Mind: Introduction to Cognitive Science, , 2nd Edition (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Have you ever wondered how your mind works?..." (more)
Key Phrases: dynamic systems ideas, analogical schemas, neurological plausibility, Discussion Questions, East Asians, Research Methods (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The second edition of Mind represents a significant advance for an already excellent book. My enthusiasm for continuing to use Thagard's accessible and consistently informative volume for Berkeley's large Introduction to Cognitive Science course has been fully refreshed, as the updates in the new edition have made it a superb text for undergraduates."
—Michael Ranney, Graduate School of Education, Department of Psychology, and the Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of California, Berkeley

"This little gem of a book has three major virtues. First, it is easy to read and easy to understand. Second, it clearly states the central thesis of cognitive science and precisely lays out the explanatory patterns underlying various theories of cognition. Third, the book is unique in its presentation of the material, arranging it along various types of knowledge representations such as rules, concepts, and images."
—Ashok Goel, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology

Product Description

Cognitive science approaches the study of mind and intelligence from an interdisciplinary perspective, working at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. With Mind, Paul Thagard offers an introduction to this interdisciplinary field for readers who come to the subject with very different backgrounds. It is suitable for classroom use by students with interests ranging from computer science and engineering to psychology and philosophy.

Thagard's systematic descriptions and evaluations of the main theories of mental representation advanced by cognitive scientists allow students to see that there are many complementary approaches to the investigation of mind. The fundamental theoretical perspectives he describes include logic, rules, concepts, analogies, images, and connections (artificial neural networks). The discussion of these theories provides an integrated view of the different achievements of the various fields of cognitive science.

This second edition includes substantial revision and new material. Part I, which presents the different theoretical approaches, has been updated in light of recent work the field. Part II, which treats extensions to cognitive science, has been thoroughly revised, with new chapters added on brains, emotions, and consciousness. Other additions include a list of relevant Web sites at the end of each chapter and a glossary at the end of the book. As in the first edition, each chapter concludes with a summary and suggestions for further reading.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; 2nd edition (April 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 026270109X
• ISBN-13: 978-0262701099
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #216,002 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Accessible Cognitive Science Primer, June 9, 2009

By	Leah D. Simmons "LDS" (BAKERSFIELD, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Unlike the other review I just read -
This TEXTBOOK is clear, concise, and logically organized.

The book provides relevant, in-line definitions for all terms and concepts used. The book teaches you the concepts, principles, and methods of cognitive science, gently in an interesting way as you read the text. The author's writes in everyday language and creates his examples and situations in the "everyday" world to illustrate specific concepts and/or methods.

This is the best, most comprehesive, easy-to-understand, introductory overview of cognitive science I have ever read. All of this is packed into a slim, 5" by 8" volume consisting of 230 pages of text & exercises by a knowledgable author with great writing skills.

A great text from beginner to practioner.

You don't need a masters degree in some specific subject to understand what the author is presenting. This book applies the standards and elements of critical thinking unself-consciously and transparently. Every student should be required to read this text because it teaches critical thinking skills in both content AND message. Delightful!!

I have not (yet) read any of Paul Thagard's other textbooks but you can be SURE that I will.

11 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CRUM: Computational Representational Understanding of the Mind, January 30, 2006

By	Thomas J. Hickey (River Forest, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The linguistic-analysis tradition in philosophy had achieved ascendancy in twentieth-century philosophy of science. But it has been characterized by a nominalist view, which admits a two-level semantics consisting of only (1) the linguistic symbol, such as word, and (2) the objects or individual entities the symbol references. Nominalism recognizes no mediating third level consisting of the idea, concept, "intension", proposition, or any other mental reality between linguistic signs and nonlinguistic objects.

The two-level semantics is also the view typically held by the Positivist philosophers, who rejected mentalism in psychology, and who like B.F. Skinner prefer behaviorism. However Thagard, like Herbert Simon, explicitly rejects the behavioristic approach in psychology and advocates cognitive psychology, which recognizes mediating mental realities.

The two-level semantics is also characteristic of philosophers such as Quine who accept the Russellian predicate calculus. This calculus of symbolic logic contains a notational convention that uses quantification to express existence claims. It therefore fabricates an Orwellian-like nominalist newspeak in which predicate terms are semantically vacuous, unless they are placed in the range of quantifiers, such that they reference some kind of entities called either "mental entities" or Platonic "abstract entities." The philosopher Nelson Goodman for example therefore divides all philosophers into nominalists and Platonists. Not surprisingly the Russellian symbolic logic was adopted by the Logical Positivists. Oddly Thagard does not reject the Russellian symbolic logic, although it is not clear that he recognizes the ontological implications of its notational conventions.

In this book, Mind: Introduction to Cognitive Science (1996), intended as an undergraduate textbook, Thagard states that the central hypothesis of cognitive science is that thinking can best be understood in terms both of representational structures in the mind and of computational procedures that operate on those structures. He labels this central hypothesis with the acronym "CRUM", by which he means "Computational Representational Understanding of Mind." This hypothesis assumes that the mind has mental representations analogous to data structures and computational procedures analogous to algorithms, such that computer programs using algorithms applied to data structures can model the mind and its processes.

Readers interested in more commentary on Thagard are invited to read my book titled History of Twentieth-Century Philosophy of Science at my web site philsci with free downloads. See especially BOOK VIII.

Thomas J. Hickey