Buch, Englisch, 352 Seiten, Format (B × H): 128 mm x 200 mm, Gewicht: 342 g
ISBN: 978-0-691-09285-0
Verlag: PRINCETON UNIV PR
Will understanding our brains help us to know our minds? Or is there an unbridgeable distance between the work of neuroscience and the workings of human consciousness? In a remarkable exchange between neuroscientist Jean-Pierre Changeux and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, this book explores the vexed territory between these divergent approaches--and comes to a deeper, more complex perspective on human nature.Ranging across diverse traditions, from phrenology to PET scans and from Spinoza to Charles Taylor, What Makes Us Think? revolves around a central issue: the relation between the facts (or "what is") of science and the prescriptions (or "what ought to be") of ethics. Changeux and Ricoeur ask: Will neuroscientific knowledge influence our moral conduct? Is a naturally based ethics possible? Pursuing these questions, they attack key topics at the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience: What are the relations between brain states and psychological experience? Between language and truth? Memory and culture? Behavior and action? What is a mental representation? How does a sign relate to what it signifies? How might subjective experience be constructed rather than discovered? And can biological or cultural evolution be considered progressive? Throughout, Changeux and Ricoeur provide unprecedented insight into what neuroscience can--and cannot--tell us about the nature of human experience.Changeux and Ricoeur bring an unusual depth of engagement and breadth of knowledge to each other's subject. In doing so, they make two often hostile disciplines speak to one another in surprising and instructive ways--and speak with all the subtlety and passion of conversation at its very best.
Fachgebiete
- Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Erkenntnistheorie
- Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Ethik, Moralphilosophie
- Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Philosophie des Geistes, Neurophilosophie
- Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Kognitionspsychologie
- Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Neurobiologie, Verhaltensbiologie
Weitere Infos & Material
Translator's Note vi
Prelude ix
Chapter 1: A Necessary Encounter
Knowledge and Wisdom 3
Knowledge of the Brain and Self-Knowledge 10
The Biological and the Normative 26
Chapter 2: Body and Mind: In Search of a Common Discourse 33
The Cartesian Ambiguity 33
The Contribution of the Neurosciences 41
Toward a Third Kind of Discourse? 63
Chapter 3: The Neuronal Model and the Test of Experience 70
The Simple and the Complex: Questions of Method 70
The Human Brain: Complexity, Hierarchy, Spontaneity 75
Mental Objects: Chimera or Link? 93
Is a Neuronal Theory of Knowledge Possible? 110
Understanding Better by Explaining More 125
Chapter 4: Consciousness of Oneself and of Others 134
Conscious Space 134
The Question of Memory 138
Comprehension of Oneself and of Others 154
Mind or Matter? 169
Chapter 5: The Origins of Morality 179
Darwinian Evolution and Moral Norms 179
The First Structures of Morality 195
From Biological History to Cultural History: Valuing the Individual 202
Chapter 6: Desire and Norms 212
Natural Dispositions to Ethical Systems 212
The Biological Bases of Rules of Conduct 222
Passage to the Norm 239
Chapter 7: Ethical Universality and Cultural Conflict 257
The Natural Foundations of an Ethics of Debate 257
Religion and Violence 259
Paths of Tolerance 272
The Scandal of Evil 279
Toward an Ethics of Deliberation: The Example of Advisory Committees on Bioethics 298
Art as Peacemaker 303
Fugue 311
Notes 313
Index 327
