[.ca] Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (ISBN 140510838X)

A conceptual handbook for both students and researchers:
Philosophical Foundations Of Neuroscience is the collaboration and brainchild of both neuroscientist M. R. Bennett (Professor of Physiology and University Chair, University of Sydney) and philosopher P. M. S. Hacker (Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, England), surveying numerous theories including those of Blakemore, Crick, Damasio, Edelman, Gazzniga, Weiskrantz, and others. Written as a conceptual handbook for both students and researchers, Philosophical Foundations Of Neuroscience is a scholarly, college-level text covering the history of this intersection between disciplines, cognitive powers, emotion, conscious experience, reductionism and more. Philosophical Foundations Of Neuroscience is highly recommended as an excellent general foundation resource for academic Philosophy collections and reading lists.

Excellent, and controversial, critique of neuroscience:
Undoubtedly this book contains both excellence in terms of its review thoroughness and controversey by virtue of its conclusions. It is quite clear from the beginning that Hacker's philosophical stance drives most of the conceptual critique in the book. It is a complicated book, given the vast variety of themes and attendant analyses, and a short review will do it little justice. However, Hacker is a later Wittgensteinian, and to appreciate most of the philosophical input the reader should have reasonable knowledge of the contrast between early and later Wittgenstein, and what exactly characterises the core components of the latter. The primary criticism leveled at neuroscience is that it is a conceptual shambles due to repeatedly confusing functions of 'selves' with functions of organs (the brain of course). Neursoscience is identified with Cartesian dualism by clumsily shifting talk of properties of persons to talk of brain phenomena and assuming them equivalent. The anvil upon which neuroscience is being philosophically temepered is termed the mereological principle (or fallacy - and you can buy the book for an explanation). Part of the criticism echoes Wittgenstein's 'if a lion could talk we wouldn't understand him', and most significantly recalls previous critiques of private langage arguments (with a nod to Kripke). It turns out, according to Bennet and Hacker, that neuroscience has been secretly keeping private mental objects alive - presumably in ignorance of philosophical canons. The book concludes with a well argued and welcome broadside against Dennett's intentional stance (a sacred tenet among cognitve neuroscientists) and, unfortunately, a more toothless critique of Searle on intentionality. Is this a good book? As an exercise in conceptual analysis this is an excellent text to study - and disagree with. However, implicit in the text is a philosophical backcloth that will not be accessible to many readers outside philosophy (e.g. the presentation of neuroscientific concepts as neo-platonic). It is an immensely scholarly work, but personally I believe that readers with an informed understanding of Wittgenstein will follow the threads more easily than others. Nevertheless, I heartily recommend it.