Product Description
The Handbook of Cognitive Science provides an overview of recent developments in cognition research, relying upon non-classical approaches.Cognition is explained as the continuous interplay between brain, body, and environment, without relying on classical notions of computations and representation to explain cognition.The handbook serves as a valuable companion for readers interested in foundational aspects of cognitive science, and neuroscience and the philosophy of mind.The handbook begins with an introduction to embodied cognitive science, and then breaks up the chapters into separate sections on conceptual issues, formal approaches, embodiment in perception and action, embodiment from an artificial perspective, embodied meaning, and emotion and consciousness.Contributors to the book represent research overviews from around the globe including the US, UK, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, France, Sweden, and the Netherlands. ... Read more

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The first full-scale introduction to and history of cognitive science. An interdisciplinary study of the nature of knowledge by the noted cognitive scientist and author of Frames of Mind. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A HELPFUL HISTORY (ALBEIT AS OF 1985) OF COGNITIVE SCIENCES
Howard Gardner (born 1943) is an American developmental psychologist and Professor of Cognition at Harvard University.

He states in the Preface to this 1985 book, "I decided that it would be useful and rewarding to undertake a study in which I would rely heavily on the testimony of those scholars who had founded the field as well as those who were at present its most active workers. But in lieu of an oral history or a journalistic account of current laboratory work ... I decided to make a comprehensive investigation of cognitive science in which I could include the long view---the philosophical origins, the histories of each of the respective fields, the current work that appears most central, and my own assessment of the prospects for this ambitious field."He then adds in an Epilogue to the paperback edition of the book, "the research program described in 'The Mind's New Science' is being actively pursued on many fronts: a substantially changed second edition could be written, describing advances in our understanding of visual perception, natural language processing, imaging, categorization, and human rationality."

Here are some representative quotations from the book:

"Having no insight about the subject matter of a problem, the computer is consigned to make blunders that, in human beings, would never happen or would be considered extremely stupid."
"Here we are, two thousand years after the first discussions about perception, several hundred years after the philosophical debates between the empiricists and the rationalists first raged, and leading scientists are still disagreeing about fundamentals."
"I find it distorted to conceive of human beings apart from their membership in a species that has evolved over the millenia, and as other than organisms who themselves develop according to a complex interaction between genetic proclivities and environmental processes over a lifetime. To the extent that thought processes reflect these bio-developmental factors and are suffused with regressions, anticipations, frustrations, and ambivalent feelings, they will differ in fundamental ways from those exhibited by a nonorganic system."

Good historical background, but ferociously obsolete
IF you want a REALLY good cognitive science primer don't buy this book.

Best Cognitive Science Primer --> MIND: Introduction to Cognitive Science, 3rd Edition, By Paul Thagard, ISBN(13): 978-0-262-70109-9 , The MIT Press. See my review at amazon.com

This book, "The Mind's New Science", provides good historical perspective on cognitive science before 1985. "MIND" does so in less detail. The text was written while the information revolution was in it's infancy and it shows.The chapters on mental representations are archaic but provide an excellant opportunity to see the evolution of the science as well as author's quite understandable student-of-psychology bias.The author is a well-respected academic from Cambridge, MA.But this is an "inside cognitive science book written by an "insider".

The author knows too much about cognitive science and forgets to share that knowledge with the reader.It is a very well done essay or report for "those in the know" - for the rest of us??

As a learning tool this is an unremarkable text.The author's style is obtuse and reminscent of early 19th century philosophers.The flow of prose is stilted by rigorous adherence to grammar and terminology.The author fails to fully define concepts inherently referenced. My most freqent experience was bewilderment at the end of each paragraph.By careful dissection of each sentence I could MOSTLY figure out what information I needed to have - and did not -in order to UNDERSTAND what he just said.

My personal assessment----> The text is not a textbook designed for students, the goal of this book is NOT to illuminate the realm of inquiry into human cognition.The book is a very long persuasive essay whose thesis statement is: "The maturation of cognitive science DOES NOT eliminate the NEED for philosophy as a specific discipline".

***THE END*** :)

Decent supplement to broader study, but too biased by itself
The book is a history of ideas. This breaks down into some light historical content, and much presentation of positions (sometimes with a little supporting argument).

As a history, I would compare this book to what you might expect from an account of the Cuban revolution written by a relatively conscientious Castro partisan: sensitive reports of leaders' statements, factual aspects painted in slightly punched-up colors with a vague and gentle brush, heroics and ideology emphasized. Naturally, you can expect a wildly inaccurate and polemic treatment of 'life before the revolution.'

