not to reclaim some meaning already familiar in philosophy, religion, progressivism, or any other -ism. It is instead to open anew a source that is not the source of a meaning but that makes up the nature proper to meaning, its truth: opening, gushing forth, infinity.This beautiful, profound meditation on sleep is a unique work in the history of phenomenology–a lyrical phenomenology of what can have no phenomenology, since sleep shows itself to the waking observer, the subject of phenomenology, only as disappearance and concealment.

Supplementing a previous list of philosophy of mind titles, here are more books on philosophy of mind published in 2009, with a look ahead at some coming in 2010, based on a WorldCat search. Philosophy of mind may not be the main subject in every case, but it was at least one of the headings used in cataloging these books.

2009

Language, Reality and Mind: A Defense of Everyday Thought by Charles Crittenden (Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) (link for UK)

Mental Reality, Second Edition, with a new appendix (Representation and Mind) by Galen Strawson (MIT Press, 2009) [first ed published in 1994] (link for UK)

The Metaphysics of Mind (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy) by Michael Tye (Cambridge Univ Pr, 2009) [now in paperback, originally published in 1989] (link for UK)

The Minds of the Moderns: Rationalism, Empiricism, and Philosophy of Mind by Janice Thomas (Montreal ; Ithaca : McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009) (link for UK)

The Philosophy of Animal Minds by Robert W Lurz (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009) (link for UK)

Physical Realization by Sydney Shoemaker (Oxford Univ Pr 2009) [now in paperback, originally published in 2007](link for UK)

Plural Action: Essays in Philosophy and Social Science (Contributions To Phenomenology) by Hans Bernhard Schmid (Dordrecht; Berlin: Springer, 2009) [on "collective intentionality"] (link for UK)

Predicative Minds: The Social Ontogeny of Propositional Thinking (Bradford Books) by Radu J Bogdan (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009) (link for UK)

Topics in Early Modern Philosophy of Mind (Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind) by Jon Miller ([Dordrecht] : Springer, 2009) (link for UK)

coming in 2010

Process Approaches to Consciousness in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Philosophy of Mind by Michel Weber (State University of New York Press, 2010) [Jan 2010] (not found at amazon.co.uk)

The Disordered Mind: An Introduction to Philosophy of Mind and Mental Illness by George Graham (Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2009) [Feb 2010] (link for UK)

Physicalism (New Problems of Philosophy) by Daniel Stoljar (London : Routledge, 2009) [Feb 2010] (link for UK)

Philosophy of Mind (Critical Concepts in Philosophy) by Sean Crawford (London : Routledge, 2009) [April 2010] (link for UK)

Key Terms in Philosophy of Mind by Pete Mandik (Continuum, 2010) [May 2010] (link for UK) (some previews at author’s blog)

The Neural Sublime: Cognitive Theories and Romantic Texts by Alan Richardson (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) [June 2010] (not found at amazon.co.uk)