Human cognition is soft. It is too flexible, too rich, and too open-ended to be captured by hard (precise, exceptionless) rules of the sort that can constitute a computer program. In Connectionism and
Using provocative thought experiments as examples, the author offers an original theory of consciousness, arguing that it cannot be explained by the brain's physiology, and shows how his theory could
This English translation—the first since 1909—restores Human, All Too Human to its proper central position in the Nietzsche canon. First published in 1878, the book marks the philosophical coming of a
Vision and the gaze are key issues in the analysis of racism, sexism and ethnocentrism. In recent radical theory, generally, and French theory in particular, vision has been seen as a means of control
In this book, one of the foremost contemporary scholars in the fields of feminist thought and linguistics, explores the possibility of a new liberating language and hence a new relationship between th
This volume deals with books II and III of the On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato by the medical scientist and philosopher Galen of Pergamum (129-C.210 C.E.). In these books Galen offers an ext
A provocative work that explores the evolution of emotions and personal relationships through diverse cultures and time. "An intellectually dazzling view of our past and future."--Time magazine
This book chronicles humanity's cultural and psychospiritual evolutionary journey over some six million years from its primal past into its dazzling cosmic future.
In this book, one of the foremost contemporary scholars in the fields of feminist thought and linguistics, explores the possibility of a new liberating language and hence a new relationship between th
Our philosophy is grounded in only half a language, in which the power of discourse is deployed while the strength of listening is ignored. We inhabit a culture that knows how to speak but not how to
The Problem of the Rational Soul in the Thirteenth Century traces the Latin scholastics' attempt to deal with two essentially incompatible notions of the human soul: the scientific view of Aristotle w
Who or what determines the right to die? Do advancing reproductive technologies change reproductive rights? What forces influence cultural standards of beauty? How do discipline, punishment, and tortu
From the beginning to the end of his philosophizing, Sartre appears to have been concerned with "bad faith"?our "natural" disposition to flee from our freedom and to lie to ourselves. Virtually no asp
In Spacious Body, Jeffrey Maitland brings his knowledge and personal experience of Buddhism, phenomenology, alchemy, psychoanalysis, and the bodywork system of Rolfing to bear in forging concepts adeq
At least since Hume argued that reason "is and of right ought to be the slave of the passions," many philosophers have held that desires play an essential role both in practical reason and in explaini
A captivating, multidimensional collection of writings on the soul--from creation myths to beat poetry, religion to rock-n-roll. "Inspiring, often mind-blowing, sometimes even a little scary."--"Los A
A collection of essays from various perspectives addressing basic issues inherent in a philosophy of death, exploring themes such as the meaning of death, the nature of the soul, and the prospects for
Explaining Attitudes offers an important challenge to the dominant conception of belief found in the work of such philosophers as Dretske and Fodor. According to this dominant view beliefs, if they exist at all, are constituted by states of the brain. Lynne Rudder Baker rejects this view and replaces it with a quite different approach - practical realism. Seen from the perspective of practical realism, any argument that interprets beliefs as either brain states or states of immaterial souls is a 'non-starter'. Practical realism takes beliefs to be states of the whole persons, rather like states of health. What a person believes is determined by what a person would do, say and think in various circumstances. Thus beliefs and other attitudes are interwoven into an integrated, commonsensical conception of reality.
As earthquakes expose geological faults, so mental conflict reveals tendencies to rupture within the mind. Dissension is rife not only between people but also within them, for each of us is subject to
