INTRODUCTION (read in pdf format ) Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience , by Max Bennett and Peter Hacker, was published by Blackwell in 2003. It attracted attention straightaway because it was the first systematic evaluation of the conceptual foundations of neuroscience, as these foundations had been laid by scientists and philosophers.What added to the attraction of the work were two appendixes devoted specifically and critically to the influential writings of John Searle and Daniel Dennett. Max Bennett, an accomplished neuroscientist, correctly identified Searle and Dennett as the philosophers most widely read within the neuroscience community and was eager to make clear to readers why he and Hacker disagreed with their views. In the fall of 2004 Bennett and Hacker were invited by the program committee of the American Philosophical Association to participate in an "Authors and Critics" session at the 2005 meeting of the association in New York. The choice of critics could not have been better: Daniel Dennett and John Searle had agreed to write replies to the criticisms levied against their work by Bennett and Hacker. The contents of this present volume are based on that three-hour APA session.The session was chaired by owen Flanagan and was marked by an unusually animated exchange among the participants. Dennett and Searle had provided written versions of their rebuttals prior to the session, to which Bennett and Hacker then replied. Fully aware of the importance of the philosophical issues, Wendy Lochner, the philosophy editor for Columbia University viii introduction Press, urged the participants to consider having the proceedings published in book form. In the ordinary course of events, the written version of a spirited colloquium generally imposes a rather gray cast over what was originally colorful and affecting. The imagination of the reader is summoned to the task of re-creating a real event out of the shards and apparatus of published prose. I think it is fair to say that this customary limitation is not suffered by the present volume. Reader will recognize in these essays and exchanges the motivating power of intellectual passion.The participants are serious about their subject. Their notable contributions over a course of decades give them the right to be taken seriously. Moreover, the stakes are uncommonly high. After all, the project of cognitive neuroscience is nothing less than the incorporation of what we are pleased to call human nature into the framework of science itself. Dennett and Searle, with a confidence that may appear as eagerness, are inclined to believe that the process of incorporation is well on its way. Bennett and Hacker, with a cautiousness that may appear as skepticism, raise the possibility that the project itself is based on a mistake. I was honored to be asked to write a closing chapter for the intended volume. Such settled views as I might have on this subject are summarized in that chapter as I weigh the agile thrusts and parries by the central figures in the debate. Readers will note,I hope with compassion,that very little is settled in my own mind. I recognize the definite commitment Searle and Dennett have to providing a workable and credible model of just how our mental life is realized by events under the skin. Norbert Wiener, one of the truly wise men of science, noted that the best material model of a cat is a cat -- preferably the same cat. Nonetheless, without models -- even those laced with anthropomorphic seasoning -- the very clutter of the real world must thwart scientific progress in any field.There is no calculus or equation establishing the boundaries within which the imagination of the model builder must confine itself. In the end, matters of this sort rise to the level of aesthetics. By this I do not suggest that there is less room for analytical rigor; philosophical analysis at its best is an aesthetic undertaking. This surely is what attracts the physicist and the mathematician to what is "elegant." Is it not aesthetics that establishes occam's razor as the tool of choice for refinement, measure, proportionality, coherence? In just these respects, I am sure readers will find in the Bennett-Hacker critique -- chiefly in Peter Hacker's philosophically rich and informed critique -- not a tilt toward skepticism but a careful and, yes, elegant application of the better tools philosophers have fashioned. This much said, it is important to go further and to acknowledge that our actually lived life is unlikely to disclose its full, shifting,often fickle and wondrously interior reality either to the truth table, the Turing machine or the anatomical blowpipe. It should never come as a surprise that the philosopher who often gave us the first words on an important subject may well also have the last words to say on it. I refer, of course, to Aristotle. We ought to seek precision in those things that admit of it. We are to choose tools suitable to the task at hand. In the end, our explanations must make intelligible contact with that which we seek to explain. The demographer who tells us with commendable accuracy that the average family contains 2.53 members feels no obligation to remind us that there is no 0.53 person. Such data do not presume to describe the nature of the items counted; their result is just that number.The point, of course, is that scientific precision or, for that matter, arithmetic precision, may tell us next to nothing about just what has been assayed with such precision. Here as elsewhere, the ruling maxim is caveat emptor. Readers will approach this discourse with proper interest -- even a hint of vanity -- for it is about them! They bring their own aesthetic standards to bear on material of this kind.It is finally they who will decide whether the accounts offered make intelligible contact with what really matters. But a good jury is no better than the evidence at hand, guided in their deliberation by sound x introduction rules of evidence. Patient reader! Worthy juror! Here is some of the (cognitive neuroscience) evidence and an exceptionally clear presentation of the rules that might be applied to the weighing of it. No need to hurry with a verdict... Daniel N. Robinson To read more about Neuroscience and Philosophy Read this excerpt in pdf format . COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Published by Columbia University Press and copyrighted © 2007 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher, except for reading and browsing via the World Wide Web. Users are not permitted to mount this file on any network servers. For more information, send e-mail to cw270@columbia.edu . Excerpted from Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language by Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Maxwell Bennett, Peter Hacker All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
