ALPHABETICAL BRAIN™ VOCABULARY
 HUMANIST GALAXY
OF SECULAR BRAIN SCIENCE STARS
BENNETT & HACKER
November 5, 2020

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL
FOUNDATIONS OF NEUROSCIENCE
by M.R. Bennett and P.M.S.Hacker.
Wiley-Blackwell, 2003 (480 pages)

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BOOK OUTLINE
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note = Numbers in parentheses refer to pages

FORWORD (xiii-xvi)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (xvii)

INTRODUCTION (1-42)

A distinguished philosopher and a leading neuroscientist analyze the intellectual problems at the heart of cognitive neuroscience. The book surveys the conceptual problems inherent in many neuroscientific theories and it encourages neuroscientists to pay more attention to conceptual questions. It is an essential reference work for the elucidation of concepts in cognitive neuroscience and psychology.

In addition, the book provides "conceptual maps" for students and researchers in cognitive neuroscience and psychology. It is written by a distinguished philosopher and leading neuroscientist who have not used philosophical jargon.

PART 1 — PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS IN NEUROSCIENCE — Their Historical and Conceptual Roots (9-42)

1) THE EARLY GROWTH OF NEUROSCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE --- The Integrative Action of the Nervous System (11-42)

2) THE CORTEX AND THE MIND IN THE WORK OF SHERRINGTON AND HIS PROTEGES (43-67)

3) THE MEREOLOGICAL FALLACY IN NEUROSCIENCE (68-107)
    note = "If someone commits the 'mereological fallacy', then he ascribes psychological predicates to parts of an animal that apply only to the (behaving) animal as a whole."

    "This incoherence is not strictly speaking a fallacy, i.e. an invalid argument, since it is not an argument but an illicit predication. However, it leads to invalid inferences and arguments, and so can loosely be called a fallacy."

    [Source = Seven misconceptions about the mereological fallacy: a compilation for the perplexed by Harry Smit & Peter M. S. Hacker. Erkenntnis, volume 79, 12-11-13 (pages1077–1097)]
PART 2 — HUMAN FACULTIES AND CONTEMPORARY NEUROSCIENCE --- An analysis (109-235)

PRELIMINARIES (111-119)
    [1] Brain-body dualism (111-114)

    [2] The project (114-117)

    [3] The category of the psychological (117-119)
4) SENSATION AND PERCEPTION (121-147)

5) THE COGNITIVE POWERS (148-171)
    [5.1] Knowledge and its kinship with ability (148-149)

    [5.1.1] Being able to and knowing how to (149-151)

    [5.1.2] Possessing knowledge and containing knowledge (151-153)

    [5.2] Memory (154-155)

    [5.2.1] Declarative and non-declarative memory (155-158)

    [5.2.2] Storage, retention, and memory traces (158-171)
6) THE COGITATIVE POWERS (172-198)
    [6.1] Belief (172-174)

    [6.2] Thinking (175-180)

    [6.3] Imagination and mental images (180-187)

    [6.31] The logical features of mental imagery (187-198)
7) EMOTION (199-223)
    [7.1] Affection (199-202)

    [7.2] The emotions: a preliminary analytical survey (203-207)

    [7.2.1] Neuroscientist's confusions (207-216)

    [7.2.2) Analysis of the emotions (216-223)
8) VOLITION AND VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT (224-235)
    [8.1] Volition (224-228)

    [8.2] Libet's thory of voluntary movement (228-231)

    [8.3] Taking stock (231-235)
PART 3 — CONSCIOUSNESS AND CONTEMPORARY NEUROSCIENCE --- An Analysis (237-351)
    9) INTRANSITIVE AND TRANSITIVE CONSCIOUSNESS (239-260)

    [9.1] Consciousness and the brain (239-244)

    [9.2] Intransitive consciousness (244-248)

    [9.3] Transitive consciousness and its forms (248-252)

    [9.4] Transitive consciousness: a partial analysis (253-260)
10) CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE, MENTAL STATES, AND QUALIA (261-292))
    [10.1] Extending the concept of consciousness (261-263)

    [10.2] Conscious experience and conscious mental states (263-267)

    [10.2.1] Confusions regarding unconscious belief and unconscious activities of the brain (268-271)

    [10.3] Qualia (271-273)

    [10.3.1] "How it feels" to have an experience (274-276)

    [10.3.2] Of there being something which it is like... (277-281)

    [10.3.3] The qualitative character of experience (281-282)

    [10.3.4] "Thises" and "thuses" (282-284)

    [10.3.5] Of the communicability and describability of "qualia" (284-292)
11) PUZZLES ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS (293-322)
    [11.1] A budget of puzzles (293-294)

    [11.2] On reconciling consciousness or subjectivity with our conception of an objective reality (294-302)

    [11.3] On the question of how physical processes can give rise to conscious experience (302-307)

    [11.4] Of the evolutionary value of consciousness (307-314)

