The Body in Mind: Understanding Cognitive Processes

Description

In this book, Mark Rowlands challenges the Cartesian view of the mind as a self-contained monadic entity, and offers in its place a radical externalist or environmentalist model of cognitive processes. Cognition is not something done exclusively in the head, but fundamentally something done in the world. Drawing on both evolutionary theory and a detailed examination of the processes involved in perception, memory, thought and language use, Rowlands argues that cognition is, in part, a process whereby creatures manipulate and exploit relevant objects in their environment. It is not simply an internal process of information processing; equally significantly, it is an external process of information processing. This innovative book provides a foundation for an unorthodox but increasingly popular view of the nature of cognition.

"His writing is clear, and the position advanced is important for professional psychologists as well as philosophers of mind." Choice "The book certainly merits atttention. It brings together some very diverse material, bearing on externalism about the mind, and makes use of it in a distinctive way." Philosophical Review