On the Contrary: Critical Essays, 1987-1997 [Paperback]

Paul M. Churchland (Author), Patricia Smith Churchland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 18, 1999 | Series: Bradford Books

Paul M. and Patricia S. Churchland are towering figures in the fields of philosophy, neuroscience, and consciousness. This collection was prepared in the belief that the most useful and revealing of anyone's writings are often those shorter essays penned in conflict with or criticism of one's professional colleagues. The essays present the Churchlands' critical responses to a variety of philosophical positions advanced by some two dozen philosophical theorists. The book is divided into three parts: part I, Folk Psychology and Eliminative Materialism; part II, Meaning, Qualia, and Emotion: The Several Dimensions of Consciousness; and part III, the Philosophy of Science. V. S. Ramachandran and Rick Grush are coauthors on two of the essays.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Patricia Smith Churchland is Chair of the Philosophy Department and the UC President's Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute. She is past president of the American Philosophical Association and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: A Bradford Book (June 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262531658
• ISBN-13: 978-0262531658
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #749,442 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good. Almost excellent., May 15, 2000

By 

Keith Douglas (Ottawa, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On the Contrary: Critical Essays, 1987-1997 (Paperback)

A good collection of essays by recognized leaders in a burgeoning field of philosophy. Some are only useful if what the article is discussing is quite familiar to the reader. This holds in particular for some of the articles on qualia and the article on R. Penrose. It could also be said that the article on Dennett could have been marginally better if the last part, concerning his motivations, were snipped.

4 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I've got to agree with Searle..., October 2, 2000

By 

Yuri Kuzyk (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On the Contrary: Critical Essays, 1987-1997 (Paperback)

If you are an eliminative materialist then you need help! Not that there aren't some interesting observations in this book - see the chapter with new data on "filling in" - but Churchland's tired example of Maxwell's discovery of electromagnetic waves only demonstrates how subjective the entire world of science really is. A more interesting example might be Maxwell's equations and how they relate to entropy, but I suspect that Churchland's actual knowledge of physics is more on the level of Betty Crocker's knowledge of microwaves...

As for neural nets: go read Perlovsky! I find it odd that Churchland, who loudly proclaims nets as the future of AI, doesn't appear to have read any of Perlovsky's papers; but I suspect he's too busy waving magnets in his living room generating EM waves.