Mindware: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Cognitive Science

by Andy Clark

Mindware is an introductory text with a difference. In eight short chapters it tells a story and invites the reader to join in some up-to-the-minute conceptual discussion of the key issues, problems, and opportunities in cognitive science. The story is about the search for a cognitive scientific understanding of mind. It is presented as a no-holds-barred journey from early work in Artificial Intelligence, through connectionist (artificial neural network) counter-visions, and onto neuroscience artificial life, dynamics and robotics. The journey ends with some wide-ranging and provacative speculation about the role of technology and the changing nature of the human mind itself.
Each chapter is organized as an initial sketch of a research program or theme, followed by a substantial discussion section in which specific problems and issues (both familiear and cutting-edge) are raised and pursued. Discussion topics include mental causation, the hardware/software distinction, the relations between life and mind, the nature of perception, cognition and action, and the continuity (or otherwise) of high-level human intelligence with other forms of adaptive response. Classic topics are treated alongside the newer ones in an integrated treatment of the various discussions. The sketches and discussions are accompanied by numerous figures and boxed sections, and followed by suggestions for futher reading.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Nonfiction, Neuroscience, Textbooks, Artificial Intelligence

224 pages, Paperback

First published December 21, 2000

About the author

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Reviews

[Chris Via]

One must bear in mind that this book was published in 2001, while its subject has made leaps and bounds (though perhaps not towards the goal it seeks). As an introductory text, I feel that Clark's prose finds the right median between the colloquial and the lofty. It's a great overview of the history of philosophy of mind and the major debates. For me, the most intriguing debate is the one that found its launching pad in Descartes back in the early seventeenth century: there is a dualism that represents the material body and the immaterial body; but this also presents a problem regarding how the two are linked in such as a way as to effect causality.

The book is very much Andy Clark's interpretation and thoughts of the field, i.e. it makes no pretensions toward objectivity (could it?), and he seeks to trace the trajectory of thoughts and experiments leading up to the goal of presenting "mindware" as explaining the mind with nothing outside of the material world. In this vein, the only section of the book I considered worthwhile was the second appendix, "Consciousness and the Meta-Hard Problem," though the thoughts are at the forefront of philosophy today. Apart from that, Clark does a nice job breaking down some of Daniel Dennett's more opaque theories, especially from the latter's book Consciousness Explained--a book that I still regard with trepidation (I've only managed the first few pages several different times).

Having read a lot in the area of philosophy of mind and in neuroscience, I looked to this book to bring some coherence to all the schools of thought and the history thereof. In the end, I find myself continuing to lean more and more away from philosophy. For the goal presented in the problem of mind-body dualism and in the explanation of qualia, I really don't see a fruitful explanation coming from the dialectical approach of philosophy or even the analytical approach of logic; I look more towards neuroscience. Which, actually, brings up another point regarding science and philosophy.

More and more I'm starting to view philosophy as nothing more than an analogy factory--at least, as regards metaphysics. I've been reading and enjoying philosophy for a while, including a subscription to Philosophy Now, but lately, as compared to science books and my other subscription to Scientific American, I am getting impatient with philosophy. Yet I cannot completely abandon it. I've read many times that philosophy's proper place is to help think the right way about a thing, to clarify thinking, which is a laudable goal since even scientific phenomena must be explained in language at some point. So, I agree that there must be some intellectual agency governing how to clearly think about and express a given thing in language.

In addition to language, there is of course the branch of philosophy that deals with ethics. And, as scientific discovery progresses (perhaps especially in the field of AI) I can see where it would be as equally prudent to steep ourselves in clear ethics as in clear thought and language. But--hey!--good luck finding that holy grail! What doesn't start unending debates is an equation.

Well, unless we're talking about quantum mechanics, of course.

[Chant · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first edition is dated as mentioned by other reviewers but the philosophically charged portions of the book are still relevant for philosophers/philosophy students.

I would make one suggestion and that would be in regards to AI. I would suggest readers to read John Haugeland's book on AI to get a more fuller picture of GOFAI (good old fashioned artificial intelligence), however be warned as the Haugeland text is older than mindware.

[Zedder · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of this book spends too long going over traditional issues in the philosophy of mind and artifical intelligence, and what he says about those issues is largely taken from Haugeland's "AI: The Very Idea". The second part is actually on contemporary cognitive science, but it's not very well written and kind of boring to read.

