The Embodied Mind, revised edition: Cognitive Science and Human Experience
A new edition of a classic work that originated the “embodied cognition” movement and was one of the first to link science and Buddhist practices.

This classic book, first published in 1991, was one of the first to propose the “embodied cognition” approach in cognitive science. It pioneered the connections between phenomenology and science and between Buddhist practices and science—claims that have since become highly influential. Through this cross-fertilization of disparate fields of study, The Embodied Mind introduced a new form of cognitive science called “enaction,” in which both the environment and first person experience are aspects of embodiment. However, enactive embodiment is not the grasping of an independent, outside world by a brain, a mind, or a self; rather it is the bringing forth of an interdependent world in and through embodied action. Although enacted cognition lacks an absolute foundation, the book shows how that does not lead to either experiential or philosophical nihilism. Above all, the book's arguments were powered by the conviction that the sciences of mind must encompass lived human experience and the possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience.

This revised edition includes substantive introductions by Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch that clarify central arguments of the work and discuss and evaluate subsequent research that has expanded on the themes of the book, including the renewed theoretical and practical interest in Buddhism and mindfulness. A preface by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of the mindfulness-based stress reduction program, contextualizes the book and describes its influence on his life and work.

1137255884
The Embodied Mind, revised edition: Cognitive Science and Human Experience
A new edition of a classic work that originated the “embodied cognition” movement and was one of the first to link science and Buddhist practices.

This classic book, first published in 1991, was one of the first to propose the “embodied cognition” approach in cognitive science. It pioneered the connections between phenomenology and science and between Buddhist practices and science—claims that have since become highly influential. Through this cross-fertilization of disparate fields of study, The Embodied Mind introduced a new form of cognitive science called “enaction,” in which both the environment and first person experience are aspects of embodiment. However, enactive embodiment is not the grasping of an independent, outside world by a brain, a mind, or a self; rather it is the bringing forth of an interdependent world in and through embodied action. Although enacted cognition lacks an absolute foundation, the book shows how that does not lead to either experiential or philosophical nihilism. Above all, the book's arguments were powered by the conviction that the sciences of mind must encompass lived human experience and the possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience.

This revised edition includes substantive introductions by Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch that clarify central arguments of the work and discuss and evaluate subsequent research that has expanded on the themes of the book, including the renewed theoretical and practical interest in Buddhism and mindfulness. A preface by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of the mindfulness-based stress reduction program, contextualizes the book and describes its influence on his life and work.

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The Embodied Mind, revised edition: Cognitive Science and Human Experience

The Embodied Mind, revised edition: Cognitive Science and Human Experience

The Embodied Mind, revised edition: Cognitive Science and Human Experience

The Embodied Mind, revised edition: Cognitive Science and Human Experience

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Overview

A new edition of a classic work that originated the “embodied cognition” movement and was one of the first to link science and Buddhist practices.

This classic book, first published in 1991, was one of the first to propose the “embodied cognition” approach in cognitive science. It pioneered the connections between phenomenology and science and between Buddhist practices and science—claims that have since become highly influential. Through this cross-fertilization of disparate fields of study, The Embodied Mind introduced a new form of cognitive science called “enaction,” in which both the environment and first person experience are aspects of embodiment. However, enactive embodiment is not the grasping of an independent, outside world by a brain, a mind, or a self; rather it is the bringing forth of an interdependent world in and through embodied action. Although enacted cognition lacks an absolute foundation, the book shows how that does not lead to either experiential or philosophical nihilism. Above all, the book's arguments were powered by the conviction that the sciences of mind must encompass lived human experience and the possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience.

This revised edition includes substantive introductions by Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch that clarify central arguments of the work and discuss and evaluate subsequent research that has expanded on the themes of the book, including the renewed theoretical and practical interest in Buddhism and mindfulness. A preface by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of the mindfulness-based stress reduction program, contextualizes the book and describes its influence on his life and work.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780262335508
Publisher: MIT Press
Publication date: 01/06/2017
Series: The MIT Press
Sold by: Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format: eBook
Pages: 392
File size: 2 MB
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Francisco J. Varela (1946–2001) was Director of the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, Professor of Cognitive Science and Epistemology, CREA, at the Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, and Cofounder of the Mind and Life Institute.

Evan Thompson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia and author of Waking, Dreaming, Being.

