Tim Crane - The Mechanical Mind: A Philosophical Introduction to Minds, Machines and Mental Representation

How can the human mind represent the external world? What is thought, and can it be studied scientifically? Should we think of the mind as a kind of machine? Is the mind a computer? Can a computer think? Tim Crane sets out to answer these questions and more in a lively and straightforward way, presuming no prior knowledge of philosophy or related disciplines.

Since its first publication The Mechanical Mind has introduced thousands of people to some of the most important ideas in contemporary philosophy of mind. Crane explains the fundamental ideas that cut across philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence and cognitive science: what the mindbody problem is; what a computer is and how it works; what thoughts are and how computers and minds might have them. He examines different theories of the mind from dualist to eliminativist, and questions whether there can be thought without language and whether the mind is subject to the same causal laws as natural phenomena. The result is a fascinating exploration of the theories and arguments surrounding the notions of thought and representation.

This third edition has been fully revised and updated, and includes a wholly new chapter on externalism about mental content and the extended and embodied mind. There is a stronger emphasis on the environmental and bodily context in which thought occurs. Many chapters have been reorganised to make the readers passage through the book easier. The book now contains a much more detailed guide to further reading, and the chronology and the glossary of technical terms have also been updated.

The Mechanical Mind is accessible to anyone interested in the mechanisms of our minds, and essential reading for those studying philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, or cognitive psychology.

Tim Crane is Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge. He is the author of The Objects of Thought, Aspects of Psychologism, Elements of Mind, the editor of The Contents of Experience, General Editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the Philosophy Consultant Editor of the Times Literary Supplement.

Third edition published 2016
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2016 Tim Crane

The right of Tim Crane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

First published 1995 by Penguin Books

Second edition published 2003 by Routledge

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Crane, Tim.
The mechanical mind : a philosophical introduction to minds, machines, and mental representation / by
Tim Crane. -- 3rd Edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-138-85832-9 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-138-85835-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN
978-1-315-65868-1 (e-book) 1. Philosophy of mind. I. Title.
BD418.3.C74 2016
128.2--dc23
2015023436

ISBN13: 978-1-138-85832-9 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-1-138-85835-0 (pbk)
ISBN13: 978-1-315-65868-1 (ebk)

Typeset in Franklin Gothic
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby

But how is it, and by what art, doth the soul read that such an image or stroke in matter signifies such an object? Did we learn such an Alphabet in our Embryo-state? And how comes it to pass, that we are not aware of any such congenite apprehensions? That by diversity of motions we should spell out figures, distances, magnitudes, colours, things not resembled by them, we attribute to some secret deductions.

Joseph Glanvill, The Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661)

To my parents