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Fall 2006
Volume 06, Number 1

Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy

Book Reviews

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The Mind as a Scientific Object

Edited by Christina Erneling and David Martel Johnson (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005). $98.50 ISBN 0195139321

Reviewed by Carmel Forde
Dalhousie University, cforde@dal.ca

This well-crafted book considers two rival theses about mind’s basic ontology, (1) that mind is the same as brain, and (2) that mind is a product of culture. Traditional cognitive science disciplines have had little success in reaching a satisfactory understanding of mind, in part due to reliance upon cognitive scientists’ "improved" Cartesianism and Kantianism, which ironically thwart their projects. This is the thematic setting for the collection, divided into seven sections, each treating significant questions in cognitive science. The chapters comprise a diverse and innovative collection by thinkers at the forefront of their disciplines, which encompass linguistics, history of medicine, philosophy, and psychology, as well as biology, cognitive science, and neuroscience, all pivoting around the question whether mind is a scientific object.1 The volume swells with interesting chapters, covering secondary altriciality to heterophony, genetic altruism to hermeneutics, all in the main accessible to specialists and non-specialists alike. This is an unusually cogent book, whose editors look beyond the accepted disciplinary structures of cognitive science to the environment and human culture in order to examine "mind." Erneling and Johnson succeed admirably in exploring the alternative of the cultural approach to mentality, whilst recognizing the significance of neurophysiology.

It is unfortunately impossible to review each section thoroughly; all raise important philosophical issues. Part One transforms the position that "psychology is dead" into the recognition that a particular form of psychology built upon the Cartesian/Kantian framework is bankrupt. How ought psychology to alter? This section contains history and background for major issues treated in the collection, covering prior "solutions" such as behaviorism and structuralism, and bringing forward questions developed from controversial issues. How is psychology different from other domains of inquiry, and upon what sort of inquiry should psychology as a science be modeled? Harré’s careful review of the distinctions between Naturwissenschaft and Geisteswissenschaft, delineating options for psychological studies, exemplify the clarity and accessibility that Johnson and Erneling prize. Limitations of the experimental method in psychology are carefully examined (e.g., Dror on the neglected study of emotions in cognitive science). "The idea that mental activity is brain activity has retarded research in neuroscience," Leahey quotes from Gaffan (69). Further, Leahey argues mind can be "socially constructed" and be an object of science. Just as other social constructs (he cites "money") can be causally significant in human lives, so too can mind.

In a chapter from Part Two, entitled "Psychology as Engineering," Leahey claims a strong connection between psychology (correctly conceived) and post-Darwinian biology. He argues an engineering perspective is better able to accommodate the normativity of psychology than is the natural science perspective (140). Olson’s critique of Stent’s epistemic dualism (with use of the metaphor of "complementarity" in physics to suggest the "twoness" of human beings) notes that Stent has still not considered cultural influence on mind, and the temporal stages through which anyone passes in order to become "full members of a particular cultural group" (123). We "become" rational animals.

Writers in Part Three agree eliminativism is false, emphasizing different errors and solutions. The nature of "true believers" (Henderson and Horgan) and connectionism comprise the most technical aspects of the book. Von Eckhardt argues that should brain be found to operate along connectionist lines (which supports a view of cognition as decentralized, a bottom-up approach) the "truth" of eliminative materialism would still not entail the falsity of folk psychology. Residual weaknesses in cognitive science’s study of linguistic knowledge emerge, focusing upon propositions that many philosophers have critiqued as simplistic and unrepresentative of human knowledge (e.g., "dogs have fur"). I juxtapose Johnson’s suggestion that "practitioners of…cognitive sciences need to find means of taking careful…account of sophisticated expressions of culture" (401).

Is "mind" just another name for what the brain does? Erneling refers to metaphors used by Dror and Thomas for two ways of studying the mind, privileging the second. "Pinocchio" and "Frankenstein" are respectively "ghost in the machine" and "the mind as a result of material design." Mind is not a unitary entity but a complex system, divided into subsystems such as memory, attention, vision, and reasoning. However, acceptance of the Frankenstein metaphor is not necessarily rejection of the problems inherent in dualism. Promethean Frankenstein’s body parts are obtained from graveyards. (At least the Attic Prometheus was living flesh!) An important sense of living biological humans is missing here. The relations between Leib and Korper will be useful to future considerations. Mental activity is presented in ways that go beyond the biological brain and neural activity, yet all authors of Part Four accept a no-center view of the mind, for which Johnson provides a compelling critique (7), and which both editors reject.

