Product Description

In this provocative survey, a distinguished philosopher and a leading neuroscientist outline the conceptual problems at the heart of cognitive neuroscience.

• Surveys the conceptual problems inherent in many neuroscientific theories.
  
• Encourages neuroscientists to pay more attention to conceptual questions.
  
• Provides conceptual maps for students and researchers in cognitive neuroscience and psychology.
  
• Written by a distinguished philosopher and leading neuroscientist.
  
• Avoids the use of philosophical jargon.
  
• Constitutes an essential reference work for elucidation of concepts in cognitive neuroscience and psychology.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #277270 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Review
“This remarkable book, the product of a collaboration between a philosopher and neuroscientist, shows that the claims made on behalf of cognitive science are ill–founded. The book will certainly arouse opposition... but if it causes controversy, it is controversy that is long overdue.” Sir Anthony Kenny, President of the British Academy, 1989–93

“This book was simply waiting to be written.” Denis Noble, Oxford University

“Contemporary scientists and philosophers may not like Bennett and Hacker′s conclusions, but they will hardly be able to ignore them. The work is a formidable achievement.” John Cottingham, Professor of Philosophy, Reading University

“Neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers will be challenged – and educated – by this sustained and well–informed critique.” Paul Harris, Professor, Human Development and Psychology, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University

"This book is a joy to read. It is the fruit of collaboration across disciplines and continents between a neurophysiologist and a philosopher. They have written a polemical work that is a model of clarity and directness. Distiniguished neurophysiologist M.R. Bennett of the University of Sydney, and eminent Oxford philosopher P.M.S. Hacker have produced that rarity of scholarship, a genuinely interdisciplinary work that succeeds. ... This is a wonderful book that will illuminate, provoke and delight professional scientists, philosophers and general readers alike." Australian Book Review

"Bennett and Hacker have identified [conceptual confusions] with clinical precision and relentless good sense.... rich with philosophical insights ... thoughtful and wonderfully useful treatise ..." Philosophy

"careful application in a host of cases ...is precisely what Bennett and Hacker provide in devastating critiques of psychologists and neuroscientists such as Blakemore, Crick, Damasio, Edelman, Gazzaniga, Kandel, Kosslyn, LeDoux, Penrose and Weiskrantz; and they also raise equally disturbing questions for philosophers such as Dennett, the Churchlands, Chalmers, Nagel and Searle. Whether this book leads to a reconfiguring of contemporary neuroscience and the philosophy associated with it will tell us much about the dynamics of contemporary intellectual life." Philosophy

"The vast spectrum of material in philosophy and neuroscience that Bennett and Hacker consider is impressive and their discussion is thorough and illuminating." Human Nature Review

1. ‘[It] will certainly, for a long time to come, be the most important contribution to the mind–body problem which there is.’ G. H. von Wright

2. ‘everyone who thinks about the mind and consciousness should study Philosophical Foundations of Neurtoscience. ... it will ultimately contribute to a far better understanding of mind and consciousness within scientific thought as well as a better understanding of the limits of empirical investigation’, Arthur Collins, The Philosophical Quarterly, 2004

3. ‘Sweeping, argumentative and brilliant, this book will provoke widespread discussion among philosophers and neuroscientists alike’, Dennis Patterson, Notre Dame Philosophical Review, 2003

4. ‘...devastating critiques of psychologists and neuroscientists ... Whether this book leads to a reconfiguring of contemporary neuroscience and the philosophy associated with it will tell us much about the dynamics of contemporary intellectual life’, Anthony O’Hear, Philosophy 2003

5. ‘This book is a joy to read. ... a model of clarity and directedness... [Bennett and Hacker] have produced that rarity of scholarship, a genuinely interdisciplinary work that succeeds. ... This is a wonderful book that will illuminate, provoke and delight professional scientists, philosophers and general readers alike.’, Damian Grace, Australian Book Review, 2003

6. ‘clinical precision and ... relentless good sense ... [a] thoughtful and wonderfully useful treatise’, Daniel N. Robinson, Philosophical Quarterly, 2004

7. ‘mandatory reading for anybody interested in neuroscience and consciousness research. The vast spectrum of material in philosophy and neuroscience that Bennett and Hacker consider is impressive and their discussion is thorough and illuminating.’ Axel Kohler, Human Nature Review, 2003

8. ‘a delicious cake of a book in which Bennett and Hacker guide the reader through a conceptual minefield of confusions repeatedly made by neuroscientists and philosophers alike.’ Constantine Sandis, Metapsychology 2003

9. ‘Anyone who has ever framed a theory or explained one should read this book ‑ at the risk of forever falling silent.’, The Rector, University of Sydney, Obiter Dicta 2003

10. ‘... impressively lucid ... Bennett and Hacker unquestionably succeed in making us challenge our own concepts, examine them for dross, and strive to home in on fundamentals.’ Neil Spurway, Journal of the European Soc for Study of Science and Theology.

11. ‘...the fruit of a unique cooperation between a neuroscientist and a philosopher ... an excellent book that should be read by all philosophers of cognition and all researchers in the cognitive neurosciences.’ Herman Philipse, ABG #2, De Academische Boekengids 2003

12. `...there are, I think, grounds for hope that this book will do an enormous amount of good, both in correcting philosophical confusion within neuroscience and in promoting a new style of dialogue between neuroscience and philosophy′ David Cockburn, Philosophical Investigations, 2005

John Cottingham, Professor of Philosophy, Reading University
The work is a formidable achievement.

