The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience

Description

23 newly written chapters authored by prominent philosophers working in the fields of neurophilosophy and philosophy of neuroscience
The first volume of its kind to examine topics that will dominate discussion in the field for the foreseeable future
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience is a state-of-the-art collection of interdisciplinary research spanning philosophy (of science, mind, and ethics) and current neuroscience. Containing chapters written by some of the most prominent philosophers working in this area, and in some cases co-authored with neuroscientists, this volume reflects both the breadth and depth of current work in this exciting field. Topics include the nature of explanation in neuroscience; whether and how current neuroscience is reductionistic; consequences of current research on the neurobiology of learning and memory, perception and sensation, neurocomputational modeling, and neuroanatomy; the burgeoning field of neuroethics and the neurobiology of motivation that increasingly informs it; implications from neurology and clinical neuropsychology, especially in light of some bizarre symptoms involving misrepresentations of self; the extent and consequences of multiple realization in actual neuroscience; the new field of neuroeudamonia; and the neurophilosophy of subjectivity.

This volume will interest philosophers working in numerous fields who wish to see how current neuroscience is being brought to bear directly on philosophical issues. It will also be of interest to neuroscientists who wish to learn how the research programs of some of their colleagues are being enriched by interaction with philosophers, and finally to those working in any interdisciplinary field who wish to see how two seemingly disparate disciplines—one traditional and humanistic, the other new and scientific—are being brought together to both disciplines' mutual benefit.

Table of contents

Notes on the Contributors
Editor's Introduction

Part I: Explanation, Reduction, and Methodology in Neuroscientific Practice
1: Molecules, systems, and behavior: Another view of memory consolidation
2: Biological clocks: Explaining with models of mechanisms
3: Methodology and reduction in the behavioral neurosciences: Object exploration as a case study
4: The Science of Research and the search for molecular mechanisms of cognition

Part II: Learning and Memory
5: The lower bounds of cognition: What do spinal cords reveal?
6: Lessons for cognitive science from neurogenomics
7: Neuroscience, learning, and the return to behaviorism

Part III: Sensation and Perception
8: fMRI: A modern cerebrascope? The case of pain
9: The enactive field, the embedded Neuron
10: The role of neurobiology in differentiating the senses
11: Enactivism's vision: Neurocognitive basis or neurocognitively baseless?

Part IV: Neurocomputation and Neuroanatomy
12: Space, time, and objects
13: Neurocomputational models: Theory, application, philosophical consequences
14: Neuroanatomy and cosmology

Part V: Neuroscience of Motivation, Decision Making, and Neuroethics
15: The emerging theory of motivation
16: Inference to the best decision
17: Emergentism at the crossroads of philosophy, neurotechnology, and the enhancement debate
18: What's neu in neuroethics?

Part VI: Neurophilosophy and Psychiatry
19: Confabulations about people and their limbs, present or absent
20: Delusional experience
21: The case for animal emotions: Modeling neuropsychiatric disorders

Part VII: Neurophilosophy
22: Levels and individual variation: Implications for the multiple realization of psychological properties
23: Neuro-eudaimonics, or Buddhists lead neuroscientists to the seat of happiness; The neurophilosophy of subjectivity
24: The neurophilosophy of subjectivity