As a presentation of ideas, its main virtue is its fidelity. Gardner has taken up the opinions of a handful of big-name cognitivists and represented them here. You could tell who was saying what without any citations, just from what is written. As such, it would be undoubtedly useful for reviewing just what claims people liked to make during the revolution, not too unlike having a set of extracts from classic guerilla texts.

The claims themselves are a parade of ad hominem attacks, conclusive strikes on straw men, vast overstatements, and unbelievable exclusions (e.g., cognitive psychology can't even peripherally be bothered with: emotion, cultural or social factors, or the state of the environment at any point). There is no use in adopting these viewpoints, nor in arguing against them. They are out of touch. Gardner himself has a few interesting things to say about psychology getting involved with epistemological issues, but here they don't amount to more than an appetizer. Too bad, since I thought these were pretty interesting and much more substantive than what Gardner was reporting on.

Given the above, I would only recommend the book as supplementary material in a broader look at the history of psychology, or in order to satisfy very casual interests in the history of cognitivist ideas. You should not bother with this book if you want an introduction to or a clearer understanding of cognitivism, nor if you want support for or ammunition against cognitive work as it is practiced. If these are your goals, you should instead get in contact with research, whether by text or by directly checking out articles.

Impressive.
This is a very readable, very complete introduction/history to the thinking, questions and issues underlying cognitive science from its philosophical origins. It pulls many threads together to give a cohesiveand complementary account of the development of the fields involved incognitive science in a way that garners a strong feel for the field forthose new to it, and that will grant new insights to those well acquaintedwith the field.

Damn impressive, all told. ... Read more

Product Description
This landmark text introduces the novice reader to what great thinkers think about thought. Unlike most texts, authors Jay Friedenberg and Gordon Silverman use a theoretical, rather than empirical, approach to examine the most important theories of mind from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. While experiments are discussed, they are used primarily to illustrate the specific characteristics of a model.

Customer Reviews (4)

Great introductory book for an extremely interdisciplinary field
For the amount of material it covers, this is a great book. I read it cover to cover and I've kept even after finishing my intro to Cognitive Science course because it is straightforward and covers all of the basics of modern cognitive science. There is much more breadth to it than Thagard's book Mind: Introduction to Cognitive Science, and Gazzaniga's Methods in Mind (although those are great books, they're more specific and more suited for upper level classes or as a supplement ot this book). I don't think the one star reviews are valid assessments; my major is Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology (it's a single interdisciplinary major at my school)and coming from a program with a heavier emphasis on philosophy than most cognitive science and psychology majors, I think it's unfair to demand that an introductory book like this delve too deeply into that aspect of the material. This gives a cursory explanation of the philosophical debates going on, but ultimately there's way too much going on in philosophy of the mind to be adequately introduced in a book that's also supposed to be giving an overview of cognitive psychology and neuroscience. To be fair, the text can get repetitive because the structure is the same througout the book, but that didn't keep me from reading it when I was taking the class. As a plus, the publisher's website offers some flashcards and review questions for each chapter which really helped me study for exams. If I were a cognitive science professor I'd use this for my intro class over Thagard's or Gazzaniga's.

Excuse my language, but this book sucks
I totally agree with the previous negative review, so I'll just add my own disappointments here. I am currently taking a cognitive science course, and this is the textbook we're using. It's new this year, and I have a hunch it won't be on the menu for next semester.

It seems like at least a third of the text in this book is dedicated to sentences like this:"We have just now read [topic A], which was [description of topic A], and next we will cover topic B, and after that we'll cover topic C."This fluff/dust makes the book hard to read, and there is very little "meat" in between.

Here's an actual quote that made me laugh out loud this morning:(page 167)
"Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT).This technique was first developed in the 1970s. [short explanation of what it is, then new paragraph: ] Positron Emission Tomography (PET). This imaging proceedure (developed in the 1980s) was developed later than computerized axial tomography." Well, how about that,they even attempt to teach me about time:the 1980s came after the 1970s!!

Don't buy this book.

Comprehensive and Useful
I read "Cognitive Science An Introduction to the Study of Mind" not for a course requirement, but because I was interested in the topic. The book provided a comprehensive and readable account of this new field. It explained ideas in a way that I could follow, not having had any specialized training in the different areas. The figures effectively broke up the text and helped to explain and expand upon concepts introduced in the chapters. The exercises and web links at the chapter endings invite to reiterate and explore topics in greater detail. There was also a web site with practice exams and electronic flash cards. I can see that it would be useful for an undergraduate if assigned for a course.

