Introduction

Abstract

The present volume is the result of a feeling of dissatisfaction with current ‘discourses of the brain,’ from the by-now classic project of neurophilosophy (as discussed and partially defined below) to more recent revisions such as neurophenomenology, embodied cognitive science, but also more theoretical projects such as critical neuroscience, and the welter of empirical ‘neuro’-boosted fields that have emerged in recent years, such as neuroethics, neurolaw, and, differently, neurofeminism.* Some of these discourses are, of course, featured here, as well as more historical and evaluative contributions, in the name of conceptual, empirical, and methodological pluralism. The volume has, to be sure, no claim to offering some kind of exhaustive, synoptic overview of an entire field — for indeed, there is no field. That is, when neuro-scientists from Roger Sperry and John Eccles to Jean-Pierre Changeux and Gerald Edelman wax philosophical, it is not as if their theoretical terms are clearly demarcated and can be transferred or treated cumulatively between their various inquiries, any more than when Patricia Churchland, Andy Clark, Evan Thompson, or Cordelia Fine address issues in cognitive architecture, embodiment, or social discourse on brains.¹ In addition, “the question of what counts as a good explanation of cognition has not been settled decisively.”²

I don’t pretend to account for the Functions of the Brain. I never heard of a System or a Philosophy that could do it.

(Mandeville 1730, 137)