Joel Smith

In this long and detailed book Bennett and Hacker set themselves two ambitious tasks. The first is to offer a philosophical critique of, what they argue are, philosophical confusions within contemporary cognitive neuroscience. The second is to present a ‘conceptual reference work for cognitive neuroscientists who wish to check the contour lines of the psychological concept relevant to their investigation’ (p.7). In the process they cover an astonishing amount of material. The first two chapters present a critical history of neuroscience from Aristotle to Sherrington, Eccles and Penfield. Chapter three (to which I shall return), offers the philosophical basis for much of the book. Chapters four to twelve present detailed philosophical criticisms of a wide variety of neuroscientists (and some philosophers) on a large number of topics. These include: Crick, Damasio, Edelman, Marr and Frisby on perception (particularly the primary/secondary quality distinction and the binding problem); Milner, Squire and Kandel on memory; Blakemore and others on mental imagery; LaDoux and Damasio on the emotions; Libet on voluntary movement; and Baars, Crick, Edelman, Damasio, Penrose, Searle, Chalmers, and Nagel on consciousness (with a great deal on qualia and self-consciousness). Chapters thirteen and fourteen, along with the two appendices, contain an elaboration and defence of the book’s methodology and present explicit contrasts with the Churchlands, Dennett and Searle. Bennett and Hacker maintain that whilst neuroscientists have made significant discoveries concerning the workings of the brain, these discoveries have been obscured by their presentation within an incoherent conceptual framework. Their complaints, therefore, are often not with neuroscience itself but with what might be called its philosophical self image.

You and I are watching a spider crawl across the carpet. We are both aware of the spider, and aware that both are so aware. We are jointly attending to it. This collection of essays addresses a bewildering array of questions that arise regarding the notion of joint attention. How should joint attention be characterised in adults? In particular, how can we articulate the sense in which it is plausible to say that nothing is hidden from either participant in cases of joint attention? What is the relationship between joint attention and the much discussed phenomenon of common, or mutual, knowledge? What account should be given of the development of the capacity for joint attention in children (and in non-human primates)? At what age is it correct to say that children are engaging in episodes of full blown joint attention? Relatedly, what is the relation between joint attention and pointing behaviour, gaze following and mutual affect regulation? Why is it that autistic children appear to exhibit a joint attention deficiency, and what might this tell us about autism, or about joint attention itself? Does the capacity for joint attention presuppose an understanding of the notion of attention, or more generally a subject of experience, and if so what is the relation between that understanding and the types of behaviour associated with joint attention? More generally, how does joint attention relate to our understanding of others? Finally, is the capacity for joint attention pivotal for the development of linguistic communication, or perhaps even a sense of objectivity—of the mind independence of the world?

The stated aim of Shaun Gallagher’s book is to provide, “an account of embodiment that is sufficiently detailed, and that is articulated in a vocabulary that can integrate discussions across the cognitive sciences...to remap the terrain that lies between phenomenology and cognitive neuroscience” (10). With this in mind, the book must be considered a success. The book provides a unified account of embodiment, and its relations to a number of aspects of experience, that is genuinely accessible from the perspectives of the philosophy of mind, phenomenology, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. The book is divided into two parts. The first presents an admirably lucid account of the different ways in which embodiment informs and structures experience. The second attempts to “extend the results of the scientific and phenomenological studies developed in the first part into various philosophical problem areas that border on the cognitive sciences.” (12). A large amount of the material that appears here has appeared, in some form or other, before. This is perhaps partly responsible for the feel, especially in the second part of the book, that we are being given a collection of essays on a loosely connected theme. However, this does not detract from its philosophical and scientific significance, and there is genuine value in having this impressive body of work to hand in a single book. It must be said that some chapters are more successful (for example, chapters 5 and 7 on gesture and on Molyneux’s Problem respectively) than others (for example, chapters 6 and 10 on perception and free will respectively), and some of them appear rather well distanced from the general picture of embodiment presented in the first part of the book (for example, chapter 9 on other minds). It also has to be admitted that the book’s primary strength, the vast and interdisciplinary range of resources under its command, occasionally becomes a weakness. This happens in chapter 8 where we are promised an exploration of, “a variety of issues that pertain to the structure of self-awareness and the capacity for self-reference...[demonstrating] just how complex and fragile these phenomena are.” (173). Yet what we get is an account of how thought insertion is explained by deficiencies in the temporal structure of experience. Whilst this is fascinating in its own right, and does speak, to a certain extent, to issues concerning self-awareness, the vexed issue of self-reference is not even mentioned again. Minor gripes aside, this book contains such an incredible wealth of information and argumentation that it must surely be considered required reading for anyone working on embodiment, embodied cognition and the philosophy of mind more generally.

The Expression of Emotion collects cutting-edge essays on emotional expression written by leading philosophers, psychologists, and legal theorists. It highlights areas of interdisciplinary research interest, including facial expression, expressive action, and the role of both normativity and context in emotion perception. Whilst philosophical discussion of emotional expression has addressed the nature of expression and its relation to action theory, psychological work on the topic has focused on the specific mechanisms underpinning different facial expressions and their recognition. Further, work in both legal and political theory has had much to say about the normative role of emotional expressions, but would benefit from greater engagement with both psychological and philosophical research. In combining philosophical, psychological, and legal work on emotional expression, the present volume brings these distinct approaches into a productive conversation.