{"title":"Jean Nicod Lectures","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into the Jean Nicod Lectures, a prestigious series exploring the frontiers of cognitive science, philosophy, and the study of the mind. Perfect for inquisitive readers seeking profound insights.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"origins-of-human-communication-book-michael-tomasello-9780262201773","title":"Origins of Human Communication","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA leading expert on evolution and communication presents an empirically based theory of the evolutionary origins of human communication that challenges the dominant Chomskian view.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHuman communication is grounded in fundamentally cooperative, even shared, intentions. In this original and provocative account of the evolutionary origins of human communication, Michael Tomasello connects the fundamentally cooperative structure of human communication (initially discovered by Paul Grice) to the especially cooperative structure of human (as opposed to other primate) social interaction. Tomasello argues that human cooperative communication rests on a psychological infrastructure of shared intentionality (joint attention, common ground), evolved originally for collaboration and culture more generally. The basic motives of the infrastructure are helping and sharing: humans communicate to request help, inform others of things helpfully, and share attitudes as a way of bonding within the cultural group. These cooperative motives each created different functional pressures for conventionalizing grammatical constructions. Requesting help in the immediate you-and-me and here-and-now, for example, required very little grammar, but informing and sharing required increasingly complex grammatical devices. Drawing on empirical research into gestural and vocal communication by great apes and human infants (much of it conducted by his own research team), Tomasello argues further that humans' cooperative communication emerged first in the natural gestures of pointing and pantomiming. Conventional communication, first gestural and then vocal, evolved only after humans already possessed these natural gestures and their shared intentionality infrastructure along with skills of cultural learning for creating and passing along jointly understood communicative conventions. Challenging the Chomskian view that linguistic knowledge is innate, Tomasello proposes instead that the most fundamental aspects of uniquely human communication are biological adaptations for cooperative social interaction in general and that the purely linguistic dimensions of human communication are cultural conventions and constructions created by and passed along within particular cultural groups.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49570049196305,"sku":"GOR013575965","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53436628500753,"sku":"GOR006074232","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":54221655081233,"sku":"CIN0262201771G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0262201771.jpg?v=1786711000"},{"product_id":"elm-and-the-expert-book-jerry-a-fodor-9780262061704","title":"The Elm and the Expert","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49577145336081,"sku":"GOR013513001","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50216809955601,"sku":"CIN0262061708VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50346364240145,"sku":"CIN0262061708G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0262061708.jpg?v=1750738413"},{"product_id":"strong-feelings-book-jon-elster-9780262550369","title":"Strong Feelings","description":"Emotion and addiction lie on a continuum between simple visceral drives such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire at one end and calm, rational decision making at the other. Although emotion and addiction involve visceral motivation, they are also closely linked to cognition and culture. They thus provide the ideal vehicle for Jon Elster's study of the interrelation between three explanatory approaches to behavior: neurobiology, culture, and choice. \u003cp\u003eThe book is organized around parallel analyses of emotion and addiction in order to bring out similarities as well as differences. Elster's study sheds fresh light on the generation of human behavior, ultimately revealing how cognition, choice, and rationality are undermined by the physical processes that underlie strong emotions and cravings. This book will be of particular interest to those studying the variety of human motivations who are dissatisfied with the prevailing reductionisms.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e*Not for sale in Belgium, France, or Switzerland.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49592055562513,"sku":"GOR002369602","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50347537662225,"sku":"CIN0262550369G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50347547197713,"sku":"CIN0262550369VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52667305591057,"sku":"NLS9780262550369","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0262550369.jpg?v=1751195501"},{"product_id":"rationality-in-action-book-john-r-searle-9780262692823","title":"Rationality in Action","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe study of rationality and practical reason, or rationality in action, has been central to Western intellectual culture. In this invigorating book, John Searle lays out six claims of what he calls the Classical Model of rationality and shows why they are false. He then presents an alternative theory of the role of rationality in thought and action.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA central point of Searle's theory is that only irrational actions are directly caused by beliefs and desires--for example, the actions of a person in the grip of an obsession or addiction. In most cases of rational action, there is a gap between the motivating desire and the actual decision making. The traditional name for this gap is freedom of the will. According to Searle, all rational activity presupposes free will. For rationality is possible only where one has a choice among various rational as well as irrational options.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnlike many philosophical tracts, \u003ci\u003eRationality in Action\u003c\/i\u003e invites the reader to apply the author's ideas to everyday life. 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In this invigorating book, John Searle lays out six claims of what he calls the Classical Model of rationality and shows why they are false. He then presents an alternative theory of the role of rationality in thought and action.