    [11.5] The problem of awareness (314-316)

    [11.6] Other minds and other animals (316-322)
12) SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS (323-351)
    [12.1] Self-consciousness and the self (323-324)

    [12.2] Historical stage-setting: Descartes, Locke, Hume, and James (324-328)

    [12.3] Current scientific and neuroscientific reflections on the nature of self-consciousness (328-331)

    [12.4] The illusion of a "self" (331-334)

    [12.5] The horizon of thought, will, and affection (334-337)

    [12.5.1] Thought and language (337-346)

    [12.6] Self-consciousness (346-351)
PART 4 — ON METHOD (353-409)

13) REDUCTIONISM (355-377)
    [13.1] Ontological and explanatory reductionism (355-366)

    [13.2] Reduction by elimination (366-367)

    [13.2.1] Are our ordinary psychological concepts theoretical? (367-370)

    [13.2.2] Are everyday generalizations about human psychology laws of a theory? (370-372)

    [13.2.3] Eliminating all that is human (372-376)

    [13.2.4] Sawing off the branch on which one sits (376-377)
14) METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS (378-409)
    [14.1] Linguistic inertia and conceptual innovation (379-386)

    [14.2] The "Poverty of English" argument (386-388)

    [14.3] From nonsense to sense: the proper description of the results of commissurotomy (388-393)

    [14.3.1] The case of "blind-sight": misdescription and illusory explanation (393-396)

    [14.4] Philosophy and neuroscience (396-399)

    [14.4.1] What philosophy can and what it cannot do (399-405)

    [14.4.2] What neuroscience can and what it cannot do (405-408)

    [14.5] Why it matters (408-409)
APPENDICES (411-461)

APPENDIX 1 — DANIEL DENNETT (413-419)

[1] Dennett's methodology and presuppositions (415-419)

[2] The intentional stance (419-427)

[3] The hetero-phenomenological method (427-431)

[4] Consciousness (431-425)

APPENDIX 2 — JOHN SEARLE (436-452)

[1] Philosophy and science (436-443)

[2] Searle's philosophy of mind (443-449)

[3] The traditional mind-body problem (449-452)

INDEX (453-461)
    Action - Explanation; Involuntary; Voluntary
    Animals
    Awareness
    Belief
    Brain
    Brain/body dualism
    Concepts
    Consciousness
    Desire
    Emotion
    Experience
    Hemispheres of the brain - as subjects
      of psychological attributes
    Human being/person
    Information
    Introspection
    Kandel, Eric
    Knowledge
    Language
    Language, ordinary
    Language-users
    Materialism
    Memory
    Mental image
    Mental states
    Mereological fallacy
    Metaphor
    Methodology
    Mind
    Mind/brain interaction
    Motive
    Movement - involuntary; voluntary
    Neuroscience [cognitive]
    Nonsense
    Pain
    Perception
    Philosophy
    Physics - viewpoint
    Point of view
    Privileged access
    Psychological attributes/predicates
    Reasons
    Recognition
    Reductionism
    Reflexes
    Representation
    Representationalism
    Seeing
    Self, the
    Self-consciousness
    Sensation
    Sense/nonsense
    Senses
    Soul
    Subjectivity
    Substance
    Theory/theoretical terms
    Thinking
    Thought
    Unconscious
    Understanding
    Viewpoint, objective
    Viewpoint of physics. see Physics, viewpoint of
    Visual sensation/visual perception
    Visual images [see also Mental image]
    Volition
    Will, act of
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AUTHOR NOTES, SUMMARY,
AND BOOK DESCRIPTION
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 AUTHOR NOTES =

[1] M. R. Bennett is Professor of Physiology and University Chair at the University of Sydney. He is the author of many papers and books in neuroscience, including The Idea of Consciousness (1997) and A History of the Synapse (2001). He is President of the International Society for Autonomic Neuroscience, Past President of the Australian Neuroscience Society, and the recipient of numerous awards for his research in neuroscience, including the Neuroscience Medal, the Ramaciotti Medal and the Macfarlane Burnet Medal.

[2] P. M. S. Hacker is a Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford. He is the author of numerous books and articles on philosophy of mind and philosophy of language, and the leading authority on the philosophy of Wittgenstein. Among his many publications is the monumental five-volume Analytical Commentary on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, and its epilogue Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy, published by Blackwell (first two volumes co-authored with G. P. Baker).

SUMMARY = In this provocative work, M.R. Bennett and P.M.S.Hacker, a distinguished philosopher and a leading neuroscientist, outline the conceptual problems at the heart of cognitive neuroscience. The book forms both a critique of the practice of cognitive neuroscience and a conceptual handbook for students and researchers.

BOOK DESCRIPTION = Writing from a scientifically and philosophically informed perspective, Bennett and Hacker, provide a critical overview of the conceptual difficulties encountered in many current neuroscientific and psychological theories. They criticize many famous neuroscientists, including Blakemore, Crick, Damasio, Edelman, Gazzaniga, Kandel, Kosslyn, LeDoux, Penrose and Weiskrantz.

