Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience

"Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience was written at the beginning of the century. It has been widely read and often cited, and has provoked extensive debate that, we hope, has been fruitful. Our publishers, Wiley-Blackwell, suggested that we write a second edition to bring the book up to date in the light of the discoveries, new theories and novel conjectures that have emerged in the field of cognitive neuroscience over the last two decades. They offered us the possibility of extending the book by an extra hundred pages in order to do so. After careful deliberation we decided to accede to the request. This introduction to the new edition is directed primarily at readers of the first edition who wish to know why we thought fit to write a second edition, and would like to attain an overview of what we have added or modified. Four reasons moved us: First, new technical developments in neuroscience, such as fMRI were often highly problematic and new discoveries concerning blindsight and commisurotomy challenged previously received understanding. This called out for systematic clarification. Moreover, new cognitive neuroscientific doctrines were developed by Tononi and Dehaene and their research groups and demanded conceptual elucidation and evaluation"--