Neurophilosophy at Work

Churchland explores the unfolding impact of the several empirical sciences of the mind, especially cognitive neurobiology and computational neuroscience on a variety of traditional issues central to the discipline of philosophy. Representing Churchland's most recent research, they continue his research program, launched over thirty years ago which has evolved into the field of neurophilosophy. Topics such as the nature of Consciousness, the nature of cognition and intelligence, the nature of moral knowledge and moral reasoning, neurosemantics or world-representation in the brain, the nature of our subjective sensory qualia and their relation to objective science, and the future of philosophy itself are here addressed in a lively, graphical, and accessible manner. Throughout the volume, Churchland's view that science is as important as philosophy is emphasised. Several of the color figures in the volume will allow the reader to perform some novel phenomenological experiments on his/her own visual system. – Contents : – 1. Catching consciousness in a recurrent network; – 2. Functionalism at forty: a critical perspective; – 3. Toward a cognitive neurobiology of the moral virtues; – 4. Rules, know-how, and the future of moral cognition; – 5. Science, religion, and American educational policy; – 6. What happens to reliabilism when it is liberated from the propositional attitudes; – 7. On the nature of intelligence: Turing, Church, von Neumann, and the brain; – 8. Neurosemantics: on the mapping of minds and the portrayal of worlds; – 9. Chimerical colors: some phenomenological predictions from cognitive neuroscience; – 10. On the reality (and diversity) of objective colors; – 11. Into the brain: where philosophy should go from here. – Includes bibliographical references (p.239-245) and index.