Intelligence in the Flesh: Why Your Mind Needs Your Body Much More Than It Thinks

by Guy Claxton

An enthralling exploration that upends the prevailing view of consciousness and demonstrates how intelligence is literally embedded in the palms of our hands

If you think that intelligence emanates from the mind and that reasoning necessitates the suppression of emotion, you’d better think again—or rather not “think” at all. In his provocative new book, Guy Claxton draws on the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology to reveal how our bodies—long dismissed as mere conveyances—actually constitute the core of our intelligent life. From the endocrinal means by which our organs communicate to the instantaneous decision-making prompted by external phenomena, our bodies are able to perform intelligent computations that we either overlook or wrongly attribute to our brains.
 
Embodied intelligence is one of the most exciting areas in contemporary philosophy and neuropsychology, and Claxton shows how the privilege given to cerebral thinking has taken a toll on modern society, resulting in too much screen time, the diminishment of skilled craftsmanship, and an overvaluing of white-collar over blue-collar labor. Discussing techniques that will help us reconnect with our bodies, Claxton shows how an appreciation of the body’s intelligence will enrich all our lives.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Science, Health, Research, Brain, Neuroscience

344 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 2015

About the author

Guy Claxton is Emeritus Professor of the Learning Sciences at the University of Winchester. His many publications include Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: Why Intelligence Increases When You Think Less. He lives in the UK.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who has spent a lifetime acting as if my body exists simply to carry my head around, I found this book absolutely fascinating. So much of the material was so new to me that it took me many months to read the entire book. Now I need to make notes from the dozens of post-it flags stuck throughout my copy.

[Tony Garnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you were brought up with a fundamental Cartesain mind/body dichotomy assumption, then this is will be salutary.
For a long time I assumed that "I" was in my head, and my body was some appendage, which I carried around with "me".
This book explains, in terms which allow a layman like me to picture, just how interrelated we are, that intelligence is part of our unitary selves.
It is not a book of philosophy. It is a book of practical explanation.
Fascinating.

[Dale Muckerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a lot of interesting material in this book, but I felt it really didn't hang together well. Claxton creates a straw man of Descartes in order and then destroys the straw man he created. He actually believes he has developed a really radical point of view, but really is just presenting another scientific (disengaged) theory. Claxton apparently sees no irony in the fact that Descartes, in addition to advocating for disengaged reason, was also the founder of the very neuroscience that Claxton himself seems to worship. Claxton also sees no irony in his worship of science, even though science is disengaged reason in action.

The idea that intelligence arises out of bodily processes is not a new one. Nor is the idea that reason has become too separated from other bodily processes a new one. William Blake and other Romantic poets frequently addressed the issue.

I liked it when Claxton talked about interesting research, but often he seemed to just drone on about his own mentations. For example, he went on and on about nine modes of emotion even though it had nothing to do with his thesis, and he admits it could have been four modes of emotion, or some other number.

[Irma Walter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting indeed. Could be a life changer.

[Eren Buğlalılar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tam dört değil, 3,5'tan dört.

Beden ve beyin ilişkisine dair ufuk açıcı bir kitap. Çok not aldım, gerek felsefi açıdan, gerekse de insanın kendini daha iyi tanıması bakımından yeni bağlantılar kurdum.

Kitabın temel meselesi şu: Beyin ve beden diye bir ayrım yok. Beyin sadece kafamızda değil, vücudumuzun her yanına uzanan sinirlerde, bağırsakta üretilen enzimde, elimizde. Metafizik düşüncenin yüzyıllardır yaptığı beden-ruh, beyin-beden, akıl-duygu ayırımları insanı anlamamızı zorlaştırıyor.

Batı felsefesinin tarihine ilişkin kısa bir girişin ardından, yazar bizi modern nörobilimin bulgularıyla tanıştırıyor. Burada beden ve beynin nasıl sımsıkı bir bütün, bir birlik oluşturduğunu ve bunun metaforlar aracılığıyla dilimize kadar girdiğini (aşka düşmek, konuyu kavramak, yüreği hoplamak) gösteriyor.

Eksikleri de var: Bu bütünlüğe ilişkin Marksist yazın ve felsefe hiç anılmıyor. Oysa Marksistler bunu yüzyılı aşkın bir süredir vurguluyor. İkincisi, tekrarlar ve her zaman ana çerçeveyle ilgisi olmayan yan konular ile kitabın gereksiz uzaması.

Türkçeye cevrilse seveni çok olur.

[Matt Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

fascinating.

We do not have bodies, we are bodies.

[Jennifer Wren · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book could have been more beneficial to the readers it seeks to expose to, this more fundamental way of seeing the body and soul as one, if the author had done more factual research and, honestly, had been less interested in spreading his bias against established institutions, especially every fiscal religion out there. There were too many historical discrepancies in even the first few chapters of the book for me to enjoy the reading as science. Some of this was to establish the bias against individual religious orders one at a time. Then, minor things, like his saying early scientists created the concept mind and associated it first with the brain, when for a very long time before science believed thought and memory to be centered in the heart, instead. I distrusted his concept of the "ugliness" and "inertness" of the physical brain. The brain is the most electricity imbued organ in the body, even for a length of time after clinical death, and it is at least as beautiful as, if not more than, any other organ or type of tissue in the body. Other than that, the author teaches that the concept of a "mind" is now obsolete because someone has come up with a more original word for it.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Claxton's book was recommended to me by a colleague, and though there is certainly a lot here for those who study embodiment, there the gaps that are in this work make a lot of the points difficult to take away nicely. There are many gender and cultural gaps here that Claxton does flag in the introduction, but in doing so he also demonstrates how there may be biases in what he is suggesting in that they are not holistically framed. Still an interesting read, I just wish there were more connections that demonstrate that he is aware that there are people in the world outside of his particular positionality.

[Dean Somers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real intelligence goes way beyond how we think. It's how we move, how we feel and how we interact with the world and each other. Intellectual abilities have been put on a pedestal, leaving the very bodily processes they arise from, behind in the mud. It's time to reconnect with the wholeness of ourselves. Do what you love and do it well. Forget what people may or may not think.

[tisasday · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting concept of a book but it's difficult to get through as there are many dry technicalities discussed that lack the sparks that personal stories provide.

[Gretchen Rubin]

I skimmed this one—parts were very interesting to me, parts weren't. All about the connection of brain and body.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this on recommendation and found I couldn’t get into it. Errs on the repetitive side. Sorry, not my cup of tea.

[Isaac Pritchett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great. Embodied cognition that was disdainful of philosophy but lacked insight into its own origins and assumptions. Had some interesting anecdotes, but that's it

[Mills College Library]

150 C618 2015