Eleanor Rosch is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
I The Departing Ground
A 1 Fundamental Circularity: In the Mind of the Reflective Scientist
An Already-Given Condition
What Is Cognitive Science?
Cognitive Science within the Circle
The Theme of This Book
2 What Do We Mean "Human Experience"?
Science and the Phenomenological Tradition
The Breakdown of Phenomenology
A Non-Western Philosophical Tradition
Examining Experience with a Method: Mindfulness/Awareness
The Role of Reflection in the Analysis of Experience
Experimentation and Experiential Analysis
II Varieties of Cognitivism
3 Symbols: The Cognitivist Hypothesis
The Foundational Cloud
Defining the Cognitivist Hypothesis
Manifestations of Cognitivism
Cognitivism in Artificial Intelligence
Cognitivism and the Brain
Cognitivism in Psychology
Cognitivism and Psychoanalysis
Cognitivism and Human Experience
Experience and the Computational Mind
4 The I of the Storm
What Do We Mean by "Self"?
Looking for a Self in the Aggregates
Forms
Feelings/Sensations
Perceptions/Impulses
Dispositional Formations
Consciousnesses
Momentariness and the Brain
The Aggregates without a Self
III Varieties of Emergence
5 Emergent Properties and Connectionism
Self-Organization: The Roots of an Alternative
The Connectionist Strategy
Emergence and Self-Organization
Connectionism Today
Neuronal Emergences
Exeunt the Symbols
Linking Symbols and Emergence
6 Selfless Minds
Societies of Mind
The Society of Object Relations
Codependent Arising
Basic Element Analysis
Mindfulness and Freedom
Selfless Minds; Divided Agents
Minding theWorld
IV Steps to a Middle Way
7 The Cartesian Anxiety
A Sense of Dissatisfaction
Representation Revisited
The Cartesian Anxiety
Steps to a Middle Way
8 Enaction: Embodied Cognition
Recovering Common Sense
Self-Organization Revisited
Color as a Study Case
Color Appearance
Color as a Perceived Attribute
Where Is Color?
Color as a Category
Linguistic Aspects of Color
Color and Cognition
Color and Culture
Cognition as Embodied Action
Heideggerian Psychoanalysis
The Retreat into Natural Selection
9 Evolutionary Path Making and Natural Drift
Adaptationism: An Idea in Transition
A Horizon of Multiple Mechanisms
Linkage and Pleiotropy
Development
Random Genetic Drift
Stasis
Units of Selection
Beyond the Best in Evolution and Cognition
Evolution: Ecology and Development in Congruence
Lessons from Evolution as Natural Drift
Defining the Enactive Approach
Enactive Cognitive Science
In Conclusion
V Worlds without Ground
10 The Middle Way
Evocations of Groundlessness
Nagarjuna and the Madhyamika Tradition
The Two Truths
Groundlessness in Contemporary Thought
The Lack of an Entre-deux
Interpretationism
Transformative Potential
11 Laying Down a Path in Walking
Science and Experience in Circulation
Nihilism and the Need for Planetary Thinking
Nishitani Keiji
Ethics and Human Transformation
The View from Social Science
Compassion: Worlds without Ground
In Conclusion
Appendix A Meditation Terminology
Appendix B Categories of Experiential Events Used in Mindfulness/Awareness
The Five Aggregates (skandhas)
The Twelve-fold Cycle of Dependent Origination (pratityasamutpada)
The Processes of Mind (cittalcaitta)
Appendix C Works on Buddhism and Mindfulness/Awareness
Therevada
Mahayana and Zen
Vajrayana
Notes
References
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

One of the main difficulties of the science of the mind is to explain how consciousness is possible without there being a transcendental Self that is the receptacle for all experience or a transcendental 'I' that accompanies all experience. The Embodied Mind blends insights from cognitive neuroscience and the Buddhist theory of mind to show how consciousness is possible without any self at all! The book is tremendously helpful in sparing us the illusion that there is a 'mind's 'I'. '

Owen Flanagan , Class of 1919 Professor, Wellesley College

Our concern is to open a space of possibilities in which the circulation between cognitive science and human experience can be fully appreciated and to foster the transformative possibilities of human experience in a scientific culture.

the authors

The Embodied Mind is a thoroughly original integration of cognitive science, continental philosophy, and Buddhist thought, and in its transpersonal dimension, rather beautiful.

Gordon G. Globus, M. D. , Professor of Psychiatry and Philosophy, University of California, Irvine

An important book with wideranging implications for the construction of subjectivity in the Western tradition. Moreover, it is engagingly written, presenting difficult ideas and complex research programs with grace, lucidity, and style.

N. Katherine Hayles , American Book Review

Owen Flanagan

One of the main difficulties of the science of the mind is to explain how consciousness is possible without there being a transcendental Self that is the receptacle for all experience or a transcendental 'I' that accompanies all experience. The Embodied Mind blends insights from cognitive neuroscience and the Buddhist theory of mind to show how consciousness is possible without any self at all! The book is tremendously helpful in sparing us the illusion that there is a 'mind's 'I'.'

Endorsement

An important book with wideranging implications for the construction of subjectivity in the Western tradition. Moreover, it is engagingly written, presenting difficult ideas and complex research programs with grace, lucidity, and style.

N. Katherine Hayles, American Book Review

the authors

Our concern is to open a space of possibilities in which the circulation between cognitive science and human experience can be fully appreciated and to foster the transformative possibilities of human experience in a scientific culture.

American Book Review - N. Katherine Hayles

An important book with wideranging implications for the construction of subjectivity in the Western tradition. Moreover, it is engagingly written, presenting difficult ideas and complex research programs with grace, lucidity, and style.

Gordon G. Globus

The Embodied Mind is a thoroughly original integration of cognitive science, continental philosophy, and Buddhist thought, and in its transpersonal dimension, rather beautiful.

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