DO NOT USE THIS TEXTBOOK
What a horrible book. If you are a professor looking for a textbook for an interdisciplinary cognitive science class, absolutely DO NOT use this one. If you want to learn anything about the subject, DO NOT buy it. This horrible excuse for a textbook was written by a couple of psychologists who obviously don't know the first thing about philosophy, AI, computer science, or any of the other topics they attempt to address. An inordinately large amount of text is devoted to a complete history of psychology, while philosophical issues crucial to the field are given the short shrift.

Not only is the material in the book of reprehensible quality, it is presented in an embarrassingly slipshod manner. I can't imagine how a publisher could print this book and still respect themselves. The illustrations from the book consist of clip art and worse, and consistently look pixelly and distorted. As if it weren't bad enough that the material is second-rate, it's cheaply presented with useless and confusing diagrams and tables.

All in all, my undergraduate class could have put together a better text. Throughout the course we were consistently correcting and refuting the text. Our professor only ordered it for the class because he had not read it. This book is a waste of time, money, trees, effort, and space. Avoid it at all costs. ... Read more

Product Description
The renowned philosopher Jerry Fodor, a leading figure in the study of the mind for more than twenty years, presents a strikingly original theory on the basic constituents of thought. He suggests that the heart of cognitive science is its theory of concepts, and that cognitive scientists have gone badly wrong in many areas because their assumptions about concepts have been mistaken. Fodor argues compellingly for an atomistic theory of concepts, deals out witty and pugnacious demolitions of rival theories, and suggests that future work on human cognition should build upon new foundations.

This lively, conversational, and superbly accessible book is the first volume in the Oxford Cognitive Science Series, where the best original work in this field will be presented to a broad readership. Concepts will fascinate anyone interested in contemporary work on mind and language. Cognitive science will never be the same again. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Great Read, but not a Good Introduction for Neophytes
Over a decade after its first publication, Fodor's book is still a classic.At a reasonable 162 pages, it is slim, crammed with compelling argumentation, and leavened with irreverent wit.Its lessons remain as important today as they did a decade ago, and the book repays many re-readings. It is necessary reading for anyone with an interest in concepts. I can't recommend it enough.

However, two caveats are in order.

First, this is not a good introduction for the uninitiated.Although Fodor's book is thankfully light on formalism, which makes it easier to read than a lot of work on concepts, the book's argumentation is dense and presumes a lot of understanding of theories of concepts.Do you understand the difference between theories that take mental particulars as basic and those that takemental dispositions as basic?Do you know what the semantic features of lexical items are (e.g. [+/-telos])?If you don't, then this book will be heavy slogging, because an understanding of these ideas is presumed, not explained, in Fodor's book.I first read this book as part of an undergraduate course on concepts, and it was very difficult reading for me.It wasn't until a few years later when I had read the book three or four more times and had done a lot of background reading that I finally started to understand Fodor's arguments and their implications.

Second, as the other review by "daorcboy" suggests, this book does not do a good job of explaining what is compelling about Fodor's favored hypothesis about concepts, except that this hypothesis is supposedly better than its competitors.Nor does the book do a good job of explaining what is compelling about Fodor's competitors in the first place.This feature of Fodor's presentation not only makes it difficult for neophytes to understand what is at stake in Fodor's discussion, but it also leads to some serious distortions in the presentations of the issues.Here's an example that might illuminate this feature of Fodor's presentation, but it is only an illustration and can't represent the range of issues at stake (or do them full justice):consider the N-word and 'black person" (I'll be treating these words as stand-ins for the concepts they express; nothing important turns on this simplifying assumption).I hope that none of us would use the N-word, but all of us would find 'black person' acceptable to use, presumably because we think these terms have different meanings.According to Fodor's account, however, the N-word and 'black person' are literally *synonymous* because they have the same reference.Most people would find this an uncomfortable conclusion, but Fodor doesn't even acknowledge how uncomfortable this implication is, let alone that it is an uncompelling feature of his view, or that it is a prime motivation for alternative views.

No, instead, Fodor just assures us that his view must be true because all the alternatives are worse, primarily due to abstract considerations involving semantic productivity and systematicity, not to mention the horrors of semantic holism that follow in the wake of alternative theories.We are also given assurances that whatever differences there are between the N-word and 'black person' are due either to the pragmatics of speech (a la Grice, or more recently, Tim Williamson), or are incidental insofar as they are only features of these terms' different modes of presentation, which, Fodor tells us in his previous book, "The Elm and the Expert," are only associated with their semantic/referential properties by a miraculous pre-established harmony (a la Leibniz).If you get the sneaking suspicion from the characterization I'm peddling here that important explanatory burdens are being shirked by Fodor's theory, then you aren't alone among cognitive scientists and linguists: as linguist James Pustejovsky puts it with reference to Fodor's manner of defense, "anything can be explained by appealing to a general enough mechanism, with the subsequent lack of theoretical interest or scientific merit."And so if this chacterization of Fodor's theory doesn't sound that compelling, then you should suspect that there is more to the story than what makes it into Fodor's book.

