Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience

A review of a tendentious book by Max R. Bennett and P. M. S. Hacker (Blackwell Publishers, 2003): “What has neuroscience to do with philosophy? Everything and nothing, depending on what the interpreter in question takes the neuroscience to have shown. Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience – the result of a collaboration between a distinguished neurobiologist (Bennett) and the leading authority on the philosophy of Wittgenstein (Hacker) – aims to shed a light on how neuroscience has been both influenced by and an influence on philosophy past and present. The overall tone is highly critical and those whose work tries to show that neuroscience can help answer philosophical questions (e.g. about emotion, cognition, volition, consciousness etc.) are likely to be offended by this controversial book which points to the multifarious ways in which scientists display conceptual confusion when interpreting their own work.” —mentalhelp.net