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA central point of Searle's theory is that only irrational actions are directly caused by beliefs and desires--for example, the actions of a person in the grip of an obsession or addiction. In most cases of rational action, there is a gap between the motivating desire and the actual decision making. The traditional name for this gap is freedom of the will. According to Searle, all rational activity presupposes free will. For rationality is possible only where one has a choice among various rational as well as irrational options.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnlike many philosophical tracts, \u003ci\u003eRationality in Action\u003c\/i\u003e invites the reader to apply the author's ideas to everyday life. 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Drawing on psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, he asserted that human consciousness is essentially the mental software that reorganizes the functional architecture of the brain. In \u003ci\u003eSweet Dreams\u003c\/i\u003e, he recasts the Multiple Drafts Model as the \"fame in the brain\" model, as a background against which to examine the philosophical issues that \"continue to bedevil the field.\"\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWith his usual clarity and brio, Dennett enlivens his arguments with a variety of vivid examples. He isolates the \"Zombic Hunch\" that distorts much of the theorizing of both philosophers and scientists, and defends heterophenomenology, his \"third-person\" approach to the science of consciousness, against persistent misinterpretations and objections. The old challenge of Frank Jackson's thought experiment about Mary the color scientist is given a new rebuttal in the form of \"RoboMary,\" while his discussion of a famous card trick, \"The Tuned Deck,\" is designed to show that David Chalmers's Hard Problem is probably just a figment of theorists' misexploited imagination. 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Change has been rapid (in evolutionary terms) and pervasive. Morphology, life history, social life, sexual behavior, and foraging patterns have all shifted sharply away from those of the other great apes. In \u003ci\u003eThe Evolved Apprentice\u003c\/i\u003e, Kim Sterelny argues that the divergence stems from the fact that humans gradually came to enrich the learning environment of the next generation. Humans came to cooperate in sharing information, and to cooperate ecologically and reproductively as well, and these changes initiated positive feedback loops that drove us further from other great apes.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSterelny develops a new theory of the evolution of human cognition and human social life that emphasizes the gradual evolution of information-sharing practices across generations and how these practices transformed human minds and social lives. 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Chris and Uta Frith, pioneers in the field of cognitive neuroscience, review the many forms of social behavior that we humans share with other animals and examine the special form that only humans possess, including its dark side. These uniquely human abilities allow us to reflect on our behavior and share these reflections with other people, which in turn enables us to reason why we do things and to exert some control over our automatic behaviors. As a result, we can learn cooperatively with others and create and value cultural artifacts that survive through the generations.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Going beyond how we come to know ourselves and understand the mind of others, Frith and Frith investigate how we adapt mutually to make social interactions work. 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In this provocative book, Fred Dretske argues that to achieve an understanding of the mind it is not enough to understand the biological machinery by means of which the mind does its job. One must understand what the mind's job is and how this task can be performed by a physical system--the nervous system.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eNaturalizing the Mind \u003c\/i\u003eskillfully develops a representational theory of the qualitative, the phenomenal, the what-it-is-like aspects of the mind that have defied traditional forms of naturalism. Central to Dretske's approach is the claim that the phenomenal aspects of perceptual experiences are one and the same as external, real-world properties that experience represents objects as having. 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The book extends and revises a view of the relation between mind and meaning that the author has been developing since his 1975 book, \u003ci\u003eThe Language of Thought\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThere is a general consensus among philosophers that a referential semantics for mental representation cannot support a robust account of intentional explanation. Fodor has himself espoused this view in previous publications, and it is widespread (if tacit) throughout the cognitive science community. This book is largely a reconsideration of the arguments that are supposed to ground this consensus. Fodor concludes that these considerations are far less decisive than has been supposed. He offers a theory sketch in which psychological explanation is intentional, psychological processes are computational, and the semantic properties of mental representations are referential. Connections with the problem of \"naturalizing\" intentionality are also explored.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe four lectures in \u003ci\u003eThe Elm and the Expert\u003c\/i\u003e were originally delivered in Paris in the spring of 1993 to inaugurate the Jean Nicod Lecture series. The Jean Nicod Lectures are delivered annually by a leading philosopher of mind or philosophically oriented cognitive scientist. The 1993 lectures marked the centenary of the birth of the French philosopher and logician Jean Nicod (1893-1931). 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He proposes a mechanism in early vision that allows us to select a limited number of sensory objects, to reidentify each of them under certain conditions as the same individual seen before, and to keep track of their enduring individuality despite radical changes in their properties--all without the machinery of concepts, identity, and tenses. This mechanism, which he calls FINSTs (for Fingers of Instantiation), is responsible for our capacity to individuate and track several independently moving sensory objects--an ability that we exercise every waking minute, and one that can be understood as fundamental to the way we see and understand the world and to our sense of space.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePylyshyn examines certain empirical phenomena of early vision in light of the FINST mechanism, including tracking and attentional selection. 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