Paul Harris, Professor, Human Development and Psychology, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
Neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers will be challenged – and educated – by this sustained and well-informed critique.

Customer Reviews

Contemporary critique of cognitive neuroscience
This is an excellent and important read. The authors (a philosopher and a neuroscientist) discuss cognitive neuroscience. The authors commence with a genealogy of our concepts before moving onto conceptual problems in various areas of the neuroscientific study of psychology. Such areas include emotion, consciousness and volition. The work is commendable as it engages both with contemporary neuroscience (LeDoux, Damasio and many others)as well as contemporary philosophers (Dennett, Searle).

This is essential reading for any experimental cognitive neuroscientists as it helps both study design and what research may achieve but also how we should interpret any data thus obtained into a wider psychology. In addition, the book is of interest to clinicians such as neurologists and psychiatrists who perhaps are vulnerable to incorporating the findings of neuroscience uncritically into their own disciplines. Lastly, there is a tendency of scientism in analytic philosophy and an unfortunate conflation of cognitive neuroscience with philosophy of psychology to which this book is a remedy.

Superb attack on importing Idealism into science
What are you, a ghost in a machine or a living human being? In this excellent book, the authors, a neuroscientist and a philosopher, answer the question.

They say that Rene Descartes' ideas still cause many muddles. He thought that we were all ghosts in machines, two things in one. This was because he believed that there were two basic kinds of thing, mind and matter (a theory called dualism), and that what we are depends on what our minds do (idealism).

The authors show that commonsense clears up the muddles. We are all living human beings. "The person ... is a psychophysical entity, not a duality of two conjoined substances, a mind and a body."

The authors show that dualism - the ghost in the machine - can never explain how our minds relate to our bodies. Our minds are not things, so they cannot cause changes by acting on our brains.

Often neuroscientists wrongly ascribe to our brains the activities that Descartes and his followers like John Locke ascribed to our minds. But human beings - not our brains or minds - think, see, decide and feel. "The brain and its activities make it possible for us - not for it - to perceive and think, to feel emotions, and to form and pursue projects."
Too many neuroscientists trap themselves in idealism. For example, Francis Crick wrote, "What we see appears to be located outside our body. ... What you see is not what is really there. ... In fact we have no direct knowledge of the objects in the world."

But the authors reply, "What we see does not appear to be located outside us. What we see is necessarily located outside our body, unless we are looking at ourselves in a mirror, or at our limbs or thorax." We see what is really there, the real world, and we directly know objects in the world, which exist whether we see them or not.

This is materialism, which "In its simplest and warranted form amounts to a denial that there are mental or spiritual substances." Materialism does not mean that our minds are our brains. It does not mean that we explain things, even material things, by studying the matter of which they are made. Materialism does not reduce everything to physics, or reduce our minds to our nervous systems.

Colin Blakemore was wrong to write, "We are machines", Crick wrong to write, "You ... are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." Our goals, motives and reasons - not our cells or molecules - explain our behaviour.

The authors show that scientists and philosophers do two different, useful jobs. Scientists analyse what's true and what's false. They create theories to explain and hypotheses to predict.

Philosophers analyse concepts and the rules for the use of words. They clarify what makes sense and what does not. And these authors have done this job superbly.

did philosophy end in 1953?
Wittgenstein's book, Philosophical Investigations, is one of the high points of philosophy. I'd recommend it to anyone. If you think that Philosophical Investigations is still the most -almost the only - important book ever published, you will enjoy reading Bennett and Hacker's analysis, and will be inclined to give the work 5 stars, and can stop reading this review now. If you think that the authors deliberately pick the softest available targets in "conceptually confused neuroscience" for their attacks, and are guilty of preaching a "mantra" of "analyse the sentence to display the conceptual confusion, conceptual confusion, conceptual confusion.." then, like me, you'll award the book maybe 3 stars.

The plus point in this book is the obvious erudition of the authors, in particular displayed via a solid analysis of Aristotle's philosophy. It's also fair enough to criticise the Crickian Anti-philosophy-Philosophy in all it's naïve yet misguided splendour.

The main minus point is the unwillingness to deviate a fraction from a "Wittgenstein was right" worldview, this results in repetitive "we will remove the conceptual confusion" statements followed by the mundane explanations of the meanings of words as we normally use them. Also in the irritating category: the almost jealous-sounding criticism of Dennett, for daring to claim that his work has been influenced by Wittgenstein. Whatever you think about Dan Dennett, surely he's allowed to evaluate the influence of others on his own work, even if he doesn't belong to the "Church of Wittgenstein"?

Another significant minus point is the lack of commentary on neuroscience which does not fit the "picture-theory" or "cartesian-mistake" targets, and we can be sure there is such neuroscience. See for example some of the work on neural network representation, or on the vectorial theories of colour space, or even on modern phenomenology. (cf Petitot, Varela, Evan Thompson, Sejnowski & the Churchlands, Noë, O'Regan).

Bennett and Hacker's book isn't rubbish, and is readable. But hopefully readers will be more open-minded to the possibility that some neuroscience isn't just a sub-task for Wittgensteinian analysis, neither is it being carried out solely by naïve scientists with "delusions of philosophical adequacy".