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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewIf you can get two sworn and unrestrained philosophical enemies such as Daniel Dennett and John Searle to join forces against you, you must at the very least be described as the controversialists of our time. -- Akeel Bilgrami, Johnsonian Professor of Philosophy and director, Heyman Centre for the Humanities, Columbia University Neurophysiology has made astonishing progress in recent decades and has learnt many hitherto unknown facts about the brain and its functioning. But what do these discoveries tell us about the mind? Peter Hacker and Maswell Bennett adopt an avowedly Aristotelian stance. Many cognitive scientists, they maintain, covertly endorse the dualism of Plato and Descartes, merely substituting brain-body dualism for mind-body dualism. If Daniel Dennett and John Searle are right, philosophical psychology is about to be superannuated by a scientific breakthrough in the study of the mind. If Bennett and Hacker are right, then much of cognitive neuroscience is not sound science but muddled philosophy. The resulting four-cornered discussion must rank as one of the great philosophical debates of our generation. The points at issue between these four sophisticated and articulate thinkers concern not only neurophysiology and philosophy of mind but the whole nature of philosophy itself and its relationship to science. The debates here give the reader an unparalleled chance to reach a personal decision on issues of fundamental intellectual importance. -- Anthony Kenny, Fellow Emeritus, St. John's College, Oxford University A useful introduction. -- Barry Dainton Science Readable and accessible. -- James Sage Metapsychology A good introduction to this dynamic subfield. Library Journal [A] rare opportunity to appreciate an encapsulated philosophical debate... Recommended. CHOICE
Table of ContentsIntroduction, by Daniel Robinson The Argument Selections from Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience Neuroscience and Philosophy, by Maxwell R. Bennett The Rebuttals Philosophy as Naive Anthropology: Comment on Bennett and Hacker, by Daniel Dennett Putting Consciousness Back in the Brain: Reply to Bennett and Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, by John Searle Reply to the Rebuttals The Conceptual Presuppositions of Cognitive Neuroscience: A Reply to Critics, by Maxwell R. Bennett and Peter M. S. Hacker Epilogue, by Maxwell R. Bennett Still Looking: Science and Philosophy in Pursuit of Prince Reason, by Daniel Robinson Notes
