In Matter and Consciousness, Paul Churchland clearly presents the advantages and disadvantages of such difficult issues in philosophy of mind as behaviorism, reductive materialism, functionalism, and eliminative materialism.
In Matter and Consciousness, Paul Churchland clearly presents the advantages and disadvantages of such difficult issues in philosophy of mind as behaviorism, reductive materialism, functionalism, and eliminative materialism. This new edition incorporates the striking developments that have taken place in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence and notes their expanding relevance to philosophical issues.
Churchland organizes and clarifies the new theoretical and experimental results of the natural sciences for a wider philosophical audience, observing that this research bears directly on questions concerning the basic elements of cognitive activity and their implementation in real physical systems. (How is it, he asks, that living creatures perform some cognitive tasks so swiftly and easily, where computers do them only badly or not at all?) Most significant for philosophy, Churchland asserts, is the support these results tend to give to the reductive and the eliminative versions of materialism.
Paul M. Churchland is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. A Bradford Book.
Review text:
'Churchland's Matter and Consciousness remains a compact treasure trove for anyone interested in an instant overview of the mind-body problem, related philosophical issues, and their connection with the developing neuro-and psychological sciences of our day.'
--Keith Gunderson, Philosophy of Science
'Anyone interested in using a contemporary approach to philosophy of mind in an introductory course will find Paul Churchland's Matter and Consciousness a useful text .... Churchland has a wonderful talent for linking ideas together.'
--Kathleen Gill, Teaching Philosophy
In Matter and Consciousness, Paul Churchland clearly presents the advantages and disadvantages of such difficult issues in philosophy of mind as behaviorism, reductive materialism, functionalism, and eliminative materialism. This new edition incorporates the striking developments that have taken place in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence and notes their expanding relevance to philosophical issues.
Churchland organizes and clarifies the new theoretical and experimental results of the natural sciences for a wider philosophical audience, observing that this research bears directly on questions concerning the basic elements of cognitive activity and their implementation in real physical systems. (How is it, he asks, that living creatures perform some cognitive tasks so swiftly and easily, where computers do them only badly or not at all?) Most significant for philosophy, Churchland asserts, is the support these results tend to give to the reductive and the eliminative versions of materialism.
Paul M. Churchland is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. A Bradford Book.
Review text:
'Churchland's Matter and Consciousness remains a compact treasure trove for anyone interested in an instant overview of the mind-body problem, related philosophical issues, and their connection with the developing neuro-and psychological sciences of our day.'
--Keith Gunderson, Philosophy of Science
'Anyone interested in using a contemporary approach to philosophy of mind in an introductory course will find Paul Churchland's Matter and Consciousness a useful text .... Churchland has a wonderful talent for linking ideas together.'
--Kathleen Gill, Teaching Philosophy