Pragmatist Neurophilosophy: American Philosophy and the Brain

Pragmatist Neurophilosophy:American Philosophy and the Brain explains why the broad tradition of pragmatism is needed now more than ever. Bringing pragmatist philosophers together with cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists, this volume explores topics of urgent interest across neuroscience and philosophy from the perspective of pragmatism.

Discussing how Charles Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Mead benefited from their laboratory-knowledge, contributors treat America's first-generation pragmatists as America's first cognitive scientists. They explain why scientists today should participate in pragmatic judgments, just as the classical pragmatists did, and how current scientists can benefit from their earlier philosophical explorations across the same territory. Looking at recent neuroscientific discoveries in relation to classical pragmatists, they explore emerging pragmatic views supported directly from the behavioral and brain sciences and describe how "neuropragmatism" engages larger cultural questions by adequately dealing with meaningful values and ethical ideals.

Pragmatist Neurophilosophy is an important contribution to scholars of both pragmatism and neuroscience and a timely reminder that America's first generation of pragmatists did not stumble onto its principles, but designed them in light of biology's new discoveries.

John R. Shook, Ph.D., is Vice President for Education and Research and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, New York. He also is Research Associate in Philosophy at the University at Buffalo.

Tibor Solymosi has taught at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, USA. He also runs the website www.neuropragmatism.com.

List of Contributors
1. Introduction – John Shook and Tibor Solymosi
Part 1: Historical Considerations
2. Peirce on Neuronal Synchronicity and Spontaneous Order – John Kaag
3. The Legacy of William James: Lessons for Today's 21st-Century Neuroscience – Maxine Sheets-Johnstone
4. Dewey, Naturalism, and Neuroaesthetics – Russell Pryba
Part 2: Reconstructing Neuroscience and Philosophy
5. Descendants of Pragmatism: Reconciliation and Reconstruction in Neopragmatism, Neurophilosophy, and Neuropragmatism – Tibor Solymosi
6. Neuropragmatic Reconstruction: A Case from Neuroeconomics – Mark Tschaepe
7. The Most Important Thing Neuropragmatism Can Do: Providing an Alternative to 'Cognitive' Neuroscience – Eric P. Charles, Andrew D. Wilson, and Sabrina Golonka
Part 3: Cognition, Inquiry, and Belief in the Brain and Beyond
8. How Inquiry and Method Shape Brain Science: Pragmatism, Embodiment, and Cognitive Neuroscience – Tim Rohrer
9. Extended Mind and Representation – Tom Burke
10. The Self as an Evolved Organism that Lives in a Pragmatically Defined World – David L. Thompson
11. Is Experience Subjective or Objective, or Both, or Neither? – John Shook
Index

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.