books on the mind, consciousness, cognitive science…
February 20, 2008
An essay at PLOS Biology — “Are Animals Autistic Savants” — discusses 
Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior by Temple Grandin. Grandin’s response to the essay is also up at PLOS.
Maybe it’s a little off-topic but I couldn’t pass by without mentioning Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow, a verse novel about werewolves(!), the subject of the review of the day at Powell’s.
Meanwhile at Metapsychology Online Reviews, From Knowledge to Wisdom gets an enthusiastic endorsement.
February 18, 2008
Self-Expression by Mitchell Green (Oxford University Press, 2008).
(“Look Inside” available at Amazon.com)
Book description:
Mitchell S. Green presents a systematic philosophical study of self-expression – a pervasive phenomenon of the everyday life of humans and other species, which has received scant attention in its own right. He explores the ways in which self-expression reveals our states of thought, feeling, and experience, and he defends striking new theses concerning a wide range of fascinating topics: our ability to perceive emotion in others, artistic expression, empathy, expressive language, meaning, facial expression, and speech acts. He draws on insights from evolutionary game theory, ethology, the philosophy of language, social psychology, pragmatics, aesthetics, and neuroscience to present a stimulating and accessible interdisciplinary work.
February 17, 2008
An excellent post by Mark Liberman at Language Log on “Behindology” (Italian “dietrologia” “the attempt to trump even the most fanciful and contorted conspiracy theory“) is jam-packed with ideas about reasoning and interpretations in everyday life.
An excerpt:
The mode of reasoning in dietrologia is abduction: inference to the best explanation. Abduction is a good thing — it’s a key component of the machinery of science — so why does abduction here lead to “fanciful and contorted” theories? There seem to be two problems: a lack of effective coupling to the friction and inertia of fact, and an excessive value placed on indirect and even counter-intuitive explanations.
Later on:
But our inferences about the beliefs, goals and intentions of others are seriously underdetermined by their actions and statements. And those of us who think we’re more insightful than average may just be more imaginative.
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February 16, 2008
