Brain, Mind, and Human Behavior in Contemporary Cognitive Science: Critical Assessments of the Philosophy of Psychology

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 230 pages
• Published by: Edwin Mellen Press
• Edition: 1st Edition September 30, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0773453156
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0773453159
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Weighs: 1.2 pounds

Product Review
"In this book, Jeff Coulter and Wes Sharrock have undertaken a series of conceptual investigations into some of the more dramatic claims made by contemporary cognitive neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and theoretical linguists. It takes courage to resist the current, and skill to master it. Coulter and Sharrock have both. This is a controversial book. It will annoy those who have nailed their flag to the mast of cognitive science. It will rock the boat of intellectual complacency in sciences and putative sciences that are well known and very well advertised, yet anything but well-established. But its arguments must be confronted, and the case they make cannot be evaded. If Coulter and Sharrock are right, as I believe they are, then extensive rethinking is needed." -Dr. P. M. S. Hacker St. John's College, Oxford "[The authors of this book] set out with no less a goal than that of exposing the logical confusions that have inspired the 'leading questions' in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology over the past half-century. But as important as is the contribution that they make to our thinking about these problems, perhaps the greatest service that [this book] performs is to neuroscience itself. By meticulously clarifying what sorts of questions can be empirically resolved and which lead us into the thickets of scientific metaphysics, they demonstrate the critical role that philosophy has always played and must continue to play in the advance of science." -Dr. Stuart Shanker Professor of Philosophy and Psychology York University, Canada."

Product Description
This book engages a range of currently debated issues in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, challenging certain cognitivist positions in contemporary neuroscience. In addressing each topic, an effort is made to illuminate the historical-philosophical origins of the problems confronted, exposing a central the way in which various forms of philosophical materialism are often uncritically invoked to buttress 'scientific' claims about the human mind/brain and behavior. The authors conclude that a radical reorientation is required if the confusion that permeates the field is to be eliminated.

Reader Reviews
This book will be enjoyed by anyone who has been troubled by the egregious reductionism, reification, and fallacies of misplaced concreteness that cognitive neuroscience has inflicted on attempts to understand the human mind/brain, as well as the philosophical enthusiasts of this approach such as Daniel Dennett (who concluded in _Consciousness Explained_ that "nobody is conscious") or Nicholas Humphrey's telling us that our sense of self is merely a "self-serving meme", or Steven Pinker's telling us we are no more than "glorified gears and springs". Coulter and Sharrock's book unmasks the metaphysical "neurophilosophy" behind such pretentious endeavours, using relentless detailed examination of the neurobiological and neuropsychological assumptions, showing them to be mostly false or at least unhelpful in understanding human mentation. One small criticism: there is only an Author index, no Subject index. No matter, this book is a gem of clarity in an age of academic pseudo-erudition.