Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy

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Publisher: The MIT Press
Number Of Pages: 438
Publication Date: 2002-12-02
Sales Rank: 182382
ISBN / ASIN: 026253200X
EAN: 9780262532006
Binding: Paperback
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
Studio: The MIT Press
Average Rating: 4


Progress in the neurosciences is profoundly changing our conception of ourselves. Contrary to time-honored intuition, the mind turns out to be a complex of brain functions. And contrary to the wishful thinking of some philosophers, there is no stemming the revolutionary impact that brain research will have on our understanding of how the mind works.

Brain-Wise is the sequel to Patricia Smith Churchland?s Neurophilosophy, the book that launched a subfield. In a clear, conversational manner, this book examines old questions about the nature of the mind within the new framework of the brain sciences. What, it asks, is the neurobiological basis of consciousness, the self, and free choice? How does the brain learn about the external world and about its own introspective world? What can neurophilosophy tell us about the basis and significance of religious and moral experiences?

Drawing on results from research at the neuronal, neurochemical, system, and whole-brain levels, the book gives an up-to-date perspective on the state of neurophilosophy--what we know, what we do not know, and where things may go from here.


Review:

Philosophy meets neuroscience accessibly and controversially

This masterly book summarizes a prodigious amount of research about the workings of the brain. Author Patricia Smith Churchland introduces the basics of neuroscience to the realm of philosophy. She says that present scientific knowledge about the brain makes it implausible that there is any such thing as an immaterial mind or soul. A committed materialist (although she does not make the case for materialism), she puts a mass of incomplete scientific evidence before you and says that more scientific evidence will emerge over the next decade or so to complete the picture and solidify the case. She does not do justice to contrary views, which she introduces as straw men, easily knocked down. That said, we find that Churchland provides a valuable, highly readable discussion of the challenges neuroscience presents to philosophy. She makes it clear that any philosophy of consciousness must be informed by knowledge of the brain.



Review:

Not traditional philosophy (thank goodness!)

Philosophical purists will criticize Churchland for refusing to engage the philosophical \"tradition\" on its own terms, i.e., she refuses to stick her head in the sand and theorize as if neuroscience and psychology didn't exist. Rather, what Churchland has done is invert this traditional philosphical stance : survey the scientific results on topics philosophers have wanted to claim as their own: consciousness, free will, the self, human knowledge, religion, and the like (each gets a chapter in her book). That is, make a conscious effort to bring empirical results to bear on these thorny problems of human existence. While neuropsychology can't provide decisive answers yet, its data provides new ideas, new constraints, and casts doubt on those doctrines (such as the 'unity of the self') previously taken as sacrosanct by the head-in-the-sand philosophical establishment.

Overall, a very clearly written book, with lots of interesting ideas and data. If you want your traditional convoluted philosophical treatise, go somewhere else. If you want to be invigorated with new ideas and data from cutting edge neuroscience, then pick up this book!



Review:

Hardly philosophy

This book is only one example of the current practice by philosophers of essentially abandoning their craft and worshiping at the altar of science. Philosophy had always tried to go beyond observation of perceived physical reality alone, and deal with questions such as--in the branch of philosophy known as epistemology--how is knowledge of that reality, or of matters like principles of logic and mathematics, acquired.

What is pitiful is that the author of the book tries to subsume even these questions under physical science, thus putting the cart before the horse. She tries to find answers to what constitutes consciousness by studying the brain, forgetting that our knowledge of the brain and other physical occurrences depends itself on their manifestation in consciousness. We first have to know how reality is constructed in our minds, before exploring further physical particulars.

The author of the book, and she is not the only one to do so, goes as far as attempting to define consciousness in terms of the brain, committing the gross fallacy of equivocation. The fallacy consists in giving a name a new meaning and then trying to prove something about the originally named. But something proved about the newly meant does not thereby apply to what was meant before.

A basic endeavor of Professor Churchland is to eventually in some such way equate consciousness with some part of the brain. But although she tirelessly cites and illustrates minute and extensive studies, she fails to indicate what kind of findings so made would establish that identity. In the process, while a number of times branding other authors with circularity--with assuming a fact before proving it--though she does not say where the circularity resides, she indulges in the persistent circularity of arguing for the brain as the self while beforehand assuming that the brain, as the self, learns and so forth, and she names a chapter accordingly (p.321).

Circularity, the act of begging the question, is, to be sure, another fallacy, and the book contains additional lapses of logic. Earlier in the book (p.55) its author suggests that if A implies B then not-A implies not-B. This commits the fundamental fallacy of \"denying the antecedent\", and the book exhibits other failures in reasoning. Its author, concerning again definition, argues (p.267) that \"the indivisible\", which was the original meaning of \"atom\", turned out to be divisible. This is of course a glaring contradiction. The word \"atom\" was later applied to a physical unit found divisible, but this was merely a redefinition. The book asserts similar nonsense regarding parallel lines. They are in geometry defined as straight lines that never meet, and the book's author claims they meet. She is obviously not only illogical but insufficiently acquainted with geometry, in some of which parallel lines are said not to exist, rather than to, contradictorily, meet. \"Half knowledge is worse than no knowledge\", as they say, and a similar warning can apply in general when philosophers dabble in science.