After reading a few of Fodor's articles and books, any reader will start to discern a pattern in Fodor's style of argumentation.Fodor thinks concepts are unstructured mental particulars whose semantic content is directly determined by their reference; anyone who disagrees with Fodor's thesis is, to put it crudely, a closet behaviorist such that no matter how many epicycles they add to behaviorist theory, they will just be repeating the same old behaviorist mistakes.In many ways, Fodor's analytical pattern is accurate and yields important insights about the shortfalls of some theories, but it is also too simplistic.An analogy might help.Imagine a free-market economist from the University of Chicago who argues that anyone who doesn't agree with ultra-libertarian free-market philosophy is a closet communist; anything short of orthodox purity is apocryphal. Keynesians? Communists.Advocates of Prospect Theory?Communists.Behavioral economists?Communists. Whatever ounce of truth there is in such allegations obscures a lot more than it reveals, and the same is true for Fodor's repeated insinuation that other researchers (virtually all of cognitive science, apparently!) are closeted behaviorists who just haven't given up the ghost of behaviorism.This argumentative strategy gets old.It's not just that its predictable hole-poking manifests an unscientific spirit (because scientific theories are always interested in expanding their explanatory power or precision), but it is somewhat self-defeating, since it gives Fodor's theory nowhere to go, no ways to be improved or deepened.No doubt this is why "daorcboy" was dissatisfied that Fodor didn't have more to say about his own theory.

The foregoing caveats shouldn't put anyone off to reading Fodor's book, which has taught me a tremendous amount.But, like any book, it should be read with a grain of salt and only after you've read a more balanced introduction.

Jerry on Concepts: CogSci Made Enjoyable
This deceptively slim book was something of a delight.I was delighted for once to have a relatively brief (and devilishly tongue-in-cheek) overview of positions and thought among what too often strikes me as elitist, territorial, and occasionally even blinkered work in the nominally cross-disciplinary and open-minded field of academia that is Cognitive Science.Similarities and weaknesses among various competing theories and hypotheses were called to attention, and the (largely successful, I believe) explanation and details of the political infighting between prominent theorists was made strikingly clear. Furthermore, Fodor's relaxed language and humor helped ease me, the poor reader, through the dense and convoluted minefield that is the philosophy behind the philosophy of language.

Much as I enjoyed the book, I must refrain from a full five stars for one reason.It wasn't that I found his description and treatment of the theories he presented (particularly those I was familiar with) to be a bit shallow -- after all, Fodor isn't attempting an in-depth literature review, nor is he addressing an audience made up of more than simply his colleagues in related academic fields.Neither was it Fodor's tone, which did strike me as perhaps less than entirely professional -- but on the other hand, his flippant manner and backhanded compliments were a large part of what made the book as a whole enjoyable instead of dry, dense, and a chore to slog through (as too often academic literature of this nature seems to be).And nor was it Fodor's airy disregard for the empirical demands of modern science when he outlines his own theory of concepts -- it's been a few years since Philosophy 101, but I do vaguely remember that this is allowed.

No, my biggest concern, and greatest regret, is that Fodor spent so long criticising the prevailing view that he didn't seem to have enough space left in the book for too much exploration of his own, very interesting, ideas.Yes, yes, it's merely a starting point -- but I'm greedy, I want MORE! ... Read more

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This guide to the teaching of design presents ways in which recent and established aspects of cognitive science can be utilized by teachers. Teaching and learning aids, as well as exercises are included. The book can be used across a wide age-range and with any size of group. ... Read more

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This is a book about the nature of film: about the nature of moving images, about the viewer's relation to film, and about the kinds of narrative that film is capable of presenting. It represents a very decisive break with the semiotic and psychoanalytic theories of film that have dominated discussion over the past twenty years.Professor Currie provides a general theory of pictorial narration and its interpretation in both pictorial and linguistic media, and concludes with an analysis of some ways in which film narrative and literary narrative differ. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Articulation of fertile ideas on the philosophy of film
Written in 1995, Currie's Arguments are Concise, Persuasive on the topic of, generally, what is cinema.

