my mind on books

out in paperback: Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter by Terrence W. Deacon amazon.com/gp/product/039… via @amazon

— Debbie A Foster (@mymindonbooks) April 22, 2013

Transparent Minds: A Study of Self-Knowledge by Jordi Fernandez (Oxford University Press, USA, 2013)

(amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher:

We all seem to be capable of telling what our current states of mind are. At any given moment, we know, for example, what we believe, and what we want. But how do we know that? In Transparent Minds, Jordi Fernandez explains our knowledge of our own propositional attitudes. Drawing on the so-called “transparency” of belief, he proposes that we attribute beliefs and desires to ourselves based on our grounds for those beliefs and desires. The book argues that this view explains our privileged access to those propositional attitudes. Three applications are drawn from the model of self-knowledge that emerges: a solution to Moore’s paradox, an account of the thought-insertion delusion, and an explanation of self-deception. The puzzles raised by all three phenomena can be resolved, Fernandez argues, if we construe them as failures of self-knowledge. The resulting picture of self-knowledge challenges the traditional notion that it is a matter of introspection. For the main tenet of Transparent Minds is that we come to know what we believe and desire by “looking outward,” and attending to the states of affairs which those beliefs and desires are about.

See also: Author’s website

Thought: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by Tim Bayne (Oxford University Press, USA)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk – Jan 2013)

Book description from the publisher:

There is no denying that thinking comes naturally to human beings and that thinking is indeed central to what it means to be human. But what are thoughts? How does the brain–billions of tiny neurons and synapses–accomplish thought? In this compelling Very Short Introduction, Tim Bayne offers a compact but wide-ranging account of the nature of thought, drawing upon philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and anthropology. Bayne touches on a stimulating array of topics. Does thinking occur in public or is it a purely private affair? Do young children and non-human animals think? Is human thought the same everywhere, or are there culturally specific modes of thought? What is the relationship between thought and language? What kind of responsibility do we have for our thoughts? In what ways can the process of thinking go wrong? Beginning with questions about what thought is and what distinguishes it from other kinds of mental states, he explores the logical structures of thought as well as the mechanisms that make thought possible. In sum, this book provides an engaging survey of what we know–and what we don’t know–about one of the most central of human capacities.

Google Books preview:

Decomposing the Will (Philosophy of Mind Series), ed. by Andy Clark, Julian Kiverstein, and Tillmann Vierkant (Oxford University Press, USA, 2013)

(amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher:

There is growing evidence from the science of human behavior that our everyday, folk understanding of ourselves as conscious, rational, responsible agents may be radically mistaken. The science, some argue, recommends a view of conscious agency as merely epiphenomenal: an impotent accompaniment to the whirring unconscious machinery (the inner zombie) that prepares, decides and causes our behavior. The new essays in this volume display and explore this radical claim, revisiting the folk concept of the responsible agent after abandoning the image of a central executive, and “decomposing” the notion of the conscious will into multiple interlocking aspects and functions.

Part 1 of this volume provides an overview of the scientific research that has been taken to support “the zombie challenge.” In part 2, contributors explore the phenomenology of agency and what it is like to be the author of one’s own actions. Part 3 then explores different strategies for using the science and phenomenology of human agency to respond to the zombie challenge.

Questions explored include: what distinguishes automatic behavior and voluntary action? What, if anything, does consciousness contribute to the voluntary control of behavior? What does the science of human behavior really tell us about the nature of self-control?

Table of Contents
1. Decomposing the WIll: Meeting the Zombie Challenge , Tillmann Vierkant, Julian Kiverstein, and Andy Clark
PART ONE The Zombie Challenge
2. The Neuroscience of Volition , Adina L. Roskies
3. Beyond Libet: Long-term Prediction of Free Choices from Neuroimaging Signals , John-Dylan Haynes
4. Vetoing and Consciousness , Alfred R. Mele
5. From Determinism to Resignation; and How to Stop It , Richard Holton

PART TWO The Sense of Agency
6. From the Fact to the Sense of Agency , Manos Tsakiris and Aikaterini Fotopoulou
7. Ambiguity in the Sense of Agency , Shaun Gallagher
8. There’s Nothing Life Being Free: Default Dispositions, Judgments of Freedom, and the Phenomenology of Coercion , Fabio Paglieri
9. Agency as a Marker of Consciousness , Tim Bayne

PART THREE The Function of Conscious Control: Conflict Resolution, Emotion, and Mental Actions

10. Voluntary Action and the Three Forms of Binding in the Brain , Ezequiel Morsella, Tara C. Dennehy, and John A. Bargh
11. Emotion Regulation and Free Will , Nico H. Frijda
12. Action Control by Implementation Intentions: The Role of Discrete Emotions , Sam J. Maglio, Peter M. Gollwitzer, and Gabriele Oettingen
13. Mental Action and the Threat of Automaticity , Wayne Wu
14. Mental Acts as Natural Kinds , Jo^”elle Proust

PART FOUR Decomposed Accounts of the Will
15. Managerial Control and Free Mental Agency , Tillmann Vierkant
16. Recomposing the Will: Distributed Motivation and Computer-Mediated Extrospection , Lars Hall, Petter Johansson, and David de Leon
17. Situationism and Moral Responsibility: Free Will in Fragments , Manuel Vargas

Mind, Brain, and Free Will by Richard Swinburne (Oxford University Press, USA, 2013)

(amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher:

Mind, Brain, and Free Will presents a powerful new case for substance dualism (the idea that humans consist of two parts–body and soul) and for libertarian free will (that humans have some freedom to choose between alternatives, independently of the causes which influence them). Richard Swinburne argues that answers to questions about mind, body, and free will depend crucially on the answers to more general philosophical questions. He begins by analyzing the criteria for one event being the same as another, one substance being the same as another, and a state of affairs being metaphysically possible; and then goes on to analyze the criteria for a belief about these issues being justified. Pure mental events (including conscious events) are distinct from physical events and interact with them. Swinburne claims that no result from neuroscience or any other science could show that interaction does not take place; and illustrates this claim by showing that recent scientific work (such as Libet’s experiments) has no tendency whatever to show that our intentions do not cause brain events. He goes on to argue for agent causation, and claims that–to speak precisely–it is we, and not our intentions, that cause our brain events. It is metaphysically possible that each of us could acquire a new brain or continue to exist without a brain; and so we are essentially souls. Brain events and conscious events are so different from each other that it would not be possible to establish a scientific theory which would predict what each of us would do in situations of moral conflict. Hence given a crucial epistemological principle (the Principle of Credulity) we should believe that things are as they seem to be: that we make choices independently of the causes which influence us. According to Swinburne’s lucid and ambitious account, it follows that we are morally responsible for our actions.