Erneling introduces Part Five on evolutionary theory and its relationship to the science of mind. Human cognition is not the usual scientific object. Shanker and Taylor argue some nonhuman animals communicate like infants but clearly distinguish animal and human cognition. Gardenfors presents a "ladder of human cognition" with interesting insights on the "detachment of thought." While one might dispute the ladder’s order, his argument is clear and readable. Hattiangadi’s fascinating discussion of aberrant CPGs and their relationship to qualia, the significance of rhythm for consciousness, and how illusion proves better than perceiving reality, is intriguing. Lumsden advances the view that sociobiology can study subjective experience objectively.

Johnson notes regarding Part Six that "the claims of Brockmeier (and Bakhtin) [that mind is a set of linguistic entities] need not be irrelevant to science after all, because…it is both possible and legitimate for sciences like psychology, linguistics and biology to take account of cultural factors like meaning, language, obligation, past experience and history" (400). For Bakhurst, mind is a social phenomenon, and he recognizes much psychological research has ignored the sociopolitical context in which it is conducted. He is, to my knowledge, the only writer who mentions politics (413). An advocate of strong culturalism, he recognizes the changes within academia that welcome situatedness.

Van Gelder argues in Part Seven that the fundamental mistake in mind/body treats the mind as ontologically homogeneous and simple. Jarvie’s discussion of workshop rationality provides structure for the atmosphere of future debate.

Erneling and Johnson’s dexterous and authoritative writings, and editing, do not directly acknowledge feminist concerns. Yet many features of this collection overlap with feminist interests and queries: on the corporeal, on "becoming," accounting for subjectivity, avoiding constructive idealism, giving accounts of situatedness, dealing with reductionism, and acknowledging normativity in sciences (admittedly a partial list). As cognitive science is a recent development in philosophy of mind, there is reason for a smaller literature on these connections. This work will be an excellent resource for feminist philosophers of mind, of psychology, of evolutionary theory, as well as accounts of science studies,2 and presents concerns that can open new dialogue between cognitive sciences and feminist philosophies, which can benefit mutually from interactions. Feminist accounts of experience can offer grounds for a stronger and more developed conception than the book provides: Joan Scott’s writing on subjects as constituted through experience is relevant here (incorporating the political), as is Lynn Hankinson Nelson’s work on experience in epistemological communities, to mention only two.

Although the text often disjoins dichotomous accounts, it is not underwritten by an either/or logic but is informed by a more comprehensive both/and logical structure. The editors avoid oppositional approaches to nature and culture, for example. Johnson views mind as intellectual invention, rather clearly a culturalist position on mind; he considers that cognitive sciences do not uncover information about mind itself. Erneling claims "the mind and mindful activity are much too diverse to be…accounted for in terms of one underlying mechanism, either biological or cultural," (513) and her voice is powerful. Since mind is "ontologically heterogeneous," neurophysiology becomes increasingly important as a center for cognitive science. Feminist investigations are expanding in biology; Elizabeth Wilson writes on neurological sciences and feminism, suggesting an examination of the neurological body might be useful to feminist accounts of the body.3

Cognitive scientists often rely on atomistic ontology and taxonomy, which they ought reject (517). Sue Campbell’s work on memory is insightful in its account of links between emotion, recollective memory, and politics and social life. "In particular, while memory is sometimes experienced as a feature of our interiority, human remembering takes place through action, narrative, and other modes of representation in public space and in the company of others."4 Transformed sciences of mind centering on culture and brain (and corporeality, I believe) can only benefit from developed interactions with feminist philosophy. I look very much forward to future collaborations by Erneling and Johnson.

Endnotes

1. Many chapters began as conference papers for the 1996 York University conference by the same name.

2. Nancy Tuana’s forthcoming book Philosophy of Science Studies is to include investigations of cognitive science.

3. See Wilson’s Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body (New York: Routledge, 2004) and Neural Geographies, Feminism and the Microstructure of Cognition (New York: Routledge, 1998).

4. Sue Campbell. "Our Faithfulness to the Past: Reconstructing Memory Value," 2005, unpublished paper.

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