By wanting to in the preceding manner downgrade past understandings, the book tries in the main, as do related ones, to forcibly dispense with the presence of consciousness by insistence that it must be material, instead of viewing it, alongside other events connected with matter, as the phenomenon it is, and by which all reality is ascertained.



Review:

Disappointing

Brain-wise is, to say the least, a less than impressive effort from a philosopher as prominent in philosophy of mind as Churchland is. A short list of complaints includes:

-Churchland collapses the distinction between 'consciousness' in the phenomenal sense ('subjective character of experience') & 'consciousness' in the psychological sense (awareness or self-consciousness)(see Chalmers, 'The Conscious Mind')

-most of her conclusions are simply asserted rather than argued, & when she does make arguments they are startlingly simple-minded

-the book completely overstates the progress of neuroscience, a field still very much in its infancy. She speaks about neuroscience as if she were in complete awe, which is quite unjustified, & she seems to have a bad case of science-envy

-she assumes that all sciences are reducible, which ignores the fact that (as Chomsky argues, although to say he 'argues' this neglects to express the obviousness of his conclusion) we are cognitively limited beings, & that there may simply be aspects of the world that are beyond the reach of our scientific capacities.

-she hauls out the tired vitalist analogy

-she admits the failure of logical supervenience of the phenomenal on the physical, yet fails to see why this counts against materialism (again, see Chalmers)

-the section on religion is just feeble, & includes not one original thought. Most of her 'insights' are along the lines of 'the prospect of [death] ... need not be [unsettling] ... one can live a richly purposeful life of love and work--of family, community, wilderness, music, and so forth--cognizant that it makees sense to make the best of this life'.

Anyway, I suppose someone interested in philosophy of mind should read this, if only because Churchland and her husband are such celebrities in the field. But don't expect much. As an introduction to neuroscience, I am not in a position to judge Brain-wise; my hunch is that if you simply want to become informed as to the latest developments in the field, there are more appropriate books out there. As philosophy, the book is depressingly weak.



Review:

In the depths of the mind

Traditional philosophy has had a rough time lately. The wealth of new information on the brain is forcing us to re-think what the mind is and how it works. Churchland offers the most comprehensive and understandable overview of these challenges currently in print. This outstanding panoramic view of \"brain science\" provides any reader with challenging questions and offers means to derive the answers. These come not from the reader's knowledge of cognitive science, but from the applicaton of logic. Churchland imposes few responses of her own. Fluent in the science and its presentation, she has varied experience in cognitive science. Her earlier book \"Neurophilosophy\" coined a term indicating where further work is needed and how the results might be applied. This book brings us up to date and enlarges on that earlier study.

The book is well organized with a superb Introduction surveying the history of thinking on the mind-body relationship. Brain research, hindered by physical difficulties and traditional thinking, was slower to develop than other sciences, such as astronomy or physics. The fundamental organization of brain structure and mechanics are well described and illustrated. The remaining body of the book discusses the three \"big questions\" philosophy has dealt with over the millenia: Metaphysics, Epistomology and Religion. Each topic is defined with an historical synopsis. Applications of the brain's reaction to phenomena as applied to the subject fill the remainder of each section. Bibliographies and Internet sites are listed at the end of each section within the topic.

The questions she poses are the \"deep\" ones - pondered and debated for centuries. We call them \"deep\" because all prior thinking and arguing hasn't resolved them. What, she asks, is the neurobiological basis of consciousness, the self, and free choice? Churchland contends that neurosciences are, at last, bringing answers in view. Her queries aren't limited to classroom debate. She addresses ideas many of us have pondered. Her approach is still novel in the minds of many - she wishes to merge science and philosophy into an integrated discipline. This seems simple, but the task is immense. Tackling it with confidence, she proposes methods for the merger and applies examples.

Churchland simply asks, \"what is the evidence supporting the notion?\". If there is no buttress available, she urges dismissal of the idea in favour of a new thesis. She teaches us to look for ourselves - what are the pitfalls of blind acceptance? The traps we have fallen into may be filled in with empirical evidence. The result, she stresses, is a sounder footing for our thinking about many issues, moral, psychological and ethical.

Classifying this book as a \"textbook\" may have been appropriate for the earlier edition, clearly this volume goes beyond the realm of academia. Churchland's expressive style makes the issues available to anyone interested in the subjects of belief, behaviour, \"free will\" and how we deal with them. Churchland has adapted an effective trove of illustrative material to enhance her excellent prose. Ranging from photographs through various graphics, the illustrations provide further explanation of the points she makes. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

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