The Mind As a Scientific Object: Between Brain and Culture

✍ Scribed by Christina E. Erneling, David M. Johnson

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 564
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

What holds together the various fields that are supposed to consititute the general intellectual discipline that people now call cognitive science? In this book, Erneling and Johnson identify two problems with defining this discipline. First, some theorists identify the common subject matter as the mind, but scientists and philosophers have not been able to agree on any single, satisfactory answer to the question of what the mind is. Second, those who speculate about the general characteristics that belong to cognitive science tend to assume that all the particular fields falling under the rubric--psychology, linguistics, biology, and son on--are of roughly equal value in their ability to shed light on the nature of mind. This book argues that all the cognitive science disciplines are not equally able to provide answers to ontological questions about the mind, but rather that only neurophysiology and cultural psychology are suited to answer these questions. However, since the cultural account of mind has long been ignored in favor of the neurophysiological account, Erneling and Johnson bring together contributions that focus especially on different versions of the cultural account of the mind.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 8
Contributors......Page 12
Introduction: Can Cognitive Science Locate and Provide a Correct Account of the Mind’s Center? Progress Toward the Literal......Page 18
I: Where Are We at Present, and How Did We Get There?......Page 28
Introduction......Page 30
1 The Relevance of the Philosophy of Psychology to a Science of Psychology......Page 35
2 Mind as a Scientific Object: A Historical-Philosophical Exploration......Page 50
3 The Emergence of Minds in Space and Time......Page 94
4 Is the Mind a Scientific Object of Study? Lessons from History......Page 116
II: Is the Study of Mind Continuous with the Rest of Science?......Page 134
Introduction......Page 136
5 Psychology as Engineering......Page 141
6 Epistemic Dualism......Page 159
7 Mind, Brain, and Culture......Page 175
8 Chalmers’s Naturalistic Dualism: The Irrelevance of the Mind-Body Problem to the Scientific Study of Consciousness......Page 180
9 Emergence and Efficacy......Page 191
III: Eliminative Materialism: Sound or Mistaken?......Page 206
Introduction......Page 208
10 A Particularly Compelling Refutation of Eliminative Materialism......Page 212
11 Commonsense Refutations of Eliminativism......Page 221
12 What Does It Take to Be a True Believer? Against the Opulent Ideology of Eliminative Materialism......Page 226
13 Connectionism and the Propositional Attitudes......Page 240
IV: Is “Mind” Just Another Name for the Brain and What the Brain Does?......Page 260
Introduction......Page 262
14 All in the Interest of Time: On the Problem of Speed and Cognition......Page 266
15 Can There Be a Cognitive Neuroscience of Central Cognitive Systems?......Page 280
16 The Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory: A Framework for the Science of Mind......Page 298
17 Gall’s Legacy Revisited: Decomposition and Localization in Cognitive Neuroscience......Page 308
V: Does Evolution Provide a Key to the Scientific Study of Mind?......Page 332
Introduction......Page 334
18 The Detachment of Thought......Page 338
19 The Mind as an Object of Scientific Study......Page 357
20 The Significance of Ape Language Research......Page 382
21 I Object: Mind and Brain as Darwinian Things......Page 396
VI: Is the Mind a Cultural Entity?......Page 412
Introduction......Page 414
22 Ignace Meyerson and Cultural Psychology......Page 417
23 Strong Culturalism......Page 428
24 The Text of the Mind......Page 447
VII: Rationality: Cultural or Natural?......Page 466
Introduction......Page 468
25 Beyond the Mind-Body Problem......Page 472
26 Workshop Rationality, Dogmatism, and Models of the Mind......Page 486
27 Is Cognitive Development Equivalent to Scientific Development?......Page 502
28 Mind, Brain, and the Upper Paleolithic......Page 514
29 Afterword: Between Brain and Culture—The Diversity of Mind......Page 526
B......Page 534
D......Page 535
G......Page 536
K......Page 537
M......Page 538
R......Page 539
T......Page 540
Z......Page 541
A......Page 542
B......Page 543
C......Page 544
D......Page 547
E......Page 548
F......Page 549
H......Page 550
I......Page 551
K......Page 552
M......Page 553
N......Page 556
P......Page 557
R......Page 559
S......Page 560
T......Page 562
W......Page 563
Z......Page 564