Currie's Bibliography includes:
Carroll, Noel
Dennett, Daniel
Eco, Umberto
Lewis, David
Metz, Christian
Walton, Kendall

In college & graduate school, I have found writings on film studies, particularly those which apply psychoanalysis & semiotics, generally stodgy & often impenetrable. Even Mulvey's seminal, infamous essay on "Visual Pleasure" is hard to understand from the standpoint of a rationalist.

Currie's approach is Concise & persuasive; I think he's an analytic philosopher. He counter-argues against "film as a language," which I suppose is metaphorical at best (nevertheless, this language concept is found in many respectable film studies textbooks). His writing is accessible for college level & up; he applies findings in Cognitive Science to his arguments For the fictional film. Noel Carroll, a film studies iconoclast, embraces this book with one caveat: avant-garde films, films that are more purely visual than pictorial, are not tackled sufficiently here.

Here's a quick glimpse at the book, offered by University of Houston's Cognitive Science website.

It is highly possible to shape an advanced undergraduate course on the philosophy of film (mixed in with Philosophy of the Mind) with this book using such films as: Antonioni's "Blow-Up" Linklater's "Before Sunset" Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" Soderbergh's "The Limey" Haneke's "Cache" Bier's "Brothers" Hitchcock's "Spellbound"

Currie's next book "Arts & Minds" was released in January 2005. ... Read more

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This is the first major textbook to offer a truly comprehensive review of cognitive science in its fullest sense. Ranging across artificial intelligence models and cognitive psychology through to recent discursive and cultural theories Rom Harré offers a breathtakingly original yet accessible integration of the field. At its core this textbook addresses the question "is psychology a science?" with a clear account of scientific method and explanation and their bearing on psychological research.

A pivotal figure in psychology and philosophy for many decades Rom Harré has turned his unmatched breadth of reference and insight for students at all levels. Whether describing, language, categorization, memory, the brain or connectionism the book always links our intuitions about beliefs, desires and their social context to the latest accounts of their place in computational and biological models.

Fluently written and well structured, this an ideal text for students. The book is divided into four basic modules, with three lectures in each; the reader is guided with helpful learning points, study and essay questions and key readings for each chapter.

Customer Reviews (1)

An Absolute Delight
I was lucky enough to have Rom Harre teach me, using this book as the main text. The book's organization and easy-to-grasp, engaging explanations will give the reader a good understanding of a hard, yet fascinating topic. Buy it, even if you don't think you're smart enough to understand the most complex machine in the (known) universe; you'd be surprised what a good teacher can do. ... Read more

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The authors' proposal of a new model of psychological organization that integrates psychoanalytic theory with the investigation of mental processes. Based in cognitive science. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Basic Outline of Bucci's Theories
As noted by other reviewers, Bucci's theories are complex and a background in the history of academic and clinical psychology, as well as psychoanalysis, are helpful to appreciate them.Also as noted by another reviewer much research has been done using Bucci & Maskit's computerized discourse measures of The Referential Process since this book was published 13 years ago.More recent work has demonstrated the validity of these measures against Bucci's definitions in empirical studies as well as validating these measures against measures of temporal sequences in narratives and measures of episodic memory.Some of this work is outlined at the Web site below along with summaries of Bucci's main theoretical ideas:

[...]

Though Bucci's ideas and research have developed since this book was first published it remains the single most comprehensive source that outlines her arguments in the context of the history of these diverse fields.

A Thoughtful Integration
Dr. Bucci's book is a thoughtful integration of Cognitive Science and psychoanalytic thinking. The book is obviously for those who are in the field or are students of the field. She explains basic concepts in Cognitive Science and psychoanalysis in a lucid manner. She is a creative thinker who attempts to cast off what cannot stand up well in light of current science but shows how much of psychoanalysis can stand up better than many critics think. The chapters on her research were not as strong as the theoretical chapters, as she was not clear on what her complex coding system should expect to see in various situations. She has done much more research since the book was published and interested readers would do well to follow up this book with her research articles.

A low RA book
Bucci writes a great deal about what she calls Referential Activity, the ability to put experience into symbols and words in a specific and concrete way.But the book itself shows little RA, with page upon page of densely jargon-backed theoretical discussion, and almost no concrete examples of the highly abstract and difficult concepts presented.This makes it almost impossible to understand much what Bucci is saying without an extensive background in both cognitive science and psychoanalytic theory, a background few share.Morever, Bucci seems to take her integration too far, combinbing the work of cognitive science authors and perspectives that are strikingly incompatible without really dealing with this incompatibility.Cognitive science, like psychoanalytic theory, is a pluralistic, even anarchistic group of heterogenous voices, hardly the kind of unified front that Bucci often seems to want it to be. ... Read more

