The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience

The Embodied Mind provides a unique, sophisticated treatment of the spontaneous and reflective dimension of human experience. The authors argue that only by having a sense of common ground between mind in Science and mind in experience can our understanding of cognition be more complete. Toward that end, they develop a dialogue between cognitive science and Buddhist meditative psychology and situate it in relation to other traditions such as phenomenology and psychoanalysis.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Alex1952

This is a very "dense" book that would appeal to people a) with a lot of background in the philosophy of mind and b) looking for alternative approaches to those provided by western philosophy. However, if you have not read anything yet in that area, I suggest you start with something easier and

more introductory.

The authors provide a good review of the problems around "what is mind" and I really enjoyed the connection they make between objectivism and nihilism. However, they seem to have a particular bias towards Buddhism's theory of mind and although are critical of western ideas they do not seem to be applying the level of scrutiny to the ideas coming out of the Buddhism tradition. I understand that the authors wanted to provide more of a practical guide the lived experiences, but if that was the case then they did not need to be highly critical of western thought on that matter.

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