In recent decades issues that reside at the center of philosophical andpsychological inquiry have been absorbed into a scientific framework variouslyidentified ... » 

In recent decades issues that reside at the center of philosophical andpsychological inquiry have been absorbed into a scientific framework variouslyidentified as brain science cognitive science and cognitiveneuroscience. Scholars have heralded this development as revolutionary but arevolution implies an existing method has been overturned in favor of somethingnew. What longheld theories have been abandoned or significantly modified inlight of cognitive neuroscience?Consciousness and Mental Life questions our present approach to the study ofconsciousness and the way modern discoveries either mirror or contradictunderstandings reached in the centuries leading up to our own. Daniel N.Robinson does not wage an attack on the emerging discipline of cognitivescience. Rather he provides the necessary historical context to properlyevaluate the relationship between issues of consciousness and neuroscience andtheir evolution over time.Robinson begins with Aristotle and the ancient Greeks and continues through toRen Descartes David Hume William James Daniel Dennett John Searle RichardRorty Hilary Putnam and Derek Parfit. Approaching the issue from both aphilosophical and a psychological perspective Robinson identifies what makesthe study of consciousness so problematic and asks whether cognitiveneuroscience can truly reveal the origins of mental events emotions andpreference or if these occurrences are better understood by studying the wholeperson not just the brain. Wellreasoned and thoroughly argued Consciousnessand Mental Life corrects many claims made about the success of brain scienceand provides a valuable historical context for the study of humanconsciousness. «