Philosophy and Neuroscience

October 5, 2007 12:05 PM

The Philosophy and Neuroscience Movement (PDF). A paper by Andrew Brook and Pete Mandik on the relationship between neuroscience and philosophy. [Via MindHacks.]

ABSTRACT: A movement dedicated to applying neuroscience to traditional philosophical problems and using philosophical methods to illuminate issues in neuroscience began about twenty-five years ago. Results in neuroscience have affected how we see traditional areas of philosophical concern such as perception, belief-formation, and consciousness. There is an interesting interaction between some of the distinctive features of neuroscience and important general issues in the philosophy of science. And recent neuroscience has thrown up a few conceptual issues that philosophers are perhaps best trained to deal with. After sketching the history of the movement, we explore the relationships between neuroscience and philosophy and introduce some of the specific issues that have arisen.

posted by homunculus (15 comments total)

I've only just skimmed this, but it looks good. Looking forward to reading it.
posted by painquale at 12:23 PM on October 5, 2007

Been waiting for this.
posted by Monstrous Moonshine at 12:26 PM on October 5, 2007

Thanks for posting this. I haven't read it yet, but it brings to mind Functionalism at Forty.
posted by cog_nate at 12:37 PM on October 5, 2007

Tim Crane on the Mind Body problem.
posted by empath at 12:57 PM on October 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

A recent New Yorker piece dealt with some of this through its profiles of philosophers Paul and Pat Churchland. Sorry it's not yet online, but here's the abstract.
posted by Miko at 1:07 PM on October 5, 2007

Nifty
posted by Smedleyman at 1:37 PM on October 5, 2007

fyi, before i read it, i flipped thru the bibliography, and it sketched me out. i don't see many luminaries of neural science listed - people that really dig in the brain and do hardcore modelling.

theres a lot going on in the field that should be mentioned in this article, and it seems they focus on other things.
posted by mano at 1:46 PM on October 5, 2007

Let's all boldly access the Quantum Non-local Circuit together, in peace.
posted by Curry at 1:48 PM on October 5, 2007

theres a lot going on in the field that should be mentioned in this article, and it seems they focus on other things.

Yeah, I thought the review of literature was overly cursory considering the statements laid out in the abstract.
posted by Curry at 1:58 PM on October 5, 2007

Thanks for posting this. I'm in the middle of Understanding Computers and Cognition, which comes at similar issues from the AI angle. The book is kind of old though, and I'd been thinking about trying to find more modern takes. Fascinating stuff.
posted by erikgrande at 2:46 PM on October 5, 2007

elaborating...

when you take an intro ai course (depends on the instructor) some find it prudent to expose you to this level of thinking about mind-brain... the dennet kind of thinking. it generally stops there, which i think is too bad, and as you get deeper and deeper into ai and these issues get out of focus.

likewise in cognitive science or psych, ideas from the gibsonian lineage (represented i think by goodale in this paper) get a similar nod in the intro courses but rigorous work takes you away from this general kind of thinking.

it would really be a service to see more papers with this kind of intro engage the more current ideas in machine intelligence and cognitive science (ironically both of these currents converge in the general area of applied statistics) and to relate them back to these handwavy but cool ideas that are debated in the paper.
posted by mano at 3:03 PM on October 5, 2007

Thanks!
posted by Grod at 4:23 PM on October 5, 2007

What are some articles that haven't been paid sufficient notice?
posted by krebby at 9:19 PM on October 5, 2007

it would really be a service to see more papers with this kind of intro engage the more current ideas in machine intelligence and cognitive science

What books would you (or anybody) recommend? Amazon has Consciousness Explained and Kinds of Minds by Dennet, I haven't read anything of his yet. I'm enjoying Understanding Computers and Cognition, and got started in this subject with GED, Society of Mind, and some Pinker books.
posted by erikgrande at 8:04 AM on October 6, 2007

checkout cognet, for starters....

heres a book that looks interesting have not read it yet but this is the kind of thing i am talking about, folks like brooks kind of inherited the whole ecological psychology mantle.
posted by mano at 2:21 PM on October 8, 2007