The Functionalist’s Dilemma
George Lakoff reviews Ray Jackendorf’s Language, Consciousness, Culture: Essays on Mental Structure.
Constructing Cognition
Ethan Remmel reviews Katherine Nelson’s Young Minds in Social Worlds: Experience, Meaning, and Memory.
Judging from the discussion on Leiter Reports the merits of McGinn’s review is sub judice. To be fair, there is a great deal of pap out there not all coming to the attention of first order minds like McGinn. In a footnote to the review, McGinn writes:
The review that appears here is not as I originally wrote it. The editors asked me to “soften the tone” of the original; I have done so, though against my better judgment.
As I see it the issue divides up into two groups:
Group A:
1. Ignoring a poor book is the best fate to befall it;
2. A review acts as a public service: reader be forewarned!
Group B:
1. Bland undiscriminating reviews are just space fillers;
2. Surely much of the blame for a poor book must be laid at the publisher’s doorstep: just because one has a “name” does not ensure quality.
I haven’t read Honderich’s book: in any event this wouldn’t be the first turkey he has produced. His The Real Meaning of Conservatism, taking a swipe at Roger Scruton’s influential though itself middling The Meaning of Conservatism, was dreadful. I’m inclined to A1: I do not review books that are, at best unengaging or, at worst, just downright wrong (and I don’t mean to suggest that I don’t appreciate well-argued views that run contrary to my own – indeed, that’s where the value lies). Reviewing poor books is too much like hard work.
For those who haven’t actually read the review, here are some choice extracts, occasionally reminding me of that master of the put-down, A.E. Housman.
This book runs the full gamut from the mediocre to the ludicrous to the merely bad. It is painful to read, poorly thought out, and uninformed. It is also radically inconsistent. The structure of the book consists of a series of previously published papers, somewhat modified, with short introductory sections, going back to 1981.
Throughout, the book is woefully uninformed about the work of others and at best amateurish. Honderich’s understanding of positions he criticizes is often weak to nonexistent, though not lacking in chutzpah. And the view he ends up defending is preposterous in the extreme and easily refuted.
After a banal and pointless chapter on seeing and sense-data (even the author refers to it as “this faltering paper” [123]), we finally reach the crux and, presumably, the excuse for the book.
Is there anything of merit in On Consciousness? Honderich does occasionally show glimmers of understanding that the problem of consciousness is difficult and that most of our ideas about it fall short of the mark. His instincts, at least, are not always wrong. It is a pity that his own efforts here are so shoddy, inept, and disastrous (to use a term he is fond of applying to the views of others).
Philosophical Review, Vol. 116, No. 3, 2007
Here is is the uncorrected proof of my review of Mike Wheeler’s excellent book.
A highly personalized and philosophical spat reaches the mainstream.
This from today’s Jerusalem Post. What’s particularly interesting is that were a biological computer a real possibility, this would vindicate the extended mind thesis.
Prof. Eshel Ben-Jacob of TAU’s faculty of exact sciences and his research assistant Dr. Itay Baruchi were chosen for their innovative work in brain research and their success in creating a memory- and information-processing neurochip made of living neurons.
Ben-Jacob and Baruchi have succeeded in creating for the first time a neurochip made of living neuron networks that stores memory and processes information. Their scientific achievement presents a conceptual breakthrough in approaching learning brain processes and paves the way for a technological revolution of building robots that integrate computers and neurochips. Their experiment comprised local nanometric injections of a certain chemical onto a neuronal network they grew in a dish, with the injection sites determined through real-time analysis of the network activity. The chemical stimulation evoked a new firing pattern, which repeated again and again as a persisting memory.
While some wonder if the brain is a fantastic computer, Ben-Jacob says it is not: “Computers have neither cognitive abilities nor the required plasticity – they are fixed.” To plasticize a “computer brain,” he hopes eventually to connect it to neural networks and create a biological computer that would be an evolvable system. Given a task, such a system would learn, evolve and improve itself via dialog between the computer and networks to perfect its task performance. The network will perform the cognitive part, of interaction with the environment, sound and picture recognition and decision-making. Baruchi thinks this is the key to technological advances such as handwriting recognition, on which Microsoft has been working intensively but with only partial success.
