Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The degree to which cognitive science can really aspire to be the Science of Mind is an ongoing debate. This highly influential book proposes a new approach to issues of the mind and of consciousness, drawing together themes from Philosophy right through to Artificial Intelligence. The first part of this book presents clear introductions to the disciplines that are traditionally seen to constitute cognitive science (namely: Philosophy, Psychology, Linguistics, Neuroscience, Artificial Intelligence and Ethnology). The second section focuses on the nature of symbol systems, detailing theories of consciousness and selfhood. The two strands are woven together into a new theory of cognition and its development. O Nuallain concludes that a science that fully attempts to deal with cognition must remain au fait with the findings from all other approaches to the study of mind. This new edition has been revised to meet the newest developments of a rapidly changing field.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (p. 1)
• Introduction (p. 2)
• 0.1 In search of mind (p. 2)
• 0.2 The field of Cognitive Science, as treated in this book (p. 4)
• 0.3 History of Cognitive Science (p. 5)
• 0.4 Topics treated (p. 6)
• 0.5 User's guide to this book (p. 8)
• 0.6 Further reading (p. 9)
• Part I The Constituent Disciplines of Cognitive Science
• 1 Philosophical Epistemology (p. 10)
• Glossary (p. 10)
• 1.0 What is Philosophical Epistemology? (p. 12)
• 1.1 The reduced history of Philosophy Part I--The Classical Age (p. 14)
• 1.2 Mind and World--The problem of objectivity (p. 22)
• 1.3 The reduced history of Philosophy Part II--The twentieth century (p. 24)
• 1.4 The philosophy of Cognitive Science (p. 31)
• 1.5 Mind in Philosophy: summary (p. 47)
• 1.6 The Nolanian Framework (so far) (p. 48)
• 2 Psychology (p. 50)
• 2.0 Why is Psychology so difficult? (p. 50)
• 2.1 A brief history of Experimental Psychology (p. 52)
• 2.2 Methodologies in Psychology (p. 60)
• 2.3 Perception (p. 62)
• 2.4 Memory (p. 69)
• 2.5 Mind in Psychology (p. 92)
• 3 Linguistics (p. 94)
• 3.0 Introduction (p. 94)
• 3.1 Why Linguistics? (p. 97)
• 3.2 Computation and Linguistics (p. 95)
• 3.3 The main grammatical theories (p. 99)
• 3.4 Language development and linguistics (p. 107)
• 3.5 Toward a definition of context (p. 112)
• 3.6 The multifarious uses of Language (p. 119)
• 3.7 Linguistics and Computational Linguistics (p. 121)
• 3.8 Language and other symbol systems (p. 140)
• 3.9 On the notion of context (p. 141)
• 3.10 Mind in Linguistics: summary
• 4 Neuroscience (p. 142)
• 4.0 The constituent disciplines of Neuroscience (p. 142)
• 4.1 The methodology of Neuroscience (p. 144)
• 4.2 Gross Neuroanatomy (p. 149)
• 4.3 Some relevant findings (p. 153)
• 4.4 Connectionism (PDP) (p. 156)
• 4.5 The victory of Neuroscience? (p. 174)
• 4.6 Mind in Neuroscience: summary (p. 177)
• 5 Artificial Intelligence (p. 179)
• 5.0 Introduction (p. 179)
• 5.1 Al and Cognitive Science (p. 180)
• 5.2 Skeptics and their techniques (p. 191)
• 5.3 Al as Computer Science (p. 202)
• 5.4 Al as software (p. 202)
• 5.5 The current methodological debate (p. 206)
• 5.6 Context, syntax and semantics (p. 209)
• 5.7 Mind in AI (p. 210)
• 5.8 Texts on AI (p. 211)
• 6 Ethology and Ethnoscience (p. 212)
• 6.1 Ethology (p. 212)
• 6.2 Ethnoscience (p. 215)
• 6.3 Mind in Ethology and Ethnoscience (p. 218)
• Part II A New Foundation for Cognitive Science (p. 219)
• 7 Symbol Systems (p. 221)
• 7.1 Characteristics of symbol systems (p. 221)
• 7.2 Context and the layers of symbol systems (p. 226)
• 7.3 Mind and symbol systems (p. 226)
• 8 Consciousness and Selfhood (p. 228)
• 8.0 Introduction (p. 228)
• 8.1 Cognitive views (p. 230)
• 8.2 What is at stake? (p. 237)
• 8.3 Consciousness as treated in Philosophy (p. 238)
• 8.4 The Development of Selfhood (p. 240)
• 8.5 The minimal requirements for this theory (p. 243)
• 8.6 Self as a filter (p. 245)
• 8.7 Self and motivation (p. 246)
• 8.8 Conclusions (p. 247)
• 8.9 Recent developments (p. 247)
• 9 Cognitive Science and the Search for Mind (p. 253)
• 9.1 Introduction (p. 253)
• 9.2 Review (p. 253)
• 9.3 A Theory of Mind anyone? (p. 257)
• 9.4 Foundational considerations (p. 258)
• 9.5 Coda: the Nolanian Framework (p. 260)
• Bibliography (p. 262)
• Author Index (p. 275)
• Subject Index (p. 277)