Embodiment and Cognitive Science (Hardcover)

~ Raymond W. Gibbs Jr (Author)
Key Phrases: American Sign Language, Saddam Hussein, Van Orden

Editorial Reviews

Review

"As a neuroscientist, I found this book to be thorough and extremely helpful"
Contemporary Psychology: APA REview of Books

Product Description

This book describes the many ways that the mind and body are closely interrelated, and how human thought and language are fundamentally linked to bodily action. The embodied nature of mind is explored through many topics, such as perception, thinking, language use, development, emotions, and consciousness. People's embodied experiences are critical to the ways they think and speak and, most generally, understand themselves, other people, and the world around them. This work provides a strong defense of the idea that embodied action is critical to the study of human cognition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 348 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (December 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521811740
• ISBN-13: 978-0521811743
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,270,737 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Embodiment Established, February 26, 2006

By	E. N. Anderson (Riverside, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Embodiment and Cognitive Science (Paperback)

This book definitively establishes the fact that not only is the mind "in" the body, the mind is the body. We think with our whole nervous system. Proprioception, peripheral nerves, bodily motions, all are major parts of cognition and experience. Not only do we think with our bodies, we can't think without them. Our thought is our action in the world.
Gibbs' superb uniting of neurology, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and common sense simply buries Descartes (of mind-body dichotomy fame) under mountains of data and theoretically sophisticated interpretation. No one will ever again be able to argue that the mind is an abstract, disembodied entity trapped in flesh. This book is in the great tradition of Tolman, Hebb, and Merleau-Ponty, and should be transformational to anyone who hasn't already gotten the message. Even for me (a veteran reader in this field and lifelong non-Cartesian) the book was transformative. I learned a startling amount about everything from brain cells to babies (the latter are far more aware of their relationship with the world and its objects and trajectories than I thought). Already familiar with George Lakoff's work, I learned rather less about metaphor (discussed rather too repetitiously), but even here Gibbs has much to say, including a convincing interpretation of the bizarre sense of self captured in such phrases as "I'm not myself today" and "I'm so busy I'm beside myself."
I notice a tendency in American culture for women to see their bodies as something outside of their "selves," and even neuter in sex, as when a friend of mine who had cancer (mercifully cured) said "I felt my body had let me down, and I was sort of mad at it." I could never think of my body as neuter, or as an opponent. Neither, I think, could most men. But once a bunch of us were discussing this over lunch; in general, things broke along the above gender lines, but a highly analytic mathematician said he could think of his body as something foreign, while a notably accomplished and talented dancer said she could never imagine such a thing--she was firmly in her definitely gendered body. So experience and culture affect body images and body philosophies. This has been discussed a great deal in recent years. Gibbs wisely avoids getting mired in that endless literature, but I suppose the next stage in embodied cognition is to bring it all in. Meanwhile, everyone interested in cognition or consciousness should read Gibbs' book.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Technically oriented, August 15, 2007

By	Mark Dubin (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Embodiment and Cognitive Science (Paperback)

This book is aimed mainly at workers in the field and in related aspects of brain functioning. It is solid, important and well worth reading.