Search results for ""Author Suzanne Cunningham""

Designed for a first course in the philosophy of mind, this book has several distinctive features. Unlike any other book of its kind, it offers extensive treatment of the emotions and of the problem of other minds. Throughout the text insights from other relevant disciplines--psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, anthropology, computer science--are integrated into a philosophical framework. A section is devoted to a concise discussion of the factors to consider when assessing any theory. An ongoing series of Notes on Terminology explains each of the technical terms used. Each chapter is followed by a list of Issues for Discussion, and Suggested Research Projects--short, focused assignments that introduce the reader to materials of interest outside the text.

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Has exclusion of Darwin's views on evolution distorted 20c philosophy? Cunningham suggests a reappraisal. Two of the dominant traditions in twentieth-century philosophy, analytic philosophy (founded by G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell) and phenomenology (founded by Edmund Husserl), explicitly excluded Charles Darwin's account of evolution, not because they saw it as mistaken, but because they saw it as irrelevant. These two traditions set the stage for a great deal of subsequent philosophy, and Professor Cunningham argues that the non-Darwinian framework they constructed continues to constrain significant portions of the field, in particular theories of perception and mind. In tracing the major reasons for this exclusion of Darwin and evolutionary considerations, and the consequencesfor philosophy, Professor Cunningham criticises purely cognitivist theories of perception and Machine Functionalist theories of mind, and offers proposals on how these theories should be amended to take account of the adaptive role that perception and mind play on behalf of a living organism's struggle for survival and well-being. SUZANNE CUNNINGHAMis Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University, Chicago.

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Designed for a first course in the philosophy of mind, this book has several distinctive features. Unlike any other book of its kind, it offers extensive treatment of the emotions and of the problem of other minds. Throughout the text insights from other relevant disciplines--psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, anthropology, computer science--are integrated into a philosophical framework. A section is devoted to a concise discussion of the factors to consider when assessing any theory. An ongoing series of Notes on Terminology explains each of the technical terms used. Each chapter is followed by a list of Issues for Discussion, and Suggested Research Projects--short, focused assignments that introduce the reader to materials of interest outside the text.

Read more less