On The Origins Of Cognitive Science

Author : Jean-Pierre Dupuy
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262512394
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book On the Origins of Cognitive Science written by Jean-Pierre Dupuy and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009-04-17 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of the fundamental role cybernetics played in the birth of cognitive science and the light this sheds on current controversies. The conceptual history of cognitive science remains for the most part unwritten. In this groundbreaking book, Jean-Pierre Dupuy—one of the principal architects of cognitive science in France—provides an important chapter: the legacy of cybernetics. Contrary to popular belief, Dupuy argues, cybernetics represented not the anthropomorphization of the machine but the mechanization of the human. The founding fathers of cybernetics—some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, including John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, and Walter Pitts—intended to construct a materialist and mechanistic science of mental behavior that would make it possible at last to resolve the ancient philosophical problem of mind and matter. The importance of cybernetics to cognitive science, Dupuy argues, lies not in its daring conception of the human mind in terms of the functioning of a machine but in the way the strengths and weaknesses of the cybernetics approach can illuminate controversies that rage today—between cognitivists and connectionists, eliminative materialists and Wittgensteinians, functionalists and anti-reductionists. Dupuy brings to life the intellectual excitement that attended the birth of cognitive science sixty years ago. He separates the promise of cybernetic ideas from the disappointment that followed as cybernetics was rejected and consigned to intellectual oblivion. The mechanization of the mind has reemerged today as an all-encompassing paradigm in the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science. The tensions, contradictions, paradoxes, and confusions Dupuy discerns in cybernetics offer a cautionary tale for future developments in cognitive science.

Author : Michael R. W. Dawson
Publisher : Athabasca University Press
ISBN 13 : 1927356172
Total Pages : 506 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mind, Body, World written by Michael R. W. Dawson and published by Athabasca University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cognitive science arose in the 1950s when it became apparent that a number of disciplines, including psychology, computer science, linguistics, and philosophy, were fragmenting. Perhaps owing to the field's immediate origins in cybernetics, as well as to the foundational assumption that cognition is information processing, cognitive science initially seemed more unified than psychology. However, as a result of differing interpretations of the foundational assumption and dramatically divergent views of the meaning of the term information processing, three separate schools emerged: classical cognitive science, connectionist cognitive science, and embodied cognitive science. Examples, cases, and research findings taken from the wide range of phenomena studied by cognitive scientists effectively explain and explore the relationship among the three perspectives. Intended to introduce both graduate and senior undergraduate students to the foundations of cognitive science, Mind, Body, World addresses a number of questions currently being asked by those practicing in the field: What are the core assumptions of the three different schools? What are the relationships between these different sets of core assumptions? Is there only one cognitive science, or are there many different cognitive sciences? Giving the schools equal treatment and displaying a broad and deep understanding of the field, Dawson highlights the fundamental tensions and lines of fragmentation that exist among the schools and provides a refreshing and unifying framework for students of cognitive science.Michael R. W. Dawson is a professor of psychology at the University of Alberta. He is the author of numerous scientific papers as well as the books Understanding Cognitive Science (1998), Minds and Machines (2004), Connectionism: A Hands-on Approach (2005), and From Bricks to Brains: The Embodied Cognitive Science of LEGO Robots (2010).

Author : Margaret A. Boden
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019954316X
Total Pages : 789 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mind as Machine written by Margaret A. Boden and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-06-19 with total page 789 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development of cognitive science is one of the most remarkable and fascinating intellectual achievements of the modern era. The quest to understand the mind is as old as recorded human thought; but the progress of modern science has offered new methods and techniques which have revolutionized this enquiry. Oxford University Press now presents a masterful history of cognitive science, told by one of its most eminent practitioners. Cognitive science is the project of understanding the mind by modeling its workings. Psychology is its heart, but it draws together various adjoining fields of research, including artificial intelligence; neuroscientific study of the brain; philosophical investigation of mind, language, logic, and understanding; computational work on logic and reasoning; linguistic research on grammar, semantics, and communication; and anthropological explorations of human similarities and differences. Each discipline, in its own way, asks what the mind is, what it does, how it works, how it developed - how it is even possible. The key distinguishing characteristic of cognitive science, Boden suggests, compared with older ways of thinking about the mind, is the notion of understanding the mind as a kind of machine. She traces the origins of cognitive science back to Descartes's revolutionary ideas, and follows the story through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the pioneers of psychology and computing appear. Then she guides the reader through the complex interlinked paths along which the study of the mind developed in the twentieth century. Cognitive science, in Boden's broad conception, covers a wide range of aspects of mind: not just 'cognition' in the sense of knowledge or reasoning, but emotion, personality, social communication, and even action. In each area of investigation, Boden introduces the key ideas and the people who developed them. No one else could tell this story as Boden can: she has been an active participant in cognitive science since the 1960s, and has known many of the key figures personally. Her narrative is written in a lively, swift-moving style, enriched by the personal touch of someone who knows the story at first hand. Her history looks forward as well as back: it is her conviction that cognitive science today--and tomorrow--cannot be properly understood without a historical perspective. Mind as Machine will be a rich resource for anyone working on the mind, in any academic discipline, who wants to know how our understanding of our mental activities and capacities has developed.

