There is a new way of thinking about the mind that does not locate mental                  processes exclusively "in the head." Some think that this expanded                  conception of the mind will be the basis of a new science of the mind. In this book,                  leading philosopher Mark Rowlands investigates the conceptual foundations of this                  new science of the mind. Traditional attempts to study the mind are based on the                  idea that mental processes--perceiving, remembering, thinking, reasoning--exist in                  brains; they are often described as "software" realized by the                  "hardware" of the brain. The new way of thinking about the mind has                  emerged from the confluence of various disciplines in cognitive science ranging from                  perceptual and developmental psychology to robotics. It emphasizes the ways in which                  mental processes are embodied (partly made up of extra-neural bodily structures and                  processes), embedded (designed to function in tandem with the environment), enacted                  (constituted in part by action), and extended (located in the environment). The new                  way of thinking about the mind, Rowlands writes, is actually an old way of thinking                  that has taken on new form. Rowlands describes a conception of mind that had its                  clearest expression in phenomenology--in the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and                  Merleau-Ponty. He builds on these views, clarifies and renders consistent the ideas                  of embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended mind, and develops a unified                  philosophical treatment of the novel conception of the mind that underlies the new                  science of the mind.

The New Science of the Mind: From Extended Mind to Embodied Phenomenology (Bradford Books) PDF

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