my mind on books

Consciousness, Self-Consciousness, and the Science of Being Human by Simeon Locke (Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2007)

[scheduled for Dec 30, 2007]

Locke is a Neurologist and Professor Emeritus of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.

Gesture and Thought by David McNeill (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007)

[pdf essay by the author -“both a synopsis and extension of Gesture and Thought“]

Mental Mechanisms: Philosophical Perspectives on Cognitive Neuroscience by William Bechtel (New York: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2007)

According to the publisher, this book is scheduled to be published 10/15/07.

author’s homepage

Things and Places: How the Mind Connects with the World (Jean Nicod Lectures) by Zenon W. Pylyshyn (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2007)

author website

book info from MIT Press

videos from the Jean Nicod Lectures

What do Michel Foucault and Thich Nhat Hanh have in common? Maybe not much, but both have bestselling books in Amazon’s “Consciousness & Thought” category (and they both live/d in France!)

Amazon’s lists are usually interesting to browse, though their subject categories can sometimes give you an odd assortment of titles. The category “Consciousness & Thought” is found in Books/Nonfiction/Philosophy.

Right now the top five books in this category are

1. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
2. I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter (a personal favorite)
3. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction by Michel Foucault
4. The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh
5. Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts by Clive James

This list should change as Amazon updates their bestseller information: Amazon’s most popular books in Consciousness & Thought

The top five new & future releases in Consciousness & Thought are

1. Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and Consciousness (Columbia Series in Science and Religion) by B. Alan Wallace
2. The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman
3. The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding by Mark Johnson
4. Existentialism Is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre
5. Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?: Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will

Link to the complete and ever-changing list:
Amazon’s bestselling new & future releases in Consciousness & Thought

Steven Pinker‘s new book The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature is now available.

Also recently out: Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf.

• Two books on neuroethics were published this month (Aug 2007): Neuroethics: Challenges for the 21st Century by Neil Levy (Cambridge U Press) and Defining Right and Wrong in Brain Science: Essential Readings in Neuroethics ed. by Walter Glannon (Dana Press)

• Brainethics blog has compiled a list of readings in neuroethics
• Wikipedia article
• neuroethics.upenn.edu (section on narrative perspectives has extensive list on neuroethics in film and literature)

Here is a list of books on the self, published in 2007 or coming soon, the start of a cumulative list to be placed in the sidebar.

Berkeley’s Philosophy of Spirit: Consciousness, Ontology and the Elusive Subject by Talia Mae Bettcher (London ; New York : Continuum, 2007).

The Concealed Art of the Soul: Theories of the Self and Practices of Truth in Indian Ethics and Epistemology by Jonardon Ganeri (Oxford : Clarendon, 2007)

The First Person Singular by Alphonso Lingis (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2007).

I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas R Hofstadter (New York : Basic Books, 2007)

The Messy Self ed. by Jennifer Rosner (Boulder : Paradigm Publishers, 2007). [“an edited volume that challenges the idea and the ideal of a coherent, harmonious self”]
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