The book proposes that conceptual confusions about how the brain relates to the mind affect the intelligibility of research carried out by brain scientists. They maintain that the issue of the brain-mind connection impacts the questions brain scientists choose to address, the description and interpretation of results, and the conclusions they draw.

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PROFESSIONAL BOOK REVIEWS
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 [1] This remarkable book, the product of a collaboration between a philosopher and neuroscientist, shows that the claims made on behalf of cognitive science are ill-founded. The book will certainly arouse opposition... but if it causes controversy, it is controversy that is long overdue. -- Sir Anthony Kenny, President of the British Academy: 1989–1993.

[2] This book was simply waiting to be written. -- Denis Noble, Oxford University.

[3] Contemporary scientists and philosophers may not like Bennett and Hacker's conclusions, but they will hardly be able to ignore them. The work is a formidable achievement. -- John Cottingham, Professor of Philosophy, Reading University.

[4] Neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers will be challenged – and educated – by this sustained and well-informed critique. -- Paul Harris, Professor, Human Development and Psychology, Graduate School of Education, Harvard University.

[5] This book is a joy to read. It is the fruit of collaboration across disciplines and continents between a neurophysiologist and a philosopher. They have written a polemical work that is a model of clarity and directness. Distinguished neurophysiologist M.R. Bennett of the University of Sydney, and eminent Oxford philosopher P.M.S. Hacker have produced that rarity of scholarship, a genuinely interdisciplinary work that succeeds... This is a wonderful book that will illuminate, provoke and delight professional scientists, philosophers and general readers alike. -- Australian Book Review.

[6] Bennett and Hacker have identified [conceptual confusions] with clinical precision and relentless good sense... rich with philosophical insights... thoughtful and wonderfully useful treatise... Philosophy carefully applied in a host of cases... is precisely what Bennett and Hacker provide in devastating critiques of psychologists and neuroscientists such as Blakemore, Crick, Damasio, Edelman, Gazzaniga, Kandel, Kosslyn, LeDoux, Penrose and Weiskrantz; and they also raise equally disturbing questions for philosophers such as Dennett, the Churchlands [Patricia and Paul], Chalmers, Nagel and Searle. Whether this book leads to a reconfiguring of contemporary neuroscience and the philosophy associated with it will tell us much about the dynamics of contemporary intellectual life. -- Philosophy

[7] The vast spectrum of material in philosophy and neuroscience that Bennett and Hacker consider is impressive and their discussion is thorough and illuminating. -- Human Nature Review

[8] It will certainly, for a long time to come, be the most important contribution to the mind-body problem which there is. -- G.H. von Wright

[9] Everyone who thinks about the mind and consciousness should study Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience... It will ultimately contribute to a far better understanding of mind and consciousness within scientific thought as well as a better understanding of the limits of empirical investigation. -- Arthur Collins, The Philosophical Quarterly, 2004

[10] Sweeping, argumentative and brilliant, this book will provoke widespread discussion among philosophers and neuroscientists alike. -- Dennis Patterson, Notre Dame Philosophical Review, 2003

[11] Devastating critiques of psychologists and neuroscientists... Whether this book leads to a reconfiguring of contemporary neuroscience and the philosophy associated with it will tell us much about the dynamics of contemporary intellectual life. -- Anthony O'Hear, Philosophy 2003

[12] Clinical precision and... relentless good sense... a thoughtful and wonderfully useful treatise. -- Daniel N. Robinson, Philosophical Quarterly, 2004

[13] Mandatory reading for anybody interested in neuroscience and consciousness research. The vast spectrum of material in philosophy and neuroscience that Bennett and Hacker consider is impressive and their discussion is thorough and illuminating. -- Axel Kohler, Human Nature Review, 2003

[14] A delicious cake of a book in which Bennett and Hacker guide the reader through a conceptual minefield of confusions repeatedly made by neuroscientists and philosophers alike. -- Constantine Sandis, Metapsychology 2003

[15] Anyone who has ever framed a theory or explained one should read this book at the risk of forever falling silent. -- The Rector, University of Sydney, Obiter Dicta 2003

[16] Impressively lucid... Bennett and Hacker unquestionably succeed in making us challenge our own concepts, examine them for dross, and strive to home in on fundamentals. -- Neil Spurway, Journal of the European Soc for Study of Science and Theology.

[17] The fruit of a unique cooperation between a neuroscientist and a philosopher ... an excellent book that should be read by all philosophers of cognition and all researchers in the cognitive neurosciences. -- Herman Philipse, ABG #2, De Academische Boekengids 2003

[18] There are, I think, grounds for hope that this book will do an enormous amount of good, both in correcting philosophical confusion within neuroscience and in promoting a new style of dialogue between neuroscience and philosophy. -- David Cockburn, Philosophical Investigations, 2005.

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