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Increasingly, contemporary quantitative cognitive science is appearing in mainstream clinical-science and clinical-practice journals, and many of the techniques under study hold promise for aiding individuals who have problems in living. The essays in this volume showcase fertile clinical applications of quantitative cognitive science in charting abnormalities among groups and individuals, and discuss ways in which readers can apply these techniques in their own research and potentially in clinical assessment and practice ... Read more

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Written by a stellar group of internationally renowned scholars, this work gathers thirteen new essays on key topics in the lively, interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. Philosophers, psychologists, and neurologists come together to investigate such fascinating subjects as the neural basis of language, cognition, and emotion; consciousness; vision; rationality; artificial life; and the relations between mind and world--our representation of numbers and space, for instance. For anyone who has ever been fascinated by the exploration of the human mind, this book is a must. ... Read more

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All normal human beings alive in the last fifty thousand years appear to have possessed, in Mark Turner's phrase, "irrepressibly artful minds." Cognitively modern minds produced a staggering list of behavioral singularities--science, religion, mathematics, language, advanced tool use, decorative dress, dance, culture, art--that seems to indicate a mysterious and unexplained discontinuity between us and all other living things. This brute fact gives rise to some tantalizing questions: How did the artful mind emerge? What are the basic mental operations that make art possible for us now, and how do they operate? These are the questions that occupy the distinguished contributors to this volume, which emerged from a year-long Getty-funded research project hosted by the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. These scholars bring to bear a range of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary perspectives on the relationship between art (broadly conceived), the mind, and the brain. Together they hope to provide directions for a new field of research that can play a significant role in answering the great riddle of human singularity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A huge disappointment
This should have been a magnificent book. It boasts contributions from fourteen eminent writers scattered across a wide range of disciplines: anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics, neurobiology, music, sociology, art history, and literature. They approach the problem of artistic creativity from every different angle. This is the kind of interdisciplinary approach that often yields impressive insights.

But this book failed to grab me. I wasn't surprised that a few of the chapters sputtered out in dense verbosity; the diversity of authors and approaches guarantees that some just won't click for any given reader. My disappointment stems from the uniform failure of the material to tackle the problem. There are some stellar authors in this book, writers such as George Lakoff, Merlin Donald, and Terrence Deacon, whose other works I have enjoyed and learned much from. But in this book, their work never rises to the level of their other works.

The book comes in six parts, each comprised of several chapters:

Art and Evolution
Art and Emotion
Art and the Way We Think
Art, Meaning, and Form
Art and Sacred Belief
Art and Ambiguity

These are exciting topics, and I expected to read penetrating analyses that shed light on the unique role of art in human cognition. But instead, most of the material has a vague, tentative feel to it. The two chapters on art and evolution say almost nothing about how art appears to have developed in human cognition. At the very least, I expected a discussion of the explosion of artistic expression marked by the first cave paintings. But in fact the cave paintings attracted only a few discursive mentions in the book. Nor is there any discussion of the role of art in hunter-gatherer societies, sexual selection factors that might have affected the development of artistic thinking, or anything from evolutionary biology.

There are a few interesting discussions of the role of mirror neurons in artistic development, but the authors did not offer anything specific about the relationship between mirror neurons and artistic thinking; most of this discussion was tentative.

There was plenty of conventional analysis of art, such as a long discussion of the geometric structure behind several paintings, but this kind of discussion has been around for a long time and I found nothing of particular interest in it.

This book was the result of a year-long research project at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, which brought together these authors for an intensive collaboration. The effort should have produced an explosion of fascinating ideas. But, despite all reasonable expectations, the end result is a dud. ... Read more

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The Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science contains a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the main ideas and methods currently used at the intersection of phenomenology and the neuro- and cognitive sciences. The idea that phenomenology, in the European continental tradition, has something to offer to the cognitive sciences is a relatively recent development in our attempt to understand the mind. Here in one volume the leading researchers in this area address the central topics that define the intersection between phenomenological studies and the cognitive sciences. They address questions about methodology, the analysis of perception, memory, imagination, attention, emotion, intersubjectivity, the role of the body and language, and they explore a variety of pathologies that throw light on our everyday experiences. The authors draw on the classical works of phenomenologists such as Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Gurwitsch, and Sartre, but they also push the traditional lines of phenomenology to new boundaries, mapping out new terrain in connection with the empirical science of the mind and body. These essays are revelatory for both phenomenologists who want to understand what cognitive science can contribute to an understanding of experience, and for scientists who want to understand how they can use phenomenology in their empirical studies.

