Radical Embodied Cognitive Science

Chemero, Anthony

ISBN 10: 0262013223 / ISBN 13: 9780262013222

Published by MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2009

About this Item

1st printing; dj in mylar; 252 clean, unmarked pages; A proposal for a new way to do cognitive science argues that cognition should be described in terms of agent-environment dynamics rather than computation and representation.

Seller Inventory # 099049

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Radical Embodied Cognitive Science
• Publisher: MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
• Publication Date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262013223
• ISBN 13: 9780262013222
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Dimensions: Octavo ~23 cm / 9" tall Octavo, Approximately 23 centimetres, or 9 inches tall

About this title

Synopsis

While philosophers of mind have been arguing over the status of mental representations in cognitive science, cognitive scientists have been quietly engaged in studying perception, action, and cognition without explaining them in terms of mental representation. In this book, Anthony Chemero describes this nonrepresentational approach (which he terms radical embodied cognitive science), puts it in historical and conceptual context, and applies it to traditional problems in the philosophy of mind. Radical embodied cognitive science is a direct descendant of the American naturalist psychology of William James and John Dewey, and follows them in viewing perception and cognition to be understandable only in terms of action in the environment. Chemero argues that cognition should be described in terms of agent-environment dynamics rather than in terms of computation and representation. After outlining this orientation to cognition, Chemero proposes a methodology: dynamical systems theory, which would explain things dynamically and without reference to representation. He also advances a background theory: Gibsonian ecological psychology, "shored up" and clarified. Chemero then looks at some traditional philosophical problems (reductionism, epistemological skepticism, metaphysical realism, consciousness) through the lens of radical embodied cognitive science and concludes that the comparative ease with which it resolves these problems, combined with its empirical promise, makes this approach to cognitive science a rewarding one. "Jerry Fodor is my favorite philosopher," Chemero writes in his preface, adding, "I think that Jerry Fodor is wrong about nearly everything." With this book, Chemero explains nonrepresentational, dynamical, ecological cognitive science as clearly and as rigorously as Jerry Fodor explained computational cognitive science in his classic work The Language of Thought.

About the Author

Anthony Chemero is Associate Professor in the Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind Program at Franklin and Marshall College.