Author : M. R. Bennett
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118394291
Total Pages : 333 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book History of Cognitive Neuroscience written by M. R. Bennett and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2012-08-15 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History of Cognitive Neuroscience documents the major neuroscientific experiments and theories over the last century and a half in the domain of cognitive neuroscience, and evaluates the cogency of the conclusions that have been drawn from them. Provides a companion work to the highly acclaimed Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience - combining scientific detail with philosophical insights Views the evolution of brain science through the lens of its principal figures and experiments Addresses philosophical criticism of Bennett and Hacker's previous book Accompanied by more than 100 illustrations

Author : Mark J. Cain
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 150950205X
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Philosophy of Cognitive Science written by Mark J. Cain and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-11-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades cognitive science has revolutionised our understanding of the workings of the human mind. Philosophy has made a major contribution to cognitive science and has itself been hugely influenced by its development. This dynamic book explores the philosophical significance of cognitive science and examines the central debates that have enlivened its history. In a wide-ranging and comprehensive account of the topic, philosopher M.J. Cain discusses the historical origins of cognitive science and its philosophical underpinnings; the nature and role of representations in cognition; the architecture of the mind and the modularity thesis; the nature of concepts; knowledge of language and its acquisition; perception; and the relationship between the brain and cognition. Cain draws upon an extensive knowledge of empirical developments and their philosophical interpretation. He argues that although the field has generated some challenging new views in recent years, many of the core ideas that initiated its birth are still to be taken seriously. Clearly written and incisively argued, The Philosophy of Cognitive Science will appeal to any student or researcher interested in the workings of the mind.

Author : Jean Pierre Dupuy
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780691025742
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.46/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Mechanization of the Mind written by Jean Pierre Dupuy and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development of a scientific theory of mind was thus significantly delayed."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : Howard E Gardner
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0786725141
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Mind's New Science written by Howard E Gardner and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full-scale history of cognitive science, this work addresses a central issue: What is the nature of knowledge?

Author : Claire White
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351010956
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion written by Claire White and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-14 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, a new scientific approach to understand, explain, and predict many features of religion has emerged. The cognitive science of religion (CSR) has amassed research on the forces that shape the tendency for humans to be religious and on what forms belief takes. It suggests that religion, like language or music, naturally emerges in humans with tractable similarities. This new approach has profound implications for how we understand religion, including why it appears so easily, and why people are willing to fight—and die—for it. Yet it is not without its critics, and some fear that scholars are explaining the ineffable mystery of religion away, or showing that religion is natural proves or disproves the existence of God. An Introduction to the Cognitive Science of Religion offers students and general readers an accessible introduction to the approach, providing an overview of key findings and the debates that shape it. The volume includes a glossary of key terms, and each chapter includes suggestions for further thought and further reading as well as chapter summaries highlighting key points. This book is an indispensable resource for introductory courses on religion and a much-needed option for advanced courses.

Author : Jean-Pierre Dupuy
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804788456
Total Pages : 239 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Mark of the Sacred written by Jean-Pierre Dupuy and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-30 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study of religion and violence “forces us to reexamine some of our most cherished self-images of modern liberal democratic societies” (Charles Taylor). Jean-Pierre Dupuy, prophet of what he calls “enlightened doomsaying,” has long warned that modern society is on a path to self-destruction. In this book, he pleads for a subversion of this crisis from within, arguing that it is our lopsided view of religion and reason that has set us on this course. In denial of our sacred origins and hubristically convinced of the powers of human reason, we cease to know our own limits: our disenchanted world leaves us defenseless against a headlong rush into the abyss of global warming, nuclear holocaust, and the other catastrophes that loom on our horizon. Reviving the religious anthropology of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Marcel Mauss and in dialogue with the work of René Girard, Dupuy shows that we must remember the world’s sacredness in order to keep human violence in check. A metaphysical and theological detective, he tracks the sacred in the very fields where human reason considers itself most free from everything it judges irrational: science, technology, economics, political and strategic thought. In making such claims, The Mark of the Sacred takes on religion bashers, secularists, and fundamentalists at once. Written by one of the deepest and most versatile thinkers of our time, it militates for a world where reason is no longer an enemy of faith. “The Mark of the Sacred is one of those rare books . . . which, in an enlightened well-organized state, should be printed and freely distributed in all schools!” —Slavoj Žižek

Author : Paolo Pecere
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3030514633
Total Pages : 142 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Soul, Mind and Brain from Descartes to Cognitive Science written by Paolo Pecere and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary book ties the historical work of Descartes to his successors through current research and critical overviews on the neuroscience of consciousness, the brain, and cognition. This text is the first historical survey to focus on the cohesions and discontinuities between historical and contemporary thinkers working in philosophy, physiology, psychology, and neuroscience. The book introduces and analyzes early discussions of consciousness, such as: metaphysical alternatives to scientific explanations of consciousness and its connection to brain activity; claims about the possibilities and limits of neuroscientific accounts of consciousness and cognition; and the proposition of a “non-reductive naturalism” concerning phenomenal consciousness and rationality. The author assesses the contributions of early philosophers and scientists on brain, consciousness and cognition, among them: Descartes, Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Newton, Haller, Kant, Fechner, Helmholtz and du Bois-Reymond. The work of these pioneers is related to that of modern researchers in physiology, psychology, neuroscience and philosophy of mind, including: Freud, Hilary Putnam, Herbert Feigl, Gerald Edelman, Jean-Pierre Changeux, Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers, amongst others. This text appeals to researchers and advanced students in the field.