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In Human Reasoning and Cognitive Science, Keith Stenning and Michiel van Lambalgen—a cognitive scientist and a logician—argue for the indispensability of modern mathematical logic to the study of human reasoning. Logic and cognition were once closely connected, they write, but were "divorced" in the past century; the psychology of deduction went from being central to the cognitive revolution to being the subject of widespread skepticism about whether human reasoning really happens outside the academy. Stenning and van Lambalgen argue that logic and reasoning have been separated because of a series of unwarranted assumptions about logic.

Stenning and van Lambalgen contend that psychology cannot ignore processes of interpretation in which people, wittingly or unwittingly, frame problems for subsequent reasoning. The authors employ a neurally implementable defeasible logic for modeling part of this framing process, and show how it can be used to guide the design of experiments and interpret results. They draw examples from deductive reasoning, from the child's development of understandings of mind, from analysis of a psychiatric disorder (autism), and from the search for the evolutionary origins of human higher mental processes.

The picture proposed is one of fast, cheap, automatic but logical processes bringing to bear general knowledge on the interpretation of task, language, and context, thus enabling human reasoners to go beyond the information given. This proposal puts reasoning back at center stage.

A Bradford Book ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Predicate Calculus and Logic-- Oh Boy!!
Jump right in and begin to explore Wason's Selection Task criteria using predicate calculus. Enjoy a journey through the evaluation of human evaluation of reasoning competence via reviews of subject evaluations and in depth logical explanations of those evaluations compared to the conclusions of others who have put forth conclusions which the authors ... wish to improve upon.The writing is somewhat fluid, but there are a few places where the authors introduce their own symbols and don't adequately explain them.Sometimes, a better explanation will pop up in a later chapter, but the reader should be prepared for these occasional issues and have a good head for deriving semantics from context. The book is worth the read and the concepts presented are thought provoking.For the computer geek, it's a wonderful journey through the use of predicate calculus in a context other than language syntax and semantics.This book will be a difficult read for the novice who is unexposed to predicate calculus, but given sufficient intellect, the novice should not be dissuaded from reading it, given the predisposition to learn the basics of logical statements. In this case, a companion book on predicate calculus is recommended.The book is enjoyable for its technicality. But you gotta like the math of logic.

reveals how complicated logic really is
First, I agree with the professional reviews listed above.

What matters most to me about this book is that it presents experimental evidence of more precisely what humans do when we reason. In particular, subjects are analyzed as they engage problems in logic.

The results presented explain how it is logic can be controversial. There is more to logic than is conventionally assumed. There are steps in logic which pivot on what the individual interprets the logical problem to be about. One's interpretation then determines the direction of logical thought.

Experimental evidence available in such a critical human endeavor as logical reasoning is extremely important. It keeps one from getting side-tracked.

This book complements nicely the understanding I have acquired in my recent reading. In Heil's book _From an Ontological Point of View_, I learned to take ontology seriously. Then in Jacquette's _Ontology_, I learned the crucial role of logic in escaping the anthropocentric imprisonment of experience. That led me to Hanna's _Rationality and Logic_, in which I learned about the biological basis in which logical analysis occurs. I found that Bermudez's _Thinking Without Words_ confirmed the biology of logic.

And now, this book helps me to understand the role of interpretation in reasoning.

And the crucial role of interpretation has led me back to Munz's _Critique of Impure Reason_, in which interpretation is presented as an obstacle that cognitive science has got to take seriously.

These six books taken together have been immensely helpful in my own persistent attempt to understand what's really going on here. It is deeply gratifying to reflect on the breadth of analysis these authors have made available. ... Read more

Product Description
The essays in this anthology deal with the growing interconnections between moral philosophy and research that draws upon neuroscience, developmental psychology, and evolutionary biology. This cross- disciplinary interchange coincides, not accidentally, with the renewed interest in ethical naturalism. In order to understand the nature and limits of moral reasoning, many new ethical naturalists look to cognitive science for an account of how people actually reason. At the same time, many cognitive scientists have become increasingly interested in moral reasoning as a complex form of human cognition that challenges their theoretical models. The result of this collaborative, and often critical, interchange is an exciting intellectual ferment at the frontiers of research into human mentality.Sections and Contributors:Ethics NaturalizedOwen Flanagan, Mark L. Johnson, Virginia HeldMoral Judgments, Representations, and PrototypesPaul M. Churchland, Andy Clark, Peggy DesAutels, Ruth Garrett MillikanMoral EmotionsRobert M. Gordon, Alvin I. Goldman, John Deigh, Naomi SchemanAgency and ResponsibilityJames P. Sterba, Susan Khin-Zaw, Helen E. Longino, Michael E. BratmanA Bradford Book ... Read more

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This text focuses on two major issues: the nature of scientific inquiry and the relations between scientific disciplines. Designed to introduce the basic issues and concepts in the philosophy of science, Bechtel writes for an audience with little or no philosophical background.

