The Matter of the Mind: Philosophical Essays on Psychology, Neuroscience and Reduction / Edition 1

by Maurice Schouten, Huib Looren de Jong

Overview

The Matter of the Mind addresses and illuminates the relationship between psychology and neuroscience by focusing on the topic of reduction.

• Written by leading philosophers in the field
• Discusses recent theorizing in the mind-brain sciences and reviews and weighs the evidence in favour of reductionism against the backdrop of recent important advances within psychology and the neurosciences
• Collects the latest work on central topics where neuroscience is now making inroads in traditional psychological terrain, such as adaptive behaviour, reward systems, consciousness, and social cognition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781405144438
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	01/02/2007
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Maurice Schouten is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tilburg. He is co-author of research articles in Theory & Psychology, New Ideas in Psychology, Zygon, Philosophical Psychology, Synthese, and the British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.

Huib Looren de Jong is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He is the author of Naturalism and Psychology (1992) and Theoretical Issues in Psychology (2006, with Sacha Bem), and a number of research articles. He serves as Associate Editor of Theory & Psychology.

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Table of Contents

Contributors.

Preface and Acknowledgments.

1. Mind Matters: The Roots of Reductionism (Maurice Schouten and Huib Looren de Jong).

Part I: Metaphysics of Science.

2. Functionalism and Psychological Reductionism: Friends, Not Foes (Andrew Melnyk).

3. Some Metaphysical Anxieties of Reductionism (Thomas W. Polger).

4. The Metaphysics of Mechanisms and the Challenge of the New Reductionism (Carl Gillett).

5. Reductionism, Embodiment, and the Generality of Psychology (Lawrence A. Shapiro).

Part II: Philosophical Accounts of Reduction, Mechanism, Co-evolution.

6. Reduction without the Structures (Robert C. Richardson).

7. Reinforcing the Three "R"s: Reduction, Reception, and Replacement (Ronald Endicott).

8. Reducing Psychology while Maintaining its Autonomy via Mechanistic Explanations (William Bechtel).

9. Enriching Philosophical Models of Cross-Scientific Relations: Incorporating Diachronic Theories (Robert N. McCauley).

Part III: Mechanisms of Mind.

10. Coupling, Emergence, and Explanation (Andy Clark).

11. Is Psychological Explanation Going Extinct? (Cory D. Wright).

12. Who Says You Can't Do a Molecular Biology of Consciousness? (John Bickle).

13. Mind Reading and Mirror Neurons: Exploring Reduction (Huib Looren de Jong and Maurice Schouten).

Name Index.

Subject Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The editors, and the contributors, are to be congratulated. This is the best collection on the nature of intertheoretic reduction ever published, especially as those issues bear on the unfolding relations between the neurosciences on the one hand, and psychology and the social sciences on the other. Thanks to these papers, all of us (yours truly included) are going to be rethinking our views on reduction." Paul M. Churchland, University of California, San Diego

"Parties on both sides of the reductionism wars will benefit from this exciting collection. The editors and their contributors well represent the cutting edges of the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science regarding the reducibility (or lack thereof) of minds to brains." Pete Mandik, William Paterson University

Editorial Reviews

“The Matter of the Mind is a well organized bookwhich hosts contributions on the main subjects about philosophy ofmind and it is definitely worthwhile reading.” (Metapsychology, 14 May 2013)

"The editors, and the contributors, are to be congratulated. Thisis the best collection on the nature of intertheoretic reductionever published, especially as those issues bear on the unfoldingrelations between the neurosciences on the one hand, and psychologyand the social sciences on the other. Thanks to these papers, allof us (yours truly included) are going to be rethinking our viewson reduction." Paul M. Churchland, University of California, SanDiego

"Parties on both sides of the reductionism wars will benefitfrom this exciting collection. The editors and their contributorswell represent the cutting edges of the philosophy of mind and thephilosophy of science regarding the reducibility (or lack thereof)of minds to brains." Pete Mandik, William PatersonUniversity

“An outstanding vehicle by which to learn about modernreductionism, the relation of neuroscience to psychology, and howthey can cooperate rather than compete.”PsycCritiques

From the Publisher