Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV episodes with Prime Video
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
Buy new:
$25.93$25.93
FREE delivery:
Wednesday, Sep 20
Ships from: Amazon Sold by: G10 Deals and Steals
Buy used: $10.98
Other Sellers on Amazon
+ $3.99 shipping
99% positive over last 12 months
& FREE Shipping
97% positive over last 12 months
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. Learn more
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Embodied Cognition (New Problems of Philosophy)
| Price | New from | Used from |
There is a newer edition of this item:
Purchase options and add-ons
Embodied cognition often challenges standard cognitive science. In this outstanding introduction, Lawrence Shapiro sets out the central themes and debates surrounding embodied cognition, explaining and assessing the work of many of the key figures in the field, including George Lakoff, Alva Noë, Andy Clark, and Arthur Glenberg.
Beginning with an outline of the theoretical and methodological commitments of standard cognitive science, Shapiro then examines philosophical and empirical arguments surrounding the traditional perspective. He introduces topics such as dynamic systems theory, ecological psychology, robotics, and connectionism, before addressing core issues in philosophy of mind such as mental representation and extended cognition.
Including helpful chapter summaries and annotated further reading at the end of each chapter, Embodied Cognition is essential reading for all students of philosophy of mind, psychology, and cognitive science.
- ISBN-100415773423
- ISBN-13978-0415773423
- PublisherRoutledge
- Publication dateSeptember 19, 2010
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6.25 x 0.75 x 9 inches
- Print length256 pages
Customers who viewed this item also viewed
Editorial Reviews
Review
Winner: 2013 American Philosophical Association Joseph P. Gittler Award for an outstanding contribution in the field of philosophy of the social sciences
"Embodied Cognition is sweeping the planet and Larry Shapiro has just written the first comprehensive treatment of this exciting and new research program. This book is now and for years to come will be unquestionably the best way for students and researchers alike, to gain access to and learn to evaluate this exciting, new research paradigm in cognitive science." - Fred Adams, University of Delaware, USA
"A must read for those who support the embodied program, those who question it, and those who are just trying to figure out what the heck it is. It's definitely on the reading list for my course in embodied cognition." - Arthur Glenberg, Arizona State University, USA
"Embodied Cognition provides a balanced and comprehensive introduction to the embodied cognition movement, but also much more. Shapiro is careful to sift empirical results from broader philosophical claims, and the concise, simple arguments for cognition's embodiment that he articulates will help advanced students and researchers assess the diverse literature on this hot topic in cognitive science." - Robert A. Wilson, University of Alberta, Canada
"Embodied Cognition is the first of its kind - a beautifully lucid and even-handed introduction to the many questions and issues that define the field of embodied cognition. Psychologists, neuroscientists, computer scientists, and philosophers should jump on this book. It promises to set the terms of debate in this exciting new enterprise for years to come." - Elliott Sober, University of Wisconsin Madison, USA
"Embodied Cognition is an outstanding introduction to this increasingly important topic in cognitive science. Written in a clear and lively style, with a critical approach, it is a strong contender for the most useful introductory text on any topic in all of cognitive science, and a genuine contribution to the scientific and philosophical literature on embodied cognition." - Kenneth Aizawa, Centenary College of Louisiana, USA
"Embodied cognition is a controversial topic, and extravagant claims have been made both for and against it ... scientists would do well to pay attention when a philosopher produces an excellent monograph such as Embodied Cognition by Lawrence Shapiro. Shapiro is a philosopher with an impressive grasp of cognitive science, and he does a superbly thorough job of summarizing the relevant scholarship and evaluating the various claims that have been made." - David Manier, Lehman College, City University of New York, USA
"Shapiro’s discussion of the dynamic systems approach to cognition in general, and the remarkable but difficult work of Randall Beer in particular, are careful and cogent, and will be of great help to students hoping to understand the main thrust of, and the debates sparked by, this still underappreciated research area. Similarly, I find his extended engagement with the extended mind hypothesis―and in particular the long and ongoing debate over whether we should believe that some of the constituents of cognitive processes lie outside the brain - to be clear and compelling. …The book represents a genuine achievement." – Michael L. Anderson, Journal of Consciousness Studies
"Shapiro is a philosopher with an impressive grasp of cognitive science, and he does a superbly thorough job of summarizing the relevant scholarship and evaluating the various claims that have been made. His writing is clear and persuasive, and he never seems tendentious. […] highly readable, evenhanded, and clear to a fault." - PsycCRITIQUES
About the Author
Lawrence Shapiro is Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin―Madison, USA. His research currently focuses on the issues and debates around embodied cognition. He is editor (with Brie Gertler) of Arguing About the Mind (2007), also available from Routledge.
Product details
- Publisher : Routledge (September 19, 2010)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 256 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0415773423
- ISBN-13 : 978-0415773423
- Item Weight : 13.6 ounces
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 0.75 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,707,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,632 in Consciousness & Thought Philosophy
- #2,864 in Medical Cognitive Psychology
- #4,019 in Cognitive Psychology (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
Important information
To report an issue with this product, click here.
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Shapiro gives an excellent overview of the recent move away from computationalism towards the idea of embodied cognition. Simply put, embodied cognition implies that cognition does not occur only "in the head," but is rather a process emerging from the dynamic interplay between brain, body, and world. Of course, different theorists approach this idea in different ways, producing various "flavors" of embodied cognition which Shapiro summarizes and critiques. Anyone interested in embodied cognition and anyone dissatisfied with the [outdated] model of information processing theory needs to read this book.
There are, of course, several downsides. First, I think Shapiro could have done a more thorough job of critiquing information processing theory and laying out the theoretical groundwork for embodied cognition. He went into some detail, but it was not too satisfactory in my opinion (though still very good). Second, he does not provide a global definition of what it means to have embodied cognition - as far as I know, no theorist has been able to provide it, hence the "flavors" of this theoretical umbrella. Providing such a global definition is no easy feat, of course, but I think any attempt would have been helpful to move towards a global view of what it means to be embodied.
Sum: great book, great read
Michael B. Buchholz
Göttingen
GERMANY
Top reviews from other countries
Where the author does less well is in failing to distinguish between conscious and unconscious processing. There is a consensus that the great majority of brain activities, including many steps that lead up to perceptions, are unconscious, but there is little attempt to differentiate here between conscious an dunconscious. We could think that this book was about unconscious information processing rather than consciousness, except that its thinking seems closely aligned to other writers who are discussing consciousness.
If the author is trying to discuss consciousness, it is surprising that he does not discuss the specific correlates of consciousness that have been recently identified both with respect to the global gamma synchrony and also the jump from baseline to 50 Hz in single neurons. This looks a disappointing omission.