The ability to imprint memory templates in artificial networks of brain cells could yield a variety of technologies. The team believes that in the foreseeable future, it may be possible to treat neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Later, Ben-Jacob believes, stem cells could be added to neural networks and adapted to specific functions by applying appropriate stimuli. Even further ahead, he hopes it will be possible to treat epilepsy by feeding the disordered brain activity to a biological computer, which will analyze it, identify the faults and feed corrected patterns of electrical stimuli back into the sick brain.
Several months ago I floated the idea of compiling a database for all things “stigmergical”. I’m pleased to say that Simon Garnier has come up with a much better conceived idea (and database platform) for all things SWARM (which includes stigmergy). This is a timely project since the literature has of late witnessed an exponential increase in volume and this is likely to continue: to have a one stop research resource will be an immense service.
Simon has already made a good start on the Swarm References database. A big thanks to Simon for initiating this project.
Some seven months ago I highlighted the work of the Sabre Foundation. Once again I want to bring the work of this fine charity to your attention.
Many charitable organizations attend to humanitarian needs associated with displacement and hunger. What is often lacking is the foresight to provide humanitarian aid for the mind: support for the educational infrastructure vital to countries in either conflict, or in transition, or countries that are already on the road to development. Education must surely be the long-term key to not only ensuring localized stability and prosperity, but also to peaceful co-existence and understanding between nations. Sabre ships NEW books – and it should be noted, onlybooks that are requested by its local NGO partners – for more on this please see Sabre’s book donation philosophy.
Please check out Sabre’s latest Newsletter. I would urge you to consider making an online donation to Sabre Foundation. What Sabre does on an very modest budget is astounding. For each $100 donated to Sabre, Sabre can ship up to $3,000 worth of NEW books – that is what I call a big bang for the buck. With only three full-time staff in the administrative office and only four staff running a warehouse of over 100,000 sq ft, you know your money is being well spent.
Following up on my earlier posting on hearing of Peter’s death, here is a nice personalized obituary in today’s Guardian. Here is the Telegraph obituary.
I’ve recently become the Associate Reviews Editor of the Journal of Mind and Behavior (JMB). JMB is a well-regarded refereed journal, now in its 27th year, with an impressive subscription base. What I find congenial is that JMB appeals to a multidisciplinary audience, offering a healthy and ecumenical dialogue. Subject areas include:
The psychology, philosophy,and sociology of experimentation and the scientific method
The relationship between methodology, operationism, and theory construction
The mind/body problem in the social sciences, psychiatry and the medical sciences, and the physical science
Philosophical impact of a mind/body epistemology upon psychology and its theories of consciousness
Critical examinations of the DSM – biopsychology – somatotherapy framework of thought and practice
Phenomenological, teleological, existential, and introspective reports relevant to psychology, psychosocial methodology, and social philosophy
Issues pertaining to the ethical study of cognition, self-awareness, and higher functions of consciousness in non-human animals
Historical perspectives on the course and nature of psychological science
Under my tenure, I’m looking for reviews that are akin to the old-fashioned Critical Notice – an extended review essay of about 5,000 words that itself is a genuine and thoughtful contribution to the literature. (“Reviews” that seem more about the reviewer, rather than the target thinker, or “reviews” that clearly haven’t read the target book from cover to cover, are not welcome here). If there is a recent or forthcoming book that you believe is worthy of attention and that falls within the aims and scope of JMB, drop me a line. It is vital that, beyond the substantive expertise required by the reviewer, the reviewer also pay special consideration to writing for a general audience. Furthermore, JMB strictly adheres to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (fifth edition, 2001; see Journal for exceptions to APA style). Examples of previous reviews will be sent to act as a guide.
This from the latest issue of The New Yorker – I assume an allusion to the Hollywood writer’s strike.
