Neuroscience and Philosophy
Brain, Mind, and Language

Clearly argued and thoroughly engaging, the authors present fundamentally different conceptions of philosophical method, cognitive-neuroscientific explanation, and human nature, and their exchange will appeal to anyone interested in the relation of mind to brain, of psychology to neuroscience, of causal to rational explanation, and of consciousness to self-consciousness. In his conclusion Daniel Robinson (member of the philosophy faculty at Oxford University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University) explains why this confrontation is so crucial to the understanding of neuroscientific research. The project of cognitive neuroscience, he asserts, depends on the incorporation of human nature into the framework of science itself. In Robinson's estimation, Dennett and Searle fail to support this undertaking; Bennett and Hacker suggest that the project itself might be based on a conceptual mistake. Exciting and challenging, Neuroscience and Philosophy is an exceptional introduction to the philosophical problems raised by cognitive neuroscience.

Introduction, by Daniel Robinson
The Argument Selections from Philosophical Foundations of NeuroscienceNeuroscience and Philosophy, by Maxwell R. Bennett
The Rebuttals
"Philosophy as Naive Anthropology: Comment on Bennett and Hacker," by Daniel Dennett"Putting Consciousness Back in the Brain: Reply to Bennett and Hacker, Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience," by John Searle
Reply to the Rebuttals "The Conceptual Presuppositions of Cognitive Neuroscience: A Reply to Critics," by Maxwell R. Bennett and Peter M. S. Hacker Epilogue, by Maxwell R. Bennett"Still Looking: Science and Philosophy in Pursuit of Prince Reason," by Daniel Robinson Notes