Review by Choice Review
"Mind" is illusive. Philosophers since Descartes, and cognitive scientists today, have attempted to characterize its nature or explain it away. This collection explores whether viewing mind as "a process" rather than as "a thing" provides greater insight into its nature. The editor traces this approach to the American pragmatists and Martin Heidegger's focus on being. The approach is grounded in "a biosemiotic theory of mind (BTM)." The book includes a useful table that compares BTM with cognitive science and neuroscience. The introduction provides an excellent account of BTM, connecting each chapter to it and to the process-rather-than-thing perspective on which it rests. The chapters range from very good to excellent; the lineup of authors is international in scope. Taken as a whole, the chapters provide one of the best explorations of mind-as-process in an age where only empirical phenomena exist, i.e., where there are no extra-empirical things (naturalism). This wide-ranging exploration of an increasingly influential approach to understanding the meaning of "mind" will interest philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, and cognitive scientists. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. R. Paul Thompson University of Toronto
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