[tavishi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this for my minds and machines class - really informatically dense but I really enjoyed it - also kind of assuring as someone who likes to write papers that it's not an obsolete skill. I left it with a really refreshed perspective of neuroplasticity and human capability for invention/creation/ingenuity and also how the humanities go hand in hand with science. My takeaway is that machines are created in our image (or our mind's image) but we are completely different creatures no matter how hard a machine can try to be human. But at the same time we see capabilities of machines and assume that reaching those limits is impossible for humans and it's like well maybe we are more capable than we exercise our ability to be. Maybe kind of techno-religious to say out loud? Whatever. The thing I like about philosophy books is that usually the principle or idea is something that is such an obvious statement in a perspective but with further exploration of how those concepts are arrived to are super interesting. Also nice to explore cognitive sciences/computer science/neuroscience from a framework instead of a scientific approach like woaahhhhh this is so fun to think about. let's not open MATLAB :)

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Check http://thomasbaruzzi.com/contemplatio... for my quick overview on this title.

[Opo Člověk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great introduction to the plethora of discussions in contemporary cognitive science and neurophilosophy. Connectionism, representations, embodied cognition - can mind be reduced to matter and if so, can computation explain it? You won't get and answer, but you will be pointed in directions that might help you to find one for yourself.

Someone add neurophilosophy to Google dictionary already! - Oh never mind I just did it.

[Krystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a text for my Philosophical Foundations of Cognitive Science course. It's got good information, but I got bored with it; it definitely isn't my favorite Clark book and I think his writing talents lie outside of the textbook world.

[Clàudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not an introduction (or at least, if you are not an English native speaker). I especially like chapter 9 "extended minds." I think it's an interesting concept to explore the one with the extended mind hypothesis and the embodied cognition.

[Bookish Hedgehog · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice introduction, with very accessible, chatty prose. Also sprinkled with empirical details — so a good guide for self-study! Another plus: tons of annotated further reading suggestions.

However, Clark's chatty ("discursive", to his own admission) prose can be slightly irritating at times. One particular sentence structure pops over and over, in virtually every paragraph.

A normal sentence starting + a parenthetical hedge, aside, qualification midway + rest of normal sentence

Here are a few examples from the first two pages.

The idea, in short, is to...
And, above all, to do so...
The text has, deliberately, a rather...
There is, shall we say, flux

Perhaps as a result of this style, Andy seems to engage in excessive hedging at times. Still, it's a nice book overall!

[隻眼簽到 · Rating 4 out of 5]

clark的理論把心智比喻為大腦上運行的軟體。給人的第一感覺是「笛卡爾小人」的翻版嗎？當然不是！故為此，他得做出許多解釋。這雖是他有意的創新，但在我看來，首先就違背「奧姆剃刀法則」，屬於自找麻煩。此外，在我看來，理論最大的困難是所謂的「延展性」。說心智是可以含括外物的。例如做數學運算時的紙筆，或代替某位阿茲海默症患者部分記憶的筆記本等等。這顯然比自找麻煩還要麻煩。我隨意設想一些例子。假設我是一個美女偷窺狂，我豈不能主張美女是我心智的一部分？或者，我是個天體觀測員，主張半人馬星座屬於我心智的外延。這不純純的痴人說夢嗎！當然，這理論不免又要對所謂的延展性做很多限定，如「自願性」等等。奧姆剃刀又殺來了。總之，不是我的菜吧！

[Lulu]

Mind

[Benjamin Teir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought-provoking yet heavy for any beginners

[Camille · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little difficult, but interesting thoughts on cognitive science.

[Peter Diep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found it as a good start in examining the debates and theories of the mind, despite being an older book

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good textbook.

[Ege · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very easy to follow for general audience.

[Jayson Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish Clark's writing was more concise and clearer in explanation. Otherwise this text has formally introduced me to the field of cognitive science and I dig all of the ideas within it.

[Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Expansive yet specific, introductory yet cutting-edge...this book is a great read. Would have loved for Clark to expand more on recent developments like predictive processing and dynamics.

[oba · Rating 4 out of 5]

as someone who is terrible at committing to reading I wish this book was written a bit better and had more accessible prose however was a very interesting and very cool. awesome sauce 🤘

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was okay. Probably tainted by having to read it for a class, it introduced some innovative concepts, but the overarching philosophy got a little heady sometimes and was not the easiest to follow.

[Troy Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a required text, for an Introductory Philosophy of Mind course I took in my undergrad, very straight forward and not too difficult to grasp. Many of the concepts and models introduced have stayed with me for years.

[serina · Rating 4 out of 5]

a must read for every cognitive science student.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for people interested in getting into Cognitive Science.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent introduction to the philosophy of cognitive science!

[Bruce Crown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good arguments and anthology of philosophy of mind. Handy textbooks (and useful for reference and papers) for students of philosophy.

[Jilany]

to-read