Contemporary debates in cognitive science

Contemporary debates in cognitive science

Edited by Robert J. Stainton. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. Paperback: 339 pages, £60 (US$99.95). ISBN: 978-1-4051-1305-2. As part of a larger collection in the Contemporary Debates in Philosophy series, the addition of the Cognitive Sciences seems equally as pertinent as positioning part of a ÔFodor system’ in its exact location in the architecture of the mind. The use of metaphor in continental philosophy and Ôempirical’ cognitive science is widely acknowledged and allows one to borrow concepts to sharpen investigation into the unknown. This book relies on such naturalistic metaphor to explore topics ranging from modularity of mind, through perception and its utility to accurate representations of the world, to qualia and consciousness. It is presented in Ôdebate’ format, with eminent theorists from philosophical cognitive science charging their positions on the topics so outlined from both extremes, with easily comprehensible synthesis of these views. The intersection of cognitive science and philosophy may seem,

44

at first, a little intriguing; and many who pick up a book on cognitive science may expect something quite different to those views expressed within this volume. Several accepted wisdoms on what cognitive science should be are quashed early on, however. The Editor, Professor Stainton opens with a question, ÔHow can a volume on debates in cognitive science be part of a series called Contemporary Debates in Philosophy?’ Through explication of terms such as psycholinguistics, neuroscience and, less directly, early areas such as Artificial Intelligence, he is able to demonstrate the clear interplay between the overarching fields of cognitive science and philosophy. Arguably, the editor and most of the authors of chapters are philosophers with interests in diverse areas of cognitive science rather than cognitive scientists with interests in philosophy. The book may have read differently if it were written from the perspective of a neuroscientist or a contemporary of Korbinian Brodmann. Nonetheless, all is not lost in the Ôphilosophy’ component of the book. Several chapters are devoted to elucidating the acquisition of language (a highly researched and scientifically valid field in the Ôempirical’ sense). The authors in

chapter 4 (Scholz and Pullum), two distinguished linguists, belie the fastgrowing claims for linguistic nativism, doing so without Ôtouting the empiricist stock’. Each chapter, including this one, prefaces an argument for a case on a given subject area, which is duly followed by a historical account while retaining a traditional thesis-antithesis framework. The logic and rationale of the theories presented in the book are backed by admirable referencing in each subject area – a must in the quickly changing field of cognitive science. The standard of the text is particularly impressive and would serve well as a reference work to scholars in cognitive science as well as being an excellent advanced teaching material for students in philosophy, psycholinguistics and psychology.

Matthew P. Hyett Black Dog Institute, School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Acta Neuropsychiatrica 2009: 21:44 Ó 2009 John Wiley & Sons A/S DOI: 10.1111/j.1601-5215.2008.00352.x