Neither Brain nor Ghost: A Nondualist Alternative to the Mind-Brain Identity Theory (Bradford Books) [Hardcover]

W. Teed Rockwell (Author)

Book Description

Series: Bradford Books | Publication Date: August 12, 2005

In this highly original work, Teed Rockwell rejects both dualism and the mind-brain identity theory. He proposes instead that mental phenomena emerge not merely from brain activity but from an interacting nexus of brain, body, and world. The mind can be seen not as an organ within the body, but as a "behavioral field" that fluctuates within this brain-body-world nexus. If we reject the dominant form of the mind-brain identity theory -- which Rockwell calls "Cartesian materialism" (distinct from Daniel Dennett's concept of the same name) -- and accept this new alternative, then many philosophical and scientific problems can be solved. Other philosophers have flirted with these ideas, including Dewey, Heidegger, Putnam, Millikan, and Dennett. But Rockwell goes further than these tentative speculations and offers a detailed alternative to the dominant philosophical view, applying pragmatist insights to contemporary scientific and philosophical problems.Rockwell shows that neuroscience no longer supports the mind-brain identity theory because the brain cannot be isolated from the rest of the nervous system; moreover, there is evidence that the mind is hormonal as well as neural. These data, and Rockwell's reanalysis of the concept of causality, show why the borders of mental embodiment cannot be neatly drawn at the skull, or even at the skin. Rockwell then demonstrates how his proposed view of the mind can resolve paradoxes engendered by the mind-brain identity theory in such fields as neuroscience, artificial intelligence, epistemology, and philosophy of language. Finally, he argues that understanding the mind as a "behavioral field" supports the new cognitive science paradigm of dynamic systems theory (DST).

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A new view of mind is in the air. Teed Rockwell has sensed it and articulated it beautifully in this book. Using a powerful combination of Dewey's pragmatism and dynamical systems theory, he proposes a bold alternative to Cartesian materialism that deserves careful scrutiny."--J. A. Scott Kelso, Glenwood and Martha Creech Chair in Science and Director, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, Florida Atlantic University

"Davies strikes a bold position and argues for it vigorously. His position is clever and original, but nicely connected to currently available theories of biological function, and Davies does a good job of laying out the relationships between his view and the other major theories."--Colin Allen, Professor, Department of History and Philosophy of Science and Program in Cognitive Science, Indiana University

"This book is an essential read for those interested in the nature of mind; for those of usalready sympathetic to the project, the book enriches the view with historical antecedentsfrom some unlikely places and offers a progressive scientific program for how to explore thenew view of mind empirically." Journal of Philosophy of Science

"If everything else is governed by dynamics, why not mind? Or is the science of mind outside the natural sciences? In recent times, notions of self-organizing, dynamical systems have begun to permeate the social, behavioral, cognitive and brain sciences. With a few notable exceptions, however, dynamical concepts (which embrace nonlinearity, emergence, interactions and context) remain to be explored. This book, full of scientific wisdom, wit, and understanding, is a pleasure to read. Ward brings the full armamentarium of concepts, methods, and modeling tools of dynamical systems--old and new--to bear on a wide variety of psychological phenomena. By filling dynamics with content from specific fields of cognitive research, he points the way to a far richer cognitive science in which conceptual content, dynamical modeling, and experiments mutually complement each other. This is a ground-breaking book that bridges the cognitive and the natural sciences. And it's two-way traffic. I suspect, were they around after 300 years, that David Hume and Isaac Newton might just smile."--J. A. Scott Kelso, Glenwood and Martha Creech Chair in Science and Director, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, Florida Atlantic UniversityPlease note: Endorser gives permission to excerpt from quote.

About the Author

W. Teed Rockwell is in the philosophy department at Sonoma State University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: A Bradford Book (August 12, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262182475
• ISBN-13: 978-0262182478
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,495,092 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a good read, March 7, 2008

By 

Gyre Andrew Gimble "Gyro" (Eastern Hemisphere) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Neither Brain nor Ghost: A Nondualist Alternative to the Mind-Brain Identity Theory (Bradford Books) (Paperback)

You'll find this one hard to put down. Rockwell writes very well: his self-confidence is invigorating without being excessive, and his use of friendly sarcasm toward many of the big names in philosophy of mind gives the reader a vivid point of entry into the chief problems of the field (I now feel a lot smarter about all the disputes Rockwell covers than I did before reading his book, which took less than 24 hours amidst numerous other activities).

The book makes two major claims, and I find the first a lot more interesting than the second (hence 4 stars rather than 5):

1. Mentality is not linked only with the brain. Numerous events that go on in the nervous system and hormonally have to count as mental. Pushing things still further, Rockwell argues that since mentality involves interactions with the environment, we cannot really restrict the mental realm to an "inner" sphere of the human body. This is all quite fascinating.

2. Rockwell justifies his theory on the basis of the pragmatist metaphysics of Dewey. This initially serves as a refreshing basis for his relational theory of the mind, but it eventually leads him into deeper waters where he merely asserts the more extreme metaphysical consequences of pragmatism... nothing has intrinsic qualities, it's unclear whether the world can exist without humans, etc. Granted, this was not explicitly meant as a work on metaphysics, but the antirealist underpinnings of his relational theory of mind come off as a bit facile.

Nonetheless, the book is a pleasure to read.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pushing the envelope clearly, May 7, 2007

By 

Jake Keenan "Trust the network." (Berkeley, Calif, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Neither Brain nor Ghost: A Nondualist Alternative to the Mind-Brain Identity Theory (Bradford Books) (Hardcover)

Concise, clear tour of the field of mind, brain, language studies - pushing the envelope back to Dewey and then ahead with the dynamic systems theorists & connectionists. Exemplary. He is at the forefront of philosophers working to understand the continuities of mind and environment.