Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.