The first part of the book explores the legacy of Logical Positivism and the subsequent post-Positivistic developments in the philosophy of science. The second section examines arguments for and against using a model of theory reduction to integrate scientific disciplines. The book concludes with a chapter describing non-reductionist approaches for relating scientific disciplines using psycholinguistic and cognitive neuroscience models.
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The rise cognitive science has been one of the most important intellectual developments of recent years, stimulating new approaches to everything from philosophy to film studies. This is an introduction to what cognitive science has to offer the humanities and particularly the study of literature. Hogan suggests how the human brain works and makes us feel in response to literature. He walks the reader through all of the major theories of cognitive science that are important for the humanities in order to understand the production and reception of literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An Important Book for Humanists
This is an important book on an important subject.Hogan's purpose here is to introduce the humanities reader to the ways and insights of cognitive science and to summarize some of the attempts to apply those ways and insights to literature and the arts.This is an activity that is long overdue.The growth in knowledge of the human brain and human cognition has been as dramatic as the distance from that knowledge exhibited by studies within the humanities, which have often been more interested in `theorizing' science in postmodern ways than in joining with scientists to understand the humanities in more scientific ways.

While this effort is of enormous importance, it is at a very preliminary stage.For one thing, the actual functioning of the brain is so sophisticated and complex that many descriptions of cognitive processes are more metaphoric than conventionally `scientific'.That does not mean that they are not systematic or thoughtful.Rather, they depict the processes of cognition in terms that are far more simple than what is clearly going on.It is no surprise that Kant is key to their procedures, for the Kantian model of a human observer trying to bridge an unbridgeable gulf, constrained by decidedly `human' equipment but nevertheless attaining useful knowledge, is much in evidence here.

Given the `metaphoric' nature of this knowledge, it should come as no surprise that its conclusions often square with those of thinkers whose methods and materials predate those of cognitive science.For example, Hogan's interesting discussion about creativity involving both novelty and aptness squares precisely with Samuel Johnson's demands for novelty and what we would term something like `faithfulness to the realities of human psychology'.Hogan's argument to the effect that creativity at the highest levels carries common elements and is applicable across fields (the creativity required in writing an epic being comparable to the creativity required in teasing out the realities of the double helix) replicates Johnson's judgment that Newton could have written a fine epic poem, had he so desired.

Hogan is particularly strong in his critique of evolutionary psychology and the contradictory lessons that it often draws.His arguments are as trenchant as they are clear and he is able to offer very suggestive examples to support them.In short, this is an excellent introduction to what will become an immensely important subject, but one that carries no illusions with regard to the position in which we now find ourselves. ... Read more

Product Description
The author presents a new theory of magical actions based on a wide array of recent findings in the cognitive sciences. Analysing classical ethnographic cases, he argues that paying close attention to the underlying cognitive processes will not only explain why magical rituals look the way they do, it will also supply new insights into the role of magic in the formation of institutionalised religion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Dense, innovative, but frustratingly short on examples
This book was difficult but moderately rewarding. I've got a degree in linguistics, and I would say that covered about a third of some of the concepts and terminology referenced. The rest seemed to come from anthropology and (nonlinguistic) semantics/semiotics, so I had to work that stuff out as I went. Unfortunately, the book is very short on examples, so much of its content remained abstract and hard to grasp.

A fair amount of the material seemed to be stuff I would expect anybody practicing or studying magic/ritual to understand in much more basic terms: the idea of mystic essence that spreads by contagion and other mechanisms (better described by Bonewits and Durkheim). More interesting, but ultimately not well presented, was the theory of conceptual blending, in which mental constructs and concepts from different cognitive domains are mapped to one another in the process of doing ritual. I haven't decided if a second reading would help with that, but considering the paucity of examples I have serious doubts.

This book also has many typographic, spelling, and grammatical errors.

A Brilliant Synthesis
Sorensen artfully blends numerous theories about cognition to arrive at his notion of magic.Anyone interested in schema theory, cultural models, or conceptual blending will find much insight in these pages.Sorensen's pithy review of these ideas and his subsequent synthesis lead to a sophisticated theory of the cognitive underpinnings of magic.A Cognitive Theory of Magic provides a whole new perspective on this universally human proclivity.This state-of-the-art book is a must read for cognitive anthropologists. ... Read more